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about raising children, teaching, scrapbooking and enjoying life
me
About Me
- kdteacher
- Sewing enthusiast, teacher for over 21 years, parent to two, Southern CA native, LMU grad
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- http://www.cluckclucksew.com
- http://oopsicraftmypants.blogspot.com
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- http://blog.betzwhite.com/
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- http://www.chasingcheerios.com
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12 comments:
Dear Samantha,
I am glad that you are taking the first step here on the internet to being an informed consumer, but asking questions, and seeking out information. I would urge you to read up on this controversial organization and its predecessors and its history with Werner Erhard, EST, etc.
I have put some links to great resources below, please, don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions. I highly encourage you to check out some of this info before paying money for this controversial "course."
I would love to know your thoughts, comments and questions after you have looked into the documentary Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus, and read the book Outrageous Betrayal.
Landmark Education is conducted in a Large Group Awareness Training setting, information about it and its "The Forum" course, previously known as "The Forum" under Werner Erhard and Associates, the "technology" of which was developed by Werner Erhard and utilized in his prior "EST Training" or "Erhard Seminars Training" - is available through the links below:
A documentary came out in France, Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus, which details some of the for-profit company's interesting practices. The film aired to 1.5 million people in France. One month after it aired, the company shut down in France. The company attempted to use the Digital Millenium Copyright Act in order to get this video off the internet. More about this at Landmark Education stumbles stupidly to hollow settlement, Landmark Education wants to make French news report a “forbidden video” on the Net and at Why did Landmark Education leave France? as well as at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's legal page, Landmark and the Internet Archive and in an article from Reuters which went into The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, among many other papers, at Google faces legal challenges over video service.
Landmark Education has been labeled "sect" by the government of France, a "sect" by the government of Austria. They were investigated multiple times by the United States Federal Department of Labor - and an investigation in 2004 by the Federal Department of Labor in France led to Landmark Education shutting down their operations in all of France due to unpaid labor practices.
Landmark Education is currently a defendant in a wrongful death case in Oklahoma, and also a young man named James Brian Rowe went missing in Colorado directly after attending a Landmark Forum in 2004. His family has not heard from him since.
More information about the company's history itself, at The Rick Ross Institute, the Skepdic site, Cult News, Introduction to the Landmark Education litigation archive, Landmark Education litigation archive, Apologetics Index, and Cult Awareness and Information Centre. The book OUTRAGEOUS BETRAYAL by Steven Pressman is also a great resource. Chapter 4, A Door to Door Mind Salesman, and Chapter 7, Enlightenment in Two Weekends - The est Training are available online.
For more information about other Large Group Awareness Training organizations and their methodologies, visit:
Large Group Awareness Training truth
I did the Landmark Forum and I found it to be valuable. I especially appreciate the responsibility I was able to take for my role in failed relationships. Instead of blaming the other people for what I thought they did to me, I was able to see where these relationships were two way streets and take responsibility for my own behavior and actions. I also recommend Tony Robbins Courses and have friends that rave about the Secret and others. I can see there obvious enthusiasm and I trust their opinions so I am sure all of that stuff is good. This is my personal opinion, but I think that the Landmark Forum is one of the best values for the time and the money.
I have gotten a similar message from gurutruth myself and did some of the research he suggested. What I saw there doesn't in anyway match my own experience.
You may also want to know that gurutruth is part of a small and very vocal special interest group that is set on labeling almost ALL personal development programs as dangerous. This fear campaign includes EVERYTHING from Deepak Chopra and the Secret to Tony Robbins.
While gurutruth's message is buyer beware, I also suggest that you beware of those who come to the door selling fear.
I wish you the best, whatever your choice.
Dear Samantha,
Much to the prior commentator's dismay, I am not part of any sort of "interest group" or anything like that, and I am most certainly not selling anything.
The only thing I offer is free information, free information on the history and background of this controversial organization and its history involving Werner Erhard, EST, Erhard Seminars Training, etc., that you can find for yourself on the internet.
I would truly love to hear your thoughts and comments after you check out the book Outrageous Betrayal by Steven Pressman, (the book is so highly regarded it was cited in testimony before the United States Congress for background on Werner Erhard, EST, and The Forum), and looked into the documentary Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus.
These are both two very good sources of information, and there is also some background on these two sources themselves on the internet. Landmark Education as a condition of a legal settlement with the Cult Awareness Network, requested that the group stop selling Outrageous Betrayal for a minimum of five years. And for more on Landmark Education's internet campaign to (attempt) to remove the video of the documentary Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus from the internet, see the page at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Hi, Samantha,
Did you ever go to the course? I'm curious.
I don't know you, but I just went to the introduction of the Landmark Foundation and found it to be very interesting. I'm curious as to why people wish to label it a sect or a cult. I'm thinking that what happens is people become so inspired by their new empowerment that they begin acting in new ways and changing their habits and worldviews. This difference makes their friends and colleagues think they are under some sort of mind control. In fact, they are -- they control their own minds for the first time! :-) I could be wrong, but that's my gut feeling about it, that's the "story" I'm telling myself. :-) I signed up for the "controversial 'course'", LOL. :-) If you wait a few weeks, I'll let you know how it goes.
