est/Landmark/Starway/COS, the ties that bind
Posted by:
mood: crisis
()
Date: April 22, 2014 07:44AM
I heard a "funny" thing on the way out of The Forum.
It was presented by the Forum Leader in the last section of the last day, as "just something to consider", and was an excessively non-conventional premise told in story format which suggested that at one time:
We were all just spirits in the universe, unburdened by the trappings of possessing a physical body, and everything was perfect and lovely, in this non-physical universe where we had command of the stars and planets. But that we became bored. And so we devised a game, the physical world. In which the gamepieces were bodies. But we kept getting bored, and had to invent more and more different animals to make it interesting, until finally we came up with a human animal capable of more complicated intellectual pursuit. We kept making new rules to keep the game interesting, until eventually one of those rules was that we couldn't have awareness of what's outside of the game while we were in the game. And so we got trapped in the bodies. And we don't even remember who we are.
Approximately; summary courtesy of me. There was more detail in the telling of this story, and you may have heard the same one at another Landmark Forum. But the main reason I haven't further detailed the story here, is that it's already a published work, out of print but readily available online, so that at the cost of no money, you can see for yourself (and if you didn't attend a Forum you still may find it an entertaining read, and no doubt much safer to read on one's own than as delivered by a guru figure at the end of an exhausting sleep-deprived four days) if you get the same reading on it that I did: that it is exactly the story they tell at The Forum.
It was written by someone named D. Alan Holmes, and entitled "The Enlightenment." The only difference in the written work from the Landmark telling, is that there is an outer story in the book, that is, the story I've very much summarized above, is the point of the book, but is told by a character in the book. A guru type fellow in fact. Quelle surprise..
But here's where it gets interesting. The names change, but the story remains the same.
About its origin: it's stated on the book's copyright page that it is used in a workshop series called "How to make your dreams come true" given by a Jarom Garonne of Los Angeles. It's also dedicated to L. Ron Hubbard. The connections don't end there though.
The workshop leader using the text has an unusual name, from top to bottom, "Jarom Garonne". There doesn't seem to have ever been more than one, and even evidence of that is slim. There seem to be no relatives or phone numbers that have ever been associated with the name; only a single address, so I'm guessing a one-time d/b/a (doing business as). Likely it was only ever a pen name, and it may only be the name itself that is now M.I.A., but who knows. The author D. Alan Holmes seems to have also remained out of the spotlight on these matters.
Posted here is some information that I don't myself know to be verified, but which seems to make sense with everything I've seen. It makes reference to a former association with Scientology by both the author (Holmes) and the workshop leader (Garonne), including having both achieved OT3 level in 1982, the same year they also started this alternate operation, and published the book. So it would seem that like Werner before them, they took their desired level of OT knowledge and ran. (There is also some more detailed information about the people involved with the company under which those workshops were run, called Starway.)
I did come across the text of a Scientology "clear" list from August 1982, on which the name Jarom Garonne name appears, here; and a Suppressive Persons list/memorandum on which the names of both Jarom Garonne and Werner Erhard happen to appear (as well as est and its various locations as Suppressive Groups). The SP list is dated 1991; they sure know how to hold a grudge!
If the lack of information on the interwebz is any indication, the operation did not continue through very near to the current time, or at least Jarom Garonne's workshops, but I confess that my research focus/interest has been far more towards understanding who the people are who delivered this story, this publication, and the cross-pollination it bears witness to with regard to technique exchange between a Scientology members/defectors. Maybe this was a story told in Scientology at one time; it doesn't seem to quite fit in with the construct of their parables as I understand them, but I don't discount that it could have been used by them in just the same way it would seem to have been used at Landmark, as simply a ..brain softener.. an idea that doesn't synch with what you think, and therefore makes the embracing of other ideas that seem less crazy by comparison a simpler task.
All of this transpired no less than a decade after Werner left Scientology and started est, this defection by ostensibly OT3 level Scientologists but in any event folks who clearly figured out some "tech", to then launch their own science-fiction powered "workshops".
And yet I heard the exact same story told at a very recent Landmark Forum.
I've shared this here because I found it helpful to demystify it, and see where that story really came from (the seedy associations it points to are just a bonus), and perhaps it will likewise be of some value to others. I searched here by each of the proper names involved, the author, Garonne, the book name, etc., and while I was in some ways surprised that I did not find anything already here (and perhaps I missed something!), it's also true that the way in which I came across this out-of-print publication was not the result of any specific research I was performing, but as a matter of complete serendipity, as sometimes occurs in life.
The story retold:
The Enlightenment (.pdf)
All the other links I gave above, listed:
Unverified additional info about Starway and its stars, at noetic.org
Clear List from a 1982 issue of Scientology's Auditor Magazine
1991 Suppressive Persons list/memorandum (.pdf)
It was presented by the Forum Leader in the last section of the last day, as "just something to consider", and was an excessively non-conventional premise told in story format which suggested that at one time:
We were all just spirits in the universe, unburdened by the trappings of possessing a physical body, and everything was perfect and lovely, in this non-physical universe where we had command of the stars and planets. But that we became bored. And so we devised a game, the physical world. In which the gamepieces were bodies. But we kept getting bored, and had to invent more and more different animals to make it interesting, until finally we came up with a human animal capable of more complicated intellectual pursuit. We kept making new rules to keep the game interesting, until eventually one of those rules was that we couldn't have awareness of what's outside of the game while we were in the game. And so we got trapped in the bodies. And we don't even remember who we are.
