also be fact-checked. Many spirtual guides claim to be disciples of celebrated spiritual teachers or saints, but their claims turn out to be bogus. Or the guide will make claims that cannot be verified--Gurdjieff did this constantly. Or the guide will win your trust very quickly and to such a degree that you feel ashamed to fact-check the claims. Yet another trick is to find an accommod
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

of how a dangerous, destructive person can write an excellent book, but run an absolutely disastrous group. Lots of us assume that if a book is good, the author is just as good. Sometimes, this is true. But not always. A former boss told me about a man who was a dangerous psychopath. He has terrorized women, committed murder and is serving a life sentence in Florida. He conned several peopl
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

but the sense of separation from reality that comes from dissociation, may be the same as a condition known as 'Zen sickness'. It has been known in Japanese Zen for at least 200 years, and the great Rinzai master Hakuin suffered from it. He felt trapped in emtiness and alientated from reality after years of intense meditation. However, as a true Buddhist, Hakuin knew that his path was
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

at the medical school nearest to you. Tell them who you are, what you are doing and ask who you can get advice from on how to research trance induction and NLP. If possible, ask the person to tell you how to distinguish between high quality stuff and shoddy stuff. Magic words are, look for 'peer-reviewed' journals. These journals have high standards. They dont accept papers unless t
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

entitled 'Looking for Sterling Wives.' . But on page 2 or 3 you will find a very important collection of material submitted by Elena. She found it on Google alt.fan.landmark. The except quoted by Elena originally posted by a former trainer/recruiter who left his LGAT after he discovered that he was using powerful methods of trance induction and was hypnotizing people. He describes th
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

discreet. This article from Rick's archive charts the course of one such group. The problem with discreet personality centered esoteric type groups is that this work tends to foster a disastrous combination of social isolation, elitism, intellectual sophistication, combined with a perennial yearning for a Magic Daddy/Magic Mommy. This vests tremendous power in the teacher---exactly
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Dan Shaw is a clinical social worker/psychoanalyst who was involved with Siddha yoga, an outfit started by Muktananda (very problematic history) He has written a couple of articles on the psychology of cult/guru relationships. His perspective is psychoanalytic/object relations, rather than social psychological, but you might find some tidbits for your paper. The thing that makes these cha
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Not everyone uses these methods. As I mentioned in the other article, recruitment methods used by ambitious 'export guru' are going to be different from those used by an entity such as Human Potential training program or a commerical indoctrinational group Human Potential Groups and Large Group Awareness Trainings They often use material from pre-existing groups--either they purch
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Another case study is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. His lineage claims are debatable (go to trancenet.org for more info) MMY marketed his material and marketed it to Western seekers who were already hungry for esoteric eastern wisdom. His first point of recruitment were persons in societies dedicated to the study of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. And in the late 50s early 60s, nobody knew how to fact check
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

that a family or a group is diseased. The first thing to go in a messed up family or a cult is play instinct--for both children and adults. Play is an essential nutrient for mind, emotions, body and soul. Even young animals play. Ive seen whales tumbling with each other in the Pacific Ocean the way puppies and kittens wrestle with each other. When I was still in a church, it attracted som
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Cosmo can go through the list. .
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

To research Geeta and her organization you can do the following if you have not yet tried it: The Google groups are a gold mine. Go to Google, click the 'groups' tab and then do an advanced search within the Google groups. They cover everything from mysticism, yoga, cult issues, and Indian/asian culture. You can also subscribe to the groups and post a query. Or you can post someth
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The mandate of a true mental health professional is 'above all, do no harm.' It sounds as though your sister needs to work on her boundaries. And there's plenty of worthwhile New Age info that supports exactly that. Its too bad that she keeps gravitating toward stuff that overwhelms her boundaries. You cannot be helpful to yourself and others if you're excessively sensitve
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

There are a lot of misconceptions about enlightenment that crooked spiritual teachers exploit when setting up personality cults and scams. If you can identify these bogus arguments, you can protect yourself. Emotional Battery is Not Crazy Wisdom The archetype of the 'enlightened crazy wise master' has been debased into an all purpose manipulative tactic for con artists, narcissis
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

You provided some wonderful information. Feel free to drop by any time. Too bad we cant yet offer you a 'virtual cup of coffee'!
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I read a New Yorker article describing the work of Dr Paul Ekman. For the past 25 years, Ekman has mapped the human face and has compiled a dictionary of human facial expressions and has linked clusters of these expressions to specific emotions. Ekman is a tenured faculty member at the medical school at UC San Francisco. His work has been of tremendous value for mental health professionals trying
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

