I have a question for LGAT survivors. When you were in the LGAT, how did you delude yourself that you were seeing positive results in your life from what you learned?

Or possibly, in retrospect there were [i:0a37bc4866]some[/i:0a37bc4866] positive results, although they are miniscule in comparison to the harm?

Did objective reality, like the amount of money lost or the relationships you lost or damaged, come into your consciousness at all?

I am trying to understand the mechanism by which subjective reality can shut out objective reality.

Many thanks to all of you for helping me to understand many things I find difficult to comprehend.

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I have a question for LGAT survivors. When you were in the LGAT, how did you delude yourself that you were seeing positive results in your life from what you learned?

Or possibly, in retrospect there were some positive results, although they are miniscule in comparison to the harm?

Did objective reality, like the amount of money lost or the relationships you lost or damaged, come into your consciousness at all?

I am trying to understand the mechanism by which subjective reality can shut out objective reality.

Many thanks to all of you for helping me to understand many things I find difficult to comprehend.
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Hi question lady,

I wasn't in a LGAT but I was in an Apostolic cult for several years as a young person, and also an unquestioning follower of various New Age things. I can offer my $ 0.02 as a person who was fully brainwashed.

I was taught in the church that the positive results would come as my devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ grew. People would find me enjoyable to be around and I would have many friends and more confidence (they said). Of course this never happened, but I was told to "Have faith". In fact I was one of those unfortunate ugly kids who got picked on a lot, by most of the kids, by most of the time, and this only got worse as I joined the church and started proselytizing to everybody. I was told by the church I only needed to keep my mind on Jesus and nothing else would matter. Obviously my faith wasn't deep enough; in retrospect, that was probably the case anyway!

In my rabid conversion attempts to my family and the few kids and teachers who would listen to me I certainly alienated the people who were on my side to begin with. This was justifiable, however, because they would go to hell if they didn't accept the Lord Jesus Christ into their hearts. There was no "objective" reality at this point. All I saw were burning souls that were my responsibility, according to the church.

Thankfully I was young at the time and didn't stand to lose finances or spouse and children. Somehow my family still tolerates me. :oops:

I went without religion for awhile after I turned 13 and realized there was no way out of hell for me; I was permanently doomed, according to the church. I figured well, what the hey, I might as well start sleeping in on Sundays again.

As a young adult, 18 or so, my then-husband (yes, that's right...) became involved in NA, the drug offshoot of AA. This group in and of itself wasn't religious or flaky, but there were quite a lot of people in this group who WERE into some pretty far-out new-age stuff. Again, I was young and hearing some of this stuff for the first time, so I believed it. I went through various new age phases -- I can't even recall much of anything at this point, but I do remember that any problems in my life were my fault because I attracted them. Yes, that crap was around long before The Secret. I, of course, believed this.

I became quite involved with the Urantia book -- not a cult group by any stretch (although apparently there is a cult using the Urantia book as a model for living) and must have sounded like quite the freak, telling my boss about local universes and thought adjusters. I would just blather on to any of my acquaintances and friends about whatever I was into at the moment. I truly don't know how people from that era still like me, but some do.

Again, objective reality didn't sink in one whit. People looked at me weird and sometimes poked fun at me but I was used to that from my school days so I thought it was just more of the same! It never once occurred to me what an annoying twit I was.

I did stop at anything that involved money, though. I tend to be quite possessive of my funds and was immediately suspicious of anybody who wanted to either give me money for no reason, or anything else for that matter, or who wanted me to pay money for any reason. In that sense reality and objectivity never left me. I have taken all sorts of abuse but I'm tight-fisted with money!

In summary, objectivity generally didn't become clear for me at any of these times because the information I was holding seemed so right for me, so of course it must be right for others. I had often felt as though I had hit upon a spiritual jackpot and really, really wanted others to share this awesome fill-in-the-blank.

I was also generally an unhappy person due to a traumatic childhood at home and at school, so I was actually well-attuned to abuse and manipulation and I just thought that's the way it is. Through this unhappiness I kept trying to find the magic bullet that would be the answer for everything. Therefore, when I found something that seemed like THE answer it became a real focus for me.

I am now on solid ground, a theist rather than a deist (I believe in "a" God but I have no idea how to define him/her/it nor do I care) and no longer look for answers anywhere. I had spent a good 30 years looking and I've come to the conclusion that there are some things I don't know, and that's OK.

I find I am even more content with where I'm at since finding this site! It has really shown me that any possible magic bullets that may be hiding, actually are not. All these groups I was showing some slight interest in -- Sri Chinmoy, Osho, Andrew Cohen, etc -- are really worth staying away from.

You'll likely get more help from other people who have been farther into the LGATs and other things as adults, but I hope this might be of SOME help.

