Do any of these people actually believe their own BS?

Ex-students can discuss their experiences with negative interactions from staff; former, current or volunteer positions.
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Sad Grandfather
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Do any of these people actually believe their own BS?

Unread post by Sad Grandfather »

-Moderator comment-
This topic has been split from the topic thread 'When JZ dies, then what?'
Thank you SG

___________________________________________________________

One question, for Joe, and anyone else - -
Do any of these people actually believe their own BS, or are they all just con artists?
Down with Judith Hampton Knight!
ex
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Re: when JZ dies, then what?

Unread post by ex »

a good con works best if you have at least some true believers otherwise its hard to convince honest people.
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Sad Grandfather
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Re: when JZ dies, then what?

Unread post by Sad Grandfather »

I was referring to the leaders of the cults, and not the followers.
Down with Judith Hampton Knight!
joe sz
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Re: when JZ dies, then what?

Unread post by joe sz »

SG

that is the most basic question I am asked.
the answer is complex, as usual, in matters of the mind. there have been a few incidents of pure deception for fame and money.

I work with the mentally ill, as you know, at my "night job" and see all phases of disorders that include delusions and psychosis, as well as some extaordinary folks who come in claiming to be someone else and NOTHING with drugs or therapies can change their minds. This is called a "fixed delusion."

The ascended master/channeling career is populated by many thousands of folks who range from pure delusion or honest espression to pure realization that to channel means to act as if one is touch with an entity and let the info flow. Many channels have a tendency toward dissociation. Elizabeth Prophet was like this as well. She was an only child raised by a harsh Swiss father and a flake of a mother who would be called New Agey in todays lingo. Prophet testified to having 'out of body' experiences as a child...she was also a chronic epileptic, mostly with what used to be called 'petit mal' seizures---never could get a drivers license as a result--so her attraction to channeling when she met ascended master channeler Mark Prophet @ 1961 [she was married to a Christian Scientist and 19 years old at the time] it was a "marriage made in heaven", so to speak. However, she may have been an "honest" channel or true believer in the beginning, but I know from inside info that by the late 1970s, many years after Mark died (1973) she had doubts about how "real" the Masters were. By then her dictations were better prepared and not so spontaneous, thus reducing stupid errors that ascended masters are prone to make.

So, the upshot is this: yes, most psychics an channelers enter the activity honestly enough due to mental disorders or neurological disorders that allow for dissociative connection to imaginary beings or a " higher self", early convincing themselves that their visual and audio hallucinations are real [JZ in her kitchen w Ramtha in 1977 may have been her actual experience], but as time goes on, every mentally ill person or channeler learns that their experience soon does not reality test very well and the original interpreation of experience fades. However, 'be careful what you learn to do, you may end up doing it' is an adage an old timer once told me when i worked in a factory as a college student during summers. The channeler gets stuck in their own theater and now must ride it out or admit to total fakery. Some few have come clean..the Fox sisters did in the 19th century, but one went back to being a psychic as true believers refused to accept her admission of fraud and she needed work...

I think that most Ramtha students who say that "ramtha was real in the early days" are mistaking this naive stage of JZ's career as an 'honest channel' as evidence that she was truly channeling an independent entity, when she truly NEVER was.
freemysoul
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Re: when JZ dies, then what?

Unread post by freemysoul »

I have spent a lot of time in and around Livingston/Bozeman Montana, the Paradise Valley, where one of CUT's main bunker/churches is at. What surprised me, was the very similar attitude that non CUT and non RSE members of the community have towards the cults, and it seems to be one of "out of site, out of mind, whatever these whackadoos do, as long as what they are doing isn't affecting me". The religious communities in both towns seem to take a more verbal/aggressive approach from what I have witnessed. I got to know about CUT long before I ever had heard of RSE, but in knowing both the Livingston community and the Yelm community, they are strikingly similar in their views on both. Its like the ugly wart that nobody wants to make visible but everyone has to acknowledge. As far as whether or not the leaders believe their own BS, I think that the belief system's of leaders is prevalent in what they preach, and it is more important to them that they find ideas that keep people tethered to them. I know for JZ, her belief system is as fickle as the weather, it could be anything on any given day.
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Sad Grandfather
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Re: Do any of these people actually believe their own BS?

Unread post by Sad Grandfather »

Well, I agree that "out of sight, out of mind", is true for most of us outsiders. All my life I had vague knowledge of cults, but always passed it off as just a bunch of wackos. Then when my daughter got into ramtha land and dragged her whole family in with her, it got to be more personal.

I am still baffled, since most of the people, I have met on this sight, seem to be quite intelligent people. I can see some parallel in having been brainwashed from birth in a fundamentalist church, and threatened with hell since I was a small child, but I was born into that and didn't go into it of my own free will.

Maybe that experience, in my early life, was enough to keep me from being sucked into cult life later?
Down with Judith Hampton Knight!
Ockham
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Re: Do any of these people actually believe their own BS?

Unread post by Ockham »

Hi Sad Grandfather. That is an interesting question. I have read several bloggers that cite Dennis Marlock's 1994 book, License to Steal: Traveling Con Artists: Their Rules, Their Game, Your Money. Marlock may be justifiably accused of cultural bias against the Roma Gypsies, but he does shed some light on the art of the grift. He says that con artists say that educated people are easiest marks. Smart people feel that they are too smart to be taken in a con. Education can lead to the Emperor’s New Clothes effect because education gives one analytical tools that if misused can lead to rationalizing away the inconsistencies and illogic of the con. In the classic story, only the little kid with no preconceptions looked straight ahead and saw the emperor naked as a jay bird. All the adults built fancy rational frameworks to explain away the obvious truth as something else.

