CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/6/2019

Mormon, BYU-Idaho, Sexual Abuse, Tony Robbins, Bikram Yoga

The Salt Lake Tribune: BYU-Idaho no longer accepts Medicaid, and some students are dropping out of school

" ... Casey Wilson took some time off from school last year when she found out she was pregnant with her second baby boy.

The young mom had hoped to miss only a semester or two at Brigham Young University's campus in Idaho. She was just a few credits away from earning her degree in art education and set a goal of finishing before Kelvin, who's 4 months old now, started to talk.

But before Wilson could sign up for classes beginning in January, as she planned, the college announced it no longer would allow students to enroll with only Medicaid as their health insurance.

And now, she can't afford to return at all.

"I am devastated," Wilson said, choking back tears as her baby cooed in her arms. "I love school. I want to graduate. But we're a struggling family, and we don't have the money for [private insurance]."

The controversial decision from BYU-Idaho — a private school owned by the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — came as a surprise to students last week. School administrators announced the change in an email one day after Idaho received approval letters from the federal government for its Medicaid expansion plan, which voters in the state overwhelmingly supported last year."

NPR: After Complaints, BYU-Idaho Reverses Medicaid Decision

Nearly a month after changing its policy, BYU-Idaho has reversed course. Late last night [November 25th], the school issued a statement to students and the media, saying it would allow students on Medicaid to enroll and, quote, "we apologize for the turmoil caused by our earlier decision."

AP: Lawsuit: Church pressured victims into unfair settlements

"Two impoverished Mississippi men who say they were sexually assaulted by Franciscan missionaries filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming that Catholic officials pressured them into signing settlements that paid them little money and required them to remain silent about the alleged abuse.

The lawsuit, filed in New York, claims the church officials drew up the agreements a year ago to prevent the men from telling their stories or going to court — a violation of a 2002 promise by American bishops to abandon the use of nondisclosure agreements, as part of an effort to end the cover-up of sexual abuse within the church."

Buzz Feed: Tony Robbins Has Been Accused Of Sexually Assaulting A High Schooler At A Summer Camp

"As evening fell on a eucalyptus-lined hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the teenage campers spilled out of a well-lit hall. They had spent the day enthralled by the self-help guru Tony Robbins, who had taught them how to reach for their dreams.

It was the summer of 1985, and Robbins, already rich and famous at the age of 25, was a star speaker at SuperCamp, an elite summer camp in Southern California on a campus with bubbling fountains and a grand Mediterranean-style villa. But what was about to happen would shatter the peace of the tranquil setting — and scar the memories of dozens of campers for decades.

The teens set off through the trees to the site of their next activity. Steffanie Scott, then 15, remembered jogging outside with a small group when she glimpsed something that brought her to an abrupt stop. She recalled seeing Robbins towering over the slight figure of a female camper, pinning her arms back as he kissed her forcefully. "He was going for her, his whole body was pressed up against her," Scott recalled. "I wouldn't want to be pinned," she said. "Not like that."

Nearby in the woods, close enough to see Robbins kissing a camper with his arms wrapped around her, stood 16-year-old Eva Bush. Her first impulse was jealousy; then it hit her that Robbins was a grown man, and her feelings turned to anger. That camper, she thought, was "definitely too young," and the self-help guru was in a position of power. You're taking fucking advantage, she thought at the time.

Under the trees with Robbins was Elle, a studious teenager who, along with the other campers, had been sent to SuperCamp by her parents to boost her grades, build self-confidence, and gain new life skills. To protect her identity, BuzzFeed News is not revealing her full name or exact age, but she was under 18 — legally a minor in California — at the time of the events described.

At the end of the last session, the guru had asked her to accompany him on a walk through the trees; they pressed on until they reached a clearing. There, she recalled in a 2,400-word account provided through her lawyers, he forced himself upon her — kissing her and groping her breasts in a prolonged sexual assault."

" ... Robbins adamantly denied kissing or groping the camper. His lawyers acknowledged a "situation" at the camp but said it was a "non-issue," which was 'addressed with the camp attendees, the young woman, and her parents, and no one suggested that there was a sexual assault.'"

Gulf News: Bikram Choudhury: Yoga, sex and humiliation

"New Delhi: Once a hot yoga guru in Hollywood, Bikram Choudhury is today labelled a rapist, predator, racist and control maniac. How did his successful story turn around so drastically?

