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Messages - Awake

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1
James Tipper somehow managed to make a cultish experience reachable to the unacquainted in The Discarded Ones. I think those who attended CEDU may be surprised as well. This was the case for myself. The book accomplishes what the author suggested. A very great book regarding the CEDU program and gratifying all around. I am FULL of questions.

2
Teen Challenge / Re: I personally escaped this Cult
« on: December 09, 2011, 07:00:07 PM »
@ TC Saved Me. I am also glad to hear you have had success handling your addiction problems, and if your Christian faith was the answer that worked for you that is geat. For me some questions are, how does TC treat kids who don’t believe in Christianity or don’t want to subscribe to that religion? What if TC enforced following a different religion, a Muslim faith, Judaism, Hunduism, whatever? Would that have ended up being successful for you? Would you espouse those beliefs as you do Christianity? Would your support for the program now be different under those circumstances?

3
Feed Your Head / Re: Mentally stimulating Documentaries. preferably free.
« on: November 19, 2011, 10:53:08 PM »
Thanks ajax13, that was a truly thought provoking film. Glad your link started with part two (think your links are in reverse), interested me most, but I thoroughly enjoyed all 3.

4
I wonder how common it is for these troubled teen boot camps to force kids to drink excessive amounts of water to the point of throwing up? At Ascent that was a daily practice as well, right after lunch, and before intense workout regiments. I threw up, and witnessed it happen often. It was in the back of my mind after awhile, even though we only had 5 min to eat each meal so it wasn’t too hard to watch how much you ate. Amazing how badass those staff felt about themselves, pretty clearly from the video, for making a like13 yr old kid puke and cry.

5
News Items / Re: Julian Youth Academy employee arrested for killing baby
« on: November 14, 2011, 09:12:30 PM »
I’m not sure how to comment on this. There is not a word that properly emphasizes how disturbing this story is. How did Julian Youth Academy not notice their staff was hiding her pregnancy? She was able to hide the baby on campus, dehydrating and starving it to death, burying it on campus, and no one raised an eyebrow? Can this program retain any morality by suggesting it should remain operational in light of what was allowed to happen on their watch? Unfathomable.

6
Open Free for All / What should the Occupy Wall Street Protest demands be?
« on: November 12, 2011, 09:18:42 PM »
Quote from: "Che Gookin"
Quote from: "Samara"
...scorpions?!...

dried deer penis works good for that as well, no lie.

Yeah, that would be pretty sweet. I’m more of a “get the money out of politics guy” myself. There’s like more than 20 corporate lobbyists for every congressman, so I think the average person doesn’t get represented. No one is being payed to lobby for them.

But dried deer penis, so long as it is properly dried, well, well dried…. No actually I’m sticking with my answer about the money and the politics and the intertwining, and the deer penis. Shit. NOT the deer penis. Lol. Now you got me with the deer penis on the brain. Maybe this is what’s wrong with America. Too much of a good thing, y’know?

7
Tacitus' Realm / Re: Had any good nightmares, lately?
« on: November 06, 2011, 01:23:45 AM »
Crapped my magic underwear a little.

8
Thought Reform / Re: Experimental Timeline Project: Brainwashing
« on: November 06, 2011, 01:19:47 AM »
Leon Festinger and Cognitive Dissonance


1942- Festinger received his masters degree in psychology after studying under the prominent Kurt Lewin. He continued to serve as Assistant Proffessor to Lewin at the University of Michigan’s Group Dynamics Center, eventually taking the position of Associate Professor when Lewin died in 1947. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Festinger

1956- Leon Festinger first coins the term “Cognitive Dissonance” in a publication entitled “When Prophecy Fails” which studied a doomsday cult who’s leader was involved with Dianetics, predecessor to Scientology, and incorporated those ideas into the cult. She claimed to have received messages from alien beings that told her the exact end date of the world, Dec. 21, 1954, and that only the faithful would be saved by a UFO. Members made strong commitments to the belief, left families, money and possessions. Festinger infiltrated the cult to study “the arousal of dissonance” that would occur when the prophecy failed.

