WWASP's getting burned

[Anonymous]

Here is a parent's perspective of a WWASP Discovery seminar.

http://www.pianofinders.com/es/breakingthesecrecy.htm

[Anonymous]

First, you didn't pay for the seminar.

Yes, you do. Discovery is free, but Focus costs money. And the children's seminars are included in the tuition.

Second, I'm not the selfish type.  So I will not post the process.  That would be feeding into the fear of people thinking they are going into some brainwash session and want to know what it will be like before they go.

If it's not a brainwashing session (which it is), why not describe the process? If there's really nothing to be afraid of, why don't you prove it, by lettin people know what they're getting into?

Guess what?  If they don't like it they can leave.

The children can't leave. The children have no such choice. The children are forced to stay and endure.

Obviously you didn't get the purpose of the process if it was as you say.  The purpose is to take care of yourself first before you can take care of anyone else.

Oh, so, if I'm really on a sinking ship, I'm supposed to just say, fuck everybody else, jump in a life boat, and get out. Interesting.

[Cayo Hueso]

I've seen that and it absolutely astounds me that this kind of shit passes for any kind of "therapy" or "counseling" in any fucking way at all.

The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, philosopher

[Anonymous]

On 2005-04-30 16:59:00, Anonymous wrote:
First, you didn't pay for the seminar.

Yes, you do. Discovery is free, but Focus costs money. And the children's seminars are included in the tuition.

Second, I'm not the selfish type.  So I will not post the process.  That would be feeding into the fear of people thinking they are going into some brainwash session and want to know what it will be like before they go.

If it's not a brainwashing session (which it is), why not describe the process? If there's really nothing to be afraid of, why don't you prove it, by lettin people know what they're getting into?

Guess what?  If they don't like it they can leave.

The children can't leave. The children have no such choice. The children are forced to stay and endure.

Obviously you didn't get the purpose of the process if it was as you say.  The purpose is to take care of yourself first before you can take care of anyone else.

Oh, so, if I'm really on a sinking ship, I'm supposed to just say, fuck everybody else, jump in a life boat, and get out. Interesting. "

No, all the seminars are free.  The kids can leave the room, it's called choosing out either by the kid or by the leader, and no, I won't break confidentialty about the process.  Sorry, not even a good try!  

I said, take care of yourself before you take care of anyone else.  If you think it's to say screw everyone else, that's your stuff.

[Cayo Hueso]

On 2005-04-30 17:08:00, Anonymous wrote:


No, all the seminars are free.  The kids can leave the room, it's called choosing out either by the kid or by the leader,

And what happens when a kid "chooses out"?

 

and no, I won't break confidentialty about the process.

God I'm so sick of confidentiality being used as a smoke screen for these fuckers to hide behind.

The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.
-- Salvador Dali

[Anonymous]

No, all the seminars are free.  The kids can leave the room, it's called choosing out either by the kid or by the leader

It may be called "choosing out", but it has nothing to do with a child's choices. They are humlitiated, degraded, and then sent to OP.

and no, I won't break confidentialty about the process.  Sorry, not even a good try!

You will not "break confidentiality" (confidentiality laws only apply in real treatment, by the way, not in cultic seminars), but you still claim that there is nothing to be afraid of about the seminars, and you still expect us to believe you...?

I said, take care of yourself before you take care of anyone else.  If you think it's to say screw everyone else, that's your stuff.

That's exactly what it means. Not that it matters. That process is designed to do two things: create severe emotional stress, and make people dependent on and devoted to the program. Nothing more, nothing lesser.

[plomly22]

On 2005-04-30 16:28:00, Anonymous wrote:

There's a process in the Focus seminar, in which the people are asked to pretend they're on a sinking ship. They are given popsicle sticks, told that the stick symbolise their lives and shit like that. Then, each one of them is asked to choose 5 people to "throw off the boat". They are asked to go around the circle, yelling in people's faces, "you're DEAD!". Then, the popsicle sticks are taken from the "dead" people."

We didn't have popsicle sticks we just had to go around and say you live or you die. In the training when our facilitator was explaining this exercise I started laughing. I thought are you serious? I almost got into the boat and would have if I had voted for myself. Like I would ever vote for myself. In the training I staffed almost all of the girls were crying, which I thought was really weird. They took it way to seriously.

