Hello All,
I recognize that there are two sides are every story and I'm just throwing in my two cents.

I personally have had a good experience working with New Era. I'm currently going through the third stage also known as ACT and would recommend the program to my friends and family.

Initially I too was very skeptical about the program after my friend recommended it to me and saw this forum and was very *VERY* scared for her. However I gave it a go just to see what it was all about and I enrolled in the program.

The reason why I enrolled in New Era was to improve communication with my family. Quite honestly this is and still is my number one priority. Referring back to "trained1"'s comments, I didn't get that impression at all that I should put the program above and beyond my family. In fact my family was the primary reason I decided to do the program and I've gotten so much out of it. To be more specific here's my situation: I live several hours away from my parents and I would regularly call my parents about once every two weeks. We would chat about the weather, about how school or work was going, and other things, but I've always wanted a deeper connection with my parents. For the last ten to fifteen years my family has continually TALKED about improving our communication, but no one did anything about it. Until now.

Since I've been in ACT I've been able to share more with my parents and what my hopes and dreams are for my life. It's been wonderful because my parents have really stepped up and they're listening to me and we're having conversations that I never dreamed we would have. By the way, my parents have not gone through the training.

Now I don't want to say that New Era is the end and be all for everyone. I think the training would work for most individuals, but for the people who have "deep psychological" problems as "trained1" put it, I think that the assertion that it's risky is absolutely correct, those individuals who have mental health issues need professional counseling not this training.

Hope this helps with the discussion. =)

Greetings,

I'm a new graduate to the second level (Realize) program. I've read all of these posts and also many on LGATs prior to choosing to experience the training myself. I've also re-read these and other posts on similar programs. The feedback I read on LGATs is that they are fairly nonconclusive. There does appear to be inidication of some positives and negatives aren't indicated: [en.wikipedia.org]. There are also many of these programs out there: [www.geocities.com]

My intent is not to advocate or dissuade interested parties in these type of trainings, simply to share experiences. I made my own choice to attend and I am responsible for that choice. I find it extremely important for me to remain in tune with my logical faculties through any training, be it professional, religious or other.

Having been through the first 2 levels, it has given me pause to realize there are more important things in life that I overlook. I used to be very trusting in my earlier years and have found myself becoming hardened and skeptical of almost everything I do. I remain in touch with my sensibilities and realize that NO ONE on this planet has all of the answers, it's up to me to seek and learn.

One thing that I did get very early in the process is that it is a very self supporting organization and that personal referrals are truly the best way to find people interested. I do that in my own business, when asking my clients for referrals. I don't find anything ethically wrong with this. I've met some great people here, some new timers, some old timers. There are some who go through the program and simply get on with their lives, taking the education given and making it part of their daily thought processes. Others want to give back to what they've learned and help coach others in acts of giving. I still don't find anything ethically wrong with that, and a human level find it very expressive and selfless.

I do find it hard to believe that someone could keep themselves motivated as much as they are, if they were truly being deceptive. Though I do recall the Jim Jones horror. The work in the workshop is lenghty, and to me, would be tiresome after years of doing the same thing, if there wasn't something gratifying about it. I am, to a fault, a humanitarian and do believe in the good of people, which is what struck me as positive in my experience. Doing the math, I also don't see a huge bankroll going through this place.

I'm very open to respectful, logical debate for anyone interested, and I'm more than happy to respond. I will offer and insist on mutual respect during any dialogue.

I will commit to this forum that as I move towards the next level, my experience starts to change or waiver, I will comment back again.

Best regards

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johnc925
Greetings,

I'm a new graduate to the second level (Realize) program.

Do you personally call yourself "graduate" or are you accepting the corporation's label and manipulative form of implied status elevation? Do you think people outside the group would or might call you "graduate" in the sense of "college graduate" or "high school graduate" or even "graduate of the school of hard knocks?"

Quote

I've read all of these posts and also many on LGATs prior to choosing to experience the training myself.

I am curious to know if you "choose to experience" hypnosis and/or self-hypnosis techniques with covert suggestions and emotional manipulations that may have been done outside your direct awareness? Also, do they refer to their program(ming) as "training?" If so, what is it that you have been "trained" to do? Is it something specific, as in most training programs, or is it something vague and non-descript as learning to "live a life you love?"

