As a baby boomer I remember well the influence of EST and then The Forum on friends who partook. They became obnoxiously pushy, know-it-all, and spoke a new jargon-filled language. A cult of the first order. And Esalen at Big Sur was all the rage. I recall the name Fritz Perls.
My sister's husband got them involved in EST. It really strained our relationship because my husband and I wouldn't buy in and join. I believe her experiences with EST traumatized my sister deeply and nearly ruined them financially. Then in 2021 when the world's religious leaders spoke as one, calling the mRNA shots "a gift from God", "answer to prayer" etc. and lambasting refusers as selfish and faithless, I got the EST deja vue nausea and shudder.
I'm pretty sure many of the leaders were arm twisted hard and threatened if they didn't "encourage" getting a shot. Remember, religious folks are in the crosshairs for elimination by the NWO proponents.
And the pope is now okay with aborted fetal cells in vaccines. Let that one sink in. Ask any Catholics that you know about it and you get excuses, rationalizations and justifications from 95%.
My sister knows a leader high up in our church, and that leader strongly implied that they were threatened if they did not promote the shots. I'm also aware that some of the leadership in the church did not take the shots themselves, despite the admonition from the top.
Within our belief system, agency is a key component, and the scope of the leadership's authority is very limited outside of ecclesiastical areas.
Within our church we're told to think for ourselves.
Many do. And sadly, many don't.
They trusted the medical and government establishments. I have heard of a bold statement by a high ranking leader in the church that they will NEVER bend to similar requests again.
"Never bend" has been oft repeated throughout history. But a few decades of feel good, happy ending media...and, "Thank you, sir. Maybe I have another?"
"they will NEVER bend to similar requests again." - Sort of a moot point wouldn't you say? I hear that a lot too but the fact remains it's a "fait accompli" as the authorities already got everyone shot up.
There’s a scene in the film Kingdom of Heaven where they’re looking out at the thousands of Ottoman soldiers surrounding them.
The priest says to the character Orlando Bloom is playing “convert now and we’ll repent later”.
That one line sums up basically the moral baseline and how religion was turned into a business and not a real belief system so far back that no one even remembers or notices.
I’m not religious by choice but do recognise how people are abused by religious institutions and leaders who will do anything to preserve their status.
If you don’t stand for one thing then you stand for nothing is literally what these sellouts are. They are no better than cult leaders who abuse, gaslight their followers and victims.
Remember no god needs your money, he needs no fancy buildings to be used in his name when they’re skimming the largest part of donations into a big fat bank account that helps no one but them become richer.
Good to hear. Although I would challenge "the scope of the leadership's authority is very limited outside of ecclesiastical areas" to argue that failure to take authority negates "leadership".
I'm saying that they expressly limit their authority to ecclesiastical lines for the general membership. They do have some authority on non-profit activities where they collaborate with other organizations, etc. There are other legal entities that they are a part of pertaining to investments, grants, scholarships, etc.
Well it got them a bunch of money that they probably won't live to spend LOL.
I don't know who made this statement or where I read it long long ago but it's very true: "Not everyone who ran for the jungle in Jonestown made it. A lot were shot, but nobody who chose to stay lived". I hear a CCR song :)
Excellent interview! I have some past experience with Gestalt Therapy, in that I used to go to group meetings at this guy’s house. He pulled people in word of mouth, but would also troll Landmark meetings for people wanting to take things up a level. I eventually quit because it got too cultish and manipulative. Also, yeah, people were pushed into reliving traumas and sexual stuff in very intense and confrontational ways. It can result in an immediate cathartic release. But yeah, not sure about long term result or potential for damage. But a person trained in Perls’ and Reich’s methods could become highly adept at gaining human intelligence.
Glad to be of service my friend. I'll spend some time with the model over the coming week. It's been a bit hectic. Taking an election services company to the next level.
The cabal are masters at creating half-truth cults. Seems they've been at it for thousands of years, creating one cult then another. Half-truths cleverly manipulate. I'd say most of what we understand is "reality" around us has been crafted in this way. Time to pull our energy out of the charades.
Elaborate lies to sway people away from what’s real with the goal of getting them to serve a central interest (that they wouldn’t otherwise serve if they knew the big picture) is deception. And, deception is the driving force behind all things occult.
As a really old pre baby boomer person, I recall the entire culture getting excited over EST and The Forum as well. I actually attended some of these 'seminars' and was convinced of their evil intentions. The language aspect was very annoying and spooky. So I sent my teenage son and a friend to the EST cult and they came back horrified and inoculated against this crap for life. The son later became a psychologist...
She is working on her own writings of the deeper levels of her observations. If I think that we can add significantly to the story, I will air her again. But there are numerous pieces of the Bigger Picture that uniquely need coverage.
I started out a grunt in a manufacturing plant. Teamsters Union. Worked my way to second shift supervisor, then first shift, then Plant Manager. Voluntarily left to run my own business. After that I worked in cardiothoracic coding compliance and reimbursement at a major hospital. Retired. I’ve supervised as many as 150 people in all manner of settings and ranks. Blue and white collar. And, one thing is for sure, no disrespect to the lady you interviewed but OMG! the overwhelming majority of these managerial seminars, workshops, training classes, tutorials, engagement surveys, et al, are absolute crap. The so-called managers that are so weak and impressionable that they actually absorb this flotsam as gospel and return “changed” are people that had no business being in management in the first place. The larger the company the more these idiots proliferate. I’ve witnessed such terrible management in so many places I marvel that anything gets accomplished in this country at all.
