Am I the only one unable to reply to this post? Can a moderator check this out please.

boonetahoe
You sound like a very reasonable chap and I respect you for this very reasoned and balanced comment. I disagree with your conclusion however.

My experience is purely of Landmark, the few seminars I attended, the effect it had on someone I loved and the route cause of a relationship break-up. I have posted a range of criticism's of this organisation on this board. Why? Well yes, a Psychologist may read my ramblings and indeed conclude I might need some “help”. Some might say I have used this place as a means for grounding my anger and frustration, others that I was reaching out to see if “I was not alone”. Both are no doubt true and being really truthful, about this, I may well have flipped out big time if I had not had a place to vent this emotion.

Let me give you a very specific experience with which to demonstrate where my loathing came from. My ex was constantly telling me with total conviction “I was the most important thing in her life”. Close to our relationship finally ending she called me to see if we could rescue things. Strangely, something had altered in her and she seemed to be seeing my point of view about how her Landmark commitments were consuming her life. I was overwhelmed with happiness and offered to come round the following evening to hopefully get things resolved. Guess what? – Landmark commitment. The next night? Landmark Commitment. The next Day? Landmark commitment…………etc etc etc. I pleaded with her, to once, put our relationship first and see me the next evening. She refused, stating that it was imperative that she did her Landmark commitment – she had given her word.

This is obviously just one small microcosm, an anecdote that could have different interpretations. But can’t you see how inherently EVIL this manipulation is? Landmark volunteers are brow beaten, bullied and psychologically abused by their peers and leaders into “being their word”. They are “being trained” they claim to have a powerful life that works for them. In so doing, everything else in these people’s life becomes second place to the point were they actually destroy things, not make them work.

You talk of the importance of enquiry into human behaviour, to find “a better” way of being and to evolve our ideas to avoid the obvious catastrophes we are creating for our race. I totally agree with that idea. Our existing religions and institutions are simply not fit for purpose anymore and something radical has to happen, soon. However, if the only answer is the LGAT way that is currently on the table, the hypocrisy, the corruption, the manipulation and brainwashing that goes on I think I would rather just go with the current systems thanks, and maybe work out a way of evolving ideas that does not resemble Nazi Germany or any other horrific, totalitarian control freak system that various cultures have experimented with in the past.

The participants of this board are, in my opinion, like me horrified at the methods and tactics utilised by these institutions. Probably most have had their lives or lives of their loved ones and friends seriously compromised or even ruined. They simply want to speak out, vent their angst, check they are not alone. If that means that its unbalanced and in some cases offensive to some then so be it. No doubt if LGATS could find a legitimate way of closing these sites down they would do and probably hunt down the individuals ruthlessly for years to come.

LGATS behave like an extremist immigrant who has moved from a country run by a dictator, only to then protest to the authorities to have freedom of speech closed down on any debate about their imported faith systems, the very same faith systems that were either banned or controlled by the regime from which they have fled. What’s more they revel in telling the population of the country in which they reside just how wrong they are for tolerating this corrupt way of life (whilst breaking the laws of their new country like they don’t matter)

You wonder why there is so much anger and vitriol here?

Go figure……..

it does take a moment, Blue, for replies to go through

But it gets rid of the porn and the trolls.

I can wait if that's the cause of taking a moment.