Quote

I've also re-read these and other posts on similar programs. The feedback I read on LGATs is that they are fairly nonconclusive. There does appear to be inidication of some positives and negatives aren't indicated: [en.wikipedia.org]. There are also many of these programs out there: [www.geocities.com]

It is difficult to figure out what you are saying here. If English is your mother tongue, you might consider a remedial course?

The list you've linked is an interesting one. From a quick perusal, they are all descendants of Mind Dynamics, and, by proxy, est, Lifespring, etc. Are you aware of these common origins? Do you know anything about Mind Dynamics (and its evil twin Leadership Dynamics)?

Quote

My intent is not to advocate or dissuade interested parties in these type of trainings, simply to share experiences. I made my own choice to attend and I am responsible for that choice. I find it extremely important for me to remain in tune with my logical faculties through any training, be it professional, religious or other.

Are you aware of the fact that the "share," "choice," and "responsibility" memes are implanted during the "programming?" These trainings have had decades to figure out ways to fly under the radar of your "logical faculties."

Quote

Having been through the first 2 levels, it has given me pause to realize there are more important things in life that I overlook. I used to be very trusting in my earlier years and have found myself becoming hardened and skeptical of almost everything I do. I remain in touch with my sensibilities and realize that NO ONE on this planet has all of the answers, it's up to me to seek and learn.

What important things do you (habitually?) overlook?

Was there some point when you believed that ONE person on this planet had "all of the answers?"

Quote

One thing that I did get very early in the process is that it is a very self supporting organization and that personal referrals are truly the best way to find people interested. I do that in my own business, when asking my clients for referrals. I don't find anything ethically wrong with this. I've met some great people here, some new timers, some old timers. There are some who go through the program and simply get on with their lives, taking the education given and making it part of their daily thought processes. Others want to give back to what they've learned and help coach others in acts of giving. I still don't find anything ethically wrong with that, and a human level find it very expressive and selfless.

Many others find this extremely manipulative and exploitive of the more trusting and generous of the flock. (It would creep me out if my doctor, dentist, accountant, hairdresser, plumber, or auto-mechanic asked me repeatedly to refer other customers or implied that my future treatment/success/prospects depended somehow on my willingness and performance of this task.)

Quote

I do find it hard to believe that someone could keep themselves motivated as much as they are, if they were truly being deceptive.

Money's a big motivator.

Quote

Though I do recall the Jim Jones horror. The work in the workshop is lenghty, and to me, would be tiresome after years of doing the same thing, if there wasn't something gratifying about it. I am, to a fault, a humanitarian and do believe in the good of people, which is what struck me as positive in my experience. Doing the math, I also don't see a huge bankroll going through this place.

Most of the "second tier" or "trainers" or "facilitators" in these groups are themselves manipulated into believing that they too will someday be at the top of the pyramid.

Quote

I'm very open to respectful, logical debate for anyone interested, and I'm more than happy to respond. I will offer and insist on mutual respect during any dialogue.

It's not your call. I have no respect for the opinion of anyone who affiliates him or herself with one of these "programs," parrots their jargon and their "talking points," insists that he is in full possession of his own mind after attending and proceeds to defend and to praise the group, and then turns a blind eye to the litany of complaints and long list of casualties, the horror stories of exploitation and abuse, and the obvious predatory actions of these psycho-scammers. Your opinion is not your own, you see. It sounds like any other of thousands of such "testimonials" that thousands of "graduates" such as yourself churn out at an astonishing rate. They all sound so dishearteningly similar. They must excise some portion of the imagination when they implant this stuff in their followers' minds. It's not your fault, however. You've been subjected to a sophisticated program of covert influence and manipulation.

Quote

I will commit to this forum that as I move towards the next level, my experience starts to change or waiver, I will comment back again.

It is all about "the next level," you see. That's how they keep you paying. The likelihood of your ever "getting there" is pretty slim unless you start your own cult, however. Ask any scientologist who has become disillusioned.


