In the winter of 1997 I took the Landmark Forum. I went on to sign up for the advanced course and took it in the spring. By the end of the Advanced course, I was cataonic and non-communicative. Graduation was on Tuesday and by Friday I was in the Psychiatric unit at my local hospital. I have very limited memories of what happened, but the psychosis was eventually attributed to post traumatic stress syndrome. Landmark attributes the psychosis to me being weak minded. I saw the friend who referred me to the course a few years back and he had the nerve to say that I had walked through the fire with Landmark, and came out cleaner on the other side. Like everything positive in my life had sprung from that trauma. I believe strongly that the positive changes are due to maturity, experience, and years of speaking out against LGAT's. I keep hearing abut the 94% of people who have a positive experience. 94% seems like an awfully large number. Yes I have met people who have gone on to great things after Landmark, but I attribute that to hard work and maturity as well. Everyone I know who went to Landmark is lost to me. A friend that I hadn't seen in years called me a few years back during his advanced course. I told him what had happened to me, and he answered "I know that must have been scary for you, but can't you see how much good these courses have done for others. Your experience is such a rare exception. Landmark is the best thing that has ever happened to me." Mind you this person had been my very best friend in high school. I got off of the phone with him and cried for two days. It was as if somebody had ripped my heart out. Landmark had coached him well in the art of "Don't give a Damn about anyone else."
My story is one of the psychosis stories on the at the Rick Ross main site. I have not thought about this in a while, but am glad to see it is still there. I have seen some of the new You Tube postings and I love what some of you are doing. Six percent of the millions of people who have done Landmark is simply too many lives being destroyed by this self perpetuating money machine. I imagine the numbers might even be higher, but most people who suffer after Landmark are just convinced by Landmark that they are weak minded and that they are at fault for thier experience.

Thanks for telling your story and speaking up.

Regarding people not caring too much about the dark side of landmark and the side effects.

I was on a swedish TV programme that exposed Landmark in 2004. Last week I met a former landmark friend (by chance) and we had a bit of an awkward conversation. She said that the last time she saw me was on that TV programme. Since I said on that programme that "I was in a cult" she now said that "I was not in a cult".

I then went on to talk about why I am engaged in anti landmark activities. I told her about my ex:es brother who ended up killing himself after having done landmark courses and suffered severe mental problems due to that. She just looked a bit surprised and started talking about the ones she had enrolled to the landmark courses. She did not comment his suicide more than the standard "you have to be well to do landmark courses...."

Pro landmarkers have a very hard time to take in the "truth" about landmark. They shy away from it.

Quote
nettie


Pro landmarkers have a very hard time to take in the "truth" about landmark. They shy away from it.

One particularly astute young defector from scientology, when asked what was the most egregious fault in the scientology program, answered, "They teach people to lie." L. Ron Hubbard is famously remembered for pointing out that "THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL PEOPLE IS TO LIE TO THEM."

The fact is that these "self-help" programs and LGATS in the Landmark mold train their followers to lie to others and to lie to themselves. The nether-world of lies and partial lies, fabrications, imaginary realities, confabulations, and fantasies must mimic a type of insanity at some point and the pain must be commensurate. Doctors and paramedics and emergency medical personnel assess sanity with a few simple questions. While a scientologist or Landmarker might be able to answer these, they would find it difficult to answer a few specifically constructed to rout them out. I can suggest a couple:

"Are you a victim?"

"Have you been involved in any accidents?"

"What is the meaning of life?"



Ellen

Thank You for your comments. Nettie, I have seen your You Tube spots, and was actually able to put together a few more bits and pieces about what happened during that Landmark course. The seizure bit happened in my course as well. I did not realize it was some sick game. I got up and walked out when 911 personel arrived as well. That whole thing sounded very familier. I just still do not understand why I had the psychosis. I walked into the Landmark Advanced Course WELL! I walked out as someone crushed and destroyed. The last thing I remember happening is that I had a homework assignment to write a letter forgiving someone who seemed unforgivable. I wrote a letter to a man who had raped me several years earlier. The very last moment I remember is being encouraged to share this letter in front of the group. I do not even remember what the letter said. I cannot remember reading it, or how the ensuing confrontation went. I was driven to my parents home babbling nonsense. I made horrible untrue accusations about my dad, and my parents sent me to a friends house to stay a day, hoping I would snap out of it. I was committed later that week and I hallucinated for 7 DAYS. Can you believe that 7 DAYS. I woke up in seclusion, IN A PADDED ROOM!! I had bruises on my arms from fighting so hard with the staff on the hospital unit. I was told that I had been hard to sedate. Guys, I AM A SOCIAL WORKER, NOT A MENTAL PATIENT! I wish I could remember more about what really happened, but I am sure I re -lived that rape in front of that room of hundreds of people. Not a proud moment I guess. Anyway, it has been 11 years, and I am at a crossroad. I am ready to tell my story, and have been instrumental in preventing loads of enrollments in Landmark. Probably more that I know because of the Rick Ross website. It took me 2 years to be able to tell my story without giving my name. It has taken me 11 to be brave enough to speak in an open forum.
Karen
PS Nettie, I am so sorry about your friend. On life lost is one life to many. 6% of a million is 60,000. Isn't that a sobering fact.
Karen

