If you are unable to have a discussion without badgering me, that's fine. And you are right. I was wrong. Sorry.

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elena

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BalkanBoy
Here's my interpretation of the forum - as I've been in it - take it however you wish: (snip) cheers, Martin

Spoken like a true neophyte/believer/newbie"grad"/"junior forum leader."

What brings you here, young man? Surely you don't believe the quasi/pseudo/malarky a bunch of con artists have "invented" and concocted from the remnants of some old 1950s and 1960s cults? Or perhaps you like a twisted version of "Christian" "science," as far as illness and disease are concerned (neither Christian nor science, as some wag pointed out). C'mon, do a little better than this. We're more demanding than the forum audience.


(Your clue is in your moniker.)



Elena

> After three decades in business, they can't come up with a new example for the old
> "you must experience it to believe it" schtick? The bicycle-riding analogy is getting old.

Only because you said that it is getting old, then it is so, right?

> Martin, I have an exercise for you:
> Think about how "you must experience it to believe it" may not apply in certain
> situations. Then list three situations where it would not apply.

> 1. You watch as your friend steps in dog poo, grimaces with disgust, tries to wipe it off
> his shoe, and stinks to high heaven. Do you need to step in the dog poo yourself to
> decide whether stepping in dog poo is good or bad?

Ok, I'll bite. Being an engineer, I have to make some distinctions before we move on:

Def #1: "stepping in dog poo" - a random physical event beyond your control

Def #2: "Decide whether stepping in dog poo is good or bad" - a story/decision we made up about Def #1 based on past stories/decisions/traumas.

Now, let me answer by stating - if you were 5 years old, never ever stepped in poop, and you stepped in poop - but your mom or dad did not "traumatize" you (I don't like to use the word traumatize, but it's just as appropriate to my point I hope) to think that stepping in dog poop is bad - would you have exclaimed the same? Probably not. So your _story_ about stepping in dog poop (an actual physical event) is one filled with disgust, based on "trauma" (mom/dad reprimanding you for stepping in it), and you _decide_/_choose_/_elect_/what have you the _EXPERIENCE_ is now _bad_, without ever knowing so.

I know, I'd do the same if I wasn't aware of the distinction. The forum shakes you up in a way that you make the distinction. Whether you can handle it or not, is, yes, as Margaret Singer said - _potentially unsafe/dangerous_. I think I handled it and got "something out of it".

> 2. You watch in horror as a pedestrian is hit by a car. As an ambulance comes to pick
> him up, do you feel the need to throw yourself in front of an oncoming car to know
> whether getting hit by a car is good or bad?

My primary school friend's mom got hit by a bus and I saw her dead body lay there for hours before our police came to pick her up.

(mark that in the above sentence I just stated I did not tell a story of what I felt happened, but of what actually happened to the best of my abilities without any emotions flying into the story, ok?)

So let's dwell on this one again to see the 'blueprint' of who we are:

Def #1: "pedestrian hit by a car" - a random physical event beyond your control

Def #2: "ambulance coming and picking up the body" - a random physical event beyond your control

Def #3: "feeling the need to know" - a story/decision we made up about Def #1 & Def #2 based on past stories/decisions/traumas.

> I'm sure you can come up with three more quite easily.

I can come up with far more than three actually, but I'll save it for later if you really want me to address that point. Thought I believe you are intelligent and you are seeing what I'm driving at here. It's not complex at all - it's about making the distinction. So when those bad forum people told you you did not get "it" , I guess what they mean is you don't get the distinction.

Granted, a lot of them will blabber about other things, and what those things will be is a reflection of their pasts/traumas/decisions etc - which may or may not differ from ours - as they say in the cyber world - YMMV - your mileage may very. And some do continue to seek support where support can not be found - by purchasing the Advanced courses and paying out money to Landmark by the dozens, much like you are paying money to anything else at your own free will, but since we're so bound by material crap, we think we get something out of paying for it, whereas with the forum, based on our prior fears/pasts/decisions/traumas/defensive mechanisms, we label it "brainwashing", etc.

