The Racket of transformation, transformational methods, programs, potions, transmissions, pills revealed
Warning: I use all my articles as a vehicle for me to muddle through issues, to gain clarity, to distill the truth, to separate illusion from reality.
This article goes through a meandering path… and unless you follow the path closely, you won’t get to the result and get the same clarity, so you will be wasting your time.
If you don’t have the time to read this article attentively, don’t read it, it will make no sense in the end.
The juice is in the detail, the juice is in the journey, the scenery one can see… You’ve been warned.
Humanity lives in quiet desperation. Everyone. Even the rich and famous. They are aimless, purposeless, dissatisfied, judgmental, jealous and envious, craving love, craving sex, craving belonging, craving a sense of meaning. At times more than at others.
Was it always like this? Before our time? I don’t know. I actually think so. But I can’t know. My memories of another life are just memories, me-centered, so I don’t know what life was like for people. I know in every past life memory I lived in quiet desperation.
But life was life then, and people didn’t think it should be or could be any different.
But then something happened, at the beginning of the 20th Century, and it all changed.
The age of “transformation”, the age of self-development, the age of self-improvement came upon us, and that is where we live. Hundreds of books were written, the master key, the secrets, the science of… all at the same time.
How did it happen so fast? I don’t know. I have a guess. I have a feeling that it was introduced by advertising, by the new mediums (at the time), radio and TV. And the profitable industry, the racket of self-improvement began… and it’s raging.
On Tuesday, two days ago I had an unexpected insight: self-improvement, transformation the way it is taught is a racket. Profitable racket. But a racket nevertheless. The methods don’t work, or work just a little while, so people buy again and again… in hopes that eventually it will stick and they will be happy. All rackets have an addictive back end to them: sex, power, drugs, alcohol, transformation, enlightenment… very addictive. Much like heroin.
What is transformation?
Transformation is a fundamentally new state in which the paradigm shifts, the worldview shifts, the self image shifts, and therefore the actions, the feelings, the results shift accordingly…
Transformation can be temporary or permanent. In an LSD trip all elements of transformation are there… and the results may last for an hour, a day, a week. Then evrything returns to normal.
I a lasting, or permanent transformation life changes and therefore the individual adapts. You don’t have to change: life changes for you, so it can last.
Why transformation? Why not change?
Changes come from the mind. The changes that the mind initiates are based on the same paradigm, the same thinking that causes the problem it is trying to fix with the change.
But fix, the “solution to the problem” is not a real solution, it is in fact the next, bigger problem.
Let’s look at an example of fixing a problem, mine.
I have been struggling with my weight since I was about 10 years old.
Before that I was skinny. I ate what I wanted, and didn’t eat what was put in front of me.
If my mother gave me a sandwich, I would take all that was inside and eat the bread. Or sometimes I would eat the cold cut. But I would never eat the whole thing.
I could not explain, but it didn’t feel right to me.
I was punished, daily, often at every meal.
We would go to a bakery every Sunday, but I would not touch the pastry they got for me. It didn’t appeal to me.
I entered puberty at age 9. I know it’s early. But that was what it was. Then about 50 days later a war-like situation happened, and there was no food, and there was shooting in the streets.
My mother and older brother went to stand in line to get some handouts from a nearby embassy…
The food was pasta. I could not separate the sauce from the noodles… so, the first time in my life I ate something that didn’t appeal to me.
The rest is history: digestion and stomach problems and weight problems.
I didn’t find out that my body was telling me (when I allowed it to talk to me before age 9) that my stomach doesn’t know how to deal with mixed food: it wants me to eat just one thing at a time.
The solution to my hunger created 60 years of sore belly and stomach.
And weight issues. A problem for a girl… so I tried to solve it. A hundred times.
Each time I failed solving the problem permanently: I put back the weight as soon as I stopped dieting.
In my case, it is easier to see that a weight loss diet is not a solution to my weight problem, the underlying issue is eating counter to what my body wants.
Transformation, real transformation happens when you take a step in the direction of your true self, in the direction Life wants you to go.
I have returned to eating the way I was meant to eat, and as long as I eat that way, I am pain free and I am thinner.
Some of the fat will never melt away, so my job is to accept that I am now this bigger girl permanently.
