Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
maurice
()
Date: March 22, 2007 09:03AM
I’ve been told it’s good to write down about your experience once you’re out of a cult or a LGAT, it gives you a big help in understanding what you’ve been through and healing yourself. I’ve been reading Nettie’s posts and the way she dissected the landmark ‘technology’ and I thought to do something similar. I found somewhere in my room the last landmark paper that survived the total ridding of last month after I got out: it’s the Syllabus describing the three days of the forum. I thought to revisit that in here.
Disclaimer: First, the syllabus is a document given for free at the intros to the potential new victims...hem, participants, so it’s no secret what I’m posting here. please anyone let me know if I'm wrong.
Second, I apologise to Nettie for ‘stealing’ her idea of dissecting landmark. I hope you won’t be mad at me;
The syllabus describe the three days of the forum, section by section, five sections a day plus three section for the evening session. What I write inside quotation marks is the syllabus, the rest and the bits between [ ] are mine.
“DAY ONE
I – ORIENTATION AND OVERVIEW:HOW THELANDMARK FORUM WORKS
“Participants are given an overview – a sense of what they might expect, as well as tips and ideas for how to get the most value. [the overview is their bunch of promises, the tips and ideas are the agreements like ‘don’t you ever go to the toilet or you’ll lose the extraordinary experience’ and similar] The daily schedule is reviewed, and there is an opportunity to ask questions. [not to be confounded with an opportunity to GET ANSWERS]
“The stage is set for people to engage powerfully with the material [see ‘environment control’ under the list of brainwashing tools], maximise the value of their participation, and produce unprecedented results in a short period of time.”
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
The unprecedented result you produce is a signature on a contract where you waive away all you rights and you accept that landmark won’t be held liable for what they’re going to do to you. That is quite incredible, actually.
I remember the first homework after this session is to approach five people (maybe less), introduce yourself and ‘share’ why you’re there and what you expect. I suppose that’s for giving the group a chance to pressure you for the rest of the weekend, for they know your weaknesses, your desires, whatever. Even if you’re not that open with stranger, it creates pseudo-friendships: people tend to stick to the little groups born in the first breaks for the rest of the forum (a system that will be compulsory in the following courses, with their groups and buddies etc.)
“II- ALREADY ALWAYS LISTENING™ [no, really, it IS a trademark. I’m not being funny]
[I am going to cut the ‘whoa!’ parts; let me know if you want the full stuff]
“…While we think of ourself as open-minded and objective, in fact our approach to ourselves, our circumstances and others is often filtered and even obscured by pre-existing notions and ideas. (…) An awareness of the shrinking limits that they [the filters] impose allows for a refreshing freedom”
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
I could start to say that whoever sign up to landmark IS open minded, at least in virtue of the fact that they give them the forum a go. Now, all the above sounds like “we are more prejudiced than we like to think and we could do better by letting go our prejudices”. The reality goes much deeper: what they are actually talking about is not judgment and filters as prejudice or bias, but judgment and filters as [i:74a60986a4]your critical thinking[/i:74a60986a4] and [i:74a60986a4]your logic and analitical skills[/i:74a60986a4]. The already always listening is any metal process going on when you listen (with the execption of blind belief, which, by accident, is what they want from you. That's why it's the very first 'distinction'. Or as they say, "we put this distinction first so you can listen to the forum really open-minded"). AAL is, as they say themselves, the filter by which you process the data you receive. That would be [i:74a60986a4]reason[/i:74a60986a4], and even if you understand that, well, we’ll see later why is best to be [i:74a60986a4]un[/i:74a60986a4]reasonable.
Example of AAL: if someone lies to you, you might think twice before buying in what they say again before checking it out for yourself. But luckily now you’ll have the forum to tell you that you are running your AAL against them and that’s impairing your relationship with them. Of course they usually use a [i:74a60986a4]sweeter [/i:74a60986a4]example to convince you to shut down you brain.
Now, this post is growing quite long. I close here and let you comment, and I’ll go on tomorrow if you want.
Disclaimer: First, the syllabus is a document given for free at the intros to the potential new victims...hem, participants, so it’s no secret what I’m posting here. please anyone let me know if I'm wrong.
Second, I apologise to Nettie for ‘stealing’ her idea of dissecting landmark. I hope you won’t be mad at me;
The syllabus describe the three days of the forum, section by section, five sections a day plus three section for the evening session. What I write inside quotation marks is the syllabus, the rest and the bits between [ ] are mine.
“DAY ONE
I – ORIENTATION AND OVERVIEW:HOW THELANDMARK FORUM WORKS
“Participants are given an overview – a sense of what they might expect, as well as tips and ideas for how to get the most value. [the overview is their bunch of promises, the tips and ideas are the agreements like ‘don’t you ever go to the toilet or you’ll lose the extraordinary experience’ and similar] The daily schedule is reviewed, and there is an opportunity to ask questions. [not to be confounded with an opportunity to GET ANSWERS]
“The stage is set for people to engage powerfully with the material [see ‘environment control’ under the list of brainwashing tools], maximise the value of their participation, and produce unprecedented results in a short period of time.”
