I've seen the same blank expression with w/ my ex-BF, involved in The Miracle of Love (another LGAT cult). When discussing emotionally charged issues, he just went blank and stared. It was eery.

He'd told me that in MOL Intensives, that the leader would scream at him "You're an ego maniac" and other such things. I've read that such can cause dissociation. Maybe that same dissociation then happens spontenaously in response to any emotionally sensitive issue??

As you write Oz, If a person spontaneously blocks emotional issues, then how can one ever reach to the heart of a person?

I've encountered the blocking behaviour too. I've challenged two Landmark people that I know and get the same fixed smile and non-response. They seem to lack emotion at that point, but when talking positively about Landmark one of them, put her hand to her heart and declared that Landmark was the most wonderful thing that had happened in her life. She had more of an emotional response.

I pressed her as to why she was always trying to enroll people, and pointed out that it wasn't just about her experience of Landmark, it was Landmark doctrine. I asked WHY Landmark had this need to enroll? She became very confused and there were tears in her eyes and she said in a quiet 'little girl' voice - 'I don't know'. It was quite disturbing - for me and her - a bit like a revelation to her 'why am i doing this?' - a sort of short-lived wake-up out of the mind-control. However, she then quickly energised though, and said 'why don't you ask ___' - another Landmark person. ( A referal to someone of more authority than her - he is an Intro leader, and doing heaps more training than she's done.) She then recovered her composure.

I think that it's a case of maybe challenging their behaviour, and pointing out their blankness to them????? But, I'm wondering that to push them, will cause some sort of breakdown?

I've encountered the blocking behaviour too. I've challenged two Landmark people that I know and get the same fixed smile and non-response. They seem to lack emotion at that point, but when talking positively about Landmark one of them, put her hand to her heart and declared that Landmark was the most wonderful thing that had happened in her life. She had more of an emotional response.

I pressed her as to why she was always trying to enroll people, and pointed out that it wasn't just about her experience of Landmark, it was Landmark doctrine. I asked WHY Landmark had this need to enroll? She became very confused and there were tears in her eyes and she said in a quiet 'little girl' voice - 'I don't know'. It was quite disturbing - for me and her - a bit like a revelation to her 'why am i doing this?' - a sort of short-lived wake-up out of the mind-control. However, she then quickly energised though, and said 'why don't you ask ___' - another Landmark person. ( A referal to someone of more authority than her - he is an Intro leader, and doing heaps more training than she's done.) She then recovered her composure.

I think that it's a case of maybe challenging their behaviour, and pointing out their blankness to them????? But, I'm wondering that to push them, will cause some sort of breakdown?

Quote
Rachel
I've encountered the blocking behaviour too. I've challenged two Landmark people that I know and get the same fixed smile and non-response. They seem to lack emotion at that point, but when talking positively about Landmark one of them, put her hand to her heart and declared that Landmark was the most wonderful thing that had happened in her life. She had more of an emotional response.

I pressed her as to why she was always trying to enroll people, and pointed out that it wasn't just about her experience of Landmark, it was Landmark doctrine. I asked WHY Landmark had this need to enroll? She became very confused and there were tears in her eyes and she said in a quiet 'little girl' voice - 'I don't know'. It was quite disturbing - for me and her - a bit like a revelation to her 'why am i doing this?' - a sort of short-lived wake-up out of the mind-control. However, she then quickly energised though, and said 'why don't you ask ___' - another Landmark person. ( A referal to someone of more authority than her - he is an Intro leader, and doing heaps more training than she's done.) She then recovered her composure.

I think that it's a case of maybe challenging their behaviour, and pointing out their blankness to them????? But, I'm wondering that to push them, will cause some sort of breakdown?

Hi Rachel,

There are accounts by ex-cult members who have told of a "separate personality," or the "real, non-cult personality" that shadows the cult persona and registers all the criticism, questions, doubts, confusion, and problems in a hidden or secret "file" that, over time, becomes larger and larger till it reaches some sort of critical mass and causes the whole thing to come tumbling down. As hard as they try and as extensively as they train or desensitize themselves, this "negative" information does reach some deep part of the original person who still responds to the truth, depending on what type of person they were before the cult involvement. Some have written about the critical material reaching them in dreams, when they have no control over their own psychological processes. Professional deprogrammers talk about providing a non-threatening mirror of reality or offering non-judgmental information in an as calm and friendly manner as you can muster. They say it is a good idea to talk about feelings and events that happened before the person got involved with the cult.