The woman I talked with strikes me as quite smart, and our conversation about the rigor that used to go into such training is real. These coaching positions were invented between the practical CEOs and the spectacular academics of an era when people were more honestly working toward improving workplace conditions and relationships. It was an "all boats lift" moment. There were probably very few people doing that work who didn't have multi-disciplinary minds. They were ready industrial stats and working with the executives to interpret and emenate them into system processes. It was part of the systems engineering process.
But the cult of personality coaching began to poison the whole system.
Being 67 I’m old enough to recall those philosophical/ideological changes in corporate culture. The themes illicited by various programs that either I, my wife, or our friends went through. Despite that I look back on them with a certain level of amusement you are correct. There was a time they were well intended and probably useful or at least benign. But that ship sailed a long time ago. I’m just lucky to have started young and didn’t die so I’ve got a head full of experiences I can weave together. I have a friend that built a successful business as an independent business consultant for top brass at several large corporations. We chat, I know the game. The lady you spoke to was no doubt smart and had the moral fortitude to come forward which I applaud. She did seem kind of reserved though like you had to pull conversation out of her. I would’ve liked her to be a bit more forthcoming but hey, I get that these things are not easy so I’m not complaining. You’re fighting the good fight Mathew I applaud your resolve.
Now do Thomas leonard (who started at EST, if i read correctly) and John maxwell, high profile coaching companies. I think I would lump Joe dispenza in here too.
I listened to a book recently, "tribal leadership" (targeted to upper management).The thing that struck me was that leadership is being "taught" in a cult like fashion. I happened upon the book in some "resources" from BNI (business networking). It occurred to me that if business execs are treating their company as a tribe, then that explains how DEI and other nonsense can spread like wildfire within an org.
I don't need to cover all of them in order for people to learn about the bigger picture, but I will take these names and add them to one of my graphs for educational purposes.
The Coaching cults are going into my occult graph because I believe that they are meant to reach out of the cult space and mold narcissistic sociopaths in the corporate system.
This is one hot mess. It is a mixture of legitimate programs, with overtones of abuse. Landmark/est seems very much cult-like in the manipulative ways in which it's training is accomplished. It seems to me that in many cases, all of the exploration can be beneficial at times, but can also be abused. You can't always clearly sort out where ideas are legit, and when the abuse starts. No doubt in my mind that some of the bad press Frits Perls got was deserved, still there was a legitimate psychotherapeutic component, in the form of gestalt therapy. I lived with a woman in the mid seventies who was a clinical psychotherapist and trained under Perls, and to her it was a very positive experience. I have met many people who had positive experiences at Esalen. Not easy. We need to be very nuanced in sorting this out.
"I have met many people who had positive experiences at Esalen."
When you pay out the wazoo for a retreat, you're primed to like it, and many might. But it would be interesting to see stats (they cannot exist) on the ratio of "I was drugged and raped there" to "Had a great time".
In the 70s, Esalen held a conference to talk about allegations of sexual abuse. No women were put on the panel. Werner Erhard was on it, as was Thomas Szaz who aggressively rationalized and dismissed the abuse as meaningful to the "work" being done there.
The whole thing is an intelligence operation, and likely one of the control points for the Manson operation, which is not what people think:
Very interesting. My friend was there in the Mid sixties, and worked with Frits Perls. I did become aware of some of his whacko behaviors, though she was not exposed to that. I still find value in the concepts of Gestalt Therapy.
Weird story I was told once by a self described "sound guy" who worked on sound equipment for some pretty big concerts in my area. He said several of these empowerment type of events wanted sound but barely audible. Soothing sounds, not music, that would "relax" people. What is the first stage of hypnosis? Relax the subject. He would watch from backstage and said he'd never be in the audience. They were totally under the spell but backstage wasn't.
I don't know if it's true but those are not just feel good sessions. They are mind manipulation events.
I attended the Landmark Forum and Advanced Course in 1997.
That was after having heard about EST over the years as early as the mid-1970s and not enrolling.
With at least one very important exception, I would continue to tell anyone that what's good about Landmark outweighs (or outweighed, if it has changed) what's bad. It has done a lot of good for a lot of people.
I'm still very glad I did it. Helped me get through some of life's challenges.
The exception is, inside all the good stuff, the loud pounding of a drum about what amounts to very strongly promoting relative morality (silencing discussion of universal morals) and the idea that humans are machines. That's a big deal.
But I was old enough and not-suggestible enough and morally-developed enough and comfortable-with-my-opinions-and-life-experience enough that I was able to repel the bad and soak in the good.
I really did get a lot of benefit from Landmark. You set aside some time to consciously reflect on how you're living your life, and how you could be living your life, in the company of other people thinking about the same puzzles under the guidance of a course leader who has been thinking about these things longer than the students have. (Most of them quite good at that job; some not-so.)
I didn't know back then and didn't really care... but now having read more about Jack Rosenberg Werner Erhard... that he was an extremely flawed, almost or maybe even actual criminal, person.
But he had what it took to advance a consciousness-shift whose time had come. The shift being demand for personal improvement courses. The time being prosperous enough that people could pause from endless survivors' overwork and exhaustion, and inquire a bit about spiritual growth and the art of being human. Someone very flawed caused some other people to invent something very good with what he started. CONTINUES. (IN CASE LINK TO "CONTINUE READING" IS GONE.)
