You know, I am SO glad that I found this site. I never dreamed that I would have to face this sort of thing at work. Today was the annual health fair and they had a booth there with all their materials. Well, as long as management doesn't make participation mandatory (and I don't think they will) then I don't think I have anything to worry about job-wise. It just goes to show y
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

That sounds like very good advice. I don't want to alienate my friend, but I don't want to sound like I am buying in to this nonsense. Quite frankly, I am rather surprised to find this kind of thinking where I work because we do legitimate preclinical scientific research, which many New Agers oppose because it uses animals. So she may have to end up choosing between her beliefs and h
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

That is what I suspected as well. I am wondering if having the fan on (although it was at least 10 feet away) might have contributed to the effect. It would be interesting to repeat the experiment without the fan, with my eyes open and with her either out of the room entirely or sitting in another chair. I don't think she'd go for the last part as the walking about and waving hands i
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I have a friend who is uncritically into the New Age movement, by this I mean she accepts everything as gospel without stopping to examine whether it is rational, whether it is true, whether it makes sense, or even if there is fraud involved. I've tried to reason with her but there is no reaching her. Anyway, she is involved in something called "Reconnection" which I have not h
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

My advice is to either drop the matter or see a lawyer IN PERSON. This is not something that ought to be discussed online and could even damage your court case. It could leave YOU wide open for a lawsuit from your ex-pastor. In the first place, IT IS ILLEGAL for a psychologist or any other medical professional to discuss someone else's diagnosis with a third party, at least in the Unite
Forum: Abusive and Controlling Relationships

Dear Stars, since you don't really give any background about where you live or how old you are it's really very hard to tell what is going on. I don't know about other places but where I live in the American Midwest aggresive cult recruiting is not the norm even among Evangelical Christians who are the most likely to approach people. The fact that you say this is happening everyw
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I visited the website, and I agree, appearances can be deceiving. One would not get the impression from visiting their website. But I know enough about that particular mindset that I believe you. Religious fanaticism is an issue that churches have yet to deal with. They act like it does not exist. Yet people CAN get addicted to God just as much as they are addicted to crack. Your brother
Forum: Destructive Churches

There is no easy answer for that. Some people never do wake up. It's not just denial; they have invested so much of themselves into this identity that it is frightening to think of any other way of living. The longer someone has been involved in a cult or abdicated their reasoning and thinking to another person or group (not necessarily a "cult" by Rick Ross standards), the hard
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

To get back to the original poster's question, how do you recover from New Age mumbo-jumbo, my answer would be education. Quality education. Learn about REAL science, not pseudo-science. Now, I am a big fan of libraries and for me a good guide to whether something is science is where is it located in the library. In my library the pseudoscience, New Age, and religion are all lumped toget
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I would second the idea that before you start doing yoga that you check with your health care practitioner first and also find out just what kind of poses you will be asked to do. Some of them can be quite harmful for people with certain conditions. For example, about a year ago I developed brachioplexus/thoracic outlet syndrome which is similar to carpal tunnel in that it affects the hands and
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

What "Cold Reading" is is simply a sophisticated system of guessing using body language. This is how it works--try it, I guarantee it. First, usually the person that is going in for a reading is going in because he or she is facing some issues in his or her life. People who are happy, well-adjusted, and don't seem to have a lot of trouble in their lives are generally not goi
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I have a friend who is very much into this so I have been hearing quite a bit about it lately. She plans to open her own "healing center." One thing I have noticed is that while these healers are very careful to state that their treatments do not work 100% of the time they are very reluctant to state exactly how many people they have helped versus how many people they have not been
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

This does not surprise me. From what I have seen and read of New Age beliefs, New Age does not believe that there is such a thing as evil. I have had several conversations with my co-worker, who is a "True Believer" in this stuff and some of the things that she says, I just look at her and say, Do you really mean what I think you said? It's all good, as far as they are concerned
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I don't know the names of any New Mexican cults right off hand but Sedona, Arizona seems to be a hotbed of really strange activity. I have a co-worker who is getting sucked into this kind of crap--she calls me close-minded but refuses to read anything I recommend--and she just got back from Sedona just bubbling over about all the fantastic stuff going on out there. You might want to co
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Interesting. About a hundred years ago there was a now-defunct group called Koreshan Unity which had its headquarters near Estero, Florida. Their leader, Cyrus Teed, who took the name Koresh, also taught that the earth was hollow, only a few thousand miles across and contained the entire universe inside. He didn't have the advantage of NASA technology, however. When Koresh died his fol
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I don't know much about this particular group but I do know from personal experience how easy it is to get sucked into something like this. The problem is the changes that you describe in your brother are behaviors that MANY small evangelical denominations encourage especially those that have a Holiness/Pentecostal background. His pastor sounds more extreme than most but I can assure you t
Forum: Destructive Churches

