Spencer Schneider's Blog, page 4

The Recruitment Manual

Here's an excerpt from my book, Manhattan Cult Story. I am reprinting it here for anyone who is currently being recruited by the Gans Cult. Although they have changed some of the details, they are using the same playbook they have for decades. 

 

Fishing   for   Men   and   Women:   Qualified   Candidates

•       Men or women between 25 and 40.This is the prime age for someone to come to School.They are already some- what established in life but are not crystalized or set in ways which are hard to change.

•       Gainfully employed earning at least $100,000 annually.7 Someone coming into School must be a “Good House- holder”—i.e., that they can pay their own way and afford School. Unless a person is willing to pay for something, he does not value it. Therefore, payment is essential to value one’s evolution. No losers allowed.

•       Neither candidate nor any immediate family member may be employed as a journalist, author,or in any kind of law enforcement. These people tend to be curious or nosy by nature and itcould pose a risk to the invisibility of School. If someone wrote about School, it would kill it.

•       Nobody in therapy. Nobody who takes drugs. Nobody who is disabled. These people are damaged goods. Sharon does not have the energy to help them.

•       Candidates must be white and straight. As Sharon once put it, “People of color and gay people tend to have a ‘chip on their shoulder’ and are skeptical and unwilling to be open to the Work.” Although in some cases a gay person will be considered if they are open minded to being converted to a straight life and get married to someone in class of the opposite sex.

•       Candidates cannot be living with any parent or sibling.

•       Candidates must be “disappointed” in their life or at a crossroads and looking for answers.This is probably the most crucial qualification. The candidate needs to be unhappy or dissatisfied about something important in their life and looking for answers, meaning, and help.Not despairing, but disappointed: empty.

•       Candidates should not already be involved in religious, spiritual, or other groups. We want tobe their prime place for spirituality. The Work is a jealous mistress. No dabblers.

•       While it’s preferable to recruit single candidates because spouses are nosy, a married candidate is acceptable so long as the candidate demonstrates that they have some measure of independence from the spouse for attending classes twice a week. It is also allowable andpossible to bring a married couple to the Work.

•       Do not have any conjugal relations with the candidate, without prior permission from Sharon. Still, if your candidate is of the opposite sex, use your sex energy to entice them. It’s OK if the candidate likes you but don’t act like you are going on “serious” dates. Do not expressly leadthem on, otherwise they may be disappointed when you introduce them to School.

 

Where to Fish: Rules of Engagement

•     Go on outings to find candidates at least seven times per week. Go to places like museums, thetheater, dance performances, concerts, libraries, or any other cultural places and innocently strike up conversations with strangers with the Aim of recruiting them. Dress nicely. Rememberyou are a representative of the Work.

•    When not on specific outings and over the course of your usual day, strike up at least tenconversations per day with strangers—in subways, coffee shops, streets, bookshops, bars,Bloomingdale’s, the opera, an airplane, the supermarket, etc. Ask provocative questions: “Whoare our heroes today?” “What is the meaning of life?” “Do you think there is an invisible world?”

•    Be positive and show great interest in the other person. Try to steer conversations toward seeing what this per- son’s worldview is like to both glean their perspective

and pique their interest. Compliment and flatter. Listen to them.

•       Get their phone numbers, but only give them your ser- vice number. Do not give them your last name. If they ask, give a fake one. Call from a blocked phone.

 

The Bait: The First Three Meetings

NB: Never mention the words School or the Work until you receive permission from Hazel.[Although she was not a teacher, Hazel headed up recruiting and was considered an olderstudent in a leadership role.] Also, it is entirely possible to combine many meetings into one or two if you have a great candidate and have gotten permission from Hazel.

•    The First Meeting, like all of them, should be held in a public place over coffee, a meal, even the park. The first meeting is an open-ended conversation to talk about the state of the world.Everything and anything about politics, history, society in order to get a sense of your candidate’s worldview. Make them feel special and interesting. Listen to them. Compliment and flatter. People love it.

•    The Second Meeting is for “qualifying” your candidate. Check the boxes. Find out their income,their work his- tory, their family’s occupations, their sexual preferences,11 and all the otherthings listed above in part I. Write up a detailed dossier on your candidate and hand it in to Hazel.

•    The Third Meeting is for finding out your candidate’s ache: are they looking for something else in life besides just making money and getting married? Do they have a desire to changethemselves? What is the meaning of their life? Can they appreciate the invisible world? Do they have an itch? Can you picture them in School?

