I just read the beginning of this thread.

Skeptic, I'm wondering how you're doing with gaining some ground under you. I understand perfectly where you were in your initial post, which was some time ago. How has it been going for you since?

When I was a teenager I did a lot of LSD and other psychedelics, and they basically stripped away my entire frame of reference for reality. It's terrible to realize that cults and LGATs can do the same thing -- they seek to do the same thing -- so they can indoctrinate you into their reality. The danger of this practice cannot be overstated.

After reading this board for weeks, I can see how people have entered the same kind of spiritual/existential crisis that very powerful mind-altering drugs can create, just by being brainwashed and manipulated by Landmark! That is stunning, really, but obviously their techniques are powerful as well and certain people are in just the right place to be fully destabilized by their "technology."

My ex, who seemed brainwashed by LE almost before he walked through the door (!), would tell me very different things when he came out of The Forum. On the one hand, he was clearly taken in by LE, he had the full-on "fear" experience during the group hypnosis, and he emerged "transformed." He told me it was an emotionally powerful and very difficult experience, and I got the sense he was even playing it down because he was a bit embarrassed perhaps. He also would say that LE was nothing, really. Just a bunch of people sitting around talking. These two realities were totally incompatible. I got the feeling like his mind was already splitting. His emails to me in the week after the Forum talked about an unpleasant "emotional roller coaster" and how he couldn't quite keep in his mind that he was "just a machine" and "life was meaningless" but he kept trying.

The thought that he was actually trying to further drive these warped meme viruses into his brain was so distressing to me.

When you are under the influence of psychedelics, reality is stripped away, your frame of references are dissolved, and you are left essentially floating in the cosmic soup. In the right setting, with the right people, and the right guidance, this can be an amazing, beautiful and powerfully liberating and transformative experience. However, you're absolutely vulnerable to ideas at that time, because you are looking for some kind of absolute "truth." And if you panic and descend into a "bad trip" you will be grasping desperately for anything to cling to. I had this experience, and it took me years to recover from it. I know many others who went through this, and some who never recovered.

On the positive side, in some respects this experience does help you to find "truth" because anything less simply won't hold water, won't support you, won't stay solid beneath your feet. My experience during the "bad trip" was that I couldn't relate anymore to anything in my life, except one thing. I knew that I had a mother, and that she loved me. That love was real. I knew it was real, and that I could call her, and she would come for me. I was 16, and that's what I did -- actually, I had my best friend call her because I was curled in the fetal position watching the walls melt into the floor.

Anyway.

My point is, it wasn't a philosophy or ideology that saved me that day. It was love. It was the relationship with another person that truly had MEANING to me. My own personal meaning, my own personal relationship. My story, my life. Not something I read in a book, or something anyone else could tell me.

When I emerged from that state it took years to reconstruct my full reality, and I was in a crisis like you have described after coming out of the LGAT. I wanted to know what to believe, but I couldn't believe anything, really. That's when I discovered nature and the larger intelligence that governs Creation, and I began to learn to trust that, ever changing and evolving, always magnificent and infinitely mysterious "reality." Also I learned more about the human mind and how we can drive ourselves mad, by reading a book called "The Seduction of Madness." Great book.

Now I am very careful about what I expose myself to. Just as I will not expose myself to physical viruses, I won't expose myself to mental ones either, unless I'm protected. When you go to Landmark or other LGATs, their purpose is to strip you of protection through hypnosis, brainwashing and physical deprivation. This makes you open to their mind viruses in ways you wouldn't be if you were just sitting around in a cafe talking and exchanging ideas.

It's like having unprotected mental sex with a nasty sociopathic money grubbing sleaze bag!! Ew!!

Anyway, I'm just sharing my stories, and I hope you're finding your way back to yourself again. You'll be much stronger for this journey.

Excuse me while I blather some more. My laundry is drying and I don't watch TV.

You have to remember that we are among the very first humans released from the traditional boundaries of village/tribe, and many of us are now moving beyond the "isms" of recent centuries. The gurus of the "human potential movement" would have you believe that their brand of existentialism is the end result of our new freedom, but to me it's more akin to a giant pile of shit you have to avoid stepping in on the way to the ideological finish line.

It's a pile of shit, it's a trap set for those who are scared of this brave new world, now that the old ways have been destroyed and we can never get them back again.

For a long time I was heavily into romanticizing indigenous cultures and traditional ways. Then I spent a lot of time on Native American reservations, which dispelled some of my illusions, but I retained my respect for their very real magic, and their struggle to keep their ways alive.