Good luck with your search and hang in there.[/i]

I have much to share on this topic.

But will share later.

The biggest was facing my core belief systems that the LGAT's seminars have you experience in excercises.

Unfortunately. When you are shown how powerful and destructive your core belief systems are.

What is not realized here is. You don't uncover a destructive core belief system without having another core belief system switched out with it.

We live our life based on our belief systems. To do anything is based on a belief system.

The deceptive part is what ever LGAT company seminar your attending.

Its their belief system that they deceptively manipulate you to switch out your belief system with.

Thats why they enourage you to be as much emotionally involved as you can be.

The more emotionally involved you are in seminars. The more your core belief systems are confronted and exchanged out with companies in a seminar.

I will share more later. For now I hope this helps you.

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When you were in the LGAT, how did you delude yourself that you were seeing positive results in your life from what you learned?

Or possibly, in retrospect there were some positive results, although they are miniscule in comparison to the harm?

Did objective reality, like the amount of money lost or the relationships you lost or damaged, come into your consciousness at all?

I am trying to understand the mechanism by which subjective reality can shut out objective reality.

I think the key is that we didn't delude ourselves, we truely believed that what was happening was good. We were trained to think that way so even when everything was going terribly we thought we were seeing positive results.

"coaching" was a good thing, being told you were a useless piece of sh*t was a good thing, believing that because your integrity was out and there fore the resulting lack of registrations which in turn would lead to you getting authentic was a good thing.

It took me years to realise that I had destroyed so many friendships, lost part of my life to the LGAT.

When I first participated, I took my friends word that this was a good thing. I came away on a high and then got another high before the first had worn off. I did the forum not understanding that they manipulation they would use was more then I would know how to fight against but more so I didn't know I needed to fight.

When I participated I didn't know about rick ross, I didn't know the negative about landmark. I went to an introduction not knowing the danger and by then it was too late you could say.

When things started happening that caused me to re look at things, I spent a lot of time with conflicted emotions and thoughts, my own critial thinking didn't agree with landmarks philosophy and I didn't know which was right. As more happened, I turned to the people who had never taken me down the wrong path before and trusted their judgement.

It was really only after I was out and had been out for a while that I realised the full impact of the manipulation (brainwashing) that had occured.

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sonnie_dee
When things started happening that caused me to re look at things, I spent a lot of time with conflicted emotions and thoughts, my own critial thinking didn't agree with landmarks philosophy and I didn't know which was right. As more happened, I turned to the people who had never taken me down the wrong path before and trusted their judgement.

It was really only after I was out and had been out for a while that I realised the full impact of the manipulation (brainwashing) that had occured.

This also is alot of what happened to me also.

I have returned to a professional counselor that I was seeing on a regular basis back when I got involved in Klemmer & Associates. Its funny because I asked my counselor to approach our counseling from Klemmers philosphy in our sessions.

He looked over the material and did not want anything to do with it in our sessions. I stopped seeing him, and dove into Klemmer.

Now, after spending 2 years and making very huge decisions that led to the huge destruction presently in my life that Klemmer influenced me to make in their seminars.

I am back to the same couselor, and fortunately he let me back into seeing him. He told me he saw the deception of Klemmer, and the destructiveness of my decisions that I was choosing from Klemmers influence on my life.

Only now there is much more extreme damage to sort out with him in my life.

Thanks to Brian Klemmer, and his company Klemmer & Associates.

His million dollar formula is a bunch of crap.

Everything in life requires balance, and consideration of others in our life.

This formula can be applied in a manner that ignores both.

Just because it can be applied in a manner to things which do not involve anothers choice can do some huge things for a person.

We don't live in a vacumm. We live in relationship with others.

Therefore, to be relational means we need to be accountable for the negative in oursellves that we bring to the table.

Yes, I said negative in ourselves. This is for those LGAT'ers reading this post. The negative that exists in all of us.

Sonnie-dee makes a good point. No one deludes themselves. These people are con artists. They're called that for a reason.

My doctor referred me to Landmark. I went nearly 1-1/2 years after he casually mentioned it during an office visit. I've heard other therapists are recommending Landmark Education.

It used to be that going to a health professional who was working in a professional office didn't have to be researched to see if they actually had professional credentials. I learned the hard way. I didn't delude myself that he was a "real doctor" - I trusted no one would have the brass ones to open a medical practice near a hospital and not have a medical degree. I went to one Forum and realized that my doctor was up to his eyeballs in their "technology." Then it was really a matter of undoing the changes in my way of thinking that had subtly occurred. Nope. No delusion.

My question was perhaps clumsily worded. I want to emphasize that I do understand that anyone who got into one of these groups was subjected to covert mind control techniques. To the extent that my question implies otherwise, I apologize.

