I thought came to me today, I remember vaguely that on the Sunday night of my forum, the Leader started talking about choice, she had a volunteer some up, she held up two different colour pens and asked him to pretend they were chocolate and vanilla ice creams. Then she said to the guy "okay, now choose a flavor." The guy chose chocolate. She asked him why. He said because he liked chocolate better than vanilla. Then she said no that wasn't it.

She had him complete the exercise over and over and each time she asked him why he chose the flavor he did, he would try to come up with a right answer. After about 20 do overs of this, he finally he said exasperatedly "because I just do!" "Ah!" she said. "You chose chocolate because you chose it! Very good!" At that point everybody around me was nodding knowingly and seemed to be "getting it" but I had NO idea what she was going on about. She said something about choice making versus decision making. To me this "distinction" made absolutely no sense and was IMO complete and total BUNK!

Are there any graduates here who remember this part of the curriculum and could possibly fill me in on what the big secret is supposed to be? The way people were nodding their heads, it all sounded very significant! :roll:

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Dynamix
I thought came to me today, I remember vaguely that on the Sunday night of my forum, the Leader started talking about choice, she had a volunteer some up, she held up two different colour pens and asked him to pretend they were chocolate and vanilla ice creams. Then she said to the guy "okay, now choose a flavor." The guy chose chocolate. She asked him why. He said because he liked chocolate better than vanilla. Then she said no that wasn't it.

She had him complete the exercise over and over and each time she asked him why he chose the flavor he did, he would try to come up with a right answer. After about 20 do overs of this, he finally he said exasperatedly "because I just do!" "Ah!" she said. "You chose chocolate because you chose it! Very good!" At that point everybody around me was nodding knowingly and seemed to be "getting it" but I had NO idea what she was going on about. She said something about choice making versus decision making. To me this "distinction" made absolutely no sense and was IMO complete and total BUNK!

Are there any graduates here who remember this part of the curriculum and could possibly fill me in on what the big secret is supposed to be? The way people were nodding their heads, it all sounded very significant! :roll:

There is no secret. This is just to pretend that there is a secret, so as to 1) Fill out the long hours of pseudo-spiritual training with absurdities 2) to put the participant in a deep state of cognitive dissonance to create an addiction to their neverending idiotic rhetoric 3) to make sure that people will register to the advanced courses that same evening because they think they didn't get it.

Just realize, it's been years (how long exactly) since your participation to the Forum, and you are still feeling intrigued by this total nonsense. The secret is that this is exactly how they want you to feel, so they can better control your mind and make sure you keep training and pouring money into their company. Got it?

Dynamix. this is done on saturday and its designed to override your critical thinking. As adults we chose/decide by looking at the pro's/cons of the options and also by trying to think about the possible consequences. Chocolate or Vanilla is about taking about the thought process behind it. they make it sound like 'choice' is such as easy thing.

chocolate or vanilla - but what if chocolate was going to give you heart attack would you still "choose" it. probably not you would decide to go with the other option

by choosing without looking at the options or consequences we can land outselves in deep water without a life raft, which happens to be the very place landmark want you... because when they need you and you say.. let me think they can use the "just choose" scenario on you.

Yes - I remember that "exercise" and thought it was absurd. While it was going on, I kept thinking, "what am I missing?", but I wasn't missing anything as it turned out. When I "got it" it meant that we are to stop thinking critically.

When I did the curriculum series, a couple who had taken my Forum happily announced that from this choice exercise, they decided to quit their jobs and move to Colorado, without researching where they would live or what they would do. THey always dreamed of building a house there, but even though they had no money and made no plans, they chose to do make their move. Unreal.

This exercise reminds me of training my dogs. I have a behavior that I want to reinforce, and I have to repeat the instruction over and over until they "get" the link between their behavior and my command or signal. They only get rewarded when they do what I want them to do (regardless of what they want to do). Of course, the goal is get them to want to do what I want them to do.

This woman wasn't interested in the man's answer. She was only interested in him giving her own answer. She was the boss. She knew it all. This is pack dominance and sociology at work. How totally disempowering, invalidating, manipulative. This is progress? This is a higher plane of consciousness? I don't think so. This is nothing more than abuse of power to control people into doing what the leader wants them to do. It reduces (yes that's right, reduces, not elevates) people to the level of animals. At least I care for my dogs.

