My employer is paying a lot of money to Mark Kamin & Associates for their business consulting services. After having to sit in an all day seminar where the speaker rambled on and on saying practically nothing but acting like he was saying something profound, I became suspicious. It almost seemed like a scam to me.

After doing some web searches on the company, I discovered that Mark Kamin and several of his employees were once part of Landmark Education.

I came across some terms use by Landmark that were the same in my seminar: "extraordinary communication", "already always listening", "what you know, what you know that you don't know, what you don't know that you don't know", "technology".

Is anyone familiar with Mark Kamin & Associates?

[www.mka-world.com]

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gman
My employer is paying a lot of money to Mark Kamin & Associates for their business consulting services. After having to sit in an all day seminar where the speaker rambled on and on saying practically nothing but acting like he was saying something profound, I became suspicious. It almost seemed like a scam to me.

After doing some web searches on the company, I discovered that Mark Kamin and several of his employees were once part of Landmark Education.

I came across some terms use by Landmark that were the same in my seminar: "extraordinary communication", "already always listening", "what you know, what you know that you don't know, what you don't know that you don't know", "technology".

Is anyone familiar with Mark Kamin & Associates?

[www.mka-world.com]

Another copy-cat. There are hundreds. So many Landmark "grads" feel the ~empowerment~ to go out and start scamming people on their own. They rarely remember to drop the characteristic jargon, though, which gives them away pretty quickly.

Funny, he uses a bank in Houston called "Sterling" which coincidentally happens to be the "church" of scientology's business front-group name. These apples never fall far from the tree.

I wonder if you tell your employer that Mark Kamin came from Landmark which came from "est" which came from scientology that it would mean anything to him.

Keep us posted. You've hit the nail on the head about the speaker saying practically nothing. Werner Erhard used to laugh about selling ~nothing~ and for the same reason L. Ron Hubbard laughed about selling people a "piece of blue sky."


Ellen

Thanks for the info. I cannot find any link between Sterling Bank and Sterling Management Systems. But I'm still looking!

As I continue to read about Landmark Education, I recognize a few more terms that I've also heard in the Mark Kamin seminar:
"get it"
"coaching"
"transformation"

I just noticed on the Mark Kamin & Associates web site it says "Created by Nate Rosenberg". If I were a betting man, I'd guess that is a relative of John Rosenberg (Werner Erhard).

--g

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gman
Thanks for the info. I cannot find any link between Sterling Bank and Sterling Management Systems. But I'm still looking!

As I continue to read about Landmark Education, I recognize a few more terms that I've also heard in the Mark Kamin seminar:
"get it"
"coaching"
"transformation"

I just noticed on the Mark Kamin & Associates web site it says "Created by Nate Rosenberg". If I were a betting man, I'd guess that is a relative of John Rosenberg (Werner Erhard).

--g

I don't know that there's any connection between the bank and the Co$. Just a coincidence, most likely. Although nothing would surprise me when it comes to these people. If you want to read an interesting story about scientologists scamming their own, look up Reed Slatkin (yes, one of the "founders" of Earthlink) on Google or here.

I'm surprised Kamin "credited" Nate Rosenberg, who is Werner Erhard's brother. He didn't "create" anything much that I know of -- just jumped on the band-wagon, or gravy-train, if you like. These guys rarely give credit where credit is due or reveal their "sources." They're more likely to claim that they were struck by some kind of spiritual lightning or something. I wonder if he was threatened or coerced in some way. My bet would be that Kamin's got the goods on them and threatened to spill unless he was allowed to go into the business for himself.

One thing these idiots can't seem to do is find replacement words for the "magic" words and phrases that have worked so well for them in the past. They all seem to treat them as talismans or beads on their rosary they dare not tamper with so as not to jinx the voo-doo snake-oil they peddle. You'd thing ~transformation~ and ~breakthroughs~ would have gone into the cultural scrap-heap by now but Noooooo. They still offer up these bits of rotting bait and still seem to be able to hook a few with them.

Where are you, if you don't mind saying?


Ellen

By golly, I'll just betcha George Martinez was a Landmark student, "enrollee," or follower. He probably got involved with Kamin through Landmark, from the evidence he gives below:

[www.mka-world.com]
Sterling Bank
George Martinez

"...During that period, I also used Mark as a personal coach. His commitment to the integrity of our relationship and to serving my interests and the interests of our shareholders was impeccable. Mark continually challenged me beyond the comfortable. This allowed me to develop and enhance my life and my value to the organization. It was a career-making relationship for me.”