Quote
blujayne
I keep hearing abut the 94% of people who have a positive experience. 94% seems like an awfully large number.

This number comes from those exit poll throw-away surveys that people fill out at the end of these "seminars" when they are mostly tired and want to get to their cars. It takes more energy to put together a thoughtful critique and people usually just check the "satisfied" box to get out the door. I see these things all the time. Even when a speaker is lousy, I usually give them a pass. Most people just don't want to hurt their feelings. Also, if the message is really horrible, wrong, vile, inaccurate, or worse, why would you want to help the speaker or his corporate backers with its delivery?

Quote

I imagine the numbers might even be higher, but most people who suffer after Landmark are just convinced by Landmark that they are weak minded and that they are at fault for thier experience.

That's the Landmark schtick -- it's the core of their "program" and Werner Erhard got it from scientology. L. Ron Hubbard taught the same mantra: You (and only you) are ~responsible~ for everything that happens to you because ~You create your own reality/life/experience~ in the sense that a "Creator" created the universe only at scientology and Landmark you are the "Creator," not God, the gods, the big Santa-Claus-in-the-sky, the Almighty, the Clockmaker, the Force, Mother Nature, or the mechanics of chemistry and physics. It's like the paradox of religion in the way that we humans go around imagining a God in our own image and then get mad when He totally screws things up the same way a human being might.


Ellen

one of landmarks successes is their ability to instill in program participants is

"well that didnt happen to me so its not the truth for me"

business are completely unaware that their employees have places their
loyalties to landmark and not to the companies that at times pay for
their indoctrination.

the love of money is the root of all evil.

Let go your heart. Let go your head. And feel it now.
...............................................................david gray

This was posted in the Google alt fan landmark site.

Important Information and Health

read here:

[groups.google.com];


How many people, trying to fend off a LEC recruiter, would even want to mention they have any of the
health conditions listed on this form as published on Alt Fan?

This stuff is confidential information. How can a person know that LEC or (say) your LEC recruiter will handle that
kind of sensitive info in a responsible way--assuming such information is even any of thier darned business---which, it most certainly is not.

Disclosing that you are taking or have taken the medications listed or have the sorts of health or psych conditions listed on this form--as published on alt.fan--could potentially stigmatize that individual and expose them to reprisals at work.


This correspondant's husband reportedly had one of the conditions listed on this form, and telling his LEC- enthralled boss still didnt get the boss to back down..this entire thread is well worth reading.

[forum.culteducation.com]



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2008 11:31PM by corboy.

Thank you for all of your kind comments and great observations. Thank you to those of you who are working so hard to keep LE from harming anyone else. The paperwork I signed with Landmark as much more brief than that. I believe I might be one of the certain persons they are talking about when they mention certain people who have reported psychosis. The scary thing is, if I was looking at that paperwork even now, in the state of wellness that I was in when I attended my advanced course, I would have read the criteria, and signed the papers, and done the course because the person who enrolled me was a former boyfriend who just swore that the program would change my life. I even made it through the first course without ill effects. It certainly did change the course of my life. I do have a vision for my future because of the courses. That future is a world without Landmark. I was not compensated for anything that happened to me. In fact I lived quietly, and fearfully for a long time. I did not write my story for Rick Ross for nearly 2 years because I was afraid of what Landmark might do to me. I am older and wiser now, and I don't really care if they try to discredit me.
I WAS WELL. I had no history of psychosis, or mental illness. Even if I was the ONLY PERSON this ever happened too...that is one too many people. PEOPLE HAVE DIED BECUASE OF LANDMARK!
I figured I would keep sharing with you all my journey of healing. I watched the full video of the french expose last night. I thought It was going to trigger me, or somehow make me psychotic again. I avoided it for quite some time. I still had some little part in me thinking maybe they had some power. It was quite the opposite experience for me. I felt pretty empowered. I know that in that advanced course I had a confrontation with the leader. I cannot recall even bits or peices of that confrontation, but seeing that TECHNOLOGY (abuse) in action gave me some idea. I have been thinking about the no victims mantra. I walked into that course as a survivor and victims advocate. I am certain now seeing this that there was quite a showdown between me and that leader about a world with no victims. I am absolutely sure that I held on tight to the fact that Victims can be Survivors. I can almost imagine how that confrontation might have gone, seeing some of this abuse in action. I think what flipped the swich for me is that I REFUSED TO LET GO OF MY CRITICAL THINKING, even to the point of shutting it down completly to protect it from attack. I don't know if you all can even understand what a step this is for me. I refused to take the blame for a crime that someone committed against me. That was my story. Heck, that IS my story. I am a survivor.
Anyway, I will keep you updated on this journey.
I pray that you will all help me keep this thread active for the sheer shock value. Landmark puts psychosis in the small print. I want anyone considering this course to realize that it is a clear danger.
Karen

Quote
blujayne
In the winter of 1997 I took the Landmark Forum. I went on to sign up for the advanced course and took it in the spring. By the end of the Advanced course, I was cataonic and non-communicative. Graduation was on Tuesday and by Friday I was in the Psychiatric unit at my local hospital. I have very limited memories of what happened, but the psychosis was eventually attributed to post traumatic stress syndrome. Landmark attributes the psychosis to me being weak minded. I saw the friend who referred me to the course a few years back and he had the nerve to say that I had walked through the fire with Landmark, and came out cleaner on the other side. Like everything positive in my life had sprung from that trauma. I believe strongly that the positive changes are due to maturity, experience, and years of speaking out against LGAT's. I keep hearing abut the 94% of people who have a positive experience. 94% seems like an awfully large number. Yes I have met people who have gone on to great things after Landmark, but I attribute that to hard work and maturity as well. Everyone I know who went to Landmark is lost to me. A friend that I hadn't seen in years called me a few years back during his advanced course. I told him what had happened to me, and he answered "I know that must have been scary for you, but can't you see how much good these courses have done for others. Your experience is such a rare exception. Landmark is the best thing that has ever happened to me." Mind you this person had been my very best friend in high school. I got off of the phone with him and cried for two days. It was as if somebody had ripped my heart out. Landmark had coached him well in the art of "Don't give a Damn about anyone else."
My story is one of the psychosis stories on the at the Rick Ross main site. I have not thought about this in a while, but am glad to see it is still there. I have seen some of the new You Tube postings and I love what some of you are doing. Six percent of the millions of people who have done Landmark is simply too many lives being destroyed by this self perpetuating money machine. I imagine the numbers might even be higher, but most people who suffer after Landmark are just convinced by Landmark that they are weak minded and that they are at fault for thier experience.

blujayne,
Thank you so much for posting about your experiences.
Keep writing about this, it does a world of good to get this information out there to the public.

I remember reading about Bluejayne's Landmark Encounter when I first started trying to figure out what Landmark had done to me. I remember the Advanced Course very well and that specific exercise in pretty good detail. The Landmark Forum is trap that they set that draws people in. the Advanced Course is where they "break you". From then on you are their's so to speak.

Recovery from Landmark can take a while. I haven't been on here posting in a very long time, I used to post daily. But even though I've been absent from here I'm still recovering and getting my life back together. Part's of my life are still in disarray, but I have regained control over mylife. I have even moved from Dallas since I no longer need to live there to do my work. I travel a lot and I'm working with a group of people to establish a new company that manufactures high tech industrial equipment. I've been so busy that I don't think about Landmark much or with the intensity that I once did.

I've restarted old hobbies, like working on cars, and started new ones like home improvement projects, gardening, reading, and being out doors as much as possible. I even do things that push my limits of fear and physical endurance. The stuff I do all the way from work to leisure push me to think critically. Which was hard to do initially...think on my own and make decisions that work. In fact I just came in about an hour ago from finishing a project on an old Pickup that I was working on that took several days to complete. This time last year I wouldn't have been able concentrate on it for more than a few minutes before having to quit because I couldn't think straight. Much less be outside freezing my butt off in the cold.

One thing I have noticed about myself after I openly confronted Landmark during the Advanced Commuincations Course and left the cult is that I'm not afraid of much anymore.

I may not be on here as much as before but I haven't forgotten about Landmark, the mind screwing I got from them, and how being associated with them destroyed my life as I knew it. I will never forgive those Bastards and I will fight them until they close down. I admire Nettie for coming out in the open like he has and doing what he has done to fight their spread. I too will be coming forward publicly at some point in the future.