Approximately; summary courtesy of me. There was more detail in the telling of this story, and you may have heard the same one at another Landmark Forum. But the main reason I haven't further detailed the story here, is that it's already a published work, out of print but readily available online, so that at the cost of no money, you can see for yourself (and if you didn't attend a Forum you still may find it an entertaining read, and no doubt much safer to read on one's own than as delivered by a guru figure at the end of an exhausting sleep-deprived four days) if you get the same reading on it that I did: that it is exactly the story they tell at The Forum.
It was written by someone named D. Alan Holmes, and entitled "The Enlightenment." The only difference in the written work from the Landmark telling, is that there is an outer story in the book, that is, the story I've very much summarized above, is the point of the book, but is told by a character in the book. A guru type fellow in fact. Quelle surprise..
But here's where it gets interesting. The names change, but the story remains the same.
About its origin: it's stated on the book's copyright page that it is used in a workshop series called "How to make your dreams come true" given by a Jarom Garonne of Los Angeles. It's also dedicated to L. Ron Hubbard. The connections don't end there though.
The workshop leader using the text has an unusual name, from top to bottom, "Jarom Garonne". There doesn't seem to have ever been more than one, and even evidence of that is slim. There seem to be no relatives or phone numbers that have ever been associated with the name; only a single address, so I'm guessing a one-time d/b/a (doing business as). Likely it was only ever a pen name, and it may only be the name itself that is now M.I.A., but who knows. The author D. Alan Holmes seems to have also remained out of the spotlight on these matters.
Posted here is some information that I don't myself know to be verified, but which seems to make sense with everything I've seen. It makes reference to a former association with Scientology by both the author (Holmes) and the workshop leader (Garonne), including having both achieved OT3 level in 1982, the same year they also started this alternate operation, and published the book. So it would seem that like Werner before them, they took their desired level of OT knowledge and ran. (There is also some more detailed information about the people involved with the company under which those workshops were run, called Starway.)
I did come across the text of a Scientology "clear" list from August 1982, on which the name Jarom Garonne name appears, here; and a Suppressive Persons list/memorandum on which the names of both Jarom Garonne and Werner Erhard happen to appear (as well as est and its various locations as Suppressive Groups). The SP list is dated 1991; they sure know how to hold a grudge!
If the lack of information on the interwebz is any indication, the operation did not continue through very near to the current time, or at least Jarom Garonne's workshops, but I confess that my research focus/interest has been far more towards understanding who the people are who delivered this story, this publication, and the cross-pollination it bears witness to with regard to technique exchange between a Scientology members/defectors. Maybe this was a story told in Scientology at one time; it doesn't seem to quite fit in with the construct of their parables as I understand them, but I don't discount that it could have been used by them in just the same way it would seem to have been used at Landmark, as simply a ..brain softener.. an idea that doesn't synch with what you think, and therefore makes the embracing of other ideas that seem less crazy by comparison a simpler task.
All of this transpired no less than a decade after Werner left Scientology and started est, this defection by ostensibly OT3 level Scientologists but in any event folks who clearly figured out some "tech", to then launch their own science-fiction powered "workshops".
And yet I heard the exact same story told at a very recent Landmark Forum.
I've shared this here because I found it helpful to demystify it, and see where that story really came from (the seedy associations it points to are just a bonus), and perhaps it will likewise be of some value to others. I searched here by each of the proper names involved, the author, Garonne, the book name, etc., and while I was in some ways surprised that I did not find anything already here (and perhaps I missed something!), it's also true that the way in which I came across this out-of-print publication was not the result of any specific research I was performing, but as a matter of complete serendipity, as sometimes occurs in life.
The story retold:
The Enlightenment (.pdf)
All the other links I gave above, listed:
Unverified additional info about Starway and its stars, at noetic.org
Clear List from a 1982 issue of Scientology's Auditor Magazine
1991 Suppressive Persons list/memorandum (.pdf)
Re: est/Landmark/Starway/COS, the ties that bind
Posted by:
SalinaM
()
Date: August 12, 2015 01:18AM
OMG, this is hilarious! The first three spreads are so preposterous I was laughing like crazy, but then the fascinating thing begins... The deception is so subtle, I had no idea they were THAT good
Re: est/Landmark/Starway/COS, the ties that bind
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: August 12, 2015 06:07AM
Friends, some time ago, a member named The Anticult offered lessons on how to identify use of conversational trance induction.
Much of The Anticult's contributions took place in discussion threads
discussing Byron Katie.
That discussion attracted a large number of disruptors.
Wonder why?
Here are a couple of The Anticult's posts to get you started.
[forum.culteducation.com]
[forum.culteducation.com]
[forum.culteducation.com]
[forum.culteducation.com]
A list of Anticult's contributions for those wishing to read further.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Much of The Anticult's contributions took place in discussion threads
discussing Byron Katie.
That discussion attracted a large number of disruptors.
Wonder why?
Here are a couple of The Anticult's posts to get you started.
[forum.culteducation.com]
[forum.culteducation.com]
[forum.culteducation.com]
[forum.culteducation.com]
A list of Anticult's contributions for those wishing to read further.
[forum.culteducation.com]
Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.