Florida - The Journey Need Info Please
Posted by:
beaware2help
()
Date: July 28, 2009 09:08AM
Does anyone have knowledge of The Journey? Life transforming LGAT that uses the exact description of the Mind Control tactics laid out as Lifespring, est, Forum, etc. The leader proudly advertises his years as a Lifespring trainer for 12 years in his brochures. This company is for-profit, unregulated, greedy and quickly turning out a huge amount of dedicated recruiters in an extremely short time. Initial free seminar, hard sell to sign up for BASIC, then harder sell for level 2 ALPS $850, then Leadership 3-month course. No money? We'll have a fundraiser...
This is a white-collar group that targets professionals and is very powerful. This seems like a bad movie but it is very real and very scary. Many have quickly turned fanatical about enrolling and do not question the "money trail" or why there is no corporate office or headquarters. This businesses is run by SLICK and savvy, yet shady people (there is a web of business names and aliases used). Please help if you have any information about this organization.
They also use employment ads to hire people "to run their own business teaching parenting classes," those who respond are then put through orientations that lead them to The Journey to learn the skills necessary to be successful... They end up enrolling their whole families and those that sign up for parenting classes. They also turn out family and life coaches and are proudly branching out to other states. Wonder if they make any money while they are staffing the guest events and Basic for free?
Many of my family members are in and I'm terrified for all of the little ones - they also have Junior Journeys...parents in the group can enroll their children for "redirection of problem behaviors." YIKES!
Any advice, any help, any solid information is appreciated, this is tearing my family apart and the rate that this is spreading, eventually my community, too. I have found no comments about active LGATs in Florida. Please HELP!
Sincerely,
Concerned
This is a white-collar group that targets professionals and is very powerful. This seems like a bad movie but it is very real and very scary. Many have quickly turned fanatical about enrolling and do not question the "money trail" or why there is no corporate office or headquarters. This businesses is run by SLICK and savvy, yet shady people (there is a web of business names and aliases used). Please help if you have any information about this organization.
They also use employment ads to hire people "to run their own business teaching parenting classes," those who respond are then put through orientations that lead them to The Journey to learn the skills necessary to be successful... They end up enrolling their whole families and those that sign up for parenting classes. They also turn out family and life coaches and are proudly branching out to other states. Wonder if they make any money while they are staffing the guest events and Basic for free?
Many of my family members are in and I'm terrified for all of the little ones - they also have Junior Journeys...parents in the group can enroll their children for "redirection of problem behaviors." YIKES!
Any advice, any help, any solid information is appreciated, this is tearing my family apart and the rate that this is spreading, eventually my community, too. I have found no comments about active LGATs in Florida. Please HELP!
Sincerely,
Concerned
Re: Florida - The Journey Need Info Please
Posted by:
beaware2help
()
Date: August 29, 2009 08:24AM
[lifespringnow.com]
The above link proudly states the John Hanley Lifespring model is used by the following businesses including TMC Productions (Teacher, Master, Champion) which runs The Journey. The list also includes PSI and Summit Education. Is anyone else concerned about how rapidly these groups spread? I am. Through researching LGATs and seeing what has been happening to family members, it makes me very concerned that these regional splinter groups are able to get into our schools, families and businesses.
Please help if you have any information about what can be done to publicize that people ought to avoid these initial seminars - even when a family member or close friend begs to show support by attending. I'm at a loss as to what authority may be able to intervene and protect not only free thought but family finances from these white-collar greed groups...
TMC Productions has moved into Texas under Love, Light & Destiny: [lovelightanddestiny.com]
The journey contains all of the classic ploys detailed below in a post from 2007 including dyads, guided imagery, specific room set ups, lifeboat, black/red, commitment to the group and enrolment, enrolment, enrolment:
Corboy wrote:
To Understand One LGAT is to Understand All or Most LGATs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSwinters wrote: I for one have found each and every LGAT topic thread very good information for all LGAT's.
This is important. Because...nearly all human potential groups/LGATs claim to be unique.
A very important step in recovery takes place when it is possible for a person to see that his or her group experience was not unique and that it can be compared with other groups.
This insight is very difficult to arrive at, because when we've given our hearts to a group and have the awful discovery that we've been seen and used as objects/income generating-units, this feeling of betrayal is painful and shaming. One way to defend against the shame of finding oneself used and betrayed is to cling, to convince oneself that the experience was special, educational, or a great adventure.
