Hello,
I am not actually in the groups from whom you requested answers but I thought I might have something from my own perspective on this that might help you, so I am making the offer at least.
I am the targeted victim of an ''est-ee'' who chose ''power'' over ''enlightenment''. I watched him go blank many times. It looked like a petite mal seizure. He appeared to drop out of time and consciousness. As you know est is the forerunner to Landmark.
I understand the est-ee of my own experience very well. As it is was in est: ''Reality is that which you experience,'' and I have experienced being selected as ''the item.'' I also understand the concepts of est and the group dynamics which support the estian power structure. I had to make it my business to find out in order to save myself.
est-ee's and Landmarkians are being trained to give up their critical capacity by ''accepting'' every life event and relationship as basically meaningless. It has much to do with the abstract platitudes in the training which ARE basically meaningless UNLESS they are connected to a concrete event or specific relationship. The platitudes are used like hypnosis. People repeat them as a means of avoiding critical thought or introspection or questioning others about what they are being told.
If you can find an old copy of ''Getting It: The Psychology of est'' by Dr. Sheridan Fenwick, it may help you some to read her analysis of the training.
If you would like to hear more of a response to some of the things you are saying and asking here, please let me know.

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Concerned Oz
I THINK THIS MAY BE THE GATEWAY INTO



THE LANDMARK MIND.

[b:d242f08b30]I am writing to three groups in this new thread:[/b:d242f08b30]
1. People who have had loved ones or friends enter Landmark;
2. Any psychologists who have dealt with Landmark people;
3. Landmark and former Landmark people.

As others have implied, blocking is a common technique, certainly not limited to LGATs and other cultish environments. I recently took the Landmark Forum, and I have a few ideas that could enrich this discussion.

My observation is that a certain percentage of people (successful recruits?) in these situations experience heightened emotional sensitivity - a roller-coaster ride of emotions - perhaps made possible by cathartic exercises (the Fear Process or the "enrolling" of others through gut-wrenching apologies, etc.). For those who are prone to manic symptoms, this sensitivity may be even more extreme.

Emotional sensitivity, in itself, is not a bad thing. The problem arises when the person is also very insecure, plagued by fears (conscious or subconscious), distrust, and other "issues". Landmark attempts to cure these "issues" through self-analysis and some slick, circuitous logic. This doesn't heal the wounds however, it just teaches ways to trick yourself into thinking they no longer exist. (Oh, it's just a "racket"!) This sort of emotional repression only serves to amplify the intensity of the buried issues.

How does this relate to blocking? When you are very emotionally sensitive, and you have a lot of repressed "issues", the experience of being criticized is absolutely unbearable. As is the experience of being in a situation where you have to make a tough choice, and no one is there to make it for you (or there is no pre-packaged ideology to help).

The easiest thing to do is to dissociate - you lose touch with your feeling and freeze. Hence those blank stares. If words do come out, it's very detached from one's true feelings - robotic, automatic, etc. This gaping hole may be filled up by memorized responses that Landmark inculcates - a coping mechanism.

During this period of dissociation, you're not whole - your mind, body and spirit are not working together, thus each performs at a lower level. Cognition (thinking for oneself) is very difficult, emotional awareness and expression is very limited, recalling and remembering is also a challenge - unless it's strongly programmed into your conscious mind, ready to be recalled at any time.

Personally, I experienced myself dissociating long before I took the Landmark Forum. In fact, one of the things which made me disavow the teachings of the Forum was that I started to notice that it was encouraging me to dissociate. And Landmark and mind-control cults are not alone in their systematic inculcation of dissociation techniques - this is also subtly encouraged through marketing/ads, TV, certain types of work environments, etc. In fact, in my observation, most everything that Landmark does can be found in society at large. But at Landmark, it's done in a compressed, intensive, "results-oriented" time period.

Sarah, Elena & et al.....

Y'all are right on it.....but ....now that we seem to grasp most of it, after the "conversation" (I'd rather prefer "talking", since LEC deteriorated this word) with our LEKKIES, what possibly can we do when that type of talking don't work? (language done with a purpose...) I, along with others or even a multtitude who do not visit this site, have lost a best-friend, soulmate, friend, relative, lover, associate or co-worker to the LEC - sesspool... I constantly ask myself, what CAN I do to prevent other souls from running off a simialr dead-end (I'm not talking Grateful Dead here, unfortunately! - trying to lighten our experiences a bit ???? )

If we all look at the "total - marble" (eartH) (yes, IMO, the end is more important than the start) mind-set right now...perhaps a consumer-oriented society (name one that is not for $20.... (;-] )
is propagandizing its ":citizens" (love that label) similar to "cults), which maybe makes it so easy from the get-go to influence so many, once they learn (sound US retail?) what works for their niche? PAX for now

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ULTAWARE
what possibly can we do when that type of talking don't work? (language done with a purpose...) I, along with others or even a multtitude who do not visit this site, have lost a best-friend, soulmate, friend, relative, lover, associate or co-worker to the LEC - sesspool... I constantly ask myself, what CAN I do to prevent other souls from running off a simialr dead-end

One thing is very clear to me. We must not use persuasion. We must not try to influence these people - either people who are considering taking Landmark, or who are already in the fold. To persuade is to simply a form of control. It's like fighting fire with fire.

