"Drinking the Kool Aid":

[media.www.dailyorange.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2007 02:20PM by Maggie.

LME a cult ... indeed it is ...

The article has been removed.

Apparently they were threatened with a libel lawsuit from LE.

Anyone save a copy of it?

Here's a portion of what's on that webpage now.

>>>>>>>>Editor's Note:

The Daily Orange removed the body of this story on Oct. 24, 2007, at 9:40 p.m., approximately 20 hours after it was posted on its Web site.

The D.O. eliminated this article because it contained libelous content. <<<<<

the same day I posted it.. I was afraid of that. So much for freedom of the press...

First page is still cached on Goog.. see last paragraph

============================================================
Drinking the Kool Aid
Cults target college students in recruitment
Maxwell Nerenberg
Issue date: 10/24/07 Section: News

Cults have never been a big problem at Syracuse University, but they are present, said Thomas Wolfe, dean of Hendricks Chapel. Wolfe.

"It doesn't matter whether it's big or small when it gets in someone's head," he said.

A cult is a group that tries to take control of the lives of its members, often convincing them to isolate themselves and make certain sacrifices for the group's goals.

"We have (in the past) become aware of groups where it's clear they don't have the student's best interests in mind," Wolfe said.

Cults almost always recruit by masquerading as reputable groups, and they might tell students they are an activist, self-improvement or religious group, said Carol Giambalvo, a member of the board of directors for the International Cultic Studies Association.

"The groups look at college campuses as a fertile ground for recruitment," she said. These groups try and attract people who are in "transition phases" in their lives because they can exploit these peoples' insecurities, she said.

"If any group sounds too good to be true, a red flag should go up," Giambalvo said.

Each cult has its own goals, she said. "For some it's money, others it's leaders that are on a power trip, others it's sex," she said.

At first, cults offer unconditional love and acceptance, Wolfe said. They then slowly cause members to lose perspective. Members often feel safe telling secrets they would otherwise never reveal, and groups can use this to exert control over their members, he said.

Some try to make members drop out of college, Giambalvo said.

Giambalvo said she was once a member of a cult herself, convinced she was joining a group to actually fight world hunger. She left the group, called the Landmark Forum, in 1983. Since then, she has co-founded a support group, called reFOCUS, to counsel former cult members. Ex-cult members often find themselves behind their peers in terms of education and careers because they were isolated from the outside world.

[below is page 2 of the article, for purposes of research and analysis of media censorship ]

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Drinking the Kool Aid
Cults target college students in recruitment

(PAGE 2)

Mary Hudson, adviser for SU's Student Pagan Information Relations and Learning, said the group, which has existed for six years, has taken efforts to differentiate itself from cultic organizations.

"A good part of what we do is answering questions and giving information," she said. "We like people to ask questions."

There are cults that are prevalent in the Syracuse area.

NXIVM, (pronounced nexium), also known as Executive Success Programs, is a cult group with operations in Syracuse, Giambalvo said. The group's Web site says its goal is to create a better society: "to help transform and, ultimately, be an expression of the noble civilization of humans." It listed no phone number to contact the group.

Hendricks provides guidelines for campus religious organizations to ensure they do not develop cult-like practices such as ostracizing people, Wolfe said. The guidelines, known as Ethical Framework for Religious Life, can be found on Hendricks' Web site.

Both Wolfe and Giambalvo said most people do not believe they could fall into the hands of a cult, and that is part of the problem. "Everyone's got that vulnerable button," Wolfe said; cults try to find and exploit it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2007 12:45AM by The Anticult.

The extremely quick threat to the Daily Orange confirms yet again, the continued and basic evil intentions of Landmark Education to continue to deceive as many people as possible into its forum and other courses, with as little contention as possible. The most terrifying thing to Landmark Education must be those persons who have been sucked into their scams but have broken out of the trances of deception, and proceed to tell the world what Landmark really is or what EST really is.

The kids are ALL RIGHT!

Check out Carol Gimbalov's home page: [hometown.aol.com]

Looks like a good resource.

Clearly Landmark Forum Dis-Education has some type of internet legal response team that monitors the internet with things like Google Alerts, and then just attacks any sort of free speech and discussion about Landmark with outrageous legal threats, to silence any debate about Landmark.
They could just have form letters ready to go, and they just type in the name, and send it out, and it SCARES people.

Not only are they too cowardly and intellectually dishonest to deal with any situations that arise, they are also legalistic bullies.

Its all about FEAR, its a type of legalistic terrorism to silence free speech, perpetrated by Landmark.
Talk about being "Anti-American". You can't get much more "Anti-American" than Landmark, due to their constant attacks on any freedom of speech whatsoever.

Quote
The Anticult
Clearly Landmark Forum Dis-Education has some type of internet legal response team that monitors the internet with things like Google Alerts, and then just attacks any sort of free speech and discussion about Landmark with outrageous legal threats, to silence any debate about Landmark.
They could just have form letters ready to go, and they just type in the name, and send it out, and it SCARES people.

Not only are they too cowardly and intellectually dishonest to deal with any situations that arise, they are also legalistic bullies.

Its all about FEAR, its a type of legalistic terrorism to silence free speech, perpetrated by Landmark.
Talk about being "Anti-American". You can't get much more "Anti-American" than Landmark, due to their constant attacks on any freedom of speech whatsoever.

You're right about Landmark and legal terrorism, in fact they are at the same level as terrorists, in my opinion. Its what they do and its what they use to manipulate public opinion of Landmark. Obviously, they use tactics on the general public that they would use on the inner circle of shackled followers. Threats and legal attacks are all about terrorism. If you can't shut people up or make them think how you want them to, threaten them in whatever way that works. These are the tactics of bullies, and the principles of terrorists. Legal threats aren't hurtful pysically, but the intention behind making them is violent and unjust, especially in the way Landmark uses the legal system. With one goal in mind, to silence freethinkers.
Landmark can't cry lawsuit everytime someone says they're an opportunistic cult, someone out there might start to wonder if there isn't some truth to what is being said.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2007 06:16PM by ON2 LF.