Briggs:

All the information about Landmark is readily available through the Internet.

See the following link:

[www.culteducation.com]

Read the press articles and reports. And go over the previous links posted, which work just fine.

Landmark has been linked to breakdowns, family estrangements, divorce etc. It is simply not the way you have chosen to paint it.

There are many first-hand accounts from people who have taken its programs within the archive linked above. They don't agree with your conclusions or observations.

Obviously, there are safer alternatives to Landmark, which were previously described, such as working with support groups, communtiy services and/or professionals that are properly trained, licensed and/or certified.

You essentially ignored these points.

Please understand that Landmark is a for-profit privately owned company and it sells courses, which are not "free."

Of course you know Landmark is secretive and your response really is dishonest.

Again, review the conditions of taking its courses proscribed within the initial agreement you signed. As you know it is stated that participants cannot disclose specifically what went on, other than the vague generalizations (i.e. testimonials) you have offered.

It is really sad how you dismiss the pain and suffering of people vicitimized by Landmark. Though it seems you have done the same regarding your own brother's cult involvement.

The longer version ("Essay") of your sing-song testimonial about Landmark would no doubt be repetitive and of little value educationally. I suggest you contact Landmark's webmaster and arrange to have it posted at their website.

Hi Briggs,

You mention that you have been a Christian. Have you now decided that because you have now done Landmark that Christ and His teaching of the Way, Truth & Life are no longer for you?

From my earlier post on this thread I stated the major distinction in the Christian & Landmark philosophies:

Christian = meaning of life is given by God
Landmark = there is no meaning of life other than what YOU give it.

The two philosophies are not compatible. You need to make a choice. You cannot have one foot in both camps. There is no integrity in that position. You mentioned that you have just learnt about the value of integrity. Make your choice but first reflect deeply rather than just act.

Werner Erhard who is the author of Landmark believes we are all Gods and this forms the basis of Landmark teaching:
"In actuality, each of us, as the sole creator of our universe, is a God, and because we have created all, everything is as important as everything else. When we’re fully in touch with what already is and accept what is as more important than what isn’t, then all games are over. There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, everything is perfect". ref: (The Book of est, p. 217)

All of LE teaching pivots on this falacy that we are Gods who are soley responsible for everthing that happens to us whether it be good or bad. There is no room for your Christian God in this.

You have to make a choice Briggs, which way will you go?
Oz

Hi Briggs,
Please check your mailbox
Oz

Briggs,

I missed part of this thread where you replied to my post with the following...

""I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you just "didn't get it", even though you apparently have been through the forum.

Where in the world did you get that from? Nowhere in the forum did I hear the phrase "everything is meaningless".

Everything is not meaningless. It seems as though you entirely missed the final message. And perhaps you missed a whole lot more.""

Where in the world did I get that from - THe forum. Word for word AND from the representative who finally shared with me what the big finale would be - that "it's all meaningless" - because she so wanted to sign me up, even though she knew I was going through some health matters. In other words, she didn't want the finale to put the final nail in my coffin. Finally, the doctor I was seeing who was deeply involved in Landmark programs made it very clear about "it" all being meaningless.

It's a standard answer from pro-Landmark folks to say others don't "get it", but then come back and say everyone's experience is different.

Well, maybe your forum was different. In mine I heard the phrase "life is empty and meaningless that life is empty and meaningless that life is empty and meaningless".

Maybe to you that phrase has the same meaning as "everything is meaningless", but to me it does NOT.

According to Landmark, life is empty and the meaning it has is the meaning you give to it. So if you're feeling depressed, you're giving your life the meaning of depression. And so forth. That's what I got from it and it actually makes sense. I think I sometimes have a habit of feeling sorry for myself. And I also blame my parents for failures I have. But that does nothing for me. What I'm trying to do now is take action. Action is that makes the difference - going into hibernation does one no good.

Anyway, just wanted to tell you what I got out of it. I 'm afraid you didn't really "get it", which is unfortunate. Maybe your Forum leader wasn't as good in communicating as mine was. Go get a refund!