The new Netflix documentary "Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator" aims to answer that question. It traces the journey of how he built his "Bikram" empire, putting spotlight on the dark side of the movement, driven by stories of sexual exploitation, brainwashing, racist comments, rape and control on things outside the yoga studio.

Bikram started having his hot moment in the US when he went to Beverly Hills from India in the early 1970s. Wearing a tiny black Speedo and a tight ponytail, he started carving his story by showing the route of healing with 26 postures over a 90-minute routine practiced in a room heated to 41 degree centigrade. He even tried getting a copyright for his yoga postures.

His success was backed by star power, and his client list included names such as Madonna, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Aniston, George Clooney, Robert Downey Jr., Frank Sinatra and Jason Bateman. His clientele shone with names like Michael Jackson, Jeff Bridges, Shirley MacLaine, Barbra Streisand and Raquel Welch."

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Tony Robbins' Book Has Been Scrapped By His Publisher

Simon & Schuster dropped the book after BuzzFeed News revealed the self-help guru has berated victims of rape and domestic abuse, and former fans and staffers have accused him of sexual harassment.

Katie J.M. Baker BuzzFeed News Investigative Reporter Jane Bradley Investigations Correspondent
BuzzFeed

May 30, 2019,

Simon & Schuster will no longer publish a book coauthored by Tony Robbins and a famous financial adviser that was slated for release this July.

BuzzFeed News revealed earlier this month that Robbins has berated victims of rape and domestic violence, while former staffers and fans have accused him of groping audience members, exposing himself to women assistants, and sexually harassing fans. BuzzFeed News also reported that Tony Robbins was filmed repeatedly using racial slurs. The allegations are from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.

Simon & Schuster removed the forthcoming book, The Path: Accelerating Your Journey to Financial Freedom, from its website, a cached version of the site shows, after BuzzFeed News published its first report on May 17.

Robbins’ lawyers said in a statement that the book had simply been “postponed” and the publisher had not cut ties with Robbins. “To state or suggest otherwise is absolutely false,” it said.

But a source at Simon & Schuster said: “We are not proceeding with publication of The Path.”

Robbin’s former coauthor, Peter Mallouk, is the president of Creative Planning, a $38 billion wealth management firm, and is considered one of the most powerful people in global finance. Following BuzzFeed News’ reporting, Creative Planning disclosed Robbins’ departure in an updated filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which said his position as chief of investor psychology had been eliminated and that he was no longer associated with the firm or on its advisory board. The split was first reported by Citywire.

Robbins joined Creative Planning in 2016, and he and Mallouk coauthored another financial advice book through Simon & Schuster, Unshakeable, in 2017.

The firm's decision to sever ties with Robbins was welcomed by some financial experts. “There’s a woman issue here and there’s a brand issue here, and when these things come up it’s important to take swift action,” April Rudin, president of the Rudin Group, toldInvestment News.

But Creative Planning issued a press release after BuzzFeed News requested comment saying the split had been planned months in advance.

“The parting between Tony and Creative Planning was imminent regardless and it was a mutual decision and amicable,” Mallouk said in the statement, which noted that Robbins will no longer have a financial interest in Creative Planning but will remain “a client and continued supporter of the firm.”

It said that the upcoming book included "contributions from Robbins” and “contractual terms were never reached nor finalized with its planned publisher.”

“To be clear, Simon & Schuster has not severed its publishing agreement with Mr. Robbins,” Robbins’ lawyers said in a separate statement.

His lawyers declined to comment on whether the book would be published in the future.

The book’s original Amazon listing said it would be available on July 23, 2019. That page has now been stripped of information about its title and contents, and the publication date has been revised to “December 31, 2050.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/tony-robbins-latest-book-has-been-scrapped

Tony Robbins’ Book Has Been Scrapped By His Publisher

Simon & Schuster dropped the book after BuzzFeed News revealed the self-help guru has berated victims of rape and domestic abuse, and former fans and staffers have accused him of sexual harassment.

Katie J.M. Baker and Jane Bradley
Buzzfeed
May 30, 2019

Simon & Schuster will no longer publish a book coauthored by Tony Robbins and a famous financial adviser that was slated for release this July.

