I remember reading about a Landmark seminar where it was argued by the Forum leader that a participant was responsible for having "created" cancer in his wife. This is one blatant example where the rethoric about "creating your own reality" is being pushed to an extreme.

I know that this concept of "creating your own reality" can be traced back to Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher and existentialist, and that this philosophy has become a common belief shared by many New Agers. New Agers pushed it to an extreme and are finding pseudo-scientific support in modern physics (quantum mechanics). It is interesting to note that Werner Erhard funded the Physics of Consciousness Research Group (PCRG) at Esalen in the 70's, where the New Age physics era was born. The movie "What the Bleep do we know!??" is a clear example of that.

I would like to hear examples about this concept has proposed by Landmark. For example (one year after the Tsunami) ... is it true that Landmark's rhetoric supports the idea that the Tsunami victims are "responsible" for creating the giant wave that killed them?

What I would like is a list of examples indicating how Landmark gurus are instilling beliefs that are pure nonsense, thus illustrating that Landmark is not much different from other cults like Scientology (with Xenu, tethans, UFOs, etc...) or others.

This story only serves to illustrate the absurdity of new-age magical thinking.
According to their own "logic", if we indeed create [b:d7ebe05851]our own[/b:d7ebe05851] realities, as the landmarkians believe(?), he couldn't possibly have created a cancer in his [b:d7ebe05851]Wife[/b:d7ebe05851].

(Just had to add my two bits.)

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bonnie
This story only serves to illustrate the absurdity of new-age magical thinking.
According to their own "logic", if we indeed create [b:871ce4d93b]our own[/b:871ce4d93b] realities, as the landmarkians believe(?), he couldn't possibly have created a cancer in his [b:871ce4d93b]Wife[/b:871ce4d93b].

(Just had to add my two bits.)

Bonnie,

Below is the excerpt I am referring to. It is taken from from “EST and responsibility”. See: [www.culteducation.com]

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In the following interaction an est trainer goes even further and argues that a man is responsible for his wife's having cancer:
"How the hell am I responsible for my wife's getting cancer?"
"You're responsible for creating the experience of your wife's manifesting behavior which you choose to call, by agreement with others, a disease called cancer."
"But I didn't cause the cancer."
"Look, Fred, I get that what I'm saying is hard for you to fit into your belief system. You've worked hard for forty years to create your belief system and though I get that right now you're being as open-minded as you can be, for forty years you've believed that things happen out there and that you, passive, innocent bystander, keep getting RUN OVER-by cars, buses, stock-market crashes, neurotic friends, and cancer. I get that. Everyone in this room has lived with that same belief system. ME, INNOCENT; REALITY OUT THERE, GUILTY.
"BUT THAT BELIEF SYSTEM DOESN'T WORK! IT'S ONE REASON WHY YOUR LIFE DOESN'T WORK. The reality that counts is your experience, and you are the sole creator of your experience."
"You are the sole creator of your experience." This statement is strikingly similar to many of Sartre's statements about freedom and responsibility. The core of est-the "it" of "getting it"-is responsibility assumption. It would appear, then, that est works with some important but obscure concepts and rephrases them into arresting language-an accessible, Californian, "Pop" Sartre. If this ingenious application of philosophical thought works, then professional therapists may have a great deal to learn from est methodology.

I think this philosophy serves well New Age gurus by instilling a deep sense of "guilt" and a need to learn the secrets of the masters or leaders.

What I am looking for here are more examples of this that are representative of the newer format of The Forum. This is why I was asking about the Tsunami victims. Is it true that modern day Forum leaders litteraly "blame" the victims of natural disater, terrorist acts, or keep blaming participants for having cancer or other illnesses?

In my time with landmark I have never heard a leader say that someone is the blame of any of those things. however they do say that how people live after those events is their own responsibility. My experience is that the tone and words they use however leaves people with the sense that they are to blame! So in a very disguised way they do push this way of thinking.

I have always remembered one landmark forum leader who had been dealing with cancer himself and he would share with the forum that he didn't let it stop him, if he had a hot flush while he was leading he would remove clothes. It left an impression that by allowing the cancer to rule you were to blame. If that makes sense. He didn't believe people should remain in bed or what ever, which means that people left with the impression if they were sick and it impacted their lifes they were to blame. I know a lot of "helpful" volunteers used to "coach" people on this, I received lots of coaching when I was sick and unable to work... most of it made me feel alot worse then just being sick

Sonnie Dee

This is exactly how my naturopath operated: he didn't come out and say I was to blame, but said it was time I take responsibility for my illness. For those who are not familiar with my experience, I had a naturopath who was covertly using LE "technology" as "therapy" for "spiritual" symptoms manifested as physical "imbalances." He didn't actually come out and say he was heavily involved with LE until he had been playing doctor with me and other patients for over a year. Then he used my decision not to take the Forum as just another example of how I hadn't given up control - I was a know-it-all. Of course, he wanted to say RACKET, but he didn't want to blow any of the content.

