Self Inflation and Contagious Narcissism

Joseph Szimhart
jszimhart@gmail.com

http://jszimhart.com/blog/sweat_lodge_deaths
December, 2016

After watching CNN’s two-hour, December 4, 2016 documentary on the rise and fall motivational speaker James Arthur Ray, I came away from it with a sense of appreciation for good film making as well as a sullen gut reaction to the horror of three people dying in one of Ray’s over-crowded, very expensive, “spiritual warrior,” sweat lodge challenges. The sweat lodge scam was one of his best personal income ventures.

I will explain below why modern sweats, like fire-walks, in my view are scams.

The filmmakers managed to convey fairly and in depth an aspect of American culture that emerged in spades by the late 19th century. Rugged individualism and the positive programming of the American Dream—Be All You Can Be—has been co-opted by a billion-dollar self-help industry of large group awareness workshops. I include many mega-churches lately run by Robert Schuler and currently Joel Osteen in this heady mix with est/Landmark, Lifespring, Psi-World, Amway, and the long list of mass training gurus including Tony Robbins, Werner Erhard, Covey, Eckhart Tolle, James Arthur Ray, and Byron Katie. There are dozens more. If you read and believed Norman Vincent Peale, Og Mandino, and Dale Carnegie, you are in this ballpark. You dwell in this social institution called Self-Inflation University.

Maybe you, the modern seeker, read some Nietzsche and Ayn Rand to reinforce this selfism. Maybe you took yoga classes or seek that special diet. Maybe you absorb the cosmic infusions from ambient music. Maybe you speak to the universe and believe that the universe will respond to your positive thought—you know, the law of attraction since someone let that “secret” out of the bag. Self-improvement, self-development, self-realization, enlightened self-interest, the selfish gene, the higher self, self-awareness, and mindfulness.

Maybe you tried affirmations from a New Thought book or religion—over one hundred years ago, the most famous one was Every Day and in Every Way, I Am Getting Better and Better. Millions of Americans were doing it. You came to believe that religion can be a more precise science than neurobiology. Forgive me—I meant “spirituality” as you are by no means merely religious like those calcified old ladies in the pews of common churches.

Be all you can be? What on earth can that mean? And how much BETTER can you get anyway? We get the incentive. Any healthy human being gets that much: We all want to improve. But at what and how? This is where the self-help gurus come in. Nearly everyone that pays out hundreds or thousands of dollars up front for one of the life and prosperity workshops or intensives is already lost. They do not know and they want to know what will work for them and what is blocking their potential. That is why they are there. To make a breakthrough! Somewhere in life their egos have been damaged, wounded, or traumatized, or in the least somehow limited. Common regulated therapy is too slow or is not working. Maybe they have not gone deep enough and you need a deeper experience.

Narcissistic traits that we all have and need are not bad—we need them to get by, to put our best selves forward to get a job or a spouse. Traits are not disorders. We must believe in ourselves to some degree or we might not get up in the morning. Our best self can be compromised by anxiety. Anxiety is the most commonly diagnosed psych disorder. We all feel it to some degree nearly every day, but most people cope with it well enough. Those who do not cope feel wounded. Forces around them and within them reflect a poor self-image or at least one not good enough.

Wounded narcissists are not bad people, but they are particularly vulnerable to mass therapies that promise to tap that special self within that is pure and wonderful once the layers of social conditioning and trauma are “broken through.” If only those god-damned, self-imposed limitations and environmentally fierce blocks could be somehow removed, they say to themselves. Well, the run-of-the-mill self-help guru or life coach is there for you to help engineer a break through. Just sign the waiver and prepare for several days or more of a psychological roller coaster.

Break throughs are those a-ha moments when the client feels a profound release or insight that has a potentially life-changing effect. These engineered breakthroughs may be authentic—some people do change bad habits after a mass therapy workshop—but at what price? For most, the positive take away is short term or vague at best, especially when we read testimonials from the “94%” (claimed by Landmark) satisfied customers. They sound like testimonials from rare Amway success stories. The cost is more than money.

Most of the mass trainings promise to change you or “shift” your perspective. Let me get to the point. Anyone who is placed in an extraordinary situation or experiences an ecstasy will absorb the influences and language in that environment. The influences include the admonition to spread the good news of your transformation at the Bobby Ray or Whoever Tony workshop, and maybe to ask for forgiveness of anyone you may have harmed to somehow end past karma. Of course, when you so energetically ask for forgiveness or exude over your “experience,” you are also recruiting. And that is the point. The owners of these businesses want to funnel as many people as they can into their self-experience machines that will spit out recruiters at the other end. The model is understandable if one is selling cars, herbal products, or cosmetics, but it gets very strange when the product is your Self.

The question to ask is what self emerges from a J A Ray sweat lodge ceremony? Can that sacred self, the “spiritual warrior” be forced into manifestation during an engineered experience in group trainings or spiritual retreats? The answer is no. That is the scam. The good feeling of having made a breakthrough in front of a crowd after a public confession will always subside. All highs from ecstasy subside when the endorphins stop dancing in your brain. However, the leader tells you not to let this insight go, to reinforce it in how you communicate with others and choose your path going forward. So, you adopt the language of the group or life coach, and you start sounding like one of “them” to your friends and family. The change is that you sound like one of them and not that you have suddenly become a better person. The point is that you could have become a better person with a little effort all on your own and still sounded like yourself.

