The thing that makes me sick to death of Landmark and the whole Landmarky universe is how this intellectual malignancy is spreading into our society and seeming to infest itself into many other areas where it would ordinarily be laughed off the stage. Upper levels of government, for example, and that old corpse of Rumsfeld comes to mind, with his minions who thought that they could ~control~ the world with language and context and reframing and all the other gimmicky semantic tricks they utilized. Thirty years ago Governor Jerry Brown knew enough to distance himself from this apparent groundswell of interest in the "human potential" movement with its assortment of hucksters and phony gurus. The association was the kiss of death for Werner Erhard's brother in his attempt to win public office in California. Too bad so few people are willing to speak out or even examine this phenomenon. These creeps plow the fields in relative anonymity, all the while fleecing their followers and destroying and undermining the general discourse. It's the dumbing-down and overall stupidity of their comic-book philosophies and the reduction of complex, nuanced, and intricate human problems to cook-book nostrums and formulaic solutions. These programs are worse than religions, most of which at least acknowledge the unknown and the awe-inspiring recognition of something far greater than ourselves. Is it any wonder they all hark back to Aleister Crowley and his worship of the self above and separate from all?


Ellen

Right On - Elena. You see so clearly the threads that connect Alistair Crowley to the 'willfulness' of Narcissism, to Ayn Rand & L. Ron Hubbard, and then on to encyclopedia salesmen like Werner. Its a long thread and it leads straight back to human evil. M. Scott Peck's book called "The People of the Lie" certainly comes to mind in this case.

In addition to all the other helpful sources that you've shared (ooops) with us here, Elena, I'll bet money you've also done your homework on Crowley, Peck AND that L. Ron Hubbard JUNIOR interview up here on the Rick Ross articles page. (Am I right?)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/25/2008 02:50AM by pauker.

Elena and Pauker-
Brilliantly put. I think it's evil too. I think it was Scott Peck in his book, People of the Lie, who said that Evil always hides itself. This is what I see with Landmark.
I think that evil also can rarely resist dropping in little 'warnings' here and there along the way so that it can laugh even more at its victims.
Like the warning at the start of courses that people shouldn't believe anything they hear.

For any readers who don't believe in evil: there is a saying in the military, "the greatest threat to security is the belief there is no threat". Apply this to good and evil and you get: The greatest threat to good is the belief there is no evil. I hope you will 'open yourself to the possibility' that evil exists and that if you allow yourself to do this, start considering all the possible implications and consequences. Evil *wants* you to believe there is no evil.

I would love to get into this topic in more detail- maybe in a new thread?

Vegiegardener

PS Thanks Pauker for your earlier suggestion to watch the film for oppotunities to listen to W.E.

Ya know -- it was one of the reasons I liked the book People of the Lie. Peck manages to drag human evil at least partly out of the church and under the microscope of a psychologist's point of view for some truly mind blowing perspectives. Its truly amazing how much of it applies here as well. I especially like his chapter which moves from the psychology to the sociology of human evil, with his study of the 1969 My Lai massacre. What a freakin' brilliant piece of writing, that chapter -- and sheds yet another light on group behavior at Landmark.

Now about the movie extolling the Life & Legacy of Werner Erhard. As some of you know, I have a Daughter I am trying to slowly, mentally rescue from yet another LGAT (ultimately, they're all the same), and I played the X-formation movie for her, just to show her, 1st of all, that what she's been doing isn't unique but a part of an industry over a half century old. Plus, if I was gonna plant any seeds of doubt, better to cast them off onto Werner and Company first, THEN lead her to water about connecting the dots between my old LGAT and her new one. She found the movie fascinating. "Step by step," I keep telling myself.

By the way, this marks the 3rd time I've seen this movie within a month. OK -- call be a glutton for punishment; but several things come to mind:

1 - even watching the damn flick seems to make me a bit edgy and hypo-manic (after all, I am genetically pre-disposed towards this crap). So, I'm done with watching it, unless I feel the overriding need to show it to someone else. whew...

2 - as someone said on an earlier LEC thread, this movie is CLEARLY about an old dude EXTREMELY concerned about his legacy. And famous old guys who obsess about their legacies obsess precisely because they stirred some kind of major shit in their lives (like Michael Milkin); and because they can't stand the thought of being remembered for their shit. The more I've seen this move, the more pathetic every scene starts to look to me. And BTW, Laurel Schief (sp?) looks and sounds just as vacuous as she did 30 years ago. Plus, both Werner and Randy McNamara look even more evil & beady eyed than ever. Just pathetic......but worth a watch, if it doesn't make you too manic.

