Chuck Spezzano & Psychology Of Vision

[Epiphany]

I think the Spezzanos and their inner circle are making a lot of $. There are so many trainers, spin off groups under various names, in so many countries - it would be interesting to see what financial researchers come up with concerning all these interlocking businesses in so many jurisdictions.

One of their businesses Vision Works for Life in the UK, led by Jeff and Sue Allen:

All our facilitators have taken a minimum of 70 days training in Psychology of Vision (PoV), including a 10-day workshop with PoV founders Chuck and Lency Spezzano.

http://visionworksforlife.com/pov-and-visionworks/

Sue Allen runs Vision Works for Schools, aiming to get "Emotional Intelligence principles" into schools. http://www.vision-works.net/who-we-are.php

[Epiphany]

Information from people who have attended these workshops:

When you enter the venue you must sign a waiver that states POV is not responsible for anything that happens to you. Doesn't matter if you have health challenges or not. You sign this, everyone already present witnesses this and also signs it, then you get a name tag and are allowed in.

Next everyone is supposed to "dance to the music". There is peer pressure to dance, and the dancing continues til Chuck and Lency show up. Chuck and Lency sit in nice cushy chairs, in front of the audience, whose chairs are arranged in a horseshoe shape. Where exactly you are seated is supposed to be symbolic of various issues you are unconscious of - such as birthing, death, "deep rooted chronic", etc.

There is also a chair for a participant chosen to be the "group mind". Everyone is supposed to listen to what they say, because as the Spezzanos claim "There is only one of us here".

Before the public workshop even begins the Spezzanos meet in private with their trainers, they spend about an hour working them over emotionally, they "process" them, often this is very intense and emotional.

At the beginning of the workshop the trainers stand up front of the group and read the ground rules about confidentiality and commitments. You stand up to show agreement. You are reminded of these commitments during the entire event. You cannot attend part of an event, you have to be there for every day, all day, if it is three days, ten, whatever. You are pressured to stay in the room, told that if you get up and leave to use the washroom that you are in denial of your issues.

Everyone is paired off in a buddy system and given work to do with each other. Trainers keep scanning the room, looking for people to target and upset.

Chuck sometimes roams the room, stares at people to get them worked up.

Trainers work the room, massage people's shoulders, tap their backs, touch them, and whisper to them to get them upset and emoting.

Sometimes participants basically pass out, while several people are doing supposed body work on them, the participants end up screaming, vomiting, going into delirious laughter (which is supposedly "bliss" - the goal)

A trainer held a participant and tapped their throat area hard while whispering that they needed to let go, the person was sore for weeks after this treatment.

Some people have break downs and end up desperate and incoherent. Some behave aggressively flirtatious.

Chuck tells a lot of sexual jokes. He gestures with the mic as a penis, raising it up and down.  He also states with words and motions that if a woman opens her heart, her body will be open for sex.

Chuck has promoted gambling for after workshops as he claims participants' luck has improved.

There is a lot of pressure to keep taking workshops, keep paying, keep up to their standards.

Anyone who has critical questions is told they are in resistance and not doing the work.

Anyone who leaves the group is shunned and mistreated.

[debbieredbear]

I had a chance to speak to my friend that was involved in deeksha. She was shocked by some of the things I told her, but wasn't overly surpised in a funny way. She said she started feeling uneasy about what was going on and couldn't put a finger on it, so to speak. Then she met her current partner. He has some issues: PTSD and some bipolar issues. He is also a bit hyperactive. But he is a decent guiy, doesn't drink, use drugs or abuse people. The leader of the local group demanded my friend not bring him. My friend said, wait a minute here, you are supposed to do healing and he needs healing! Nope, they said "It's him or us!" She chose her new friend and waived goodbye to that group. So much for "healing".

[Defend the Sacred]

This sounds like the same, high-pressure manipulation and control techniques used by James Ray and the Rebirthing cults.

[Epiphany]

The Spezzanos target mostly women, mostly 30 - 50 years old or so. Men are usually there because they have followed their wives and girlfriends, probably often thinking they are there to be supportive.

But men are really worked over in these sessions. Chuck states that the men represent missing brothers, fathers, grandparents, male offenders, bosses, etc. in the lives of the women.

When the Spezzanos have someone do a process, the participant chooses people in the group to represent various challenges in their lives. Men are almost always chosen to represent abuse issues.

The trainers are almost all female also.

The processing sessions are very orchestrated. Lots of touch, staring, emotional music, coercion, forced catharsis.

The Spezzanos use all sorts of manipulation techniques including hypnosis.

Communities have been left devastated, families have been broken up by this group.

Lency has said they have 52 trainers around the world. And I notice that trainers may use different names for their businesses, so far usually they do have some mention of Psychology of Vision on their web site, or Chuck and Lency Spezzano. With trainers paying annual fees to the Spezzanos, after all the $ they've already put out for the endless training, plus all the other income from people attending big events - the Spezzanos look to be making a fantastic amount of money.

