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DCEsquire
Thanks for this. I didn't know about the sexual interaction. That's very helpful and the sort of information I was curious (and concerned) about. I don't get it though - how do they get people to do that with strangers? Why would anyone want to do that - or are you suggesting that people self-select and the only people left at higher levels are the people that just want to have random hookups.

I can only tell you what my experience was...always the experiential focus....I believe that HAI teaches that sex is only a physical act, and that performing sex or exploring sexual aspects with anyone is a way of releasing pent-up sexual issues, so therefore, it is therapeutic...i.e....You come here for therapy, therefore participate in our therapeutic exercises and get your money's worth! The theory is that anyone can "op" out, and some do, but the peer pressure is very significant, and if you "op" out, the first thing that happens is than an intern talks to you about what is holding you back and tries to bring you back into the fold.

It is a self-selecting process....some people leave and some people stay...and those who stay seem to buy into the "sex as an allowable physical act between consenting adults" theory. In the core groups that are the financial backbone of the organization, almost everyone is poly, or into casual sex. Similar to some of the others in the leadership, my marriage broke up because my husband became one of the leadership and wanted the poly lifestyle and I didn't. Go figure....the casual sex was more important to him!

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SFBMoore
In the core groups that are the financial backbone of the organization, almost everyone is poly, or into casual sex. Similar to some of the others in the leadership, my marriage broke up because my husband became one of the leadership and wanted the poly lifestyle and I didn't. Go figure....the casual sex was more important to him!

SFB - so sorry about the impact HAI had on your relationship. I agree, this sounds quite dangerous to be doing if you are in a monogamous relationship. What actually concerns me is I know some of the women at my course who attended alone did so with the encouragement of their husbands who had done some of the higher levels.

HAI can have a positive impact on a relationship in terms of more clear communication. Personally, I would always recommend that a husband and wife go together, so I wonder why the husbands had done the workshop without the wives...especially if they had done several workshops without the wives. Why didn't they bring the wife into the fold right away? Why weren't the husbands taking the Level #1 workshop with the wife, which is common....a friend, spouse, partner becomes excited about HAI and wants someone to attend, so the Level #1 is usually done together as a bonding exercise.

My first suspicion...and this is coming from a stranger who has no clue and whose marriage was destroyed by HAI, is that the husbands would love to get the wives involved in the group sex concept. Group sex has a huge alure for most men, and it is my belief that underneath all of the politically correct rhetoric, most of the men are there for the sexual potential.

My personal experience was that I initially took my husband to HAI because I sensed that he had some deeply buried emotional issues that needed to be addressed and I sensed that the emphasis on clear communication and honesty would be beneficial. Eventually, he used the communication techniques to hide his dishonesty, and was very superficial in dealing with his emotional issues. The lack of one-on-one therapy makes this easy. Instead, he clamoured for the sexual freedom and secretly pursued it. He was elated when I dropped out and he could go to the workshops by himself.

Se la vie.

HAI may have a positive impact on a relationship in terms of more clear communication.... but I would think it would have the opposite effect. Couples who "need" the clearer communication that HAI promotes are likely more shaky at their foundation, and thereby much easier for the idiots to interfere and cause strife... and the next thing you know, they are thinking about swinging or whatever and then bam... divorce.

I would NEVER take my husband to a workshop. I took him to an intro once a couple of years ago and that was definitely bad enough.

Folks....here's an update.....my infamous "HAI" husband, who is one of their team members, is now publically harassing me, my roommate, and the friend who told me that he was having an affair. This seems to be the personal responsibility that they learn at HAI....

He lied to the court in order to obtain a temporary order against me, and the Judge has threatened to report him to the state attorney general for "abuse of process."

He crawled through a bathroom window at 3 AM when my roommate was home alone, and a couple of days later, he served her with an illegal eviction order, and threatened to impound her dogs. My roommate got a restraining order against him for this illegal behavior.

He broke into my email account and found information about the friend who told me that he admitted having an affair, and used the information in a chat room to attempt to public humiliate her.

