The Non-Random Threshold

While I’ve never attended the Landmark Forum, I’ve been toying for a couple days with an idea I [...]

perhaps the secret to ALL organizations….

“In the beginning was the Word…”

See, I have an ongoing debate [with myself of course] as to whether or not that’s necessarily a good or bad thing. Or if that’s what he actually does.

I’ve long refused to buy into the concepts of religion because, to me, they DO seem to have achieved supposed happiness by tricking or lying to themselves. “I’m saved, I believe in the one true god” etc, etc.

I don’t see how NLP is quite is the same thing.

It seems to me NLP presents you with the option of “brainwashing” yourself as opposed to letting others do it for you. The human condition seems to respond to certain stimuli in certain ways… you can either “react” [Scientology ] or try and co-opt the process to your own advantage.

And then there’s the question of what’s the difference between “tricking yourself” into happiness and “authentic” happiness? As long as you don’t use the power of denial *cough*religion*cough* to ignore aspects of life or the human condition, how is it “really” tricking you? And what is “real” happiness anyways?

Many questions, going in circles, obviously.

Making a bunch of school kids sit through that type of Robbins seminar doesn’t work at all though… I can see how it could grate…

There’s an interesting interview with him in What is Enlightenment? magazine online… I also found the Dan Millman and Jack Lalanne interviews in that issue pretty cool…

http://www.wie.org/j15/robbins.asp?ifr=bma

http://www.wie.org/j15/millman.asp?ifr=dt&ifd=71

http://www.wie.org/j15/lalanne.asp?ifr=dt&ifd=71

PS. I put your quoted passage into a blockquote. It’s pretty simple to do yourself. Just highlight the text you want, and then smash the “b-quote” button above. just makes things a little clearer on who’s sayingwhat

This could entail anything from going back to talk to a relative you had shut out of your life for years because of an unresolved dispute, to a situation where you might have been “withholding” something from a friend, resulting in unresolved tension. My Forum Leader posited that most of us go through life leaving a “trail of incompletions” in our wake, and part of the Forum experience is learning to transcend the fear that prevents us from confronting these things

Sounds like “confronts” in scientology

As human? says above, it’s really the secret to ALL traditions…

hmm, i see what you mean but i’m not sure i fully agree with you & human? will have to think on that some more.

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That’s EXACTLY what these groups represent IMHO. Lifespring is the same way. They lock you in a room for a whole day and don’t let you take a piss and tear you down and tell you what a worthless worm you are. Then they reveal the “big secret” – you are entitled, entitled, ENTITLED! and have no responsibility to ANYONE or ANYTHING but your own self-gratification and need for greed.

Narcissistic psychpathology, not spirituality, is what that is. But then again I’m biased.

Well, philosophically anyway. I guess you could probably make the argument that ANY religion actually does this same thing. Christianity uses “God” and the “Devil” to not only describe certain concepts but to construct a worldview and behavior modification. Gnosticism likewise uses terms like “archons” and “demiurge” to do much the same thing (with different intentions of course).

As human? says above, it’s really the secret to ALL traditions…

You’re definitely right about the similarity to a lot of yogic and Hindu (and Buddhist) concepts. I don’t necessarily seem them as their own jargon – since they actually arose out of a particular linguistic tradition. With Scientology, etc, they are interesting especially because they take English, the language we’re so familiar with and make it foreign.

Anyway, this is a great topic and I have tons more to say about it. Lots of great comments here all around though. Thanks!

Let’s examine how vrittis are born and the way they develop… The mind takes a solitary thought (pratyaya) and begins a tornado-like dance, rapidly weaving together webs of thoughts in a frenetic search for other related thoughts. Through a process of comparing, contrasting and categorizing, individual thoughts cease their existence as isolated bits of information and become part of a complex web of ideas, self-constructed conceptions of “reality” that build self-identity and our understanding of the world.

