the something wonderful is this;

A radiostation will do a documentary about landmark - it will be broadcasted May 31. It will be broadcasted in an english speaking country. It may close landmark down in that country. Since it will be in english it will have an impact globally.

So let us hope that the year 2009 will be a year that will go into the history books. The year when the landmark pyramid scheme collapses.

I just went through the forum and the advanced course December 2009 and June 2010

For about a week and a half after the forum I was in a "funk" if you will not full blown depression but not myself
Looks like I am repeating the cycle again after the advanced course.

During Sunday of the advanced course I told my wife I would be willing to pay landmark the 230.00 each just to have them leave us alone.

The only good thing at this point is I told David Cunningham to his face NO this is after being badgered by him directly on Sunday to take the SELP.
Right now I am waiting for the phone calls to start

I watched him tell a woman that was molested at three that she had to take responsibility for it!!!!!

If you want to help shut this new age form of stealing and mental abuse please please file complaints with both your Attorney General office and the Federal Trade Commission

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former lanmdark person
I just went through the forum and the advanced course December 2009 and June 2010

For about a week and a half after the forum I was in a "funk" if you will not full blown depression but not myself
Looks like I am repeating the cycle again after the advanced course.

During Sunday of the advanced course I told my wife I would be willing to pay landmark the 230.00 each just to have them leave us alone.

The only good thing at this point is I told David Cunningham to his face NO this is after being badgered by him directly on Sunday to take the SELP.
Right now I am waiting for the phone calls to start

I watched him tell a woman that was molested at three that she had to take responsibility for it!!!!!

If you want to help shut this new age form of stealing and mental abuse please please file complaints with both your Attorney General office and the Federal Trade Commission

Hi 'former landmark person' - your experience matched mine after the Forum. I did it in mid-2005. For a whole year and a half after the Forum, I was in a "funk" - to put it mildly, not knowing what the hell was going on. I was confused about myself, what I'd heard in the Forum, some of the powerful stuff that was shared in there that really shook me to the core, mostly because it was stuff I'd done in my life, but never admitted to anyone, e.g. hid what I did very well - adultery. I was certain that what I was doing was "ok", from my perspective and was quite addicted to the 'hunt', sex, women, prostitutes, etc....

All that changed in the Forum. The problem is that the change happened long time after the Forum. I saw people 'popping' in the Forum. I don't think I popped. I went DOWN, completely, like you.

The first culprit for how I felt was, as you pointed out, Landmark Education. They indeed stopped calling me, I stopped taking courses, but for some reason I couldn't get reprieve from whatever was ailing me - and I wasn't sure what it was. I just felt depressed and the more depressed I felt, the more I tried to fix it with my past behaviors - more infidelities, more sex, more of whatever the cycle was, as you noticed.

Then eventually I took the AC, my head cleared up more, and then the SELP as well as the ILP, like nettie.

Ultimately, it came down to the fact that I was addicted to sex - wasn't willing to admit it - and I attempted to use Landmark Education's courses to "fix" myself or other people's view of sex to match mine. For some reason, everytime I'd engage in this kind of fixing - it backfired on me 10x.

Eventually, I stopped going to LE altogether and went and sought out a CSAT - these guys take sex addiction therapy seriously, and I was able to overcome all of the destructive behaviors that had me be out of integrity. I stopped jacking off to porn, seeking affairs, prostitutes, etc - and started to take pleasure in what I had in life - a beautiful and forgiving wife who went through the shit I put her through, a young daughter who was growing up quickly, and a career at which I stagnated for a while as I was in recovery - all of which changed once I addressed my _real_ problem - lust and sexual addiction.

Landmark Education was not able to help me deal with my "little sexual probleml" square on - in the sense that there was no room to discuss these things in their courses. The language that is allowed at Landmark is very limited, and even though it allows you to describe any and every issue from an ontological perspective, it does not help you SPECIFICALLY address issues the way individual or group therapy does. The Forum and their courses isn't therapy - and they make that clear to everyone who signs up.

To Landmark's credit - they did shake me up sufficiently to be able to look at myself in a very rigorous way where I would stop blaming OTHERS or my circumstances for how I was behaving (that cycle you're talking about), as well as stopped blaming MYSELF - which is even more detrimental to recovery from any addiction. Thus I stopped taking their courses and sought our professional help - covered by health insurance too, so it wasn't a big deal.

It is very easy to confuse Landmark's courses for therapy or some kind of a fix. This is _not_ what they are selling. And this is the problem I've seen with many other people who'd much rather take Landmark courses - than go to work on what's really going on, thinking the next course will "fix" them... which was my view for a while, yet I kept slipping into my pattern.

To be specific about what _REALLY_ happened at Landmark - I actually brought up my issue with sex addiction _once_ in a small group while I was attempting to lead an introduction. An elderly woman that was part of the introduction I was leading actually got offended, reacted to what I brought up as a topic/possibility that I was creating in the introduction for myself and I got completely turned off by her response, took it personally and lost all hope in the ILP.

In a way, that's good - because I am exactly where I need to be right now - dealing with a very very personal/intimate problem I have had linger for a while that has me be out of integrity.....

In my opinion - it's futile to point the finger at other people for how we feel about something that may have happened years ago, just like that woman who remembered being molested at age 3... Even in therapy - professionals with degrees, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc - she would have to confront the trauma of what she went through - and the therapist would be ripping her off or setting her up for failure if he or she did not have her 1) re-experience/release the trauma in some way, and 2) create a new interpretation around the event that took place, regardless of how traumatic it was.

In LE terms - they call this 'geting off it' - except the problem is, the deeper the trauma, the harder it is to get off. Some people DO NOT want to get off. It's not _SAFE_ to get off it. If they did, they'd fall apart. This is the sensitivity training therapists have that LE leaders do not necessarily - so they'd just ask you to 'get responsible', as though this happens in a moment, or overnight - it DOESNT, and the more you push and the harder you push for people to get responsible inside of 3 days straight, the more resistance you get, and the more of the "fixit" mentality prevails in them....

Can you hold Landmark responsible for making you feel a certain way? It's a fine line you'd be walking there.... legally or otherwise. Can EVERYONE who walks into LE's courses be aware at once as to what's going on in their own heads, and get present to what the core issue/belief is? Hardly....

But I definitely think that making them wrong for the service they provide is not beneficial. There are people, after all, who do not deal with addictions as I did - and see their courses useful in other ways, even inside the 3 days that they administer them.... and get something out of it immediately without seeing them as a 'fix' or some form of therapy.

It is incumbent upon the participant to decide after doing the Forum whether it is the proper avenue for whatever ails them - an addictive pattern of some sort - or whether to seek professional help from people who can dwell on the details, and who DO have the required sensitivity training to pull someone through from trauma to personal freedom from anxiety, depression.... Sometimes medication is required too.. and Landmark can't prescribe that either :).

To summarily dismiss the Forum as "evil" is not beneficial. Having been on both sides of this issue - I completely empathize with you as well as with what LE has to offer people...

I hope you get the real help you need elsewhere if LE wasn't able to help you.

Martin wrote "Can you hold Landmark responsible for making you feel a certain way? It's a fine line you'd be walking there.... legally or otherwise"

This is exactly the way landmark subtly threatens their victims.....using vague implications of "legally or otherwise"

Martin wrote "making them wrong for the service they provide"

Hmm...I don't think their service is comparable to what you usually will expect to get when you buy a service.

Landmark always uses the "don't make landmark wrong for your problems" when someone is complaining about the outcomes of a project. The blame will always fall back on you.

If you a challenge a forum leader they will tell you that "you cannot win against me". They will never say that they made a mistake. And if they find themselves having made one they say that it was part of the coaching for you.

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Martin N
Even in therapy - professionals with degrees, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc - she would have to confront the trauma of what she went through - and the therapist would be ripping her off or setting her up for failure if he or she did not have her 1) re-experience/release the trauma in some way, and 2) create a new interpretation around the event that took place, regardless of how traumatic it was.

There is absolutely no proof that re-experiencing trauma is at all helpful in resolving the feelings or issues that result from the trauma. There is, however, a lot of evidence that clearly shows that re-experiencing trauma can be extremely damaging (think about it, you're getting traumatized AGAIN). This damage puts people in a very vulnerable state which cult-type groups then exploit.

And why does there have be a re-interpretation of a traumatic event anyway? Especially something like child molestation? The molester is scum, the child was violated and is justifiably hurt and angry. Molestation is evil enough to still have feelings about it decades later. Whole societies stay angry about events that took place centuries before - I think we can cut an abuse survivor some slack.

"Manufacturing Victims" by Tana Dineen discusses this issue in depth.

'And why does there have be a re-interpretation of a traumatic event anyway?'

Too right. The first professionals I saw all insisted that I must learn forgiveness in order to move on. However, a traumatic history or event doesn't suddenly become non-traumatic just because I find a way to politely reframe it and 'forgive' the perpetrator.
In that instance all I have done is con myself that I am not really impacted by that history or event--and my body knows that even if my self-conned mind believes otherwise.