I went to the Forum because, after being beaten down for a year by a health professional, and having been misdiagnosed and inappropriately treated for the original symptoms, I was desperate to feel better. THen the LE CSRs and volunteers did their number - ALMOST. When they started asking why I was trying to make him wrong and still carry on the drama of being sick, something clicked. I sat through the entire Forum and was fortunate enough to sit next to a woman who had been raped. She saw the writing on the wall, as she had received counselling, had adjusted and healed. Volunteers had already pegged her as living an inauthentic life because of what happened to her. They were convinced she was running a racket because of being raped.

There is an exercise in which a participant complains she has a headache and is brought up to the stage to have her headache "disappeared". (Just for fun, I try their techniques when I get migraines. Wish it worked.) The participant is asked to tell the FL exactly where the pain is, and she can't pinpoint it, says it moves, and then miraculously, she doesn't have any pain at all. This validates LE's request at the onset of the Forum that participants do not take OTC meds, caffeine, etc., because everything is a crutch.

I was fortunate to be in a NJ Forum that had the most skeptics ever assembled in one room. The FL even commented on what a tough crowd we were. I left my Forum pissed that they lied about a lot of things. They ran rackets about health and everything else.

In LE, anything you say will be used against you.

I can't believe I'm posting here on my day off, sheeesh! :oops: I guess I need to work on my reality creation, huh? :wink:

I sometimes think that the trouble with Landmark's flirtations with manifestation theory is that they horribly confuse philosophy with metaphysics.

Existentialism seems to bear the closest resemblance to landmark.

Existentialism is a wholly atheistic and wholly materialistic philosphy that denies the spiritual. It defines itself as a "philosophy of responsibility and of the uncertainty caused by the need to make choices."

Interestingly, despite many Landmarkian's disdain of psychotherapy and denials of plagiarizing it, it is amusing to note that "existentialism is actually a branch of psychotherapy that deals with problems of choice and responsibility. It studies how people 'create their own worlds, and concentrates on helping patients clarify the choices before them in the present and the responsibilities these choices entail."

Existentialism assumes that people "create themselves through the choices that they make." However I hasten to add that this is not the same as the mystical definition of "creating one's own reality."

To be more precise, existentialism assumes that one is not born with an essential human nature that determines how one makes major human decisions, but rather, as Jean-Paul Sartre has said, "Existence precedes essence."

However existentialism clearly doesn't seem to adequately take into account how historical, economic, medical, educational, biological and environmental can and does limit the choices that one is able to make. But within these constraints Sartre maintained nevertheless that people are "condemned to be free."

Existentialism further posits that there are two overrriding facts that all humans must face:

First, freedom exists as an absolute and therefore a person is "responsible for his or her actions." One might choose to fight in Iraq, or they might choose to become a war protester. Thus existentialism would maintain that either decision will determine the kind of moral person one will become and the way he or she will live. Proponents of this philosophy call such crossroads "existential choices."

While this may be so in such simplistic examples, I fail to see how this justifies blaming rape and holocaust victims for their ordeals. How could they be responsible unless they had prophesized their own ordeals and/or spiritually manifested and then obstinately decided to endure them? Unless Landmark proponents of this are closet reincarnationists, it makes zilch for sense. And even then it's still not meant as a cattle prod to manipulate people with.

Existentialism's second principle is that "death is an inevitable and leads to non-being, to Nothingness, and therefore life and its choices are all one has. Therefore, to spell it out painfully obviously to those poor confused Landmarkians out there: Existentialism does not recognize any spiritual dimensions whatsoever, but rather is a wholly materialistic philosophy that presumes only materialistic perceptions and awareness. So it makes no sense to blame someone for creating something that is beyond the range of the physical senses that are of limited range, vulnerable to illusions and interpreted by brains that may be confused or impaired.

Nevertheless, could this be the origin of Landmark's "Life is empty and meaningless slogan?"

In contrast to athestic existentialism, mysticism holds that the ultimate reality lies beyond the perception of the five physical senses and outside the realm of any philosophy based on the mere five senses. In essence the mystic holds that paranormal, supernatural and/or spiritual prexistence, perceptions and consciousness are possible for everyone, such memories and abilities while possible for everyone are atrophied in most. While, many religions and cultures throughout the world honor this particular type of mysticism and believe that it can produce genuine wisdom and the power of prophecy, it's obviously and completely incompatible with atheistic existentialism.

