We Can See Everything (Except Whatever's Blinding Us)

There's something kind of heartening, and validating, in my bad ass being hated and ignored when this message echoes my daily output:

“The country’s elites – of both political parties and across the political spectrum – have been wrong on just about everything they have done since the end of the Cold War.”

Let's see, that's the Boomers, NewAgers (and other cultists) race hustlers, motivational speakers, newscasters, and,...

 

Brainwashing

Somebody seems a bit confused, as to who things are happening to, but they're happening:

"IT HAPPENED TO ME: I WENT TO VISIT A COLLEGE FRIEND AND FOUND OUT HE'D JOINED A CULT 

I know not all cults are as extreme as those examples and some groups are mostly harmless but the idea of group thought in general is still frightening to me."

Alright - that makes two of us - now what?

 

Remember Eddie Murphy Wearing Red Leather Outfits?

I still say, in this day and age, it takes a special kind of stupid to go for this stuff:

A perverted ‘healer’ who told women their ‘sexual energy points’ were blocked then molested them was jailed for 16 years yesterday. 

Michael Ireland, 60, claimed to be skilled at a host of alternative therapies including Reiki, a Japanese form of hands-on treatment. 

Over a quarter of a century, the charismatic conman targeted a string of vulnerable women and girls, telling them he would help them with ‘special healing’ which could be carried out only when no one else was around.

Why do journalists always leave out the words "And she fell for it!"? (I swear, these people do not know the first thing about educating the public or selling papers.) So few talk about being dumb - everybody's afraid to be outed as a moron, when they should be, if only for the safety of others:

Last night one of his victims waived her right to anonymity and told the Daily Mail of her terror as Ireland sexually assaulted her during therapy for a painful back. 

Divorcee Joanne Mulholland, 41, said: ‘I was devastated. I felt angry and terribly betrayed. I had trusted him as a professional and yet he took advantage of me in the worst possible way.’

Sex as "therapy for a painful back." I love it. Completely homeopathic.

Dear Miss Mulholland, 

Thank you so much for waiving your right to anonymity. It's the first intelligent thing you've probably ever done in your entire messed-up life (I gather, since - after making it all the way to adulthood - you don't seem aware enough of your surroundings to know there are no "professional" hoodoos out there, and betraying others is the only thing these "real" ones are up to. Man, would I like to talk with your ex husband. NewAgers almost always seem to have exs for some reason,...). Your disclosure will undoubtably help someone else - whether it's a poor sap, also too dumb to accept reality, who can use your example, or by merely giving me someone else to point and laugh at whenever I'm down from being force-fed feminist crap about women being generally intelligent and strong and mumbo jumbo NewAge nonsense being their best possible conceivable contribution to what was supposed to be 21st Century life. Whoo-boy:

The DHB spent $4777 on seeking legal opinions on the clinic, which treated 75 staff before the three-month trial ended early after emergency medicine specialist Chris Cresswell linked the clinic to witchcraft and wizardry.

There's no need to feel bad - I know:

I, too, used to feel awful and I hadn't done a thing.

As I always try to make clear, there's more-than-enough moronic behavior to go around:

A breast cancer specialist once told me that in one year, she’d had four women come to her with a previously detected breast cancer who’d been trying alternative meds as treatment — for too long. By the time they got to her, their cancers had progressed beyond what would have been a relatively treatable stage.

You are not alone. All you've got to do is play the game of "belief" and you might as well say you've graduated top of your class in idiocy:

Upon further examination of Robyn’s qualifications from the choicecenter.com website we find she is a “professionally trained Master Facilitator and a Master Coach who specializes in Leadership and Business development.” For those of you paying attention, that means she holds no traditional counseling degree or certification of any sort. That is a made up title. Descriptors like “facilitator” are mentioned in this 1995 Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) work by Dr. Margaret Singer. I will be referring to this excerpt again and again in this because of how accurate it is about Choice Center Las Vegas and LGATs in general, having been written in 1995. “Leadership University” is not a real thing either. If you read on, you will read words of very little substance when it comes to qualification, but you will learn that pro athletes and business executives love this program and that Robyn Williams is very charity-minded. Rumor has it she’s trying to scoop that Michael Phelps. Now he’s a national treasure, 22 medal-winning Olympian and famous weed smoker. I don’t know the man, but he is clearly someone to protect from this bullshit,…Remember the class is going to cost you $2,600 to start, and goes waaaaay up from there, some paying as much as $1M to achieve the highest levels. Of course many of the stories have to do with Charity. Robyn is charitable, Choice Center is charitable, and neither are afraid to tell you about it. Charity has long been used by cults, religions, and scams because it acts simultaneously as recruitment and public relation tool. Whenever a person or organization brags about charity or uses it in a marketing capacity, I am immediately suspect.

