❀ the cult of: ➥motivational speakers ➥life coaches ➥personal growth gurus ➥new-age charlatans ➥AWESOMENESS FEST

the personal development leader/artist reminds me of a friend talking about how jealous he was of people who didn't know how terrible their writing/art/etc. was - how it must be freeing to think that everything you paint is a masterpiece.

bit about his art appreciating is particularly lolsome, given that most work even by established artists represented in NY/London galleries doesn't actually appreciate in value

this thread is incredible, thank you gr8080

the lifecoach meme, it is trending: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/fashion/should-a-life-coach-have-a-life-first.html

don't know if this article is even more terrifying for being more 'grounded':

She has since built a base of 10 clients, including a 48-year-old woman who, until recently, was living in denial of the fact that she has diabetes.

“It was a very difficult breakthrough for her, she was crying,” Ms. Messinger, who charges from $25 to $75 an hour, recalled of a recent session with the client. “I just made her aware of more options, like maybe you can try Splenda.”

i can barely keep up w/ this thread, but i'm lovin it.

btw i'm not really a fan of adam curtis but his 'century of the self' series goes on a long detour about the new age movement, particularly landmark. his overall 'thesis' is dubious but there is some good footage in there.

oh god

xp

man

More than 30 American universities have introduced coaching programs, including Harvard, Yale, Duke, New York University, Georgetown, the University of California at Berkeley, Penn State, the University of Texas at Dallas and George Washington.

what

http://www.silvamethod.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silva_Method

― Critique of Pure Moods (goole), Thursday, February 2, 2012 8:13 AM (34 minutes ago)

i almost posted these to the "shit that should be a tim & eric skit" thread.

DO NOT SLEEP ON THESE VIDEOS-- watch at least a minute or two of each:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nOCfnyIhVY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsDqI9MqVbQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hluTuToV2f8

v v interesting to see their whole marketing vibe/image ~approach~ before hooking up w/ Vishen and Mindvalley.

wow

thank you for your breathing advice, facially-enunciating weirdly leather jacket sporting budget daniel craig

was wondering if Braco was going to come up here! ha!

there's a whole universe of bizarro spiritualist/healer/alien-contactee type people on youtube. i found a pretty amazing example once but i can't find it anymore! i thought i put it on damage contrlolz but i guess not.

that stuff is fairly removed from new age life coach ish tho, more millienial than self-improving. some of it seriously home-made and sorry-ass looking. you wonder who could be awed by any of it.

the key diff seems to be $$$! aside from youth and sex all the shit on this thread seems to be about making money.

this dude is an alien/healer type: http://www.siriusascension.com/

but yeah it's a different kind of crazy to the pyramid scheme self help SEO nightmare of this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTidVjdtOwg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYk7V4BxP-U&feature=related

http://laurahamesfranklin.com/

narration on those Silva Method is truly avant. they put the stresses on precisely the wrong word in each sentence in this way that is so hypnotic that it keeps you listening

'by being in a relaxed state, we are able to absorb information faster and better'

'instead of being aggressive, and forcing them to learn the verbs, lazonoff played classical music which created a soothing atmosphere.'

So unclean! So unclean! Must cleanse myself with a big dose of:

http://edu.glogster.com/media/4/34/88/92/34889298.jpg

xp the narrator sounds like a text-to-speech program

lol there are some outlier TED Talks that are suspicious

― mh, Thursday, February 2, 2012 9:38 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The business development/futurism/positivity/self improvement axis is a slippery slope.

TED is basically just an extension of the whole self-help continuum. This TED talk really creeped me out: http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html

At the end, Bill Gates comes out and christens this guy the future of education.

And then I went and viewed one of his videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69rDtSpshAw

And it was horrible. You get the feeling that Gates and Reese the rest of the education reform crowd watched What the #$*! Do We Know and were all like get the unions out of our way and let us unleash our mind powers on the kids. Here are truckloads of money. Clear your Thetans, educators!

The half-cocked shit these guys say in public totally reminds me of the whole who moved my cheese Tony Robbins realistate scam bullshit. You can hear the whole crowd laugh in that video above when that guy snidely remarks that (omg) the teachers were actually willing to work with him instead of being a bunch of wet blankets (as usual) about his mind-bending youtube breakthrough.

I always get a creepy asexual vibe from a lot of this stuff

Is there a sex component? Are these people going at it like rabbits? Does the self-help spiritual aesthetic justify free love?