Now, that we got what WE mean by transformation, living in accordance, in harmony with what the Life Force wants you to live like… we can look at why I say that the business of transformation is a racket.
What is a racket?
The word racket was born from Organized Crime.
Organized Crime, like the mob and maffia, and triad, controls illegal trade, drugs, sex, weapons, child prostitution, pornography, illegal duplication of copyrighted or trademark stuff… illegal gambling, sports betting… etc.
These are all rackets. Sinister, and illegal.
To hide it from the authorities, they always have a front. A legal front. Another business. A coffee shop, a greeting card shop, a real estate company: any store or business that looks legal.
The front the business is just that, a front.
The real profit is made in the back rooms, in the card rooms, in the weapons stores, etc.
So that is “racket”. A business that has a front and a back… that are not the same business.
How is the business of transformation a racket?
In modalities offering transformation, the front is addressing the legitimate need of people for a meaningful, joy filled life. Or to lose weight.
The front sells courses, seminars, coaching, supplements, tools, courses, gym equipment, potions, energy transmissions, chanting, revivals, and such. (Religion is a racket! The front offers salvation, the back really sells control, the de-fleecing of the people, the political power to the few)
Most things don’t work, or don’t work the way they are advertised.
They work on some, some of the time.
Most are hype. The testimonials are fake, and the results are manufactured, or temporary.
Much like weight loss diets. The pictures show a before and after picture, but if you look, one in a thousand manages to drop enough weight to be photographed, and one in a million keeps it off…
I participated in Landmark Education’s programs for 26 years.
I participated in the Kabbalah Centre’s programs in 7 years.
I participated in Peak Potential’s programs in 6 years.
When I started my “Raise Your Vibration” business I just followed the model they had. I didn’t know what else to do. I knew there should be a “bridge” between knowledge and action, because I was the same way, but I didn’t know how to create a bridge. None of the courses I have ever taken in the self-improvement arena, or the marketing arena, ever offered to do that. Even coaches do only talking… they never actually work with you, hands on, to help you do it. Showing is not enough, not for most people. Not for me… and obviously not for my students.
Although I also managed to produce some “flash in the pan” 1 results, the results over time were pitiful.
I was taught marketing the same way: lecture and homework… I am still a lousy marketer. May be able to recite the lesson, but the results are minimal or none.
An entirely different teaching method: teaching by doing it together, one-on-one
But I had a different experience with learning designing buildings as an architect. This is the same way as you learned to ride a bicycle, drive a car: someone was there to make sure you are doing and learning it the right way, so you learn not about it, but it… doing it right.
The teaching method in my architecture school was also learning through doing it, and doing it right. But not doing it alone, there was a “tutor” 2 assigned to every architecture student. We did it together. At the end of your studies you didn’t know if your talent or your tutor’s talent was demonstrated in the finished plan.
Other parts of architecture, like calculations of weight bearing structures, or architectural detail was taught the traditional way. You learn at a lecture and you are supposed to do it, alone, at home.
I remained lousy at those aspects.
I left architecture because of the “impostor syndrome”. I knew I was full of crap: I knew that I had holes in my knowledge, I knew that the clients should not trust me.
I could not live with myself. Guilt, shame, “I will be found out” were plaguing me.
I left architecture, and started life from nothing, less than nothing. I knew one thing: “without integrity nothing works”. So I allowed nothing to take me off the path of integrity… most of this path.
Integrity is personal. You can’t say anything relevant about another person’s integrity, because integrity is the function of your conscience, which is like a compass, point to True North.
Some people have more tolerance to being off the path than others.
Some people have more tolerance to feeling bad about themselves before they true their direction.
I obviously had “hope” sustain me for a few years now: “It must work, it has to work, otherwise how could all those companies sell those expensive courses and live with themselves!” Said hope.
But I got, subtly, more subdued, more depressed by the day. I had to confront the fact that the method of transformation I am so trained in, I am so facile at delivering, I so generously give away, doesn’t cause lasting transformation, not really.