Ellen

The more I read about LGATs the more convinced I become that I was raised in a sort of unofficial LGAT. I used to do that "blocking" thing -- ironically, it used to drive my mother absolutely mental. I'm not sure if I picked it up subconsciously as a technique that she employed... but I just know that at the time, I thought there wasn't any point letting things upset me, so I used to sort of consciously relax myself, my facial and neck muscles, try and think "big picture" or of nothing at all and be calm (of course, later on in my childhood I realised that the quickest way to get her to stop screaming at me was to cry -- that was what she was really after -- and so I dropped the "blocking" technique if favour of easy waterworks. A shame really, I think I'd've preferred to be able to stick with the "blocking" as easy tears don't suit an adult female nearly so well ;) )

a man I knew went through a situation the opposite of Savernake's family.

My pal X told me his mother was sadistic and whipped him brutally when he was a little boy. He told me he cried bitterly when his mother whipped him. Gradually, he realized his mother got a thrill by making him cry, that his suffering gratified her.

So my friend discovered that the best way to make his mother stop beating him was for him to shut down, physically and emotionally. He trained himself to numb out both his physical and mental pain, to the point where he showed no sign of distress when his mother flogged him.

She stopped beating him--physically that is. (Emotionally she still kept messing with him, and he still kept trying to win the love of an essentially loveless mother. But thats another issue)

My friend came out of this permanently damaged. He could not tell when he was in mental or physical pain. His mother, his sibling and other people in his life use him as a doormat. He constantly tolerated bad situations, both relationshipwise, and health wise.

He even had physical/neurological consequences because his pain threshold was way too high--he'd stayed numb.

The social consequences for X were legion. He was overworked and and because he was unable to FEEL his pain, he was unable to tell his boss 'I cant do all these work orders. I need another mechanic in the shop.'

He complained of feeling stressed, but could not FEEL his own pain enough to take action to remedy it.

So blocking can be done in many different ways, and can have physical as well as mental/emotional consequences.

Recently I saw two opera performances: "The Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor" and "Dialogues des carmelites" in a wine show and in a local opera theater respectively. What interested me was, during both shows, actresses gave audiences looks of "thousand yard stare" just when they performed both mad scenes. I was certain that there were no such looks during other acts.

Such a look particularly stood out when the Soprano performed "The mad scene from Lucia di Lammermoor ". She gave that hollow stare only could be found from those relatives of mine who still participated in LGAT. I suspect that "thousand yard stare" was how the instructors and leaders of LGAT determined the level of mind control on their victims. Manipulators would look closely into the eyes of their preys only after days of continuous mental and physical bombardments. It is how they check the "result!!" Once a person has that look, they'll release them to normal life because they know, by phone calls or some coded messages, they can control the victims from miles away.

Several leaders did say that I have that look on my face on the fourth day of LGAT session. Then several classmates came over and started ask questions that I would be offended and fought back previously. I continued to fight with them but they seemed surprised. They said how I would look so empty yet still fought back so suddenly. I told them that I was at “screensaver” mode and my mind just didn’t want to initiate arguments. There were some amazing looks from leaders’ face.

What happened next would be more mental and physical bombardments followed by overbreathing and a night of harassments. Here is a definition of the word “control” from Merriam Webster:

1 a archaic : to check, test, or verify by evidence or experiments b : to incorporate suitable controls in <a controlled experiment>
2 a : to exercise restraining or directing influence over : REGULATE b : to have power over : RULE c : to reduce the incidence or severity of especially to innocuous levels <control an insect population> <control a disease>

:shock:

Some famous acting coaches and teachers use abusive methods to teach their students to weep. They may use intense, marathon group sessions, nag people to remember horrible things in their lives, yell at them until the student-victim breaks down and cries.

