Thursday, January 15, 2009

Going to Work Naked

I don't know who wrote this and what the hell does it do in such a lurid newsgroup as ARS, but I like it:-) Thus repost... Maybe it will eventually lead to something on-topic later, but anyway the journey so far is not bad either...

Going to Work Naked: My Journey to Byron Katie (1) - alt.religion.scientology | Google Groups


Update Jan 15
: I received the following email from Carol:

You have an article of mine on your blog, "Going to Work Naked," which is copyright protected. Please take it down immediately.

Carol L. Skolnick, Clear Life
Solutions
Certified Facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie
831-425-1870
"Open mind, clear life."

So I took down the article, even though it was only Part 1 which I think is a good enticement to the rest of THE WORK, and as such I think could be considered faire Use.

Anyway, in the meantime I changed my mind a bit about the whole thing. I did like Part 1, but the subsequent parts did not quite live up to my expectations. As Monica so wittingly said: " I think I'll pass, since it sounds like the food at her seminars is just horrible".

The link to ARS still to THE WORK (sic) because the posts seems to be still there. You'll have to take it up with Google, Carol. By all means, I am not going to bother linking to subsequent parts if ever they get posted.


Going to Work Naked: My Journey to Byron Katie (2) - alt.religion.scientology | Google Groups
Going to Work Naked: My Journey to Byron Katie (3) - alt.religion.scientology | Google Groups
Going to Work Naked: My Journey to Byron Katie (4) - alt.religion.scientology | Google Groups
Going to Work Naked: My Journey to Byron Katie (5) - alt.religion.scientology | Google Groups

9 comments:

Monica Pignotti said...

I also noticed it on ARS and was wondering how it was on-topic. The only thing I could come up with is that possibly a Scientologist posted it, thinking the "psycho-surgery" was literally psycho-surgery and that this was some form or psychiatric abuse even though Katie is not a psychiatrist or any kind of mental health professional.
There is also this posting about Katie on a blog from someone who attended one of her seminars:
http://guruphiliac.blogspot.com/2008/02/byron-katie-is-either-going-to.html

Bernie said...

I scanned the other pages in the series and saw something like Carol saying she has been in a cult before and that bothered her still etc. I think that may be the link.

I liked the first page but afterward it did not look the same quality, nor really bad, but anyway it seems a kind of rough encounter group, not my style anyway.

My current preference still goes to Eckart Tolle.

In a way I doubt anybody ever get enlightened through this or other practices. I don't think there is a relation. Enlightenment seems to be something that just happens. You can not provoke it. Does not mean it can not be fun to meditate or do all kind of personal development seminars and maybe even people learn something through them too.

Rebecca Hartong said...

It's surprising that Carol got in such a snit about you posting an excerpt of her multi-part "story", since pretty clearly, she post it to ARS mainly to drum up some business. (You see from her .sig that she's a "Certified Facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie". I mean, the more exposure she gets, the more likely it is that someone will ring her up to lead them through "The Work". But I guess being a "Certified Facilitator" is no guarantee of being a smart business-person.

I actually did read through all of her posts that you've linked to so far and it got me curious enough about this Byron Katie person to check out her web site(s). "The Work" appears to be, most of all, an unnecessarily convoluted form of cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy has, indeed, been shown to be really effective in treating a lot of different psychological problems -- but, if I were going to get it, I think I'd see someone with an actual degree in psychology or social work who could provide the pure therapy without all the goofy extra trappings and high cost.

Bernie said...

I am not sure that she was the one who posted it in ARS. It appears at first sight to have been posted anonymously through a remailer. Furthermore, if you click on the profile of the account that posted it, it says "This account has been banned because it violated the Google Groups Terms Of Use. "

I suppose she filed a complain with Google who then banned the account. I am not sure why Google didn't also pull the article off. Maybe they'll do that later.

Anyway, I didn't think that posting this small part 1 was a big violation. As you say, it could have been a good enticement for a possible clientele.

My guess is that she just doesn't want it discussed on the Internet. She seems to be doing already through traditional channels plus her web site and blog, taking into account that she has given hundreds of seminars already. What prompted the anonymous poster to post it in ARS I can't fathom either.

It all is a bit mysterious.

For me too, doing this kind of seminar or something else along that line is not really my thing. Maybe it does some good to some people. I don't know if it could do some bad. I have seen quite a lot of stuff in my life, and done a few myself, and I think humans are quite a resilient breed. As long as they freely chose to do it, that's fine with me, even though I'll not do it for myself.