From what I understand of the Nazarene church, it is a split-off of the Wesleyan Holiness movement and came into being about the same time as Pentecostalism. The Nazarenes that I am familiar with have very conservative, fundamentalist theology. Because it is a Holiness church they can hae very strict rules regarding members' conduct. No drinking, no dancing, women don't cut their hai
Forum: Destructive Churches

I would say the first thing is to know yourself, know what you are vulnerable to. Secondly, you might want to start researching how to think rationally, rather than superstitiously. It's been my experience that the more grounded I get in rational thinking the harder it is to fall for all the BS out there. However, a word of warning, this can be a danger to your faith. I find the older
Forum: Coercive Persuasion and Undue Influence

It sounds like both of these guys (your boyfriend and the one in prison) are trouble. And when you are poor, as you say you are, the last thing you can afford is trouble. It doesn't sound like anything good can come out of this situation, on the contrary it has a great deal of potential to drag you down even more. My advice? Start thinking about yourself. What do you want to do? Wher
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

An update--From what I have been able to find out, "Journeys" was started in the Kalamazoo, Michigan area as part of an outreach/healing ministry by one of the area churches, and it does not seem to have spread much beyond that area. I know that at least one pastor has cautiously expressed support for it; he has apparently given his "blessing" for some members to take part in
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The Secret is that someone is laughing all the way to the bank.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I am going to make a prediction and that is once 2012 comes and goes by without anything out of the normal happening that a lot of these groups and individuals will just slowly and quietly fade away. I remember back in the 1970's I was in a group that believed in the imminent end of the world. They had all kinds of scriptures to back it up and if you didn't take a look at the whole
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Does anyone know anything about the "Journeys" small group movement? I've heard talk about it in my area. Apparently it is something some of the evangelical churches are doing. The idea is to be open and honest. I understand it can be quite emotional as people are encouraged to share some of their deepest and most emotional secrets. I was just wondering if any one here has had
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I read Rich Dad/Poor Dad some years ago and initially was pretty impressed by it, although I couldn't help thinking he made it sound so easy. I had the feeling then he wasn't telling the whole truth. However when I learned that Kiyosaki was heavily involved in MLM and especially an Amway spinoff, I lost respect for him. People, if it is too good to be true then it isn't. Lea
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I think there are a lot of women out there that can relate to what you are saying. I am particularly concerned with the abstinence movement among Christian groups. I have met a lot of "aging virgins" out there who have paid the price in terms of staying faithful to their church's teaching on no premarital sex. These are not women who have freely chosen a life of chastity/celibac
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

Don't you know that Jesus only died for those who are normal in body and mind? I once knew a Christian who wouldn't have anything to do with Harry Potter because it promoted witchcraft. Yet she saw nothing inconsistent in laughing at and passing along the latest retard jokes. I agree with the USA Today article. Unfortunately I think the forces of darkness are going to win on thi
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

Good luck. The trouble is that anyone, and I mean anyone, can pick up a Bible and start a church. It's called religious freedom, but it means we all have to be careful. As a long-time observer and sometime participant in the Christian scene, I am amused at all of these little denominations all claiming that they alone have the true interpretation of Scripture and all else are charlatans
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I did a little Googling; what I came up with was quite interesting. My search turned up mostly pro-Visalus sites. Apparently the company is VERY defensive about being labeled a scam. They seem to have been around for a few years and are claiming they are different from all the other MLM's. There also seemed to be something shady in their past, but since I don't know all the names and
Forum: Multi Level Marketing and Commercial Schemes

Thanks, I will keep that in mind. I am hoping that it won't come to that, although she was pretty pushy at the party. She and the others would say, oh, we aren't pressuring you, and five minutes later back at the same subject. I really doubt that she will come out and make continued employment dependent upon my joining. However the place where I work isn't unionized and I liv
Forum: Multi Level Marketing and Commercial Schemes

Has anyone heard about ViSalus Sciences? It's a new MLM in my area, selling vitamins and weight loss shakes. I thought I'd heard a lot before but these folks take the cake. They are saying that all you have to do is to get three people to sign up as distributors and each of them gets three people to sign up as distributors and within a month you will qualify for a Mercedes Benz! Eve
Forum: Multi Level Marketing and Commercial Schemes