This is a long post – but one that explains the beginning of how people initially and blindly get drawn into joining Real Love, and how the practices used and employed are ALL well-known, and well-used practices that ALL the large and small, known and unknown cult groups have used and do still do use to this day. Life Coaching does not employ these methods and neither do professionally trained and qualified psychological, psychiatric, mental health or other therapeutic practitioners. As this is long, I am breaking it up into more than one post, as there is a lot to digest. I share this first-hand knowledge for the simple reason to warn people what is really going on with this group and to stop any more families from being broken apart, relationship separations happening and all the other emotionally destructive stuff that takes over the people pulled into doing RL in full and not only ruining their lives but taking control of their minds without them realising it!
How do you find yourself being pulled into a cult?
If we’re strong willed, level headed and have a clue about what cult behaviour looks like we don’t get pulled into one. In fact, we run to the hills as fast as we can, we warn others and we stay away. If we’re going through some major life transition though or have a lot of confusion going on, are dealing with a relationship break up, or are vulnerable in some way and therefore not really at our best, we can EASILY get pulled-in. The most intelligent and savvy of people DO get pulled in – not always immediately but eventually. These are the most cherished people to have in a cult – particularly if you have a good job, are an upstanding member of the community etc. The emotionally weak and vulnerable can also be pulled in as they don’t really have their wits about them – but from a cult perspective, unless they are outwardly mentally unwell, they are great candidates for their minds are very easily manipulated. And sadly the most ordinary of people with nothing much going on in their lives and who are not vulnerable, not gullible, but are at a stage in their life where they may be ‘seeking’. For some this is mid-life. The seeking of more meaning to life, of answers to why so many bad things happened in their life, why they have made so many bad mistakes, etc. People who want to change, to be a better person, a better parent, a better friend; just a better human being all round. Seeking for a more relaxed, loving, whole, fulfilled life. All these are the types of people are drawn into a cult. And they are great fodder for cults because they either WANT change in their life, or NEED a change in their life (or both)!! And RealLove are more than happy to provide that change!
So, if we’re not the highly strong willed type and we don’t have our head screwed fully on at a certain period in our life then how do we tell if we are actually getting involved in a cult? We can’t. But, our family, friends, co-workers, children, extended friends and even complete strangers and acquaintances WILL be able to tell us that we are. They’ll pick up on things straight away and be suggesting, almost begging in some cases, for us to STOP our involvement. But we won’t believe them. The reason why we won’t believe them lies in what happens during our first few encounters with the cult group – this is why it is highly recommended that before engaging in joining a group of any sort (whether through ‘Meet Ups’ or other methods) that you check out the name of the group on cult websites – such as this one. If you attend a meeting without doing so you need to check the websites afterwards and ask around for advice about what you have encountered, what was said and done etc. and despite the fact that the ‘group’ were all ‘really lovely people’ and ‘very loving’ you need to listen carefully to these objective outsider viewpoints, and do your research! And if you never return then these lovely people won’t miss you as they’re used to most people fleeing anyway, and they’ll be more people going along for them to try and drag in to their net. So, PLEASE, trust the instincts of everyone in your life who know you and love you – NOT the total strangers in this group who have demonstrated this overwhelming show of love. It’s not real. Even if you’ve had the worst of family relationships your family will still tell you the truth about seeing a group as a bad or a good thing for you, and especially if they feel it is a cult. They DO have your best interests at heart. But the fact remains that once we’ve gone along to two sessions and we’ve made a decision to return – it’s too late. If we don’t run by the first or second group session then we’re well on the way to being GROOMED for full membership and all that goes with it. And we don’t realise that we are being pulled into a cult because of one massively BIG reason – which we ourselves cannot see or perceive. And this is because we are being subjected to MIND-CONTROL techniques – also known as coercive persuasion and psychological influence. Unless you’ve read up on this stuff and can spot it happening you are not able to identify these techniques and so fall victim to them. That is why you need to speak about them and what happened at a group meeting, so that other people can hear objectively about it all and share their objective perspective.
This is most definitely what happens in RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered). As has been clearly shown on this thread and the one in “Large Group Awareness Training: Human Potential” under the title 'quote, unquote "Real Love"-$$$' – you will understand that RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered) poses as a Life Coaching organisation, but actually does unqualified psychological therapy (psychological re-evaluation), is structured and operates as a cult, and all while disguised as a registered charity (or a Foundation in the UK).
Note that if ANY group meeting you attend uses ANY of the following techniques that they are indeed a CULT GROUP – bona fide organisations DO NOT use these tactics.
