So I tried asking that "friend" how much of her decision to end our friendship was based on Landmark. Don't get me wrong, I think she's off her rocker these days, and don't want to resurrect the friendship. I'm just trying to understand a little more of what happened. After asking her twice in a span of two-three weeks (I was really curious, what can I say?), this is what I got, but it doesn't mean too much to me. Can anyone decipher any of this and turn it into English?

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I got that you want to know why I made the choice that I made and that you think it has somethig to do with Landmark Education. Right now I don't want to talk to you, and I can't talk to you untill I can stop making you wrong. When I stop making you wrong and pointing the finger at you, and start taking responsiblity for my role in our friendship, I'll be more than happy to talk to you, but untill that time I can't talk to you. I'm done piling up the bull shit with you, and untill I get off it, it's going to just keep on being bullshit. That's all I have to say on the matter.

Thanks everyone.

That sounds like the BS my wife gave me when she left for PSI7. "I know you think this is bullshit, but it's something I have to do for myself." She finished our relationship saying "I Love you, I'm just not 'in' love with you." And it's been over two years and it still hurts.

Instead of discussing the problem like adults, she's stuck in distracting Landmark nonsense about you being "wrong". As a Landmarkian, it is a big deal to make someone wrong and until she can twist everything around inside her head to get over the right and wrong part of the problem, she's going to avoid the problem altogether. LE would accuse her of running a racket if she is making you wrong. What's probably happening, though she won't admit it to herself, is that you're actually right! That's worse, and puts her in a real nasty situation.

Supposedly Landmark is in the business of making relationships better, however, this is a great example of how they do just the opposite. Though there is no right or wrong, according to LE, if you are not Landmarkian, there is something, well, wrong with you and it is difficult for Landmarkians to relate to nonL's.

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leftcoast8
So I tried asking that "friend" how much of her decision to end our friendship was based on Landmark. Don't get me wrong, I think she's off her rocker these days, and don't want to resurrect the friendship. I'm just trying to understand a little more of what happened. After asking her twice in a span of two-three weeks (I was really curious, what can I say?), this is what I got, but it doesn't mean too much to me. Can anyone decipher any of this and turn it into English?

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I got that you want to know why I made the choice that I made and that you think it has somethig to do with Landmark Education. Right now I don't want to talk to you, and I can't talk to you untill I can stop making you wrong. When I stop making you wrong and pointing the finger at you, and start taking responsiblity for my role in our friendship, I'll be more than happy to talk to you, but untill that time I can't talk to you. I'm done piling up the bull shit with you, and untill I get off it, it's going to just keep on being bullshit. That's all I have to say on the matter.

Thanks everyone.

It's clear that she is being coached to say what she says. The problem she faces is that you are resisting her enrollment process, and the first reaction she got was to make you wrong for not falling for the Landmark way. That in itself is wrong (making you wrong is wrong!). She needs time to accept that you are "ok", and that she did a very lousy job in her enrollment process (because she lacks proper skills). Therefore, she needs more training to improve her skills and then she will come back to you and try to enroll you in a more gentle and subtle way.

That's the catch. She is trapped and cannot escape. All that matters to her now is to improve her personality, her way of communicating and her enrolment techniques to get you into that Landmark way of life. If you keep refusing, the price you'll have to pay will be to loose her for good.

Using a very fine tuned rethoric, Landmark results in participants taking the blame for everything wrong in their life (making others wrong is wrong - therefore Landmark cannot be blamed for anything!!!) and turns them into volunteers and recruiting agents (free manpower). It's a CULT.

This is SICK, very SICK!!! Just stay away!

I have heard the same shit from my ex. One of the beauties they like to use as well is "do you wan't to be right or do you want to be loved"

Personally I would rather be right than be loved by a lekkie.

They also like to beat you down with "oh you know, you know,you know everything" when you tell them that the whole mileau is designed to manipulate people, induce stokholm syndrome, and generally turn people int deployable agents to bring in more and more money for Werner and Chanukkah, and the rest of the insidious crew.

Man...it's just so weird how people cannot see a scam for a scam, but I guess it goes back to good ol' PT Barnum. There is a sucker born every minute, and with Landmark there's a new one every weekend. PT would have really had a good laugh over how right he was!

Hi leftcoast, nice to hear from you again.

When I first read what your friend wrote, I had to chuckle. That is so LE, it sounds like a script. Probably is, and if not a boilerplate one, surely one that was developed with a coach, as midonov mentioned. Humor is so necessary when dealing with a Lekkie. Let yourself see the humor, even as you scratch your head. You'll need it so stay sane.

