It seems to me that the foremost claim LGATs make is that they teach people how to empower themselves.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

People attending a course for the first time might have a reason or two for doing so - obstacles or opposition that they perceive in their lives - and they hope to find ways to overcome them.

Those who have attended a course - and especially those that have gone beyond the first course - will notice, if they look back to those courses, how, the further they advanced, so more and more "obstacles" were brought to their attention.

The LGATs create more obstacles and opposition than a course attendee might have been aware of in his/her life before starting a course. They do this to create the need for even more courses.

It's interesting to note how many more courses are made known the further a person advances into the LGAT trap. :shock:

The "at cause" argument used by the LGATs is a disingenuous method of getting course-goers to believe that they are at fault for things that are not working in their lives.

And with the breakdown/build-up method these LGATs use - with a heavy emphasis on breakdown - they use the "at cause" argument to entrap a course-goer.

By drilling into the heads of course attendees how flawed they are, then blaming them for all the problems they have in their lives, the LGATs, in essence, are able to keep their victims aware of their problems at all times because the course-goers would be more aware of what is not working in their lives than any other person on the face of this earth.

Often, LGATs will tell a course-goer to cut something out of his/her life if it is not working. Again, this is not empowering.

Being a South African, I was reminded just yesterday, when a statue of Nelson Mandela was unveiled in London about the power of engaging our challenges with love, contrary to the ways the LGATs teach. Let me elaborate:

When Mandela was released from prison, after spending 27 years behind bars, fighting an unjust system, he re-entered mainstream life with an incredible outlook of acceptance towards everyone in South Africa, even towards those people who had so wrongly imprisoned him and suppressed the majority of the country's people under a system that treated them as second-class citizens.

At the time of his release, there was a lot of uncertainty about what the future held for South Africa. Over the decades of apartheid a massive amount of distrust had built up between the different racial groups.

Mandela could have isolated himself in a safe place, surrounding himself with "his people" and choosing not to work with the whites on a united future for all South Africans. He didn't do that, however. He welcomed every person equally to be part of the new democracy, and by doing that he empowered himself and the country.

He put his loving energy out to everybody, including those opposed to them, and in so doing he disarmed their fears.

That approach has made him incredibly powerful in the most beautiful sense of the world.

Mandela's actions were expansive. As we know, positive energy is expansive.

Today, because he faced his challenges with love and respect for all, Nelson Mandela is revered as one of the great leaders of our time,

LGAT teachings, on the other hand, propogate a method that leads to people making their world's smaller; essentially, instead of dealing with problems, converts are taught to distance themselves from them.

If there is someone or who is causing a course-goer stress, the advice is often to remove that negative from the course attendee's life.

That mirrors an apartheid system.

The problems don't go away. They are still there.

"Divide and conquer" seems to be what is at work here because the more LGATs can isolate course-goers from their traditional support - including isolating the victims from their true selves - the greater the influence will be that the LGATs can exert over them.

Isolating someone is known as the first step an abuser takes in an abusive relationship.

With converts/victims making their world's smaller, they are contracting their energy, which is a negative energy.

That is NOT empowering. It is disempowering.

Freedom of spirit - empowerment - involves being able to face the world, everything and everyone, with optimism.

When a person is empowered, he/she feels a connection to all things, and few things are able to knock that person off track. As an example, think of the way a person beginning a new and loving relationship views the world - life is wonderful.

When a person is disempowered, he/she views the world with suspicion and withdraws from it. He/she lives in fear.

The LGAT philosophy encourages this fear-based view of the world.

Love, it is said, is the strongest power in the world. At the other end of the scale, fear - the opposite of love (and not "hate" as many mistakenly believe) - is the most disempowering power there is.

It is this fear that is crucial to the "success" of LGATs in claiming more victims.

I came to this website very angry over my LGAT involvement and the destruction it brought to my life by applying its philosophy to my life.

I have worked through much of the anger and have seen how all LGAT's are carbon copies of each other. The destruction in my life is not unique as it is very similar to many members who have shared on this website.

I still can get very angry at these aspects around LGAT's.

Although now the focus in my life is to pursue emotional healing in my life. I am done hanging out in my anger over what was done in the past.

I will continue to expose LGAT's in the way I choose to do so. I understand the anger that is held towards LGAT's by many on this thread.

