When I was a teenager, some distant relatives visited. The man
had been born in Austria and left shortly after the Nazis took over.

I asked him how he'd left.

Mr. X told us the he was arrested in mass round up--the police detained everyone whose ID papers indicated they were Jewish.

He was led with other Jews, to a large building. Then, Mr X told us he and other young men were given clubs. He was ordered to blugeon an old man--or be killed himself.

Mr X told us, he just couldnt do it.

His heart rebelled at the thought of it. He decided he'd rather die than do such a thing. He didnt tell us he was influenced by any sort of belief system or abstract system of ethics--his body and heart just rebelled.

So Mr X put the club down, turned his back on the Nazi brute who gave the orders. He walked away, and kept walking, assuming any instant that he would be killed or clubbed.

He told us he kept walking and walking...and mysteriously no one stopped him. He left the building and didnt go to his home. He found friends to help him, got money and papers and took the first train he could find out of Vienna--and saved his own life.

Two, Mr X did not dissociate from his feeling of horror and revulsion when ordered to brutalize another human being.

This ability to feel shock, pain, dismay at the mere order to hurt another person is what kept our friend from brutalizing that man.

What our friend had functioning in him is apparently something that is disrupted by the training process and belief system employed by many LGATs-empathy.

Empathy is apparently something we feel in our hearts and bodies--its more than just a belief system.

Some belief systems support empathy.

Other belief systems devalue empathy as evidence of weakness--or train us only to feel empathy for persons who share our belief systems and to withdraw empathy and dissociate from anyone who disagrees. In the latter case, we objectify those who disagree.

Its a very safe way to get through life--turning our hearts on and off selectively, the way one switches a water faucet on and off. Anyone who disagrees with us or whose concern troubles us--objectify them. React to them as objects making funny noises.

Its much more radical and painful to retain empathy for all persons, including those who disagree with us.

We have to be taught in childhood to develop empathy--tiny kids below a certain age bracket dont have it--why they dont understand they are capable of hurting others if they bite or hit or squeeze too hard.

And even if we have been taught to have empathy, we can lose it. Going by what others have reported here, it appears that certain social experiences can disrupt empathy--such as certain LGATS.

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This ability to feel shock, pain, dismay at the mere order to hurt another person is what kept our friend from brutalizing that man.

What our friend had functioning in him is apparently something that is disrupted by the training process and belief system employed by many LGATs-empathy.

Empathy is apparently something we feel in our hearts and bodies--its more than just a belief system.

Some belief systems support empathy.

Other belief systems devalue empathy as evidence of weakness--or train us only to feel empathy for persons who share our belief systems and to withdraw empathy and dissociate from anyone who disagrees. In the latter case, we objectify those who disagree.

Its a very safe way to get through life--turning our hearts on and off selectively, the way one switches a water faucet on and off. Anyone who disagrees with us or whose concern troubles us--objectify them. React to them as objects making funny noises.

Its much more radical and painful to retain empathy for all persons, including those who disagree with us.

We have to be taught in childhood to develop empathy--tiny kids below a certain age bracket dont have it--why they dont understand they are capable of hurting others if they bite or hit or squeeze too hard.

And even if we have been taught to have empathy, we can lose it. Going by what others have reported here, it appears that certain social experiences can disrupt empathy--such as certain LGATS.

Wow Corboy! Do you have any idea how much babbling time I would be able to spare myself in just about any situation, if I had the ability to use words like you did here? This sums it up for me. It really does narrow down to empathy and/or a lack of it.

My next question is, is it fear or selfishness that causes one to willingly sacrifice empathy in a pivotal moment of truth?

speaking of the lost in landmark and zero empathy....

it seems that there will be a viewing of the film about landmarkia's leader in NYC on July 27th-August 2nd. This would be the film created by a Robyn Simon about their esteemed landmarkian master....

Does anyone out there know what socius-partners is or who Bill Weil is?

This article explains how empathy is lost in many LGAT situations. People dont realize they're losing empathy. They think they're getting something so valuable (a feeling of total power and boundlessness) that they either dont realize anything has been taken from them, or empathy is resented as a downer that disrupts the omnipotence.

This is a very good item to read. What follows is a small excerpt:

[www.culteducation.com]

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Within the narcissistic framework constructed by the training, the use of infantile splitting-dividing the relational world into "all good" and "all bad" objects emerged as a dominant defense against anxiety in the group.

In order for the Lifespring experience to he taken in, it needed to be idealized as an all-good object. The trainer could not. be questioned nor the content of the training challenged.

