all of this is part of the same design by the creators and owners of the LGAT's, its part of their Sales and Recruitment strategy to grow the business by personal referral.

For example, the book "Covert Persuasion" has a large section on building "rapport" artificially with people, by doing all of the NLP and other techniques, like matching Breathing, voice-tone, etc. (Matching, Mirroring, Pacing, Leading...from NLP)

These guys also know that the #1 way to get to people, is through the referral of their family and friends, who they ALREADY TRUST. Instant trust.
That is why Landmark, for example, pushes people to enroll as many people they know as possible.

Again, that is all Covert Persuasion. They have caught one fish, and then they Persuade that fish to go out and bring in his fellow fishes that already trust him.
The first victim thinks he is spreading the good word....but he doesn't know that his mind has been Covertly re-engineered, with Covert Persuasion to do what the owners of the LGAT want him to do. That is, to be an unpaid non-commissioned salesperson for the LGAT.
As mentioned, the fact they are working for free makes for a better sales-pitch.

They sit in rooms, and plan this stuff out very carefully over many years, and also through trial and error.
They know that the best way to get "fresh meat" is to use the people they already control, to bring in those who trust them.

Personal Referrals.

Just like Kevin Hogan, the guys who run LGAT's are generally not stupid, they know exactly what they are doing.
They are simply using every single method of Covert Persuasion to get people to do what they want them to do, so they can make more money.
And the best way to do this, is to get the "sheeple" to do what they want them to do, without knowing that is what is going on.

Their plan is to get you to do what THEY want you to do, and believe you thought it up yourself. They know how to change your beliefs, without you even knowing they are changing you beliefs.

Often, they tell you they are specifically NOT doing what they really are doing to you right now, AS they are doing it to you. They love doing that, as they call it "elegant", and it makes them feel intellectually superior.

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ughaibu
Okay, but for me the first question is why do people put themselves in the situation?
There are no cults or abusive groups without victims. Reading various posts on this board can be quite heart breaking, people who have already suffered a negative experience costing them years will ask "is this group okay?" or similar. For me this is the question, why would anyone, particularly if they already had negative experience, voluntarily put themselves in these situations?

It is called the promise of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Or the golden carrot being dangled in front of you.

Some like me had such negative prior to being sucked into LGAT's that the quick fix, and emotional short cut was ever so tempting. In my case, the previous negative in my life blinded me as I was delivered this pipe dream in LGAT philosophy as I attended the first seminars.

Which the first two seminars set the hook, and the last two seminars sealed my fate in buying into a destructive philosophy without even being aware that I was doing so.

I was one huge SUCKER as I had so much emotional stuff that I never faced in a proper healthy manner and my LGAT experience just intensified the emotional mess.

Now I am sorting it out in professional counseling, and looking back hindsight and seeing where I allowed myself to be decieved without realizing it at the time.

Like they say hindsight is 20/20. Well, in my hindsight. There is definitely 20/20 as I am seeing very cleary this crap philosophy for what it is. Crap...

One of the foundational techniques of Covert Persuasion is...

PAIN

They want to find your PAIN and your WOUND as quickly as possible. This is why they get people to stand up and talk about their traumatic pain, like sexual abuse, in front of the Leader of the LGAT. This shows the LGAT Leaders exactly where your PAIN is, and that is their greatest point of leverage over you.

But that is only step #1.
Step #2 is to MAGNIFY your pain, and inflame it, and make it much much worse. They have many techniques for this, which we'll go over later.

Then, they show you if you don't do what they say, it will get even WORSE. They use FEAR and PAIN against you. these guys live FEAR and PAIN, as that is how you control people.

Then, they try to show you that the ONLY way out of your pain which they have magnified is...

to enroll in their expensive LGAT programs today.

When you are overexcited, this is when they get you to "commit with Integrity" and sign a contract to attend more of their LGAT seminars.
The contract is simply one of many strategies for them to try to block "Buyers Remorse", which is every salesman's nightmare. As soon as you get out of their "spell" there is a great chance you are going to "come to your senses" and change your mind and CANCEL. This is something they spend a lot of time trying to block.
One of the best ways is to have you signed to a contract that is non-refundable.

Again, this is all written down in black and white in books like this, and in similar source materials that LGAT leaders use. They go and find your most severe PAIN, make it much much worse. Their metaphor is to find the knife in you, and then TWIST the knife to give you more pain than you can stand, and then to "heal" your pain with their products and services of the LGAT, coaching, tapes, books, videos, etc.