BuzzFeed News revealed earlier this month that Robbins has berated victims of rape and domestic violence, while former staffers and fans have accused him of groping audience members, exposing himself to women assistants, and sexually harassing fans. BuzzFeed News also reported that Tony Robbins was filmed repeatedly using racial slurs. The allegations are from the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.

Simon & Schuster removed the forthcoming book, The Path: Accelerating Your Journey to Financial Freedom, from its website, a cached version of the site shows, after BuzzFeed News published its first report on May 17.

Robbins’ lawyers said in a statement that the book had simply been “postponed” and the publisher had not cut ties with Robbins. “To state or suggest otherwise is absolutely false,” it said.

But a source at Simon & Schuster said: “We are not proceeding with publication of The Path.”

Robbin’s former coauthor, Peter Mallouk, is the president of Creative Planning, a $38 billion wealth management firm, and is considered one of the most powerful people in global finance. Following BuzzFeed News’ reporting, Creative Planning disclosed Robbins’ departure in an updated filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which said his position as chief of investor psychology had been eliminated and that he was no longer associated with the firm or on its advisory board. The split was first reported by Citywire.

Robbins joined Creative Planning in 2016, and he and Mallouk coauthored another financial advice book through Simon & Schuster, Unshakeable, in 2017.

The firm's decision to sever ties with Robbins was welcomed by some financial experts. “There’s a woman issue here and there’s a brand issue here, and when these things come up it’s important to take swift action,” April Rudin, president of the Rudin Group, told InvestmentNews.

But Creative Planning issued a press release after BuzzFeed News requested comment saying the split had been planned months in advance.

“The parting between Tony and Creative Planning was imminent regardless and it was a mutual decision and amicable,” Mallouk said in the statement, which noted that Robbins will no longer have a financial interest in Creative Planning but will remain “a client and continued supporter of the firm.”

It said that the upcoming book included "contributions from Robbins” and “contractual terms were never reached nor finalized with its planned publisher.”

“To be clear, Simon & Schuster has not severed its publishing agreement with Mr. Robbins,” Robbins’ lawyers said in a separate statement.

His lawyers declined to comment on whether the book would be published in the future.

The book’s original Amazon listing said it would be available on July 23, 2019. That page has now been stripped of information about its title and contents, and the publication date has been revised to “December 31, 2050.”

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katiejmbaker/tony-robbins-latest-book-has-been-scrapped

The Dark Side of the Oneness Movement

Jonathan Evatt
August 5, 2015

I wrote an article in 2006 about my personal experience with Deeksha / Diksha. You can read about that in the previous Part in this series of articles. It is now 2014, and since writing that original article on Diksha, a lot more about it has come to my attention. This new article shares important insights into what is playing out during their so-called Diksha/Deeksha giving, and why you might want to avoid it completely if you value your spiritual sanctity. It is worth noting that “diksha” was at some point rebranded (through the direct influence of Tony Robbins, oddly enough) to “Oneness Blessings”. So this article is just as applicable to what is being called “Oneness Blessings” from the “Oneness Movement”. For the sake of consistency, I’ll continue using the word diksha in this article.

The Dark Side of Diksha

How can Diksha have a dark side? It is not intended to help people become enlightened?

What promoted me writing this second article on Diksha, almost nine yeas after the first, was a comment someone made. The 2006 article was still online, on a site I’d not maintained in a long time. A reader left a comment, to which I replied. An expanded version of that reply is what follows.

First, I’ll quote the comment that was made:

As a coin has two sides so does the oneness movement has, even I agree. But in the meanwhile if it is helping us to reach our ultimate goal why shouldn’t we follow it and the teachings of oneness? It is one of the only organisations which I believe that can produce logical and scientific reasons for the actions in the well planned courses carried on there. And as far as Deeksha is concerned it has its own power, the only way out is to experience the same. The explanations for the negative side is where there is greed for more there is always destruction. So even in the seva if you exceed the limits the experiences shared above [referring to what I shared in my article] come into existence. Do it in proper limits and practically. I would rather say Sri Bhagavan and Amma never ever said to disturb your family and social life and full on be with the oneness flow. The moola in oneness is the RELATIONSHIP with your parents, surrounding and god. So there comes no question of defaming or blaming any body. Thank You.

om satchit anand parabramha purushottama parmatma sri bhagavati sametha sri bhagavate namah. let thy be victory of sri bhagavati bhagavan in clearing off the misconceptions and giving the strength of acceptance in a true sense. — Shadedil (the name or pseudonym of the writer)

The first thing that seems apparent to me is that Shadedil is a follower of Sri Bhagavan. The last paragraph makes that seem fairly obvious. There is nothing wrong with that per se. But it is worth noting, as it would suggest Shadedil does not have an objective perspective on diksha, and may have a strong bias.

