If anyone (boss, friend, etc) is bugging you to do an LGAT, tell them that getting 5 hours of sleep or less is bad for cardiovascular health. That, plus the finding quoted earlier in this thread that running short on sleep has the same effect as getting drunk should be definitive. A true educational experience would protect people's sleep patterns to support optimal cognitive function
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

If anyone is bugging you/pressuring you to do an LGAT, tell them running short on sleep is bad for your health. Quote Lack of sleep may be deadly, research shows-Reuters By Ben Hirschler 1 hour, 39 minutes ago LONDON (Reuters) - People who do not get enough sleep are more than twice as likely to die of heart disease, according to a large British study released on Monday. Alt
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Any LGAT alumni have difficulty accessing food during scheduled breaks? That, along with running short on sleep would make things difficult. On page two of the French documentary thread Ajinajan and Hope mentioned the following Even without the added pressure of being processed through an LGAT, low blood sugar from a skipped meal, caffeine withdrawal for those who use coffee an
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Ajinajan wrote QuoteIronically enough, MY Landmark Forum was also in the middle of nowhere, nowhere near any place to eat, we also had very little time to rush to get food, and were scolded in front of 200 people if we came back late from a meal. Our sessions also ended around midnight or 1am, I got about 5 hours or less sleep each night, and wasl always starving when I got back to go to sleep..
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

What you choose to wear is your own business. And if your decision to stay clothed was 'noticed'---could you tell us about what this 'noticed' consisted of? The honest thing would've been to state up front that it would be (or become!) a clothing optional event. That way someone could make an informed decision ahead of time whether its something for them. (Plenty
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

We do not have enough information whether the LEC facilitators One 2 LF described as sleeping on mattresses are 'on the brink'. To say that would require a personal exam by a professional, and I am not qualified. But...anyone running that short on sleep (mattresses during breaks) is according to that young physicians study, impaired, as if DUI due to alcohol intoxication. This i
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

We do not have enough information to say that the LEC facilitators LF described as sleeping on mattresses are 'on the brink' of mania. To say that would require a personal exam by a professional, and I am not qualified. But...anyone running that short on sleep is according to that young physicians study, impaired, as if DUI. Its probably unlikely that someone with bipolar woul
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

People need to be educated as to the vital importance of protecting sleep and that one must be able to refuse and if necessary LEAVE any program or relationship that keeps you past bedtime, puts you under stress, especially if you have a genetic background for bipolar affective disorder, or even attention deficit disorder Lots of URLs here. A further discussion with additional URLs
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Intersted readers are invited (nudge, nudge shove!) to read this thread on room set ups. Former LGAT subjects gave valuable obsevations. And others showed a peculiar and most revealing fury that the message board community was giving such scrutiny to room set up--as if we were getting too close to something that others wished would remain hidden. But it is not only room set up. We nee
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

A great way to assist people to make informed choices about what kinds of projects to get involved with--and stay well away from--is to get the public to understand that quality sleep is as important as good nutrition and exercise, and that sleep deprivation can do everything from compromise health to triggering manic episodes in persons who have inherited a genetic vulnerability to bipolar affe
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Another way to re-write history Eject/Purge those persons who remember how things used to be done.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

That is a very good question. Even in a non-cultic situation, the demise or departure of a charismatic leader is a vulnerable point. Just talk to anyone who has had long experience serving on search committees for Anglican and Protestant churchers, and for Jewish congregations--all traditions in which the community can choose its leader. Then talk to people who have experience in business a
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Maurice wrote: Quotetheir blinkers are on good and proper and they're trained to think of a 'no' as a 'no for now' That really puts it in a nutshell. 'No' meaning 'no-for-now', rather than being heard as 'I am not interested, no now, not ever.' Says everything that Werner started out as a high pressure salesman. Prime directive for th
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

A lot of people are 'programmed into silence.' One can surmise how a child who is left lonely because the parents are pre-occuppied with following exercises prescribed in a Gurdjieff group/other sort of esoteric group or are distracted due to the freaky politics, pecking order and infighting of such a group. A child in this predicament, whose parents are distracted, might feel los
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Do you take your coffee black, or with cream? Or milk? Eggs--which way? If you want waffles, you'll have to be patient. We do those on weekends. (wink)
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