Go with it. Me? I'm a bottom feeder. A nut job. A wing nut. A fool. King of the fools. The Fucking Hunchback. All the smart folks say so - walking "career" suicide: 

"Powers" or no powers, breasts or no breasts, I'm just not bright enough to buy what they're selling, poor thing.

Destined to observe how it's done.

 

While living it up - not down,…

 

I Ain't No Fashionista But, If You Ask Me, James Arthur Ray, And Oprah, Look GREAT In Orange!

You've got to hand it to James Arthur Ray, the man was about as focussed as one can get:

Another witness in the sweat lodge trial against self-help guru James Arthur Ray brought some bizarre insight into the Spiritual Warrior retreat that ended in the death of three people.

On the stand Friday, Linda Andresano explained how Ray told participants to write about their early sexual experiences in their journals, between events, at the retreat.

She also said that after a seminar about the samurai tradition, Ray had them play a game that ended in a symbolic mass suicide.

Andresano also said players of the game were killed when they made eye contact with people predetermined to be "ninjas."

Those that were "killed" in the game were then taken to a symbolic cemetery by people dressed in black cloaks.

An attorney questioned Andresano about the game, asking, "And what happened to the survivors, so to speak?"

"We all died anyway," responded Andresano.

Because Oprah's pal, AKA "God", said so. (Has anyone who was there ever had the opportunity to thank Oprah for her endorsement of Ray yet?) Oh well, at times like this it's so important we use Oprah's "Best Life EVAH!!!" NewAge training, to find the bright side of a situation - like this:

It's impossible anybody got ripped-off at this thing because, before they showed up, they were only dead on the inside,...

N. Korea? Chicoms? Russia? No, It's In America

Governments are sending adults into it, parents are sending their kids into it, drug addicts are checking themselves into it - and making their lives much, much worse. Is there any way out? Even when, as one person says in this clip, it just changes it's name and continues (as est became The Landmark Forum)? We're actively condemning ourselves to the experience of cultism.

We're condemning ourselves to Hell.

Religion, Cults, NewAge, Beliefs, Murder, Death

Oh boy - the Lord's working in mysterious ways again:

Both are ministers – he, a popular preacher, respected by his peers but bearing a violent past; she, a former schoolteacher with a taste for poetry.

They worked at the same church at some point and, according to police, were in a relationship.

It took a brutal turn Tuesday morning when, authorities and a witness say, the Rev. Edward Fairley stormed into an Eastside home and, without a word, stabbed the Rev. Simone Shields several times in the face and torso, leaving her to lie in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.

Shields, 52, was eventually rescued by police and taken to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center. She remains in critical but stable condition, police said.Fairley, 59, was arrested after he was spotted on the street soaked in blood, the knife still in hand, authorities said. He is charged with attempted murder and was in Paterson police custody with no bail set as of late Wednesday, according to the Passaic County Jail.

The attack stunned the city's church leaders. Fellow pastors, who described Fairley as a good man and a "pillar" in the community, seemed at a loss.

"I don't know what the Lord wants us to look at with this situation," said the Rev. Chester Taylor, of Calvary Baptist Church.

Except for maybe questioning the wisdom of adopting belief systems, we'll be honest and say, "We don't either!"

But cheer up - that's what a motivational speaker would tell you, right?

Cheer up!

Too bad "positive thinking" doesn't work either:

A man who said he helped a debt-ridden motivational speaker kill himself was convicted of murder Thursday in a seeming street crime that turned into an unusual framework for questions about the legal limits of assisted suicide.

Jurors delivered their verdict on the strange story of self-help author and business coach Jeffrey Locker's July 2009 death. The conviction leaves Kenneth Minor facing the possibility of life in prison; his sentencing is set for April 4.

It was a murder trial in which even prosecutors said the slain man wanted to die, and it became a debate about assisted suicide that strayed far from the more familiar context of doctors or loved ones helping terminally ill people end their lives.

...Locker, 52, was found stabbed in his car on an East Harlem street, his hands tied behind his back, hours after calling his wife to say he'd gotten a flat tire. Police initially investigated his death as the result of a robbery.

