also, one other thing. The Erickson work was just actual therapy, and had nothing to do with "enlightenment" or any of that stuff. He just figured out a way to supposedly speak to people's "unconscious", using his idiosyncratic methods, to help them to adjust to reality, and have a better life. That was the goal. but Erickson was also an explorer of the "unconsciou
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

One thing to keep in mind about this Ericksonian hypnotherapy stuff, is that a "story" about hypnotherapy, even coming from Erickson, is a "Teaching Tale", not a fact. So there may have been a golfer, there may not even have been a golfer. Sometimes a story like that is used as an indirect trance induction story... as in telling a client that golfer story, and the real mes
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Anticult, I found out the quotes about the golfer are not from Zeig. Zeig met Erickson in '73. They are actually from Jay Haley, Erickson's long-time student, who first introduced Erickson to the world. Haley wrote Uncommon Therapy: the psychiatric techniques of Milton H. Erickson in 1973 and spoke at the First International Congress on Ericksonian Approaches in 1980. Erickson died
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Jay, by the way, thanks for the quote from Jeffrey K. Zeig above. Very disturbing, and nice job bringing it up. Ericksonian hypnotherapy, was certainly NOT derived from Zen. It was highly idiosyncratic to Erickson, and never fully explained by him. But if anything, it was about getting people to adjust more to reality, it was therapy. But it was never systematized or written out. Jeff
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Not all Zen stories involve being hit by a stick. There is one in which two seekers travel to find a Zen teacher. The ask the old man, 'What is Zen?' The teacher refuses to answer their question, as stated. Instead, he replies, 'I would rather be torn to pieces than darken the mind of a single student.' The understanding of this story is that if the teacher had r
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

just wanted to follow up one point about the abuses of the Ericksonian hypnotherapy, as detailed above, by the BK people, like Michael Katz. Its a shame that the name of the great Dr. Milton Erickson has to be dragged into this. Erickson was legit, he was an MD, a psychiatrist, licensed in hypnotherapy, running journals, etc. He charged modest rates, and worked out of his home, due to his phy
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Just a note about the Ericksonian hypnotherapy. Its extremely complex stuff, related to so many areas, it takes years of study. But it intially was used by Erickson to help people in the context of ACTUAL registered proper therapy, as Dr. Milton Erickson was an actual MD, psychiatrist, and the founder of many hynotherapy areas. He was probably a genius, working in very complex ways, and he he
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Why do these zen stories so often involve someone getting hit by a stick? You know Gregory Bateson was interested in zen. What is Milton Erickson's connection to zen? The Evolution of Psychotherapy by Jeffrey K. Zeig: The ideas of Zen influenced me in the 1950s when I was developing a therapy approach and doing research on the nature of therapy. For ten years, I was a member of Gr
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

just a few more comments about the book, I Need You Love - Is That True by Byron Katie and Michael Katz Also, as mentioned above, purple was Milton Erickson's color trademark, used for various reasons. All of Erickson's main books are purple. The back and spine of this Byron Katie book is also PURPLE, which is Milton Erickson's color, and as mentioned, BK is dressed in purpl
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I have that book, and it's amazing. Erickson, who was ill and immobile as a child, spent a lot of time "people watching", which gave him a very special edge with how to size people up and understand what makes them tick. Sadly, people like Kockroach-Katie and her bunch use the techniques to get rich at the expense of people's minds and lives. Erickson used his powers for good,
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Here is a multimodal Ericksonian Story, Teaching Tale, induction, etc..It could be studied in great detail. The story, is not just a story. If anything, its closer to something like a fairy tale, but with current characters, for the time it was written. The story was told to others, for the impact it has, within a larger symbolic communication. For example, the CACTI was a symbol he used in man
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of course, the most important methods, are modifying what is going on inside one's own mind and brain. There are many ways to do that. You can break it into 2 areas, for example. Images Language There have been some previous posts made on this, there are more posts in that thread that can be found when there is time. IRRT and CBT Basically, you use Active Imagination to rescri
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Thanks Anticult, using the example helps. The blog entry is about Byron having a carcinoma on her nose and her family is deeply concerned for her. She is predictably excited about it. What she really is doing is distracting the readers mind from what is about to come. She then writes: "I invite you all to inquiry, to your own marvelous death of the body (before it dies) as you understa
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

these complex verbal techniques originate in Ericksonian hypnotherapy, but they were created originally to help people, not to exploit them in this manner. (as its being done without any consent). So when she carefully constructs a sentence like below, to the conscious grammatical mind, to the mind of reality, it is meaningless, and literally cannot be understood. It is nonsensical, like Alice
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

There are lots of links between Byron Katie and Stever Robbins, interviews, reviews, blog-posts, than can be found with a search. Below is one of the Stever Robbins pages, with links to all of the NLP, Gregory Bateson anthropologist; and Milton Erickson hypnotist info. Stever Robbins has been around NLP since 1978, and is a NLP Master Trainer, and NLP Master Practitioner. He's connect
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