For a survey of the intellectual movement that is termed traditionalism, get and read Mark Sedgwick's Against the Modern World. You may need to go either to a university library or a very well equipped public library to get it. Sedgewick has a website and a blog and has done a lot to put this important but obscure movement on the map. Traditionalism is worth looking at because i
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

Dear RS: We can't see each other's faces or hear inflections in voice tone. When all we have is printed text, its easy for misunderstandings to come up. Many community members, myself included, often take vacations and then return when we feel ready to do so. Feel free to rest, recover, and there's a place at the kitchen table for you, anytime.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quote. It is evident that to many people the idea that they are in complete possession of their own minds, their own opinions, and their own decisions that to suggest otherwise throws them into a panic they can barely tolerate. It is like questioning someone's sanity to offer that they might have been swayed, tricked, or manipulated by nefarious tactics hidden from them. They are so certain
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

A former employee of Enron discovered the true nature of a covertly narcissistic company: Quote A native of Midland, Tex., who describes himself as a political progressive, Mr. Vernon said that when he joined Enron in December 1999, he hoped that the company would be diverse and a meritocracy. But in the course of two years working at Enron, he said, he "realized it was just an
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Dear Fish and others: If you want a copy of the Pressman & Pressman book, see if any new editions have been published. An updated edition will give further developments of the author's model. If you're interested in seeing if other clinicians have worked with the Pressman's model, phone a medical library and ask a librarian how to track other articles and books
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

RSWinters wrote: QuoteJust in case any apologists are reading this post. NO, I don't thank an LGAT for showing me this. I hold them accountable for making a deep emotional wound in me go atomic in blowing up in my life as it produced very destructive damage across every area of my life. I mean ALL AREA'S of my life have been destroyed by applying this crap philosophy. The reason
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Dear Nutrino, there is a book, slim and excellent, on narcissistic families. You may find a lot of overlap between that model and what you have observed first hand, in LGATs and LGAT-y/narcissistic corporations The book is 'The Narcissistic Family: Diagnosis and Treatment' by Pressman and Pressman. The authors came up with this model because so many distressed clients came to
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Dear Jupiter, based on what you have described, it is possible that the type of therapy that would help most would be from someone who has actual training on cult-exit issues, or possibly, someone who has been trained in assisting persons from highly dysfunctional families. Given what you have been through, you should check any one you are thinking of working with to ensure they hav
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Dear Jupiter: Ive never done this practice but there is a fascinating description of it in this book entitled 'Call No Man Master' by Joyce Colin-Smith Joyce Collin-Smith was a practitioner of Subud in its very earliest days when Pak Subud brought it to the United Kingdom--forty years ago. Colin-Smith saw quite a number of things both about Pak himself, his wife, and th
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quotewhy would anyone, particularly if they already had negative experience, voluntarily put themselves in these situations? Depends on what you mean by 'voluntarily'. According to what has been reported on this message board: Many people get referred to 'these situations' by friends, rby elatives whom they trust. Most of us are trusting persons. (Just as the
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Dear Glaucon, I am no longer a volunteeer moderator--I retired from this position almost two years ago. That article on humor was more of a hunch, an invitation to the message board community to examine the use and abuse of humor, because it seemed a promising avenue to examine, when assessing whether a group or even a two person relationship is worth getting involved with--or best avoided.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

(What follows is not authoritative. These are personal hunches. I am urging other members of the message board community to ponder this and look at how humor operated in their groups--this may be something worth exploring as a diagnostic catagory for assessing the nature of a group or prospective partner. C) There may be an additional item that can be added to the list of features for abusi
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

RSwinters wrote: QuoteI for one have found each and every LGAT topic thread very good information for all LGAT's. This is important. Because...nearly all human potential groups/LGATs claim to be unique. A very important step in recovery takes place when it is possible for a person to see that his or her group experience was not unique and that it can be compared with other groups.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Just to clarify--belief systems can be helpful to validate and stabilize empathy once it has been fostered. But...the most important thing to remember is empathy is created and then it is best maintained in human relationships and social contexts that nurture it. Paradoxically the first step to enslavement and bruality is to buy into believing we are hard shelled, autonomous beings who are
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Empathy is valuable but it appears also to be fragile and can, sad to say, be disrupted if suffient stress and social pressure are placed on most of us. A belief system may assist us to protect empathy in the face of pressures and tempations to devalue it or dis-able it. It may be that empathy is not created by a belief system. Its a potential that has to be developed through 1) 'good-en
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"