Anyone still out there who thinks Landmark has distanced itself from its scientological roots? Landmark, and all its descendants and copy-cats will never be able to exorcise the demons at the heart of their "programs" -- they are too essential to the whole. "...There are many reasons not to speak out. And believe me, I've heard them all. The first is what I call the
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteElaineHe wants "Used up" to be engraved on his tombstone. Seems fitting for a user. Ellen
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuotepaukerAs promised, Elena, I've been giving your questions more thought, and here's something that come up -- tonight, anyway. The old famous saying that those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it flies in the face of Werner's notion that, once transformed, one is freed from one's history to create a new life. This is probably just the magical thinking
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotepauker...or when they crack up and their lives start to fall apart, like mine did for a while. (I gotta stop waxing nostalgic.....as it were....) Pauker, Could you identify or isolate any particular ideas, philosophical tenets, or ~concepts,~ that had a destructive influence on you? What do you think were the most dangerous of the est/Landmark directives, if not for you personally
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Being a ~victim,~ in Landmarkland, is the equivalent of being a loser or a whiner or something similar. There are ~no victims,~ according to Werner Erhard, only "volunteers," or some other such nonsense. They don't differentiate between victims of crime or abuse and victims of a confidence game -- they're all contemptible and the lowest of the low. If you admit to any feeli
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuotekickedintheheadThanks for the replies. It's all very interesting. I have absolutely no problem distancing myself from this guy but I'm kind of stuck going to court with him next week. I guess I'm still wondering, should I be worried if he doesn't get his way? It seems like not getting his restraining order might make things worse. However, I don't deserve to have suc
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

"Attack the attacker" was L. Ron Hubbard's directive and one of his more famous utterances. And Nettie's right about your colleague likely never giving up. One thing narcissists can't stand is losing. They equate it with dying in some weird psychological way. You can't win a contest with a narcissist. They will fight to the death. Reminds me of the movie &quo
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

It sounds like a chicken and egg thing. Hard to tell if he was made worse by Landmark but I'd say that generally all bets are off when dealing with a Landmarkian and Landmark tends to give these people a home, license, and rationale for their bad behavior. They just don't seem to care to adhere to what might be normal, reasonable, or rational behavior if they drink the kool-aid that te
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

More magical thinking. The problem with all this stuff is that it treads so complex a path, weaving in and out of the truth, sidestepping the more difficult of human problems, dipping in here and there to the older wisdom cultures, but mixing a deadly brew of partial truths, shaded distortions, perfectly good material, and perfectly awful inclusions. For the most part, these are not educated pe
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuotepaukerRight On - Elena. You see so clearly the threads that connect Alistair Crowley to the 'willfulness' of Narcissism, to Ayn Rand & L. Ron Hubbard, and then on to encyclopedia salesmen like Werner. Its a long thread and it leads straight back to human evil. M. Scott Peck's book called "The People of the Lie" certainly comes to mind in this case. In additio
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

The thing that makes me sick to death of Landmark and the whole Landmarky universe is how this intellectual malignancy is spreading into our society and seeming to infest itself into many other areas where it would ordinarily be laughed off the stage. Upper levels of government, for example, and that old corpse of Rumsfeld comes to mind, with his minions who thought that they could ~control~ the
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuotepaukerI just thought of another jargon-morph from the old to the newer training. The mind's "yama-yama" in est became the forum's "Already Always Listening." Yes, as I understood, the "yama-yama" was the "monkey-mind" or inner chatter of our own voices that the esties derided as the "little voice" that needed to be stilled in or
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuotepaukerOne thing I found intriguing from an old esthole's perspective -- having NOT done the forum as well -- has been looking to see how some old est jargon got 'updated' as est morphed into the forum, and as the old company became landmark. After seeing the 'X-formation' movie, and ingesting a bunch of Landmark threads here (acidic burp) recently, it seems that inde
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

LOL... It's all around funny to me that, after all this time and after all the attempts to dress the stuff up with Wittgenstein or Heidegger or, god knows, Plato, Aristotle, Sartre, who else?, (notice they NEVER mention Napoleon Hill or Alexander Everett), it's still and underneath all, just old ElRon at the core of all Landmark stuff. Here's an excellent old post from us
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quoteamemg I asked why did he decide to do the Advanced Course "For some CLARITY" was his response. He told me that his possibility was "Courage and Completion" and that is why he had to stay in SELP now (I guess he would not be in INTEGRITY if he didn't follow through with his COMMITMENT). I feel totally deflated. I thought I saw a glimpse of Hope. Clearly she hover
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