One definition of a brainwashed or radically influenced person resides in language: If he talks like us, he is one of us. This is true for any culture, be it Austria or a gang in Chicago. However, you have a better shot at being your authentic self as an Austrian than you will as a gang member. It is a matter of constriction. Smaller groups with enthusiastic members will tend to self-seal or create an us-them culture.

J R Ray’s sweat lodge experiencers were in shock when people died. They all had to question why they put up with so much pain and why they lost their common sense. Those who broke away finally did make a real breakthrough. They no longer trusted the narcissist who absorbed them into his theater, his culture, his personality cult world. They shed the language and re-learned how to talk authentically. They no longer believed that men should aspire to be gods who are the true spiritual warriors.

Just ask Zeus.

J A Ray violated authentic sweat lodge intent.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/01/us/canada-sweat-lodge/

James A Ray's comeback angers victims
http://jszimhart.com/blog/sweat_lodge_deaths

Landmark Forum: Mysterious training course coming to your office

SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

news.com.au

Emma Reynolds news.com.au@emmareyn

IT’S a personal development course that promises “positive, permanent shifts in the quality of your life — in just three days”.

The intensive training is delivered in more than 125 cities globally by California-based Landmark Worldwide, which has a revenue of almost $120 million.

Companies including activewear retailer Lululemon pay for staff to attend the self-help seminars — although the activewear giant last year suggested it was putting less pressure on employees to take part.

But while many credit the introductory Landmark Forum Program with transforming their lives, others have slammed it as “Scientology lite” and exploitative of vulnerable people, all of which the organisation strongly denies.

Landmark told news.com.au there was “absolutely no similarity” between the organisation and Scientology, that participants sign a legal document stating they are taking the course of their own volition and that a refund was offered to anyone who was pressured into attending by their employer.

Kevin*, from Sydney, had never heard of Landmark, but was unperturbed to hear he was expected to attend a training course when he started a new job. He did find it slightly jarring that his new office expected him to pay the $725 for the three-day program in Pyrmont, but he needed work.

It was only when he arrived that he started to think his situation was really strange.

 

INSIDE THE FORUM

Kevin realised he was at an immersive self-help program, which would run from 9am to 10pm from Friday to Sunday, with a return visit on a Tuesday evening, to which participants were encouraged to bring friends.

The others in the room seemed to have more of an understanding of the content of the course, which combines Eastern philosophy with Western psychotherapy practices.

One woman told him she was recommended the program by the real estate agent who helped her sell her recently deceased mother’s home.

Participants are warned to stay away from alcohol, drugs and over-the-counter medicine during this time. Attendees are encouraged to take the floor and talk about their problems and how they could relate to trauma from their past, while the instructor helps to guide them with tough-love techniques. Tears are a regular occurrence.

“Everyone looked sort of religious and intense,” Kevin told news.com.au. “The course was about addressing issues from your past, like large group therapy. Nothing to do with work.

“Breaks were scant and even toilet visits were highly controlled.

“For a $700 course, the materials and presentation were extremely low budget. One hundred and fifty of us were sitting in front of a single instructor. A very basic PowerPoint was used along with some very simple banners that displayed various ideas written in bizarrely convoluted language.

“When I turned around I saw a row of slightly oddball looking people all just sitting and watching the room. It was later mentioned that these people were volunteers.

“The instructor spent about one-and-a-half hours telling stories about amazing ‘breakthroughs’ people had achieved in the first 20 minutes of the course.

“The course essentially revolved around people standing up on the mic to share whatever personal trauma they happened to be dealing with.

“The instructor would then coax them into fitting their story into a premade set of phrases. For instance: ‘I’ve been pretending that ...’ ‘When the truth is ...’ The final statement in this sequence was quite bizarre: ‘Standing there, the possibility I am creating for myself is ...’”

The program has been lauded as immensely valuable by successful individuals, including Harvard professor emeritus Michael Jensen, Reebok chairman Paul Fireman, UN senior adviser Charlie McNeil and Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk.

Panda Express, a popular Chinese restaurant chain with more than 1500 restaurants in the US, offers scholarships to managers who attend the Landmark Forum.

Consulting firm Vanto Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Landmark, has worked with organisations including Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Heinz Northern Europe, JPMorgan Chase, BHP Billiton, Petrobras, Telemar Brazil, Lockheed Martin and Mercedes-Benz USA.

But on day two, after watching a woman break down crying while revealing that she had been raped by her brother, Kevin decided he couldn’t take any more.

“Cheers and whistles and enthusiastic applause started to creep in. I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable as I realised that eventually I might be expected to share and even be put on the spot and made to call a friend or relative I had been ‘inauthentic’ with.

“I felt that I could no longer be there if everyone else was going crazy with applause. Rhetoric from the instructor was aimed at alienating any sceptics.

“With the blinds closed, the way we were talked at, the traumatic experiences coming out, it was intense. I was physically overwhelmed, shaking. Even though there was nothing they could do to stop me I felt under their control. It was an insane experience.

“At the next break I left. I was scared to leave. I didn’t care if I lost my newly awarded job, I had to get out of there.”

