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MartinH
... at this point comes the STRIKING Landmark argument. Landmark is not about the truth or discussing who is right ... it is about something else, nonlinear learning or so ... and the course goes on, no issue is ever discussed. [b:707655f312]Even the sharpest-knives are simply shut down[/b:707655f312].

The knife is blunt because Landmark can't find the whet stone (sharpener). You see, an organisation, just like a person, with borrowed or stolen information just can't fully understand the information. The context is lost and this leads to a bunch of fear-laden coaches running around making bullet points and sticking to the program as if their lives depended on it.

Landmark can't share because what it knows is communicated as nothing more than a kind of heresay or gossip. Yeah, there is 'formal' instruction, but the confusion and fear and humiliation laced into the doctrine makes for little more than whispers and peeps. A graduate can hardly hold the 'sacred' knowledge of LEC, don't expect him/her to be able to be talk about it!

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MartinH
I "learned" during the FORUM not to ask whether something is right or wrong. I was rather looking for some event to happen in myself or others as soon as I gave up to be analytical or critical. I guess this is a part of the LGAT brainwashing.

so basically, landmark relies heavily/totally on magical thought processing and does all it can to evoke this type of thinking in its brutal and dangerous uses of brainwashing techniques?
Whatever is derived from this assisted magical thinking is 'getting it', and any deviation from the magical thought realm is being 'inauthentic'? The 'enlightening event' that occurs is actually a psychopathological event caused by the deviation from the person's sense or knowledge of reality and protective/defense mechanisms?

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at this point comes the STRIKING Landmark argument : Landmark is not about the truth or discussing who is right ... it is about something else, nonlinear learning or so ... and the course goes on, no issue is ever discussed. Even the sharpest-knives are simply shut down.

the issues that are not being discussed are used merely for a gateway into the mind of the participant?

[b:c85f243e75]Vic-Luc wrote:[/b:c85f243e75]

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Same thing with the writer of the novel, 'Fight Club,'

Fight Club was written by Chuck Palahniuk, who, as far as I know, would walk into a place like Landmark with a suitcase full of rubber body parts and dump them in front of the facilitators during some especially touchy-feely part of the seminar. He would then say something like, "This is what is left of my inner child. Anybody hungry?"

(In fact, during one of his reading tours he did travel through the airlines with a suitcase full of rubber body parts, just to see if he could. He did! Nobody even checked the suitcase.)

If Palahniuk is a Landmarkian this is certainly news to his fans and followers of his work. While he is enthusiastic about living his life, he is often dark and cynical and really doesn't seem easily compelled by any sorts of brainwashing.

In fact, one of his books, Survivor, is about the supposed sole survivor of the "Creedish Death Cult" and how he just wants to live his life and not be forced into suicide just because of his past religion.

From what I've heard, "Fight Club" was written by Palahniuk in response to either an editor or publisher (can't recall which) who was disgusted with his dark and violent writing and asked him to tone it down. He wrote "Fight Club" to annoy this person even more.

Not that this is really relevant to this thread, but I can't stand seeing my literary hero coupled with something so godawful as Landmark.

Unless you know something I don't. Have you heard of a connection? (I'm asking respectfully, not reproachfully!)

He's written several nonfiction books, one about his own city and parts of his life, and I don't remember this being mentioned. I should re-read them.

Even if he had attended Landmark, I really would doubt that it stuck.

From www.believermag.com:

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In 1989, a man named Chuck Palahniuk enrolled in a Landmark Forum workshop. He was twenty-six years old and, like many of his co-participants, struggling with his life and what to do with it. Despite his lack of vocational direction, Palahniuk had no problem navigating his way to the closest exit after the first forty-five minutes of the workshop, repelled by the program’s cultiness and rigidity. Later that day, however, he returned to complete the training, and that night began writing what would eventually become his best-selling book, Fight Club—a sequence of events which suggests the Landmark Forum was more successful in helping Palahniuk redirect his life than a barrage of inconclusive personality tests, forlorn meetings with career counselors, or years of expensive psychoanalysis.

Hmmm. Kinda wish I hadn't seen this. Still, this is what Landmark says. While he may very well have enrolled, I wonder how much he still is a part of this?

Wonder where he's at with it now?