So, what happens in the very first encounters with RealLove ©(Trademark Registered) ? We may either have read the first book by the founder Dr Greg Baer (a former eye surgeon) and be inspired to seek a group to go to, to learn more about what’s in the book. We may have been given the book by someone ‘doing RealLove’ and they may be raving about it and all enthusiastic about how you NEED to have this organisation in your life etc. how it changed them for the better blablabla. Don’t believe anyone doing RealLove © (Trademark, Registered) as they are fully mentally manipulated. I will not and cannot say brainwashed, as that is a different technique and is enforced by force, torture etc. They may be quite pushy and forceful, and go on and on and on proselytizing non-stop. Don’t engage with them, just take the book and go along with them. You do not have to read it. But if you do, that is fine – take what resonates and embrace all that is useful to you, but remember that you do not need to do the groups, or purchase the whole program. You DO NOT need to get fully involved at all. There is very little to offer outside of the books. They entice you to believe there is more, which can only be found by doing the full RL program – but the reality is that by doing their program you will not find the ‘more’ you are looking for, because there isn’t any. There are no other special answers. It’s the same stuff from the books rehashed over and over again. Be careful because the books themselves are working to convince us that RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered) is actually genuine, perfect, unconditional love. Don’t fall for this ploy. Best just take what’s useful and hand the book back or better still, throw it away. This is not a book (or books) you’d want to keep on the bookshelf to read again. Except if you are ‘doing RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered)’ by which you WILL be reading them over and over as part of the full immersion process.
If you come to RealLove©(Trademark, Registered) through reading one of the books first you will end up at some point curious to attend a group session. Or, you may be looking on the ‘Meet Ups’ website and find an RL group. You may find this group without ever knowing about the books and be drawn in by the idea of having a better and more loving life – and most especially, if your life has been one that has been fraught with sadness, relationship disasters etc. However, there may be others who come to experience RL purely because they meet and start dating someone who is doing it. The person they are dating may be just doing RL groups or doing the full RL program and so at some point you might be pulled in to attend an RL group meeting. You may not feel drawn to even want to go, because you feel quite happy and content with your life. However, regardless of how together you are, how level-headed, how happy and loved you feel, how whole and content you are – the RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered) Group meeting will set out to CHANGE all that. You will be led to believe that your life is a complete sham and that you have NEVER been unconditionally loved in your entire life, and especially not now. You will be subjected to MIND-CONTROL techniques that will completely alter your sense of self and well-being to the negative. And there are people on both RL threads on this website who can attest to the power of what attending a couple of RL groups can do to completely change someone's life!
You go along. You get a lovely welcome at the door. Everyone is super happy to see you. I mean SUPER happy to see you. You are most likely going to be given a great BIG and LONG hug. It is one of the principles of RealLove©(Trademark, Registered). Everyone doing the group must each hug one another LONG and BIG before the group begins, and at the conclusion of the group. This is NOT by any means the genuine expression of hugging which is led by the heart to embrace someone and give them your love and energy. This is a process. The group begins with a ‘Check In’ where each person states how they feel there and then – what their day or week has been like, how bad they’ve been or felt or what they’ve said, and what they would like to share (usually a truth about them self) if they feel that they need to. As each person speaks up you feel straight away how much RealLove focuses on negative behaviours and how much RL jargon and loaded language is used to describe people’s behaviours, feelings, actions and attitudes. Rarely is anything positive and good shared – but when it is there is attached to it a sense of guilt and shame or some sort of negativity is pulled out. There is a lot of dwelling on past behaviours and events, situations and interactions with other people – not just for the day or past week, but within people’s lives in general.
