The 'healing' retreat I paid $2,000 for turned into a full-on recruitment pitch

I went to a three-day wellness retreat in Sedona last month that was advertised as trauma recovery work, but by day two the leader was pushing us to sign up for a $10,000 'advanced program' and cutting off anyone who questioned it. Half the group left after a woman started crying and the leader told her she was 'blocking her own healing' by resisting the offer. Has anyone else dealt with a retreat that crossed the line into cult-like pressure?

3 comments

3 Comments

elliot_roberts9d agoTop Commenter

My buddy went to a "soul healing" thing in the mountains last year and it was the exact same crap. By the second night they had everyone doing this weird trust exercise where you had to hand over your wallet to the leader as a "symbol of surrender." He said it felt wrong but like a dozen people did it anyway. When he got up to leave they followed him to his car trying to guilt him about missing his chance to unlock his true self. He says the whole thing was basically a money funnel dressed up as spiritual growth. The part that got me was when they told him his doubt was just his ego trying to keep him small. Pretty gross how they twist basic therapy words into sales tactics.

jenny1988d ago

But isn't it kinda beautiful that people are actually willing to trust someone enough to try something that deep?

ramirez.vera8d ago

Yeah, that "your ego is just resisting" line is a classic. I went to one of those weekend deals a few years back with an old girlfriend, and they flat out told me my skepticism was a "shadow block" that I needed to release by buying their premium package. Same exact playbook, they follow you out to the parking lot too, real friendly but pushy like timeshare salespeople with better lighting and bad poetry. The worst part was when the leader tried to hug me and whispered "your mother's disappointment doesn't define you" like he knew something. I told him my mother's dead and he didn't skip a beat, just said "even her spirit wants you to heal." Total grift, man, and they use real people's pain to sell the tickets.