Its a come-down to face that one was had, and that the experience is far from unique. But...if you can stand the pain of recognizing this, you then get to find out loads of people have been through it too, which means, you have a community you can reach out to.
It is a liberating eye opener to find that your particular group is not unique because with that mindset, you then become able to study the 'comparative anatomy' of different groups and see that the external plumage ( verbiage, doctrine of groups) has quite a variety of colors but underneath, the skeleton (recruitment process, room set up, lack of informed consent, signing away rights to seek damages if harmed) ..all that remains quite similar underneath the seeming diversity.
A seminary professor who taught a course on the conversion process had a favorite phrase:
"Same hardware, different software"
* Claims to be unique and often, subtle put-downs of all other groups, and also subtle put downs of all other methods for healing or self development
* Recruitment through friendship networks or work relationships--which means the risk of stressing valued relationships if you dont want to participate or have misgivings
*Being given the bum's rush/hardsell
*A tightly scripted social set up disguised as a spontaneous one
*May include a very, very anal retentive room set up with chairs in precise rows. all external stimuli blocked out, chairs re-arranged when
people depart, having to sit closer together than what is considered normal distance for your culture's physical distances between individuals.
*Demanding intimate, private information from subjects without any written contract from the group promising to safeguard confidential information--very different from professional health care providers and psychotherapists who are legally accountable for confidentiality and who arrange for clients and patients to sign paperwork defining and protecting their confidentiality
***LGAT subjects often sign away their rights, as citizens to sue for damages in event of their being harmed by participation in the LGAT event. No medical or therapy patient EVER signs away his or her right to seek damages if harmed by treatment received.
Thus many LGATs use the language and powerful techniques of psychotherapy and accept no responsibility for thier use of such power in event that subjects are harmed.
Professional healers wield their power in a context of accountability and responsibility
LGATs wield their power and refuse to accept accountability for use of that power and for any harm done.
*Subjects are made to feel powerful, but are not given actual preparation or any encouragement in the LGAT to think consciously about power itself or the way it is exercised. For subjects in an LGAT, power is just an induced mood, a rush. The LGAT keeps its own mits on the actual process of exercising power. If subjects dare to examine the process, they are shamed for being negative--when what they are doing is trying to become conscious of the very thing the LGAT does not want them to actually see.
In LGAT's power, for subjects is an induced and addictive mood.
In reality, power is about process, relationships, resources and information--and who has more and who has less. LGATs control this and dont want subjects to look closely at the process dimension of power--they only want subjects to get lost and dependent on the mood of feeling powerful.
Subjects are made to feel powerful but actual power remains with the LGAT. You are only free to speak up if you validate the LGAT. LGATs speak the language of power but retain it for themselves.
LGATs speak the language of accountability but in practice LGATs dont seem to feel themselves accountable--but they do make sure to make subjects feel accountable--and subtly, for subjects 'accountability' in an LGAT is separated from personal power and agency and accountability in the LGAT is linked to deep feelings of personal shame, and fear of failing in relation to the LGAT.
LGATs speak of caring and compassion but do not in practice demonstrate an ethos of care in relation to their subjects. If you fail or feel messed up by the LGAT, you are made to feel it is your fault. In professional healing, the provider takes this as a signal to question the treatment strategy, perhaps seek more information by ordering additional tests, and brining other providers in for consutation.
*If there is success, the LGAT takes full credit. By contrast, a true professional healer assists clients and patients to identify their role in the process of healing so clients can retain as much personal agency and autonomy during the process and then the same or increased personal agency and autonomy afterwards.
*Confrontation, pushing rapidly for intense emotion, instant intimacy, hectic pace, not enough time to sleep little or no opportunity to think, and possibly being shadowed by a minder
*Pushing people to spend more money than they are comfortable with
*Shaming and ridicule for anyone who disagrees or hesitates--which reproduces/re-enacts life in an abusive family--which can cause persons already harmed by prior abuse to re-enact, either as bully/perpetrators or by submitting to the abuse and intenalizing blame. The persons in an LGAT who re-enact as bully perpetrators end up wanting to become leaders in the organization. The ones who re-enact as recipients of abuse become the people who work themselves to nervous collapse trying to please the organization, the way a desperate child tries to satisfy a miserable parent.
*Not being told how the process works, which means you don't have any way to give informed consent--a very important matter for persons who risk having physical or psychological health destablized by stress, confrontation and lack of sleep.
