Nor, for that matter, do they improve the quality of your thinking. Most LGATs regardless of superficial outward differences function by "cognitive stripping", i.e. by taking thought processes that are necessarily complex to deal with the real world which is itself complex, then reducing the problems of life to explanatory incantations... you'll soon notice that what passes for thi
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

if this is any indication of how these organizations "found themselves on the earth plane": "Toward the end of August, Erhard asked Emery to come up and see him at the Grolier office in North Beach. After Emery arrived, Erhard told him Laurel Scheaf had heard in one of the Mind Dynamics courses that Emery had had some experience with "encounter sessions" in Australia.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Ha! They were out on the street actively soliciting today... obnoxious and unbearable as ever...
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

yes, what you say may well be true... I lived right next to the Hassidic community in Brooklyn... came to know many people there... Satmar Hasidim though, not Lubuvitch.... even the Satmars regarded the Lubuvitch "family" as peculiar people, if anyone they should be in a position to make that observation.... The difficulty that the Hasidim face, daily, is that their inside world is s
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

QuoteSo I agree, time IS valuable - in my opinion, too valuable to have continued with conventional therapies that were not, over 16 years, productive or effective for me. Fair enough. Every personal growth organization must have some intrinsic value or it would cease to exist in short order. In some cases there does appear to be a virtuous dynamic between the individual and the organization. T
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

according to their website she is affiliated with the Continuing Education Group. They say about themselves (in language I find strangely bland and suggestive at the same time): "Continuing Education Group is a health-related communications company. The Executive staff has more than 15 years of experience talking to consumers and their families in a language they can understand, a family-
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Ya know... all documentaries are distortions, even when they don't try to be... even a sincere attempt at objectivity will be an expression of "frames"... so how is an issue or a person framed by his or her portrayal... aspects of Erhard's impact on his culture may be explored... usually those aspects which are most easily spoken to in the documentary format... by the nature
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I have to wonder mightily about his powerful positive impact. For instance, one would have to obtuse NOT to observe that the interaction between those who "speak from the platform" in our culture, and those who "occupy the chairs", those on the receiving end of the politico-media complex have become distinctly MORE LGAT like in the past decade. Is this mere coincidence, or
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Is this the dirty little secret of the LGAT industry.... however that brand themselves, whoever they say they are ? They need loyalists , they need repeat customers, and they badly need a little army of mildly fanatic ants to "volunteer", or "crew" or "serve the higher purpose" or fill in the blank.... and I believe that those in the upper echelons of these orga
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Needed: a society wide discussion on what is and what isn't OK in high suggestibility-high vulnerability group settings. Look at the shift that occured with teacher-student or employer-employee or priest-alterboy relationships in the past decade. Suddenly the public woke up and the popular media along with it, and following them the legal system, and started asking what the appropriate bound
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Sadly, cults, HDOs or whatever we choose to call them, ARE a form of social response to "emotional malnutrition" in a contemporary, media-centric culture. We have the optimum conditions for ECONOMIC advancement which most people seem to take as their #1 priority, good house, good car, good neighborhood.... the hidden cost for this is weakened family structure, short term aquaintance
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

a case of what happens when men abuse estrogen ?
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

Somewhere along the course of my life I began to notice how highly educated people spoke and thought differently form moderately educated or uneducated people. This isn't to say that people without good formal educations can't be damn smart. Or that those with good educations necessarily have exceptional brain power. Solid, real, sustained, high quality education appears to have a fo
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

On one level it looks to me like the collective mind is beginning to wise up to the game structure of LGATs... the smarter, more socially aware folks I run into are practicing an increasingly fluid, supple, Taoist like thinking that seems to be a learned, organic response to manipulative games emerging from the advertising/publishing/political machine sector.... all of which were fascinated (sali
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

The "public", whoever they are, may be developing a more sophisticated set of media cognitive filters.... now, scenario 1, whether cult affiliation is a byproduct of the emotional stresses of celebrity, and many could argue that such is the case.... or whether, scenario 2, cult affiliation is symbiotic with celebrity, i.e. cults actually accelerate the process of becoming psychologicall
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

