If they only knew....

[Anonymous]

On 2005-07-11 11:56:00, Anonymous wrote:

 This Karen was closed from the beginning, so her interpretation was much different from the other 50 or 100 or more individuals attending.  She didn't want to be there and went because she said she had to.

Blame it on the victim. It's the WWASPie way.  :roll:  

It is NOT a fact that everyone that attends is a parent of a kid in a WWASPS program.  Anyone can attend, so there goes your program cult accusation.

No, that only reinforced my cult accusation. Cults like WWASP do whatever they can to attract new recruits. Why limit the Lifespring seminars to only one group of people, if you can scam and defraud so many others? It only makes sense that they will try many different ways to recruit people.

This Karen went how many years ago?

What does that matter? WWASP is still doing the same old shit. Some of the lingo or procedures may have changed, but the core of the experience is the same. Break them down, create dependency on the group, feed in whatever ideology you want, and end the whole thing with a huge love bombing fest.

Personal growth seminars - are everywhere!  BUsinesses are bringing them inhouse, there are hundreds of reasons people are choosing to spend 3 days from morning til night gaining more personal insight and a better way to live.  Just google personal growth seminars.

Lifespring semianrs, which is what WWASP offers, have nothing to do with "insights" or "personal growth". They have everything to do with breaking people down, making them dependent on the group, and convincing them they have reached some "enlightenment" (or as WWASP calls it, "they got it". Notice how they never really expalin what "it" means).

You act like WWASPS has the lock and key on parents.  They are only required to go to one and choose to complete many more.  It's not about brainwashing.   That's the "pat" scapegoat answer to your fears.

Oh, but they do. WWASP does not lock them parents in physically, like they do with the kids. On the parents, they use intense psychological pressure to get them to stay. They take desperate people who are hurting and who will anything to help their children. They tell them that the program is going to help. They reinforce the parents' fears and anxieties. They lock the parents in, alright.

And, yes, it is all about brainwashing. Look up "Lifespring". Look up "Korean POW camps". That is where the program started. That is what it is designed to do. The program is designed to convince people they have been "saved", and to recruit more followers.

WWASP is a dangerous, abusive cult. No point in denying it, WWASPie-- the truth is out.

[Anonymous]

True - the seminars are based on LifeSpring and has evolved to something better, from what I've read and experienced.  My life is based on my parents and has evolved into something better, too.  (My opinion)

When I went to the Discovery seminar, there were around 50 people.  

Antigen - Your remarks about Karen - this one of the places you and I are having fun disagreeing/debating.  Neither of us is wrong, or right.  It's our view.  My view, from what I've read, is that she took offense to someone asking her to get real.  That's okay.  It's not for me to judge.  She didn't want to be there and took it very negatively and wrote about it based on her experience.

What is fact, not opinion, is that those same seminars are full - around a hundred in each from what I've heard.  Let's just look at the numbers in Discovery if that is still true:  100 people per Discovery seminar.  They are in several cities - 7 I think and are held about every 3 months in each one.  So do the math.  That's a lot of people.  How many of them over the years have felt invaded or whatever Karen felt?  Very, very few.  So as you say, I'm a sucker.  Thank GOD, I'm a sucker.

If learning to communicate better, learn to love better, reach goals, get over negative addictions, get over past "stuff," is being brainwashed....get out the sponge!

PHX -  hey, maybe the heat is getting to me...LOL!

[Anonymous]

The WWASP seminars so ridiculous, if they change your life somehow for the better, well, you really DO need help. I can't possibly see how these seminars would be taken seriously by people not in the program. It just goes to show, there's a sucker born every minute.

[Janet]

PHX, I read Karen's message ages ago.  What struck me was that she became upset when the manipulaters of the seminar asked her to do things that went against her Mormon religion.  She was not the  first Mormon to write against WWASP, which, by the way, is largely a Mormon organization/company.

My ex-friend also complained about the Discovery Seminar.  Just as an aside, she was Catholic.  However, she didn't like the seminar folks requiring the participants to be at the meeting room of the hotel very early, and then not opening the locked doors of the meeting room until several hours later.  The parents had to wait in the hotel lobby which had few chairs for the large group.  She also didn't like the requirement of giving very personal information.  But, unlike Karen Bean, she bought the WWASP program hook, line, and sinker.

[Anonymous]

True - the seminars are based on LifeSpring and has evolved to something better, from what I've read and experienced.  My life is based on my parents and has evolved into something better, too.  (My opinion)

Not better. Just more effective. You, and others like you, have lost the ability to think critically and examine what was done to you. The WWASP cult did a good job on you. They taught oyu to conform, to follow, and to depend on the group-- and yo call it "enlightenment" and "help". That is a pretty sad situation.

