Also, as a science and science fiction fan, I saw how you could map the transmission of these seemingly exotic tools onto the viral transmission of genes.

People run into all kinds of trouble when they try to describe what they find troubling about EST, Landmark and the rest. It’s not quite a cult, since it has no pretensions of religion. A pyramid scheme comes close, but it doesn’t require the input of new people to continue; it will happily leech off its core user base and even shrink or go dormant in tough times.

Also, while it’s not IMHO a societal symbiont, it’s not solely parasitic. Some people seem to derive some benefit from it. Since the foundation itself does not appear to be forthcoming with hard data on the cost/benefit ratio of its classes (pre-Forum users make $Y-minus-X, post-Forum users make $Y), we are left with anecdotal evidence that suggests it behaves as a slightly commensal parasite.

The most apt metaphor I’ve been able to come up with is adware. Like WeatherBug, it will sit in a small corner of your life, sometimes offering helpful little pings to let you know the thunderstorm has turned south to your doorstep. And sometimes it will download a lot more crap, then demand money for that crap from you, until your machine slows to uselessness.

Just as I think it’s important to act against adware, educating and advising against downloading untrusted software before it turns your machine into a node on a botnet, I think it’s important to educate kids, family and friends against anyone who offers quick fixes to complicated problems.

Sometimes the blinking window that says your computer is infected *is* the infection.

This Landmark thing has been around for a while; a friend of mine was doing these around 2000 and something she said even then tipped me off to the est connection.

Buncha loons.

Complete and utter psychobabble crap. Not that I’m bitter or anything!

For all the ideas and none of the cult, read Alan Watts. Or read my memoir I’m sure I’ll end up writing. :)

But…

I think calling it brainwashing is a bit extreme. Maybe I’m just not very suggestible, but frankly it didn’t seem to have that much “power” to me. Perhaps they tried to brainwash people, but if so, they seemed pretty incompitent at it. At least I felt unaffected. And two of the people in my car-pool group felt the same way, so I know I wasn’t the only one.

While I found the points that they made pretty self-evident, my guess is that some people would find it useful. Based upon what people have said, though, it would seem to be strongly contraindicated for people who are very suggestible, people with low self-esteem, or who are otherwise “joiners” (I’m definitely not a joiner, and–believe it or not–don’t feel “scars” from my Catholic upbringing, despite the fact that I’m not a Christian now).

‘The Forum’ has become a watch word for a lot of people now. I just walk away from people, in my personal life and in business, who take it seriously. It’s an anti-social mindset… and it makes me anti-social toward them!

Long ago, someone tried to recruit me. Didn’t take, despite the odd combination of histrionics and seduction the cult employs.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/second-student-ended-life-after-turning-point-course/story-e6freuy9-1225764126205

I attended the Introductory course, went through lots of experiential, breakthrough/down, create your own reality, you’ll find ways of making everything work if you really want it too, nonsense. Then, when they pushed and pushed me to sign up for the second and third courses (each *substantially* more expensive than the previous, I bailed.

Bailing on World Works was the best decision I’ve made in a while.

Seriously, don’t go. No matter how much your friend who asks you to “just attend the Guest Event” wants you to, just run away.

Also, I could go to the bathroom whenever I wanted (I tended to go on breaks, but not always)

I really reccomend this course. LOL

I did find that there was a temporary “glow” after each seminar, in which you felt pretty invincible. After a relatively short period of time you would just go back to your normal level of neurosis/screwed-upness.

Once at a dead-end job I had a coworker try to recruit me for some seminar she did that “changed her life” – the name wasn’t familiar to me. So I googled it, turns out it was just the same old stuff in a new package. When I told her that X happened on day 1, X happened on day 2, etc – she backed off :-)

I lost a lot of friends to Landmark. It turned them into insufferable assholes bent on marketing Landmark. The funny thing is, I told all of them to let me see their lives and improve, and then I would gladly take a seminar, and that was unacceptable to them.

I had the unfortunate experience of attending a weekend “lockdown” with these crazy people in the early ’90′s. Herb Tanzer was the bully in charge at the time and I was absolutely horrified at this cultish experience. There is nothing transformational about the program – except the transformative experience they have when they obtain your bank information/credit card info. The will go after money in your bank account and try to charge your credit card even if you have only expressed an interest in an upper level training course.

People were not only humiliated; they were threatened, not allowed to leave the room for anything and there were diabetics in our group. Several people tried to leave during the one break we were allowed over the course of 13 hours the first day. Those people were first approached with kindness and curiosity by the unknown followers in the group. However, when the unknown “Forumites” could not convince them to stay, they resorted to guilt tactics, outright threats and then physically followed people as they drove away.

We decided after the first day, there were too many weird things about the group and we were not returning for the second day. I cannot tell you how absolutely terrifying it was for over 2 months – as they stalked us. They contacted any friends/relatives we had listed on the initial sign up paperwork, they contacted the California Board of Nursing and tried to find my employer, we had to change our phone number about 4 times before they stopped the tormenting calls and then they started showing up at our home.

These people hold you hostage – and it proven when you try to leave or question the “authority.” Their behavior walks just up to the line of kidnapping and should be investigated by law enforcement. They will sabotage you through any information you have voluntarily given them – so please, avoid them unless you are really into such sick and demented treatment.

I’d compare it to the culty side of religion, in that there are a few ideas worth having in there, but you gotta wade through a bunch of crap to find them, and people with agendas may have power over you. The Impact seminars definitely ended with the hard sell, and the whole “this information doesn’t leave these premises; you want your friends to have the full and proper experience” BS. I did feel that I got some awesome tools for looking at life BUT they came with a sort of price and social contract that sorta demanded I not share those tools. Which I kinda felt was not productive. Anyway, a good therapist will do more for you, without the hard sell baggage, and the good ideas in these seminars aren’t exclusive to ‘em.

(Weird side effects: People at Impact were supposed to be in their chairs at the end of the breaks, and to signal the start of the new session, they would play Also Sprach Zaruthustra, aka the theme from 2001. My parents thought this was great, and adopted it for calling family councils. So to this day, I have Pavlovian reactions to hearing that theme.)

I’m not saying you’re a bad journalist, I’m sure you did your research and went in there in good faith and all. Who am I to judge? I’ve not read any of your other stuff.

And yes, you’re totally right when you say that everyone should do their own research, think about whether this can mean something positive in their life and make an informed decision. Landmark doesn’t really give you time to make that decision, it’s more on the spot, go for it now or the deal is off stuff. Nobody should do this thing because of peer pressure or job security.

Then again, my point still stands. Along with your piece, there are others with practically the same content, give or take. Since your piece got posted on BB, I was expecting some more insight into the matter, besides the regular stuff. I’m guessing there’s some good in that: BB and by analogy MJ set a high standard.

See how I totally turned that around and made you feel good about yourself? I should become forum leader.