Festinger identified Cognitive Dissonance as the discomfort of holding  onto conflicting ideas simultaneously and used this term to account for the psychological effects of disconfirmation of fervently held beliefs. He proposed that, in order to reduce the dissonance, people will be motivated to alter their attitudes, beliefs, and/or behavior. He also theorized that proselytizing is a way people attempt to reduce cognitive dissonance, converting others to their belief serves as confirmation.

Festinger observed this sequence of events:


Prior to December 20. The group shuns publicity. Interviews are given only grudgingly. Access to Keech's house is only provided to those who can convince the group that they are true believers. The group evolves a belief system—provided by the automatic writing from the planet Clarion—to explain the details of the cataclysm, the reason for its occurrence, and the manner in which the group would be saved from the disaster.

December 20. The group expects a visitor from outer space to call upon them at midnight and to escort them to a waiting spacecraft. As instructed, the group goes to great lengths to remove all metallic items from their persons. As midnight approaches, zippers, bra straps, and other objects are discarded. The group waits.

12:05 A.M., December 21. No visitor. Someone in the group notices that another clock in the room shows 11:55. The group agrees that it is not yet midnight.

12:10 A.M. The second clock strikes midnight. Still no visitor. The group sits in stunned silence. The cataclysm itself is no more than seven hours away.

4:00 A.M. The group has been sitting in stunned silence. A few attempts at finding explanations have failed. Keech begins to cry.

4:45 A.M. Another message by automatic writing is sent to Keech. It states, in effect, that the God of Earth has decided to spare the planet from destruction. The cataclysm has been called off: "The little group, sitting all night long, had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction."

Afternoon, December 21. Newspapers are called; interviews are sought. In a reversal of its previous distaste for publicity, the group begins an urgent campaign to spread its message to as broad an audience as possible. “ –

- http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... Tzmg90N5Xw

-   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
-   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails


Another famous experiment by Leon Festinger studied dissonance resulting from forced public compliance theorizing that “if a person makes a public statement which is dissonant with his beliefs in order to receive a small reward, there is little justification for having made the statement.” The theory leads to the prediction that, “he will change his private belief in the direction of the public statement; increasing the size of the reward will decrease the degree to which he will change his private opinion.”


In this experiment subjects perform a series of boring, tedious tasks. After finishing the experimenter falsely “explained the purpose of the experiment.” They are told the purpose of the experiment is to test whether people perform better if they are told previously that the tasks are interesting and enjoyable than if told nothing at all. Each subject is told they are in the ‘control’ condition, meaning they had not been told beforehand that he tasks were interesting.

The experimenter explains that in the ‘experimental’ condition an “accomplice poses as a subject who has just finished the experiment and tells the waiting subject that the task was a lot of fun.” The experimenter then explains that another subject is waiting to be tested but the “accomplice” has not shown up yet. So the subject is asked if he would “do him a favor and substitute for the accomplice and tell the waiting subject that the tasks are interesting and fun.”

The subjects were run in three conditions. (a) the subject is paid $1 for serving as accomplice (b) a $20 condition (c) a control in which the subject was not asked to lie to the waiting subject. Upon interviewing the subjects, the results supported the theory. In the control, and the $20 condition, the subjects felt the tasks were unenjoyable.  In the $1 condition however the subjects rated the tasks as rather enjoyable, significantly more positive than the other two conditions, supporting the theory that the dissonance actually caused the subjects to modify their private beliefs. As well it was observed that if “too much force was applied to elicit the overt behavior, the dissonance aroused is correspondingly less and private change in opinion does not occur.”

-   Group Dynamics: Research and Theory. Dorwin Cartwright and  Alvin Zander. Harper & Row Publishers 1968.

