Thanks for the perspective. She said she was in love with me the first time we were sexual, which, thanks to her VERY aggressive techniques (I would call it rape if I weren't a man), was on our third date. At that point, she began trying to convince me that I was in love with her with all kinds of strange reasoning and emotional manipulation. Yet I recently discovered that she has profiles on prostitution Web sites and she's been hooking up with other men! What a fool I've been! When I confronted her with her activities on the sites, she gave her standard answer: "Nothing happened". She says it with such conviction that I now know she is truly delusional.

I think her hold on me is more than just sexual; I think there must be a strong spiritual agent that she imparted to me as well. I've never felt so controlled....

Quote
CommuniqueResearch
She said she was in love with me the first time we were sexual, which, thanks to her VERY aggressive techniques (I would call it rape if I weren't a man), was on our third date. At that point, she began trying to convince me that I was in love with her with all kinds of strange reasoning and emotional manipulation. Yet I recently discovered that she has profiles on prostitution Web sites and she's been hooking up with other men! What a fool I've been! When I confronted her with her activities on the sites, she gave her standard answer: "Nothing happened". She says it with such conviction that I now know she is truly delusional.

I think her hold on me is more than just sexual; I think there must be a strong spiritual agent that she imparted to me as well. I've never felt so controlled....

YIKES! "Say goodnight, Gracie!"

You can do as you want, friend CommuniqueResearch, but no matter how great the sex is/was that itty-bitty thing about PROSTITUTION should be an important thing for you to get your mind around. Maybe she is, maybe she is not; as she claimed "nothing happened"!... but how can you ever be sure she didn't and she won't in the future? This is one nasty kettle of fish you'll need to sort out/justify going forward with this relationship.

Human Awareness Institute smells like a bad rerun of an HBO late night "REAL SEX" episode. They claim to basically "lead" groups and to "council" people with their so-called facilitators. Are these people licensed with their perspective States/Countries? If not, re-read Rick Ross' warning signs of cults and abusive leaders....This whole HAI thing sends my red-lights flashing.

these sex groups are very interesting, and NOT for the prurient reasons.

Most of them have a version of Flirty Fishing, or these days one might use other F'words, as a way to gain new members and customers.
[www.xfamily.org]

But people who get deeply involved in sex groups, really do believe they have seen the light. They generally think all those people out there who try to have so-called "monogamous" relationships are the deluded ones.

And they are taught by the group that you cannot be honest and tell people what the sex-group is REALLY all about, as they will resist it due to their negative social programming.
So instead, they lie to your face about the group, for your own good, in their mind.
They know, if they can only get a person to attend the Workshop in person, then they can be conditioned. Of course they generally start off small, but before you know it, you have a speculum up your hoo-haw.

And how do these sex-groups get new members, if you pardon the pun?
Advertising. But even better is personal referrals.
Now for some people deeply involved in some sex-groups, or sex-cults, sex-work is totally legitimate.
Just read the articles about Lafayette Morehouse and prostitution, for example.
[forum.culteducation.com]

Once some people get that deeply involved, then exchanging sex for money, or sex for recruiting is something they are very proud of. Its a badge of honor to them.
So what better way to do some Sex-Recruiting, than to put ads on sex-sites looking for partners, and then using sex as a tool, use that to entice them to come to the workshop for the group?

It would take more research to see to what extent that Human Awareness Institute may be involved in this. But for example, it does not even have to be systematic. There could be some members, who are able to Sex-Recruit many people, and bring men/women into the workshops, and then the programming of the sex-workshops takes over, and some of them end up joining, and going through the "levels".
Cult leaders learned long ago that some people will pay a lot of money to join a group and attend orgies, go figure.

