Quote
Amhebera
I'm not sure what an apologist is, but, I assure you that my only interest here is discussion.

Looks more likely a trollogist.

;)

An apologetic troll?

:-P

Do you people have brains?

Let's not engage in name calling here.

Amhebera,

I am responding on this thread. Your comments to me were made on the "Tech Support for this board" at the bottom of the list. You instantly assumed I was attacking a newbie by the moniker of ntcmm. To refresh your memory here is your comment:

QUOTE: ntccm and Sparky,


I've also noticed that if one says anything even remotely possitive about anything, one is branded an appologist with a handful of people ready to jump on board and agree.


I think this is a very useful site, and very helpful to people, but the fact is, simple questions like ntccm's are dismissable are ultimately unanswerable on this site and I think that's a mistake. Open discussion seems to happen a lot less frequently than it should on these forums. It's all about finding and expanding, and even exagerating the bad.


I personally don't care if you "enjoyed" your LGAT experience while admitting it is very dangerous at the same time. My comment to ntccm was not an attack or challenge to him/her, but to direct him/her to post their thread (started by the helpful title of "hey") to the correct forum so everyone who is interested in his/her comments can enjoy them and respond.

I understand I have a knack of rubbing apologists the wrong way but I assure you I was neither calling ntccm's questions as dismissable nor attempting to to silence open discussion.

As far as this forum as being about "finding and expanding, and even esagerating the bad", I would urge you to pour yourself a glass of wine (or some other beverage) and take some time reading the Horror Stories (capitalized) on LGATs from many of our members here. Many people have been damaged...badly. Many have had their spouses leave them after attending.

This forum serves as a support tool of sorts for many of these people. If you expect someone who is traumatized by these groups to engage in some "non-real world experience sweetness and light college-esque" debate you are unaware.

Hi Amhebera,

You'll be okay here. Most people are a bit sensitive after being chewed out by their respective emotionally abusive groups.

John
(off to wipe dust off brain and continue making fun off himself)

John Fox,

Please understand, I am neither directly challenging Amhebera's ideals nor his/her beliefs. I believe he/she has mistaken my (politely, in my opinion) telling a new member where best to post a new thread, as an attack/insensitive remark.

I neither desire new members (nor any members) to be banned by rrmoderator unless they are vicious apologist troll morons.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2009 11:39AM by Sparky.

Hey Sparky, you're okay.

Ditto on vicious morons.

Amhebera, please do feel welcome. It's not how any of us stuff up, it's how (all of us) we recover that counts.

John

There¡¦s no ¡§short¡¨ way to do this. Hopefully this will be a fair and well rounded answer to any with the patience to read through it all. I¡¦m replying to the multiple responses to me.

Quote
elena


I would like to suggest to you that you re-examine your thought here concerning what exactly constitutes a "choice" and how the concept of "choice" is both elemental to Landmark's cult-type programming and the real key that unlocks the door of their peculiar brand of mind control entrapment.

L. Ron Hubbard got the ball rolling with his scientological nonsense about "choice point," which is what Werner Erhard plucked for his own cult.

A good place to start would be this article:

"FREE WILL, OR THOUGHT CONTROL?;
WERE THE DEATHS OF HEAVEN'S GATE MEMBERS THE RESULT OF BRAINWASHING? THE DEBATE REFLECTS LARGER CULTURAL QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ROLE OF CHOICE AND THE ISSUE OF VICTIMIZATION."

[www.histarch.uiuc.edu]



Ellen

This is a GREAT answer by Elena. It¡¦s a response and a counterpoint. She makes a concise argument backing it up with research. BRAVEO Elena. Regrettably, I haven¡¦t had time to read this through yet. But I appreciate this kind of answer.

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rrmoderator
Amhebera:

"Fun"?

You seem to be here as an apologist.

Landmark has a long history of complaints, personal injury lawsuits and labor violations.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Erhard, the man that put together EST/Landmar/Forum, has been repeatedly discredited.

It is a privately owned for-profit company that has hurt many people.

