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

A fest for u

"mind valley" kind of makes me picture this brain with a big chunk missing on top, in the shape of a valley.

Uncanny mind valley.

rising_wedge_of_head.gif

my mom (former Andrew Cohen follower) forwarded this to me, "warning" me that it refers to Cohen's group as a cult (as if I care). She's moved on to some other guy, Thomas something.

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

I am fine with not being radically anything tbh

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5621346ce4b0a2db4626f7d9/t/56291530e4b0337fcee1ecbe/1445532976554/Book+Cover+Picture.jpg?format=1500w

i'm pretty sure i've discovered the new snorg girl

technically NSFW photos:

http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a16297/inside-the-worlds-chicest-cult/

Fun article. Feels like it's the inverse of fedora types, defending "traditional" (recent invention) ideas of gender while being blissfully unaware that times have changed and you can't get away with that stuff anymore. They'll probably do less harm with the feminine caring sharing motherhood emphasis than the patriarchys HULK SMASH but they seem to be coming from the same instinct.

http://www.audible.com/pd/Self-Development/The-Code-of-the-Extraordinary-Mind-Audiobook/B01DFKNHI8

05-24-16
"Just a 10 hour advertisement for the $1000 program"

What disappointed you about The Code of the Extraordinary Mind?
It's not truly a program or any sort of "help" book but is, instead, just an advertisement for the paid resources on the authors website. It's like a rap song. He spends the book saying how great and rich he is to gain some credibility to refer you to the paid programs on his website.

What could Vishen Lakhiani have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?
Offered some of the program, even a shortened version so I could learn something or try his ideas.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?
It goes quickly, his voice is fine.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from The Code of the Extraordinary Mind?
Most of the anecdotal stories that seem to just be excuses to drop some names to impress the listener. Very little point in the constant stories of all the famous people he's met.

Any additional comments?
This is the most disappointing purchase I've made on Audible. I feel like I just spent the last 3 days in an Amway presentation.

16 of 20 people found this review helpful

Vishen... c'mon man

Not quite the same arena but the mini-cults of personality that have popped up around certain podcast celebrities and writers is fascinating. They're all sort of Trumpy and paleo and whine about SJWs even when it doesn't seem to have anything to do with their schtick. Random Sam Wang tweet tonight had some guy who immediately started in on "well, you just haven't read Nassim Taleb's argument against GMOs" then repeating himself that you'd understand IF ONLY YOU HAD READ LORD TALEB'S PAPERS.

Sam Harris gets the same "well if only you had READ THIS" veneration and outrage if you point out that basically no one respects his attempts at philosophy. Bunch of schmucks who were on the Joe Rogan podcast have turned this into an entire ecosystem. My favorite are professors who whine about not moving up in academia and blame it on conspiracies against them and being 'too popular with students.'

super otm

ppl are really into trying to find an organizing principle or source of truth to contextualize their decisions and instead of traveling evangelist preachers with road shows we end up with Joe Rogan's podcast and Taleb mocking people for not being swole

I accidentally engaged with Thaddeus Russell because he popped up under something trending a month ago with "drug laws effect white men too, why don't they ever mention THAT when they're talking about incarceration rates huh" and tapped out after he wouldn't respond to "whynotboth.gif"

haha wait I want to know more about nassem talib mocking people for not being swole

https://mobile.twitter.com/nntaleb/status/748232335536037888?lang=en

he apparently talks about weightlifting and uses it to mock people all the time

That's some straight up Nazi shit tbh

that is amazing. quel flâneurisme!

ha i forget which thread it's on but i've posted a bunch of these -- searching his feed for "deadlift" is great, every one a gem

Someone should counter-troll asking why he's too much of a wuss to do yoke carries or Atlas Stones.

great recent post from ya boy vishen

Confession: for the past 12 months I had been going through extreme stress without realising it. When a doctor mapped by brain and told me I was showing the brainwave patterns of CEO’s facing burnout, I refused to believe it. I’m one of the world’s top meditation advocates. This can’t be happening to me. The machine’s busted. I thought. Mindvalley had a spectacular year and I was having fun. What could be the problem?

omg link plz

ah the classic "im CEO-level stressed because im so busy and important" humblebrag.

https://www.facebook.com/mindvalley/posts/1606646776046995

omg tpp left out the best part, the list of experiments our thought expert has undergone

although I am wondering why "trying nootropics" is something he has only tried after
"Injected Stem Cells into my body to repair nerves and help improve brain performance. (painful)"

Here's some fucking scary shit:

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/NXIVM-secretive-group-where-women-are-branded-12288356.php

yikes.

also lol of course the dude who made WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW got roped in.

i clicked on this very clickbaity story, and then boom there it was, 11th paragraph

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-mysterious-death-of-a-tantric-sex-guru

“Like Mindvalley’s A-Fest” is a good punchline. I’m sorry about that lady though.

julia allison has been getting into all this stuff, if any of you remember her

as a journalist, thought leader, or follower?

as a selfie-taker mostly

so i guess """"journalist""""

i once blabbed to n!t@$h4 t!ku at a party for half an hour about mindvalley and awesomeness fest and begged her to investigate and write something.

Malaysian friend of mine who had been mostly smoking pot in the USA in the decade-plus since he came here for college moved back to Malaysia and was INSTANTLY sucked into this world. Within a month of being back there he was all sharp suit and haircut, "personal branding", an "entrepreneur" without a business or product, the whole nine yards.

Thing is, though, it kinda seems like it's working for him? He looks genuinely happy, even if he does post rah-rah MLM bullshit on Facebook ten times a day. I hate to think about how much money is being leeched from him by whatever organization has their hooks in him (dude seems to be at "seminars" every other week), but he really seems to be doing better emotionally than when his life consisted of pot, minimum wage, and GTA5.

Another NXIVM story.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/is-nxivm-a-cult-what-we-know-w512261

via dayo:

http://voicecult.org/

https://medium.com/@bescofield/tech-bro-guru-inside-the-sedona-cult-of-bentinho-massaro-a56314f830ef

I can read things like that and they seem incredibly troubling but it's hard to tell the number of people who are really invested as opposed to ones who attend more lightweight life coaching junk and meditation sessions? I hope it's mostly that, but the idea of that many people being into some young narcissist screaming at them about him being the godhead is almost too much

this article makes me feel like humanity really has to be at peak up-our-own-asses

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/15/improving-ourselves-to-death

In December, with the end of their project approaching, Spicer reflects that he has spent the year focussing on himself to the exclusion of everything, and everyone, else in his life. His wife is due to give birth to their second child in a few days; their relationship is not at its best. And yet, he writes, “I could not think of another year I spent more of my time doing things that were not me at all.” He doesn’t feel like a better version of himself. He doesn’t even feel like himself. He has been like a man possessed: “If it wasn’t me, who was it then?”

yes, I meant to link that article the other day. enjoyed it a lot, though I would have welcomed an even more scorched-earth approach

I had to lol because I thought that was about Sean Spicer for a minute

Me too!!!

this guy, whom I used to work with, still spams me:

http://akeynotespeaker.com

http://www.worldofbuzz.com/heres-need-know-viral-milo-sugar-controversy/

i'm .. not sure i want to click on that url

it's not about *that* milo

it is from a site that wants you to turn on notifications, which, sigh