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Shad,

I believe that often times the staff and leaders may be victims themselves. From what I saw everyone at some point started out as a guest of someone to either the Landmark Forum or EST. Then they latched on to Landmark/EST ideology and decided to dedicate themselves to transforming peoples lives, through various degrees / levels of participation such as leading a introduction, being a course leader, etc.

This leads me to another thing.....Some of these people are people with good intentions originally that wanted to help out others. But don't realize that in actuality that through Landmark they are actually doing more harm than good. That is even more sinister to think about it....recruit people, brainwash them (the ones with leadership qualities) and use them to go and brainwash more people. Makes me want to hurl my breakfast.

Landmark really wanted me to be a leader and some even told me that they could see me leading a Forum (which gave me chills even then). I wasn't afraid to take on leadership resposibilities and have the outward characteristics and personality that would make a good leader for the Forum or a Seminar.


[forum.culteducation.com]

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When I helped to set the rooms for an ILP weekend they were totally anal about the chairs being aligned correctly and having the right number of chairs. We worked late into the night moving and arranging chairs. It bordered on the ridiculus. Especially because the people incharge couldn't even make up their mind on how it should be set up. They couldn't think for themselves. I kept asking....don't we have any notes on how this place is supposed to be set up?.....how did you do it the last time?....Their reply was no we don't have any. It's supposed to be this way. I was shocked :shock: because such a large so called professional organization didn't even know how a room was supposed to be set up.

Maybe it was a mind control tactic the people in charge we using on us drones?

Landmark is totally anal about having a room set up correctly. At each break the rooms are set up again for the students. They are anal right down to how paragraphs are written on a chalk board. I saw a guy spend hours writing a paragraph on a chalk board. Paying excruciating detail to how each letter was formed and the spacing between them. If something was wrong with how it was written, it was a big deal.


[forum.culteducation.com]

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I'm interested in knowing how people got lured into Landmark?

I got lured into Landmark because I thought I was going to be taking classes that would help me out in business and investing. A friend of mine (currently still in Landmark) told me it would help me out and that it had helped her out in business. I met her right before she went into Landmark. Then after a few months she bought a much nicer car and a really cool house. I thought if it works for her it'll work for me! So without doing any research I just signed up, and later went to an introduction. I treated it like any other educational class I had taken. I was already taking a lot of classes on Real Estate Investing and had just finished two weeks of corporate sales training.

I looked at the Landmark website and the types of classes they offered. The titles reminded me of what I have seen listed in Local Community colleges. It also reminded me of stuff I'd seen listed on Corporate Training sites.

My friend did tell me at one point that people might say it was a cult but to not believe them. No one I knew at the time even knew what Landmark was. I thought it strange that she said that to me so blew it off.

I took the Forum and was surprised at the beginning on how it started out. I kept wondering when they were going to get into the meat and potatoes of this stuff? When are they going to start discussing real business concepts? I thought it strange we couldn't take notes. I thought it strange when at one point the instructor told every one we could leave if we wanted to and our money would be refunded. I thought it strange that it was going to last so long during the day. At one point I think I did wonder what I had gotten myself into. I had never in my life seen anything like this. I wish now that I had gotten up and left and got my money back.

But instead I decided to stay because I had taken a day off of work and spent money on the course. I figured I might as well stay and try to atleast get my money's worth out of the thing and maybe I'd learn something eventhough nothing really made sense. I got really bored during the Forum so inorder to pass the bordom I decided to try to make sense of the stuff. After all I believed in trying to educate myself and learn stuff.

I basically got screwed because I was looking to improve my skill sets, was not willing to walk away and loose my money after the chance to get my money back had passed, and naievely trusted a trusted friends advice with out checking things out. I know that my friend was only trying to help me out because she believed I could be more successful. I realize now that she was / is merely a Pawn of Landmark.

[forum.culteducation.com]

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Vic-Luc,

Exactly!

I have a career in Industrial Sales where I not only have to convince people and corporations to buy my products and services I have to provide help to the customer whenever I'm called on. I'm disgusted at the thought that I was even associated with Landmark. I feel that it has actually jepordized my career and I'm currently doing damage control because of it. Try that on for size (racket) Landmark! Not only did I waste about 9 months of time and effort, it actually set me back about a year and a half or more overall.

I wonder how many careers and reputations Landmark has torpedoed. I would like to hear from some people that have had this happen to them. Luckily I managed to catch on before things got to out of hand. I wonder how many people have gone from being successful to down and out because of Landmark and using its methodologies.

[forum.culteducation.com]

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Stuart Resnick wrote

When I lived in Muktananda's Indian ashram, I played chess with fellow devotee Swami Shankarananda, who now heads Shiva Ashram in Australia. (Back in the 70s, Swami Shanks was one of those crazy hippies who went to India with Ram Dass to see Neem Karoli Baba.)

on this same page of his website Resnick wrote:

LGATs (Large Group Awareness Trainings) were all the rage when I was growing up in the 70s. They include Werner Erhart's now-defunct est, its successor The Forum (aka Landmark Education), Lifespring, and many spin-offs. I've never attended these, though the many Intensives I experienced with Swami Muktananda were heavily influenced by Werner, and gave me a strong taste of the group dynamic. The Truth about Human Potential Seminars is a blog covering the LGATs; The Awareness Page offers many links they say will help Awareness consumers make conscious informed decisions; and Rick Ross' site has the video Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus, a 2004 French TV report with hidden cameras inside an actual Landmark training.


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Elizabeth Gilbert took to Facebook on Thursday to express what she was most thankful for after a “rough year” – months after revealing she had left her husband to pursue a relationship with her female best friend.

The Eat, Pray, Love author, who announced her new relationship with Rayya Elias two months after separating from husband José Nunes, wrote that she was “grateful that I seem to have lost the stamina for self-hatred.”

“Dear Ones, my heart just isn’t in it any more,” she wrote. “I just can’t commit to those deep, long, self-destructive shame spirals anymore — not like I used to.”

“Even when I fail, and even when it’s all so painful, and even when I don’t rise to my best, I just can’t seem to tie myself to the whipping post anymore,” she continued.

Gilbert explained that she was grateful that she now has a “better sense” of what she can and cannot control. While she acknowledged that what she has no control over feels overwhelming, what she does have a say over is “TINY but so freaking SACRED.”

The author has had a “rough year” but said she’s “been around long enough to know that the hardest years are the years that form you…and so this is GOOD.”

The 47-year-old expressed thanks for her the family she was born with and the family she picked, as well as for growing older, something she writes is a “privilege.”

Gilbert addressed her “destiny” writing she loves being surprised by it. She also has a love of “being challenged to find a more creative and compassion response to every situation that arises.”

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For years sexual abuse allegations have been made against Muktananda. This lawsuit by Carol Merchasin of Mcallister Olivarius LLC is the first attempt to seek legal damages against his SYDA organization.

[www.gurumag.com]

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The lawsuit alleges Muktananda “sexually abused and raped dozens of his female followers, both women and girls” and that Siddha Yoga including Gurumayi aided the abuses. Gurumayi would “assign teenage girls and young women to the rooms closest to his living quarters.” Siddha yoga members witnessed young girls coming and going from his room at night.