Can I get at it?

elephant in the room^

^ otm, this has got to be a sex thing

xxx-post

Yeah I get pissed off any time someone is like "whooa, the existing system wouldn't let us affect REAL CHANGE" because I'm in a technical work field in a corporation and any time we say "uh I don't think you want to spend your dollars making a mobile app for every possible platform and this is not secure" the businesspeople are like "YOU'RE AGAINST AFFECTING REAL CHANGE" and then they hire consultants to throw together halfassed shit we'll have to support and eventually rework to the tune of a bazillion dollars

omg those silva videos. breathing is good for your brain, what an insight

i have zero evidence to support this theory but i am of the belief that Vishen fucks no less than 6 different women at each Awesomeness Fest.

just look @ the "pirate party" YouTube in my OP again, then listen to him go on about how they need to decide if Awesomeness Fest and you are "a good fit"

It's either like, do things a completely structured way like THE MAN WANTS or go to a third-party completely outside the company.

Kind of like working in the SYSTEM for the MAN or finding your guru out there. Only you already pay a bunch of people who have the guru ideas but ignore them.

Vishen is my guru now

also I died at brain tapping

p. sure that any made-up physiospiritual exercise can gain some traction with people as long as you ask them to concentrate on their breathing in the process, since you know breathing deeply feels nice.

"OK now exhale as you put your other hand into the bowl of Jell-O and visualize yourself on a jetski."

The first thing a friend said when I sent him the link to this thread was:

whoa this mindvalley thing is fucking with me
look, I know it's bullshit, but all i see is a room full of hot chicks

re: sex thing

Take another look at that group photo of the MindValley in Kuala Lumpur. Even if they are not humping like rabbits, the allure of attractive toothy youth so thick you have to wave away the fumes to keep a level head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn2LndCLcNk

some sad canadians :/

This thread has destroyed my productivity.

lol i just looked at the mindie kniss website, and for real took a second to realize this was not a will farrell character:

http://restartyourheart.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/rollin_mccraty1.jpg

my theory: i think a lot of this stuff is built to address the fact that the world is an incredibly complicated place with incredibly complex systems that are overwhelming. like, how does the economy work? how do hedge funds work? how does property get bought, sold? how does energy get made, distributed, refined, etc? like thousands of these questions that directly impact our day to day lives that are completely obscure to 99% of human beings. at best we work in an industry and learn about our industry and have some insight into this tiny piece of the puzzle. i get the feeling that a lot of these ppl don't even have experience with a tiny sliver of how things work. So they have a revelation that stuff must happen, not because of negotiations and relationships and developing actual technology, but by some magical force of mystical will, that if you dream if you can make it, etc. of course, this revelation isn't actually true and doesn't qualify them to actually do anything but continue to talk about, teach, attend seminars about mystical will power, etc. and shit is just getting more complex. and the more complex it gets, the more we're gonna see stuff like this.

and maybe that's not so bad bc if robots replace all of our factory jobs we need to have all these young ppl do something, and if they're gathering in bright rooms to talk about how energized they are, and unleashing the potential of the human body, then they're not idk breaking things. which, like, i think is the fundamental tension. it's hard to stay positive when there's so much shit in the world, so as humans we've developed an industry focused on staying positive. (nb this trend bodes poorly for political revolution.)

how is babby formed?

So they have a revelation that stuff must happen, not because of negotiations and relationships and developing actual technology, but by some magical force of mystical will, that if you dream if you can make it, etc.

To be fair, you just described the basis of a fairly large portion of historical religious thought

tldr it's all about alienation

O! Brave new world that has such people in't.

i'm kinda sympathetic. there's a huge stench of desperation coming off a lot of the ppl being to linked to in this thread

lol TED talks...there are some great ones on there, but occasionally i'll start watching one someone has linked too and it's a little o_O

great post, Mordy. thanks.

and by "thanks" i mean "Namaste"

when there was talk of hotels upthread and beach parties in the evenings for these things, it makes me wonder...

gr8080, have you worked one of these things?

like i was saying, "some of it seriously home-made and sorry-ass looking. you wonder who could be awed by any of it."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyubQ56usII

unbelievable

http://www.webtvwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/quantum-leap.jpg

xxpost: not really.

i've had to do a little bit of work w/ rich dad poor dad seminars and other "wealth building" and "EZ Trading" seminars... its funny tho because for as much wealth as they all build they are pretty reliably some of my cheapest clients.

on the other side of this (ie: the cult side that is not contemporary at all but historical) the book When Prophesy Fails is classic sociological text about why ppl believe crazy shit

Magical thinking is pretty common. It's like a shortcut in our brains that's very hackable.

i have zero evidence to support this theory but i am of the belief that Vishen fucks no less than 6 different women at each Awesomeness Fest.

just look @ the "pirate party" YouTube in my OP again, then listen to him go on about how they need to decide if Awesomeness Fest and you are "a good fit"

― ⚓ (gr8080), Thursday, February 2, 2012 1:36 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and all the dudes look so schlubby and dippy...

all right this sorta o/t now, on the alien culty end, but wtf

http://www.youtube.com/user/Komurosan

1937 uploads!

(i wonder if that's the source of that one sample on the death grips record?)

rich dad poor dad

uuurggh