Comedy is a great communicator

Comedy is a great communicator

Through the use of comedy we can learn about the impact of Large Group Awareness Training on individuals after going through a taxing seminar.

Here is an example from comedian Daniel Ryan-Spaulding:

We hope you enjoy it!

Disappointing lunch

Disappointing lunch

Knox Bronson Music and Art

Knox Bronson gives a most interesting audio commentary on a controversial Large Group Awareness Training. Take note of the entertainingly fervent responses in the comments section. See more at: Knox Bronson Music and Art.

Dean Brandon

Dean Brandon links readers to this intriguing reflection on a Large Group Awareness Training, in this post drawing attention to a YouTube video clip. Again the response posts make for amusing reading material.



The PR Verdict

The folks over at The PR Verdict analyze this disappointing lunch date, and they comment on the behavior of the subject being interviewed. Note what caused "more than a hint of irritation from his luncheon companion." The conclusion: "this was a disappointment."

Food for thought

Is it possible that those same characters who often show up to praise leaders of controversial Large Group Awareness Training organizations themselves suffer from debilitating cognitive dissonance ?

The Huffington Post on 'How Corporate America Is Turning Into a Cult'

The Huffington Post on 'How Corporate America Is Turning Into a Cult'

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING:


"How Corporate America Is Turning Into a Cult and Why It's Harming the American Employee", by Ruth Whippman. The Huffington Post. November 24, 2012.

Two key points from this article:

1) "Over the last decade or so, a growing disconnect has developed between the bizarre and almost cult-like rhetoric and practices that companies use with their staff, and the increasingly grim reality of being an employee in modern day Corporate America."

2) "It would seem that the more Corporate America demands cult-like devotion from its employees the worse it is able to treat them, and the less likely they are to complain. Yet given that the vast majority of Americans stand to lose rather than gain from this type of relationship, it is worth injecting a bit of healthy scepticism back into our assessment of our employers' motives. Now that really would be empowering."

Read the full article here over at The Huffington Post website.

Top five questions to ask at Large Group Awareness Training

Top five questions to ask at Large Group Awareness Training:

5. Are you willing to engage in conversation with me that may question the group and its leaders?

4.  Is the volunteer to paid employee ratio of your group greater than 2:1 ?

3. Does your group have its own unique words, cliches, slogans, chants, prayers and doctrinal phrases that reinforce the group viewpoint?

2.  Are doubts viewed as a lack of faith, dedication, commitment or disloyalty?

1. Does your group use frequent public testimonials, confessions, or sharings that reinforce the group’s mission or agenda?

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More questions and resources:

Cult Help and Information: "Questions for Cult Recruiters".

Periodically.org: "How to Know If You Are in a Greed Group".

John D. Goldhammer: "Self Quiz - Are you 'under the influence' of a destructive group or belief system?".

Chilling Effects and American thinkers

LGATs in the News

Americanthinker.com

November 16, 2012 - Jack Cashill writes in Americanthinker.com of the Peoples Temple group and what they came to realize at Jonestown in Guyana: "What they discovered was a South American gulag equal parts Werner Erhard and Pol Pot."

Those are his words, we can't make this stuff up folks, most interesting references by the above author to Werner Erhard and Pol Pot in the same sentence.

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"Chilling Effects"

Here's how "chilling effect" has been described online at RationalWiki: "A chilling effect describes a situation in which rights, such as free speech, are threatened by the possible negative results of exercising these rights. The effect is to silence criticism and freedom of expression, even in cases where criticism is perfectly valid."

Interesting development at the website ChillingEffects.org, a revealing look at a complaint over a 60 Minutes program by CBS about Werner Erhard from March 3, 1991 and attempts to remove multiple different types of references to it from the Internet.

Some background about prior history of that on the Internet at BoingBoing.net by Xeni Jardin, and more general background history in the biography Outrageous Betrayal by Steven Pressman, see for example some excerpts from that biography at the orange papers website.

Remember 34 years after Jonestown

Let's take a moment 34 years after Jonestown and the dangerous group Peoples Temple to remember the tragedy of November 18, 1978.

Here are some videos about how groups with cult like qualities recruit, and about how cults are related to Large Group Awareness Trainings or LGATs, to reflect on during this time: