Landmark Nightmares?
Posted by:
Zorro
()
Date: February 26, 2009 12:54PM
Gotta question for all of you that have been away from Landmark for a while. Do you all have nightmares every so often about Landmark?
Every so often I have one. For some reason out of the blue I have one. I will go for days without even thinking about Landmark, so I'm not sure what is triggering them. Who know's maybe it is my brain kicking out vestiges of their programming. Kind of sucks though to have a Landmark Nightmare.
Every so often I have one. For some reason out of the blue I have one. I will go for days without even thinking about Landmark, so I'm not sure what is triggering them. Who know's maybe it is my brain kicking out vestiges of their programming. Kind of sucks though to have a Landmark Nightmare.
Re: Landmark Nightmares? PTSD flashbacks, Werner Erhard mind-rape
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: February 26, 2009 02:16PM
Hi, what I am about to say is NOT to be taken as therapeutic advice, that can only come from a licensed pro in-person. Be careful, this is serious stuff.
but, that sounds like a Trauma-flashback, like a PTSD intrusive flashback.
Coping with Flashbacks, By Matthew Tull, PhD, About.com
[ptsd.about.com]
Landmark is truly a horrendous system. Its a clone of the Werner Erhard system.
What they do is literally traumatize you, they mentally abuse people, and some people literally get traumatized psychologically, experience Dissociation, and have many other ill-effects.
Then, after they do this to you, they BLAME YOU for it. So you get negative self-blame and guilt effects, on top of the initial traumatic effects from the Landmark abuse. This can really screw people up, of course.
You get the guilt and self-blame, on top of the PTSD, which can lead even to psychosis or suicide for some people.
This is all coming from Werner Erhard. Its at core, systemized mental and emotional abuse. Why it works, is putting people down like this, can hook them into the system and make them more dependent.
So please consider some proper therapy for PTSD, perhaps.
Also, "Imagery Rescripting and Reprocessing Therapy" IRRT seems to have some evidence for helping with PTSD.
Basically, in IRRT, you have to figure out and isolate those exact images that are arising in your mind from the Landmark abuse, then modify those images in a way that is self-empowering. So it can be DEFEATED and repaired.
currently doing some research into Werner Erhards methods. The terrrible ill-effects many people have from Landmark were deliberately created by Werner Erhards "technology" which is just his system he uses to control people, beat them down, and to extract money and free labor from them.
Very dangerous and abusive methods.
He literally victimizes people, and then blames them for feeling victimized, which locks them into his abusive system. They end up blaming themselves for what he is doing to them.
One has to be a sociopath to do that to people knowingly.
People who have been through it, have experienced a type of mind-rape.
Again, there are ways to get out of the nightmare, possibly by using the same methods now being used to treat PTSD, like IRRT, etc.
Werner Erhard and Landmark, (which is the exact same thing), are organized traumatic mental abuse.
they can seriously harm people's minds and emotions, and then they blame you for it, so you experience secondary symptoms.
This can lock people into it.
The irony is that escaping it, the first step is locating the source of the problem, which is Werner Erhard and Landmark.
Again, these people are diabolical, as this is all done on purpose, of course.
but, that sounds like a Trauma-flashback, like a PTSD intrusive flashback.
Coping with Flashbacks, By Matthew Tull, PhD, About.com
[ptsd.about.com]
Landmark is truly a horrendous system. Its a clone of the Werner Erhard system.
What they do is literally traumatize you, they mentally abuse people, and some people literally get traumatized psychologically, experience Dissociation, and have many other ill-effects.
Then, after they do this to you, they BLAME YOU for it. So you get negative self-blame and guilt effects, on top of the initial traumatic effects from the Landmark abuse. This can really screw people up, of course.
You get the guilt and self-blame, on top of the PTSD, which can lead even to psychosis or suicide for some people.
This is all coming from Werner Erhard. Its at core, systemized mental and emotional abuse. Why it works, is putting people down like this, can hook them into the system and make them more dependent.
So please consider some proper therapy for PTSD, perhaps.
Also, "Imagery Rescripting and Reprocessing Therapy" IRRT seems to have some evidence for helping with PTSD.
