Cos posts to RickRoss.com: I actually think having some type of Hypomanic episode after one of these particular seminars is not rare at all.
Some folks go into a mild form of a manic episode, and many folks seem to go into what is called a Hypomanic episode, even if just for a brief period of time. Many other folks just get very “overexcited”. So there is no absolute line, it is more of a continuum.
All you have to do is look at the DSM criteria, and realize that only 3 of the criteria have to be met to qualify as a hypomanic episode.
For those who have never been to a seminar of the Guru in question, they need to understand that the audience is PUSHED into what is called a “Peak State”, for hour after hour, 12-16 hours a day, for a number of days at a time. The seminar can go from 9am to 1am at times. So the goal in the seminar, is to “keep your energy up” to a 10 out of 10. You are literally instructed to PUSH yourself all day long to do this. People are instructed to jump up and down, and do all sorts of exercises to get themselves into a “Peak State”. I know this sounds nuts, but when you are there, most people are trying to do this, as the Guru is telling you to do this. Also, there are no breaks, they go right through lunch, so your blood sugar is going to go low, yet at the same time you are making enormous physical demands on your body, so your body is going to roll out all sorts of “emergency survival drugs” to get that energy you need for these massive energy demands.
And you don’t want to leave to take a pee, as you are afraid you might miss something. After doing this dozens and dozens of times, you can see people just get caught up in it, and mixed in with everything else, including the mass crowd hysteria, people literally start to go into a form of “mania”. Now I am not talking about full-blown Mania, where a person is running down the street in their underwear claiming that they can talk to God. I am just talking about some of the criteria listed in the DSM.
If one has seen the speaker in question, and if one reviews the criteria given, and even applies it to the speaker in question, one can see there is plenty of this to go around.
And not only is there no screening, as I have said, people are encouraged, and socially pressured into “pushing themselves” all day long. If you don’t do this, then you are “not playing full out” and you will be “playfully” berated, and even socially shamed when everyone around you is doing this to themselves all day long. If you refused to do it, people would look at you like there is something wrong with you, or that you had an attitude problem, or something. So there is lots of social pressure to conform.
Again, I think if you are not eating enough food, and not having enough sleep, yet you are making ENORMOUS energy demands on your body by pushing it ALL DAY into these “Peak States”, its seems logical to me that your body is going to go into “emergency life or death survival mode”, and is going to roll out all of your energy stores, and even internal “drugs” to give you that energy to get you through this false “life or death emergency”.
You really have to see it to believe it in this case. When people do this “firewalk” after doing all of this other stuff, you can just see them go into a literal FRENZY, and these feelings linger for a few days after. Of course, after this “high” the person is going to crash, and go back to normal, or maybe even get very depressed, and then of course BLAME THEMSELVES for not being an alleged superman like the Guru. (no one ever sees what the guru does after these intense seminar weekends…that would spoil the Wizards illusion….)
But some folks start to think as they are TOLD BY THE GURU that they can LIVE in that overexcited manic state they were pushed into at the seminar.
So what do they do?
They go back to the seminar, over and over again.
There are many people who have done 10 firewalks.
They want to capture that “high” again.
Its yet another unattainable goal that keeps folks coming back over and over.
Here are some of the Thoughts/Behaviors they are instructed to repeat over and over.
-THE MORE ENERGY I USE, THE MORE ENERGY I HAVE.
-YOU CAN ABSOLUTELY LIVE AT LEVEL 10.
-Push yourself beyond where you are comfortable. Push yourself beyond your comfort zone with repetition.
-you are instructed to push yourself to emotional “thresholds”, both painful and pleasurable.
-people try to Anchor these feelings in by screaming “YES!”, and by jumping up and down, and pounding their fists to their chests, etc.
Again, this does not tell the entire picture. But just imagine hundreds of people, pushing themselves into a Peak State for 14 hrs or more a day, not eating enough, lack of sleep, mass crowd hysteria, jumping up and down, laughing, crying, screaming, and doing every crazy thing you can think of, and eventually your body must just give you a few shots of some powerful internal drugs to keep you going, in this “false life or death emergency”. So people get this SURGE of energy, and they need less sleep, and they feel like Superpeople.
You can literally see all sorts of people saying things like,
I CAN DO ANYTHING.
I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD..
NOTHING CAN STOP ME
I CAN LIVE FOREVER.
etc.
People are actually encouraged to have these types of bloated and grandiouse thoughts, which are a critieria of hypomania and a manic episode. They are NOT healthy thoughts. They are sick thoughts, and need to be modified. (I can just see the followers of the Guru FREAK OUT when I say that).
I am quite certain that those who design these seminars could even tell you the specific drugs the body releases to cope with these extreme demands. I might look it up myself.
So it really could literally be a type of drug addiction.
