Landmark Education Forum: A Thorough Review
Anyone who’s heard of Landmark Education knows they’re an organization clouded in controversy. There have been rumors of everything from it being the best personal development program ever, to being a cult. I’d read all the reviews of the program and even watched a documentary about the original founder of Landmark (EST) Werner Erhard. After it was all said and done, I was too skeptical about Landmark to do the program…then Time Magazine and BusinessWeek (within a few weeks of one another) had reviews about Landmark and what a great program it was—both articles praised it as a great program for business people. At that point, I decided to give it a go. I figured, best case scenario, I would go to Landmark and it would be the best personal development program ever, worst case scenario, if it was a cult, I could at least infiltrate it and write a good story about what a cult it is.
I was initially planning on doing a different blog post with a review of each day; however, after the program, a thorough review of each day is unwarranted.
Day 1:
First off: I am utterly convinced that anyone who thinks that Landmark Education is a cult, is an idiot; it is a personal development program, and from day one to day three, it’s clear that that’s all it is. It’s just a program to help people deal with their issues.
Day one can be summarized as: What Happened VS Perception: The Stories that we Tell ourselves. (Pictures below).
Certain events happen in a person’s life and they attach a story to these events. The facts of the situation are what happened, and the story about why what happened, happened, is our perception. The main point to note is that perception isn’t fact, its perception.
Example:
You’re on your way to work and your car breaks down. You arrive to work five minutes late and your boss starts yelling at you, “You’re late. You’re always late. You’re a horrible employee.”
This upsets you and you start telling yourself what a jerk you boss is, and you tell yourself that he must hate you.
The story that we tell ourselves is “he’s a jerk,” “he hates me,” but those aren’t facts, they’re perceptions, they’re stories that we tell ourselves. We only say “he’s a jerk,” because he did or said something that made us associate him as a jerk. Is it a fact that he’s a jerk? NO, it’s not a fact. But the story that we tell ourselves is that he’s a jerk and we accept it as a fact. We then go around complain to anyone who will listen and say, “my boss is a jerk.” And of course telling yourself that your boss is a jerk and treating him like he’s one and complain all day and telling yourself all day that he’s a jerk, is going to put you in a pretty crummy mood.
So when something happens, just ask yourself why you’re telling yourself the story that you’re telling yourself—and ask yourself if it’s a fact, or a story.
Day 2:
Day two started off with people talking about the breakthroughs they’d had since day one. (A LOT of people actually had a LOT of breakthroughs in that twenty-four hour period.) The first few hours of day two was a combinations of people talking about their breakthroughs and Landmark pushing its other products.
After Landmark selling its other programs and after the breakthroughs , they started talking about responsibility: Personal Responsibility. Basically it’s the aspect of a person taking responsibility for their lives and what happen in their lives.
Example:
If someone’s an alcoholic, what happens is they’ll often say to themselves, “It’s not my fault. I only drink because my dad drank…or my dad beat me. If he never beat me, I wouldn’t be an alcoholic.”
A lot of people had a lot of problems with day two. They didn’t like the idea of having to stop blaming other people, and start taking responsibility for themselves. No one’s father made they become an alcoholic.
It reminds me of the old story of twin brothers. These twin brothers had a very abuse and alcoholic father. Their dad used to beat them, neglect them, etc. Both of the boys grew up. One of them became a very successful businessman who used his riches to help other people in abusive relationships. The other grew up to become a drug addict and alcoholic. When the first twin (the successful one) was asked what motivated him to work so hard to succeed and then give back to charity, he responded, “Well, growing up with an alcoholic father who beat me, how could I not work hard to leave home and become a success, and then use my money to help others.” When the other brother was interviewed (the drug addict and alcoholic) and was asked why he became a drug addict and alcoholic, he responded, “Well, growing up with an alcoholic father who beat me, how could I not become a drug addict and alcoholic.”