LGATs like Landmark generally have a bad history.

This is an OK answer. It would have been much cleaner had he simply started with the "long history of complaints", and not dismissed my expeirence (I don't know how anybody can dismiss an experience, but RR seems to feel it's OK), and he begins the "appologist" conversation, which was unnecessary and it drew attention away from his "history of complaints" argument. Is he addressing me or is he discussing landmark? Doing both at the same time is a divided approach.

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John Fox
My "apologist" thoughts exactly.

John

OK, so John thinks I¡¦m an apologist. Lets¡¦ just throw in the towel.

Quote
caligari

Quote
Amhebera
I'm not sure what an apologist is, but, I assure you that my only interest here is discussion.

Looks more likely a trollogist.

;)

So, I¡¦m also a troll? Wow. That happened fast.

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John Fox
An apologetic troll?

:-P

Now these two are just having fun at my expense, and they are obviously not interested in discussing anything. They just want agreement.

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Sparky
Amhebera,

I am responding on this thread. Your comments to me were made on the "Tech Support for this board" at the bottom of the list. You instantly assumed I was attacking a newbie by the moniker of ntcmm. To refresh your memory here is your comment:

(quote of quote removed)


I personally don't care if you "enjoyed" your LGAT experience while admitting it is very dangerous at the same time. My comment to ntccm was not an attack or challenge to him/her, but to direct him/her to post their thread (started by the helpful title of "hey") to the correct forum so everyone who is interested in his/her comments can enjoy them and respond.

I understand I have a knack of rubbing apologists the wrong way but I assure you I was neither calling ntccm's questions as dismissable nor attempting to to silence open discussion.

As far as this forum as being about "finding and expanding, and even esagerating the bad", I would urge you to pour yourself a glass of wine (or some other beverage) and take some time reading the Horror Stories (capitalized) on LGATs from many of our members here. Many people have been damaged...badly. Many have had their spouses leave them after attending.

This forum serves as a support tool of sorts for many of these people. If you expect someone who is traumatized by these groups to engage in some "non-real world experience sweetness and light college-esque" debate you are unaware.

Sparky,

I see where you are coming from.

One of the problems is that this website lacks a feedback discussion board. That¡¦s why ntcmm posted on the tech support board and it¡¦s why I posted there too.

The advantage to having a feedback/suggestion board is that somebody can say something and others can say ¡§I agree¡¨ or ¡§I disagree¡¨ and you get some kind of feedback consensus on ideas.

I recommend you guys at RickRoss set that up, but it¡¦s your call.

Second, I didn¡¦t write what I wrote because I thought you attacked him. I wrote what I wrote because I wanted to support what he said. There is a difference. I understood why you wrote what you did, but I supported what he wrote. I was supporting him, not disagreeing with you ¡V does that make sense?

Third, you didn¡¦t rub me the wrong way.

Fourth, I¡¦m not an apologist, and if somebody thinks I am one, please explain to me why this is so.

Fifth, the horror stories sadden me, and as a former horror story, long since recovered, I respect your position of making these horror stories known.

Sixth, I certainly didn¡¦t expect anyone who (to use your own words)

Quote

have been damaged...badly. Many have had their spouses leave them after attending.

This forum serves as a support tool of sorts for many of these people. If you expect someone who is traumatized by these groups to engage in some "non-real world experience sweetness and light college-esque" debate you are unaware

What I expected was a discussion of people who¡¦d had experiences at the Landmark Forum. Oddly enough, we¡¦re in page 2 of this thread, and only two people (Exland and myself) have shared some personal experiences from the forum.

I don¡¦t know why you feel the need to attached adjectives like ¡§college-esque¡¨ and ¡§Sweetness¡¨ and ¡§non-real world¡¨ when you discuss my post. That seems, rather exaggerated and off the mark of you and I don¡¦t think anything I wrote merits that kind of sarcastic response.

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John Fox
Hi Amhebera,

You'll be okay here. Most people are a bit sensitive after being chewed out by their respective emotionally abusive groups.