I had to do a lot of work just on fully accepting that my traumatic past was ineradicable before I had any hope of moving on. I also decided to quit trying to being a saint and acceptable to polite society by dispensing forgiveness like so much largesse. I refuse to forgive the perpetrators--who have never expressed remorse or admitted to even a minor mistake or miscalculation--I found I can move on regardless.

The LGAT 'responsibilty' schtick is very carefully engineered to remove all responsibility from themselves and to dump it firmly onto the paying-through-the-nose customer. No other business model evades accountability in such a blatant fashion.
If the LGAT were an honest organisation it would screen out those with tendancies to depression, addiction etc rather than taking the money of all comers regardless of its ability to provide a truly helpful service.

At the cost of sounding weird, how was I to acknowledge my problem with sex addiction without someone or something like Landmark literally rubbing it in my face without actually making me feel invalidated about what I was hard at work to conceal, a dirty little secret that I felt no one would ever find out about? I learned this from my dad, peers, friends- never felt like it was a big deal.

All Landmark did was push my buttons. That is what they are good at. Ultimately, I chose to make the same choices after the Forum as I did before it, except after witnessing the impact lying & cheating had on me and others who shared their stories of abuse, trauma, etc, it got progressively worse, and worse and worse for about 4+ years after the Forum all the while I was continuing to participate in various courses.

The essence of my problem- lust, desire for a "fix", resentment from past traumas (e.g. being beaten by my dad at a very young age, or seeing his private parts exposed to me with derogatory language aimed at mom, etc.)-remained intact.

It wasn't until I surrendered to a higher power that my acting out of integrity stopped, my resentments lessened their grip on me and lust became like a favorite pet that is always around but that I could shoo away when it wanted to take over.

That higher power isn't Landmark Education, just in case you wondered. It is, however, someone we all know- he died at Calvary, about 2000 years ago.

Landmark isn't a religion, cult, lgat, healing, therapy, whatever- it is merely a program designed to piss you off in hope that you will find the courage to address your own issues however you do that. It worked for me, albeit it only took in excess of 4 years for me to accept responsibility for what I said, did, its impact and to finally grow up in my mid thirties, rather than keep doing the same things over and over again while expecting a different result.

I wish there was some other, gentler way all of this could have transpired but alas, for me that way was not forthcoming and I had to crash, burn, get caught, repent, recover, repay, forgive others, and pray that I be forgiven for my behaviors by someone who actually has the power to forgive, rather than by those who show no remorse for what they did to me and justify their actions by compensating for their lack of integrity in other ways, for example, by being self-righteous, by "buying" my love with dollars, etc.instead of being truthful, vulnerable, as I have been with them, only to get back derogatory comments, be blown off, made wrong, neglected, called names, etc.

I reexperience trauma each time I actually want to share and connect with them. Anyway, I don't want to innundate with my family history.

Hope this makes sense to all. I am no saint either and my only hope fir everyone here is that you find your own peace, higher power, in any way you can, Forum or no Forum.

Peace.

So who did the work, Martin, you or Forum?

And if you are the one who has to do the work---why pay through the nose to an organisation that deceptively claims to offer help that it cannot?

There are many, unfortunately, who find that the Forum methods push too hard and fast resulting in psychotic breaks and, in some cases, death.
Who is responsible for that, in an organisation that knows it does nothing other than push peoples buttons?

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Stoic
So who did the work, Martin, you or Forum?

And if you are the one who has to do the work---why pay through the nose to an organisation that deceptively claims to offer help that it cannot?

There are many, unfortunately, who find that the Forum methods push too hard and fast resulting in psychotic breaks and, in some cases, death.
Who is responsible for that, in an organisation that knows it does nothing other than push peoples buttons?

Stoic- thanks for asking. Clearly, it was me.

They push the buttons in a way that doesn't offend. What they do is share distinctions that Werner put together 30+ years ago via a divine act of God or however he came up with them, and they add their personal experience to boot the distinctions as well as invite others to share inside the distinctions.

The distinctions are _designed_ to extract the truth, e.g. what happened, as well as get us to look at how we used to be when we were... I dunno, 5 years of age, versus today, 'wise and aged'.... For some of us, looking at that truth is... as I said, extremely unpleasant because we use it to justify who we are today. They (LE) calls bullshit on that, and says that even _THAT_, which happened, isn't a reason for us to act ANY particular way, especially if it means being righteous, defensive, etc.

It all makes _perfect_ sense, logically, intellectually, reasonably, however you want to put it.

The one thing that they did underestimate is how long it takes people to _really_ get off their position, as well as the fallout that may result from being dislodged from this seemingly safe position that all of us are entrenched in.