The method is a “do it for you” method. I will show you and hope that you will distinguish what is holding you back, distinguish what is the invisible part of reality, distinguish what is the illusion, and then with the distinction a real transformation will happen, a transformation that will last, and last and last, a transformation you can build on. This is the method I learned and I do so well… it doesn’t work that well. You do not see clearly, and you don’t act on the new insight, your story, your world doesn’t change enough so it can’t go back to “normal” which is miserable.
I contemplated, I considered packing it in, and starting something new that isn’t based on me hoping that it will work.
I had an advertised program, the Playground, but I even considered canceling it. Nothing works, was my sad feeling… and that was it for me. I realized that I had been depressed for quite some time, that I had lived the past year in quiet desperation and hope.
I started to use the Harmonize audio: somehow I knew I had to get back to basics.
And then on Tuesday afternoon everything changed.
I didn’t cancel the Playground. People liked it, and I liked it too… I could see (not hope) that even just one session made a huge difference: it created a sudden glimpse for people at the underlying cause of the story they live.
I realized that unless you change your stories, your life cannot change, you cannot have real, lasting transformation, only flash in the pan results, relief from pressure, but not a new you in a new life.
The Playground is not a profitable enterprize, it is not a good candidate for a profitable racket. It requires me to be there, it requires me to work on MY stuff, not just sit there as a know-it-all, there is no teaching, so I don’t feel so darn smart and superior.
I can’t price it high, because people then won’t come… because real results, real transformation is so rare: they don’t quite believe the promises any more.
It also doesn’t cause instant results, the results show up, imperceptibly, over time. Others will see it before the participant does.
I have to force people to choose every time, for every session, or I will add to their out of integrity: the “standard” is that people pay and don’t show in many other programs.
But I’d rather live from hand to mouth than to have people’s money based on undeliverable, impossible, but very seductive promises.
Yesterday I found myself laughing a lot.
The levity that returned to me after Tuesday is amazing: as if I had lost a rock that I was carrying tied around my neck.
I am not a racketeer any more… Finally I have a program that I can be 100% sure it works. Phew… what a relief.
Now I am confident that you’ll get what you signed up for… and the same with my energy products. My energy products always worked… but people expected them to be like a pill…
Many of my energy products work without any restrictions: the Heaven on Earth, The Energizer, the Harmonizer: there is no requirement that you have a high vibration. They work, and the results are predictable and amazing.
Can an energy product cause lasting transformation?
The energy products look and feel transformative, but they cause temporary transformation: your vibration will rise. Your mood will rise, Your body feel better and younger. It will be easier to be with people, easier to think, easier to accept stuff, easier to sleep, easier to face the monster within… But the moment you stop taking them or using them, the results will disappear.
The only kind of transformation that can last is changing your story.
And so far I have only learned one way to do it: to do it continuously, and do it under the supervision of someone who won’t buy into your story… and that is the Playground.
I am going to concentrate my efforts on the Playground. And continue offering the energy products as a tool to make the transformation easier.
I am myself working through some of the stories I have never gotten to, some of the deep-set beliefs I took as the truth.
I feel energized, I feel optimistic, I feel renewed.
I have a plan. I am happy. I have returned to the True North in every area of my life.
PS: My vision, the future. What’s possible with this new insight?
I have a vision of having as many Playground groups in the world as many AA groups. I am starting to train the group leaders as soon as next week.
Is this a business? Is this a cottage industry? Or is this labor of love?
I’d rather that this is a labor of love, and a tool to continue their own transformation, for people. I have watched many “practitioners” making the bulk of their money from aspiring teachers or practitioners: Theta Healing, Reiki, Landmark Education, Network Chiropractic, etc. etc.
The problem with those “modalities” and techniques is always the same: even if the originator could do something useful (most of these are useless to begin with, but some are useful… to a degree!) the initiates, the disciples, the students lack that little thing the originator has. They also misunderstand it. Because it is mostly an understanding thing… and of course the derivative doesn’t work… And the disciples want to make money with it, after all that’s why they paid the big bucks to learn it! And the useless methods flood the market. The typical scenario in the MLM (Network Marketing) schemes: it applies to people’s greed coupled with their sense of insignificance… bingo, you get an MLM distributor, a Reiki practitioner, and such.
So, I’d rather that Playground group leaders can’t and won’t charge for their services beyond the small fee I am charging… not enough for the rent of the room if you need to rent a room…
