An addendum to my post from a few minutes ago: if you go to [ask.metafilter.com] , you will see a forum posting by "asavage" about doing the Direct Centering course 20 or so years ago. With a little web searching, it looked like this was actually Adam Savage of the tv show "MythBusters". I met Adam at a conference back in June and confirmed that he actually did do the DC course back around 1985, and that he had dated someone named Swansea. I actually have a letter in my files of DC-related correspondence that mentions someone named Swansea.

Hi Everyone,
I started reading this forum a few days ago. You have all inspired me to write about my experiences with DC. It has been such a long time that I have talked to anyone connected with the course... I just never thought I would be thinking or writing about it again. Laaree, we probably could play a little geography and figure out who we were back then. I do remember Allison B. and that he was originally from Chicago. I'm curious about the book and will look for it. I found a recent photo of Michael on the internet the other day. He looks different; Michael and his crowd, which I guess you were apart of, made Direct Centering worth the trouble, at least for the time I was involved. For someone like me, who would have never had the opportunity to meet and get to know all of you - it was the reason I kept coming back every week.

Since reading all of your posts I got a little nostalgic, please forgive me for skipping over the deadly, harmful side of DC. I'm happy to discuss with all of you the repercussions and everything, but for now here goes:

Former Class IV Assistant Tells All
It was a warm New York evening in April. I was heading towards Broadway up towards 12th and 13th and I was scared. After all I didn’t know where I was going to sleep that night - a fact which plagued me the entire train ride in from Philadelphia. I had come here to take a weekend course on my unlimited-ness and I had no idea what was going to happen or how I would feel by Sunday. I walked into Gavin's New York loft apartment, circa 1981 and little did I know that my life was about to change forever. I mean once I knew how to discharge and let go of my attachments the world would be mine for the taking. Right?!?!?!

So began my journey and exploration of self. How did I get there? I guess in the same way so many of us found Direct Centering and Gavin – from someone whom I called friend. In the past, she had tried to convince me (to no avail) to sign up for the Est training. She had been pretty much an est devotee, but the sudden and violent death of her long time boyfriend sent her searching for something a little more “powerful”. She found it in Direct Centering and now she wanted me to do the same. She called me at a low point in my life and I responded in the affirmative. I had no money - and she offered to lend it to me. From what I've been reading in these posts, this really sounds familiar, doesn't it?

So there I was about to meet Gavin for the first time. We all sat there under our nametags wondering what was going to happen next when the course suddenly began. We were told that each of us would have three minutes to “manifest” ourselves on the small platform/stage. Then someone with a stop watch demonstrated what three minutes felt like by calling time after three minutes had passed. My first reaction was to panic - three minutes to talk about myself in front of these people? Well, I remember the hair on the back of my neck stood up… It wasn’t a comforting feeling....

So I took the course in spite of my fears. And I stayed. The night of our graduation which I think was on a Tuesday, one of Gavin’s followers, Mark, encouraged me to come up on the stage to share my experience of the course. I remember telling everyone how unique the weekend was and how I would never have another experience quite like it again, that I felt younger and more alive. And, I meant it. Little did I know that I would be spending the better part of two years talking up the course to others and taking every new seminar and workshop that came down the pike. At that point, I had no idea that courses and more courses were all that were on the horizon for me.

I started assisting and before long had become class IV, spending all of my free time at Direct Centering. I lived in the house on Delancey Street for a time. As it turned out this wasn't for me by any stretch of the imagination. It took me less than four months to realize that I needed to get out of there and fast. There was a really horrible ugly confrontation with the other house members when I tried to leave. We all got over it though once I got my own place and I continued to assist for another year or so, just not class IV. We all worked long hours helping him deliver the course anyway despite my less than class four status. These were exciting times, though. And, I think we all thought we were involved in something real and valuable but also something dark and sinister, I think because Gavin himself was such a suspicious character. We didn’t drink the Kool-Aid, but there was sushi and popcorn and a very weird drink with sunflower seeds and tahini! I liked going to New York and I liked the interesting people involved with Direct Centering at the time. There were actors, writers and other interesting people searching for something that Direct Centering somehow gave them. Surely I was on to something. It was a time of self-study and healing and I think I did get to do that in my time there. After a while, I started seeing all of my friends agree to spending more and more time delivering Gavin's word and I knew that I wasn't going to the "next level" with them ever, so my nametag came off for the last time and I was able move on. I was pretty excited at the prospect of having free weekends and honest to g-d free time of my own again.