Anonymous said...

good day to you.
perhaps the connection to Scientology can be found in the name of the internet site Clear Life.

as we know, in Scientology, they desire to reach their celebrated state called Clear.

and according to the internet library record, this article about working naked with Byron katie has already been on the internet for many years, avaliable for free on the Clear internet website.


http://web.archive.org/web/20060813134641/www.clearlifesolutions.com/freeresources.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20060813134641/http://www.clearlifesolutions.com/files/WorkNaked06.pdf

Rebecca Hartong said...

Ah... it never occurred to me that it wasn't the original author who had posted it. Hm... yeah. You're probably right. It was probably someone else and that's why she didn't want it reposted.

As I think about it a bit more, I suppose The Work is "sort of" like auditing. Sort of. In a small part, it looks like it's partly a kind of abreactive therapy -- numbing oneself to upsetting thoughts and feelings. Still... not much like Scientology or other "clearing" technologies, as I understand them.

Bernie said...

"perhaps the connection to Scientology can be found in the name of the internet site Clear Life."

Hmm.... Yes but then Clear is also commonly used in the spiritual field as per its original meaning. Carol does mention she was in a cult before but it's not clear ;-) which one. Might be that whoever posted it chose ARS because of its past copyright history. Really not sure what the reason may be.

"As I think about it a bit more, I suppose The Work is "sort of" like auditing. Sort of. In a small part, it looks like it's partly a kind of abreactive therapy -- numbing oneself to upsetting thoughts and feelings. Still... not much like Scientology or other "clearing" technologies, as I understand them."

Ultimately virtually all spiritual/psychological processes end up with a sort of no-thought state or freedom from thought or from a particular emotion stemming from memory, so we could find common elements with many things on this basis.

One thing that is not like auditing is its confrontational aspect. When you sit in the PC chair, you feel very much the center of attention. The whole thing is very soft, as the auditor does not evaluate, and there is someone there who fully pays attention to you and listen to your problems. You feel very safe. It definitely is at odd with processes based on challenging your ego to break off from its normal thought pattern.

This being said, you are still left with your own past which you do have to confront. Past and fixed ideas, and this may feel uncomfortable too. These may be things that people find difficult to talk about, for their own personal reasons. So, in a way, you also end up being "naked" and in this sense there is a similarity.

"numbing oneself to upsetting thoughts "

That's not how I would personally describe it. Numbing would imply that the thought is still there but as been of sort repressed or desensitized.

With auditing, as per my subjective experience of it, the thought or upset is completely gone. It just does not exist anymore. I believe this is the reason why many Scientologists, even those who quit the CoS and continue in the Freezone, swear by the "The Tech".

I believe that up to a certain point, the tech does work. The mistake of Hubbard was to turn it into an all-encompassing universal solution and embark into making promises which Scientology obviously cannot deliver - plus of course adding to it his own monstrous ego and cultish thought. That's how it turned into a cult.

OTOH, that's also part of the reason Scientology keeps on going whereas the Freezone itself seems to mostly crash down. It's a bit like what I was trying to say with my black and white post. The fact that it is made in such a black and white saga is part of what brings life to it, otherwise it would just be a therapy like the others and won't be something that provides you with a sense of mission.

In part it seems to apply to The Work too, because it seeks to break down and turn over any comfortable and familiar thought patterns that keep us entrapped in the mind. And so it's very radical too. More than Eckart Tolle, I would align it with Gurdieff. This is exactly the sort of things he would have setup as a seminar. Besides, he used "The Work" as an expression himself (see http://www.cesnur.org/2001/london2001/wellbeloved.htm.

Taking things a bit or much further, I would say that this is what Anonymous seeks to do in part too, when they take everything they can think of, and especially the most entrenched ideas, and turn them into total derision. I am speaking of the 4chan guys here, not the "moralfags" inhabiting the WhyWeBWAAAAA forum. The moralfags indeed, being under the judgmental thumb of the old guard have turned in the opposite of the original Anonymous idea, even though they borrowed and still use some of their concepts (mask, caek, lulz, whatever).

IMHO :-)

Anonymous said...

hi, wanted to find this blog again to read the comments, and for some reason this blog entry about working Naked, is not in the Googling search engine anymore.

it was there before, and now its not. is that normal?

Bernie said...

It's not normal but I have the same problem with one of my recent web page. I meant to write Google about it. Maybe I will included this instance too. It may lead to a clue. Thanks for letting me know!