This is just one of many dozens of techniques, even hundreds of techniques they have designed and mapped out very carefully to manipulate you without your conscious awareness.
It seems that this is the entire purpose and structure of the LGAT seminar. Its simply a long and intense Covert Persuasion system to extract as much money from you as possible. Breaking you down is simply the way for the LGAT leaders to get control over you, so they can "influence" you do do what they want, like bring in more "fresh meat" for them, like your spouse or colleagues

Is there any scientific data backing up these claims? Many of us have trouble believing pseudo-psychology like "[i:87b5543c47]Covert Persuasion[/i:87b5543c47]" is effective without some kind of proof.

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disconnect
Is there any scientific data backing up these claims? Many of us have trouble believing pseudo-psychology like "[i:7f11d12ec2]Covert Persuasion[/i:7f11d12ec2]" is effective without some kind of proof.

Which claim?

Please state the exact claim you want scientific data to back up. We're all familiar with Milgram, Festinger, and Zimbardo here. Are you?

Also, Cialdini's "Influence" is a good basic text on the subject.

It always cracks me up when cult members and cult apologists, (not saying you are one -- I don't know), come up with these demands for "scientific" proof of the statements of their critics, all the while adhering to various bizzaro-world "philosophies" and religions with unquestioning devotion and blind fealty.

Here's a clue, "disconnect:"

Just 'cause they put "science" in the name don't make it scientific. There's nothing scientific about scientology, there's no technology in the Landmark schtick, and Christian Science is neither Christian nor science.



Ellen

[www.csj.org]

"...Dr. Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford University psychology professor who is perhaps the foremost American expert on the topic of social manipulation and mind control, is not so optimistic; the CIA failed to brainwash people, he claims, not because their methods were too "soft," but because they were overt, blatant, and obvious. If force is used, people may surrender temporarily but they will often fail to "internalize" their newly acquired opinions and feelings; when no longer held captive, these subjects no longer do what they have been told. It is more effective to be subtle and covert: "you need at least an illusion of choice," according to Zimbardo, and the expert manipulator leaves people "unaware of [the manipulator's] influence" (Cunningham, 1984). In order to influence or brainwash people, the following methods work best: isolate them in new surroundings apart from old friends or reference-points, provide them with instant acceptance from a seemingly loving group, keep them away from competing or critical ideas, provide an authority figure that everyone seems to acknowledge as having some special skill or awareness, provide a philosophy that seems logical and appears to answer all or the most important questions in life, structure all or most activities so that there is little time for privacy or independent action or thought, provide a sense of "us" versus "them," promise instant or imminent solutions to deep or long-term problems, and employ covert or disguised hypnotic techniques. Motivation is an important issue. A subject's motivation can range from loneliness and mild depression to being at a point of transition in life; from searching for spirituality, altruistic relationships or deeper meaning to impatience with or resistance to "conventional" religious or psychotherapeutic routes of discovery (Clark, Langone, Schecter, & Daly, 1981; Cunningham, 1984; Schwartz & Kaslow, 1982). Contrary to the beliefs of many, vulnerability to mind control techniques is not a sign of psychological or intellectual weakness; there is a vast body of research that clearly demonstrates that "average" or "normal" individuals can be highly susceptible to covert attempts to influence them, and that most people are, in general, not particularly good at recognizing when their behavior has been externally manipulated (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1968; Freedman, Carlsmith, & Sears, 1974, pp. 341-375). Given enough time and the proper environment, the motivated subject is highly vulnerable to brainwashing."

"disconnect" is again trying to disconnect from the facts, by doing a little "trolling".

Anyone who takes the time to study the book Covert Persuasion, and many others like it, can see exactly what is going on. There are mountains of evidence to back up most of the claims they are making, and there are many new techniques they are using which have not been academically studied yet, but will be in the future. So we'll watch the research as it develops.

But thanks to "disconnect", for connecting the Sedona Method scam to Covert Persuasion.

(for those finding this thread from a Google search, a backgrounder on the "Sedona Method" is at this link)
Sedona Method and Release Technique
[board.culteducation.com]

As a matter of fact, the Sedona Method is Covert Persuasion, that is precisely what it is. The Sedona Method leaders, simply use the ruse of a "technique" as a way to Influence people to do what they want them to do, that is, buy more expensive Sedona Method seminars, books, etc.

