I't is amazing how big that movie was. I am not into this kind of thing but it seems the Hollywood crowd are always on the look out for the latest fad, in clothes, cars and religion

Hello David, I'm glad that you've opened up a website "enlightenmefree". Without emphasis, I have a lot of details to share. I will be heading towards your website soon.

I ask that whomever reads my explanations, remain open-minded, as there is more to that school than a 'common eye' can perceive. It runs deep, and at this part of the game, the depth of abuse has gone totally chaotic.

I was once a student there. I experienced first-hand events taking place there. On the surface, it may all seem nice, but deeper in the waves, it's a total entrapment. One must not just look at the school at first glance. Yes, there is mysticism, but the type of phenomena that transpires there is very carefully well-hidden.

I feel that I can contribute where most would not understand. Hoping to alleviate the frustrations that so many have endured. I will write more later.

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I't is amazing how big that movie was.

You bet that movie was big. I was shocked when I attended a lecture at our
Zen practice center and a seemingly reputable teacher referred to What the Bleep as
tying in with Zen practice.

Folks, any movie or guru that is a product of mass marketing is something that is part of a process (in this case marketing) that is designed to massage and trigger cravings
and herd mentality.

Genuine Buddhist insight practice (which includes Zen) means investigating the processs of craving so as to become free from it, not foolishly going along with marketing and products of marketing such as What the Bleep.

One cannot use craving to become free from craving. Thats like trying cure poisoning by adding more of the same poison.

In addition to examinging JZ Knight, also consider examining the social context in which she and others like her market her stuff.

Some movies and books are more than movies or books. They become gathering points and even badges of identity in the cultic milieu, a subculture which empowers New Age entreprenuers/euses.

One very good way to identify unhealthy elements in this cultic milieu is to see which items are produced by marketing and PR and inflame craving in the guise of assuaging it.

Two, unhealthy elements of cultic milieu foster fear of anything and anyone outside the subculture, cutting you off from friends, family and, in some cases, medical care.

And a very important element of unhealthy cultic milieu is that it presents as a liberating dignified alternative to oppressive, capitalist mainstream culture, while its gurus, channellers and products (such as what the Bleep) are products of that same capitalistic culture, only in disguise and you are without the consumer protection offered by mainstream society.

You can do more reading here

[forum.culteducation.com]

There is an interesting library of articles here.

[www.kevinrdshepherd.net]

I disagree with the author's beliefs about the nature of HIV and why the HIV pandemic has become so severe.

This said, a number of the articles led me to some interesting books and research leads.

Larree, I cannot even remember what pattern of internet searching led me to Mr Shepherds site.

Yeah, its a gold mine. He provides yet more information on how Esalen was a very important venue during which many people touched contact.

It all fits in with that sociologists concept of 'cultic milieu'--a social venue in which people explore alternatives to mainstream ideas and treatment modalities.

The cultic milieu isnt all bad. It is often the first entry point for material that later, when tested scientifically, through double blind studies and peer review, turns out to be of demonstrable worth and is later incorporated into mainstream medicine.

Its when ones participation in cultic milieu leads to devaluing critical thinking and overvaluing charismatic leaders and feel good stuff that trouble develops.

My take is that if we are unwary, hanging out in cultic milieu and forming friendships
can soften us up for later recruitment by cult leaders who are severe enough to fit the Lifton protocols.

BTW here is a great article in the current issue of Wired magazine that deals with why scientists have such difficulty in debate with anti-rational ideologues in the cultic milieu.



Quote:
The rejection of hard-won knowledge is by no means a new phenomenon. In 1905, French mathematician and scientist Henri Poincaré said that the willingness to embrace pseudo-science flourished because people “know how cruel the truth often is, and we wonder whether illusion is not more consoling.”
Decades later, the astronomer Carl Sagan reached a similar conclusion: Science loses ground to pseudo-science because the latter seems to offer more comfort.

“A great many of these belief systems address real human needs that are not being met by our society,” Sagan wrote of certain Americans’ embrace of reincarnation, channeling, and extraterrestrials.

“There are unsatisfied medical needs, spiritual needs, and needs for communion with the rest of the human community.”


Colin Campbell came up with the term cultic milieu. Remember, people are trying to find dignity, agency, love. These needs cannot be met by anyone whose actual agenda is to run a business and compete with other gurus and do this by advertising. Those are the poisonous elements of mainstream culture from which people are trying to seek healing via alternatives to mainstream culture.

