The following relates directly to Training in Power with personal examples. It offers a degree of reality checking as to what contributes to the process of empowerment and what does not. The areas discussed have to do with major issues in Training in Power:
Dependency
Emotional Manipulation
Authoritarianism
Sacred Trust
Accountability
Healthy Spiritual Development
Summary
Dependency
It is vital for teachers and leaders to be aware of the following well known levels of emotional dependency. A teaching system would recognize these stages and design a structure to encourage independence and emotional growth.
Those who are the most emotionally dependent absorb information unquestionably and may adopt other’s beliefs as their own, as their truth. They follow the rules of these beliefs when dealing with any situation and are very susceptible to the basic emotional manipulations of guilt, fear and pride. They are child like, trusting and loyal to authoritarian control. If they are under malevolent authoritarian control, they will enact acts of violence in the name of their belief or leader. Ego is easily hurt and can be very well defended. Harsh treatment here creates more dependence.
There are those who are more aware but in their attempts at autonomy they are likely to override their own feelings if challenged by authority. They may dare to speak their truth, but can be convinced they are not correct by emotional manipulation and blame themselves. Their ego is still vulnerable to guilt, fear and pride. They are influenced by flattery, approval/disapproval and the need to belong. They are loyal and work hard for the group and will take on the personality of a trusted authoritarian leader, in words and actions, but are more aware of their actions and responsibility to others. Again, harsh treatment or use of emotional guilt or fear creates continued dependence.
Those who are fairly independent and intellectual are more aware in their emotional health and their quest for correctness. They have more self trust, their ability to be effective still depends on their level of need for approval and belonging. Their decision making process includes more universal principles and they are likely to speak up and try to be diplomatic in effecting change.
Their intellectual nature combines with the emotional to create a vulnerability to belief systems and causes. As long as they believe, they are loyal. They can be fickle, thus more likely to draw a line if things don’t go according to their beliefs. Pride and flattery work best to control here. Harsh treatment will drive them away.
The next phase of awareness involves people who speak freely, trust themselves and are not influenced by emotional appeal. They are humanitarian in nature, seek truth and will support others to do the same. They quickly tune in to emotional control and will not tolerate or have an interest in participating in any structure that is not egalitarian in nature.
In working with people in the training I experienced many in the first two categories, as could be expected in a training to take people to their power. What I realized is that although there are several in the third category, there are none in the fourth. This fits with my experience in the last few years that those who could not be controlled, manipulated and submissive to leadership have left. If this system is meant to train people to their power, one would expect that with the many years this training has been in operations there would be more participating from the 3rd and 4th category.
Emotional dependence is trusting that leadership knows best even if you feel differently. It is allowing yourself to be shamed or raged at, and rationalizing that it is somehow good for you. It is saying the truth to your friend but being in fear to speak up to leadership about it, knowing that you will be at risk of attack. The ego develops rationalizations as a coping response to manipulative behavior, and these rationalizations keep denial alive. The difference between ego and true power is critical to understand for every student, leader and humanitarian. But the huge dilemma is that emotionally wounded people cannot see this difference.
Emotional Manipulation
Students have asked me if they will lose vibration if they do not go to Level Vl. An even higher level asked me recently if the “battles” were real. I was told twice that I would lose my soul if I left. At first I accepted this as a teaching technique, albeit poor, and was willing to go along with it until other information came to light. Actually, I cannot lose 12 years of my spiritual journey because only self importance can be lost, not spiritual advancement. If I can lose it, then what I was taught all these years must have been of the ego. The point is that by at least Level Vl students could easily be free from feeling they are going to lose vibration (or fall)if they do not attend a function.
To rage, admonish or in any way blame students for not teaching, not attracting students, not stepping up into leadership roles, not doing enough to support their embattled leaders is guilt. This is a technique used by an authoritarian. It is said that one must separate the founder’s behavior from the training. It is not her behavior that is of concern. I believe that a spiritual leader like anyone else should not have to be perfect, but wounding can excuse behavior only so long in an organization of healing. What is of concern is that this authoritarian model, this victimhood, has been passed on to leadership, who pass it on to the next generation of students. It cannot be seen that this is an ‘abuse is good for you’ behavior they are trained to recognize and clear. Students are again put into an unconscious double bind; they are not to be victims but they must be victimized in order to learn power. When they become leaders, the same double bind exists, they are not to be victims but must victimize to uphold the rules of power. This split lowers vibration and compromises the immune system.
