Okay, here it comes, a long breakdown of the writings of the man who attended the Warrior Camp at [
warriorcamp.googlepages.com]
I copied most of what he wrote, leaving out only those parts where he refers to friends, with no specific mention of the processes at the camp. So, to begin…
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While at the Millionaire Mind Intensive, I learned about Warrior Camp. I was told that I would learn the secrets to being strong and confident, how not to yearn for approval and recognition from others, but to approve of your self. How to respond to circumstances from choice instead of reacting from past conditioning and how to live with integrity, so that your word is law. Most importantly, I was to learn how to have the courage to take action in spite of fear, doubt and worry.”
”Responding from choice instead of reacting from past conditioning” is a common theme in LGATs that claim a spiritual angle to their training. Some of them talk of letting go of the ego, while others say we were programmed as children because of our upbringing and we need to let go of that. This, of course, discounts whether we had a good upbringing or not. Maybe our conditioning is good, maybe our ethics and morals are good.
And therein lies a problem, as far as I am concerned, with LGATs. Often (if not always), they seem to assume that participants on courses are not interpreting their worlds correctly. Naturally, the only interpretation that is acceptable is the one the LGAT teaches. But, come on…we are all different, we function in different ways, we attach different values to different things. ONE SIZE DOES[b:5d41e64a7c] NOT[/b:5d41e64a7c] FIT ALL.
It is relatively easy to have the courage to take action in spite of fear, doubt, and worry when one is in a controlled environment, where everyone is trying to achieve the same desired outcome. BUT that is not reflective of the world at large.
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“Warrior Camp was transformational for me. I am a big guy, very fit and active and through the many activities held at Warrior Camp, learned the meaning of inner strength, integrity and simply decided that the only thing holding me back was my own limiting beliefs.”
When I see that word “integrity” my warning beeper goes off. Why is it that LGATs need to re-interpret it for us? I would think that most of us know what it means. Yet, time after time, it is re-interpreted by LGATs to mean something else. This falls into the category of loaded language or jargon.
An outsider would not understand what an LGAT means by its definition of “integrity”, but that is where we live our lives – outside – in the larger world.
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“I changed how I thought and became a new person, ready to take action on all that I wanted and to create my reality by simply doing it.”
Changing how one thinks, again, is a relatively simple task in a controlled environment where the aim of the trainers is to get everyone to interpret things in a similar way…it’s called group-think. Out in the big world that isn’t how it works.
Group pressure, guided meditations, sometimes regressions, sharing (the cult of confession), these and other methods get people to ‘change how they think’.
And becoming a new person? Does one simply shed who one is? What about all the lessons one has learnt to protect and guide one? What about one’s intuition - the sixth-sense that is never wrong until one questions it, and then one is not using it any longer anyway.
Then, my favourite :( “creating one’s reality”… Yes, to a degree we create our realities. We have choices to make that define the paths we follow, but the choices of others who cross our paths can severely affect how our journey turns out. And, when we create our realities, it should not be a selfish thing. Making decisions that include caring, and kindness, and compassion for others is so important. (More on this later)…
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In three months, I achieved my new level in my MLM business and took my income from $50 a month to over $5000 a month. So, when people ask "what the hell happened to you in 2001?" I respond "Warrior Camp".
Oh boy! MLM – Multi-level marketing. It scares me because someone, somewhere, the majority involved with it, are coming up short. It’s the structure of the thing. In my country, South Africa, pyramid schemes are banned by law, although I am aware of Amway operating here. I nearly fell into their trap, but thankfully I escaped after losing a little money. Now I simply ignore their correspondence. Straight into the trash it goes.
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Warrior Camp began early in the morning and it was a chance to begin making friendships with many new people. Our Camp had about 200 people in it and one of my first new friends was Thundering Bull. A very wise fellow with a lot of heart.
‘Thundering Bull’? It sounds like shades of MKP with the renaming of people. MKP? LGAT? Warrior Weekend? LGAT?
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After another morning data session in which we learned new principles to use for the rest of the week, we had lunch and then prepared for our day two event.