There was no repetition like the presentation you were given. However, regardless, the idea that humans give meaning to situations and experiences is something that was not anything new to me. It's a rather normal thing to do. (BTW - I did get a full refund.) You may have read in prior posts that a doctor I went to was heavily involved in LE. He used their tech as Tx on me, without divulging this info to me. He missed a Dx because of his LE agenda. Just like LE forum leaders, he interpreted symptoms, experiences, etc. to fit his ideology, and to make money.

Briggs,
Tthere is no distinction between life and everything. You are playing with words.

Even though there be death, death is part of the cycle of life, so life encompasses everything.

So - what Hope is saying and what you are saying is the same.

The meaning to life has no baring on what you give it Briggs. That statement puts you in the centre of the universe as if you are a little GOD. This is however consistant with how Landmarkians thing - that they are little GODS creating their own little endless possibilities and if another person in that Landmarkinan's life causes resistance to the endless possibilities - then divorce him/her or shut the door on that person. Its not very charitable.

See Landmark has no answer for when two little GOD like Landmarkian universes collide. Eastern philosophies, Jewish, Christan & Muslim teachings do. Love one another and respect each other, do not think of yourself but put the other first. Landmark teaches to put YOU, the little GOD, first.
Oz

Life has only the meaning you ascribe to it??

What kind of white-boy childhood fantasy delusion is that!? What an opportunistic nonsense!

One only has to look around the world to see that people are not choosing their situations nor the way they must ascribe meaning to it. If I were a poor Tanzanian living on rotten fish guts in the mudflats of a polluted river and Briggs wandered up and told me the depression I was feeling was the depression I was ascribing to my life, well, I am not sure what sort of meaning I would ascribe to his backside.

Quote
upsidedownnewspaper
Life has only the meaning you ascribe to it??

What kind of white-boy childhood fantasy delusion is that!? What an opportunistic nonsense!

One only has to look around the world to see that people are not choosing their situations nor the way they must ascribe meaning to it. If I were a poor Tanzanian living on rotten fish guts in the mudflats of a polluted river and Briggs wandered up and told me the depression I was feeling was the depression I was ascribing to my life, well, I am not sure what sort of meaning I would ascribe to his backside.

It's an idiotic, simplistic, almost infantile concoction "designed" by a half-wit low-life slickster named Werner Erhard. He came up this "program" in the 1970s to fleece a bunch of troubled "New Age" seekers, "desperate housewives," and other dissatisfied hipsters who didn't bother to look too deeply into anything and who were more than happy to hear the good news that they didn't ever have to worry about the state of the world or concern themselves with the suffering of others because "the were no victims" and everybody "creates his own reality." Utter garbage, not to mention the product of the mind of a sociopath. The fact that it still exists (as the so-called Landmark Educational Corporation) is some kind of testament to the vigor of "quickie cures," fake/faith healings, and toxic religions and philosophies.

There is another thread dedicated to "Large Group Awareness Seminars" where there is a lot more information, if you care.


Ellen

Quote

It's an idiotic, simplistic, almost infantile concoction "designed" by a half-wit low-life slickster named Werner Erhard.

Ummmm... this is a debatable point. John Rosenberg is a highly intelligent man with an extrordinary charisma and psysical drive.

Regrettably, he is also a poorly educated man whose exotic pastiche of beliefs, notions, theories, quotable sound bites, sales routines, sexual urges, ideals, and neurotic drives reflect that fundamental lack of educational bedrock.

More regrettably, his followers were/are so profoundly seduced ( = "enrolled" in ESTmarkSpeakTM) by the former... his energy, his radiant sexuality, his halo of empathy and transcendent understanding, that they never got around to taking a close look at the latter... his debased intellectual framework...

As for the feeling of being [b:885726d5ab] Pumped Up....[/b:885726d5ab] yes, I've personally been there and done that... technically speaking it is the result of a [b:885726d5ab] large quantity of the neurotransmitter Dopamine [/b:885726d5ab] being released in a part of the brain called the tegmentum...

Now a bit of serious neuroscience via Michael Bozarth (1994)... I'm including this because it illustrated a critical issue with the "orchestrated orgasm syndrome" ... whereby collective enthusiastic processes reach an ecstatic peak, quite orgasmlike to the midbrain... which are then [i:885726d5ab] powerfully associated [/i:885726d5ab] with a predetermined [i:885726d5ab] object of loyalty [/i:885726d5ab] or [i:885726d5ab] object of adoration [/i:885726d5ab] .... for example, those who were present at the early Nazi rallies orchestrated by Albert Speer and Josef Goebbels to "frame" the personality of Adolph Hitler would often speak of the sexual hysteria that charged the event. Hitler himself was described as a "sexual hysteric"...