Participants whose opinions deviated from the trainer's were seen as a threat to the feelings of elation and well-being enjoyed by participants. Such threats had to be actively defended against in order to preserve the fantasy of omnipotence cultivated within the training.

Conclusion

We have argued that while many participants experienced a sense of enhanced well-being as a consequence of the training, these experiences were essentially pathological.

First, ego functions were systematically undermined and regression was promoted by environmental structuring, infantilizing of participants and repeated emphasis on submission and surrender.

Second, the ideational or interpretive framework provided in the training was also based upon regressive modes of reasoning--the use of all-or-nothing categories, absolutist logic and magical thinking, all of which are consistent with the egocentric thinking of young children. Third, the content of the training stimulated early narcissistic conflicts and defenses, which accounts for the elation and sense of heightened well-being achieved by many participants.

[i:e1937eb39d](The feeling of power--editor) [/i:e1937eb39d]

"The devaluation of objective constraints upon a person's action promoted grandiose fantasies of unlimited power. A corollary to this devaluation of the external world wits that interactions with others lacked substance."

([i:e1937eb39d]The loss of empathy--persons become interchangeable objects, to be toyed with and discarded--appropriate when we are 2 years old, but a dangerous state of mind when one is in an adult body--editor) [/i:e1937eb39d]

"People appeared to be interchangeable so that ephemeral, indiscriminate emotional contacts were experienced as profound and meaningful.

Identification with Lifespring necessitated considerable idealization so that any threat to this experience was aggressively defended against.

What makes LGATs attractive is they cause participants to feel powerful. Its head-rush produced by social engineering.

If you made people feel this way by selling them happy powder, you'd be busted. But do the same thing through social engineering and you get rich.

This feeling of power is not rooted in actual, adult achievement.

It is produced by losing something--by losing access to important adult cognitive/emotional functions and regressing to the state of mind of a tiny child, about age 18 months to 2 years.

This is the age where we are so young that we are heedless of future consequences. We are energized by still feeling merged with our primary parental caregiver ([i:e1937eb39d]in the LGAT you're led to re-enact this by emotionally merging with the leader, who functions as surrogate parent and bestows praise and inculcates drastic shame, just as parents do[/i:e1937eb39d]), Yet in this phase, while feeling protected and merged with the primary parent, you have the sheer excitement of becoming autonomous--you learn to walk, you can touch, grab, explore.

You dont get this stunning independence again until learning to drive.

Life is just delicious in this phase. You feel totally protected by the parent, totaly invulnerable--and you can move around at your own initiative.

But at this age, kids are unaware of the independent existence of other persons and dont know other people have feelings. They're too young for empathy.

That is why tiny kids have to be closely supervised if they play with animals or with each other--they dont realize that if they hit, bite or squeeze too hard, they could actually hurt a playmate--or injure an animal if they squeeze too hard. Other children and animals are objects, not beings needing care and consideration.

This is why tiny children feel omnipotent, but actually require supervision and protection from caregivers.

You are so young you feel like you can fly, but your parents know full well that there is such a thing as the law of gravity and broken bones--and they take care to child proof the house until you are old enough to protect yourself.

But in LGATs people get this feeling of early childhood omipotence, but are turned loose in adult bodies, with adult relationships and adult access to credit cards, flying high and heedless like tiny kids, but with no awareness that they are vulnerable in this state.

Saddest of all, in the LGAT world, vulnerability is despised, (though vulnerablity is actually well understood as a motivating device)

Empathy is despised in the LGAT world because it means feeling the pain of human connection and that means awareness of vulnerability in oneself and others.

Ever notice how often many LGATs and similar groups dislike any mention of vulnerability?

They love to say 'there are no victims'--if you see everyone as an object, not as a person with inherant dignity, then there's no such thing as a victim--you cant victimize an object.

So, that is the way to feel omnipotent--be convinced only you are real and everyone else is just an object, a thing, to be toyed with and then tossed aside when boring or making funny noises--funny noises that a person with empathy would call a broken heart, puzzled by LGAT induced
heedlessness..

Must mention it isnt just LGATs that do this--its an attitude that now permeates large sectors of the spirituality/human potential scene.

Any time someone says 'There are no victims' that's someone who treats everyone as an object. If you give pleasure, you will be a valued object.

If you become boring you get tossed aside, the way a 2 year old ditches a
used toy and forgets it ever existed.

