Fair enough, Pragmatist... I've taken a few days here to think seriously about what you've said... because if you're willing to engage the subject with some commitment, you deserve effort on my part to look into your points and see how I, you might say, put in some "added value philosophy" that might be of use... I have taken the liberty of trimming down your quotes simpl
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteMarkusWelch Please be careful with the 'bushitler' stuff while you make your 'cults are bad' points. I am in no way equating Bush with Hitler. Nothing here was intended to equate Bush with Hitler. My point was that closed off, self referential, power hungry groups and organizations can make some awfully bad decisions when they loose vital infotrmation and persepecti
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quoteelena It's the fun-lovers on the lists found in this article from the Daily Kos who add up to something much worse than any cult on the menu, though they certainly display lots of the characteristics and appear to look at the public in the same way various cult leaders look at their flocks - just so many sheep to be shorn. Ellen "everything that rises must converge" - F
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

The following was written by a disgruntled Scientolgist in 1983. Does Mary Shelley's classic novel Frankenstein make another level of sense now ? Read on, you lucky dogs...hoo boy..." "The aesthetic feeling of Tone 40 "unreasonableness" is the glue to the beingness that has taken over the management and it is this beingness that management is now attempting to creat
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

One could expand at length here.... if Wiliam Jefferson Clinton could bring himself to invite Anthony Robbins to the White House as a success coach... and on the right, if the Neo-Cons have had a long standing, if carefully brushed over relationship with Sun Myun Moon's Unification Church, and Erhardism had deeply penetrated into the attitudes and thought processes of those who would eventua
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

This just in..., an excerpt from Keith Olberman's response to Rumsfeld's speech... now, all good observers of the hidden linkages and correspondences in this world of ours, ask yourself, ask yourself closely and carefully.... how much like this discussion we are having here about LGATs and their larger social impact does Mr. Olberman's article sound ? Think for yourself, and ask
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuotepragmatistThey know more or less all your common beliefs - but repackage them, and deliver them with a punch over a short amount of time (few days typically). They use your past "sins" (whatever you considered to be sin - they will make you think of it, regress you in time, in a sense) to get to know your vulnerabilities. They use humor to disarm you. The least likable aspect is p
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Most people will come out of the Erhardian training setting unscathed, or apparantly unscathed... although more than meet the eye may have had a few batty beliefs covertly installed which will have unpredictable long term consequences... I've often thought the way we went about prosecuting the ummmm.... undeclared war in Iraq... the President's style, the realtionship with the press c
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

And herein lies the "dark road" that ultimately leads to something like the philosophy of fascism, or worse.... Erhardism has two major philosophic threads woven together, one, to my thinking, is benign, it it their "make a difference" stance .... the other thread, more closely associated with occultism and weirdo language philosophy, is the "each and every person inten
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

When you look at a guy like Tom Cruise ... the implicit myth surrounding this guy was look how powerful he must be to create such a powerful reality for himself... that was the illusion, carefully fostered by the real people in charge... and in "real reality" the is an expensive proposition of public relations, image management, plastic surgery, meticulously crafted advertising campai
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Has anyone ever asked this most basic, most revealing question of the true character of the "trainer body"... they may have some other high fallutin' designation for themselves, the Calvinist Elect repackaged in another bottle of toilet bowl cleaner... why won't the sign their work ? , meaning... why has the tradition always been that we can only know the trainer by his firs
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotecorboy 3) It is a way for a group or leader who are unable to cope with human suffering to protect themselves and maintain a facade of all knowing power while silencing people whose testimony and tears might otherwise trigger anxiety-- and reveal that the teacher or the groups's doctrine is incapable of offering real support when tragedy strikes. That way the people who actually hav
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteCultHunterI have heard many Landmarkians talking about "Packing" what is that? What does it mean? I have heard it used in this context. I think your brother is still packing. It could mean anything, it could mean nothing, it sounds like teenage jargon sort of on the order of "it was woofin', man".... You'd think they'd issue a dictionary of their
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

There eventually needs to be a maturation where integrative processes which are about bringing the individual into the group mind, and using the constructive aspects of the group mind to reinforce the psyche, are brought into balance with the diffferentiating processes where the individual learns the confidence and internality to think and feel outside of the group.... IMO, it is the quality
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteBrad69 It is all too clear to me that she feels threatened by my view that her so-called guru is a fraud, especially as I have proved at least 50 lies he has told her. BUT we are dealing with someone whose mind has been messed with and I wonder where that beautiful woman I know has gone. I know she is inside there, but how do I reach her? Her emotions are dead. She trusts no one anymor
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

