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While We're On the Topic of Scammy Self-Help People...About That Landmark Forum...Nothing is more annoying than someone who has found Landmark Forum. I've had friends in it. They then change from being your friend to being your own personal annoying telemarketer, someone who won't take no for an answer, who doesn't get a hint, and who is worse than 10 multi-level marketing people screaming on your doorstep. I had a friend who got into a similar organization, Lifespring, in the 90s. It ended our friendship. She turned into a dippy, brainwashed parrot who could only speak Lifespring platitudes to me and spend our time together constantly hounding me to come to a free introductory session so I could then commit to hundreds of dollars in personal brainwashing. No thank you. Not convinced Landmark is harmful? Well, I've got the video for you. If you haven't seen it yet, and you have one of those well-meaning brainwashed friends trying to force you into Landmark, then you must watch this. If you have sadly been sucked into Landmark already, then you should definitely watch it: |
SearchPollFeelosophyLove is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love. Recent comments
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Think Again
Hi Stephanie (and anyone who reads this),
I have seen the video that you are providing a link to and it far from being even close to my personal experience of Landmark Education and the Landmark Forum. They used a hidden camera to film people without their knowledge and consent and took it completely out of context (very easily done in the video age). The video succeeds in painting a terrible picture as well as one that is completely false an unethical.(Again unfortunately too easily done.) I can say this since I happen to know many of people from Paris who were in this video not by Landmark Education but by the journalists who used such an unethical methods to create ratings.
If you think that is implausible, there is lots of precedence for people, much less journalists making up their mind and then painting a picture that fits their pre-existing view of the facts.
Timely case in point: weapons of mass destruction and the lead up to the war in Iraq.
The Landmark Forum is not any more of a Scam than you are, and I do not think that you are. There is enough lousy stuff going on in the world, people who want to help other people would do better to stop calling each other names.
I wish you the best in your efforts to help people.
Andre,
P.S. For anyone who is interested, I am sticking up for Landmark and here is what some mental health professionals who have actually studied the Landmark Forum have to say about it.
www.whatsthedealaboutlandmark.com.
www.landmarkforumintroduction.com
I'd still stay away from Landmark
Andre,
Sorry you've bought into the program to the point where you're unwilling to even acknowledge *some* of the criticism. But that's kind of the point of brainwashing. It removes objectivity.
If someone came on here and said, "Hey, I know Landmark uses some high pressure tactics but I still like some of the stuff they say," then I might take that opinion a bit more seriously. Someone coming here and immediately trying to equate a hidden camera with weapons of mass destruction is someone who appears to be sucked into the cult. Or at least, not without bias.
As for "taken out of context," I don't see how it would be taken out of context. The Landmark leader clearly berates the students in the video. Landmark also clearly had people volunteering to run the office without pay in violation of several labor laws. I know for a fact that Landmark and its ilk use its students to promote the seminars because I've been on the receiving end of the hard sales tactics.
The hard sales tactics alone are enough to keep me away. I find them to be repulsive and horrible - to tell people to sell to their friends, in such a manner that insults the people around them as if their lives were nothing without Landmark. It's worse than evangelicalism.
Thanks for sharing your perspective though...I hope you wake up soon.
Take care.
I've taken the introductory
I've taken the introductory Landmark course in the past (more out of curiosity than anything else, not to mention the fact that my work paid for it), and I have to agree with Stephanie. While I met some lovely participants and felt that the course spun me in the direction of self-recovery and discovery, the idea that is constantly spouted by Landmark junkies (namely, that Landmark is the alpha and omega of all life philosophies) is insulting and myopic. I summarily cut off ties after seeing a fellow participant browbeaten to tears by a course leader in front of at least two hundred people--not to mention the lack of respect for people's personal space and the constant injunction that if you don't register people into the course, you're a bad, cowardly person who doesn't want to see their friends and family happy. It's an interesting gimmick--the purpose of taking a course is to learn to recruit other people into the course. In effect, what you're getting is a lot of regurgitated bromides about loving yourself, being authentic, blah blah blah--but at the heart of Landmark is an empty center that operates on the good faith and gullibility of lots of people.
Stephanie, By no means is
Stephanie,
By no means is Landmark Education perfect. I don't dispute that you had a hard sell experience. Much of the marketing doesn't work. I also don't argue how the video clip appears. 5 seconds of the leader raising their voice, doesn't reflect what the whole rest of the conversation was like. Howard Dean's campaign in 2004 was destroyed by a fifteen second video clip that was yes, taken completely out of context making a guy with some really good ideas sound and look dangerous.
As for people's lives being nothing without landmark. That is simply NOT THE CASE. No one at Landmark that I have ever met claims that. It is a preposterous claim that Landmark says that much less claims it. People are great and no one needs Landmark Education. Really.
Lastly, I am awake and I really do think for myself.
