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"efe132"
I am really sorry about what your family is going through right now.
I did PSI Basic and I loved it. The way I knew about them was through work and not because a work mate told me but because the company I work for was offering to pay part of the cost of the basic. This company I work for has no relationship with PSI Seminars. It is a very successfull IT related midsize company that has been growing since it started. Many of the employees have taken these seminars and only one of them have left his job. In my case far from moving me to leave my job it helped me re-discovering it. I now go to work with a sense of being productive and the energy to improve it more and more every day.
PSI seminars do have value in it (a lot to me) and the fact that a successful company is willing to encourage its employees to take them shows support from a respectful source. I know you don't know the company I work for but I mention it because to me it was crucial. I would have never enrolled into this otherwise.
I am going to do PSI 7 soon but before I enrolled in it I needed my wife to do the basic as well. Now we are going together to PSI 7. Families are teams. They need to be in sync pulling all in the same direction. Do you see it coming yet? Well yes, I am going to recomend you to do the Basic but I am going to save you the usual PSI basic speech for why you should do it. I think you should do it because that way you would be experiencing first hand what your wife went through and that way you will be able to tell for yourself. Plus she would feel your are at least giving it a try. The basic is $500 and if you don't like it they give you back $450 (or 450 and 400 don't remember exactly). What would you be afraid of? A brain wash? How could they brain wash you? It is just people talking. Then there is the exercises which are nothing but more people talking although you are a little bit more exposed. However you do them only if you want to. Here is one fact: PSI Basic has been around for over 30 years. People do get value out of these seminars otherwise they would have been gone long ago. The thing with this kind of companies is that it is very difficult to discern the good ones from the bad ones so the only way is getting references about them. PSI Seminars is for real. So real that they are absolutely INperfect. For instance I hate the fact that they are extremely pushy when it comes to enroll you in higher seminars or get you to eroll other people in the basic. But hey! car dealers are worse and I still love my car. Get the stuff that helps and discard the rest. All you need to do is say no when it is no. Give it a try, if it does not work then you loose $50. But what if it does work? What if your family starts functioning better? Not perfect simply better, doesn't it worth it? I think it does. Good luck to you.

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"Ghost Dancer"
Well it seems like my wife went off the deep end this past weekend. I heard from her father and he asked why my wife asked him for a loan of $4000.00 dollars. I was floored to say the least. I told him what his daughter had gotten involved with and he looked at me like I was crazy. When I started to explain what I’ve been going through the past two months he said it was not possible that his daughter could be that stupid. I explained to him that this was not a matter of being stupid; that it’s a matter of the group influencing her to believe things according to their reality. I asked him what he was going to do about the money and he said he was inclined to give it to her, but he changed his mind once I told him what she was involved in.

He also told me he thought she was acting somewhat strangely the past few weeks and was surprised when she quit her job last month. I think he had a heart to heart talk with her on Monday and gave her a speech to get her head out of her ass. She came home from her visit with her Dad very upset and somewhat pissed off.

That night she took out her frustration with me and the girls and after a while I asked her to take a ride with me; that we needed to talk. Once on the road I stopped at a park and frankly told her that she did need to get her head out of her ass or I was going to throw her out and file for divorce. I told her that if she fought it I would spend every last dollar I had to make sure there was nothing left for her to go after, thereby being denied the money she wants and needs for her PSI attitude.

I told her I was tired of this whole thing. I am tired of the constant strain this has caused me and my daughters. I told her that she needs to think about what she is doing to herself and her family, meaning us. I told her that I would make it my mission in life to see that she will rule the day she ever heard of this PSI BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am sorry if I sound like a hard ass, but I am not going to take this crap from her anymore. I told her her PSI buddies would be arrested for trespassing if I find them at my house again.

I told her that I am going to enforce the news rules for “my cult;” meaning my family. I think she knew I meant business because she was shaking during the ride home and told me that she was surprised she made it home because she was afraid of me during our conversation in the car. I told her she had every reason to be afraid, as I was not going to take any more shit from her. No more lies, no more secrets and effective next week she was going to be looking for a job, or else. I said to her that I would treat her like a child if I had too and if she so much as looks like she is going to break the rules she will be moving in with her new found PSI buddies. Let’s see if they will support her because they once held her ropes during the exercises at the ranch.

I cannot believe what this has done to me. I have never threatened my wife before. I hope this ends and soon.