There are a lot of variables, but given the right situation I believe almost anybody can be taken in by a con.

I think some of the RSE instructors are sincere and they've really bought into message and disciplines. One does wonder how they can go on teaching the mumbo jumbo when they must see over and over that there is no lasting benefit from the exercises. As usual, the brain is a powerful filter for getting rid what you don't want to see.

I think the Glen Cunningham interview makes it clear that at least some of the higher up long term staff like Greg Simmons probably don't believe any of Ramtha for one second. JZ Knight is a little more ambiguous. Glen talks about, "the RAM," now and again like a real person, thought I am sure he knew otherwise. It seems that JZ did a good job of making Ramtha feel real, as if JZ herself were fully immersed believing the Ramtha story. On the other hand, Glen also talked about how JZ liked to toy with people in the Tank maze, clearly just for her own fun, nothing to do with anybody’s enlightenment.
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Sad Grandfather
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Re: Do any of these people actually believe their own BS?

Unread post by Sad Grandfather »

Yes, I can see that once a person is "invested" in the scam, that self delusion may be the easiest way to go. After I grew up in a fundamentalist church, and had been threatened with eternal torture in hell, all my life, it became normal to push any doubt out of mind from pure fear. I resisted the doubts for some time, but some of the teachings were so ridiculous, and the contradictions so obvious, that I had to face it. It was probably similar to a long time ramster trying to break away from Judy.

Eventually rational thinking overcame my programming. I think much of it is the desire of humans to have answers to everything, and that makes it easy to fall for a scam that offers all the answers. Once rational thinking takes over, it becomes obvious that all these religions, cults and scams, claiming to have the straight word, obviously can't ALL be right.

One finally comes realize that, if there is a higher power, who you are taught has infinite love for the folowers, that this power would not then sentence those followers to eternal torture, because they happened to follow the wrong "prophet".

In my younger days, I was told to "believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see", but that was before Photoshop and video editors. ;-)
Down with Judith Hampton Knight!
joe sz
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Re: Do any of these people actually believe their own BS?

Unread post by joe sz »

Sad Grandfather,
this is still not a bad rule of thumb I think:
In my younger days, I was told to "believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see", but that was before Photoshop and video
religion is more a state of quality than quantity in the end. no religion can quantify "heaven" or the "ascended state" as science, for example, can quantify laws of nature. this I think is the huge mistake made by occultists like JZ: she as Ramtha makes the claim that RSE can somehow "train" a student to manipulate quantities of material life with a "mind science."

the RSE website strains mightily to squeeze examples to "prove" that Ramtha mind science works.
when are we going to learn? Will we resort to Aztec science that rips the hearts out of thousands of living victims to appease the rain gods? Or must we walk around blind-folded breathing heavily during cult workshops to "see" as angels see?

It reminds me of the Transcendental Meditation cult "science" that claims you can levitate or fly by repeating magic words while crossing your legs and that will bring world peace in "measurable quantities." Yet the quality of life among the average TM "monk" at their main ceneters is hardly "angelic"--one layer of lies after another is all one finds.
Watcher7
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Re: Do any of these people actually believe their own BS?

Unread post by Watcher7 »

Dear Sad Grandfather,i see that you have been posting since 08,if i am somewhat correct,i have read some of your
blogs,you seem to be a smart fellow,with common sense.
I really dont know your whole story,as why you got started on this site,but hope that you have found some solice,
and peace,as a result of it.
I myself,at one time had a Grandfather,that in some ways maybe helped save my life.I know that i will never
forget him,and all that he did for me.
I wish you peace and harmony during this holiday season.
GOD bless.
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Sad Grandfather
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Re: Do any of these people actually believe their own BS?

Unread post by Sad Grandfather »

Thank you, Watcher, for your insight, contribution and thought into my problem. I first found this site right after I discovered that my daughter had been sucked into the cult, and was planning to drag her whole family, including my only 2 grand children into moving to Yelm, and vicinity. I had hoped, at that time, if I learned enough about the ramtha cult, that I might fight it with common sense. That is when I learned that common sense is the first thing to go,

I started with the screen name, "Sad Grandfather", to protect my daughter's identity, but soon realized that she, or her friends, would never ciome to this site, since, to them, it is just a place wher ramtha failures go. I couldn't figure a way to change my "name", and if I re-registered with my real name, I'd lose all my old posts, so I just stayed "Sad Grandfather", and added my website and other info. I am not a "private" person, so, wi you want to know more about me, just go to my home page and click on "Journal" and "Travel Pages" for our activities over the last 17 years, "Good Old Days" for our life history, from birth, up through, grade school, high school, college and our travels in the US Navy. Then go to "Family Activities" to see what a nice family we had "before ramtha". The website is pubic, so look at it as much, or as little as you like.

I will be posting updates to the Journal pages and to my Facebook page as things change - http://www.facebook.com/joe.t.reeves#!/joe.t.reeves
Down with Judith Hampton Knight!
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