On review, the title page for Losing The Moon does list a copyright for 1998, it probably was not put into the main database. The book Losing The Moon is quite unreadable for the unindocrinated reader. But the book is terribly powerful for those who buy into it, too powerful to put out there. They have toned down the writing since then, and would use those more powerful methods verbally, onl
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Oh, thank you, Anticult. Now I think I understand what you were saying :-) And that understanding leads me back to a point you made on March 3, 2009, in the Guru 1.0-5.0 post. (At this rate, this is going to be the first thread in history with footnotes and bibliography) I've had a huge insight about my own situation because of the last couple of days' posts, so this post might be
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

just FYI, as mentioned, Jack Canfield, is the salesman of the Chicken Soup megafranchise, and he has dozens of businesses and "coaching" companies, which are basically MLM factories. This guy could sell ivory to elephants, old school superduper-salesman, with knowledge of every LGAT sales technique on the face of the earth. Jack Kornfield, is the founder of the Spirit Rock Center a
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I just wanted to drop this into the thread. It important to remember that Dr. Milton Erickson was probably a genius, in the classic sense, and he truly helped a lot of people, for modest cost. He was the real deal, not a saint, just a MD and a psychiatrist, and a hypnotherapist and teacher. A person could spend years studying what he did, and its fascinating, and as complex as Mozart. It doe
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Hi friends. A little refresher course, courtesy of this lovely NLP blog. Anticult will probably find far more treasures there than I can detect. We can probably assume this description is given of a context in which ME's model is being used by a therapist and client, and the client KNOWS he or she is working with a hypnotherapist. This is a client--not an uninformed target. Or..d
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

See if Esalen could also have been a point of contact. I think Michael Murphy was deeply involved with that. Gestalt was taught there by Perls. People from Zen Center were there--including quite honorable teachers, such as Kobun Chino. A lot of people networked with each other via Esalen in the 1970s. I think Bateson was on faculty or in residence at UC-Santa Cruz. And he died fro
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...regarding people handing over cash-money as "donations"...and not demanding an official tax-receipt, and thus not knowing where the money went...as it can't be tracked through the public 990 IRS forms... There are some tweets, that there is an in-joke about Byron Katie’s private estate being nicknamed "Lodona Lane"...the in-joke being that "Lodona" stands
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

There appears to be a few people named Michael Katz out there, so be aware of that. Michael Katz now appears to function as a literary agent on the west coast, and has been pumping for Stephen Mitchell for a very long time. It appears that Michael Katz is also the AGENT to Jack Kornfield. But the (Byron Katie) Michael Katz has been involved in all of these techniques and methods, since the
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

ok, Game-Over, Checkmate. (more links to come) Those who have read this thread, will notice that it clearly shows that part of what Byron Katie is doing is an abusive form of Ericksonian hypnotherapy. That is, Erickonian conversational hypnosis, coming from Dr. Milton Erickson. Also, there are many links and connections with NLP and its techniques. The founders of NLP, Richard Bande
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

anyone can search Google images for Byron Katie, and analyze the professional PR photos she has out there. You will see the exact same pattern's in these photos. - soul-piercing intimate eye-stare into the camera, head-cocked to the side, and hand to the face. Earlier, it was pointed out that in her YouTube video's you can see how Byron Katie uses the "head-cock" to the
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Hi Christa, The point you make is very important. "It's a shrewd, subtle bit of marketing that points to a great deal of ego inflation and a propensity for risk-taking". B-i-n-g-o and Bingo was his name-o. Its no accident that they made it sound like Byron Katie appeared at Harvard, that is the type of tricky advertising they do all the time. BK always tries to make it
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GOE, its true in all of these LGAT seminars that they don't work on everyone. Its a numbers game, and they know it. They advertise widely, and it bounces off some people, some buy a book or two, while some others get deeply hooked into it. Your friend was possibly a person who was not in too much pain in life, so The Work made her/him feel worse. The Work is ultimately all about creat
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

by the way, in the banned, burned, suppressed, censored book on Byron Katie called "A Cry In the Desert", they talk a lot about how Byron Katie used to go to many AA 12 Step meetings, for a long period of time. One assumes after her mental breakdown, (which probably did happen), she may have gone into that alcoholic treatment center "halfway house", where Byron Katie was t
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The end of the book, A Cry In The Desert, is extremely revealing. The writer, Christin Lore Weber was a former nun, and was extremely mystical and naive and far too trusting, and thus was completely unaware of the methods being used by Byron Katie. (I will detail those methods soon, but they include the nude bare-breast embracing female "workshops" that would happen in water, and man
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

thank you for asking. my active involvement spans 1997 to 2002-- so it is a long story to get out--but i will get it all out and continue posting here. six years away i have worked hard to come to whatever degree of lucidity i have about what happened. and there are big chunks i 'forgot' (!) and have to retrieve. i wrote the catastrophic concluding episode to my involvement on this boar
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"