Hello Network,

Newbie here. I have a question about Holdt's site american(dash)pictures(dot)com I needed to ask cult awareness authorities.

I read with great interest the article published here on this website

"Group influence and the psychology of cultism within Re-evaluation Counselling: a critique"

[culteducation.com]

about the RC movement. From a prior relationship I used to own all their books but threw them all in the trash one day a couple decades ago after reading of the abuses. And it is a so-called successful squirrel group of scientology (like a communist version of scientology). I never participated in meetings or joined the organization.

So my question is, is Holdt's site and apparent life's work of no value at all?

The site is all infused with pretty much 100 proof RC theory and language. I don't know about counseling practices, since I haven't run across that demonstrated on the site.

Holdt apparently needed strength to get through this self-chosen journey, on the one hand he is clergy, so he has that, but then he apparently also used RC to get through what I imagine would be his "patterns of fear/discomfort" etc.

Now is it all bunk? The pictures seem powerful to me, but is this really a case of appropriation if it is all dressed up in RC theory?

I don't want to point anyone to it if that's the case. I have a feeling it is appropriation. The film and workshop is shown to privileged (white) kids at expensive colleges, but I don't see any actual outcomes from something like that. The underclass is still with us.

The reason why I'm looking at it now, is not because I expect to reemerge from my liberal racist tendencies and recover my authentic soul so I no longer need whiskey, but rather that corporate America's Diversity initiatives are reeling from the recent events, and we low level employees are being offered a sort of Lukewarm Privilege Pre-Soak in response to the "naked oppression" we've witnessed during the pandemic.

I don't know why the decades old diversity initiatives are being conflated with the BLM protests and recent problems of the "naked oppression".

It's seems a lame attempt to offer objectives, definitions, agreements and such whose terminology can't even be found at all Holdt's site if you google for them. These diversity corporate zoom discussions happen in the same breath as mentioning the latest police shooting, as if this lukewarm construct is being offered to BLM as a response to the "naked oppression". I don't know why that isn't infuriating? Maybe it's just me.

It could be just another case of appropriation, with the same lack of outcome. It's like a case of appropriation pulled through an opaque wall of glass bricks, so the origin is fuzzy on the other side, for "privacy" I wonder? Maybe that's it, the powers that be want to respond, but are unable to directly, so we have to settle for lukewarm soda instead.

I had hoped Holdt's pictures or tools would be something I could actually personally use, but perhaps I should just delete it and move on, if it represents a pattern of appropriation.

Well that's about it.

Thank you group.

Ok, some progress here.

First of all after reading a bit of Das Capital, you have to read the criticisms of Marx in order to debunk Marx, then the rest of RC re-evaluation co-counseling crumbles.

Here's a good one [www.hoover.org]

Here's a really cool one [www.intellectualtakeout.org]

The rest comes from scientology and sort of promises what Gabor Mate is promising -- reconnect with your true self forever, which is a kind of permanent state of stoned sobriety.

Now. Back to American Pictures -- it *IS* a thinly veiled appropriation and nothing more. It is hundreds of years of suffering dressed up in co-counseling theory.

Here is an interesting essay ironically on the site itself written by the very successful and eloquent Sandra Ruffin

[www.american-pictures.com]

Googling that american-pictures site for the words "whiteness" and "blackness" only yield Ruffin's essay. That should have been a red flag but I don't think she was aware.

Her terminology fits right into the current vogue of compulsory DEI training, whiteness blackness privilege etc.

However she was somehow unaware of just what Jacob had perpetrated with the RC marxist theory dress up. I think based on her essay, if I can see it's appropriation, then obviously she would. I think she would drop the whole artistic appreciation thing.

The pictures are powerful and we don't see them ever. That's no excuse. It's too bothersome this connection with mind control cult.

Finally to complete my daily Virtue Signaling, yeah, this RC rubbish is making its way into the BLM movement. Just google co-counseling black america distress patterns oppression especially "oppressor role". You'll find it.

The point is nobody has ever achieved this permanent state of sober psychedelic stonedness by attempting to "shake" and cry etc. when presented with contradictions to your patterns of thinking etc. presumably installed by distressful experiences when you were young.

Looking up PTSD and co-counseling there is nothing. Despite the fact that PTSD seems to be the model of brain that the RC and scientology psychology adhere to.

In conclusion I can finally drop all the RC crap and just go back to doing what I was doing before I met my psychotic girlfriend (who was tormented by all variety of micro-aggressions perpetrated by others up until her suicide on the railroad tracks one evening in a posh revitalized downtown in america a few years ago, these problems stemming from heavy use of psychedelics in college and well maybe they read her journals and mocked her, who knows, look there's a person whistling, is that a micro-aggression? who knows? somebody spat. was that about me?).

So this stuff can't be used for brownie points in your compulsory DEI training. You will not "signal virtue" you will only look like a fool.

Virtue Signalling:
[peterboroughtownlibrary.org]

Seems like my whole life is virtue signalling. There's nothing but a black hole and a bunch of virtue signalling. Anybody else claim they have a "true self"?

Just like the black hole of my relationships, it crashes to the ground and you either walk away or try to climb back up, or just hang around and see what the present moment brings in the wreckage.

Just find the something you enjoyed before you got sucked into all these relationship trainwrecks. It's not your effing problem, and apparently they don't want you to talk -- they only want your cash.

Whatever the solution is, it's not American Pictures.