 

‘MASS HYSTERIA’ AND ‘COMMON SENSE’

Bridget*, an administrative worker from Sydney, told news.com.au she attended a Landmark course after her boss recommended it.

“They don’t dictate that you have to share but they create an environment where you don’t feel you have a choice. It’s almost like peer pressure. There are about 200 of you and the day goes from 9am until 11pm.

“You’re meant to identify all your bad points and you create the possibility you have to move into. You might say, ‘I’m a nasty, conniving b***h and I want the possibility to be love and light.’ It’s interesting how quickly everyone picks up the language.

“I didn’t want to but I had the helpers offer to take me through it and then the leader. The leader then said, ‘I give up on you.’ I thought I must be a really hopeless case so I ‘saw the light’. You want to contribute. It’s really evangelical.”

Those who are indulging negative voices are said to be “in a racket”, which is almost like lying to yourself. In the end, Bridget says, she “got right into it”, attending three of the courses.

“It’s not until I got away from it that I could see how dangerous it could be. It makes you dig deep in your head.

“You’ve got to get in touch with things you think are really bad about yourself. I had manipulative and cowardly. You’ve got to create an antithesis of this. I developed a possibility I could be brave. They’re meant to then teach you the tools to live into the possibility.”

In 2003, French Channel Three’s secretly filmed report on the Landmark Education Forum in Paris led to the organisation being shut down in France, although it remains operational in more than 20 countries.

Huffington Post writer Karin Badt, who knew many professionals in the US who “revered” the organisation, wondered if the French channel had manipulated the report and presented “scenes of abuse and brainwashing, out of context”.

In 2008, Badt attended a London Landmark Forum, writing that she found it “innocuous. No cult, no radical religion: an inspiring, entertaining introduction of good solid techniques of self-reflection, with an appropriate emphasis on action and transformation (not change).”

What she did object to was a “lack of critical thinking” from participants and “how quickly they adopted the vocabulary”, as well as an exercise in which attendees were asked to close their eyes and imagine being afraid of everyone in the world, which “turned into mass hysteria of crying, sobbing, calling out ‘mummy mummy!’ in regressed childhood voices.”

In 2012, Sarah Fazeli wrote on website XO Jane about her “destructive” brush with the organisation, just after separating from her husband.

“I’d bared my soul, and talked about everything from being raped to my husband never wanting to have sex with me,” she said. “The upshot was essentially, ‘Guess what, b***h? It’s all your fault!’”

Journalist Amelia Hill from the UK’s Observer found her cynicism about the course overcome by an epiphany at the microphone as the instructor told her she “always needed to be right”, after which she got a friendship back.

“The Landmark Forum is not magic,” she wrote. “It is not scary or insidious. It is, in fact, simple common sense delivered in an environment of startling intensity.”

 

WHAT IS LANDMARK?

Landmark evolved from an organisation called EST (Erhard Seminar Training), founded in the 1970s by salesman Werner Erhard, a millionaire who left United States after controversy over his tax records.

“The real point to the EST training was to go down through layer after layer after layer after layer till you got to the last layer and peeled it off where the recognition was that it’s really all meaningless and empty,” he said.

Mr Erhard’s confrontational, at times brutal, techniques — he called students “assholes” — were divisive, proving wildly popular with some and triggeringcomplaints from others who said they had suffered psychological breakdowns after the course.

In 1991, he sold his intellectual property to former EST employees, who founded the more mainstream Landmark Education, toning down the aggression and ensuring participants sign a waiver asserting they are emotionally stable before the course.

Now Landmark Worldwide, the organisation claims to offer a “practical methodology for producing breakthroughs in the areas of life that matter most to you: the quality of your relationships, the confidence with which you live your life, your personal productivity, your experience of the difference you make, your enjoyment of life.”

It’s undeniable that many people have found the soul-baring course immensely beneficial. Landmark has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth and legions of prominent Australian fans, including five-time beach volleyball Olympian and gold medallist Natalie Cook; former Chief of Navy Vice Admiral David Shackleton; and Charles Watson, former chief health officer of Western Australia and Professor of Health Sciences at Curtin University.

Alex Hayter, whose boss at an Adelaide law firm enrolled staff in a Landmark Education program, told the ABC’s 7.30 in 2011 that she found the seminars oppressive.

“In five days you can have anything that you want, and, you know, we will change you, we will transform you, you will no longer be incomplete, you won’t be unhappy anymore, you won’t have problems in your relationships,” she said.

“They would keep saying, ‘Well, you know, the first day of the Landmark forum’s really hard and it makes everyone really upset, but you just need to stick through it and then at the end you’ll be — you know, everything will be fine’.

And I kind of brought up that I thought it was quite worrying and rebutted quite a few of their arguments and in the end they said, “Well, you’re obviously quite intelligent, perhaps this isn’t for you’.”

Scientists are divided. Australian neuroscientist Dr Watson is a fan of the program, saying that delving into his past with Landmark helped him realise his relationship with his father was still determining the way he did things.

“Speaking from my expertise and experience as a medical doctor and former chief health officer, my view is that there is absolutely nothing harmful in Landmark’s programs,” he said. 
“This conclusion is fully aligned with those of numerous independent studies by top experts.”

But clinical psychologist Bob Montgomery told 7.30 he was concerned there was no credible science backing the controversial techniques, and that the wrong treatment could leave people with a lack of belief they can solve their own problems, or even be dangerous for the emotionally or mentally vulnerable minority.

