So if you’re a follower of the blog, you’ll know that I’ve been critical of Stephane over at Ideagasms since, oh, it began. I’ve just had ay too many people I like and trust tell me about how the guy lied and screwed them over to actually believe Stephane is in this business to actually help other people as opposed to creating a cult for himself.
In one of my early podcasts, you can see where I expose most of his lies during an interview with Barry Kirkey. (Its not one of my better podcasts, but whatever. The point is to get the truth out there.)
Anyway, today I get an email from a reader named Lor who informs me of some major drama going on over at Ideagasms. It seems more and more of the cult has stopped drinking the kool-aid, and Stephane is banning them to keep them from speaking out against his teachings.
But these “Ex-IGs” aren’t staying quiet. In fact, they’ve created their own forum and Facebook Group to expose the truth about Stephane, and boy, is it not pretty!
Check out what David B., the creator of the Facebook Group, has to say about his experiences with Stephane…
David B. writes:
Ideagasms Exposed!
An Insider’s Story of the Journey Through Stephane LandThis is an honest account of my experience with the organization known as Ideagasms, and its leader, Stephane Hemon. This could be classified as an “expose” of sorts, since it contains a lot of information that’s less than flattering. However, my intention is not to harm or demean anyone, but simply to speak about something that needs to be spoken of. People have a right to be informed.
This post is also for Ideagasms members who have been wondering where the “ex-IG” forum is since they’ve heard rumors about it, but have been unable to find it because of Stephane’s prohibition of our links.
To the moderators here: I completely understand and respect the goals of this forum (success with women), as well as your right to moderate it how you wish in order to facilitate those goals. Please understand that part of success is about avoiding pitfalls, and I’m posting this to inform people about one of those. Please let this message stay up. By allowing it to reach people, you may be helping to steer them away from a very dark, lonely, and frustrating road.
Ok, so here’s my story.
When I first discovered Ideagasms, it was in its infancy. Steph was just an average dude with some modest insight into the pickup world, trying to make a living out of it. His ideas concerning spiritual topics and how they relate to pickup intrigued me, so I read all his newsletters, and signed up on his forum as soon as he started it. I soon became the most prolific poster, earning a wide degree of admiration from the other members through my lengthy and entertaining field reports. Within just a couple months, Steph made me the admin of the forum.
I felt that he was honest in the beginning, and genuinely trying to help people. He didn’t make himself out to be anything special, beyond a regular guy with some skills to teach. But as with so many things, what starts out as a good intention can quickly become obscured when power is involved.
After a few months, he started to change the structure of his posts and newsletters, taking out what genuine insight he had, and replacing it with boasts about his accomplishments. He started talking more and more about how good his game is, and started using labels such as “best PUA in the world” to describe himself. Perhaps it was due to our youthful naivete, or our eagerness to believe someone had finally found all the answers; but for whatever the reason, I and many others bought into it, and heaped praise on him. Thus began a cycle of him boasting outlandish (and as we would later find out, extremely exaggerated) claims about his skills, and forum members blindly worshipping him for it – a pattern that would only intensify as time went on.
At this time (around the beginning of 2006), he began to delve headfirst into some really freaky “New Age” stuff that would make even a messianic cult leader blush. Now I happen to enjoy a lot of new agey concepts, I’m no atheist – but he took it to such an extreme that I’m almost surprised to still be alive. He claimed he was going to achieve something called “Ascension” – a state in which a person evolves to the point that they have no more issues in life, no more karma, and their soul walks out of their body and gains the ability to manifest any physical object they desire (e.g. gold, food, women, a new body), fly to other galaxies and back, and live the rest of their life in a constant state of orgasm. He claimed he was going to do it by the end of 2008, and that if we followed him, we would be able to do so as well. Most of us would go in 2012, but a special few of his closest, most devoted students, might be able to make it by his side in 2008. To grant credibility to these claims, he cited the guidance of a reclusive, enigmatic “aunt”, who was supposedly one of the top 10 or 20 spiritual people in the whole world. She never communicated to anyone except through him, yet that didn’t stop her from giving us remote “past life readings” for $30 a pop – readings which were rife with duplications, historical inaccuracies, and contradictions. In the spring of that year, he stopped talking about her, and largely quieted down on the Ascension talk too- and it wasn’t until I asked him on the phone, “whatever happened to that aunt of yours?”, that he brushed it off by saying she went insane and disappeared. And that was the end of that.
Before I go on, I want to explain one of Stephane’s core psychological tactics that he uses for making people follow him. It’s called “cognitive dissonance.”. Basically, how it works, is he will come out with a new concept – something ridiculous, like tricking a guy into swallowing your cum is a compassionate thing to do (see his “Dragonbutter” story) – and he’ll suffix it with a seemingly innocuous, yet very potent sentence right afterwards:
“Many people won’t be ready to handle this truth.”
“You will only agree with this if your heart is open.”
“Only those with high self-esteem will understand what I mean.”This flies right under the radar, and gets you to think of yourself as “un-evolved” (read: “not as cool”) compared to your peers, who all supposedly have high enough vibrations to agree with him – unless you can manage to somehow buy into his story as well. So with the self-image under threat, the mind will do whatever it needs to in order to protect itself, including altering its belief systems (i.e. Dragonbutter is not cruel, it’s lovely!) to conform with the group, and earn the label “open-hearted” or whatever other label is in question. In this fashion, entire belief systems can be surreptitiously torn down, piece by piece, and replaced with new belief systems, without the believer even realizing what’s happened. If you’re not aware of how this works, it’s only a matter of time before you become ensnared in it – and once in it, it just keeps gathering momentum, because more and more of your self-image is staked on your position in the group. I fell for this big time.
Anyway, back to the story. In June 2006, I visited Montreal, in order to meet the man himself. I ended up staying there the whole summer, in order to learn from him (and besides, Montreal is an awesome city), and it was during this time that I first started to notice that not all was well in Steph-land.
I went out with him 3 or 4 times a week, and began to notice some “inconsistencies” in his claims, to put it mildly. We would be out at a bar, and Ghita would befriend a couple of girls and bring them to our table, introducing them to Steph. Then they would continue to talk to Ghita, while Steph sipped his beer and chatted with the guys. They might have given him an occasional sidelong glance or nod of acknowledgment, but overall they paid little attention to him, or any of us. But then in the field report the next day, it would be quite different, with Steph claiming “all 4 girls were hardcore into me, shaking and quivering from my presence, dripping wet from the sound of my voice, my game is #1 in the world, im the best PUA in the world, no one else has my skills, no one can do what I do, I’m the best, I’m the greatest, blah blah blah.”
There were times when he’d play pool at the bar. Occasionally he’d make a difficult shot, and a few people standing nearby would clap. But in the field report, it became something like “half the BAR was cheering me on.” These types of exaggerations were not isolated instances – they were patterns, and they still are, as he continues them to this day.
And the most telling evidence of all, is the fact that I’ve never seen him approach a girl – ever. I asked him so many times to demonstrate his skills, just once, and he outright refused, claiming that he “paid his dues” by training Ghita to pick up for him, and therefore doesn’t have to do it himself anymore. I have never seen him interact with a girl for more than 30 seconds, other than Ghita, despite hanging out with him for hundreds of hours in a city filled to the brim with beautiful women.
Here’s a funny story. After a while, my requests must have gotten annoying to him, so he grudgingly agreed to demonstrate an approach. So he bade me to follow him through the bar until he found a chick to talk to. I stuck by him for about 20 minutes, until finally the normal course of events got us seperated. Then about a half an hour later, I heard a voice behind me – it was Steph. “Did you see? Did you see???? Whaaat? You weren’t looking??? I did an approach!! Fuck, you didn’t see?”
This happened more than once. Eventually I gave in to the reality that I would never see Stephane Hemon talk to a girl. Only a few people I know of have seen him interact with girls at all, (nevermind approach, just interact), and not surprisingly, they report that he comes off creepy – alienating them within minutes, if not seconds. He himself admits this to a degree, rationalizing it as the fault of the girls, saying they just couldn’t handle his high amount of “Light.”
At the same time, in my own life, his methods were causing my already shaky success with women to plummet into depths I never imagined possible. I don’t want to go into just how bad it was, but it was somewhere around “absolute zero”. And Steph helped me rationalize it by saying things like “don’t worry man, these girls are just afraid of your Light. They can’t handle you, and that’s why they’re running away – they’re afraid. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and eventually you’ll find a girl whose heart is open enough to appreciate you.” So I kept going.