Its fine when 2 year olds do this--its age appropriate and two year olds are, hopefully parented to become kind and responsible when older.

But when this attitude is in an adult body and accompanied by charisma--we've seen what happens.

Hi Corboy,

I agree with what you're saying but the lgat I was involved with used "vulnerability" a lot; "make yourself vulnerable" was one of their most-used phrases. They pushed us to make ourselves vulnerable by taking risks and showing feelings and weaknesses and fears; and making us make fools of ourselves by doing stupid dances etc. They give a lot of positive feedback to people who make themselves vulnerable by sharing all kinds of intimate things eg fears and weaknesses. That's how they get total strangers to bond with each other. At many points in the training people [i:c7e2d84751]are[/i:c7e2d84751] very vulnerable and that is endearing; anyone with a half a heart will open up to others who show they are vulnerable. I don't think the training would work on psychopaths; they don't have any empathy or vulnerability to manipulate.

The lgats also claim all the ground rules and controls are there to create a safe space so that people can risk being vulnerable and thereby grow. So they make you vulnerable and also grateful for an opportunity to be vulnerable. Love-bombing starts with people being put in a position of feeling bad about not wanting to hug people, and the other person looking vulnerable and hurt over it (I speak for myself here; maybe some people really like hugging strangers). So I think they really play a lot on natural empathy and encourage vulnerability as a part of opening people up and breaking them down.

It always bothered me though that within hours of leaving the training the vulnerability was replaced in most people by an additional set of defenses, and was combined with real ruthlessness. Some people after the training used vulnerabilities that were exposed in thet training against each other. It is another paradox of the training, I think. They take contradictory emotions or thoughts that can't co-exist and push them both at the same time until the only solution is to stop thinking and feeling.

The other bothering thing is that the trainers never show vulnerability or take risks.

Does this make any sense to you? In some ways I think this is THE MOST exploitative element of lgats.

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But in LGATs people get this feeling of early childhood omipotence, but are turned loose in adult bodies, with adult relationships and adult access to credit cards, flying high and heedless like tiny kids, but with no awareness that they are vulnerable in this state.

Saddest of all, in the LGAT world, vulnerability is despised, (though vulnerablity is actually well understood as a motivating device)

Empathy is despised in the LGAT world because it means feeling the pain of human connection and that means awareness of vulnerability in oneself and others.

this explains how a compromised mind so easily rejects, renounces, or simply forgets about family, friends, careers, or goals and aspirations they had prior to their brainwashing forums and workshops. The very things in life that once represented security and comfort, and I suppose, vulnerability.
Its scary to realize that the most embedded convictions can be reshaped via deception and a little psychological manipulation.

Empathy is valuable but it appears also to be fragile and can, sad to say,
be disrupted if suffient stress and social pressure are placed on most of us. A belief system may assist us to protect empathy in the face of pressures and tempations to devalue it or dis-able it.

It may be that empathy is not created by a belief system. Its a potential that has to be developed through 1) 'good-enough' parenting when we are tiny children, then further refined by age appropriate play with other children and adults.

(It would be good if children had exposure to people in a wide variety of age groups..its a good thing for older children to learn care and consideration for much younger children, and the same kind of care and concern for not making too much noise when a grandparent is taking an afternoon nap)

But...it may be that the value of a belief system, whether it is secular humanist, or from a relgion is not to create empathy---but to provide
a framework that honors and supports empathy once it has begun to develop.

Because yes...empathy can be destabilized if we are put under enough pressure. Viktor Frankl and others who survived the horrors of Nazism discovered that being human (empathic) is not a given. Its a choice that has to be made and re-made each day, sometimes moment by moment.

So when we are under pressure, and tempted to give up on empathy and tempted to fear that having a caring heart is just a miserable liability--THAT is when a belief system can help us withstand the pressure to cave in and become brutal.

In his book Obedience to Authority, psychologist Stanley Milgram described how many nice kind people obeyed orders from an authority figure in a lab experiment and (seemingly) administered painful and fatal electric shocks to subjects who screamed in pain. (These are actors)

One of the very, very few subjects who refused to obey orders and refused to deliver pain was a professor of Old Testament history at a seminary.

So, these days when all kinds of belief systems clog the market place we have to ask of each one, 'Does this uphold the inherant dignity of the ordinary human person, including all those who do not agree with this belief system?'

'And does this belief system support unconditional empathy--care and cocern for all?

"And do those who profess this actually put it into practice in verifiable ways?'