If they can convince me that I choose it only because I choose it, then it's not hard for me to believe their drivel only because I "just do", with no further validation or purpose required. Somewhere our old pal Erhard is smiling.

Thank God I, and many others here, don't limit myself/themselves to just Chocolate or Vanilla, let alone their rationalizations. I choose something else.

-lightwolf

The only good thing that came out of that exercise is the reply I give when someone tries to badger me into taking LEC classes. I choose not to.

Ditto hope, I use the technology against themselves now, Its amazing I still get phone calls, but now I ask them to check their integrity in calling me and then tell them I choose not to do this because I choose not too.

Isn't that fetching.

What one often encounters in LGATish situations and cultish situations is [i:15ed510261] psychic splitting [/i:15ed510261] which permits the mind to accept saying one thing and doing another.... on a behavioral level this is known as [i:15ed510261] incongruity [/i:15ed510261]. Our evolutionary alarm system has been designed from the ground up to be exquisitely sensitive to congruity and incongruity. Incongruity gives us, instinctively, those "creepy crawly" feelings in the pit of our stomachs... (actually our [i:15ed510261] enteric autonomic nervous system [/i:15ed510261] ) ... In my direct, personal experience with 1. Scientology , 2. ESTmark, 3. The Unification Church and 4. the Tony Robbins organization ... there are consistently high levels of incongruent "background noise" which manifests in subtle facial expression, voice modulation, physical posture, logical chaining of ideas, inexplicable mood shift, and so on...


Minds must be trained in some degree of logic to survive, a sane mind is fundamentally logical although it may also be imaginative and whimsical...

Strange variants of the ice cream bar game... in Scientology they think it is high inquiry to ask the noviate "why is a tree a tree" ? The only acceptable answer is " because it's a tree" .... In the old Six Day program, once they had completed the kinky sex motion picture event, they had us all stand up by our seats, then sit back down, then stand up.... this unbelievably pointless ritual lasted for about 45 minutes, with the TrainerIdiot chanting... Sit Down ! Stand Up ! Sit Down ! Stand Up ! ... obedience training ? Naaaaaah.... anyway, finally one old guy spaces out and doesn't stand up on cue, he's obviously half asleep on his feet... I was in my 20s at the time and I was damn tired... he was in his mid 50s and must have been exhausted... so TrainerIdiot barks, Stand Up... and the old guy misses a beat... what was TrainerIdiot's cue to launch into a long instructive diatribe about how "his mind did it"... It was absolute nonesense, yeah his mind did it. Any freaking fool could see that. And he's lecturing us about the mind, and how relying on the mind makes you stupid.... later I was breaking down what had happened...

1. Highly boring repetious obedience habituation. UP!DOWN!UP!DOWN!

2. Once the unquestioning, mentally well tenderized "student body" shows sign of exhaustion by no longer being capable of instant response...

then...

3. Deliver a powerful post hypnotic suggestion that "one cannot trust the mind"

which...

4. Disables one's response to inner signaling mechanisms, e.g. congruity filters...

How's that for some twisted game ?

The most perverse aspect of this "process" is that someone in the command chain HAD to have full conscious awareness of what they were doing, and why they were doing it, with very specific outcomes designed into the "process" ....

And on to the simplified version, the Ice Cream Bar "process" ....

Sonnie Dee: Wrong! It is done on Sunday nights! It is done on the graduate nights.

Decision: to take action based on the information that you have and experiences that go with it.

Choose: to take action inspite of the information that you have and experiences that go with it.

To put it simply: to choose is the most difficult thing that you may have to do. You may have to choose to do something that you are afraid to do. The power comes from the doing of the action and confidence that it gives you by making a choice.

If someone chooses to move to Colorado, because they choose to, then that is their choice. So many people just up and move on in their lives. Husbands who leave wives, wives who leave husbands, young adults who want to live and experience the world.