--------
(Retired Moderator)
All the features listed above apply to Quest. The only thing I'd disagree with is the statement that the software differs from lgat to lgat and ...
Quote:
the external plumage ( verbiage, doctrine of groups) has quite a variety of colors
For all the groups derived from est it seems even the software and plumage is the same. (I guess this differs in things like Anthony Robbins).
In reading about Lifespring, Impact, PSI seminars, Klemmer & Associates, Landmark and Choices I've found the following processes and games from Quest being used:
* dyads
* buddy / angel system
* nothing games
* red-black game
* feedback arcs / platform feedback
* reverse dressing
* contracts
* stretches / theatre
* Lifeboat / raft
* giver-taker
* essence walk
And the script - concepts and jargon - is sometimes word for word the same. Common phrases and cliches used in Quest and other lgats:
* Understanding is the booby prize
* Inquest / other training is not for the faint-hearted
* integrity, commitment, agreements, responsibility - redefined
* being at cause
* going to the source
* get off it / get over yourself
* assisting vs helping
* intention vs trying / goals
* there are no victims
* you chose everything that ever happened in your life
* law of attraction
* it works for me / doesn't work for me
* don't judge
* experience is more valid than knowledge
* accepting your greatness / power
* resistance and surrender
Thank you so much SaneAgainand other contributors, I wanted to get this information to a more recent date since you have summarized what people need to know so well.
I will wait impatiently for some advise on what might be done to curb the spread of these splinter groups.
Thank you if you actually made it all the way through this post.
Concernedx10
The above link proudly states the John Hanley Lifespring model is used by the following businesses including TMC Productions (Teacher, Master, Champion) which runs The Journey. The list also includes PSI and Summit Education. Is anyone else concerned about how rapidly these groups spread? I am. Through researching LGATs and seeing what has been happening to family members, it makes me very concerned that these regional splinter groups are able to get into our schools, families and businesses.
Please help if you have any information about what can be done to publicize that people ought to avoid these initial seminars - even when a family member or close friend begs to show support by attending. I'm at a loss as to what authority may be able to intervene and protect not only free thought but family finances from these white-collar greed groups...
TMC Productions has moved into Texas under Love, Light & Destiny: [lovelightanddestiny.com]
The journey contains all of the classic ploys detailed below in a post from 2007 including dyads, guided imagery, specific room set ups, lifeboat, black/red, commitment to the group and enrolment, enrolment, enrolment:
Corboy wrote:
To Understand One LGAT is to Understand All or Most LGATs
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RSwinters wrote: I for one have found each and every LGAT topic thread very good information for all LGAT's.
This is important. Because...nearly all human potential groups/LGATs claim to be unique.
A very important step in recovery takes place when it is possible for a person to see that his or her group experience was not unique and that it can be compared with other groups.
This insight is very difficult to arrive at, because when we've given our hearts to a group and have the awful discovery that we've been seen and used as objects/income generating-units, this feeling of betrayal is painful and shaming. One way to defend against the shame of finding oneself used and betrayed is to cling, to convince oneself that the experience was special, educational, or a great adventure.
Its a come-down to face that one was had, and that the experience is far from unique. But...if you can stand the pain of recognizing this, you then get to find out loads of people have been through it too, which means, you have a community you can reach out to.
It is a liberating eye opener to find that your particular group is not unique because with that mindset, you then become able to study the 'comparative anatomy' of different groups and see that the external plumage ( verbiage, doctrine of groups) has quite a variety of colors but underneath, the skeleton (recruitment process, room set up, lack of informed consent, signing away rights to seek damages if harmed) ..all that remains quite similar underneath the seeming diversity.
A seminary professor who taught a course on the conversion process had a favorite phrase:
"Same hardware, different software"
* Claims to be unique and often, subtle put-downs of all other groups, and also subtle put downs of all other methods for healing or self development
* Recruitment through friendship networks or work relationships--which means the risk of stressing valued relationships if you dont want to participate or have misgivings
*Being given the bum's rush/hardsell
*A tightly scripted social set up disguised as a spontaneous one
*May include a very, very anal retentive room set up with chairs in precise rows. all external stimuli blocked out, chairs re-arranged when
people depart, having to sit closer together than what is considered normal distance for your culture's physical distances between individuals.
*Demanding intimate, private information from subjects without any written contract from the group promising to safeguard confidential information--very different from professional health care providers and psychotherapists who are legally accountable for confidentiality and who arrange for clients and patients to sign paperwork defining and protecting their confidentiality
***LGAT subjects often sign away their rights, as citizens to sue for damages in event of their being harmed by participation in the LGAT event. No medical or therapy patient EVER signs away his or her right to seek damages if harmed by treatment received.