I know numerous people who offer diksha to help “enlighten” people. In fact just a few weeks ago at a market on Waiheke Island (in Auckland, NZ) I observed some of those people giving diksha to people. On that day I had with me a person who is a gifted healer and clairvoyant (since birth). I asked her to tell me what she saw going on with the diksha givers about 30 meters from us. She immediately confirmed what I had seen years earlier, and what a number of clairvoyants in Sweden had observed and written about. I’ll get into that shortly.

From my perspective Shadedil displays a relatively common conceptual error, one that catches a lot of people out. This is why I am presenting my response here. Perhaps if you come across people offering you Deeksha transmissions to accelerate your “enlightenment” you’ll remember the this article, and question whether subjecting your luminous body to their “oneness blessings” is really something you want...CONTINUE READING

https://jonathanevatt.com/the-dark-side-of-the-oneness-movement-1773/

The myth of the new you: Why you shouldn't buy what self-help gurus are peddling

Richard Whittall: While the New Cult’s mode of delivery and the variety of channels has changed in recent years, the dubious scientism remains the same

Richard Whittall

Special to National Post
February 1, 2018

You’ve seen the headlines. Maybe they were on a friend’s Facebook feed or, as is more likely, on a colleague’s LinkedIn page. Perhaps you dismissed them as silly self-help clickbait, but if you’re like most of us, you found it impossible to resist their siren song: “5 Incredibly Effective Ways to Work Smarter, Not Harder.” “Most productive people: 6 things they do every day.” “3 Questions that Will Free Your Mind and Turn Your Life Around.”

Chances are you read a few of these articles in the lead-up to New Year’s Day and made a flurry of resolutions which, by now of course, you have quietly dropped. They usually appear on a handful of familiar websites: inc.com, hbr.org, entrepreneur.com, businessinsider.com and the motherlode of self-improvement propaganda with armies of life coaches and “marketing ninjas,” medium.com.

Each post carries the promise of a New You – a well-rested, effortlessly creative person who goes to the gym five times a week, reads 100 books a year, completes a day’s work in two hours, meditates and journals every morning and launches startup business in their spare time in between raising gritty, grateful offspring – all while somehow remaining “stress-free.”

And don’t worry; achieving these ambitious life goals requires nothing more than a few easy-to-implement tips and tricks supposedly “backed up by the latest behavioural psychology and neuroscience.” These tips might even make you unbelievably rich – though the authors of these posts go to painful lengths to stress that money can’t buy happiness. They also just happen to pepper their articles with anecdotes from the lives of ultra-rich business people and investors including Ray Dalio, Elon Musk, Sheryl Sandberg, Jeff Bezos, Ariana Huffington, Warren Buffett and others.

Welcome to the New Cult of Self-Improvement.

The inescapable truth the gurus never tell you is that self-improvement never ends.

Once the purview of slap-happy motivational speakers like Tony Robbins and corporate productivity writers such as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People author Stephen Covey, the New Cult of Self-Improvement has adapted to the disruptive paradigm favoured by Silicon Valley, eschewing airport hotel convention centre seminars and dime store self-help books for email newsletters and ebooks filled with “life hacks.” And where there were once a handful of self-improvement superstars, the literature today is spread across an online army of authors and bloggers, with only a few standing out (Tim Ferriss, Cal Newport and Mark Manson) while many others clamber to get a piece of the action.

But while the New Cult’s mode of delivery and the variety of channels has changed in recent years, the dubious scientism remains the same, including the reliance on questionable interpretations of neurological research and anecdotes from the rich and famous to back up claims.

