Landmark is also very involved in the Cafe Gratitude chain of vegan restaurants. I don't think they directly own anything, but the people who do own the restaurants are very involved in Landmark, and there have been a lot of allegations that they pretty much force all their employees to go to the Landmark seminars if they want to get promoted to management. (I won't go to those restaurants anyway, because they're the ones where all the dishes have names like "I am empowered" or "I am enlightened," and you have to order by saying, "I am enlightened," and then the waiter responds, "You are enlightened." If you don't order like that, then you don't get food. I'm willing to go through a lot of ridiculousness for good vegan food, but that's a bit too far.)

you have to order by saying, "I am enlightened," and then the waiter responds, "You are enlightened." If you don't order like that, then you don't get food.

Seriously?!

ION, wow, when I'm really procrastinating, I get awfully chatty.

I can't even think about the incident in the Nairobi mall. How is that the world we live in?

That led me to reading about Chicago murders this year, and, and, and...I've been up too long today already.

Yeah, I just saw that a Navy helicopter went down in the Red Sea today, fate of five personnel on board unknown, and I think I'm pretty much sticking with Disney movies for the rest of the day. (My brother would not be one of them, for the record, he's stateside.)

I only lived on campus one semester for my entire college experience. I would do things so differently now if I could do it again.

I lived on campus for two, because my parents refused to move me from the hostel in the UK into a flat in Montreal. Colin did for four, but he was RA his second year. It's fascinating how different expectations are, for as far as I'm concerned I had a totally American university experience.

But I keep calling it university, so there you go.

If you don't order like that, then you don't get food.

FFS.

FFS.

Consensual dining experience.

The Forum is a hard call. So _many_ people I know have gone through it. Some got immediate and fairly positive change.

In the end though, for most of them, whatever the effects were ultimately wore off and they've each gone back to something close to their default selves. Not all, I hasten to add.

An orientation meeting I went to...at the begging of a recent graduate...did give me a phrase I use often in my own life.

When you are trying to share your experience with someone, "Glow on them, don't sunburn them."

It's a great phrase that is sadly underused by the recent grads of the Forum!

I personally have no problem with brainwashing when it is consensual. Sadly, lots of folks who enter the Forum and its ilk don't have the filters to separate themselves from the process enough to benefit from it without being consumed by it.

eta: hilarious 'consensual' crosspost. I was typing while Hil was commenting, I swear.

Here's the Cafe Gratitude menu. (Or, one of them, anyway. They've got a bunch of locations in California, and I think they're opening a new one in Kansas City, or somewhere really unlikely-sounding like that. [link] )