Together with Dutch assistance, the liberal English political establishment booted out an English king (Jame 11 1688) who was trying to subvert English political institutions & kept pushing his belief system on people who didnt want it. (does this sound familiar?) The Whigs and the Dutch helped kick James out, and preserved the English rule of law.

The Dutch and the UK together helped defeat the pretensions of Louis XIV, who like James was a Catholic bigot and persecuted those who refused to convert.

Je Maintiendrai (I shall maintain)--the unique human capacity for free thought and freedom to make fully informed decisions!

Corboy and Dutch - thanks for the welcome guys.
I ~declare~ I am ~being~ a ~stand~ for the ~possibility~ of a group here in London for ex-Landmarker staff and volunteers and those in recovery from Landmark.

Maybe someone in the UK will read this and we can get together. In the meantime, I salute this site, afl, freedomofmind and R&R as great places for survivors to hook up and support each other via the Web.

Dutch – I wish you luck with a group in Amsterdam.

Corboy – I don’t know where you are in the States, are there any survivors groups over there that you are aware of ? Or groups working with health professionals to warn the public about the dangers of Landmark ?

I just read that gc4062 and his survivors group is in Canada, which is a little way off my regular beat.

One of my assisting jobs in London was as Source Person for the Teen and Young Persons Forums, and I still have nightmares about the young daughter of a friend of mine (herself a Landmark fan) who committed suicide in 2002 aged just 17 after doing the Curriculum when she was only 14 or 15 years old. I want to publicise this sort of disaster more widely to health professionals who may be unaware of the possible consequences of Landmark manipulation/brainwashing.

I like the suggestion in the Tony Robbins thread on this board that mental health professionals be contacted every time Robbins is in their town to warn them to expect psychotic breakdowns or bi-polar episodes in their local population after Robbins visits.

It would be great to do the same thing every time The Forum hits your town. A well publicised letter to the local press via a press release might re-enforce the message. I also want to contact mental health charities (like Mind in the UK) to warn them of the dangers of Landmark.

Anyone in the UK who wants to join me in my anti-Landmark work please get in touch.
There may be others already doing this work who I haven’t met. I am aware of the name of Ian Howarth of the Cult Information Centre here in London as one resource I can contact. He was featured last month on the excellent 2 part BBC radio documentary which basically demolished est and Landmark [www.bbc.co.uk]

Chris

in the US..

Before you start your group, chris, I advise having some private e-mail conversations with Rick Ross. You need to safeguard the privacy of your group and protect yourself from vindictive lawsuits. You need advice on security for your group., your documents, and if you set up a website, get expert advice on how to protect it.
.

How many trolls and cult-apologists can be counted in one thread?
You just have to appreciate the humor in it. :D

Kudos for $375Lighter for starting a thread that is honey for the flies.

Guy

$375 lighter- I would have loved to hear your take on that!

I'm working on a story for Stayfree magazine about that experience. To think, I just came to support a friend's graduation (?) ceremony ("Oh no, it's a 'completion') that I assumed would last 1 1/2 -2 hours, only to be dragooned into staying nearly 5 hours during a snowstorm.

If you ever happen to go to one of those 'completion' evenings, I'd love to hear about it. As it was, I was freaked out by the maze of small classrooms and officious volunteers staffing the tables (there were Advanced Course and an Introductory Course completions that night). So many people approached me with "Advanced or Intro?" question that I just grabbed on to the back of my friend's shirt and said "I'm with her."

There was definitely a smiley Stepford-wives vibe going on. Happy happy happy. My friend had invited 4 people - her new girlfriend, an actress friend, a massage therapist/actor friend, and me.

I was a little put off by the huge whiteboard with the next 25 Forum sessions listed on it at the front of the room. I kept saying to the guy next to me "I'm not buying a condo OR drinking the Kool Aid."

My friend was especially happy I could come because I would be meeting "her" Forum leader. I'd had a check-in message from her over the weekend but figured she'd give me a full report on Monday. Monday comes, and she calls me at least 3 times -first, all excited about the Forum and her graduation, and then twice more to confirm the address. I told her to get some sleep-she really sounded out of it and crazed the third time she called.

