I was surfing the web and decided to google “PSI” and found this site.
I was involved with PSI about three years ago. I too just recently woke up from the nightmare I put myself thru because I attended PSI Seminars.
I took the basic, PSI7 and played PLD. I did this because I wanted to save my marriage. My wife enrolled me in the “courses” and I believe it would save my marriage. My wife told me that if I did not attend she would leave me, as she told me that I wasn’t supporting her with her life.
When I went to PSI 7 my wife failed to pay the bills and upon my return the phone was turned off and my car was repossessed. I received the emotional support I needed from my PSI 7 group and felt better when they encouraged me to feel better. I was lucky to get my car back and thought that the “positive” thinking was the reason I got my car, but I realize it was due to hard work
After my returned from PSI 7 my wife again started “nagging” me to enroll and attend PLD; again to save the marriage. I had to set three goals for myself and, of course, enroll more people to the basic. I worked very hard to complete the goals. My first goal to quit smoking was very hard after being a habit for 18 years. My second goal was to write a book and have it published. My third goal was to get our finances in order after taking control of the bills. Not an easy feat as my wife would spend the money faster than I would make it.
The thing I didn't like about Psi or PLD then was the "recruitment" of people to go to Basic. We were to get at least two people signed up and the money paid by the end of the month if we wanted to stay in PLD. When I started I didn’t know anyone who wanted or needed to go to the BASIC. Anyone that I did know had already gone through the Basic and I had to sign at least eight people.
After a time I realized I couldn’t enroll anyone to PSI. At most I would talk to the people I knew and they would think I was crazy for even considering going to something so cult like. Some even asked if I drank too much cool aid. I would return home feeling dejected and the wife would berate me for failing. Failing in something as simple as enrolling people to PSI and failing at our marriage. My wife left me shortly after I quit PLD and we were divorced after a long court battle. She even used the argument that PSI is a cult to get custody of my kids, even though she went to this too. I considered suicide because of the depression, but couldn’t do that to my sons. This whole ordeal cost me more then the $10.000.00 dollars I spend on this. The emotional damage was worst. I considered what I lost and what I gained and the price was not worth it. It cost me my marriage; which would have been destroyed anyway. But to lose my sons and be a once a month father, and to lose the respect of my family and friends, was not worth the cost to my soul.
It has taken me the better part of two years to finally realize that PSI is bullshit. It destroyed my life as well as some of the others in my group. White lights and workshops? What a bunch of bullshit and I fell for it.
Cults know that if they can control your relationships then they can control you. Whether we like it or not we are all profoundly affected by those around us. When you first go to a cult they will practice "love bombing", where they arrange instant friends for you. It will seem wonderful, how could such a loving group be wrong! But you soon learn that if you ever disagree with them, or ever leave the cult then you will lose all your new "friends". This unspoken threat influences your actions in the cult. Things that normally would have made you complain will pass by silently because you don't want to be ostracized. Like in an unhealthy relationship love is turned on and off to control.
Cults also try to cut you off from your friends and family because they hate others being able to influence you. A mind control cult will seek to maneuver your life so as to maximize your contact with cult members and minimize your contact with people outside the group, especially those who oppose your involvement.
I'm convinced that these cults somehow eradicate their members' ability to see, sense, or comprehend irony. Take it from an old cult-watcher who has grown tired of these clowns, they all lie. They teach their members to lie. Watch the robotic Mormon polygamist wives when asked a simple question about the ages of the girls who marry and bear children within their group. They parrot the same answers they've been coached in the same deer-in-the-headlights manner. It unfailingly amazes me how many people are willing to give their minds over to some megalomaniac sociopath. Oh, and here's the rub where the Mormons are concerned; the old geezers in charge know they have to "capture" the girls by impregnating them young or they will bolt. And don't mistake the "religion" aspect of the various groups. That's only the window dressing. The rest is hiding under the same rotting corpses of L. Ron Hubbard, Mary Baker Eddy, Anton Mesmer, and their predecessors going all the way back to the Greeks and their poorly-understood and wrongly condemned sophists.
