I've found that confronting the bully LGAT leaders directly and nonviolently often leads to a more positive experience for those of us who leave such groups. Way to go!
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Thanks for participating on the forum. The James Ray stuff has rocked me as well. Would you be willing to share more details about Core Energetics? I just heard the name recently, and I'm curious about it. Found this link which states that Core Energetics involves "such actions as kicking, punching, holding positions that cause muscles to vibrate and energy to flow, exaggerating
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

This is a great distinction. I should add that the only NLP trainers and authors I respect are the ones for which NLP actually is the content, i.e. there are no confusing stories about the author and how great he is, but just straightforward advice on techniques for healing and therapy. Fitzpatrick says he "uses NLP to teach NLP," and this is a warning sign that these kinds of mul
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Excellent catches, especially the "true stories" which are almost certainly not true (although admittedly not yet verified as false). I hadn't thought about this before, but getting people to laugh (or suggesting that they do in words) can be a tactic for distracting from people feeling uncomfortable in the midst of being manipulated. Being manipulated creates tension, and laugh
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Other Owen Fitzpatrick red flags: On his Q&A page , he mentions interests in "brain washing" and "criminal psychology" among other things. Certainly I and others on this forum also have an interest in brainwashing and criminal psychology, but usually as victims of abuse attempting to prevent further abuse by warning others. It's possible Fitzpatrick has a similar
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Re: Owen Fitzpatrick, The DVD cover to his "Adventures in Charisma" says he did his Masters Thesis on Charisma: I would definitely be cautious with someone so interested in swaying the opinions and emotions of others, which is what charisma is. A bullet point benefit on his DVD set is "create charismatic states." I've found this to be a dangerous practice. When
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

@Anticult I don't want to derail the discussion nor take the heat off of James Ray and other abusive LGAT gurus by any means. We should do everything we can to warn others of the dangers of such programs and people. I just wanted to slightly balance the discussion and say that there is moderate and basic self-help stuff. If it makes more sense, we could move that discussion to a differ
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

It's hard for me to tell whether Ray really believes in New Thought, or just cherry-picks ideas from anywhere and everywhere. I find most of his stuff is ripped off from Tony Robbins, which is why I've been calling him "the living reincarnation of Tony Robbins," except with a New Age twist. As far as New Thought itself goes, I think what we are looking at here is Fundamenta
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

@Anticult I do coaching, and I totally agree that being paid enormous sums up front with no refunds in a contract is totally irresponsible and primarily benefits the coach, NOT the client. There is some small benefit from clients being committed to a number of sessions, but this benefit is greatly exaggerated in the context of most coaching contracts. A lot of the benefit of coaching comes fro
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

@CTEL, Yes of course, physically and medically speaking, Ray's victims died almost certainly from dehydration and extreme heat---after a 36 hour dry fast, etc. But why did they not leave when feeling ill? Why did Ray say "they are only purging" when people were vomiting in the sweat dome and "we'll deal with her in the next round" when someone passed out, and w
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I think this description of sociopathic tendencies fits James Ray's behavior almost exactly. The rest of this forum thread is the evidence. Why is this dangerous? Precisely because people have died and been injured, have given upwards of $40,000 for things they could do for free or cheap (e.g. sweat lodges, which Native Americans do not charge for, or Holotropic Breathwork which costs abo
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

CTEL, When people die from purely psychological influence, I think it is beyond reasonable to call someone a sociopath and encourage others to get the heck away. But if you have a better way of effectively preventing such repeat abuses, I'm all ears.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Anticult has provided some excellent resources for studying "dark side" materials to prevent becoming persuaded. To learn healing and self-development "jedi" materials, I recommend starting with Heart of the Mind by Steve and Connirae Andreas. Also, The Structure of Magic vol 1 is great for learning how to think critically and "de-hypnotize" yourself. Quotebgdo
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I'm not anticult, but I practice NLP and can address some of these questions. As with all communication techniques, the technique itself is basically descriptive but is ethical or not depending on its use and context. Mirroring someone and anchoring their past best friend could be ethical say in a context where you are meeting someone new, they honestly remind you of your best friend f
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

From ABC news: "Every single thing is your responsibility and nothing is your fault" says James Ray in a 2007 interview on The Secret. ABC news quotes Ray's lawyer right afterwards as saying ""...Mr Ray was not the one who was responsible for the design, construction, or maintenance of the sweat lodge. All of the participants in the event were fully informed of the
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The Awareness Page can be viewed in the Internet Archive:
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Glad to hear you think Erickson was a good guy. Keep up the good work in exposing the crooks. I'm just trying to sort out within myself who's a crook and who's not, I guess.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I know a lot about metaphors as well. Majored in linguistics in college, love Lakoff and Johnson, etc. I think you might be stretching this example as an example of manipulative communication, but I'm not sure. How specifically does "taken heat" function as a manipulative metaphor? Once you start looking for metaphors in communication, you see that they are in absolutely ever
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I think you've misunderstood Watzlawick's story. I've also read this book. Watzlawick asked Milton Erickson whether Erickson was Don Juan, and Erickson said no. I don't think Watzlawick ever had any connection with Castaneda except from reading his books. I personally consider Erickson to be an amazing psychotherapist, and a basically ethical one too from what I've rea
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I started to read Influence, but the introduction made me nauseous. The fact that Cialdini teaches social psychology to manipulate groups to marketers and others is extremely unethical in my opinion. I thought his book was going to be about how to prevent being influenced, but most people who've read it and rave about it are in the business of engineering consent.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I agree with everything you've written in this last post, Anticult. Perhaps I'm foolishly holding onto an optimistic view of James Arthur Ray's intent, since I have no experience of being such a ruthless narcissist. I also think I'm still deprogramming a bit myself from my Tony Robbins experience, nearly 6 years later. Part of me wants to believe that Robbins isn't a mons
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

My girlfriend was encouraged by a friend to go to the PSI basic seminar. She didn't have the money, so this guy offered to pay her way. She ended up having acute psychosis or "spiritual emergency" (Stanislav Grof's terminology), spending 3 days in the ER and several months recovering. She did not have health insurance, and now has over $10,000 in medical expenses. She had n
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Here's an intelligent and funny take on the James Ray disaster from YouTube:
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Thank you for all your excellent reporting on this subject, Anticult. I have been closely watching this tale unfold. Your work in organizing all the information on this thread is highly appreciated. One thing I slightly disagree with is whether or not abusive guru types like James Ray have malicious motives or not, or even whether they are trained in coercive persuasion tactics. I think there
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"