In Margaret Singer's book, "Cults in our Midst" she describes Large Group Awareness Training or LGAT for short. Is RSE a match?

"LGAT groups represent commercially sold New Age thinking and the mass marketing of powerful therapeutic strategies carried out in large groups by nonprofessionals.The draw of these groups is the idea that each person is able to create his or her own reality. They use encounter group and hypnotic techniques to destabilize participants' view of the world. Strong peer pressure is used to finish the job and produce conformity." page 42

"As social and economic climates have changed so has the nature of some cultic organizations. In the early to mid 1980s, there was a burst of new cults, including psychological, or psychotherapy cults, occult groups and prosperity groups (sometimes also called commercial cults.)" page 43

"Occult groups espouse an interest in topics that appear to them to be hidden, secret, and esoteric, including the search for secret techniques to alter consciousness and the development of secret doctrines to explain existence and experience." page 44

"Channeling also became quite popular in the early to mid 1980s...Channeling makes it all very jolly and upbeat to hear from a centuries gone entity. Those using channelers are supposed to hear not a spirit, not a voice from the grave, but the advice of a powerful entity who has retained magical power to communicate over, usually, thousands of years. Controversial channeler JZ Knight, for example, claims to speak for Ramtha, a 35,000-year-old entity."
page 45

Fair use copyright

That is my opinion, it is.
Maybe Joe will comment....

from another message board (scary):

For me, it first came in my LGAT participation. I recall a journalist telling me how he was invited by the leader of my LGAT, Robert Kiyosaki - "Money and You", to do a story on him. It was 1am on Sunday morning when groups of 5 were playing the "blocks game", trying to communicate the essence of words like "Integrity" through the use of childrens' building blocks. This is the point in my LGAT process where either participants had psychoitic breaks or experienced the emotional high "transformation" from abnormal serotonin production caused by lack of sleep and cognitive confusion. The discourse between the journalist and Kiyosaki went something like this:

Journalist: "What is happening now?"
Kiyosaki: "I'd expect them to "pop" soon. Tomorrow their brains will be like mush and I will be able to make them believe in anything."

The Journalist returned with a film crew for the next 3 day LGAT, filmed the story aired it in a "4 Corners" presentation and Kiyosaki's LGAT was destroyed in Australia back in late 1993.
http://board.rickross.com/viewtopic.php?t=1007

List of LGAT via wikipedia....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Large_Group_Awareness_Training_organizations

and while on the subject, I recall JZ?R blasting anyone (on more than one occasion)
for participating in any other self- help
course other than RSE.
"You only need me, or your doubt it too great."
bah-humbug!

Tree, I wasn't there then, but I heard a long-time student inform a newer student that "JR" said one could have 'no other teacher.' This was to an individual whose livelihood was a partnership of sorts with another 'teacher,' much unlike JR's style. The individual was feeling great frustration at not having found their cards on the slick, muddy field with the creek at the end. This is when a conversation took place where the individual mentioned their other teacher, and was told -thou shalt not have any other teachers before R- not the exact words but I believe it conveys the message.

Hmmm. Strangely familiar.

Yeah -- my mother used to adore John Edwards -- the guy who claims to be in touch with spirits "from the other side" and had his own TV show at one point ... she even gave a book by him to me and my uncle and I had heard her say many times that my uncle never believed he was "real" until he read the book.. I mentioned John Edwards to her recently, within the past month, and said I thought she was a believer in him, and she shook her head "Noooooooo... I don't believe in John Edwards".... Didn't make sense then, but it does now.

I've been in plenty of audiences when Ramther would threaten, cajole and beg the students to be loyal and sustain allegiance to their One and Only Ramther.

Imagine that ? A realized God-being who manifested the need for loyalty and worship (because that level of faithfulness IS worship, imo), to Only Him/her. What would a psychoanalysis say about that level of NEED for being put on a pedestal of unwavering devotion????

One might call it NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER. In the field of therapy in psychology, one of the hardest patients to work with, toward any level of breakthrough toward healing, is just this disorder. Why? Because they are SO full of stroking themselves and seeing themselves wherever they look, that they won't admit there is a problem in the mirror !!! It's too fragile a place to wipe the fog off of.

