If there is anyone out there who can help - it will be greatly appreciated. My best friend in the world is involved with Landmark Education. I myself did not make the connection until she kept calling it the Forum and then had me go to an introduction meeting. She has been with the people for 2 years now. I'm afraid it may be too late. Now she is talking about leaving her husband of 20 years because he won't be a party to this and she feels he is no longer worthy. Does any one out there have any suggestions?!?!?

OK - Now I'm really becomming concerned. Have logged on to several spiritual sites. Everytime I mention Landmark - everyone disappears. I did get one response from a person in CA - they are a landmark person as well and don't want to discuss this in the chat room. Gave me an e-mail or an option to call on the phone.

What is with this group? Why won't anyone talk about it or offer any help?

It is often difficult to help people leave Landmark who are deeply involved without professional help.

See [culteducation.com]

There is an educational video volume available that makes the basic information easier to digest.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Also, there is a research paper available through this website that explains in some depth the inherent problems with many mass marathon training programs like Landmark.

See [culteducation.com]

Of course you have probably already seen the large archive of information within this database.

Look through the following related pages of information about Landmark, EST and the Forum.

[culteducation.com]
[culteducation.com]
[culteducation.com]

I hope this is helpful.

Again, it is difficult without professional help to get someone deeply involved to sit down and really listen to the information. But of course you could try.

Rick Ross
Moderator

RRModerator -

Thanks a million for the response and the web info. I will pass this on to my friend's husband - Hopefully I will see her today - but now am glim of the outcome. If there is anyone out there who attended any portion of this classes and has some insightful information for me it would be greatly and deeply appreciated.

Although Landmark, like their "spiritual" predecesors, the scientologists, are pretty aggressive about going after anyone who might harm their reputation or bottom line. You sort of have to operate under the radar, but their are public critics and anti-cult activists who were involved with Landmark. Check Carol Giambalvo's site, if you haven't already. I posted her essay, "The Hunger Project Inside-Out," on alt.fan.landmark when the Landmark legal department asked her to remove it from her website. ( AOL actually shut down her website when Landmark officials complained.)

Landmark are pretty good at busting up marriages. The programs often make people self-centered and arrogant. In the early days, adherents were called est-holes. They know that people are their most vulnerable and manipulabe after some major loss, and the lonely make the best "slave-labor," or "assistants."

You may contact me, if you like. (I am not a deprogrammer or exit counselor but my posting address is deprogrammm@MailandNews.com)


Ellen

Though it is out of print, you can get a copy of "Outrageous Betrayal" from a used book dealer for around $10.00 or so. Her husband should read this and you, as well, if you haven't already. Educate yourself before you try to talk with her any further. This is a very insidious group and if she's been involved with them for two years, she is probably "locked-in."

Ellen

Starhome,

I apologize for the delay in responding. I attended LF and can honestly say I don't know what would be helpful. If your friend is really into it, trying to convince her she's being conned and under LF influence may send her further into it.

You might gently refer her to this forum and Rick's site, and ask her to read it with an open mind and then give you some feedback.

You can let her know that an attorney is also reading this forum and has contacted some of us regarding a class action lawsuit against LE because enough people have had problems with the "training."

If you missed the rest of the threads, go the main page that lists all forums and scroll down. There is a box to click on and you can see all the posts from the beginning.

If this is any comfort at all, the people in my Forum who were really gung ho about it when they completed the weekend, have lost interest and really regret their behavior in the weeks immediately following it.

entitled 'Looking for Sterling Wives.' . But on page 2 or 3 you will find a very important collection of material submitted by Elena. She found it on Google alt.fan.landmark.

The except quoted by Elena originally posted by a former trainer/recruiter who left his LGAT after he discovered that he was using powerful methods of trance induction and was hypnotizing people. He describes this in detail.

Trance is powerful and should ONLY be administered by a trained mental health professional who has the client's best interests in mind, and has carefully assessed the person and given him/her the opportunity for informed consent. Problematic LGATs are profit driven operation, and the trainers are not mental health professionals.

>>They are using powerful techniques derived from social psychology and trance work without any accountability to the codes of ethics that govern the work of research psychologists and mental health professionals.>>


The way Landmark sidestep this is to claim that they do not offer psychotherapy, psychological counseling, or any therapeutic type of service. They claim to offer programs for "well" people, thus pandering to those somewhat neurotic, somewhat depressed, or somewhat troubled in other ways who do not wish to stigmatize themselves by admitting to some formal mental "condition." It's no secret to the leaders that they cull from the depressed, mostly. Or people who believe that they are the cause of their own problems and need to submit themselves to be "fixed." Victims are self-selected, so-to-speak. As are the hypnotizable. Theoretically, only 10 to 20% of the population are truly hypnotizable. By the end of the "introductory meeting" Landmark officials know these are the 10 to 20% of the audience who sign up for the programs. They don't want people they can't control or influence.

Interesting to note that Landmark programs put many people into a chronic "dissociative" state. The feeling of being somehow detached or separate from reality is one of their "results." While this can be therapeutic in the right setting, seeing your problems from a distance, for instance, it can also be quite harmful and dangerous to the psyche, as you know. They repeat many times duting the training, to the point of stupefaction, "Nothing is real!"
Check Grizz's first post on afl for a good victim's-eye view of this. The thread is titled "24 years of brainwashed thinking."


Ellen

but the sense of separation from reality that comes from dissociation, may be the same as a condition known as 'Zen sickness'. It has been known in Japanese Zen for at least 200 years, and the great Rinzai master Hakuin suffered from it. He felt trapped in emtiness and alientated from reality after years of intense meditation. However, as a true Buddhist, Hakuin knew that his path was supposed to equip him not merely with wisdom, but also with compassion--the capacity to feel lovingly concerned and connected with the world and all beings in it.

So he knew he was in trouble and looked for help. Eventually he found a Taoist who taught him some methods of physical exercise that reconnected Hakuin with his body and human emotions and healed his dissociation. It took him 2 to 3 years to accomplish this. The Tibetan Buddhists also recognize problems of this kind.

Thats the danger when powerful methods from Zen, yoga and tangtra are applied out of their ethical and spiritual context. A Buddhist knows what effect his or her meditation practice should have, and what the indications are that something is going wrong and needs correction. But Landmark is leading people into a desert--and not giving them warnings.

Zen was also taught and practiced in monasteries where everyone worked hard--in China and Japan, monasteries raised their own food, latrines had to be cleaned, water had to be fetched from wells, and cooking was hard labor. Meditation practices that turned people into zombies would have endangered the survival of a monastery. A bunch of zombies would have let the vegetables rot in the ground and would not have planted and harvested the rice on time. When everyone lived close to subsistence, they learned, very quickly, which mediation practices brought enlightenment AND supported society, and which practices endangered the survival of a group.

But in highly developed urban societies like ours, a group can get away with peddling methods that generate casualties--behavior that would get Landmark tarred and feathered, where they to try this stuff in a subsistence economy where nonsence is punished by crop failure and starvation.