I had been involved in Taekwondo and bodybuilding for a number of years, but even with such a high level of fitness, Warrior Camp Day 2 was very humbling. I learned a great deal about myself in that, even with great physical fitness, it can be much easier to just use my brain rather than brawn. That's about all I can say in regards to Warrior Camp day 2 activities.
The evening session following dinner was one of the most fun experiences I've every had. Very meditative and enjoyable. I have never had the experience to do such an activity and again was blown wide open as to what special people Peak Potentials are. How they bring together the best activities, events and facilitators is beyond me.
So, now we head into the evening’s work. Notice the long hours? One of the primary things used in LGATs to tire people out and lower their natural defenses. Then there is that word ‘meditative’. It takes about 30 seconds in meditation for someone to move into an alpha state, a state that makes one more suggestible. I would love to know what time the day’s activities ended.
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Warrior Camp Day 3 was truely personally powerful. The morning session allowed me to take total control of my personal power. Release of some very negative energy was done in an amazingly enlightened way. It's one of my personal favorite days at Warrior Camp now that I facilitate at the event.
This man’s taking control of his personal power sounds both very unrealistic and very contrived… Plug in a formula and there you have it! Please. And the release of negative energy? Maybe in a manipulated environment it feels that way. However, under the pressures of the ‘real world’ won’t those negative energies come rushing back, asking questions, prodding and causing discomfort.
Letting go of negative energy sounds like it’s the kind of thing that would be done in guided meditations. Just because one does a meditation, it doesn’t mean the outcome has been achieved.
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Participants are allowed to release negative energy through a very special process with the help of everyone at Warrior Camp. The things we've been keeping inside for so many years are finally brought up, released and let go of. I saw many incredible changes by people that day, and continue to do so on Day 3 of Warrior Camp. It's kind of funny trying to explain the process without giving it away, but if you've been to Warrior Camp yourself, you know what I mean.
This last bit about the ‘things we've been keeping inside for so many years are finally brought up, released and let go of’ worries me. It sounds like it involves the dangerous use of psycho and hypnotherapy, something that has produced so many casualties as is evident from the many stories on the Large Group Awareness Training, ‘Human Potential’ Seminar topic board.
The scary thing is this idea of breakdown and build-up, breakdown and breakthrough. Through my searches on the Internet, through reading the excellent book called Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change by Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman, it would seem that the moment one ‘gets it’, that moment of breakthrough, that moment of euphoria, is often actually the moment of breakdown. It’s when one’s defenses cave-in, which often results in a dissociative state. It is how the body protects itself from unbearable pressure.
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The things people do to each other astound me. That plus the fact that we take so much personally also astounds me. If you haven't read the book "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruez, then you must do so now. A good part of Warrior Camp is based on principles in this life changing book. I hadn't even bought it until just last month, 5 years after Warrior Camp, but when I did, I read it while sitting in my car at the bookstore parking lot. My girlfriend had re-read it, and I wanted to be on exactly the same page as her, so I bought it and read it myself.
Oh no! So, here we get to the cornerstone of the course’s theory, “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. While it generally has good ratings on Amazon.com (there are almost 500 reviews of it), it makes for interesting reading to look at the reviews critical of the book. Ruiz and Carlos Castaneda are often compared and, for me, Castaneda’s teachings as a life model are poison. Read the Sustained Action website at [
www.sustainedaction.org] for more on the man.
More importantly, check out the message boards. See how many people were damaged by his stuff.
But back to Ruiz… His four agreements are:
- (1) Be impeccable with your word
- (2) Don't take anything personally
- (3) Don't make assumptions
- (4) Always do your best.
Pretty cool. Maybe… Because it appears that Ruiz breaks the idea about assumptions straight out. He holds fast to his world view, his terms of reference, without allowing for other terms of references.
Then, I found some interesting information from a reviewer as set out below:
“Reviewer: Edward B. Holman (Presidio, Texas United States) - See all my reviews
What we know about about the Toltecs comes from the writings of the King of Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl, whose work was miraculously saved from the Spanish fires due to the influence his descendents had with the Spanish, having collaborated with them in the defeat of that Aztecs. Nezahualcoyotl said that the Toltecs had disappeared already, and their disappearance was some 200 years before the arrival of the Spanish, so that means this took place about 700 years ago. So, in order to accept the basic premise of this guy that he is a "Toltec shaman", we have to throw the facts right out the window. Where, in Mexico, I would like to know, do these "Toltecs" live? Do they have a reservation, maybe? How about a language that they speak? Is this like "Lost World" or Shangri-La, maybe? SO remote that explorers haven't even found it yet? Hello?!”