Critical thinking is still very much at play here. You have to have it turned on because if you do not then you will never know if it is a choice or a decision. With the critical thinking turned off then all that people would do is choose and that is dangerous. Deciding keeps you from walking in traffic or doing something that may harm you. Choosing lets you break through the barriers that may have held you back, such as asking a woman or a man out. If you decided to do so, you would be doing what you have always done. If you choose to do so, you would be trying something that you may have been afraid to do. Ever seen those odd couples walking down the street. You know the ones: she gorgeous and he is not or vice versa. That may be a great example of choice. Had either one of them not choosen to ask the other one out, they may not have gotten together.

Decison and choice are all about critical thinking, period. You can not have choice without first having decision. You can not have either without critical thinking.

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foodguypdx
Decision: to take action based on the information that you have and experiences that go with it.

Choose: to take action inspite of the information that you have and experiences that go with it.

Ah, the smell of LGAT speak in the early afternoon . . . . Brings a smile to my heart.

Interesting definitions foodguypdx. Just where did you glean these from? Make them up yourself? Seems you think that decisions have pre-determined outcomes -- we can only decide to do the most rational or most probable or most logical thing based on the infromation we have -- we're locked in based on evidence/ experience. Seems you also think that choices are the opposite -- take the unnatural path, the road less traveled, what doesn't go with the information at hand. Who fed you this? I know you think the LGATs are great, but these definitions are "created" to serve the LGAT. These definitions reinforce the LGAT philosophy of experience and "go with your emotions" and "logic is bad", etc, etc. etc. Well defined terms have been redefined in the context of the cultic mindset.

Thankfully, generations of human experience and knowledge have given us agreed upon definitions for these terms before Erhard blessed us with his presence:

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[b:c041293833]decide:[/b:c041293833]
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French decider, from Latin decidere, literally, to cut off, from de- + caedere to cut
transitive senses
1 a : to arrive at a solution that ends uncertainty or dispute about <decide what to do> b : to select as a course of action -- used with an infinitive <decided to go>
2 : to bring to a definitive end <one blow decided the fight>
3 : to induce to come to a choice <her pleas decided him to help>

and

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[b:c041293833]choose:[/b:c041293833]
Etymology: Middle English chosen, from Old English cEosan; akin to Old High German kiosan to choose, Latin gustare to taste
transitive senses
1 a : to select freely and after consideration <choose a career> b : to decide on especially by vote : ELECT <chose her as captain>
2 a : to have a preference for <choose one car over another> b : DECIDE <chose to go by train>
intransitive senses
1 : to make a selection
2 : to take an alternative -- used after cannot and usually followed by but <when earth is so kind, men cannot choose but be happy -- J. A. Froude>

source for both definitions is m-w.com

Decision and Choice are not as far apart as you make them seem. I can decide to do something completely illogical. That is also my choice. As the etymology describes, to me the sublte difference between the two relates more to decisiveness than information or sensibility.

My experience with those involved with LGATs is that they come out talking about choice and decision as you have, thinking that life should be about making "choices" which evidently means swimming upstream and "being courageous" and "unreasonable." Logical decision-making is a "racket." The "select freely" part of the definition is way overblown, to the point where critical thinking IS shut off, along with the decision-making process.

Fifteen years ago when I started hearing about near-death experiences and I started looking into them, all I found in the superficial media reporting and books by proponents were the stories about "good trips." Everyone went to heaven. All was light and happiness. Digging deeper the story changed. There are plenty of "bad trips" but they don't get reported or told because they aren't "positive" and people don't want to hear about them. That doesn't mean they don't exist. So the story goes with all this "choice making" I would bet. We hear story after story of the guy/gal who goes off to Montana or Colorado or the South Pole or wherever and fulfills their dream, or asks out the potential model wife or model husband and everything is all pansies and roses. But, I personally know those who have made "choices" as you describe that end up in a big mess, not just because they chose poorly, but because their choice process was poor. I expect there are scores of these and we don't hear about them because 1) we don't want to know, 2) they don't want to tell. Nothing but choice (using your definitions) in this manner is dangerous. Your post talks almost exclusively about choice. Evidently this is what you prefer.

You say: "You can not have choice without first having decision." This makes no sense given your definitions above. The way you describe them, they are mutually exclusive -- "based on" v. "inspite of."

Simple courage is all that is needed to break through barriers. Courage to follow through with whatever decision or choice you make.

You may reject these definitions since they come from the collective rackets of society, but that's your choice. You can decide for yourself.

-lightwolf