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formerimpactgrad
I have watched and contributed to this thread for about 8 months now. In the beginning most of the contributors were people who knew about Impact but had no personal experience. Their dealings with friends and family involved in the training added a useful perspective but there was very little information available on the actual trainings...Several former grads began adding information and experiences to provide a bit more meat to the forum...I'm quite certain that many current trainees would call my posts or even the entire thread complete garbage, but what makes you think that any of the regulars on this thread care in the least what a brainwashed and conditioned trainee thinks about what is going on here? In case I need to be more clear I will simply state that your implication is correct in that, [b:2721cdc50d]I do not think that their opinions or perspectives matter, I will not pretend to think anything otherwise and I am not sorry! [/b:2721cdc50d]This thread is about exposing Impact and providing a source (the only source) on the internet where interested parties can find useful information. If I see the integrity of this source being threatened or undermined then I will do whatever I can to defend it. Remember that I was the one and only regular to defend Otter when Rick initially asked if we thought he should be banned from the thread. I do not idly criticize posts or users but I will address an ongoing problem if I feel the need.

Pretty much could have wrote this entire post myself. There are allot of things here I have wanted to say for awhile. Thanks Former.

My target audience is not the apologist or the casual or curious observer. I want to reach the person who is confused, outraged, violated or knows someone close to them who has been thusly treated by Impact. I know it is 30+ pages of information, but I am primarily interested in the person who has the emotional investment to look through each page line by line in order to find out what really happened to them or their loved ones in that secretive, creepy place. If a little strong language or abrasive attitude or opinion is enough to drive you off after looking at a few pages, I really don't care. That type of person is not who I am writing for.

Please open up the thread topic a little bit in scope please.

I for one have found each and every LGAT topic thread very good information for all LGAT's.

Even though my LGAT experience was in Klemmer & Associates. I see Klemmer in each and every LGAT thread on here.

As a matter of fact, it is as if I am reading about Klemmer in many of these posts on company techniques and how seminars are ran.

So, please keep this in mind. This Impact thread is just as relevant to Klemmer & Associates as reading the thread on that LGAT.

Rswinters:

Yes. Good point.

See [www.culteducation.com]

And don't you find that as above article suggests the same 13 liabilities keep popping up along with the four danger signs?

Also see [www.culteducation.com]

In my experience it seems that LGATs also frequently employ coercive persuasion to download their philosophy.

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fatherof3
It is interesting how people will be quick to slam something that they no nothing about.

It is interesting that you assume that we know nothing about Impact. I have attended Quest and several family members and a close friend have all gone through Lift-Off. Many of the frequent posters on here have attended TIT, and some have gone through TIT 3 and been involved for several years. There is a great deal of knowledge about Impact on this board.

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fatherof3
I was able to vocalize things that i would not say to anyone else and it felt like a weight was lifted off. I also recalled some things that had been bothering me for a long time. Before i went in I felt like i was living in a rat race. Now i feel like i am a completely different person and find joy every morning that i wake up. My marriage has grown so much stronger and it feels like i can be a fun person and not worry about what people think.

Here's my short version experience of Impact:
I went into Quest feeling pretty happy and functional. A family member offered to pay for me and so I decided "why not?". I am always up for new things, and I would love to be less shy. The day after I got home from Quest, I felt I had gained things very similar to what you say you've gained. However within a week or so I was having trouble sleeping, I began to have nightmares about the people in the feedback arcs telling me I was a loser, about Justin "making an example" of me when I had the courage to stand and say something, about a mob of people yelling at someone "Get the hell out! We don't want you here!", I began to have major anxiety whenever the phone rang or I met someone new since I felt that I knew what everyone really thought of me now, it was difficult to function at church, and so on. I decided to take Impact's advice and chose to not feel bad about it, however it doesn't work, it only made things worse. The other tools and happiness I had thought I had unraveled quickly and I woke up one morning in a deep depression. I've enrolled in therapy and although I'm in no way saying that therapy is bad, this is not normal for me. I've never been to therapy before. The only things I still feel I learned at quest was to make sure to make eye contact when speaking to someone, and to enjoy the simple moments with my family. Was it worth the price of my emotional well-being, my trust, my self esteem? NO. You and I could have gotten the same thing by attending group therapy, a city or college course on psychology or family wellness, etc.

