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Posts Tagged ‘cultural’

Former Buddhafield Follower Shares Unvarnished Truth About Cult Life

Former Buddhafield Follower Shares Unvarnished Truth About Cult Life

(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Radhia Gleis spent 25 years of her adult life in the Buddhafield cult, under the influence of a narcissistic sociopath known by many names: Michel, Andreas, The Teacher or Reyji. She escaped the psychological prison of cult life over 12 years ago, but the emotional scars remain. The post-traumatic stress, forever entombed in her psyche, is repeatedly triggered by the characteristics of political and cultural leaders of today, prompting her to explore her past decisions through a much broader lens that sheds light on the blind spots — and dangers — of groupthink.

“What makes people give up their will, their sense of right and wrong — give up their moral compass and family ties for a person or an ideal?” Gleis asks in her captivating new book, The Followers: “Holy Hell” and the Disciples of Narcissistic Leaders: How My Years in a Notorious Cult Parallel Today’s Cultural Mania, giving a nod to the 2016 Buddhafield cult documentary Holy Hell, in which she appears.

The Followers lays the groundwork by skimming Gleis’ upbringing in Hollywood and tracing the steps of her adult life, when, at the age of 30, she fell under the influence of the charismatic leader of Buddhafield.

She draws striking parallels between her devotion to a cult leader — an authority — whose damaging behavior and influence she willfully ignored, and the followers of other authoritarian leaders, both past and present.

Gleis weaves her personal experiences with reflections on a number of thought-provoking topics, including:

• The search for a higher truth
• Cults, groupthink and mind control
• Authoritarian leaders
• Malignant narcissistic personality disorder and sociopathy
• The American schism
• How an intelligent, well educated person may find themselves under the control of a narcissistic sociopath
• Cognitive dissonance
• The three basic types of people who join cults
• The power of words/influence of media

Informative, raw and irreverent, Gleis’ book shares the unvarnished truth about cult followers from the viewpoint of a former follower still grappling with the consequences of her choices.

Author Radhia Gleis is a Certified Clinical Nutritionist, CCN, MEd. biochemical analyst and educator for over 33 years. She has appeared as a featured guest on numerous radio and television shows including Fox News, Austin. She hosted The Health Revolution and Let’s Get Healthy on Talk 1370 AM, KLBJ, and The Wellness Connection podcast on Voice America. She was the host and executive producer of three YouTube series: Wake up America; How the Body Works; and The Natural Way. She was featured in the internationally viewed movie, Holy Hell, which was broadcast on CNN and named one of Sundance Film Festival’s and Netflix’s top 10 documentaries. It can now be viewed on Amazon Prime.

For more information, please visit www.radhiagleis.com, or follow the author on Twitter (@radhia_gleis).

The Followers: “Holy Hell” and the Disciples of Narcissistic Leaders: How My Years in a Notorious Cult Parallel Today’s Cultural Mania
Publisher: Sage Card Publishing
ISBN-10: 1737125803
ISBN-13: ‎978-1737125808
Available from Amazon.com, BN.com and Audible.com

Trish Stevens
Marta Riley
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
[email protected]
www.ascotmedia.com
281.333.3507 Phone

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Parents and Educators: Both Can Help Children Attain Academic Heights

Parents and Educators: Both Can Help Children Attain Academic Heights

(This press release may be reprinted in part or entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Children who arrive at school with an emotional commitment to learn are ideally equipped to excel academically. A second factor in their learning success is the set of values that guides the lessons they’re taught during their most impressionable years (preschool–grade 5). These are among the insights of Dr. Cornelius Grove, who has spent decades exploring the cultural factors that affect children’s performance in classrooms.

Consider Dr. Grove’s 138-page book for parents, The Drive to Learn: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Raising Students Who Excel. Here he explores the ways in which East Asian parents instill in their children respect for academic knowledge and receptiveness to the formal learning process. After a seven-chapter explanation of cultural values underlying East Asian parents’ mindset, he offers three chapters revealing their specific supportive practices. It’s an outline for action for American parents who deeply value academic learning.

A Mirror for Americans: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Teaching Students Who Excel, is the 148-page companion volume to the above book. Dr. Grove examines the school side of the learning equation. East Asian lower-grade lessons gain the advantage because of their tenacious, narrow, yet multifaceted focus on the day’s topic. He addresses, among other things, how East Asians regard teaching and the reasons for pupils’ math superiority. Choice magazine (June issue) “highly recommends” this book for “general readers through faculty.”