Despite the greater number of voices in the choir, the chorus is very much in unison – most of the new self-improvement advice on offer is more or less the same with minor variations, and it’s not exactly groundbreaking. The advice tends toward setting time aside to do focused work, taking regular breaks, avoiding multitasking, shutting out online distractions, breaking down large tasks into detailed to-do lists, focusing on process instead of results, reading books instead of wasting time on the internet, using spare time for personal learning, sleeping eight hours a day, skipping lunch twice a week, doing push-ups whenever you go to the bathroom and so on and so on.

When it comes to the thornier issues of our psychological and emotional well-being, the New Cult borrows heavily from both Buddhism and the ancient Greek philosophy known as Stoicism, with calls to be mindful of the present moment, focus on what’s in your control and ignore the rest, accept your present circumstances with magnanimity, realize you are not your thoughts, etc.

Of course, none of this advice is objectionable on its own; despite its promoters’ tendency to push quick fixes, much of what they suggest is still both practical and useful. But the sheer volume of blogs, online seminars and podcasts all selling the same story raises the question: why does such a simple, largely uniform message require so many voices to propagate it in slightly different ways, over and over and over again?

The answer relates in part to the ephemeral nature of self-improvement, and our inability to take advice, stick with it and move on with our lives. For example, after the initial high that comes with making healthy or productive changes – perhaps setting up a to-do list or starting a new workout routine – we can’t help but wonder: what if there is a slightly better workout we’re missing out on, or a marginally more effective productivity system we could be using?

The inescapable truth the gurus never tell you is that self-improvement never ends. Even after we’ve made changes to improve our lives, we can’t help but think we could be running faster, or taking more time to ourselves, or being more productive at work, all the while ignoring or discounting the positive changes we’ve already put into place over the years. And of course, legions of self-improvement writers are poised to take advantage of our restless need to tweak, with new and slightly different listicles on how to eat better, or work faster, or lose weight.

The flip side of the self-improvement industry's emphasis on personal agency is, of course, that we are also primarily to blame for our failure to flourish.

So why do so many of us struggle to break this cycle – fully aware we will never be satisfied with ourselves? The answer is the irresistible idea peddled by the self-improvement industry: that our ability to flourish as human beings is entirely in our control.

While news media presents us with an increasingly populated world under the sway of vast, faceless and unseen forces – economic market cycles, demographic shifts, geopolitical tensions, climate change – the self-improvement industry pushes the reassuring notion that our personal choices determine the quality of our lives. If we can learn to be more productive, we will get a decent, well-paying job. If we stick to a regular workout routine, we will stave off death for a few more years and maybe attract an ideal partner along the way. If we can stay mindful of the present moment, we will avoid unpleasant feelings of anxiety or depression.

The flip side of the self-improvement industry’s emphasis on personal agency is, of course, that we are also primarily to blame for our failure to flourish. Personal setbacks or a loss of resolve are not the result of bad luck, but a reflection of individual weakness. And this is where the self-improvement industry can do far more harm than good.

Consider, for example, a person at the peak of their career who is objectively considered to be very good at their job. They might ascribe their success to their ability to work smarter not harder, to delegate tasks, to set ambitious but achievable goals. But one day, due to economic forces beyond their control, they are let go as part of a restructuring plan.

Worse, because they are middle-aged with experience in a shrinking industry, they will likely have to take a lower position for less pay. A lifetime of industrious self-improvement has failed to save them from disaster. Though this person tries to accept the situation with equanimity, they can’t help but feeling as though they should have seen this coming, that they took the wrong self-improvement advice, that this unfortunate situation is fundamentally their fault.

This dark side of the self-improvement cult has not gone unnoticed by critics, some of whom compare its focus on personal salvation – the manic need to produce and strive and improve as much as we can in the short time we have on earth – to the old Protestant work ethic, which still permeates much of our culture to this day.

In a recent post, The Outline’s Vincent Bevins makes this link explicit: “(The Protestant work ethic is) what’s behind the perverted impulse to self-flagellate and ask, ‘What did I accomplish this year?’ and it’s why we get jealous every time we find out that some accomplished famous person is younger than us. In the U.S., for example, it doesn’t matter if you’re Catholic or Jewish or Buddhist, we are all still basically Calvinists deep down. And to the extent that American-style capitalism has spread around the world, so has this basic outlook, to every corner of the globe. This has got to be what’s behind those fanatical posts on LinkedIn and Medium.”

