I'm currently in the Introduction Leaders Program in Landmark, so I've read this thread with much interest.

A couple things:

If someone from Landmark is pestering you, ask to be put on the No Call List. If they don't honor that request, get in touch with the Better Business Bureau or other relevant organization in your country.

Next - if your experience is anything like kdag's, and you find yourself for even a millisecond doubting your own sanity, it would be wise to cease your participation with Landmark as kdag did. Without question. Find a licensed mental health professional ASAP.

I will keep a vigilant eye for gaslighting, flooding, and any other such techniques. I haven't seen anything remotely close to that as of yet, but I want literally nothing to do with that kind of behavior or manipulation and as such am committed to stopping it should I see it occur.

LEInsider ~

I repeatedly asked them to stop calling me, and specifically told them that further participation was against medical advice. They continued even after that, until I finally told them that I would file a formal complaint if they did not stop. Even this did not stop them entirely.

The confusion as to my sanity was centered almost exclusively around interactions with one other person. The assistant seminar leader told me that this would be cleared up if I signed up for the next seminar. That would lead me to believe that he knew what was going on, (and on the off chance that he didn't, it was hardly the time for a sales pitch).

If you go along with everything they say, and voice no disagreement, you are unlikely to experience much of what I did. When I was there, I was told that certain tactics are used only on "hard cases."

If you decide to leave the program, don't argue with them. Just tell them that you are moving on to other things, and DON'T try to explain yourself. You know, from the seminars, how that is likely to go.

@LEInsider,

I support dkag with my own experiences in the UK.

I wasn't gaslighted but the emotional blackmail applied to me to stay when I tried to leave both the Advanced Course and the SELP course was terrible. During the Advanced Course I told the course leader I was so upset that I wanted to kill myself. This was said in private. And then the leader said that I had hurt him by saying that!!! And that what I needed in my life was a man! They made me feel bad for being disturbed by their seminar. At that point, I was not feeling strong and I stayed.

Something similar happened during SELP but I didn't mention wanting to die that time. They used personal information I had revealed in the morning to emotionally black mail me to stay in the evening on the 1st day of SELP. Luckily I said nothing, left and decided not to return. I awoke in the middle of the night in absolute terror and I phoned the Samaritans in the UK and spoke to someone not indoctrinated by LE speak and I was free.

And the fact I even use the words, "I was free" tells me that there is some form of mental coercion going on.

They did pester me for a few weeks but as I had never brought anyone to any of the intro sessions they left me alone. However,they did put a lot of pressure on those who had brought someone to one of the intros when they left before the end of the whole 3 programmes. Because basically all that LE is is a way of selling courses. Their main objective is to get money out of you via their courses. Otherwise why do they have to keep saying every 15 mins that we need to either sign up to the next one or bring people along!!

And before you write me off as a person with mental health issues, I don't have them. In fact I realised from those nightmares that my inner voice was good and reliable. And that the thoughts of death were a warning that I was in danger and to get out.

I also witnessed public humiliation from the Forum leaders during both the Forum and Advanced course of anyone who dared to speak out against anything that happened on those weekends. And I feel bad that social pressure meant that most of us did not rise up against what was often bullying of people who were simply stating that was going on in the room was wrong.

I hope you wake up to what is really going on at LE and get out. Its a terrible organisation.

Quote

kdag wrote:

"If you go along with everything they say and voice no disagreement, you are unlikely to experience much of what I did. When I was there, I was told certain tactics are used only on "hard cases"

This sounds like a detention facility -- not an education.

The best way to learn about the real character of a person or an organization is to disagree with them -- and watch how they behave.

In response to Gloria~

"They made me feel bad for being disturbed by their seminar."

Yes, they will say that you are "too confronted" and can't handle it, or that you don't want to face your "stuff." In reality, we are not willing to accept their abuse, but they try to keep you in the program by making you feel like a coward if you leave.

"They used personal information I had revealed in the morning to emotionally black mail me to stay in the evening on the 1st day of SELP."

I noticed the same thing. They look for your Achille's heel, and exploit it to no end. There are no boundaries, and they will obtain information about you in any way they can, including information from support groups.

This is not hard for them, when you consider how they recruit. Most of us were introduced to LE through "friends," so they already have a source of information from within their ranks. If you "friend" who recruited you into LE also associates with some of your other friends, in whom you may have confided much, information is very easy for them to obtain.