OK.. a bit on the Hitler personality written by a contemporary as the Allies were trying to figure out what they were dealing with:

"Hitler likes to believe that this is his true self and he has made every effort to convince the German people that it is his only self. But it is an artiface. The whole "Fuehrer" personality is a grossly exaggerated and distorted conception of masculinity as Hitler conceives it. Undoubtedly he would like to be such a person in reality and believes that he actually is that person - but he deceives himself. [b:885726d5ab] This personality shows all the ear-marks of a reaction formation which has been created unconsciously as a compensation and cover-up for deep lying tendencies which he despises.[/b:885726d5ab] This mechanism is very frequently found in hysterics and always serves the purpose of denying the true self by creating an image which is diametrically opposite and then identifying with the image. The great difference between Hitler and thousands of other hysterics is that he managed to convince millions of other people that the image is really himself. [b:885726d5ab] The more he was able to convince them, the more he became convinced of it himself on the theory that eighty million Germans can't be wrong. [/b:885726d5ab]

And so he has fallen in love with the image he, himself, created and does his utmost to forget that behind it there is quite another Hitler who is a very despicable fellow.

He is hardly more successful in this, manouvre than any other hysteric. Secret fears and anxieties that belie the reality of the image keep cropping up to shake his confidence and security. He may rationalize these fears or displace them but they continue to haunt him. Underneath, Hitler is a bundle of fears. Some are at least partially justified, others seem to be groundless. For example, he has had a fear of cancer for many years. Ordinarily he fears that he has a cancer in his stomach since he is always bothered with indigestion. The assurances of his doctors are all to no avail. A few years ago a simple polyp grew on his larynx. Immediately his fear shifted to the throat and he was sure that he had developed a throat cancer. When Dr. von Eicken diagnosed it as a simple polyp, Hitler at first refused to believe him.

Then he has fears of being poisoned, [b:885726d5ab] fears of being assassinated [/b:885726d5ab], fears of losing his health, fears of gaining weight, fears of treason, [b:885726d5ab] fears of losing his mystical guidance [/b:885726d5ab], fears of anesthetics, fears of premature death,[b:885726d5ab] fears that his mission will not be fulfilled [/b:885726d5ab] , etc. Every conceivable precaution must be taken to reduce these dangers, real and imagined, to a minimnm. In later years, the fear of betrayal and possible assassination by one of his associates seems to have grown considerably. Thyssen (308) claims that it has reached the point where he no longer trusts the Gestapo. Frank (652) reports that even the generals must surrender their swords before they are admitted into conferences with him"


Annnnd.... some information on [b:885726d5ab] how the brain has it's pumped up ecstatic experience.....[/b:885726d5ab]

"Initial work suggested that a number of brain regions could produce rewarding effects, but many of these seemingly diverse stimulation sites were quickly linked through a common neural pathway—the medial forebrain bundle (Olds, 1977). Although it is true that activation of other brain systems can produce rewarding effects, activation of the medial forebrain bundle as it courses through the lateral hypothalamus to the ventral tegmentum produces the [b:885726d5ab] most robust rewarding effects.[/b:885726d5ab] And several neurotransmitters may be involved in the rewarding effects from various electrode placements, but dopamine appears to be the neurotransmitter essential for reward from activation of the medial forebrain bundle system (see Fibiger & Phillips, 1979; Wise, 1978). The neuroanatomical elements of rewarding stimulation have been identified using electrophysiological and neurochemical techniques: electrical stimulation activates a descending component of the medial forebrain bundle which is synaptically coupled at the ventral tegmentum to the ascending mesolimbic dopamine system. Rewarding electrical stimulation thus activates a circuitous reward pathway, first involving a descending medial forebrain bundle component and then involving the ascending mesolimbic dopamine pathway (Bozarth, 1987a; Wise, & Bozarth, 1984). The terms mesolimbic and ventral tegmental dopamine system are used interchangeably in this context, both denoting the same dopamine system involved in reward and motivation."