But even if it was not planned, it would happen, as those who did that Sex-Recruiting would be rewarded by the Leaders of the group, for bringing in new people. Once some guys get exposed to this, they are like kids run amok in a candy store, if you will, and will pay a lot of money to keep attending.
and there does still seem to be a double standard where some of the younger women are allowed to attend the seminars for free due to the "barter" system, so to speak.

and there is no reason to not believe that some sex-workers might be involved too, simply as a job.
The Raelians have Rael's Girls, who are Raelian sex workers. They actively target girls in the sex industry, and of course once they join, that is not going to hurt Raelian recruitment.
[www.raelsgirls.com]
[www.culteducation.com]

So the lesson is if you meet someone, no sex, free sex or paid sex, and they are pushing you to attend some "Workshop" and group that might be a cultish group, then think twice. Do some careful research.Especially if you feel controlled, pushed and lied to.

Because once you attend a "Workshop", these people who own and run these groups are not stupid. They know how to influence people, on a very deep level, very quickly, they have done it for decades. That is why they will do ANYTHING to get you to attend the workshop.

these days everything is about Spiritual Sensual Enlightment Seminars (for Profit).
in more honest days, a pimp was a pimp.
[www.raelsgirls.com]

Glad to see that someone else is questioning the HAI experience, and that others have the same opinion as I do that HAI is all about perpetrating casual sex in the style and format of the 70's and 80's on the West Coast. I wrote about my long term experience at HAI on one of the other threads, and chronicled the breakdown of my marriage to Dennis Jimmink as a result of his facination with HAI. When asked, I was quite willing to give explicit details of HAI activity, and I have attended about 9 or 10 HAI workshops.

Sex sells, its as simple as that. A person who gets caught up in it can't seem to get past the excitement of casual sex with anyone and everyone that is available.

I wish you the best in terms of sorting out your relationship with the girlfriend. Once someone gets caught up in the HAI web, it is very difficult to talk sense into them.

Probably what is difficult about leaving the HAI web is facing the extent to which one has been used.

Rather than admit the gut lurching impact of betrayal, it seems very common for people to deny that there is any such thing as betrayal and to turn the mess into some sort of erotic liberation philosophy that is (drum roll)

There is a memoir by a fellow who was in a sex therapy cult that self destructed 30 years ago. Steve Susoyev wrote a memoir about it, entitled People Farm, and his website is www.peoplefarm.com

That venture was also dressed up in a noble philosophy and Steve was trained to recruit. He was taught to rationalize it by his being a 'sex surrogate'. He later discovered he was targeted for recruitment. The recruiters didnt know his orientation, so a male and female pair were sent to him. That way, if Steve was hetero, the girl would bed him and reel him in, and if he was gay (and he was and is), the male recruiter would (and did) the job.

The book also gives a terrific behind the scenes description of the way the set up was run, the networking, the way rooms were booked and set up, and when problems began to intrude, how PR was spun and journalists were made complicit.

Not only worth following as a personal option, but SO magnificent that its worth recruiting other people to join it.

By persuading others that a set up like this is worth joining, its a way to suppress personal misgivings that one has been radically betrayed and used.

Rather than admit they've been burned, there are some folks who run around insisting that fire does not exist.

This may be what entities like this can go on for generations.

Recruitment of newbies is not only a source of human capital for the group, its a way for any members with doubts or shame at being used to suppress their doubts and shame--it has to be worthy if others are willing to join....

If it can be dressed up with an ideology, all the better.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2009 11:55PM by corboy.

'Ive never felt so controlled'

Some kind of trance technique might have been used on you.

And...one thing often taken advantage of, is to con people into believing they are autonomous and giving them a mere feeling of power, while covertly manipulating them by using information that humans are more manipulable than most of us can bear to acknowledge.

Most of all one can feel powerful while being covertly manipulated into losing access to genuine self agency.

Feeling powerful is not the same as actually possessing agency.

You can have genuine agency yet not feel powerful at all. Worst of all, one can be conned into abandoning genuine agency in exchange for a false feeling of power that is produced by someone really good at diddling your nerve endings and playing to your illusions.

I heard a very unpleasant woman say, 'The man is the head of the household.

'The wife is the neck.'

Let the man feel like he's in charge, but manipulate the hell out of him without his awareness.

Back track also and try to recall if she was wearing a particular kind of perfume or using some special sort of incense or if music was playing in the background.

All these might trigger you in other contexts so you want to take note of all of this in order to break away.