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
The unprecedented result you produce is a signature on a contract where you waive away all you rights and you accept that landmark won’t be held liable for what they’re going to do to you. That is quite incredible, actually.
I remember the first homework after this session is to approach five people (maybe less), introduce yourself and ‘share’ why you’re there and what you expect. I suppose that’s for giving the group a chance to pressure you for the rest of the weekend, for they know your weaknesses, your desires, whatever. Even if you’re not that open with stranger, it creates pseudo-friendships: people tend to stick to the little groups born in the first breaks for the rest of the forum (a system that will be compulsory in the following courses, with their groups and buddies etc.)
“II- ALREADY ALWAYS LISTENING™ [no, really, it IS a trademark. I’m not being funny]
[I am going to cut the ‘whoa!’ parts; let me know if you want the full stuff]
“…While we think of ourself as open-minded and objective, in fact our approach to ourselves, our circumstances and others is often filtered and even obscured by pre-existing notions and ideas. (…) An awareness of the shrinking limits that they [the filters] impose allows for a refreshing freedom”
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
I could start to say that whoever sign up to landmark IS open minded, at least in virtue of the fact that they give them the forum a go. Now, all the above sounds like “we are more prejudiced than we like to think and we could do better by letting go our prejudices”. The reality goes much deeper: what they are actually talking about is not judgment and filters as prejudice or bias, but judgment and filters as [i:74a60986a4]your critical thinking[/i:74a60986a4] and [i:74a60986a4]your logic and analitical skills[/i:74a60986a4]. The already always listening is any metal process going on when you listen (with the execption of blind belief, which, by accident, is what they want from you. That's why it's the very first 'distinction'. Or as they say, "we put this distinction first so you can listen to the forum really open-minded"). AAL is, as they say themselves, the filter by which you process the data you receive. That would be [i:74a60986a4]reason[/i:74a60986a4], and even if you understand that, well, we’ll see later why is best to be [i:74a60986a4]un[/i:74a60986a4]reasonable.
Example of AAL: if someone lies to you, you might think twice before buying in what they say again before checking it out for yourself. But luckily now you’ll have the forum to tell you that you are running your AAL against them and that’s impairing your relationship with them. Of course they usually use a [i:74a60986a4]sweeter [/i:74a60986a4]example to convince you to shut down you brain.
Now, this post is growing quite long. I close here and let you comment, and I’ll go on tomorrow if you want.
Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
maurice
()
Date: March 23, 2007 04:46AM
From Landmark Forum syllabus, day one.
“III – THE HIDDEN POWER OF CONTEXT
“Here we propose the view that in all human endeavours, [i:ed802c2f3e]context is decisive[/i:ed802c2f3e] [cursive in the original] That is, the hidden contexts from which we live determine what we see and what we don’t see (…) In this view, all behaviour – all ways of being and acting – are correlated to the context(s) from which we live our lives.
“When this contexts become apparent and known (…) we are left, possibly for the first time, with a choice about who we are and who we can be, separate from the contexts. There is a freedom and ability to take action that was unavailable before”
TRANSLATION FOR LAY PERSONS AND WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET.
Well, from the syllabus one may think that re-evaluating your contexts is a good thing to do.
What they actually say, check above, is that power is to act separate from the contexts.
If you free your mind from contextual restrains like, say, the gravity law, you can jump and fly, according to landmark. You can go and try this example, they have the answer: it’s either “have you ever heard of levitation? People that can defy gravity” or “yes you can fly, you can have a parachute or a delta plan”. I remember during my own forum a man stood up and challenged the leader about this. He talked about his son on a wheel chair who, beside loving boxing, could never separate from his context and become a boxeur. The leader teased him with some word games which basically were “of course he can become a boxeur! [if he took the forum, ça va sans dire] just not one of the best one maybe”. I felt sorry for the poor man and the way the leader was teasing him about something like that, and I am sorry I didn’t stood up and went away. I don’t know how I could watch that in silence.
What you don’t know yet is that this section is the base for all the future “sign up for the next course even if you don’t have money”. They need to separate you from the contexts of “I need money for my survival” to get you to pay them over and over again – an action that was unavailable before.
“III – THE HIDDEN POWER OF CONTEXT
“Here we propose the view that in all human endeavours, [i:ed802c2f3e]context is decisive[/i:ed802c2f3e] [cursive in the original] That is, the hidden contexts from which we live determine what we see and what we don’t see (…) In this view, all behaviour – all ways of being and acting – are correlated to the context(s) from which we live our lives.
“When this contexts become apparent and known (…) we are left, possibly for the first time, with a choice about who we are and who we can be, separate from the contexts. There is a freedom and ability to take action that was unavailable before”
TRANSLATION FOR LAY PERSONS AND WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET.
Well, from the syllabus one may think that re-evaluating your contexts is a good thing to do.
What they actually say, check above, is that power is to act separate from the contexts.
If you free your mind from contextual restrains like, say, the gravity law, you can jump and fly, according to landmark. You can go and try this example, they have the answer: it’s either “have you ever heard of levitation? People that can defy gravity” or “yes you can fly, you can have a parachute or a delta plan”. I remember during my own forum a man stood up and challenged the leader about this. He talked about his son on a wheel chair who, beside loving boxing, could never separate from his context and become a boxeur. The leader teased him with some word games which basically were “of course he can become a boxeur! [if he took the forum, ça va sans dire] just not one of the best one maybe”. I felt sorry for the poor man and the way the leader was teasing him about something like that, and I am sorry I didn’t stood up and went away. I don’t know how I could watch that in silence.
What you don’t know yet is that this section is the base for all the future “sign up for the next course even if you don’t have money”. They need to separate you from the contexts of “I need money for my survival” to get you to pay them over and over again – an action that was unavailable before.
Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
maurice
()
Date: March 25, 2007 11:13PM
“DAY ONE
“IV – THE VICIOUS CIRCLE™
“…It is a human tendency to collapse [i:1e6f473e3f]what happened[/i:1e6f473e3f], with the [i:1e6f473e3f]story we tell [/i:1e6f473e3f]about what happened. This collapsing happens so fast it becomes hard to separate the two, and we think of them as one and the same. Almost immediately, and certainly over time, the story we tell ourselves becomes [i:1e6f473e3f]the way it is[/i:1e6f473e3f]. (…) When we are able to separate what happened from our story or interpretation, we consider that much of what we considered already determined, given and fixed may not in fact be that way”
TRANSLATION AND WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
The segment above closes with the usual your-life-will-change stuff. Now, the vicious circle is a key point of the lm technology. In the real world, it is true that people sometime make wrong conclusions about something, and it is true that sometime these wrong conclusions can affect your life. !But there are two major differences between real life and the landmark VC that people should be told before signing up for the forum:
1- if a ‘story’, an interpretation of an event is traumatic enough to have ripercussion on your life in the long term, that should be addressed by a proper therapist. The dangers of the emotional harassment that people suffer in the forum is directly proportioned to the gravity of the trauma(s) you’re trying to deal with. If your story is “all men are jerk” or “all women are sluts” because an ex boyfriend or girlfriend cheated on you, than you could try to speak about it with a forum leader, even if a magazine readers’ letters column could possibly give you the same wisdom of the VC for free. But I've seen people arguing with the leaders about being raped, taking drugs, the death of loved ones, suicides...those are things a DIY therapist like a lekkie leader shouldn't play with.
2- the landmark VC is not contextual and individual as it seems at first glance. It is universal. It is a totalitarian doctrine, with no exception. They separate altogether Facts and Knowledge. They never collide. Your stories are stories and they are inherently always false. In this section, they push in your brain distrust for knowledge and inferences. According to the lm VC, no knowledge or inference is true, not even when they are correct. For a lekkie there is no such thing as ‘evidence’ or ‘proof’. That’s one of the reasons why all the evidences you can give a lekkie about brainwashing are always useless, and they always reply “that’s your story”.
“V – RACKETS™ : THE PAYOFF AND THE COST
“In the Rackets segment, we discuss the idea of a Racket as an unproductive way of being that includes a complaint that something shouldn’t be the way it is [Heaven forbid! Complaining about something wrong. Can you imagine? The very idea!!!!]. Often we don’t notice that while our complaints may seem justified, even legitimate, there is a certain payoff – some advantage or benefit we are receiving that reinforces the cycle of behaviour. At the same time this [i:1e6f473e3f]way of being[/i:1e6f473e3f] has steep costs, whether in our vitality, affinity, self-expression or sense of fulfilment”
TRANSLATION AND WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
There is another short paragraph, but you know, ‘you-can-give-it-up-and-change-your-life’, ‘new happiness’ and blah blah.
Oh boy, this is huge. The rackets is probably the most important feature of the lm. At the same time, with one single concept, they destroy your self esteem [i:1e6f473e3f]and[/i:1e6f473e3f] they take away your freedom to complain – against lm, that is.
A racket is, you’ll be told, “a persistent complaint + a fixed way of being”. Sounds like “a bad habit”, but it’s much deeper than that. They talk about a payoff for the complaint. Pay attention: the payoff of a complaint is not to fix something, to make things right, or at least to raise awareness on a problem. No. It’s “being right/make the others wrong, dominate/avoid domination, being justified”. That’s the list you’ll be given. For landmark, we don’t complain for, I don’t know, a tendency for improvement, but for the very sake of complaining. To make noise and feel good about the noise. Of course there are plenty of people who just like to complain for the sake of it, but for landmark it is a condition of [i:1e6f473e3f]every [/i:1e6f473e3f]single human being. Complaining for the sake of it is the human machinery, the very essence of being human. And they put it in italic that it’s a way of being, a personality flaw that only landmark can help you overcome (they have the trademark!).
It’s the base of any cult to make people believe that there is something inherently evil outside the cult and that only joining the cult you can have salvation. Now lekkies don’t condemn rackets as a mortal sin shouting “you’ll go to hell”, they tell you with a friendly smile “don’t feel bad, it’s human nature. But now you can give it up and create a new life!”. I agree it’s far way more polite and nicer than the usual cults, but under the surface it’s the same bs.