[www.flipkart.com]

The gurus whose methods are critiqued here speak the vocubulary of spiriutuality but their methods are the same as mainstream capitalism and they dont see each person as a unique preson, just as another face in the crowd, another income generating unit.

Marketing cant heal craving or bring wisdom or compassion.

Here is a link to an association for parasychological research. I have no experience with them and am passing on the link in case it is of use to anyone.

[www.aiprinc.org]

In case this is of help, there is a very haunting autobiography by Mary Garden, entitled Serpent Rising. Ms Garden spent many years in India and was in physical and emotional bondage to a guru through whom she had what seemed a most remarkable experience.

That experience which she could not make sense of from any other perspective, however hard she tried, kept her returning again and yet again to this guru's orbit, despite his horrid treatment of her.

Persons who were involved with Muktananda reported a similar quandry--some claimed the ecstacy experiences were produced by seekers own craving minds. Others who had been there contend to this day that there was something about those ecstacies that went far beyond what could be accounted for by what an individuals craving mind can come up with.

The debates on this are sincere from both and have gone on for years, for this was a complex group and had many members and been in existence for a long time.

In the end, most decide that what matters is not the ecstacy but what kind of social organization results and how well people behave toward each other. Is lying involved?

Is there a constant need to recruit new and energetic members as others grow drained,burned out? One the the saddest things described by Mary Garden was seeing
young people, especially the girls and women, arrive at that abusive guru's ashram, beautiful and healthy and, months later, after undernutrition, overwork and being emotionally and physicially abused, turn into a haunted, hollow eyed wrecks.

Significantly, this guru sent the younger male disciples out to recruit for women who arrived in Rishikesh, looking to stay at a more reputable ashram.

This guru wore and drained people, especially women, so he needed touts to recruit for him.

In the capitalist west, one uses PR, glossy posters, mass advertising.

This is where the cultic milieu is actually the capitalist mainstream but in disguise and unregulated by anything that protects the consumer.

A follow up: If anyone decides to read Mary Gardens book, please be aware that some of the things she describes are graphic and quite horrifying. If you have endured grave sexual trauma, do not read this if feeling fragile.

Note in addition to Robert J Lifton's criteria for dangerous groups, there is one item to add that may or may not be relevant to Ramthas group.


Here is a method not often mentioned.

I learned it on a fluke by reading Colin Wilson's book Rogue Messiahs.

Wilson said he was told something by Robert Ardrey that was, for some time kept classified during and after the Korean War. It was a key component to the success that the Communist Chinese and North Koreans had in pressurizing POWs to take on the Communist belief system.

This is an important component of what was done: Closely observe the captured soldiers and officers.

Identify the ones (regardless of rank) who showed leadership, initiative, ability to take risks, refusal to respect or fear authority and coercion.

These persons were the ones who were identified ASAP and removed from the general prisoner/POW group and segregated as hard cases.

By identifying and removing the potential leaders, the ones capable of defying the authoritarian belief system (whether by smirking, looking bored, making jokes, digging
escape tunnels and making weapons)--that meant the larger group of prisoners were
much more docile, once this tiny but very important subset of potential leaders and dissidents was 1) identified and 2) removed and segregated.

The docile remainder, without their leaders (and in house jokers, the ones who scribble subversive graffiti, make faces, rude remarks or rip a fart right when the virtues of Communism are being extolled) were that much more easily controlled and manipulated--they were, neurologically, a more uniform group once the leaders and disruptors had been identified and removed.

So. see if your former employer found ways to identify and kick out leaders.

Its especially ugly if a bully not only removes people with leadership potential but cons them to feeling bad about themselves and distrustful of their own talent--a talent the bully does not have.

To con a gifted person into distrusting his or her talent for hard work and leadership is the ultimate and poisonous revenge of a bully.

Most of us dont know nearly enough about Lifton's criteria. But the added element of identifying and removing potential pranksters leaders and escape savvy people would tremendously enhance the impact of the cultic features itemized by Lifton in his list.

I read the article you linked to from the association for parapsychological research.
It ended with what must be the understatement of the decade, if not century:

'Uncritical belief in the psychic's advice is a problem.'