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elena

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midonov123

As if something blew up inside their brain.

Conway and Siegelman called it "snapping" and included Werner Erhard's est in their 1976 book on the subject.



Ellen

This is one of the many bad effects EST/LE has had on people, which goes to my question on how to talk to my friend who has been involved since the Werner days.
He thinks of himself as an ethical "good person". So how does someone who's been involved for so long ever come around to seeing Landmark for what it really is,
because you would have to think about all the people that you helped Landmark abuse, which may be too much for my friend's "nice guy" brain. How does someone get from here to there in realizing what they've helped do to people?

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Lucas
You mentioned that LE is changing because of the death of a leader - any idea how the organization is poised to change? Suggestions for further research? I'm working on an article about the company as we speak...

Lucas,

To clarify: the leader/founder of CONtext Associated died summer 2004 (though you'd never know it by CONtext's webpage or the new (morphed) one, leadingmylife.com -> read "about us", it sounds like Randy Revell is alive and well). I have never attended an LE course, only CONtext courses.

skeptic

Every organization has its lifers. Even family systems. Have you ever seen a real balls to the wall dysfunctional family ? The "bought in" family members will acknowledge that, yes, there might be problems, but they are basically decent and normal people ? When all the information available to an outsider is screaming "everybody here should be in intensive therapy as of twenty years ago!"... families can be like that. Especially rich families, or powerful families where they don't consider themselves part of the hoi-polloi, nobody will criticise them to their faces, and they love the illusion of being special, set off from the world's grubby little struggles. Dominick Dunn has made himself a cottage industry of investigating rich dysfunctionals.

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joe6

This is one of the many bad effects EST/LE has had on people, which goes to my question on how to talk to my friend who has been involved since the Werner days.
He thinks of himself as an ethical "good person". So how does someone who's been involved for so long ever come around to seeing Landmark for what it really is,
because you would have to think about all the people that you helped Landmark abuse, which may be too much for my friend's "nice guy" brain. How does someone get from here to there in realizing what they've helped do to people?

That's a though one. The fear that he might have to acknowledge that he has indeed harmed many people might be so overwhelming that he will never be able to face it. Can you imagine facing the fact that your whole life has been built upon lies? In the sad, sick Landmark upper levels there are probably many people who are plagued by the same nagging dread of the truth but experience this dread as some bothersome inconvenience for which they get "coaching" and more Landmark "counselling." The Landmark system becomes reinforcing and self-perpetuating at this point, with people trapped by their own need to be thought of as and see themselves as good.


Ellen

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For instance, she recently went on a cleaning spree, and I noticed in previous posts that that can sometimes be assigned as homework. I asked her about it, and she jokingly replied "Yeah, Landmark is a crazy room-cleaning cult.

When you enter the Introduction leaders programme and any subsequent leadership role, you agree to "manage your life such that nothing interferes with a life of possibility" you are given a list of things that "interfere" which include a messy house, a messy workplace, not keeping the laws of your country (yep this includes speeding, crossing the road with out the green man or crossing) the kind of laws that very few people keep.

Every week you have a form which you have to tick off all the things on the list as to whether you have kept your word or not and then if you haven't you make an agreement with your coach to make it up.

It really is about landmark controlling every part of your life. everything you do you are thinking "is this ok, am I going to have to admit this on my integrity sheet". It is one of the very subtle ways landmark infiltrates your entire life making it just that much easier to change you.

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sonnie_dee

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For instance, she recently went on a cleaning spree, and I noticed in previous posts that that can sometimes be assigned as homework. I asked her about it, and she jokingly replied "Yeah, Landmark is a crazy room-cleaning cult.

When you enter the Introduction leaders programme and any subsequent leadership role, you agree to "manage your life such that nothing interferes with a life of possibility" you are given a list of things that "interfere" which include a messy house, a messy workplace, not keeping the laws of your country (yep this includes speeding, crossing the road with out the green man or crossing) the kind of laws that very few people keep.

Every week you have a form which you have to tick off all the things on the list as to whether you have kept your word or not and then if you haven't you make an agreement with your coach to make it up.

It really is about landmark controlling every part of your life. everything you do you are thinking "is this ok, am I going to have to admit this on my integrity sheet". It is one of the very subtle ways landmark infiltrates your entire life making it just that much easier to change you.

Interesting. That's the first I've heard about "integrity sheets." She's never mentioned that to me before. But after this weekend with the ILP stuff, maybe it'll be something "new and exciting" for her.
I reread some of the old emails she's sent to me through her landmark days, and they're just so eerie. She was so excited about being the forum leader's "personal assistant" as she calls it. To me, it sounded like personal slavery. A corporation that makes that much money, and has that many people paying $400 for three and a half days of the seminar, and they can't afford to hire him a driver or rent him a car? Suuuure...