But the scenario changed when Minor was arrested a few days later after using Minor's ATM card.

In fact, Locker had been cruising an inner-city neighborhood miles from his suburban home, offering to pay strangers to kill him and make it look like a robbery so his family could collect as much as $18 million in life insurance, according to prosecutors, Minor's statement to police and evidence presented at the trial. A man whom Locker approached before meeting Minor testified that he agreed to the deal but then took some $4,000 from Locker and ran.

And Locker left a trail of clues about his plan, including computer searches for funeral arrangements, an e-mail telling his wife how to divvy up and shield their assets "when I am gone" and purchases of about $14 million in life insurance in his final months, in addition to $4 million in insurance he already had, evidence showed at his trial. Locker's family has declined to comment.

After being conned by the first man who took his offer, according to prosecutors, Locker approached Minor on an East Harlem street. A father of two who told police he'd worked as a computer technician, Minor, 38, has a history of drug problems and arrests.

He told investigators he initially brushed Locker off but then began to feel sorry for him as the motivational speaker poured out his financial woes.

An investor in a $300 million Ponzi scheme run by Backstreet Boys and `N Sync mastermind Lou Pearlman, Locker was facing a federal bankruptcy court trustee's demands to return at least $121,200 the court said he had made from his stake in Perlman's enterprise. Locker had told the court that returning the money would force him to declare bankruptcy, and documents shown at his trial logged plunging bank-account balances and mounting credit-card debts.

Prosecutors said Minor murdered Locker by stabbing him seven times, pointing to a city medical examiner's testimony that Locker's chest wounds had characteristics indicating he was stabbed by someone next to him.

But Minor said he just held a knife against the steering wheel while Locker repeatedly lunged into it, and a prominent pathologist he hired testified that his account was plausible.

Minor's lawyer portrayed him as a sympathetic stranger exploited by a professional smooth-talker bent on carrying out a con game and unconcerned about the consequences for Minor.

"He was taken advantage of. . He's no contract killer," Gotlin said in his closing argument. He argued that Minor should be acquitted under a state law provision that allows "causing or aiding" a suicide as a defense to certain murder charges.

In her instructions, State Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman told jurors that provision couldn't apply if Minor "actively" caused Locker's death. Gotlin had objected to that language and said he'd raise it in Minor's appeal.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, said the concept of assisted suicide was being misapplied to a callous killing-for-hire.
"Somebody stabbing a guy to death in a car to commit insurance fraud - do you really want to equate that with giving a pill to a dying loved one?" assistant district attorney Peter Casolaro asked jurors in his summation. "Is (Minor) an angel of mercy? No, he's the Grim Reaper."

Speaking of the Grim Reaper, he came for one of his minions recently:

Roch Thériault, the former doomsday cult leader who was killed in his cell over the weekend, paid dearly and often for his crimes, his lawyer says.

Renée Millette, a Montreal lawyer who represents inmates for procedures such as parole hearings, said Thériault was assaulted often by other inmates over the last two decades while he served time for amputating the arm of one of his followers and killing another. Millette said the assaults include others at Dorchester Penitentiary, the medium-security institution near Moncton, N.B., where he died Saturday. He had been incarcerated there since 2000.

"He was often a victim of his past. The assaults had nothing to do with how he acted while incarcerated. It was because of his past," Millette said, adding Thériault had regrets about his time as the spiritual leader of a group he began in Quebec in 1978 and later moved to Burnt River, Ont., where the cult became known as the Ant Hill Kids.

And from Ant Hills to faux indian sweat lodges, we'll end with some really bad news for another NewAge cult leader, motivational speaker, and killer:

Prosecutors will be allowed to call an expert to testify about why dozens of people felt that they couldn't leave a sweat lodge ceremony that turned deadly.

Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Warren Darrow made the ruling Monday, a day before opening statements begin in James Arthur Ray's manslaughter case.

Darrow says Rick Ross can testify about large group awareness as long as prosecutors provide an appropriate foundation.

Oooh, that's not good because Rick Ross is one of the big cheeses in the cult awareness world - he knows the landscape.

What could he possibly explain?

How you end up like this:

"Hot. Baked. Tired."

That was the way Melissa Phillips felt midway through the sweat lodge ceremony at Angel Valley Retreat on Oct. 8, 2009. Three people died from trauma they received during the event, leading to manslaughter charges against self-help author and speaker James Arthur Ray.