Real self-improvement is arguably impossible in a social vacuum.

Others, such as Danish psychology professor Svend Brinkmann, have pointed out that while at one time, the individualist program of the self-improvement industry was a useful counterweight to a conformist society, today it has led to a society of insular, self-obsessed navel-gazers in constant fear of failing to keep up with the Joneses. “Nowadays,” Brinkmann writes for The Guardian,“real resistance to the system would consist not of turning inward in search of some authentic self, but in rejecting the whole concept and finding out how to live responsibly with yourself and others instead.”

Brinkmann hints here at the major drawback of the current craze for productivity hacks and happiness gambits: it omits entirely the social element of the good life. Self-improvement – at least the way it is depicted by the mass of Silicon Valley-obsessed online hucksters today – is, in practice, a lonely pursuit. It is a list of personal choices to be made by you and you alone. The role of other people, when mentioned at all, is either as a means to “boost personal happiness” or to delegate boring work.

This is particularly ironic as the purpose of being more productive, or more mindful, or more physically fit is inherently social. We want to be better workers in order to gain recognition from our colleagues and employers. We want to be physically fit in order to appear more attractive to others. We read books and meditate in order to be more socially present and aware.

Moreover, real self-improvement is arguably impossible in a social vacuum. All the productivity systems in the world won’t save you from a fundamentally toxic work environment, while an effectively collaborative office can make even the most disorganized worker more productive. Similarly, experience shows that social support has a major influence on factors like diet and fitness, both when it comes to our close circle of friends and in a larger, more political context involving everything from mass agriculture to city planning.

Of course, it is much harder for self-improvement writers to sell us on the idea that our lives depend on a larger social whole that we cannot control. After all, while you can pick your own to-do list and workout schedule, you can’t necessarily pick your co-workers or your gym buddies or your elected government.

But this is perhaps the core message the New Cult of Self-Improvement needs to embrace: that our ability to flourish, whatever that means in practice, depends a lot on other people beyond our sphere of influence – and that all that can be asked of us is to do the best we can in whatever given circumstance we find ourselves in, while hoping for (but not expecting or demanding) an ideal outcome. It may be far healthier, and nicer, to stop focusing intensely on our own self-improvement regimens and to focus more on developing genuine connections with others.

Ironically, this is the core message of one of the self-improvement cult’s favourite philosophies: Stoicism. But where self-improvement bloggers have latched on to Stoicism’s themes of overcoming negative emotions and preparing oneself for the worst, they have largely skipped over its core message – that the key to happiness is to accept your present circumstances with equanimity, and to prize above all acting virtuously at all times for the sake of the common good.

This means focusing less on getting the right productivity app, eating all the right foods and picking the right cardio-to-weight-work ratio, and more on being an engaged person no matter the circumstances, which are almost entirely outside of your control.

It may not be the sexiest life hack out there, but simply living a virtuous life is probably the most effective.

http://nationalpost.com/entertainment/the-myth-of-the-new-you-why-you-shouldnt-buy-what-self-help-gurus-are-peddling

Self Inflation and Contagious Narcissism

Joseph Szimhart
jszimhart@gmail.com

http://jszimhart.com/blog/sweat_lodge_deaths
December, 2016

After watching CNN’s two-hour, December 4, 2016 documentary on the rise and fall motivational speaker James Arthur Ray, I came away from it with a sense of appreciation for good film making as well as a sullen gut reaction to the horror of three people dying in one of Ray’s over-crowded, very expensive, “spiritual warrior,” sweat lodge challenges. The sweat lodge scam was one of his best personal income ventures.

I will explain below why modern sweats, like fire-walks, in my view are scams.

The filmmakers managed to convey fairly and in depth an aspect of American culture that emerged in spades by the late 19th century. Rugged individualism and the positive programming of the American Dream—Be All You Can Be—has been co-opted by a billion-dollar self-help industry of large group awareness workshops. I include many mega-churches lately run by Robert Schuler and currently Joel Osteen in this heady mix with est/Landmark, Lifespring, Psi-World, Amway, and the long list of mass training gurus including Tony Robbins, Werner Erhard, Covey, Eckhart Tolle, James Arthur Ray, and Byron Katie. There are dozens more. If you read and believed Norman Vincent Peale, Og Mandino, and Dale Carnegie, you are in this ballpark. You dwell in this social institution called Self-Inflation University.