Thus many LGATs use the language and powerful techniques of psychotherapy and accept no responsibility for thier use of such power in event that subjects are harmed.
Professional healers wield their power in a context of accountability and responsibility
LGATs wield their power and refuse to accept accountability for use of that power and for any harm done.
*Subjects are made to feel powerful, but are not given actual preparation or any encouragement in the LGAT to think consciously about power itself or the way it is exercised. For subjects in an LGAT, power is just an induced mood, a rush. The LGAT keeps its own mits on the actual process of exercising power. If subjects dare to examine the process, they are shamed for being negative--when what they are doing is trying to become conscious of the very thing the LGAT does not want them to actually see.
In LGAT's power, for subjects is an induced and addictive mood.
In reality, power is about process, relationships, resources and information--and who has more and who has less. LGATs control this and dont want subjects to look closely at the process dimension of power--they only want subjects to get lost and dependent on the mood of feeling powerful.
Subjects are made to feel powerful but actual power remains with the LGAT. You are only free to speak up if you validate the LGAT. LGATs speak the language of power but retain it for themselves.
LGATs speak the language of accountability but in practice LGATs dont seem to feel themselves accountable--but they do make sure to make subjects feel accountable--and subtly, for subjects 'accountability' in an LGAT is separated from personal power and agency and accountability in the LGAT is linked to deep feelings of personal shame, and fear of failing in relation to the LGAT.
LGATs speak of caring and compassion but do not in practice demonstrate an ethos of care in relation to their subjects. If you fail or feel messed up by the LGAT, you are made to feel it is your fault. In professional healing, the provider takes this as a signal to question the treatment strategy, perhaps seek more information by ordering additional tests, and brining other providers in for consutation.
*If there is success, the LGAT takes full credit. By contrast, a true professional healer assists clients and patients to identify their role in the process of healing so clients can retain as much personal agency and autonomy during the process and then the same or increased personal agency and autonomy afterwards.
*Confrontation, pushing rapidly for intense emotion, instant intimacy, hectic pace, not enough time to sleep little or no opportunity to think, and possibly being shadowed by a minder
*Pushing people to spend more money than they are comfortable with
*Shaming and ridicule for anyone who disagrees or hesitates--which reproduces/re-enacts life in an abusive family--which can cause persons already harmed by prior abuse to re-enact, either as bully/perpetrators or by submitting to the abuse and intenalizing blame. The persons in an LGAT who re-enact as bully perpetrators end up wanting to become leaders in the organization. The ones who re-enact as recipients of abuse become the people who work themselves to nervous collapse trying to please the organization, the way a desperate child tries to satisfy a miserable parent.
*Not being told how the process works, which means you don't have any way to give informed consent--a very important matter for persons who risk having physical or psychological health destablized by stress, confrontation and lack of sleep.
--------
(Retired Moderator)
All the features listed above apply to Quest. The only thing I'd disagree with is the statement that the software differs from lgat to lgat and ...
Quote:
the external plumage ( verbiage, doctrine of groups) has quite a variety of colors
For all the groups derived from est it seems even the software and plumage is the same. (I guess this differs in things like Anthony Robbins).
In reading about Lifespring, Impact, PSI seminars, Klemmer & Associates, Landmark and Choices I've found the following processes and games from Quest being used:
* dyads
* buddy / angel system
* nothing games
* red-black game
* feedback arcs / platform feedback
* reverse dressing
* contracts
* stretches / theatre
* Lifeboat / raft
* giver-taker
* essence walk
And the script - concepts and jargon - is sometimes word for word the same. Common phrases and cliches used in Quest and other lgats:
* Understanding is the booby prize
* Inquest / other training is not for the faint-hearted
* integrity, commitment, agreements, responsibility - redefined
* being at cause
* going to the source
* get off it / get over yourself
* assisting vs helping
* intention vs trying / goals
* there are no victims
* you chose everything that ever happened in your life
* law of attraction
* it works for me / doesn't work for me
* don't judge
* experience is more valid than knowledge
* accepting your greatness / power
* resistance and surrender
Thank you so much SaneAgainand other contributors, I wanted to get this information to a more recent date since you have summarized what people need to know so well.
I will wait impatiently for some advise on what might be done to curb the spread of these splinter groups.
