This discussion is absolutely critical to the development of children, the child's mind, BECAUSE the core ideas about what constitutes wisdom, knowing the world, how one discovers a sense of self within the world, are part and parcel of early childhood development... if young kids start to internalize the crackpot idea that everything comes from Source, they will, as a consequence, lose the understanding that mastery of the world, and becoming an adult within the world, requires exquisite reasoning, reality testing, high accuracy in self knowledge.... it will also suggest, in the unhealthiest possible way, that whatever the child is experiencing is "caused" by the child's degree of will, or attitude, or Sourceness, which is a massively unreasonable expectation, even of an adult, to say nothing of a vulnerable child. It sort of puts the idea forward that the universe is a giant slot machine that responds to brain waves. That is a most unhealthy orientation for a child to have.

Quote
nutrino
This discussion is absolutely critical to the development of children, the child's mind, BECAUSE the core ideas about what constitutes wisdom, knowing the world, how one discovers a sense of self within the world, are part and parcel of early childhood development... if young kids start to internalize the crackpot idea that everything comes from Source, they will, as a consequence, lose the understanding that mastery of the world, and becoming an adult within the world, requires exquisite reasoning, reality testing, high accuracy in self knowledge.... it will also suggest, in the unhealthiest possible way, that whatever the child is experiencing is "caused" by the child's degree of will, or attitude, or Sourceness, which is a massively unreasonable expectation, even of an adult, to say nothing of a vulnerable child. It sort of puts the idea forward that the universe is a giant slot machine that responds to brain waves. That is a most unhealthy orientation for a child to have.

I assisted an introduction to the Forum once (the one and only time), and there was this 14 yo girl who was exposed as a circus animal for having attended the Forum for teens for two years now. The big success in her little life: she wasn't shy anymore !!! She could speak in front of an audience!

Wow! I was so impressed (LOL)! Actually, she look very shaky to me, as if she was under control by the Forum leaders and as if we were expecting something from her. I doubt she was speaking freely. My perception is she was under influence to make a good show. It was a very sad moment. So young and without freedom to think and to act. The parents must be irresponsible to let that happen.

Please be careful! The Landmark cult has a program for children and teens:
[www.landmarkeducation.com]
The Landmark Forum for Young People (Ages 8-12)
The power to invent new possibilities; courage to face challenges; and freedom to create, grow, and be fully-expressed.

I lost a friend to the Landmark cult as an adult, and now they are starting to ensnare people at younger ages as well. This is par for the course with larger cults, like Opus Dei, Landmark, or Scientology. The Landmark Fourm occurs over a 3 day period, usually Friday - Sunday, where participants are lectured to, browbeaten, insulted and shouted at for 12 - 14 hours a day, usually in a hotel conference room. Due to physical and psychological fatigue, people become much more open to outside suggestion and personality-altering techniques by Landmark cult leaders. Part of all cult recruitment includes trying to recruit those close to you - spouses, siblings, children, friends and co-workers. Thus, your husband's pressure to recruit you and your child is quite normal, since this is also one of the primary goals of those in cults - the pressure to recruit others. This often results in severe rifts in families, as cults attempt to cut their members off from all outside influences and those outside the cult. Please be careful. Here is an excellent article from Elle Magazine:
[www.culteducation.com]

.....And another repost of "Grizz's" original from a few years ago, which I think says it better than anybody:






From: Grizz
Date: Sat, Mar 9 2002 6:59 am

Groups: alt.fan.landmark

i would like to know if there is anyone out there stuggling with the
same issues that i have encountered....

first , my story:

I was 14, my dad got "enrolled" in est (1976). He proceeded to have
everyone in the family take the training and himself go on to being a
"guest seminar leader"
with the aspirations of becoming a "trainer" himself. He began
practising on me...i would have to sit through 4 hour sessions of him
telling me to "get off it" and to "be responsible for my own
experience" This was all mixed in with people calling me endlessly to
"assist" and badgering me unmercilessly to do seminars and courses.
Our entire life was est...(you get the picture, right?)

Ok, now....fast forward...today. Dad is still leading seminars, still
telling me to get off it...i have not had anything to do with landmark
for at least 14 years and i am down right hostile twards anyone who
throws jargon at me.
Just 2 weeks ago, while in intensive pshycotherapy i discovered that i
actually grew up in a cult...est.
I've seen how doing it at such an early age, basically in my
formulative years, i developed quite a few basic beliefs that are
wrong and really hard to live with...for example...those 4 hour
sessions with my dad taught me that whatever I'm feeling is not
valid...that i can deny it all ("get off it")That I am not okay the
way i am...that anyone who has not done est is not enlightened and
therefore we "graduates" are better that anyone else and everyone else
is "on it" and stupid to the way it "really is"...I have been trying
to figure out how to fit into society and not take a me against the
world attitude ever since...