Most important, what state of mind and emotion were you in and what subjects of conversation were intially used to hook you in?

For a psychonalytic take on how this kind of 'take over' and 'penetration'
this article by Stanley Rosenman may be enlighteninging.

[www.pep-web.org]

Rosenman only consideres what happens when people are traumatically assaulted as in rape or torture. But we are free to ponder how easily someone can get into your mind if they win your trust and arouse your nerve endings.

As yet there is no such thing as a condom for the soul. One has to become aware that feeling powerful isnt the same as actually have agency.

And that bliss doesnt equal love but can be produced by mere technique.

I got to see love in action.

My uncle and aunt had been married for years. My uncle was dying and has lost much of his eyesight.

He had diabetes and could no longer read the numbers on his blood glucose reader.

So after a lifetime of cherished agency and independence, taking care of his diabetes capably and well, all by himself, my uncle had to allow his wife to do his blood testing and give him his insulin.

The two of them sat, with their backs to me, in silence, hunched over the glucometer, sitting shoulder to shoulder, while my aunt pricked her husbands finger and read his blood sugar then adjusted his dosage of insulin.

There they sat, two birds on one twig.

It didnt look like bliss but it sure felt like love.

And...its likely my uncle may have become unable to have erections due to his diabetes.

But though he lost one important part of his masculinity and a lot of power and independence due to his diabetes and his cancer, he remained a man.

And his wife helped him without overpowering him. She did it by ensuring that my uncle retained access to all areas where he could still possess and utilize agency.

Before I left, my uncle discovered I never in my life had heard the song, Danny Boy.

He couldnt do a lot of things but he had plenty of opinions about life and politics.

And he could still sing. So he made sure I heard him sing Danny Boy.

He still had agency in that area and used it.

Diabetes probably robbed him of the ablity to have or sustain erections, but I suspect he continued to give my aunt plenty of great hugs and kisses.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2009 12:06AM by corboy.

Thanks much for the insights. She does, in fact, always have very repetitive, hypnotic music playing in the background, and she likes to just stare into my eyes for sometimes over an hour. Many times she has her hand on my heart (or crotch, if I let her) while doing it. Wow! I had no idea I was being hypnotized!

the trance music, long-term eye staring, and touchy-feely stuff, that would come right out of one of those "workshops".
That is a way to rapidly manufacture intimacy. You could walk into a seminar, they could pair you up with a stranger and you stare in their eyes for an hour, and you feel emotionally intimate with a stranger.

personally, I would not call that hypnosis, unless specific language patterns are being used.
That would be more along the lines of Love-Bombing, and manufacturing a type of rapid-intimacy.

It would be interesting to hear about more of those types of techniques from the HAI workshops.

OK, here goes....the request was for more information about what happens at HAI....I haven't been to a workshop for quite a while, but will try to remember. I went through Level 6, and I repeated some of the workshops.

First of all, about half of the people at each workshop have already taken it before. This makes it especially easy to "bring along" those who are new, especially in Level 1. The repeaters are almost always completely naked from the time they arrive on Friday evening to when they leave. This helps a lot with the subtle peer pressure for everyone to be naked. There are interns there who will talk to you if you have difficulty going along with the crowd. Its really funny to think about the story line that "you don't have to do anything you don't want to do, even taking your clothes off...." Pure manipulation and subtle peer pressure. I remember wearing clothes once for a whole workshop for two reasons: I was cold, and I wanted to see what it felt like. I felt like a big sore thumb that was out of place. Any you know what....there were an awful lot of ugly bodies there...the women who were young/well-endowed/attractive were always in great demand.

Each workshop starts with a chanting routine called Hand on Heart...emotional, sentimental, looking at everyone deeply and "connecting" and it is a trancelike beginning/ending to the workshop. This can be likened to any number of grouplike ceremonies where efforts are made to make you feel like one of the group by participating in special activities or routines. I might not call it really hypnotic, but it is seductive, and it creates the group-togetherness.