Ah well, I still think his books are awesome.[/quote]

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Jack Oskar Larm

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MartinH
... at this point comes the STRIKING Landmark argument. Landmark is not about the truth or discussing who is right ... it is about something else, nonlinear learning or so ... and the course goes on, no issue is ever discussed. [b:f446b7b2b7]Even the sharpest-knives are simply shut down[/b:f446b7b2b7].

The knife is blunt because Landmark can't find the whet stone (sharpener). You see, an organisation, just like a person, with borrowed or stolen information just can't fully understand the information. The context is lost and this leads to a bunch of fear-laden coaches running around making bullet points and sticking to the program as if their lives depended on it.

Landmark can't share because what it knows is communicated as nothing more than a kind of heresay or gossip. Yeah, there is 'formal' instruction, but the confusion and fear and humiliation laced into the doctrine makes for little more than whispers and peeps. A graduate can hardly hold the 'sacred' knowledge of LEC, don't expect him/her to be able to be talk about it!

yes, well said. I could summarize the teachings of Landmark. The concepts presented never made any sense to me. I might have learned something by talking about what currently concerns me in my life, and by getting some advice from other participants. I gave up my boundaries, it might be good in some cases, but in the end bad for my emotional well-being. Landmark does no reflection or research, nor has any justification for its methods, borrowed and stolen from everywhere, taken out of context.
this is maybe one approach to dismantle Landmark, to tell people that it is just cheap stuff, that may work sometimes mainly out of other reasons.

These comments pretty much some up why they are almost impossible to defeat.

Take a group of human beings, the sample being skewed towards the "troubled soul" variety. Then put them through a soul searching process with some quick wins up front to sort out friend and family break downs. Trust is earned early on. Concerns with the methods are cleverly concealed with double speak. The troubled souls leave slightly less troubled (or possibly think they are).

In other words, take a group of screwed up people, chuck as much psychological and philosophical stuff they you call your own at them in the shortest amount of time, some of it will take, some won't, some people will be even more fu**ed up. Never mind, you just focus on the former, surpress and ignore the latter and there you have Landmark Education.

Shotgun Psychology run by amateurs only interested in people's money and souls.

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Blue Pill
In other words, take a group of screwed up people, chuck as much psychological and philosophical stuff they you call your own at them in the shortest amount of time, some of it will take, some won't, some people will be even more fu**ed up. Never mind, you just focus on the former, surpress and ignore the latter and there you have Landmark Education.

Shotgun Psychology run by amateurs only interested in people's money and souls.

:D just sooo true ..
learn these comments by heart, and you have the dictionary definition for "Landmark education" ... :twisted:

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Blue Pill
These comments pretty much some up why they are almost impossible to defeat.

Take a group of human beings, the sample being skewed towards the "troubled soul" variety. Then put them through a soul searching process with some quick wins up front to sort out friend and family break downs. Trust is earned early on. Concerns with the methods are cleverly concealed with double speak. The troubled souls leave slightly less troubled (or possibly think they are).

In other words, take a group of screwed up people, chuck as much psychological and philosophical stuff they you call your own at them in the shortest amount of time, some of it will take, some won't, some people will be even more fu**ed up. Never mind, you just focus on the former, surpress and ignore the latter and there you have Landmark Education.

Shotgun Psychology run by amateurs only interested in people's money and souls.

tell the f**ed up, that you told them before that some will be f**ed up and should not have done the Landmark Forum.

This strikes me as similar to Landmark's practice of claiming past people of great importance "did not have access to the Forum but embodied it's meaning" and that these people would have been "enrolled" if they had the opportunity. People like Martin Luther King and Gandhi that actually probably would have run screaming from the Forum had it actually been around when they were.

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yutolia
This strikes me as similar to Landmark's practice of claiming past people of great importance "did not have access to the Forum but embodied it's meaning" and that these people would have been "enrolled" if they had the opportunity. People like Martin Luther King and Gandhi that actually probably would have run screaming from the Forum had it actually been around when they were.

Oh yes. They said the same in London. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Jesus Christ (the son of Werner Erhard), Buddha, Madonna, Churchill: they have all been named as landmarkian 'ad honorem' (most of them posthumously and as Yutolia said surely against their will).

On the 'bad guys' list, Mother Theresa. (A selfish showing-off saint-wannabe who helped others for free only because she wanted to look good) *

The 'Wasted Potential': Hitler (for the nazi people's commitment to the leader)


[source: landmarkians comments]