I am done with this anger consuming me though.

What others do with their anger is up to them. Anger is part of the healing process in recovering from an LGAT experience.

Letting that anger remain dominate in my life is no longer an option.

I am looking at myself, and getting the healing for myself as needed.

What is done with my sharing about my healing journey on this forum is up to the individual reader.

For those who are still needing to remain in the extreme anger over their individual LGAT experience? That is for you to decide.

It is not for you to decide for me to remain angry though.

So I am sorry. I choose not to remain in anger in my life. I understand others anger as needed for them to heal.

Just don't expect me to stay in the anger is all.

I can expose LGAT's without being so angry.

I am sorry. We are at another impasse here.

I will not leave like last time. But, I will not let your anger dictate how I share either.

Even in my faith there is no room to blame the devil for my behavior. In the bible it states that the devil tempts me with what is within me, and entices those parts of me with temptation. If what I am being tempted to do is not something that can entice me? It will not be a temptation to do.
I understood this in my life way before I even heard of LGAT’s in my life.
This same bible also tells me to be angry in a proper and healthy way. Not a destructive way.
So, even though some are not choosing to look at themselves in a manner of identifying what was within themselves that allowed for the LGAT magnet to attract and lure them in.
I will not attack this in people. But, I will continue on my emotional healing journey in my life with looking at myself, and sharing in my posts from this very needed and healthy critical analysis of myself.
As I continue to expose the lies, and deceptions of LGAT’s on this forum. I will at the same time not make excuses for my being deceived by Klemmer in my life. Regardless of how deceptive they truly are.
Yes, Klemmer is and was deceptive along with all the other LGAT’s out there. At the same time, I will take the proper responsibility for addressing myself and what was within me that created the magnetic pull that drew me to such a messed up philosophy in my life.
I have vented as needed on this forum. It is now time to heal in my life. There are some who are on this forum who are just as angry now as when I started on this forum.
I will accept another person choice to be angry, and to share from that place.
I will not allow for my posts to continue in being posted from this place though.
I do not know what others are after on this forum?
For me it is two things:
1. To expose LGAT’s
2. To help others recover from their LGAT experience.
They are both entwined for me. Remaining in anger beyond what is healthy and proper emotionally is not the way to accomplish this in my life.
So, my sharing on this forum will hold these two objectives as I share. I will not let anger consume me beyond what is needed in my recovery journey.

Rswinters:

You have repeatedly gone off topic.

Focus like a laser on the specific topic of this thread or leave.

Preaching your religious views is against the rules.

Any further going on about your religion will result in banning.

This is the very last warning you will be given.

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rrmoderator
Rswinters:

You have repeatedly gone off topic.

Focus like a laser on the specific topic of this thread or leave.

Preaching your religious views is against the rules.

Any further going on about your religion will result in banning.

This is the very last warning you will be given.

Rick. So for me to remain on topic requires me to only share in an angry way about LGAT's and not what is helping me recover from it in my life?

Is anger the only recognizable topic on this forum?

If anger at LGAT's is all that is wanted to be heard on this forum?

There is no need for Rick to ban me.

The anger is needed, and I recognize the need for it in recovery.

But, I am at the crossroad in my recovery where this anger is needing to be transformed to something more productive in my life.

Staying this angry over my LGAT experiece is not helping me. It is hurting me more than helping me now.

My anger was needed at first. Now it is needing to change in me for my own personal recovery to continue.

I do not want to remain stuck in this anger in my own life.

I hope to walk the path of recovery with you all. But not the path of anger as some are preferring to remain on.

Rswinters, I welcomed you to post on this thread about relationships, within the context of lgats. That was in order to be gracious so as to overcome our previous disagreement in which you caused a conflict by preaching your religious views and making unpleasant personal comments about me, and also because I thought you would have the good sense and common courtesy to keep whatever you had to say relevant.

You have over-stayed your welcome and abused my hospitality, so-to-speak, on this thread.

You have gone way-off topic in a very self-centered fashion, you have made nasty personal comments about me and you have also broken your promise to me that you would not preach religion in conversation with me or on my threads.

Please start a new thread, unless you have something specific to say about quest. Not your general lgat theories, not your anger theories, not your therapy, not your personal opinion of me and not your religion.

Thank you.