The Spezzanos and their trainers are not doing anything helpful, healing, spiritual, mystical, or magical. They are running a huge con, using classic techniques.

[Epiphany]

This sounds like the same, high-pressure manipulation and control techniques used by James Ray and the Rebirthing cults.

Sure looks that way. And just like those cults and related movements, I think there is a very real concern that someone could die at one of these sessions, what with the extreme pressure and mistreatment. I think some people probably end up feeling suicidal after also. I'm not saying this frivolously - people do get seriously messed over by large group awareness trainings like this.

[Epiphany]

I had a chance to speak to my friend that was involved in deeksha. She was shocked by some of the things I told her, but wasn't overly surpised in a funny way. She said she started feeling uneasy about what was going on and couldn't put a finger on it, so to speak. Then she met her current partner. He has some issues: PTSD and some bipolar issues. He is also a bit hyperactive. But he is a decent guiy, doesn't drink, use drugs or abuse people. The leader of the local group demanded my friend not bring him. My friend said, wait a minute here, you are supposed to do healing and he needs healing! Nope, they said "It's him or us!" She chose her new friend and waived goodbye to that group. So much for "healing".

Glad she chose her guy over the group!

The Spezzanos most likely would have welcomed her friend, and then proceeded to seriously screw him over. He might have been chosen to represent abusive men for the event, not something that any man needs to go through.

They would have made his PTSD much worse - what with the whispering and touching and forced catharsis.

[debbieredbear]

He might have been chosen to represent abusive men for the event, not something that any man needs to go through.

They might have tried, but he wouldn't have put up with it! This guy is hard headed. LOL! And my friend would have been furious because she's protective of him. Oh, she gets mad at him and sends him home, but that's different then someone else treating him badly. Not that she treats him badly.

Also interesting that most of the group is women because I got the impression from the local bunch that they were mostly women too.

[Epiphany]

The Spezzanos’ greatest inspirations come from A Course in Miracles and Oneness University.

http://povcanada.com/about-us/chuck-and-lency-biography/

Chuck says he was enlightened by the Oneness University. Oneness Movement is a scam, critique of it can be found here http://www.enlightened-spirituality.org/deeksha_oneness.html and elsewhere online. Part of the scam is oneness blessings/ deeksha. http://www.onenessuniversity.org/index.php/what-we-offer The Spezzanos do their own version of these blessings.

Joining is an emotional healing exercise used for thousands of years in our human history. The Yogi's call it Gazing, in Psychology of Vision it is a very integral part of healing through love, and becoming emotionally mature.

Quote from Victoria Buffalo Robe, active in Psychology of Vision https://www.facebook.com/events/119594208160371/?ref=nf

An example of how they've made inroads in First Nations communities in Canada: this grant of $475,300.00 was supposed to aid residential school survivors, instead it further traumatized people by spreading Psychology of Vision trainings. http://www.ahf.ca/funded-projects/british-columbia/ngystle-society All the directors of the group that got this grant are 100 plus day grads of the Spezzano trainings.

One of the many programs is Steps to Leadership - "made up of 30 modules: 27 three-hour modules and 3 full-day workshops".

Steps to Leadership Facilitators

This 30-module course was written by Jeff Allen and is designed for use in small groups. The facilitators are people who feel strongly called to help others understand their lives through the Psychology of Vision model. They need not be trainers or 100-day graduates but must have completed a significant number of Psychology of Vision days, around 70, before being approved.

http://povcanada.com/introduction-to-trainers/

The Spezzanos specifically target communities. They go after leaders, who work (and pay) their way up the ladder of the POV hierarchy. Some of those leaders have control of finances, grant money, they influence dramatically their own tight knit communities.

The money making machines the Spezzanos have built is dizzying to research. A good antidote to all this b.s. is humor, this blogger is critiquing Lency Spezzano videos: http://www.mortythedog.com/search/label/Lency%20Spezzano

Warning signs of a potential unsafe group/leader http://www.culteducation.com/warningsigns.html

My guess is the Spezzanos will use the fact that public outrage is building as fuel for their own manipulation of followers, they will claim that this is evidence of dark forces allied against them, they will claim that everyone needs to do more processing in response.

[Epiphany]

Lency Spezzano can be seen in videos telling people to focus on one of her eyes. A professional hypnotherapist looked this over and says that directing people to look into the eye, either right or left, is a stage hypnosis trick, and that Lency is nothing more than a stage hypnotist.

[Epiphany]

There is a lot of horrifying material in these videos Lency Spezzano made and uploaded for our viewing pleasure on youtube. Fortunately it does give us a chance to see what the Spezzanos are doing, without having to give them all our money and suffer being in the same controlled environment with them.

