Hi,

A friend of mine is very commited to Landmark (volunteer, advanced courses, etc...). That friend told me that a Landmark Introduction Leader committed suicice last fall. I didn't ask for much details but I heard he was from Toronto. Anybody else heard about it?

Of course, that friend of mine says Landmark is not responsible for his suicide. He is.

M. Donovan

I dont know anything about it but I can almost certainly guarantee if he was invovled with Landmark they would have worked quickly to make sure they were distanced from his suicide and to ensure that no one would make a connection between his participation with Landmark and his suicide.

Landmark do not see that their programmes lead people to a place where one day they wake up suddenly and realise they have lost all that was near and dear to them.

It is a scary thing to realise that your friendships are gone, your careers in tatters and for a lot of people your family is on the very outer edges of your life.

I'm not surprised that this would get swept under the rug. That's the landmark way. I have to say though, I was an IL and never have I seen more people with so much not working in their lives. I"m friends with lots of people who quit like I did and now taht we're away we're all thriving.

Since the philosophy is "really" there are no "victims," the victim MUST be responsible for his own vicitmization. No one else CAN be. Not if the philosophy is true. Everything in it is a tautological argument that circles back on itself, and absolves the system of responsibility. Landmark, like est, is a demonstration of Itself. A major part of getting anyone out of that circle is just to SHOW them the circle, itself.
IveGotIt

Thriving, most people I know who also quit have seen their lives inprove dramatically, they have rebuilt their friendships which are also a great support to them and they are in a much better financial position.

While I was on staff I was paid just above minumum wage and got into debt now I am working a job that I get paid for what I do at a good rate, plus over time, plus get regular breaks through out the day and I get recognised for a good job with good bonus's and rewards monthly.

Interestingly enough I was told that Landmark take credit for my sucess, despite the fact that I was sucessful in my job before landmark!!

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sonnie_dee
Thriving, most people I know who also quit have seen their lives inprove dramatically, they have rebuilt their friendships which are also a great support to them and they are in a much better financial position.

i have also seen this. its interesting to listen to the people
that do seem to do better after having done the forum

landmarks hypnosis child resgesses their victims. they then
strip them of their belief systems and unfortunately its one
of their easiest jobs because many people dont have much
of one. the life is empty and meaningless routine robs the
people of their thinking and then they are told that events
in their past dont have any meaning. it works.

heres an example.

a women is raped at an early age and has problems throughout
her life because she could never quite come to terms with
her past.

stripped of her belief system, convinced it doesnt mean anything,
makes this person feel better about themselves.

unfortunately they actually deal with their issues, they just
the group think and give no meaning to it .

people dont have to think their way out, they have the hypnosis
to just in a sense clear their minds in the present of their
past.

this is one of the reasons its so difficult to retrieve people from
landmark. this is why is called brainwashing.

its not good, its not beneficial to their victims long term, in fact
i have talked to a few people and only a few, but as they age
they seem to become more like burnouts than people that
just get older.








While I was on staff I was paid just above minumum wage and got into debt now I am working a job that I get paid for what I do at a good rate, plus over time, plus get regular breaks through out the day and I get recognised for a good job with good bonus's and rewards monthly.

Interestingly enough I was told that Landmark take credit for my sucess, despite the fact that I was sucessful in my job before landmark!!

this is exactly like scientolgy. anything good in your life and they
take credit for it, anything bad happens and its your way
of thinking. or u didnt get it properly, or u need more programs
to help u.

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sonnie_dee
I dont know anything about it but I can almost certainly guarantee if he was invovled with Landmark they would have worked quickly to make sure they were distanced from his suicide and to ensure that no one would make a connection between his participation with Landmark and his suicide.

Landmark do not see that their programmes lead people to a place where one day they wake up suddenly and realise they have lost all that was near and dear to them.

It is a scary thing to realise that your friendships are gone, your careers in tatters and for a lot of people your family is on the very outer edges of your life.

Sonnie,

I heard the man who committed suicide had many family problems with his wife and kids. His life was not doing well at all, and my LEC friend says he wasn't talking to anyone about his problems (I guess this makes him responsible for his mental breakdown) even though he has been on the Introduction Leader Program in Toronto. This is hard for me to understand since LEC is supposed to bring a life of happiness to everyone, and you get coached on every aspects of your life. The fact that he completed the ILP means he must have met his objectives and that he got a lot of coaching. Despite all this, I got the message that if he committed suicide, it has nothing to do with his LEC implication or training, but it's because he was not communicating and he had his own problems. However, what you say about LEC carreer and family leaves me sceptical that LEC has nothing to do with his mental breakdown.

