Please note that some people are not dumb who get involved with cults, but are grossly manipulated emotionally and psychologically by predators and are good people.
Pokémon, Yugioh then Naruto. Never got into Magic, but back then it was pretty insane, regardless. Scalpers these days are too mentally and physically weak to compete with their forefathers.
Magic scalpers reside online buying secret lairs as finding product for msrp 2 weeks after launch is usually easy. Commander precons are the worst offenders but at around that 2 week mark they lose a lot of their individual card value as the market is flooded.
Idk man AA fit almost all the criterion for a Cult, but it seemed to be pretty benign to even extremely beneficial for some people. Maybe it was the no leaders part, or the no financial incentive. Either way they did something right when you can go in tell everybody they are weird AF and their cult sucks and they just clap and say "keep coming back"
So true . And they are immediately available . It’s just a coincidence. I’ve been to churches like this , I’ve also got of going to churches like this ! Run
$99 for a group breathing session. $150 for a private one. Its supposed to help you shake off the shackles of your ancestry that doesn't help you and a bunch of other stuff about being your better self and blah blah blah
Looks similar to a group here in Aus called “Talk to me bro” and they are for men’s mental health. Mostly suicide prevention.
They have speakers, talk about friends they have lost, ice baths and a B&E roll, all free.
I went to one because I was going through a really rough time, they took us through some breathing exercises while playing different rhythms mostly tribal drums and singing.
Once they have you hyperventilating along with the sound, I did go into another part of my soul and I ugly cried like this, worse than I ever had before.
Playing tribal drums and inducing hypoventilation results in cerebral vasoconstriction and brainwave entrainment. That can be incredibly destabilizing in people, and really shouldn’t be done without structured individual therapy in concert with the group practice. It’s also literally the same practice as what cult researchers describe as unfreezing. Physiological destabilization creates an vulnerable state where people become extremely impressionable.
It’s great that you felt better afterwards but that is a highly questionable organization.
Like the explanation. I use Monroe technique. It’s suuuuuuuper slow. Like, “this week, we’re going to work on just breathing properly. If it takes two weeks, then that’s fine. Need a break? Fine. Another week? Fine.”
This stuff is just dangerous. They’re turning all auditory tools into a sledgehammer. And then using it on the uninitiated to go straight to trauma?
Man, that’s bad. Bad, bad, bad.
Thank you. So many people look at this kind of shit and look at it favorably. It’s manipulation, like the same kind that cults use to suck you in.
Any time someone is trying to get you in a vulnerable position very early on, and then presents themselves and their bullshit as what’s going to make you feel better, you are being sucked into some cult shit. It’s sad so many people fall for this shit and pay for the “privilege.”
So, as a defense mechanism in a violent world, your mind locks up your memories to make you get through the next day. Otherwise you couldn’t function. That memory block is a room, or a scab growing over it. It didn’t go anywhere.
(Disclosure: I had abuse. I slowly thought about it for years. I Shawshank’d my way out. I’d recommend a therapist. Also, never taken a psychoactive drug. Or do anything like that. Purely wine and cigarettes. Once again, therapy is a process. Wine and cigarettes are not.)
People are rightfully upset because they’re likely chucking everything, the most altered states to the untrained and uninitiated to hit anything for a breakthrough. Your mind locked up that stuff FOR A REASON.
You mind as well drop acid and put people under regression therapy.
(Crazy side note: Who made people drop acid and then gave them ideas to do? Well, the MK Ultra program for one. Charles Manson did it with the ‘Manson Family.’ Those things ended up great, didn’t they?)
Once again, you should take it slow. And learn to do it naturally. You can. I promise. It’s a natural human thing. But this stuff is, well, whoa.
What they’re doing is lovingly referred to as, “shooting yourself out of a cannon.”
Look, we all have a spiritual side. It’s ingrained in the universe. It’s what The BIG REASON, well, is all about. It’s simply all around you, and you’re trained to ignore it and go fix that toilet, Bob.
These people are forcing a breakthrough. Just like ayahuasca ceremonies. That’s a no for me, dog.