The craving wasn't for religion or politics. Everybody'd had enough of the limitations of that. It was craving for help with being better at getting through life. For some, it was getting through it at all. For others, it was looking at, learning about, practicing, and succeeding at being themselves and, with whatever that self is and possibly can be, causing what they want from life. Which included figuring out how to do what needed to be done so "the world works for everyone, with no one left behind." On the seized assumption that this was/is something that can be "taught" and learned.
That zeitgeist started probably in the 1940s. Many of its of leaders found each other in and around San Francisco (and other places). Virginia Sapir (NLP), Gregory Bateson. L Ron Hubbard ("scientology"). Paramahansa Yogananda (Self-Realization Fellowship). George Leonard. Lots of others. Jack Rosenberg Werner Erhard's EST was one of the inventions that emerged to fill the demand that grew a lot in the 1960s and '70s.
What I find in almost all cases is that people who disapprove of Landmark the most have never taken a course. They're put off by the enthusiasm and other annoying stuff. But it's like thinking you dislike a movie you've never seen or book you've never read or place you've never visited. With a background in discourse/communication/argumentation/rhetoric, I figured I was strong enough to remain objective and be immune to any possible harmful psy-opping. And I was. So I got the good without being harmed by any bad.
Since 2020, I've given some thought to seeds that have been planted in Landmark "graduates'" lives and communities, wondering how much, or if, it has helped the good forces in the battle against the evil forces. I think what was/is taught at Landmark could be used for good or bad. I'm unspeakably disappointed that the personal-growth movement didn't stop the evil hell that was planned and built and is now here.
But few disciplines demand disciples strive to rise to highest standards of integrity. Landmark does that. Few inspire as much passion for the value of the human spirit and reveal how much good is possible as Landmark does. That might sound naive. But it does achieve that. Those are two of the main reasons people come out of there raving about it and pleading with people to check it out. The influence of Landmark on many communities is one thing I'm consciously grateful for post 2020. One of the greatest leaders of the great awakening we're now in is David Martin, who seems to me and probably others who've taken classes at Landmark or EST to be one of its grads.
Here's my brief assessment and subjective opinion of a few of these inventions:
Neuro-Linguistic Programming - very good! Its inventors didn't know how misleading that label would one day be when they named the set of ideas and techniques they developed "neuro-linguistic programming." Sounds like Co-Intel Pro and Tavistock, right? But what NLP is about (among other things) is ways YOU can adjust/change/cultivate/choose YOUR OWN thoughts (neuro) and conversations (linguistic). For just three examples: heal a traumatic memory, recognize a certain thought is chosen but not necessarily useful, explore and create and have fun with your freedom to consciously "program" a lot of who and what you are and what your own life is and can be and what you believe it is and can be.
Self-Realization Fellowship - pretty good, not bad, OK -- if you like or don't mind a cleric in a robe speaking to a congregation of listeners. Just my humble and limited impression.
Scientology - way too much bad for the amount of good.
LifeSpring/WorldWorks - pretty much all bad.
Landmark - in spite of its origins with JR-WE as EST can be and has been and usually is extremely good for most of the people who enroll, even those not grounded in dialog/argumentation/philosophy about universal values -- because they kind of gloss over the counter-argument anyway, and nobody really thinks about the practical implications of the counter-argument let alone lives by it, and the rest of what goes on (could be 95 percent of it) brings out way more good in people than probably would have ever happened if they hadn't taken the class/es. (After-thought: I don't think an online Landmark Forum or Advanced Course could get the results that they get from in-person courses. Maybe the seminars for people who've taken the Forum and Advanced Courses in person could work online. But I hope the Forum and Advanced Course will always be available in person! Don't bother if not!)
Byron Katie and The Work is also extremely good stuff.
Oh, in case anybody ever reads this, and in case I haven't already rankled you enough: the craft of Freemasonry is good too. That's why people keep it going over the centuries. Like the other inquiry-inventions discussed here, it probably has been used by bad people in bad ways. But the instrument is good. An orchestra can produce beauty from a musical score -- but it can also produce cacophony from that same score.
The pitfall for any organization is "Power Corrupts." I participated in est in 1974 and didn't feel exploited, the cost was relatively low for the benefit, since having 200 people in the room made it cheaper, and therefore more accessible for all of us, compared to one-on-one therapy or coaching. (I especially appreciate one of the strategies est offered: if someone has a bad habit they want to change, simply observing it for a while can build up enough self-awareness to be able to shed the habit, while promises and head-on exertion all too often don’t bring change.)
Saying that Erhard didn't get more than a high school education is rather pompous; isn't life the best education available to each of us? Erhard learned valuable insights that he shared widely. It's very sad that malevolent forces like MK-Ultra may have had some connection to est, but est and other such programs provide awareness, and awareness is like energy, water, or money, it can do harm or can do good. Awareness makes it possible for each of us to exploit others or to speak truth to power.
Ultimately, evil shoots itself in the foot, and the truth will out— which doesn't justify any cruelty that hurt people along the way, but I believe it shows that we humans are making progress in the direction of fairness and transparency. An est seminar leader said something way back then that has been food for thought ever since; it was a corollary to Lord Action’s famous observation that “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” namely: “Powerlessness corrupts, and absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.”
A pillar of est was that we can react to our circumstances, or we can be proactive. In the former, a person experiences bitterness or resignation that others have been dealt a better hand. In the latter, a person may find ways, even within severe limitations, to make a difference, for others and/or for themselves. Teacher Effectiveness Training is an example of using awareness to benefit everyone involved, Compassionate Communication is another.