The people who want to ‘share a truth’ start to tell their truths about their ‘Getting and Protecting Behaviours’ that they have used. Truths that should remain private in some instances, at least with close family or friends; or certain other truths that really should be dealt with by a health professional so that the person can learn to fully understand and come to terms with it. Sharing something deeply personal or shameful about yourself in a group setting can be freeing to some extent, but true healing will not take place without qualified help from health professionals. In the RL group situation the telling of truths means you are now free – you are accepted by others (despite your rotten deeds) – and therefore you are loved. This is the RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered) philosophy. Tell the truth – you are then seen – once you are seen for who you are you can be accepted (without criticism, judgement etc.) = you are loved. That’s it. If you are ‘doing RL’ then when you tell a truth, not only are you seen, accepted and loved, but you are ‘really loved’ which means ‘unconditionally loved’ which means that your RL daddy or mummy loves you so everything is alright. For example, you can state that you have been nasty and vindictive all day to everyone and caused a lot of hurt and heartache to everyone whose lives you touched – but that’s all completely okay because you weren’t loved properly as a child, but your RL daddy loves you, so everything is fine. You are not accountable. You are not responsible. You don’t have to study your behaviour. You don’t have to come to terms with it and how you affected others. You don’t have to understand it in order to avoid it happening again. No apologies. Nothing. No. Because you are LOVED by your RL daddy or mummy so ‘nothing else matters’. You are thus FULL of RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered) version of unconditional love so you are free and full. The truth telling in RL groups is NOT healing and at the end of the day no matter how long or short anyone stays in this cult group people will NEED to get the proper help to sort through some pretty heavy issues. Part of being in the RL group means that you are not to mock, shame, question, judge, criticise or engage with the person telling the truth. You just let them tell their truth. This can be uncomfortable to hear and to experience, especially seeing someone having a truth pulled out of them by RL people, when they really don’t want to tell that truth in the group setting. And of course the person will FEEL a whole lot better afterwards, just from having spoken it in words in front of others. They WILL feel lighter and better in their self. And apparently THIS is the magic that is RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered). Yet this process happens in all sorts of ways and settings anyway – except we talk about the really deep psychological stuff to trained professionals who KNOW how the mind works and can help us to safely navigate bringing up traumatic feelings and emotions and then safely bring us back to our self once again – NOT leaving us completely OPEN and more vulnerable to sharing more and more in this way in the WRONG setting. But RealLove©(Trademark, Registered) shuns any form of therapy and psychological help. Calling it rubbish and useless – stating that RL is the only way and the way that works!
So what actually ‘happens’ in a group other than talking and sharing? While you are in the group you’ll also be ‘Love-Bombed’ which incidentally is a trick used in every single cult organisation – large or small, regardless of type. My god the person attending the group for the first time will be fooled into believing that everyone in the group is so LOVING and wonderful and will be wanting them self to be just like this. This is over affection that is quite sickly and obnoxious when you can see it for what it is; but when you are weakened you will easily be totally fooled by it and actually BELIEVE that it is real. It’s not. It’s another one of the principles of RL. The other thing that you’ll see happen in groups is a lot of touching. Not just the obligatory holding of hands, one or both if possible especially if able to form a circle. That’s not too bad – but it is not spontaneous and genuine. There is also what the group call ‘skin’ and this is where people will touch or stroke each other while sitting in the group. It might be that someone has another person run their fingers through someone’s hair, or gently fondle their head, neck, shoulders etc. Arms might be placed around the shoulders or waist of the person sitting next to them. Bear in mind, complete strangers here – touching each other in ways that some people may not have experienced for a very long time. If someone has been single for a long time or has had certain relationship problems they will in some way be drawn to receiving the touch given by a stranger in this group setting. Almost looking forward to attending the next group and being love-bombed, hugged, joyfully welcomed, touched and stroked and being able to free their-self of some painful emotional shit that they’ve held in.
But there’s more…
There will be a point, if not in the first group attended, but very soon in the weeks ahead, where the notion of ‘holding’ will surface. In the biggest and most well-known cults in history this process is known as ‘cradling’. Greg Baer and his RealLove©(Trademark, Registered) have taken the exact same process and just given it another name. Basically, you are held prostrate ‘like a baby’ in the arms of a RL coach (daddy or mummy) or another RL person. Hugged, kissed, stroked and touched and nursed and spoken to like a little baby. Yep! And if you are strong-willed and whole, after seeing this happen in the group you attend, you’ll probably be running for the hills and never return to another RL group session. Wisely so! These are the ones who are saved from being drawn in to this cult group. Bless them for seeing through it all. Bless those who don’t see what is happening too. A very uncomfortable thing to submit to, and totally unnecessary for any form of healing – of past traumatic experiences, inner child, emotional immaturity or whatever – there is absolutely NO need for this. None at all – despite what RL and Greg Baer say to the contrary. This is part of the MIND-CONTROL and INFANTILISATION process which will draw you further and further in. For a lot of people who have been ‘doing RL’ for a long time – they have become addicted to holding. They love it. They crave it. They cannot wait for their group session in order to be ‘held’ like a baby. They will push away all the people actually ‘in’ their life and who are openly, willingly, and genuinely providing (or attempting to provide) love and support to help them through stuff in favour of waiting for ‘group’ to get babied like a baby. Thus is DEPENDENCE, CO-DEPENDENCE and ADDICTION built.