Again, I wish you the best of luck in what you do.
Andre
Browbeating is part of the psychological manipulation
The "5 second clip" of the leader raising their voice was not just 5 seconds. The kind of browbeating that is done in Landmark, as well as Lifespring, has been long known as a psychological manipulation tactic dating back to Landmark's progenitor Est in the late 60s/early 70s.
The way these groups get people committed, excited, and willing to volunteer and become free salespersons is through psychological manipulation. The browbeating and group hypnosis serve an important purpose - to break down a person's self esteem - or rather, tap into the vulnerable part of a person that feels unlovable. Once the person has been broken down and is in a state of feeling miserable, the leader will then pump the individual up and make the person feel like the organization is the answer to those feelings of unworthiness inside.
It's really all based on the idea of the Pavlovian response; when the person feels bad, make them feel good. They will then associate you with feeling good.
It's not necessarily just Landmark that abuses human emotions in this way; I was once introduced to a small women's group run by a local psychologist. It was a free evening to see what the group was about. This woman used exactly the same tactics. She had everyone tap into a relationship that was broken and had us write and meditate on it. She did this in such a way that half the room was crying. Then, instead of resolving the deep issues brought up, she immediately switched over to a group of members from her last session, who all implored us that joining this group was the answer to these painful feelings we had.
It was a particularly hard sell done in a very manipulative way, and I was frankly shocked and dismayed. I was quite disgusted and left, but I could tell many others bought into this.
These sorts of tactics can be quite dangerous.
I had a client who had been in Lifespring back in the day. According to my client, the group browbeat an asthma patient for "buying into" the idea that she needed her medicine. She suffered a serious asthma attack at the event and died. My client was there; I doubt she had any reason to make this story up.
The bottom line is that I don't need to go to Landmark to see for myself. I see its effects directly in the people who have bought into it, and yes, they do attribute Landmark for transforming their lives...only, they seem to have given up their personal power.
On a regular basis I have friends of mine asking me what to do about a friend of theirs who is pressuring them to go. Since when did self-help become a multi-level marketing scheme? Oh wait - that's for another post.
Think that's just my "racket"? Well, why has Landmark been suing to get this video offline, if they have nothing to hide?
Excerpt from a great article about Landmark
"My $375 has bought me a flimsy synthesis of world philosophies, littered with the sort of aphoristic suggestions abundant in high school yearbooks ("Be
yourself and you'll be more than you ever thought of being" -- Janis Joplin), paralleling aspects of Plato's allegory of the Cave, Alcoholics Anonymous, Freudian psychology, Christianity, positive thinking, Scientology, group therapy, Fascism, and carnival hucksterism. Saturday night's super-bonus homework assignment, with its proposition that the act of bringing new recruits to the Forum is itself a bold and transforming endeavor, sticks naggingly in my mind. Were a psychiatrist to suggest to a suffering patient,
"Your therapy will be enhanced if you bring me three new patients," it would be considered a bad abuse of power.
"...The sort of intimacy and connection we're seeking can't be found in a weekend, no matter how much money we put down. A shallow Oprah world wants a shallow Forum solution. Everything else in the world can be bought, why not happiness? In the end, the transformational
key the Forum offers is nothing more than words. My life has been transformed. Say it enough times and it might come true."
The entire article can be found here:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.landmark/msg/6eaaade6749dbbee?hl=...
Landmark opinions
If Landmark works for some, I say go for it. If a "hard-sell" is necessary to introduce a "better" way of living, the very thought of needing a "better" way of living is worth questioning--to ask yourself, "is it true?". If I see Landmark as "wrong, hurtful, manipulative" my mind will find evidence for that as well as if I see the opposite. The mind is always striving to prove itself right.
I love how Landmark is so protective of itself . . . don't we all want to protect ourselves? Landmark has quite an established system of defense . . . professional attorney teams, a history of multiple lawsuits, non-binding litigation contracts. . . defense IS the first act of war. When we know defense as our way, isn't it our way, until it isn't? And if we knew a better way, wouldn't THAT be our way?
"Knowing the difference between loving someone and wanting him to do what you want doesn’t mean that you can’t ask for what you want. You can, knowing that his answer has nothing to do with his love for you. You’ll discover that asking is much easier when it’s [FREE of HIDDEN AGENDAS](my caps, not hers)." ~Byron Katie
I get it
Stephanie,
I totally get your opinion of Landmark Education, but I invite you to consider it's just an opinion. Landmark education has transformed lives, empowered people to reach their goals and brought families to a new level of love and respect for one another...just to name a very few things.
Without experiencing the Landmark Forum yourself, I am afraid to tell you this, but your opinion is based on ignorance and not reality of what is so.
Hardly
I don't need to try crystal meth to know that it's bad for me. I've done enough research on Landmark as well as seen its effect on those close to me to know that it's not something I can recommend or support.