That being the case, Ruiz and fellow “Toltecs” must have translated the Toltec teachings. They, of course, assume that they have translated them as they were intended. It’s a good time, though, to remind you how the Warrior Weekend plays with words like "integrity". In that environment they can come to mean something very different to the meanings we generally attach to them.
I have come across this idea of impeccability in an LGAT before, but it was used as “be impeccably ruthless and ruthlessly impeccable”. It becomes too black and white and caring, kindness, and compassion seem to get lost.
“Don’t take anything personally”… What about love? Or what about if someone walks up to me and hits me in the face?
And as for assumptions, there are plenty I need and must make each and every day: That the sun will rise tomorrow, that my family loves me, that I need to work to generate income for the days to come…
“Always do your best”. Great! Amazing wisdom. Available from any person, of course. But I’ll buy it.
Another point I would like to make. What is it with people and wanting to use old wisdom in today’s world? If it was so great surely it would be general knowledge. There must be a reason it disappeared and was lost. My feeling is we need today’s knowledge to apply to today’s world because it is so different to the time of the Toltecs, for instance.
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After lunch, the afternoon event changed my life. My tent mate and I were partners in the event at the end, I broke down and cried. I saw so many other people sharing how exciting the event was, and how it impacted theirs and other Warrior Camp students lives. I had a different experience in which I felt totally selfish. I learned a lot about myself this day and now facilitate the same event every year for many weeks at a time because of the impact it had on me.
This man breaking down suggests an emotional state, one contrived and controlled by the LGAT. And the words “broke down” get me worried. People finding the event “exciting” gets me thinking of euphoria, an experience so often associated with breakthrough when, in fact, the more correct label would be breakdown.
This excitement often comes from all participants arriving at a predetermined way of thinking – the dreaded group-think –a predictable result achieved by a series of exercises that would appear to generate spontaneous outcomes that are actually entirely predictable. Plug in the LGAT formula and this is what happens. There is enough literature available on the Internet to back me up.
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Day 3 of Warrior Camp ended with an evening event that I still have trouble believing happened. I have gone on to participate in it many times since at many other Warrior Camps. I see people make the most positive changes in their lives this Day 3 evening. They take a stand, they let go of negative habits and step towards making a positive change in their lives from this point forward. Truely life changing.
“They let go”… Yes, they let go of their critical thinking in order to be part of the experience because they don’t want to be the one that doesn’t ‘get it’. Positive is ‘getting it’. Negative is ‘not getting it’.
Is it not possible for people to come to different conclusions. After all, for an example, my points of life reference, as a South African, will surely differ vastly from someone in New York, someone in South Dakota, or someone in Bangkok. Surely, then, the lessons we need to learn, the way we interpret the world should be quite different.
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Let’s just say that Day 4 of Warrior Camp involved a lot of trust. Trusing myself and trusting others. I had believed a lot of things to be true and this day's event I was paired with a very lovely Australian girl of slight build. To match her up with me would be like matching a Ford Pinto up with a Monster Truck. I had to trust her to be able to do what we had to do and also to trust that she could withstand what I was about to do with her as my partner. I broke through some old habits and thoughts and came out the other side a much better person. I'd love to find out what she's up to now and get in touch with her. I'm sure she's gone on to become some great leader in her field as a lot of us from this Warrior Camp did. (see Life After Warrior Camp)
“Trust”… Again, it’s relatively easy to trust someone that one knows is working towards the same goal in a controlled environment, but outside of the camp? Will it work?
