LANDMARK_FORUM

LANDMARK FORUM AND THE RED FLAGS

A short performance play

By Stephen Peace

url: stephenpeace.com

sweeping@mindspring.com

(MUST HAVE PERMISSION TO USE IN AY MANNER, readings or whatever)

A man comes out with a brightly colored ball and a red flag.

He places the ball on the floor and holds the red flag behind his back.

We went to the Forum last night. No, not the Forum like in Rome or even to the musical, “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum”, no, my wife and I went to a “thing” called the Landmark Forum. It’s a money making self-help group. Well, the interesting thing is that we didn’t even know we were going.

Our friend, who has been going to Forum things over the years, and knows we aren’t interested in them, invited us to go to a “family thing” at her church. She never mentioned the Forum. She said she was one of the organizers of this “family thing” and she would like for us to go. So, to support her, we went. We even rode with her, rather than take two cars. When we got to the church, there was a table set up with these little cards demanding our address and phone # .

(shows the red flag, but does not wave it)

Well, I was unsure what filling out this form this had to do with church, but I signed and gave the required info. The man behind the table told our friend that she got a blue nametag and we got a white nametag. The man telling us what to do had a gold nametag.

–Hum, that is interesting, why does everyone need a different colored nametag when there are only a handful of people?

Then, it turns out we are early, it is supposed to start at 7:00. It is 6:45. We sit and read their material, “Landmark Forum”. I look at my wife and point to the front page “Forum”. She nods.

You see, we know about the Forum. It used to be called EST and was started by a used car salesman, who deserted his first family, moved to California and became a self-help guru. He changed his name to Werner Erhardt and started Erhardt Seminar Training or EST. It soon got a bad name as being a cult and messing with people’s minds. You pay a lot of money (pays money) and then go to a three-day seminar that lasts from 9 AM to 11 or 12. PM (Yawns) where they don’t want you to take bathroom breaks (squeezes his legs together), unless they are scheduled, and you stay up till late at night.(yawns) I had read many books about the Korean War and what the Koreans and Chinese did to prisoners. It was then called brain washing. Now it is called training. (shrugs)

The original and neat thing about the EST was that you paid money to be hypnotized and brainwashed. (waves the red flag)

When people said it was crazy to pay money to join a cult and be brainwashed, EST being “gruvy with it people”, caught on and soon changed the name to The Forum. Then after the United States Tax people disallowed all of their deductions for a number of years, Erhardt sold the business to his brother and the top employees. I don’t think the tax people ever collected the millions of dollars it was owed. (Red flag)

Hum, don’t we as taxpayers own the IRS, and then, doesn’t that mean that we have, in a way, subsidized THE FORUM? —Oh, excuse me, now it is called Landmark Forum.

Back to my “breakthrough”, which is Forum Speak. For when you get what your problem is.

(aside) If you want to impress people with “how smart, gruvy and with it you are”, come up with new words, or better yet, new meanings for old words. –Some people call them buzz words. Landmark Forum has a dictionary full of buzz words.

(secretive) You know, like unless you have been initiated, AND PAYED YOUR MONEY, you really don’t “Get It” – or “understand your Rackets”, or have “Breakthroughs”

–These are all Forum Speak words. (aside) Now look at me, aren’t I gruvy and cool?

Well, as I sat there I read their vague literature and waited for the sales pitch. I read this white board on which they had written words like confidence, ease of communication, self-fulfillment and several other worthy goals. The problem with my wife and me was that we had already attained these goals, -- so let’s leave.

AS WIFE: “No, we can’t leave, we rode with her”.

HIMSELF: Rats.

He Pats his foot.

HIMSELF: Well. Then, how long is this going to last?

AS WIFE: I’ll ask. –excuse me, how long is this going to last?

AS VOICE: “Approximately 2:45 minutes.”

HIMSELF: Let’s leave.

AS WIFE: No.

HIMSELF: Rats.

Pats foot, looks around.

HIMSELF: So, where’s the refreshments?

WIFE: I don’t see any.

HIMSELF: How cheap can they be? No refreshments! --Rats.

So, we listened to this woman who was going to tell us the benefits of the Landmark Forum. But first she told us what Landmark Forum had done for her. She told us of one of her emotional breakthroughs, and how emotional they were. As she told us about her breakthroughs she seemed to get emotional again. Let me check, I think I even saw a tear in her eyes.

AS WIFE: Overshare.

(Aside) My wife calls that an “over share” or telling strangers too much to fast. (Waves flag)

You’ve heard people that overshare. You know the kind, ---as soon as you met them they tell you that they are alcoholics, like to have kinky sex and kill people for fun. –That is an overshare. Or that they like to run over dogs, cats and small birds while driving in the nude. –Overshare!

Oh, I almost forgot, we were told to listen in a new way. To take off our filters in our minds which we see things through. You know, like we filter all information and things through our filters and that we should take them off and listen.

(waves Red flag vigorously) Hey, I don’t know about you, but, I’ve spent years developing my filters, and they have served me quite well.

Also, I realized, at that time, that she had given me a hypnotic suggestion. If I had followed the suggestion, then I was, in a sense, being hypnotized. . Nope, not about to take off my filters and be hypnotized. I’ve seen those shows where the people bark like dogs and see each other in the nude.

He looks at the audience and smiles and winks.

Let me show you what a hypnotic suggestion is. (smiles) Don’t worry; I have been trained in this. I watched the Unknown Magician show five times. –Don’t try this at home. Now watch what I am about to do. No, actually, I am a skilled hypnotist, except for that one time, but with a lot of therapy they got over it.

Smiles.

He picks up a brightly colored ball or object and walks

With it across the stage. He sets it down and walks back to where he was standing.

Now, you are looking at me and I want you to only look at me, but at the same time you are aware of that ball I just placed over there. But don’t look over there, only look at me. Look at me and listen to what I am saying. But you know that that ball is still over there and don’t look at it. This is kind of a form of hypnosis. You are looking at me, but aware of the ball out of the side of your eye. So, your mind is kind of torn into two sections. And any suggestion I give you goes right In between those two parts of your mind and right to the center of your mind. So If I tell you that I have a bug crawling up my shirt, you are going to see that bug or think you might see it, (he looks at his shirt and swats at a bug) or if I tell you that the tip of your nose is itching, then I want you to think about the tip of your nose and the fact that it is itching, but that I don’t want you to scratch it until I tell you to.

He scratches his eyebrow, smiles and then scratches the tip of his nose.

You can scratch your nose if you want to. And don’t look at the ball. –I see some of you looking at the ball even if I told you not to, that is because you don’t want to be hypnotized, even if you are already hypnotized to a degree. Freaky isn’t it. -- So

Okay, now I am going to count to three and you will think this is the funniest thing you have ever seen and that this is just the best monologue you have ever heard. Also, you will remember everything and the bug and itching will immediately end.

I will now count to three and you will laugh.

He counts to three and snaps his finger.

Waits for the laughs.

Interesting huh? –Might have and might not have worked.

He scratches his, hair and then his nose and swats a bug.

He looks around. And looks at one person.

He snaps his fingers several times.

Damn that was a big bug.

Back to Landmark Forum. You remember, that was what we were talking about.

He looks at the stage floor and sees something.

He walks over and stomps on it.

Then a man with another gold badge gave an example of his “breakthrough”. He too got emotional and also tears up. “Over share.”

Oh, by this time we had learned that both of the people who overshared and had gold badges were divorced.

(Red Flag) “Oh, that makes me and my wife feel like we can learn a lot about life and how to establish meaningful relationships from these people”?

–Hey, I realized I was having a “breakthrough”.

Anyway, time passes; people are sharing their fears. I shared a little fear, but “Bud” the divorced guy with the gold badge, shared his fear that his fiancé might not like the honeymoon he had planned. Another man, with a blue badge, shared that he was angry with his brother in another state who wasn’t interested in “participating in the family.” The director of our session asked if he had called his brother like he had said he would? He said that he hadn’t yet.

After a little more sharing of fears from other people and the session director drawing on the board what these fears had cost people. I said to our director that the problems seemed simple. “Why didn’t “Bud” just ask his fiancé what she wanted to do for her honeymoon?” I looked at Bud and he sat frozen. I asked Bud point blank why he didn’t ask his fiancé what and where she wanted to do on their honeymoon. He didn’t look at me, “how could I address him when my name tag was only white?

Since he seemed to be agitated and didn’t answer me, I went on to the guy with the brother in the other state. I told him that I had had the same problem with my brother, but that I finally just had to let go of it. He looked at me and nodded, he just had a blue badge and wasn’t fully indoctrinated.

Our director with a gold badge quickly jumped back in and said that what was easy for some people was hard for others. “That is true, but if you just talk with people, in groups, then often they can help you with the answers. That is what is called “group counseling.”

“This wasn’t counseling” I was told, “this was an inquiry”.

(waves flag)

“Inquiry” equals a new buzz word.

Bud came up to me later and asked me if there wasn’t something I thought I could get out of the Forum? I told him that the only thing I could possibly get was in helping me produce my plays. He seized on that. Well, wasn’t that something that I wanted to pursue?

No, not at the moment.

My wife it turns out had been secretly laughing at them the entire night. She couldn’t believe how serious they were trying to act. They were salesmen trying to sell us on self-help, when they really didn’t care about us in anyway or shape. We had never met them before, and all they wanted was our money. The rest of the people were volunteers or assistants. And I remembered that in a good Con man fashion, you have to have an assistant who tells you how great this Con deal really is. The unwitting assistants help sell the deal. This was a souped up Con to get our money under the premise that we would finally “get it”. But how could I “get it”, when they were the ones that “had it”, and they were only willing to “sell it to me”, and then, IN THE END, ---where was I going to “get it”?

(looks at his butt) Yeah, that is where I thought I was going to get it.

