Mind

"A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour."

"Once you learn to do something consciously, you can move it into the subconscious and do it well. Everything you do well will be done subconsciously."

"The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises."

"Any thought that is passed on to the subconscious often enough and convincingly enough is finally accepted."

"If someone talks of subconsciousness, I cannot tell whether he means the term topographically – to indicate something lying in the mind beneath consciousness – or qualitatively – to indicate another consciousness, a subterranean one, as it were. He is probably not clear about any of it. The only trustworthy antithesis is between conscious and unconscious"

"If the Holy Spirit can take over the subconscious with our consent and cooperation, then we have almighty Power working at the basis of our lives, then we can do anything we ought to do, go anywhere we ought to go, and be anything we ought to be."

"How do you develop the subconscious of an organization?... There's no time to take decisions deep into the brain—no time to take it to the data warehouse. It has to become a reflex action. We're developing the gut."

"I just kind of conjured them up out of my subconscious and put them in order of ascending peculiarity."

"The subconscious is like a party in your head that you're not invited to. There's a black curtain in the way and velvet ropes and you hear cool music coming out of there sometimes."

"It is true that the subliminal in man is the largest part of his nature and has in it the secret of the unseeen dynamisms which explain his surface activities. But the lower vital subconscious which is all that this psycho-analysis of Freud seems to know, - and of that it knows only a few ill-lit corners, - is no more than a restricted and very inferior portion of the subliminal whole... to begin by opening up the lower subconscious, risking to raise up all that is foul or obscure in it, is to go out of one's way to invite trouble."

"The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth."

"Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over."

"Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes, and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives."

"By means of personal experimentation and observation, we can discover certain simple and universal truths. The mind moves the body, and the body follows the mind. Logically then, negative thought patterns harm not only the mind but also the body. What we actually do builds up to affect the subconscious mind and in turn affects the conscious mind and all reactions."

"The left ego is the master of consciousness; the right is master of the unconscious. And the relation between the two is not unlike the relation between Laurel and Hardy in the old movies. Ollie is the left brain, the boss. Stan takes his cues from Ollie. When Ollie is in a good mood, Stan is delighted. When Ollie is depressed, Stan is plunged into the depths of gloom. Stan is inclined to over-react. When Ollie wakes up on a wet Monday morning, he thinks: 'Damn, it's raining, and I've got a particularly dreary day in front of me . . .' Stan overhears this and sinks into depression. And -- since he controls the energy supply -- Ollie has that 'sinking feeling', and he feels drained of energy. This makes him feel worse than ever. As he walks out of the gate he bumps into a man who tells him to look where he is going, then trips over a crack in the pavement, then misses a bus just as he arrives at the stop, and thinks: 'This is going to be one of those days . . .' And again, Stan overhears, and feels worse than ever. by the end of the day, he may be feeling suicidal -- not because things have really been that bad, but because of a continual 'negative feedback' of gloom between the right and the left."

"Ends and purposes, whether they exist as conscious or subconscious tendencies, form the wrap and woof of our conscious experience."

"That word which all the Vedas record, which all penances proclaim, which men desire when they live as religious disciples, that word I tell thee briefly, it is OM."

"Om Mani Padme Hum, the sunrise comes! The Dewdrop Slips Into The Shining Sea!"

"Young (1987:132) assigns est to 'a family in which Arica, Assertiveness Training, Actualizations, Gestalt Therapy and several other psychologically oriented groups belong.' These, as well as Lifespring, Relationships, Self-Transformations, the Church of the Movement for Inner Spiritual Awareness/Insight and others, are what Paul Heelas terms 'self-religions.' For an investigation and analysis of Exegesis, an est derivative, see Heelas (1987)."

"In time, psychological expressivism declined, but the self-religions remained, resulting in the New Age as 'a relatively significant practical and cultural resource' within wider society."

"Enlightenment 'seminars', so to speak, have (largely) replaced LSD, self religions of the seminar variety now being of very considerable significance."