I watched a five minute rage at someone who asked for clarification of physics in Lev Vll. The teacher said that by this level she should know the god damn fucking physics and who was she to be in that class and not know. This went on for a few minutes. People were paralyzed. The fact is, the answers to the questions the teacher asks are known only by the teacher, who then agrees or disagrees with a student’s answer. The teacher’s reaction is how you know what is right and what is wrong. Guilt and fear are induced for not knowing, and most students try even harder to please. There are many students who have been shamed in way and they are now the most compliant and obedient.
At the beginning of a teacher’s meeting in Canada the founder was visibly angry that there were so few Americans at a Canadian Solstice party the month before. She admonished US people for not supporting the training. She then proceeded to have everyone stand from the US that didn’t go to the party and shamed and raged another few minutes. A friend of mine was furious because she attended her son’s graduation that day. But no one spoke or protested. Party attendance increased.
Students are volunteered for various reasons instead of raising their hands. This would be ok if they were not shamed or humiliated because they do not know the answer. Fear is being given a 200 page lecture and being asked what was on page 175 and being shamed for not knowing. No one really has clarity to begin with about the obscure mystical energetic material itself and no one admits it. They learn by trial and error.
To show any reaction to this treatment in any form is seen as defensive and not acceptable. One could say this tactic is justified in order for people to lose self importance or defensiveness, but the people it is done to do not learn to speak up in their truth, they learn emotional compliance. Iinstead of desensitizing them, this treatment drives them into their ego to adopt a superior positioning that gives license to do the same to others.
There are many views of the founder’s emotional outbursts: she is doing it for our own good; she is in pain as part of the suffering she has as she forges this new consciousness; she holds this new consciousness for us; they or we deserve it; she is using tough love. Some have seen it as an honest, vulnerable place that shows us her inner process. To continue to combine emotional outbursts with spiritual ecstasy is abuse. I have emails and many stories about leaders who uphold this tactic, sometimes if more subtle but equally devastating ways.
Emotional abuse causes trauma. When the combined methods of love and anger are used by an authority figure it creates trauma/dependency in emotionally wounded children or adult students. It is well documented that this sets up dependency, fear, and closes down true learning. It creates a child or student who will become obedient to the “rules” and dependent on the highs. Until these underlying energies are addressed in the construct material, not only will people continue to be hurt and hurt others in the name of “power”, but the organization cannot and will not keep emotionally independent people.
As can be seen in the Power vs. Force material, people do need help out of emotional dependency below a 200 vibration, and Level 1-Vl could take them to this important place. There are many things that could be done in the younger levels to foster Self realization, and by the time they went on to Vll, if they choose that tract, they would have their ego problems addressed, they would lead with their heart not a rulebook in their head, and they would inspire trust and true leadership qualities.
To separate the good from the seduction of such a magnetic system is only difficult when you are emotionally wrapped in it. One must be out of this programmed belief to really feel and see how one person’s actions have come to control so many people’s time, intellect, loyalty and emotions. The tragedy is that this teacher creates such alliance that students are very much seduced into thinking that her story is their own story.
Trainers say they are doing their own journey and are not affected by all this, that they do not have to buy into the parts they don’t agree with privately, that they might speak up on issues in the future. That they stand by and allow these abuses to go on is very telling about their level of dependency and ethical character.
Authoritarianism
As a parent I wanted to be aware of the results of authoritarian power and emotional control from my own childhood and from my culture. I was determined not to pass this on to my children. Authoritarian control does not allow children or people to internalize their own sense of responsibility, it externalizes them into other’s beliefs rather than into their own clear emotional responsiveness. When a parent’s beliefs are strict and controlled it sets up a power struggle that creates rebellion, conformity or dependence, in all or any combination. It is a symptom of severe control if the parent insists the child be like them, for no matter how well meaning the parent claims to be, they are forcing conformity in the child rather than guiding the child’s unfoldment. The child or student who tries to conform to this control is often blamed and belittled for not living up to expectations, making them try harder, thus the disempowering dependency cycle is continued.
