Quote His training in Aikido led him to the study of metaphysics, the healing arts and a ‘somersault into the unknown’. (So vague. What the hell is 'a somersault into the unknown'? Is that where he found special powers and hidden knowledge?) This mystical flash of enlightenment story is heard over and over and over in guru circles... where long, incremental, credible processes of dev
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Many human potential seminars, LGATs, guru-disciple relationship games have turned to Casteneda, either by overt quotation, or by implicit reference, as justification for ugly, self serving, pretentious, empirically baseless, self indulgent, badly educated, exploitive conduct... Casteneda's impact was far reaching and malignant .... note the sociopathic equation of "ruthless" a
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Knowledge is power. His books are quick reads, boring, filled with minor truths and much bug eyed fantasy... read two or three of them so you'll have some idea of what the terrain is like... then read one of the biography-exposes of Casteneda himself.... I cannot beleive that an entire generation of lost souls turned to this man for advice about how life should be lived. Intetresting isn
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

There are several books on Casteneda, the man... he appears to have been a first class manipulative swine who took sadistic pleasure in manipulating his followers.... his fictional Don Juan Mateus a wishful piece of fantasy, Casteneda fell far short of Don Juan... you can find many of these biographical works, and some sharp ethnographic critiques of his works too, on Amazon.... Casteneda was an
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Hmmmm.... were did everybody go ? Wasn't Alex Rush so glad that "at last we meet " ? Where did good old Durham, defender of Scientology vanish off to ? And Myles... whither Myles ? I promise you this, they come on so big and confident, they last until they run out of gas, and in the final analysis they have nothing to say because.... they have nothing to say .... it must be a t
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quote The way I interpreted that the "World is meaningless" routine, is that I have to make everything mean something. Although the word is actually filled with "meaning" or "intention" if you want to use the words interchangably. Landmark takes the extreme position that all meaning is the meaning you create, back in the good old days of est when the Erhardians
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteHope Human beings are a little bit more complex than that. Human beings are a lot bit more complex than that. If Landmark Forum commits a mortal sin against the consciousness of the individual, it is this: they engage in "time splitting" of the personality... how ? ... by dividing time into history-story-incomplete (the past which one cannot detach from) into the handled-complet
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotemidonov123 I doubt his Landmark logic is consistent enough to counter our arguments. It isn't... and that is why no Landmark apologist has lasted here for more than a handful of posts ... because when they have to go "off book" and seriously explain what they are talking about, they eventually fall to pieces.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quote He suggested that his father "John" is the only person in the whole world that is qualified to be "John". Then the leader agreed that what the father had done was terrible and no one will ever be likely to condone what he had done to his son and wife. However, since "John" is the only person qualified in the world to be "John". He was being himse
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quoteglam Perhaps we should mention that many of these remarkable moments are setups, orchestrated to get people emotionally involved. This "amazing" (disturbing, if you ask me) outcome could very well be a big fat choreographed lie. Yeah, that discovery about the way they do things floored me too, when I found out about it... they have no problems using plants... when I first exper
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

As a gereral observation.... not everyone who externally appears to be strong has a genuinely strong core sense of self. LGATs and cults have a special appeal, perhaps even a necessity for those with lower "core consciousness". If you father has a solid internal idea of who he is and what he is not, he may be able to benefit from the experience and emerge a better, more awakened person.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Well I would like to take the stance of flexibility her. As much as I personally detest the Erhardian method, whether est of Landmark, there are probably those who will benefit from it to some degree if they have the sense to count their winnings and move on ... it may be just the psychic jolt or shock that some personality types respond well to. For these types, that first benefit can also be
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

The great looming canard is whether an organization is a religion or not, and how this explicit religiosity or lack of it is essential for cultness. One could spend ages going round in circles on the religion question. The are businesses that have cult aspects, military organizations that have cult aspects, even strange social phenomena like the child beauty pagent world may have aspects of c
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

ummm... no it wasn't intended that way... I only meant in general... as for reforming the human potential industry.... don't see it coming from a document.. the only thing that can take the kinks out of the New Age run amok is collective awareness... you have to see that the large culture has it's own emotional deficiency diseases... alienation, anomie, mindless materialism... and
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotenutrino When psychiatry falls into this mindset, it can be just as deranged as the weirdest cult. I find that I am quoting myself. A bad sign indeed. Yes, I agree that institutions that have absolute power and social authority are ripe to "go Zimbardo" ... as in the notorious Zimbardo experiment ... the dangers are there whether the context is framed as cult or framed as i
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

