Hey everybody I am a Landmark survivor, who went to the Advanced Course, and that was the end of it. I went in prepared for the sales pitch, and it worked, in those parts I swithced off, never invited anybody to the sessions and all the rest.
But for the first couple of weeks after Landmark I was quite wrapped up in the possibilities aswell, then it all faded.
I dont think you can just box everyone into categories.
Maybe this girl will snap out it, and not be totally zombied from the course, not everyone who enjoyed that course, totally turns looney, I know people who like me, did one or two courses, and never intend on going back, we got what we wanted.
You would never find me VOLUNTEERING FOR ANY OF THEIR WEEKEND GET TOGETHERS, and I asked them to POLITELY stop calling me, which took awhile for it to SINK INTO THEIR HEADS, but we got there in the end.
All im saying is, the girl may not be that bonkers, it seems like you have the whole situation worked out for the poor guy.

Okay, sorry, didnt read the rest haha.
Well i guess, I do know what you mean, there were times in that course I thought I had actually LOST my emotions,
Lost my whole past, which was very spooky,it all felt very surreal, and I felt like I was one of the only people FREAKING OUT, at the time, everybody else seemed fine.
I do think Landmark is a huge con job, which are cruel, and should be shut down. ITS all quite evil.
But lucky I didnt feel the need to go back ever again. Although in saying that, I did do the advanced, so I did go back.
I think this website is great, I was shocked in reading some of the stories initially, but I totally believe them.

Yeah, one of the worst things I saw there,
was when they do the part where you have to write down one of the worst things that has ever happened to you, on paper, and then they put you in pairs, and you are meant to read out your PROBLEM until you feel no emotional ties to the past, and I was put with a lady that was sexually abused by her dad, and then they started playing OLD MACDONALD HAD A FARM, over the speakers, and I looked at this poor girl, and she was so upset, and it was just BIZARRE!!!!!!!!!!wrong
Now i suffer from anxiety, and I didnt put that down on the part of the questionarre, about having emotional problems, so Im quite lucky that I came out okay, it could have been really bad,c onsidering people have gone through mini psychosis.
In New Zealand where I am from, I believe that we have one of the highest participants number per capita.

No well,
I dont think everybody comes out tarnised for life.
That feeling I had of having lost my emotions was very shortlived,
my life is back, and went back quite quickly to how it was prior to Landmark.
Like I said, I didnt get caught up in the sales pitch, nor did I get anyone to come along to the little Presentations, nor did i make any phone calls. And I dont feel instinctively, that I need to worry about being more suspectible to triggers etc.
Its a shame really, because there are some cases in life, where i do believe, it helps to let go of things, and take a different perspective, of your problems, especially if you happen to view things in an irrational manner, but it should be done with trained professionals, who know how to deal with stuff, not in a money making, dangerous enviroment.

And also,
Corboy, I think its great what you are doing on this website, but I just have to say this.
I dont need to probe into what Landmark has done, not everyone that leaves Landmark, has had their life completely upturned. I do believe people need to be educated about it, and defintately warned. But you cant make assumptions that everyone who has done Landmark, is now a programmed nutcase. I still have the same problems I had before going into Landmark, yes for a couple of days, everything felt surreal, and detached, but that didnt last long. I just feel that in a way, you are sterotyping every single person that has done a course, that we all now, are screwed up because of it, and i feel that perhaps some caution needs to be taken for those fragile minds that could be reading this website fresh out of Landmark, we dont need them to be thinking THEY ARE BEYOND REPAIR, which they arent.
I totally agree with the numbing procedures, etc, but that doesnt mean people are now so far gone, that they have lost touch with reality. I know people the same as me, that werent bowled over by it, and will never go back. Everybody is different, and we all handle thing in our own ways. I mean I know people that have studies psych in Uni, and have lost the plot from self diagnosing.
I still have the same problems from my past, they arent buried under anything, they are there in LIVING COLOUR, loud as ever. Landmark, did not have any lasting abilty in keeping these repressed. Anyone reading this, I encourage you not to do Landmark, but for the ones that have, your life doesnt have to become another DRAMA, just because you have done it.

I was reacting to your description of the women paired off with you who had been abused by her dad. I felt horrified, got carried away, and when I wrote that post, I wrote as though you were the one who had the history of trauma, rather than your partner. Apologies for the confusion.

I wrote as someone who has tendencies to dissociate, based on a difficult childhood. This is quite a common situation.

A lot of people are vulnerable to dissociation, if placed in a high stress situation like the one you described above. If I had gone through something like the exercise you described, I wouldve been harmed.

So, that was why I wrote with some vehemance.

I know enough about my vulnerability to dissociation that I stay far away from Landmark and anything resembling it. But lots of people dont know they are vulnerable to dissociation, and dont know to self select away from such programs.

They're the ones who risk being harmed, the kind of exercise you described. Not everyone is lucky enough to find a therapist who is trained to work with dissociation/cult related abuse--or is able to pay for such services.

You're fortunate that you went into Landmark with a healthy degree of alertness and skepticism. Your boundaries were obviously good, your sense of self identity was strong, and you were not blown off base by the experience. But others are not as fortunate.

However, there may be people visiting our site who went through the same or similar exercises to the one you described, and who are still disoriented, suffering aftereffects and fearing they're the ones who are weak and crazy.