“Where’s your evidence for safety? How are you screening out the vulnerable people who are attracted to your program? What backups are there for people who actually fall apart during your program?” he said.

But Landmark insists it makes it clear its staff are not health experts, and what it does is personal and professional growth training rather than therapy or psychology.

Landmark’s director of public relations told news.com.au that Kevin “misrepresented to Landmark, including in a legal document, that he was participating at his own desire and ‘not as a result of coercion, pressure, a condition of employment or to satisfy anyone other than myself’.”

The organisation said in a statement: “We regret that any customer experienced any kind of pressure from their employer to participate in our course. Landmark makes it clear to companies and organisations that offer our programs to employees that participation must be at the employee’s choice, and we offer full tuition refunds to people who inform us they felt pressured and don’t want to participate.

“Of the 2.4 million people around the world who have done our programs, more than 40,000 of them are health professionals and educators, and of those independently surveyed by Harris Interactive, more than 94 per cent said our programs are professionally conducted and of great value.

“Landmark participants have created more than 100,000 community projects worldwide, including the national suicide prevention program R U Okay? Day.

“Australian Gavin Larkin created this initiative in 2009 as part of a Landmark program that develops people in leadership and making a difference in their communities.

“Top experts have researched Landmark and concluded there is absolutely no similarity to or relationship between Landmark and Scientology, including Dr Norbert Nedopil, who stated, ‘No similarity could be found between the two organisations in regard to their objectives, methodology, techniques and their effects on the health of their participants.’ And further, Landmark is clearly not religious or spiritual in nature whatsoever.”

 

* Name has been changed by request

 

emma.reynolds@news.com.au

 

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/landmark-forum-mysterious-training-course-coming-to-your-office/news-story/59b95a445f1049228b8ea7863ac183f3

 

Landmark Forum: Mysterious training course coming to your office

Emma Reynolds
news.com.au
SEPTEMBER 20, 2016

What is The Landmark Forum?

IT’S a personal development course that promises “positive, permanent shifts in the quality of your life — in just three days”.

The intensive training is delivered in more than 125 cities globally by California-based Landmark Worldwide, which has a revenue of almost $120 million.

Companies including activewear retailer Lululemon pay for staff to attend the self-help seminars — although the activewear giant last year suggested it was putting less pressure on employees to take part.

But while many credit the introductory Landmark Forum Program with transforming their lives, others have slammed it as “Scientology lite” and exploitative of vulnerable people, all of which the organisation strongly denies.

Landmark told news.com.au there was “absolutely no similarity” between the organisation and Scientology, that participants sign a legal document stating they are taking the course of their own volition and that a refund was offered to anyone who was pressured into attending by their employer.

Kevin*, from Sydney, had never heard of Landmark, but was unperturbed to hear he was expected to attend a training course when he started a new job. He did find it slightly jarring that his new office expected him to pay the $725 for the three-day program in Pyrmont, but he needed work.

It was only when he arrived that he started to think his situation was really strange.

INSIDE THE FORUM

Kevin realised he was at an immersive self-help program, which would run from 9am to 10pm from Friday to Sunday, with a return visit on a Tuesday evening, to which participants were encouraged to bring friends.

The others in the room seemed to have more of an understanding of the content of the course, which combines Eastern philosophy with Western psychotherapy practices.

One woman told him she was recommended the program by the real estate agent who helped her sell her recently deceased mother’s home.

Participants are warned to stay away from alcohol, drugs and over-the-counter medicine during this time. Attendees are encouraged to take the floor and talk about their problems and how they could relate to trauma from their past, while the instructor helps to guide them with tough-love techniques. Tears are a regular occurrence.

“Everyone looked sort of religious and intense,” Kevin told news.com.au. “The course was about addressing issues from your past, like large group therapy. Nothing to do with work.

“Breaks were scant and even toilet visits were highly controlled.

“For a $700 course, the materials and presentation were extremely low budget. One hundred and fifty of us were sitting in front of a single instructor. A very basic PowerPoint was used along with some very simple banners that displayed various ideas written in bizarrely convoluted language.

“When I turned around I saw a row of slightly oddball looking people all just sitting and watching the room. It was later mentioned that these people were volunteers.

Many prominent Aussies have taken Landmarks courses, including Gavin Larkin, who founded R U OK?

“The instructor spent about one-and-a-half hours telling stories about amazing ‘breakthroughs’ people had achieved in the first 20 minutes of the course.

“The course essentially revolved around people standing up on the mic to share whatever personal trauma they happened to be dealing with.

“The instructor would then coax them into fitting their story into a premade set of phrases. For instance: ‘I’ve been pretending that ...’ ‘When the truth is ...’ The final statement in this sequence was quite bizarre: ‘Standing there, the possibility I am creating for myself is ...’”

The program has been lauded as immensely valuable by successful individuals, including Harvard professor emeritus Michael Jensen, Reebok chairman Paul Fireman, UN senior adviser Charlie McNeil and Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk.

Panda Express, a popular Chinese restaurant chain with more than 1500 restaurants in the US, offers scholarships to managers who attend the Landmark Forum.