Maybe you, the modern seeker, read some Nietzsche and Ayn Rand to reinforce this selfism. Maybe you took yoga classes or seek that special diet. Maybe you absorb the cosmic infusions from ambient music. Maybe you speak to the universe and believe that the universe will respond to your positive thought—you know, the law of attraction since someone let that “secret” out of the bag. Self-improvement, self-development, self-realization, enlightened self-interest, the selfish gene, the higher self, self-awareness, and mindfulness.

Maybe you tried affirmations from a New Thought book or religion—over one hundred years ago, the most famous one was Every Day and in Every Way, I Am Getting Better and Better. Millions of Americans were doing it. You came to believe that religion can be a more precise science than neurobiology. Forgive me—I meant “spirituality” as you are by no means merely religious like those calcified old ladies in the pews of common churches.

Be all you can be? What on earth can that mean? And how much BETTER can you get anyway? We get the incentive. Any healthy human being gets that much: We all want to improve. But at what and how? This is where the self-help gurus come in. Nearly everyone that pays out hundreds or thousands of dollars up front for one of the life and prosperity workshops or intensives is already lost. They do not know and they want to know what will work for them and what is blocking their potential. That is why they are there. To make a breakthrough! Somewhere in life their egos have been damaged, wounded, or traumatized, or in the least somehow limited. Common regulated therapy is too slow or is not working. Maybe they have not gone deep enough and you need a deeper experience.

Narcissistic traits that we all have and need are not bad—we need them to get by, to put our best selves forward to get a job or a spouse. Traits are not disorders. We must believe in ourselves to some degree or we might not get up in the morning. Our best self can be compromised by anxiety. Anxiety is the most commonly diagnosed psych disorder. We all feel it to some degree nearly every day, but most people cope with it well enough. Those who do not cope feel wounded. Forces around them and within them reflect a poor self-image or at least one not good enough.

Wounded narcissists are not bad people, but they are particularly vulnerable to mass therapies that promise to tap that special self within that is pure and wonderful once the layers of social conditioning and trauma are “broken through.” If only those god-damned, self-imposed limitations and environmentally fierce blocks could be somehow removed, they say to themselves. Well, the run-of-the-mill self-help guru or life coach is there for you to help engineer a break through. Just sign the waiver and prepare for several days or more of a psychological roller coaster.

Break throughs are those a-ha moments when the client feels a profound release or insight that has a potentially life-changing effect. These engineered breakthroughs may be authentic—some people do change bad habits after a mass therapy workshop—but at what price? For most, the positive take away is short term or vague at best, especially when we read testimonials from the “94%” (claimed by Landmark) satisfied customers. They sound like testimonials from rare Amway success stories. The cost is more than money.

Most of the mass trainings promise to change you or “shift” your perspective. Let me get to the point. Anyone who is placed in an extraordinary situation or experiences an ecstasy will absorb the influences and language in that environment. The influences include the admonition to spread the good news of your transformation at the Bobby Ray or Whoever Tony workshop, and maybe to ask for forgiveness of anyone you may have harmed to somehow end past karma. Of course, when you so energetically ask for forgiveness or exude over your “experience,” you are also recruiting. And that is the point. The owners of these businesses want to funnel as many people as they can into their self-experience machines that will spit out recruiters at the other end. The model is understandable if one is selling cars, herbal products, or cosmetics, but it gets very strange when the product is your Self.

The question to ask is what self emerges from a J A Ray sweat lodge ceremony? Can that sacred self, the “spiritual warrior” be forced into manifestation during an engineered experience in group trainings or spiritual retreats? The answer is no. That is the scam. The good feeling of having made a breakthrough in front of a crowd after a public confession will always subside. All highs from ecstasy subside when the endorphins stop dancing in your brain. However, the leader tells you not to let this insight go, to reinforce it in how you communicate with others and choose your path going forward. So, you adopt the language of the group or life coach, and you start sounding like one of “them” to your friends and family. The change is that you sound like one of them and not that you have suddenly become a better person. The point is that you could have become a better person with a little effort all on your own and still sounded like yourself.