Same situation, different stories they told themselves. One brother used his upbringing to drive him to succeed and the other brother used his upbringing as an excuse to blame his father for all his short coming and problems.
Day 3:
Day three started off with a LOT more selling of other Landmark programs. Day three was also the day that was supposed to bring day one and day two together. After all the promoting of Landmark’s other programs, the beginning of day three was, again, about people talking about the breakthrough’s that they’d had in the past forty-eight hours—there were a lot of breakthrough’s, and a lot of crying.
I can’t go into detail about all the breakthrough that people had (because we all agreed to keep things confidential) but people had breakthrough is every walk of life, from people going through divorces, people who were abused as children, people who lost their job, people who hadn’t spoken to a family member in twenty years. There was a little bit of everything and they all benefited.
Day three was about living a life where we’re aware of the stories that we tell ourselves, and it was about living a life where we all take personal responsibility for our actions and our emotions and feelings. Imagine a world where people didn’t fret about the “stories” that we tell ourselves and instead only dealt with the facts of a situation. Imagine a world where people take personal responsibility for their actions. Day three was all about perpetuating this in our lives.
The Positive: Landmark gave people an opportunity to look at their issues from a different point of view. It gave people an opportunity to see whether the stories that they’re telling themselves are true or are just “stories.” It gave people an opportunity to take responsibility of their lives—for the good stuff, and the bad. A fast majority of the people who went to Landmark seemed to get something out of the training, although some people’s nuggets of gold were substantially larger then other people’s.
The negative: If you have a serious issue in your life that you need to get worked out, Landmark is the company for you. If you’ve got a drinking or drug problem, Landmark is for you. If you have an issue with your mother or father, or a brother or sister, Landmark is for you. If you’re going through a divorce, Landmark is for you. If someone important in your life passed away, Landmark is for you.
If you don’t have any serious issues: Landmark might not be for you, yet. Yeah, you’ll get something from the program, everyone does, but if you don’t have any serious issues or problems, Landmark might not be right for you—at this time in your life—and might come across as a waste of time and money. But if you do have a serious problem, Landmark Education is the place to go and it’ll change your life for the better.
If you seriously want to put a stop to the excessive drinking of a friend or a loved one, you can learn a number of ways to help an alcoholic from various resources on the Internet.
Michael Anthony is an Iraq War Veteran and is the Author of: Mass Casualties: A Young Medic’s True Story of Death, Destruction, and Dishonor in Iraq.
41 Comments
This IS a cult, I have first-hand experience. They “program” you using hypnosis, after which you have a very foggy idea of what was even said to you or what happened. You are in a room for almost a full work week, 39 hrs, condensed into three days.
You are essentially isolated from anyone who would be concerned about you and would therefore try to intervene and “save you” from Them: you get up early, are gone all day long, come home overloaded from being talked to all day, either by THem or by other participants, eat, go to bed, do it all over again.
During your breaks you have assignments to call people you have had issues with, not the people in your life who would, again, intervene when you call sounding all weird and robot-like, leaving no time to call anyone else. It’s Friday-Sunday so you go into work the next day, still isolated from close friends and family and the cycle continues unless somebody finds a way to intervene; that’s if you’re even open to it. Chances are, you’re not.
The “breakthroughs” are funny enough, always timed to happen after dinner, then after they’ve developed your trust and talked to you for about 26 hours, then the hypnosis session comes on Sunday, the day where all skeptics are suddenly, zealously, and finally on board.
Talk to anyone who leaves these things and watch and wait for the weirdness to come out. Here are some key terms that will “trigger” the hypnosis and unexplained zeal: inauthentic, racket(s), barriers, like the layers of an oinion, create possibilities, ‘get’ it. Experiment and see for yourself as the program emerges through the person.
They program you to think that no one else will “get it” even though what they are telling you is 100% common sense, every day concepts and ideas packaged as a “New and Improved!” product. So then you feel alone in it and weird around forum non-attendees, ie the rest of the world. So then you pressure those around you, convince them, whatever, into coming so you all will be on the same page and connect in the outside world.
