Hi Jan,

Glad to hear you made it out with your sanity reasonably intact.

I'm curious, did you simply finish your IL stuff and then just leave? Or was there an incident that set off your 'completion'?

dutch

Hi everyone. Thanks for the welcomes. It's nice to be part of a group where varied viewpoints are encouraged. Guess I'll just start by answering people's questions.

Dutch--yes, there was an incident that triggered my decision to quit and there were lots of other things such as being pestered to increase my # of agreements, etc. that ultimately had me just pick up and say no more. I've seen how candid that Guy and gc4062 have been, but I'm not sure I want to expose all the ugly details. Let's just say for now that the end result of the experience was that I was berated for accepting someone's choice to say no in my guest room (I thanked them for their time and attention...left it at that and was told I was a wimp and afraid to get in people's "worlds"), left invalidated, demeaned, and given a whole bunch of scare tactics about how my life would never turn out if I didn't stick around.

Guy--no. this is not my real name. I guess it will take awhile before I do't have any jargon in my posts, but I'll try to speak like a real human being as opposed to a Landmarkian, just remember it takes time...I had 4 years of training...3 as a program leader.

Hope--thanks for your words of encouragement. I'll keep it in mind.

Jan,

oh good, i'm glad you took precaution.
;)
Yeah...it takes time to pull the verbage out of the garbage.
:p
Amazing to think about all that revenue and the downline you generated over 4 years...
:rolleyes:
...just so Werner can be part of the connoisseurs club in the caymans
:eek:
When did we stop honoring the honest in our culture?:confused:
When did we start honoring the cons and scammers?:confused:

What kind of a world are we building when "what can we get away with" and "what can I get you to do for me" are the motivating principles?
:(

Guy

Hi Jan,

Thanks for your answer. So you did just get fed up and leave! Wow! Takes a lot of courage after 4 years of brainwashing.

It doesn't surprise me that the impetus to leave was connected to registration. That's what finally made me hit the road. The pestering from 'coach' and 'buddy' got so frequent that I just thought, 'hey - don't need this, don't want this'. I even made up imaginary guest a couple of times to bring to 'special events'. "Sure," I'd say to my coach, "I'll bring the Vice President of East- West Botswana if it makes you happy." Humor was never really appreciated however.

It still amazes me when I read about someone like you who is berated by staff for accepting a 'NO' from a guest. To me, the whole acceptance of things as they are seemed to be one of the fundamental principles of the Landmark approach. And then some STAFF MEMBERS ignore the principle and push, choke, shove in order to sell. The paradox is absolutely baffling.

Good luck with the bends.

dutch

experience in our bodies, not only our minds, that wakes us up and causes us to realize 'I want out of here.'

Thinking ones way out of indoctrination is nearly impossible. I was in other bad situations, and what got me out was often nausea, deep fatigue, or a sense of physical disgust, which is a mixture of nausea and fatigue.

It is possible that physical fatigue plays a much greater role than we realize in departures from cults.

People's bodies differ and we take differing periods of time to run out of energy and become exhausted.

And when we get exhausted, we no longer have the energy to hope, to feel infatuated. Most of all, as we grow exhausted, we lose the energy needed to repress misgivings.

Combat veterans often experience flashbacks after they are safetly at home, away from the battle field.

Its like opening a can of coke--the pressure is off and the bubbles are able to rise to the surface and fizz.

Whatever you do, take care of yourself, and dont go back!

Hi Dutch--Yes, I did get fed up and leave. In all the training to lead introductions they tell you to "bring yourself" and for me, that means giving people a choice and accepting that no means no. After experiencing the screaming tirade of the center manager, first hand (and I'd seen so many others be subjected to this) I decided that I could no longer stand behind this work. I even let her know that if she wants someone to badger people and find out why they are saying no, people who have clearly said they are not interested and don't wish to discuss WHY they are not interested, then she should find someone else to lead programs.

At the end of the day, I saw one too many contridictions and justifications for the use of force. There's no justification for staff members screaming and throwing pens at people. It disgusts me how many times I saw people with no professional training whatsoever "coaching" people around very traumatic situations (rape, relative murdered, abuse) in their past and do far more damage.

I did have laugh though about what you said about imaginary guests. I did that alot at the beginning of the ILP. How many of us invited Mr. and Mrs. X ;-)

The buzz is too strong for most to leave before they get squeezed and pressed for numbers.
We could then justify their leaving as it was about their inability to confront and deal with their resistance about producing results.
Thus making it about the one that left as being somehow inferior than those that stayed. They were "no stand for humanity"...and all that crap.


This skirts the issue of what we were actually doing to the people enrolled and enrolling.

Jan-LEC used hypnosis and other thought reform techniques on you, not to give you anything, but to generate revenues for the company. You, with or without your knowledge and consent, then did it to others.

After you heal from being squashed personally, take some time to educate yourself on the processes behind the curtain.

Guy

Welcome, Jan. I'm the guy who started this thread and I hope to hear more from you. I really appreciate information from the inside such as you have to offer.

I was active in est for six years (only as a participant--leading intros and programs always looked way too heavy to me) and recently have taken the Forum and AC. I can well believe the abuse you describe and think it's great that you left under those circumstances.

So I decided to drop in on sessions #8, #9 of a Landmark seminar series (a 10 session sequence meeting once a week) and I was surprised at some of the differences from an est Graduate Seminars circa 1983.

* Smaller -- ~35 participants versus ~80-100.
* Less hype for guests or seminar enrollment -- ~5 minutes versus ~40 minutes, as I recall, out of 3 hours.
* Fewer guests -- only 1 guest per seminar versus ~8.
* Content -- More substantive than est. (YMMV.)

I don't know if my experience is typical of Landmark seminars these days. I was fairly shocked to see only one guest at these seminars while at the same time not getting a stern lecture from the seminar leader about the importance of expressing one's transformation by bringing guests. The seminar leader didn't seem concerned about the low guest count, though I know Landmark tracks such numbers most carefully.

I'm wondering whether Landmark is focusing enrollment away from the seminars to the graduation events (those still bring lots of guests). Maybe it's a policy shift away from pressure to get grads to bring guests. Maybe it's a fluke. I found it refreshing.

Recently vising Europe, I visited the Nazi death camp in Poland.

Remembering how Jews use to be taken out on a hillside and sprayed with machine gun fire so their bodies would drop into a ravine.

The death camp had one inviting entrance. And it had shower areas whereby the newly arrived prisoners could be mislead into believing they were being given a welcome bath, only to be exposed to lethal nerve gas. This emphasis on killing Jews through an albeit misleading, but calmer technique was refreshing.

You are an idiot, Jack.

These companies are just as reprehensible. Erhard still collects royalties offshore from the poor insufferable who are lead into Landmark's "showers". They will always turn their followers into enrollment drones. That's the point.