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9
Open Free for All / Re: Joke for the Day!!
« on: November 04, 2011, 11:41:20 PM »
DOUGH- with which- to buy my beer
RAY- the guy I buy it frommmmmm
ME- the guy- who drinks the beer
FA- a long way to the barrrrrrr
SO- I'll drink another beer
LA- ger lager lager beeeeeeeer
TEA- no thanks I'l have a beer
and that brings me back to

10
Public Sector Gulags / Re: Guided Group Interaction (GGI)
« on: November 04, 2011, 11:37:27 PM »
I came across this article that I think offers a good perspective on GGI as it relates to Juvenile Corrections. (I’d cut and past, but this article is being difficult.) GGI is offered here as an incorporation of various treatment strategies, not a focal point, which is good for connecting influences and motivations. Exercising manipulation and coercion is familiar to this take on juvenile correcions. several references, such as to Edgar Schein, are indicative  of that.  (I am personally interested in the reference to The National Association of Training Schools and Juvenile Agencies as possibly having a connection with the National training Laboritories or the National Educational Association, if anyone happens upon a connection there. Could be a lark.)

Anyways, obviously this shows GGI to be an important origin of the troubled teen industry.

This article, “Juvenile Treatment Strategies in Correctional Programs” was first presented in 1963.

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream ... 100402.pdf

or indirect link
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/66867

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11
Thought Reform / Re: Experimental Timeline Project: Brainwashing
« on: November 04, 2011, 12:46:53 AM »
… Ok, one more. I believe this is a … VERY important piece of Kurt Lewin’s history, particularly as it concerns his connection to Lawrence K. Frank, who organized the Macy Conferences.

Lewin, Kurt
Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography | 2008

After 1933 . Because Lewin had served at the front during World War I, he was nominally exempt from the provisions of the Nazi civil service law of 7 April 1933, which mandated the dismissal of persons of Jewish descent from state employment. His institute head, the Gestalt psychologist Wolfgang Köhler, wished to retain him in Berlin, but Lewin recognized the danger for Jews who remained in Germany. <snip>


Shortly after he left his position in Berlin, Lewin received a stipend at Cornell University, where he worked on children’s eating habits with support from the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars and the Rockefeller Foundation. Lawrence K. Frank, a foundation official who had met Lewin in Berlin and had been impressed by his experiments with children, then obtained a new grant in 1935 that sent Lewin to the Child Welfare Research Station at the University of Iowa. There he soon received a tenured appointment, rose to the rank of full professor in 1939, and remained until 1944. Both the Cornell center and the Iowa station were participants in a large-scale research program in child development that had been maintained with Rockefeller funding since the mid-1920s.

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Kurt_Lewin.aspx

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12
Thought Reform / Re: Experimental Timeline Project: Brainwashing
« on: November 04, 2011, 12:44:33 AM »
Another little bit on Kurt Lewin and Edgar Schein……

Lewin/Schein’s Change Theory
by Ross A. Wirth, Ph.D. (2004)


Kurt Lewin theorized a three-stage model of change that has come to be known as the unfreezing-change-refreeze model that requires prior learning to be rejected and replaced. Edgar Schein provided further detail for a more comprehensive model of change calling this approach “cognitive redefinition.”

Stage 1 – becoming motivated to change (unfreezing) This phase of change is built on the theory that human behavior is established by
past observational learning and cultural influences. Change requires adding new forces for change or removal of some of the existing factors that are at play in perpetuating the behavior. This unfreezing process has three sub-processes that relate to a readiness and motivation to change.

•   Disconfirmation where present conditions lead to dissatisfaction, such as not meeting personal goals. However, the larger the gap between what is believed and what needs to be believed for change to occur, the more likely the new information will be ignored.

•   Previous beliefs now being seen as invalid creates “survival anxiety.” However, this may not be sufficient to prompt change if learning anxiety is present.

•   Learning anxiety triggers defensiveness and resistance due to the pain of having to unlearn what had been previously accepted. Three stages occur in response to learning anxiety: denial; scapegoating & passing the buck; and maneuvering & bargaining.

It is necessary to move past the possible anxieties for change to progress. This can be accomplished by either having the survival anxiety be greater than the learning anxiety or, preferably, learning anxiety could be reduced.

