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sonnie_dee
They have no positive contribution to education or life management other then the fact that I can deal with large stress volumes easier simply because nothing has come close to the stress I dealt with at landmark.

Is beating your head against a wall a good thing because you get relief when you stop? That's what this sounds like. The so-called good things that are to be found in LGATs are entangled in a sickening twistedness. LGATs are sickeningly twisted. The whole LGAT game is very, very sinister. Its very nature, to its very core, is unhealthy and dangerous, no matter how I look at it. I see nothing good in any of it.

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joe6
If you think going back to the Forum would be "fun" or "interesting", you must not understand that the Forum leader is using one technique after another to destroy the defenses of vulnerable people. Many people do not psychologically survive this mental assault.
Would it be an "interesting research project" to watch a guy beat old ladies on a bus? I can't imagine you really understand the abuse you have witnessed, otherwise as the decent person I assume you are, you would not be casually considering going back and just sitting there and watching this abuse.

Firstly, I never used the word 'fun'. Second, the French television documentary was an 'interesting research project' for the people who made it.

I would be very interested to see the forum in action as an independent observer (which may not be possible). Not only would it be interesting, it would be extremely useful to have properly documented evidence in order to discredit Landmark publicly. Which is kind of what the French doco does, although that can be easily dismissed as it is heavily edited and takes stuff out of context to make it sensationalist.

BTW, a lot of people I know, as well as some very close personal friends, are or have been Landmarkers. I wouldn't, and neither would they, consider themselves 'abused'.

That is not to say that some people aren't damaged by Landmark, my ex girlfriend is a case in point. In her case (this is just my opinion) it is damage not by Landmark teaching itself, but by depending on Landmark for help and not getting the counselling she really needs.

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it all starts after the first course when landmark wants to get something from you. Evidently there has been some good things happening during the forum as participants get results.

There is an amazing power contained in the ability to communicate openly and honestly. It is so powerful that, if practiced in every area of life, we would not hear so much about wars or murder-suicide. LE uses this phenomenon to cause participants to believe that LE alone designed and controls this great secret to successful living, and can actually impart this 'technology' to the participants of a forum.
LE basically creates the lie of having invented the wheel, the 'wheel' being the positive results experienced when a forum participant practices a bit of open and honest communication or self reflection. A first time experience of the power contained in honesty and openness is liberating and unforgettable, and is probably what gives the impression that this amazing experience is unique to LE's repertoire, because this 'result' was never before experienced, although it was always waiting to be discovered.
The fact that LE intentionally capitalizes on any positive change surfacing in the life of a participant, just proves how vague is its understanding and respect of the virtues that cause people to soar and succeed in life, or about the humility and grace required to maintain the communication and progress inherent with personal growth.
How can such a limited understanding of these virtues give LE the right to claim it invented them or has the power to release them to forum participants?
So, I still cannot see where this "bad tree" has any "good fruit" to offer. Even [b:0fcce6a4f5][i:0fcce6a4f5]I[/i:0fcce6a4f5][/b:0fcce6a4f5] could cause people to be open and get honest about something in their lives, in fact I have, but I can NEVER ever claim that I invented Honesty or any by-product of honesty! No more than I could claim originality in successful manipulation of a person into dissociating from conscience and critical thought, to create an illusion of positive result. This game has been played for a long time, and is consistent in same results.

I can see why it is easy to believe that LE is responsible, in some way, for a positive result but in reality, the positive result was going to emerge sooner or later. Time, age, honesty, and communication would see to that.

LE would like the world to believe it has discovered the source of the phenomenon we call personal growth, communication, and every success that results from practicing these two simple things. It is so unfortunate that the act of honest communication and inner reflection is sometimes not committed [i:0fcce6a4f5]until[/i:0fcce6a4f5] one is either sitting in a room full of strategically ordered rows of chairs, with many others who had also refused to commit this act, or until one is standing in front of a jury of their peers trying to explain how and why life got so out of hand as to lead to a series of tragic and preventable events. There are countless ways in which we can be caused to get honest and choose to make positive life changes, this has been happening since long before werner, or the progromme designers for LE were even born.
LE is opportunistic and expert at riding on the shirt tails of basic realities that we choose to neglect or be blind to. For LE, its all about how to best set-up a person for maximal exploitation, for the participant it really is about personal development. LE gets its way because the participant sought something where it cannot be found but can be replicated long enough to clone another cash cow.
LE sucks through and through!! Sorry for my seemingly narrow minded conclusions of LE but I just cannot see the benefit in what LE causes in a person's life. I have only seen bizarre, out of character behavior with a conviction dangerous enough to want to cause someone to charge hell with an empty bucket of water. I have only seen what LE looks like in practice in the life of a person totally deformed by its 'technologies'.

I think you're on to Landmark Forum, ON2 LF.

Landmark employs a kind of barbaric psychology not unlike clear felling a forest to get to a few precious trees. I think that Landmark's views of psychology/psychiatry are similar to those held by Scientology - they think it is suspect and, worse still, they think they have a better, more efficient solution.