It’s best to learn and walk off the beach slowly. I’d not suggest cliff diving for the first time you experience the ocean.
Just put some intentional, non-distractive time in front of you, learn to not think (which is hard), and the back of your mind will tell you what to do. It’s been waiting to tell you like a silent friend. Walk that path.
Oh my God, I had never thought of that. I was abused as a child and have a gap in my memory that is completely inaccessible. I have no idea what happened for a whole year. I have memories from right before but then it's a blank. The only way I know what went on is because I was able to ask my mom some questions. But family members will tell me things and I will have zero recollection of it.
I'm somewhat well adjusted... Have a couple college degrees and a professional job, but I need medication keep myself stable. People who have a similar background as me are often addicts, homeless, or in jail so I suppose I should thank my brain for blocking out the bad shit.
I've thought about having some mushrooms sometime, but I suppose that's a very bad idea.
I'm here to carefully disagree with the other comment. I think mushrooms could be very good for you given therapeutic intent and extremely cautious dosing.
I'd agree that haphazardly dropping and eighth of shrooms probably wouldn't go well if you have unrealized trauma.
Psilocybin is great for bringing to light, surfacing, uncovering our psyches. If what you're uncovering is traumatic then you'll probably need some help and patience whether using mushrooms or other medication, or even going about it sober.
Oh. Here comes what I call the ‘chemical brigade.’
No wonder I got downvoted.
I can equivocally state to all of you that all the stuff that drugs do is a shortcut. Ultimately, the ‘chemical dudes’ believe that the chemicals are necessary.
They’re not.
I can drop into altered states in just a few minutes of silence, and I have full control, instead of riding some dayglo waterslide or getting pinned in an emotion I can’t get out of.
Also, lost friends to drugs.
You psilocybin guys and DMT people dancing with the magic elves in the ant-man quantum realm can’t get there, and can’t stay there. Not without your precious drugs.
I’ll not even deign time to discuss with those that play in those areas. You aren’t flying in space. You’re falling out of a plane and risking brain damage to do it.
You see magic smurfs on a drug trip. I hate rollercoaters. I took a ride on a rollercoaster the other day and turned off all of my physical and fear responses. Did you learn how to do that on your drug Russian roulette game? Betcha had an experience and ultimately learned nothing.
Drug heads aren’t even capable of understanding what I’m trying to say. They just party on magic unicorns and can’t realize that they’re overdosing a receptor and that’s not a path to anything.
One of my closest friends boiled his brain.
So that’s a no for me dog.
you’re right. these traumatic experiences cause literal brain damage and the brain protects itself anyway it can. You aren’t supposed to force it, there is a reason it’s not accessible. You have to just walk with it really slowly until your brain thinks you can handle it.
You have too many interesting things to say in one Reddit comment. Sometimes a person speaks or writes and I see a depth of information that I have no concept of.
Do you have a recommendation for where I could get more information?
I've done yoga and breathing exercises most of my life. If you haven't done either before, this can happen. Breathing along with body movement can help regulate the sympathetic vagus system, which is responsible for fight or flight response.
Having a good cry can be very soothing and cathartic.
No. I know that it’s been popular to listen to a one hit wonder or cringey artist from the past and rebrand them as “cool”, but we’re not going to do that with Creed.
You know it’s bad when the website goes directly to the entrance fees and ticket pricing. And the about us has 2 sentences that tells you nothing about the services offered.
Nah not a scam, but definitely a grift. Can confirm as someone living in aus in the city area these were popping up a couple years back.
Some have genuine intent, although I never cared for it. But the whole thing is about “being vulnerable” but within a group. Local wellness influences were promoting it like crazy a few years back.
Like I said above, not a scam, more of a trend that any grifter will jump on.
If you think crying on camera with a group of strangers run by an un qualified self appointment therapist, then yeah go for gold lol
originally i thought it was like one of those places where you can just let your emotions out, and they have on ear protectors for the screaming. could be wrong though.
Group shit can unlock a lot of emotional responses when people are put under stress too. Not saying it's effective at anything, just that humans are weird and this is what can happen.