Your goal becomes getting them to “get it” as your new catchphrase steadily demeans and irritates everyone around you because it outright states they’re too clueless to “get it” without the help of the forum. Now they MUST attend, unless they want to stay completely in the dark. As if life was unsuccessful before this cult was ever created. Right. And they all stand to benefit from what the forum has to offer. Only, They (capital T) benefit from what your bank account and non-chemical dependency has to offer: Unrestricted funds, because at this point, you’d happily give your right arm to move up and along in the “courses” without really being able to explain why.
Their only agenda that’s apparent right now: to have you voluntarily and without compensation recruit for them by (they tell you this on Sunday before you leave) bringing at least three friends/family members back on Tues. and to create dependency on them so you keep spending your money on “advanced courses”.
The intro course costs $485 times 150 ppl that’s approx $60K stood to be made in one weekend. Impressive. And they don’t have to pay anyone to bring them this kind of business, they just program it into “intros” as they call newbies. Advanced “courses” start at about $700-$800 and go up from there.
Anyone who can reach into your mind so powerfully and essentially control you should be regarded with extreme caution, no matter how benign or “not serious” their agenda may be or seem.
Don’t take my word for it- feel free to do your research about others’ experience & try to find out why they were kicked out of France. Good luck with that, their lawyers have tried very hard to block any of it from getting out.
See, I did the research and everything so when I walked in I WAS expecting some kind of cult atmosphere, but when I was there, I just didn’t see it. Maybe I built up such an image of Landmark as a boogey man, that by the time I took the forum, there was no way it could be as bad as I had imagined.
I think you’re right about the business aspect, I mean they definitely are an organization/business out to make money. But I mean, from my experience, there was nothing cultish going on. They never stopped us from going to the bathroom (again, this is just my group, my experience).
I mean I can see how people might seem weird afterward, and I’ve heard the rumors about how Landmark people try to make all their friends go, etc. But on the last day ‘Tuesday’ i didn’t even show up (Tuesday is a waste of time day where they try to sell you on other programs) and I haven’t recommended that any friends go–specifically because I don’t know with anyone dealing with huge problems that I think Landmark could help with.
Let me put it this way: Yes Landmark is weird, and Yes they make you do some things that might seem weird and even drastic or intense. But if you’ve got something BIG that’s wrong with your life, then you’re going to need to take BIG drastic measures.
But honestly, I don’t see how anyone could see it as a cult. A pushy business organization, yes definitely. But a cult, absolutely not. I’ve taken it and I don’t feel different, i haven’t donated them any money or sold all my possession and moved into a communal house; i haven’t spent the last month trying to convince everyone I know to go.
It was just like going to a college lecture, albeit a very, very, very long and expensive college lecture, but it was nothing more and nothing less; just a long and interesting college lecture–that a lot of people got something out of.
I just don’t see it. But then again, I think that some people just have certain types of personalities and anything could become a cult for them; religion, AA meetings, personal development seminars, etc.
I am happy that you did not get completely sucked in.
That said, if you did not notice any cult-like elements then you either succumbed to part of it or weren’t paying attention. The long guided imagery exercises, the “fear” exercise or the “parent” exercise, the homework, etc. – those and others of their methods are well documented. Do some online research and you will quickly find out WHY these are considered psychological control techniques.
Further, it did not strike you strange that they won’t let a person do it under certain medical or mental conditions but they don’t have a certified, licensed psychologist present in case a previously healthy person has an emotional breakdown? They don’t because they want everyone to have a little breakdown and THEY want to be there to catch them. If they were legitimate they would probably not do those exercises or if they did they would have licensed professionals there to handle the fallout.
Why on earth would this be the best setting for someone with BIG issues like previous abuse or something where an emotional breakdown could be devastating?
Lastly, like any cult-like organization… not everyone succumbs to it, but that doesn’t mean it is not cult-like in its methods or practices.