I think it would be asking LE the impossible to guarantee any outcome of what one does with his or her self after their courses. If they promised anything like that, they'd be out of business in no time.... Yet, imperfect as their work is, as far as actually guaranteeing results, it still serves a purpose and is here for a reason....

I don't know if this sort of addresses your questions - and I do not have an answer to your dilemma, just observations/my story.... but it is what it is. To your point, I don't hear people committing suicide or having psychotic breakdowns after going to church on sunday :).... Then again, they aren't a church. They "feel" like one, but aren't. Maybe if they were actually preaching the word of God (Christ) using their techniques, they'd have 10x more success and would actually attain worldwide, universal status in about... ohhh.. 4000 years?

Then again, maybe they are still waiting for the Messiah... so any inquiry in the direction of God/Christ, is carefully circumvented and evicted from any further discussion.

I don't know.

This is all so amazing. An ex bf of mine contacted me in January 2010, I was glad to hear from him we went out to eat and I instantly was thinking what is wrong with him.. He seemed so distant and non talkative, I was even wondering why he bothered to contact me as he didn't seem to have too much to say other than to ask me what had happened to our relationship, what he had done etc to the demise of it. Each time I would see him (a few times a month maybe, we were just being friends) I would get this inevitable feeling about him, he used to be very boisterous and loud and he laughed and smiled all the time, now it is like he lost his joy completely. We were in our mid twenties when we went out and broke up before we hit 30 so some of it I thought was possibly maturity, but when I asked him why he was so blahh basically he attributed it to many broken hearts etc. He and the love of his life, a girl he had an on again off again relationship with for 7 years had broken up in Novemer of 2009 and he was depressed or so he said. He and I talked a lot about this reltionship the things that had taken place and how they just could never get it to work. These conversations were the only real conversations he seemed willing to have with me.

Well fast forward of me telling him countless times he was weird (Like he would call me I would answer say Hi what's up what are you doing, after these pleasantries were exchanged he would just say nothing, dead air, in one instance I was like well I am going to go you are not talking. He got a bit defensive and I hung up after saying goodbye, after I hung up I texted him to not call me if he doesn't have anything to say to me, after all the whole idea of a phone call is to talk to someone, and he texted me back that I have problems with silence and that I was annoying. huh?) Ok so I asked him are you a scientologist, what if I am he would respond, I said I would like to know he said No I am not. He is very busy researching borderline personality disorder as he believes his ex, his mother and his sister have. He says he has tounderstand it to accept them for it.

So like a month aga he calls and as usual a small convo he says he is packing I say Oh were are you going? (He has lots of monery and it is not unsual for him to be going to NY to watch a baseball game etc...) He says he is taking a class I say for what he says Landmark Education, Hmmmm I have never heard of it (And I am very intrigued by cults love reading about them whatnot) I ask him what it is and he says to look it up..... The convo ends, I look it up, and am TOTALLY SHOCKED........ He is a very intelligent man, he has always had many insecurities and sexual abuse in his history. Anyway the next week he asks if I looked it up I say yes and I don't like what I have found BAM instant arguing, he says things like I am so much more argumentative than I was in the past, which is actually opposite from the truth, I just cannot get along with him and his new thinking. When I ask him to explain Landmark Education he tells me to take the forum (he knows I have no money and he also knows I am a stubborn woman who is very secure with who I am and the reality I live in) He has been involved in LE for 5 years I see no hope in changing his mind about it, he swears his life is nothing but better from being a part of it, I have suspicions that he mostly hangs out with other people involved in LE I cannot for a minute think anyone not involved could truly get along with him.

He tells me I am not a good match for him (thank god) because I haven't managed to get to college I don't make enough money I am not powerful enough for him (again thank god) and he tells me he will loan me the money for school (I tell him I have exhausted all mannners of getting the money needed and I cannot get loans) and he tells me other than him ginving me the money that I can find a way, there is always a way I just have to find it. Trust me I have exhausted every avenue besides a personal loan and yet he just keeps repeating you have to make it happen. He makes no damn sense.

Is there any chance he will ever leave this organization? I care for him as I would any other human being taken advantage of. I have no desire to talk to him anymore, since I found out about LE We cannot have a single conversation without him bringing it up, it's like he wants me to tell him the negative things I have found and then he wants to set me straight about it. I cannot tell you how many times I told him he was like a robot etc before I even knew he was involved in LE.

I find it incredibly sad to sit back and watch this shell of a man tell me how happy he is, when his laughter and smile seem to have disappeared.

Maggie