What this means is that our experience of life is largely determined by the nature of the webs we have woven. In a real sense, vritti activity is the practice of constructing and deducing concepts of reality from mental impressions.

link

now you can certainly say that the complex sanskrit terminology of the yogis is as obfuscatory as scientologese, and its certainly prone to newage distortion and misinterpretatin. but (a) it doesn’t cost thousands of dollars (b) yogic ideas deal with the pre-linguistic concept level (c) yogic ideas deal with emotions and other subjective states. and (d) it doesn’t require an idiotic machine to diagnose.

personally i think the focus on language is weird and obsessive. it kind of reminds me of the idea behind political correct ‘redefinitions’ of language – i.e. change ‘nigger’ to ‘african american’ and racism will go away. except it doesnt work that way – instead of reharmonizing the culture, racists will say ‘african american’ between clenched teeth while their hateful resentment may actually increase. likewise in scientology you have a bunch of warped, pent-up cultists at war with the world.

furthermore, while i am not insensitive to things like atonement, forgiveness, karmic repair, or however you want to put it, the risk of a shallow system like scientology is that the whole idea of “clear” so easily becomes an excuse for irresponsibility, amorality and fuck-it-all forgetfulness. what a perfect cult for unethical bond traders!

perhaps the secret to ALL organizations….

from incantations to “And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.” to genetic code to lawyers….

word –> world.

one
human?

Their use of words, linguistic structure and meaning reminds me of Korzybski’s and Whorf’s stuff on semantics.

Yeah, Korzybski’s General Semantics was supposedly one of Hubbard’s bigger influences. I tried researching that somewhat, and most of what I read I found to be rather inscrutable. Maybe I ought to tackle it from the NLP/Tony Robbins angle. Speaking of which, in highschool for some reason we were forced to endure a district-wide Tony Robbins presentation that lasted all day. I was so fucking mad during that, but I’ll have to do a separate post on it.

it seems to me that Landmark, like NLP, is [trying] to give you a set of linguistic and behvioral tools in order emphasize the power of will [and language] to “maximize” one’s life. Realizing the internal nature of meaning and applying that to a sort of “Will to Power”.

This whole thing about “the Will” is something I’ve been meaning to crack for a while. It seems like this is probably the strongest influence that Crowley/Parsons had on Hubbard.

unlesss you deal with the emotional needs that spring from the level of feeling and thought, disabling one set of beliefs isn’t gonna do a damn thing cause the emotions are what leads people to adopt beliefs in the first place, and they’ll just find another one to meet the same core need

This is exactly true. I think when discussing beliefs, people tend to forget the strong emotional attachment that people have to them. It’s much greater than any intellectual one. I’ve also seen plenty of people who are long-term members of Landmark who trumpet the virtues of it constantly, and yet seem to have made very little progress. In a sense, it just seems like they convinced themselves that since they have a new language and system to understand it, their problems have left. But they have not. It’s essentially my same criticism of Tony Robbins: he teaches you how to trick yourself into feeling happy. It’s very creepy.

One of Gotama’s first insights was that human consciousness is composed of several ‘aggregates’ which include sense impressions, feelings, thoughts and mental formations ( like beliefs, concepts, expectations etc ) along with a big picture of where you’re focussing your mind as the fifth one. these elements interacting is what generates the illusion of the essential self or ego, and it is the mental formations in particular that landmark and est and all these guys seem to be scoping in on. it’s relatively easy to show someone how their beliefs don’t match up to the real world, especially when you’ve already surrendered some personal authority as a precondition to doing the process in the first place.

but the problem is, unlesss you deal with the emotional needs that spring from the level of feeling and thought, disabling one set of beliefs isn’t gonna do a damn thing cause the emotions are what leads people to adopt beliefs in the first place, and they’ll just find another one to meet the same core need, and since they’ve been taught that they’re now clear or complete or whathaveyou, will just make them defend the new belief all that much more tightly. which is how the cult gets the hooks in and keeps them there.

She always had it in her I guess but Landmark really helped he to acheive her full potential as a self-actualized, self-centered, self-directed, self-regarding and self-absorbed all-around nasty piece of work.

So FUCK Landmark Forum and fuck EST and fuck Scientology, if it was up to me all those people would be gathered together and pushed off of a roof for the good of mankind.

present company excluded, of course!

“The connection here is difficult for me to articulate. It seems like Landmark is focusing on withdrawing “meaning” into oneself, and putting it under the service of the Will. Scientology seems to be saying this in reverse, saying the Will should be bent towards a mastery of “understanding.” I feel like they’re making the same point, but I could be misinterpreting it.”