'Any suggestion that 'there are no victims'--be alert and turn on the skeptical high beams. Any contempt for those deemed weak or who have suffered misfortune or illness--be alert.

Groups that focus on the feeling of power and invulnerability will tend to show their colors if one dares to look steadily enough.

A good way is to test and see how well a group cares about the actual well being of its humblest members. If you only get care and concern if you are powerholder, and your hardships are despised if you are rank and file member, if those who leave the group are written off and devalued, with no care or concern-as if they are just discarded trash on the highway, thats a group in which only the powerful are persons and the rest are mere objects to be used then discarded when no longer needed.

Just to clarify--belief systems can be helpful to validate and stabilize empathy once it has been fostered.

But...the most important thing to remember is empathy is created and then it is best maintained in human relationships and social contexts that
nurture it.

Paradoxically the first step to enslavement and bruality is to buy into believing we are hard shelled, autonomous beings who are (or should be)
impervious to temptation.

The actual reality is we remain deeply influenced by social connection--and
can be thrown off balance far more readily than most of us like to admit if
we are put in bad situations disguised as good situations.

So strangely,the best way to stay free is recognize the extent to which we
are not autonomous and remain malleable to social influence--and then
function wisely as intelligent consumers, taking as much care to select
nourishing social relationships and to avoid brutal and demeaning ones that market empowerment while claiming 'there are no victims.'

We are learning to be mindful of what we put on our plates. We only recently learned that trans fats taste lip smacking good but actually destabilize health and are now being taught to read labels and avoid them.

Many so called human potential and spiritual projects taste lip smacking good but have the same effect as trans fats--and sites like RR.com
give advice on how to read the labels before opening our minds to social
and psychological junkfood that has a rapid onset feel good effect, but long term, subtracts more than it seemingly gives.

The core element that comes through these survivor accounts is unreciprocated loyalty.

When people sign up for these ventures, they want to become better persons, not find themselves used and discarded as objects.

Its always valuable to find out how others are being treated in any organization or relationship you are thinking of getting involved with.

What happens to the ones who have left? Does their very existence become a dirty secret, not to be spoken of?

No matter how blissed out you feel, please ask yourself what has happened with the people who are no longer there and see how well they are spoken of.

Because...you could be next. Find out before you get depleted and kicked to the curb. When you get too drained and debilitated to respond to empowering group exercises and no longer have enough inner juice to respond to the old triggers by getting high and injecting your energy into the group--very likely you'll end up like a discarded soda can on the highway.

We're people, not disposables. No amount of bliss can compensate for that.

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corboy

When people sign up for these ventures, they want to become better persons, not find themselves used and discarded as objects.

And then some (many? most?) people never come to see that they were exploited. My sister can't see it, despite lots of supporting information I've given her. The exploitation is so well disguised, and the experience of feeling good is so overpowering. My sister, and other lgat-ers I know, think that lgats are harmless lessons in education and personal growth! They have NO CLUE what was done to them, and how they were used.

When I stopped being enamored with the lgat I saw myself literally being discarded.

I frequently want to end my posts with CUSSING because I get upset when I think about the lgat.

&*(#%))!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

corboy,
thank you for so candidly expressing the nature and true picture of LGAT's and what they lack in terms of protective or beneficial human qualities. I have read and re-read your last three posts, all the while screaming inside because I know that a person I once knew as my friend isn't reading this board too.

I cannot fully express how sad it is for me to know that a dear friend, consumed in the unrelenting jaws of landmark education, is probably not going to be reading yours or others' posts on this board today, about what LE and most LGATS really are, what they intend for their victims, or how little value they represent when they're not recruiting and helping to instill the destructive programming in others' minds. I grieve the loss of that one friend and simply cannot imagine how it feels for those who lose entire sets of friends and family members to these vicious cults. In a way it is like grieving a death. It is like watching the beauty and the essence of a person be destroyed in huge increments until there's nothing left except the shell of a drone, with just enough human characteristics left to deceive others into believing the shell holds credibility. I have always placed great trust in the strength of good and strong human character, I have believed in the goodness in people as being like precious metal, immune to rust or tarnishing of any kind. In the last two years I have had to accept how powerful evil minded people are and how effectively their deceptions and attacks can break down even the strongest character or the most compassionate heart. I am still working at 'digesting' this reality but I still believe in humanity as it should or could be, NOT the way landmark education or any other cult would have it.
I look forward to the day that this continent wakes up to the infection festering within its mainstream culture and social networks.

Again, thanks corboy.