Cults that use "self help" or counselling or self improvement as their base often target business people and corporations. By doing their courses and seminars they claim you and your staff will become more successful. Business people locked away in hotel rooms are subjected to quasi-religious indoctrination as they play strange games, join in group activities, and share their innermost thoughts with the group. Once you have completed one course you are told you need to do the more advanced course, which naturally costs more than the last. These cults will sometimes request that you do volunteer work and that you help recruit your friends, family and work mates. These groups specialize in creating powerful emotional experiences which are then used to validate your involvement in the cult. The religious overtones are couched in terms which don't sound religious. They usually come to the surface as you near the end of a seminar. Many people have been bankrupted by involvement with these cults.
I took PSI seminars two years ago. I spent thousands on these "courses" and just woke up to the fact that I was fooled into believing this was the way to find myself.
My advice is to stay away from PSI. I ruined several relationships because I became a self-centered person.
PSI Seminars is a terrible group. I have known former friends who got involved. They never saw what it was doing to them and one or two (I have chosen to stay the *** out of their lives) are still in it. I think you need to cut these people off. Tell them, if they love you, they won't let you get involved.
Usually the PSI grad will tell you to take the basic to learn how to re-connect with the one you lost. What a bunch of BS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I lost my wife to PSI four years ago. You cannot imagine the pain, hurt and the mental anguish this caused. It's usually very easy for PSI graduates to say "let it go and move on" but this hurt me move than anyone can imagine. The ones who really understand it are the ones left behind.
The 1970s was a weird time. Recovered memories, self-improvement, and cults were all the rage. This time period laid the groundwork for companies like PSI Seminars to later emerge and thrive. The late psychologist and cult expert Dr. Margaret Singer dubbed organizations like PSI Seminars "Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGAT)". PSI Seminars could also be called "a for-profit private company, that delivers self-improvement and personal development coursework" (Wikipedia). Not happy in your career? Want more fulfilling relationships with others? Why not take the PSI Seminar Basic Course for $500?
Critics accuse LGAT's of using similiar thought-reform techniques as cult leaders do. Techniques used in LGAT include:
* meditation
* biofeedback
* self-hypnosis
* relaxation techniques
* visualization
* neuro-linguistic programming
* mind-control
* yoga
(Source: Wikipedia)
LGAT are usually long hours and last several days. They are highly emotional and use all the above techniques to manipulate the feelings of the people participating in the training. After one completes the training, he/she often feel like they are on a "high", but according to research, the feeling doesn't last. Research also shows that LGAT rarely instill *real* change into people's lives (Wikipedia).
Fast forward 30 plus years to my living room in Alameda last April. I had just finished pouring out my heart to my roommate about who I *really* wanted to be when I grew up. My roommate mentioned yet again how much PSI Seminars changed her life. "Just take the Basic course for $500. I swear it will change your life", she says. If this were anyone else I would have brushed them aside, but my roommate talked about PSI Seminars with such enthusiasm and with such meaning in her voice, I couldn't just brush her aside. If these courses had affect my smart, kind, successful roommate as much they seemed to, they must be worth it. So I called Carson at PSI Seminars and signed up the next day.
The next four days consisted of a bunch of highs, a bunch of lows, visualizations, emotional reenactments, group therapy and goal setting. Some of it was crap, some of it was helpful ($500 helpful, I don't think so!) and some of it was downright stupid. And did I reach my goals that I set up at the seminar? Well, what do you think? Let's be real here. So you really want to change your life? Wonderful. Here's some advice that will actually change your life.
1. Get a therapist
2. Get a lifecoach
If you actually have goals to meet, things to do, places to go, people to see, lifecoaching is were it's at. I can even give you a rec for a good one in Walnut Creek. Ya wanna know why lifecoaching actually works and PSI Seminars doesn't? Because you see your lifecoach every week (or every other week) and more importantly, you are accountable to him/her! Take my advice, save the $7,000 you'd be spending on PSI Seminars and spend it on a lifecoach who will kick your ***!
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