And the idea of this woman - and maybe she is amazing and wonderful - of becoming ‘some great leader in her field’ sounds like so much hot air that the conditioning exercises would have one believe while in camp. “You can do anything, you are the only obstacle to greatness” etc. is easy to buy into after all those days on camp, pushing, prodding, love bombing, confronting, pressuring people to achieve a common mind set. It’s easy to buy into it when you’re tired and tired of fighting the questions in your mind as everyone is guided like sheep by a sheepdog towards the predictable outcome.
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After an afternoon session where I purchased Wizard Camp, we had dinner and then had an amazing evening filled with the most positive form of Love I've ever seen. Through a very special process, I learned a great many positive things about myself from my Warrior Camp fellow students. I filled my brain with loving energy and grinned from ear to ear. The evening was then spent dancing and sharing the week’s events with each other. After a week of confidentiality, we were finally able to share with each other the impact that Warrior Camp had on us all. Some amazing stories of growth, learns, love and positive growth were shared by many people. Then the rest of the night was spent dancing and celebrating.
And then (SOUND THE TRUMPETS)…the next course is sold. There is always another one. Dangle the carrot… “Yes, you have achieved so much, but if you do (insert name of course) then you will truly become (insert word)…blah blah blah…
Now, after a week of doing the course, people are finally allowed to talk about it. Before then one had to maintain confidentiality.
So, the sounding boards are removed during the process. Any questions and misgivings must be kept to oneself as the participant becomes conditioned, so that by the end of the course they no longer ask those insightful, difficult questions, but rather blindly accept and trust what the trainers say to be right, honest, true, and gospel.
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I have NEVER been to a personal development camp in my life. I don't do seminars. I do however do Peak Potentials courses and camps as I've seen how they impact lives. Harv Eker and his other trainers use super learning techniques, amazing staff and volunteers and the highest of quality Facilitators to impact your life in the most positive loving way.
Wow! Is this man’s brain so shot after it all that he must contradict himself so clearly: “I have NEVER been to a personal development camp in my life. I don't do seminars”... What the heck does he classify Peak Potential courses and camps as?
The structure of LGATs doesn’t seem to vary much. The lessons appear similar – different words, different jargon, different stories maybe – but the themes and methods are all so similar.
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I walked away a very changed man.
(Sarcasm) I am sorry to hear that.
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As I drove away from Warrior Camp, making my way back to Vancouver to catch a ferry to Vancouver Island to spend time with my sister, I felt like I was driving out of an energy cloud. The further I got away from camp, the more I felt the energy lowering. This is not to say I don't have energy, but rather that the area I was in, the people I was with and the changes we all had in our lives GREATLY increased the energy of the area we were in. It was so noticeable as I made my way farther away. I love being in that energy and am so glad I made my way back a year later for Wizard.
“The energy”… The resonance, the synergy, blah..blah..blah… That’s what they’re always trying to achieve on these courses. But what is it? It’s about getting everyone into group-think. Aaaahhhh…
So, the energy of the people on this camp greatly increased the energy of the area these people were in? Was this something the participant thought up himself or was it something the course leaders claimed? How does he know this? Prove it.
He loves being in that energy, he says. Of course, life is so much easier when everyone is thinking with one mind. BUT…try finding that energy out in the real world.
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My ex girlfriend tells me to this day that "people don’t change" and I smile because she's dead wrong. I changed, my fellow Warrior Camp students and friends changed and I now see people change in a matter of days... In some cases mere moments… People do change, believe me they do.
Maybe this man’s ex-girlfriend is on to something. Maybe she knows a little more than he does. True change doesn’t happen over a weekend or a week. Manipulated change maybe, but wait for the ‘energy’ high to wear off. Wait until the lessons learnt on the camp, the ‘tech’ must be applied in everyday life and other people are thinking differently, not trying to satisfy a camp-goer by trying to think the same way.
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The single best thing you could ever do for yourself is register for Warrior Camp. Register for Warrior Camp or even better, begin with the Millionaire Mind Intensive where you can impact your life financially first, as well as get a better deal on Warrior Camp. Warrior is offered at a greatly discounted price when purchased at Millionaire Mind, and Millionaire Mind can be either free, or only $97 for the 3 day intensive seminar.
And the True Believer, the Zealot is released onto an unsuspecting world…
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As Harv, Robert or Dave Woods put it, "Don't Think, Don't Think, Don't Think, Don't Think, Don't Think...."