Ellen

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elena

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johnc925
Greetings,

I'm a new graduate to the second level (Realize) program.

Do you personally call yourself "graduate" or are you accepting the corporation's label and manipulative form of implied status elevation? Do you think people outside the group would or might call you "graduate" in the sense of "college graduate" or "high school graduate" or even "graduate of the school of hard knocks?"

Quote

I've read all of these posts and also many on LGATs prior to choosing to experience the training myself.

I am curious to know if you "choose to experience" hypnosis and/or self-hypnosis techniques with covert suggestions and emotional manipulations that may have been done outside your direct awareness? Also, do they refer to their program(ming) as "training?" If so, what is it that you have been "trained" to do? Is it something specific, as in most training programs, or is it something vague and non-descript as learning to "live a life you love?"

Quote

I've also re-read these and other posts on similar programs. The feedback I read on LGATs is that they are fairly nonconclusive. There does appear to be inidication of some positives and negatives aren't indicated: [en.wikipedia.org]. There are also many of these programs out there: [www.geocities.com]

It is difficult to figure out what you are saying here. If English is your mother tongue, you might consider a remedial course?

The list you've linked is an interesting one. From a quick perusal, they are all descendants of Mind Dynamics, and, by proxy, est, Lifespring, etc. Are you aware of these common origins? Do you know anything about Mind Dynamics (and its evil twin Leadership Dynamics)?

Quote

My intent is not to advocate or dissuade interested parties in these type of trainings, simply to share experiences. I made my own choice to attend and I am responsible for that choice. I find it extremely important for me to remain in tune with my logical faculties through any training, be it professional, religious or other.

Are you aware of the fact that the "share," "choice," and "responsibility" memes are implanted during the "programming?" These trainings have had decades to figure out ways to fly under the radar of your "logical faculties."

Quote

Having been through the first 2 levels, it has given me pause to realize there are more important things in life that I overlook. I used to be very trusting in my earlier years and have found myself becoming hardened and skeptical of almost everything I do. I remain in touch with my sensibilities and realize that NO ONE on this planet has all of the answers, it's up to me to seek and learn.

What important things do you (habitually?) overlook?

Was there some point when you believed that ONE person on this planet had "all of the answers?"

Quote

One thing that I did get very early in the process is that it is a very self supporting organization and that personal referrals are truly the best way to find people interested. I do that in my own business, when asking my clients for referrals. I don't find anything ethically wrong with this. I've met some great people here, some new timers, some old timers. There are some who go through the program and simply get on with their lives, taking the education given and making it part of their daily thought processes. Others want to give back to what they've learned and help coach others in acts of giving. I still don't find anything ethically wrong with that, and a human level find it very expressive and selfless.

Many others find this extremely manipulative and exploitive of the more trusting and generous of the flock. (It would creep me out if my doctor, dentist, accountant, hairdresser, plumber, or auto-mechanic asked me repeatedly to refer other customers or implied that my future treatment/success/prospects depended somehow on my willingness and performance of this task.)

Quote

I do find it hard to believe that someone could keep themselves motivated as much as they are, if they were truly being deceptive.

Money's a big motivator.

Quote

Though I do recall the Jim Jones horror. The work in the workshop is lenghty, and to me, would be tiresome after years of doing the same thing, if there wasn't something gratifying about it. I am, to a fault, a humanitarian and do believe in the good of people, which is what struck me as positive in my experience. Doing the math, I also don't see a huge bankroll going through this place.

Most of the "second tier" or "trainers" or "facilitators" in these groups are themselves manipulated into believing that they too will someday be at the top of the pyramid.

Quote

I'm very open to respectful, logical debate for anyone interested, and I'm more than happy to respond. I will offer and insist on mutual respect during any dialogue.

It's not your call. I have no respect for the opinion of anyone who affiliates him or herself with one of these "programs," parrots their jargon and their "talking points," insists that he is in full possession of his own mind after attending and proceeds to defend and to praise the group, and then turns a blind eye to the litany of complaints and long list of casualties, the horror stories of exploitation and abuse, and the obvious predatory actions of these psycho-scammers. Your opinion is not your own, you see. It sounds like any other of thousands of such "testimonials" that thousands of "graduates" such as yourself churn out at an astonishing rate. They all sound so dishearteningly similar. They must excise some portion of the imagination when they implant this stuff in their followers' minds. It's not your fault, however. You've been subjected to a sophisticated program of covert influence and manipulation.

