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[ Link here =
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters354.html#Randaron ]
Date: Mon, May 20, 2013 10:15 am (answered 21 May 2013) You know it doesn't matter how much we banter back and forth About success rates For me and only me Alcoholics Anonymous worked 100 percent And regardless of what your success rate is As long as it helps one person either one of us Then the world has changed So good luck to you I hope everybody that comes to you gets sober. And I will do my best as well
Hello again, Randaron,
Actually, one person does not establish a rate, because a rate is something per something else,
like miles per gallon, or success stories per 100 A.A. newcomers. So you can't declare that
A.A. has a 100% success rate for you.
Also, you have no idea what really caused you to quit drinking.
There is zero evidence to support the idea that A.A.
somehow caused you to quit drinking.
And what caused you to decide to quit drinking and
go to A.A. in the first place? That was the real cause of your sobriety.
The A.A. rationalization about "if it helps one person" is just a just another
standard propaganda trick and dodge. The truth is that A.A. kills more people than it helps.
That is no great accomplishment.
Dr. George E. Vaillant,
who went on to become an enthusiastic Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous,
established that A.A. has nearly a 6-to-1 death-to-success ratio.
And Dr. Vaillant plainly said that the few people who quit drinking in A.A. were the ones who were going
to quit drinking anyway. He said that A.A. did not improve the sobriety situation at all.
A.A. produced a zero percent improvement over no treatment or help or "group support".
But, because Dr. Vaillant just loves the A.A. cult religion, he said that everybody should get shoved into
A.A. anyway, so that they can "confess their sins to a high-status healer". Yes, he is nuts.
And that is the A.A. leadership talking.
We were just discussing the harm that A.A. does, in a previous letter, here:
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Randaron is here.] 
Date: Mon, May 20, 2013 10:55 am (answered 21 May 2013) Hi Mr Orange, I am real not a spammer. I would like to join the forum.
Also, i just wanted to ask if you knew much about a chap called Rick Ross? I sent an email to him the other day as he isn't willing to acknowledge AA or the splinter groups such as Primary Purpose, Road to Recovery & Pacific Group being cultish. I read a few posts of his to members asking genuine questions. The few that i saw were not abusive or derogatory in anyway — they questioned wanting to know more. Below is the email i sent to him:
2nd email to him.
And this was his response to me:
Personally i feel dismissed as if my experience was not Cult like in the slightest... He says he is an expert yet he isn't willing to investigate. Anyway, thank you for your time.
Regards,
From: "Orange" <orange@orange-papers.info>
Hello Emma,
This is just a quicky response for now. I'll send a full properly-formatted
response when I get it typed up.
I cannot find your registration. Did you actually register? If not, please
do. It's easy and quick. Then email me and tell me what user name you
registered and I'll approve your registration.
You can register any user name you wish. Anything that isn't already taken.
About Rick Ross: yes, that's quite a story. We have had our go-arounds too.
Look here:
So register a name and I'll approve you. I'd love to have you in the
forum.
And have a good day now.
2013.05.21:
Hello again, Emma,
Okay, now I have enough time to finish the answer.
You are quite right that Rick Ross dissed you and would not listen to your story.
He has made up his mind and facts be damned. In his mind, your experiences are irrelevant because
he is brilliant and you aren't.
What is really appalling is his definition of "cult".
It comes from his history as an "exit counselor".
He used to be in the business of kidnapping children from cults and holding them prisoner and
torturing them until they said what the paying parents wanted to hear.
That is of course feloniously illegal.
When "exit counselors" started getting busted and doing
hard time in prison for kidnapping, and getting sued for millions of
dollars for false imprisonment and torture,
Rick Ross got out of the "exit counselor" business.
Then he went into the "cult expert" business and testified in a lot of court cases as
an expert on cults.
So Rick Ross's definition of cult is, "If there are paying parents complaining, then it's a cult.
Otherwise, it isn't a cult."
Rick Ross actually said that in a letter:
I recognize the effort of some people to call AA a "cult" and organize
anti-AA sites on the Internet.
However, I have received no significant complaints from families over
the years (since 1983) about AA.
Complaints from families determine whether a group is a cult?
Now Rick Ross has a web site where he has collected a lot of newspaper stories and letters about
cults, and he calls himself an expert on cults, and bases his "expertise" on years of
experience in torturing children.
What is Rick Ross's training and education about cults? None.
In fact, his history is so bad that
Wikipedia has the story of Ross going to Waco, Texas,
and giving unsolicited advice to the FBI on how to deal with David Koresh during
the famous standoff in 1993. Ross told the FBI to be confrontational and
challenge Koresh. When the FBI did that, and tried to break into Koresh's compound,
Koresh flipped out and killed himself and his whole cult in
a mass suicide, including killing all of the children.
