This post is to warn Australians NOT to do this seminar! It's just returned early July in Sydney and scheduled for Melbourne in October. If you do, it's at your peril.

I did this seminar in the 1990's and found myself in alot of deep boiling water. I had a breakdown in the Saturday night's 'blocks game' (started at 9pm and finished 3am), which caused alot of trauma and many years of recovery. A Nightmare!

This seminar is renowned for using manipulative mind-control techniques to make participates compliant and obedient. The curriculum runs into the early hours of the morning. Sleep deprivation. Causing mental and physical tiredness.

PLEASE read Louise Samways "Dangerous Persuaders" for more details of these mind control techniques, so you know what to watch out for. It's available to read online (free download):


[www.louisesamways.com.au]


I don't want the same thing happening to you!

Wiser Aussie



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2008 01:25PM by Wiser Aussie.

Sounds like a job for .... A Current Affair or Today Tonight.

John

Yep -- that's another seminar from which my Sister came back hypo-manic. Just like she did from the Landmark Forum, and just like we both did from Est.

This is some common shit with all the trainings on this LGAT board. So, did you or anyone you know come out of Money & You hypo-manic or with a full blown Manic episode? Or did anyone bipolar go in, finish the workshop and consider him/herself cured and stop taking their lithium, only to go more manic than ever? Y'all certainly wouldn't be alone.

Initially came out of Money and You very traumatised. We were prescribed rebirthing, auditing (scientology e-meter) and bodywork to 'fix us'. Then came more seminars. Yes, I was very high. However, between each seminar I became depressed. Then felt better when I had my next seminar fix. After some years and minus many thousands of dollars later, became aware of what was going on and decided to make a complete break from the group.

I don't know if anyone had any psychiatric problems. It wasn't discussed. I believe this question was asked on the registration form, which struck me quite strange. Now I know why.

Pauker, how is your sister now?

Well, she's alive....on the outside anyway. But she has not been able to work or sustain a relationship for many years. Hopefully, she can still function to a certain degree as long as she stays on her lithium. She's also alienated most of her family and friends over the years with her behaviors during many manic episodes. I had to back away from her completely when she called me up at 3 AM one day and threatened to kill me. And although I no longer feel safe around her, I still feel for her deeply. So much for the LGATs' assertions that there are no victims in life.

To be fair, Money and You didn't mess her up as much as Est/Forum did. But that's ONLY because she spent much more time over there than with the Money & You crowd. They both pull the same mind control shit on people, both use/manipulate their graduates to keep their office and marketing expenses almost nil -- and both have deep roots going back to Scientology and Alistair Crowley. BTW, did you ever read the L. Ron Hubbard JUNIOR interview from Penthouse? Its here on the Rick Ross site. Here's the link: [www.culteducation.com] --- ya might want to take a 'chill-pill' first, though.

Interesting how almost all the LGATs represented on this board have questions on their registration forms to try and screen out people with known psychological illness. (Its just to cover their asses, legally, however.) But they sure don't screen well for bipolar disorder -- and they should, because the high with which most people come out of these seminars is a form of hypo-mania itself. And for most of THOSE people, its the pleasant, endorphin-filled, high which then subsides (as the body cannot physically maintain that beyond several weeks: MAX) which then keeps people coming back for more pricey seminars to try and 'get back to' that "enlightened" place. Never really happens COMPLETELY, though -- which is but another of the evil beauties of the LGAT 'business model.' It's to keep 'em comin' back for more - even though the subsequent 'advanced' courses are really mostly (and covertly) about enrolling others into their basic trainings. I call it 'putting earrings on the pig.'

Unfortunately, bipolar people, even those with simply a genetic pre-disposition towards the disorder (which would be MY family) are at HUGE risk with these late-night mind control seminars. One guy i knew, who knew he was bipolar, answered 'no' to the psychological screening questions, and came out of the training as a rapid-cycling manic depressive. He graduated from Est, dumped his (sane) girlfriend, married another bipolar Est graduate, and the two would proceed to cycle up in tandem. One day when they were both manic, he shot her in the face and then shot himself in the face. May their tortured souls rest in peace. Now you know why I don't feel safe around my Sister.

I've seen these LGATs destroy minds, wreck families & careers, and even take lives. Now I know how fortunate I was to have dodged the bipolar bullet with my involvement with Est 30 years ago. I think of my Sister, and often say to myself, "There but for the Grace of God go I."

Quote
pauker
Unfortunately, bipolar people, even those with simply a genetic pre-disposition towards the disorder (which would be MY family) are at HUGE risk with these late-night mind control seminars. One guy i knew, who knew he was bipolar, answered 'no' to the psychological screening questions, and came out of the training as a rapid-cycling manic depressive. He graduated from Est, dumped his (sane) girlfriend, married another bipolar Est graduate, and the two would proceed to cycle up in tandem. One day when they were both manic, he shot her in the face and then shot himself in the face. May their tortured souls rest in peace. Now you know why I don't feel safe around my Sister.

When I hear this kind of stuff it really blows my mind that Landmark is still out there pushing their agenda. When I did the forum I had heard some bad stuff about est and was told that all the harsh tactics were no longer in practice, but if you could just sign this contract......Thankfully I have disassociated myself from that awful cult. Looking back on it all I realize how jumbled and crazy my own though patterns and actions became during my participation and how I really believed I had it all figured out thanks to Landmark. I think it was elena who said they sink their hooks in deep, and indeed they do.

It doesn't surprise me they are still out there. In fact Landmark is now the biggest LGAT out there of them all. The Mother-ship of dangerous seminars like Scientology is the Mother-ship of 20th century cults. What surprises me, is that Money and You is still around after 30 years or so. I thought this Est/Napoleon Hill/Scientology wannabe seminar would go (and had gone) the "Way of all Flash." .....uuuhhhh.......whooops.

As someone said before - I find it "intriguing" that Landmark and all the other LGATs are allowed to continue their "racket". How is that possible?

I think it is due to that there are not that many people that do these seminars. In Sweden Landmark existed from the beginning of the 1980's to 2004.

When I was involved (1994-1998) around 1000 people took the Landmark Forum. If they had 1000 participants during 24 years that sums up to 24000 people. But that figure is probably too big since there probably wasn't that many in the beginning.

So out of 9 million people that is not very many. So they can stay in the shadows - as long as they silence people with their bogus legal contracts and mental threats to make unhappy customers keep silent.

What we need is more people speaking up against them. And possibly we need an Anonymous movement against all LGATs

So, what's the history of this seminar? Who started in and when? Did someone else buy it and take it over? Couldn't find any of their (probably sordid) history on their website.

I remember my Sister took it in '79 and had to fly all the way to Vermont to attend. Then a couple of years later, some bank officers in Colorado (where I had a part-time job for awhile) took it and then tried to 'transform' our workplace. I continued banking there after I found work elsewhere, & soon after I left I went in for something and hung around for a bit to chew the fat with some of my old friends there. They told me that almost everybody in the bank who took the Money & You workshop got fired en masse. (Although no one said why.) That included the Bank President & a couple of VPs. The one VP who didn't take it had been installed as bank pres., and the one lone bank officer still employed that DID attend Money & You was the one guy who claimed that it 'didn't take.'

Interestingly, this was during my last couple of years of involvement with est, and they all seemed rather put-off, a few seemed even seemed intimidated, by my status(?) as an est graduate -- especially as I indicated no real interest in also attending Money & You. No one there ever pressured me to take it -- they just suddenly seemed rather uncomfortable around me. One of them (my supervisor) even tried, unsuccessfully, to tell me that she'd taken est as well.

Wow. That is so interesting. Thanks Paul.

John