I was surfing around just for - well just because, all right?, when I ran into the Berkeley Psychic Institute's web site.
It's a basic site but the thing that caught my eye had nothing do to with the design.
BPI was making a membership drive.
Not for "new" members but for past graduates to renew their membership and their connection to the Berkeley Psychic Institute.
Digging deeper, I found that BPI was not only reaching out to re-capture graduates, they were reorganizing themselves around their own "Church of the Divine Man". Fund-raising would be conducted through their "church" entity while the "commercial" ventures would be conducted through some other kind of organizational form.
Surely, if BPI were finding so many new recruits flooding their facilities and spending bags 'o cash, they would not find the need to re-enlist the thousands of people who have graduated from their programs, they would not have the need to have sold their beloved headquarters, close their print publishing company and pare back operations throughout BPI.
Going after past graduates of BPI is a Hail Mary play, an attempt to go after low-hanging fruit in order to revive now-flagging fortunes. However, it's the correct move.
Don't get me wrong - this move has a low likelihood of success as all Hail Mary's do. Think of this, though: if your church can't find brand-new members discovering you for the first time, you've got to go for the ones you know even if it's a longshot. If you follow football, you'll know that when a team is losing a game in the final seconds, they'll heave a Hail Mary pass. It's not likely to work but it's the right thing to do because it might work.
That is what makes BPI's move the correct one and the smart one. Looking at the odds of success, bringing graduates back into the BPI fold is more likely than finding enough new members. It's a longshot and re-invigorating old members is harder than indoctrinating new ones. Still, it might work.
Down the street, there is another organization with similar origins. In fact, the teachings are exactly the same. The leaders of this other organization learned their trade at BPI and stole all the class scripts.
Hell, you already know it's the Academy for Psychic Studies. What am I doing building tension? It's fun, and I'm the blog author, OK?
Anyway, The Academy for Psychic Studies is experiencing the same kind of mid-life crisis as BPI. As the world around them has evolved, they have remained an iconoclast, refusing (more likely unable) to adapt their brand of psychic awareness to today's sensibilities and without the kind of creativity and awareness to make their teachings relevant to the world today. Think of how much your old man would make no sense and piss you off when you were a teen. Then later, when you were in your twenties, he still made no damn sense but at least you could laugh about it. Where your dad was when you were 24 is pretty much where the Academy for Psychic Studies is at with the public today.
The Academy for Psychic Studies would love to re-invent themselves just as much as BPI would love to succeed with their transformation.
So now, both BPI and the Academy are hoping for a miracle - the miracle of a conscious transformation, a rebirth without the pain of labor, a renewal without facing the Phoenix's fire.
I don't think either will get it - although BPI does have a slim chance to maintain some semblance of relevance, The Academy for Psychic Studies has no damn chance at all.
Why?
The Academy's graduates (and their non-graduates, too) are utterly, irreconcilably and completely pissed off at the abuse, exploitation and overall mean treatment delivered by the leaders.
Think about all those infuriated graduates of the Academy for Psychic Studies. Think about how many potential new recruits have happened upon this blog while conducting due diligence. Think about recent comments saying what they hear on this blog is vastly different from the bodily discharge the Academy spews onto the public.
And think about the kind of "forgiveness" all ex-members receive from those still enmeshed within the Academy for Psychic Studies. When "forgiveness" consists of no acknowledgment of you except to deride and degrade your name to those who remain, I guess we should all feel happy to receive. And any further "forgiveness" is not possible unless you arrive with a bucket of cash and no concern of how it will be spent.
Now, think about the BPI approach: all past graduates will not only be forgiven their past membership dues (regardless of the amount) all graduates are eligible to receive a free coffee mug!
Those of you with any experience with the Academy will know not only have they never, ever offered amnesty for past fees owed, you'd never receive a coffee mug or anything more than Angela Silva's empty KFC bucket or Robin Dumolin's used, uh, well I'll just call them hygiene items.
Even if the Academy offers amnesty, forgiveness and a free token of appreciation, what would it lead to?
Judging from our past experience, we can expect more of the same kind of exploitation, the same hands in our wallets and the same gnarled, bony hands spiriting away our children to their private cauldron of mind control poison.
Currently, the Academy for Psychic Studies has a new web site sporting a new look and very carefully concealing the identities of the leaders, the founder and even the staff members. It's tough to get new members to come see you in person if you don't show them the persons they'll see. The Academy message seems to be: we'll stay here behind this wrought iron gate and bullet-proof one-way mirror while we decide if we will let you get past the front gate. Who's wants to go through all that?
The Academy eschews contact with past graduates who chose freedom over confinement - only those who members who live on Academy grounds or pay nearly a thousand dollars a month so they can remain in mind control will be embraced. No past graduate wants to associate with them again. Actually one person I know of has returned but only because all her friends "outside" went away and the only "friends" she had left were inside the wrought iron fence.
The Academy can't emulate the BPI strategy. There are simply far more people who hate the Academy for Psychic Studies than those who would renew ties with them. Of the thousands the Academy claims to have been affiliated with them, only some
As new members are few and far between, and as those new members soon realize they are getting in deep in substances they would rather not step in and as past members are required to come in with buckets of cash - the Academy for Psychic Studies' own Hail Mary would be much better conducted on their knees in church.
Unfortunately, they don't go to church either.
1/2/11
Yep, they are going after the low lying fruit and I am certain as much as they are certain that their plan will not come to fruition. Why? Well what does BPI have anylonger that anyone with any real sense in their minds wants?
ReplyDeleteMeditation classes? Ah...people found out it didn't work and they stoped using it after a period of time.
Healing Classes? oh....now wait a minute, not only is there no proof that healings don't do anything, what they have discovered is that it is the suggesitibility and belief of the individual that makes it work. Justs more hypnotic suggestion.
Readings? Nope, people are getting tired of psychics. They are so 1990's (early 90's at that!) and most now associate psychics with SCAMS! Well thats what most of it boils down to! I know that some readers are very empathetic, but they don't have any true mystical or supernatural power. Most are just good reads.
So what does BPI/CDM have left?
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Nothing!
As Mike mentioned to me, BPI and SRF are on a race to the cliff. The question is, who will make it there first?
Jeffrey
As Mike and Jeffry imply the psychic format is a deeply faulted form of spirituality. For one person to presume to psychically read
ReplyDeletetheir classmates over and over is spiritually incestuous. It is not of the Holy spirit. It is unconsciously tethered to the emotions of the
reader, far more than to a spiritual source. In this way it is deceptive to oneself and others, and feeds the impulse to dissociate, which is what cults bank on. The psychic format does not tie people to God, but to a salvation fantasy. Instead of doing the rigorous work of
self-examination, repentance, and forgiveness, they go for the salvation fantasy, or the 'high' of group dissociation. There is a distinct pleasure in this high, there is no doubt. The pleasure was much greater when the 'leadership' of Bill was there to whip the energy into a frenzy. But in the end he was only deflecting and
putting off the pain. What is worse is that this chronic dissociating distances people from the ground of their being - God. This is why so
many BPI and APS and other psychics tend to have kind of a glazed look, and an odd social manner - they are to some degree chronically
dissociated. They think they are unique, and superior in their delusion. This is what Bill often called 'turning people's minds to
mush'. You see the same kind of thing happen with extreme liberals who adopt a relativistic ideology that distances themselves from the
ground of their being, and completely talks themselves out of 'in God We Trust'. Extreme conservative dogma can do the same thing when their idealogy is primarily motivated by anger. The huge emotional gap of unresolved anger has to be justified by an elaborate dissociation,
using ideology whether it be liberal or conservative.
The psychic format is tailor made for dissociation. All this applies perfectly well I would think to BPI. Psychodoctorate can let
us know on that. But with Bill it was more sinister. While people were deeply dissociated Bill would take their money, their kids, and
whatever else he could, and then drive them to rage. But he would make them think all their anger was a profound fault in their own self, so
that people were driven deeper and deeper into inability to see themselves, and to discern the real source of the abuse. In his own
words he wanted people souls. This was the natural end of his perverse master manipulating. He made it work for a long time on a lot of
people, but this highly destructive power play could not sustain itself as some people left and fought off the mind control, and revealed levels of it to others. Bill himself basically committed
suicide because he was unable to stop himself and face what he was doing. He couldn't keep up the con even to himself, but had to keep on
trying. It finally crushed him.
Yes good posts and comments, reminds me of the constant hyping of the academy and their desire for more money. they did an artful job of hiding their desire to siphon off your money and make themselves into the center of the universe. they annot stop these behaviors and scream of how innocent they are and how guilty anyone is who stands up to them.
ReplyDelete