It takes time and patience for a psychologist to work with a person. It takes time and patience for a woodworker to go into the forest and select suitable timber. Unfortunately, it's easier and more cost effective to hire a few bulldozers and cut the whole forest down to find the best wood. It's easier and more cost effective to pack a room with hopefuls to find the 'best' candidates.

You know, this clear felling practice causes a lot of damage for little gain. I suppose, at the end of the day, it's about money in both cases. Pure and simple.

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mazellan
BTW, a lot of people I know, as well as some very close personal friends, are or have been Landmarkers. I wouldn't, and neither would they, consider themselves 'abused'.

Have your friends studied the techniques that Landmark used to manipulate them, the way their environment was controlled, the way they were fed thought-stopping jargon (which presumably they came out of the Forum speaking like most everyone does)?
If your friends cannot clearly explain to you how they were manipulated, then it doesn't just go away. The manipulation is still at work in their minds until they consciously reverse it. It is abuse to be worked over by a powerful secretive corporation with mind manipulation techniques. Yes, your friends were abused.

I think Mazellan's intentions are noble and worthwhile. I'd do the Forum just to have more evidence of their corruption. It would be a major pain in the backside sitting there for hours, I know, but I trust myself enough to think that it would be a valuable way to gain more firsthand experience. I won't do it, of course (it's just too bloody expensive), but I get very frustrated by the supposed 'fence sitters' whose arguments usually end by saying that I should do the Forum to fully understand what they're on about. Well, hit me with a cold fish, but what part of your confused rhetoric don't you understand? Hey, I'm interested in music. Do I have to formally study music to be able to produce it? The answer is no - no bloody way! All it takes is me having a sincere interest ... the rest will follow, as it always does.

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You know, this clear felling practice causes a lot of damage for little gain. I suppose, at the end of the day, it's about money in both cases. Pure and simple.

Agree totally, it's all about money and how to keep it coming once the floodgates are opened. It seems that the clear felling practices should remedy the problem of being unable "to see the forest, for the trees", though.

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but I get very frustrated by the supposed 'fence sitters' whose arguments usually end by saying that I should do the Forum to fully understand what they're on about.

My opinion": the notions of trying out a forum, for information and fact finding purposes, are generated from the inadvertent sips of the kool aid while trying to figure out what makes it so toxic. To quote a person from another thread, "you can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a bull's ass, but wouldn't you rather take the butcher's word for it"?
A forum isn't worth the time or monetary cost, not even if one could walk away with another recorded documentary. One forum is the same as the other and the brainwashing would be as abusive as in the first forum and will continue to be onto the last. I'd pay money to watch the founder(s) of EST/LE in exit counselling sessions though...that'd be the ultimate shit show!

Maybe I have some more time tomorrow to respond.
I don't agree entirely with Mazelle's point of view. But neither does a "an interest in music" comply with this discussion. It's one thing to be interested in music, it's another thing to have been in a rock-band. There's a difference in climbing the Matterhorn and heaving read a book about it or watching people descending the Matterhorn after they've done it. Of course there truth to the idea of having to have an experience in order to fully comprehend something.
Jack, I wish you would stop talking about "fence sitting", as you're missing the delicacy of this matter.
I ran through the postings of today and the question I think I saw was: what, if any, were the benefits (apart from the bonusses :wink: ). I will come back to that question. I can already say for now that I cannot answer that straight away, since I'm still investigating.

This forum is addictive... :?
One more thing: ON2 LF. You're absolutely right. Landmark makes all those claims, no doubt about it. And yes, that s*cks.
The paradox being that those nice, liberating experiences (that you can find elsewhere too) [i:22497600c7]are [/i:22497600c7]beneficial in some cases. It's really very cleverly orchastrated...
More tomorrow. :wink:

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mazellan

BTW, a lot of people I know, as well as some very close personal friends, are or have been Landmarkers. I wouldn't, and neither would they, consider themselves 'abused'.

This statement, in and of itself, is indicative of a very poor grasp of the subject at hand. Firstly, you are speaking of other people who may or may not be in the deception phase where they lie to themselves as thoroughly as they lie to others in order to preserve the delusion. Several insiders have written eloquently about this recently. If nothing else, Landmark programming is about acting, pretending, and faking it in the fleeting hope that your ~intentions~ will bear fruit. It's called "magical thinking" in the cult biz. They may use other words, but they boil down to the same thing -- manipulating your own affect and perceptions to resemble ones that you would prefer. In other words, fantasizing.

And secondly, you display a similar lack of insight into the nature of cultic abuse. No one in the middle of the seduction experiences it as abuse. They think that cute young chickee in the power suit really imagines they're the cat's meow. They think she's hot for them and not for what's in their wallet. They think she's really interested in them as a person and not as an ~enrollment~ stat. The con wuldn't work if people felt "abused." They have to feel good. Without the seduction, it's just a mugging.

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That is not to say that some people aren't damaged by Landmark, my ex girlfriend is a case in point. In her case (this is just my opinion) it is damage not by Landmark teaching itself, but by depending on Landmark for help and not getting the counselling she really needs.

Nice. So it's her fault.

Has it not occured to you that this is criminal abuse in the same way medical quackery is?



Ellen