Tagcults

Review Sees No Advantage in 12-Step Programs

New York Times Reports:

When Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs are examined in controlled studies, a new review reports, scientists find no proof that they are superior to any other intervention in reducing alcohol dependence or alcohol-related problems.

The researchers, led by Marica Ferri of the Italian Agency for Public Health in Rome, found little to suggest that 12-step programs reduced the severity of addiction any more than any other intervention. And no data showed that 12-step interventions were any more – or any less – successful in increasing the number of people who stayed in treatment or reducing the number who relapsed after being sober.

Full Story: New York Times.

Church of Scientology to sponsor race team

The AP reports:

The Church of Scientology, the religion for which actor Tom Cruise crusades, will attempt to spread its “Ignite Your Potential” message into auto racing through sponsorship of a race car in one of NASCAR’s lowest levels.

Washington Post: Dianetics to Sponsor NASCAR Race Team

(thanks Bill!)

The Self-Help and Actualization Movement has become an $8.5-billion-a-year business

From Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer:

The “over and over” part is the key to understanding the “why” of what investigative journalist Steve Salerno calls the Self-Help and Actualization Movement (SHAM). In his recent book Sham: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless (Crown Publishing Group, 2005), he explains how the talks and tapes offer a momentary boost of inspiration that fades after a few weeks, turning buyers into repeat customers. While Salerno was a self-help book editor for Rodale Press (whose motto at the time was “to show people how they can use the power of their bodies and minds to make their lives better”), extensive market surveys revealed that “the most likely customer for a book on any given topic was someone who had bought a similar book within the preceding eighteen months.” The irony of “the eighteen-month rule” for this genre, Salerno says, is this: “If what we sold worked, one would expect lives to improve. One would not expect people to need further help from us–at least not in that same problem area, and certainly not time and time again.”

Surrounding SHAM is a bulletproof shield: if your life does not get better, it is your fault–your thoughts were not positive enough. The solution? More of the same self-help–or at least the same message repackaged into new products. Consider the multiple permutations of John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus–Mars and Venus Together Forever, Mars and Venus in the Bedroom, The Mars and Venus Diet and Exercise Solution–not to mention the Mars and Venus board game, Broadway play and Club Med getaway.

Full Story: Scientific American: SHAM Scam

(via 43 Folders).

If you thought “Creative Design” was bullshit…

Sadly, the gentleman in charge of Fixed Earth dot Calm has not kept his domain payments current and you can’t get a look at the marvelous insanity that formed the site a mere two days ago. However, my friend Ben informed me that many of the forces behind “intelligent design” or whatever the fuck have also been taking further steps backward in scientific progress. Specifically, a new assault on “heliocentrism” (more on this later) seems underway. Put simply; the Christers don’t believe that the Earth moves at all, as a number of references to “fixed earth” appear in the Bible.

The part that sent a chill down my spine read something like “the world is one ten trillionth the size science thinks it is!” in large font with lots of exclamation points. What disturbs me about this involves some Howard Bloom-style psychobiology. On the Disinfo DVD Howard discusses a movement back into the darker recesses of the human mind- specifically the limbic functions of “fight or flight”, etc. which result in a return to the Dark Ages. Altho this dark ages would inevitably contain far more atrocities than the previous dark ages. The Westboro Baptist Church and this idea of “fixed earth” forms the template for the Future Dark Age.

However, I keep going back to the phrase above. It seems a strange re-formulation of pre-scientific cosmologies- those of the Sumerians, Egypt, etc. While such cosmologies work for the Illuminated they necessarily limit human psychogeography and in an extreme fashion. Never forget that some exist who seek to limit human psychogeography back at a pre-historic level. As occultists, revolutionaries and scientists, we must never forget the gigantic leap backward offered by such forces.

Guru watching

Via an excerpt from Douglas Rushkoff’s latest column: Guruphiliac, a site dedicated to “exposing the profoundly manipulative legions of grifters preying on the spiritually hopeful, as well as those teachers who simply go around letting people think they’re God, one guru at a time.”

Reminds me of this site Brennio sent along: Stripping the Gurus . I’ve been meaning to read the chapter on Ken Wilber.

Kabbalah Centre expose

Expose on Madonna and Britney Spears’s school of Kabbalah:

The Bergs? luxurious lifestyle, in stark contrast to the bleak four-to-a-bedroom conditions and $35-a-month stipend they offer the full-time volunteers who cook and clean for them.

The bizarre scientific claims made by the Centre?s leaders on behalf of Kabbalah Water, ranging from its ability to cleanse the lakes of Chernobyl of radiation to its power to cure cancer, AIDS, and SARS.

The Bergs have come a long way since 1971, when Philip, then known as Shraga Feivel Gruberger, began preaching his version of Jewish mystical enlightenment to a small group of students in Israel. A onetime insurance salesman who left his wife and seven kids to marry Karen, his former secretary, Berg has become a man so revered that some of his followers believe he has the power to resurrect the dead. In the process he has created a multimillion-dollar brand out of a bastardization of an arcane branch of Judaism, larding it with pricey accessories and bold-faced names. His followers have been promised that Kabbalah can find their lost children, cure their illnesses, replenish their pocketbooks, and bring them true love. Berg himself is so above it all that even his wife refers to him, at least to the press, only by an honorific. He is ?the Rav.?

Full Story: Radar Magazine: Inside Hollywood’s Hottest Cult

(via Boing Boing).

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