"They point to the spirituality that emerged from Rogerian therapy, Reichian therapy and psychodrama. They cite what they call self-religions like est and the followers of Bhagwan, both of which draw on Western therapeutic techniques and also put forward a form of Eastern spirituality."

"It was the psychological wing of this widespread and increasingly mainstream cultural development that was radicalized in the 'self-religions' (the most influential of which was est) which came to lie at the 'heart of the "New Age"'."

"New Age religions, televangelism and fundamentalist religious sects, and 'self-religionist' or self-actualization movements such as est (Erhard Seminars Training) and Scientology emerged to fill the empty place of any unifying or collective belief system for many Americans in the '80s."

"Beginning with the concern with self-expression in the 1970s, when cultural developments encouraged self-exploration, the New Age developed from what has been described as self-religions such as EST, a self-improvement method based on Erhard Seminars Training."

"To create a harmonious inner existence is a positive act with far-reaching effects, and not an act of isolation. To desire peace strongly is to help achieve it."

"The practices and self-identities of witchcraft are also distinguishable from Satanism. The groups introduced above are centrally concerned with individual growth and/or self-development. They are akin to New Age in that they are correctly identifiable as self-religions or self-spiritualities."

"Contemporary western witchcraft traditions are 'nature-religions' even when some of them are deeply interested in the self (e.g. Crowley 1989). The difference is that the 'self' for nature-religionists is relational, while it is thoroughly individual in self-religions."

"Like the NAM, many of the Self-religions (Heelas 1991) have been heavily influenced by Asian, and more generally Eastern, ideas of spirituality and divinity and do not acknowledge an external theistic being but, rather, use spiritual and psychological techniques to reveal the god within and/or the divine self. The Forum and/or est, whose origins are in the United States (Tipton 1982) holds to the belief that the self itself is god."

"The largest group of New Religious Movements – both in numbers of individual groups within it and in the diffused range of its overall influence within modern British life – is that clustered around the richly varied collection of 'self-religions', psychotherapies and New Age mysticism and alternative spiritualities. This large group may be broadly divided into two sub-groups, each of which is simply a clustering of often quite diverse movements around a similar overall theme. The first group consists of the 'self-religions' and religiously 'flavoured' psycho-therapies which have increasingly fluorished in the last twenty or thirty years. The self-religions have been characterized as 'movements which exemplify the conjunction of the exploration of the self and the search for significance'."

"If the range of religions on offer is a symptom of religious interest, then the second half of the twentieth century appears to rebut any suggestion that the West has become increasingly secular: the counter-culture of the 1960s produced an astonishing array of new religious movements (NRMs). The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (or ISKCON or Hare Krishna), Transcendental Meditation (or TM), the Divine Light Mission and the Healthy-Happy-Holy of Yogi Bhajan (a variant of Sikhism), were imports from the East. Others were what Paul Heelas has called 'self—religions': Erhard Seminar Training (or est, always spelt with lower—case letters), Insight, Exegesis, and Scientology were quasi—religious psychotherapies."

"I first give some indication of the extent to which the New Age (specifically est-like self religions) has entered the domain of business (specifically management)."

"Werner Erhard, a former used-car salesman, founded his Erhard Seminar Training system (EST) in 1971. He drew upon many sources in the development of his philosophy including Zen Buddhism, Dale Carnegie's Positive Thinking, L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology and Jose Silva's Silva Mind Control. Erhard's seminars were at first 60-hour courses over two weeks designed to give insights into the meaning of life; his philosophy has been described as 'the most important of the self religions' that developed in the 1970s and 1980s."

"Rupert (1992) discusses a range of cases where religious or philosophical ideas have been used to underpin business training seminars, including both movements which fall under the 'New Age' umbrella and the so-called 'self religions' such as the human potential movement, est, or Scientology."

"New Age communities appear to be driven more by a concern for individual spiritual growth than by collective concerns. A majority focus on teaching the various techniques for improving the quality of one's life and greater effectiveness by kindling the divine spark within. Transcendental meditation, the Self-religions (see Self-religion, The Self, and self) including The Forum, formerly est, Insight, The Life Training, the Silva Method of Mind Control, based largely on New Thought, Mind Dynamics, an offshoot of Silva Mind Control fall into this category."