The Sedona Method also ACTIVELY and aggressively goes after supressing peoples critical faculties, which is spelled out exactly in the book Covert Persuasion. They show you exactly how to by-pass the critical faculties of the client/victim. The Sedona Method takes this much further, and try to literally destroy the critical faculties of their followers, as this makes them easier to sell more pproducts to.

Thank you "disconnect" for making the connection of The Sedona Method to Covert Persuasion. Nice job. We can all feel your love.

disconnect wrote:

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Is there any scientific data backing up these claims? Many of us have trouble believing pseudo-psychology like "Covert Persuasion" is effective without some kind of proof.

How bizarre. A con artist writes a book exposing the tricks of the trade and you want scientific data to back it up?

By definition, a con artist is someone who will do ANYTHING for a fast buck, including sell-out the trade-secrets of his whole industry. Who else but another con artist would object??


Of course the con artist could be lying about his trade secrets but anyone whose been through an lgat can easily see the techniques Anticult has listed so far are in fact used. And if they weren't used - so what! Then we'll read what's written here and say no, my group never did that. No harm done.

I've come to expect apologists on the threads about specific lgats but seeing an apologist trying to discredit general techniques ...

Beam. Me. Up.

Great thread Anticult, I hope you're going to post more on this.

With regard to how people can be manipulated into such situations.Please remember; there is also a subset of people who were born into religious groups: no choice involved, at least as a child, at all.
With regard to whether covert persuasion works( by the way,I like that post Elena, it very thorough) we all know on a very basic level that there are people who are capable of scaming and mani[pulating others. There are people who are "talented" at this kind of thing, and can take others money, goods, checking acounts, and do it again and again.Religion is an area where belief and trust are involved. And someone speaking as the voice of God can have a lot of power if they choose ot use it unethically.

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SaneAgain
Great thread Anticult, I hope you're going to post more on this.

I would also like to request that everyone here who is interested, to do some serious research into this, and post their information here, if they can.
Its actually very helpful for those who are coming out of being scammed by an LGAT, or any other type of group/cult that has manipulated them, to become CONSCIOUS of all of the covert unconscious techniques that have been used on them.

As a matter of fact, this is the best way to make sure you don't get scammed again by the LGAT and cult tricksters. Once we learn exactly what they did, and how, then it makes it much more difficult to happen again. You completely destroy their sales process.

This isn't serious research, but its an interesting quote I stumbled across while looking at something else.

Earlier someone quoted "Cover Persuasion":

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20 keys to Covertly Persuade others using the power of Story …
How to skillfully use questions to persuade others … people are programmed to answer every question that is asked (even if silently) … you’ll learn how the right question controls and directs the thinking of others … so you get more of what you want, more often

Then I stumbled across this on the scientology thread, written ages ago:

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upsidedownnewspaper
Senior Member

Posted: 06-10-2006 03:14 PM Post subject: What a moronic, masonic farce!

...I can really see how unwittingly I've fallen into the Scientology recruitment trap: with no answers to rebut, a victim must go looking for answers; in looking for answers, the victim is made to feel he has questions. Questions become self-doubt, self-doubt can be solved; Scientology has the answers...

My lgat also used the trick you mentioned earlier, to prevent buyers remorse. For three days they indoctrinate INTEGRITY and KEEPING AGREEMENTS as critical to any success. Then they give you an endorphin rush and in the middle of the endorphin rush get you to COMMIT (make an agreement) to bring people to the guest event for a sales pitch.

The other scam they use - I would be interested to see if its in the book - is an appeal to courage / fear of appearing a coward. On quest they sell the next (and most expensive) course (Inquest) by repeating over and over "Inquest is not for the faint-hearted". This is after three days of hammering away at how you have to TAKE RISKS and GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE.

(If [i:a8a95ae54b]only [/i:a8a95ae54b]my response at the time had been "of course I'm faint-hearted" with a big grin)

Lo and behold, on the scientology thread, upsidedownnewspaper wrote:

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upsidedownnewspaper
Senior Member

Posted: 06-06-2006 03:52 PM Post subject:

The discussion is fascinating for me, a junior member who has been approached several times to join Scientology. And without any knowledge of the group, it is hard to say no. "Get out of your comfort zone," I've been told. How does one respond?

[board.culteducation.com]

(other quote three pages later)

Another technique they used was music - obviously to manipulate emotions at opportune moments - has anyone noticed anything more specific about the use of music?