What I tried offer the training in various forms was a structure of authority that promotes Self realization in students not obedience or emotional dependency. Students could be encouraged, just as I learned to encourage my children, to deepen into themselves and their own unfolding stories. Within my family structure, a few firm guidelines and plenty of conversation created a space for my kids to explore and develop themselves from the inside out. I was there to guide them into thinking for themselves, not to cajole them into blindly follow rules, which we are all recovering from at various levels from our own childhood and our culture. I feel this is why so many in the training saw me with integrity and love.
This stance does not have to conflict and should not conflict with “being in position”, an often used phrase in the training meaning you are in “power” and doing everything right. Caring for other’s empowerment in this way was very twisted in the training in that if you ‘cared’ it was seen as coddling students, as nave or Pollyanna . But it is not nave, and it is not necessarily conflict free with no squabbles, issues to work out or areas of denial to uncover. But it is not accusatory. It enacts an honorable respect for all voices and encourages all dissent to be aired and discussed, so that truth bubbles up from the inside out, in a child, a student or an organization. Often it means that all parties learn something.
Children have an innate sense of good and cooperative growth, unless they are taught differently. It is critical to know that whether you are working with healthy or abused children, healthy or abused adults/students, it has been shown that ‘tough love’ works, while guilt, shame, anger, fear, manipulation, my story over yours, ‘for your own good’, ‘the end justifies the means’ methods prevent true growth.
In spiritual leadership, the degree of control can be seen by the degree of willingness to self examine, accept feedback and learn from others. Authoritarian people build authoritarian structures that prevent feedback and corral emotionally dependent people into their own beliefs. The severity of a leader’s emotional wounding can be seen by the degree they emotionally enforce loyalty, trust, compliance and agreement to their own beliefs over their student’s welfare. Students many times cannot see the leader’s manipulation of them because they would have to step out of their wounding to see any violation of their boundaries, which is very difficult for most to do. They just don’t know that they are being mistreated because they don’t know the difference.
A man said of his TIP leadership wife, “she has lost her heart, she acts like she thinks power to be”.
This is ego not power; the informed heart is our true power. It is critical to know the difference between healthy ego and controlling ego. The ego that allows one to invade emotional boundaries without heart is woven into the very construct of the training itself. This system then favors leaders who will uphold this error at the very root of dependency!
In the training we understood that we were here to assist people to come to truth. Sometimes in our relationships this means to address underlying dynamics. This does not need to exclude courtesy and boundaries. Being trained to be ˜psychic” does not mean you are right or that you have the right to impose your “sight” on others, especially if you have not addressed ego positioning. By not being aware of this, this assumptive position is trained into leadership. It gives license that by virtue of belonging to a spiritual group, being an upper level, being in ‘power” more than another, or having perceptive awareness one is justified to take a superior position of knowing what is best for students. This creates an aura of mystical powers, which externalizes and disempowers students.
I believe that sometimes in a ‘warrior’ position anything goes; we can be pushed to perform and learn beyond our self-imposed limits. The big difference here is in the dependency these tactics create. Miguel Ruiz turns his apprentices loose after a period of training; they leave him to do their work in the world. Their work could be apprenticing others and continuing in his footsteps, or just being the best they can be in their chosen profession. But he does not tell them they will never get to power unless they continue to train. He does not tell them they will lose their soul, get sick, or fat if they leave his organization. Any teacher can feel their own way is the best way, but to hold students hostage in this way to serve their spiritual cause is spiritual abuse.
Few adults, let alone children, will risk the anger, shame or belittlement that can result from questioning the founder or her structure; there is no safe accountability in the training. A “Listening Committee” was established within the training, but it is not safe and it is not independent. This authoritarian style is different with different leaders in the organization, but its underlying style is adopted in the training as part of the desire to be (the founder).