But for those of us first-world (mostly white) wanderers in the bleak terrain of the 21st Century, with no real roots or community or tribal paradigms to guide us, there is a new set of responsibilities to self and to the world. We have to maintain our humanity, dignity and sanity all on our own now, and learn to stand alone. I'm starting to feel that those of us who can do this will really stand out amongst the crowd, and that's how we'll find each other and start to feel the community we all do miss on one level or another.

When I was freaking out about all of this in the past, having my personal existential crisis and "dark night of the soul," I had a talk with a Buddhist monk. And after I told him of all my inner struggles, blah blah blah, the first thing he asked me was; "What are you doing to help the world?"

Wham.

He might as well have said, "How did you get your head stuck so far up your own ass?"

Relationships to each other and to the world are where are our meaning truly lies. And beautifully, each relationship is unique -- cannot be scripted by Landmark -- creating a vibrant and diverse ecosystem of relationship that sustains humanity and feeds our souls.

I hate Landmark because it seeks to destroy this in order to control it.

Vlinden,

I hate to state what seems obvious, but you're sounding more and more, over time...like the types of people drawn to Landmark. The lines are getting blurred.

Well they're only blurred in your head, Vic-Luc, not mine.

Maybe in the past I would have been drawn to Landmark, which is the point of my posts. I'm sharing what I've gone through with identity crises in the past, because a few people on this board have told me directly that my sharing experiences has been useful for them.

I don't know what "lines" you're looking for. Many people can be drawn to Landmark or other potential purveyors of "truth." That's why it's important to talk about our personal journeys and what truth we've found.

Anyway, at the moment I just have a lot of time on my hands as I'm getting ready to leave the country I'm in, and this board has been very interesting to me. I honestly don't see the point of your attack.

I do see, however, that one of the most insightful people to ever write on this board, Nutrino, stopped posting here after having a run-in with you. You frustrated him so much he took his rather brilliant mind, packed up and left. It was a loss for this board.

Vic-Luc, your post really makes no sense.

Can you explain in what way someone who is vehemently anti-LGATs and who has just lost a great love of her life to Landmark is someone who might be drawn to Landmark? Someone who is dedicated to personal, independent self-exploration and truth, and who has recognized the fundamental untruths Landmark teaches?

I don't follow your logic.

...I don't either.


Ellen

and neither do I.

skeptic

Hi vlinden - Not really sure how I'm doing nowadays (the con itself really blew some fuses in my brain). I think I'm less disturbed by the fact that I feel mostly foundationless. I like how you said you don't expose yourself to physical viruses unless you have protection, and the same goes for mental viruses. That's my orientation these days: I am SUPER careful and attentive regarding MIND VIRUSES. I'm not sure I've put much more than that together for a foundation, but it's a start. I still ponder a million things, still unsure about so much.

You wrote: When you go to Landmark or other LGATs, their purpose is to strip you of protection through hypnosis, brainwashing and physical deprivation. This makes you open to their mind viruses in ways you wouldn't be if you were just sitting around in a cafe talking and exchanging ideas. This is a great distinction, and useful for me. Thanks!

I never did psychedelics. I always sensed that they would be dangerous for me. It's interesting that you analogize their effects to those of lgats. Certainly, had I known the parallels, I would have avoided an lgat too. For their dangerous use of deception, I DESPISE lgats.

And another thing, Senor Luc,

Let me be right up front and tell you that I don't appreciate your attack nor do I particularly need it in my life at the moment. Nor did I ask for your twisted psychological diagnosis (in fact, it reminds me Landmark's or Byron Katie's reversal of reality -- are you a disciple of hers??), so save that for your patients who pay you.

I just weathered -- continue to weather --one of the worst emotional storms of my life, pure heart break, and this board has been a life saver for me. I know just how important it is to read other people's experiences, which is why I offer mine here. Where the hell do you get off using the intensity of my emotions against me? What's the purpose of it? In other words -- that we can all understand here -- what's YOUR racket, buddy? What are you doing on this board? I saw how you tried to thwart Nutrino when he strayed into areas of consideration that made you nervous. What gives you the authority to try and control or manipulate the conversation here? Who is that helping?

You done pissed me off. If you don't like my posts, don't read them, and keep your diagnosis of my psyche to yourself. I'm no LGAT apologist and I'm not confused. I'm broken hearted and furious, and I'm writing it out to survive it.

Hi Skeptic,

Thanks for responding. When I read your posts I felt genuinely concerned for you, because I know how it feels to have that sense of groundlessness.

Questions are good, though, right? Better to know you have some questions than to think you've got all the answers.

Good luck and yes, stay away from the LSD ;)

Peace-

VL