I feel like I have been emotionally raped because of this and I can’t take it anymore.

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"Chastain"
Ghost Dancer, I just read all the posts on here and wanted to ask if you've had any luck with the authorities reporting PSI? I lost my girlfriend to this a few weeks ago, shortly after she returned from PSI7. I called the better business bureau in y state and was told they had no listing for PSI seminars. The clerk who looked it up asked if I had an address for the office where I live. He looked up the address, which is in an office complex, and found PSI was listed under another name. He said this sounded like some sort of shell game to him where they hide under the radar using another name. When he asked what the complaint was I told him about the problems with my girlfriend and what I read here on this board. I must admit I sounded like I was somewhat crazy. Hell I sometimes don't believe this myself. The clerk said he would make a note of the complaint, whatever that means.

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The wife could be facing three to five years in prison for passing bad checks. Her lawyer said he might be able to get her probation if she makes restitution to the banks and the check cashing places. She has no money and I am strapped for case thanks to all her PSI bullshit.

I just want to thanks all the PSI graduates out there that made this all possible. Thanks to you my wife is going to prison.

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This is what frightens me so. My friend, who was a gentle, compassionate, intelligent human being seemed to, overnight, turn into a rude, opinionated, uncaring individual. And I do believe I caught her out telling me a direct lie.

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Hey All,

I am posting this as a file for your reading entertainment. There might be
someone who reads the sghawke posts and becomes uncomfortable with the whole
PSI deal or has questions. I urge you to think about your reactions and
decide for yourself what is true for you.

First off, Trolls. Trolls are people that enter into groups of people and
say offensive things to get a reaction from those in the group. Like if a
person, troll@aol.com, logged into alt.FireFighters.tactics and posted that
all fires were started by fireman wanting to keep their jobs, that would be
trolling. Obviously a false statement, but many in the group will respond to
the troll. The troll doesn't care if the statement is true or false, just
wants to get people riled up. The term Troll is a fishing term, trolling is
moving along slowly trying to hook a fish. A Troll posts offensive messages
to get a reaction from the fish. The best way to stop a Troll is to do what
Cynthia did, make it a member's only group.

Secondly, it's kind of funny, I've seen all that stuff before. My friend
Jessica sent me a bunch of similar links as her response to me asking her to
go to a basic graduation and then the basic.

An argument or debate is a series of statements that when strung together make
up a story or conclusion. The validity of the story can be challanged by
looking at the individual statements or if the statements will support the
conclusion. Trolls, like sghawke, can make statements of how PSI or other
LGAT (Large Group Awareness Training) seminars are not working for some
people. Unless the statements are examined clearly, usually with much more
explanation than the original statement, then the conclusions may be accepted
as true when they are not.

Below is an example of how a simple statement requires a long explanation.

1) PSI is an LGAT.
2) LGATs are bad.
conclusion) PSI is bad.

1) Is PSI an LGAT? Probably, but so what if it is. It would be difficult to
prove it isn't as what exactly an LGAT is, is vague. Under some definitions,
the Christian Church and other religions are LGATs.

2) Are LGATs bad? Nobody knows. The effects of attending an LGAT are
unknown, as no definitive study has been performed by independent
researchers. To really "know" the effects you would possibly need over 4000
test subjects, 2000 to go through all PSI seminars and 2000 to not have any
PSI or similar seminars. Then you would have to devise a scheme to measure
the quality of a persons life. Then you would have to devise a scheme to
compare one person's life to another and make conclusions based on the
findings. Then you would have to check on the people annualy for 20 years
or more to see what the "effects" are if any.

Conclusion) PSI is bad. That is a false conclusion as the second
statement "LGATs are bad" is unproveable.

Further, a classification of "good, bad, right or wrong" is subjective,
meanting that each individual has a different set of paramaters they use to
determine how good or bad something is. Therefore any classification of good
or bad is the personal opinion of the person making the statement.

Another example
1) My wife went to PSI
2) She isn't the same as before she went to PSI
3) PSI caused the changes
4) I don't like how she is now
5) That is bad.
Conclusion) PSI is bad.

1) Did his wife go to PSI? That is probably a true statement.

