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laarree
I remember hearing about Peter Weller (Robo-Cop), and apparently artist Peter Max did the DC course too, and employed some DC grads in his studio. This was c. 1983-1984 I believe.
I guess the way it works with cults like DC/Nexus/Immunics is that only a minority are truly intrigued by the promises of participation in the group beyond its initial offerings--I guess Adam S. wasn't sufficiently bedazzled. I suspect that the key factor is that if a course participant had really experienced the exultation of "letting go"/"discharging"/"manifesting" during the basic course, had a strong emotional release or perhaps even had a spiritual/mystical/paranormal-type experience. I was hooked on the last day of my course in 1977 for the latter reason, because we students did something called back then an "awareness projection", basically a paired exercise where a student did a "psychic" cold reading on their partner's unnamed and undescribed acquaintance. I did rather well on mine and was secretly thrilled, always having wanted to have psychic experiences and develop psychic powers. In retrospect, I can see that such exercises are extremely fudgey and rely on confirmation bias for their seeming effectiveness, a little folly in which the would-be psychic and the partner confirm enough "hits' and ignore enough "misses" so that the exercise has the appearence to both as having worked. I don't for a minute now think that I or anyone else has any psychic capability, but this was 30 years ago. I barely knew back then WTF was real or not, and was dying to have astonishing true experiences like the confabulator Carlos Castaneda claimed to have had in his books. It was just my luck to have met Gavin instead of Don Juan. ;-)
Hi Laarree, I was worried that my message was perhaps unwanted cause I mentioned a few names, so I'm happy you responded to it. I forgot about Peter Max. I think he left just before I got there so I never met him, but I remember his name was tossed around a good bit.
My introduction to the course was kind of odd, I think. My twin (you may remember me now from that alone), did it I think sometime in 1983 and my best friend from highschool also did it, and they (my twin especially) were pushing me to take it. My brother especially to the point where I really started to hate him and everything about the course. I'd actually found out about it before my best friend or bother, through a random guest event invight from another friend, and I thought it was currious but "not right for me", when they started pushing me, my hatred of the course grew exponentially.
But as this was going on, some other things were happening in my life. I was 22, and I'd lived as an overprotected child, so I was still a quite young and innocent 22. I'd also become quite the drinker. I was in pain, I'd flunked out of school, I was a virgin and embarrased about it, and drinking 8-10 beers and hanging out with my friends was one of the few things I really enjoyed. When the 2 people I was closest 2 in teh world both became graduates, I felt like I'd lost them and in addition to my other pain, loosing close friends made my hurting worse.
It's difficult to explain exactly why I eventualy signed up for the course, but in a nutshell, my parents had bought me a week in Cancun at a club med resort. They knew I wasn't happy and they thought this might help. that was very much like my parents. My pain was very much related to my percieved failures and losses in life and the vacation didn't really touch that. Sure, I liked the beach, but my depression didn't really go away.
but one night, on the beach, under a beautiful sky with more stars than I'd ever seen, I prayed a little bit, which I did from time to time back then and I kind of heard or imagined an answer of sorts, that basically told me "the only way is through it", now, since I know a bit more about that kind of answer now than I did then, I look at it differently today, but at the time, that thought or intuition of voice (whatever you want to call it), meant to me that I had to get through the course.
My basic hatred of it, stemmed from a perception of what it was. They were wierd, they were pushing, and they seemed to have something that I didn't have, but it came with some things I didn't want, and they'd taken away my brother and best friend from me.
But in that moment, on that beach, I decided to do the course, which I signed up for that January and took that April over the school break. I did not credit either my brother or my friend for referring me on my application, and everyone who read that interpreted it as a big "Fk you" - one of the big words used all the time back then. I didn't write down any goals, because I didn't really have any goals out of the course, other than to get through it. That was also percieved as something that needed to be "fixed" by the assistants.
Once there, I hated the assistants, and I was afraid to "give in" to the course. Early on, I stood up and I made an aggreement with Karen, who was the first person to stand on the stage that I "would not tell my brother to do the course", Karen said "OK" and this booming voice came down from the sky "No, don't make that agreement with him. Do you feel good about that agreement", then Bayard showed his face and said to me "you do not have that agreement with me, do you understand".
But after that introduction, as a 22 year old youngster, I grew very fond of bayard very quickly. He seemed to know how to reach people, and he'd get through to lots of people when they stood up on the platform. He also seemed genuinly happy which, I later learned he wasn't happy all the time, he was often angry, but at the course, my impression of him was that he was truly happy and spontaneous and good with people and I was, one could almost say "mesmerized".
My actual interactions on the platform were quite limited and uneventful. One time, early on, I stood up and said "I'm scared", which I was, and Bayard and I think everyone in the room got it. Then I sat down. Another time a bit later, Bayard was giving one of his talks and it was an interaction time and I raised my hand, and said, again with full sincerity "I disagree. I'm very religious and I believe . . . " (I don't remember the rest), and Bayard said to me, quite flatly that "what you're doing will work, but that I wasn't letting anybody in". Finally in a moment of frustrated anger I yelled out one time "You're all As holes!!" and even thought it wasn't directed at bayard at all, it was one of those sit in circle conversations when the assistants hovered like vultures, I heard again the booming voice of Bayard "Don't generalize", so I looked at my circle and I told them that I didn't think any of them were as h'les... but I had my doubts about the assistants.
The breaks (LOL - remember those "breaks") were hell for me and the assistants seemed to be interested in digging up emotional things so they could tell me to "let go". I got lobster claws a few times (who remembers those), and I hated the assistants and I hated the breaks.
But the course was, dispite the breaks which were horrible, quite interesting, but I didn't want to "give into it" because I was afraid that I'd become like my brother had become.
On Sunday Morning I was late, and I reached a crossroads. The assistants asked me what statement I'd made and asked me to "let go" of something. Inside me, the choice was clear, let go and make them right or hold my ground, and I don't remember exactly what transpired, but after basically 30 minutes of discussing whether I would let go or not, they asked me to leave.
I caught the next bus to Worcester, MA, where I went to college and not long after I got home, I threw up in the toilet. The words "discharge" kept going through my head as I was vomiting. I felt like I'd made a serious mistake, which, looking back, perhaps I did. I'd made friends in the course (not assistants, but students), and I'd basically chose to not let go of my pain, which I knew had been an option. I didn't realize that the 2 had nothing to do with each other. That, I could have let go without the course, and that I didn't need them to let go, but I was young, and another word they often used which makes me laugh today when I think about it, I was "stuck".
I later learned that a few assistants described me as "the most stuck person they'd ever seen"
But, getting back to the course, while I was still mad at them and my brother, and if anything, the pain in my life had increased, the course had moved me in some ways, and I was very impressed and very fond of Bayard.
Others have pointed out that a common theme in any program like Direct Centering is a charismatic leader, and Bayard had Charisma.
(I didn't realize how long this was going to be). I need to finish it later.