Stage 2 – change what needs to be changed (unfrozen and moving to a new state) Once there is sufficient dissatisfaction with the current conditions and a real desire to make some change exists, it is necessary to identify exactly what needs to be changed. Three possible impacts from processing new information are: words take on new or expanded meaning, concepts are interpreted within a broader context, and there is an adjustment in the scale used in evaluating new input.

A concise view of the new state is required to clearly identify the gap between the present state and that being proposed. Activities that aid in making the change include imitation of role models and looking for personalized solutions through trial-and-error learning.

Stage 3 – making the change permanent (refreezing) Refreezing is the final stage where new behavior becomes habitual, which
includes developing a new self-concept & identity and establishing new interpersonal relationships.

http://www.entarga.com/orgchange/lewinschein.pdf

13
Thought Reform / Re: Experimental Timeline Project: Brainwashing
« on: November 04, 2011, 12:41:03 AM »
… On Kurt Lewin and his legacy. A snippet from


Group Dynamics, T- groups and Sensitivity Training


An Agent of Change

As much as LSD was a major agent of change for the ’60s, the “Human Potential Movement” also made significant contributions to the upheaval of that era and beyond. Beginning in the ’40s, German psychologist, Kurt Lewin, developed “Sensitivity Training” or “T-groups” to show how people “could be socially and psychologically manipulated to give up their souls....” In the ’40s he had worked for the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) that was concerned with the “psychological attack against the moral and spiritual defenses of a nation.” And indeed, Sensitivity Training changes a person’s ideals and values by invalidation: refuting, denying, degrading or discrediting his values and certainties and replacing them with another’s values or ideas.

Adherents, such as psychologist Ed Schein, who studied brainwashing techniques in Korea, admitted that it was modeled on Pavlov’s brainwashing techniques. In an introduction to one of his papers on Sensitivity Training, Schein says that this method includes “coercive persuasion in the form of thought reform or brainwashing as well as a multitude of less coercive, informal patterns.”
Developed by Lewin through the National Training Laboratory (NTL) under the National Education Association (NEA), Sensitivity Training earned many names: Group Therapy, Conflict Management, Planned Change, Mind Set, Nude Therapy, Marathon Therapy, Group Dynamics, Role Playing, Social Psychology, Human Relations Lab, Sensory Awareness Groups, Conflict Resolution and Encounter Groups, to cite some.

The Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, an influential focal point during the “Hippie” movement of the sixties, was an offshoot of this development. According to Sensitivity Training advocate, Abraham M. Maslow, President of the American Psychological Association, Esalen became “the most important educational institution in the world.” It inspired several thousands of encounter groups.
In 1975, English psychiatrist and LSD guru, Humphrey Osmond wrote: “The Human Potential Movement, and variously called sensitivity training, encounter groups, T-groups... appears to be gaining in popularity in our society. Many of these interpersonal encounters are frequently regarded as ’acidless trips’ or another means of expanding consciousness.... In the past few years especially, an increasing number of reports suggest that such group encounters can precipitate psychiatric disturbances in some participants. Many of the descriptions of these disturbances appear compellingly similar to those experienced with psychoactive drugs, especially the psychedelics.”

“Expanding consciousness” became simply a deceptive name for any activity, which changed an individual’s or group’s value system, whether through drugs or sensitivity-styled groups. Consistent with psychiatry’s and psychology’s broader behavioral modification purposes, the effects of both mind-altering drugs and group therapies have caused major upheaval in all areas of society including education, family, law, justice, morals, drugs, crime, and religion. And, because of their influence, the arts and entertainment industries have been heavily utilized to these purposes.


http://www.hrfolks.com/knowledgebank/re ... groups.pdf

14
Open Free for All / Re: Joke for the Day!!
« on: November 01, 2011, 12:01:44 AM »
cuz they have hallow weenies.

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Open Free for All / Re: Joke for the Day!!
« on: November 01, 2011, 12:00:30 AM »
why don't ghosts have kids??
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?...............

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