Basically, in IRRT, you have to figure out and isolate those exact images that are arising in your mind from the Landmark abuse, then modify those images in a way that is self-empowering. So it can be DEFEATED and repaired.
currently doing some research into Werner Erhards methods. The terrrible ill-effects many people have from Landmark were deliberately created by Werner Erhards "technology" which is just his system he uses to control people, beat them down, and to extract money and free labor from them.
Very dangerous and abusive methods.
He literally victimizes people, and then blames them for feeling victimized, which locks them into his abusive system. They end up blaming themselves for what he is doing to them.
One has to be a sociopath to do that to people knowingly.
People who have been through it, have experienced a type of mind-rape.
Again, there are ways to get out of the nightmare, possibly by using the same methods now being used to treat PTSD, like IRRT, etc.
Werner Erhard and Landmark, (which is the exact same thing), are organized traumatic mental abuse.
they can seriously harm people's minds and emotions, and then they blame you for it, so you experience secondary symptoms.
This can lock people into it.
The irony is that escaping it, the first step is locating the source of the problem, which is Werner Erhard and Landmark.
Again, these people are diabolical, as this is all done on purpose, of course.
Re: Landmark Nightmares?
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: February 26, 2009 11:06PM
And if others have utilized this same 'tech' and incorporated it into their own stuff and have not told you, then its possible to be affected by this unknowingly.
At least one entity that presented as Hindu and not as an LGAT at all, reportedly incorporated EST tech into its system.
So..how on earth could people affected by this know all the material used on them, if the EST tech was used covertly because the guru was buddies with Werner?
There is a thread on this very subject. It runs to three pages. This is just a small excerpt to whet the appetite.
Here is an example of how ESTs poison was apparently slipped into one sector of the population using seemingly ancient Hinduism.
(Orientation)
(Siddha Yoga was started by Muktananda. His two successors were Nityananda and Gurumayi. After a power struggle, Gurymayi took charge of most of the plant.)
[forum.culteducation.com]
The abuses described on a variety of websites concerning Siddha and SYDA yoga are chilling.
But what is yet more chilling is how many people would reply 'God bless this great path.'
All they cared about was their personal bliss. The suffering and dreadful deeds reported by others did not matter to them.
One wonders how many have been unknowingly poisoned by LGAT tech that was covertly used by supposedly Hindu gurus like Muktananda.
If so, this means the targeted subjects were poisoned without their knowledge.
Worst of all, they may blame themselves for being unable to 'get over' thier time in such an ashram and be unable to tell an exit counselor or therapist that LGAT tech was used on them.
Its one thing to know you've been poisoned by something whose name you know. You can tell your treating physician 'I found out that what I thought was sugar was rat poison. Help!'
But what if you dont know you were poisoned? And what if it affects your mind without your knowing it, and installs a sense of outrage any time a suggestion is made that you or others were betrayed?
There are people who run around insisting there is no such thing as betrayal or being a victim, and will try to shout down any such discussion.
They will insist that they were never affected and chose to walk away.
The poison of an LGAT is that you think you are fully autonomous when in fact the toxic introject of the forum leader has been downloaded into a subconscious part of yourself and is working you as a puppet so as to defend the LGAT, disrupt dissent by trolling, or by earning money and running PR.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2009 11:30PM by corboy.
At least one entity that presented as Hindu and not as an LGAT at all, reportedly incorporated EST tech into its system.
So..how on earth could people affected by this know all the material used on them, if the EST tech was used covertly because the guru was buddies with Werner?
There is a thread on this very subject. It runs to three pages. This is just a small excerpt to whet the appetite.
Here is an example of how ESTs poison was apparently slipped into one sector of the population using seemingly ancient Hinduism.
(Orientation)
(Siddha Yoga was started by Muktananda. His two successors were Nityananda and Gurumayi. After a power struggle, Gurymayi took charge of most of the plant.)
Quote
So-Called Ancient Hindu spirituality concealing American LGAT 'tech'
This is mostly based on material shared by persons who were in SYDA/Siddha Yoga during the period of time (1970s--1996) who have published accounts online. Matters may since have changed.