Antigen - Your remarks about Karen - this one of the places you and I are having fun disagreeing/debating.  Neither of us is wrong, or right.  It's our view.  My view, from what I've read, is that she took offense to someone asking her to get real.  That's okay.  It's not for me to judge.  She didn't want to be there and took it very negatively and wrote about it based on her experience.

Duane wasn't asking her to "get real". He was being verbally abusive. Are you trying to tell me you won't find it offensive or alarming if a man came near you and told you he would rape you or kill you?

Karen, as well as the other victims, were being verbally and psychologically abused by the seminar facilitators. The reason the others didn't respond as she did was because they were manipulated by WWASP and their seminar staff to believe they needed to be there and that this would help them.

 How many of them over the years have felt invaded or whatever Karen felt?  Very, very few.  So as you say, I'm a sucker.  Thank GOD, I'm a sucker.

Many of them, I believe. But not all of them were able to sort out their experiences, or had the courage to write and warn people about WWASP.

Falling for a treatment cult, putting your child at risk, and taking blood money-- by yhour admission, you do or did all these things-- is nothing to be proud of.

If learning to communicate better, learn to love better, reach goals, get over negative addictions, get over past "stuff," is being brainwashed....get out the sponge!

WWASP/Lifespring v.2 doesn't teach how to communicate better. It doesn't teach how to "love better" (what the hell does that mean?). It doesn't teach you how to get over addictions or traumas or your past.

It does teach you to lose your ability to think critically. It does teach you to depend on the cult and to consider it your saviour. It does teach you never to question their methods and ideology.

As I said before-- there is nothing to be proud about in the situation you're in. It's just plain sad.

[Antigen]

Phoenix, your argument is (as usual) w/o an basis in reason. No one's saying LGA is ineffective. In fact, it's quite effective. Ask anyone who was in Jonestown, Guyana on November 18, 1978.... oh yeah, you can't. They all drank the kool aid... except the children, who were forced to do it by their parents.

If all your friends at the next seminar decided to go jump in a lake, would you do it to? Please? It'll give you super-human enlightenment and eternal life. I promise!
 :roll:  

It (the Bible) is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies.
--Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist

_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Seed Chicklett `71 - `80
Straight, Sarasota
   10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity Anonymous
return undef() if /coercion/i;

[Anonymous]

Antigen - what's the comparison with Jonestown intended to accomplish?  Other than your attempt at brainwashing? That part is transparent. Let's fear "fear."  

Seminars are just one piece of changing. If your life is working perfectly, then there's no need to look at ways to make it better.  Mine will never be perfect - why would I want it to be?  I'm having too much fun being imperfect.

PHX   :wink:

[Anonymous]

On 2005-07-11 16:45:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

Lifespring v.2 doesn't teach how to communicate better. It doesn't teach how to "love better" (what the hell does that mean?). It doesn't teach you how to get over addictions or traumas or your past.



It does teach you to lose your ability to think critically. It does teach you to depend on the cult and to consider it your saviour. It does teach you never to question their methods and ideology.

If Lifespring doesn't help to live better as an individual, then they aren't similar in any way with Premier seminars.  THey did from what I've read.

As far as depending on the group?  What?  That's so far from fact it's funny.  Even in seminar it's not "group think", it independent thinking and that's always been the intention.  What's your purpose in saying this?

Another Fornits cult group think statment??  Yes, the attempts at brainwashing are apparent and transparent.

Wonder if Rick Ross will start to include this forum in his Cult watch list?  

PHX  :wink:

[Anonymous]

If Lifespring doesn't help to live better as an individual, then they aren't similar in any way with Premier seminars.  THey did from what I've read.

So now you're defending both cults. At least we know where you stand. Looks like you missed all the accounts of those who were harmed by Lifespring. Not surprising, considering how easily you ignore the hundreds of people who've been harmed by WWASP.

As far as depending on the group?  What?  That's so far from fact it's funny.  Even in seminar it's not "group think", it independent thinking and that's always been the intention.  What's your purpose in saying this?

I'm saying it because it's true. You have become dependent on WWAP, PHX. You sit here spewing their ideology, you defend each and every one of their methods, you refuse to consider any alternative point of view.

It's group think at its worst. And, no, it doesn't matter how many times your Visions community will tell you that we're all "lying manipulators". It doesn't even matter how many times you tell yourself you're a "joyful, loving, confident woman!!!". Nothing will change the fact that you have been recruited into a very dangerous cult, and that you have become dependent on their ideology, as evident in your posts.

