Nano-nano, fellow cult-watchers! I love this here forum!
I've been staying at (not for much longer, thankfully) the house of a friend who has been becoming more & more involved with Landmark Group Therapy (or "Education Forum" as they prefer to term it - more marketable that way, of course)(Group Therapy for Village Idiots is what I call it) over the past 3 years or so. The friendship has not been helped (and I've seen several other friends/acquaintances of hers have the same experience) by all the hypocritical, ignorant & self-righteous Landmark-style preaching, badgering & brow-beating that I've had coming my way over the last several years from this friend who probably 'means well' (I suppose) but whose obvious true motive for all this parrotish regurgitation of empty jargon is her own egoistic need to think she has the answers for everything & everyone (without even enquiring into or attempting to understand with anything like an open mind - which is probably not even possible, for this person, alas - any particular problem or issue), fuelled by the potently rancid gas that is Landmark. (The friend is now a Landmark "Leader". All hail!)
Anyhoo, I have come to enormously enjoy the funnier examples of the tortured Landmark lingo. So please post here any of the more ridiculous stuff that you've come across.
Here are a few strange & interesting bits of LEK-speak that I've come across recently:

"No circumstance requires a negative conversation." [this one has been very passive-aggressively written in a communal place in large, red letters]

and some points from a sheet on Landmark evangelism advice:

"- Please be cleared and empowered before, during & after making these calls. Be in communication with your coach, your buddy or any IL to cause this.
- If guests are interested in hearing more about the Landmark Forum, invite them to a home introduction, or the seminar be [sic] a stand that they choose powerfully yes or no.
- Have fun, be great & get them complete."

Eerie, isn't it? It's like how aliens might talk. Aliens who are about to (try to) reprogram your brain. :D

Here's a link to some Landmarkers talking amongst themselves. If you can hold your nose through a couple a threads, it might give you a laugh. I would think a few pages of this stuff would send anyone screaming from the room who wasn't already involved with these nitwits.

[groups.yahoo.com]


Ellen

Not quiet right, Ellen! Only one post was enough for me!

The jargon was overpowering! It just goes to show how people stop thinking for themselves and adopt Landmark's loaded language and ideas.

What a joy to be able to think for one's self. I just don't see how Landmark's approach of one-size-fits-all can possibly work.

As individuals we all have our own unique lessons to learn. How can Landmark say our lives are not working? What do they really know about them?

[i:0bd592b560]'Plug in the formula and create another Landmarkian. It works with anyone.'[/i:0bd592b560]

Rubbish! But put people through all the coercive pressures used on the courses and it seems plenty of people will buy into their psychobabble...

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So please post here any of the more ridiculous stuff that you've come across.

When my friend drops into Landmarkspeak, I personally don't find it funny because I understand that he has been badgered into that state of mind through an insidiously crafted system of abuse.
When your friend is rattling off this language, consider that this is a way that her mind is trying to cope with having been assaulted.
To make an analogy, when a child has been through abuse, the child may invent a personality for her doll and play little games with it. This may be cute until you understand that it is a desperate coping mechanism.

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joe6
When my friend drops into Landmarkspeak, I personally don't find it funny because I understand that he has been badgered into that state of mind through an insidiously crafted system of abuse.
When your friend is rattling off this language, consider that this is a way that her mind is trying to cope with having been assaulted.
To make an analogy, when a child has been through abuse, the child may invent a personality for her doll and play little games with it. This may be cute until you understand that it is a desperate coping mechanism.

Hi Joe,

One of *my* coping mechanisms, when faced with seeing some of the people I knew turning into bigger and bigger jerks, pushy and obnoxious know-it-alls, and aggressive hustlers was/is to try to find the humor in the situation. I have had a good old time imagining them speaking in Landmarkese to each other, which must be the worst punishment of all for "buying in" to this nonsense. Which is exactly why it doesn't compare to child abuse; adults are more capable of judging a situation, at least initially, and they have to willingly, at least to some extent, suspend their own critical thinking to get the ball rolling. They are collaborators in their own brainwashing, much more than a child might be, which leads them to be somewhat at fault in the situation. Though there are certainly pure confidence games in which the victim is completly innocent, more often the "mark" has his own ego, vanity, or greed pandered to and leveraged against him. I would put Landmark more in this category, except, of course, when they run those stupid children's Forums.