But for those in SY still struggling to recover and who berate themselves for being weak of will...do ask if possibly it is time to examine LGAT (large group awareness training) 'tech' for its un romantic but powerful methods may have been concealed beneath the seemingly ancient Hindu trappings, incense and silk brocades.
“LGATs (Large Group Awareness Trainings) were all the rage when I was growing up in the 70s. They include Werner Erhart's now-defunct est, its successor The Forum (aka Landmark Education), Lifespring, and many spin-offs. I've never attended these, though the many Intensives I experienced with Swami Muktananda were heavily influenced by Werner, and gave me a strong taste of the group dynamic. The Truth about Human Potential Seminars is a blog covering the LGATs; The Awareness Page offers many links they say will help Awareness consumers make conscious informed decisions; and Rick Ross' site has the video Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus, a 2004 French TV report with hidden cameras inside an actual Landmark training.”
[home.comcast.net]
This statement caught my attention.
“though the many Intensives I experienced with Swami Muktananda were heavily influenced by Werner, and gave me a strong taste of the group dynamic”.
First, it does appear that a very enterprising American, Werner Erhard, founder of EST, played a crucial role in the history of Siddha/SYDA Yoga. This is from a website that celebrates the life of Muktananda, founder of SY.
(Quote)
"Westerners began to visit Baba’s ashram Shree Gurudev Siddha Peeth…Baba’s ashram took on the quality of an emperor’s court, with a steady line of faithful coming for spiritual advice, to make offerings of flowers and fruit….
"His reputation as a meditation master had spread throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. Werner Erhard’s EST Seminars were a phenomenally popular personal transformation process throughout the U.S. He came to meet Baba in Ganeshpuri in 1973, and invited him as a guest to visit the US. Baba accepted and was introduced to huge audiences in the west...."
(Unquote)
[www.babasfootsteps.com]
Doing Google, I found the following that indicate how pervasively LGAT’s were bundled into SY. This seemingly ancient Hindu practice path was like chocolate covered ants. The Hindu guru theatre was the chocolate. The LGAT techniques were the ants.
[www.ex-cult.org]
Subj: SYDA style brainwashing & est
Date: 96-04-11 07:49:42 EDT
From: Howie Sm
Dear AOL readers,
It was said that the Siddha Yoga intensive format was directly borrowed from est. The following quoted material shows that est and Siddha Yoga use the same techniques of verbal abuse and public humiliation to induce altered states and to brainwash. These cults have important points of similarity.
The following est participant's narrative could be titled "a Siddha Yoga
course," or "the making of a Vedanta-style sociopath," or "brainwashing
narcissists," or "inducing altered states through cult pressure," or "a
spiritual seeker gets his money's worth."
BEGIN QUOTED MATERIAL<<< (begin participant's narrative) "The physical
discomfort and badgering left me horrified, and feeling very weird. Time had stopped running in any usual sense, and I was having unexpected feelings of all kinds. At one point, when the trainer called my friend a TOS for trying to console a woman who was crying, I got enraged; I wanted to see the trainer dead. I realizd that I was beginning to lose any sense of where I was in the real world, and even who I usually was.
And then suddenly it came clear! I was the prisoner of my own compulsion to help everyone and be kind to them. The trainer was right; I didn't have to be tied down by this attitude.
I was free to choose what I might think and feel, independent of forty years of programming.
Then the whole room seemed to slip away, and I no longer cared about eating, peeing, or how long the whole damn thing would run on. I felt liberated, released from a long prison term." (end participant's narrative)
(The AOL correspondant continued)In one sense, this represented a transition to a full-blown "culture of narcissism" in which the individual owes allegiance only to the self. Participants in the est program often feel released from the commitments born out of fidelity to their fellow humans, allowing them to indulge themselves without guilt.>>>END QUOTED MATERIAL
Subj: ManyThanks
Date: 96-04-11 16:45:50 EDT
From: BVena
I am soooo thankful for the internet. ......The fact that I was in SY for 13 years and knew little is very telling of what kind of society exists there. This type of discussion would be possible if the parties involved had to meet by chance. What I myself saw was enough to make me stop going to the ashram. It wasn't enough to make me question the validity of SY as a whole.