Consulting firm Vanto Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Landmark, has worked with organisations including Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Heinz Northern Europe, JPMorgan Chase, BHP Billiton, Petrobras, Telemar Brazil, Lockheed Martin and Mercedes-Benz USA.

But on day two, after watching a woman break down crying while revealing that she had been raped by her brother, Kevin decided he couldn’t take any more.

“Cheers and whistles and enthusiastic applause started to creep in. I began to feel distinctly uncomfortable as I realised that eventually I might be expected to share and even be put on the spot and made to call a friend or relative I had been ‘inauthentic’ with.

“I felt that I could no longer be there if everyone else was going crazy with applause. Rhetoric from the instructor was aimed at alienating any sceptics.

“With the blinds closed, the way we were talked at, the traumatic experiences coming out, it was intense. I was physically overwhelmed, shaking. Even though there was nothing they could do to stop me I felt under their control. It was an insane experience.

“At the next break I left. I was scared to leave. I didn’t care if I lost my newly awarded job, I had to get out of there.”

Australia’s former Chief of Navy Vice-Admiral David Shackleton has attended the self-help program.

‘MASS HYSTERIA’ AND ‘COMMON SENSE’

Bridget*, an administrative worker from Sydney, told news.com.au she attended a Landmark course after her boss recommended it.

“They don’t dictate that you have to share but they create an environment where you don’t feel you have a choice. It’s almost like peer pressure. There are about 200 of you and the day goes from 9am until 11pm.

“You’re meant to identify all your bad points and you create the possibility you have to move into. You might say, ‘I’m a nasty, conniving b***h and I want the possibility to be love and light.’ It’s interesting how quickly everyone picks up the language.

“I didn’t want to but I had the helpers offer to take me through it and then the leader. The leader then said, ‘I give up on you.’ I thought I must be a really hopeless case so I ‘saw the light’. You want to contribute. It’s really evangelical.”

Those who are indulging negative voices are said to be “in a racket”, which is almost like lying to yourself. In the end, Bridget says, she “got right into it”, attending three of the courses.

“It’s not until I got away from it that I could see how dangerous it could be. It makes you dig deep in your head.

“You’ve got to get in touch with things you think are really bad about yourself. I had manipulative and cowardly. You’ve got to create an antithesis of this. I developed a possibility I could be brave. They’re meant to then teach you the tools to live into the possibility.”

In 2003, French Channel Three’s secretly filmed report on the Landmark Education Forum in Paris led to the organisation being shut down in France, although it remains operational in more than 20 countries.

Huffington Post writer Karin Badt, who knew many professionals in the US who “revered” the organisation, wondered if the French channel had manipulated the report and presented “scenes of abuse and brainwashing, out of context”.

In 2008, Badt attended a London Landmark Forum, writing that she found it “innocuous. No cult, no radical religion: an inspiring, entertaining introduction of good solid techniques of self-reflection, with an appropriate emphasis on action and transformation (not change).”

What she did object to was a “lack of critical thinking” from participants and “how quickly they adopted the vocabulary”, as well as an exercise in which attendees were asked to close their eyes and imagine being afraid of everyone in the world, which “turned into mass hysteria of crying, sobbing, calling out ‘mummy mummy!’ in regressed childhood voices.”

In 2012, Sarah Fazeli wrote on website XO Jane about her “destructive” brush with the organisation, just after separating from her husband.

“I’d bared my soul, and talked about everything from being raped to my husband never wanting to have sex with me,” she said. “The upshot was essentially, ‘Guess what, b***h? It’s all your fault!’”

Journalist Amelia Hill from the UK’s Observer found her cynicism about the course overcome by an epiphany at the microphone as the instructor told her she “always needed to be right”, after which she got a friendship back.

“The Landmark Forum is not magic,” she wrote. “It is not scary or insidious. It is, in fact, simple common sense delivered in an environment of startling intensity.”

Olympic beach volleyball gold medallist Natalie Cook has also visited Landmark.

WHAT IS LANDMARK?

Landmark evolved from an organisation called EST (Erhard Seminar Training), founded in the 1970s by salesman Werner Erhard, a millionaire who left United States after controversy over his tax records.

“The real point to the EST training was to go down through layer after layer after layer after layer till you got to the last layer and peeled it off where the recognition was that it’s really all meaningless and empty,” he said.

Mr Erhard’s confrontational, at times brutal, techniques — he called students “assholes” — were divisive, proving wildly popular with some and triggering complaints from others who said they had suffered psychological breakdowns after the course.

In 1991, he sold his intellectual property to former EST employees, who founded the more mainstream Landmark Education, toning down the aggression and ensuring participants sign a waiver asserting they are emotionally stable before the course.

Now Landmark Worldwide, the organisation claims to offer a “practical methodology for producing breakthroughs in the areas of life that matter most to you: the quality of your relationships, the confidence with which you live your life, your personal productivity, your experience of the difference you make, your enjoyment of life.”

It’s undeniable that many people have found the soul-baring course immensely beneficial. Landmark has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth and legions of prominent Australian fans, including five-time beach volleyball Olympian and gold medallist Natalie Cook; former Chief of Navy Vice Admiral David Shackleton; and Charles Watson, former chief health officer of Western Australia and Professor of Health Sciences at Curtin University.