3 - For those of you in Europe who might also go to the trouble of ordering the DVD, there's supposedly some scenes that LEC (or Werner) got omitted from the US version. Sure would be interesting to at least hear about what we gringos are missing.

I very well recognize how you can get back to your landmark/est hypomanic self when reading a pro landmark or pro Werner piece.

It is all in the mind. You can do great things with your mind. You can also do evil things with your mind.

For landmark it is very easy to spot the devilish part. They know that people kill themselves after taking part of their courses. They know that people suffer psychosis after participating in the landmark forum. They even admit that in the written consent form!

Yet - they continue doing it - that is a sign of evil. Not really "a world that works for everyone" that Werner Erhard stated was his "possibility".

If you know that what you are doing hurts people you should simply stop. It is that easy.

Quote
nettie
I very well recognize how you can get back to your landmark/est hypomanic self when reading a pro landmark or pro Werner piece.

It is all in the mind. You can do great things with your mind. You can also do evil things with your mind.

-----------------------------

That's so true, Nettie. And it brings my mind back to the Landmarkese part, as they really play that jargon game as one of the great evils they commit with their minds. They even got us doing that stuff FOR 'em, temporarily, when we were still in their 'thrall.'

BTW. as for "A World That Works For Everyone," that's called Magical Thinking. Yet another classic symptom of mania.

And the way Werner spun the 'Integrity" thing in that bogus document. HAHA! But you know? I actually had one of those 'paradigm shifting' moments (whoops - almost slipped) on the word 'Integrity,' which for me, redefined the word away from est & back into something healthy again. I dunno where I read this, or who said/wrote this, but it helped to wake me back up. It said, 'Integrity is choosing to do the right thing, even when no one else is around.'

Does anyone have a clue, by the way, as to where that comes from?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/26/2008 03:24AM by pauker.

Quote
pauker
Right On - Elena. You see so clearly the threads that connect Alistair Crowley to the 'willfulness' of Narcissism, to Ayn Rand & L. Ron Hubbard, and then on to encyclopedia salesmen like Werner. Its a long thread and it leads straight back to human evil. M. Scott Peck's book called "The People of the Lie" certainly comes to mind in this case.

In addition to all the other helpful sources that you've shared (ooops) with us here, Elena, I'll bet money you've also done your homework on Crowley, Peck AND that L. Ron Hubbard JUNIOR interview up here on the Rick Ross articles page. (Am I right?)

Yes. All that and a truckload more. I had to walk around the block for hours over a couple of days after I read Scott Peck's book back in the 1980s. It was that disturbing -- something about the banality of evil, and all that.

Do you remember his chapter about the strange girl who came to see him over many sessions but would never submit to therapy? She had an agenda but it didn't include accepting her weakness or frailty or personal failings. She imagined herself some sort of "warrior princess" and gave him all kinds of headaches by trying to seduce him. Anyway, if you get a chance to reread it, there are hints that she was a cult member. I even wrote to Peck at the time suggesting this as the missing piece of the puzzle that had confounded him so much. (I didn't hear back from him -- it was shortly before he died, as I recall.) I saw it as further evidence of the brainwashed souls washing into the rooms and suites of private therapists who had no idea what was wrong with them and were unfamiliar with the whole cult phenomenon.

I always recommend Dusty Sklar's little book written in 1977, "Gods and Beasts; The Nazis and the Occult." She saw the similarities between the Nazis and the cults of the 1970s including est. If you haven't read it, it's an eye-opener.


Ellen

Oh, I remember that girl very well. I recall putting down the book several times during her chapter and thinking to myself, "Wow she sounds A LOT like some esthole-ettes I used to know."

And with the way he wrote about My Lai and Group Evil, CAN you imagine what a piece of work he could've come up with describing and picking apart an LGAT?!?

Thanks for the heads-up on the Dusty Sklar book. And for anyone who has yet to read that interview with L. Ron Hubbard junior, this will show, even more clearly, how Scientology fits into this whole part of the thread here. [www.culteducation.com]

Looks like I've got some reading to do!!!

Zorro, I'm interested to see your reaction to 'Junior's interview. Or anyone else's take as well. Might make for an interesting new thread, as had been mentioned.