These bastards set their hooks deep. Ellen
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Make sure to find one of the earlier editions that contains the references to est and Werner Erhard. Conway and Siegelman recognized the similarities from the beginning but had to remove those sections after legal retaliation by the cult, as did Margaret Singer from her book. If not for the internet, Werner Erhard might indeed have been able to ~disappear the past~ as he would have liked to.
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Yes, I've written in the past about the deadly coupling of anyone with even tendencies to manic-depression and an involvement in a group like est/Landmark. Using their nefarious techniques, these mind-manipulators are able to somehow fuse themselves emotionally at the higher points of the roller-coaster ride they take their followers on. The manic depressives can come to believe that their
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Hi Pauker, You wouldn't be the first to make the connection between Ayn Rand and Werner Erhard. You might enjoy this: Iron Maiden; JOURNALS OF AYN RAND. Edited by David Harriman with foreword by Leonard Peikoff . Dutton: 728 pp., $39.95: GARY KAMIYA. The Los Angeles Times. (Record edition).Los Angeles, Calif.: Jan 4, 1998. pg. 10 Like heavy metal music, Kamikaze pil
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

You bet. It's not for nothing they were called "est-holes." Tom Wolfe famously labeled it the "Me Decade" in his essay in New York Magazine in the 1970s. "...The various movements of the current religious wave attempt very nearly the opposite. They begin with . . . “Let’s talk about Me.” They begin with the most delicious look inward; with consider
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

I sent this to the internet address listed: Please, please, please...Hannah, Before you let these vultures get their hooks in any farther, I implore you to read up on The Hunger Project. Way back in the 1970s, Werner Erhard started this "charity" as a way to capitalize on his name and his notoriety in the "human potential" business and to cash in on the hoards o
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

In the news today, and another example of Landmarky exploitation of nice, generous people: (Can anyone figure out a way to get word to these people before the Landmark sharks circle in for the kill?) CNN.com Sale of 1 house will help 30 villages * Story Highlights * Family tries to sell $1.8 million mansion and give half the proceeds to charity * Decision
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Just to add, and perhaps counter the notion that the Landmark "teachings" are mostly benign, fairly ordinary and standard motivational and self-improvement stuff -- if, and only if, you are able to tease apart the toxic thread that ties them together which was Werner Erhard's own mind as he picked and chose from the "many disciplines" he supposedly studied. He selected t
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteElaineI just did the Landmark Forum - am still a bit mystified by the experience, and would rather not talk about what I saw about myself in there - suffice it to say that some things I saw as 'just the way they are' aren't so anymore, particularly with regards to my husband. The only thing that bothers me is why the organization is for-profit, instead of non-profit. There
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotenettie Sorry for the rambling. I hope you can follow what I have written. It may seem strange to someone who has not been in landmark. But this kind of rambling is going on in the minds of true landmarkers...until you are able to shut every part of your old self down...then MAYBE you can become a forum leader and start doing work for landmark and get paid. Very few make it to the level of
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteVera City We don't seem to operate so naturally out of a conscious free will. Perhaps we are not as predisposed to freedom of thought as we think? Perhaps? If certain people hadn't the ability to sway the minds and influence the behavior of certain other people all the advertising executives on this planet would have to hand in their Gucci loafers. They, along will al
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Oh and by the by, Though he denied "raping" her, he admitted to "having sex" with her, which he characterized as being a "nurturing" experience. Ellen
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteAntiCultistThe Anticult - I too dislike cults, but what you posted here is downright offensive, false (unless you post the recant) and has been cleared up to have been a false allegation, by his own daughter's statements. I am neither for nor against Werner or EST - but I think you just crossed the line of ethical behavior on this board, and I am hoping Rick Ross doesn't allow lib
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

Quotenettie Even the people that have been hurt are lead to believe it was their own mental stability that put them in trouble. Landmark tries to make people believe that if you suffer ill consequenses after participation in their courses that "you were not well before the forum - it wasn't our fault". Some people fall far that lie. Hi Nettie, Both Werner Erhard and L. Ron H
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"

QuoteAlexShalman So about the paper. I actually do like the theory as it is presented. It's all about separating words, and giving them a clear definition or distinction. I think as human beings, having a clear sense of what something means is imperative. Reality as we know it, (up/down, red/yellow, apple/banana, man/woman) is all made from language. It's a good idea to understand it
Forum: Large Group Awareness Training, "Human Potential"