>Seems like your purpose is to apologzie and/or shill for Landmark.
>
>Do you have anything else to say?

rrmoderator -- If you read my posts attentively, you will notice that I have said many things about Landmark, some good, some bad.

I started this topic in response to a question from a participant asking what I liked about Landmark.

Now, aside from questioning my motives and characterizing me as a shill or whatever, do you have anything else to say?

As I understand it, the focus of this forum is LGATS including Landmark.

So there's no mistake ... I would not recommend Landmark to those posting in this forum.

In fact, I would recommend against it--not that I imagine anyone here wants my advice.

Thanks for that clarification.

You're right Jack, I'm not very impressed with your responses. You seem to do something very much like other LGAT participants I've witnessed: You gloss right over the stuff you don't want to see.

You may call that "creating your own reality". I call it denial.

It seems you choose not to take very seriously the manipulation and danger to others because "that wasn't my experience" (I'm sure that is an imbedded command, I hear it so often from LGAT participants). Or maybe it just doesn't matter because you feel good.

We don't know what the stats are on participation dangers because LGATS refuse to keep them (which I'm sure doesn't really bother you, does it?) It's been suggested that up to 15% of partipants seek some type of treatment after their LGAT for serious mental disturbance. If we add in those that don't seek treatment, could we bump that number up to say 25%, 30%?

Aside from the issues of adverse reactions, I, personally, have VERY strong feelings about being manipulated in such a way, whether the outcome is good or not. In my view, the ends do not justify the means. We obviously disagree on this point.

Part of me really wants to tear into your football analogy, at least for other readers, but hopefully, your example is so glaringly off base that others will see through it. I think that no matter what you get presented with, you will gloss it over. Perhaps that's why you are here. You are subconsciously testing your mind to see how good it is at dissonance reduction. Or maybe your subconscious is trying to fight it's way out of the Landmark fog, and it's hoping that one of us here will be clever enough to say the magic words that flip the switch. I've seen it happen, when someone just "wakes up" out of it. For your sake I hope that happens to you.

Because of the nature of the LGAT, effecting personality, mental processes, beliefs and the like, it's impossible to discuss it without discussing YOUR personality, YOUR mental processes, so it's easy to write it off as an ad hominem arguement if you are looking for a way out of seriously considering those issues.

Just remember that we lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

I truely wish you the best.

Lori

Hi Jack,

I recall back in November you mentioned you were thinking of doing the Self Expression & Leadership Course, (SELP).

Did you do it and if so, what happened?

What are your plans now as regards Landmark?

For readers of this thread, refer to the following thread for a breakdown of the Landmark Advanced Course and SELP.
[forum.culteducation.com]

Oz

You said:

>>So there's no mistake ... I would not recommend Landmark to those posting in this forum.

In fact, I would recommend against it--not that I imagine anyone here wants my advice.>>>



Your inference here is that there are people to whom you would recommend Landmark, just not to those who post here. Well, Landmark would be a pretty tough sell to anyone with the wherewithal to find this board ahead of time, or anyone with the curiousity to do a little research before they fork over any money. You're right. Hard to persuade people to get involved with something like Landmark who have seen the evidence or experienced the "fall-out" or still have their critical thinking skills intact. If you want to convince anyone that Landmark has something to offer, stick with the uninformed, easily swayed, naive, "troubled," and non-critical.

You are correct. No one here wants your advice about the relative merits of a Landmark "Education."


Ellen

Thanks Elena

It seems Jack was trying to be clever.

I missed that.

If Jack actually had meaningful issues of concern regarding Landmark he would have said, "Given Landmark's history, I would not recommend its programs to anyone under any cirucumstances."

>It seems Jack was trying to be clever.

More mindreading from rrmoderator.

The fact is that I would recommend Landmark to some people, just not to anyone in this current discussion. I said what I meant to say--no more, no less.

Oz -- I was sufficiently concerned about Landmark that I put off my SELP course and I haven't decided when or if I'll do it. I've been talking to Landmark people, sometimes clashing with them in fact--which they handled well in my opinion--and taking it at my own speed. Thank you for a graceful question.

LoriS -- Thank you for responding , mostly, to what I say, not who you think I am, and for making a reasoned critique of my previous post.

I can't speak of LGATs in general; however I consider the statistics you mention that 15% (much less 25-30%) of Landmark participants seek treatment for serious mental disturbance incredible. Of course I can't prove that any more than you can, but it sure doesn't match my sense of what happens.

Frankly I'd be surprised if the numbers for such people were even 1% higher than a control population of similar people not taking Landmark.

