Hey Pauly,

Have a great weekend. It's been 10 degrees here all week so I'll certainly visualize cold beers and sunshine!

FYI - University of Bridgeport (Connecticut) is owned by the Moonies. UB has a graduate naturopathic school that may have or will soon be accredited.

Thanks for the resources.

Hope

Wow. I guess the moral to this story is to guard your minds and emotions. I truly believe it's the people that are lead by their emotions are the ones most vulnerable to this type of quackery. At the TR seminars, they get people so emotionally rowled up that they can get people to do anything.

It's like all those scenes of people getting out of control in large crowds...at international soccer games, street parties, etc. It reminds me of the pack mentality. When in packs, people do things they don't normally do alone. People have such a desire to belong that they conform to their environments.

Corboy, it seems as though you've been through a lot. And you've grown so much in wisdom from it. That's the benefit of going through such trying times. I really hope that my sister turns out like you. I just found out that she is going back to work full time as a flight attendant (she was working part time) and her husband will be staying home part time with the kids. They've agreed to try this for a year and see how it goes. This seems to have made her very happy. She seems more overwhelmed at home. We'll see how it goes.

I'm sorry it's been so long since I came to this thread. When I came back, I read Corboy's last reply but didn't read Pauly's until now. Great feedback, everyone...

My sister and I haven't talked about this since I posted originally, but I did tell her that I have some "research" to report to her. She seemed interested to talking to me. The biggest hurdle is to get her back into counseling. For some reason, she doesn't see the need. She has totally stopped seeing any psychiatrist.

I have a friend that recently started going to Landmark seminars. I'm gonna have to read up on them on this site. I'm a pretty conservative Protestant that is leary of getting into any cult-like groups like this in the first place. It's sad to see how people get ropped into these things, but then again, I guess people are searching for answers I feel I have already answered through my core belief system.

it appears that you've been fortunate enough to find excellent congregations that foster a healthy emotional/intellectual climate. There are healthy churches and there are sick churches--just ask your pastor!. It appears you found a healthy church--and a vibrant one, too.

It isnt just emotionally oriented people who are vulnerable. Any of us can become vulnerable if we are in crisis, bereaved, or suffienciently disoriented. The best thing about being human--empathy, the longing for connectedness--can be turned against us by spiritual crooks who are out to recruit groupies and make a fast buck.

So yes, we have to know how to evaluate whether a group is good for us or not. Thing is, we are not usually taught how to do that. (Schools teach us how to drive cars, but not how to evaluate whether a group or church is likely to help us or harm us!) And many of us are born into unhappy families and learn to accept group dysfunction as normal. And many people are born into families that follow dysfunctional churches or cults. (Imagine the tragedy of being one of Osama bin Laden's children. How can any of his kids imagine repudiating Daddy's evil doctrines? )

And we are often given very unhealthy models on how to be spiritual. Spiritual groups and churches that are healthy and sane usually do not attract attention. The dysfunctional ones do. If you're Christian it is so easy to believe that you're compromising and selling out because you're living a happy family life, and not dwelling in the desert, living on locusts and honey. There's this whole notion of 'this world' vs 'the Kingdom of God'. So its easy to feel as though a normal life is a matter of selling out, and that it is incompatible with 'being spiritual', when living as a normal human being is actually an achievment.

I apologize for coming across so immune to being "roped" into falling for these cult-like groups. That is definitely not the case, as I was involved in the same type of church my sister was. You see, it drew you in by using your emotions. I was so sad and lost during that time in my life. But now that I've been through it, I can't imagine being drawn in again since I have grown so much in wisdom. I do realize that I still have far to go (life is a constant growing process), but I am now carefully guarded of what I put into my mind and heart. The sane is so true: If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything....

I see you know your old testament scripture! :-)

Regarding having enough wisdom not to be roped in again ... That's exactly what I thought. In fact, my gut warned me about the mantra meditation person I was meeting with and he did indeed turn out to be part of a group that has much scandal. I was meditating with him during the time I was seeing the naturopath who turned out to be quite the con artist. He had me completely snowed and it still amazes me. Recently, I applied for employment with a modeling agency and, wouldn't you know, someone posted about their experience with the same company, right here on this forum. Ya never know. :confused:

...if you're curious, Leo Booth has a superb book entitled When God Becomes a Drug---it examines how many of us are led into using spirituality as an addiction. Hope has been reading it and got a lot out of it. It is an especially valuable book for people who have been wounded by unhealthy interpretations of Christianity.

Two rules of thumb: look for a church or tradition that balances wisdom with compassion--or in Pauline terms, agape with discernment/prudence. Two, avoid any place that seems more interested in the Devil than in God/Christ and love for strangers and neighbors.


Its not for nothing that Martin Luther said that before anyone is ready to read Scripture, he or she first has to pray for the grace of a clean heart. I would add that we have to make sure we are sane and determined to love our families, friends, neighbors and strangers. Otherwise it is so easy to project our own pre-existing craziness onto Scripture--no matter whether that Scripture is Christian, Buddhist, Islamic, Hindu or any of the New Age writings.

There's a wonderful collection of articles by Arthur Deikman on [www.deikman.com] If you go to the section on 'cults' and then select 'Evaluating Spiritual and Utopian Groups' that will give you one of the best, most common sense discussions Ive ever found on the subject.

I constantly recommend that article to people--especially folks who are starting out on a spiritual search.

As a Protestant Christian, I don't believe any person has to intercede for me to talk with God. And I believe the true Word is the Bible. Believers need to read the Bible themselves to see if what their pastor is saying measures up to what the Word says. Many people are afraid or intimidated to open the Bible up and see if it sways from the right or to the left. If you are another religion, I guess the same can be done with their book of truth like the Karan for Muslims for example.

In the Christian church, there are a small amount of people that put more emphasis on the devil's limited power than the Lord's omniscient power. This is very unfortunate.

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Ang2BRD
My sister said that in the seminar Mr. Robbins was trying to teach people how to talk with people without saying anything...a sort of telepathy communication. That can't be healthy, can it??!!

It's not a method of telepathy, it's actually called mirroring. It's based on the idea that what you feel is related to your posture, facial expression, etc. For example, if you're feeling sad or depressed you'll most likely be kind of slouched, frowning, etc. If you copy someone's body positioning and/or breathing, you can kind of feel how they are feeling. It has nothing to do with psychic abilities.

I read a New Yorker article describing the work of Dr Paul Ekman. For the past 25 years, Ekman has mapped the human face and has compiled a dictionary of human facial expressions and has linked clusters of these expressions to specific emotions. Ekman is a tenured faculty member at the medical school at UC San Francisco. His work has been of tremendous value for mental health professionals trying to assess whether depressed people are masking suicidal intent. And ever since 9-11, the police and intelligence specialists have consulted Ekman to help them determine when people are telling the truth and when they are not. Ekman has studied law enforcement officers who are given high ratings for intuition and street smarts by their colleagues and has found that they all have a gift for reading facial expressions. It is something Ekman has learned to measure in his laboratory, but because it is a skill most of us are not aware of, it seems magical and psychic until we read about Ekman's methodology.

The reason I mention this is the New Yorker article described how Ekman and one of his assistants discovered that certain facial expressions can AFFECT mood. He and his assistant were practicing facial expressions related to depression. After a couple of weeks, the two researchers timidly confided to each other 'I feel miserable.' That was their first clue that adopting certain facial expressions can actually trigger specific mood states. They later varified this by designing and running experiments.

So yes, it is very possible that an alert person can pick up on someone's mood state by subtly mimicking that person's facial expression or posture and then observing how he or she feels.