As you probably know, in France, LEC was put to trial twice by families of victims who have commited suicide and murder (I'm not sure about the oucome of these trials though ... I'll dig out the information), and this was enough for the French authorities to identify LEC as a potentially harmful cult. It is regrettable that the families of victims here in Canada or elsewhere will not envisage this as a "possibility" (after all, isn't the world full of possibilities?). I think as long as the families of the victims will not step forward and ask for an inquiry about the potential psychological damages LEC may have caused to their deceased loved ones, similar situations will happen again and again, perhaps in your family or mine. I would love to see our Gorvernment take steps in order to control cult-like organizations, but who cares? How many tragedies will it take before the Canadian authorities do something about it. I think the French government is an example to follow, but families must file complaints first.

Michael D.

As far as Landmark is concerned it covers it behind by the agreement they get everyone to sign and verbally agree to at each and every programme. This agreement basically says that it is up to the individual to assess whether they should participate and if they have any medical or mental health problems they should not participate.

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sonnie_dee
As far as Landmark is concerned it covers it behind by the agreement they get everyone to sign and verbally agree to at each and every programme. This agreement basically says that it is up to the individual to assess whether they should participate and if they have any medical or mental health problems they should not participate.

That in itself is an abusive contract, and I know from talking to a lawyer that this type of agreement is not necessarily valid in court. People sign it without even knowing what to expect because they trust their friends that are using LEC techniques (in my opinion based on deception and trickery) to enroll them. Any corporation like LEC is liable if it can be proven in court that it creates physical or psychological damage to people even if they try to get away with it by including the type of statement you refer to in their contract agreement. The problem is in the production of evidences that LEC is responsible for creating damage to people. This is not an exact science, and the court decision is unpredictable no matter how many evidence or tetimonies you produce.

While I was walking across a traffic intersection yesterday, I saw a car traveling very slowly toward a red light. Initially I thought the driver was about to stop before the traffic sign so I could walk across the street. But the more I looked at the car, the more suspicious I got. Out of my surprise, the car kept going through the red light at constant speed. Since there wasn’t much traffic at that time, I was glad that the driver didn’t hit me and others.

It was a just simple thought that had stopped me from crossing the street. Immediately I felt like I was a victim of careless driving and was emotionally depressed for a while. Unfortunately, I couldn’t prove it physically. Perhaps the driver never realized what he/she had done. Perhaps there really should be an accident to prove that the driver was reckless. No matter how hard I tried to remember the license plate, the end result would just prove otherwise – nothing happened!

I think, in science, it is also difficult to observe something like “butterfly effect”. Here is a piece of information about the effect on human behavior from Wikipedia:

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When you think of effects, there is a action, and a reaction. Every action we take has a reaction. We stand in the same place, nothing happens, we throw a ball, energy is released, and the ball impacts on something.

However, when we think of effects, there is a major(visible/logical), and a minor (invisible/unseen, uncalculatable) effect to everything that we do.

For instance, we drive our car out of the driveway every morning at 7am and it will eventually need to be refilled with gas, which is a major effect. However, if we choose to enter traffic 5 minutes later at 7:05am, our thought patterns, the people we encounter, whether someone gets into an accident or misses an accident because we delayed them, either now or in 5 years, that is the invisible effect.

The major effects that you conduct everyday can be calculated, and will add up eventually. If you save 5 dollars everyday, eventually it will add up to a large amount. The invisible effect is a tiny change, that changes the timing, the thoughts, the actions ever so slightly. We all have our basic programming, we breath, eat, act in generally the same way. We have a program, but that program depends on inputs, and if you add something slightly different, the program will run slightly differently over time. Not enough to make a major change yet, but in the long run you may think/act somewhat different, or some things that you would have/would not have missed will occur.

Is LGAT experience a major effect or a minor effect? I believe you’ve seen a lot of visible changes from people who participated in the program. But what about the unseen or uncalculatable effects? From my personal experience, it really takes a lot of time and efforts to evaluate and fix psychological as well as physcial damages. Perhaps time will tell. Anyhow, I wish you all the best.

Hsuchi[/quote]