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Every week you have a form which you have to tick off all the things on the list as to whether you have kept your word or not and then if you haven't you make an agreement with your coach to make it up.

Heloooooooo.... this IS obsessive-complusive disordered behavior ! I mean, right of the pages of DSM-IV... These courses should be titled :"How To Rewire Your Mind To Think Like An OCD Case"... even the Catholic Church recognizes a similar condition when members of their faith get too carried away in this fashion.... they call it Scrupulosity:

a quick overview of Scrupulosity.... notice any similarities with Wernerthink(tm):

1> Ultra-Repentant Sinners: The original meaning of the word sin came from archery and meant "missing the target. Like the archer, we are meant to try and try again until, with practice, we hit the mark. The scrupulous spend long hours racking their brains to uncover the slightest evidence of un-repented sins. They constantly worry that they have committed sins, forgotten about them, and neglected to repent. No matter what they do in seeking forgiveness for "missing the mark", they never feel forgiven. And the unbearable weight of unforgiveness makes them repent repeatedly and extravagantly.

2> Rigid Ritualists: Rituals are meant to bring a sense of familiarity, comfort, and order to a chaotic universe by temporarily absorbing the individual's attention while the ritual is being performed. Rituals are not intended to become a way of life… and when they do, these once comforting practices become joyless, mechanistic, and destructive to productive daily living. Like other OCD compulsions, the person often wants to stop but cannot due to fears of "eternal damnation".

3> Blasphemy Police: No one expects or likes the Inquisition but that is the unfortunate result of those who are the self appointed "Blasphemy Police". Their motives are often pure and well intentioned: trying to prevent those daily karmic infractions that pile up and "pave the road to hell". They obsess over every action of themselves and others around them. It causes them mental, emotional, and even physical pain if they have performed or have witnessed blasphemy in action. They feel that they are the "karma police" and must do something" to "stop the insanity" although it is not often wise to do so.

4> Shunned into Silence: Those who suffer the most from Scrupulosity are those who suffer alone in shame filled silence. Often this has happened because those around the scrupulous individual "cannot take it anymore" and they berate the sufferer until the individual is "shunned into silence". Worse, the scrupulous may be so paralyzed by fear, doubt, and confusion, that they find it best to say and do as little as possible. For they believe "sins of omission" carry less weight than "sins of commission".

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nutrino
Heloooooooo.... this IS obsessive-complusive disordered behavior ! I mean, right of the pages of DSM-IV... These courses should be titled :"How To Rewire Your Mind To Think Like An OCD Case"... even the Catholic Church recognizes a similar condition when members of their faith get too carried away in this fashion.... they call it Scrupulosity:

.....Yes, and it is considered a sin within the faith as it carries the weight of perfection, which only God is capable of, according to my very cursory knowledge of the Catholic Church. It even makes some kind of sense for if one is so consumed by unending petty and inconsequential acts, one is little use to God nor certainly the rest of the Catholic Church. Can you imagine the poor priest's lot who has to deal with these Over-Scrupulosity cases? They must quake in their boots every time one shows up at the confessional.


Ellen

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leftcoast8

Interesting. That's the first I've heard about "integrity sheets." She's never mentioned that to me before. But after this weekend with the ILP stuff, maybe it'll be something "new and exciting" for her.
I reread some of the old emails she's sent to me through her landmark days, and they're just so eerie. She was so excited about being the forum leader's "personal assistant" as she calls it. To me, it sounded like personal slavery. A corporation that makes that much money, and has that many people paying $400 for three and a half days of the seminar, and they can't afford to hire him a driver or rent him a car? Suuuure...

This is reminiscent of the scientology "sec-checks" or "security checks" in which one submits to having all his unpleasant, unflattering, potentially subversive, or un-scientological thoughts and feelings explored by a superior and "handled" or "erased" or "disappeared."

Werner Erhard actually hired some scientologists away from ElRon to bring both material and practices and adapt them for his own group (according to Pressman and some of the old-timers on afl). Funny to know they are still using these tactics.


Ellen

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She was so excited about being the forum leader's "personal assistant" as she calls it. To me, it sounded like personal slavery. A corporation that makes that much money, and has that many people paying $400 for three and a half days of the seminar, and they can't afford to hire him a driver or rent him a car? Suuuure...

Its disgusting that they use volunteers for this considering the price people pay to do the courses. Remember its only $400 for the forum, the advanced course is $900-$1000 and the communication courses are similar.

The course leader assistant does more then drive the leader to and from the programme, they are there to make the coffee or tea, prepare meals exactly how the leader wants, to do odd jobs like collect laundry, and people rush to do this job which is little more then as said "slavery"