I wrote numerous field reports detailing my adventures in Montreal, praising Steph’s methods. From my reports, it would have seemed that I was doing really well, and success was juuuuuuuust around the corner. But inside, my doubts were growing. I didn’t want to keep doing stuff that wasn’t working, but at the same time I didn’t want to risk rejection from the group if I challenged the leader or his doctrines. Ideagasms had become cultified, with some people getting banned for being overly vocal in their disagreements, or having too much praise for a rival teacher or method. As the admin of the forum, it was too much to risk, especially since I was the one doing the bannings.
So that fall I went back to college for my last semester. During this time, I stopped praising Steph and started posting about my own theories and discoveries. I also started dropping hints about my dissatisfaction with the leader and his teachings, saying as much as I could without directly challenging him. Steph grew more distant, and more reluctant to talk to me. In December I went right back up to Montreal, planning to live there permanently due to the merits of the city itself, more so than it’s status as the capital of Ideagasms. I had pretty much dropped out of the cult in all but name, and the desire began growing to speak out openly.
After a few nights out with the “gang” (Steph and his band of male groupies who follow him around, supplicating to him and giving him rockstar social proof that he uses to gain what little attention he can from girls), and seeing him do some really nasty things (such as sticking around a group of hapless Christian girls from Alabama for a whole night, ostracizing them for their beliefs and encouraging me and the gang to join him when they wanted nothing to do with any of us, as well as him laughing at homeless people, throwing a beer bottle down to try to shatter it on the bar floor, getting his Ascension-bound spiritual ass shitfaced six nights in a row, and other stuff I won’t get into), I had had enough.
Finally, I publicly questioned him on his forum. I asked him how he can keep telling me to use the same methods, if they obviously aren’t working. And he banned me just for that.
I didn’t know what to do, so I apologized, and he let me back on the forum. My drive towards honesty once again getting the better of me, I then wrote a post about how people are hero-worshipping him, and urging them to stop doing it. I was banned again, and he pretty much hasn’t talked to me since.
After that happened, a friend let me read the forum through his account, and I watched it degenerate further and further. He began cracking down more than ever on dissenters and those who started waking up. Whenever someone would poke their head above the clouds and ask him a serious question, or point out flaws in his doctrine in any way, he banned them immediately. Dozens of people were banned in a period of just a few months. Then came one night, which we’re calling “the midnight massacre”, where he banned 12 people all at once, under the pretense of “raising the energy vibration of the forum.” So that’s when we decided that this guy has to be exposed. And we started our own forum.
Sadly, most of the people there are not going anywhere, and there is no way for them to realize it because the chorus of conformity is so loud and so insulated that there’s no way for any contrary idea to come in and interrupt it. As soon as someone realizes his methods don’t work, he bans them before they get a chance to tell others their thoughts. He has a team of 5 or 6 followers who scan the forum all day long, deleting and banning anything that resembles criticism in the slightest degree. People believe his claims of superpowers and of being “the most successful human being on the planet” (real quote), not because he’s particularly persuasive about it, but rather because he censors any voice that doesn’t agree with it.
In the last six months, he has been delving into the writings of an obscure, kooky “scientist” named David Hawkins, whose primary claim to fame is that he has discovered a bullet-proof system for determining “absolute truth”, which basically involves assigning a number (1 to 1000) to a particular person, thought, or idea, with 1 being the darkest, most untrue, and 1000 being absolute light and truth. It’s no surprise that he calibrates himself and Ghita in the 600’s and 700’s, his followers mostly in the 400’s and 500’s, non-followers in the 200’s and 300’s, and critics (such as us) in the 100’s. With this system, he categorically justifies anything he wants to.
Most of his posts now are simply about “reaching a higher numerical level”, and his forum has turned into a spiritual penis-size contest of aspiring calibraters, trying to claim the highest numerical value for themselves that they can get away with and have others believe. To call it a keyboard jockey’s paradise would be an understatement. Relationships and sexuality are rarely discussed anymore, except for the purpose of justifying a higher calibration. Most field reports read like missionary diaries, detailing how the gospel was brought to the heathens. One structure that seems to be quite popular, is as follows (paraphrasing, of course):
“Hey guys! I went out in a state of 500, pitied all the low-vibing girls who were stuck in the 300’s, tried to help them ‘raise up their level’ but my help was denied, and so, despite having a girl who was ‘totally into me’, I had to do the ‘integrous’ thing, and ‘disqualify’ her.”
Needless to say, it doesn’t work in actually improving their ability to relate to people, or women. On the contrary, they’re being taught to back themselves into corners, to burn bridges, and to reject more and more of the world, under the pretense that it’s all beneath them. It’s really just a defense mechanism to justify loneliness, to make it seem noble and desirable since they’re at a loss to overcome it – but no one is allowed to suggest this. In fact, one of Steph’s closest confidantes, his chief “Calibrater”, got banned just a few days ago for making this very observation.
I don’t doubt that most of them are very frustrated on the inside. I know what it’s like to be in pain, while wearing a mask on the outside that says things are wonderful and Ascension is right around the corner. But he keeps on dangling the carrot for them, and they remain distracted.
“Hey, who cares, sex isn’t that good for you anyway, it’ll detract from your spiritual ascension process. Would you rather bounce up and down on a bed and trade body juices, or raise your consciousness to *700* and beyond? I just checked my calibration of you, and you made a big jump recently. Only a few more weeks and you should be at 650! 700 isn’t far away!”
I wonder how long it can continue? I suppose each person has a limit to how much they can take, and once they pass it, they leave. But there are always more people waiting in the wings, and the cycle continues, just with new faces. We, his ex-students, want to put a stop to the cycle, but unfortunately there’s no way to reach through his tough curtain of censorship. That’s why we’re posting here – to maybe reach a few people.
The censorship itself is complete. He outright condemns the idea of free speech – openly. He says freedom of speech is just an excuse for people to say negative things and lower the vibration of the group. “Doubt”, he says, is a dark energy that reeks of ego. “Opinions” are worthless ego-creations, designed to plant “untruths” in people’s minds. When he bans people, he often reminds them that skepticism calibrates below 200, and the forum calibrates above 600, and the discrepancy means that they’re “sabotaging his mission.”
Fuckin crazy, if you ask me.
As for our forum, he bans anyone who even speaks about it. All you have to do is ask, “hey, I heard there’s an Ex-IG forum out there somewhere, does anyone have the link?”, and you’re kicked out. He even has moles on our forum, trying to discover which of the people there still have accounts on his forum, so he can ban them.
Not long after we started it, it began to gain momentum as more and more disallusioned Ideagasms members joined up, eager for a chance to discuss Stephane’s ideas without fear of censorship. Steph made a shoddy attempt to assuage his followers’ growing sense of doubt by debunking our “grievances”, skipping over most of the important ones and using red herrings and straw-man arguments to make us look bad – not to mention falling back on his “calibration system” as a last resort to prove that we were wrong and he was right. He also made up lies about me and the other founders, which we have no way of responding to on his forum.
Recently he discovered a new tactic that’s quite sneaky: banning people without actually deleting their account. Now if you cross him, he will just change your password so you can’t log in – and to other members, it will appear as if all is peachy and no one’s been kicked out. Brilliant move, if I may say so myself.
Oh, and then there are the pills.
Stephane is claiming that he has a secret batch of pills – yes, pills – sitting in his cupboard, which can cure any disease (HIV, cancer, diabetes, kidney stuff, everything), sculpt any body without effort, and yes, even enlarge your penis (you saw that coming, didn’t you?), which were provided to him secretly by an anonymous, renegade “nano-scientist.” He claims he is one of the very few people on earth with the priviledge of having access to these revolutionary new pills, and for $1,000 a month, he can hook you up with a regimen. As we speak, he is supposedly taking these pills, turning his flabby body into Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. However, there’s just one caveat – the pills won’t work if you “don’t believe in them.” If you take them with “skepticism”, don’t be surprised if they fail to transform you. His actual post can be read on the Ex-IG forum.
Only one person in the whole group had the courage to kindly request that Steph provide evidence of his claims. Steph responded by accusing him of “trying to drag everyone down”, and of spreading the dreaded vibration of “doubt”, which as we know, calibrates below 200, and he banned the guy.