So while existentialists could legitimately argue within the context of their philosophy we "create our own reality" in the figurative sense, those Landmark people who equivocate (knowingly or not, substitute one alternative but incorrect definition of a word or phrase into an argument while letting the listeners assume s/he means the other) "creating one's own reality" to mean it *LITERALLY* as in manfesting in the "New Age" sense of the term, are clearly confused and don't even grasp the foundations of their own ideology.

Believe whatever you want to believe, everyone. I'm simply trying to make sure that everyone is on the same page since I get the impression that there's some potential for confusion here.

CNFT

midonov123, Landmark doesn't have gurus, not in the classic sense. a guru-chela relationship consists of the teacher (guru) and a student or acolyte (chela).

more broadly, a guru can mean a spiritual teacher who may have influence on followers he or she has never met. pretty much by definition, a guru has their own school or at least their own branch of an existing school.

the Forum Leaders teach Landmark. Landmark insists on doctrinal purity. if they decide they want to deviate from Landmark they go and start their own group.

you also have to distinguish between belief in specific facts or those which you could perhaps call them meta-beliefs. you create your own reality counts as a meta-belief.

about "you create your own reality"...

that meme has a couple of beliefs wedged in there together, which, because we use language get confused.

in its weakest form, it takes note of the subjective as well as objective nature of our experience (or "our reality" or "our realities"). you could call that weak subjectivity.

strong subjectivity takes the approach that subjective experience can self-sustain itself without any other sort of validation or in-validation.

the strongest form of solipsism takes the form of solipsism. maybe you can collapse the second and third stages, regardless, I think you can make distinction. I do believe in, at least, weak subjectivity.

Landmark and fundamentalism collapse all stages down so that you must either reject subjectivity (fundamentalism) or accept it completely (Landmark). neither a Landmarkian or a fundamentalist can really live that way, but they tend to cling onto that model inside their heads.

Bottom line, you don't "create" a subjective reality, you *perceive* objective reality in your own subjective way. "Reality creation" is bullshit, as is Landmark Education.

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Acid Reindeer
midonov123, Landmark doesn't have gurus, not in the classic sense. a guru-chela relationship consists of the teacher (guru) and a student or acolyte (chela).

more broadly, a guru can mean a spiritual teacher who may have influence on followers he or she has never met. pretty much by definition, a guru has their own school or at least their own branch of an existing school.

the Forum Leaders teach Landmark. Landmark insists on doctrinal purity. if they decide they want to deviate from Landmark they go and start their own group.

you also have to distinguish between belief in specific facts or those which you could perhaps call them meta-beliefs. you create your own reality counts as a meta-belief.

about "you create your own reality"...

that meme has a couple of beliefs wedged in there together, which, because we use language get confused.

in its weakest form, it takes note of the subjective as well as objective nature of our experience (or "our reality" or "our realities"). you could call that weak subjectivity.

strong subjectivity takes the approach that subjective experience can self-sustain itself without any other sort of validation or in-validation.

the strongest form of solipsism takes the form of solipsism. maybe you can collapse the second and third stages, regardless, I think you can make distinction. I do believe in, at least, weak subjectivity.

Landmark and fundamentalism collapse all stages down so that you must either reject subjectivity (fundamentalism) or accept it completely (Landmark). neither a Landmarkian or a fundamentalist can really live that way, but they tend to cling onto that model inside their heads.

To whomever:

Solipsism. That's sort of the ultimate guilt trip, right? :lol:

Maybe self-contradiction is one of the major issues insofar as these LGAT's are concerned.

How can an LGAT's "philosophy of living" ***NOT*** be fundamentally flawed and unsound when it's a forced amalgam of at least two fundamentally incompatible philosophies?

Landmark = Existentialism (atheistic) + New Age Philosophy (Polytheistic) = logical contradiction?!!!!

I guess when Landmark claims that they're NOT religious, they probably define "religion" as monotheistic. Therefore it's a true claim, but once again Landmark is equivocating since it's not using the same definition of "religion" in the answer as was defined in the question.

Perhaps that's what many people sense, if only on a subconscious level--this fundamental philosophical contradiction within the Landmark dogma. And maybe that's why it leaves many feeling confused and uncomfortable, that is, if the LGAT doesn't manage to seize control of their discriminative faculties first.

CNFT

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Landmark = Existentialism (atheistic) + New Age Philosophy (Polytheistic) = logical contradiction?!!!!

new age belief systems (not the plural) go from pantheistic to animist to monotheistic to soft polytheism, which beliees in multiple manifestations of God/Godhead to hard polytheism, which believes that deities have individual existence. you may even atheistics and agnostics.

while starting to type the above I chatted with this with a friend who most people would consider much more new age than me and he agreed with my opinions.

he pointed out the existence of new age christians who would usually consider themselves monotheists.

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[...] if the LGAT doesn't manage to seize control of their discriminative faculties first.

as I keep saying, to have to have them before you can lose them. not everyone has them originally.