•   In the Second and Third Meetings, start planting seeds about Schools i.e., that they existedthroughout civilization to help mankind attain consciousness and obtain their goals, etc. If they liketheater, tell them Shakespeare was in a School; if they are Christian tell them Jesus was in aSchool; if they like music tell them Bach was in a School; etc.

•     Remember, you want to find people who are disappointed or at a crossroads. You want people who are looking for friends. We don’t want loners or losers or depressive people. Think aboutwhere you were when you met the Work.

•     Find out what has kept them from getting what they want in life. They will love you for asking. Putyourself in their shoes.

•     During all meetings, talk about Work ideas that might be of interest to them (but don’t use Work terminology). See how they react. You want them to think you have something of value. It would be ideal if they ask things like, “How interesting. How do you know this? “You will answer by saying something like, “Well, I’ve been studying for a long time. And I have amazing friends.”When they ask for details just say that you will tell them once you get to know them better.

•     Also, find a way to say to them, “I used to think like that but now I think differently. “This will be provocative in a good way. And it will make them think you have some- thing. You want them to look up to you.

 

Getting Help with Fishing: Meetings with Leaders

•       Recruiters are to meet after every class for an hour or more to discuss all our candidates withHazel and each of the group leaders. (The after-class meetings could go on until 2:00 a.m., and these were workdays.)

•       Each candidate will be discussed collectively so that every- one can see how everyone else isdoing: what people are doing right and what people are doing wrong. Yes, there is a competition among you students to have the most candidates: S says competition is good for innerdevelopment. You want to be a winner, not a loser.

•       We will discuss all the personal details of every candidate as a group and brainstorm on how to get the candidate interested in School and how to weed out candidates who are not good fits.This is the place to ask for help and to get it.

•       You need to call your group leader twice a day to give a report and get help.

•       In addition to the meetings immediately following class, we will meet at the Gemini Coffee Shop on the corner of East Thirty-fifth Street and Second Avenue at 6:00 a.m. every Friday morning to discuss our Aims and our results. Fred may show up by surprise occasionally. Consider these meetings like class. Be on time.

•       On Saturday nights, you will meet with your group leader and group for dinner to discuss your Aims and results. After dinner, you are to take off the rest of the evening and not do any recruiting; it is to be like the Sabbath. Everyone needs a day off to rest, even God. On Sundays,you will have “flash meetings “where you will meet with your group at landmark locations (suchas the steps of the New York City Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art, Lincoln Center) and then go out in pairs to find new people. These meetings will give you energy and support because you will be working directly with your classmates.

Keeper or Dud: The Fourth Meeting

•       The Fourth Meeting is where a group leader joins you and your candidate at a meeting. At thismeeting, the candidate can be further assessed, and a decision can be made afterward as to whether to invite.

•       Invite a group leader of the candidate’s opposite sex. Group leaders know how to seduce a candidate with the sex energy of the Work.

•       During the meeting, display your invisible, special connection with your group leader. Make thecandidate yearn to have a relationship like yours. Pull out all the stops.

•       If a decision is made to invite, you will hold a Fifth Meeting. Most candidates never get this far. Congratulations.

 

Reeling in the Fish: The Fifth Meeting

•       Tell the candidate that you have a secret you’ve never told a soul and get them to agree to maintain the secret.

•       Explain to them that this offer is very special, rare, and an unusual opportunity. And only open for a short time.

•       Explain to them that this is a real esoteric school connected to a tradition of knowledge, but that it’s not for everyone.

•       Tell them about how it has helped you, how you have wonderful deep friendships, and that theteachers are special.

•       Explain that there is a one-month free experiment to commit to but afterward there is monthly tuition.

•       If they are interested, schedule a sixth meeting with a teacher.

 

The Sixth Meeting

•       This is with a teacher. If your candidate has been properly prepared this will be a joy, a time to celebrate.

•       Most candidates come nervous, but Fred and Robert and the others know what they are doing. Watch, enjoy, celebrate. Congratulations. You have changed their lives, changed yours,and changed School.

