This is the first I’ve heard of est seminars, but wouldn’t becoming pissy and aggressive over every minor inconvenience in life make a person more stressful and more unhappy with their lot in life? Was the idea that if you demand everything, you will get it and be happier? What was the point of not allowing bathroom breaks?
From what I remember, the people running the seminar used to use subtle psychological pressure and power games to get the class to play ball. When the leader tells you you can’t leave the room to go to the bathroom, for example, you’re likely going to comply because you want everything that the seminar promises, and if that means tying your tonker in a knot because you have to pee so badly your back teeth are floating, you’ll do it. The organization places absolute power in the leaders and that’s made abundantly clear from the outset.
When you challenge the leader, as DrDeth did, you take away his power because it’s obvious that he can no longer control the group. From that point on, he’s got to struggle to take back that power, which makes things interesting.
I answered the last question in my most recent post. It’s part of controlling the group. When you’ve got a roomful of people who can number in the hundreds, you’ve got to use psychology to maintain power and authority, and to control the group. If you tell people they can’t fulfill basic biological needs, and you tie it in to something about the seminar, most people will comply with the leader’s instructions. (I believe Stanley Milgram had something to say about this.) It’s when people like DrDeth challenge that authority that the leader loses his power and authority; the leader can no longer maintain control because the audience now knows that there’s nothing the leader can do to stop them from doing anything.
This thread reminded me of a friend who had done the Forum thing, which had similar rules. She was really into it for a while but became disillusioned when one of her Forum buddies got hypoglycemia because the audience wasn’t allowed to eat outside of specified times. The group went from fairly early in the morning until about noon or 1 p.m. without a break, which was too long for this guy to go without food, and it never occurred to him to just eat something. My friend realized at that point that she wasn’t getting enough out of it to keep going through this.
In terms of your first question, the change in behavior doesn’t usually last without reinforcement in the form of “advanced” seminars. Basically, you go to the first seminar for free to hook you in. The real magic, you’re told, happens in the second seminar, which will cost a few hundred dollars. After the second seminar, you’re told that you’ll get sooper sekrit magical powers if you go to the advanced seminars, which cost more money.
My boss circa 1990 was telling me about one of these things and how they wouldn’t let you do this or that, or made you do this or that. All I could do was smile, laugh and tell her that there was no way they could make me do things I didn’t want to do or not do things like go to the restroom.
“Oh, but there’s peer pressure from the rest of the audience”
Yeah, so? :dubious:
She saw it as this great and wonderful thing. I saw it as a exersize in conformity.
Right, but what about the seminar would make the attendees go to the above poster’s restaurant and start being petty and demanding? Did it teach you to not take the slightest amount of crap from anyone and to demand everything you want? If so, I would think that would make a person far unhappier.
IIRC, the program was based on the idea that you had to go for what you want, and to make sure no one got in your way. Basically, the program was teaching its audience to be an asshole.