Well guess what - I got brainwashed by my parents to think going to school is good. I got brainwashed to think that I should go to school or else I'll be a burger flipper. I got brainwashed into a lot of other things. Some of those things did not jibe with me in my past when I was young and I got "traumatized" by them at some point and decided that because I do not like what just happened - I'll make up a story about it, DEFEND STAUNCHLY against it, in my conscious mind, and defend against it by never admitting what really happened, whether it was molestation by a father, a suicide of a loved one, an exclamation that your mother does not love you at age 10 (that can be traumatic too), etc etc etc, same s*it, different flavor with everyone who is a human being...

So now we grandstand here and deny what we are made of - because we do not like it or because someone "authoritative figure" told us to not like it, or some trauma that had us decide against it - well guess what, Glam? It's _FINE_, and I do not blame you. I just want you to realize that that is who we/you/are. Or at least HOPE to realize that that is who we are - a semantics-adding, bitching/complaining, walking machine - and we defend against everything and everyone when we're 30, and yet at age 3 or 4 or 5 you think that maybe you could even swim across the Atlantic - because you learned how to swim in the shallow waters... right?

Do you get "it" or no? :) Not to sound like a forum junkie - but I was wide awake while it was going on - no one hypnotized me. As you've certainly read and know :) - you can not
be hypnotized against your conscious will, right? I never authorized anyone to do anything other than open their mouth and utter sounds at the forum which I added meaning to... And then I got shaken up by it - hell, even afraid by it :), then I was like - hold on - who is that looking a lot like? :) Then I go in the mirror to see any physical damage :), none there... so I was like - hmmmm , why was I afraid now? Because this guy told me to get off my intellectualism and I didn't like that? Why? Because I decided when I was 9 years old, no one is going to laugh at me anymore for getting an erection in class and trying to figure out what that was so I touched myself (down there) and saw the reaction of someone who saw me - laughter and humiliation.... and I decided everytime someone laughs at me, it is a moment of weakness and I will relent and not give in, and make jokes about such moments - my defenses..... Just like everyone else's, not much different. Same principle, different story for everyone....

But it's hard for people to see this and/or admit it. Some retake the forum, some run from it. Few get "it". It varies. How did you set up yourself prior to coming into it, what's your mental history...lots of things. It's intense, yes, but it applies to everyone and those who are "above" it or "beside" it or "know better" - are just that - human beings and their decisions :) based on god knows what that happened god knows when.... Because sure as hell when I was comig out of my mom's wound - one decision I did make was I WANT FOOD AND I WANT IT NOW AND I AM COLD :).

If that doesn't make sense - sorry. Try to add some of your own to it :). I wont resent you or blast you for it either.

> What kind of organization would try to convince you that you must experience a bad
> situation yourself to know whether it's bad?

Ok - mark my words on this one - no one but yourself can convince yourself into anything. Just remember that from now on.

Thanks for having a dialogue and not calling me a freak.

Martin

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Potter500
I am new to this forum and am seeking some information.

I am close to a Landmark member who has completed up to and including SELP. I am very sceptical about Landmark and fearful about what it means for my friend. I have lots of questions but one issue is in view at the momnent.

My friend has made many disparaging remarks about those who are ill saying that this is "their racket". This seems also to extend to those who are dying through terminal illness which is apparently because those people "have not enrolled those around them in the possibility of a cure".

Whilst I would acknowledge there is a mind/body/spirit dimension to illness, particularly terminal illness, I don't think this is what is meant by these remarks. Can anyone shed any light on this part of the Landmark belief system?

Thanks for reading this :)

When I was studying TCM I asked one of the teachers what he thought of the West's "new age" movement--the new ecclectic stuff like Scientology, Landmark, Lifespring and etc. as opposed to the more tradional nonprofit things like yoga, Tai chi, Rosicrucianism, Masonry and etc... He said that it was a bunch of b.s., and that only in the West would they adulterate Eastern philosophy to justify crass materialism.

It's doubly amusing whenver I read the self-appointed LEC guru/knucklehead JT at the "Rants and Raves Live" Delphi forum portentously asserting how "once upon a time" Werner blew away Eastern masters with his "wisdom." I wonder if that was before or after the tax evasion, incest and drug abuse?

A little refection reveals that the "we create our own reality" schtik only makes sense in a context that includes reincarnation as well as simultaneously the theories of morphic resonance and the supposed simultaneous dual nature of conciousness both as a physical and a "higher" spiritual one.

Furthermore such tradional mystical spiritual traditions assert that unless one has verified these theories empirically--Gnostic style--via first-hand experience such is mere hearsay, parroting, and smoke/sunshine up the back side/caboose... you get the picture.

For a forum freak to merely say to someone who is suffering "you created it," without further clarification of what that's supposed to mean in its original context strikes me as incredibly stupid and naive at the very least, and criminally manipulative at most. By asserting such theories as facts they only make things worse for someone who is ill, for then not only is the person suffering a physical illness, but now even worse they're suffering irrational guilt inflicted by an ignoramus who thinks s/he is a genius. And such brain washing imparted to the ill in their weakened states may lead to anxiety, depression...and much much worse.

CNFT

Hey man - sounds to me like your friend is making conscious choices when he said that. Whether you choose to label him a freak - is up to you. The man may not still have gotten off the forum's "high" - but believe me, it wears off.

This is about the only thing I like less about the forum - not the "dangerous" effects it had on me because it woke me up to who I am - I enjoyed that, being all afraid and a little coward :), for no particularly good reason - then I realized I don't have to feel that way and I can choose to feel whatever friggin way I want - their screening process involves very little past signing a form that says you are in perfectly stable mental health.

Now, I can't say for others - but is there not a possibility that someone thinks they got all their marbles up there lined up but they really don't? I think it's possible. And maybe those people, who convince themselves on the form that they are ok - but 'somehow' know they are not, or maybe they chose to LIE about their mental health deliberately - get the worst experience of it because of the effects the forum has on people....

So then they go around spewing garbage and unsubstantiated crap and eject lawsuits that have no merit most of the time.

There is one thing I realized about the USA and its government which should allay people's fears about Landmark - if Landmark or EST or any one of these programs were truly harming people - they would do so in MOST cases (say 90% + ?? or what would be a good high percentage?), and the courts by now would have turned them into dust, and the owners/employees would've been sent to jail for whatever they'd be found liable (e.g. "brainwashing"? :)...

So I think , again, in the end - the question remains - how do you have a filter for who is "ill" or "weak" so we stop them from going into any awareness training? I thoroughly enjoyed every bad/good emotion I felt out of it, because it reminded me of who I am - so now I just try to feel less bad about stuff. I mean I still bitch moan and complain, at my life, wife, and I want an M3 instead of my dinky Camry because I think it'll add more "meaning" to my life :), but that's who we are... a bunch of human beings..... can you get that? can you handle that much without labeling people or calling them names or engaging into win/lose, right/wrong scenarios? Be pragmatic.. acknowledge that even the notions of who is right and wrong were also created by us. Then you (hopefully) realize how "shallow" we are as humans ;).

Martin

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Coldnosesandfluffytails

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Potter500
I am new to this forum and am seeking some information.

I am close to a Landmark member who has completed up to and including SELP. I am very sceptical about Landmark and fearful about what it means for my friend. I have lots of questions but one issue is in view at the momnent.

My friend has made many disparaging remarks about those who are ill saying that this is "their racket". This seems also to extend to those who are dying through terminal illness which is apparently because those people "have not enrolled those around them in the possibility of a cure".

Whilst I would acknowledge there is a mind/body/spirit dimension to illness, particularly terminal illness, I don't think this is what is meant by these remarks. Can anyone shed any light on this part of the Landmark belief system?

Thanks for reading this :)

When I was studying TCM I asked one of the teachers what he thought of the West's "new age" movement--the new ecclectic stuff like Scientology, Landmark, Lifespring and etc. as opposed to the more tradional nonprofit things like yoga, Tai chi, Rosicrucianism, Masonry and etc... He said that it was a bunch of b.s., and that only in the West would they adulterate Eastern philosophy to justify crass materialism.

It's doubly amusing whenver I read the self-appointed LEC guru/knucklehead JT at the "Rants and Raves Live" Delphi forum portentously asserting how "once upon a time" Werner blew away Eastern masters with his "wisdom." I wonder if that was before or after the tax evasion, incest and drug abuse?

A little refection reveals that the "we create our own reality" schtik only makes sense in a context that includes reincarnation as well as simultaneously the theories of morphic resonance and the supposed simultaneous dual nature of conciousness both as a physical and a "higher" spiritual one.

Furthermore such tradional mystical spiritual traditions assert that unless one has verified these theories empirically--Gnostic style--via first-hand experience such is mere hearsay, parroting, and smoke/sunshine up the back side/caboose... you get the picture.

For a forum freak to merely say to someone who is suffering "you created it," without further clarification of what that's supposed to mean in its original context strikes me as incredibly stupid and naive at the very least, and criminally manipulative at most. By asserting such theories as facts they only make things worse for someone who is ill, for then not only is the person suffering a physical illness, but now even worse they're suffering irrational guilt inflicted by an ignoramus who thinks s/he is a genius. And such brain washing imparted to the ill in their weakened states may lead to anxiety, depression...and much much worse.

CNFT

Balkenboy, I read your reply and wonder if you are able to think without usingLandmark vocabularly or distinctions. Everything you said could and proabably has been said by a landmark forum leader!

You talk about the decisions we made as three and four year olds and the stories we made up. You talk about how the percieved trauma that was associated with an event made it what it was not that the event itself was bad. What a load of BS. when you talk about a child being molested you make it sound like really nothing was wrong, they made up the story based on the trauma. There is something wrong and those children have a right to feel used and abused because that is what happened!

I believe Landmark takes away the right to feel the way you do in certain situations. by taking away your emotions and feelings and your critical thinking you become a landmark speaking zombie (pretty much how you sound to me btw)

Sonnie_dee, you are certainly entitled to your own opinions. I don't see what Landmark specific jargon I used that I did not know before Landmark. And of course children have a right to feel whatever they choose to feel because of molestation or what not. By the way, is there anything else you wanted to add in light of child molestation or is that you "final answer" :)? (Regis said that, not Landmark, FYI).

Thank you.

Martin (BalkanBoy is just a nickname, my name's Martin - I come from the Balkans, Macedonia).

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sonnie_dee
Balkenboy, I read your reply and wonder if you are able to think without usingLandmark vocabularly or distinctions. Everything you said could and proabably has been said by a landmark forum leader!

You talk about the decisions we made as three and four year olds and the stories we made up. You talk about how the percieved trauma that was associated with an event made it what it was not that the event itself was bad. What a load of BS. when you talk about a child being molested you make it sound like really nothing was wrong, they made up the story based on the trauma. There is something wrong and those children have a right to feel used and abused because that is what happened!

I believe Landmark takes away the right to feel the way you do in certain situations. by taking away your emotions and feelings and your critical thinking you become a landmark speaking zombie (pretty much how you sound to me btw)

BalkanBoy,

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BalkanBoy
Now, let me answer by stating - if you were 5 years old, never ever stepped in poop, and >you stepped in poop - but your mom or dad did not "traumatize" you (I don't like to use the >word traumatize, but it's just as appropriate to my point I hope) to think that stepping in dog >poop is bad - would you have exclaimed the same? Probably not. So your _story_ about >stepping in dog poop (an actual physical event) is one filled with disgust, based on "trauma" >(mom/dad reprimanding you for stepping in it), and you _decide_/_choose_/_elect_/what >have you the _EXPERIENCE_ is now _bad_, without ever knowing so.