>Aside from the issues of adverse reactions, I, personally, have VERY
>strong feelings about being manipulated in such a way, whether the
>outcome is good or not. In my view, the ends do not justify the
>means.

I think that's a great point and at other times in my life I would have agreed with you wholeheartedly. Even now I have some ambivalence on this score.

>You gloss right over the stuff you don't want to see.

You asked about a dozen non-trivial questions. I responded to them briefly because that's the amount of time I had and brevity is preferable in an online discussion.

Plus as I was saying, I don't think I'm glossing over stuff--my impression is that much (not all) of what you are concerned about is not there.

And what specifically then is your purpose in posting here?

Again, it seems that your specific intention is to defend Landmark.

Your posts eventually come to that without fail.

Note the following research again, which you have not really responded to:

[www.culteducation.com]

[www.culteducation.com]

Your posts have repeatedly ignored or "gloss right over" the research articles linked above, which clearly demonstrate what's wrong with Landmark and the potential dangers to anyone taking its courses.

Also, the parallels between "thought reform" (commonly called "brainwashing) and the process of what Landmark calls "education" are striking.

See the following:

[www.culteducation.com]

[www.culteducation.com]

Note the distinct differences that Singer cites in the linked document above between education and thought reform.

This specific research appears sufficient to support the conclusion, along with Landmark's well-documented history, that no one under any circumstances would be well advised to take its courses.

Jack,

(Recreating this post because of an error message last night)

"I don't think I'm glossing over stuff--my impression is that much (not all) of what you are concerned about is not there."

It was there for me Jack. Bigger than life. I feel lucky that the end result for me was not tragic, however I've witnessed other people completely destroy their lives. Not just one or two either.

When my loved one was "under the influence" I was trying to get him to understand what had happened to him by asking him to read the information on this site and others. Because Landmark is the largest LGAT it has the most negative reports. His comment was "well Landmark may be bad, but Harmony isn't, because that wasn’t my experience." The problem with that thinking is that the descriptions of the weekends are all over the web. Aside from a few variations for the sake of originality, they are essentially the same, and produce remarkably similar results.

Something I've noticed is that participants often have a difficult time saying anything negative about their experience, even though they may feel they have had a negative experience. I read an account of a woman who participated in a Lifespring spin-off out of Minneapolis, who after she had lost her job, her apartment and had dropped out of school to recruit for this organization, would still respond positively when asked, saying it was the most powerful experience of her life, even while thinking "why am I doing this? Why can't I just tell the truth?"

There was a group of people who went to Harmony in a certain month, who came back with the broken-record lines of powerful experiences and breakthroughs, never mentioning the participant that attempted suicide in his hotel room during the weekend.

I had a similar experience in my home. I had been speaking with someone also involved in this mess about what was happening to my loved one. He emailed me one day saying "I just spoke with (my loved one) and he says that you guys are doing great and are working everything out. " We had just had a conversation about ending our relationship and had agreed it was beyond salvage. And all that talk about authenticity.

After a few weeks of counseling and me constantly trying to get through to him, he got to the point where he said that he chose not to go back, but all in all he had a good experience. I thought that was as far as he would be able to go. Later, after he "woke up" as he put it, he told me about the participant that was having potentially life threatening medical problems who they tried to convince to come to the training room instead of the ER. After she showed up late to the training room after going to the hospital, the other participants yelled at her for 30 minutes. He never mentioned her before because he had effectively blocked it out.

He spoke with one of his fellow participants months later who said she was divorcing, had lost her job, was losing her house to foreclosure...."But I just feel so great about everything."

I know of another person who feels that the loss of her husband, her home, the tanking of her business, and the alienation of her once close family is all a part of her new creation. Her family says their once kind, sweet daughter is now a stranger. Someone incredibly selfish that they no longer recognize on the few occasions she presents herself. They are devastated.

I have a couple theories on this. First, there is a social psychology theory that says people act in a manner consistent with their previous actions – even if it’s not a good idea. Because this is such a powerful experience, to realize that it may be manufactured or bogus (and that they have been had) would be a great blow to the ego, therefore people continue to justify the experience with consistent behavior.

Second, is the presence of imbedded commands and NLP. There has been much discussion and study of the use of these in LGATS and how effective they are. I noticed behavior in my loved one consistent with the presence of imbedded commands, and the predictable comments from new graduates suggest the same.

I wonder, Jack, how these theories may affect the positive impression you are getting from other Landmark participants. I also wonder if you would get the same stories from their family and friends.

As I mentioned before, Landmark has the most reports of negative experiences. Do you discount these? If so, why? Please, be detailed this time.

Lori