I heard that if people set up volunteering programmes to help communities through landmark, then they pay landmark to help set them up. Is this true, how does the community volunteering thing with landmark work?

I wouldn't put anything past Landmark. But this is extra sleazy, huh? You not only volunteer, but you pay Landmark to let you volunteer.... You gotta hand it to them for being so good at putting one over on people over and over again...

I'm not sure about that. Are you talking about the SELP (Self Expression and Leadership Program)?

I was in the middle of the SELP when I basically told Landmark to go stick it up their butt. The whole purpose of the SELP, which I paid for and so does everybody for that matter, is to take what you've learned in Landmark and take it out into "your communities". What this basically amounts to is that you decide on a "project" (which is really a volunteering project) that will allow you to help people. Doing something such as a fundraiser for example. On the surface it looks quite innocent and warm and fuzzy, but it's not. Basically it is free advertising for Landmark Education and a way for them to get free promoting. What's even worse is that one of your jobs as a SELP participant is to go out and "recruit" people to help you on your project and that's really the only way for it to succeed according to them. Basically what you end up doing is getting people to unknowingly and unwittingly to volunteer their time, money, and effort to the Landmark cause. Of course you will let people know that you are participating in Landmark that way you can get them to sign up for the "Forum".

Even though I never finished the SELP, I was just a few weeks away from completing it, I believe that the whole course is designed to cause you to fail. Which will leave you stressed out and in need of more Landmark classes or better yet decided to go into the ILP (Introduction Leaders Program). The reason that I believe it is designed to make a person fail is because it takes people who have never organized a volunteer event before and tries to get them to do a volunteer project without really giving the person enough time or guidence to do it successfully much less get it off the ground.

Trying to get people to volunteer their time and money to a project or event is one of the hardest things a person can do. I knew this way before I was ever involved with Landmark. I used to be a leader in a Professional Organization and I tried to get people to help me to just run the organization at the local level. It was damn near impossible, and believe me I tried everything that I could think of, short of brainwashing people...LOL... And I had many years of experience, about a full decades worth actually, of partcipation and leadership within the professional organization. I even had real formal training to do it.

That being said. Take someone that has never organized any type of volunteer function before, pump them up with a bunch of hyped up B.S., after having gone through months of brain washing that makes the person into a zombie that people don't want to be around, and send them out into the public to try to get a volunteer group together to get something done. The end result will most likely result in failure. The reason that I say this is that when I left I was towards the end of the SELP and no one that I can think of except for maybe the instructor and a few of the coaches was making any significant progress in their SELP project. I.E. they were failing at it!!! Plus they participants were getting stressed out and demoralized to top it off.

Looking back at it now, I would have like to have seen how the class finished up. I'm sure it would have gone something like this. "So you may not have completed the SELP project like you wanted. What do you see in this? What "meaning" are you giving it? Blah Blah Blah.... However you can still have remarkable breakthroughs in your life. And we will show you how. The next step is to take the ILP and you will have a remarkable breakthrough in your life. All you need to do is go to the back of the room and sign up, we take cash, checks, and credit cards!" Then you see what's left of the heard of Zombies rush to the back of the room to sign up for more and longer indoctination!!!

Thanks, the person I know in Landmark took SELP and then afterwards took ILP. I suppose if you don't do well enough on the ILP programme you retake it, if Landmark is based on perfection if you don't reach their standards then you have to retake.

Excellent description Zorro!

Skeptical_one, not so much retake. There is always another programme to follow, for instance Communication Course I and II. (these are rarely mentioned here by the way).

You're right Europe-girl there is always another course to take.

As far as the Communications Course I and II goes. I took both of them. The Communications Course II is a really hard sell approach on recruiting. The instructor will tell you adamantly that the only way to have success in your life is for all of the people around you that you associate with be enrolled in Landmark. That with out their enrollment you will not have success.

In the Communications Course II (They called it the Advanced Communications Course here in the States) you have to do the stand up sit down exercise for about 15 minutes (EST used to do it for hours I've heard) then your asked what you saw and what comes to your mind. (This was the point that I realized I was in a Cult!) It explained to you that you do not have a choice in what you do in life and that you are told what to do and that should basically abide by what is said. That is when I got into an argument with the instructor. It concluded when I point blank asked her "So do you mean I have to do everything that Landmark tells me to do?" Her answer was a resounding "Yes." I then sat back down in my chair because I had the answer I was looking for....Yes I'm being manipulated and lied too and I am supposed to do as they say....In otherwords I realized at that point that I was in a cult!

I decided to return the next day to see if I could see the manipulations....sure as shit I could! Also, some of the participants were not as friendly towards me the next day. One woman which was a Landmark instructor or something actually refused to sit by me. When I sat down next to her she got up and moved.

I guess you could say I basically woke up from the Zombie transe and they didn't like it. I went in on a Saturday morning a total Landmark Fan I left that evening pissed off at Landmark and had decided to quit.

Zorro, it might be that the name of the course got changed. Names change, content doesn't...
I applaud you for seeing through the b**s**t when you were doing a course. It took me a long time after being away to see the bigger picture. But I must say that the first big crack was during a course too. With every - really every single course you have to take on goals and you are promised breakthroughs. I'm not sure which course it was, but it was some communication course (by then I had done 10-15 courses and had assisted on a multiple of that). At the start of the course I was really tired of it all. And I had a big discussion with the leader: what is THIS course gonna change that all the others didn't do yet? I took 'the opportunity to leave'. Little did I know it would be my last programme. I made the biggest decision ever and had my biggest breakthrough: if everything LM said was true, then I had to be able to do it without them as well. Proof IN REAL LIFE that I was extra ordinary. And I did.
Now I know: I am who I am partly because of LM, partly of all the other influences in my life. I have become this powerfull person, but I estimate this happened AFTER leaving rather then during. The paradox being that without LM I would not be this strong. I also sense that LM has set me back a couple of years. But there's no real way of knowing because who knows what my life had been without it? Luckily I've not turned bitter!