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jiggidy

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omeleteagle
The reason for the individual not taking a stand against MKP is quite simple. They know, having being involved up to a certain point that some of what goes on is very good and useful to themselves and others. They will also have made friends and even occassionally relationships in the group.

Frankly, I'm afraid of retaliation as these people are very influential in the community - money rules unfortunately.

The individual who doesn't fit is seldom told this and unless they are very hard nosed and oblivious to the contempt of the in crowd they rarely last long.

Yeah, as a leader in training, I was given glowing reviews - never received any warnings or offers for the help that they asserted I needed - just let me know I was no longer welcomed.


you also get individuals who dont take no for an answer and speak their mind. This is a funnier piece to watch as the organisation doesn't know what to do when a lone voice does its own thing without fear of censure. Some men will on principal support the lone crusader and other will viciously attack and attempt to crucify, this sometimes backfires as a man of principal , on being attacked by those with none is a very dangerous beast.

This is my ex - narcissitic and sociopathic and moving up through the ranks. In talking with people in the community, he's either loved or hated - very black and white. He NEVER takes no for an answer - very entitled.


Some people have come on here and given you really good information, stuff I know to be true and you have lambasted them as trouble makers, this is a bad move, you can do it to me if you like but it wont alter what I think or say, either on here or elswhere.


In a given situation if he is found out to have behaved incorrectly or against the rules he will fabricate, exagerate, be vague and generally work to undermine your position even though you are uttering indisputable facts, he is indeed one of lifes leading losers as he thinks he has found the holy grail when in reality he has just found a way to prolong his own Walter Mitty type agonising existence. The more I think about it the more it stinks.

YEP!

People dont like to sink the ship that thought them how to sail even if when they fell overboard in a storm nobody rescued them or even launched the life raft and no the captain wasnot drunk at the wheel, if he was he might have launched the rescue boat!

Gotta strongly agree there too - the really confusing thing is they claim to be a personal growth community, but then leave you out to dry later on. They do a lot of processes that licensed therapists do and ask you look inside like therapists do and dig which is very, very misleading and confusing. AND there are lots of therapists that strongly recommend doing the weekend!

I read this page from the bottom up so I had a surprise when I saw my words quoted, more so when I saw the word frankly, I know I have never before used this word as I don't like it. You have used my words but have done nothing to differentiate what I say from your observations, can you do something with this as it is not fair to me in that the casual observer does not know who wrote what but will quite easily read what I never wrote, thank you.

On a separate issue, I realised you had some insight as there was no sign of any outlandish red top attention grabbing misinterpretations of unfounded but often repeated allegations. It is very easy to differentiate between people who know how these outfits operate and those who know nothing other than what they read and hear and then use it for their own purpose.

It is interesting that we never see any names up here other than the founders and chief execs etc, why is this if these people are really that terrible that they are not exposed all day every day?

Omeleteagle,

I'm not very good at using the quotes, so I apologize for the way that came out. I'm sort of hesitant to go back and try to change things because I may mess it up even more!

My (jiggidy's) words and the sentence(s) that follow them start at "Yeah,...", "This is my ex," "Yep", "Gotta strongly agree"


Let me know if you'd like me to go ahead and try to re-do the post.

I guess if I'm skeptical then I could make a cult out of my local church service and find something to pin on them. I did the Mankind weekend. It was awesome! The I groups saved my life. I personally think the cult is the crap society hands us down generation after generation. Low self esteem, tip towing around fussy people, feeling disempowered. MKP and Landmark education have both enriched my life. My kids now have a father they love and respect thanks to these groups when at the same time Christians were suggesting I take my Autistic child home and physically discipline him. What's the cult? These groups gave me the power to move on from the bitterness toward my parents and my family and resolve my past. But then conventional therapy is encouraged by society. I did Group therapy last year...now that's a cult! Creating big feelings inside a group, looking at the "monsters" my parents were with the therapist saying "there was no love in that family of yours" "they gave you nothing" "you got nothing"(how the hell does he know?) but when you question his stuff he accuses you of taking over the group. Spending $1000's with the promise if I stay with it eventually I'll heal baloney! You want cult figures, I'll suggest some John Bradshaw, Alice Miller and Jean Jenson just to name a few. They are people who divide families, seperate people from family members, construct realities that suit the evidence they want to construct ie the parents are all abusive and I'm somehow a saint with the sun shining out of my ass! I should forgive myself but never the abuser baloney!
If you want freedom, then you need to go outside the box! From what I'm reading I just hear people with a million and one reasons to stay in it! Go see your therapist and blame your parents so you'll feel better!

skitch:

It seems from your post that you have not really read this thread.