I’d have to say I agree, mostly, but they’re not quite making the same point. Ideally, they make slightly different points, using the same set of behavioral and linguistic tools. In reality, they both do end up making the same points as they’ve both fallen into the same trap that almost all group dynamics do. Scientology, perhaps, intentionally. Landmark, perhaps unintentionally. Though that’s certainly a matter of interpretation.

As I understand what you’re saying, and the two organizations, it seems to me that Landmark, like NLP, is [trying] to give you a set of linguistic and behvioral tools in order emphasize the power of will [and language] to “maximize” one’s life. Realizing the internal nature of meaning and applying that to a sort of “Will to Power”.

Scientology, otoh, takes that same tool set and goes one further, emphasizing, like all religions and/or cults and movements, the primacy of their specific “understanding” of reality. The confusion arises because they use the same tool set and emphasize the “getting clear” aspect to the world at large as opposed to the “unique” understanding of cosmology and metaphysics that Scientology purports.

Of course, from all I’ve read about Landmark, it would seem they also have fallen into the trap of “Understanding over Will” what with their recruitment and proselytizing of the inherent superiority of their particular belief structure [that's arisen out their tool set.]

Hope this was kinda what you were trying to say. If not, apologies for the bastardization of your comments…

Their use of words, linguistic structure and meaning reminds me of Korzybski’s and Whorf’s stuff on semantics. The use of language to “entrain”, imprint, or alter mental states seems, to me, to be related to be related to NLP [or Anthony Robbin's take on it - NAC].

Ultimately, imo, Scientology/est/Landmark/Robbins/NLP/self-help/traditional therapy strikes me as, on one level, nothing more than a set of tools to enact behavioral change. And as far as that goes, I think it can be extremely worthwhile.

The problem I tend to find with Scientology and similar is that they seem to be organized in such a way to induce behavioral change with very specific results and end-states in mind. End-states that aren’t particularly interested in development of self but are, in fact, instead looking to bend an individual’s self actualization [thanks Maslow!] to the “will” of the “group”.

I think part of the appeal is that such groups offer the illusion of enlightenment [or perhaps, elitism?] by making you “clear” or “healthy” or “actualized”.

On a slightly different note, the “reactive mind” of Scientology and Landmark’s differentiation between reality and the “story about reality” both strike me as very Buddhist concepts… attachment as ‘reactive’ mind and maya/illusion as the “story” of reality…

Another thing Landmark stresses (or at least they did when I was there) about becoming free of your past is that you need to go around and “complete” so that the “incompletions” don’t weigh you down going forward. This could entail anything from going back to talk to a relative you had shut out of your life for years because of an unresolved dispute, to a situation where you might have been “withholding” something from a friend, resulting in unresolved tension. My Forum Leader posited that most of us go through life leaving a “trail of incompletions” in our wake, and part of the Forum experience is learning to transcend the fear that prevents us from confronting these things.

The unique use of words and phrases definitely creates a sort of chasm between those who have been through the program and those who haven’t. The value of the “distinctions” comes throuh acting as a quick shorthand for concepts that might take hours or days to thoroughly explain; their helpfulness doesn’t become apparent until you’ve actually used and applied them for a while. Think of it this way: Imagine a system of math that didn’t know anything about the use of exponents. Someone looking at it for the first time might say: “What’s the point of using these funny little numbers and calling them ‘powers’, when all you’re really doing is multiplication?”

To me, the terms “Racket” and “Winning Formula” each describe a separate but very definite phenomenon that occurs in human beings, based on several assumptions about how we operate. I could sit and list the definitions, but that would only give the uninitiated a very limited grasp of their use. After you’ve tried them out and worked with them a bit, they become second nature. (Though after prolonged lack of contact with anyone else who actively uses them, it does tend to wane.)

While I did find value in a lot of their concepts and techniques, the lass savory aspects of Landmark (for me) were the incessant pressure to proselytize, and also the expensive cost of the courses. The money might have been somewhat justifiable were it not for the fact that the assistants (i.e. most of the people who operated and kept things running) were unpaid volunteers. $300+ weekends plus mostly unpaid labor means that somebody was getting massively rich off it. That, plus the ongoing badgering to take more courses, was why I and most everyone else I knew beforehand who had gotten involved turned the other way and never looked back.