In this video she gets her target to freak out, something I won't watch, but I want to point out what she does next. This phase starts about the 7 minute mark or so. Lency is in a silk top or dress that she occasionally readjusts. She has freaked out her male target, has his attention totally captured, she touches him, directs him to focus on her right eye, indicates with a hand gesture that she is going to turn around, then she slowly half stands and does this incredibly weird, arched back, sobbing, slow turn maneuver. While staying very close to him. She ends with her hand on his chest, and she adjusts her silk garment that has been falling off a shoulder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btxyxm1BHhY

What the heck is she doing? It is a weird sexualized seductive maneuver. Very creepy, so very unethical.

People who know American Sign Language, and have been to Spezzano events, say Lency has created her own ASL signs to instruct her followers. Advanced trainers are taught the sign for "joining". Lency also has specific hand gestures for "divine light coming through the brain", "brain net", her supposed experience of "downloading" and more.

The signs help Lency keep the audience focused, in the midst of their entranced stupor. The Spezzanos work to overload people's minds, once they achieve that, they can plant all the suggestions they want.

Something especially heinous they are doing is working to erase memories of residential school trauma in their subjects. Lency's Original Mind video is an example of this. No way should they be messing with people's memories. The Spezzanos are preying on traumatized people and then traumatizing them further.

The Spezzanos, by imposing their Psychology of Vision b.s. on First Nations peoples, hijack people out of their own family systems and support, while indoctrinating them with this artificial cultic system. Families are close, so when the Spezzanos focus on one or two members of a family or clan, they can then scoop up 10 or more members in record time.

[Autumn]

Thanks, Piff.  Those videos are hard to watch.  I am sorry, but I only see a face of evil when I watch her, not a face of bliss or love.  It is truly sad that so many people have been taken in by them.

Just for the record, I have managed to get a copy of Chuck Spezzano's dissertation and this is what is on the cover page:

THE WORDS THAT LOVE MADE--A POETIC PHENOMENOLOGY
OF THE POET'S EXPERIENCE OF BEING A POET
A Dissertation
Presented to the
Graduate Faculty of the
School of Human Behavior
United States International University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in Professional Psychology
by
Charles Lee Spezzano
San Diego, 1977

[Epiphany]

Autumn, does that dissertation copy include the names of instructors who accepted (if they did accept) the dissertation? Very cool that you got a copy.

That "Doctor of Philosophy in Professional Psychology" looks to have been offered only by that university, in the past.

Here is a person who has that degree, but they have a "clinical specialization", and they do the right thing with not only being licensed to practice as a psychologist, they even tell us their license #:

Doctor of Philosophy in Professional Psychology, Clinical Specialization, United States International University (Alliant University), San Diego, CA 1982 (Licensed Psychologist: CT License #1185)

http://www.bobdeutschphd.com/about_me/education.html

Chuck doesn't seem to be licensed to practice as a psychologist.

On Lency, yeah, horrible stuff.

[Epiphany]

Chuck says he got his degree in 1977. That might be true, but I wonder if the school was accredited by the APA at that time. He says he attended United States International University (USIU). "During the 1970s, USIU became a center for humanistic psychology". In 2001, Alliant was formed by combining California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) and USIU.
http://www.alliant.edu/about-alliant/history.php

But the APA says "Alliant International University—San Diego (PhD) (formerly listed as California School of Professional Psychology-San Diego)" was given the accredition date of May 6, 1980.

In comparison, the University of California, Los Angeles (PhD) Department of Psychology was accredited  Feb. 1, 1948.

http://www.apa.org/ed/accreditation/programs/clinical.aspx

[Autumn]

Autumn, does that dissertation copy include the names of instructors who accepted (if they did accept) the dissertation? Very cool that you got a copy.

That "Doctor of Philosophy in Professional Psychology" looks to have been offered only by that university, in the past.

Here is a person who has that degree, but they have a "clinical specialization", and they do the right thing with not only being licensed to practice as a psychologist, they even tell us their license #:

Doctor of Philosophy in Professional Psychology, Clinical Specialization, United States International University (Alliant University), San Diego, CA 1982 (Licensed Psychologist: CT License #1185)

http://www.bobdeutschphd.com/about_me/education.html

Chuck doesn't seem to be licensed to practice as a psychologist.

On Lency, yeah, horrible stuff.

Yes, Piff, these are the names on the dissertation, as best I can make them out, all signed with the date of May 9, 1977:  Bernice R. Roberts, Paul F. Colayzi (or Colaijzi), William D. Wilkers (or Wilkens), and W. Ray Rucker.*

On his website, he says this:

It was during this time that he graduated with his Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology.

I don't want to make excuses for these two people, but it may be a case that they started out with good intentions and then got dazzled by the $$$$$, sex, and power.  Such a familiar story.

*Additional information on above names since he types these out on the acknowledgements page:  committee members Dean Ray Rucker and Dr. William Wilkins; Dr. Paul Colaizzi, friend and mentor; chairwoman, Dr. Bernice Roberts.