The workshop is periods of coming together for "Large Group Shares" where everyone sits around (naked) and provides emotional support for those who are going through something emotional or feel that they have had a breakthrough. There are also "Small Group Shares" where the same thing happens on a more intimate basis. The facilitators are not trained in psychology, but they act and behave like therapists. There are also interns, who are very loyal participants. These interns have NO PSYCHOLOGICAL training, but they also perform a similar function as the facilitators. There is a lot of effort to get people to share their innermost thoughts, feelings, emotions, bad experiences, in a very tell-all style. Once you have told your innermost secrets, fears, loathings, etc., then certainly you feel more intimate with the strangers in the group, who now seem like your friends. You are told, over and over, that these people are there to "support" you.

In between, there are many exercises. To begin an exercise, there is usually a period of mingling where you choose someone to have an exercise with. There is a variety of methods of pairing up that are used throughout the weekend, and throughout the workshops. Sometimes you choose someone with your eyes closed, sometimes you are told to choose someone that you would not ordinarily choose, etc......and almost all of the time it is someone you don't know. Most of the exercises are sexual in nature. The whole weekend is about breaking down your sexual barriers and inhibitions so that you will be more comfortable doing whatever you are instructed to do.

In Level 1, the exercises are focused on gently breaking down your inhibitions to touch the genitals of your partner, or talk about sexual stuff. You sit in the "workshop straddle," which is each person sitting on the floor facing the other, and you wrap your legs around the other person so that your fronts are almost touching, and by the way, your genitals are also almost touching. The exercises become more and more sexual in nature as the weekend goes along. Finally, on Sunday afternoon, you are put in a group of four and you are told to go shower together, and wash each other.

In Level 2, the breaking down of barriers continues. There is an exercise where the women put speculums in their vaginas and lie down on the floor and the men get to go around and peek inside...at least every woman who will cooperate with this. Then you talk a lot about body parts. The facilitators demonstrate several sexual exploration-type things and then you are instructed to do it. I think the discussion is about various ways of pleasuring yourself; anal sex; and stuff like that. I think Level 2 also has an exercise where you lie on the floor and think about dying, but I don't remember the details.

In each of the levels, the most important exercise occurs on Sunday afternoon, with a group of four people who are together for the duration. They are given a large bedsheet for their "space" and the Room of Love is covered with sheets and small groups "doing their thing." These people are usually told to spend the next two hours doing something sexual together. The instructions vary a little depending on which level it is, but the general idea is the same. Anything and everything can happen and does. There is a significant amount of oral sex, both hetrosexual and homosexual, that occurs. Condoms are provided if needed, along with all sorts of oils, lotions, candles, etc. It is very common for many people to go to HAI because they aren't getting any sex in their normal life, and this is the exercise where they get their sexual needs met. You hear plenty of moans and groans all afternoon. These activities also occur after the formal workshop time is over. You are encouraged to be sexual with anyone, expecially those that you would not normally be sexual with.

I also remember an exercise where you walk around the room and ask people "Will you have sex with me?" and the other person gets to say yes or no. There are also exercises where you must keep your eyes closed and you walk around bumping into people or doing a lot of touchy-feely stuff.

Most of the sites where the workshops are held have hot tubs or swimming pools. It is a very regular thing for people to be sexual in some manner in the hot tub/pool during the breaks or lunch, or in the evenings.

Yes, they TALK about safe sex, and they TALK about having the "sexual conversation" and they TALK about improving relationship. However, for HAI a relationship is more about sex than anything else. The truth is that there is so much casual sex between the participants, both during a workshop weekend, and on a more casual basis, that I wouldn't trust anyone who had been there. HAI says that it does not promote poly- lifestyles, but the participants hang out together so much that it is unnatural not to do a quickie now and again, and why not? Everyone else does.

There is always a big performance and party on Saturday evening. Various participants take part in a talent show-style event, and most of the skits are very burlesque, shall we say. After the performance, is a late night of dancing. There is a lot of sleep deprivation over the weekend!

With all of this, is there any wonder that the sex becomes addictive? Where else can you go and find so many others who also want to be sexual, and you can be sexual all weekend and find other workshop participants that you can buddy up with and have casual sex whenever? Its a weekend orgy.

I wish I could think of more specifics, but that will have to do.