I'm surprised you lasted as long as you did! I smelled a rat early on. The big wake up in our GSLP was during a training video from "Weenie" himself. Puffing on a big cigar, which offended many of the sensitive new age granola eating crew, he essentially was telling people to fabricate stories when presenting at guest seminars. "make it up" was the advice. Don't tell rambling uninspired stories that are factually accurate. Fuse stories together that will impress, inspire etc.

So the guy who coined the phrase,

If you tell it like it is long enough eventually your word will become law in the universe,

was telling us to lie! Is this what you refer to as "recreating". It still seems somewhat incongruous. Do good story tellers embellish their stories to make them flow, yes. Do people with integrity make up stuff to get the "numbers" that you we're talking about. NO!

I wanted to deal with improving peoples lives, not meeting sales goals and statisitcs.

GSLP, IFLP same shit different day.

I'll go check out your private message. Thanks.

When Est was around there was this distinction made between "but" and "and". It was a good tool to show how people limited themselves by language.

Ex. I'd love to go to the game with you but I'm not feeling well.

As opposed to I'd love to go to the game with you AND I'm not feeling well.

It served it's purpose somewhere in the weekend but suddenly people believed but was a BAD word.

So here would be an estian comment.

I would like to aknowledge you for staying present, creating the space for this to happen AAANNNNNDDDD......

And the grat big AND would come in and that meant they were about to drop a piano on your head and invalidate anything nice they just said and ream you REAL good.

It was funny how very well educated, intelligent people started talking funny.

I think the Forum is even more wordy and mentally oriented. I've heard some of the Forum speak. Same stuff, different words.

Like I said before, If you have a headache and take 2 aspirin and feel better that doesn't mean that the whole bottle will really make ya feel real good.

To many people just overdose on this stuff. Don't take the whole bottle if you dare venture into "the valley of the shadow of wierdness"

I've got some Sterling stories that make Landmark look mainstream.

But once again, I will say I took something positive away from that too.

OK, call me names, I'm a Sterling apologist, yada yada yada ....

This is a off topic, but you did bring up Sterling.

Did you strip naked for the male bonding ritual at the end of the Sterling Weekend?

That's one of the things they don't tell you about.

And did you know Sterling videotapes the whole seminar?

I suppose you did since you must sign away rights to your image within the initial required paperwork.

Many of the men who have complained about the Weekend said it later made them nervous to know Sterling had them on videotape nude.

What do you think about all that?

I knew about the wierdness for over 23 years. People talk. The people I met through Est were all doing it. Of course, antoher seminar you HAVE to do! I new some fairly normal people that did it. I married a woman that did the Women's Weekend. She wasn't a true believer but said she got a lot from it.

Ten years passed and she got back involved with a weekly women's meeting. Our marriage seemed to benefit. I figured if I joined in I'd know the lingo and know where some of the stuff came from.

I saw your website so if there was anything I didn't know I read about here. I was prepared to hold my nose and "tough it out"

Having done Est, I saw a lot of similarities. For me it was like going to see a movie that you already know the ending to.

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the seminar. It was a real "guy's seminar"

The take home message was "divorce is not an option" Save families and the children in them. I thought that was a good message.

The wierdness you describe. I'ts true. And once again, like Est, the followup programs are stranger than the seminar.

But I got my money's worth. My marriage is better than ever and some credit has to go to my wife's involvement and what I learned during the weekend.

Do I still participate in Sterling. NO! Again, to wierd. To touchy feely for me. Almost the opposite of the Men's Weekend itself.

Kind of like Est. Good training. Lousy followup. Manipulative enrollment beliefs.

Thanks for asking.

Dpa you didn't answer my questions.

1. Did you strip naked for the male bonding ritual at the end of the Sterling Weekend?

2. And did you know Sterling videotapes the whole seminar and would be taping you naked?

For those that don't know much about Sterling--

See [www.culteducation.com]

About the nude part of the Weekend:

[www.culteducation.com]

[www.culteducation.com]

Details Magazine published an article about Sterling.