Here’s an assortment of nice little quotations from Stephane:
-“Freedom of speech is of no value. If I were to allow people to post anything they wanted, this forum would turn into the next mASF with people posting darkness, misogyny, arrogant positionalities, ego ego ego.” (Feb 23, 2008)
-“Then you have the greeks and italians. I group them into one pile of euro-trash.” (Feb 24, 2008).
-“Latino chicks, from brazil, panama, whatever. Macho, annoying, stupid, shallow, tough bitches who fly off the handle and have emotional outbursts for no apparent reason.”
-“Then there’s the jews, who secretly think they are special. Yes I’m generalizing, and no I’m not anti-semitic. But the Jews are the biggest poor me victims to ever live on earth, as far as i can tell.”
-“Yes, a lot of people would like “free spech” so they could come on here and post a bunch of fear-based crap and lower the vibe of IG forums.”
-“Gay pride is nothing but arrogance, and so most of them just wind up getting AIDS.”
-“About the chakras, I know what I know… So, you not seeing the value is obviously pure ego pride, which is an energy not welcome on this forum.”
-“Just know that I’m a lot quicker than you are, and my wisdom exceeds yours significantly. At the end of our debate, I’ll need you to say, “Thanks Stephane, for helping to raise my consciousness” – AND, you’ll also have to buy the GTP.”
-“The real answer is they have student/teacher syndrome, in which jealousy and pride prevent them from doing anything other than pathetic little attempts to prove to themselves that they are more evolved than I am. It’s fallacious.”
“The more enlightened i become, the greater your chances of getting there too, just by
virtue of being in a room with me. I know the way out of hell.”-“It’s up to you to choose to be humble about it and view me as your Teacher, with a capitol “T”. I have earned that level of respect and that title.”
-“I recently made the jump to 602, which is the first stages of true Enlightenment. I am completely un-identified from my mind and body, and could literally choose to walk out of this body and leave for good. I have no more human karma, as i have mastered the linear world of form.”
“My advice to you: SHUT THE FUCK UP.” (April 5, 2008).
* * * * *
So there you have it. That’s my story, and that’s what’s going on behind the doors of the world’s most highly evolved teacher of relationships and spirituality. You can do what you want with this information. If you still want to investigate him, (perhaps you have an overpowering sense of curiosity), go ahead, but be very careful – he is a master NLP user, extremely effective at reframing, rationalizing, and subtle manipulation. If you’re not cautious, you could be helped to several platefuls of mental programming you never signed up for.
He makes liberal use of terms like “love”, “light” and so forth, which might impress a newcomer, but just remember that words are not the same as actions. Some people can preach love and compassion all day long, while in practice suppressing that very thing.
If you’re concerned that Steph may be the only person in the world teaching a blend of pickup and spirituality, rest assured that he’s not. There are many other people on a similar path, and many of the “community” teachers are starting to incorporate more and more of it into their ideas. And ultimately, spirituality is inside you – not outside. It doesn’t come from a guru.
For more information and to discuss this topic, you can visit the Ex-Ideagasmers forum (and this isn’t an advertisement for any products, cause we’re not selling anything). Thanks for reading… and may whatever path you take lead you home.
In addition to all this, it would seem Stephane has also lost his biggest form of social proof – Ghita – very recently. it would appear that poor girl finally smartened up and dumped his sorry ass.
Check out the email correspondence between David G. and Ghita to confirm the fallout…
Discussion between David G and Ghita:
E-mail sent on august 22nd:
“Hey Ghita, I heard the great news I imagine your having a lot of mixed emotions right now and I guess thats a natural process. Stephane was a nightmare trip that took us along for the ride, we were both YOUNG, NAIVE and UNAWARE. He was older then us and he used our good hearts against us, I cant imagine what you’ve been through up to this point. Just let me know if you want me near and ill be there stay strong Angel and dont be afraid you’ve just entered into your brighter days.
David”
———-
From Ghita Jones (Facebook) August 25 at 7:39pm:
“David,
Stephane and I are no longer together, he did hijack my facebook and my e-mails, I just now got my facebook back, as of 3 min ago.
I read your other e-mails and I don’t know what to tell you, how about..you’re right. About everything.
I’m with my mom and my brother and my cat. A lot of shit went down.
Hope you’re doing alright David.
Sincerely,
Ghita”
So it’s pretty much official – Stephane is a psycho. Stay away, and buyer beware.
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What does posting that info achieve? it’s an address; what do you want to come from your posts? it was stupid to post stephane’s info, and that is also dumb.
Mark 26
Go blow your master. Does your mommy know you are playing on the computer again?
Isn’t it funny….this thread would die and fall into the deep hole of the archives, if these cult people would just let it go.
Why do they keep posting the address ? Nobody is doing shit. A bunch of fucking hippies with flowers in their hairs are going to what… assault Thundercat ? Wankers
My definition of ‘hell’ is: having your happiness depend on the image other people have of you
Hi All,
Stephan’s IG stuf has done nothing but help in my life. Good things have flown from it, I’m sure the same thing applies to other people. Nobody’s perfect.
Thanks for the info though – it is all very interesting, although it doesn’t impact what I’ve learnt from him – however he choses to apply his teachings, we must all use our own initiative, sense and intuition to descide what is right for us.
Stay happy,
Alex
I want to believe in something, in someone
Hello everyone reading this!
This is a letter I sent to Ideagasms.com a while ago to lend my emotional support to Greta and Stephane. I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff online about Ideagasms being a cult, and with anything in my life, I went inside, turned over every stone, and made my own decision about it.
SIDE NOTE: It sucks Steph and Amy Jo and Ghita aren’t together anymore. But I wish everyone involved only the best in life. If they have any pain from these experiences, I hope it heals and they are able to go on to lead great lives in their own respective manner.
My decision: I think cult is too strong of a word for what Steph has going over at Ideagasms. Following, maybe… But a cult? When someone says stuff like,” Be your own guru…” or ” This stuff isn’t designed to turn you into a mini-Stephane.” (Both quotes are from his news letters… The last one is paraphrased but the meaning remains the same.) No where in those above quotes yells out to me,” Hey, give me all your money, I can have sex with your wife or girlfriend, and pack your shit we’re going to Jonestown!”
The Manson Family was a cult!
Charles Manson told his followers that he was the reincarnated Jesus, the Beatles were sending him messages through there songs, he said the Beatles were four angels in the Biblical book “The Book of Revelations,” Manson was angel number 5 in “Revelations,” and he told his followers to go murder people. And they lived in a shitty shack.
Whereas, Ideagasms has tried to help people love themselves fully and teach how relationships can operate better. There is no one way to have a perfect relationship…But if there was, Stephane’s methods would be up there with the top contenders.
Please read this letter and keep on open mind. Remember, I am just a guy on the internet,whom you’ll probably never meet in real life, posting something that maybe different from your opinion. Look around at people at the grocery store or mail box and I look something like that. I pose no threat to you… so if you want to call me bad names for what I am posting…it’s just futile. I am fine however if you disagree with me, just please be polite and sensible.
ONE THING: Yes, I’ve heard of Steph’s miracle pills in his medicine cabinet. Does it sound far fetched? Yes. But I have a book that says Hitler had a grand child. The book is called “Reincarnation Keys to Immortality.” I’ve never heard anyone else say that or have never come upon someone else who has read that book. Does it make me sound out there? Yes. I also have another spiritually minded book that says there really could be blue cows out there, it’s just nobody has reported them yet. So I’ll believe the pill thing when they come available for me see, but I won’t rule them out entirely.
Here’s the letter, I think with anything it’s best to take what works for you and leave the rest. PEACE!
Hey Stephane,
> I ‘ve been reading your stuff since your interview with
> David DeAngelo and now I am finding stuff on the net about Ideagasms
> being a cult. Okay, I am not sure what happened between you, Greta,
> Amy Jo, and Ghita, but you guys are all adults and are free to make
> the best decisions you can at any point in time.I remember in quite
> a couple of David D’s newsletters guys started to call “cocky and
> funny” their religion, and that was in between 2005 and 2006. And
> now in 2008, you’re the asshole because of some of the things you do
> and teach???
>
Note: I never did get that newsletter where you told everyone to
> put a shrine with a picture of you and your girlfriends in their
> house and pray to it at least 10 times a day…
>
Listen, I understand sympathy issues and having to let
> people go so that you feel better… I had them with my family, whom
> would yell at me or try to guilt me into doing what they wanted even
> though I was totally not into it, i.e. going to church, telling me I
> was fat, telling me what I needed to do in life. ( just stealing my
> energy) and I’d say to myself,” They’re my family.” As if to give
> them a pass on shitty behavior. But guess what? I tried talking to
> these people and eventually it led to yelling…and then I gave up and
> went on with my life… and now? I am much much happier! But, and
> maybe you can relate to this Steph, I’m the asshole according to
> them now for not hanging around to get emotionally butchered every
> time we’d see each other.
>
Another thing, the board went down because people bitched,
> bitched, and bitched some more without actually wanting to solve
> their problems and it lowered the vibe. Yeah, guess what? About two
> weeks ago, my friend and I were on a drive and started to talk about
> how we despised our bosses and what they did to the employees where
> we work. And guess what? The conversation ended with my friend
> yelling,”Fuck it! I don’t want to talk about it anymore!” And then
> we both felt like crap and on the brink of tears for a long time
> after. So yeah, bitching about old issues, not venting once and
> done when something bad happens, does hurt to be around.
>
And besides, it was always your mission to teach people how
> to have circle relationships and not to become the doormat for
> anything and everything spiritual, right?
>
Lastly, the drug use thing has to turn a lot of people off, I
> am positive of it. But when I was 3, I remember finding my Dad’s box
> that he kept pot in. I sniffed the contents inside and all I
> remember is how damn bad everything smelled. He even had a bag of
> pot in there that I sniffed for awhile, but I didn’t feel anything.
> Also, when I was about 6, my dad also smoked it around me…again,
> nothing.
>
But about two years, ago someone smoked pot around me and I
> started to feel a small buzz. This was a time in my life when I was
> searching for my purpose and what I wanted to do in life. It was a
> major point of my being, so I felt pretty incomplete as a person at
> that point.
> My point is… when I was younger and before the world had a
> field day on my ass, being around drugs didn’t do anything to me. As
> an adult with problems, completely different story. So for you to
> say doing drugs doesn’t make you feel like a depressed loser, I
> believe you.
Okay, that was a long letter, but I just wanted to chime
> in and tell you I still believe in your mission, even in a time
> when you are getting constantly knifed in the back. And one last
> thing, if the people reading your letters and studying your stuff
> ever elevated you to a perfect infallible superhuman who could do no
> wrong and then they felt left down when you acted human…that was
> just dumb of them.
>
All right, Have a Good Life and Keep Doing What Makes you Happy,
>
> Jesse D.
> P.S. I saw someone bitching about how much of an egotistical
> prick you were for moving to Costa Rica. Yeah… it’s not being an
> asshole to spend your money to move to beautiful place. Being an
> arrogant prick with money would be buying a golden toilet, that had
> jewels on it, and then going to the bathroom in it.
>
>
If people want to believe in Stephane, they are free to try his stuff, to start posting on his forum, etc.
The problem is, although he’ll say: be your own guru, he bans anyone who will even remotely disagree with him and call them “energy vampires” or “low vibing”
So his forum turns into a big ass-kissing contest, where everyone prosternates and gives their power away to Mighty Steph, living in fear that they’ll say something for which Steph will disagree or will feel “vamped”
The guy has paranoid delusions, he sees energy vampires everywhere (he’ll even say that calling him paranoid is a very popular technique used by energy vamps)
So if he brings value to your life, that’s perfectly fine… but if you’re having trouble ‘applying’ what you learn from the guy, it’s perfectly normal, since it’s something that he can’t even apply to his own life
Steph can be great, at first… but somewhere along the line, some event occurs, something clicks inside and you go: “Jesus, I always knew this guy was nuts, but I never bothered to listen to my gut feeling, he’s such a manipulative asshole”
But everyone can change.
I say: give Steph a try. But don’t give your entire power to the guy.
Because of Steph’s recent whining on the old ex-ig forum, which just re-opened as of January 18th, I have decided to re-open the new ex-ig forum. You see, the old forum was recently re-opened and then shut down because of the still, overpowering influence Steph has over the few who knew him personally. The new forum will have most of the posts from the old ex-ig forum too (Including posts about Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Steph hitting Ghita, etc). I managed to get these old posts by coicidence in the last few days, and will use them to point out correlations in abusive and manipulative behavior. I also have the posts which Steph used to bring the old forum down, which will further justify my re-opening of the new forum.
It will take some time to put the old posts up, but they WILL be up. Also, since I’m anonymous to Steph, there is no way he can use his manipulative intimidation tactics to close this forum down.
Here’s the link http://z13.invisionfree.com/exideagasmers2/index.php?
I agree with Greg ^^^
the guy has had more than his load of suffering
Guys, this is Buddha (the admin of the ex-ideagasmers forum)
I say everybody deserves a second chance !
Take it for a checking and see for yourself if the guy has changed or not… but don’t hold on so tightly to the past.
Hey have you guys read online anywhere about Steph freaking out because Ghita hooked up with Neil Strauss? Neil and Steph were friends or at least acquaintances, I think.
But I don’t care who you are or how enlightened you are… whenever someone looks their relationship with you up and down and decides they want to break up with you and then they find someone else or are intimate with someone else… it’s going to hurt. Nobody ever is going to jump up and down and cheer their heart out about this happening to them. No one.
its funny little steph’s behavior matters once you living your own life. let go of the past; learn your lessons; and LIVE.
Buddha are you promoting IG now?
http://www.ideagasms.net/healing-p0rn-and-lust-without-guilt/
Man, when is this guy going to stop?
Stephane, here this.
I watch porn, i love it. I dont feel guilty, i have no reason to feel guilty. It interferes in NO WAY to my life.
Get over it!
Geez, i didnt even read all of that tripe. Once again, a newsletter with 1% content with the other 98% being tripe that means nothing to any sane man.
sorry i meant to say 99% tripe. close enough though.
This is what this guy wrote:
Laughing, 24. January 2009, 10:15
’ll tell you something about you, and this is not an assumption. You DESPISE love and you HATE vulnerability, both which you mistake for weakness.
You have a lot to learn about women. I love TOO much, there are times where I am extremely vulnerable. Neither are weakness. But you think for one second you can show all that to a woman and her still respect you……see how long she sticks around.
I have seduced and slept with over one hundred women…..every time, and I mean every time I showed my heart and feelings it soon ended. You’ve got to understand that what women say they want isn’t what they want….or need for that matter. They THEMSELVES do not know what they want, it changes with the wind.
Unconditional love is something you only feel for offspring….you’ll not understand that until you have one. Stop whining about your twisted “guru”….he is a scam and only weak people fall for it…..deal with it.
Oh, are you calling me the devil…..laughing.
“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”
HAha you F**cking retard. Are u aware of how insane it sounds? “every time I showed my heart and feelings it soon ended” This means you are ALWAYS VALIDATING SEEKING when you “SHOW LOVE”. I know about u people very well, and i know very well that i shouldnt talk to you either, but i couldnt help myself. HATE over STUPID PEOPLE arrived
A little tip:
When you show your “love” to these women, they dont like you because you are actually giving ur power away. It doesnt mean that if you keep ur power, show love, that she will NOT leave you. But if she DOES leave you, it is HER PROBLEM.
Hehehe…. ever heard about “the world is ur mirror”?
All the girls you date are validating seeking insecured little proud bitches. And the reason you always date these bitches is because YOU attract the same thing as what is going on inside of you. How do i know they are validating seeking insecure bitxes? Because the same attracts the same, AND; you hade the nice comment:
“I have seduced and slept with over one hundred women…..every time, and I mean every time I showed my heart and feelings it soon ended. “”"
Before i had selfrespect issues, if i didnt sleep with alot of women i felt sorry for my self. Now i know that it was only my pride wanting to show itself.
WELCOME to “the dark night of the soul” .
It is about that what happends when u change ur believes, but u regain power back. Read it, you are going to need it
Your believes are totaly screwed, because your only concerned about the quanitiy not the quality of the women.
i had doubts about the good and bad here… haha…. SHEEEZZ
New forum with a lot of the old ex-ig posts here: http://z13.invisionfree.com/exideagasmers2/index.php?
“How dare anyone make fun of STEPHANE after all hes been through!!!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc
Scapegoating
~ The Tragedy of Victimization ~
A good scapegoat is almost as good as a solution. – Anonymous
We need not go to fiction or history to find tragedies caused by scapegoating, we just have to look around – scapegoaters with an unconscious need to get rid of their own grievances and negativity are still after suitable scapegoats. Blaming the scapegoat scapegoaters then discharge destructiveness embedded in their own psyches.
Rene Girard maintains that society attends many of its conflicts by creating scapegoats, for instance witches, Jews, heretics, outsiders may be identified as the source of our problems. The chosen victims are then blamed for almost anything, they are punished, isolated, expelled, ostracized, which creates cohesion and unanimity in the community, we are all relieved from our problems and have a common aim and enemy.
SCAPEGOATS EVERYWHERE
The specific identities of the scapegoats are legion: lepers, witches, women, Jews, Negroes, the mentally ill… – Thomas S. Szasz
Nowadays we may not always use as obviously cruel practices as the ancients did, at least we no longer stone our scapegoats, but our more sophisticated methods may be no less cruel. In practical life scapegoating is to be found everywhere, we may, for instance, use simple enemy-creation to create cohesion or to unite groups. Or to inspire individuals into action. According to Rene Girard the scapegoating mechanism is simply essential in modern society.
Those who are not able to see that there are some true scapegoats around, are having very large blinders, one might even say that they are almost emotionally dead. Not all scapegoats belong to minority groups, individuals use individuals as scapegoats, often their own friends and family members. “Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them”, wrote Samuel Butler (Aquarius, Saturn-Neptune square).
Scapegoaters everywhere justify their cruelty by claiming that the scapegoat is responsible for the problems of scapegoaters. To succeed in this scapegoaters must in some way obscure the innocence of their victims. The so-called ‘projection theory’ in modern psychological astrology may even give scapegoaters excellent weapons because then almost anything can be interpreted as an aspect of the native’s own psyche. Scapegoats are then said to be encountering their own projections and thus responsible for what happens to them. The projection theory often amounts to a very unhelpful and even cruel blaming of victims. Luckily it is just one theory, there is more to astrology than that.
PUBLIC SCAPEGOATING
Today everyone takes part in public executions through the newspapers. – Elias Canetti
The scapegoating mechanism is a common feature in today’s media. Various minority groups or public figures have been chosen for scapegoats that unite us all as we eagerly read sensational stories of them or watch them on TV. We are all so much bombarded by emotionally evocative presentations of sensational scapegoating tragedies that it has a numbing effect on our sensitivities, it kills our sympathies.
It is not surprising that this often outrageous public voyeurism makes us blind to many real – albeit perhaps less visible – scapegoat tragedies going on around us or happening in our personal lives. Being numbed we may no longer see the fact that originally scapegoating was a collective murder. And it still is, if not physically then in every other way that counts.
Ancient practices of sacrificing a scapegoat can be found in most religions. Because the killing of the scapegoat created peace and harmony in the group, the scapegoat was in many religions seen as a divine figure or as a savior relieving the society from its own destructiveness. Sometimes even the scapegoat assumed the savior’s role becoming thus a willing victim.
Jesus was of course mankind’s best-known scapegoat – he redeemed all men through his suffering. The New Testament story gives many excellent insights into mob psychology and into victimization process and scapegoating in general. And The New Testament even – as Gil Bailie says – gives a voice to the victim: the story is told from the point of view of the victim. The scapegoating mechanism is unveiled for all of us to see. And we should see it in order to be able to reject it.
I believe, indeed, that in the rejection, or transcending, of the scapegoat principle lies the greatest moral challenge for modern man. On its resolution may hinge the fate of our species. – Thomas S. Szasz
As anyone who reads Steph’s AMAZING newsletters and listens to his products can attest to, his approach to dating is MILES AHEAD of the community.
So he becomes their scapegoat.
My my – how transparent you all are.
Anyone who can read THIS:
http://www.ideagasms.net/healing-p0rn-and-lust-without-guilt/
And also read THIS:
http://www.ideagasms.net/the-death-of-approach-anxiety/
Jesus H. Christ
He is your scapegoat because he solves each and every issue men have with his eyes closed, and the community can’t keep up with his evolution.
Good luck reframing me.
And the people in his personal life have also made him into their scapegoat, starting with the first post at the top of this thread – one big hypnotic conspiracy theory, and I must admit it is VERY WELL WRITTEN, my my.
Everyone who knew him was eventually rejected by him for either stealing from him, cheating on him (while he was busy raising thousands of dollars on Ghita’s kidney medications – she seems to have forgotten that when Greta kicked her out (with Stephane’s approval, of course).
My GOD you people are MEAN.
And it was Steve P. who ripped off STEPH, by promising him profits on their DVD and then backing out and leaving him with nothing. Stephane had a CIRCLE long before he ever even MET Steve, and he got Ghita squirting before meeting Steve P.
Do your HOMEWORK people, and ask the man for HIS SIDE of the story. And you picked the right guy, too. He is committed to unconditional love, so he won’t fight back. Very cowardly of you.
Stephane and Greta are two of the most wise, loving, peaceful, and FORGIVING people I know.
In ancient times, there were rituals of scapegoating. A tribe or person would literally sacrifice an animal to the gods, or send an animal into the desert declaring that that animal was carrying away the tribe’s sins. In today’s culture, psychology uses the term to discuss certain forms of victimization.
A particular child of an alcoholic family can be deemed the scapegoat, for instance, and may be the object of a parent’s abuse and the reason for seeking professional help. The child is “innocent” but receives the blame for the problems in the household. Historically, entire groups of people have been scapegoated. In Nazi Germany, Hitler and his army scapegoated the Jewish people. The Nazis declared the Jews to be the reason for their societal ills and further believed that if they eliminated the Jewish people, then their problems would be solved. Currently in America, there is scapegoating of lesbian and gay people. Some heterosexuals, often with strong religious ties, blame lesbian and gay people for the moral decay in America.
Why scapegoating occurs is rather complex. Scapegoating serves the need of the dominant social group to feel better about themselves. It relieves the group’s responsibility for their own problems. The scapegoated person or group becomes the focus and the reason for the difficult life condition. It was easier for Hitler to blame the problems of German society on the Jews than it would have been for him to truly understand the complex socio-political changes that were happening at the time. Scapegoating also allows people to feel united when they join together to blame someone else. And when action is taken against the scapegoat, the dominant group can feel that they have accomplished something.
Scapegoating begins with devaluation, or putting someone else down. Then the scapegoated person or group is blamed as the cause of a problem. Once a victim has been blamed, they are then dehumanized so that it is easier to treat them with less compassion. For instance, in some circles, people with HIV/AIDS are often spoken of only as statistics, not as real people who need compassion and care.
In many scapegoating situations, the anger and aggression of the dominant person or group is displaced, or projected, onto the victim. Really the frustration lies within the person doing the scapegoating. Scapegoating never truly solves any problems, it merely deflects attention away from the person or group who most needs help.
Scapegoating is a hostile social – psychological discrediting routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and towards a target person or group. It is also a practice by which angry feelings and feelings of hostility may be projected, via inappropriate accusation, towards others. The target feels wrongly persecuted and receives misplaced vilification, blame and criticism; he is likely to suffer rejection from those who the perpetrator seeks to influence. Scapegoating has a wide range of focus: from “approved” enemies of very large groups of people down to the scapegoating of individuals by other individuals. Distortion is always a feature.”
Those who know when to fight and when not to fight are victorious. – Sun-Tzu
One goldfish told another that he intended to become an atheist. ‘Don’t be crazy,’ the other goldfish replied, ‘of course there’s a God – who do you think changes the water very day?’ – Richard Needham
Thundercat, Amyjo, Ghita, David Brampton, the forum members that annoyed Steph until he kicked them of his forum, Barry Kirkey, David Garmaise, and the seduction community as a whole have been wishing Stephane would just dissappear for many years!
I wonder why that is!
Saying steph is a scapegoat is overly simplistic.
He DID do a bunch of stupid things ! you can’t deny that.
what’s up with that victim mentality ? are you saying stephane is a victim of the community ?
if anything, I’d say he’s a victim of his own stupidity, pride and arrogance
from what I’ve seen, the guy has no ethics… you’d never want to make a business deal with him, because he says he’ll do one thing, and then he does the other
VERY common of him
“Stephane = Scapegoat!”. Stephane has a position of “business partner” available. You should check it out if you feel that strong about him.
I personaly would want SOLID proof that im not going to get screwed over by this guy before signing anything though.
My only way to deal with him in a business point is to ask every kind of question about his mental faculties and business acumen (kind of like BBC’s “Dragon’s Den”).
After everything ive seen on Stephane commericaly and corporately. I would have to say I’M OUT, and in sure the 4 other dragons would agree with me.
I would rather invest money in a lunatic asylum. At least Stephane could get the proper help he needs with the extra funding.
Here is the Vacancy in question if any of you are interested.
“Quick Question:
Do you know someone that would make a good
business partner to help me share my new
Volume Series, “Cracking The Male/Female Code”
with the world?
If so, have this person get in touch with me via
my Contact Form:
http://www.ideagasms.net/contact-ideagasms
(Thanks, I appreciate it.)
I’ll talk to you later.
Blessings,
Stephane”
Driven to Isolation
He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites – all their sins – and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. – Lev 16:21
Everyone needs other people. Family, friends, acquaintances and relationships in general are all supportive and protective factors in your life. If your social relationships fail to support you or even undermine you, you will be vulnerable and an easy victim for any scapegoater coming around and searching for someone to blame.
The danger of becoming a victim is, of course, greatest when the scapegoater is someone close to you. Being victimized and scapegoated by your own family – thus by people you have trusted – is probably the hardest thing anyone can experience in this life. And not without reason, what can you do if your own roots fail you and you are denied interconnectedness with those closest to you. Some scapegoating families may keep the scapegoat within the family because the family needs its victim, but the scapegoat is accepted only if he or she assumes the social identity of a scapegoat.
Usually the scapegoat is stigmatized as someone different, strange, inferior even, any kind of negative attributes may be given to the scapegoat. He or she is everything scapegoaters do not recognize or want to recognize in themselves. Or he may be seen as having characteristics that scapegoaters do not even have but fear or imagine that they might have them. In such cases the victim is often driven out of the group, into isolation, because only that way the scapegoaters feel having really got rid of all the negative characteristics they don’t want. The projection carrier cannot be ‘one of us’.
Often scapegoating group members no longer experience life as it is, they see it through their unconsciously accepted common frame of reference, often they have their own definitions and names for everything and thus life is reduced to something they can define and control. Their accepted frame of reference may in many respects even a good and stimulating one, but still it is just a model. And as such it may squeeze life out. But models and doctrines create safety and help communication within the group. But anyone chosen as a scapegoat and shut out of the group will have a hard time in surviving without the familiar frame of reference.
Those who begin to see beyond group doctrines are usually seen as dissenters and often become scapegoats. Such a dissenter need not even be vocal about her or his opinions, most groups will intuitively know who is not supporting their common beliefs and thus not strengthening the group cohesion. In spiritual and religious group they may be shut out altogether, in some cases no one is even supposed to talk to them. To some degree this can happen in any group based on a common interest or ideology, even in an astrology group, although usually in a more indirect way. The principle is: Think as we do or go away. In some African cultures such a fate – being shut out of your group – was seen as a death penalty, and so the scapegoat may experience it even in our culture.
EVEN STEPH’S OWN *FAMILY* HAS JOINED THE LYNCH MOB
Can you imagine??
And when his sister defended him, you all quickly shut her up.
The payoff of hatred is…?
Why HATRED ITSELF, of course!
Hating is FUN!
we are scapegoating steph for merely possessing the same human
weaknesses that we all posses, and pretending like we actually know
the truth of this mans personal private intimate life story based on a
bunch of internet hoopla
Invading his privacy shows the true ugliness of this site and the many
others, and everytime anyone says anything bad about steph, we all
believe that person 100% without question
nobody gives a shit about his wife and how this affects her life too –
people even blame her and steph for “CAUSING” her father to commit
suicide
as if we have the right to presume we can “CAUSE” someone to hang
themself
nobody cares that he has regular death threats and had to leave town
nobody cares that he has the right to earn a living however he
chooses, even if you don’t like what he teaches spiritualy
You say “this guy has no ethics” but you don’;t even know him, yet you
don’t even question the ethics of thundercat who purposefully drums up
business through drama and the pain of others through constant
backstabbing and negativity
you say he”s the victim of his own pride / arrogance / stupidity —
read his posts, does he seem like a stupid idiot to you? The humility
in his posts is very plainly obvious for the whole world to see, and
he has been sharing his personal live with everyone for many years out
in the open
WOOOW
amazed that nobody questions the angry posters on here who throw
insults and are obviously deliberately lynching someone to feel
superior and NEVER can people just say “MAYBE I WAS WRONG” bc of their
shallow pride
FUCK
who’s with me?
~ Archetypal Transference Figures ~
He had, indeed, become the scapegoat, the immediate villain, the sponge which absorbed all malice and irritability abroad – just as the most frightened person in a party seems to absorb all the others’ fear, seems to be afraid for them all. – F Scott Fitzgerald
The role of a scapegoat is never easy, often a scapegoat goes through a real hell, alone, isolated, ostracized… Usually scapegoaters choose a victim who is unable or unwilling to fight back and is thus forced to accept whatever accusations or punishments others are meting out to him. Unconscious interchanges within the group determine who will be chosen to carry group disturbances as its scapegoat.
Unfortunately horrible violence, like psychological maltreatment, can be truly random. And scapegoating even more so, as a scapegoat is an archetypal type, a transference figure, upon which others project everything they can’t face in themselves. Sometimes almost anyone nearby can be chosen as a scapegoat if he or she happens to be around just when the group is anxiously searching for a scapegoat. In many cases you can just forget assumptions sometimes made in psychology and psychological astrology about an unconscious collusion between scapegoaters and their victims. They are unproven theories that just lead to an unfortunate practice of blaming the innocent.
ANYONE CAN BE A SCAPEGOAT
There is a cowardly propensity in the human heart that delights in oppressing somebody else, and in the gratification of this base desire we always select a victim that can be outraged with safety. – James T Rapier
Any person whose behavior differs from that of his fellows may constitute a threat to others. If you think that the target is always somehow inferior or weaker than others, look around and think again. Sometimes you may be chosen for a scapegoat because of your best qualities as any qualities falling below the group standards or surpassing them can make you different. Your superior qualities may arouse group envy or insecurity. Or you may be chosen for a scapegoat because some key figure in the group doesn’t like the way you talk or walk or dress…
Sometimes the inner group pressure may be so strong that almost anyone will do as a scapegoat, the only criterion may be group safety: the group chooses someone who is either permanently or momentarily unprotected. If the potential scapegoat is by nature gentle and unaggressive, all the better, because then the group can do its thing without any fears of retaliation. Groups in search for a scapegoat can be extremely sensitive in picking up a person who just then is unable to refuse the role.
“All groups, when they reach a certain size, acquire a sluggishness that usually makes their own development slower than that of the individual. Thus the day inevitably comes when the group has fulfilled its purpose for the individual.” (Thorwald Dethlefsen). When that day comes, when you begin to feel that the group rather hinders than supports your progress, you will be in danger of becoming an outsider. And more than that: you are the prime candidate for the group’s next scapegoat. If you are highly creative or otherwise a broad-minded person with many interests you will be highly susceptible , your creativity may be one of the factors making you susceptible to becoming a scapegoat.
Relationships are usually the best protective factor, thus of you are a loner without many close friends or supporters, you will be especially vulnerable of being chosen as the group’s next scapegoat. And the risk is even bitter if you happen to be a sensitive and receptive person, astrologically probably a Neptunian with shaky boundaries. In some groups and societies being a woman is all that is needed…
For some high-profile men in trouble, women, especially feminist women, became the all-purpose scapegoats – charged with crimes that often descended into the absurd. – Susan Faludi
BEING DIFFERENT
Whenever you accept our views, we shall be in full agreement with you. – Moshe Dayan
Many groups are almost unbelievable in their unconscious need of members who all fulfill group’s unspoken expectations. Behave badly if you like, but do it our way, as we expect you to do. If you are a Piscean, you may be welcomed to wander around in laissez-faire style mixing up things and creating confusion, at least if you do it with charm and kindness. But don’t you try the same thing if you are a Capricorn, from you we expect more stamina. From you we find similar behavior confusing, and you will be shut out. Thus believe as we do, think as we think, or you are not one of us.
The scapegoat soon becomes a loner who can’t communicate her or his suffering to anyone. Not even to a modern psychologist if the psychologist happens to belong to the ‘it’s all within you’ school.
Living a life in isolation can be unbelievably hard for anyone, and most of the world is without compassion. Fortunately advanced spiritual aspirants like Stephane – most often chosen as scapegoats – have their own survival tactics because they usually live close to their own inner world. Or if they haven’t done that before, they’ll learn to do so when scapegoated. Having a strong inner life a true seeker of Enlightenment never feels totally alone or inwardly isolated, although he or she can, of course, still feel rejected and abandoned, still being HUMAN and all.
What most isolated scapegoats desperately long for is a sense of belonging, often they would do almost anything to find at least someone who would see through appearances and recognize that the scapegoat has not chosen the role of a victim, neither is being a scapegoat a sign of masochistic tendencies or of anything else like that. Anyone can become a scapegoat in some circumstances.
And you can’t draw any definite conclusions about man’s karmic debts from her or his role as a scapegoat, as some esoteric ‘experts’ sometimes claim. Jesus had no karma, and He was the biggest scapegoat of them all.
A good friend to Steph would be worth gold. But it has to be a friend able to offer non-judgmental listening without easy karmic explanations or psycho babble about meeting one’s own projections.
Unfortunately such friends can be hard to find because of the modern tendency to interpret the fate of a scapegoat – or any other victim – as encountering herself or himself. This essentially means victimizing the scapegoats by saying that they are getting ‘what they asked for’, when in fact in scapegoating, the scapegoater is getting what he asked for, not the scapegoat.
There are, I know, human beings either doomed or blessed to a way of life which deprives them of any of the normal indulgences and privileges of their communities. It is almost as if they are charged with a role that sets them apart and makes them incapable of joining in the society of men… It is not that such men do not feel human in themselves and seek to shun the company of their own kind … the longing within them to be part of the ordinary community of man is greater than that of any of those who daily take for granted such belonging. — Laurens van der Post
Leave Steph and his wife alone – haven’t you all made your points already? This website shows up as the second thing when searching for IDEAGASMS in google, and people read gossip like it’s gospel. People will believe anything as long as its negative.
stephane i’m sorry about believing this crap about you man
I googled scapegoat and this article came up
http://www.scapegoat.demon.co.uk/
BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE SCAPEGOAT SOCIETY
The Scapegoat Society was formed in the autumn of 1997 for those concerned with the dynamics of attributing blame to others – the core of scapegoating and demonizing. The Scapegoat Society is a resource both for people who have experienced being a scapegoat, and for people working professionally to resolve scapegoat problems.
The age-old phenomenon of scapegoating shows up everywhere. It causes great anxiety and misery. Scapegoats are found in almost every social context: in school playgrounds, in families, in small groups, and in large organizations. Whole nations may be scapegoated. The work of The Scapegoat Society [non-profit] is to raise consciousness about scapegoating and its dynamics so as to make it easier to resist and root out.
Merely to avoid awkwardness we use the masculine pronoun throughout. For the convenience of search engines we use some American spellings.
DEFINING SCAPEGOATING
Scapegoating is a hostile social – psychological discrediting routine by which people move blame and responsibility away from themselves and towards a target person or group. It is also a practice by which angry feelings and feelings of hostility may be projected, via inappropriate accusation, towards others. The target feels wrongly persecuted and receives misplaced vilification, blame and criticism; he is likely to suffer rejection from those who the perpetrator seeks to influence. Scapegoating has a wide range of focus: from “approved” enemies of very large groups of people down to the scapegoating of individuals by other individuals. Distortion is always a feature.
FOR SCAPEGOAT TARGETS
First of all build an understanding of what has been going on, not just on the surface, but deeper as well. What is your scapegoater really trying to achieve? You can deepen your knowledge by studying the material on this site. If you feel you need expert help and you live in the UK, you can look for a therapist by using our links page. Ask your therapist for help with strategies for undoing the scapegoating as well as for staying clear of being a scapegoat in the future.
If you are not going to use a therapist then concentrate on understanding what is going on between you and whoever is your scapegoater. Your awareness may help to run down and stop the process. Make it clear that you have spotted the mechanism and that you will talk freely about it until it stops – rather than continue to be available as a scapegoater’s target. Regrettably, The Scapegoat Society is not able to offer direct help with episodes of scapegoating but there is a page on undoing scapegoating that is worth considering.
OUTLINE OF SCAPEGOATING PSYCHO-DYNAMICS
In scapegoating, feelings of guilt, aggression, blame and suffering are transferred away from a person or group so as to fulfill an unconscious drive to resolve or avoid such bad feelings. This is done by the displacement of responsibility and blame to another who serves as a target for blame both for the scapegoater and his supporters. The scapegoating process can be understood as an example of the Drama Triangle concept [Karpman, 1968].
The perpetrator’s drive to displace and transfer responsibility away from himself may not be experienced with full consciousness – self-deception is often a feature. The target’s knowledge that he is being scapegoated builds slowly and follows events. The scapegoater’s target experiences exclusion, ostracism or even expulsion.
In so far as the process is unconscious it is more likely to be denied by the perpetrator. In such cases, any bad feelings – such as the perpetrator’s own shame and guilt – are also likely to be denied. Scapegoating frees the perpetrator from some self-dissatisfaction and provides some narcissistic gratification to him. It enables the self-righteous discharge of aggression. Scapegoaters tend to have extra-punitive characteristics [Kraupl-Taylor, 1953].
Scapegoating also can be seen as the perpetrator’s defense mechanism against unacceptable emotions such as hostility and guilt. In Kleinian terms, scapegoating is an example of projective identification, with the primitive intent of splitting: separating the good from the bad [Scheidlinger, 1982]. On another view, scapegoaters are insecure people driven to raise their own status by lowering the status of their target [Carter, 1996].
HELP PUBLICIZE THE SCAPEGOAT SOCIETY
The Scapegoat Society spreads news about itself by asking people who find these details of its work to pass them on to anyone who they think might be interested. We think of these people, with gratitude, as our ambassadors.
FINANCES
The Scapegoat Society is a simple non-profit association; there are no membership dues, committees, and so on. Instead, the Society simply invites voluntary donations from supporters wanting to encourage its work and help it to cover its expenses. No surplus is sought or accumulated, no bank interest is earned. All funds received are strictly for conducting and promoting the work of the Society.
MORE GREAT STUFF HERE:
UNDOING SCAPEGOATING
This page is for scapegoaters’ targets – people eager to have resolution of a scapegoating. If you are a target taking a stand for undoing scapegoating, then although this is written mainly for you, some other people involved may also be helped by these notes.
I do not think that evils can be cured by blind hatred of their perpetrators. This will only lead us to become like them. Although the effort is not easy, one should attempt….to understand the circumstances that turn men into fiends, and to realise that it is not by blind rage that evils will be prevented. Bertrand Russell, 1951
Truth and reconciliation processes recently have been much discussed as ways to increase possibilities for restorative justice. For some scapegoat targets the main restoration is that of reputation, character and standing. Scapegoat targets tend to feel this form of justice is a right. A right to such justice is denied by anyone involved in a scapegoating who prefers to look away, leaving the target in the prison that scapegoating so often is.
Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. Haile Selassie
It is a mistake to think that you can move healthily into the future without having strategies to defuse with the past. An undoing process is not simply a naive one of forgetting [how do we simply forget?] but of remembering and changing. For simplicity, we use the pronoun `he’ throughout in what follows.
SUPPORT FOR UNDOING
Success in resolving your scapegoating will be much more likely if those who were drawn in and did not oppose it [maybe they were duped in the process] will take a stand for its undoing. It is perhaps wisest not to ask these significant people to do anything beyond being willing to be identified as taking such a stand; some may volunteer to do more – just see that as a bonus, not as something to be sought.
Obviously, undoing scapegoating is a positive matter for scapegoaters’ targets, but it can also be positive for audiences, as well as for scapegoaters themselves. It can be positive for all because almost everyone involved is burdened by what has gone on. Amongst the many burdens, here are some typical ones well worth becoming free of:
Perpetrator: guilt, hostility.
Target: isolation, entrapment, anxiety, anger, depression.
Audience: sadness, embarrassment, bewilderment, weariness.
Undoing can provide release from all those things. It brings the freedom that comes from no longer being tied to someone by the awful fetters that scapegoating creates.
OBSTACLES TO UNDOING
No doubt your scapegoater has his pride and egoism, plus a wish to preserve his standing with his audience. Also, he knows that mud sticks and that it takes time to set hard. Time is on his side – not on yours as the target. Because time passing is to his advantage he may want to delay the resolution of his scapegoating indefinitely.
Here we offer a comparison: if, in a trial the prosecution’s case was followed by a gap of years before the defense was heard, then a jury would naturally be more accepting of the prosecution’s case than if the defense had been heard straight away.
It would be wise to expect that some of the audience may resist undoing if they feel that they were too easily taken in – that they were too gullible.
The scapegoating process has a characteristic way of maturing and solidifying. Consequently, the more time there is between the start of a scapegoating and its resolving, the less undoing can be achieved – especially with the all-important audience. Not only that but there are other unfortunate time-related effects:
- with the passing of time your associates may get more and more wearied by your desire and attempts to achieve undoing,
- they may also begin to feel sorry for the perpetrator being continually held to account by you, even though you are entitled to do so,
- should the perpetrator eventually complete the undoing he will tend to receive more credit for doing that than you do, especially if the undoing is far from the original scapegoating.
Usually the scapegoater will stop his process when he senses that he has effectively transferred blame and that any further transfer might be counterproductive. He, as it were, rests his case – but his `evidence’ continues to harm and dismay the target – hence the need for completion and closure.
WHAT CONSTITUTES UNDOING
Much psychological suffering is caused by troubling events of the past being incomplete. Scapegoating is a human social-psychological process which can be, but seldom is, brought to proper completion – to closure.
Incompleteness in scapegoating usually exists because some of the participants have not accepted their accountability. Keep in mind that accountability does not decay with the passing of time.
An undoing process is best done with the help of a facilitator. You will find leads to facilitators trained in conflict resolution on our Links Page.
These are the steps necessary for a full completion process:
- truth-telling: establish the facts of what was done and by whom, whilst resisting self-justifications,
- direct accountability: the scapegoater takes responsibility for whatever he inappropriately blamed on the target,
- he agrees to give up blaming the target,
- the target takes responsibility for anything relevant and inappropriate that he did,
- the perpetrator undertakes not to restart the scapegoating, nor to claim later that the undoing process was invalid because he was forced into it.
Ideally all this would get conveyed to members of the audience in a way that is acceptable both to the scapegoater and to his target. Undoing implies seeking a balance between the legitimate needs of the target, those of the audience and those of the scapegoater himself. Achieving such a balance amounts to a win/win situation for all concerned.
A healthy basic position for a target to have towards undoing is simply to take a firm stand for the possibility of resolution. Use friends and professionals to help you keep calm and stay undaunted, whatever happens.
APOLOGIES AND FORGIVENESS
Nice though these are, apologies and forgiveness are not necessary when an undoing process has been properly worked through. To some people [especially the scapegoater and his audience] apologies and forgiveness seem less challenging, and so they are. And, even if not necessary, some people may find them healing – especially the audience. But a bit more needs to be said about this.
Apology and forgiveness do not, in themselves, provide effective undoing of scapegoating and they bring only partial restoration of reputation and character. They lead more to putting-away than to resolving and completing. But what is merely put away can continue to fester and be troublesome. Undoing is not just about putting away, it has more to do with positive dismantling. This is done by reversing [and thus completing] a process, a key part of which is the open and precise taking of responsibility through truth-telling. With apology and forgiveness people can skirt round issues of responsibility, the facing of which can lead to significant moving-on for everybody. For more on forgiveness, see our Links Page.
WHAT TO DO NEXT
You might like to find someone to help you progress towards resolution – a therapist might be good for that [see our Links Page] or a close friend. A first step with a talking partner might be to discuss this document with them and see if any action plans come to mind. If you get to the stage of wanting a facilitator, there are leads also to them on our Links Page.
IF AN UNDOING IS REFUSED
Sadly, a section about failure has had to be written. In most scapegoating cases there is only a slim chance of undoing – the perpetrator has much to lose, and taking responsibility for what he has done may not be his strongest point. With no undoing, the target is left in suspension, with his character, reputation and standing still damaged, and with quite a lot of spare energy of anger and frustration to disperse. How does one do that?
The value of a talking partner is obvious. But, talking over a refused undoing should not lead to the issue getting buried – burial is unrealistic: scapegoatings don’t stay buried for people who are targets. Ask your talking partner to help you move on from the past to focus on what is available to do in the present, whilst sidelining the scapegoating.
Another way to approach moving on would be to change the meaning of your scapegoating. Here is an example of changed meanings. It will be no surprise to read that, apart from a professional interest, The Scapegoat Society was formed to create something of value out of a serious personal scapegoating. The fact that the Society has proved useful to targets, and to students of scapegoating psychology has changed the meaning of the original scapegoating from being a calamity to being something constructive.
Another way you might like to move on from your scapegoating is by telling people about The Scapegoat Society. We would love you to support our work by being an Ambassador.
AN IMPRESSIVE UNDOING
Fifteen years after a major, and strongly resisted, scapegoating began it was undone, quickly and in a very calm manner, as a result of the person responsible for the scapegoating attending a large-group awareness training called The Forum. Whilst the Scapegoat Society has some reservations about the Forum [see Some Thoughts on Est and the Landmark Forum] there is no doubt that what it sets out to deliver should make the undoing of a scapegoating simply unavoidable. This is because the Forum process brings into sharp focus the consequences of acting without integrity, which is what scapegoating is. In this undoing it was relevant that various members of the scapegoater’s audience wanted resolution, notably one who had herself been through the Forum experience.
AFTERWORD
If undoing turns out to be impossible, the following oriental view may be helpful.
When a person acts badly towards one he loses something not unlike `credit’. If the wronged person does not retaliate, does not seek to `pay him back’ in equal measure, then the attacked person will acquire the credit his aggressor has lost and so be the gainer [from the work of Li Hongzhi].
Ideagasms sucks.
It’s clearly not the best program out there as they say “welcome to the front lines of dating/relationships” loll!!!
check out Stephane’s level of ATTACHMENT, that says A LOT about his “higher spiritual level”
this is insanity.
It’s hard to make sense of anything
And the point being
I was going to the seduction community
To make sense if common things.
I guess it really is a leap of faith
Trust no one here.
Disgusting.
stephane’s REAL life is so far from what he tells his fans, that it’s become hard to even believe these claims can be true, but they are !!
“Whatever you think is right has to be lived – that is the only proof that you think it is right. If you think something is right and you live otherwise, than you are fooling others and you are fooling yourself.”
-Osho
A problem with the seduction community is the inability to get accurate information. I wish I had some good data to judge Stephane and his accusers by, but I can’t. Yet from here, it sounds like the classic “fallen guru” syndrome. As a rule, I do not trust anyone in the seduction community.
The magic pills could be brought to the attention of trade authorities. That sounds serious.
You can’t calibrate yourself. Ask anyone who’s tried – you get all sorts of ridiculous numbers.
My name is Ray Gordon.
I am a cocksucking homosexual queer.
Fuck you and have a nice day.
p.s.
I want to sue you.
While I only briefly looked into his stuff, and missed the whole forum bit completely I think that while there’s some underlying validity to some of his claims, it’s most likely stolen copied and misused to create more loyalty in his following…
I can understand everyone’s pain it makes sense that something you invested in so much (psychic energy [for lack of a better term {and by that I mean mental time, not some newagey bull} if you'd prefer think of it as reinforcing neural pathways or whatever])
Anyway point being after devoting so much of yourself to a ‘higher purpose’ its understandable that it would be painful to disconnect….
Eek, I’m sounding like him… But that’s all my own thoughts I stopped reading his stuff a long time ago…
Sorry but I just wanted to speak my peace,
Hope everyone here feels better eventually….
(You do have to let go at some point…)
peace….
hypnorocker
I invite any of you to watch History Channel’s Decoding the Past – Cults: Dangerous Devotion. It’s interesting and I had to admit after seeing that show, I do see shades of a cult in some of the things I have read here. Especially the whole peace and love at the beginning and then increasing paranoid delusions as time goes on. If anyone promises to take you to heaven on earth, or nirvana, first find out how they themselves got there and then decide if that is a path you want to travel on.
It seems like everytime I come back to this site to see what’s going on, thunderfool is bashing someone. Now I don’t know if Stephane is crazy like is being said here, I don’t know anything about Stephane and I really don’t care.
All I know is when thunderfreak doesn’t like someone he should stay the hell out of they’re way instead of using this pathetic excuse of a seduction site to attack them. Stay on topic thunderfoliage.
Hey, I want to join the ex ideagasm forum…
but the link i found doesn’t let me in.
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