In Castaneda’s books he talks about the concept of the “petty tyrant,” which according to his teacher don Juan consisted of using extremely humiliating situations, such as those that conquered Natives would endure under the rule of the Spanish, to break down the ego. Fascinating stuff, but from websites like Sustained Action and books like Amy Wallace’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda, it’s clear that he turned into an ego junkie himself and abused his followers using the very techniques and concepts that were supposed to help them.

… Yeah, fine line between abuse and assistance. I’ve recently been reading some case studies of the hypnotherapist Milton Erickson, who was a master of reading and adjusting people’s behavior. In one instance he had an unwilling patient, a very uptight Prussian gentleman, a stroke victim who was completely paralyzed and so unable to resist when his wife dragged him in. Erickson, having worked with Prussians before and knowing what buttons to push, spent an hour insulting the man until, his pride so damaged, the man rose in anger and lurched out of the room and into the car. After that Erickson was able to work with him to regain better physical movement.

Thing is, that kind of power has to come with a lot of wisdom, wisdom that it seems that Erickson had in spades — by his keen observation of people and by his strong desire to help others. But knowledge and power without wisdom, well that turns into some pretty dangerous stuff. It’s not always clear who has what though.

The wake-up stick (kyosaku in Japanese) is used in some modern Zen schools to help people wake up, in various senses, especially during long retreats. The usual method in use today is that the monitor will walk around the zendo holding the stick; when he gets to you, if you want a whack, you bow from your cushion. You generally get a couple of good whacks on the shoulders, and sometimes the upper back. If the stick-wielder is skilled, as my teacher was, it’s like getting a 30-minute chair massage compressed into a few seconds.

The random-whack business fits into the older Oriental Zen and martial arts culture, in which the student was in it for life or the teacher wouldn’t bother. Those students took vows to learn Zen, or kendo or whatever, or die trying.

I find it more than a touch odd that they use techniques like this yet so harshly criticize the use of traditional hallucingenic methods.hink I’d rahter trust the Amanita fairy than the fallability of the “technologist.”

one big difference in the ‘zen smack’ tradition is that if you find it too much of a hindrance, you can ask the techer to knock it off (in most modern schools, anyhow). or, the teacher will tell the acolytes to tap people more lightly. it’s by no means integral to the tradition, or necessary for everyo practitioner.

in my understanding, the pain isn’t the point– it serves many purposes, one of which is to remind the person meditating not to get attached even to the meditation. it also serves to spark the enlightenment experience in an indescribable way.

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2005/06/27/cruise/index.html

personally i don’t care if that kind of shit really can lead to real spiritual progress, it’s still pretty fucked-up. i guess getting smacked is just not the path for me.

Some of the training techniques they use are definitely designed to break down people’s emotional defense mechanisms. Long days with virtually all waking time spent within the program, and a leader who will totally berate and rip into anyone who shows signs of “resisting” or not “getting” something, and a lot of other more subtle stuff (which I didn’t consciously notice when I was there, but the article points out) like the chairs and furniture in the room being arranged to be perfectly symmetrical down to the inch.

At the same time, a lot of the concepts they teach about reality and the way we perceive it are both interesting philosophically and useful in a practical sense. (For example, even now, I still use the term “racket” — described in the part 3 of that link — when thinking about certain patterns in myself and what drives them, and find it helpful to clarify what’s going on inside me.)

What the article says about people coming out of it after three days with a sense of total “euphoria” is also very accuate. As a group, there’s this huge sense of accomplishment which is fed by the personal stories from participants about the exciting things that are happening in their lives thanks to the program. (In addition to the 16 hours spent each day in sessions, people are given homework assignments to do stuff like get back in contact with a relative they may shut out of their lives, or, to use the language of the Forum, are “withholding” from, so you’ll hear a lot of people talking about how they got back in touch with a parent they hadn’t spoken to in 10 years and breaking down in tears and stuff like that.)

One of the exercises from their “Advanced Course” (which I also attended before I became wary of the whole thing) is somewhat similar to the TR-0 training you describe, although there are some key differences. They have people form two rows facing each other, and then for several solid minutes, you’re supposed to make constant eye contact with the person directly across from you, without looking anywhere else or saying anything. (But there is no “failing” it like the Scientology thing.) The people on one side are told to mentally “support” the ones on the other side.

During this, the Forum leader walks around and observes everybody (especially those who are supposed to be doing the “supporting”), and if he thinks that your mind might be wandering, he firmly tells you to “stay with her”, “keep being present”, “don’t go off into space, stay here because this person needs you”. Some of the people would spontaniously start crying. By the time it’s over, you really feel like you have a deep bond with the other person, even though you didn’t know them at all outside the program.

So I think there definitely can be positive results from forms of training that use “harsh” or extreme measures to bend or break people. If life has somehow fucked a part of us up — some part of ourselves that we’re not able to reach or fix on our own — it makes sense to turn to someone who can get in there and rewire our minds, so to speak. It might even take on the form of “brainwashing” if things need to be tinkered with really seriously. But this requires a great deal of trust, and there’s the risk that an unscrupulous trainer might wield that power to enslave us, or take all our money for themselves.

It’s like the Pop Tarot cards. There’s a side that helps us, and a sinister side, and often they’re intertwined so much that it’s impossible to draw a line between “good” and “bad”.