Dr Raymond Fowler is often mentioned by Landmark, and he personally endorsed them in 1999. (You can find this endorsement on the Landmark Worldwide site, and you can hear him being cited by one of the Forum leaders - Sophie Maclean? - in the 2004 French documentary).

He was in senior positions at the American Psychological Association (APA) from at least 1983 - 2003, and was the CEO and executive vice president at the time that he provided his written endorsement. Among other things, Fowler stated that the Landmark Forum leaders were "pleasant" and "sensitive", that the training environment was "pleasant", and that participants seemed "relaxed". Additionally, he testified that the Landmark Forum was nothing like an LGAT (yes, really), and that they did not make use of thought reform.

Bakkagirl, you are absolutely right that some people with advanced degrees, and significant influence, carry a great deal of responsibility for the success of these organisations. They have blood on their hands.

Thank you, EGOLDSTEIN,

I remember reference to this fellow in a certain dissertation. I will be categorizing Dr. Fowler as an aider and abettor.

This is a long list, as you know, and they do have blood on their hands, and especially so if they lent their brand to Erhard, et al, to provide credence to est/Landmark.

I watched, the other day, a 1981 documentary of Erhard/est in which a whole crew of aiders and abettors provided 'testimonials'.

[www.youtube.com]

Warren Bennis, one of the more ZEALOUS of the zealots (2:12) discusses his great admiration for the 'precision' of the 'technology'.

This caused me to the reflect on how REAL human development has tended to occur (in my humble but extensive experience in that field)...and, I can tell you that humans are MESSY and the ones that are truly alive DO NOT RESPOND POSITIVELY to magical rituals and formulae.

To me, this deadened mechanical quality of the "work" is a dead give-away of its pathology.

Bakkagirl

And, may I say a little more on the 'technologies'...

I joined the world of people and organization development because I wanted to participate in a field that required continuous learning on my part.

To my mind, every client and every organization is a 'new' universe, and there is also the dimension of time -- changing economic, political, social conditions.

I am very proud of the bodies of knowledge I have acquired in my career, but find myself more and more surrounded by individuals who have delivered the SAME program for 35 years, or who claim to have 'trained' 50,000 people in a 'technology'...

I do WONDER what is going on in their heads and hearts, if anything.

Social science-based, any science-based discipline is NOT STATIC...

What is STATIC are cultic 'technologies' for awakening, changing perspective, achieving a 'new' identity.

Bakkagirl

...and it's all for this!:

"'The standard est training promises to transform the capacity to experience life so that one is more satisfied with life as it is' (Sayre 1977)."

Above quote from page 11 of the link egoldstein posted on other thread.

That was the whole point of the "choice" (Chocolate or Vanilla) exercise. They wanted you to perceive that as an actual choice, when it realistically was not even a Hobson's choice. In a Hobson's choice, one would have the option of declining. It's a "take it or leave it" choice. In the Landmark exercise, it's just "take it," and don't behave as if you're unhappy or resigned.

Then they go into a whole spiel about resignation, and how you should see things that you can't change or are resigned to as "choices." Then, we had to do an exercise where we picked something we we were unhappy about and "choose" it. That was supposed to feel more "empowered" than resignation. Got breast cancer? Choose it! Husband having an affair? Choose it!

Of course, i had a situation of my own, and saying that I "chose" it did not make me feel any differently about it at all. In fact, I felt nothing but disgust that they wanted me to take responsibility for the reprehensible behavior of others, and disgusted that we had spent the better part of a weekend getting to that.

But that did seem to be pretty much the crux of the Forum, in my humble opinion. Having been raised by a parent who had been telling me that i "chose" everything since i was about 12, it didn't change my view of anything.

"...so that one is more satisfied with life as it is' (Sayre 1977)."


In other words, if you actually want your life to change, don't bother. When they recruit so aggressively, they will throw out, "Well, if you still want to be in the same crappy job..." They don't bother mentioning that you likely will be, whether you sign up for their program or not.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2019 04:52AM by kdag.

Wow.

I just heard about "LGAT" & "Human Potential Movement" and realized I got sucked into similar groups several times. They are extraordinarily dangerous, and most 'leaders' are likely narcissists, psychopaths, and the like. AKA, they love to victim blame the real victims.

Its all the same. They have a leader that is extremely charismatic and manipulative, which the victims praise and adore more than anyone else. They preach of enlightenment (oh right, you just have to pay x0000s of dollars to get this secret realized), a utopian future, "transformation" through weird yoga or transcendental meditation or similar things, they are attractive to weak minded people seeking meaning and answers in life, and a better world.

They all, in my experience, endorse victim blaming. Just like Byron Katie, Ekhart Tolle, Rainiere, PhDs in psych who pretend to be educating people on dark triad disordered people, spiritual 'gurus' that lurk in your hometown, etc.

Usually they attract unknowing, young and compassionate folks who are often just out of abuse and still trauma-bonded or the like. Still somewhat blame themselves for the abuse, and are confused. They are seeking self-development, truth, and meaning in life. Of-course, the victim isn't at all responsible for the abuser's actions, nor are they responsible for changing the abuser.

I'd like to give you an example of a cultish group I was in for a period about 4 years ago.

One cultish group I got manipulated by taught us that there was something wrong with the victims, something about us we had to change, in order to make the abusers feel better. Exactly what abusers do to their victims. Abusers make victims think that the abuse is their fault, that something is fundamentally wrong with them, and that they hold the key, the only key, to make things better. The 'leader' was re-traumatizing indivduals over an hours long period, where they were pressured to re-living their worst traumas and then forced them to admit their anger towards the abuser is holding the abuser back, and is hurtful, and that the abuser is actually the victim, thus victim-blaming them in disguise. Further, he (the leader) claimed that all abusers were in pain BECAUSE the victims had believed they were abused and had anger towards them, so he reinforced that we are actually the abusers, not the other way around. Huge guilt tripping. It worked, even on me at the time. This method is called brainwashing, and it works because it exploits our vulnerabilities, makes us more vulnerable by putting us through the trauma all over again, and then tricks us into thinking its our fault. It happened so slowly, and I was already very vulnerable and still being abused by some people, so I fell for it. They offer utopian dreams. A way to cure the evil in the world.

In another cult-like group I was in, which was practicing in my university, there was the same kind of manipulative, cruel victim blaming, combined with sexual abuse, verbal abuse, and emotional abuse of other kinds. They used a brainwashing technique that was similar to transcendental meditation and yoga. They all run along the same lines, I think. Its just in these groups, the victim-blaming aspect is very well disguised.

I agree, @bakkagirl, that LGAT and similar movements are just like 'abusive domestic' relationships, just on a more global scale, affecting more victims. These cults are brainwashing their victims into thinking the SAME THINGS that domestic abusers use. The leaders, from my perspective, are usually or probably always narcissists and psychopaths. They feed off of being 'all knowing' special leaders. All in all, at the end of it, it comes down to blaming the victim.

sashah



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/23/2020 01:48PM by sashah.