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SaneAgain
Rswinters, I welcomed you to post on this thread about relationships, within the context of lgats. That was in order to be gracious so as to overcome our previous disagreement in which you caused a conflict by preaching your religious views and making unpleasant personal comments about me, and also because I thought you would have the good sense and common courtesy to keep whatever you had to say relevant.

You have over-stayed your welcome and abused my hospitality, so-to-speak, on this thread.

You have gone way-off topic in a very self-centered fashion, you have made nasty personal comments about me and you have also broken your promise to me that you would not preach religion in conversation with me or on my threads.

Please start a new thread, unless you have something specific to say about quest. Not your general lgat theories, not your anger theories, not your therapy, not your personal opinion of me and not your religion.

Thank you.

I honestly thought I was being considerate in my posts. No need to stay in a debate over this.

I will leave things as they lay. Thanks for the oportunity to share agian.

Thanks.

Quote
rrmoderator
Rswinters:

You have repeatedly gone off topic.

Focus like a laser on the specific topic of this thread or leave.

Preaching your religious views is against the rules.

Any further going on about your religion will result in banning.

This is the very last warning you will be given.

I am focused on exposing LGAT's and the recovery from them.

Is this not the subject matter of this forum?

Its the topic of the whole forum, not this particular thread.

Here is a specific thread on recovery:

[board.culteducation.com]

Aside from that lecturing other people from the bible on whether or not to be angry is not part of lgats or recovering them. Nor is telling people to be responsible and dig deep to find the dirt that you think got them into an lgat part of the recovery process. Considering this type of thinking is an lgat means of manipulating people, it is actually a counter-productive idea, as it entrenches lgat thinking. It is also contrary to the research which shows very clearly that all types of people get recruited for all types of reasons. From the FAQ section on this board:

[www.culteducation.com]

Quote

What types of people are recruited by cults or become involved in potentially unsafe or destructive groups and relationships?

All types of people. Individuals from strong and troubled families, with and without histories of psychological problems. People who have had and have not had drug problems, with a solid or weak religious background, the educated and uneducated, the wealthy, poor, middle class, intelligent and not so intelligent.

One of the myths about cult involvement is that a certain type of person is more vulnerable. Another myth is that healthy, strong, intelligent well-educated people from good families don't become involved. Or, that somehow if someone has clearly defined religious convictions they cannot be recruited. These theories have never been proven or substantiated through research. In fact, repeated studies continue to indicate a wide and varied background for cult recruits.

Frankly, cults are quite good at persuasion and indoctrination; it's their stock and trade. And most people simply are not prepared, either through education and personal experience, to be sensitive to the possible impact of cult methodology.

Methods used by Quest and similar lgats to recruit people are relevant to this topic.

Rswinters, it seems you feel you have progressed to a stage where you are not interested in things like brainwashing techniques and recruitment techniques and want to gloss over these things to get to your personal problems. If you are bored with that, please start a new thread. If you don't like anger, start an anger-free thread.

Remember that people reading this particular thread, which is about quest, may not be at that stage, and may not have read the entire board yet. They are still learning, they are still interested in these aspects, even if you aren't. They may also be be angry, and want to express anger. Anger is a symptom of PTSD and PTSD is a known effect of lgats. You were left in peace to express anger, very vociferously, for about six months. I don't think its fair to try to stop others doing the same.

I don't like bible-thumping on this board or on this thread because it feeds into another misperception about cults, which is that only narrow-minded religious fanatics have a problem with them, because they are scared of the competition and they see anything outside their particular church or belief system as the anti-christ or equivalent. The reason for this is that a lot of churches are involved in anti-cult activity.

But lgats are a problem to EVERYONE, not only religious people and not for religious reasons. They are a problem because they use deceptive business practices to con people out of money and control them using extremely abusive covert and overt psychological manipulation. That has nothing to do with religion.

If you feel you're above being angry and discussing the methods of lgats and are in an advanced healing stage, please use the specific section of the board provided for that (recovery from cults, link provided above) or start a new thread.

As for anger, I don't consider saying "f*ck that" to a bad idea to be anger. More like mild irritation. When I am angry I write in bold, large font and with some @#$%#$%#$ type symbols, and maybe some red thrown in. I might also get a little personal, not enough to be considered flaming but enough that I'm sure you'd rather not hear it. If you want a demo, try writing one more off-topic or bible-thumping comment on this thread.