Her Forum leader turned out to be a nice-looking, friendly type of guy. He shared a story about how his Forum experience encouraged him to break through the formal relationship he had with his father. (It brought tears to my eyes.)

Then other people got up and shared their stories. some more moving than others. Everyone clapped after someone shared, like a super-enthusiastic AA meeting.

At the beginning the leader asked the room how many people had just completed the 3 day seminar (raise hands). How many were repeaters? How many of us were brought by friends or family who wanted to share their unique experience with us? (I raised my hand.) I noticed that the woman next to me had a stripe across her gold nametag. She said it was because she was repeating the Forum.

Then we were instructed to reach down beneath our seats to pull out the brochure and pen that were placed there. (So thoughtful! So organized!) We were then instructed to look at the outline of the seminar, and to have a free-sharing period where the seminar graduates spoke to us about their 'breakthroughs.'

Then the room was asked who wanted to sign up. Those people were ushered to the back where assistants were waiting, fresh signup sheets at the ready.

The rest of us were asked to think about why we didn't want to sign up. Did we think we didn't need it? If that's what we thought, we should ask the person who invited us if THEY thought we could benefit from it.

(Talk about a sucker's invitation! I didn't even bother, just watched my friend pitch the concept to her other friends. Maybe it's my Japanese heritage, but I absolutely abhor the hard-sell. Japanese thinking is--You give a reasonable person the options, and you let them make up their mind. To pressure them would be rude.)

In case anyone was not convinced, we would be given a taste of the Intro seminar in small groups. We were split off according to the room number listed on our nametags. There were quite a few small groups, and I wasn't with anyone who I came with.

I was led to a small room where the person who invited my invitee introduced me to his boyfriend. The boyfriend looked about as happy as a fly pinned to the wall. (The things you do for maybe-love!)

We entered a room with a small raised stage at the front, a tall chair, podium and whiteboard. There were 24 chairs lined up in 4
rows, with a tall director's chair at the back. (Big Brother?) There were also the requisite registration tables along the side with forms.

I recognized the small group leader from a film class ages ago. She walked us through the brochure- your life as it is now, issues you're working on, what your life will probably be like if you continue that way, what you need to change. We were split in pairs and asked to share with my partner. I noticed more gold name tags in this room- people who were assistants or repeaters. The woman sitting in the Director's chair would flash time cards to the speaker. So well-planned.

Did we have any questions? It was now 10:30pm on Tuesday, a blizzardy NYC night. I'd gotten to the Center at 7pm. I was starving, pissed at my friend for not telling me how long this thing was, worried that the subway system would cut out, and not wanting to wait around for her to do her goodbye-thing with her classmates.

(I'd already told her I was going straight home, and that it was only because I knew it meant a lot to her that I didn't cancel.)

I turned to leave. The faciliator tugged at my arm although she was still talking to another person. Out of politeness, I waited till she was done, gave her a hug and thanked her for sharing her powerful breakthrough with the group, and said I was going.

"Your friends won't be ready for another 15 minutes. Do you have any questions?"

"No, thanks. I think I might sign up tonight, via the Website, but I am resisting the cattle-call to do it now."

"Well, don't _psyche yourself out_ of doing this- it could really be important for you."

That was it. I rushed out before anyone else could talk to me.

Turns out that after checking w/the other invitees, that other groups got a bathroom break, and that's when some of them left. The new girlfriend had taken a Dale Carnegie course and said she didn't need the Forum; and the actor/massage therapist said he thought he was going to sign up. After doing more research on the web, I decided not to go for the experiment. It was too risky.

My friend, on the other hand, signed up for the Advanced Course, lured by the $100 discount if they signed up THAT NIGHT. She hardly had enough $ for the beginning course, but she believes she can do it if she wants to badly enough. I've heard tales of how 'completers' must pledge to stand up and bring X number of friends to the next Intro. Sounds too much like the "Stand for Jesus" of revival summer camps to me --peer pressure

kittypaw -- Wow! Great post. Perfect detail. "Stepford-wives" is an analogy I have used to Landmark people to explain how they come across.

Jack