A few years later I came back for one more System Review - I can't remember how or why I decided to do it. At the time I felt so much more in control of my life and situation, I knew that there was no danger whatsoever of being seduced to return. It had been at least two years since I had done anything and a lot had changed in two-three years. Gavin was still a lech but for the most part he was great, and the course was a lot of fun – I didn’t throw up or anything – which I used to do a lot of in the old days. People tried to get me to sign on for more – of course, I expected them to. I might have felt a little insulted if they hadn’t tried, but I remained steadfast.

Nice to hear more from you, Andy and Larrabee! It's interesting to hear that in exploring your memories in writing, you remembered a lot of cherished things, as well as negative. I can't say that, really, but I'm looking forward to reading about your experiences.

I wrote a little more, myself, which I forgot to post. This passage is about the after-effects of leaving the groups "cold-turkey", and some philosophical questions about the intensity of the experiences.
***


On the strength of these new bonds, I decided to completely sever all ties to anyone from Bayard Hora and Associates. At this point, it was a survival move. I had been reduced to a state of constant panic, and was on the verge of becoming non-functional. I had even dreamed one recent night of dozens of tentacles reaching, crawling, toward me. Each one appeared to be a separate entity, but then I saw that they all emanated from Bayard. I woke up just before a dozen or more of them wrapped themselves around my body.

I left a phone message at the office that I wasn’t coming in any more, and stayed on Staten Island the next morning. My mental chaos continued . The second day, when I came home from my newspaper job, the phone began to ring for me. The person on the other end would say, “We’ve missed you at the office!” or “Why don’t you sign up for volunteer staff this weekend?”…”This is Al”…”This is Violet”. I asked Ira to intercept all calls and tell pursuers that I was never going to take any more calls from Bayard’s group, or have anything to do with it. Ira was willing and effective at this role.
Once the direct infusions stopped and I could take stock, I was stunned my mental state! Years earlier I’d taken several psychedelic trips. That was the only comparison I could find to my current state.
Yet I hadn’t done any drugs for more than fifteen years! What was going on? I was shocked, asking that question, to realize the current of intensity that had taken over my mind was due to karma! It was nothing but all the energy pumped into my system by months of artificially ramped-up human, emotional input: all the confrontations, all the demands, all the intrusions by phone, on the street, in courses, at the office. It was flooded with energy! Would it ever recede?

After a couple of weeks, it finally did begin to recede. Where did all that karma go? What did it mean that—I realized that it was true—I had entered into relationships with these hundreds of people who had crisscrossed my life because of Bayard. Would I have to work out relationships with all of them in future lifetimes? Or was it Bayard himself who actually bore the karmic responsibility for having unleashed all these megatons of human energy? Where was he leading everyone? That was the ultimate question, as far as where his responsibility would bear him. Was it for the freeing, the betterment, of each person, as the courses advertised? Or was it mainly for Bayard to create his little empire?
I did not have to answer that question, or any of them, really. What I had done would have whatever consequence it had. Karma was not as ephemeral as a drug; it was not something anyone could evade. I had only, whatever mistakes I might have made, to go on from this day, living the best life I could. The rest would take care of itself. At least, I hoped it would.

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laarree
An addendum to my post from a few minutes ago: if you go to [ask.metafilter.com] , you will see a forum posting by "asavage" about doing the Direct Centering course 20 or so years ago. With a little web searching, it looked like this was actually Adam Savage of the tv show "MythBusters". I met Adam at a conference back in June and confirmed that he actually did do the DC course back around 1985, and that he had dated someone named Swansea. I actually have a letter in my files of DC-related correspondence that mentions someone named Swansea.

So Laaree, how did you manage to break away from DC? And, what's brought you to this forum at this time in your life? If you don't mind me asking. I left DC around 1983. I had a lot of guilt early on, but finally came to realize that I deserved to live my life free from Direct Centering. I wrote a longer piece for this forum but it hasn't been approved yet. I might try to put it up again later on. Along the way over the years I heard about people in drips and drabs and how they got out. Once when I was purchasing a home, the inspector turned out to be Jill 's younger brother and Jill had only recently "escaped". That was 1991. I think that was almost ten years that she was with him.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2008 09:45PM by rrmoderator.

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andyb4
So Laaree, how did you manage to break away from DC? And, what's brought you to this forum at this time in your life? If you don't mind me asking. I left Direct Centering around 1983. I had a lot of guilt early on, but finally came to realize that I deserved to live my life free from Direct Centering. I wrote a longer piece for this forum but it hasn't been approved yet. I might try to put it up again later on. Along the way over the years I heard about people in drips and drabs and how they got out. Once when I was purchasing a home, the inspector turned out to be Jill 's younger brother and Jill had only recently "escaped". That was 1991. I think that was almost ten years that she was with him.