Alex Hayter, whose boss at an Adelaide law firm enrolled staff in a Landmark Education program, told the ABC’s 7.30 in 2011 that she found the seminars oppressive.

“In five days you can have anything that you want, and, you know, we will change you, we will transform you, you will no longer be incomplete, you won’t be unhappy anymore, you won’t have problems in your relationships,” she said.

“They would keep saying, ‘Well, you know, the first day of the Landmark forum’s really hard and it makes everyone really upset, but you just need to stick through it and then at the end you’ll be — you know, everything will be fine’.

And I kind of brought up that I thought it was quite worrying and rebutted quite a few of their arguments and in the end they said, “Well, you’re obviously quite intelligent, perhaps this isn’t for you’.”

Scientists are divided. Australian neuroscientist Dr Watson is a fan of the program, saying that delving into his past with Landmark helped him realise his relationship with his father was still determining the way he did things.

“Speaking from my expertise and experience as a medical doctor and former chief health officer, my view is that there is absolutely nothing harmful in Landmark’s programs,” he said.
“This conclusion is fully aligned with those of numerous independent studies by top experts.”

But clinical psychologist Bob Montgomery told 7.30 he was concerned there was no credible science backing the controversial techniques, and that the wrong treatment could leave people with a lack of belief they can solve their own problems, or even be dangerous for the emotionally or mentally vulnerable minority.

“Where’s your evidence for safety? How are you screening out the vulnerable people who are attracted to your program? What backups are there for people who actually fall apart during your program?” he said.

But Landmark insists it makes it clear its staff are not health experts, and what it does is personal and professional growth training rather than therapy or psychology.

Landmark’s director of public relations told news.com.au that Kevin “misrepresented to Landmark, including in a legal document, that he was participating at his own desire and ‘not as a result of coercion, pressure, a condition of employment or to satisfy anyone other than myself’.”

The organisation said in a statement: “We regret that any customer experienced any kind of pressure from their employer to participate in our course. Landmark makes it clear to companies and organisations that offer our programs to employees that participation must be at the employee’s choice, and we offer full tuition refunds to people who inform us they felt pressured and don’t want to participate.

“Of the 2.4 million people around the world who have done our programs, more than 40,000 of them are health professionals and educators, and of those independently surveyed by Harris Interactive, more than 94 per cent said our programs are professionally conducted and of great value.

“Landmark participants have created more than 100,000 community projects worldwide, including the national suicide prevention program R U Okay?

“Australian Gavin Larkin created this initiative in 2009 as part of a Landmark program that develops people in leadership and making a difference in their communities.

“Top experts have researched Landmark and concluded there is absolutely no similarity to or relationship between Landmark and Scientology, including Dr Norbert Nedopil, who stated, ‘No similarity could be found between the two organisations in regard to their objectives, methodology, techniques and their effects on the health of their participants.’ And further, Landmark is clearly not religious or spiritual in nature whatsoever.”

* Name has been changed by request

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/landmark-forum-mysterious-training-course-coming-to-your-office/news-story/59b95a445f1049228b8ea7863ac183f3

Landmark: Brainwashing cult or brainfixing not-a-cult?

Alice Rebekah Fraser

SBS

November 13, 2015

Landmark Education is one of those things that people have opinions about. It’s a company that sells self-help seminars, along a sliding scale of increasing expensiveness, and it promises to change your life. It explicitly denies being a cult, though France has put it on a list of ‘dangerous cults’, which I can’t really tell what that even means. (France’s list of cults which includes Landmark and Scientology: here.) Have you heard about Landmark? Is it a Cult or a game-changer, a dangerously effective technique for clearing out the rubbish of your life or a straight up waste of money?

Some people call Landmark the brainchild of a used car salesman who sold up his dubious techniques on to a an organisation which now passes them on in a watered down form for upwards of $500 a pop, but let’s not do that. I hear their trigger finger is pretty twitchy on the old ‘suing for defamation’ gun. It’s okay guys – I’m not worth suing. I don’t even have enough money to afford their entry-level course and do this report gonzo style. Now I’ve heard a few IRL stories about Landmark Seminars from different people, and they fall into two rough camps:

1. I just did a Landmark Seminar and it changed my life, you should definitely do one too;
2. I just did a Landmark Seminar and it was a horrendous weird money-grabbing snake-oil shouty bullying nightmare. All they want is your money, and they’ll never stop calling you once they have your number. (I asked and they were sure they weren’t talking about Fitness First)

Here’s a bit from the front page of their website:

               

I mean, that’s a hell of a promise. Positive, permanent shifts in the quality of your life in just three days, with no mention of risk. I feel like anything that powerful needs a ‘side-effects’ bar somewhere. The only other risk-free promise I’ve met that offered so much speed and comprehensive life-improvement was a shonky boob-job salesman, and to be honest, I think he was lowballing the risk of nipple-loss (this happens, and is what it sounds like, and not to sound risk-averse but in my own life and in the absence of life-threat-level medical necessity, I feel any risk of nipple loss is probably too much risk of nipple-loss. Sorry to harp on it, but I like my nipples. I’d be sad to see them go just cause I’d been a shitty landlord trying to get reno on the cheap.)

Such a wide ‘change your life’ promise obviously invites some questions, among which ‘Is it a cult?’ is probably the foremost. I mean, by all accounts Landmark courses involve a lot more shouting and crying than legitimate enterprises normally do.

Landmark offers "transformative learning", which is basically, changing the way that you look at things, including yourself. Now, as everyone who has ever taken a selfie knows, there are many different ways to look at yourself, and the person who purses their lips in the mirror at you in the morning is also the one that looms fat-chinned out at you when you accidentally hit FaceTime instead of the call icon. Hence, the shouting and crying, I guess? There are stacks of forums sharing Landmark experiences, both positive and negative. Here’s an extract from one guy’s experience (you can read more here):

Look, if I want spend money to watch people cry and have a breakthrough, I’ll give them complimentary tickets to my comedy shows.

Also, many people online note, if you don’t seem into it, they call you names. Landmark uses the term ‘un-coachable’, as a euphemism for non-pliable, which unless it’s in a yoga class, feels to me like a compliment. I’d like to be non-pliable. I’m uncomfortable with any insistence you can’t benefit from something without throwing out your doubts. The first indicator of a pathological social arrangement is a lack of willingness to brook doubt or articulate, critical thinking. But how does it actually work? Here’s another extract from the Landmark website:

I enjoy the way they’ve used the word ‘technology’ here to mean ‘y’know…stuff’ rather than the classic meaning of ‘technology’, which is ‘technology’. Yes now you mention it, there are some similarities between Landmark and Scientology. According to the skeptic’s dictionary the two creators were pals for a bit before falling out in the late 70’s (“Cult fight! Cult fight! Cuuult fight! You’re not a real religion til you’ve had a proper war!!!”).

Landmark (nee. EST) is the sort of mash-up of eastern philosophies and grinning American optimism that was forged the self-awareness movement of the 1960s and '70s and like many things from the 70s, maybe hasn’t aged as well as it thinks it has. The creator of Landmark’s force-the-breakdown-you’ll-feel-better-after technique, Werner Erhard, originally used much rougher, more physical methods in his original model (known as EST). The EST method, like Landmark, was aimed at inducing those hysterically emotional moments of self-insight that are characterised as life-changing breakthroughs, and ended up selling the business to his brother and sister in the midst of a lot of nebulous legal claims, some of which were later withdrawn.

Landmark has tried to dodge the kind of legal trouble daddy Erhard got himself into after some complaints by the (apparently not insignificant number of) people who’ve suffered proper actual psychological medical breakdowns in response to their ‘let’s all have a breakdown’ technique. They require participants to sign a waiver asserting that they’re emotionally stable before they try to solve all their emotional problems with a self-help course.

Taking a step back, the long hours, no breaks, shouting and peer-bonding-cum-peer-pressure is a classic technique for forcing a ‘breakdown/breakthrough’. Everyone does it, from the army to NIDA, asserting that to deconstruct your ‘self’ is the key to a stronger, more aware and resilient ‘self’ (often one who is more ‘assertive’, though the misconception that you have to be ‘more selfish’/a douche to get somewhere in the world is one of the most pernicious manifestations of many modern self-help rhetoric). ‘Break it so it gets stronger’ may be true for the ‘self’, though in my experience it doesn’t work so good for furniture, hipbones or relationships.
Better than new.

Certainly Landmark benefits from the thrill of having a big ole confront-and-cry at your own weakness; it delivers the kind of euphoric ‘life changing’ endorphin kick you get when you finally stand up to the school bully (but YOUR BULLY WAS YOU ALL ALONG). The act of breaking down in tears can feel like you’re achieving something significant, and feeling like you’re achieving something is an addictive thing. Look at twitter. Look at any reality TV show. Look at yourself in the mirror for too long.

I’m sounding cynical, but I feel a lot like ‘it changed my life’ is often a euphemism for ‘it changed my feelings’, which, to be honest, happens to me every time I read Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson’s twitter feed, and that doesn’t cost me hundreds of dollars. I’ve always been cynical about self-help marketing. I’ve always felt like self-help is a crock of … at very least a paradox.

Help requires a second party. Why compartmentalise ‘the self’, which is already a pretty shifty and arguable concept (I think therefore I am?) into a soap opera evil twin scenario of ‘true self’ and ‘naughty self that’s getting in the way’. I mean, I guess if it’s a useful conceptual placebo, go for your life, but I feel like the people who write self-help programs are mainly people who became successful by writing self help programs, so the only truly sincere advice they can give is “Have you tried writing a self-help program? It worked for me.”

A good idea for a self help book would be 'How to write a successful self help book', it'd be a real seller.
Also, though I’m pointing out the problems with Landmark, the thing is, much like capitalism, it works. People do find Landmark useful. At least for some, Landmark’s near $600 entry-level fee is a worthwhile expense for a genuine improvement in their sense of control over life. The quick-burn group-therapy break-through is an effective technique for some, whether because it’s a mash-up of manipulative psychotherapy techniques on speed, or because a shakeup is as good as a holiday, or because old Werner hit the nail on the head. My cynicism at what feels like the greasily money-grabbing and bullying-for-your-own-good elements of the enterprise aside, it genuinely helps some people get over some of their stuff, at least for a while.