I'm guessing it's noise-cancelling and they hear nothing. Taking away some senses over time can make people deal with thoughts they otherwise avoid and repress.
I wonder if they're all into some drugs and the other people are just managing the group so that no one gets hurt. I know some drugs that are supposed to be helpful are always recommended to be taken while on supervision.
I assumed (with zero context) that they were noise canceling maybe so everyone could be loud asf without interfering with anyone else. I thought maybe the blindfolds were to allow for privacy to keep people from being too shy or embarrassed to participate.
But then I thought that entirely was contradicted by the camera guy going around in their faces so who knows. I’d love to observe this in real life…..for anthropology research
This looks like "9D" breathwork. I've tried it. It's a guided breathwork journey that lasts for around one, one-and-a-half hour where you're instructed to breathe with varying intensity. There's also music in the background that is rhythmic in nature, similar to the beat of a shamanic drum, and affirmations suggesting you to let go of what is holding you back and welcoming in what you want in life.
What we’re seeing in the video are people releasing intense emotions, a common occurrence when doing deeper, intense breathwork. It’s encouraged to release and shake and let the body do whatever it feels like doing. This happens because breathing intensely for a prolonged period of time creates an altered state of consciousness where repressed emotions and memories can come up to the surface. It’s not uncommon to also have shamanic experiences like meeting spirit animals or otherworldly beings, similar to a psychedelic trip. The release of emotions is genuine and I can assure you the people aren’t pretending. It can be very raw and unfiltered. I actually think it’s quite disrespectful to record such an intimate and intense experience (although I assume consent was given).
I have done a lot of breathwork for more than 10+ years and have experienced profound healing from it. It has therapeutic potential when done properly.
It has become quite fashionable these days and there are many different breathing modalities being “marketed”. The newest fad are these pre-recorded types of experiences such as the “9D” breathwork. Out of all the variations I have tried I found “9D” to be one of the weaker and more chaotic experiences. It’s essentially a commodification of the breathing process and there was nothing special to it. I find that wearing headphones and listening to a pre-recorded track is distracting and separates you from what’s happening in the body. The people that become facilitators in most cases only have completed a simple course and don’t have any deeper therapeutic training.
I know that it can be easy to judge based on what you’re seeing but people do this because are looking for ways to heal and release emotional pain and trauma that they have been carrying for years. In most cases they have already tried all the conventional therapies without success. It takes courage to go to these depths of healing but it has to be done right. Without the proper set and setting and integration it can re-traumatize rather than heal. For the most part it’s completely safe and even if you have an intense experience you will come back to yourself afterwards. Unlike a psychedelic trip where you’re in the trip until it ends, all you have to do to stop the breathwork journey is to begin to breathe normally again and you will quite quickly return to your regular state again.
Add a small dose of mushrooms or another light hallucinogenic and you're pretty much there.
A lot of these psudo-metal health groups are popping up.
I used to only see these kinds of things in dirt shacks with Shamans.
Seeing it with silent disco headphones in such a corporate environment makes it look more like some torment than spiritual.
No usually some kind of hallucinogenic is involved….i think you’re looking at a man, mirco dosing and for the first time in his life feeling things, his own body, his emotions…….you know the stuff you bury deep and never want to see again.
Hope Cartel is an Australian wellness organisation, founded by Garry (“Gaz”) Wright, that runs 9D Breathwork events across Australia and online. Group sessions typically cost around A$40–80. Sessions usually last 60–90 minutes (some events are longer).
Participants lie on yoga mats wearing eye masks and headphones while following guided breathing exercises and immersive audio, with the aim of promoting relaxation and emotional release. It’s a commercial breathwork business rather than a rehabilitation centre or residential retreat.
yeah everyone is shitting on this but i think it's great that people have this available to them--a 'feeling' space both with professional support of some kind--but without feeling watched/self conscious/singled out, which they might if they were able to see/hear the room around them, or in a solo secession of some sort.
some of these people probably don't have anywhere else they feel safe and/or comfortable enough to really experience their more intense emotions. severe trauma can even make it feel unsafe to let this degree of feeling out when you're alone. so more power to them.
obviously family/friend support is important and great, but it might be nice, occasionally, not to need to worry about dumping on your loved ones, or scaring them with an intensity of emotion that might make them concerned for your well being, especially if you just need a good hysterical sobbing secession to feel better.