Instead, we must create opportunities for dialogue - opportunities for people to think for themselves. And we must exercise compassion and caring, not the cold insistence upon "integrity" that Landmark cultivates. When we do this - practicing openness, compassion and respect, we give people a chance to really see themselves. This, I believe, is the seed of change.

My theory is as follows:
Landmark causes the little voice, (reasoning and logic), to be switched off.

landmark actually tells its victim not to listen to that little
voice in their heads. they are telling the people not to listen
to themselves but instead to landmark.




The majority of the learning, (excluding the trance induction), is experiential - behavioural

landmark takes the people back to their childhood under
hypnosis and removes their belief systems, or whatever
they had for a belief system. i believe because so many
people dont have a foundation of what they believe they
are good marks for the cult.

everything before landmark is a racket. everything during
and after the forum is your way of thinking. its called mind
washing because that is what it is.




Conversation is either negative or positive, (creating possibility)

any time someone stands up in landmark to disagree its
their rackets, and they are negative, once u are taught to
think correcting u are applauded, this is the positive reinforcement.

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corboy
[b:e880891c23]Speculations[/b:e880891c23]

The childhood blocking program may continue to make people vulnerable unless they can access it and then, eventually remove the bug. This may affect both body and mind.

Its like adding 2 plus 2 and realizing at the unconscious level that you're afraid to see how the numbers add up to 4. So you block, and there may be several ways to impletment the block.

[b:e880891c23]Possible blocking scenarios[/b:e880891c23]

All of these can kick in unconsciously. I will provide a real-life example below. One doesnt 'choose' to do these--they can happen just as reflexively as yanking ones hand from a hot stove/

*You can avoid adding the numbers--block at the very beginning. THats where someone simply refuses to look at the evidence.

*Or you add a few numbers and then stop before you've entered all the numbers because you sense the answer will be scary. You abort data gathering before its complete.

*You get to the point of adding the numbers and never press the sum button. You've gathered the information but use blocking to avoid interpreting it.

**Or, you press the button and get the total, but convince yourself that the total is meaningless or isnt really what it is. You may ignore it or rationalize that no one can really ever know anything anyway. These days this position can be supported by going to see the film [i:e880891c23]'What the Bleep do We Know?'[/i:e880891c23]

Final hypothetical blocking scenario: Go into a rage and insist that the calculator is a hunk of shit and conduct a vendetta against the manufacturer.

Very nice analogy, corboy! Bravo!

-Valerie

Hi Valerie & Corboy,

There is a step before the first point of Corboy's:
"*You can avoid adding the numbers--block at the very beginning. Thats where someone simply refuses to look at the evidence."[/color:d05460569a]

This point above suggests an active response to the problem by the person. I believe their can also be a passive response: ie:
* You can avoid adding the numbers because you can't see them or even if you can see them, you don't recognise them as numbers.

From my observations, once out of the LE fog, a person may have all the intentions in the world to add 2 + 2 to calculate 4 but they just can't do it - yet.

There appears to be two manifestions of "blocking":
1. Active blocking - Where the person actively refuses to calculate to "4", willfully blocking at some point along the way that Corboy has described;
2. Passive blocking - Where the person wants to calculate to "4" but the thought reform process overides the intention/desire/will/ability of the person.

Where there appears to be evidence of passive blocking, the carer/friend/partner needs to practice PATIENCE. Hightening the person's anxiety over their current inability to calculate to "4" will just add further damage to the "ego" from which dispair can develop.

Oz

...in the Landmark courses I took (Forum, Advanced Course, SELP, various seminars, IFLP and coaching of a few programs), I learned that I had to listen carefully and DEAL with what was said to me. Not what I thought it should be, not what I thought they should mean, but exactly what they wanted to convey. I learned to confirm that what I heard was what they said, cause Landmark is clear that sometimes we hear what we want to hear. Of course we still have a choice whether or not we're going to hear, deal with or act upon what's said to us. I never learned anything about blank staring or a blocking technique. I think sometimes people use the technology to run interference for things they don't want to deal with; it's easy to use the language and the culture as a smokescreen, I've seen THAT a fair amount, and there are those of us who will call someone on it if we see it. One of the tenets of Landmark is roughly "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." It's all about how you OCCUR for someone, not what you meant for them to see.

Hi Acuracura and welcome to the board,

I have taken liberty to break down your posts into my responses:

...in the Landmark courses I took (Forum, Advanced Course, SELP, various seminars, IFLP and coaching of a few programs), I learned that I had to listen carefully and DEAL with what was said to me. Not what I thought it should be, not what I thought they should mean, but exactly what they wanted to convey. I learned to confirm that what I heard was what they said, cause Landmark is clear that sometimes we hear what we want to hear.[/color:24351a808b]
Oz - The basis or foundational philosophy for which your above hypothesis rests on is the concept of being "clear"adopted from the Church of Scientology. Such a person is completely present with no attachment to the past, no interpretation, no filtering, just present to hear the message for what it is. A person in Landmark and Scientology is encouraged to move to a state of being "beyond clear". The problem with this philosophy is that it leaves no room for prior knowlege learnt in helping to decode the message. The concept is without foundation in either medical, psychiatric or psychological arenas. It is in opposition to these scienific areas of knowledge as to how the brain is designed and functions when a communication stimuli is received.

