I want to introduce myself

Summary:

I'm a recovering new-ager. Not scared anymore!

I want to introduce myself

littleboat 17 Nov 2010 04:45

Hi everyone! This is a great site, I've been having a lot of fun reading up on all these rumours and hoaxes, plus I've learned a lot about astronomy!

I am a 31 year old mommy to two kiddos. I graduated from the University of California system, I consider myself fairly smart and logical, but I fell hard for this 2012 propaganda. I can only imagine what is going through the minds of some of the kids reading about this stuff! I was raised Catholic, but I've been moved to explore spirituality from all sorts of venues. I've always been interested in different world religions, "new thought" spirituality, etc… And growing up in Northern California, the "new age" movement was around me since birth. I started with the soft stuff — you know, crystals, auras, psychics, angels, that kind of stuff — harmless. But I found myself down the rabbit-hole of wackery — ET's, channelings, lightworkers, government conspiracies, etc… I, oddly, found out about 2012 when I was researching some natural parenting stuff online — and OMG! — found a bunch of women claiming to be "aware mothers" parenting Indigo Children and getting "dna activations" in order to "ascend into 5d reality" by 2012. It is so insane!!! But, eek, I found it hard not to get sucked in… What if it's true?? What if something big is going on?

I was also a journalist for several years. I've worked in mainstream news, but much of my career has been spent with a somewhat large-ish yet totally radical and propagandistic broadcasting company based in Berkeley that was heavily into government conspiracies and "fight The Man" kind of stuff. In fact, I was practically raised by angry baby-boomer paranoid ultra-liberals (my mom is a 9/11 truther and my elementary school teacher was a famous Berkeley Radical from the 60's.). So, in short, all this 2012 stuff was right up my alley so to speak.

When the movie came out, I realized it was a joke. I felt better about that.

Right now I'm trying to de-program my mind from all this out-there, woo cultish nonsense. This website and also another, if I may share it here, really, really helped show how the lion's share of these new-age authors and websites are just plain scams.

Last edited on 17 Nov 2010 07:34 by Astrogeek Show more

Re: I want to introduce myself

Astrogeek 17 Nov 2010 07:32

Hi Littleboat! Welcome to the site!

I've actually heard from more than a few people that the movie actually eased their mind about the whole thing. Sort of like a "Oh, that's just Hollywood" attitude. At the same time, there are groups of people out there who think that the movie was just a way for 'the government to prep us' for the real thing. It just goes to show that you can't win.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to more posts from you!

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"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind

Re: I want to introduce myself

Astrogeek 17 Nov 2010 07:38

btw, one of the little quirks of wikidot typography…

two dashes surrounded by spaces gives you an "em dash" i.e. —

Two dashes not surrounded by spaces gives you strikeout text

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"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind

Re: I want to introduce myself

snorks 17 Nov 2010 16:04

When you start pulling the thread of New Age wackery, you find it repetitive and boring. Everyone repeats what everyone else says, without regard to testing the truth of the matter. Channeling is never tested but taken as gospel. People do not go digging into the statements of the channeller to discover whether it makes sense in reality.

Indigo children is a handy way to explain children who are hard to parent. Rather than deal with why these children are hard to parent, it is easier to label them Indigo, and let them run free. Unfortunately said children do not have the skills to cope with society when they mature because they have not been taught.

You are right when you said it is woo cultish - each New Age channeller reinforces the next channeller, but outside of the circle, there is no reinforcement of that point of view.

Re: I want to introduce myself

obaeyens 17 Nov 2010 18:00

Welcome to sanity littleboat. :-)

The thing that I have noticed is that 2012 and any other conspiracy is that it is basically like drugs. You get addicted to the sites and the Youtube clips and need more and more stories that it must be true to support your believe. At a certain point you cannot separate reality from fiction any-more. You have become an addict.

I think most people can get back to reality if they just stay away from a conspiracy site for a couple of months.

For me it is very interesting to tell your story and especially how you start to realize it is all fake.
It is interesting to know what you think could help people to start realizing that they are getting ripped of by charlatans.

Re: I want to introduce myself

littleboat 17 Nov 2010 15:19

Oh! I was wondering about that! I thought those words were banned (which would make sense, lol).

JustAKId (guest) 17 Nov 2010 15:24

What was the other site that helped you? I've been having a lot of anxiety over this. This site is awesome and there's so many nice people here!!

Re: I want to introduce myself

littleboat 17 Nov 2010 18:01

I hope it's ok to plug the website here. I'm not affiliated with it.

it's www.rickross.com. It's a website that specializes in cult religions and movements, but also has background information on new-age movement and other spiritual charlatans who may not be actual cults but are certainly cult-like in their use of fear-tactics used to control people. It doesn't deal specifically with 2012, but they have a very active forum where people from various wacked-out spiritual backgrounds can discuss the ways they've been abused.

I was involved in a cult-like yoga practice (Kundalini Yoga) that is affiliated with an actual cult (3ho) led by the late Yogi Bhajan who was proved to be a fraud and an abuser. The current leaders of this group are 2012 proponents. During yoga classes (regular yoga classes in a studio on saturday mornings open to the public), the teachers spouted Terrence McKenna Time Wave Zero rip-off theory that in the coming years, everything will be changing so quickly that people will lose their minds and start killing themselves. Unless… they become serious students of their kind of yoga which will give them the spiritual centering required to make it through tough times ahead. And if you're serious, you need to sign up for the teacher training course which runs around $3000-$4000 and of course buy all the books, the clothes, etc…

They are frauds!!!!