Yes. And the answer is always more laws. Even though they’re clearly not keeping up with the laws already in existence. Adding more is counterintuitive unless the goal is to keep putting pressure on law abiding citizens until the noose is so tight it will be impossible to be a law abiding citizen.
Appreciated! ... speaking from my personal experience with Landmark Education over 7years (1998-2005) successfully completing the Leadership Training Programme (to lead introductions to the Landmark Forum) and all the other programmes of the time including 3 senior courses in the Wisdom Division; Wisdom Unlimited; Partnership Exploration; and Power & Contribution.
In 2004 I was recruited by the Center Manager (Toronto Canada) to fill a one evening graduate event - "Causing the Miraculous" - with a goal of 500 graduate attending at $45(?) a pop. I produced attendance of 1,000.
I then participated in 2 seminars (10sessions each over apx. 3months) - the last one led by a rookie seminar leader left me cold. Key elements of the leadership training were missing. Learning the many "distinctions" within each programme was beneficial, much like any in depth learning, the distinctions are industry lingo. Part of the problem in speaking to those not involved (in whatever the endeavour) is the need for a common language only gained through participation in a specialised body of work.
Participation in Landmark Education radically altered my views and actions, some in very good ways., Ultimately, radical bold acts spurred on by this participation, was the undoing of my stable life that never recovered. In the 25years since beginning to explore who I am through LE I've experienced incredible hell - which is the promise of most wisdom-soul searching endeavours by whatever process one wishes to undergo to discover one's authentic or true self.
It did set the stage and framework for a personal need to go deeply inside of myself, opening the door to explore over 50 modalities of personal exploration, and of conscious awareness including Indigenous Shamanic Practices and learning to work in the Akashic Records.
Significantly missing in the Landmark work is the link to soul and to deeply unseen influences which cannot be manipulated in the manner taught in that work. My participation and success in producing results inside the Landmark world was built as much on survival strategies devised in childhood as it was an outcome of Landmark training. Those survival strategies were created (by child me) in response to childhood emotional abuse - not uncovered to exist in my history until 2018, 13years post Landmark. For all its bluster of producing life changing transformation it did not touch the foundations of my personal dysfunctional character, I could not produce life circumstances of personal joy.
Two key childhood abuse survival strategies - please others and support the one in power - didn't get broken up during Landmark years, they were well used there.
I could say much more, suffice to say at this moment in this dialogue forum, I would not recommend the Landmark Forum. As much as guidance and discipline are key in learning the most challenging of topics - who one actually is - we live in an age of deep corruption touching every aspect of life and learning. Take the Pope for instance :)
Yes Mathew .... training accomplishing the goal while meeting gender-guard-dogs - to my knowledge there are no males to have been "certified" by the trainer and co..
Usually the query is of a person, to access their Akashic records. Phrasing a question is of equal importance to the outcome.
The topic could be explored in relation to the person asking the question bear in mind the precise phrasing would formulate in the moment.
A friend emigrated to Canada from Holland in her 20's (60yr ago.) She felt a lingering influence from her Holland life upon her 60years in Canada.
Going into her Akashic Records that influence was clear and immediate - her relationship with her sister. My friend was expecting a more ancestral influence ... and felt the truth of the insight offered. We applied the process of clearing the influence, releasing it from her.
est had a spinoff here in California, a kind of little est clone, involved in the same kinds of things but with differences in the workshops (although the workshop rooms looked the same), founded by Paul Larson. I was rather heavily involved in that for a while, and I have to say I learned a lot from it, although what I learned long-term had more to do with figuring out just what I was involved in and leaving it than anything else. It helped that I recognized immediately that something clearly wasn't right.
That was my second cult. I grew up in the first one, a cult-church, and left, then was involved in the aforementioned one in my 30's and left, returned to the first one in my 40s and left, and there was yet another group after that, a pretty good one as they go and from which I learned much that I still use, which I also left. I'm in my 70s now, and I haven't been drawn into anything similar for over a decade, so I guess that's progress.
I think this says something about the importance of not exposing children to cults (not the only problem with my family), but there is also much that can be learned from limited-duration experiences of this kind, IF the end result is seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong and leaving, whether or not the actual problem is understood. Interestingly, a well-laid trap of this kind involves a convincing mixture of truth and falsehood. With care, truths can be identified and retained even after leaving. Not that I would recommend trying this even once!
When it comes to understanding the actual problems, I'm still learning -- thanks for the insights.
As a baby boomer I remember well the influence of EST and then The Forum on friends who partook. They became obnoxiously pushy, know-it-all, and spoke a new jargon-filled language. A cult of the first order. And Esalen at Big Sur was all the rage. I recall the name Fritz Perls.
My sister's husband got them involved in EST. It really strained our relationship because my husband and I wouldn't buy in and join. I believe her experiences with EST traumatized my sister deeply and nearly ruined them financially. Then in 2021 when the world's religious leaders spoke as one, calling the mRNA shots "a gift from God", "answer to prayer" etc. and lambasting refusers as selfish and faithless, I got the EST deja vue nausea and shudder.
I'm pretty sure many of the leaders were arm twisted hard and threatened if they didn't "encourage" getting a shot. Remember, religious folks are in the crosshairs for elimination by the NWO proponents.
And the pope is now okay with aborted fetal cells in vaccines. Let that one sink in. Ask any Catholics that you know about it and you get excuses, rationalizations and justifications from 95%.
Right, so their compliance got them nowhere, in any case. Stupid sheep.