With all due respect, I think what you say is absurd. Stepping in dog poop is a bad experience no matter what. It stinks, you have to clean up, you can get real sick if the poop gets in contact with your mouth (germs are real – it’s not something you create). As a parent, I will not reprimand (certainly not traumatize) my kid for stepping in poop, I’ll only clean him up and trust he will not repeat it. I trust my kid will realize by himself it’s a bad idea. If I put a bowl of cereal on the kitchen table and a bowl of poop, I bet the “natural instinct” from any baby on this planet will be to eat the cereal and not the poop. If eating the poop is the “distinction” you get from Landmark, this is pathetic.

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BalkanBoy
My primary school friend's mom got hit by a bus and I saw her dead body lay there for hours before our police came to pick her up.

Poor kid. You must have been VERY traumatized. Did you seek professional help? (I’m very serious here and I sympathize with you. I am not being cynical for there is nothing to be cynical about). Did you read Landmark’s warning before registering (only for people that are doing well)?

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BalkanBoy
So when those bad forum people told you you did not get "it" , I guess what they mean is you don't get the distinction.

This is very typical of cult people. If we don’t accept your system of logic, it’s because we don’t understand “It”. You think people don’t accept “It” because they don’t get “It”. But I get that “It” is garbage. Got “It”? Your distinction is nothing but “indoctrination”.

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BalkanBoy
Well guess what - I got brainwashed by my parents to think going to school is good.

No no! You don’t get the distinction here! You’ve been “educated” by your parents to think going to school is good. Don’t you get it? There is a fundamental difference between “brainwashing” using manipulation and influence techniques (like they do at Landmark) and “education”. And Landmark Education has nothing to do with “Education”. This is very well documented and I encourage you to read and educate yourself more like your parents use to tell you. But you probably didn’t listen to them and I know you are not prepared to listen to anything I have to say either. You must be running a “racket” here!

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BalkanBoy
...defend against it by never admitting what really happened, whether it was molestation by a father, a suicide of a loved one, an exclamation that your mother does not love you at age >10 (that can be traumatic too), etc etc etc

Same comment as above. You need professional help. Landmark will drive you crazy and they will not take the responsibility for it. And again, I am not being cynical.

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BalkanBoy
Do you get "it" or no? Not to sound like a forum junkie - but I was wide awake while it was going on - no one hypnotized me. As you've certainly read and know - you can not
be hypnotized against your conscious will, right?

Coercive influence techniques and mind manipulation techniques do exist, and this is what they use at Landmark. This is very well documented. Your comments only prove how effective the techniques are. Don’t you get It? You talk about "authoritative figure". Don’t you see the Forum leader is a figure of authority and when your defense collapses, you accept everything HE says! You call it getting “It”. I call it getting caught into “It”.


Ok Martin. You say you are an engineer, so you must be a logical person who has done lots of math’s. Try to make sense of this logic (or lack of):

“Be racket free: Give up being right even when you know you were”.

This sentence is paradoxal (very cleverly though). For example, if you think you’re so right about Landmark, why don’t you give up that you’re right about it? Why don’t you listen to the other side of the story with an open mind? Don’t you get that Landmark is your new racket, but the system doesn’t allow you to get rid of it. You’re caught in a trap, but you choose to. Or did you really choose to be in “It”? Think carefully about it. Was it really your decision to believe all about “It”, or have you been manipulated into thinking Landmark is so great? Only one answer can lead to salvation.

Sincerely, I wish you the best of luck.


Michael D
"A Critical Mind is a Healthy Mind".

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BalkanBoy
If you are unable to have a discussion without badgering me, that's fine. And you are right. I was wrong. Sorry.

It's not a "discussion," but ~enrollment.~ It's not a "discussion," but a ~conversation.~ It's not a "discussion," but a jargon-filled, manipulative attempt to persuade another person that you are so "awesome" that whatever you say sounds rosy and enchanting and wonderful. In other words, it's a "sales" call when one party is a Landmarker "on the make."

And you feel "badgered" by what I posted? Why forever so? Is it your nature to feel badgered when someone responds in a way that is not aligned with your purchased and pre-digested view of things, which is, after all, their right, their perogative, and - dare I say it? - their choice? Is it your nature to feel badgered when someone doesn't like what you say and tells you so? I suggest that, instead of "feeling badgered," you examine why there are rooms full of people who have the very same aversion to anyone posing and pretending to know-it-all in Landmark cult-logic and Landmark cult-jargon and sophomoric, superficial, and spurious Landmark "filosofy."