Ellen

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MiniTru
"No circumstance requires a negative conversation." [this one has been very passive-aggressively written on the fridge in large, red letters]"

Ummmm.... my sentiments exactly as I watched the Wolrd Trade Centers implode before my eyes.... gosh darn, I said to myself, whoever was responsible for this is perfect just the way he is, and no circumstance requires a negative conversation !!!... I felt so much better I want out and ordered a great big pizza with the works ! It was a win for me it was !

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and some points from a sheet on Landmark evangelism advice:

- Have fun, be great & get them complete."

Are these none too subtle thinkers capable of explaining what they mean by "be great " ? How does one "be great" ? More of their non-specific, unreferenced, overgeneralized doofus admonitions.... like, everyone is supposed to carry around in their minds a "behavioral greatness generating program" that only needs to be linguistically activated when an [b:06fca7751e] enlightened being [/b:06fca7751e] (they're the ones taking your money to share these kibbles of wisdom with you) sidles up and shares, " hey there, unevolved mass of protoplasm, be great" !!! ... and this is like, supposed to trigger some form of instantaneous manifestation of greatitude ?

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nutrino

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MiniTru
"No circumstance requires a negative conversation." [this one has been very passive-aggressively written on the fridge in large, red letters]"

Ummmm.... my sentiments exactly as I watched the Wolrd Trade Centers implode before my eyes.... gosh darn, I said to myself, whoever was responsible for this is perfect just the way he is, and no circumstance requires a negative conversation !!!... I felt so much better I want out and ordered a great big pizza with the works ! It was a win for me it was !

Yep! This "negative" crap, misused, misapplied, is one of the roadsigns that finally lead me out of the land of trance.

I was going along with the program when BAM, some real (ugly) life happened. I didn't have a joyous response to the manner in which my father died, along with a few other nasty occurences, and I was about ex-communicated from the cult (thank god!) because I had committed one of the sins: I was "at the effect of my emotions". I wasn't robotic enough.

Which started me thinking about the negative thing. I saw that their magic trick for "negative" thinking was REFRAME, i.e. tell yourself a LIE about how you feel or think.

Step one: quit lying to myself, which led me to more analysis. If I lose a $2 pen that I like, that is something I can reframe. If my father has been poisoned to death by doctors, there is no comparison. It's an assault on my humanity to reframe that I'm hurt, angry, upset.

Once again, their surreal, magic tricks are one-size-fits-all. And what a lie that is!

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elena
They are collaborators in their own brainwashing, much more than a child might be, which leads them to be somewhat at fault in the situation.

Certainly it depends partly on the person, given that some people get sucked into Landmark while others are repelled.
And certainly many get sucked in because Landmark panders to their own "ego, vanity, or greed". But Landmark also panders to "people with low self esteem or who
are somewhat depressed or dissatisfied" (to quote a previous message).
The friends I've watched get sucked in don't go in with a latent desire to become estholes. They go in with a latent desire to be relieved of their desperate self-doubt - at any cost, including being turned into self-satisfied estholes.
The result is the same, but to me the root cause makes it a little less humorous.

What I love most about it is the way that it can be used to discount ANY views, thoughts, or concepts which go against their beliefs:

[i:9d64e135dc]"Don't worry, that's not him talking, that's just his programs!" [/i:9d64e135dc]

If you don't want to do what they want, your "resistance program" is going.
If they don't want to do what you want, they're making a conscious decision to do what's right for them, and if you don't think so, that's just "your thing".
I'm actually a little envious at how well it works for them.

Yes...

LOL

The card-sharks and pool-hustlers and all the other con-artists do pretty well because they feel no necessity to adhere to the normal rules of engagement. They are liars, manipulators, and cheaters. What chance does an honest person have against these guys?

It's not a level playing field.

Landmark, and all the other Landmarks, are psycho-cons.


Ellen