Phillips, 43, of Toronto was the first witness that Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk called to the stand. Phillips said she first encountered Ray in the self-help movie "The Secret," then read some of his writings and signed up for several seminars.

The Spiritual Warrior event in Sedona was to be yet another step on her path to enlightenment. At a previous seminar, she said, Ray had told her it would be a life-altering experience.

"I was expecting to walk away with a great learning experience - a wonderful experience for myself," Phillips said.

Responding to Polk's questioning, Phillips said she was aware that James Ray International, Ray's company, did not disclose the Spiritual Warrior schedule or roster of events, although she had learned some of it from people she'd met at other seminars.

"You're supposed to show up not as prepared in order to have your breakthrough," she said.

Thus, Phillips was more prepared than most of the other 50-odd participants who entered the sweat lodge just hours after a vision quest that featured an enforced 36-hour fast.

"I understood it was a rebirthing," she said. "I understood it was a spiritual journey."

She did not understand that three people - Kirby Brown, James Shore and Liz Neuman - would die.

Phillips' enthusiasm began to wane during the Samurai Game, which took place two days before the sweat lodge. After admitting she had inadvertently broken the code of silence Ray had imposed in the afternoon, Ray, playing the role of "God" in the game, pronounced her dead.

She then had to lie motionless on a hard floor for several hours, missing dinner, until volunteers had her get ready for the vision quest.

"I felt like I'd been hit in the head with a two-by-four and my hands and feet were numb," she said.

That experience served her in the sweat lodge. Not comfortable with heat, Phillips said she left after the third round.

"After my experience lying on the floor," she said, "I took an attitude of looking out for myself."

Oh well, better late than never, we guess.

Our advice:

Let it go, people. Just let it go.

Melissa Phillips didn't let it go - she's a NewAger - she went back in.

Of course she did.

Because belief systems - all belief systems - are for losers.

Well: The Rolling Stone Gathers Moss After All

Here's how the people who broke up their marriages, determined to change the world, spent the last ten years - and take note of how the word "we" is used:

Remember the '90s, when we all thought we were crazy? Everyone ran out and got a shrink (New Yorkers got analysts — not just for Woody Allen anymore!). Couples' therapy became a widely chosen ritualistic precursor to divorce, aimed at clarifying for each party exactly when and how their spouse became reprehensible. The middle-aged departed on healing retreats en masse to learn about centering and recovering their inner child. The most fragile souls wound up in stuffy hotel conference rooms under the banner of Werner Erhard's Forum, where an authoritarian patriarch urged them to simply sweep away their "rackets" like so many dust bunnies.

And here they are now - their inner child still insisting on some ethically-challenged, organic, recyclable, utopia of nonsense - hoping someone will feel sorry for them after all the trouble they've caused, the money they've thrown away ("I was a shopaholic") and the lives they've destroyed:



Beating the homeless guy to "the good stuff"?

As Bob Dylan asked, how does it feeeeeel?

Nothing's Too Good For Daddy's Little Girls (And Now They're Discovering Just How True That Is)

"Pssst…looking for some start-up funding? I may have your angel. The Seagram’s sisters—aka, Clare and Sara Bronfman. Yes, the daughters of mega mogul Edgar Bronfman, Sr. They’ve already plowed millions (we’re talking close to $100M) into an investment scheme of self-made self-help wannabe whiz, Keith Raniere—and lost them. Where was that psychic they were talking to? So maybe they’ll be looking for a new opp—esp. now that word on the street is that daddy Bronfman is a bit pissed.

Clare and Sara apparently got a bit 'taken in' by Raniere and his NXIVM group-awareness seminar company. So much so that their daddy refers to it as a 'cult'."

-- Lawyers and Settlements

Connecting The Dots (Coming Up With Nothing)

"So Werner Erhard’s brother is CEO of Landmark Education, his sister is a Director of Landmark Education, and his attorney is Chairman of the Board of Landmark Education."

-- GuruTruth, proving Landmark Education has nothing to do with est, Scientology, brainwashing, or cultism - even though Werner Erhard began, or is associated with, all four - he's just got his cohorts running things,...um,...to maybe provide,...uh,...The Truth about Human Potential Seminars.

Remote Control And Yea, I'll Do It

"My husband turned into a tree hugger... and it killed our marriage."

-- Hannah Angel, telling us about her spouse's ugly turn to cultish thinking and Large Group Awareness Training - go, read: it describes some of you - even if you read The Daily Mail.

Click the tags, below, to see more on these topics.