Judith, I do hope your blushing, sweetie, because it's really embarrassing.

Someone once told that they believe JZ is stuck at the emotional level of a child. Another friend of mine has referred to it as her dreaming of bunnies and foofoo. I think there is a truth in that observation, if only the affected one could/would see it.


My opinion, humbly shared.

alphabet labels drive me crazy. It's scholarship reduced to text messaging. But it's a start to help categorize a group. If you stretch it, LGAT can include military boot camp and boy scouts camps! The question always is whether it is benign and/or peer reviewed with checks and balances? Our military has checks and balances as do Boy Scouts---in other words accountability. The LGATs that concerned Margaret Singer were elitist and operated in their own world of rules---in other words, self-sealing systems with leaders that have major character disorders.

A great book re "malignant LGAT" is Outrageous Betrayal: The Real Story of Werner Erhard from Est to Exile by Steven Pressman:
"From Publishers Weekly
Before he abandoned his wife and children, changed his name to Werner Erhard, moved to California and began promoting his self-awareness programs, known in the 1970s as est and later as the Forum, Jack Rosenberg was a car salesman in Philadelphia. Inspired by a self-help course called Mind Dynamics, by Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich , by Scientology and cybernetics, and advised by a skilled tax lawyer, Erhard launched est in 1971. And for 20 years he reigned as guru of the "human potential movement." According to freelance journalist Pressman, the womanizing, charismatic and demanding Erhard collected tens of millions of dollars from 500,000 people who took his courses. Eventually lawsuits, desertions among his coterie and the rise of new New Age mind-improving programs ended Erhard's empire and in 1991, owing millions to the IRS and others, he went into exile in Mexico. Pressman here cuts into him with surgical precision.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc."

RSE behaves like malignant LGAT imo.
Joe

Joe-
glad you keeing up with the times of texting (wink).

The book about Rosenberg has a similar vein
of Judith Hampton's State of Mind....hmmm

another version of a malignant lgat. This one attracts some super wealthy folks [money don't make skeptical brains] and contributes large sums to Hillary Clinton campaign:

NXIVM'S VEXING EFFECT ON BELIEVERS
By JEANE MacINTOSH
New York Post

October 1, 2007 -- His followers bow in his presence and call him "Vanguard."

His detractors square off with him in court and call him a manipulative "brainwasher" who wrecks lives with his "extremely dangerous," "cult-like" group.

Keith Raniere, leader of an Albany-based organization called NXIVM (pronounced nex-e-um), has built a lucrative empire with his Executive Success Programs.

NXIVM, run by Raniere, 47, and President Nancy Salzman, a 52-year-old registered nurse, claims to pull in at least $4 million a year. Big-name devotees like Seagram heiresses Clare and Sara Bronfman back Raniere - and "The Family," as insiders call the group - despite his checkered past.

In the 1990s, the Brooklyn-born Raniere, son of New York adman and fund-raiser James Raniere, shuttered a multimillion-dollar marketing firm after authorities in several states alleged that it was an illegal pyramid scheme.

Today, devotees shell out as much as $7,500 to attend NXIVM's 16-day motivational seminars, called "intensives," where they are coached using Raniere's patented behavior-modification "technology."

Members, or "ESPians," also bow to Salzman, called "Prefect," and refer to nonbelievers to as "parasites" or "suppressives."

Some who have left have turned against NXIVM and divulged its "secret" policies - only to find themselves mired in years of litigation with Raniere and Salzman.

In published accounts, ex-members and mental-health professionals call NXIVM a "cult-like" group that uses sensory deprivation, "brainwashing" and other mind-bending tactics - sometimes to the point of psychological breakdowns.

jeane.macintosh@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10012007/news/nationalnews/nxivms_vexing_effect_on_believ.htm

more on NIXVM:
"HILLARY'S $30,000 FANS ARE HER 'CULT' FOLLOWING
By CHARLES HURT and JEANE MacINTOSH
New York Post
October 1, 2007 -- A purported pyramid-scheme operator who was run out of Arkansas when Bill Clinton was governor has reinvented himself as the head of an upstate group accused of being a "cult" - and his devotees have pumped thousands into Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential run.

Executives and top associates of the Albany-based NXIVM group - along with their family members - donated $29,900 to Clinton's presidential campaign, according to federal records.