I dont know where you were at or what you are talking about. I was thinking freely the whole time. Im still having breakthroughs years later and not just after dinner. The tools i learned through Landmark Education I am still using in my life today~
I’m with you Josie. I did the entire curriculum 15 years or so ago. Changed my life in a very profound & positive way and the breakthroughs have continued to come after all this time. I disagree that one may not get much out of the Landmark forum if he or she doesn’t have serious problems. I really had no huge issues or problems in my life but gained a great deal from the Landmark Forum. I also disagree with the notion that Landmark is just a business out to make money. Landmark’s main goal is to help people live lives they love the money one pays to attend Landmarks programs helps pay for overhead costs etc. Sure they “make money” but I don’t believe that is the primary goal.
Allyson,
Thanks for the comment. Here’s my question, though. How do you suggest people go about changing their lives? Landmark may have some unique approaches to certain issues; however, there seems to be a certain positivity associated to the techniques.
If it’s assumed that people going to Landmark are going to Landmark to work on issues, then it can be assumed that they indeed do have “issues.” If after the Landmark forum, these individuals have issues, it’s not to say that Landmark gave them the issues, just they didn’t solve them.
If someone has a headache and then they take two aspirin; if they still have a headache after they took the aspirin, that doesn’t mean that the aspirin caused the headache. It’s true that people have stuff wrong with them, but if they have stuff wrong with them going in to Landmark and if Landmark doesn’t fix their problems, then Landmark can’t be blamed for them.
I mean, that’s the thing, though, how then do we help people to change their lives for the better? Landmark has its techniques and other organizations have their techniques. Personally I didn’t see anything wrong with Landmark’s techniques. Did I think any of them were cult-ish? NO, absolutely not. I did think a few of their ideas and exercises were stupid, but definitely not cultish.
With all that said; I can see how it becomes associated with cult-like signs. I’m reminded of the example of AA. A lot of people who are alcoholics join AA and AA can, for some of them, become a kind of cult. Now, AA is there to help people, and it’s not meant as a cult, but some people turn it into one of those things, where it becomes their lives. It could be meant as a good thing, and it could actually be a good thing, but things happen.
I’d leave you with this axiom: “Some times it’s the Indian, not the arrow.”
If people leave Landmark and start blaming their bad behavior on Landmark, it could just be that they’re looking for a scapegoat (they’d rather blame the arrow for the problem then the Indian (themselves)) maybe before Landmark they blamed all their problems on their parents or their crappy job or their spouse.
I firmly believe that Landmark is absolutely harmless and does a lot of good for a lot of people, and if someone leaves Landmark and becomes depressed or thinks that their life is messed up, chances are that person was already messed up and Landmark just wasn’t able to give them the help they needed (see aspirin analogy).
I, many of my family members and friends have participated in The Landmark Forum with excellent results. There is a great article in the New York Times on Landmark at http://nyti.ms/h8Zxzx.
John,
Glad to hear it, and thanks for the link.
Thanks for a great no-nonsense run-down of the Landmark Forum. I agree almost 100% with everything you’ve said, with one important exception which I’ll come to in a moment.
But first I must clear up a couple of misconceptions and outright untruths in the comments you’ve already attracted.
1) Whether or not the course is “expensive” is purely a question of what value you get from it. I ceratinly got way more value than the cost, and so did almost everyone I know. It’s certainly a far lower price than any other Personal Development offering that I’ve ever come across. You get 40 hours of training – that’s about $12 an hour! If you take up the free 10 week follow-up seminar (which is a good idea actually), you get 70 hours training and that comes to $7 an hour. There are basket weaving classes that cost more than that!
2) Actually it’s not true that the courses keep getting more expensive – after the Advanced Course they get cheaper and cheaper, siome time to a ridiculous extent.