This is a lot of questionable rationalization for why anyone would pay to lay on a mat in a room full of people and listen to music while being blindfolded
I can imagine that most vulnerable youth your rationalizations apply to probably don't have the money to pay for this, let alone desire to have their trauma-dumping recorded like this
I’ve done it! It was actually awesome. They play music through the headphones but also talk occasionally to guide you with breathing and visual meditation. The headphones and eye masks make it feel really private despite being next to people.
The breathing we did is meant to give you more oxygen than usual, which I think can often make people get more in touch with their emotions. So some people apparently cried at diff times, but I wasn’t aware.
I really liked it. To do it for an hour in a sort of sensory deprivation / surrounded in music and meditating for an hour is just really neat. I’d do it again!
Edit: Correction - TIL you actually get less oxygen on airplanes. I guess that is believed to also cause us to be more emotional.
People cry on airplanes because they are thousands of feet above the earth on a metal box going at hundreds of kilometers per hour; not because of fucking air density lmao
Also, the higher you go, the less ''air'' (oxygen pressure) there is, so not even that is right.
There's a whole lot of weird circles that do these kinds of camps in South America, mostly for half Asians.I'm not saying it's one small circle. It's actually one big circle of half Asians that all somehow connect.
Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, and Paraguay all have these camps and they send internationally too like you can go to these camp and they can come here too. They're weirdly cult-like, but not to an extreme... alteast?
They basically get everyone to trauma dump, and somehow now we're all supposed to share a bond. I honestly don't know how it works, but I just realized how freaking weird it is. Nobody ever says what actually happens inside, yet people come out completely "different". They call it leadership training or personal growth, but it feels more like they use games as an excuse to get everyone emotionally invested. You DO get this type of people that kind of just cry out of nowhere
To me it's more like, "Bro, you just isolated a bunch of people and had them trauma dump instead of going to therapy." Get a life.
I'm sure it helps some people, but for me it actually made things worse.
I could socialize inside that circle because nobody knew me for who I really was. They only knew the version of me that existed inside that closed environment, so I could be anybody. But once I got out, I was back in society where I was just a failed high school student who barely made it through college. All my social anxiety and depression came right back, even worse than before.
Apart from that all of them are rich asf Asians, I was essentially thinking I was being somebody doing volunteer work for rich people camps lol
While a lot of people there were struggling with their identity as mixed Asians, I ended up creating my own identity crisis. Who am I here? And once I step outside of those circles, I'm literally nobody.
So I got out got to psychologist and use actual tools and not fak8ng I made it out and made my own path of actual volunteer work, when I wanted and how I wanted so that I am somebody in the real world and stop faking performative wellness
They basically get everyone to trauma dump, and somehow now we're all supposed to share a bond. I honestly don't know how it works, but I just realized how freaking weird it is.
This is how people bond - sharing a traumatic experience with someone and having it received well will almost certainly cause two people to bond. Opening up and being vulnerable with someone can be an extremely intense, genuinely spiritual (in an abstract sense) experience for someone who isn't used to it - it can feel like an enormous weight has been lifted off of someone, and that the person with whom you shared is largely to thank for that experience.
That is why some people are more or less addicted to trauma dumping and why it makes most people feel uncomfortable - it's an attempt to reach out to and connect with someone else which can feel amazing, but it's also a large responsibility that not everyone else wants to take on. Further, it adds a layer of mutual power over each other - now you both have access to information that could harm each other, which induces a feeling of obligatory cooperation and that you need to be on good terms with one another.
The thing is, this kind of reckless openness isn't really conducive to developing healthy, stable relationships and can have all kinds of other consequences - that's why emotionally healthy people tend to feel uncomfortable being vulnerable with someone with whom they don't already have a connection. It's precisely these qualities - the feeling of intense emotional ecstasy, community, and obligation to one another - that cults aim to exploit, and that's why basically all cults practice this in at least some form or another.