One definition of a brainwashed or radically influenced person resides in language: If he talks like us, he is one of us. This is true for any culture, be it Austria or a gang in Chicago. However, you have a better shot at being your authentic self as an Austrian than you will as a gang member. It is a matter of constriction. Smaller groups with enthusiastic members will tend to self-seal or create an us-them culture.

J R Ray’s sweat lodge experiencers were in shock when people died. They all had to question why they put up with so much pain and why they lost their common sense. Those who broke away finally did make a real breakthrough. They no longer trusted the narcissist who absorbed them into his theater, his culture, his personality cult world. They shed the language and re-learned how to talk authentically. They no longer believed that men should aspire to be gods who are the true spiritual warriors.

Just ask Zeus.

J A Ray violated authentic sweat lodge intent.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/us/canada-sweat-lodge/

James A Ray's comeback angers victims
http://jszimhart.com/blog/sweat_lodge_deaths

Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru

Slant

BY KEITH WATSON

JULY 11, 2016

 

Like all great salesmen, multimillionaire “life and business strategist” Tony Robbins is a master storyteller. Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru documents the man's six-day “Date with Destiny” seminar, for which 2,500 people pay $4,995 a pop to watch Robbins intensely interrogate a chosen few of them in a hotel ballroom, breaking down their life problems into an easily definable core—typically their parents or their relationships—and building from that a path forward to some future happy ending. He, in essence, transforms the messiness and complexity of each subject's life into a gripping narrative, one with a linear arc about overcoming one's fears to achieve a goal. These mini-narratives usually climax with a dramatic act instigated by Robbins: a bit of celebratory crowd-surfing in one instance, and a woman basically coerced into breaking up with her boyfriend over the phone in another.

 

Gravel-voiced, with the burly physique and smug charisma of a professional wrestler, Robbins is an undeniably compelling performer. His interrogations, which often last hours, but are here pared down by director Joe Berlinger to about 10 minutes apiece, are often spellbinding. Over the course of I Am Not Your Guru's nearly two-hour runtime, though, the cracks in Robbins's methods begin to show. Outside of the interrogation sessions, Robbins speaks mostly in hazy generalities—“truth,” “depth,” “love,” “vision,” “drive”—while offering bland all-purpose advice like “Reclaim who you really are.”

 

Meanwhile, the guidance he gives participants often seems misguided; an epilogue reveals that the woman urged to break up with her boyfriend reconciled with him shortly after the seminar. At other times, it's simply a deus ex machina: Robbins simply gifts a career as a life coach to one woman, the survivor of a horrifying religious sex cult that sold all her possessions to attend Robbins's seminar. Robbins's relationship advice is especially bad, premised on gender essentialist nonsense, including a particular disgust for “feminine” men. Robbins commands one wimpy guy to roar like a lion to get in touch with his inner masculine power, after which, in the film's most cringe-worthy moment, he reports having the best sex of his life.

Shot in a fly-on-the-wall style with little biographical background on Robbins and only superficial interviews, Berlinger constructs I Am Not Your Guru as a concert film. This approach works only to Robbins's benefit, allowing him to present himself exactly as he wishes to be seen: the consummate professional driven not by his own pecuniary interests, but by his insatiable hunger to help others. While Robbins relentlessly grills seminar participants, Berlinger never subjects him to even the gentlest prodding, allowing him to dispense with questions about his abusive mother, for example, with some vague statements about how she made him the man he is today. Other details (a name change, a 2001 divorce, Robbins's famous “fire walks,” which recently hospitalized dozens of people in Dallas) aren't broached at all.

 

Throughout the film, we see Robbins in his palatial beachfront mansion, a not-so-subtle reminder of his massive financial success, but Berlinger never makes any attempt to draw the line between this gaudy signifier of Robbins's personal wealth and the desperate, sometimes suicidal people who plop down five grand for his seminars (not to mention an endless array of books, CDs, DVDs, and dietary supplements). Watching Robbins work is often interesting, but, stripped of any meaningful context, it becomes sickeningly close to sitting through a sales pitch for one of his seminars. By focusing solely on Robbins as a performer, Berlinger essentially allows his subject to hijack the film for his own ends, turning this ostensible verité documentary into just another one of Robbins's infomercials.

DISTRIBUTOR Netflix

RUNTIME 115 min

RATING NR

YEAR 2016

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/tony-robbins-i-am-not-your-guru