I was kicked out of the first one because I refused to do an exercise where you have to walk across the room in a different way then anyone else. There was a girl who went through the first one three times beacuse she refused to hit the chair.

For the most part you could move up to phase two without completeing the training but you definitely never get passed that. There was one girl who got on phase three without going though the second training which I thought was amazing.

_________________
Spring Ridge Academy 97-99
SUWS 99
Dancing Moon Ranch 99-00

[Antigen]

On 2005-04-30 16:42:00, Anonymous wrote:

Why would anyone want to spoil it for someone who hasn't been yet by posting the crap you just did.

Cause it only works absent informed consent. If you know what's coming, you can prepare for it and you won't be so easily manipulated.

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
--Robert A. Heinlen, American science-ficiton author

[Anonymous]

That's weak.  So in a situation where a person may need grief counseling, for instance, and it requires going to a psychologist or therapist, are you saying that the process should be laid out in advance of walking in the door?  

I would say, go, see how it feels, see if it feels right, and if it doesn't, then stop going, or leave the room.

How can anyone explain what the process will be.  The therapist may have some common things they do or say, but the experience will be different for everyone.

How can you prepare for that?  And, how can you learn something for yourself, when you want to hear what someone else learned?

[Anonymous]

Plomly 22 - So the programs you were in had similar seminars?  That's good!   I wasn't aware that other programs had the seminars.  Did you're parents have the adult version?

[001010]

On 2005-04-30 17:14:00, Anonymous wrote:

"That's exactly what it means. Not that it matters. That process is designed to do two things: create severe emotional stress, and make people dependent on and devoted to the program. Nothing more, nothing lesser. "

 They're right. :tup:

Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;

He who would search for perls must dive below.

Prolougue (from preface to
the Panther Book)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0510337112/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'>John Dryden, All for Love, Prolougue

[plomly22]

On 2005-04-30 18:36:00, Anonymous wrote:

"Plomly 22 - So the programs you were in had similar seminars?  That's good!   I wasn't aware that other programs had the seminars.  Did you're parents have the adult version?   "

The head lady Jeannie Courtney is a former staff member of Cross Creek, that is where she learned how to facilitate these things. She has passed them on to Copper Canyon Academy, three former staff members of SRA work there, Sunhawk Academy, and while I was there some of the girls staffed a training at Black Canyon the juvenille detention facility near Phoenix, AZ.

Yes, my parents had the toned down versions. My mom actually almost didn't make it through because she came back late with another parent from lunch one day. She also told me that during the part where you have to go around and say your problems with each of your parents she never really had any problems with her dad and no one believed her and they told her she was holding back or hiding something.

[Anonymous]

Proper therapy does not require secrecy about how that therapy functions.

Yes, you *can* lay it all out on the table about how therapy works and *proper* therapy will still work.

Therapy, done right, works on the conscious mind.  It doesn't work to entangle the mind and befuddle the patient.

Proper therapy works to untangle the distorted perceptions that are screwing up someone's functionality, and to teach them coping techniques they didn't know before for getting along with other people.

Proper therapy, you could read all about how it's done and what happens in therapy in dozens of books and reading it in advance would do nothing to harm you and quite a bit to help you, if you were able to apply some of what you read.

Any "therapy" where the means or ends need to be kept secret from the patient is highly suspect.

Any "therapist" or counselor who cannot tell you outright the techniques they use or tell you the name of the kind of therapy they use so you could go out on Amazon or into the literature or into a university library and look it up for yourself and read all about it------anyone who wants to keep it secret how they're going to muck about in your brain----is someone to *RUN* from, fast.

Particularly if they want three days of your time in an environment where they control the environment for substantial parts of the day---like a hotel conference center.

Millieu control plus secrecy equals Mega Red Flag Danger.

I would *never* allow my daughter to attend anything with millieu control plus secrecy, and if any of my loved ones were contemplating attending something with those two features I would do my level best to persuade them not to go.

