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Just a quick reply, I'll go into more detail when I have time. I did the forum in Melbourne Australia in July this year. There was no abuse from the leader to any participant, just prodding and cajoling when necessary.

The forum started at 9am, the breaks were at about 11.30am , 2.30 PM, for 20 minutes each, and then at 6.30 pm for an hour and a half. There were many restaurants and cafes within 15 minutes walk, and a convenience store next door. It ended at 10pm each night.

Having said that, I still think LEC is an evil cult that others need be made aware of.

Different forum leaders have different ways of managing the participants, I think the one thing I would say is that the Australian/New Zealand based leaders such as Cathy Elliot, Jane Wright, Menal would not be quite as abusive towards particpants as some of the american leaders would.

I have never forgotten being literally yelled at when I was on staff by leaders such as Roger Armstrong, Jinindra Jain and Randy McNamara. I also remember being belittled by David Miles.

As for the breaks, yes they are relatively regular 11.30, 2.30 and 6.30pm but in all the forums I was involved with either as a participant, asistant or staff member they never finished earlier then 11.45 or midnight. Then add to that there was always home work to do. Plus in breaks you were expected to make contact with people so you ended up not really having breaks.

I would be interested in knowing who took your forum and what their end of night results were - particularly if they made the grade according to landmark - not that you would be able to provide that information.

I know from memory the "nicer" leaders regularly failed in meeting their requirements. There were generally not enough guests and those guests that were there did not register. and it doesn't count if they register later!

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I know from memory the "nicer" leaders regularly failed in meeting their requirements. There were generally not enough guests and those guests that were there did not register. and it doesn't count if they register later!

That's really interesting with regards to there being attendee requirements (quotas?) for leaders to meet. Can you please tell us some more?

John

I was checking out the cayman islands for any mentions of landmark, since the founder and leader hides there...came up with an old article from april/2006.
I don't imagine its news to anyone who follows the spewings and activities of these hoodlums but I found it incredibly stunning! I know I'm an idiot to let anything shock me where LF is concerned but they actually claim in the article that landmark IS NOT the old est!! They're also slamming Mr. Ross in the article, which only confirms the GREAT job he's been doing with this site in its purpose for creating awareness to a world that desperately needs it! anyway, in case anyone is interested, here's the link.

www.caymannetnews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000008/000871.htm

Every course has statistics to meet, and whether or not they are met gives the overall success of that course. A course that met all the stats was sucessful or "a home run"

Some of the statistics that are measured are seminar registrations, I can't remember exact numbers any more but from memory its something like 95% of participants will register into a seminar

then there are advanced course registrations, so a large percentage of participants will register into the advance course

after that is the number of guests a participants brings on "graduation" night. and by guests we are only talking about those who haven't done the forum yet.

the next stat is of those guests how many register into the forum

finally of the other guests who come, who registers into advance course if they haven't already done it

the staff often spend the day after a course calling participants getting them registered to meet stats other wise its painful to go through a "integrity check" of why the centre failed.

I'd say my forum was a 'failure' for Cathy Eliot, only 160 people did the forum, and 110 the follow up seminar. Friends of mine who were assisting were surprised at the low numbers.

One of them also 'almost' complained of having to set the pens out by each seat 3 times, she had a really bad back at the time, and the course supervisor wasn't impressed with the job, then the leader said some form placed under the pens was not required. Of course she didn't really complain, that would have been running a racket!!!!

At about the 5th seminar, they brought in a 'heavyweight' to encourage enrollment, because guests to the seminar were down (to 1 or 2 a night). It was so obvious from the body language of the seminar leader (Drew Knowles) that his authority was being usurped.

That was the last time I went. Hallelujah, I am saved!!!

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ON2 LF
I was checking out the cayman islands for any mentions of landmark, since the founder and leader hides there...came up with an old article from april/2006.
www.caymannetnews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000008/000871.htm

Art Schreiber is obviously an amazingly incompetent lawyer, its clear Landmark and Werner Erhard keep him on, as Schreiber know where the "skeletons" are buried, and knows all of the inside dirt on Landmark, Werner Erhard and his family businesses.
It sorta makes you think of those old Godfather movies...where they have the Family lawyer, who basically becomes part of the Family.

Art Schreiber is about to be dealt several more legal defeats, and who knows, maybe the Rosenberg Family will turn on him, and cast him out?
Doubt it though, he knows too much...

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sonnie_dee

the staff often spend the day after a course calling participants getting them registered to meet stats other wise its painful to go through a "integrity check" of why the centre failed.

Hi Sonnie,

Dollars to do-nuts an "integrity check" is the Landmark version of a scientology "sec-check," which scientologists dread to the point of censoring their own thoughts in order to avoid.


Ellen

In terms of the statistics, I wonder if part of the Forum leaders' compensation is based on their statistics of how many new people enroll on the "completion night" (recruitment night). On my "completion night," not many guests were registering, and the look on the leader's face was sheer panic. He then had participants go to the mike and explain why you should register NOW and not wait to register. It was strange to see the leader appear terrified because his prior demeanor was so confident. This is the same leader who said during the course that he was still teaching because he didn't have enough money to retire.

How interesting in the Cayman article that Art Schreiber only refers to "Landmark's founder" and does not specify Werner Erhard by name. I never heard a Landmark Forum leader utter the words "Werner Erhard" or "EST." It was always "when this education began" or "when we started this technology". However, my seminar leader did refer to Erhard, reminding us that according to Erhard, you should always be enrolled in a seminar. He then went on to praise those people who began with the technology in its first year and are still taking classes with Landmark today. I feel sorry for those people.

as an outsider who likes to speculate, I had thought if recruitment dipped below a certain level that the forum leaders lose their jobs and, I imagine, a major source of joy and pride for them.

I do know that to even get considered for a leadership position, you have to had recruited a certain number of people. LEC works on social Darwinist principles that way and it makes total sense for an organization so totally reliant on viral marketing.

after reading one of the est books, I calculated it for myself that out of all the grads, one of seven thousand went on to have a place in the corporation. so they get the most charismatic, persuasive, fastest on their feet.

one new idea that I got form the french documentary: that while LEC itself doesn't have a charismatic leader (any more), they train the various forum leaders to serve as surrogate leaders. as Erhard himself said, "your job is to re-create me."

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How interesting in the Cayman article that Art Schreiber only refers to "Landmark's founder" and does not specify Werner Erhard by name. I never heard a Landmark Forum leader utter the words "Werner Erhard" or "EST." It was always "when this education began" or "when we started this technology". However, my seminar leader did refer to Erhard, reminding us that according to Erhard, you should always be enrolled in a seminar. He then went on to praise those people who began with the technology in its first year and are still taking classes with Landmark today. I feel sorry for those people.

There is much to feel sorry about. When I was there in the megalomaniacal heyday of est, "werner" was present in every conversation, we were all one with werner, werner was source, we had the "opportunity" to stand up and give thanks to Source at the end of one of our advanced seminars... it was such an ass-kiss-o-rama as to not be believed... However, they leaarned their lessons from Father of Source, L.Ron Hubbard, all to well.... the Scientologists have a belief, or theory, some whacko mental thing they call [b:a10a81eaad]Depersoning[/b:a10a81eaad] ... wherein something that is disruptive, or has bad cooties associated with it, like, uh... [b:a10a81eaad]El Phycomongo Himself[/b:a10a81eaad] is handled with a kind of group[b:a10a81eaad] "negative hallucination"[/b:a10a81eaad] ... a massive group infantile regression trance of causing the problem to dissappear by "not giving it energy" ... look under the hood of this particular Vehicle to Valhalla and you will find many loose nuts rattling around....