What I see is she is blaming you, but realizes it is not very LEC to blame you. Afterall, she is 100% responsible for the life she is creating for herself, which includes the friendship with you. Since she created it, and is responsible for it, how can she blame you?? That would be the LEC line, but the I'm-a-flesh-and-blood-real-human-being-in-the-real-world reaction she is having is that YOU are responsible (whether you are or not), and that dissonance is making her head explode. The real world isn't following the LEC script, and she has to make it fit. As Hope says:

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Hope
Instead of discussing the problem like adults, she's stuck in distracting Landmark nonsense about you being "wrong".

I think she can't see you until she makes it fit because she can't lose LEC face. All her scripts and all her training can't make this work, so I suspect she has to get coached until she can make it work, and appear as the enlightened Lekkie. Otherwise, why would you want to join? :) This is where the regression comes in again. LEC gives them "tools," but it seems they get hooked on the tools and not on the real skills the tools would normally develop. For example, my friend was fond of accusing me of not hearing her. Her only was of communicating in a "hearing" way was to parrot everything I said back to me (to show she "heard" what I said -- which BTW I would challenge), and she expected me to do the same for her. That is fine to a point, but she could not move beyond this tool to understand that "hearing" is about showing a genuine interest, not being defensive, and valuing the person. It's not about the tool, it's about the skills the tool develops. Otherwise, African Greys would be charging $200/hr. for theapy, and people would gladly pay. When I was in kindergarten, I learned to make block letters as a first step in writing. I've moved on now. Lekkies can't seem to move on from the tools. Adults learn from the tools and move forward. She is not learning the skill to have a real conversation with you.

My friend's reaction was to blame me for the breakup of our relationship. She too, "made me wrong," and I did not hesitate to point out how un-LEC this was.

While it certainly is sad on one level, see the humor.

-lightwolf

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tywebb
They also like to beat you down with "oh you know, you know,you know everything" when you tell them that the whole mileau is designed to manipulate people, ...

This is exactly word for word what my lekky ex-girlfriend would tell me. Isn't that amazing? They can't think by themselves aymore... or maybe they choose to!

It is amazing and quite predictable. These words came fro my ex and her Mom...a lekkie volunteer for many years.

I am starting to find the humor in it as it is truly laughable. Once the hurt begins to fade the humor begins to kick in and you realize what a huge joke these clowns are. Their tactics are downright sinister..using peoples vulnerabilities against them all in an effort to indoctrinate another drone.

What is really scary is that when they are confronted with the obvious manipulation and mind games they use...they will come back and say " I was just trying to help...Iv'e seen it transform lives" Oh so innocent all of a sudden when their backs are to the wall.

Ol Pt Barnum is doing back flips in his grave because he is laughing so hard at how easily people can be scammed.

if the scientologists hadnt made sure that hubbard was
cremated almost immediately after he died he would be
the one doing backflips in his grave.

landmark is scientology in a different wrapper.

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This is exactly word for word what my lekky ex-girlfriend would tell me. Isn't that amazing? They can't think by themselves aymore... or maybe they choose to!

I think that it is of basic importance to understand that a percentage of "free thinking, self directed" people out there living their lives have a profound unconscious wish to be externally controlled. They have an insatiable craving for total immersion (somewhat like regressing to the foetus stage) in a regulated environment. We are somewhat shocked that such potent drives exist in apparant adults, but in truth they do.

I quote a bit here from the Eric Fromm website on Escape From Freedom, this being exactly what many devout cultoids are aroused by... the, ermmm, "possibility" of losing oneself in warm simple, cozy psychobabble.... no brain strain required beyuond the functional minimum..

"3. Automaton conformity. Authoritarians escape by hiding within an authoritarian hierarchy. But our society emphasizes equality! There is less hierarchy to hide in (though plenty remains for anyone who wants it, and some who don't). When we need to hide, we hide in our mass culture instead. When I get dressed in the morning, there are so many decisions! But I only need to look at what you are wearing, and my frustrations disappear. Or I can look at the television, which, like a horoscope, will tell me quickly and effectively what to do. If I look like, talk like, think like, feel like... everyone else in my society, then I disappear into the crowd, and I don't need to acknowledge my freedom or take responsibility. It is the horizontal counterpart to authoritarianism.

The person who uses automaton conformity is like a social chameleon: He takes on the coloring of his surroundings. Since he looks like a million other people, he no longer feels alone. He isn't alone, perhaps, but he's not himself either. The automaton conformist experiences a split between his genuine feelings and the colors he shows the world, very much along the lines of Horney's theory. "