Even excellent teachers may not realize they're being abusive--they'll often be from 'old style' backgrounds and assume that being yelled at is normal when you're an apprentice to a teacher and then once you become a teacher, you're entitled to yell at the next generation.

A master jeweller told me how he trained under his father who was German born and had been trained in Germany to become a master goldsmith. My informant told me he worked like mad on his first project for his dad. Created the best and finest thing he could.

His father put his son's object on the work bench, declared it was shit and smashed it flat with a hammer.

In this old school method of teaching, the master first shattered the will of the apprentice, then downloaded all he knew into the shaken student's mind.

Students trained this way would, almost inevitably, abuse the next generation of students. This is the dynamic described by Alice Miller in her many books on how abuse and violence are perpetuated.

Many aspiring artists and entertainers come from less-than-ideal family backgrounds, so they may not know what normal is. And your social outlets are often limited when you're in the arts or entertainment--you work long hours, often are in a small social circle of people like yourself.

A recruiter for an exploitative group can easily seduce artists or celebrities if he or she has the patience to infiltrate an artist's group.

It may be that some form of emotional numbing may be associated with production of tears on command, and show up as a strange, 'thousand yard stare' expression on the face of an actor or actress trying to convey emotions using methods taught by an abusive teacher--or could be triggering tears by remembering a time in their childhood when they were abused--and learned to numb out.

If you see an actor or actress with that thousand yard stare, its worth asking yourself how they were trained--whether the method was abusive or not.

People in the arts often learn their craft from famous but abusive teachers. This may cause them to accept such bad behavior as normal and perhaps even make them vulnerable to cult recruitment, too.

My father trained under celebrated violin masters in Europe. He routinely yelled at students. I tried taking lessons from him and soon refused, because I hated being yelled at. I told him I disliked it, and Dad blew up and walked off--he considered this normal behavior for teaching.

This is all so sad.

I can tell you from personal experience about "blocking" at Landmark. I have been trying to figure out for a few months now why I was involved in an abusive relationship (with someone I met at LE, who was also heavily involved and stayed long after I a leadership role). I couldn't understand why I didn't listen to myself. I KNEW a lot were wrong with the relationship and that his treatment of me was unacceptable. I could see no point earlier in my life where I was so blind and dumb before. It was this blocking and the constant coaching I received at LE around it. Over and over again.

At LE you are coached to not listen to the voice in your head, that it's not really you, that it's your identity. This is a conforting thought when your head is spewing judgmental comments about yourself and others (hey, she's ugly, oh that wasn't me, I'm really nice). It's not helpful when your voice is telling you that you are not safe, not happy and whatever the situation just doesn't work for you. There is no room for personal taste or ambition or desire. You are expected to be happy no matter what, with no matter what...and if you aren't then you are failing and not doing "it" right.

In my experience, a lot of people use the LE distinctions to get their own way and this is as a result of the psychological pressure of the business model, as well as the fact that most coaching is done by untrained volunteers making up their own stuff.

I bucked the system there for most of my time there. I was humiliated, ostracized and overcoached because my inner voice just wouldn't shut up! I was clear that I was going to use the distrinctions how I wanted, I wasn't going to recruit and that LE wasn't the end or be all of self-improvement and that it, in fact, lacked basic humanity. And that there are things in the world that are wrong and need to be fixed.

And, I still was sucked in way more than I liked for longer than I liked.

Maybe what there is to do for people around you is to keep talking about personal satisfaction, fun, choice and compassion. I like another post I saw pointing out that sometimes there are things that are clearly wrong - like abuse, apartheid, etc. What I did was create a personal value statement and measured my life against it and discovered that the time I spent at LE did not fit my values (freedom, creativity, quality of what I take part in, etc.) or were any help in fulfilling my goals in life (eradicating the stigma of metnal illness by 2010, being rich, being happy, healthily dealing with past grief (grief is a story and a racket at Landmark, there is no room for natural human emotion)), and the time at LE took away from those goals.

Perhaps you can help your friends focus on what their values and goals are in life and help them see that time at LE and invalidating others doesn't do it. Without ever mentioning your opinions and fears about LE.