See [www.culteducation.com]

The Sterling Institute of Relationship is a for-profit private company owned by Justin Sterling. It seems to be a mix of EST, Robert Bly and John Gray.

For a taste of Sterling's wisdom--

See [www.culteducation.com]

Many complaints come from people who say Sterling's influence broke up their marrige or relationship.

Apparently Sterling couldn't save his own marriage--

See [www.culteducation.com]

There were no surprises for me. But unlike some of the people that post on this site I honor agreements of confidentiality. So I don't talk about what happened in my particular weekend.

Since Est no longer exists I have no qualms about sharing detalis from 23 years ago.

As far as the tapes, if they still exist, I don't care if they're jerking off to them back in Oakland.

And it is true, Justin apparently couldn't save his own marriage and lost the ability to even see his own daughter. Something that apparently distresses him greatly. According to people that know him.

Once again, either Justin Sterling did something bad to his daughter or she lied about what happened to hurt him. Pretty sad situation.

Some of your link suggests that Sterling men are knuckle dragging tough guys. Most are whimpy sensitive new age guys trying to find their masculine essence. And believe me, still searching!! In the old days people would call them "pussies". They were just way to touchy feely "we love you man" guys for me. I had to tell men to stop hugging me.

But I'm sure you can relate to Justin's personal failings. Losing a 7.5 million dollar lawsuit and needing to file bankruptcy must have been a major personal setback for you. And people still remind you of your criminal past, as you also like to point out others sordid past and present.

dpa10 it really is becoming increasingly obvious that your purpose in posting on this board only to apologize for the "cult" like groups you have been involved in.

So far you have defended EST, Landmark, Sterling and TM.

All these groups are listed at the Ross Institute database with large archives of bad press, complaints etc.

Interesting how you just reverted once again to a personal attack as soon as you were put in the position to be exposed as an apologist.

Correction: The lawsuit you mention did not result in a $7.5 million dollar loss for me and it was settled in 1996, essentially for more of my professional time and $5,000.00

See [www.culteducation.com]

The plaintiff told CBS "60 Minutes" and the Washington Post he was used by Scientology. We are now friendly and he left the "cult."

However, bringing this up has nothing to do with Sterling or the fact that he has a video of you naked on his shelf.

The point is Sterling has a destructive history and does not inform people what they are really getting into when they sign off on his paperwork.

Later when the men strip naked, as you once did, they realize what they signed away through the paperwork.

This is similar to Landmark requiring participants to sign an advance agreement that limits their legal recourse to binding arbritration.

Both groups don't fully inform people before entering weekend programs exactly what they are submitting themselves to and signing off on in meaningful detail.

Your reaction to all this is very telling.

I said a while ago that our buddy dap10 was here on a mission.
This must be a very disturbing website, for all of those folks out there trying to promote their cultic interests.
Frankly, i see dpa10 as trying to draw out info from certain people on this board, perhaps to then figure out their actual identity.
Also, dpa10 looks to "bait" people, and get them going, just to make trouble. This person must have some type of agenda, or be involved in some way with the organizations being discussed.

As a side-bar, i had never heard of this Sterling nonsense until now. I guess there is no end to this seminar nonsense. This "Justin Sterling" is obviously just another in an infinite line of greedy meglomaniac conmen out to make lots of money without getting a real job.
Be very careful about taking relationship advice from a guy who's ex-wife has a restraining order against him, and who is forbidden to see his own daughter.
What a total, utter farce.

Coz

[board.culteducation.com]

Started by a woman whose husband got involved with the Sterling set up.

The thread got a huge number of views--it elicited a great deal of interest.

If you read through the entire thread, around page 2 or 3, 'elena' one of our members quoted material from a former Landmark staffer, describing (with deep regret) what he did during his days as a Forum Leader.

Read Drew Kopp's paper ( a 40 page depth analysis of the LEC room set up written by someone who was a former LEC volunteer, took advanced trainings, did get some personal benefit, but was finally troubled by the nature of the room set up and how people were treated).

www.u.arizona.edu/~kopp/Finalmat3.doc

A reference in the other thread piqued my interest.

Who could list the "four distinctions" LEC makes and the "three hooks" that people have?