Maybe you should start from the beginning and see the notes analyzing MKP, which are based upon its scripted written instructions.

Landmark Education and MKP are very controversial groups with deeply troubled histories of complaints, litigation and bad press.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Also see [www.culteducation.com]

These are groups that I would not recommend to anyone under any circumstances for anything.

Thankfully if people want education there are local college programs. And if someone has personal issues to resolve they would likely be much better off talking to a good friend, trusted mentor, licensed counselor or clergy in their local area.

Large group awareness training (LGATs) is quite problematic by design.

See [www.culteducation.com]

It seems you are likely here as an apologist rather than seriously interested in any meaningful discussion, but you should consider the historical facts and research available about the groups you support.

You know! I get that! I really just read some of the entries and got the gist of the complaints. However my message still stands true for me. I've done a lot of therapies over the years so I think I speak from experience. I have long standing sobrieties in 12 step programs, I've seen councellors, done Family of Origin Therapy, meditated, spoken to clergy, confessed, prayed and done the Landmark curriculum for living and MKP.
I have got to say from my experience that all the programs have triggered paranoia in me of some kind ie where does the money go in the 12 step basket, what does the church really do with my money?, do these people really give a crap about me, why does my sponsor want me to ring him and do everything i tell him? etc It was no different in MKP or Landmark.
Philosophy challenges the status quo of society. Anything assisting the malaise of our cultures will appear controversial to people outside, God knows how weird programs like Alcoholics Anonymous often appear to outsiders. All I'm saying is that jargon within an organisation or experiences that challenge the "normal" condition are not cults and bring good to the society. I am really a dead man walking because without 12 step programs I wouldn't be alive today as a result of the conditioning I experienced within society itself. Society still sees alcohol as ok because it's legal, anyone hearing the message of AA from outside would think they are a cult and extreme. What's the truth, well Alcohol is a drug which is toxic to every cell in the body and is responsible for the loss of Billions of dollars of cost to society.

My reply to you is this, these people writing here seem scared to leave the box and will find any excuse to blame circumstances outside themselves and construct realities to prove their hypothesis. I can relate I do the same thing. However i don't allow people's fear judge what is good or bad for me or my life. All I am saying is my experience is different. Landmark for example is an organisation I can join or leave at anytime. The one thing I do like about it though is that they're not afraid to call me and have a chat about what might benefit my life, I appreciate that. Have some people done that poorly in my experience YES!! but it's their stuff because the next person will be an absolute gem. I get up and to the toilet all the time, I can even leave if I want. Just because someone dares to say I won't get the full benefit if I leave doesn't make something a cult. I'd say the same thing when I'm teaching a student that has time off.

I'm about to undertake a project in Landmark to raise funds for the pensioners association my Grandparents were members of before they died. My aim is to bring grandchildren in touch with an appreciation of their Grandparents...pretty evil stuff! I touched on an awareness of that as a result of Landmark, before that I would have been normal ie I wouldn't have given much of a toss or thought that I didn't matter enough to make a difference.

Fear is fine and normal but it ain't the truth! Anything coming from fear in my experience is an experience based in exaggeration and distortion with twinges of truth and fantasy thrown in.

skitch:

Landmark isn't like AA or a church, it is a for-profit privately owned company. It is a business run to make money by selling people training courses.

Both MKP and Landmark have no meaningful accountability to licensing boards or set educational requirements for their trainers.

Landmark expects its customers to sign away some of their civil rights before taking the training, such as the right to a trial by jury if there is a personal injury. This is something no reputable licensed counselor would do, or for that matter a support group.

Likewise, no college would ask you to sign away your rights like this regarding continuing education.

Attempting to somehow blame people that have criticized either MKP, Landmark or some other LGAT and label them "scared" isn't a meaningful response to the issues and essentially is instead an ad hominem attack.

LGATs should take responsibility for the harm they do and they people they hurt.

The controversy surrounding both MKP and Landmark is due to the harm they have reportedly and repeatedly done.

Whatever benefits you claim are essentially subjective, neither Landmark nor MKP have ever done a significant scientific study, which has been peer reviewed and published in a reputable journal offering scientifically measurable results achieved through their training, such as a lowered divorce rate, higher sustained salary levels, or a decreased need for professional counseling and medication for anxiety, depression etc.

All that is offered is anecdotal stories like yours based upon subjective experience.

Quote
jiggidy
Omeleteagle,

I'm not very good at using the quotes, so I apologize for the way that came out. I'm sort of hesitant to go back and try to change things because I may mess it up even more!