Happy New Year: You're Thick As A Brick

"Several people are said to have contacted the [Yavapai County Sheriff's Office] with information about the [James Arthur] Ray program called 'Modern Magick', which is held in Hawaii. Diskin reports, 'During this event participants are told to break bricks with their hands. Several people reported there were no instructions or training on how to break these bricks without being injured. There were no doctors or nurses employed by James Ray on site to treat the injured. Bronwen Richards is a nurse who attended Modern Magick in 2008. She reports that both she and her husband broke bones during this event. Bronwen estimated 16 people were being treated in the local emergency room with broken bones from attending the James Ray event. Participants of this event who asked for a refund were not given a refund.'"

-- Lynne LaMaster, making a point that, I think, is worthy of passing along to your little ones this New Year: "Kids, the stupidity of some people - but especially those in the medical field who should know better - can be breathtaking, and so, because we don't ever want to see you floored by these bozos in the future, or ever becoming a tree-hugging NewAge dork yourself, everyday we're going to have all of you do a little bit more homework, eat a little bit more meat, and continue to bone up on FantasyLand, by reading the Prescott eNews.

A Nation Awash In Empty-Headed Foolishness

"Self-help is not benign. The $11 billion industry can hurt you psychologically, it can hurt you financially and, as we see, it can hurt you physically. It can hurt your family and friends too.

Consider that today's increasingly popular 'large group awareness training' (LGAT) incorporates tactics more commonly identified with psychological warfare. Facilitators bully attendees verbally and sometimes physically, call upon them to relive their worst experiences in humiliating detail in front of strangers, deprive them of sleep and even bathroom privileges—all in the name of self-actualization. In expert testimony in a 1992 lawsuit against the best-known of these LGATs, Landmark Forum (long a favored choice for corporate retreats), the clinical psychologist Margaret Singer observed that Forum 'applies a number of powerful and psychologically disturbing, emotionally arousing and defense destabilizing techniques to large groups of people, in an intense, marathon-like period.' How can this not have a catastrophic effect on people in a fragile emotional state—which is surely the case with a sizable contingent of those who seek out these 'transformational' courses to begin with?

Other offerings, bracketed as 'relationships therapy' or 'assertiveness training,' can wreak havoc on existing interpersonal bonds. Stories abound of couples whose marriages fell victim to gurus who celebrated promiscuity and 'personal morality,' or who chastised participants for their codependent (that is, caring and empathetic) ways.

Apologists argue that there are bad outcomes in any endeavor, that it's unfair to single out self-help when, say, conventional medicine kills thousands each year. The difference is that in medicine, practitioners share demonstrated expertise in methods that evolved over time and have been tested and retested for efficacy. A bad outcome in a field with proven benefits is unfortunate. A bad outcome in a field with little basis for existing in the first place is unforgivable. As noted psychologist Michael Hurd told me, 'Gurus encourage these poor, already troubled souls to literally take leave of their senses, as if departing reason will somehow liberate you.'"

-- Steve Salerno, apparently unaware insanity on a mass scale is now accepted as normal - as long as enough people share in some aspect of it - and enough people share in some aspect of it, not to read The Wall Street Journal.

Hey - I've Got A Great Idea For How NewAgers Can Achieve A Personal Transformation: Get Everybody Naked And Then Kill Yourselves

"A Korean student died from multiple stab wounds three days after attending a Turning Point self-help course - the third death linked to the controversial program.

The inquest into the death of Sydney woman Rebekah Lawrence (above) heard that a year after the 34-year-old plunged naked to her death, the Korean man was found naked in his Wollongong home, south of Sydney, with possibly 'self-inflicted' stab wounds, The Australian reports.

Counsel assisting the inquiry in Sydney, Robert Bromwich, said there were 'parallels' between the deaths.

The man, who was not identified yesterday, was found naked, with multiple stab wounds, three days after completing a four-day Turning Point course.

Ms Lawrence died two days after completing the course.

Yesterday, The Australian revealed Darren Hughes, 24, had plunged to his death from a 12m-high window 18 years before Lawrence's death while on a course run by the creator of the Turning Point program."

-- Etan Smallman and Angus Hohenboken, who are probably learning a whole lot about how to improve themselves - because there has to be something wrong with being just plain old them - otherwise all these positive tales of what it means to find true enlightenment wouldn't be on News.com.

Oh, Sure, NOW The Expert On Life Is Confused

"'Do you accept that what the course sets out to do is deliberately change a participant's state of mind?' counsel assisting the coroner Robert Bromwich asked.