My sister knows a leader high up in our church, and that leader strongly implied that they were threatened if they did not promote the shots. I'm also aware that some of the leadership in the church did not take the shots themselves, despite the admonition from the top.
Within our belief system, agency is a key component, and the scope of the leadership's authority is very limited outside of ecclesiastical areas.
Within our church we're told to think for ourselves.
Many do. And sadly, many don't.
They trusted the medical and government establishments. I have heard of a bold statement by a high ranking leader in the church that they will NEVER bend to similar requests again.
Live and learn.
"Never bend" has been oft repeated throughout history. But a few decades of feel good, happy ending media...and, "Thank you, sir. Maybe I have another?"
The only solution involves fixing education.
"they will NEVER bend to similar requests again." - Sort of a moot point wouldn't you say? I hear that a lot too but the fact remains it's a "fait accompli" as the authorities already got everyone shot up.
Reminds me of this: https://i.postimg.cc/FHN34y13/Suckers-IVM-OK-To-Give.png
I saw that. Yeah, was thinking the same thing.
There’s a scene in the film Kingdom of Heaven where they’re looking out at the thousands of Ottoman soldiers surrounding them.
The priest says to the character Orlando Bloom is playing “convert now and we’ll repent later”.
That one line sums up basically the moral baseline and how religion was turned into a business and not a real belief system so far back that no one even remembers or notices.
I’m not religious by choice but do recognise how people are abused by religious institutions and leaders who will do anything to preserve their status.
If you don’t stand for one thing then you stand for nothing is literally what these sellouts are. They are no better than cult leaders who abuse, gaslight their followers and victims.
Remember no god needs your money, he needs no fancy buildings to be used in his name when they’re skimming the largest part of donations into a big fat bank account that helps no one but them become richer.
Good to hear. Although I would challenge "the scope of the leadership's authority is very limited outside of ecclesiastical areas" to argue that failure to take authority negates "leadership".
I'm saying that they expressly limit their authority to ecclesiastical lines for the general membership. They do have some authority on non-profit activities where they collaborate with other organizations, etc. There are other legal entities that they are a part of pertaining to investments, grants, scholarships, etc.
Well it got them a bunch of money that they probably won't live to spend LOL.
I don't know who made this statement or where I read it long long ago but it's very true: "Not everyone who ran for the jungle in Jonestown made it. A lot were shot, but nobody who chose to stay lived". I hear a CCR song :)
"Bad Moon Rising"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbI0cMyyw_M
"Run through the jungle"
It's so "all of a piece". Gullibility is the cancer.
They've studied how to manipulate humans for decades and figured out what works. Now they've implemented it on a world wide scale.
https://i.postimg.cc/KzpyfJDm/VENN-3-Asch-Milgram-Stanford-Full.png
Excellent interview! I have some past experience with Gestalt Therapy, in that I used to go to group meetings at this guy’s house. He pulled people in word of mouth, but would also troll Landmark meetings for people wanting to take things up a level. I eventually quit because it got too cultish and manipulative. Also, yeah, people were pushed into reliving traumas and sexual stuff in very intense and confrontational ways. It can result in an immediate cathartic release. But yeah, not sure about long term result or potential for damage. But a person trained in Perls’ and Reich’s methods could become highly adept at gaining human intelligence.
The balloon sez Alsous Huxley.
I like your model of the situation. It has many compelling elements and connexions.
Thanks on typo.
I'm glad you like the model. Feel free to beat on it too as it develops. I'll be updating the pinned summary article with it, soon.
Glad to be of service my friend. I'll spend some time with the model over the coming week. It's been a bit hectic. Taking an election services company to the next level.
The cabal are masters at creating half-truth cults. Seems they've been at it for thousands of years, creating one cult then another. Half-truths cleverly manipulate. I'd say most of what we understand is "reality" around us has been crafted in this way. Time to pull our energy out of the charades.
Elaborate lies to sway people away from what’s real with the goal of getting them to serve a central interest (that they wouldn’t otherwise serve if they knew the big picture) is deception. And, deception is the driving force behind all things occult.
Get them to serve, or fool them into wasting their time while the leaders move forward with their own plans.
Misdirection. Like a magic trick. Also occultish.
As a really old pre baby boomer person, I recall the entire culture getting excited over EST and The Forum as well. I actually attended some of these 'seminars' and was convinced of their evil intentions. The language aspect was very annoying and spooky. So I sent my teenage son and a friend to the EST cult and they came back horrified and inoculated against this crap for life. The son later became a psychologist...
put bakagirl on again. she has lots pf good insights and info
She is working on her own writings of the deeper levels of her observations. If I think that we can add significantly to the story, I will air her again. But there are numerous pieces of the Bigger Picture that uniquely need coverage.
I started out a grunt in a manufacturing plant. Teamsters Union. Worked my way to second shift supervisor, then first shift, then Plant Manager. Voluntarily left to run my own business. After that I worked in cardiothoracic coding compliance and reimbursement at a major hospital. Retired. I’ve supervised as many as 150 people in all manner of settings and ranks. Blue and white collar. And, one thing is for sure, no disrespect to the lady you interviewed but OMG! the overwhelming majority of these managerial seminars, workshops, training classes, tutorials, engagement surveys, et al, are absolute crap. The so-called managers that are so weak and impressionable that they actually absorb this flotsam as gospel and return “changed” are people that had no business being in management in the first place. The larger the company the more these idiots proliferate. I’ve witnessed such terrible management in so many places I marvel that anything gets accomplished in this country at all.