I must be abnormal.... Tony's presentation had zero effect on me except for making me want to get out of there. It did not seem humanly possible to stay in that room for four days while large spikes of profundity were being pounded into your brain by an mental-industrial apparatus... the entire shebang struck me as more nutty sci-fi than Jonestown... well, boy was it nutty... he had the ligh
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotewhereas while having a psychedelic experience the mind does get "overwhelmed with minutiae" and I found simple mantric rhymes, visual cues (like wordless signs) and basic lessons from childhood very useful, as if having regressed in some ways to the age of six. a super-genius six year old but still a six year old. unaccustomed to filtering signals. yes, anyway, I think that this
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quote I also find it pretty ridiculous to state that "we" don't believe in something when clearly, if you do believe it, you provide the exception. why not say, they don't believe that this can happen, however we do? That isn't what I said. I said we MAY... that's the subjunctive voice of the verb to be .... the subjunctive form is used to distinguish possibility
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quote Just don't ask them for names or locations for these claims. And keep in mind that they also sue their critics. Ahhhhhh.... and this morsel : "If the purpose of the Millers' Federal/State lawsuit was/is to silence us and others, it was/is a misuse of the judicial system requiring large amounts of their donors' money to pay their lawyers. As Carl Starrett, Esq., mo
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

psychedelics research.... hmmmm.... yeah... I knew Grof, spent time with him and his wife... Grof last time I saw him seemed thoroughly sick and tired of the alternative consciousness scene and all the head cases that hang around, waiting for Godot or whatever... I think what Grof had reluctantly concluded... at least this appeared to be his implied attitude on the subject, was that at a certain
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

FWIW, I did attend a LIVE Tony Robbins event within the last 6 months... it appeared to be one long, GREULING hypnotic induction.... and it was massively overstimulating, as well as massively weird... ear splitting PA, freezing cold room to accomodate Tony's metabolism.... smoke machines ! Some offstage guy mumbling sort-of subliminal commentary along with Tony's spiel... lots and lots
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Liberation is always difficult. A great effort was expended to shape your thinking. You were "re-created" to fit their idea of a proper human shape. Perhaps you grew to the point that being a perfect bonsai tree no longer fit who you have become. The bonsai is a lovely thing that can only flourish in an artificial environment. The gardeners had convinced their garden of bonsai trees tha
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Depends on whether the doctors view Landmark as "one of many" modalities... the best medical people haven learned not to be overly dogmatic.... poor results should be expected when medical training has emphasized a rigid, single protocol fits all philosophy of treatment... Erhardian concepts become highly problematic when they are incorporated at the identity level... which seems to
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

She appears to be a legit documentary producer of mid level works with strong local/global themes. Based in Miami. Possibly she has the ability to drill down into the core of this story. We devoutly hope. her blurb about herself: National Programming: In 1993, Symon was named reporter and producer for the award- winning series “New Florida” airing on PBS in South Florida and nationally on
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Is it not interesting ? Werner made such a big fat deal about integrity... integrity this, integrity that.... so, why could it be that the Church of Scientology was so fixated on Werner Erhard ???..... I mean, they weren't jumping all over the great profusion of other LGATs and mind science type organizations out there.... what WAS the great defining out-integrity condition of Werner vis a v
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteskepticMy head spins so fast whenever I try to follow the "logic" and "sense" in lgat "teachings". They're all about redefining, reframing, rethis, rethat. The exact point ISN'T logic and sense.... the point is to overload your critical thinking system with double binds, non sequiturs, emotional flooding, exhaustion, until you don't have your
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteSo yeah some of the tech I really think is valuable for people, what I'm really against is how the courses are run (squashing independent inquiry and derailing argumentative conversation) and traps built into the tech (disabling critical thinking) and pumping up the value of the technology (promoting zealotry.) Their policy of suing anyone who says anything bad and trying to close down
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quoteno longer possible for informed people Observe more of their trademark rhetorical slipperyness, like these guys should become spokespersons for Teflon.... A. "no longer possible" begs the questions, 1. when WAS it possible ?, 2, WHY was it possible ? aaaaand, on what authority do they assert that is is now "not possible" ? Note the ascencion to divinity here.... Ros
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

You have to love the sneaky distortions that creep in, almost unnoticed.... "Pop culture icon and the founder of the controversial est seminar pulls back the curtain on his life, his ideas and the 'witch hunt' that forced him underground." Witch hunt ? Witch hunt ? Forced him underground ? Notice, dear readers, how "apalling disclosures about Werner's so
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

However, the apples go in the apple pile and the oranges go in the orange pile. The LGATs are behaving, in their own ways, shapes, and forms, more akin to money driven psychologic institutions, including the one you had the misfortune to be trapped in, than they are in cases where one receives one on one counseling with a therapist which one is at liberty to walk away from. Fundamentally,
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"