I have often witnessed those in the training who interact with outsiders have an open or hidden assumptive role that our way is the best way for others. There is an incongruent double bind message given in the training which sets up a double bind within each student. This double bind is that even though you might say you would not impose your belief on someone and that free will is a law of the universe, the fact is you very much want to align them to “the true power”. This is felt by healthier people as the aggression (authoritarian power) it really is and healthy people take a polite step back.
But the dependent personality responds emotionally to this feeling of ‘power’ by believing you have the power to help them. This may be important in the beginning of training, but if this stage of a students development is encouraged rather than evolved, as I believe it is from Level 1, then empowerment never happens.
Sacred Trust
Free will is stated as a universal law in Level l. Free will establishes the right to choose, but there are times when we give others the responsibility to choose for us. A Sacred Trust (an often used concept in the training ) is when one is responsible for someone who is not in a position to make choices, or when one is responsible to make choices for those who have placed them in trust to do so. The teacher/student position is one of Sacred Trust.
Sacred Trust in the highest sense is the obligation of anyone put in this position to work for the health and well being of their charges. A parent is responsible for the greater good of a child. A leader works for the greater good of a country or a corporation. This is well and good, but within the training this concept is combined with rigid and strict authoritarian guidance. It is on the shoulders of authority figures to not take advantage or unduly gain the service of emotionally vulnerable people. This is ethics. When students are still dependent after years of training, and can’t see that this is so (See “The Guru Papers”) this Sacred Trust has been violated. The very hardest thing to watch about this in the training is that those who hear this think they are in power; they have worked hard to get where they are and feel they are in charge of their lives.
What they can’t realize is that without the training structure, they have nothing to be in charge of. It would be too painful to see the truth of this. Denial is easier and that is why many ‘choose’ to continue in the training in spite of what they see and in spite of the information available to them. I’ve heard some say they wouldn’t consider reading this material. The training has conditioned them successfully to see it as just “attack”.
Accountability
If a leader is questioned, it is up to that leader to be impeccable in the ability to self examine. This sacred trust position depends on self accountability by allowing the right of others to hold the sacred trust accountable. This is what democracy was meant to do. It creates an open feedback system that insures accountability, falling far short in our culture but nevertheless an attempt.
A true structure of authority would give a feedback loop for input, growth, reality checking and honoring of the co-creator position all humans participating within it. The higher the consciousness of the system or leader the more open the feedback loop. All are honored and valued as co-creators, no matter how large or small their role. An authoritarian system does not accept that a feedback system is necessary.
Accountability of any leader can be assessed in the questions, are they open to the free exchange of information necessary for healthy change and growth, are they willing to discuss and try new things, to change their beliefs, do they have an ability to hold the most critical information safe while still being open to change, do they really listen when presented with information. Are they willing to see error when it is repeatedly presented to them and do they make people feel valued in presenting information.
We as leaders in the spiritual arena have the obligation to self examine, listen to input, consider new information and discover where our beliefs divide, control, usurp or in any way divide our students from the unity consciousness that brings healing from the inside out. In no way can the training model world healing with such a closed system.
Healthy Spiritual Development vs. TIP
Universal guidelines and concepts about spiritual development are readily available on the internet for research. These guidelines are summarized nicely in the “Power vs. Force” material, where a model is presented in which there is a progression of awareness with the end result of enlightenment, or unity consciousness, or ascension if you will. In this model, although an A to Z style is used for our linear perception, in truth, full enlightenment is a self generated feeling inside of us that encompasses an awareness of all of A-Z, which is unity consciousness. The scale goes from divisive low vibration emotions, battle, toward unity consciousness, win/win. The beginning of the scale covers divisiveness in all its forms. Guilt for example, in its many expressions, is a feeling that will divide us from our unity, our oneness, our peace. It is from this scale of awareness that we can assess for ourselves what contributes to our feeling of unity, or what contributes to our feeling of divisiveness and suffering. It can offer a view that can be applied within ourselves, within our community or within our nation.
We know that this training has helped a lot of people get to their courage. People sometimes need help to get to this point and really need to believe that something or someone can help them. The training accomplishes this to a point. The problem is that compliance is set up from Level 1, and if the student buys into Level Vl (the ‘teacher’s’ level), they will be fully brainwashed and readily devoted and compliant to the training system.