Notice the buzz-words: "commitment," "integrity," and "impeccable," -- all words with "special" meanings to Landmarkers. They usually come in handy for post-hypnotic-suggestion or thought-stopping purposes.


Ellen

Here's a bit from an article from a couple of years ago:


Turn up, tune in, transform?

The Independent,London (UK), December 5, 2003
Mary Braid reports

...Mark Kamin, who handles Landmark's PR out of Texas, describes the Forum as
"a philosophical inquiry into the way we look at life". He rejects
absolutely that it is a cult, or that it employs any cult- like mind-control
techniques. With 125,000 people in 54 cities across the globe currently
"doing the Forum" each year, and annual earnings of $58m (pounds 34m),
Landmark is understandably sensitive to the allegations.

Kamin puts the adverse publicity down to a sensation-seeking media. He
disagrees that Landmark's connection with the now defunct "est" - Landmark
was founded by former est members who purchased Erhard's "technology" (in
layman's terms, ideas and methods) - is partly to blame, but it is hard not
to conclude that Landmark picked up some of the smell around est along with
Erhard's ideas. Est was, after all, accused of using harsh control
techniques. And est folded after scandal engulfed Werner Erhard. Erhard was
accused of abuse by his daughters - at least one later recanted - and tax
fraud. Mark Kamin points out that Erhard never faced criminal charges on
either accusation and that he eventually successfully sued the US tax
service for $200,000 for wrongful disclosure.

Kamin says that Erhard has nothing to do with the organisation now and that
his "technology" has been developed and modified by Landmark staff. Kamin
denies that Erhard receives any income from Landmark, but he confirms that
Erhard's younger brother Harry is Landmark's CEO.

Landmark fights hard to counter cult allegations. Kamin cites the 1999 study
by Professor Raymond Fowler, then executive vice- president of the American
Psychological Association, who attended a Forum course and reviewed the
methods that Landmark says it uses to screen for the emotionally unstable.
Fowler said that he had seen nothing harmful. "The Forum is not a cult or
anything like a cult," Fowler concluded."

(Fowler is often used by cults as an apologist.)


Ellen

I'd rather not say just yet where I'm located. I am going to reveal what to my company I've found in the next week or so.

I will keep you posted!

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elena

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gman
Thanks for the info. I cannot find any link between Sterling Bank and Sterling Management Systems. But I'm still looking!

-g

I don't know that there's any connection between the bank and the Co$. Just a coincidence, most likely.

Sterling Bank is a reputable company with no connection to Landmark. Sterling is a very comon word and is probably used by a lot of unrelated businesses.

Quote

By golly, I'll just betcha George Martinez was a Landmark student, "enrollee," or follower. He probably got involved with Kamin through Landmark, from the evidence he gives below:

[www.mka-world.com]
Sterling Bank
George Martinez

"...During that period, I also used Mark as a personal coach. His commitment to the integrity of our relationship and to serving my interests and the interests of our shareholders was impeccable. Mark continually challenged me beyond the comfortable. This allowed me to develop and enhance my life and my value to the organization. It was a career-making relationship for me.”


Notice the buzz-words: "commitment," "integrity," and "impeccable," -- all words with "special" meanings to Landmarkers. They usually come in handy for post-hypnotic-suggestion or thought-stopping purposes.

Perhaps, but it is certainly starting to sound like George Martinez, who works for Sterling Bank, is a shill for Landmark Education...

If George Martinez does as his superiors at Landmark Education wish, perhaps it will not be long before all of Sterling Bank's employees volunteer performing menial tasks as shown in,
[www.youtube.com] ,
in Landmark Education's "assisting program" during their spare time...

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blarney36363636
If George Martinez does as his superiors at Landmark Education wish, perhaps it will not be long before all of Sterling Bank's employees volunteer performing menial tasks

As much as anything else, cults are about slave labor; how to identify ~potential~ worker bees, how to recruit them, how to indoctrinate them, and how to keep them working hard and not causing any trouble for the boss. Too bad the "slaves" can't see this, but that's the name of the game - a certain willed blindness, or a combination of having one's mind co-opted and some degree of collusion in the process (at least in the beginning).

What big company, organisation, boss, tyrant, dictator, power-player, big-shot, top-of-the-heap type wouldn't love to utilize this "technology" to further his own ambitions? It can't be any big secret to the guys at the top.


Ellen