But now knowing about the sex, violence and EST like morals of the central people has really done it. It's just too much to rationalize away.
I am sure I would have gone on thinking that was inadequate and a fallen yogi for the rest of my life. Never questioning the appalling circumstances that put that kind of gibberish into my head.
This has all happened in just the last 2-3 months so I'm still kind of raw
and blistered. I remember reading Howies posts and thinking "what a jerk. I
just will not read this!". Dissent scared me. Now it makes sense....(edited for brevity C) …
WGRL
Raj
Subj: Re: ManyThanks
Date: 96-04-11 17:57:58 EDT
From: Dissent222
Raj, I congratulate you on freeing yourself. I also spent about 13 years
under the spell. Please don't be scared of me - I'm a nice guy, just need to
be anon so as to avoid law suits. It's not quite 2 years since I made the
break, and I'm still working on getting myself back together. I lived and
worked there most of those years - of course on a small stipend, no benefits,
no IRAs or 401(k) -- but plenty of abuse. It was just great reading
Outrageous Betrayal, about Werner Erhard, because these gurus are all the same - it could be the story of GM. They lie about their identity, abuse those close to them, live for power and money, are paranoid, obssessive compulsive, and incredibly seductive.
Subj: Landmark Forum
Date: 96-04-12 06:44:56 EDT
From: Dissent222
Someone wrote me asking about Landmark Forum - here is my reply:
Thanks for the note. The Landmark Forum is the remains of the Werner Erhard empire. Erhard himself, the founder of est, and then the Forum, is in exile. ...
Very few of his disciples remained loyal to him, but those who did are now
the heads of the Landmark Forum. They minimize their connection to Erhard, but he is their God. It is a watered down version of the old est training.
The program is a sadistic, confrontational blend of scientology and Dale
Carnegie and Napoleon Hill and a few other really crackpot old mind training schemes. The program pretends to shock people into letting go of all their "stuff", fast, badda-bing, badda-bang, badda-boom. By the end, you're supposed to "get it." What you get is intense sales pitches and extreme pressure to recruit other people, and continue to spend more and more money on endless follow up courses.
All this is detailed thoroughly in "Outrageous Betrayal." Many SYDA people, in New York and Oakland, participate in the Forum.
As if being exploited in one destructive cult isn't enough.
Thanks again for writing…
(This reflects the situation as of 1995-1996 at the time the AOL thread was written. Again...why were that many SYDA people involved with Forum? Was it a cheaper way to get a shaktipat like buzz than doing a SYDA intensive that reputedly incorprated the same tech but cost more? Only some insightful SYDA alums can answer that.)
[forum.culteducation.com]
The abuses described on a variety of websites concerning Siddha and SYDA yoga are chilling.
But what is yet more chilling is how many people would reply 'God bless this great path.'
All they cared about was their personal bliss. The suffering and dreadful deeds reported by others did not matter to them.
One wonders how many have been unknowingly poisoned by LGAT tech that was covertly used by supposedly Hindu gurus like Muktananda.
If so, this means the targeted subjects were poisoned without their knowledge.
Worst of all, they may blame themselves for being unable to 'get over' thier time in such an ashram and be unable to tell an exit counselor or therapist that LGAT tech was used on them.
Its one thing to know you've been poisoned by something whose name you know. You can tell your treating physician 'I found out that what I thought was sugar was rat poison. Help!'
But what if you dont know you were poisoned? And what if it affects your mind without your knowing it, and installs a sense of outrage any time a suggestion is made that you or others were betrayed?
There are people who run around insisting there is no such thing as betrayal or being a victim, and will try to shout down any such discussion.
They will insist that they were never affected and chose to walk away.
The poison of an LGAT is that you think you are fully autonomous when in fact the toxic introject of the forum leader has been downloaded into a subconscious part of yourself and is working you as a puppet so as to defend the LGAT, disrupt dissent by trolling, or by earning money and running PR.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/26/2009 11:30PM by corboy.
Re: Landmark Nightmares?