My (jiggidy's) words and the sentence(s) that follow them start at "Yeah,...", "This is my ex," "Yep", "Gotta strongly agree"


Let me know if you'd like me to go ahead and try to re-do the post.

Hi Jidggidy, yes that is what I'd like, anything else would, to my mind, be unfair.

Kitch, as I have pointed out before these people are incapable of criticism as their need to be right far outweighs their ability to get it so. The men who can be trusted never get to be in charge as the corrupt practice needed to gain control is to them to distasteful to even contemplate. The other posibility is that they believe the group to be so well founded in decency that corrupt practice is denied a presence, then when they are trampled they cannot understand what has been done to them. The leaders and their chosen one is a sight to behold and fundementally wrong in that it favours, in an outrageous way, the man who falls for your every word and way

The ensuing attacks on the individual who tells the Emperor about his nudist tendencies is remarkable in the accuracy of the individuals reading of the situation. I persomnally have the wherewithal to get rid of them but the ensuing conflict would be to messy and ultimately counter productive to be worth persuing.

Bottom line is that they do more good than harm but when they harm it is devestating. To be in a position to not want or need to listen to them is, for me, quite special as when I first met them I knew nothing of myself and everything of everybody else. I now know myself very well, no, not thanks to them, they woke me up, I did and do all the staying awake. The ability to crucify other men is their downfall and their salvation as it allows them to continue the crusade even with men falling away beside them. Of course these men aonly fall because they are tripped by the chosen leader and his out of orbit ego.

At the end of a weekend the leaders and some senoir men hand out plaudits in a circle to all those who have performed. It is cringe making to watch them feed their favourites and discard their thorns, it was in fact what finally told me leave this very sick set up. A man, very unstable had gone out of his way to make my job difficult if not impossible, he spent the whole weekend trying to undermine me. Non stop in a very passive agressive way. It tuerned out that he wanted the job that I had been given, the job given to me was to keep me busy and away from the action. On Sunday morning he finished his duties as stated in the outline, then he disappeared, leaving a number of men in the lurch. Later he was given plaudits and back slapped for his superior performance, I know this never happened but they chose to do this even though they knew how he had behaved and performed. They may even have done this on purpose to make it harder for me to continue. The answers were delivered from another source, it turned out that he thought if he could reduce cots by a third this would raise his cache and render him indispenable, consytantly when I required some goods over the 3 days he would counter that it was not needed, I am in charge, I decide but not in his head. When you have someone doing this for days on end and you don't know why it is very hard to watch and listen as morally decrepid individuals undermine your hard work while others give him an openly dishonest accolade. I have seen this stuff before but not realised why or how it comes about but having had it done to me I can understand why many walk away and never speak to or of these incredibly dishonest people. Others are remarkable by their decency but rarely progress up the ladder as they can't handle the bitching and Machavellian tendecies of our appointed leaders, selfishly disappointed leaders, who , barring a few, should be under mental lock and key. When you read this and decide in your wisdom to go with or against my words it wont bother me either way as telling the truth is a very theraputic blessing, fre to all who choose.

I will point out that my make up tells people a lie, those who would abuse choose me before others as I am outspoken and do not seem very hard in my conviction. I am actually like a rock and the attacker is so astonished by my defence of myself and what I say that they have to resort to total character assassination to try and beat me, thereby displaying to all what I knew of them all the while.

When I was 16 there were a lot of guys who displayed what i thought was total disregaerd to others, some tough and some not, I had an instinctive feeling that they were not for me, not knowing perturbed me until years later they all tiurned out to be nasty little shits. I met loads of self same men in MKP, most of them proved my point, the leaders time and again. 2 weeks ago I dismissed this radar of mine as I wanted to please someone, the grief that followed was hilarious but not in the least bit funny, the undermining was text book MKP although from just one source, I deconstructed this guy and explained that he could, of course, treat me in this fashion but I would inform every body of his behaviour and the reason behind, he folded on the spot and I got to do what I showed up for and went down very well. I wont allow my radar to be switched off again, it's in fallable.

Soirre for the ramble but no , not really.

Omeleteagle,

Thanks, once again for what you said. This forum is helping me piece together some things. I, too have experienced the favoritism and the way they get rid of their "thorns." It stands to reason that if one gets a thorn, they pull it out, look around at where it came from, and figure out how to rework the situation so there are no more surprises. In my experience, if MKP/WW have a thorn in their foot, they cut off the whole leg, pretend it never existed while applauding the other leg as the best thing since sliced bread.

The law of the land is to fall in line or get tossed out.

Bump ...