The RL groups make it all look and seem so very normal. But hey, unless done in jest no grown man would willingly lie in another adult man’s arms prostrate like a baby and call him daddy, and behave all baby-like! Seriously! This process is all related to Greg Baer’s idea that all our problems in life relate to ‘not being loved properly’ as children, and our parents failing to show us unconditional love etc. and so as adults we don’t know what unconditional love really looks or feels like. Apparently. No we didn’t get RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered) in our childhood’s (thank God!) but we have ALL, every single one of us received a lot of unconditional love in our lives – in all the manifestations it shows up daily. This is where people have to BE STRONG because you WILL be convinced that ALL your relationships with family are all wrong and unloving, that everyone in your whole life is only giving you their love conditionally. You WILL be made to believe that your life is a lie, that no one really loves you – except, of course, those in RealLove ©(Trademark, Registered). They are clearly the ‘ONLY’ ones who know how to properly love people. Why? Because Greg Baer said so. Also remember that EVERY SINGLE CULT group in history states the same things as RL – they draw us into the childhood thing and all the negativity, never speaking about any of the positive experiences or the love that WAS received in our childhood. RealLove©(Trademark, Registered) behaves EXACTLY in the same way as every other cult group – preaching the exact same things, doing the exact same processes and rituals. EVERYTHING is copied directly from other cult groups. All this ‘love’ and ‘affection’ and touching from the group meetings will lead people to, albeit falsely, ’feel loved’. However, it’s not ‘real’ ‘love’ at all, it’s just a process of principles enacted to deliberately massage your emotions, weaken your resolve to question and think clearly and to build a gradual reliance and dependence on the group. The weekly ‘group’ thus becomes like a drug – and slowly the addiction builds and builds. That’s how cults work – that’s how RealLove© (trademark, registered) works too!
Please, please, please don’t be fooled. Be strong and pull away while you can. But…… there’s more to the group meeting…
As the session progresses and different RL concepts are explored, jargon used and the loaded language specific to RL starts creeping out your curiosity will get hold of you. You will question certain things that are said in response to your queries and questions, and you’ll be given quite confusing answers. The confident and happy way they are delivered makes you believe you are the one in the wrong – that maybe it’s you, your own self who has it all wrong. WRONG. What is being delivered in the loaded language and the responses and replies is what is known as the ‘double-bind’. This is where RL will use analogies or metaphors that we all know and understand from the wisdom contained in them, but instead they are re-invented slightly and given a different and very distorted slant – which confuses you. The confidence in the way spoken to you (the old creepy salesman technique) leads you to doubt your interpretation. You are NOT wrong to challenge this or critically evaluate, but just remember that as you do so, you’ll be gradually subjected to some mockery and a feeling that you are showing to everyone present that you clearly are crying out to be loved, that you are in pain, that you are believing the lies, being a victim, or whatever else. The blatant double-bind works such that whatever way you look at it, it doesn’t work – there is no logic to it. You will leave the group doubting our own thinking, beliefs, values, life, future and your own self-identity. Every answer, point of view or perspective put forward will have been challenged and completely blitzed by RL ideology and so you leave all confused – because you’ll also be feeling the love, the affection, and the attention. Nature will be nagging at you to figure all this confusion out!
You tell your friends at work about the group and they all say it’s a cult, get out while you can. You don’t get to tell them everything that happened because they are so adamant about it and feel they would probably mock and shame you if you spoke about it all - so you hide the rest of what happened and keep it to yourself. The same thing happens when you tell family and anyone else in your life. But hey, you are still curious, because those other RL people ‘seemed’ to be happy and have their shit together. You also have that normal human in-built need to figure out the things that confuse and confound us, so deep down, you don’t tell anyone, but you decide to go to just one more group and then if it doesn’t answer your questions then you’ll leave. But hey ho! when you turn up to ‘group’ the next time, no matter how strong you plan to be, you will once again enjoy all the attention – as you would, anyone would! You go through the motions and then the challenges you have (some of them planted in your mind by all those WORRIED and CONCERNED family and friends!) are ready to be shared, expressed, questions posed etc. But the RL people know in advance what questions you’ll be asking. They know because it’s happened countless times before and they are stocked ready with all the answers to lock you down and block any form of critical debate. They have been expecting you – because you loved it so much at your first session and they could see the lost, lonely, hurt person inside of you. They are really quite excited now as this is the beginning of taking control of YOUR thoughts and changing them to a completely different mind-set – THEIRS! As you question, they’ll have ALL the answers. Every single one of them, from every angle and perspective – every analogy and metaphor, every explanation all worked out in advance. You are just one of many who have fallen prey. Most answers will be DOUBLE-BINDS which are meant to confuse you, and they will – but that is how it is meant to be in order to pull you in. You are meant to be confused. This is what RealLove©(Trademark, Registered) wants, because now you’re easily manipulatable, easily swayed to self-doubt and can start to be coerced into seeing the light – their light – the RL light, their way.
And there’s more to look for….. more to be aware of…. Of which I will share soon.