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: February 26, 2009 11:28PM
One author has a most interesting personal definition of charisma:
'I am using the term 'charisma' here in a special sense to denote that numinous personality change deliberately infused into the victim'.
This was written about 30 years ago by Leonard Fischer/Agehananda Bharti in his Memoir, The Ochre Robe. He lived through the Nazi occupation of Europe and was horrified by the effects on people. Later, in India, he was perturbed by how many people he met who considered Hitler an avatar, reasoning that because he had attained so much power, Hitler must have had superb karma. Power equalled legitimacy. Those with this opinion had no ablity to make any distinction between legitmate/benevolent power and power stolen using lies and used for evil purposes.
Power equaled legitimacy. It is a very primitive state of mind, yet can co-exist with a high IQ and considerable social charm--in which case run for your life.
What is yet more interesting is that decades after Bharati wrote this in Ochre Robe, a psychoanalyst named Stanley Rosenman seems to have identified a similar process and describes it in detail.
Stanley Rosenman has written about how identity and even emotions are interfered with when someone else inserts alien introject into targeted persons. Rosenman examined this only in the context of traumatic assault, such as rape or prolonged torture.
He didnt consider that this could be done by seduction, persuasion, by presenting oneself as a guru and securing peoples attention by promsing priviliged access to the ancient heritage of India.
But we are free to ponder this. Rosenman has suggested that a self impaired perpetrator may seek immortality by injected shards of his or her introject into others.
This article is worth reading. Therapists can get it through subscription to PEP. Others may have to look for it at a psychoanlytic institute library. But I think Rosenman manages to describe the same process alluded to by Bharati:
[www.pep-web.org] document....d=jaa.031.0521a
"(2003). Journal of American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 31:521-540
Assaultive Projective Identification and the Plundering of the Victim's Identity
Stanley Rosenman
(Abstract)
A destructive mode of projective identification is delineated: a predator's catastrophic attack calculated to cause the victim a stress disorder marked by a disarrayed identity. This discomposure enables the perpetrator to aggrandize a manifold inroad upon the victim's identity to imprint, intrude, mingle and/or lodge his representation into it; to ravage, steal from, impoverish, and/or corrupt it; finally to have his representation emerge as an internal regulator of the traumatized prey's functioning..."
Corboy's laymans commentary:
If someone is able to infuse an alien introject into the deeper layers of our inner landscape, layers deeper than the level of adult conscious awareness, and if this alien and parasitic introject usurps our true selves and begins disrupting and interfering with the flow of our emotions and perceptions, this is grave interferance with our inner life.
It is like having one's garden overrun by crabgrass.
But..if we can identify this process consciously and reclaim ourselves, we may well get a spiritual life truly our own, not through an LGAT or a guru like Muktananda or Gurumayi but by finding our inner cores and regaining custody from intrusive thieves who feel so dead inside that they need to get a sense of agency and immortality by injecting shards of their unhappy inner selves into thousands of followers.
And do this not by respecting us and by engaging in open dialogue or courtship, but by covert means and hidden 'tech'.
You'd be plenty annoyed if someone hacked into your computer and messed with its programming.
At least if the hacker left a message saying, 'Hey I was bored, I snuck into your computer and did thus and such'--youd be plenty angry but would at least have useful
information to give to your IT person when getting your stuff repaired.
But if someone were to sneak in and hack your system and do it in such a way as to disrupt it, but conceal the exact methods used and cause your system to work for other people and not for you, cut checks for other people but not put anything in your account, send arrogant e-mails that annoy the hell out of the people who love and care about you...
That would be upsetting as hell.
Now imagine its your own brain...
'I am using the term 'charisma' here in a special sense to denote that numinous personality change deliberately infused into the victim'.
This was written about 30 years ago by Leonard Fischer/Agehananda Bharti in his Memoir, The Ochre Robe. He lived through the Nazi occupation of Europe and was horrified by the effects on people. Later, in India, he was perturbed by how many people he met who considered Hitler an avatar, reasoning that because he had attained so much power, Hitler must have had superb karma. Power equalled legitimacy. Those with this opinion had no ablity to make any distinction between legitmate/benevolent power and power stolen using lies and used for evil purposes.
Power equaled legitimacy. It is a very primitive state of mind, yet can co-exist with a high IQ and considerable social charm--in which case run for your life.
What is yet more interesting is that decades after Bharati wrote this in Ochre Robe, a psychoanalyst named Stanley Rosenman seems to have identified a similar process and describes it in detail.
Stanley Rosenman has written about how identity and even emotions are interfered with when someone else inserts alien introject into targeted persons. Rosenman examined this only in the context of traumatic assault, such as rape or prolonged torture.
He didnt consider that this could be done by seduction, persuasion, by presenting oneself as a guru and securing peoples attention by promsing priviliged access to the ancient heritage of India.
But we are free to ponder this. Rosenman has suggested that a self impaired perpetrator may seek immortality by injected shards of his or her introject into others.
This article is worth reading. Therapists can get it through subscription to PEP. Others may have to look for it at a psychoanlytic institute library. But I think Rosenman manages to describe the same process alluded to by Bharati:
[www.pep-web.org] document....d=jaa.031.0521a
"(2003). Journal of American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 31:521-540
Assaultive Projective Identification and the Plundering of the Victim's Identity
Stanley Rosenman
(Abstract)
A destructive mode of projective identification is delineated: a predator's catastrophic attack calculated to cause the victim a stress disorder marked by a disarrayed identity. This discomposure enables the perpetrator to aggrandize a manifold inroad upon the victim's identity to imprint, intrude, mingle and/or lodge his representation into it; to ravage, steal from, impoverish, and/or corrupt it; finally to have his representation emerge as an internal regulator of the traumatized prey's functioning..."
Corboy's laymans commentary:
If someone is able to infuse an alien introject into the deeper layers of our inner landscape, layers deeper than the level of adult conscious awareness, and if this alien and parasitic introject usurps our true selves and begins disrupting and interfering with the flow of our emotions and perceptions, this is grave interferance with our inner life.
It is like having one's garden overrun by crabgrass.
But..if we can identify this process consciously and reclaim ourselves, we may well get a spiritual life truly our own, not through an LGAT or a guru like Muktananda or Gurumayi but by finding our inner cores and regaining custody from intrusive thieves who feel so dead inside that they need to get a sense of agency and immortality by injecting shards of their unhappy inner selves into thousands of followers.
And do this not by respecting us and by engaging in open dialogue or courtship, but by covert means and hidden 'tech'.
You'd be plenty annoyed if someone hacked into your computer and messed with its programming.
At least if the hacker left a message saying, 'Hey I was bored, I snuck into your computer and did thus and such'--youd be plenty angry but would at least have useful
information to give to your IT person when getting your stuff repaired.
But if someone were to sneak in and hack your system and do it in such a way as to disrupt it, but conceal the exact methods used and cause your system to work for other people and not for you, cut checks for other people but not put anything in your account, send arrogant e-mails that annoy the hell out of the people who love and care about you...
That would be upsetting as hell.
Now imagine its your own brain...
Re: Landmark Nightmares?
Posted by:
corboy
()
Date: February 26, 2009 11:43PM
The abuses described on a variety of websites concerning Siddha and SYDA yoga are chilling.
But what is yet more chilling is how many people would reply 'God bless this great path.'
This blog [www.the-guru-looked-good.blogspot.com] is just one of many discussion venues by ex-SY people) has comments sections following many of the authors articles and no matter how egregious the abuses reported, someone would chirp "Good bless this great path".
But now, one can see how people became incapable of caring about the suffering of others after their exposure to covert Est tech bundled into Hindu trappings within SYoga.
Here is a description of how compassion and empathy were destroyed. At least later on the victim recognized it:
But the ones who still go around chirping God Bless this Great Path' no matter what horrors they are told about how people were used and disposed of--emotionally, sexually, financially--they remain 'vendanta style psychopaths.'
All they cared about was their personal bliss. The suffering and dreadful deeds reported by others did not matter to them.
Its one thing to know you did EST. But what if EST was done to you concealed by the trippings of Hinduism?
And what if its still going on today, in SY and elsewhere?
