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Help Please - what the hell is Landmark?

We're The Great Old Ones Now

16:57 / 14.07.03

Is it the latest Alpha Course? Scientology? Or something less alarming?

Friend in need...

17:01 / 14.07.03

There's an article about it the The May issue of the Believer. I don't know if that's available over there.

Basically, it's est under a new name. Chuck pawhosisface wrote fight club after attending.

17:01 / 14.07.03

It's somewhat less alarming than Scientology but only, I think, because they're less litigious. Also known as 'the Forum' the basic concept is to get you to pay them for so-called classes in which they will reveal earthshattering concepts which will do away with all your insecurities and neuroses. An expensive, glorified series of pep talks, basically, with a creepy cultish edge.

17:07 / 14.07.03

EST III: This Time It's Personal

you might want to check the further reading section at
http://www.skepdic.com/landmark.html

Whisky Priestess

23:33 / 14.07.03

It's a form of mild brainwashing that helps some people (mainly those with big traumas in their pasts that are fucking them up something chronic) and bores and impoverishes others.

My default advice to the friend is don't do it, unless ze's working through big probs. Intelligent, basically sane, basically OK people tend to resist it. I have been (blackmailed by my ex-boss) to a couple of meetings and met a lot of people who've been on it, and I can;t say I was impressed. It's very full-on and so are the types who attend and BELIEVE. They may be hard to shake off. A lot of creepy, needy men. Think before you write that cheque, bigtime.

11:55 / 15.07.03

Just wondering if someone could actually tell me what the whole Alpha Course thing is all about. It was all over Church notice boards like a rash up until recently.

12:02 / 15.07.03

Met up with an ex of mine in London last summer, and having just one day to hang out, she decided to invite me to a Landmark seminar. I went, not knowing what to expect, and afterwards had to put on a disgusting false smile saying "it was great to see you". Creepy people doing creepy things, pyramid marketing scheme style.

Whisky Priestess

12:33 / 15.07.03

Bitch. The worst thing is that they claim to do it for *your own good*, and that you will benefit *so much* from it. Very much like evangelical Christians being morally unable to keep Jesus to themselves, in fact ...

13:39 / 15.07.03

Having known a few people who got involved with Landmark/ The Forum (and having shared a building - and therefore a lift - with them for a year), I know they get put under a lot of pressure to bring other people in. That's where the money comes from, obviously.

The brain-wash effect is quite strong - people honestly look glazed when they talk about it. Not everyone, obviously, and I've known some people that I like and respect who claim to have got a lot out of it. But as Whisky P said, they tended to be people with quite messy pasts, who had been having trouble coping with life.

In general I would recommend people to steer clear - I don't like the look of what I've seen (which admittedly isn't a lot), it costs a lot of money and it seems to be very difficult to get out of it if you decide it's not for you.

13:52 / 15.07.03

Alpha Courses are an introduction to Christianity. They take the format of a meal plus a five/ten minute talk on various Christian subjects, and play out over several weeks (the exact number varies. The course can be customised to requirements). After each session there's a chat about the evening's talk, in which the course assistants are encouraged to manage the conversation without participating too much themselves.

Of course, the intention is for people to convert to the Christian faith, and in this respect Alpha is pretty successful. Whether that's a good or bad thing depends on the situation; how much pressure the individual is under to attend; how happy they are with their lives; the motives of the people running the course (believe it or not some Christians care about people more than they do the head count in their particular church). My Mum runs a large course several times a year, and my wife became a Christian through Alpha.

I guess it works through being pretty relaxed and non-prescriptive (depending on which course you go to - they can vary in quality quite a lot). In Britain a lot of people have Christian experience/ideas cluttering up the back of their mind. The nature of the informal chat is for the individuals present to think over the subject matter, drawing these old tropes to the fore again.

That's it in a nutshell. Some churches run follow-up courses, or recommend people for counselling if they happen to have dredged up a load of psychological guff throughout the sessions. I'll leave you to judge it for yourself, which is why I've been fairly even handed here.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

16:05 / 15.07.03

Just for reference, some Christians regard Alpha as somewhat iffy or even nigh-Satanic - it's a topic of considerable controversy. Alpha is borderline Charismatic in its original incarnation - Nicky Gumbel's own version; long weekends culminating in feeling the Holy Spirit moving in you, shaking and falling on the floor, hysteria and muffins. Regarded by some Anglicans as the salvation of the Church - Holy Trinity Brompton suddenly got cool and aristocratic - it is also seen as an Evangelical nightmare with more-than-slightly offensive views about gay people, inter-faith, and so on - hence my referencing it in this thread.

17:30 / 15.07.03

In relation to the article about Landmark in The Believer.. The Believer website lists two places in England that it might be available: Foyle's (who don't sell magazines and denied all knowledge of The Believer when I asked them about it) and John Sandoe books. Has anyone in England seen it anywhere?

19:46 / 15.07.03

it is also seen as an Evangelical nightmare with more-than-slightly offensive views about gay people, inter-faith, and so on

Welcome to Christianity.

The course differs substantially in all its incarnations, wherever it turns up. The material is as open-minded as the people running it.

There's sometimes a day away, depending on the feasibility (something I forgot in my original post). I have no idea how they handle the Holy Ghost stuff - I'll ask Mum and get back to the thread later.

06:06 / 16.07.03

Alpha: this was knocking around my college in my first year. The end weekend is - I believe - based on the Toronto Blesing which Nicky Gumbell is a big believer in.