When a teacher, in the name of love, continues to train people into her own beliefs, that teacher is really stealing their connection with God. The ability to convince others that you alone have the right answer is a plague in all our systems, from political to advertising to personal relationships. Three things would be seriously necessary to address this error in the training: (Note: when I wrote this in 2004 I still had hope it could change)
One necessary change: Leadership must become aware of certain elements of ‘force’ when they are examining class information, structure or learned behavior. A structure of empowerment offers knowledge; free will requires that a Sacred Trust authority will choose what is right for them without force, manipulation or threats.
Second is to address material in younger levels to include more current healing and vibrational techniques that have students addressing dependency issues much earlier. By Level Vl release them back to the world to freely choose their path. Most people just need to be connected to courage and God to be able to become powerhouses in their lives and chosen professions. Many however will be attracted to a teaching path or higher levels of awareness and can choose to continue with the training. Releasing them takes the emotionally draining “do or fail” energy out of the training which repels healthier people, who are usually very talented. It offers anyone from execs and professionals to housewives an effective empowering course while not separating them from their families, their lives and their purpose. This type of program would draw large classes and give the teachers a rightful living.
Third is to restructure the teaching system so that those who do decide to teach or volunteer countless hours are rewarded somehow for their efforts. To be convinced that to volunteer almost every day of the week and most weekends in training business, classes or ‘service’, to have family and friend activity squeezed out of your life because they are not one of ‘us’, is blatantly divisive and controlling. This is what Carlos Castaneda did, demanded everyone’s full time and attention, only he was more overt and told his students to just get rid of family and friends, all ties to the human world. If there are those who would devote their lives to this training, there must be compensation. One simple fix would be to have teachers tithed to by their students who begin teaching. It was often said that people could earn income if they want to by teaching more. This has not been a real solution, for there are few students, which leads one again to the incessant cycle of addressing the underlying problems that drive students away.
A Gifted Leader
The gift of a master story teller is to take you out of the story in your head and into another story. A master magician can trick you beyond your senses. A master NLP practitioner works outside your awareness and can align your belief system so as to block the sight of a truth in front of you. A master salesperson can reach into your belief system and convince you of your wisdom in buying their product. A master hypnotist can use the power of suggestion to convince you of a different reality. The ego of a brilliant manipulator will use all of the above to hold you in their reality. It is a very sad fact when we discover that the truth of ourselves has been supplanted by a convincing story, and that we were convinced that that story was our truth. If the training will survive, it will be restructured to follow the laws of attraction to take out the emotional conditioning to one story and bring true choice back, and the founder’s gift can be used for the good.
Refusal to Change
The charismatic founder of this structure of empowerment has claimed to be the only one who has the knowledge of true empowerment on this planet. As such, she has never-ending arbitrary control over her students, because no one else knows their next step or what they are ready to learn but her. She uses her power to create exalted states of consciousness, then uses anger, guilt, shame, humiliation, praise and flattering in her coursework and personal contact with students to get them to do what she needs done, in the name of empowering them. Ex-members must recover from intense programming they didn’t realize they had until they left her influence. The damage done to trauma and abuse survivors over the years has been documented by many counselors, who are beginning to network and recognize the fallout symptoms of Training in Power, and by the personal submissions on this site by ex-members.
Over the years she has been alerted in many ways by many people to look at her actions and she has refused. Many times her anger is inflicted on those who attempt to address issues of importance to them, who most often are upper levels who have been with the organization for years. At this confrontational point students have no choice but to submit or leave. This double bind, being made to feel like a failure and an attacker of the founder, but not wanting to submit to abuse, is very painful and causes trauma in most students who are forced to leave.
The founder rallies her troops around many battles, like the current ‘evil’ the ex-members are creating by speaking out. The last story is that several of us ex-members are out to kill her. If you knew us gentle folk, you would understand why this is so incredible. But the rationale is that we are not our good selves now, we are ‘possessed’ by attack and are trying to take her or the training out. This is how we lived our lives in the training and this basic life-draining preoccupation has not changed. I’m sorry for this, but all I can do is support those who wish to leave and give warning on this site to those who can find it.
Submitted by Diane