Ross disavows any responsibility for the result.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Ross_%28consultant%29
Oh well, I'll be happy to have you in my forum, and I won't censor you or delete your posts,
even if I disagree with you about something. Welcome.
By the way,
Rick Ross finally admitted
that
the Midtown Group in Washington DC
was a cult
after The Washington Post, Newsweek magazine, and NBC TV news revealed what was going on
there. But Ross did not see — or refused to notice — that Mike Quinones, the leader of
the Midtown cult, was the grand-sponsee of Clancy Imusland, and that the Midtown Group was
only a tiny part of Clancy's sprawling empire. Clancy has groups all across America, with
a variety of names. In Los Angeles, it's
the Pacific Group.
In San Francisco, it's
The Nursery.
In New York, it's
the Atlantic Group
(also look here
and here).
In the Midwest, it's
the Foxhall Group
(spreadsheet with failure rate here),
and the "Lemont Oaks" group, "Oak Lawn Big Book",
the "Between the Covers", "It's in the Book" groups, and the Badger Group.
They even have missionary outposts in
Plymouth, England, and London.
And as you mentioned in your letter to Ross, they also have the "Road To Recovery" group in
Great Britain, and the "Prime Purpose" group in California.
Then even
Young Peoples' AA has degenerated into
a sexual exploitation society.
But Rick Ross didn't notice any of that. He tries to declare that things like the
Midtown Group and other crazy extremists are merely isolated groups that have
no connection to the parent organization.
Rick Ross's behavior there is so improper and stubborn and unrealistic that I wonder if he is secretly
a member of A.A., who is trying to defend A.A. from the truth.
Or maybe he just can't stand to be wrong about anything.
(Okay Rick, does that get me Four Flames?)
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Tue, May 21, 2013 4:28 am (answered 23 May 2013) Hi Mr Orange, I signed up as sunsetanon hope you can find it. Many thanks for responding i really appreciate it. When i received Rick's response it genuinely upset me. I told him i had had a break down and yet he wasn't kind, supportive or respectful. If i had said i was sexually harrassed (which i have been ample times and preyed on physically too) would he have dismissed me as a "hysterical woman"? I think he's insulting thousands of people's experience. I read the link you sent and boy is his arrogance disgusting. He says he has no affiliation with AA — so then why does he refuse to even investigate? I know three stronghold cults within AA.
What i find the most upsetting of Rick is his belligerent refusal to research and investigate. He seemed to have started his career with good intentions... but then something changed along the way and now he has become the very thing he hates. Have you checked out this web page: http://www.aacultwatch.co.uk/ Thank you again :)
Date: Wed, May 22, 2013 3:12 pm
Okay, I found it. You are in. Welcome.
Again, I'll respond to the rest of your letter a little later.
Date: Tue, May 21, 2013 5:57 am (answered 23 May 2013) Hi Orange, I just sent an email to Rick. His response has really got to me. I attach the email from the website and my response to it. Anyway, thank you for bringing your website to the world. I stumbled on it over a year ago now and it's helped me so much.
Thank you
Date: Tue, May 21, 2013 10:23 am (answered 23 May 2013) Hi Orange, Sorry to bombard you — just wanted to send my response to Rick.
Regards,
Hello again, Emma,
Wow. That's about all I can say. Wow. They did that to you in Los Angeles, huh?
And judges still sentence people to go to A.A. meetings?
Well, Rick Ross may ignore and delete your letters, but I'm not going to.
And since this web site is getting
almost 3 million hits a month now,
a few people will read your story.
Speaking of which, yes, I occasionally read
http://www.aacultwatch.co.uk/.
I like their site, and learn some good things from them.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Wed, May 22, 2013 4:16 pm (answered 23 May 2013) Recently, while doing some research on the Scientology cult, I ran across what appears to be a feud between Rick Ross and Steve Hassan. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that Rick is publishing some seriously nasty stuff about Steve, complaining about his ethics and fees. I don't think Steve is responding in kind. http://www.rickross.com/reference/general/general1529.html It seems to me that a guy with no professional credentials, no education past high school, a history of both criminal and civil legal troubles and who charges pretty steep fees for his own work is on fairly shaky ethical ground himself, and really shouldn't be going around pointing fingers at others. But I don't know the backstory. Do you know what's behind Ross's mudslinging? Mona
Hello Mona,
It's good to hear from you again. Wow, when it rains, it pours.
The previous bunch of letters
also complained about Rick Ross.
I find Rick Ross's denunciation of Steve Hassan to be totally hypocritical.
Rick Ross used to make a living by kidnapping children from cults and holding them prisoner
and torturing and "reverse brainwashing" them to get them to
say what the paying parents wanted to hear.
Ross called it "exit counseling".
And I never saw Rick Ross print up a schedule of what he charged the parents for
committing such crimes.
I know that it was a profitable business.
