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Hi, just discovered this site. I recognise the Landmark/Est-talk immediately and it's so funny to hear this from someone else, with the humoristic undertone... I'll keep browsing this forum for more stories - it's good!
Let me think if there's more stuff that hasn't been quoted here...

Hi Europe-girl,
Just a question:
Are you a 'committed' follower of landmark's doctrines of reality, life in general, and language?

HI ON2 LF, what do you reckon when I say that there is a real nasty side to this language stuff?!
I used to be very committed - haven't been for years now.
Can't explain why exactly, but reading here, recognising the stories is very healing.

Why do you ask me this question?

Hi again Europe-girl,
Sorry if I was overly quick to question you. To be honest, I did not reckon much beyond the term 'stories' in your opening comment.

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I'll keep browsing this forum for more stories - it's good!

As you know, the term "stories" is used by practicing landmarkians to shut down or devalue any significant personal meaning to experiences disclosed or shared by others. Often those experiences are painful and need to be validated, but the average landmarker doesn't understand that and will reduce the significance and legitimacy of those experiences as 'stories', instead.
I wasn't sure what to conclude, so I asked and if I've offended you, I am truly sorry. I should have exercised a bit more tact in my question to you.

Haha ON2 LF, thanks - yes I was offended, but I understand you completely. Can you imagine I really forgot the jargon 'story'? How is it possible!! Thank goodness some of the stuff does go away... :wink: As I said by the way, I was carefull not to drop jargon on a non-landmarker. And how lonely that was...

ON2 LF, if you have more questions; I have opened a new subject on this forum. I'll keep returning here to read and share more of the cult-jargon.
It is fun! :)

Here's more that comes from deep down my 'database':

"What is informing your about-to-be?"
"I don't 'get' what you are saying" (so practice your share once more...)
"I am a stand for selfexpression, leadership and love" (and so on)
"I stand for 10 enrollments this evening"
"I would like to acknowledge the team of assistants for..." (mind you: getting an acknowledgement from a leader is big!).
"being a listening for someone's possibilities"
and God there was one where you were the listening for someones integrity or something, I forgot... Is that a plus? :wink:
(that was a good one by the way, not only did they choke you with your own promises, now you were responsible for other's promises too!).

My conclusion about the landmark language is simply this: werner was so far removed, socially and morally, from the true definition and meaning contained in terms or expressions like 'authentic', 'making a stand', 'integrity' etc...that he had to invent definitions that were much less real and convicting for him. So, 'making a stand' becomes something quite empty like 'being a stand' or 'I am a stand'...'authentic' is now interchangeable with 'corruption' and 'manipulation'. 'Already always listening' is now 'shrewdly selectivly hearing' or just plain 'talk to the hand, the face ain't listening'...unless of course if you're talking money and more unsuspecting recruits.
One expression he can never redefine or manipulate in anyway, however, is 'empty and meaningless'. He started a cult full of empty and meaningless promises to its followers, anyone who has been a follower sooner or later will have to admit that anything learned in landmark was empty and meaningless, afterall, you can't create something meaningful out of something empty and meaningless...that's like a mafia hitman donating stolen money to a church expecting to launder his evil actions into good works. Even the 'legacy' werner has conned so hard at creating, is empty and meaningless....if it meant anything more than that, he becomes the ultimate hypocrite, not that he isn't in the real world. Wasn't he the one who took this twisted existential philosophy and turned it into his life? The end result of that kind of life and resulting legacy, is EMPTY AND MEANINGLESS. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Thank you Europe-girl and on2 life for your observations.

It's good to know there is hope for my friends who have bean thru the Brian Klemmer seminars.

Maybe someday soon they will be able to see how their behaviour and jargon really sounded to the rest of us.

The attitude of superiority and "I am enlightened, I have the answers, and I got it all in a few short seminars" is just amazing.

I happen to believe there is a source for answers to life's many problems.
It's called the Word of God or Bible.

And the interesting thing is exposure to God's Word produces an attitude of humility and contentment, not arrogance.

@ON2 LF,
I support you absolutely in warning people for organizations like Landmark. But please take into account that you sometimes miss the subtleness in the words used in Landmark. Roughly you’re on the right track, but if a Landmark-graduate who starts to doubt reads this, he/she will think: “you see, they don’t understand what this is all about” and may run back to the comfort zone of Landmark. So here some remarks.