John
(off to wipe dust off brain and continue making fun off himself)

John, I¡¦m rather confused by what you¡¦re going for here.

First, you call me an apologist, then you call me a troll, now you say ¡§I¡¦ll be OK here¡¨.

How about you talk to me, not around me or about me? I¡¦m right here and I don¡¦t bite, well, not often at least. ƒº

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John Fox
Hey Sparky, you're okay.

Ditto on vicious morons.

Amhebera, please do feel welcome. It's not how any of us stuff up, it's how (all of us) we recover that counts.

John

John, I appreciate the welcome. I¡¦m not sure why it took you 4 posts to get there, but you got there eventually. ;-)


Here¡¦s my problem, and it¡¦s also a question and I¡¦ll yield to the wishes of the forum.


I was only trying to get a discussion going. When I saw ex-lands name, I¡¦d assumed he was an ex staffer, based on his name, not a person who only did the weekend, and had I been more sensitive, perhaps I should have created a new thread, not tried to have a discussion in this one. I do feel bad about bringing in my experience in a response in this thread.

Where I¡¦m not clear is if discussion is even possible on this board, about a subject like Landmark, or if the only discussion that is acceptable is that which trashes it, and believe me, I know that there are those who are eager and ready to trash landmark.

I could say more about my experience, but I¡¦m not sure it¡¦s appropriate, because, RR seems to frown upon discussing more than one program in one thread, and they seem to have a problem in general of having a positive thing to say about anything. I cannot fully explain my experience with landmark without touching on another workshop and my history with that, and even if I could discuss my experience, I¡¦m not sure it would be welcome, because everybody would want to look at it through the perspective of ¡§landmark is damaged goods¡¨

And, I fully understand and respect the need to have, as sparky puts it:
¡§This forum serves as a support tool of sorts for many of these people. If you expect someone who is traumatized¡¨ and with that in mind, perhaps the kind of discussion I was trying to have was inappropriate. I¡¦m not insensitive to that.

And, maybe what I wrote came across as insensitive. That was accidental insensitivity on my part, not deliberate.



Finally, I¡¦ve had some experience at the large group awareness and brainwashing, dating back to the 80s, so I believe I have some valuable insight and experience to share, but I have some difficulty coming from a place of ¡§lets just say how bad it is¡¨ and leave it at that.

I can tell you, from my experience, that the 2 things that would have made the biggest difference to me personally, had somebody gotten a hold of me and said them to me are these:

1: ¡§What do you want¡¨.

And 2: ¡§Have courage¡¨.


I don¡¦t know if that means anything to anyone here or not.

Thanks for the update Amhebera.

I understand the difficulty you are having in understanding the amount of animosity you have suffered as a result of some of the posters on this thread.

I hope their comments are not intended to be insulting. I do not codone any kind of insulting behaviour but I do kind of understand where they are coming from.

I know you may be struggling to come to grips with my personal experience of the landmark forum, when it appears to be at odds with your personal experience of the same course. The facts are that I did the forum. I did have a psychotic breakdown as a result. I did have a serious car accident during my breakdown. I am still suffering the ill effects. I am on anti-psychotic medication. I have been labelled with schizophreniform disorder as well as bi-polar disorder. I survived two weeks of solid suicidal depression. I am seeing a psychologist. I had two distinct identities after attending the forum. I am lucky that I have found a pyschologist who understands mind control and is a TRAINED hypnotherapist, she has helped me to integrate my "landmark" identity with my original identity. I am well on my way to recovery. All I can ask of you is to use the amazing gift that all of us humans have- the ability to put ourselves in others shoes. Have some empathy for me as I have for you.

If there is one thing this whole landmark forum experience has taught me is that there are only victims of cults. Nobody willingly joins a cult, they use sophisticated language and tricks to lure people into their evil web.

I think you should educate yourself on the process of thought reform and mind control. This may give you a different perspective on landmark forum and all LGATs as well as other more mainstream cults.

A good place to start is at this page [www.culteducation.com].

Good luck. My life is NOT "empty and meaningless".