The Werner/EST/Forum/Landmark legacy shows up in some very interesting and unexpected venues.
Werner actually sponsored a guru, Baba Mukananda, whom he met in India and helped sponsor on one of M's earliest tour/visits to the United States.
Muktananda later took up residence in the US and started Siddha/SYDA yoga, which continues to this day.
The kicker is...according to a former disciple, Muktananda incorporated elements of EST 'tech' into his own supposedly Hindu 'intensives'
Here is a thread where I assembled some material to aid researchers.,
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forum.culteducation.com]
Which may mean that persons not only got a dose of toxic Hinduism but, without knowing it, were exposed to LGAT/CO$ tech and because they did not know it, could not have known to study the impact of LGAT tech as part of thier own recovery.
Its interesting and rather alarming to think that one could wish to avoid
exposure to LGATs, and think that by sticking with a guru supposedly teaching an ancient Hindu path, be safe--but not know the guru is buddies with an LGAT operater and has incorporated some LGAT tech into his supposedly ancient methods.
Its a bit like how bacteria or viruses can mutate into a drug resistant strain by literally borrowing DNA or RNA from another bacterium within that same host that already has become drug resistant!
A seemingly Hindu outfit may have some 'DNA' incorporated from EST, and thus have a powerful genetic material that derives from CO$!
The Rhetoric of Shame - More TechIn the fake spiritual scene there is actually a well developed, highly sophisticated rhetoric of invalidation.
As long as you report happy, happy experiences with whatever your human potential group or guru happens to be, you, through your happy stories, validate the group trance and people are nice and sweet to you. As long as you have nothing but good to day, you are one of the tribe.
But...if someone tries to report that they've incurred harm--WHAM they get zapped by the rhetoric of shame, because their harm report threatens to disrupt the group trance.
One way to remain member of this pseudo spiritual tribe is to join the vicioius mob and jeer at the person trying to bear witness.
Which means...you know that some day if you dare to report something's wrong, you can expect folks to do the same to you.
This 'scene can be composed of members of many different groups. Its not any one cult or set up. Its a milieu that socializes people before they even become members of a cult.
(One part of the 'tech' is to learn to laugh and say, 'Of course my group is a cult. There are good cults and bad cults'--which blurs the distinction. If you tell 'em about Lifton's criteria or the Stanford Prison Experiment done by Zimbardo--they will get pissy in a hurry)I am sorry and angry to say that the 'get over it' line is almost ubiquitous in the so called 'spiritual' scene.
Which IMO is about as spiritual as the local dope dealing hang out.
The 'get over it' line is the favorite cry of abusive people who dont want to be called on the damage they have done, and who want to be free to relate to people as objects and cant cope when you stand up to them as a person.
'Get over it.'
Its the cry of a two year old in an adult body who cant cope when confronted with the cause and effect trail of harm that person has done.
As for victim, a great way to eradicate all notion of interpersonal responsiblity is to declare 'there are no victims'.
That means one no longer has to ponder that one's actions could potentially help or harm others. If victims dont exist, you're free to blitzkrieg your way through life, and the hell with anyone you run over. They dont exist as people.
And 'there are no victims' is also a way to free a powerholder from the notion of ethos of care--that to the extent one has power, one is accountable for the proper and benevolent use of that power.
So...any time we hear 'there are no victims' or 'you brought it on yourself'
that is a social scene where powerholders seek total power, zero accountablity and have rejected the ethos of care--and dont have the balls to admit it.
In short, in large sectors of the so called spiritual scene, what is really worshipped is power, and powerholders.
Only the suffering of the powerholder is worthy of compassion.
In this world if you are not a powerholder, you dont exist, except as an object to be used and discarded. If you cry out, your suffering is ignored or becomes an object of contempt.
The atmosphere in this gangster world is intially very liberating.
But the grim matter is, it is set up so that only a very few become powerholders and most are excluded from power.
The pawn-people are allowed the delusional feeling of freedom but when it is their turn to be run over and used, they will discover there is no ethos of care in this moral wilderness.
The way to tell if a social scene is genuinely spiritual versus coverlty worships power and despises weakness is--find out beforehand the attitude toward those who suffer misfortune, those who are ill, old, poor.
Dare to ask if it is possible for a spiritual leader to abuse power and see what kinds of answers you get.
At least in the world of kink, people are up front that they want to play with power and want to play rough. That way, one can decide beforehand if this is the kind of action one likes.
In this fake spiritual world, sadistic power games are played--but no one tells the truth about this, making conscious and informed consent impossible.
At least from what friends have told me, in the world of kink, matters are negotiated in advance to ensure that everyone--the dominants and submissives all go home feeling satisfied.
Not so in the fake hidden BDSM dungeon of pseudo spiriituality.
The denizens love to claim they are conscious--but are actually, IMO, unconscious that what they really worship is power and what they really get off on are power imbalances.
Worst of all, its non consensual, because the underlings are not even told
they are being led into a power game where they're the ones who will be
paddled and ripped off.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/13/2008 12:00AM by corboy.