Millieu control plus secrecy creates a high risk of coercive penetration and rewiring of your mind.  It creates a high risk that you will come out a convert to some strange cult or marketting operation or in some way be suckered out of substantial chunks of your time or money on a prolonged, ongoing basis.  In something you would have *never* agreed to if they had asked you over lunch and coffee at a local restaurant.  In something you would *never* have agreed to if you *hadn't* given them that level of control over you for that crucial length of time.

Giving somebody who insists on secrecy control over your environment for three days, even with the "well, you can leave if you really want to" caveat, is like having sex with a stranger with no condom.

It's incredibly, recklessly dangerous, and *nobody* should take that level of risk.

Timoclea

[Anonymous]

Remember when you were a teenager and either you, or some of your friends, thought you could have sex without protection and if you timed it right, pregnancy just "wouldn't happen to you."

You knew it happened to people, it's just that nobody thinks it's going to happen to them.

People laugh at brainwashing because they think of the Manchurian Candidate or bad movies or cartoon zombies with whirling spirals for eyes.

That's not brainwashing.

Real brain washing is your cousin that joins the Moonies.  Or your friend who pays out a lot for a Transcendental Meditation class and comes out convinced he really wants to go to grad school at Maharishi International University.  Or the Christian Scientist lady who won't let her kid have a blood transfusion when he's at death's door.  Or your gal pal in college who starts dating a charismatic young man from one of those folding tables where they ask you if you're "saved" and ends up wearing skirts halfway down to her ankles, no makeup, and either cutting you and her other friends cold *OR* trying to sincerely convince you you need to join up, too, and be "saved."  Or your coworker that invites you on a fishing trip and spends the entire three hour drive telling you about Amway.  Or your friend who gives you some "motivational tapes" and tries to talk you into attending a "seminar" on "financial freedom."

Real brainwashing is your granny that sends off her life savings to a televangelist.

Everybody thinks it won't happen to them---like teenagers and consequences from sex.

One of my aunts is a high school teacher, and she passed on a witticism: Every teenager is absolutely convinced of three completely wrong things---that they're immortal, invulnerable, and infertile.

A lot of people are so easily scammed that they're easy prey for con-men *without* going to a three-day session.

Almost all of the people who are gullible enough to think they can go to a three-day session, giving someone else millieu control, without knowing the complete full story of what's going to happen in advance, *ARE* gullible enough to be brainwashed.  Maybe not brainwashed for *life*, but brainwashed for long enough to be stripped of all or nearly all of their accumulated wealth and borrowing capacity and long enough to be useful at helping to rope the next string of suckers in.

If you ever go to something where someone you barely know asks you to commit to not walk out the door, or someone you know well asks you to commit to listen to someone you barely know without walking out the door----it's time *right then* to walk out the door.

Just about everybody is vulnerable enough to be brainwashed for long enough to take their money and substantial chunks of their time before they "wake up."

Most of the people who *don't* fall for those kinds of scams do it by being smart enough to know when to walk away.  When they ask you to commit to stay and listen to someone you barely know, that's when to walk away.  No, that's when to *run*.

When someone you do know well asks you to commit to listen either to someone you barely know, or they're handing out a schpiel that sounds like someone else's words coming out of their mouth, it's time to go.

Staying and listening is the equivalent of unzipping your pants for a total stranger with not a condom anywhere in sight.

You're with someone who has no earthly reason to put your interests above their own, interests and an agenda *you don't know about*.  And you're about to get screwed.

The only way to win is not to play.

Timoclea

[Anonymous]

"I can't tell you because it will spoil it for you."

"I promise, it'll feel really good, baby."

"You need to attend this to learn how to help your child."

"You want to be a *real* woman and not a little girl anymore, don't you?"

"I'm another parent, I wouldn't steer you wrong.  We just want to help kids."

"It'll feel really good, baby, you've no idea how good it'll feel."

"I like you, and I know how you feel, because I've been there, and I really want to help you."

"I really want to make it good for you, baby, I love you so much!"

"You'll do it if you really love your child."

"You'd do it if you really loved me."

"If you really don't like it, you can leave any time you want."

"If we start and you really want me to stop, I'll stop, baby."

"You know I'd never hurt you."

"You know I'd never hurt you."

Timoclea