Once the idea of rackets is bought, it’s hard to get out. It’s good to point out that any complaint is a racket, therefore any complaint about landmark (a sub category of complaint) is a racket. An anti-landmark racket in the case. And remember that a racket is a personality flaw. An imperfection of the common, non-enlightened people.
So let’s imagine you are a normal person and a lekkie try to enrol you into the forum. If you say no, you complain about landmark, in the eyes of the lekkie it will be a proof that you do have rackets, that people out of landmark do have rackets and being inside is the right thing.
If you say yes to the forum, you’ll implicitly admit that you have something to fix, and again prove to the lekkie that the forum is the Truth, the Way. Roughly the same will happen if you are talking to a lekkie on the way out of landmark or after you left.
I said before there are no proof in the lm technology because they refuse inferences and critical thinking. So when I say ‘proof’ and ‘prove’ above, I mean they get more ‘self-enrolled’ in the ‘possibility they invent’. Indeed they don’t use proofs and critical thinking: if you say yes to the lm, lm is proved right. If you say no, lm is proved right. Given that critical thinking is based on the Aristotelian principle of Non-Contradiction, lm is no logic or rationality.
“IV – THE VICIOUS CIRCLE™
“…It is a human tendency to collapse [i:1e6f473e3f]what happened[/i:1e6f473e3f], with the [i:1e6f473e3f]story we tell [/i:1e6f473e3f]about what happened. This collapsing happens so fast it becomes hard to separate the two, and we think of them as one and the same. Almost immediately, and certainly over time, the story we tell ourselves becomes [i:1e6f473e3f]the way it is[/i:1e6f473e3f]. (…) When we are able to separate what happened from our story or interpretation, we consider that much of what we considered already determined, given and fixed may not in fact be that way”
TRANSLATION AND WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
The segment above closes with the usual your-life-will-change stuff. Now, the vicious circle is a key point of the lm technology. In the real world, it is true that people sometime make wrong conclusions about something, and it is true that sometime these wrong conclusions can affect your life. !But there are two major differences between real life and the landmark VC that people should be told before signing up for the forum:
1- if a ‘story’, an interpretation of an event is traumatic enough to have ripercussion on your life in the long term, that should be addressed by a proper therapist. The dangers of the emotional harassment that people suffer in the forum is directly proportioned to the gravity of the trauma(s) you’re trying to deal with. If your story is “all men are jerk” or “all women are sluts” because an ex boyfriend or girlfriend cheated on you, than you could try to speak about it with a forum leader, even if a magazine readers’ letters column could possibly give you the same wisdom of the VC for free. But I've seen people arguing with the leaders about being raped, taking drugs, the death of loved ones, suicides...those are things a DIY therapist like a lekkie leader shouldn't play with.
2- the landmark VC is not contextual and individual as it seems at first glance. It is universal. It is a totalitarian doctrine, with no exception. They separate altogether Facts and Knowledge. They never collide. Your stories are stories and they are inherently always false. In this section, they push in your brain distrust for knowledge and inferences. According to the lm VC, no knowledge or inference is true, not even when they are correct. For a lekkie there is no such thing as ‘evidence’ or ‘proof’. That’s one of the reasons why all the evidences you can give a lekkie about brainwashing are always useless, and they always reply “that’s your story”.
“V – RACKETS™ : THE PAYOFF AND THE COST
“In the Rackets segment, we discuss the idea of a Racket as an unproductive way of being that includes a complaint that something shouldn’t be the way it is [Heaven forbid! Complaining about something wrong. Can you imagine? The very idea!!!!]. Often we don’t notice that while our complaints may seem justified, even legitimate, there is a certain payoff – some advantage or benefit we are receiving that reinforces the cycle of behaviour. At the same time this [i:1e6f473e3f]way of being[/i:1e6f473e3f] has steep costs, whether in our vitality, affinity, self-expression or sense of fulfilment”
TRANSLATION AND WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
There is another short paragraph, but you know, ‘you-can-give-it-up-and-change-your-life’, ‘new happiness’ and blah blah.
Oh boy, this is huge. The rackets is probably the most important feature of the lm. At the same time, with one single concept, they destroy your self esteem [i:1e6f473e3f]and[/i:1e6f473e3f] they take away your freedom to complain – against lm, that is.
A racket is, you’ll be told, “a persistent complaint + a fixed way of being”. Sounds like “a bad habit”, but it’s much deeper than that. They talk about a payoff for the complaint. Pay attention: the payoff of a complaint is not to fix something, to make things right, or at least to raise awareness on a problem. No. It’s “being right/make the others wrong, dominate/avoid domination, being justified”. That’s the list you’ll be given. For landmark, we don’t complain for, I don’t know, a tendency for improvement, but for the very sake of complaining. To make noise and feel good about the noise. Of course there are plenty of people who just like to complain for the sake of it, but for landmark it is a condition of [i:1e6f473e3f]every [/i:1e6f473e3f]single human being. Complaining for the sake of it is the human machinery, the very essence of being human. And they put it in italic that it’s a way of being, a personality flaw that only landmark can help you overcome (they have the trademark!).
It’s the base of any cult to make people believe that there is something inherently evil outside the cult and that only joining the cult you can have salvation. Now lekkies don’t condemn rackets as a mortal sin shouting “you’ll go to hell”, they tell you with a friendly smile “don’t feel bad, it’s human nature. But now you can give it up and create a new life!”. I agree it’s far way more polite and nicer than the usual cults, but under the surface it’s the same bs.
Once the idea of rackets is bought, it’s hard to get out. It’s good to point out that any complaint is a racket, therefore any complaint about landmark (a sub category of complaint) is a racket. An anti-landmark racket in the case. And remember that a racket is a personality flaw. An imperfection of the common, non-enlightened people.
So let’s imagine you are a normal person and a lekkie try to enrol you into the forum. If you say no, you complain about landmark, in the eyes of the lekkie it will be a proof that you do have rackets, that people out of landmark do have rackets and being inside is the right thing.
If you say yes to the forum, you’ll implicitly admit that you have something to fix, and again prove to the lekkie that the forum is the Truth, the Way. Roughly the same will happen if you are talking to a lekkie on the way out of landmark or after you left.
I said before there are no proof in the lm technology because they refuse inferences and critical thinking. So when I say ‘proof’ and ‘prove’ above, I mean they get more ‘self-enrolled’ in the ‘possibility they invent’. Indeed they don’t use proofs and critical thinking: if you say yes to the lm, lm is proved right. If you say no, lm is proved right. Given that critical thinking is based on the Aristotelian principle of Non-Contradiction, lm is no logic or rationality.
Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
ON2 LF
()
Date: March 26, 2007 08:12AM
Quote
It is a human tendency to collapse what happened, with the story we tell about what happened. This collapsing happens so fast it becomes hard to separate the two, and we think of them as one and the same.
and therein lies the incompetence and illusionary perspective of the landmark 'psychologists' and 'therapists'.
At first glance, this statement seems so true. Then you look at it again (although it is from this point on that many fall prey to the deception of landmark's deranged ideology), and it is in fact NOT so. What happened and how we interpreted and experienced what happened are interrelated, it is a whole experience and the interpretation we make is made according to our knowledge and experience of our inner and outer environment up to that moment, this is a NATURAL human response and is NOT incorrect as the landmarkian quacks would insist.
This 'collapsing' theory is about as far fetched and fictional as a quack can dream. The 'story' is the part where we share a legitimate experience and NO ONE has the right to give an alternative interpretation to that experience for us. Calling it a 'story' is likely the beginning stage to creating a sociopath, it totally devalues and crushes empathy and compassion.
If a person happens to be phobic, OCD, DPD, or any other personality and/or mood disordered, and tends to interpret experiences abnormally, it is NOT for a landmarkian quack to try to restore the 'experience' with his or her own self serving bogus alternative interpretation. In fact landmark shouldn't be counselling such people period. Landmark claims it screens out people with serious emotional or psychological problems but the section of their 'flagship forum' where they begin teaching about the 'collapsing' crap contradicts their claim of not accepting people with major issues. Is it not the case that when a therapist is treating a seriously troubled patient, like a person suffering from delusions perhaps, that the therapist will attempt to bring that person back to reality by offering alternative scenarios than what is being experienced or perceived by the patient? Isn't that what the forum leader is doing when they begin to plug in a different reality to what has been described by the participant? Is that something to do when one believes they're dealing with a non-disturbed or non-mentally ill person?
"Iatrogenic disorder" comes to mind when I think of a lekkie therapist telling someone they've 'collapsed' an experience with a story. Iatrogenic basically means "A disorder produced by a physician (can also apply to psychologist). The term is used generally to refer to any abnormal condition, physical or mental, caused by the effects of attempts at treatment."
Basically, the forum leader (playing 'therapist') suggests that an issue or dysfunction is present and thereby creates/implants it. Now he or she has something to 'treat' and can 'legitimize' his/her philosophies, methodologies and suggestions on what is or is not truth. Now it is possible to create the illusion that the landmark forum really 'works'! Most people don't stop to think that they didn't have alot of the problems they 'realize' they had after an intensive weekend of battery, multiple deprivations, unbridled verbal abuse and self defense mechanism shredding. That is what psychotherapy looks like in the hands of careless, untrained, uneducated, and unethical opportunists deluded just enough to claim they're making a positive difference to mankind.
Those stunned bastards (forum 'leaders') do so just for the little gold stars they get and so their psychopath leader(s) can live lives of luxury and zero-accountability.
I think of the James Rowe that went missing after his forum, he had no psychological illness prior to his forum. Afterward, he did. Somehow, the implantation/suggestion of dysfunction caused more damage in him than in others, because he disappeared afterward.
The baffling word of choice in the above quote is 'collapse', the flawed logic is in the refusal to accept reality and real experience and try to create a delusion instead, only the delusion ends up being filled with endless labour, financial devastation, mental breakdown, dissolved relationships, and no real friends left to help on the recovery journey if one is privileged enough to find it.
I'm no shrink or moral philosopher but I propose that Landmark sucks in every possible definition of the word.
Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
nutrino
()
Date: March 27, 2007 11:40AM
It is an exceedingly idiotic theory about the nature of realty... because it is based on this massive assumption... there is "what really happened" which is equally true whether we're talking about the most hard physical events or the most imprecise personal events. In other words this moron-philosphizing fails to, worse, willfully refuses to engage the question whether certain situations or events are more amorphous, and less containable within the limited idea of "what really happened"... much of "what happens" IS what each individual brain constructs out of a lot of hard to interpret raw data... so Landmark, unwittingly or buttheadedly is insisting that all things that happen, happen like hammer strikes a nail... which is groovy if you live in a world limited to hammers nails and people swinging hammers.... but this dumbo philosophy is meaningless, and useless when you ask something like "what really happened" to cause the Russian Revolution or the discovery of calculus or the emergence of monotheism... not to be deterred, they have appropriated a philosopic term of art, "collapse", the use of which they have collapsed with the idea of being thereby turned into philosophers.... oh collapse, collapse, collapse ! What a wonderful new word I have .
Ah, dingbats... on close examination there is NOTHING to collapse, no "what really happened" versus "story about what happened".... because all tooo often, the closest thing we have ARE the stories, how our minds perceived and shaped the interpretations and memories of events... thoguht experiment time, IF you suddenly lost your stories about what happened, HOW would you ever know that ANYTHING had ever happened ? Stupid asses....
Ah, dingbats... on close examination there is NOTHING to collapse, no "what really happened" versus "story about what happened".... because all tooo often, the closest thing we have ARE the stories, how our minds perceived and shaped the interpretations and memories of events... thoguht experiment time, IF you suddenly lost your stories about what happened, HOW would you ever know that ANYTHING had ever happened ? Stupid asses....
Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
ON2 LF
()
Date: March 27, 2007 02:46PM
the only thing anyone ever 'collapsed' is brain-mass, dignity and bank accounts after their LANDMARK FORUM. Of course these things are only 'stories' after landmark gets hold of them...maybe they existed once, but no more...
dumb asses is right.
dumb asses is right.
Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
maurice
()
Date: March 28, 2007 04:02AM
“DAY TWO
“I. THE ILLUSION OF SOMEDAY: RETHINKING POSSIBILITY
“If someone says to us, “X is possible,” we would normally understand them to mean that X does not now exist, and that its existence, even someday, is not certain. Our use of the word possibility is different from this ordinary usage. We are not speaking about something remote or something that may happen out in the future. In this session, we look at the notion of possibility in a whole new light.
This new view of possibility has an immediate and powerful impact on who we are, how we live our lives, and how we see things – now, in the present. It has the power to move, touch, and inspire us; to shape our actions; and to shift the way we are being right now.”
TRANSLATION AND WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
Possibility is the state of things that “are not, but could be” (the Aristotelian definition, more or less the same as in English language). For the lekkies, P is something that does exist right now when we speak and “impact how we are, how we see things”. I personally cannot find an English word that translate this lekkie jargon as well as the word “attitude” – more precisely, a brand new and good attitude that you decide to have. “I invent the possibility of courage” is best translated as “I’m gonna have a braver attitude, starting now”. So this new possibility that lm gives to people is just a new attitude (sort of). If you understand this, you can understand why their technology is based on a mockery of cognitive behaviour, which could be called total behavioural reprogramming. If the landmark were only cognitive behaviour self-help, it could be fine, but remind that is done without your knowledge and against your better judgment. Just to give a glimpse to a future point, it will turn out there are basically only two possibilities to create that really count: the possibility of staying inside of lm and the possibility of recruiting new people.
As for the “immediate powerful impact”, that’s only one word to describe an attitude mistaken for a result: delusion. Lm will only give you self-reinforced delusions. Worse is to come, anyway.
“II. THE MYTH OF IS, BECAUSE, AND I
“In this section, we explore the nature of what we think of as reality, which includes an objective world that exists independent of us, where cause and effect are key operative factors; where I, as an identity, is a collection of characteristics, attributes, and experiences from the past. In exploring the nature of reality and taking apart these myths, something else becomes possible.
Here, we observe not so much the particulars of the realities we construct, but that it is human to construct such realities, and then forget that we are the ones who constructed them. As a result, we see that we no longer need to be confined to living within this limited range, and we gain the freedom to express ourselves fully.”
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
There is no translation needed for this simply because it says practically nothing. So let us explain these three “myths”
1 – “IS”
There is an objective reality where anything is related to anything else by physical, or chemical, or mathematical, or thermo-dynamical laws such as the law of cause and effect. On a more logical, intellectual, psychological level similar ‘laws’ can be found in personal life and social relationships. Actually, no. LM will show you that all of the above is completely false. In the forum they’ll address the phycological, emotional version of cause and effect. To destroy physics and maths and the other exact sciences you’ll need the Advanced Course (bet you can’t wait, can you?). Every single sentence that imply IS as a statement is a myth. It’s a creation of your mind. Any statement whatsoever, actually, is a myth, since they can all be turned into a “this is it” or this is true” For example “(it IS true that) I have no money/no time”, “I AM not good enough”, “there IS no solution”, “this IS difficult”, and so on. They’re all myth. Constructions of the mind. If you ‘get’ this, you can drop the myth, i.e. disconnect from reality, at any level: your finances, your family, your friends etc (be my guest…) and “something else become possible”.