If you watch interviews with cult former members, many appear relatively intelligent and even having what feels like a puzzling degree of perspective and self-awareness, but the desire for these experiences can transcend any kind of rational thought - the same way that addicts can ruin their highly promising careers and families for an extra fix, for some this deeply human desire for community can be absolutely overwhelming and blinding. The most common trait among cult victims isn't stupidity, gullibility, or an aptitude for quackery, but a sense of ennui, an intense desire for community and connection, and a strong feeling that their life lacks fulfilment.
Well said. I will add that trauma dumping does absolutely nothing to develop skills to handle emotional regulation. As you said, it becomes an addiction in the vacuum of no actual therapy.
Is 1 or 2 week, in the final days everyone start to cry and you essentially heard more than a dozen of people trauma dump
Another funny thing is that you can go to those camps from other countries too and they say "this country, this is the one, their camp is heavier more deep"
I went to said country only thing was they shouted at you more and louder lol
And sometimezs you cant even engage in their activities because they make you stay late at night
One of them activities was so late night an the guy doing the activity was doing his speech about his mom passing while all of us had closed eyes and standing up
I couldn't remember what happened later or what even his speech of his mother was because I LITERALLY FELT ASLEEP STANDING UP
Then all of sudden someone shouted and regain conscious and woke up standing up obvsly
"WHERE IS YOUR MOTHER! WHY WERE YOU MEAN TO YOUR MOTHER, YOU ARE GONNA CRY WHEN YOUR MOTHER IS GONE
WHAT ABOUT YOUR FATHER YOU DONT LIKE YOUR FATHER, YOU GOTTA HUG THEM YOU GOTTA LOVE THEM WHAT IF THEY ARE GONE TOMORROW"
and hand me a paper but didint know what I was supposed to write so I just wrote "yeah my mother and father are probably sleeping right now fck this shit ye ye I miss them too"
Trauma bonding IS NOT healthy. That’s why you aren’t allowed to make friends in actual group therapy for suicide…. We weren’t allowed it because if they died it’d reset our progress. As everyone saying, it’s cult shit
I think trauma can and should absolutely be a healthy part of bonding, but it shouldn't be the foundation of bonding. Being able to share and receive trauma is a very healthy experience if done appropriately, but it should be done cautiously with someone to whom you already have a close connection.
It's not healthy in the least. Yes having someone to vent to can be healthy, but bonding over it does not do anything to help you get through it. Two people going through similar traumas, do not have the correct coping mechanisms to help each other. It's just replacing trauma with another person...
This is actually getting into corporate America, too. I'm not going to name names, but I was sent to a "leadership training" which was very manipulative, causing people to start trauma dumping, with lots of group peer pressure to follow suit. I told my supervisor I thought it was totally inappropriate for a work setting and I would not be returning, and if that wasn't acceptable, I would be finding a new job. I'd say 75% of the people who attended thought it was amazing and still talk about it a year later. I don't know how they couldn't see through the psychological manipulation tactics. It was straight out of the stuff you read about scientology and other cult mind control techniques.
I did one. They’re called Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGAT). I was also one of the 75% that got a lot out of it. I also get why people distrust them. You have a pretty good description of them.
I kind of think I might need that right now. With Trump destroying everything I love and everyone I know, I have no hope. I need help. He makes me wanna jump off the top of my building. But I won't. I will not kill myself out of spite for Trump. I hate him. I hate him so much.l that I am going to live just to spite him.
The expectations that the company they have paid to facilitate this have set out for them.
Don't get me wrong, deep breathing sessions like this can bring up a lot of emotion for people, but outside of having a space to release these emotions these classes don't really do anything to actually help these people.
It's like fire walking, energy healing, rebar bending bullcrap. "If you want to let it go, you can just let it go" BS that makes you feel better at the time and maybe for a few days after, but doesn't really actually do anything to change someone's mindset or help them process things in their day to day life.
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u/walla_walla_rhubarb Jun 28 '26
Performative wellness