If another two cents could be added to the collection plate: Healthy growth experiences lead one to appreciate the richness of life, the widely diverse ways that others lead their lives and contemplate "reality", and as a result, lead one on to a greater richness of language and expession, a fuller, more deeply "colored" emotionality while retaining the respect for personal bo
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteBrad69 No doubt, it is a tricky subject, especially considering how litigous some of them are. Litigation is a two way street, as some of the LGAT bombasticos find out once they are past the preliminary motion stage... first and foremost on the problem list is discovery .... in the legal meaning of this term, once you uuummm... listen for the possiblity of a judicial solution, you'r
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

As outrageously weird as the following material will sound to the uninitated ear... one can not but notice some highly amusing correspondences with "high church" postmodernism and WernerBlather... which leads me to suspect that WernerBlather IS a "low church" species of Postmodernism..... let 'er rip....: "This brings us to the question of a utopian poetics. Nietz
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

and this excerpt from Michael Lagnone written in 1998: by the by..... IF Erhardism lives up to its pretensions of transformative grandeur, there could have been a no more rigorous testing environment... and as well, IF it had been as effective as it claimed in transforming lives.... it is obvious that this "breakthru technology" would have been introduced into prison systems... they
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Wener Hans' "genius" appear to have been in knowing how to transfer the structure of his thought processes to other minds... minds which were not hard wired like Werner Hans' mind was, to think in these deviously bizarre linguistic shapes... one feature of WernerWeirdness (be careful how you use that term, it is a trademarked, patented, copyrighted, and jealously guarded br
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

IMHO... the "what exactly constitutes a cult problem can, and has for tactical reasons, become a symantic sticky trap wherein the factual or logical examination of the group in question becomes deflected into the issue of is it, or isn't it, or to what degree is it, and who has the authority to apply the label, and what does it mean if you do call an outfit a cult ? A far more use
Forum: Coercive Persuasion and Undue Influence

But... on to squaring the circle , or attempting to stuff a hypersphere into a hypercube, or whatever the bullshit du jour is on today's menu of life options... while trying to retain the opacity, privity of contract, and all of the legal protections afforded to for profit corporations... these persons are simultaneously attempting to establish "special case status" for themsel
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Think of these operations as business models... all cogent players are watching for ideas to improve their businesses as businesses.... the knockdown incongruity within this community is that they are trying to square a circle.... business based relationships with business based goals stated in business based language require objectivity, arms length discussion, a clear perception of what is be
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotecaligari - The attack on a persons ability to criticaly think and determine reality in the next statements, "I want you to get that this is the way you live your life. You live your life as if reality is what's real to you." - The denial of personal and individual physical reality in his next statements, "Old ladies don't bother me, you know that...that's
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Actually.... almost everybody has a release form now... the real question is what happens when these releases are challenged in a court. I have also attended a couple of seminars where there is an additional release, a "model release" where you are expected to allow your voice, likeness, or name to be used (in perpetutity, I might add) in any way the seminar leader (typically corporatio
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

which has nuttin' to do with nuttin' at the level of operational behaviors and beliefs of Erhardian drones.... Kurt/Jack/Werner Roseneberg/von Savage/Frost/Erhard/Spitts being rehabilitated may raise the level of inane babble a notch or two.... but they can't escape the fate of being stuck with his philosophical baggage....
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

"Self created the world and then forgot that Self had created it". No wonder the poor kid in the video looked like he'd swallowed a pissed off electric eel... have you ever heard such narcissistic arrogant pompous pseudo-Kantian cockroach crap in your life ?
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I did notice how incongruent most of Jon's communication style is, as if he is responding to an internalized sea of conflcting information... his voice tone, the way he communicates with his eyes, or fails to, the small movements of his body... all fairly shout "confused, disoriented, lost".... then one of the respondents makes this assertion, while offering not one whit of evide
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteMiniTru "No circumstance requires a negative conversation." " Ummmm.... my sentiments exactly as I watched the Wolrd Trade Centers implode before my eyes.... gosh darn, I said to myself, whoever was responsible for this is perfect just the way he is, and no circumstance requires a negative conversation !!!... I felt so much better I want out and ordered a great big pizza wi
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

No.... because his son had reached majority and had reconciled with his father... in addition, this was in the 1970s... it is hard to imagine how different standards of conduct, child protective services, what was and what was not socially acceptable... it was a totally other world than that of today.... curiously, most of the LGATs originated and thrived in the "anything goes-do your thing-
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"