Need I explain the dangers of this kind of disconnection?
2 – “BECAUSE”
Causality is a myth, just as reality. There is no such thing like “cause and effect”. You can’t do the forum BECAUSE you don’t have the money or the time? Oh, get a grip. It’s a myth. Of course to take away from you any possible excuse or explanation for not commiting yourself to lm, they’ll take away from you any explanation whatsoever. Same as the “IS”.
3 – “I”
Here is where landmark get dangerous. Identity is a myth. Personality is a myth. “You” doesn’t exist. It never existed for real. Your personality is only “a collection of characteristics, attributes, and experiences from the past”. For £315 (I don’t know their prices abroad) they’ll rid you of your identity an create a new one. Those who ‘get’ this section for the best become their zealots, slaves, recruiters. Because they “break you down and rebuild you anew”. Question: how can you “express yourself fully” after you give up yourself, for yourself is a myth? Sharing the death of your personality, the new reprogramming and ‘enrolling’ others into that. And ultimately, into the lm forum. It’s all about that. They don’t need you. Actually, they hate you. Lekkies despise you. And they’ll give you no self-confidence, no, that’s just for the marketing, the truth is they’ll destroy your self-esteem. They have tell you the first day you’re full of prejudices and complaints and other shit. They tell you you are self-righteous and arrogant. To destroy that – for your own good, in their twisted mind – they’ll reveal you (it’s a revelation, no point discussing with them it might be only a theory) that your personality is all a myth, built up from the reactions to the events and judgments seen in the section before. They’ll say you don’t need that. What they don’t say to you, it’s that THEY don’t need that. They need the new zealot they can turn you into. What you were before doesn’t count. Doesn’t even exist for them – litteraly. By the way, if you think that you might have something good in this “myth”, wait for the Strong Suits (in the USA “Winning Formulas) part. At the end of day two you’ll feel shit about yourself. Whatever you thought of yourself before the forum, it doesn’t make a difference. You can start the forum with the greatest self-confidence, they’ll destroy that anyway. It’s thought reform we’re talking about, not a conference. Luckily most of the people do eventually manage, after the forum, if they don’t sign up for more, to cope and pull themselves together again, even though they’ll have to endure post-traumatic stress (pardon, I mean breakdowns) at some level.
“I. THE ILLUSION OF SOMEDAY: RETHINKING POSSIBILITY
“If someone says to us, “X is possible,” we would normally understand them to mean that X does not now exist, and that its existence, even someday, is not certain. Our use of the word possibility is different from this ordinary usage. We are not speaking about something remote or something that may happen out in the future. In this session, we look at the notion of possibility in a whole new light.
This new view of possibility has an immediate and powerful impact on who we are, how we live our lives, and how we see things – now, in the present. It has the power to move, touch, and inspire us; to shape our actions; and to shift the way we are being right now.”
TRANSLATION AND WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
Possibility is the state of things that “are not, but could be” (the Aristotelian definition, more or less the same as in English language). For the lekkies, P is something that does exist right now when we speak and “impact how we are, how we see things”. I personally cannot find an English word that translate this lekkie jargon as well as the word “attitude” – more precisely, a brand new and good attitude that you decide to have. “I invent the possibility of courage” is best translated as “I’m gonna have a braver attitude, starting now”. So this new possibility that lm gives to people is just a new attitude (sort of). If you understand this, you can understand why their technology is based on a mockery of cognitive behaviour, which could be called total behavioural reprogramming. If the landmark were only cognitive behaviour self-help, it could be fine, but remind that is done without your knowledge and against your better judgment. Just to give a glimpse to a future point, it will turn out there are basically only two possibilities to create that really count: the possibility of staying inside of lm and the possibility of recruiting new people.
As for the “immediate powerful impact”, that’s only one word to describe an attitude mistaken for a result: delusion. Lm will only give you self-reinforced delusions. Worse is to come, anyway.
“II. THE MYTH OF IS, BECAUSE, AND I
“In this section, we explore the nature of what we think of as reality, which includes an objective world that exists independent of us, where cause and effect are key operative factors; where I, as an identity, is a collection of characteristics, attributes, and experiences from the past. In exploring the nature of reality and taking apart these myths, something else becomes possible.
Here, we observe not so much the particulars of the realities we construct, but that it is human to construct such realities, and then forget that we are the ones who constructed them. As a result, we see that we no longer need to be confined to living within this limited range, and we gain the freedom to express ourselves fully.”