'Yes,' Mr Arthur replied.

'And do you accept that when you start dealing with changing any individual's state of mind there are inherent dangers in doing that?' Mr Bromwich pressed.

'In light of circumstances now, I'm unsure about the answer to that question,' he replied."

-- Katelyn Catanzariti, giving us a peek into the courtroom after a woman - who paid $3,000 for a NewAge self-help course to gain, ahem, "soulfulness" - stripped naked at work and, from her office building, took a leap to her death, in The Daily Telegraph.

I find it fascinating how, when seriously questioned, these self-help assholes never have the answers - and yet they're allowed to do their dirty work with little to no oversight. (This dickhead was a computer programmer who had taken a few psychology courses.) It just goes to show why skepticism is so important - and why NewAgers are so lame: they refuse to ask tough questions, opting instead to see these (many) charlatans as their "friends" who they can trust more than those who have proven they can be trusted.

NewAgers have mental problems - and, though they don't admit it openly, they know it - that's why they take all these courses, and seminars, and workshops. There's something missing in their personalities that they're trying to fix. I think they're schizophrenic. At least, those I've encountered seem to be,...and these NewAge "therapists" are waiting for them.

With their hands out and absolutely no answers of their own.

Oh, and another thing: They're having this court case because this woman killed herself. But, if she'd run home and destroyed her marriage after taking this idiot's course - or even if she'd divorced her husband because this asshole took advantage of her psychologically and had sex with her - everyone would think that was fine-and-dandy, and would probably blame her husband for the break-up, because he tried to "hold her back" from life or some other bullshit excuse for her madness. That's how goofy, sick, and creepy, the thinking is out there. That's the reality of NewAge.

And you people kill me with this shit. But that's the point, right? Somebody's (or something's) got to die,...

You've Just Gotta Understand (Unless You Can't)

"The historical trajectory of this empathy thing has some roots and I know where they lie because it was right here in San Francisco and I was around then.

These warm and fuzzy feelings we're debating now are a direct backlash to a '70s movement/hustle that was the antithesis of empathy. It was about being guilt-free and basking in the wonderfulness and perfection of yourself. This deal was a conscious-numbing plague of narcissism that crept into the upper reaches of the Jimmy Carter White House, and had hundreds of thousands of adherents who came to believe they were fine just the way they were. No feeling other people's icky pain and suffering necessary.

They called it EST.

Right. That thing. Erhard Seminar Training, the brainchild of former encyclopedia salesman and new age wizard Werner Erhard (actually Jack Rosenberg; apparently not everything was perfect 'the way it is' -- as his EST slogan had it.)

To be fair, Mr. Erhard got a lot of people on board his feel-good wagon, including celebrities (John Denver, Diana Ross), political wives and a lot of young adults who felt the flames of '60s social activism licking the edges of their BMWs and just didn't want to have to feel guilty about their own creature comforts.

As I saw it, EST boiled down to this: don't feel bad. Don't worry about anything but yourself. And you're pretty damn perfect the way you are. Who doesn't want to hear that, even if you're Woody Allen?

Brilliant! As James Lipton would say.

Werner Erhard even started an offshoot called The Hunger Project where, so far as I could tell, no one actually got fed, directly. But the message seemed to be that you don't have to actually do anything about world hunger. Just acknowledging its existence is enough. How freeing is that!? You could do that and play a game of squash at the same time.

While he brilliantly synthesized useful tips from Zen Buddhism, Dale Carnegie, and mass hypnosis, his jewel of conscription was a full weekend of large room, haranguing lectures from Jack himself where no one could leave to pee the entire time."

-- Phil Bronstein, seeing the world - and it's delusional cultism, from the roots up - as we do, except he's posting on The Huffington Post.

Gee, Thanks, Dad!!!

"Math teacher Nellie Forst wanted to control her temper better so she could one day become a principal. So at the advice of her father, the 28-year-old Philadelphia resident drove to NXIVM in Colonie for a five-day seminar expecting enlightenment and career advice.

But by the first evening, Forst says she ran out of the personal development company's New Karner Road office and left the Capital Region in tears. . .

'I consider the 11 hours I spent at the place to be psychological rape. It left me a totally different person with all this fear I never had before,' said Forst, who has a master's degree from Drexel University."

-- Dennis Yusko (as quoted by Chet Hardin) in a well-done piece on the well-funded corporate-cult weirdness called NXIVM, in Metroland.