Wikipedia
mentions a typical price of $5000 per kidnapping (in 1980s dollars).
While I personally find Steve Hassan's prices to be high, that's his business and he has
a right to set his prices as he chooses. He is making a living at it; I'm not.
The thing that I like about Steve Hassan is that he has some good sound advice about how
to get loved ones out of cults.
(See his books, here.)
He understands what it is like to be in a cult because he was in the Moonies, and was
personally used and abused by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, for several years. Rick Ross has zero
experience there.
Steve Hassan does not recommend coercive "exit counseling" like Ross has done.
Hassan recognizes that such abuse can cause more harm than good.
The truth of the matter is, most people eventually drop out of cults without any kidnapping
and imprisonment and "counseling" to "help" them.
I suspect that Rick Ross is behaving the way that he does precisely because he is incompetent
and has nothing to sell. As you mentioned, he has zero credentials or training.
And zero experience in a cult.
He is just a self-declared "expert", without education, training, or experience.
He seems to be very jealous of anyone who presents any competition.
(There are more examples of that
in the letters here.)
He is very quick to denounce others as knowing nothing while promoting himself as an expert.
And he rationalizes that his critics are all cult members, which is not true at all.
(See
the Wikipedia page.)
That is an
ad hominem attack,
which is, ironically,
a propaganda technique routinely used by cults.
And it's also
Delegitimize One's Opponent,
another common propaganda trick.
If Rick Ross were really devoted to getting rid of cults, and stopping them from harming young
people, you would think that he would welcome all of the allies and help that he could get.
(I do.)
In the final analysis, I think that the "anti-cult movement" as promoted by Rick Ross is
just another scam. There are con artists on both sides of the fence.
Oh well, have a good day now.
== Orange
Date: Sun, May 19, 2013 1:03 am (answered 23 May 2013) Richard B here — Thanks again for your spirited anti-cult muckraking. It helps keep me sane. A useful term — Large Group Awareness Training, or LGAT — has come to my attention lately. http://www.lgattruth.com and Wikipedia have a lot to say on the subject. Is AA an LGAT? One positive thing I've found about AA is the solid and down-to-earth accounts people can give you of their lives — this quite apart from the negative, life-hating Buchmanite theology that comes close to poisoning the whole damned thing. Disclosure: I'm a proud member of the Newcomers Rescue League. I make a special point of urging them to tear the Big Book to shreds. And questioning the virgin birth of Bill Wilson. Etc. etc. One the other hand, unfortunately, there IS such a thing as a cult that is nothing but a cult through and through and can't possibly be turned into anything else. I bring this up because the wife of a friend of mine has recently gotten involved in something called the Pathways Institute, with the result that she's up at 4 a.m. texting possible recruits. Besides being full of shit — selling people what they already have — this operation is also a classic pyramid scheme. How many people, I wonder, "graduate" from AA, as she did, to blatantly money-centered and coercive LGATs? I'm horrified by what I've seen. And there's this creepy "Godspell look" that members have. I'd like to think there could be a happy ending to this — a sudden "what have I been doing" disaffection, followed by a rush to the exit — but then there's the thought of the damage that may have to come first. No doubt there's something on your site that's germane to this situation. Could you point me in its direction? Many thanks rb P.S.: I've just just noticed your endorsement of Margaret Thaler Singer. A good sign. I'll keep digging. And thanks for letting me bend your ear. rb
Hello again, Richard,
It's good to hear from you. Ah yes,
the LGAT racket.
The first time I heard of that particular con, it was "Werner Erhard"
(really, Jack Rosenberg) selling it in his "est" scam.
The logic is simple and brilliant: "Why cheat one person at a time out of their
money when you can cheat 300 people at a time?"
It's the application of mass-production techniques to
cult money-making.
Werner Erhard claimed that he could enlighten whole crowds just as effectively as
a more traditional teacher doing one-on-one work.
But of course what was really going on there was some standard brainwashing techniques,
including heavy use of the
Cognitive Dissonance Technique.
People come out of those weekend-long sessions with their minds all spun out, and while
they are still dizzy and euphoric, instructed to sign up for more courses of "awareness
training", and to also go recruit their friends and relatives and co-workers.
By the way, it's still going on. When Werner Erhard was about to get busted for all kinds
of crimes, he sold his organization to a subordinate and fled to Europe, where he lives in
comfort off of his stolen millions.
The subordinate continues the racket under the names "The Forum",
"The Landmark Forum", "Landmark Educational Forum" and
"Landmark Education".
Here are some links to information about "Werner Erhard" and "est":
About,
"How many people, I wonder, "graduate" from AA, as she did, to blatantly
money-centered and coercive LGATs?"
And years ago, I was saddened to see
Nori Muster finally get out of the Hari Krishna cult,
only to declare that
the 12 Steps were a "cure for cults".
