Re: Help me, please. Landmark has eaten my true love.
Date: February 04, 2008 02:46AM
Hi everyone,
Thank you for all your concern and support. I think I hit a wall last night and realized I really am driving myself nuts with this. I'm going to a museum today, I think there's still a world outside . . .
I emailed him last night and told him to please just let me know he's okay. He's doing the Advanced Course right now, I think, because he's not home all day until 1 am. He emailed at 1:30 am and said he was okay and would write soon. So it was good to hear from him anyway.
I think the hardest part for me is that I've been seeing him as two different people. The strong man I thought he was, who loved me completely and wanted me and cared about me and would never let me go. Then he became this other very scared and insecure man who got suckered into Landmark by someone who DOESN'T love him, doesn't care at all, she's paid to give advice, and she's a "Lekkie."
I got very angry about all this. My feelings about "est" were already fully formed and very strong. I got disgusted with him for even considering it, and for refusing to read everything I sent him. So of course this reaction of mine just pushed him even further away.
Now that I know there's no going back to how things used to be, and my illusions about who he is, and I've dealt with the pain of that, I feel like I just need to let him know I love him and hope that he will stop taking these courses. I'm just concerned for his health and sanity now.
Nettie, I'm not so sure what, if anything, about these courses is really helpful. I can see using related trainings in a corporate setting, where life really IS black and white, and the business is not running like it should be. I was reading about how "est" type boot-camp trainings are used this way, and though I still think it's insane, at least it makes a bit more sense in the corporate environment.
But of course life itself, interpersonal realities, emotions etc, are far more complex than what these courses can grasp., and from everything I've read about the "teaching," I think it's harmful because it's either obscenely simplistic or just plain wrong.
What the hell gives these untrained ego maniacs the right to tell people what the "truth" is? How do they know life is meaningless and empty? How do they know that people create their own reality? They don't know this. They might want to think it's true, but they don't KNOW. The New Age is overflowing with assholes who claim to "know."
Listen, until you part the Red Seas, walk on water or turn water into wine, I ain't buyin your story. Espcially not while you're picking my pocket.
Group hypnosis, ego deconstruction and the implantation of unrealistic but compelling ideas, lead people to states of euphoria that are unsustainable and ultimately confusing or destabilizing. And if they're NOT, that means you're lacking some very basic critical thinking skills.
I spent a lot of my teenage years doing LSD. I went to Grateful Dead shows and Rainbow Gatherings. I've taken so much acid I was once nearly hospitalized for it. I suffered, essentially, a psychotic break. Thankfully my father would not let me be taken to a hospital, he knew I'd come out of it once the drug wore off, and I did.
However, the lasting effects of that experience took years to overcome. Finally I found a book called "The Seduction of Madness." I read it cover to cover and after that I was finally healed. Information is powerful, and this book explained a lot about how the mind works and how it can become very, very confused.
I'm going to take a little break from all of this today, but I'm not done with LGATs yet. I'm pissed off, and I want to be part of some kind of awareness movement. People NEED to know about these groups, what they teach, what the dangers are. And how Dr. Evil, Mr.Erhard, is still behind it all, laughing and raking in the bucks.