I'm reading all this during a slow moment at work right now, so I can't give your questions the attention they is due until later this evening.

About my being on this forum: Although my time at DC is a blurry memory at this point, I get reminded of it very often, by everything from news about Tom Cruise and his latest Scientology-related antics to the latest outrages and silliness perpetrated by fanatical and fundamentalist religious groups to hype about books like "The Secret" (all about "manifesting") to a creationist pentecostal gaining a vice presidential nomination, etc. etc. After having discovered that Bayard's coven was alive and well and living on the internet many years ago, still making extraordinary claims about what his current teachings could do for prospective students, I thought it would useful if there were warnings about him on the web that could be found easily through Googling. The fact that he is selling false hope to people with potentially grave illnesses these days is unconscionable, although he is far from the only one doing so in the wider world of alternative medicine and New Age healing. I say false hope because I don't believe for a minute that he has discovered something (Immunics) that actually works. I hope eventually someone who actually has been involved with Immunics shows up here and can report on it.

Later...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2008 09:45PM by rrmoderator.

I've been reading over the posts here and I just wanted all of you to know that I didn't quit Direct Centering/LGAT without a backup plan (i finally figured out what LGAT stands for). One of the things Gavin asked us to do pretty early on was the Est training. For his own personal reasons... He wanted us to enroll more people in the course and those unsuspecting people at Est were prime targets. So, I did the training. And, I loved it. I felt so much safer at Est. You could play there and not get called on your stuff for years!!! So after Direct Centering I was still hanging around at the "Forum". I was freaked out when years later a few Direct Centering Associates (because by that time he had "associates") showed up at one of my seminars and I realized pretty quickly that they had targeted me! Those guys would have done anything to get me to come back. It was so surreal.

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andyb4
I've been reading over the posts here and I just wanted all of you to know that I didn't quit Direct Centering/LGAT without a backup plan (i finally figured out what LGAT stands for). One of the things Gavin asked us to do pretty early on was the Est training. For his own personal reasons... He wanted us to enroll more people in the course and those unsuspecting people at Est were prime targets. So, I did the training. And, I loved it. I felt so much safer at Est. You could play there and not get called on your stuff for years!!! So after Direct Centering I was still hanging around at the "Forum". I was freaked out when years later a few Direct Centering Associates (because by that time he had "associates") showed up at one of my seminars and I realized pretty quickly that they had targeted me! Those guys would have done anything to get me to come back. It was so surreal.

You know, Andyb4, I came to this site because my experience with Bayard and others almost killed me. It sounds to me as if you are still "gung ho". I don't want to censor what anyone says, and I certainly can't legislate what anyone thinks, but I don't feel safe after reading your posts. If feels to me as if the question of abusiveness of cults does not exist for you. It's ok with me if the experiences were good for you, but I feel somehow as if one for whom they were not good, is still somehow a failure in your eyes. I think maybe that is what it is. I think there may be more to it than that. I would like to hear from others, if possible. The LGAT "way of life" still seems something of which you're quite proud. It is so alien to me that, well, I came to this site to help integrate how I am, and how these groups are, and how we can both/all be in the same world, and all be ok. Although I have questions about whether such a confrontational and especially, manipulative lifestyle is really ok. My hypothesis was, perhaps still is, that the groups can be damaging, at least to people who are basically introverts.

Anyway, whether I make any more appearances here will likely depend on whether I continue to feel safe.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2008 08:50AM by REALnothings.

I just wanted to say that I am not still "gung ho" (and I would never want you to think that I wanted to encourage people to do any more courses or anything) (and I didn't mean to defend any of it) and I am so sorry that anything that I said caused you more pain in remembering DC. It's been such a long time since I've done any "enlightenment courses". Truly, I'm not in touch with the dangers and manipulation I fell victim too (it was over 20 years ago that I've done any kind of course, est or otherwise). Writing about DC was my mistake. I broke a cardinal net etiquette rule, I should have waited before writing for a little longer to better understand who was here. I hope that you will continue to follow this string.

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andyb4
I just wanted to say that I am not still "gung ho" (and I would never want you to think that I wanted to encourage people to do any more courses or anything) (and I didn't mean to defend any of it) and I am so sorry that anything that I said caused you more pain in remembering DC. It's been such a long time since I've done any "enlightenment courses". Truly, I'm not in touch with the dangers and manipulation I fell victim too (it was over 20 years ago that I've done any kind of course, est or otherwise). Writing about DC was my mistake. I broke a cardinal net etiquette rule, I should have waited before writing for a little longer to better understand who was here. I hope that you will continue to follow this string.