It seems that once people throw their logical thinking minds into the trash can and believe
that irrational illogical nonsense can really work for them,
they have opened the door to many kinds of insane behavior.
About Prof. Margaret Thaler Singer:
Yes, I really like her and admire her for her work. I feel sad about how her life
ended. She got ripped to shreds by attorneys who argued in court that if you cannot
predictably compel someone to commit a crime, then there is no such thing as brainwashing.
And they did their best to totally discredit her life's work.
Well, the lawyers were just nitpicking and taking things to extremes.
Yes, there is such a thing as brainwashing and coercive persuasion, even if you
cannot reliably make The Manchurian Candidate out of everybody.
To end on a bright note, you must see the movie
Semi-Tough, starring Burt Reynolds,
Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburgh.
It is a delicious spoof of Werner Erhard and est.
"Did you get it? Do you get it?
You are all assholes and you can't go to the bathroom!"
Perhaps you can find it on the Internet or on late-night TV.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[ Link here =
http://www.orange-papers.info/orange-letters354.html#Randy_R ]
Date: Thu, May 23, 2013 3:13 am (answered 27 May 2013)
Now you stated that Alcoholics Anonymous had a success rate of less than zero for sobriety, and established that A.A. has nearly a 6-to-1 death-to-success ratio. if success is measured by sales "how many books have you sold" A.A. 30 million, as well as many other publications, you ? as for Dr. George E. Vaillant. he is more likely to be disgruntled because the corporation called World Services Inc. did not give him a severance package of 2 or 300 million dollars like most non-profit trustees such as UNICEF and others with similar agendas... you know those people that help all those starving kids from there 8 million $ homes in the Hamptonsand of course its not about the money with them either...! So what you say is 30 million "according to the sale of Big books" got sober and 180 million committed suicide or was that Dr. Vaillant that says that? More than 2 thirds of the US population. wow 6 to 1 huh, by the way A.A. has no leaders just trusted servants you should read the book at least once. without injecting extremely superior intellect between sentences. And I had got the numbers from you and the link below
Hello again, Randaron,
June 21, 2012 (REVISED July 2, 2012) "Books That Shaped America" Exhibition to Open June 25List Includes Popular Favorites, Forgotten Titles
Hello again, Randy,
Well, starting at the top:
Success is not measured by book sales. It is measured by what percentage of the patients
— alcoholic newcomers — get and stay sober.
Don't you notice what is wrong with that number? 30 Million? But there are fewer than
two million A.A. members in the whole world. But they have sold 30 million books just in the USA?
So what is really happening is that a lot of
people get invited, coerced, cajoled, or seduced into attending some A.A. meetings, where
they are given a Big Book, or buy one. Then they find that it is bullshit and throw it away.
I find old copies of the Big Book in used bookstores and Goodwills all over town. I have about
10 of them myself now, second, third, and fourth editions. And they have absolutely nothing to do with my sobriety.
What is really sad is reading all of the inscriptions in the used books, people
wishing the former owner well, and yammering about how wonderful the program is,
and it's only up from here. And then the book ends up in Goodwill.
We can only guess what happened to the former book owner.
Nice try at an
ad hominem attack
on Dr. and Prof. George E. Vaillant, but it does not wash.
Dr. Vaillant did his research on alcoholics at the Cambridge-Sommerville Hospital
for 20 years
before he became a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he is not against A.A., he absolutely
loves it. He insists that everybody should get shoved into A.A. even if it does not work, so
that they can "get an attitude change from confession of sins to a high-status healer."
George Vaillant is in love with the cult religion.
He doesn't seem to care that the program fails to save people's lives.
Now the current chair of the General Service Board, elected in 2009, is the Very
Reverend Ward Ewing, Class A Trustee and just retired President, General Theological
Seminary, NYC (Episcopal). So, finally a man of the cloth as the head.
And the General Manager of AA's General Service Office is
Phyllis Halliday.
Yes, millions of people turned to "the Program", and it failed them. It turned out to be a fraud
and a hoax that didn't work to make people quit drinking. So they threw the book in the trash can.
30 million of them.
And yes, the A.A. "Big Book" is a book that shaped America just like
how Mein Kampf is a best-selling book that shaped Germany. Both books are
packs of lies that harmed people. America is worse off for the 12-Step hoax.
Have a good day now.
== Orange
[The next letter from Randaron is here.]
Last updated 1 August 2015. |
So I don't expect that Rick Ross will listen to you or anyone else about Alcoholics Anonymous.
He has made up his mind, and just censors and blocks and bans people who say things that he
doesn't want to hear. Of course he banned me, and also childishly awarded me
"Two Flames" for being a critic of Rick Ross.
(Wouldn't it be neat if this post got me three flames? How about four? What do I have to do
to get four flames from Rick Ross?)