I have not dne the landmark ye
Landmark's courses have provided excellent insight to me. I'd recommend them to anyone. I've taken several courses thru the years and I've always come away with something valuable.
Hi, I am following up as I promised -- I took the landmark forum and it ROCKED. Absolutely recommend it, what more can I say. I am now signed up for the "Advanced Course." Am currently taking the Integrity Seminar, which is about how to bring workability into my life by being a man of integrity. Freaking awesome.
I've taken the Landmark Forum and I highly recommend it for anyone who is generally healthy (in the broad sense of the word - mentally, financially, etc.). It is a very effective tool for producing remarkable results in a short time. For example, I've become a very good public speaker, lost shyness, become assertive, etc., with each "change" occurring seemingly overnight, more or less permanently. Considering that this seminar is not even designed specifically for those skills/traits, that's pretty incredible. What you get out of the class are the tools to achieve whatever objectives and solve whatever problems you choose to deal with. I'm not aware of any other class that has such potential for usefulness.
The Landmark Forum is not perfect. However, any person of at least average intelligence and common sense would be able to take what they find to be useful for the class. And trust me, there are many useful tools to be gained from the Forum.
Landmark Education, the company teaching it, is also not perfect. For example, I myself dislike their use of jargon, and their marketing philosophy (relying on word-of-mouth). But that does not detract from the usefulness of the class itself. Obviously, it is always your choice whether to participate in their venture or not. I chose not to and no one has ever coerced me to do so. As for inviting other people, no one has ever faulted me whenever I chose not to invite other people.
As powerful as the class is, it is only a tool. Just like any tool, it can be misused. If a person's personal objective is self-destruction, then the tools in the class can be twisted to achieve that purpose. Accordingly, I would not recommend it for people are in *deep* trouble in any area of life (e.g. mental stability, finances, etc.) because it is possible that they may have an underlying desire for self-destruction. While some people who take the class are able to use the class to deal effectively with such problems (e.g. coming out from bankruptcy and becoming independently wealthy), the results with such people are simply less predictable and in some cases, there may be a negative outcome.
I get no compensation from sharing the benefits of the class. If some people choose not to take the class, that's fine by me. I'll keep the advantages from taking the class for myself.
I think people confuse Landmark for something other than a profitable company. Its like a gym, yes they want your money but its still good for you to go.
You don't have to sign your friends up and you only have to do the courses you want to do. Just say no thanks if they try to sell you other courses you're not interested in.
p.s. the integrity seminar is really good better than the forum I think
Landmark education aims to kill your identity with deliberate attempts to inbuild inside you the 'thought inhibiting process' and then to leave you in the hands of the 'coach'. all your thoughts statments views and learnings are rackets!!!! and there is nothing right or wrong in this world but what landmark says is always right!!! and what you say is always wrong!!! and yesss,,dont justify by justifying yourself. just follow what is being said inside landmark..
its a cult in real sense. its dangerous and highly manipulative in nature.
Everyone's experience here is valid, and it's all opinion, including mine. Our opinions are simply based on what we have said is right and wrong in life, and much of it has gone undetected, even to ourselves.
Someone might say that 'its wrong for another person to challenge my opinion' (which is an opinion), but that particular opinion holds a lot of power! It's sets you up as the king of your life and no-one else can ever contribute directly. And inside this view, you would have a pretty awful experience of the Forum as there is a lot of neutrally presented material that would upset a person who says their opinion should not by challenged.
If instead you have the opinion 'that my opinion is simply what I hold to be true today, and that its a journey of discovery', then they would have a different experience of the conversations that are explored in the Forum.
But the point Landmark makes is that none of our opinions (including these two possibilities) are really well thought out, 'scientific' notions that have been tested for authenticity, they just happened automatically in our minds and we made them to be true as we held them up as our 'all important opinions'. If you want freedom in life to have relationships that really work, you will benefit from becoming less rigidly locked in to your opinions.
And this is what you get in the Forum, some freedom from what you said is true, and an opportunity to explore what else has value in the wake of such a clearing. There is actually nothing true about it being 'cult-like' outside of it's intent to bring you to a place of freely considering your life through possibility rather than through opinion. For someone fixed on staying attached to their opinions about life and everybody they share it with, it would seem very cult like. But this doe not 'make' it cult like, its just an opinion. That's just how it 'occurs' to one individual with a particular set of opinions that are at this stage, still in charge.
There is no freedom available yet for this person because life 'is' the way they say it is, rather than it simply 'occurring' to them the way it does. When we 'have' to be right, we are not free to explore and test and question and discover! We only have access to one way to be.
And that's just what it is, not terribly inspiring, but not wrong. For others who get entirely new experiences of life and restored relationships as a result of doing the Forum how it is designed to be done, giving up their opinions becomes the most inspiring and liberating thing you will ever witness or experience. It's an amazing room to be in for three days! It restores a hope that humanity still has the capacity to find peace when we see it occur in one persons life in such a way that they will never get over it. And that's what's available. Enjoy the course- it's rough at time, but see it through to the end and you'll be very glad you did!
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