[i:72c9f6ee47]My conclusion about the landmark language is simply this: werner was so far removed, socially and morally, from the true definition and meaning contained in terms or expressions like 'authentic', 'making a stand', 'integrity' etc...that he had to invent definitions that were much less real and convicting for him. So, 'making a stand' becomes something quite empty like 'being a stand' or 'I am a stand'...[/i:72c9f6ee47]
In Landmark they consciously make a distinction between being, doing, having. As followers of Zen and other groups have pointed out, ‘being’ is not as empty as it seems. (or because it is empty, it’s useful).

[i:72c9f6ee47]'authentic' is now interchangeable with 'corruption' and 'manipulation'. 'Already always listening' is now 'shrewdly selectivly hearing' or just plain 'talk to the hand, the face ain't listening'...unless of course if you're talking money and more unsuspecting recruits. [/i:72c9f6ee47]
Already always listening is considered a ‘bad’ thing in Landmark, not a positive!

[i:72c9f6ee47]One expression he can never redefine or manipulate in anyway, however, is 'empty and meaningless'. He started a cult full of empty and meaningless promises to its followers, anyone who has been a follower sooner or later will have to admit that anything learned in landmark was empty and meaningless, afterall, you can't create something meaningful out of something empty and meaningless...that's like a mafia hitman donating stolen money to a church expecting to launder his evil actions into good works. [/i:72c9f6ee47]
There are many philosophies based on this ‘empty and meaningless’. At the core it’s not such a bad idea or starting point. That is the trick with Landmark; they use interesting ideas for their own benefit (or whatever). If you attack this idea, you shoot yourself in the foot, it gives room for followers to keep hanging on to the Landmark-indoctrination.
If you want to hit them where it hurts, ask them: if life is empty and meaningless, and you create your own meaning, then why is it so important to enrol people? After all; life doesn’t mean anything?! And if they answer: because I get the result if I pass this miracle forward, then ask them: is that so? Have you personally experienced this…?

I see your points and agree that when speaking to a landmark follower, they will only counter argue with the 'knowledge' provided them by LE programs. The idea is not to win an argument against LE 'reasoning' however, it is to point out how and why LE is so flawed and destructive in practice. And to bring to the forefront, awareness of how the many seemingly profound ideologies/philosophies of LE are used to control and direct the minds of followers.
One does not need to experience the LE forum to understand anything about its dangers, in fact experiencing a forum is where the breakdown of sound logic and reasoning begins. I'm sure I would have a much clearer understanding as to the nature of the high experienced by crystal meth users if I tried it just once, but common sense tells me not to go there.
Even pointing out that the promised results of a forum, depend on enrollment and taking further courses, doesn't work. It's really up to the follower to desire truth more than anything to enable a break away from LE's destructive hold.
I've tried many times to reason with a friend about LE's contradictory and unreasonable views about what truth is and how it is distorted by LE, but it bounces off like a rubber ball against a stone wall. I can waste alot of time arguing about how sick and repulsive LE doctrines are, and I do, but at the end of the day, the only thing that is going to hit home is the continual feeling of emptiness and desperation for more of that LE high, and how to find new resources to build it up again. I believe, it is in those moments that a follower is most susceptible to the truth but that is also where the guilt and the shame over perceived failure and 'inauthenticity' instilled by LE, seems to have a life and voice of its own. So, really, someone like me wastes their time and energy arguing when really it is only the cold hard truth of living life that will cause a follower to see how dangerous LE teachings are.
Life is said to be 'empty and meaningless', ONLY until the day that LE gets its hooks into a person's mind. After that day, life mysteriously becomes full of purpose, with meaning so powerful that it can change the world.

I get your point. In those years I would not have listened to anything. Actually the only thing that got me out, was me. The ONE thing that I could never deal with or explain authenticly (!) was the enrollment-part. And many followers with me. So I think if you would try to break through the brainwash, that is a good starting point. People DO feel alienated from people around them (who refuse to do Landmark) and it does stir something you know.
And just to be plain honest with you, because you haven't been involved, you sometimes say things about Landmark or their believe-system that are not correct and as an ex-Landmarker it annoys me. :oops: Ha, I'm still human after all! But I give you credit for seeing through a lot of the bulsh*t without having participated!