On March 14 and April 13, records show, more than a dozen contributions poured into Clinton's coffers from NXIVM, an executive and group-awareness training organization led by Brooklyn-born Keith Raniere, 47.

Most were from first-time political donors, each giving the $2,300 maximum.

The revelation comes on the heels of the arrest of Norman Hsu, who raised $1.5 million in campaign contributions for the Clintons and other Democrats, even though he was technically a fugitive from fraud charges in California.

Hsu jumped bail in early September but was nabbed and is currently locked up in California.


In his previous incarnation, the Svengali-like Raniere ran a $30 million multilevel marketing business that imploded after federal agencies and regulators in 23 states alleged it was an illegal pyramid scheme.


He has managed to attract famous names to NXIVM.

Three of the March and April Clinton pledges came from Raniere's most high-profile followers: Seagram heiresses Clare and Sara Bronfman, and Pamela Cafritz, daughter of D.C. A-listers Buffy and Bill Cafritz.

Cafritz shares a condo with Raniere.

The Bronfman sisters are also deeply involved with NXIVM and, according to a 2003 article in Forbes magazine, have loaned millions to the group and provided use of their jet.

Their father, Edgar Bronfman Sr., once took NXIVM classes but soon severed ties, telling Forbes, "It's a cult."

The Clinton campaign downplayed the significance of the NXIVM-related contributions.

"Over 100,000 people from across the country have contributed to Sen. Clinton's campaign for change, and regardless of who supports her, she will always continue to stand up for what she feels is right," said campaign spokesman Blake Zeff.

Hillary isn't the only Clinton NXIVM officials are attracted to.

At least three of them - group President Nancy Salzman and the Bronfman sisters - are members of Bill's charitable organization, the Clinton Global Initiative. Membership is by invitation only and requires at least a $15,000 donation per person for one year.


NXIVM spokesman Frank Roberts told The Post the organization doesn't have a presidential candidate it is officially backing.

Last month, the Albany Times Union reported that NXIVM associates gave $31,600 to the state Republican Senate Campaign Committee and provided $34,763 worth of air transportation.

The recent campaign contributions led one close observer of NXIVM to speculate that the group is trying to curry favor for its effort to expand training centers upstate.

In the 1990s, several states investigated the Raniere-run Consumer Buyline Inc., a marketing firm in which members were paid commissions for recruiting new members.

A 1992 Arkansas lawsuit filed by Bill Clinton's then-attorney general, Winston Bryant, charged Raniere, Cafritz and two others with fraud and business deception. Soon after, then-New York AG Robert Abrams sued CBI, branding it "illegal."

Raniere didn't admit wrongdoing, but agreed to pay hefty fines in both states.

After closing the Albany-based CBI, he became involved in a health-food and vitamin venture that led him to Salzman. Sharing a passion for motivational training, the pair launched NXIVM.

At NXIVM - according to court papers, cult watchdogs and relatives of members - Raniere has defrauded devotees, shattered families and drove at least one person to suicide.

After four months attending NXIVM's expensive, "intensive" studies, Alaska resident Kristin Marie Snyder grew angry, depressed and irrational.

In winter 2003, she disappeared. Her family believes she drowned herself. Her body was not recovered. Snyder was last seen leaving a NXIVM course, and police released a note she left behind.

"I was brainwashed and my emotional center of the brain was killed/turned off," Snyder scrawled in a spiral notebook.

churt@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10012007/news/nationalnews/hillarys_30_000_fans_are_her_c.htm?page=0

thank you for the updates Joe.
Many ex Ramsters ( and some current)
have turned to Nexium.
The red flag went up for me when I
heard their particular vernacular bantered
about in town.
One of JZ's closest, welathiest friends
told JZ that Nexium was an adjunct to
RSE. JZ went ballistic!!

my heart goes out to the cult hoppers
who are not aware....

wow, this is where Mark Vicente "hopped" to after Ramtha. I suspected it was bad news, but didn't look into it, just politely declined to check it out when invited by Sara Bronfman.

..and Linda Evans, and Linda's (sister) aka "Charles, according to "R",)
and Cynthia Schmier ( and her husband),
and a few more......