Even though your friend may have been trustworthy when you confided in them, LE has changed them, and they may even believe that they are revealing your most closely-held secrets "for your own good." At least, this was what happened to me.

corboy Wrote:
------------------------------------------------------
>
> "This sounds like a detention facility -- not an
> education.
>
> The best way to learn about the real character of
> a person or an organization is to disagree with
> them -- and watch how they behave."

corboy ~ yes!

It is very ironic how authoritarian they are, how they will tolerate no criticism or dissension, and the whole time they are saying over and over, "This is not the 'The Truth.'"

I just recently lost a handful of people to an LGAT and it all sounds exactly the same. They are pressured constantly to bring more people in, they believe they see the "truth" about life (these LGATs follow many Scientology practices) and that they should reach for a "10" relationship. Well we know a "10" would mean perfect- nothing is perfect, therefor we (the people who truly love them) are traded in for these new "friends" "coaches" and "true supporters" and all of their "love bombing" regardless of how long we were there or how much we did for that person. They shut down the persons critical thinking by making them question their own intution by labeling all doubts and "alarm bells" as "programs" that society has instilled in all of us. if you dont want anything to do with their group then you are considered a "non-supporter" and should be left in the dust with the rest of society who refuses to see "the truth". Pretty sick stuff isnt it?

crback22,

Yes, it's sick. I just wanted to comment on this part:

"They shut down the persons critical thinking by making them question their own intution by labeling all doubts and "alarm bells" as "programs" that society has instilled in all of us."

They shut down critical thinking by drowning it out. I think it's a matter of sheer volume. It's like trying to fight a fire hose blasting a non-stop stream of b.s. Eventually, you just give up, and the sleep deprivation helps them, too.

As to intuition, I had a conversation about intuition with the person I would "assist" at the center. She maintained that we could not rely on intuition, (which is quite apart from critical thinking, and may even more or less bypass it). She was trying to make a point about that, and asked me, "Yes, but how often has your intuition been wrong?" I thought about it for a minute, and told her, "Almost never." That was NOT what she wanted to hear.

If you read the book, "The Gift of Fear," by Gavin DeBecker, it helps to explain what intuition really is, at least much of the time, and it's really not so mysterious. It's not necessarily a "message from beyond."

He explains that we have thousands of pieces of information entering our awareness at any given moment, but that we can only focus on a few. The rest is registering somewhere in our awareness, and being processed effortlessly, without our even thinking about it. As a result, we actually know a lot more than we think we do. When we get a sudden prompt, or a warning, seemingly out of nowhere, that is that part of our conscience trying to keep us safe. It is often ignored, and LGATS seem to deliberately encourage us to ignore it! I wish I would have listened to mine :-\

Yes! Our intuition is our built in safety mechanism and they teach you to override it -PSI Seminars uses the tactic that "if you're questioning if it's the right thing to do by continuing your work with the classes, it's just your programs". They say our programs are what have been instilled in us by society and that fighting your programs- you know, the ones that tell you "I can't afford the next class" or "this doesn't feel right to me" are there because we've been programmed to believe that in our lives. So they teach you rigorously to question that critical thinking and intuition because they are trying to help you! All the while like kdag stated- blasting you with a firehouse of bs to confuse your brain while they plant their beliefs into your mind.

I think that another part of this may be that most people are recruited by people whom they already trust, or at least semi-trust, and that causes them to second-guess themselves.

If you already know someone, and have previously trusted their judgment, you sort of think, "If so -and-so recommends it, then it must be a good idea," or at least you trust that it will not be harmful. This can cause us to override our own intuition, I think. If not, and this person was previously your friend, you then have to entertain the idea that you're not a very good judge of character. I was told that, later.

The tricky part is that I feel that I did just fine judging the character of the person who recruited me, when I first met her. I think that LE CHANGES peoples'character, however. People who really were, at one time, trustworthy, suddenly are not.

You end up having to reassess whether or not your friends are trustworthy, and i just wasn't in the habit of doing that. Once I trusted someone, it took a lot to jolt me into distrusting them. They had to really cross some lines, and the person who recruited me crossed all of them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/06/2017 01:40AM by kdag.