Another Fornits cult group think statment??  Yes, the attempts at brainwashing are apparent and transparent.

Wonder if Rick Ross will start to include this forum in his Cult watch list?  

Go read a little about brainwashing before you post, please. Unlike what's going on in the program, no one is making you participate in the discussions here. Unlike in the seminars, no one here is going to go out of their way to scare or pressure you if you don't reveal your "deepest, darkest secret". Unlike in the porgram, no one here is going to put you in OP if you state a contrary opinion.

As for Rick Ross, he has included WWASP on his lists. And for a good reason, too-- it belongs there.

[Antigen]

Phoenix, if you have the courage, you should read up on Jim Jones; how he got his start (promising to cure junkies through the grace of God), running afowl of domestic law and local sensibilities, taking his flock to So. America and, eventually, saving them from a dreaded life w/o his leadership by convincing them all to kill themselves and their children. It's a really fascinating story.

BTW, why, exactly, does the troubled parent industry have so many facilites outside the country?

so long as the priest, that professional negator, slanderer and poisoner of life, is regarded as a superior type of human being, there cannot be any answer to the question: What is truth?
--Freidrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

[Antigen]

Oh, one more thing. "There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds."--Alfred Lord Tennyson  

There is not a "fragment" in all nature, for every relative fragment of one thing is a full harmonious unit in itself.
-- John Muir

[Anonymous]

On 2005-07-11 17:48:00, Antigen wrote:

"Phoenix, if you have the courage, you should read up on Jim Jones; how he got his start (promising to cure junkies through the grace of God), running afowl of domestic law and local sensibilities, taking his flock to So. America and, eventually, saving them from a dreaded life w/o his leadership by convincing them all to kill themselves and their children. It's a really fascinating story.



BTW, why, exactly, does the troubled parent industry have so many facilites outside the country?

so long as the priest, that professional negator, slanderer and poisoner of life, is regarded as a superior type of human being, there cannot be any answer to the question: What is truth?
--Freidrich Nietzsche, German philosopher

"

I know the story.  I still don't see the connection.  WWASPS programs don't have a single leader.  I've never met the owner of WWASPS.  I know several of the staff at a couple of the schools.The owner has no control over any of the students or parents.  He's not the reason parents admit their kids, go to seminars, see it through to the end (or the beginning if you will)  I don't see any of the seminar facilitators with that kind of power in any way.  

So, what's the connection between an organization of many people and Jim Jones? What I hear you trying to say is that after all the years they've been helping families (each school) that all of a sudden they are going to commit mass suicide?

If that isn't what you're staying, what is it?

PHX

[BuzzKill]

The dam seminars - OK - if they are all to the good of those who are able to 'step outside their box' - let me ask you - why is it that the persons in attendance are allowed so little time to eat or sleep or get alone for even a few minutes and think?  Why are married couples seperated for certain "exercises"? Why must people be berated and humiliated?

If its not a cult - then why are men and women told to divorce unsupportive spouses - unsupportive of the program, mind you. Why are people encouraged to cut off contact with family members who ask "unsupportive" questions about the program?

I think I know - but I would like to know what you think PX

[BuzzKill]

The suicide the program demands is the destruction of your independence of thought and personal convictions.

Its why you all sound just the same.

They don't need Jim Jones or anyone like him when they have you flocking like sheep to the seminars.

[Anonymous]

Who gives a shit what a parents seminar is like or what their new 'retail' public version is like. The fact remains, when youre a kid in a program you are forced to attend the seminars. If you've never been to one, you have no idea what goes on. If you don't publically 'admit' to something or humiliate yourself in some way you are rejected. If you don't double cross a friend to show your with the group you are sent to isolation until the seminar ends. (as long as 3 days!)

Your arguments PHX about seminars show your ignorance. Fornits 'group think'?!? Are you fucking kidding?! Have you been to a WWASP seminar? If you have you would know what REAL group think looks like. A bunch of crazy parents, upper level kids and one overblown personality known as the facilitator. They are the leader. They decide who stays and who goes, and the only people who make succesful facilitators are manipulative, overbearing, intimidating personalities. A facilitator who knows nothing about you, who is handed a 3x5 card with certain 'facts' written about you, secrets you wrote in your journal that have been conveniently given to the facilitator in front of hundreds of people to encourage your participation. To encourage.. your breaking.  

I don't think being made to stand in a huge group of people and shamed for TELLING THE TRUTH is helpful. Being thrown into isolation for honestly admitting you don't know why you are at the facility isn't treatment. It's coercion. Nothing more, nothing less. You either admit that we are right and you or wrong, or you never go home. Plus a few days in iso to think about it.

There is no argument here. None at all.