Scary. “Trust the process,” I guess would have been another constant message. "Don't Think, Don't Think, Don't Think, Don't Think, Don't Think....". In this case it appears to have worked all to well.
Owning one’s own mind, filled with one’s own thoughts, defined by one’s own experiences and interpretations is a gift, I have come to realize, that many of us don’t appreciate enough. How wonderful to build up our own world view, to be able to define the world in our terms. Why have someone redefine our world view for us in two days to a week? With that amount of time in which to do it, there isn’t enough room for the gray areas, too much black and white exists, too many simplistic, thought-stopping ideas to define questions that need to be more critically examined.
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Life After Warrior Camp
I've seen people make huge changes in their lives since Warrior Camp.
All good, no doubt…
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I wonder myself if I've changed. I showed up at Wizard Camp a year after attending Warrior Camp wondering if I'd changed.
In the first hour of Wizard Camp I realized that one year previous, I would not have been participating in the manner I was had I not taken Warrior Camp first.
Yep. He bought into it well. “Don’t think, don’t think, don’t’ think”, just do.
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I began teaching at a technical insitute after taking Millionaire Mind Intensive and then began to use the techniques I saw at all Peak Potentials events with my students. After Warrior, I did even more and saw my students attitudes towards learning change and they also began to participate in class much more.
Does this man even know what is involved in the techniques? Coercive persuasion is not something to be proud of. Enabling one’s students to think for themselves, giving them the skills to make it in the world is what counts.
To give an example: The school I attended usually scored slightly above average results for final year students. Other schools, year after year, performed exceptionally because their students were taught how to answer exam papers.
However, after school, students from my school regularly went on to become achievers (which is not to say I have :D ). A few years back two of the three businessmen of the year in South Africa were from my school (450 pupils from ages six to eighteen). Students from the other schools, though, I have observed, often flunked out at university because they hadn’t been taught how to think for themselves.
That is the value of guiding people to think for themselves.
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I developed new businesses, passive income businesses and earned enough money to work only 4 days a week at my 9 to 5 job. A year later, I was only working from 10am to 4pm and a year after that quit and now own my own life living from passive income and facilitating at Warrior Camps, Wizard Camps and many other Peak Potentials courses.
And people don’t do well in business who haven’t done these course? Going on to lead LGATs is to me, and I am sure to many others on these boards, a questionable “advancement” at best.
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I work because I want to, not because I have to.
I began taking more steps towards goals I've had and now skydive, travel and develop even more passive income.
I don't take anything personally. Why would I? It's about them, not about me. I realize everything is a mirror and use that teaching to learn more about myself and my own growth. I "catch" negative thoughts when they occur and re-frame them into a positive one and know that anything is possible.
Not taking anything personally. Simplistic outlook, isn’t it? Buddy, let me throw a can of paint over your beautiful car and see whether you take it personally or not.
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There is so much now that I take for granted. I have to stop and truely appreciate my growth and what I've learned about myself. I am truely grateful for so many things in my life, people I've met through Warrior Camp and other Peak Potentials courses. The volunteer staff and now Core team are my family. I truely love spending time at camps because I know I'm loved and I know I can faciliatate growth in other people's lives.
Great. So some good has come out of this man’s experience. BUT what is missing. Where are his references to people outside of the camp environment? One’s family is one’s blood relatives, not course participants or course junkies like this man appears to be.
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My Warrior Camp was the "911 Warrior Camp" that Harv talks about a lot. We were in a place of peace, truth and growth during that monumental event that changes so many people's lives around the world that day.
Of my many Warrior Camp fellow students, I am honored to say that Rob Riopel was one.
Rob Riopel, one of Harv’s associates and a trainer. Remember Harv? - The man who sells seminars on almost every page of his book called “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”.
---- I apologise for the length of the post, but it would have been unbalanced if I didn't take everything written into account. There are enough ideas, enough of the same mumbo-jumbo we see from so many LGATs, to send up numerous warnings signals. Beware! ----
And Anon0820, if you ever make it to South Africa you owe me a cup of coffee for this ridiculously long post! :lol: