In a video called, "brain washing in a godless big business cult", a woman tells of her experience in a Landmark Forum. You can hear the hurt, the distress, the fear in her voice. I felt distressed after watching it, but I knew it was heartfelt.
There is one point at 6 minutes in when she describes a particular episode in the weekend Forum. Participants are told to imagine their greatest fears and that those around them are also creating fear. The Forum leader shouts at them and harangues them until many break down and sob and shake. Many others have focussed on this particular point in the Forum as one of its most destructive moments. Here's her video:
Sunday, 10 August 2008
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8 comments:
Thank you very much for posting this very moving and informative video.
And thanks as well for the link to us!
Keep on writing and keep on informing the public, you are doing great work.
"Participants are told to imagine their greatest fears and that those around them are also creating fear. The Forum leader shouts at them and harangues them until many break down and sob and shake."
This is what is referred to as the "fear exercise", and under Erhard Seminars Training (est) was known as the danger process. -- GuruTruth
I think the Landmark Forum is horrible. They really should be sued for all the fraud they have committed.
i made my self to sit there till the end, but in the last 2 hours i left, because when i heard that YOU ARE MACHINE like 30 times in a row i just understood what that was about!
For me, LF was a horrible experience. The best thing I did was walk out mid-training. The experience wasn't wasteful, though. By leaving, I learned courage, trusting my gut and belief system, and honoring my individuality.
Skeptic, thank you for your story. Time is a blessing in all that crap fading away. Love and peace to you.
I completed the "Forum" this weekend.
It was weird. I spent 3 days from 9am to 10 pm stuck in a room with no dim light. We got two 30 minutes breaks and a 90 minute dinner break, which we were to use to complete homework, “connect with incomplete relationships”, and invite people to Tuesdays event.
At the end of each break we were required to sit in a different location and next to someone different. We weren’t allowed to have food or coffee in the room; however, they provided water on the tables.
Basically, the leader had people stand up and share stories, which were heart breaking. One women’s kid was run over by a car and as she sobbed people weren’t allowed to comfort her. This guy wasn’t a shrink and kept telling her that she was responsible for her pain due to the meaning she placed on the incident.
The language used in the ‘forum” didn’t make sense. They would take words form the English language and assign new meanings.
We were told to imagine their greatest fears and that those around them are also creating fear. The Forum leader shouted at us and harangues us until many allot of the women broke down and cried and sobbed. We were instructed not to open our eyes and the guy kept yelling at us.
All this was done under the guise that we had to stay till the end to receive a break though. A breakthrough only Landmark could provide.
By the end there was this group mentality that made it uncomfortable to disagree or leave. I kept thinking this ain’t right but everyone can’t be wrong. The psych trip they put on you for not disclosing your friends, family and coworkers as potential candidates was relentless. I didn’t cave in.
I drove into work this am thinking, “Have I been brainwashed?”.
They have a Landmark for kids. I don't have kids but there is no way I'd allow my nieces or nephews to be subjected to whatever that was.
The Forum is a load of rubbish.
My dad went, and they encouraged him and a group of others to abuse each other verbally. And my dad had been so brainwashed by it all that he was encouraged to believe this was "funny". I felt so awkward when he told me what had been said and started laughing...it was so weird.
My stepbrother and stepmum were involved in it too. This is the sort of rubbish that landmark feeds people - I was asked by the three of them, "Vanilla or chocolate ice cream?". I answered chocolate. I was asked why. I said I prefer chocolate to vanilla, it tastes better. Apparently this is the wrong answer. They were all laughing at me as if I was missing some crucial and fundamental key to understanding something vital. Apparently I chose it, merely because....I chose it!! That's it. And this is supposed to be a breakthrough.
Now, it might seem silly and harmless, but it's actually really really dangerous. Think about it - this little exercise is basically teaching people that they don't have to justify their actions. It teaches them to be selfish. To not take responsibility for their own choices.
The people I know who have been involved in the Forum have been pretty screwed up to start with, and very easily led, so it's possible that relatively "normal" people can come out of the experience unscathed, but I'm not sure. It seems to be pretty powerful stuff. In any case my dad ended up completely broke, and even more of an emotional screw up than before.
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