OK, so the one issue I had with what you said is the suggestion that it’s only for people who have serious problems. I had no significant complaints about my life and did the Forum mainly out of curiosity, but I got masses out of it. A couple of examples:
a) My wife and I already had a truly great relationship that didn’t need “fixing” in any way; but since the Forum the inevitable disagreements that crop up in every marriage get dealt with in minutes rather than months (or worse yet, carry on festering forever).
b) I’m an amateur highboard diver, and at 54 I’d assumed that my competition days were over. I got to see that this was just a story I’d invented and I could choose another one. Six months later I got a bronze medal in the British Masters Championships. Ten years later I’m still competing regularly at National and International levels, and sometimes winning my age-group.
Derek,
I think you’re totally right, the course isn’t that expensive. When I first got back from Iraq I took a bunch of self-help and personal development courses and a lot of them were A LOT more expensive to take. The Landmark Forum and courses like it are designed to change someone’s life, for the better, so of course they’re going to cost some amount of money; but you’re absolutely right, the price is well worth it.
I can see what you mean with your second point, and it’s awesome that you’re doing so well! I guess what I was trying to say was that to get something BIG out of the program, then you’ve got to have something BIG to work on. I had already done a lot of personal development prior to going, and the Landmark Forum was talked up so much that I was expecting a huge “Pop” when I went there. But no huge “Pop” came.
At the price it can’t be beat, and it does seem like a very useful and valuable program; however, I’d say this, there’s been so many Landmark graduates that have gone out and written books and done different programs, that if you’ve done any other type of work or read the books, it’s going to come across as redundant. It was a type of “been there, done that.” It was still great to go there and see all these other people have these great moments and realizations, but Landmark was just so talked up that I was expecting one of those big ‘Pops’ myself, and in that aspect Landmark failed to deliver (and yes, I did all the assigned exercises) I just think that it was one of those things that to have a big pop, you need to have a big issue. If you don’t have a big issue, then there can’t be a big pop.
That being said, I’ve heard amazing things about “The Advanced Forum” and I have been thinking about taking that, just to see what it was like.
Hi Anthony
Thanks for the response. I’d encourage you to go ahead and try the Advanced Course – I personally found it at least ten times more impressive than the Forum itself for several reasons: 1) Everyone in the room has already gone through the Forum and dealt with all those basic struggles; 2) It introduces the idea of Transformation on the level of Group and Society, opening up an opportunity to contribute to others rather than being preoccupied with our individual personal troubles; and 3) It trains you how to apply what you learned in the Forum in all the various challenges that life may throw at you.
You didn’t seem to suggest that you were doing the free ‘Forum in Action’ seminar series. At 3 hours a week it’s not very onerous and it’s a chance to run through the distinctions at a lesiurely pace. Lots of people pick up on something big that passed them by completely in the Forum itself.
Hello Anthony,
I have a question that I would like you and your readers to address. You recommend that people with serious issues should do the forum and yet that is at odds with what Landmark itself says in it’s disclaimer. Why?
Daniel,
Thanks for the comment and question. Here’s what I meant.
If someone is going through a divorce or just lost a loved one, or is dealing with an emotional or alcoholic addiction, then I think Landmark would help them.
However, if someone is dealing with a serious condition like Schizophrenia, then of course I’m not saying that Landmark would help them with that. And I think that’s what Landmark meant by their statement.
So, I suppose, it’s all a matter of semantics and wording.
Thanks,
I agree that semantics has a lot to do with whether or not one should take the Landmark program. Especially when it is hard to tell even in cases like you cited; divorce, addiction, etc. that there isn’t some underlying emotional disturbance that might have instigated their current problems. Sometimes life’s a crapshoot and we just try to to do the best we can.