2) Is she different now than before she went to PSI? How much different? How
do you measure different? Did she lose 1 lb of weight? Does she stick up for
herself more than she did before? Does she not always let you make decisions
for both of you now? See where I'm going with this? Difference, like art, can
only be good, bad, right or wrong in the eye of the beholder. People
become "different" every moment. As every moment passes they are that much
older than before. It is an unanswerable question, and therefore an invalid
statement.

3) Did PSI cause the changes? Now we're back to the first series of
statements. It is difficult to show if the PSI seminars can "change" someone
who doesn't want to be changed. What if she was a smoker and went to a stop
smoking seminar and decided to stop smoking. Did the seminar make her stop
smoking or did she stop smoking? It is an unanswerable question and therefore
an invalid statement.

4) Does he not like how she is now? That is probably a true statement. But
why doesn't he like her? That is the real question I had when reading his
posts.

5) Is a wife acting differently bad? That is open to debate and has no factual
answer. You would have to clearly define how a wife should act that everyone
could agree on. Then you would have to measure how closely, or not, the
wife's actions fit the agreed upon set of "allowable wife actions." Of course
there isn't such a set of actions and therefore no way to measure those
actions. It is an unanswerable question and therefore an invalid statement.

Conclusion) Is PSI is bad? Well of course not, statements 2, 3, and 5 are
unanswerabe, therefore there can be no valid conclusion. The series of posts
fails to prove PSI is bad (again).


Yet Another Example
1) I went to PSI
2) I acted how I thought I was supposed to act following the principles layed
out in the seminars, book, and team members.
3) My actions caused me to fail
4) I regret going to PSI
conclusion) PSI is bad

1) Did she go to PSI? Maybe she did, lets assume she did.

2) Did she act according to the principles laid out in all the information
presented at the seminar? NO. duh! Don't over risk was a big lesson, she
bought items she knew she could't afford. That sounds like over-risking it to
me. She made big life changes within the 30 day "don't make big life changes"
time frame. In some ways she did use the seminar material correctly. She put
out to the universe that she would divorce her husband if he didn't go to the
seminars. The universe saw "divorce" and gave her one. Hmmm. She did not
act according to the principles layed out in the seminars. #2 is a false
statement.

3) Did her actions cause her to fail? Yes, this is a true statement.

4) Does she regret going to PSI? Yes she does. This is a true statement

conclusion) Is PSI bad? No, statement 2 is false, therefore the conclusion is
false.


And just to show how I'm not making this all up I'll apply the same technique
to my responses to the first item
1) PSI is an LGAT, 2) LGATs are bad, Conclusion) PSI is bad.

1) Is PSI an LGAT?
a) LGAT definitions are vague <- This is a true statement, check out wikipedia.
b) One definition classifies PSI as an LGAT <- This is a true statement (but
so is PSI 7 is 7 days long)
conclusion) "PSI is an LGAT" is a true statement

2) Are LGATs are bad?
a) No study has been performed that shows attending an LGAT is good or bad. <-
This is a true statement.
b) Good and bad are subjective terms (meaning there is not a universal good or
bad) <- This is also a true statement
conclusion) The effects of attending an LGAT are unknown, therefore this
statement is invalid (doesn't make any sense) <-- This is a valid conclusion
given statement a and b are true.

Conclusion) Is PSI bad?
a) statement 2 is invalid <- this is a true statement
b) a logical sequence with an invalid statement renders the conclusion invalid
<- this is a true statement
conclusion) The conclusion doesn't make any sense. <-- This is a valid
conclusion based on a and b.

Now, is it the case that one person could go through PSI and have a bad
experience? Sure. But I believe it is an invalid argument to suggest that one
person having a bad experience, for whatever reason, indicates that all of PSI
is bad. I believe you have to experience it for yourself and make your own
decisions.

The other side of the coin is that it is difficult to prove that PSI is good
for all of the same reasons it is difficult to prove that PSI is bad. PSI is
what it is. If it helps you, great, if it doesn't help you (and I'm trying
really hard to be open to the possiblity that you could go through all of PSI
seminars and not improve your life at all) then you have learned one more
thing that doesn't work for you. Rejoice! and move on, but please don't 'take'
from the rest of us.

I am posting this as a file for your reading entertainment. There might be
some of you who read the sghawke posts and become uncomfortable with the whole
PSI deal. I urge you to think about your reactions and decide for yourself
what is true for you.

Also, please e-mail me to correct any logical fallacies I have committed in
this document.