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fatherof3
I do see how some people can take it a little to extreme and get a little weird but i feel the percentage of people that take it on come out with a better life then those that go crazy.

I can assure you that I didn't take anything to an extreme. I came out of Quest with generally positive feelings and was still deciding about Summit. By post-training I was having anxiety even thinking about going back.
In "the Secret", at Impact and several other new age philosophies they tell you you can control the universe by "putting it out there", or thinking positively, etc. Let's say you could do this, and gave yourself all green lights as you were driving. Of course if you did this, you would be giving many others red lights. In a way this is what Impact is doing. Perhaps you got a "green light" as your experience. I got a "red light" as mine. Impact can not function without sacrificing one experience for another. For instance, someone had to be humiliated and escorted out in Quest, in order for the group to understand that Justin was in control. (In reality, I think that it is only Hans and few others who get a "green light", and everyone else gets a red.) Of course they wash themselves of responsibilty by saying things like "there are no accidents". It doesn't need to be this way! Although I chose to attend, I didn't know what I was really getting into since no one is allowed to say what actually goes on there. There are so many options out there that accomplish the same thing as impact claims to accomplish that doesn't use manipulation, humiliation, control, sleep deprivation, or damaging philosophies. They also don't hide a cultish new age religion at the upper levels that you have to pay for to be a member of.

RSwinters wrote:

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I for one have found each and every LGAT topic thread very good information for all LGAT's.

This is important. Because...nearly all human potential groups/LGATs
claim to be unique.

A very important step in recovery takes place when it is possible for a person to see that his or her group experience was [b:6d13817a27]not [/b:6d13817a27]unique and that it can be compared with other groups.

This insight is very difficult to arrive at, because when we've given our hearts to a group and have the awful discovery that we've been seen and used as objects/income generating-units, this feeling of betrayal is painful and shaming. One way to defend against the shame of finding oneself used and betrayed is to cling, to convince oneself that the experience was special, educational, or a great adventure.

Its a come-down to face that one was had, and that the experience is far from unique. But...if you can stand the pain of recognizing this, you then get to find out loads of people have been through it too, which means, you have a community you can reach out to.

It is a liberating eye opener to find that your particular group is not unique because with that mindset, you then become able to study the 'comparative anatomy' of different groups and see that the external plumage ( verbiage, doctrine of groups) has quite a variety of colors but underneath, the skeleton (recruitment process, room set up, lack of informed consent, signing away rights to seek damages if harmed) ..all that remains quite similar underneath the seeming diversity.

A seminary professor who taught a course on the conversion process had a favorite phrase:

"Same hardware, different software"

* Claims to be unique and often, subtle put-downs of all other groups, and also subtle put downs of all other methods for healing or self development

* Recruitment through friendship networks or work relationships--which means the risk of stressing valued relationships if you dont want to participate or have misgivings

*Being given the bum's rush/hardsell

*A tightly scripted social set up disguised as a spontaneous one

*May include a very, very anal retentive room set up with chairs in precise rows. all external stimuli blocked out, chairs re-arranged when
people depart, having to sit closer together than what is considered normal distance for your culture's physical distances between individuals.

*Demanding intimate, private information from subjects without any written contract from the group promising to safeguard confidential information--very different from professional health care providers and psychotherapists who are legally accountable for confidentiality and who arrange for clients and patients to sign paperwork defining and protecting their confidentiality

***LGAT subjects often sign away their rights, as citizens to sue for damages in event of their being harmed by participation in the LGAT event. No medical or therapy patient EVER signs away his or her right to seek damages if harmed by treatment received.

Thus many LGATs use the language and powerful techniques of psychotherapy and accept no responsibility for thier use of such power in event that subjects are harmed.

Professional healers wield their power in a context of accountability and responsibility

LGATs wield their power and refuse to accept accountability for use of that power and for any harm done.

*Subjects are made to feel powerful, but are not given actual preparation or any encouragement in the LGAT to think consciously about power itself or the way it is exercised. For subjects in an LGAT, power is just an induced mood, a rush. The LGAT keeps its own mits on the actual process of exercising power. If subjects dare to examine the process, they are shamed for being negative--when what they are doing is trying to become conscious of the very thing the LGAT does not want them to actually see.