The woman I talked with strikes me as quite smart, and our conversation about the rigor that used to go into such training is real. These coaching positions were invented between the practical CEOs and the spectacular academics of an era when people were more honestly working toward improving workplace conditions and relationships. It was an "all boats lift" moment. There were probably very few people doing that work who didn't have multi-disciplinary minds. They were ready industrial stats and working with the executives to interpret and emenate them into system processes. It was part of the systems engineering process.
But the cult of personality coaching began to poison the whole system.
Being 67 I’m old enough to recall those philosophical/ideological changes in corporate culture. The themes illicited by various programs that either I, my wife, or our friends went through. Despite that I look back on them with a certain level of amusement you are correct. There was a time they were well intended and probably useful or at least benign. But that ship sailed a long time ago. I’m just lucky to have started young and didn’t die so I’ve got a head full of experiences I can weave together. I have a friend that built a successful business as an independent business consultant for top brass at several large corporations. We chat, I know the game. The lady you spoke to was no doubt smart and had the moral fortitude to come forward which I applaud. She did seem kind of reserved though like you had to pull conversation out of her. I would’ve liked her to be a bit more forthcoming but hey, I get that these things are not easy so I’m not complaining. You’re fighting the good fight Mathew I applaud your resolve.
Dang. You really nailed the target with this one Mathew. Thanks!
Now do Thomas leonard (who started at EST, if i read correctly) and John maxwell, high profile coaching companies. I think I would lump Joe dispenza in here too.
I listened to a book recently, "tribal leadership" (targeted to upper management).The thing that struck me was that leadership is being "taught" in a cult like fashion. I happened upon the book in some "resources" from BNI (business networking). It occurred to me that if business execs are treating their company as a tribe, then that explains how DEI and other nonsense can spread like wildfire within an org.
I don't need to cover all of them in order for people to learn about the bigger picture, but I will take these names and add them to one of my graphs for educational purposes.
i don't know exactly where they fit, but i bet they do fit on your graph.
are the creators of the TED conferences on your graphs? coz a lot of these "influencers" seem to have done a TED talk at some point.
and you talk a lot about Esalen. there's an east coast sibling... Kripalu Center. i don't know much about it at all but i bet it belongs as well.
The Coaching cults are going into my occult graph because I believe that they are meant to reach out of the cult space and mold narcissistic sociopaths in the corporate system.
https://embed.kumu.io/1e40bc0c38b0954c5606807e5e2daea9
also narcissistic sociopathic entrepreneurs.
once you see the connections, you can't unsee them. thanks for doing this work.
This is one hot mess. It is a mixture of legitimate programs, with overtones of abuse. Landmark/est seems very much cult-like in the manipulative ways in which it's training is accomplished. It seems to me that in many cases, all of the exploration can be beneficial at times, but can also be abused. You can't always clearly sort out where ideas are legit, and when the abuse starts. No doubt in my mind that some of the bad press Frits Perls got was deserved, still there was a legitimate psychotherapeutic component, in the form of gestalt therapy. I lived with a woman in the mid seventies who was a clinical psychotherapist and trained under Perls, and to her it was a very positive experience. I have met many people who had positive experiences at Esalen. Not easy. We need to be very nuanced in sorting this out.
"I have met many people who had positive experiences at Esalen."
When you pay out the wazoo for a retreat, you're primed to like it, and many might. But it would be interesting to see stats (they cannot exist) on the ratio of "I was drugged and raped there" to "Had a great time".
In the 70s, Esalen held a conference to talk about allegations of sexual abuse. No women were put on the panel. Werner Erhard was on it, as was Thomas Szaz who aggressively rationalized and dismissed the abuse as meaningful to the "work" being done there.
The whole thing is an intelligence operation, and likely one of the control points for the Manson operation, which is not what people think:
https://embed.kumu.io/8f3845e60a9f47060865b87856bea46f
Very interesting. My friend was there in the Mid sixties, and worked with Frits Perls. I did become aware of some of his whacko behaviors, though she was not exposed to that. I still find value in the concepts of Gestalt Therapy.
Weird story I was told once by a self described "sound guy" who worked on sound equipment for some pretty big concerts in my area. He said several of these empowerment type of events wanted sound but barely audible. Soothing sounds, not music, that would "relax" people. What is the first stage of hypnosis? Relax the subject. He would watch from backstage and said he'd never be in the audience. They were totally under the spell but backstage wasn't.
I don't know if it's true but those are not just feel good sessions. They are mind manipulation events.
I attended the Landmark Forum and Advanced Course in 1997.
That was after having heard about EST over the years as early as the mid-1970s and not enrolling.
With at least one very important exception, I would continue to tell anyone that what's good about Landmark outweighs (or outweighed, if it has changed) what's bad. It has done a lot of good for a lot of people.
I'm still very glad I did it. Helped me get through some of life's challenges.
The exception is, inside all the good stuff, the loud pounding of a drum about what amounts to very strongly promoting relative morality (silencing discussion of universal morals) and the idea that humans are machines. That's a big deal.
But I was old enough and not-suggestible enough and morally-developed enough and comfortable-with-my-opinions-and-life-experience enough that I was able to repel the bad and soak in the good.
I really did get a lot of benefit from Landmark. You set aside some time to consciously reflect on how you're living your life, and how you could be living your life, in the company of other people thinking about the same puzzles under the guidance of a course leader who has been thinking about these things longer than the students have. (Most of them quite good at that job; some not-so.)
I didn't know back then and didn't really care... but now having read more about Jack Rosenberg Werner Erhard... that he was an extremely flawed, almost or maybe even actual criminal, person.
