atw: Re: [OT] Landmark Forum - long (in more ways than 1)
- From: "Erisa Linsky" <slinka@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 15:50:59 +1100
Re awareness training.
In preference to the to the mass packaged oversimplified teachings of
Landmark....and other similar cults, try studying the works of Gurdieff (via
his faithful documentor, Ouspensky). The "thinking man's" Landmark.
However, with Gurdieff, it takes a long long time to get the hang of it.
It's no quickfix.
Also, like Christianity, Gurdieff's teachings are open to misinterpretation.
(eg his well known command; "Get rid of your personality!")
Another option is shamanistic training, such as Hawaiian shamanism.
(Polynesian)
By doing mental excercises similar to playing chess without a board, you can
build the equivalent of muscles in your mind, so the picture you imagine is
as strong and as detailed as reality, and it doesn't wobble or get
forgotten. Just as, when you pick up a heavy bar, it doesnt wobble, and
it's not jerky, if you are trained. (Just keep thinking about that
chessboard. (Those Polynesians had no written language!))
Negative situations and feelings are forces of resistance to your mental
efforts, so you need stronger mental muscles to overcome them.
Examples of negative resistance:
1) Someone shouting at you when you are trying to concentrate. 2) A
desperate inner need to be proven right.
Having mastered the techniques, you then have a powerful and unfaltering
flow of purpose, which means external resistance cant dominate your
direction. It is useful for goal setting, and also for cocktail parties.
If you're very successful at this, a by product is that you may burn less
easily, because of lowered skin conductivity, (hence the walking on fire
thing - it takes milliseconds longer for your skin to start burning.)
Another by product is that your conciousness may become a 'channel' that
carries others along with it, (again, the walking on fire thing).
Example of extreme flight and fight situation:
Imagine you are in front of a firing squad.
1) You are told, "If you can run and jump over that fence in 10 seconds,
then we wont shoot you".
Most people would run faster than they normally could, even break world
records.
Aternatively,
2) You are told, "You have 2 minutes to solve this algebra problem. If you
fail, we will shoot you."
Many people cant do advanced problem solving under this circumstance,
because of negative resistance from their fight and flight reactions (ie:
panic).
Shamanistic training overcomes this human weakness.
It's been used for years in the Israeli airforce, and now the Americans are
using it.
Example of office situation:
The boss calls you in to his office suddenly to discuss some productivity
figures. But the figures are misleading, and create a false impression that
you are unproductive.
Immediately you are able to reel off a bunch of statistical and other data,
with good humour, proving to HIM (not YOU) that he has no cause for
complaint.
This can happen when the muscle in your mind is stronger than the negative
resistance of :
1) The fear of being fired.
2) Your personal wimpy little feeling that it isnt 'fair'.
3) The need to convince yourself more than the boss.
4) The boss.
This is just one example of what Gurdieff meant when he said "Get rid of
your personality!"
(Not, as some believe, that you should turn yourself into an uncharismatic
out-to-lunch dork! )
----- Original Message -----
From: <lofting@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 5:10 PM
Subject: atw: Re: [OT] Landmark Forum - long (in more ways than 1)
the idea is to break you down - and so the reduction on breaks etc, intro of
stress etc etc (common techniques for asserting control). HIGH energy focus
(recall what I wrote in earlier email re getting things through
immediately - how sensory 'attack' etc increases bandwidth outside of your
control. THEY know what is required to do this - most people do not - high
energy focus stops you from thinking, there is no time given to think "what
the....". Lots of peer pressure involved)
see http://www.rickross.com for some comments.
Chris.
> With all this talk about programming people, I thought I'd mention that
last
> weekend I attended a self-development course called the Landmark Forum.
>
> If you search for it on the Net, you'll probably find a lot of
controversy.
> On the company's site (www.landmarkeducation.com), they tend not to
mention
> that. Rather than actually linking to articles about the course, the site
> contains _excerpts_ of articles, with all the bad bits (like mentions of
the
> word "cult" - Landmark's "C-word") omitted.
>
> I heard about the course through friends in the UK who highly recommended
> it. In fact, that's how Landmark's incredibly effective marketing machine
> works - most of the people who attend are introduced by friends or family.
>
> Anyway, the connection with technical writing is that as a writer and
> ex-trainer, I could not believe how many words (and how long) the course
> took to say so _little_! This is borne out when you ask Forum graduates
> about the course - their answers tend to be vague. That's not surprising
> given the length and intensity of the course, compounded by the fact that
> you're asked _not_ to take notes. For me, the course was tortuously long
and
> needlessly convoluted, which I couldn't get past and which stopped me
> getting more out of it than I did. (Believe it or not, I think much of
what
> content there is is quite valuable, but it's just buried in hours and
hours
> of mumbo-jumbo!)
>
> And when I mention the length of the course, I'm talking 3 consecutive
days
> of around 12 hours each. Plus a 3-hour evening session on Tuesday. Plus
> assignments to work on between when you got home (around 11pm or midnight)
> and getting back there first thing the next morning!
>
> Each day started at 9am and finished after 10pm. (The first day finished
> after 11pm.) And each day was divided into 3-hour sessions, with literally
a
> 5-second break after 90 minutes in which everyone stood, stretched and
then
> sat straight down again! There was a 40-minute lunch break and a 90-minute
> dinner break.
>
> But perhaps the most unbelievable thing was that all 200 of us attending
> were asked to undertake not to leave the room otherwise, even to go to the
> toilet! (The story was that experience shows that the course isn't as
> effective if you leave the room, even for a moment, and that you shouldn't
> expect to benefit from the course in that event.)
>
> In the breaks, everyone is encouraged to ring their friends and family to
> try to heal past rifts. Phones are provided, and of course many people
have
> a mobile.
>
> During the course there's quite a lot of overt marketing. For example, at
> about 9.25 on the Sunday morning, someone stood up and complained that all
> of the day's proceedings to that point had been about introducing Landmark
> to our employers. Imagine sitting in a course you'd paid for where more
than
> 20 minutes at a time were devoted to you "selling" the course to other
> people, without the benefit of commission. This is the gall of Landmark,
and
> yet it's willingly acted upon by many (or even most) attendees!
>
> The whole thing works a bit like a pyramid scheme, except that no-one gets
> paid for introducing others. So all of the $465 course fee goes to
Landmark.
> Nice one. (And they encourage graduates to go on to do further courses.
They
> offer 10 evening seminars that are included in the $465, but I believe
those
> are run by volunteers. Ah, now I think I understand why they're free! In
> contrast, the Advanced course is 1 day longer than the Forum, and yet
costs
> around twice as much.)
>
> This might all sound incredible and completely unacceptable. But most
people
> on the course seemed to get a lot out of it and were extremely
enthusiastic,
> willingly inviting their friends and family along to the Tuesday evening
> session.
>
> Near the end of the course, the presenter actually asked how many people
> belonged to e-mail groups, and encouraged us to spread the word about
> Landmark. So here I am. Maybe not what he had in mind, though.
>
> Regards,
> Craig
>
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