It attempts to dispell some of the myths about Christianity as set says but takes a pretty hardline on gays as Nick reported. I remember watching this David Frost series - a documentary in which each week was a report on the week's meeting such that the viewer was "part" of the course too. Gay people haven't realised the truth it seems, but if they accept their sin, they can overcome it. (I am more than happy to be proven wrong on this please, set).

For me, the biggest problem with the Alpha Course is that around week 3 or 4 one is expected to take this huge Kierkegaardian Leap of Faith and after that it's not so much an introduction to Christanity but an introduction to Christian dogma.

13:42 / 16.07.03

Ooh! Ooh! Toronto Blessing is one of my favourites. A friend and RPG gamemaster of mine went into it pretty much because he bought the "those God loves, he makes rich in this life, and since we're rich he obviously loves us"-line. He went on to become a full time hard drug dealer without losing faith.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:48 / 16.07.03

I have one big issue with Alpha, and I base this on a combination of watching some of 'Alpha: Will It Change Their Lives?', first and second hand reports from people who've been on the course, and what I've seen of their promotional material. My complaint is that the early stages of the Alpha course appear to be highly disingenous: the idea seems to be that a group of people come together over a serving of tasty bourgeois pasta to have a discussion about the meaning of life and other such topics. So the group leader will ask everyone why they think there's suffering in the world / what they think the purpose of life is / if there's a God and what God is like / some other question, possible with a topical bent, and Mavis will get her say, and so will Donald and Clea and Bradley and Lex, and then the group leader will say "Hey, bit of a coincidence, but I just happen to have this book I like with me - it's called the Bible! Let's see what it has to say about what we've been talking about, eh?"

Now, I'm exaggerating slightly, and as set says I'm sure these courses vary in nature, but it does strike me that this is another attempt to 'get round' the stumbling block which Christianity represents to many in the UK today. Even back when I was a Christian, I had a problem for many years with the idea of 'converting' people - not evangelism per se, but the specific connotations of that word, and the way in which certain methods and techniques seemed to be devised with the intention of... not exactly tricking people, but certainly using the same techniques as advertising in order to make the Gospel seem appealing, persuasive, etc. These techniques always seemed to end up being either transparent and ineffective to the point of inducing cringes (I've seen allegorical street mime, and it ain't pretty), or worse, to succeed in 'converting' people who really haven't comprehended what they're supposed to be accepting.

I realise that it's easy to criticise this kind of endeavour, and that I'm derailing the thread into a more general rant regarding evangelism, outreach, etc - but I do think that Alpha seems like a bit of a 'soft sell' approach to which I have an instinctively negative gut reaction.

16:56 / 16.07.03

Gay people haven't realised the truth it seems, but if they accept their sin, they can overcome it. (I am more than happy to be proven wrong on this please, set).

Nah, that's the average Christian answer. Hence the "Welcome to Christianity" comment. And yeah, it sucks ass.

My main problem revolves around the communion with the Holy Spirit, usually in the final day-long session. I wonder how much preparation people are given...

23:15 / 16.07.03

Landmark? Its a crap theme/heritage park kinda near here.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

08:03 / 17.07.03

Since this seems to have turned into an Alpha discussion, and since the Landmark thing seems to have settled for the moment:

OutRage clippsing on Alpha

John Rose (York Uni) on Alpha

Second Part of Jon Ronson's Guardian article

10:32 / 24.07.03

bit off topic, but rather than start a new thread I wanted to ask if anyone knows anything about "Jews for Jesus"... because the very premise seems contradictory.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

17:28 / 24.07.03

I believe that's "Messianic Judaism".

Links:

History of Jews For Jesus

Homepage of Jews For Jesus

Outreach Judaism responds to Jews For Jesus.

08:40 / 28.07.03

Thanks for those links. I've got a new one I'd like Barbelith's considered opinion and / or fact.... I've looked this all up on the internet both pro and contra, but both sides seem to convincingly diss the other, although I do come down on the contra side (ie - reckon they're a cult)

Anyway, on my way to work one morning last week, the cab driver and I start chatting about this and that, and I can't help but comment on the poster of an Indian woman facing me. It said something about yoga, and I listened while he told me how it had changed his life and he was a better person for it. (The woman is called Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi and she is the founder of Sahaja Yoga).

The guy seemed truly happy about his involvement in this organisation and gave me a leaflet about it and told me how great the (free) meetings were etc etc. However when I googled it, there was a load of stuff about it being a cult, (as well as loads of official stuff saying how great it was).

I was wondering if anyone had any first hand information about this organisation, who could comment on its cultishness? Also can anyone recommend any form of Yoga which definitely isn't a cult please!?

13:02 / 30.07.03

Sahaja Yoga isn't physical yoga, with bending and stretching and stuff - it's more about meditation and raising kundalini energy. I went along to a few classes and was put off by a) the silliness of the idea that you can raise kundalini (which is meant to be very difficult to do) in a couple of hours (and feel a 'whoosh' of air out of the top of your head to prove it) and by the cultish feel about the people there. Mind you, I was on cultish-feel alert after getting a bit too wrapped up with Sri Chinmoy people so i was maybe hyper sensitive!

If you want more 'normal' western yoga look for hatha yoga, iyengar, or even astanga - that's the fast, 'power' yoga as touted by Madonna and our Geri. It's good as a work out but I'd probably recommend you try something like Iyengar first.