A church like Unity may be OK, but a if a particular Unity church does not screen persons or groups who request use of its facilities, that particular Unity church can, unwittingly, wind up as a platform for cult activity. To use a computer analogy, You can run a variety of application programs using an operating system like Windows 98 (Unity). If one of the programs happens to harbor a virus (e
Forum: Destructive Churches

Thanks for alerting us to the Google group alt.fan.landmark There are good reasons why a sane society mandates that children must NOT be exposed to powerful experiences such as adult sexual energy, alcohol or drugs--or indoctrination and trance induction. It is precisely what Grizz says: your sense of identity and personal boundaries are are still being formed, and overwhelming experiences l
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I was in a peace group that maintained a 24 hour vigil at military installation. Initially we had a large number of people, and functioned well. Over the course of a year and a half, things changed. The more talented, socially adept people in our group found other things to do--they returned to school, or formed partnered relationships that needed attention. Or they decided to travel or just m
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

conning basically healthy people into believing they are ill with something only the snake oil salesman can fix. Real healers will focus on YOUR strengths, no matter how ill you are, and try and teach you to activate those strengths and achieve some mastery in relation to your condition. Crooks and cults will focus on your alleged weaknesses, no matter how healthy you are. If you're not c
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

its not at all uncommon for crooks to engage in 'sheep stealing'--they infiltrate legitimate spiritual groups and snap up people who are vulnerable or too inexperienced to identify bullshitology. Buddist 'big sky mind' is not created from denial or dissociation--quite the contrary. People who are experienced practitioners are the most 'present' grounded people yo
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

on the thread collection named 'LGATS' someone named 375lighter went through Forum and describes the process. He/she was NOT impressed. IMO Thing about many controversial LGATs is that they are an indoctrination set up. You pay a big sum of money, which right away pressures you to believe you're involved in something worthwhile. Next, you spend 2 to 3 days binned up in a hotel
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

your cousins and give them a silent message, by your own well lived, happy life that there is indeed a larger world out there, that may plant a seed that can blossom later. They've done studies of resilient children--people who had hideous childhoods and who came out against all odds as strong, life affirming people. And overwhelmingly, these resilient people had this going for them: they
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The behavior you describe sounds worrisome. No genuine guru ever makes a display of power or attempts to override a person's rational intellect or freedom of will. Real teachers create an environment that supports insight, kindness and adult responsibility--they dont behave as Premanand did. And real gurus dont lie. According to the website, Premanand claims to be in the lineage of M
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

This school may be OK, but its always good to research any group, especially if its residential. Go to Google. Then click 'groups' and do an advanced groups search. That will enable you to search the many Google listserves for information others may have posted about Heartland. If you find anything that resembles what you are looking for, you can register to join the listserves. I
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

First, if this is a non profit group, they are supposed to file for nonprofit status with the Attorney General--and such information should be a matter of public record, available on the Attorney General's website. There is an author, William Patrick Patterson, who is a reputable Gurdjieff scholar. He wrote a book, Taking With the Left Hand, which describes some trends that Patterson cons
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

This URL will take you to an online book Call No Man Master: In Praise of Teachers but Wary of Gurus by Joyce Collin-Smith Mrs. Collins-Smith worked with a variety of groups and teachers for 50 years, a good number of whom studied/channelled psychic powers. Her experiences are fascinating--and full of cautionary lessons. 1) Some of her best loved teachers became overwhelmed by psychic e
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

hunches for you to mull over, concerning this group: You said that part of the doctrine seems to be that there are seven levels of human development. Here are remarks from a person who studied Gurdjieff/Fourth Way work in England. Her comments seem to jibe with what you have described: 'The Gurdjieff concept, which Ouspensky had accepted, was that several levels of 'man' alre
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

This UK-based resource site has, in its articles, a useful list of tips: I've put double stars after some items that seem relevant to LGATS. And suggestions of my own in parentheses--corboy) Exploding The Myths People don't join cults. They are recruited. ** People are recruited by a method not a message.** People do not stay in cults because they have nothing better to
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

you mention that much of his group work is in West LA. Does he seem to be targeting the gay/lesbian community? Or does he go after anyone with money? If you can identify whether he targets a specific group of people that might help. If he's focusing on the gay community, you might consider alerting some of the gay papers--it might make a good feature story for a resourceful investigative
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"