Although it hasn't happened to me, it did happen to someone I love and I know the brainwashing is real.

Perhaps it would have been better to ask how the implanted ideas worked to create a split between your subjective reality and feedback from the environment outside of the group.

I thank all of you for taking the time to try to help me understand this. Again, I apologize if I gave the impression that I didn't comprehend that the group deceived you. I do understand that.

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question lady
My question was perhaps clumsily worded. I want to emphasize that I do understand that anyone who got into one of these groups was subjected to covert mind control techniques. To the extent that my question implies otherwise, I apologize.

Although it hasn't happened to me, it did happen to someone I love and I know the brainwashing is real.

Perhaps it would have been better to ask how the implanted ideas worked to create a split between your subjective reality and feedback from the environment outside of the group.

I thank all of you for taking the time to try to help me understand this. Again, I apologize if I gave the impression that I didn't comprehend that the group deceived you. I do understand that.

Don't worry question lady, I'm sure nobody got you wrong, it's just that it's useful to reapet that people are deceived. As someone said, "nobody joins a cult. they just postpone the moment they leave".

To answer your question, well, as to how the ideas are implanted, there are a lot of article on coercive persuasion and how it's achieved during this marathons: first, you destroy the old personality, with a mix of physical pressure (lack of rest, breaks, food, water and sleep, in order to make the body - and the brain too - weak). Then when people start to crack down you implant the new ideas and then you cement them with the same techniques used to destroy them, only as a positive reinforce instead of a negative one.

So your subjectuve reality is split in two - your real self, abused and humiliated constantly, and your new cult self, the drone, the robot. This two identities fight against each other. The feedback from the real world helps your real self to come back on the surface. That creates a clash with your cult self. Unfortunately the clash is seen a proof that something is wrong when the real self comes back, so the cult self is reinforced that way. In landmark, your real self is called 'act' and your cult self are 'possibility'. When the brainwash start to wear off, your 'act resurface'. That's stressful. Stress is a proof that your pre-cult self is good for nothing but pain, so you automatically start the thought stopping execises and 'recreate your possibility again'. I don't know if I've been clear enough. Basically the 'technologies' are constructed to be self-proved by the very problems they cause. When the brainwashing starts to fade, adjustment is very uncomfortable. Until you realise that the discomfort it's not the disease, but the healing, you tend to be back for more brainwashing.

It was a very subtle shift in how I looked at life overall.

This philosphy actually shifts a perspective from accepting that I have a negative element to my beingness that could be removed by changing the meaning in my thinking to do so.

This is where it gets really tricky. In some aspects this a valid statement.

Yet, it needs to be kept in context with other truths. I can't control another person by anything I do, think, or feel.

What another person chooses to do in relationships is not in my power to change.

Unfortunately Question Lady. In intimate relationships like your situation, and mine.

No matter what I show up with in my beingness, and my thinking, feeling, doing and whatever.

One person can choose not to be relational. This LGAT philosphy and mindset just gives those who choose not to be relational. This philosphy gives them a way to walk all over another person relationally and keep themselves feeling positive about it.

Because its all about their reality, and not the reality of relationship and being mutual.

Not everyone chooses to walk all over another person in a destructive way relationally. But, the degree to which this takes place depends on how narcissistic the person was prior to seminars.

In my case, my wife was extremely narssistic, and all these seminars did was to throw nitro on this narcissism within her personality.

We are, more or less, the sum of our beliefs. Fortunately, I have always resisted (i.e. questioned and researched and questioned some more) the ideas and notions of other people and organised thoughts.

Perhaps, to some degree, my fortune lay in the fact that my mother was a caretaker of a church. What that meant was that we (I) got a behind-the-scenes look at the mundane aspects of ministers and their patrons. One standout experience was realising that 'our' minister was a kleptomaniac (my suspicion, anyway): once in awhile things we left out in our yard (generally tools) went missing. A quick over-the-fence into the minister's yard and into his garden shed and - presto! - the discovery of our things. I soon learned that 'holy men' were sometimes less than human. BTW, I was about 13 years old and I realise now that my behaviour was somewhat criminal, too.

Perhaps, as I've said on a number of previous posts, I have an insatiable curiosity that keeps me searching and researching and accepting few things for too long. My interest in science has revealed that no law is unbreakable.

There are others who would say that I'm just plain arrogant and stubborn. And to qualify this, I say, if there is a God, I'll be having a few questions of my own to ask him or her or it.

Having said all of that, I can accept that we all have moments of weakness. This is, I believe, the bait that LGATs like Landmark prey upon. Shame on them!

What has happened to our sense of community? Our friends? Our loving families?

I say, don't give up on yourself just because you're surrounded by people with sinister agendas. Help where you can; be patient for as long as you can; but don't give yourself up! :)