ESTs legacy is not just in LGATs that are classified as such. We have to face that its been covertly incoporated into at least one seemingly ancient Hindu system and may be trickling into the fasionable purlieus of yoga culture.
But what is yet more chilling is how many people would reply 'God bless this great path.'
This blog [www.the-guru-looked-good.blogspot.com] is just one of many discussion venues by ex-SY people) has comments sections following many of the authors articles and no matter how egregious the abuses reported, someone would chirp "Good bless this great path".
But now, one can see how people became incapable of caring about the suffering of others after their exposure to covert Est tech bundled into Hindu trappings within SYoga.
Quote
Subj: SYDA style brainwashing & est
Date: 96-04-11 07:49:42 EDT
From: Howie Sm
Dear AOL readers,
It was said that the Siddha Yoga intensive format was directly borrowed from est. The following quoted material shows that est and Siddha Yoga use the same techniques of verbal abuse and public humiliation to induce altered states and to brainwash. These cults have important points of similarity.
The following est participant's narrative could be titled "a Siddha Yoga
course," or "the making of a Vedanta-style sociopath," or "brainwashing
narcissists," or "inducing altered states through cult pressure," or "a
spiritual seeker gets his money's worth."
Here is a description of how compassion and empathy were destroyed. At least later on the victim recognized it:
Quote
BEGIN QUOTED MATERIAL<<< (begin participant's narrative) "The physical
discomfort and badgering left me horrified, and feeling very weird. Time had stopped running in any usual sense, and I was having unexpected feelings of all kinds. At one point, when the trainer called my friend a TOS for trying to console a woman who was crying, I got enraged; I wanted to see the trainer dead. I realizd that I was beginning to lose any sense of where I was in the real world, and even who I usually was.
And then suddenly it came clear! I was the prisoner of my own compulsion to help everyone and be kind to them. The trainer was right; I didn't have to be tied down by this attitude.
I was free to choose what I might think and feel, independent of forty years of programming.
Then the whole room seemed to slip away, and I no longer cared about eating, peeing, or how long the whole damn thing would run on. I felt liberated, released from a long prison term." (end participant's narrative)
(The AOL correspondant continued)In one sense, this represented a transition to a full-blown "culture of narcissism" in which the individual owes allegiance only to the self. Participants in the est program often feel released from the commitments born out of fidelity to their fellow humans, allowing them to indulge themselves without guilt.>>>END QUOTED MATERIAL
But the ones who still go around chirping God Bless this Great Path' no matter what horrors they are told about how people were used and disposed of--emotionally, sexually, financially--they remain 'vendanta style psychopaths.'
All they cared about was their personal bliss. The suffering and dreadful deeds reported by others did not matter to them.
Its one thing to know you did EST. But what if EST was done to you concealed by the trippings of Hinduism?
And what if its still going on today, in SY and elsewhere?
ESTs legacy is not just in LGATs that are classified as such. We have to face that its been covertly incoporated into at least one seemingly ancient Hindu system and may be trickling into the fasionable purlieus of yoga culture.
Re: Landmark Nightmares?
Posted by:
nettie
()
Date: March 23, 2009 01:16PM
Quote
Zorro
Gotta question for all of you that have been away from Landmark for a while. Do you all have nightmares every so often about Landmark?
Every so often I have one. For some reason out of the blue I have one. I will go for days without even thinking about Landmark, so I'm not sure what is triggering them. Who know's maybe it is my brain kicking out vestiges of their programming. Kind of sucks though to have a Landmark Nightmare.
I do have these nightmares sometimes. More frequently in the past. I think it is part of the brain repeating a program in your mind. The program was put there by landmark forum leaders.
I sometimes dream that they are back in Stockholm (Sweden) and I am sitting in the course room. I try to tell people that they are part of a mind control game but no one listens.
One thing that I remember clearly (that was programmed into my brain) is the "I will kill you" phrase. Grace P (former forum leader) said so whenever someone was giving her problems. She meant to "kill" that person mentally.
I remember repeating that "I will kill you" prase in my brothers face when he was giving me problems. His 3 year old son was scared to death that I would actually kill his father.... Is that "a world that works for everyone Werner Erhard?
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