So it’s either something really cool that everyone should try or a fungal bloom of rapacious capitalism overlaid with new-age buzzwords and trite observations marketed as deep insight. Maybe both. The question is not really whether it’s useful. The question is whether it’s a deliberately exploitative, manipulative and financially driven pyramid scheme. Of course it can be useful – I’m sure there are lots of useful insights. Also, it’s doing something and there’s a tendency for anything that breaks the status quo of ‘doing nothing’ to be lauded as the cure for all your ills, (when the cure for all your ills was actually anything that was no longer ‘doing nothing’), there are enough people who do Landmark and sing its praises that it’s worth taking seriously.

Certainly, some people have improved their lives through Landmark’s courses. Other people have walked away with lighter wallets and a sour taste in their mouths. As far as I can find out though, nobody’s forced to stick around, which makes me feel like this is less on the level of problem-cult, and more in the realms of well-some-women-get-exponentially-more-expensive-beauty-treatments-whatever-makes-you-feel-less-empty-I-guess. Whether or not Landmark is a cult, they are definitely a successful business. I guess it’s up to you whether you want to buy what they’re selling.

http://www.sbs.com.au/comedy/article/2015/11/13/landmark-brainwashing-cult-or-brainfixing-not-cult

Annoyed by the Self-help Cult? You Are Not Alone

Sarita Sarvate

India Currents
October 4, 2015

Are women in our society led to believe that they are in serious need of improvement?

In California, everyone is spiritually enlightened. Everyone is on a path to nirvana. In the San Francisco Bay Area, there are gurus galore; ashrams are at every street corner; and yoga has gone mainstream. Recently, the spiritual hype seemed to go national when CNN’s Anderson Cooper attended a mindfulness retreat.

With all this self-help going around, you would think that our country would be full of people trying to make the world a better place.

You would be wrong.

Research shows that the California movement to raise self-esteem among youngsters, initiated in the 1980s, has led to an epidemic of narcissism. So much so that in a poll, 75% of college students were found to believe that they were above average, a mathematical impossibility. The story reminded me of Garrison Keillor’s famous line from the Prairie Home Companion: “In Lake Wobegon, all the children are above average.”

Social scientists believe that tools such as Facebook, which encourage users to post photos and trivial details about themselves, have only exacerbated the tendency toward self-absorption.

Since the 1960s, so many self-help movements have cropped up that it is hard to examine the validity of each one.

Some offer workshops on “nurturing the inner child.” The idea is that when you feel unloved, you give yourself the tender care that your parents failed to provide.

The problem is not with the premise, but its implementation. Under the guise of “nurturing the inner child,” many adults are simply becoming obsessed with fulfilling their own desires with little regard for others.

Movements like the Landmark Forum go a step further, requiring the participants to “drink the Kool-Aid,” a term that was introduced to the American lexicon after nearly a thousand members of the Peoples’ Temple drank poisoned Kool-Aid and died at the behest of their cult leader, Jim Jones.

Although suicides are thankfully rare among self-help cults, the use of specific language and behavior is not. Followers of such movements often speak in coded language, soon believing that they are superior to others who cannot follow their jargon. Some use personality tests, like Enneagram, which allegedly help you to know yourself; others encourage you to get rid of your sexual hang-ups by entering polyamorous relationships and engaging in group sex. All develop their own slogans, like “Ask for what you want,” “Achieve a breakthrough,” or “Beingness in a personal form.” The trouble is, many of the dictates can be interpreted in several ways, with the result that they can be used to further one’s self-absorption.

One easy way to tell if you are in a cult or not is by finding out if they expect you to recruit other people or not. A few years ago, when a neighbor of mine persuaded me to go to an introductory program at Landmark, I met several people who had been lured there under false pretexts, such as invitations to dinners.

What I find most annoying about the self-help movement is the “holier than thou” attitude of its followers. They assume that if you don’t belong to a self-help cult, you must be unenlightened. But, in my experience, if you inspect their behavior instead of their words, you will find a lack of even the commonest courtesy or compassion.

Followers of cults are often unwilling to engage in a philosophical or intellectual debate. What they want is quite the opposite, namely, to be with others who think exactly like themselves. No wonder, then, that we are seeing political and social polarization in our country today.

The other troubling aspect of many self-help movements is that you will find them filled with women. Are women in our society led to believe that they are in serious need of improvement? Plagued by a deep sense of unworthiness, are they seeking self-satisfaction and self-aggrandizement in seminar after seminar?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that you cannot benefit from mindfulness or spirituality. I, myself, follow a practice based on the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, which include detachment, meditation, training the senses, slowing the mind, and one-pointed attention, among others. But the trouble is that most people who get drawn into self-help cults do not possess the ability to discriminate and to pick the useful kernels and leave the brainwashing behind.

In search of happiness, people are taking workshops today to recover from childhood traumas, to find soul mates, and to live in the moment. What they are forgetting is that there are billions of people around the world in need of help. What they are not being told by the money-making promoters of the self-help movement is that it just might be more fulfilling to get away from their inner selves and go out and live for others.

The Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, who, based on his brain scan, was recently pronounced “the happiest man in the world,” has one simple recipe for happiness: “If you are unhappy, go help someone else.”
Now that is the kind of self-help philosophy I can get behind.

Sarita Sarvate (www.saritasarvate.com) has published commentaries for New America Media, KQED FM, San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune, and many nationwide publications

https://www.indiacurrents.com/articles/2015/10/04/annoyed-self-help-cult-you-are-not-alone