 

Are You Being Recruited for A Cult? BEWARE

The Sharon Gans Cult is going strong, still in operation, and actively recruiting. They are using the same old fraudulent playbook as they used to trick me and thousands of others. It's all very innocent looking. A stranger meets you at a coffee shop, a library, Central Park, a book-store, the subway, a grocery store . . . literally any public place in the New York City and Boston areas. These people appear friendly, kind, and, other than asking for your phone number to meet you again, will present nothing remotely culty or weird. They will show interest in you and perhaps talk about something as dull as the weather or maybe even a little heavier -- the meaning of life. They will then suggest getting together. Most of the recruiters are old people -- sixty and above. You may be met by Minerva, Tim, Una, Frank Butler, Ken, Greg, Nancy Rich, John Rich, Joseph Travers, Lauren Travers or others. Do not be fooled. This cult is extremely dangerous. The tactics they use are deceptive and many hundreds of lives have been ruined leaving trauma and misery in their wake. If and when they invite you to "study," you will be led to believe that they are a place to study "ideas" which can help you to become conscious. Do not believe this crock of horse-shit. They will charge you $400 per month to attend bi-weekly meetings. Followers are first love-bombed, but then gaslighted and brainwashed and exploited by the leaders. Be careful -- these people are very smooth. Very. 

Montana

 Has anyone been to Falls Creek Ranch? (Not including paying to go there to be tortured by Sharon and Alex and Robert Klein et al) This property was built on the backs of slave labor. 

Sex Trafficking

 If you are anyone you know were in the cult when Sharon encouraged women to have sex with Alex (for his "development" or "evolution"), please contact me, confidentially. Also, I'd be interested in knowing whether recruiters targeted vulnerable women. 

Survivor et al Forum

Are you a former member of School? Even for a week or a night? Or do you know someone who is in School, or was? This post will be a forum for your comments. 

Clarification: Robert Klein Has Not Died

What I was trying to say –– and I apologize for the confusion –– was that Robert Klein is no longer involved in the cult (a very good thing for all involved) and is therefore "nothing" or "dead" to the cult, given the cult's practice of ostracizing.

THIRD UPDATE: Church at 26 W 16th Street

Dan Nicholas of the Church emailed me that: "the Church takes these accusations very seriously and is very troubled and concerned by them. The Church leadership met earlier this week to review the alleged misconducts and is in touch with the group." I offered the Church to speak to survivors but they declined. The group still meets there. If you are interested in attending a peaceful demonstration at the church, please email me. 

 

Review in MTK Sun

Cult Following

Yoga, Greek life on campus, corporations, political groups, popular fitness classes, even religion; just some of the activities jokingly called “cult-like.”

As humans we look for structure, we like comfort, feel safer with answers than ambiguity, adore positive reinforcement, and want to be “seen,” or understood.  Having someone to look up to that appears to be in control, and being accepted and welcomed into a group are fundamental aspects to our existence.  How then can someone join an actual cult, one that is destructive, controlling and exploitive of its members?

New York attorney, Hamptons resident, and marathon swimmer Spencer Schneider has written a sensational novel about his experience in an exclusive, Manhattan based cult of elite professionals.  Described by Schneider as people “just like you,” Manhattan Cult Story details the experience of twenty-three years in a cult, from recruitment to his final break free.

When we dig deeper in to the psychology of cults, we must realize how members are recruited systematically, are influenced though social channels and processes, no one simply joins.  Leaders of such cults use manipulation tactics to control their members by targeting emotional vulnerabilities, situational tragedies and transitions in potential members’ lives such as loss of a loved one or relocating to a new area, and offering an illusion of security and acceptance.

As detailed in the novel, Schneider was recruited through a strategy of a safe channel; someone he knew socially from his hobby of playing music.  A hallmark of cults includes using deception, typically though an authoritarian leader that members must follow without question.  Over time members begin to form a new identity within the cult, as fellow members become the closest people in their lives while former friends and family members gradually become more distant.

True to cult form, Schneider’s experience included being “broken” emotionally, sometimes physically through hard labor, simultaneously praised and berated to provoke fear, guilt and martyrdom for the good of the leader and the group.  Most striking about Manhattan Cult Story are the members; highly educated finance managers, accountants, physicians, attorneys, professionals we think should be too savvy to ever join a “cult.”

From a neurological perspective, “brainwashing” over time is when the brain’s emotional processing starts to take over while the critical thinking (“what am I doing here?”) becomes numbed, allowing the follower to be controlled.  As social beings we need to belong as it is necessary to our survival, and cult-like tactics take advantage of our very human nature.

SECOND UPDATE: The French Evangelical Church, 126 W 16th Street

The church knows they are housing a dangerous cult but they prefer collecting rent over helping people. I think some pressure would help the church change their mind. Please help the current victims and sign this petition. 

It is "The Study"

If anyone has invited you to attend bi-weekly evening meetings, called the Study, you've been recruited to be in the Sharon Gans cult, formerly known as "School." Please contact me or the authorities. These are dangerous psychopaths disguised as your best friends.