Quote

I will commit to this forum that as I move towards the next level, my experience starts to change or waiver, I will comment back again.

It is all about "the next level," you see. That's how they keep you paying. The likelihood of your ever "getting there" is pretty slim unless you start your own cult, however. Ask any scientologist who has become disillusioned.


Ellen

way to bring the REAL back into REALITY Ellen. I hope johnc925, and others like him, will read very carefully, and discern what was done to them, while they were being 'trained' and 'empowered'.

I’ve taken some time to both reflect on your words as well as my ongoing experiences in this journey or path that I’ve opted to take. My initial inclination was not to respond to your responses, because I felt my request for polite debate was ignored. I’ve thought this out well (not a typical characteristic of mine) and wanted to speak from my heart and not from anger.

This program is about leadership and making a difference in your own life, period. There is no greed here; the numbers do not support it, as I’ve stated. What it does support, for me, is a collective group of very caring people who support one another in becoming better than what we are now.

Limiting beliefs are the antithesis of success… they simply cannot co-exist. How did the Berlin wall finally get torn down? How has any movement by people occurred? I answer that we were driven with our hearts, rather than our minds and/or our ‘profitability’. We cannot take our wealth with us when we die. Take a moment and give that some serious reflection - for yourself, and no one else. You don’t need to share that, but if you haven’t asked yourself those types of questions, you’re likely not living to your potential.

Isn’t there enough cynicism in life today? The fact is, we all die; Jim Morrison’s book entitled “no one gets out alive” speaks to it. He saw that reality and was looking well past materialisms. When I reflect on that reality, I’m forced to ask myself what mark will I leave on this earth after I’m gone? Another hard working, stressed out taxpayer, who didn’t contribute back to the free society he/she was given? And while in this journey called life, am I a slave to systems we’ve all developed “for a better life”? To me, religious details and differences are secondary to what keeps me going every day, and I have to tell you that deeper human interactions, helping charitable causes is extremely self empowering.

These are hard questions that no one is comfortable discussing with one another, which is why we need to discuss them… we need to take our lives seriously! How can we accomplish the great things we are capable of with so much baggage we’ve all grown up with?

THAT is what this and other similar leadership empowering programs represent. It isn’t religious cult, or a sales scam. I initially felt you had insulted my intelligence when you ignored my polite request for respectful debate. You take words out of context to support your position. But I realize that I was just as skeptical as you going through the first 2 programs levels. For me, I wanted a change in my life… for the better. And I’ve found that has enriched my life and the people I interact with on a daily basis. Is the program for everyone? Perhaps not, but how do you know until you try?

Respectfully,

John

To whom it may concern:

LGATs or mass marathon training has a deeply troubled history of complaints, bad press and personal injury lawsuits.

See [www.culteducation.com]

This research paper by a clinical psychologist sums up some of the disturbing and potentially dangerous aspects of such groups.

Here are isolated 13 liabilities of encounter groups, some of which are similar to characteristics of most current mass marathon psychotherapy training sessions:

1. They lack adequate participant-selection criteria.

2. They lack reliable norms, supervision, and adequate training for leaders.

3. They lack clearly defined responsibility.

4. They sometimes foster pseudoauthenticity and pseudoreality.

5. They sometimes foster inappropriate patterns of relationships.

6. They sometimes ignore the necessity and utility of ego defenses.

7. They sometimes teach the covert value of total exposure instead of valuing personal differences.

8. They sometimes foster impulsive personality styles and behavioral strategies.

9. They sometimes devalue critical thinking in favor of "experiencing" without self-analysis or reflection.

10. They sometimes ignore stated goals, misrepresent their actual techniques, and obfuscate their real agenda.

11. They sometimes focus too much on structural self-awareness techniques and misplace the goal of democratic education; as a result participants may learn more about themselves and less about group process.