Of course we still have a choice whether or not we're going to hear, deal with or act upon what's said to us.[/color:24351a808b]
Oz- No - this is a flawed hypothesis of a distortion of existential philosophy. What you have written is not FACT. Such a teaching is presented in Landmark as fact. Such an hypothesis ignores that there is not a level playing field in the world, that there are the disadvantaged in society that exist not out of their own choice but through the multiplicity of effects of nature and nurture.

I never learned anything about blank staring or a blocking technique.[/color:24351a808b]

Oz- Yes, I agree with you that you did not learn about blank staring. This is not a technique or part of the "tech" of Landmark. However, it is an affectation that manifests in participants as a result of the "process". I have witnessed this. The participant is constantly unaware that they are doing this. They have no choice about it. As to blocking - there is already much material on this in this thread.


I think sometimes people use the technology to run interference for things they don't want to deal with; it's easy to use the language and the culture as a smokescreen, I've seen THAT a fair amount, and there are those of us who will call someone on it if we see it.[/color:24351a808b]
Oz - Yes, this is what this thread is about. Participants learn thought stopping techniques to deal with the outside world because what Landmark teaches in incongruous with the "outside world". I would hypothesise that you find it easier to commincate with people in Landmark than those outside of Landmark. This is because the construct of Landmark is incongruous with the construct of the outside world which deals in reasoning and logic. If a participant allows their defence mechanisms, (in this case, blocking and denial), to come to the surface, their phenominologically driven false reality of Landmark construct that they hold so dear which has merged with their ego, would come crashing down and they with it. This is why there are so many break downs of depression and a few suicides.

One of the tenets of Landmark is roughly "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."[/color:24351a808b]
Oz- Landmark is full of sayings that contain a macro meaning that is intended to be taken "as is". This is a thought stopping technique that you have just shown us all though you probably dont realise it because "you don't know what you don't know" - back to you :)


It's all about how you OCCUR for someone, not what you meant for them to see.[/color:24351a808b]Oz - You have given us again, a classic distortion of phenominological existentialism with elements of the concept, "being authentic". If we "exist" as being "authentic", then we are congruent with our meesage. We and the message are one. This Landmark construct surpasses conveying what we "mean" because "I am".

If If you don't know what I mean, take a course in philosophy at a registered tertiary institution where you will learn the philosophies of Landmark and for what they really are about.

Good luck,

Oz

Acuracura did not seem to come back. It is a pitty because it would have been good to get her opinion on my comments to her point of view. I guess she blocked me out...


In my reading, I have come across an experiment that may be a door open overriding the blocking by refuting a Landmark principle through experience rather than interlectual rigour which seems to get us nowhere. Blocking is only activated through dialogue, not through experience.

[b:06aa052a5f]Some preamble:[/b:06aa052a5f][/color:06aa052a5f]
Apart from the hypnosis and other psychologically applied learning/brainwashing techniques, experiential learning is used to convey Landmark's message.

The LE participant is indoctrinated to believe that personal experience is the only way to aquire knowledge - everything outside of the "self" is subjective. This is the philosophy of phenominology and relativism. (this philosophy which is previlent today is responsible for the saying: :"What is true for me is not neccessarily true for you") - a Landmark moto which underpins much of Acuracura's writing above.

[b:06aa052a5f]Theory[/b:06aa052a5f][/color:06aa052a5f]
My theory is to break through the blocking by conducting a simple experiential experiment for the Landmark participant that refutes relativism and supports the existence of fact or absolute truth.

By definition, Phenominology disputes FACT, and ABSOLUTE TRUTH, everything is relative to the individual.


[b:06aa052a5f]The experiment[/color:06aa052a5f][/b:06aa052a5f]
The following experiment illustrates that our subjective preception, from which phenominology and relativism are based are potentially biased against REALITY, FACT, ABSOLUTE TRUTH.

1. Obtain 3 equal size bowls of water each filled with the same quantity of water. The first bowl contains hot water, the second, tepid and the third, cold water.

2. Place the left hand in the hot water and the right hand in the cold water for 1 minute.

3. After 1 minute, place both hands in the tepid water.

The result should be that the left hand senses that the water is cold and the right hand senses that the same water is hot. However, reality is that the water is tepid.

The mind has interpreted this experience incorrectly. The same can also be for optical illusions.


[b:06aa052a5f]Conclusion[/color:06aa052a5f][/b:06aa052a5f]
Therefore, we cannot interpret what we see, hear, feel, smell etc as being true based only on our own relative experience if we are not to be deceived. We must test everything according to absolute truth.

If there is some cognitive functioning in regard to what was just experienced, the LE particpant should realised that their own personal experience is indeed subjective and reality or truth not only exists but is also objective - the flip side of what they have been indoctinated with.

Could this method to the LE mind through experiential learning, bypass the blocking technique?

Any comments???

Oz