Make some noises in that letter about reporting them to the local Better Business Bureau and chamber of commerce in your area. And tell em that if you dont get a satisfactory response you will go on all your favorite listserves and computer bulletin boards and warn people about their shabby behavior. (Craigslist.org is a terrific bulletin board. ) Good luck!
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Dont get financially entangled with them, no matter what. And the longer you stay anxious and stressed, the more tired you will be and that will put you at risk of 1) making a harmful decision and 2) getting accident prone. It sounds like you know you are involved (however peripherally) with a bad organization. Adults cannot transform for the better if subjected to emotional abuse. This ar
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I dont think the BDSM is the problem--it is that this group and its moderator sound highly controlling & your friend is being given orders to limit her social interactions, both in and out of cyberspace. The group process seems cultic. Most of us are spooked by stuff like BDSM, which makes it diffcult to separate the content of the group from the group process itself. To use a sports anal
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

the reason why problematic LGATs like it teach people to stop speaking of truth and instead refer to opinions is that it provides an automatic escape hatch. As long as we speak in terms of ethical absolutes, its harder to change the rules when things dont go our way. You cant play a game of baseball or football (or any other sport) unless there are goal posts, a playing field of a standard
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

if consensual between adults, BDSM is not against the law in some areas. As for psychological hangups, the people who do BDSM responsibly tend to be far more conscious about their motivations than the average person--just as you have to be far more alert when driving an automobile than being a pedestrian--the risks are greater, so your obligation to be responsible is greater. Key concern is wh
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

cult like behavior in relation to a cause, or a shared activity -- you do not necessarily need a leader. Though in your friend's case, whoever is 'orchestrating' the activity (eg functioning as 'master') could be functioning in a sort of guru role. Moderators of discussion boards have been known to become manipulative and dictatorial. This tends to happen to people who
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

From my quick glance at the URLs listed below 'Legacy Center' definitely sounds like you should do further research-- You mention you have bipolar disorder. I have read that stress and insufficient sleep are extremely hazardous for persons with bipolar; disruption of sleep is a well known trigger for manic episodes. If you participate in a heavy group indoctrination program, you may
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

(Quote) 'I simply wasn't going to throw away a day on "seeing for myself" when someone who had spent the greater part of 72 consecutive hours couldn't simply explain what she had been doing during that time. That was my first clue: when the best selling point is "try it yourself," you're being sold an illusion. If a three card monty bothered to explain w
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I dont think its a matter of their belonging to a particular group. I see their problem as a shared mindset htat is esotericist and therfore pathological in relation to America's culture and political process.. There are people who dont enjoy power and wealth unless that power and wealth come through exclusive channels--and remain within those exclusive and covert channels. These folks on
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I see adverts for the Quadrinity Process in New Age catalogues like Common Ground--CG comes out quarterly in the Northern Cal/Bay Area. They have some good stuff but quite a few dodgy franchises advertise there as well. That's something to consider--a group may start out OK or even harmlessly eccentric, but may, with a change of 'ownership' mutate into something problematic. An
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

If you want to get information about a group, do not content yourself with Google. You can find some helpful stuff quite often if you go further and search the various Google groups and listserves. One trend I noted in the listserve material is that Hoffman Quadrinity has been marketed to troubled families. If it is not based on tested and researched protocols that meet current standards of c
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

There are concentration exercises taught in yoga in which the student learns to maintain a fixed, blinkless gaze for increasingly lengthy periods of time. I think the exercise may be called 'tratakam'. And I have read that this same exercise is part of the training for magickal practices--magickal ritual involves the use of trancework carried out in a highly disciplined manner by a grou
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Pilates is great. In fact, you'll not only get a pleasant mood boost and a nicely chiseled midsection---you may even discover that your BM's become more regular! All verifiable, no need to take someone else's word for it. Go girl.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

A lot of these mavericks busted loose during the 60s and 70s when common sense was unfashionable, even in academic circles, and fantasy over-rode fact checking. Those were the years when Carlos Castaneda wrote a novel submitted it as his Ph.D dissertation and earned a Ph.D from UCLA. His work has since been exposed as bogus. It was a good time to start a group. I suggest that you write down a
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