Anyway, the night was over and I went home and went to bed. The next day I checked the Internet for Landmark Forum. After I discounted the ones that evidently were their sites and I found a page called “Salt and Pepper, Rants and Raves”. This is where I found a book full of negative reactions to Landmark Forum.

Seems one woman who had had breast cancer and chemotherapy had a husband who had just gone to a Landmark Forum seminar. He then returned home and told her he wanted a divorce. He had had a “breakthrough” at the seminar. She didn’t understand his “breakthrough” about leaving her, because she had cancer.

(waves the flag)

Then there were a lot of testimonials from people who had “got it”, but didn’t like what they had gotten.

So, in my humble opinion, if you want to ”get it”, and “get it for free”, then just get a lot of friends together and share your feelings. But if you don’t have friends, or are somehow cut off from the world, then you can rent friends and sharing partners at Landmark Forum and they will “give it” to you.

Now, laugh!

He walks over and picks up the ball.

I am now going to a self-help group for former “Formies”.

That is what some former Forum people call themselves. I myself like the term “Formicans” sounds outer space-ish. Then again, it could sound like a cheap counter top, depends on your point of view.. There was this play a few years ago called “Revenge of the Formicans” and the people were aliens and all wore dark glasses. (he puts on dark glasses and everyone else also wears dark glasses dark glasses.). I will have wear dark glasses, so that they will know that I am one of them. --- I will now give the red ball to Jake, who went up the ladder or pyramid of the “Forum”. Jake, what word do you think best describes a former Forum initiate?

He hands the ball to Jake.

Jake has an arrogant look n his face.

JAKE:

You’re a loser. You’re a whiney piece of shit. I’m successful. I have a yacht and a big bosomed girlfriend! I have three ex-wives who love me, I am somebody! I, I, I, I (broken record)

Himself: Jake, Jake, buddy, snap out of it. (snaps fingers) You have been deprogrammed, you are no longer a Formican, you are a person, repeat that, you are a person.

(Jake blinks, becomes mild)

Jake: I am a person, I am not a Formican!, I am a person, I am not a Formican!

He blinks again.

Oh, sorry, sorry. I must have had a relapse.

Takes ball from Jake.

Himself: That’s okay, just have a seat and relax. Remember, life is beautiful and you don’t need the Forum.

Jake nods.

Jake: I don’t need the Forum, I don’t need the Forum!

He takes off his sunglasses.

Himself: Now I’m going to give the ball to Denise.

HE gives the ball to Denise.

DENISE (suspicious): Where’s your badge?

HIMSELF: Oh, I must have left it at home. (winks at audience).

DENISE: Why is it that I don’t believe you? What’s your rackets?

HIMESLF: I’m telling you the truth.

DENISE begins to stride about the stage.

DENISE: Do you want to be more confident? Speak with people easily and have a sense of self-fulfillment? Don’t you want to be happy? Then for only fifty-nine, ninety-nine a week, a day a hour, the Formicans can give it to you! Don’t you want it? What is money when you can get it and get it good from “US”. We know, the rest of you are deluded fools!

He snaps his fingers several times.

HIMSELF: Denise, Denise, wake-up, wake-up. It’s over.

DENISE: It is?

HIMSELF: Yes, it is.

DENISE: Oh, was I acting weird again?

He nods.

DENSIE (weak smile) Sorry!

He takes the ball from her.

HIMSELF: Boy, this is harder than I thought! (pats foot) Humm, I think I’m going to have to think about this. The Formicans have really gone deep with these people.

He looks at audience intently. Then suspiciously.

Maybe even some of you are “Formicans”?

Maybe the person sitting next to you is a “Formican”?

Some plants in the audience now put on dark glasses.

I know how you can find out. – now, listen to me and listen to me carefully,

I want you to take off your filters and think about this.

He points and accusing finger around the room.

As he begins to walk away he snaps his fingers in his own face.

Wake-up, wake-up, this has just been a bad dream!

He slaps his face.

No, it was real, it was real. –It’s out there and it’s waiting. It’s waiting.

Walks, thinks.

What can I do, I’m just one guy and they, the big they have money and ower. –but, BUT, I have the internet and I can start a campaign to stop them. Stop them before they spread. –Before they take over more innocents, and relieve them of their minds, filters and most of all money.

BEGS.

Stop them, please stop them. I have set-up a web-site, and now I get hits from all over the world. Landmarkforumredfalgs.homestead.com

Tell people, tell your friends to beware, beware, beware the FORMICANS are coming.

And they are coming for you!

Or ,--- or

You don’t believe me do you?

You think I’m lying?

You think I’ve made all of this up.

He looks down and seems to see something. He begins

To stomp some imaginary bugs as he also scratches his nose and

Itches himself.

The “Formicans” are everywhere and they want your body and your money. Don’t give it to them, don’t become a FORMICAN!

Pause. Then he shrugs.

In the meantime ---- I think I’m going to pick up my ball and go home and lock the door!