Re: I want to introduce myself

Astrogeek 17 Nov 2010 18:44

So many frauds, so little time…

It is unfortunately true that we will never run out of frauds to debunk.

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"Do you ever think about things you do think about?" - Henry Drummond to Matthew Harrison Brady in Inherit the Wind

Re: I want to introduce myself

snorks 17 Nov 2010 20:06

I am familiar with Rick Ross. Good site for debunking cults and cultish type groups.

Re: I want to introduce myself

(account deleted) 17 Nov 2010 18:14

Im flipping through the t.v. guide and there are atleast three 2012 doomsday programs on. This is what I was speaking of. These people are continuing to be irresponsible. People like justakid, are suffering because of this. I mean, why are they doing that? Im a pretty level headed guy, but I can definitly see how all of this could cause anxiety. Now, if anything good came out of my rantings it is this. I adressed most of the common beliefs of 2012 and had all of them debunked. The fact that I was covering much of what people say about 2012, tells you that I have actually studied many of these theories, to the best of my ability. Not one single common claim panned out. In fact, most of these comon beliefs completely contradict eachother. The point is, that is proof to me that all of these claims are just scare tactics. What I dont understand is, why would they want to scare people like that? I was doing it for fun at first, but the second I saw it could cause real damage to real people, I ceased. To continue to spread propaganda, would suggest to me, that these people dont have a heart in their chest.

Re: I want to introduce myself

obaeyens 17 Nov 2010 18:26

The reasons?

• Getting tons of attention from mindless followers.
• Create a sect wit mindless people and get rid of their money.
• Sell books, sell survive packages rip the believers from their money!
• Young people somehow wanting to fight some cause and any conspiracy against the government sounds very cool.

Re: I want to introduce myself

obaeyens 17 Nov 2010 18:30

Also you can't be a expert since all 2012 theories are conflicting with any other 2012 theory.
It is practically self-debunking.

After 3-4 2012 stories or so you should notice that something is wrong with the 2012 claims and do a sanity check on yourself if you stay believing it.

Re: I want to introduce myself

mike1986 17 Nov 2010 19:50

Aw yes today is the day that the History Channel is running a Nostradomis marathon for some odd reason.

Re: I want to introduce myself

(account deleted) 17 Nov 2010 19:38

Oh. My. Goodness. This guy on t.v. actually just said that on 2012, the entire earth's crust is going to swing around the earth on the earth's magma. I mean , what's next? Flying rabid pomeranians?

Re: I want to introduce myself

(account deleted) 17 Nov 2010 19:46

Ok, that may have been a little off topic. You'll have to forgive me, Im still learning how this website works and what needs to be said where, but im learning. I just can't believe what these people are saying. I mean, some of this stuff is more outrageous than the stuff I was at first spewing forth.

Re: I want to introduce myself

Alene Y 18 Nov 2010 03:03

Actually, I liked the flying rabid pomeranians. It makes as much sense as most of the 2012 claims.

AL326 (guest) 30 Dec 2010 21:03

I was looking around to see if anyone mentioned "indigo children" on here!

I am the mother of a two year old, and I won't go into all of the details as to how my fears have effected me or my family (it's similar to the other mothers on here, Also, since it is my first post, I want to thank this site, you are saving so many people). At the time I was so scared of 2012 that I thought the only two options were to believe in the worst or turn it into a positive and start researching this "higher conciousness shift." I wanted some kind of hope and so I came across the indigo/crystal children nonsense and I thought that maybe my son might have the characteristics. Now I know they could fit just about everybody (isn't that called the Forer effect or something?) While researching that, along with 2012 sites, I met someone in an "indigo children" chatroom that told me I needed to move somewhere remote, plant fruit trees, and that he wanted to "steal" my child. He said that I should have more "crystal" children, three years apart, because that is "the way." I got so scared! I respect other religions, but some of these people could be downright crazy and I'm terrified for children who are being told they are "indigo" or "starseed" or mixed with alien DNA, because what if they get involved with the wrong kind of people? There are so many websites and youtube videos with "special messages to the indigo children" that seem to have spooky subliminal pictures inside of them. As a mother and a 5th grade teacher, I am most worried for children. I pride myself in my own education; I have a master's degree, and if this stuff can almost get me, I KNOW it can have a horrible effect on children. Technology is a wonderful thing, but such a dangerous tool when used to spread incorrect information…

I have started teaching extra lessons on detecting reputable resources on the Internet. I would like to find a way to use your "detecting BS" articles but in a kid friendly way ;)

obaeyens 30 Dec 2010 22:21

I think every one should be taken accountable for the damage they do on others and can get sued for this.

I just noticed that the Power Balance scam has come to a halt in Australia. They have to pay back the people that bought it.

bikenbeer2000 31 Dec 2010 05:37

Indigo Children is just more new-age claptrap.
I always follow the principle that if you totally ignore anything to do with new-age ideas, you are very likely to be better off. You are certainly never going to be worse off.