But he had what it took to advance a consciousness-shift whose time had come. The shift being demand for personal improvement courses. The time being prosperous enough that people could pause from endless survivors' overwork and exhaustion, and inquire a bit about spiritual growth and the art of being human. Someone very flawed caused some other people to invent something very good with what he started. CONTINUES. (IN CASE LINK TO "CONTINUE READING" IS GONE.)
The craving wasn't for religion or politics. Everybody'd had enough of the limitations of that. It was craving for help with being better at getting through life. For some, it was getting through it at all. For others, it was looking at, learning about, practicing, and succeeding at being themselves and, with whatever that self is and possibly can be, causing what they want from life. Which included figuring out how to do what needed to be done so "the world works for everyone, with no one left behind." On the seized assumption that this was/is something that can be "taught" and learned.
That zeitgeist started probably in the 1940s. Many of its of leaders found each other in and around San Francisco (and other places). Virginia Sapir (NLP), Gregory Bateson. L Ron Hubbard ("scientology"). Paramahansa Yogananda (Self-Realization Fellowship). George Leonard. Lots of others. Jack Rosenberg Werner Erhard's EST was one of the inventions that emerged to fill the demand that grew a lot in the 1960s and '70s.
What I find in almost all cases is that people who disapprove of Landmark the most have never taken a course. They're put off by the enthusiasm and other annoying stuff. But it's like thinking you dislike a movie you've never seen or book you've never read or place you've never visited. With a background in discourse/communication/argumentation/rhetoric, I figured I was strong enough to remain objective and be immune to any possible harmful psy-opping. And I was. So I got the good without being harmed by any bad.
Since 2020, I've given some thought to seeds that have been planted in Landmark "graduates'" lives and communities, wondering how much, or if, it has helped the good forces in the battle against the evil forces. I think what was/is taught at Landmark could be used for good or bad. I'm unspeakably disappointed that the personal-growth movement didn't stop the evil hell that was planned and built and is now here.
But few disciplines demand disciples strive to rise to highest standards of integrity. Landmark does that. Few inspire as much passion for the value of the human spirit and reveal how much good is possible as Landmark does. That might sound naive. But it does achieve that. Those are two of the main reasons people come out of there raving about it and pleading with people to check it out. The influence of Landmark on many communities is one thing I'm consciously grateful for post 2020. One of the greatest leaders of the great awakening we're now in is David Martin, who seems to me and probably others who've taken classes at Landmark or EST to be one of its grads.
Here's my brief assessment and subjective opinion of a few of these inventions:
Neuro-Linguistic Programming - very good! Its inventors didn't know how misleading that label would one day be when they named the set of ideas and techniques they developed "neuro-linguistic programming." Sounds like Co-Intel Pro and Tavistock, right? But what NLP is about (among other things) is ways YOU can adjust/change/cultivate/choose YOUR OWN thoughts (neuro) and conversations (linguistic). For just three examples: heal a traumatic memory, recognize a certain thought is chosen but not necessarily useful, explore and create and have fun with your freedom to consciously "program" a lot of who and what you are and what your own life is and can be and what you believe it is and can be.
Self-Realization Fellowship - pretty good, not bad, OK -- if you like or don't mind a cleric in a robe speaking to a congregation of listeners. Just my humble and limited impression.
Scientology - way too much bad for the amount of good.
LifeSpring/WorldWorks - pretty much all bad.
Landmark - in spite of its origins with JR-WE as EST can be and has been and usually is extremely good for most of the people who enroll, even those not grounded in dialog/argumentation/philosophy about universal values -- because they kind of gloss over the counter-argument anyway, and nobody really thinks about the practical implications of the counter-argument let alone lives by it, and the rest of what goes on (could be 95 percent of it) brings out way more good in people than probably would have ever happened if they hadn't taken the class/es. (After-thought: I don't think an online Landmark Forum or Advanced Course could get the results that they get from in-person courses. Maybe the seminars for people who've taken the Forum and Advanced Courses in person could work online. But I hope the Forum and Advanced Course will always be available in person! Don't bother if not!)
Byron Katie and The Work is also extremely good stuff.
Oh, in case anybody ever reads this, and in case I haven't already rankled you enough: the craft of Freemasonry is good too. That's why people keep it going over the centuries. Like the other inquiry-inventions discussed here, it probably has been used by bad people in bad ways. But the instrument is good. An orchestra can produce beauty from a musical score -- but it can also produce cacophony from that same score.
The pitfall for any organization is "Power Corrupts." I participated in est in 1974 and didn't feel exploited, the cost was relatively low for the benefit, since having 200 people in the room made it cheaper, and therefore more accessible for all of us, compared to one-on-one therapy or coaching. (I especially appreciate one of the strategies est offered: if someone has a bad habit they want to change, simply observing it for a while can build up enough self-awareness to be able to shed the habit, while promises and head-on exertion all too often don’t bring change.)
Saying that Erhard didn't get more than a high school education is rather pompous; isn't life the best education available to each of us? Erhard learned valuable insights that he shared widely. It's very sad that malevolent forces like MK-Ultra may have had some connection to est, but est and other such programs provide awareness, and awareness is like energy, water, or money, it can do harm or can do good. Awareness makes it possible for each of us to exploit others or to speak truth to power.
Ultimately, evil shoots itself in the foot, and the truth will out— which doesn't justify any cruelty that hurt people along the way, but I believe it shows that we humans are making progress in the direction of fairness and transparency. An est seminar leader said something way back then that has been food for thought ever since; it was a corollary to Lord Action’s famous observation that “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” namely: “Powerlessness corrupts, and absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.”
A pillar of est was that we can react to our circumstances, or we can be proactive. In the former, a person experiences bitterness or resignation that others have been dealt a better hand. In the latter, a person may find ways, even within severe limitations, to make a difference, for others and/or for themselves. Teacher Effectiveness Training is an example of using awareness to benefit everyone involved, Compassionate Communication is another.
I’m convinced MK-ULTRA has been used for many of not all of these mass shootings; note almost all shooters were known to the FBI in advance.
Yes. And the answer is always more laws. Even though they’re clearly not keeping up with the laws already in existence. Adding more is counterintuitive unless the goal is to keep putting pressure on law abiding citizens until the noose is so tight it will be impossible to be a law abiding citizen.
My whole family, save me, got mixed up in this mess for YEARS. I never understood why. they spent fortunes on Landmark meetings.
Appreciated! ... speaking from my personal experience with Landmark Education over 7years (1998-2005) successfully completing the Leadership Training Programme (to lead introductions to the Landmark Forum) and all the other programmes of the time including 3 senior courses in the Wisdom Division; Wisdom Unlimited; Partnership Exploration; and Power & Contribution.
In 2004 I was recruited by the Center Manager (Toronto Canada) to fill a one evening graduate event - "Causing the Miraculous" - with a goal of 500 graduate attending at $45(?) a pop. I produced attendance of 1,000.
I then participated in 2 seminars (10sessions each over apx. 3months) - the last one led by a rookie seminar leader left me cold. Key elements of the leadership training were missing. Learning the many "distinctions" within each programme was beneficial, much like any in depth learning, the distinctions are industry lingo. Part of the problem in speaking to those not involved (in whatever the endeavour) is the need for a common language only gained through participation in a specialised body of work.
Participation in Landmark Education radically altered my views and actions, some in very good ways., Ultimately, radical bold acts spurred on by this participation, was the undoing of my stable life that never recovered. In the 25years since beginning to explore who I am through LE I've experienced incredible hell - which is the promise of most wisdom-soul searching endeavours by whatever process one wishes to undergo to discover one's authentic or true self.
It did set the stage and framework for a personal need to go deeply inside of myself, opening the door to explore over 50 modalities of personal exploration, and of conscious awareness including Indigenous Shamanic Practices and learning to work in the Akashic Records.
Significantly missing in the Landmark work is the link to soul and to deeply unseen influences which cannot be manipulated in the manner taught in that work. My participation and success in producing results inside the Landmark world was built as much on survival strategies devised in childhood as it was an outcome of Landmark training. Those survival strategies were created (by child me) in response to childhood emotional abuse - not uncovered to exist in my history until 2018, 13years post Landmark. For all its bluster of producing life changing transformation it did not touch the foundations of my personal dysfunctional character, I could not produce life circumstances of personal joy.
Two key childhood abuse survival strategies - please others and support the one in power - didn't get broken up during Landmark years, they were well used there.
I could say much more, suffice to say at this moment in this dialogue forum, I would not recommend the Landmark Forum. As much as guidance and discipline are key in learning the most challenging of topics - who one actually is - we live in an age of deep corruption touching every aspect of life and learning. Take the Pope for instance :)
You work in the Akashic Records?
Yes Mathew .... training accomplishing the goal while meeting gender-guard-dogs - to my knowledge there are no males to have been "certified" by the trainer and co..
So, if I ask you to consult the Akashic records, you can tell me what you find on a given topic?
Are you familiar with this author and conversation ... offered in the context of your topic in mind -
https://forbiddennews.substack.com/p/bloodline-family-control-traced-from?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1658626&post_id=146567375&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=12vcal&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Usually the query is of a person, to access their Akashic records. Phrasing a question is of equal importance to the outcome.
The topic could be explored in relation to the person asking the question bear in mind the precise phrasing would formulate in the moment.
A friend emigrated to Canada from Holland in her 20's (60yr ago.) She felt a lingering influence from her Holland life upon her 60years in Canada.
Going into her Akashic Records that influence was clear and immediate - her relationship with her sister. My friend was expecting a more ancestral influence ... and felt the truth of the insight offered. We applied the process of clearing the influence, releasing it from her.
est had a spinoff here in California, a kind of little est clone, involved in the same kinds of things but with differences in the workshops (although the workshop rooms looked the same), founded by Paul Larson. I was rather heavily involved in that for a while, and I have to say I learned a lot from it, although what I learned long-term had more to do with figuring out just what I was involved in and leaving it than anything else. It helped that I recognized immediately that something clearly wasn't right.
That was my second cult. I grew up in the first one, a cult-church, and left, then was involved in the aforementioned one in my 30's and left, returned to the first one in my 40s and left, and there was yet another group after that, a pretty good one as they go and from which I learned much that I still use, which I also left. I'm in my 70s now, and I haven't been drawn into anything similar for over a decade, so I guess that's progress.
I think this says something about the importance of not exposing children to cults (not the only problem with my family), but there is also much that can be learned from limited-duration experiences of this kind, IF the end result is seeing that there is something fundamentally wrong and leaving, whether or not the actual problem is understood. Interestingly, a well-laid trap of this kind involves a convincing mixture of truth and falsehood. With care, truths can be identified and retained even after leaving. Not that I would recommend trying this even once!
When it comes to understanding the actual problems, I'm still learning -- thanks for the insights.