“People who’ve had experience in unfamiliar cultures often remark that they now see their own culture with fresh eyes,” Dr. Grove explains. “It’s as though they’ve looked into a mirror and seen alternative possibilities for themselves. They realize that their usual ways of doing things are not etched in stone; instead, they’re choices. Different choices could be made.”

Although each book effortlessly stands alone, The Drive to Learn and A Mirror for Americans combine to encourage complementary reassessments by parents and lower-grade teachers about the more impactful roles they could be playing in upgrading the academic performance and the eventual college readiness of the youngest Americans.

For more detailed overviews, visit TheDriveToLearn.info and AMirrorForAmericans.info.

Author Cornelius N. Grove holds a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Johns Hopkins and a Doctor of Education from Columbia. He has had a decades-long fascination with the cultural factors that affect children’s ability to learn in school. At a 2005 conference in Singapore, he spoke about the two instructional styles found around the world. In 2013 he wrote The Aptitude Myth: How an Ancient Belief Came to Undermine Children’s Learning Today, a historical study of why most Americans believe that inborn ability determines school performance. For two recently published encyclopedias (2015 and 2017), he wrote entries on “pedagogy across cultures.” And now with A Mirror for Americans and The Drive to Learn, he is revealing the complementary roles home and school play in strengthening children’s academic capabilities.

The Drive to Learn: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Raising Students Who Excel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, Maryland)
Hardback: 978-1-4758-1509-2
Paperback: 978-1-4758-1510-8
eBook: 978-1-4758-1511-5
Available from Amazon.com, Rowman.com, Barnesandnoble.com and other booksellers.

A Mirror for Americans: What the East Asian Experience Tells Us about Teaching Students Who Excel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, Maryland)
Hardback: ISBN 978-1-4758-4460-3
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-4758-4461-0
eBook: ISBN 978-1-4758-4462-7
Available from Amazon.com, Rowman.com, Barnesandnoble.com and other booksellers.

Trish Stevens
Teresa Hinojosa
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
832.569.5773 Direct
281.333.3507 Phone
[email protected]
www.ascotmedia.com

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Veteran Political Analyst Examines Key Forces That Led To Trump Presidency

Trish Stevens
Anna Jones
Ascot Media Group, Inc.
Post Office Box 2394
Friendswood, TX 77549
[email protected]
ascotmedia.com
281.333.3507 Phone

(This press release may be reprinted in part or in its entirety by any print or broadcast media outlet, or used by any means of social media sharing.)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Veteran Political Analyst Examines Key Forces That Led To Trump
Presidency

What political, social and cultural forces led to the election of President Donald Trump? Polit-ical analyst Bradford R. Kane explores 10 dynamics of American politics and society that played a role in the 2016 presidential election and continue to influence our politics in his ground-breaking book, Pitchfork Populism: Ten Political Forces That Shaped an Election and Continue to Change America. Some of these dynamics have deep historical roots, such as the cultural divide between those who define our national identity in terms of rugged indi-vidualism versus those who emphasize community collectivism. The author notes that these opposing viewpoints helped craft our national identity as far back as the 1700s. He also con-siders the consequences of changing demographics, which will have a profound effect on community relations and politics.

Kane foresees a return to established policy processes and governing principles after the Trump presidency, as opposed to rule based on a president’s personal interests. He anticipates greater empowerment of the electorate as more demographic groups are increasingly enfranchised. Kane also forecasts the potential impact of recent developments on the 2020 election and beyond. Other topics discussed are the role of the media, accountability, globalization, the future of bipartisanship and more.

Bradford R. Kane has served in the US Congress as Legislative Counsel to Congresswoman Cardiss Collins; as Counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection; and as a member of President Clinton’s Task Force on Health Care Reform. Thereafter, he served the State of California as Deputy Controller, Legislation, and subsequently, as a Deputy Secretary of Information Technology. He was also a member of the Nielsen Media Research Task Force on Television Measurement; created the Bipartisan Bridge (a public policy initiative to advance bipartisanship in American government); and developed environmental and economic equity initiatives. In the global arena, he was CEO of the International Commission on Workforce Development, a Strategy Council member of the United Nations Global Alliance on ICT & Development, and Director of Strategic Initiatives and Director of International Development at TechSoup Global.

To connect with Bradford Kane, please visit his website at: www.pitchforkpopulism.com.

Pitchfork Populism:
Ten Political Forces That Shaped an Election and Continue to Change America Release
Publisher: Prometheus Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield
Release Date: October 15, 2019
ISBN-10: 1633885828
ISBN-13: 978-1633885820
Available from all major online retailers

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