"Paul Heelas, in his study of the New Age movement, includes firmly structured organizations such as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), Osho and the so-called 'self religions' such as est (Erhard Seminar Training), among others."

"Est is subsumed under 'other self-improvement groups'. The latter probably comprise groups for which Paul Heelas coined the term 'self-religions': groups which offer techniques and practices which encourage experience and perfection of the self (Heelas 1982; 1984; 1988)."

"The little research conducted on the outcomes of these seminars doesn't even find them effective at prompting positive change. Most participants find the experience profoundly moving — and many people believe that such an emotionally intense event must necessarily produce psychological improvement. Consequently, an overwhelming majority of participants, when surveyed afterward, say their lives were changed for the better. However, several studies (including one of Lifespring) have found that while participants say their LGAT experiences improve their lives, there was no positive effect, or a small, short-lived one, on their actual psychological problems and behavior."

"Self-religions have become in the West a part of a new monistic tradition that promotes exhaustive self-exploration."

"NRMs generally, and Religions of the True Self and/or Self-religions, which include Scientology and the NAM, can be considered new in several other senses."

"Self religions. A term devised by Paul Heelas to denote a group of religions and self-improvement organizations that aim to develop the 'self'."

"Religious issues aside, the pronounced psychological nature of many of the exercises within many of these programs is of concern. We cannot deny the fact that they grew out of the highly confrontational group therapy techniques introduced by the encounter, sensitivity, and large group awareness training movements."

"Some of the other procedures used in certain of the large group awareness training (LGAT) programs and their offshoots contain processes to humiliate people (they resemble fraternity hazing events)."

"The LGAT format can have advantages, mainly in terms of affordability and the powerful support of being in a crowd of like-minded people. However, they have their critics, who say that they offer a 'one-size-fits-all' approach, where the group leaders make assumptions about clients' problems, and have an excessive focus on defining interpersonal relationships as the central objective in life."

"Between 1971 and 1985, in particular, a number of LGAT groups gained large followings and subsequent notoriety and some are still active in the 1990s. LGAT groups included est and its offshoots such as Transformation Technologies and the Forum (Werner Erhard); Lifespring (John Hanley); Silva Mind Control (Jose Silva); Direct Centering (Gavin Barnes, aka Bayard Hora); Actualizations (Stewart Emery); ONE (Oury Engolz); Life Training (W.R. Whitten and K.B Brown); Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA) and Insight Seminars (John-Roger Hinkins); PSI World (Thomas D. Whilhite); and Arica Institute (Oscar Ichazo). This particular brand of New Age group gained significant access into the business world."

"On federal court orders, I have attended six large group awareness training sessions (sponsored by est, the Forum, Lifespring, and PSI World) and have interviewed dozens of persons who have attended these and such other programs as Silva Mind Control, Actualizations, and Direct Centering, as well as the myriad of other programs now available, some started by former employees and even, on occasion, attendees of the larger well-known LGATs. I have studied the training manuals and videos used to train trainers and have interviewed a number of trainers."

"Dennison's dissertation, which categorizes the Landmark Forum as a 'large group awareness training' is a qualitative study based on interviews with Forum graduates. He also reports predominantly positive outcomes and in addition, briefly summarizes philosophical components of the Forum."

"The extensive research literature on 'large group awareness training' published in the 1970s and 80s (summarized in Finkelstein, Wenegrat, and Yalom) is framed in psychological more than philosophical terms, albeit there is some reference to the training as existential psychotherapy."

"LGAT programs tend to last at least four days and usually five. They are described as seminars and sound very much like special college courses. The highly confrontational and psychological aspects generally are not mentioned beforehand. Nor it is mentioned that a whole new theory of how the world works will be inculcated in attendees."

"Both est and Landmark Forum could be classified as LGATs (large group awareness trainings), a sociological grouping that includes neuro-linguistic programming, Insight Training Seminars (see the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness), and a whole plethora of sales and motivational courses."