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW YET
There is no translation needed for this simply because it says practically nothing. So let us explain these three “myths”
1 – “IS”
There is an objective reality where anything is related to anything else by physical, or chemical, or mathematical, or thermo-dynamical laws such as the law of cause and effect. On a more logical, intellectual, psychological level similar ‘laws’ can be found in personal life and social relationships. Actually, no. LM will show you that all of the above is completely false. In the forum they’ll address the phycological, emotional version of cause and effect. To destroy physics and maths and the other exact sciences you’ll need the Advanced Course (bet you can’t wait, can you?). Every single sentence that imply IS as a statement is a myth. It’s a creation of your mind. Any statement whatsoever, actually, is a myth, since they can all be turned into a “this is it” or this is true” For example “(it IS true that) I have no money/no time”, “I AM not good enough”, “there IS no solution”, “this IS difficult”, and so on. They’re all myth. Constructions of the mind. If you ‘get’ this, you can drop the myth, i.e. disconnect from reality, at any level: your finances, your family, your friends etc (be my guest…) and “something else become possible”.
Need I explain the dangers of this kind of disconnection?
2 – “BECAUSE”
Causality is a myth, just as reality. There is no such thing like “cause and effect”. You can’t do the forum BECAUSE you don’t have the money or the time? Oh, get a grip. It’s a myth. Of course to take away from you any possible excuse or explanation for not commiting yourself to lm, they’ll take away from you any explanation whatsoever. Same as the “IS”.
3 – “I”
Here is where landmark get dangerous. Identity is a myth. Personality is a myth. “You” doesn’t exist. It never existed for real. Your personality is only “a collection of characteristics, attributes, and experiences from the past”. For £315 (I don’t know their prices abroad) they’ll rid you of your identity an create a new one. Those who ‘get’ this section for the best become their zealots, slaves, recruiters. Because they “break you down and rebuild you anew”. Question: how can you “express yourself fully” after you give up yourself, for yourself is a myth? Sharing the death of your personality, the new reprogramming and ‘enrolling’ others into that. And ultimately, into the lm forum. It’s all about that. They don’t need you. Actually, they hate you. Lekkies despise you. And they’ll give you no self-confidence, no, that’s just for the marketing, the truth is they’ll destroy your self-esteem. They have tell you the first day you’re full of prejudices and complaints and other shit. They tell you you are self-righteous and arrogant. To destroy that – for your own good, in their twisted mind – they’ll reveal you (it’s a revelation, no point discussing with them it might be only a theory) that your personality is all a myth, built up from the reactions to the events and judgments seen in the section before. They’ll say you don’t need that. What they don’t say to you, it’s that THEY don’t need that. They need the new zealot they can turn you into. What you were before doesn’t count. Doesn’t even exist for them – litteraly. By the way, if you think that you might have something good in this “myth”, wait for the Strong Suits (in the USA “Winning Formulas) part. At the end of day two you’ll feel shit about yourself. Whatever you thought of yourself before the forum, it doesn’t make a difference. You can start the forum with the greatest self-confidence, they’ll destroy that anyway. It’s thought reform we’re talking about, not a conference. Luckily most of the people do eventually manage, after the forum, if they don’t sign up for more, to cope and pull themselves together again, even though they’ll have to endure post-traumatic stress (pardon, I mean breakdowns) at some level.
Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
ON2 LF
()
Date: March 28, 2007 03:29PM
Quote
Possibility is the state of things that “are not, but could be” (the Aristotelian definition, more or less the same as in English language). For the lekkies, P is something that does exist right now when we speak and “impact how we are, how we see things”.
how bizarre is it to take a word with a commonly known definition and reintroduce that word like it has never been uttered before a landmark forum and in the reintroduction of that well known word, somehow manage to bullshit at least a hundred people or so at a time, into thinking it was invented by landmark. If that doesn't stand up as solid proof of group hypnosis and manipulation, nothing will.
Here's a profound concept: possibility means possibility... [i:4fbef6b5f4]oh, be still my enlightened heart! [/i:4fbef6b5f4]
I can't even get a circular thought going with this revelation, its so stupid! :shock:
Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
elena
()
Date: March 28, 2007 11:50PM
LOL...
Some wag pointed out a long time ago that the "magical" part of the schtick of ~possibility~ is the utter unlikelihood of a thing ever happening that draws in the crowds and that these scammers never concern themselves with the more prosaic "probability" as that usually doesn't sell much snake-oil. It's just so much of the same "miracle-cure," "miracle weight-loss," "miracle-life-changing" pap.
Ellen
Some wag pointed out a long time ago that the "magical" part of the schtick of ~possibility~ is the utter unlikelihood of a thing ever happening that draws in the crowds and that these scammers never concern themselves with the more prosaic "probability" as that usually doesn't sell much snake-oil. It's just so much of the same "miracle-cure," "miracle weight-loss," "miracle-life-changing" pap.
Ellen
Landmark Forum Revisited
Posted by:
ON2 LF
()
Date: March 29, 2007 07:29AM
Quote
Some wag pointed out a long time ago that the "magical" part of the schtick of ~possibility~ is the utter unlikelihood of a thing ever happening that draws in the crowds and that these scammers never concern themselves with the more prosaic "probability" as that usually doesn't sell much snake-oil. It's just so much of the same "miracle-cure," "miracle weight-loss," "miracle-life-changing" pap.
whoever the wag was should have at least written a warning brochure, for the present day masses, in big letters and very small words...
How do we get so drawn to the big [i:cc689e1f41]nothing[/i:cc689e1f41]??
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