Yesterday, I posted a portion of a manual published by the Mankind Project for leaders of the Integration Groups (I-Groups). I excerpted a portion of an exercise called “bucketing” where one may include another man as a stand-in for an issue one has with another man.
While this technique might be of some benefit with skilled facilitators, I see potential for men to process wounds in ways that might not be helpful. Age regression techniques can mislead the person being regressed to incorporate a narrative that may be a reconstruction of events rather than a true account. These techniques, promoted by some therapists, are not universally accepted.
According to a former New Warrior, this bucketing technique, along with another process known as clearing, can lead to disturbing experiences. The following account was sent to me via email:
This is a MKP process where you “kill” someone in proxy. It is often the father but can be a mother or someone else. I’ve even seen MKP have men “kill” God. Actually I was instructed to “kill God” by MKP leaders but I refused. There is something in MKP called a “God split” this is where a man kills God and gives himself is own god of his making, usually himself. This is a necessary step in the MKP ladder. For a man to become an “inner King” he must “kill” God first. King is one of the four quadrants of the four archtype circle, those being, Warrior, King, Magician, and Lover. These are loosely based on Jung’s archtypes.
Well back to “killing dad.” In these killing processes, one man stands in proxy for the person who is being killed. Cushions and pillows are placed before him. The man who is to kill has a baseball bat, tennis racket, etc. He hits the pillows and cushions over and over right before the man standing in proxy. The man continues hitting and yelling at his “daddy.” The “daddy” gives insults and calls the man with the bat names. These are names that are brought out earlier before the “killing” begins in a “bucketing” process. Eventually “daddy” slowly begins to “die.” He begins to sink slowly to the floor pretending that he is being hit and hurt. He eventually pretends to be dead. This can take many minutes. This usually occurs when the man with the bat is near the point of exhaustion.
This process looks like gestalt psychotherapy to me. I did it several times to my “dad” at MKP meetings. The reason that they stated I needed to do it over and over was because I didn’t kill my whole dad, just one part of him that hurt me. I needed to kill every part that had “bad energy.” This could take many meetings and workshops to accomplish.
After the process is done there is the de-role process, there the man standing in proxy says “I’m not your father, I’m your brother ‘Jim’.” The man then repeats it to him. Then the process complete, at least for now.
This description sounds like two other accounts we have seen before. First, the “rage therapy” documented in Divided Memories. Hear a survivor of Genesis Associates discuss the rage therapy:
Another reference for tennis raquets and pillows, of course, is what Richard Cohen calls “bioenergetics.”
I asked Mankind Project, Executive Director, Carl Griesser for a comment on the proxy process described above and he was not able to comment today. He did say he was thinking about how to respond and would be in touch. I am looking forward to this.