corboy Wrote:
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> A former student of Lenz described how Lenz
> encouraged male students to subscribe to this
> exploitation website.
>
> [forum.culteducation.com]
>
> [groups.google.com]
>
> [talk.religion.buddhism.narkive.com]
>
> Female empowerment - har.
>
> All it empowered was Lenz ego and his wealth.
As the person who originally posted those messages years ago about that long-defunct website (funwomen.com), I have noted with interest the renewed discussions about that website in particular and about Lenz' teachings in general on the Web recently. It appears that there is a new recruiting drive going on and this is resulting in renewed concern among cult watchers.
I should probably clarify that at various points, some women have claimed to me that no female students of Lenz ever posed on that site or ever would consider doing so. Some of the women who posed did look familiar, but I didn't know them well and wasn't subscribed to the site for long. So it is always possible that I was wrong and should apologize for claiming that the women posed nude--it remains possible that female models from outside the group were used.
What I know for sure, though, is that in 1997 Lenz encouraged his students to start online businesses, saying the startup costs were low. Not long thereafter, a female disciple of Lenz started that website featuring softcore porn models. Might she have used models from outside the group? Possible. But there is no doubt that the porn site was run by a long term female disciple of Lenz and portrayed women in a way very different from the official Lenz teachings about empowering women. And I've heard of other things from Lenz that portray a very different attitude towards women from the official version. For example, Lenz would insist that his female students sleep with men in an effort to sell his products, and would praise women for "sleeping their way to the top".
I'd be interested to know how big the current recruiting drive is. My observation was that a lot of his former students stayed loyal to the Lenz organization for a few years after his death. As time went on, though, a lot of people started to develop a more nuanced and less exalted view of Lenz. They began to see that in the long term his influence was less than positive in a lot of ways both personal and financial. I myself have had little contact with the group in recent years, and it has been my impression that only a tiny handful (maybe less than a dozen at this point) former disciples remain blindly loyal. But the ones who remained loyal: yes, they worship him.
In one way Lenz is a genius though. By killing himself when he did, he successfully ensured that to this day he has a multimillion dollar foundation in his name. Had he not killed himself, I think it likely he would have had a very different outcome: by now he would quite possibly have gone the way of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. I was told once that this was a very strategic decision on Lenz' part: by killing himself he also killed various pending litigation that otherwise might have destroyed him financially.
-------------------------------------------------------
> A former student of Lenz described how Lenz
> encouraged male students to subscribe to this
> exploitation website.
>
> [forum.culteducation.com]
>
> [groups.google.com]
>
> [talk.religion.buddhism.narkive.com]
>
> Female empowerment - har.
>
> All it empowered was Lenz ego and his wealth.
As the person who originally posted those messages years ago about that long-defunct website (funwomen.com), I have noted with interest the renewed discussions about that website in particular and about Lenz' teachings in general on the Web recently. It appears that there is a new recruiting drive going on and this is resulting in renewed concern among cult watchers.
I should probably clarify that at various points, some women have claimed to me that no female students of Lenz ever posed on that site or ever would consider doing so. Some of the women who posed did look familiar, but I didn't know them well and wasn't subscribed to the site for long. So it is always possible that I was wrong and should apologize for claiming that the women posed nude--it remains possible that female models from outside the group were used.
What I know for sure, though, is that in 1997 Lenz encouraged his students to start online businesses, saying the startup costs were low. Not long thereafter, a female disciple of Lenz started that website featuring softcore porn models. Might she have used models from outside the group? Possible. But there is no doubt that the porn site was run by a long term female disciple of Lenz and portrayed women in a way very different from the official Lenz teachings about empowering women. And I've heard of other things from Lenz that portray a very different attitude towards women from the official version. For example, Lenz would insist that his female students sleep with men in an effort to sell his products, and would praise women for "sleeping their way to the top".
I'd be interested to know how big the current recruiting drive is. My observation was that a lot of his former students stayed loyal to the Lenz organization for a few years after his death. As time went on, though, a lot of people started to develop a more nuanced and less exalted view of Lenz. They began to see that in the long term his influence was less than positive in a lot of ways both personal and financial. I myself have had little contact with the group in recent years, and it has been my impression that only a tiny handful (maybe less than a dozen at this point) former disciples remain blindly loyal. But the ones who remained loyal: yes, they worship him.
In one way Lenz is a genius though. By killing himself when he did, he successfully ensured that to this day he has a multimillion dollar foundation in his name. Had he not killed himself, I think it likely he would have had a very different outcome: by now he would quite possibly have gone the way of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby. I was told once that this was a very strategic decision on Lenz' part: by killing himself he also killed various pending litigation that otherwise might have destroyed him financially.