“Cults of the Afflicted”

I am losing friends to a particular cult.  I have been invited, actually implored, to ‘come and see’ and this invitation has been rendered by people that I have not known very long.  For some reason people think nowadays that anyone is fair game.

I am writing this hoping that my friends will stop and think about what they are doing with their lives.  I am in no danger because something told me to do a search: to read critical reports and interviews, to do the work to understand more what was their attraction.  My husband and I sat together for an hour (thank you, Fred, this in the middle of a tv show that looked like his beloved Nascar…) and read the Landmark Forum website and watched the video.  Then we decided to get the critical reviews which were a hell of a lot more fun.  And telling.

Landmark Forum was based on est training, developed by a used car lot salesman back in the 1970’s.  He got in trouble for not paying back taxes and sold the company to his employees.  Then he, with $$$ left the country to settle somewhere in Germany I believe.  He’s a slick package.

So is Landmark.  What is it about these groups that keep the conference rooms across the country filled? By hightlighting and heightening the feelings of insecurity and alienation and then offering to cure them.

Who hasn’t felt lonely, cut off from humanity, wallowed in their own insecurity?  It’s part of humanity.  We all have areas of guilt, things we would like to forget, to get over, to forgive and be forgiven.  Anytime you are going through a divorce, the breakup of any relationship, grieving, you are vulnerable.

The jump for approval is deep within us, and when unexamined, it is something that strips us of our individuality and our particular abilities.

Every person that I presently know who is wide-eyed and bushy tailed about Landmark are intelligent and competent people.  They feel for some reason that they are not living ‘authentic’ lives.  And Landmark is going to cure them of this.

There is nothing wrong with guided imagery, and most of us are familiar with this through relaxation techniques.  Where it goes ‘bad’ is when it is ‘racketed up’ into mindcontrol proportions.

I have and will not attend the Landmark Forum program.  I won’t even sit through the 10am-1pm Introduction/Welcome. The methodology used by Landmark is particularly disturbing.

There are very limited breaks, and people are encouraged to hold it if possible.  12 hour days (and more) are not to my liking. Told that you will be chided if you are even a minute late to the sessions is like being treated as a child.  Which I think in part is the idea.  You strip the adults of their behaviors and have them conform, and you got putty.
We watched some of the program in the video.  Frankly, it is doublespeak. It’s insidious.  It lulls you to a bewildering state of mind where you are most vulnerable.  You listen, you fall deeper, and before you know it….BAM! You are buying it.

What are you buying?  That you are shit. You are inauthentic.  You have no integrity.  Now, those that are imploring me to come and see, would disagree with this analysis.  However, they should read the critiques of Landmark and some of the real dangers that have happened in this programs.  Ok…there are some that are ‘triggered’ to no good ends by some of the things that happen and are said in Landmark Forums conferences.  And they probably had massive problems before they walked into Landmark.

This happens….and it’s probably not the ‘fault’ of Landmark. But I don’t want to be in the room when someone blows it.  I don’t want to be party to that much pain.  And Landmark does demand you lay bare your soul, with trips to the microphone and a soul baring testimony.  Mass crying to me amounts to mass hysteria.  Call me ’stopped up’.  I will grieve in what I think is the right proportion, and not amongst strangers.

Perhaps the worst of all of this is the proselytizing behavior of friends.  They know no boundaries and push heavily.  I am reminded of a bunch of Jehovah Witnesses or Southern Baptists at a covered dish dinner.  There is no escape.

JT come home.  All is forgiven, and you aren’t fucked up.

Lady Nyo