In LGAT's power, for subjects is an induced and addictive mood.

In reality, power is about process, relationships, resources and information--and who has more and who has less. LGATs control this
and dont want subjects to look closely at the process dimension of power--they only want subjects to get lost and dependent on the mood of feeling powerful.

Subjects are made to feel powerful but actual power remains with the LGAT. You are only free to speak up if you validate the LGAT. LGATs speak the language of power but retain it for themselves.

LGATs speak the language of accountability but in practice LGATs dont seem to feel themselves accountable--but they do make sure to make subjects feel accountable--and subtly, for subjects 'accountability' in an LGAT is separated from personal power and agency and accountability in the LGAT is linked to deep feelings of personal shame, and fear of failing in relation to the LGAT.

LGATs speak of caring and compassion but do not in practice demonstrate an ethos of care in relation to their subjects. If you fail or feel messed up by the LGAT, you are made to feel it is your fault. In professional healing, the provider takes this as a signal to question the treatment strategy, perhaps seek more information by ordering additional tests, and brining other providers in for consutation.

*If there is success, the LGAT takes full credit. By contrast, a true professional healer assists clients and patients to identify their role in the process of healing so clients can retain as much personal agency and autonomy during the process and then the same or increased personal agency and autonomy afterwards.

*Confrontati0n, pushing rapidly for intense emotion, instant intimacy, hectic pace, not enough time to sleep little or no opportunity to think, and possibly being shadowed by a minder

*Pushing people to spend more money than they are comfortable with

*Shaming and ridicule for anyone who disagrees or hesitates--which reproduces/re-enacts life in an abusive family--which can cause persons already harmed by prior abuse to re-enact, either as bully/perpetrators or by submitting to the abuse and intenalizing blame. THe presons in an LGAT who re-enact as bully perpetrators end up wanting to become leaders in the organization. The ones who re-enact as recipients of abuse become the people who work themselves to nervous collapse trying to please the organization, the way a desperate child tries to satisfy a miserable parent.

*Not being told how the process works, which means you dont have any way to give informed consent--a very important matter for persons who risk having physical or psychological health destablized by stress, confrontation and lack of sleep.

--------

(Retired Moderator)

Formerimpact wrote:

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I'm quite certain that many current trainees would call my posts or even the entire thread complete garbage, but what makes you think that any of the regulars on this thread care in the least what a brainwashed and conditioned trainee thinks about what is going on here?

That is my whole point. If you don't care then they won't listen. There is a reason they came here! I don't see Hopeful Soul posting here anymore. Scared away? Indifferent? Who knows. Confused and brainwashed? Most likely. The Impact speech from him/her was painfull evidence that he/she had been fully indoctrinated in Impact 'Theology'.

fatherof3, there are many ex-impact people here, with various degrees of training from Quest only to TIT3. I will answer any questions you have, or you can read through the old posts and see if your questions are answered there. I will do my best to stay neutral and give information only, or my opinion, but not tell you that you are crazy or defective. I am all about open discussion with out the in-your-face approach. Beware, it may get blunt though. Be open to the things that are shared. Impact has a way of making you open...to THEIR way of thinking, and closed to all other possibilities.

Philips:

Please try to understand that some people just come here to subvert the thread and after a bit they repeat the same slogans and mantras over and over again.

That isn't dialog.

Some are banned and some when told to stop repeating the group jargon and program, decide to leave.

Thanks for that clarification rrmoderator.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a good Impact apologist here to talk with? One who gave a perspective that is missing on this site? All the apologists have been driven away (maybe they deserved it, maybe they didn't have anything to contribute but caustic hate towards Impact haters), or have been banned for various reasons.

army of one, fatherof3, are you still there?

Philips:

Anyone can post here within the rules and guidelines.

A number of people come to the board, agree to the rules, but then violate them.

An apologist filling up a thread with repetitive statements and essentially saying the same thing over and over again, not only isn't "nice" and/or "good" it's not productive.

Not to stir the pot rrmoderator, but I have seen a few non-apologists do [i:8f823d7392]exactly[/i:8f823d7392] that over and over and they are still here.

Correction: army-of-me, fatherof3...still there? Interrested in your take on Quest.