It is written by Leo Booth, an Anglican priest who was himself addicted to the use of religiosity as a way to control and avoid his true emotions. And he behaved abusively toward others after he became a priest. To make amends, he has dedicated himself to counseling people who have been affected by spiritual abuse. He structures information using a 12 step approach. And he deals with the impac
Forum: Destructive Churches

Lexisnexis I have not used it but someone else on this board has. X used it to research actions taken against a crooked individual.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Burton's group does operate a renowned winery. They have an estate in Yuba, California, and have become famous among wine experts because they have successfully created excellent wines in an area where weather conditions are unfavorable for wine grapes. So, yes, they would have the expertise to make palm wine. Their grape wine is good enough that it was served at a state dinner at the Whi
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

It is entitled 'Degenerate Players in the Work' They dont mention groups by name, but if former members read the descriptions, they will very likely recognize thier groups! William Patterson, a scholar of Gurdjieff work has written a book describing the genesis of 3 counterfeits, and has a chapter on Burton. Burton's teacher, Alex Francis Horn and Sharon Gans created a
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

with this group. Burton collects expensive art and gives complicated reasons that this creates an environment that accelerates spiritual development. His rules and regulations change constantly. To give him credit, he has an excellent collector's eye for fine art and has done very well. So somewhere along the line, Burton probably convinced himself that Chilean wine palm trees have
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

some new names: Renaissance, Apollo The leader is Robert Burton. There is a huge amount of information on this group in Rick Ross's archives. Burton claims to be a Fourth Way (Gurdjieff) teacher, but he is bogus. Legitimate Gurdjieff study groups all disavow him. Go to 'Groups' in the Rick Ross site, go to 'R' and go to 'Renaissance'--you'll find h
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Bowles gave up his license to practice psychology revoked by the State of Wisconsin for improper dual relationships which subverted professionalism and the boundaries needed to practice ethical and effective psychotherapy. You can read the text of the decision here. The URL will take you to the text of the disciplinary action. Peter Bowles was formerly involved with a gnostic/New A
Forum: Destructive Churches

a situation that has been a problem in the church from the very beginning. Read some of Paul's early letters, especially Corinthians I and II, Colossians, Romans and Galatians. These letters were memos that Paul wrote in response to crisis situations that boiled up. The early house churches were getting out of control due to the behavior you are describing. Or opportunists were sowing discor
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

if you find you're becoming interested in this whole subject, here is someone who may be a good resource person for you. She is a protege of Dr. Margaret Singer and Rick Ross has great respect for her expertise. She is on faculty at Cal State Chico and is due to publish a new book in 2004, through the University of California Press. One thing you will discover as you go further in sc
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

and especially read about the routine they use for the puja ritual. I think trancenet.org lists some websites that give info on hypnotic induction. Recruiting can happen quite rapidly, but it is just one step in the process. Its one thing to recruit people. The key thing is, 1) once you've recruited people, finding a way to 2) indoctrinate them and then 3) retain them (keep the indo
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

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"