Well, thank you, Andy. It was kind and sensitive of you to display such compassion. Maybe I'll leave it at that, for now. If more comes to me later, I'll add it.

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andyb4
So Laaree, how did you manage to break away from DC? And, what's brought you to this forum at this time in your life? If you don't mind me asking. I left DC around 1983. I had a lot of guilt early on, but finally came to realize that I deserved to live my life free from Direct Centering. I wrote a longer piece for this forum but it hasn't been approved yet. I might try to put it up again later on. Along the way over the years I heard about people in drips and drabs and how they got out. Once when I was purchasing a home, the inspector turned out to be Jill 's younger brother and Jill had only recently "escaped". That was 1991. I think that was almost ten years that she was with him.

Re: breaking away from DC--I sent an email to hara a few months back with my little story. Here's a slightly edited cut-and-paste:

"I left DC kind of ass-backwards. For along time I had been inwardly rebellious and disdainful toward all the demands
that were constantly placed upon me, resisting the trend of long-time assistants becoming fulltimers and was unhappy
about the loss of attention that I used to get from Bayard when the group was much smaller. I also was clinging
on to my pre-DC goal of being a successful professional artist or illustrator, which I refused to give up despite
getting constant messages from all directions that the greatest thing you could do was give Direct Centering
and serve Bayard. Of course, I tried my best to walk on a tightrope between spending time perfunctorily doing
what was expected of me as a long-time assistant, weakly trying to let go of my attachments while clinging on
to my personal goals, which were the kind of thing that were denigrated by Bayard as "playing small"--"playing
big" was, of course, enrolling more people in the course and committing more and more of your time to assisting.
(this is an example of how much of what students and assistants were subjected to were classic behavior modification
techniques, e.g. praising acts of commitment, denigrating personal accomplishments, ringing bells and cheering
when someone enrolled a friend in the Course, being challenged on what you were attached to, holding on to,
what aren't you saying, etc. when not enrolling people, etc.)

I was in a condition of great stress and fear, barely allowing myself to entertain thoughts of leaving. I was very
vigilant about keeping my assisting agreements as I was terrified of confrontation over breaking them, but this all
came to a head on the weekend afternoon of July 4, 1982 (I remember the date well), when I was reluctantly assisting
at DC's Manhattan loft along with a bunch of other people on this holiday. Bayard once again interrupted everyone to
hold an enrollment meeting, asking everyone on premises to stand up and say who they were going to enroll in the Course.
When it came to be my turn, I was pissed off enough that I looked at him and said something like "There are people
I could enroll, but I don't feel like it". He yelled back at me "You're expelled! I'm tired of you being around here for
all this time and not fully committing" or something similar. I quickly got up and left the loft, feeling elated and
energized and also liberated--from what I wasn't surer, but freed nonetheless. Word got around quickly that Bayard had
expelled me, which was very satisfying, as I had a position as one of Bayard's earliest and venerable assistants, the kind
of person who you could never imagine being expelled or leaving. Despite going back to graduate events after that,
I stubbornly refused to enroll anyone else and never re-joined the assisting team, even going so far as to write Bayard
a letter which said something like how I was never ever going to become an assistant again and never become a staff
member, not during this lifetime or any other lifetime. I wish I had had the foresight to xerox that letter before I sent it.

My final separation with DC was during the summer of 1983. I did some psychedelic mushrooms with a friend of
mine, another DC assistant who was a good pal of mine. We went to go see Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, which was
just released to theatres. During this movie, I had a tearful psychedelic insight that Bayard was like Yoda or Obi-Wan
Kenobi or some sage Jedi Knight, and myself and the other assistants had been born into this life with the purpose
of virtually being co-agents of the Force against the Dark Side, which was the world of people trapped by their attachments
and limitations and slaves to their minds. Somehow as the movie ended and I came down from the 'shrooms, this fantasy
folded up into its proper proportions in my imagination, and I forswore ever going back to DC ever again. I instinctively
concluded that maybe all the doubts I had, the resistance I experienced, the fear I was gripped by were all sane responses
to a crazy and emotionally dangerous situation I had inadvertently put myself in for several years, rather than symptoms
of my mind running me and my attachments ruling me.

Looking back at all this, I think I was utterly right. At least now I can articulate it, whereas back in summer 1983,
it was more instinct than anything else. I learned to trust myself."

BTW I do remember Jill . And, seeing that you wrote that you had lived in the Delancey Street house in Philadelphia,
I could tell you the story about how the Philadelphia center originated. I planted the seed, so to speak. ;-)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2008 09:44PM by rrmoderator.