12. They pay inadequate attention to decisions regarding time limitations. This may lead to increased pressure on some participants to unconsciously "fabricate" a cure.

13. They fail to adequately consider the "psychonoxious" or deleterious effects of group participation (or] adverse countertransference reactions.

The groups were determined to be dangerous when:

1. Leaders had rigid, unbending beliefs about what participants should experience and believe, how they should behave in the group. and when they should change.

2. Leaders had no sense of differential diagnosis and assessment skills, valued cathartic emotional breakthroughs as the ultimate therapeutic experience, and sadistically pressed to create or force a breakthrough in every participant.

3. Leaders had an evangelical system of belief that was the one single pathway to salvation.

4. Leaders were true believers and sealed their doctrine off from discomforting data or disquieting results and tended to discount a poor result by, "blaming the victim."

See [www.culteducation.com]

This research paper by a sociologist describes coercive persuasion techniques, which are often used by LGATs.

The key factors that distinguish coercive persuasion from other training and socialization schemes are:

1. The reliance on intense interpersonal and psychological attack to destabilize an individual's sense of self to promote compliance

2. The use of an organized peer group

3. Applying interpersonal pressure to promote conformity

4. The manipulation of the totality of the person's social environment to stabilize behavior once modified

Robert Lifton labeled the extraordinarily high degree of social control characteristic of organizations that operate reform programs as their totalistic quality (Lifton 1961). This concept refers to the mobilization of the entirety of the person's social, and often physical, environment in support of the manipulative effort. Lifton identified eight themes or properties of reform environments that contribute to their totalistic quality:

1. Control of communication

2. Emotional and behavioral manipulation

3. Demands for absolute conformity to behavior prescriptions derived from the ideology

4. Obsessive demands for confession

5. Agreement that the ideology is faultless

6. Manipulation of language in which cliches substitute for analytic thought

7. Reinterpretation of human experience and emotion in terms of doctrine

8. Classification of those not sharing the ideology as inferior and not worthy of respect

What Lifton calls "thought reform programs" is frequently referred to as "brainwashing" within popular culture.

John:

They are indeed making shitloads of money on this program. You must be terrible with maths.

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johnc925

I will commit to this forum that as I move towards the next level, my experience starts to change or waiver, I will comment back again.

That my friends is the sleep deprived ramblings of a new ACT or LP participant whatever they are calling the ever elite 3rd level of this bullshit place this month. If I had to guess I'd say he just finished weekend one. (Since I was first introduced to this blue collar cult it has had 3 names - iImpact, Accelerate, and now New Era) Make no mistake it is in fact the same bullshit Lifespring, it is even run by John Hanley. The robots can deny the connection all they want but the man himself gave part of my realize training... Sounds to me like Johnc925 is looking to be the one person that makes a difference, first on this forum - then the world.....how lucky are we that we're his ACT pet project?

Its been 3 years since they infected my life and I escaped not so unharmed. I lost friends, some because I stopped going to endless trainings meetings, weekends, and never ending phone calls, and started thinking for my self again, and others because I hounded them to no end til they enrolled themselves or cut me out of their life for some peace. I lost my self own respect for some time. So you will forgive me if I don't offer you "respectful dialogue" as I have nothing but disdain and pity for you as long as you come here as an apologist trying to prove what I went through doesn't really happen or is the exception to the rule.

Concord, California is in Eastern Contra Costa County.

That, friends, is one of the areas that has been especially hard hit by the subprime mortgage fiasco.

Two years ago, a friend of mine who rides with his bicycle club in that area said he was horror stricken by the whopping number of foreclosure signs on properties all over that area.

As if having an LGAT in the area is not already bad enough...

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corboy
Concord, California is in Eastern Contra Costa County.

That, friends, is one of the areas that has been especially hard hit by the subprime mortgage fiasco.

Two years ago, a friend of mine who rides with his bicycle club in that area said he was horror stricken by the whopping number of foreclosure signs on properties all over that area.

As if having an LGAT in the area is not already bad enough...

Funny you should mention that, there is a very high number of people in the mortgage/real estate industry that are "graduates"....its an extremely viral thing when the top producers in the industry are marketing for your LGAT....