Thank you if you actually made it all the way through this post.
Concernedx10
Re: Florida - The Journey Need Info Please
Posted by:
cancelledgroupmind
()
Date: February 20, 2016 12:37AM
The Teacher Master Champion program, "The Journey", is an especiallly manipulative group. They use powerful occult (energetic) forces to initiate your elementals (thoughts, emotions) into a group mind in which all of the members are connected. This energy takes over everything that it can by brute force or by occult trickery.
Unfortunately, this is an extremely sticky situation to get out of for the average person. It requires someone who has advanced spiritual knowledge of how group minds (and certain energetic activations) work.
The worst part about it - they do this initiation regardless of whether you agree to their ground rules or not. If you leave without agreeing, an energetic process still occurs - even if you left. I asked one of the leaders to disconnect me over email, and she might have partly done so - but there is a second level group mind at work here... I believe it is connected to an individual's personal energy. It is very possible that the people running it have no idea that there is a MAJOR energy current hiding behind this process, which powers it.
They use hypnotic inductions designed to disarm you first of your gut feelings toward being herded into a room, disgracing Enya's music in the process. Then they make the jump to how acting on commitment always works out better than acting on feelings. They have several short sessions where the group breaks up into twos. Personal and confidential info is given. Then they jump into how people who have been through this program have far more super-hero like comfort zones than those who haven't. Then they have the ground rules - the first of which is CONFIDENTIAL. Funny how each person has given out very confidential info before even agreeing to this rule. The agreement process in itself escalates from raising hands to standing up and sitting down. There is a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to agree to things, and to support advertising the group even though you have no idea what it is about.
I feel like this is an extremely sadistic group because they use such a strong occult energy to indoctrinate people. On the surface, they may be teaching good principles, but they are using extremely negative and manipulative techniques if you are a person who values yourself exactly as you are.
Stay away from this group or any groups that resemble it. It is SERIOUS stuff that they are doing to your psyche, energy body, mind and emotions. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS if you value your personality, identity, the way your life is unfolding.
REALLY.
Unfortunately, this is an extremely sticky situation to get out of for the average person. It requires someone who has advanced spiritual knowledge of how group minds (and certain energetic activations) work.
The worst part about it - they do this initiation regardless of whether you agree to their ground rules or not. If you leave without agreeing, an energetic process still occurs - even if you left. I asked one of the leaders to disconnect me over email, and she might have partly done so - but there is a second level group mind at work here... I believe it is connected to an individual's personal energy. It is very possible that the people running it have no idea that there is a MAJOR energy current hiding behind this process, which powers it.
They use hypnotic inductions designed to disarm you first of your gut feelings toward being herded into a room, disgracing Enya's music in the process. Then they make the jump to how acting on commitment always works out better than acting on feelings. They have several short sessions where the group breaks up into twos. Personal and confidential info is given. Then they jump into how people who have been through this program have far more super-hero like comfort zones than those who haven't. Then they have the ground rules - the first of which is CONFIDENTIAL. Funny how each person has given out very confidential info before even agreeing to this rule. The agreement process in itself escalates from raising hands to standing up and sitting down. There is a tremendous amount of psychological pressure to agree to things, and to support advertising the group even though you have no idea what it is about.
I feel like this is an extremely sadistic group because they use such a strong occult energy to indoctrinate people. On the surface, they may be teaching good principles, but they are using extremely negative and manipulative techniques if you are a person who values yourself exactly as you are.
Stay away from this group or any groups that resemble it. It is SERIOUS stuff that they are doing to your psyche, energy body, mind and emotions. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS if you value your personality, identity, the way your life is unfolding.
REALLY.
Re: Florida - The Journey Need Info Please
Posted by:
cancelledgroupmind
()
Date: February 20, 2016 02:02AM
Addendum to previous post:
Personal experience was not from a group in Florida, but rather from a group operating in California's bay area.
Before entering what I thought was the lecture hall, I asked the lady at the front desk whether there was any hypnosis, energy work, or other funny stuff involved, and she assured me that there was nothing of the sort going on. Unfortunately, that's the majority of what I encountered.
Personal experience was not from a group in Florida, but rather from a group operating in California's bay area.
Before entering what I thought was the lecture hall, I asked the lady at the front desk whether there was any hypnosis, energy work, or other funny stuff involved, and she assured me that there was nothing of the sort going on. Unfortunately, that's the majority of what I encountered.
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