A reiki session. Cristine Rochol (PMPA)
Connect with your inner child, entrust your physical ailments to an emotional cause, a guru, a medium or a guide.
Eating at the times the schedule dictates, not talking to anyone for hours.
All in a dream setting.
Generally in the mountains, far from the madding crowd, from the people and, above all, from the families that are complete and love each other at Christmas.
Experts from the Salud sin Bulos institute have warned of the risks of trusting blindly in the promising messages of these retreats that are experiencing a special boom on these dates.
These moments of change of year or meetings are the most fruitful time for these organizations that, according to Salud sin Bulos, the organization made up of an extensive network of medical collaborators, psychologists,
pharmacists and even experts in sects "use mechanisms to recruit vulnerable people to profit from their suffering."
Some practices with no scientific evidence, which are called pseudotherapies, which in this time of uncertainty, crisis, pandemics and war have found fertile ground to settle.
It is not that trying to reconnect with yourself, even if it is your inner child, is something negative.
Neither are some practices such as meditation, reiki or family constellations, just for the sake of practicing them.
But experts allege that they pose some risks that patients who take them should be aware of, according to the psychologist who has participated in the
Christmas without pseudotherapies report.
, Carlos Sanz.
“The spirituality that everyone lives is very lawful.
The issue is that they take advantage of legitimate things and promise abstract things.
There are people who go to a retreat to meditate and get to know themselves better, but then a mixture occurs there, such as control of carbohydrates and hours of sleep, long hours of meditation... There is a control of who participate”, mentions the psychologist, who has worked closely with some of those who were shaken by the adverse emotional effects of some of these groups.
Sanz warns that this period is especially attractive.
In the last two years, many have experienced a traumatic Christmas due to the covid-19 pandemic, many want to celebrate, but continue with a grieving process.
Now they find that everything has returned to a reality almost like that of 2019. “Then they feel that they have to put themselves at the same level as others and they are not prepared.
Cognitive dissonance ensues.
A 'I'm not like this, but I see that everyone is happy.
I am going to find a way to get rid of my anxiety ”, explains the expert.
“Many people do not realize the placebo effect of these types of therapies.
And they mistakenly attribute an effect that they suffer, to the fact that it works for them.
In psychology we call it emotional reasoning.
That is, if you feel that way, it is true.
The report presented by the institute does not seek to cancel this type of pseudotherapies, but rather that those who attend have all the information at their fingertips.
The collaborator of the institute and member of the Ibero-American Network for the Study of Sects (RIES), Luis Santamaría, points out that it is very important that “they be well informed in advance of what the group is, what it consists of.
And that throughout the development of the activity they take into account the things that should alarm them, such as isolation, control, and always have a person outside with whom to compare and share what they feel in order to have that second opinion”.
"The idea is that people are informed and make free decisions and be critical," he adds.
One red line that experts mention is when isolation begins.
Santamaría explains it: “You have to pay attention when content and teachings are being given that warn attendees that they must keep them secret, because they are for special people.
When they begin to distance themselves from their family, from their usual environment, an initial strategy of isolation begins, to achieve greater manipulation.
Santamaría observes that this type of ritual under the guise of the “Christmas spirit” always has a healthy and positive appearance.
They are no longer the sects associated with the collective imagination of guys in robes and mass suicides.
The name itself alludes to a distant era, “something retro or
vintage
”, jokes the expert.
“We have to banish the image of the commune with the tunic and foreign terminology, to think of sects closer to the urban reality than to the rural one, there is a relocation,” reports Santamaría.
But although they do not wear robes and these practices may seem innocuous, "they are still instruments of magical thinking that alienates people and fills the pockets of those who propose it," he warns.
“Retirement has always been common in religious settings.
But when you go to a Catholic one, for example, you know the contents, you know that there will be times of prayer, meditation, a mass... In these, it is true that they talk about a connection of nature, yoga... But the true purpose of many is to study the people they go to see which ones are more permeable to indoctrination”, he assures.
Some end up hooked on WhatsApp or face-to-face groups and maintain close contact outside of the retreats.
Psychologists have noticed cases in which they withdraw from their social environment and remain completely isolated in it, some relatives have contacted them to understand what they can do.
The experts agree, the groups have multiplied.
“Above all, those who go along this line of esotericism, spiritual healing, new psychologies, and all this is growing.
We are receiving a constant trickle of requests for help, for information, from families who see how a person in their family is being recruited or has already been recruited, and they are very surprised that what might seem like a group of friends is not it is, it is a cult.
Everything turns into a radical personality change”, points out Santamaría.
The practices that most concern experts are those that have to do with a guide or guru, they call them "channeling" and bioneuroemotion "holds the patient responsible for having caused a disease just because of how they felt emotionally," summarizes Sanz.
The guru or facilitator claims to be the channel through which a spirit, a divinity or an ascended master manifests.
"Often, these 'channellers' end up generating relationships of dependency towards their followers, since they accept anything they say or do because of their supposed supernatural authority and this is the seed of many different types of abuses," warns Santamaría.
“In these times they have been able to change the means, the forms of dissemination, of economic use and increase the types of labor, personal, sexual exploitation... But the ends remain the same:
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