It would do you, or any newly-minted and self-absorbed Landmark clone, more good than you can currently imagine to pay attention to what the people here have to say. Most of them know a whole lot more than you do about Landmark and know it from lengthy, thoughtful, diverse, and much more illuminating perspectives.

(And it's not that I'm "unable." I could probably pull off a pretty good imitation ~conversation~ in Landmark-speak and phoney Landmark posturing. But at this moment I am just not in the mood for the conversational equivalent of long-past-its-shelf-date junk/fast food. Thanks just the same. Other than that, there are scads of Landmark-friendly chat-rooms filled with gushing, enthusiastic, Land"droids" who will converse with you endlessly in Landmuck jargon. If that's what you want, this is not the place for you. If, on the other hand, you want to learn something about how "biz-cults" like Landmark operate and how they are able to take over the minds of perfectly intelligent people, stick around.)


Oh, and the you-were-right-I-was-wrong thing might work with the other neophytes, but it doesn't mean much here. Here it would be recognized as an attempt at a "conversation-stopping" manoeuver.



Ellen

Heheh :), ok Elena - so what would it take to stop the conversation then? Should I admit guilt - ok - I admit it :). I think at this point you are so resigned to the fact that I need "help" - there's probably little I can say or do, to persuade you otherwise. There is one nagging thing that bothers me though - which I can't prove to myself of course - what are you actually afraid of here? Why the heated debate? There is a premise to your antagonism - do you want to share it? Maybe then we can begin to truly understand each other without all the negativism :).

Thanks for your comments, I appreciate them.

Martin

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elena

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BalkanBoy
If you are unable to have a discussion without badgering me, that's fine. And you are right. I was wrong. Sorry.

It's not a "discussion," but ~enrollment.~ It's not a "discussion," but a ~conversation.~ It's not a "discussion," but a jargon-filled, manipulative attempt to persuade another person that you are so "awesome" that whatever you say sounds rosy and enchanting and wonderful. In other words, it's a "sales" call when one party is a Landmarker "on the make."

And you feel "badgered" by what I posted? Why forever so? Is it your nature to feel badgered when someone responds in a way that is not aligned with your purchased and pre-digested view of things, which is, after all, their right, their perogative, and - dare I say it? - their choice? Is it your nature to feel badgered when someone doesn't like what you say and tells you so? I suggest that, instead of "feeling badgered," you examine why there are rooms full of people who have the very same aversion to anyone posing and pretending to know-it-all in Landmark cult-logic and Landmark cult-jargon and sophomoric, superficial, and spurious Landmark "filosofy."

It would do you, or any newly-minted and self-absorbed Landmark clone, more good than you can currently imagine to pay attention to what the people here have to say. Most of them know a whole lot more than you do about Landmark and know it from lengthy, thoughtful, diverse, and much more illuminating perspectives.

(And it's not that I'm "unable." I could probably pull off a pretty good imitation ~conversation~ in Landmark-speak and phoney Landmark posturing. But at this moment I am just not in the mood for the conversational equivalent of long-past-its-shelf-date junk/fast food. Thanks just the same. Other than that, there are scads of Landmark-friendly chat-rooms filled with gushing, enthusiastic, Land"droids" who will converse with you endlessly in Landmuck jargon. If that's what you want, this is not the place for you. If, on the other hand, you want to learn something about how "biz-cults" like Landmark operate and how they are able to take over the minds of perfectly intelligent people, stick around.)


Oh, and the you-were-right-I-was-wrong thing might work with the other neophytes, but it doesn't mean much here. Here it would be recognized as an attempt at a "conversation-stopping" manoeuver.



Ellen

The rules state

'The purpose of this forum is not to promote a specific religious or political viewpoint and/or to proselytize.

So-called "flames," vitriolic posts that personally attack people, will not be tolerated and are grounds for banning the author from this message board.'