Mostly, i have a problem knowing what is actually real. I cant tell if
a situation is good or bad for me or if I'm happy because i have been
taught that i can just "get off it and create a new conversation"
basically settling for anything by denying what i feel for the last 24
years. My other problem is this...Most people take these courses as an
adult, with thier ideas and opinions about themselves and the world
already in place, so that when they realize they have been conned by a
cult, they have some sense of self to fall back on. Since est and the
forum are what i formulated my views from, i have nothing to fall back
on and I am finding myself quite terrified, empty and having no clue
what part of me is real...

Anyway, i would like to know if anyone out there was put into the
little kids training and what you are experiencing as a result of it.
Or even if you weren't a kid, but are just having trouble with
pshycological issues as a result of being in the forum or est.

I am not interested in hearing anyones counterpoint to all that i've
said, i don't want to hear from people who are sill gung-ho, trying to
convince us wounded souls that we just went astray, and if we would
only take a seminar, everything will be alright....bite me and go _ _
_ _ yourself at the same time!

told you i was hostile twards anything positive anyone has to say
about these experiences...

ok, i'm done for now...

Grizz

I wish I had been able to find Grizz's post -- I think you tried to point it out to me elena, but I couldn't find it. I understand so completely what he is describing -- it is exactly what I went through! Laura, please keep up updated, and please do everything you can to keep your child out of Landmark!

The next forum in our area is not until October, by then I am hoping his enthusiasm weans towards the program. If not then I will be planning an overnight trip that weekend (that my child is required to attend!) just in case!!!

It really is sad that such things can exist in society today, and that children can be drawn into these deranged circumstances. It feels like the twilight zone! When my friends asked how my weekend was all I could say was that my ex joined a cultish self help group, confessed all of his wrong doings, threatened to commit, and I verbally abused a Family Counselor at the cultish group all in the name of love of my child!!!!

This is RIDICULOUS!!! When will it stop??!!

Quote
Laura19



This is RIDICULOUS!!! When will it stop??!!

As was pointed out on another thread (thank you mjr40), things don't look so good right now.
[board.culteducation.com]
So long as we have judges on the Supreme Court who want to protect the existence of their own cult, the legal environment will make it easier for other cults to protect themselves too.
Is it not as bad as it looks?

“Plus a change, plus se la mem chose"

The more things change the more they stay the same. In the 4th century B.C. Athens was infested with Sophists. The Sophists were a close analog to the Cultistas of today's world. The problem was, for Plato, who wrote the Socratic dialoges, that the Athenians LOVED this garbage. Talking in deliberately confusing kinda-sorta truthiness was the political order of the day. There was, in their time, as in ours, a great hypocrisy at work. Many claimed to love the truth and want to hear the truth, and few meant what they said. The greatest of the Sophists were considered elite teachers of the young political class, where they would perfect their arts of "spin" as we would call it. They were highly paid by the Athenian nobles to insure that their offspring would retain a grip on political power. Sophistry and politics were joined at the hip. Like then, like now.

When a real philosopher, one who didn't talk about spacey trivial issues that a bunch of dried up academics would argue about for hours, but one who could get under the skin like a sharp splinter and force a Sophist, or a politician, or a mogul, to reveal his true nature.... well, that simply wouldn't do.

Socrates was eventually "disinvited" from the Athenian agora and ordered to stop "corrupting the minds of the youth", i.e., teaching them to cut through the rhetoric and ask genuinely unsettling questions and not be deflected by bluster, grand pretensions, or authoritarian trappings, or fuzzy, feelgood words like "Possibility" without demanding that they be rigorously clarified... so, oh great Alcibiades, who will lead us into the Peloponnesian War, what is this matter of the Possibility of Triumph over the Spartans you would have us believe ?

As has been eternally retold in the Phaedo, Socrates preferred to drink hemlock before he would submit to the authority of the Sophists.

I just can't see the political class, nor the media class, nor the mealy mouthed educators of this great land actively promoting critical thinking skills on a high pitched and sustained level. It woulnd't be convenient. people would start talking. Trainers would be booed off the stage. And that would be too horrible to contemplate.

Quote
Laura19
The next forum in our area is not until October, by then I am hoping his enthusiasm weans towards the program. If not then I will be planning an overnight trip that weekend (that my child is required to attend!) just in case!!!

Please, please, please - do not count on your ex-husband's enthusiasm waning before the next Forum. Also, do not discount the possibilty of your ex-husband taking your daughter to another city so that she can attend a Fourm. The primary activity of any cult member is to recruit more members; they are under tremendous pressure to do so. Since your husband legally can spend 2 weekends a month with your daughter, it is essential that you educate her about cults in general and the Forum in particular. If possible, it might be best not to do it in such a way that develops hatred for her father, but rather focus on the Forum as an activity that is bad for her. Perhaps it can be framed in terms of negative peer pressure, like smoking or taking drugs. Also, perhaps you can consult a child psychologist to talk to you and your daughter together to explain the concept of negative peer pressure to her.

Laura,

i have to agree with mjr40, dount count on his enthusiasm waning and dont think he will wait till october, I have heard of parents flying their kids to other cities and in fact other countries to do this.

I would strongly recommend you look to find a legal way of stopping him from doing this.