"One is known by the quality of one's enemies"
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

The evidence is that, for all of its imperfections, our society finds value in it, or more value in doing it than not doing it. Collectively we may be dumb, but we're not THAT dumb. You can have a real good or real bad experience of anything and overgeneralize from that. The brain is hard wired to be an overgeneralizing machine. The intelligent brain forms primordial generalizations the
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

QuoteAcid Reindeer just for once, though, I would like to hear, "you make good points, I have no argument with them, I accept them." The truth, whatever that should be taken to mean, is complex and elusive. It's a Roshamon (as in the Kurosawa movie) problem. What the truth is may vary over time, i.e. the best good faith estimate by reasonable minds as to the nature of reality
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

Cripes... maybe this is a useful way to think about it... medicine, psychiatry included, is evolving along with the rest of civilization in a non-linear, imperfect, and sometimes royally screwed up way... we're presently in a bad phase for medicine because we're trying to "manage" the high cost of providing care through righid bureaucratic mechanisms... often doctors well know
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

Quoteestie That little god wannabe had the defense of the training tied into actual physical survival! "The purpose of the mind is the ensure the survival of the being or whatever the being perceives itself to be." Point: The Hubbardians and the Erhardians are obsessed with survival ... Scientology has the importance of their work framed in survival terms , or one better than
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

well, the condition of public mental health isn't perfect.... once I was in a bad situation and decided to have a psychiatrist (not psychologist) supervise my situation so I could have an objective "outside position" on what I was passing though. He diligently assigned me his best DSM codes based on what he saw in the time span of 50 minutes... some of his conclusions were fairly o
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

A standard gambit of locating a bone of contention in the public spotlight then positioning the Org as The Knight In Shining Armor who will rescue the Damsel In Distress... see melodromatic variants on this story... like to old hero-villian westerns where Snidley Whipsnade ties the pretty young thing to the railroad tracks and the Lone LRH Ranger or whoever comes to her rescue... believe it o
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

It sounds like a CD mix disk stuck in a player and set on repeat. Technical note from the NLP behavior studies department: What you are witnessing is a behavior , a repetitive, programmed behavior such as one lears about in animal behavior class... the "primitive" mammalian, or meso-limbic brain has a strong tenedency to obsessive and repetitive behaviors... it is this region of t
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

It all about branding ... the Erhardians have marketed a semi-successful branded psychological ordeal, they have a decent formula, it brings in steady if not great money... and all the players wrap themselves up in inflated concepts wrapped up in inflated language... basically your typical rigid, authoritarian pyrimidal corporate model with the folks at the apex firmly maintaining their grip on
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

the nut of it is: where are the exceptional results ? ... Scientology has positioned itself as being in the possession of an extrordinary technology that can change the essential nature of mankind, yet the general run of the mill Scientology has surprisingly little to show for itself... a handful of celebrities who are nuttier by the season, no great artistic accomplishments, no great novels, n
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

In the long run the true value of an idea (or constellation of ideas) will be known for what it is. People talk. Word gets around. The Wog World , as Scientology enchantingly phrases everybody else besides Scientologists, isn't as dumb or enturbulated or untransformed as all of that. Herein is the great test. Are the ideas good enough to pass the great collective filter test ? Or are only
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

IMHO, SSRIs as a claas of drugs are overprescribed for this simple reason: using SSRIs as a first line of therapy drastically cuts insurance costs... thus low cost treatement plans often involve inadequate interviews with the patient. A patient normally will see his prescribing doctor once a month once the therapy hasd been deemed OK... the problem is poor supervision because it allows the doctor
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

Quote I don't really see much point in saying anything. The first barrier to understanding is willingness to understand. There isn't much willingness to understand here - in fact you yourself have intimated that it's dangerous to try to understand Scientology. Let me get this straight. You "don't really see much point in saying anything " while you stay in the d
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

Always, always , always remember that Scientology has a major, unspoken distinction ..... until you are on board at the management level you are a flunky ... Durham's flunkitude is painfully obvious... Scientology thinks in terms of flunkies .... you are fundamentally flawed and undeserving until they feel otherwise, you and your despicable reactive mind . Now go to your room an
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

With all due respect to Durham.... has has not answered anything ! BTW... Scientology will assign certain "projects" like your first project will be to sell one copy of the book Dianetics to a stranger on the street... that's from the level 1 assignment sheet, the one that also comes with your first loyalty oath. They are very, very big on loyalty oaths... changes are excellen
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups