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Satvatove is an intensively emotionally abusive and coercive workshop, primarily merging the discredited LifeSpring work with Hare Krishna/ISKCON cult teachings. I attended the Satvatove Fundamentals workshop in May of 2014; and although I am contractually/legally barred from sharing their specific Satvatove processes, I can freely state that during the workshop I experienced an extreme level of coercion, pressure and abuse; I can also share that I perceived both my physical and emotional safety very directly threatened at various points in the workshop.

The primary instructor is David Wolf, a long-term Hare Krishna/ISKCON operative who allegedly handed out $500-$2000 checks to victims of sexual abuse of the ISKCON/Hare Krishna cult, in exchange for the victims waiving the right to sue the cult (http://www.icsahome.com/articles/authoritarian-culture-and-child-abuse-in-iskcon). Although David Wolf denies this, he was the Director of the Office of Child Protection for ISKCON/Hare Krishna cult, which has a truly extraordinary and well-documented history of murder, kidnapping, torture, and raping of children.

LifeSpring (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifespring), the organization which is the foundation for the work advanced by Satvatove, went out of business after at least thirty lawsuits claiming that participants in their workshops committed suicide or suffered serious emotional/mental damage. The company paid to settle some of the suits before trial and in other cases lost jury decisions. The fundamentals of Satvatove processes appear to come directly from the discredited LifeSpring work, and are mixed with the teachings of the Hare Krishna cult.

During the workshop, David Wolf specifically demanded that Satvatove participants do not use the restroom except during breaks, the timing of which was not clear. We were required to attend every portion of the workshop without any exception, and were handed work to be done during breaks that did happen. We were required to be in our seats after each break when the music, which David Wolf and his assistant blasted at full volume to call us back into the room, stopped playing. Anyone not in their seats by the time the music stopped playing was publicly shamed. Free time during the course was non-existent, and I was explicitly removed from the workshop after making a phone call to a friend who was having an emergency in her workplace. No refund was offered to me until I made clear that I would be filing complaints with authorities and taking legal action.

Participation in Satvatove requires agreement to keep their grossly abusive and coercive processes confidential, and thus I am unable to share the details of the full nature of what I experienced without putting myself at risk of being sued by Satvatove. Before making this posting I extensively discussed my concerns with David Wolf of Satvatove, who refused to remove the process confidentiality requirement, thus resulting in my making this post. It is my opinion that participants in Satvatove workshops should have the right to freely and fully discuss their experience in Satvatove without fear of legal action for breaching contract.

The ironic bottom line with Satvatove is that many of their participants are willing to accept an extraordinary level of abuse and coercion in exchange for information and skills that are actually freely available elsewhere, since the "communication skills" that Satvatove teaches are actually available without the abuse through other sources, such as Non-Violent Communication (NVC) and other schools. It is also blatantly obvious that numerous other participants of Satvatove have had extremely negative experiences (http://breaking-free.info/2012/11/11/about-you/) and are likely afraid to speak out against Satvatove for fear of being sued for breaching the confidentiality agreement.

Unless you desire to become part of the ISKCON/Hare Krishna Cult and to subject yourself to truly extraordinary abuse and coercion, I advise you to stay away from Satvatove. Whatever useful skills they teach are freely available from other sources, without all the negative aspects of the cult.

Monetary Loss: $1000.

Location: Berkeley, California

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Guest

David, Marie and Daru Brahma wear dark glasses, made of their own egotism. These are so opaque that they can barely see you through them.

Guest

Satvatove's "Be-Do-Have" does not come from the Bhagavad-Gita, it comes from L Ron Hubbard: https://***/florida/201410-great-city/what-is-scientology/the-conditions-of-existence.html

Guest

David and Marie do not understand the Lifespring processes that they are subjecting people to, nor do they understand how those processes work. Their egos are so deeply emmeshed with their roles as facilitators and coaches, that they always double down, even when they are clearly doing more harm than good. They are living in an alternate reality of their own construction.

Guest

Satvatove is the opposite of help.

Guest

The term "transformational coaching" has been THE term for the type of work that came from Lifespring. When someone says "I'm a transformational coach" or "this is transformational coaching", that means that they're close to the new wave of what Lifespring became.

Lifespring-based seminars like Satvatove will have all the old Lifespring experiential exercises, like the "Mom-Dad dyad", "the red black game" and the "hug line". It's like playing Lifespring bingo.

Guest

Satvatove? Unfortunately, I took two courses before finding info about Lifespring on the internet.

Satvatove is not all bad. Yes, some get something out of it. The ones I worry about are the ones that are allowed to take it that have severe emotional problems. That is irresponsible.

Yes, they are not completely open. Most of what I've read complaining about Lifespring is true and much of it applies to Satvatove also. The worst parts of Satvatove are irresponsibility about disturbed people, heavy proselytizing, and attempts at mind control.

They prey on the weak that need real healing, just like Scientology and Lifespring. Once I read about the histories of Werner Erhard and John Hanley, I knew immediately they were phony used car salesmen, who saw an easy scam.

Guest

It's a breath of fresh air to read an honest review. The positive reviews of Satvatove on here are quite something.

We have individuals who are trying to deal with their own cognitive dissonance about an organization they perceives in a certain way, and other's -- MANY -- perceive in a different way. Honestly, a Satvatove review is supposed to deliver some information that would be useful to potential seminar participants. These positive reviewers just play mind games with themselves...and, are possibly even encouraged to do so by the seminar facilitators. As usual, no attempt is made to listen to, understand people who have opinions other than their own.

That would be pretty normal if one really cared about exploring a gap in perception. Their reviews are nothing more than Satvatove commercials.

Guest

Misdirection is the foundation of prestidigitation...and of Satvatove.

Guest

Satvatove co-founder David Wolfe took the Lifespring course, when he was younger. And Lifesprng was very similar to EST.

And as everyone knows, EST was based in some Scientology processes and doctrines.

Not at all surprised Satvatove uses brainwashing techniques, loud music, etc. These innocent and vulnerable seminar participants will wake up one day and realise the negative side effects they are experiencing in their life are attributed to these brainwashing techniques.

Guest

Some people who've done Satvatove rave about the benefits and successes that they attribute to this seminar. However, there's a dark side that some participants and graduates experience.

Take seriously the "hold harmless" form they get you to read and fill out. There's a reason for this. Even if you have no issue with mental health and not on medication, anyone can still have a breakdown. Take care of your boundaries, physical and psychological.

Your mind, your thoughts, your beliefs and every value you hold dear are precious. It is worth it to educate yourself on the group and to research its pre-cursor group, Lifespring. Please know that the seminar is not particularly sattvic. Some people experience extreme highs in the course.

It can be addictive and they have to deal with the coming down, in some cases resulting in depression.

The fix - do more courses they offer and become an assistant. This only serves the group hierarchy and the participant remains locked in what the group considers as enlightenment, awake, breakthrough, the chosen ones.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-2269263

The Satvatove highs are artificial and constructed by a controlled environment. Impossible to sustain and certainly psychologically damaging.

Guest

They are highly pushy and blatantly deceptive about what the programs involve and the true nature of them. They can do this because they employ sophisticated thought reform techniques and if they donโ€™t convert you the chances are good that theyโ€™ll have at least convinced you that it was your fault for not enjoying it.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-2266441

Recovery begins when you leave the Satvatove "community". It's been a long road, but it's been worth it.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-2269265

You can't heal in the same environment you got sick.

Guest

Something that I find very interesting about Satvatove's unquestioning supporters is that they hold the belief that either: (1) everyone who does the Satvatove seminar loves it; or (2) THEY didnโ€™t apply the teachings of the course correctly; or (3) THEY just werenโ€™t ready to look honestly at themselves. All of these alternatives do not place any blame on Satvatove โ€“ always on the participants (the irony of a course never accepting the least bit of responsibility for the damage it causes, yet preaching โ€œtaking responsibilityโ€ and "listening" appears to be lost on adherents who, to preserve the validity of their own experience, seem completely unwilling to acknowledge the personal testimonies by people whose lives have been seriously damaged as a result of the courses.)

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-2250337

Why do people speak out against transformational trainings like Satvatove? Some do it to facilitate their own healing.

Some do it to warn others or to help others in the same situation. Despite all the claims made about all the successes of graduates, not everyone comes out of doing these seminars without being harmed.

Guest

The basic Satvatove concept comes from the Lifespring model -- experiential group training where a trainee goes through a cycle of: (1) taking a "hard look" at what's not working in particular areas of life, (2) then learning some tools to "break through non-working patterns", (3) then at last experiencing a "life-affirming peak experience". That's the basic cadence of all trainings that copy the Lifespring model.

There is a tendency for these trainings to become cults.

I couldn't honestly defend the track record of Lifespring-derived trainings -- they've been abused by megalomaniacs for a long time. My opinion of Satvatove comes from my experience with them and from the very base upon which they stand.

Guest
reply icon Replying to comment of Guest-2248196

Satvatove is a company that thrives on half-truths and manipulation.

Guest

Satvatove is not for everyone. If you are looking for sattvic processes and outcomes, then you will undoubtedly be disappointed with the Satvatove seminars. If you are open to a rebranding of Lifespring's rajastic (and at times tamasic) processes and outcomes, you may be enlivened by Satvatove.

Guest

The physical setting is a key component of the Satvatove process. People are set up to get confused and boundary compromised early in the process.

The room set up is likely to remain very similar no matter which "transformational training" you are looking it - it is that important, and it is a component that usually escapes notice. To use a crude computer analogy, people who used to work for Landmark helped identify several components that form the generic "transformational training" process. You also see these in Satvatove. First, there is the "Hardware"...those aspects of the training that target the subjects' bodies.

This includes the room set up (chairs spaced close together so as to put the subjects into subtle stress positions and violate normal physical boundaries). The windows are often blocked, so as to exclude natural light, which disrupts normal sleep wake cycle (and may get people vulnerable to manic states). Something else that I noticed in Satvatove was the re-arranging of chairs and the re-assigning of seat arrangements, so that subjects cannot form social groups on their own or get a sense of stable physical anchoring. Some former "transformational training" subjects even reported that room temperature was changed throughout their seminar, by running the air conditioning cold.

Though I don't remember that from the Satvatove seminar. And of course there is also the "Software" - jargon and verbal confusion.

There is gaslighting and double binds. And tired people are more easily confused to distrust their perception and are by this time accustomed to seeking guidance from the Satvatove seminar facilitators.

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