We have gotten lots of reports on this message board from people concerned about this group. As for deprogramming, you'd need to talk with Rick Ross. Given that your wedding is about one month away and you've already been in a fender bender, I would recommend taking care of yourself, first and formost. Since your friends are Asian, they may be especially vulnerable to LGAT indoct
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

stress. Before we go further, first thing to do is take a deep breath and take care of yourself. You mention that you were in (or nearly were in) a car accident. Plus you work in a psych emergency room. So it sounds as though you're already maxing out. As they say during the safety lecture on airplanes, first put on your oxygen mask before taking care of others. I recommend cont
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Its the one where I quoted material on the SPP from that Google group citation. Good luck. I'd recommend that if you attend that SPP class, note the emotional and the intellectual atmosphere. Agenda driven groups are usually tense--they're on the defensive, not telling you the full truth. A true philosophy class and teacher should convey an atmosphere of rigorous but ultimately fr
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Since you're in NYC, you could post something on (New York) in the Community Discussions section. Tell em 'I am recovering from cult involvement. I am working on my own education, decided to take a class in philosophy. This school looked legit. Then I happened to ask about it offhandedly on and someone found THIS stuff doing a Google search Something like that. Tell people
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

and have such an air of old fashioned legitimacy, that its hard to clue in that something is going on. The other thing that makes this a tough one to spot is that they apparently started off from a study group once led by Ouspensky, who had studied with Gurdjieff and then broke with him. Until Gurdjieff began publishing his own books, the only written material available for persons interested
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Gary Lachman's book Turn off Your Mind The chapter is entitled 'Get With the Process'.
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

They started in London, as a spin off from an Ouspensky study group. The London group is called School of Economic Science. They have advertisements for philosophy classes, but what is covertly taught is derived from bogus Gurdjieff and Ouspensky material. You can be involved for years and get sucked in gradually before you really know what is going on. Strict old fashioned dress cod
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

in his or her direction--its actually draining for you, and in the long run, a trap. Cultivation of energy is very different from someone rousing your energy so as to tap it for themselves. Here is an example of someone who did it ethically. I watched a practitioner of Taoist Chi Gong heal someone. The man had a back ache and the teacher, without touching him, channelled some energy to th
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

these long term esoteric groups can really get under a person's skin. They're intimate, like family. Dont know if this is of use, but I was entangled with a Christian minister and the relationship turned cultic. The guy did all the right things, had a local reputation as a saint and a hero, taught all the right things. But only after working with a therapist who has modeled agen
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

trance--especially since you note that it wasnt the content that was significant but the emotional tone. Given that you're still painfully influenced by all this after 5 years out of the group, some counseling with an expert might be worth a try. Rick can probably recommend some exit counselors in your area--that can ensure the cult issues will be addressed first. Look for someone who has
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

If you are looking for a therapist There was a psychiatrist at UCLA school of medicine, Louis Jolyon West, who was a cult expert. He died a few years back. If you ever think you need referral to a therapist, you might phone the psychiatry department at the school of medicine, ask who on staff is continuing Dr West's work, and then say, 'I need a list of therapists who have been train
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Reading Prophetic Charisma by Len Oakes will probably help you make sense of all this and dispell a lot of the mystique. Sounds like Michael gave you all 'hits of energy' to attract even more energy from you as a group. Its interesting how you mention that the energy behind the teaching was more important than content. This very long URL will take you to an article on a Google dis
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

First, just to let you know, I am not a qualified Zen teacher and have barely managed to begin stablizing a practice. I think its a matter of discovering the difference between genuine practice vs what some have called 'Black Zen'--where the intellectual part of Zen is used to mind-fuck people. Someone at our practice center said, 'Its 1950s Zen (Alan Watts Zen) when people
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

It appears you were recruited in a highly skillful manner. Thats scary. 1) Identify the issues in your life right at the time you were recruited. Recruitment usually succeeds when it coincides with a period of vulnerability. Feelings you put on hold as your involvment deepened may come back now that you no longer have the distraction of the group 2) The hardest thing to give up is that shar
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

This article may give some additional clues. See if it applies to your situation. Its long but well worth reading.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

How you were recruited Do they target people with certain characteristics? Do they recruit by hitting on psychotherapy clients? Some groups encourage disciples who are in helping professions to reel their clients into the group. This is considered an unethical 'dual relationship' according to most guidelines governing conduct for therapists, health care professionals and attorneys
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"