I have a long list of his other harassment behavior.

However, in spite of his training at HAI to accept responsibility for his actions, he refuses to meet with me and my attorney to try to sort out the divorce issues in a civilized manner. Apparently, he has learned that the appropriate behavior for a HAI team member is to be a bully and to sneak around in the middle of the night. The man has no backbone. Wonder where he learned that?

He is a person who very publically represents HAI. This really demonstrates to me that the HAI training is a bunch of crap.

sfbmoore
my ex girlfriend (born and raised catholic) cheated on me with a paster from her theater group

using your thinking should i blame the church or the theater for the breakup?
perhaps it was just her not honoring our relationship because she lacks charictor and not any thing else
church, theater or HAI for that matter
i once know a bad cop does that mean that the police accadamy is a cult with no integraty?
i think ya get my point!

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greygoose
sfbmoore
my ex girlfriend (born and raised catholic) cheated on me with a paster from her theater group

using your thinking should i blame the church or the theater for the breakup?
perhaps it was just her not honoring our relationship because she lacks charictor and not any thing else
church, theater or HAI for that matter
i once know a bad cop does that mean that the police accadamy is a cult with no integraty?
i think ya get my point!

Your point is as nonsensical as most cult-type reasoning.

Funnily enough, in Los Angeles we had an elite police unit that turned into a type of cult. It became as evil as the type of criminal activity it was formed to combat and had to be rooted out, disbanded, and destroyed. You can read about it:

[query.nytimes.com]

The thing is people behave individually, in collaboration, under the influence of others, as a member or follower, socially, collectively, and in many other permutations. Fault, blame, and guilt can be apportioned accordingly. It's not as cookie-cutter simplistic as your post would indicate.


Ellen

In addition, and something that should concern you:

Cults are about stupidity as much as anything else. They proffer a type of dumbed-down thinking, quickie philosophy, simpleton knowledge, cliched thinking, formulaic "logic," and instant or pre-digested conclusions. They offer a lazy man's intellectual product for people who don't want to do the hard work of figuring things out for themselves, of time-consuming observation, questioning, and research, or of living in a state of uncertainty. It appears few people have the fortitude for the unknown. We will accept just about any preposterous myth over the discomfort of not knowing. Imagine how easy it is to toe the party line of, say, the Mormon Church where everything you need to know is provided and your whole life "plan" can be plotted out on some one-size-fits-all trajectory. No work on your part -- just keep tithing your 10 percent and following their silly prescriptions and you don't have to worry about a thing. No, the extent of the stupidity is staggering. Don't believe me? Take a little tour around the cult universe. Most cult members have no trouble seeing the absurdities in cults other than their own.


Ellen



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/06/2008 09:22PM by elena.

Greygoose,

OK, I'll take your bait....

The Catholic Church IS BEING HELD RESPONSIBLE for the priests who are sexual predators....these are mere individuals who commit crimes against children....

Our national political parties ARE BEING HELD RESPONSIBLE for the indiscretions and bad judgments of their leaders....there are mere individuals who send people to war, rob our treasury, and have affairs when they are married men...

There have been a number of companies, such as ENRON and a few others, that ARE BEING HELD RESPONSIBLE for the sometimes illegal and unethical acts of their leaders...these are merely the individuals who were paid huge salaries to protect the assets of the stockholders and employees who invested in their pension fund....

Could the list go on...certainly. But, you get the idea. There are times that society holds groups responsible for the actions of individuals who represent the organization.

My ex-husband is a member of the inner circle of HAI (a team member)...this means that he was selected to be a leader of the group because it was assumed that he had the sufficient ethical and moral judgment factors to represent the organization. He is one of the folks who sits on the sidelines and the facilitators point to him and say, "This is a profound example of what we represent." A mere participant who has taken one or two levels can be distanced from the organization, but not a man who is one of their leaders and who professes to represent their values to every new and vulnerable participant who sits in the "room of love" and looks up to the team members.

So, this is the man who crawled through the bathroom window at 3:30 am to scare my roommate; this is the man who commited the crime of breaking into my email accounts and then used the information to harass me and my friends; this is the man who is stalking me; this is the man who told the court that he is homeless and living in his car, when we now know that he is living with his new girlfriend; this is the man who put in writing to the HAI list that he feels that violence is his only option, and that violence makes sense. His threat was taken seriously and was reported to the police.

This man represents HAI at every workshop and is pointed to as a fine example of their teachings.

I leave you and the other readers to be the judge of whether or not he represents HAI. I leave you and the other readers to be the judge of whether or not the HAI experience and teachings helped him with his paranoia, anger, and mental illness. The real crime here is that HAI distracted him from seeking the help that he needed. He was lulled into thinking that taking his clothes off; playing touchy-feely games; and joining the cult was all that he needed. He should have gone to a real therapist.

So, here’s the final word on how HAI destroyed my marriage….keep in mind that Dennis Jimmink is on the HAI TEAM and REPRESENTS THE VALUES TAUGHT BY HAI….he sits on the sideline of the workshops and the facilitators point to him with pride, and the HAI membership believes he is the kind, wonderful, loving, and harmless person who willingly listens to their every trauma.

During the ‘closing’ days of our civilized relationship, my husband, Dennis Jimmink, put in writing his plans for stealing my children’s inheritance. I have owned rental property in San Francisco for 30 years, and we agreed in writing, soon after we were married, that it was my separate property and all equity would go to my children. However, he was given control over my estate in the event of my death, and ultimately revealed that he had no intention of following my wishes…somewhere along the line he decided that the property was our San Francisco house and that he was entitled to a 50% interest, and that he was entitled to all of it in the event of my death. He threatened to kill me (and make it look like an accident) and during the divorce the house morphed into “our San Francisco house” and he demanded a payout of his 50% interest.

He is now deeply offended that my separate property was given back to me in the divorce and he feels cheated. He is deeply offended that the financial obligations were evenly divided. He is deeply offended that he wasn’t able to steal from me.

He spent six months acting like the world’s worst bully and tried to break me…emotionally, physically, and financially with unbelievable daily harassment and stalking. He committed the crime of using his employer’s computer to break into my email accounts to find information to bully and harass me, my roommate, and my friends, and complained when I indignantly protested. He lied to anyone who would listen, even to the HAI list and to the court. When I didn’t give in, he whined and acted like the most helpless victimized baby that ever crawled on the planet.

And here’s the kicker….the real test of what HAI behavior really means….Dennis continues to harass our mutual friend to whom he admitted that he was having an affair. She told me. He blames her for everything, as if there was nothing wrong between us and his philandering ways from the beginning of our marriage didn’t have anything to do with it. He claims that it is her fault that he lost the comfortable lifestyle that he was living based on my rental property income, my six-figure salary, and my ability to build financial security. He doesn’t realize that he came into the marriage with nothing……

All I can say to the women out there is to BEWARE. Dennis Jimmink is a con-man and a bully who cries on your shoulder for affection and beats you up if he doesn’t get his way. He will cry about how much he loves you (while you are vulnerable)…and curse you when you realize what is happening and protect yourself. He is looking for a sugar-mama to support him….for someone to kiss away his troubles with a fat financial contribution and someone who will willingly spread her legs anytime he has sexual needs.

I WONDER WHY IT IS THAT NO ONE HAS WRITTEN ON THIS THREAD TO DEFEND EITHER HAI OR DENNIS JIMMINK????? IS IT ‘OK’ WITH HAI THAT ONE OF THEIR TRUSTED INNER CIRCLE TEAM MEMBERS HAS BEHAVED LIKE THIS….THAT HE HAS NO INTEGRITY….THAT HE CAN’T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIS OWN ACTIONS?????

IS THIS THE BEHAVIOR THAT HAI ENDORSES AND TEACHES??????