So there is a chance that my material may be of some help in demystifying for some readers what was done to them, a process that was based on a manipulative, noxious abuse of group pressure and bad psychology--all this orchestrated by an entity that is for-profit, and that, if ethical, would have carefully queried your partner about her past history before she signed up--and would have advised her not to participate.

The prime directive for mental health professoinals is 'above all, do no harm.' Dont burden people with more problems than they already have.

The prime directive for too many of these groups appears to be 'Sell it by zealot'. If people are harmed, its because they're the ones who are weak, at fault, 'fail to take responsiblity for their lives.'

Ick.

I hope some of our former Landmark employees can comment on that exercise in case my analysis is inaccurate.

You seem to have very little insight into some of the more subtle mechanisms of influence and persuasion and think that because you were able to resist the suggestions to proselytize that you have effectively sidestepped the more onerous parts of the programming.

What you say is true, in so far as most who attend Landmark programs aren't harmed in any obvious way and may derive some benefit from whatever legitimate content Landmark have included in their "education."

However, there are some very insidious "ideas" that become part of your core or basic, often unspoken or subconscious emotional substrate, your assumptions about life and relationships that you may not even realize were Landmarkian "seeds" that can take root and alter the trajectory of your life in ways you may not want or like.

Don't be so quick to dismiss what many of us have seen play out in tragic consequences. Or the tiny drops of ideological "poison" that you, yourself may have managed not to swallow.


Ellen

Elena no one is dismissing anything, but you cannot speak for my experince, you are not me, therefore, you have your experiences and not mine.
Thats the difference, you cant be so general about things.
And assume that YOU know exactly, what other people go through.
No one is praising Landmark in anyway.
I cannot walk around claiming to know how people lives are affected by things, unless they TELL ME SO.
You cant mindread, now thats something you could get from landmark
I was telling my personal story. And thats all thats to it.

I totally agree, and can see how people could get completley overwhelmed, and emotionally distraught from it. But it almost seems from some of the posts, that IF YOU CAME OUT OF LANDMARK, AND FEEL THAT YOU ARE NOT AFFECTED BY IT, THAT YOU ARE IN DENIAL, and there is the feeling that people almost NEED to go to therapy now, because of having done the courses.
And if you THINK you are okay, you're not.
And that is putting ideas in peoples heads, in a roundabout fashion.
I do know what is was like to sit there on DAY 3, when we are told the million dollar solution that LIFE IS EMPTY AND MEANINGLESS, and i do remember a couple of people laughing with that knowing kindoF attitude, that now their whole life is solved, which was freaky, and did resemble something out of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOOS NEST.
But I only wish that it sorted out all my problems, because it didnt.BUT at the sametime, i didnt end up WITH ALL NEW ONES because of it.

It would be very useful and interesting to compile a comprehensive list of "Core Beliefs" or "Schemas" that are installed when people attend a Landmark seminar.
Core Beliefs can be considered synonymous with Memes, or Ideas.

A good way to organize Core Beliefs, are about SELF, OTHERS, and WORLD/LIFE.

Now, according to some random reading i have done here, some of the new Beliefs about PEOPLE/OTHERS in Landmark, are basically sociopathic. People are there to be USED for your own purposes. (Sex, money, career advancement, etc)

And the Memes about LIFE are basically that "Life is Meaningless".

I have not attented the full Landmark course, but it seems to me i can see where these Beliefs are going.

Could someone who has attended Landmark tell me what Landmark teaches you to think about your SELF?
My gut tells me it is a type of pathological Narcissism for the Leaders, and meek self-loathing for the "followers"?

I have classified Landmark as Post-Modern Nihilism.
That is, everything is relative and meaningless, including Ethics and "morality".

All that matters is Self-Interest and Power.

Now according to Cognitive Theory, our Core Beliefs, Schemas, (Memes, Fixed Ideas) determine our "way of being in the world". They are the filters which determine our Thoughts, Emotions, Behaviors, and even Personality.

So as far as i can see it, Landmark is a school for attempting to create sociopaths. Werner Erhard holds the Beliefs of a criminal, in terms of exploiting others for your own ends no matter the cost, and also that LIFE is about "getting them before they get you", etc. (Antisocial Personality Disorder).

It would be very useful to put together a comprehensive LIST of the Memes/Beliefs/Schemas that Landmark is trying to install in its people.
Then these can be identified in each Survivor, and then challenged and replaced by more functional, and non-sociopathic Beliefs.

The more i read about Landmark, the more i can see that it is a very carefully designed MIND VIRUS that is designed to replicate and expand ferociously at all costs, breaking any person who gets caught in its clutches, milking that person dry of money, and then either Recruiting that person to expand the Landmark Virus, or discarding that person once their resources have been tapped. Werner Erhard, and the others who created Landmark would actually be very very proud of their "baby". I am quite certain the Werner would think that Landmark will live on forever after he is gone, and continue to "Rape and Pillage" for eternity. I can just see them creating the Landmark monster, and then sitting back and waiting for the money to roll in, while watching it grow and replicate on its own. Just like some type of bacteria, or parasitic virus.

One of the keys in healing is figuring out which Schemas/Beliefs/Memes have been taken in by each person. Then each dysfuntional Landmark Belief can be disputed and disarmed.

Its antiviral mental hygeine for the toxic Landmark virus.

Coz