Actually, if you are dealing with alchohol, the Landmark Forum is hit-or-mist. Seriously, it’s not meant for people serious emotional or chemical problems, and I’ve done more Landmark Courses than you can shake a stick at. Actually, there is an agreement not to drink even a drop of alchohol during the whole weekend, so someone would have to be completely dry even to walk in the door. Same goes for drugs. Better stick with AA, and when the person is sober, and committed to staying sober, THEN do the Landmark Forum to get at the issues behind the chemical problem. The LF will also not address whatever metabolic imbalances are behind depression, alchoholism, etc., and although one will hear miraculous stories even in this direction, that’s not what the course is designed for. I suspect most of these rambling comments about LE being a cult are from people who have serious emotional problems that are best dealt with by a therapist.
That having been said, for most people the LF and it’s other courses are extraordinary – I got my life out of them. It’s rather amusing sometimes, to read some of the negative comments: “they tried to brainwash me…. well, but I did get a whole new relationship with my father…. but they tried to brainwash me….” I completely agree with you, it’s a self-development program, nothing more – it’s as much of a cult or brain-washing as a speed-reading course.
As to cost, I was out work for over a year when I did the LF, and, among other benefits, got back into my carreer, which has been worth, from then to this date, over 500,000 €. So just in cash money alone, the course was worth about 1,000 times what I paid for it!
We will probably just have to agree to disagree, but to answer your question Michael, I think if people want to change their lives, there are very VERY many ways of doing it . These include reflection, reading-study and discussion of philosophy at the source (not someone else’s version), reading the vast and standard self help or improvement literature, therapy, cognitive therapy, self aware and d selfdirected NLP or affirmations, self-aware and self-directed hypnosis, (notice the use of the words self-aware and self-directed) education, or sometimes just by pulling themselves up by the bootstraps.
If people have “issues” then they are well advised to resolve them in a setting with the properly accredited and trained professionals of their choosing, whose methods have been opened to general scrutiny so that you know clearly what they are trying to accomplish, in advance of trying it, and there are systems in place for them to be held responsible if they aren’t living up to the ethics of their profession.
Interesting, isn’t it, that the confidentiality expectations among psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, etc, falls upon the practitioner, rather than the participant. That tells us something very critical.
The aspirin analogy doesn’t even bear discussion, it’s idiotic.
You mention AA and interestingly it often IS defined as an organization with cult-like qualities, and sometimes even as a cult. Major differences however are that when someone participates in AA, they know clearly in advance what the specific goal is, they know the methods that will used to obtain them, there is not great secrecy around their methods.
Landmark is definitely a cult that was created by a cheezy, twice divorced ex-used car salesman who changed his name from John Rosenberg to Werner Erhard. They use 3 specific high pressure pyscological sales techniques in their seminars: 1. Group Pressure 2. Mental Fatigue 3. Language Manipulation. The Landmark Forum (I attended in Feb 1991) is basically a 40 hour long sales pitch for the next course.
Tom, you took the course in 1991 – more than 20 years ago. In the two decades that have passed, the intellectual property was sold by Erhard, purchased by the employees, and has been improved upon many times over – similar to how we’ve gone from the telephone, to dial-up internet, to … wireless, smart phones, ipads… Maybe it’s time to try the 21st century Landmark Forum.
Michael,
Great post. I took the est seminar years ago as well as some of their follow up seminar. is it a cult? I think everything can be a cult for a person that is looking for a cult leader. I mean really, any church can be a cult if you become a zealot. Any political idea can be a cult if you allow yourself to lose objectivity and swallow it hook, line and sinker. I think est was a great experience though looking back I don’t agree with all of their methods. I think Tony Robbins has things to offer though I don’t “follow” Tony Robbins. Some do…maybe for them it’s a cult. My point is, just like your description of the “perception of an experience” vs. the reality, anything can be perceived as a cult based on where the insecurities of the person viewing it are.
I don’t personally believe that est or Landmark are cults but I do believe they use extensive, high pressure sales techniques. I don’t care for them but cult? No.
Anyway, nice post.
Thanks
MIke
Interesting perspective. I too am a veteran, and think this course should replace TAP training for those leaving the service (for non-military types, TAP is the program service members have to take before getting discharged to help them transition to civilian life). I disagree that Landmark gives the most value for people with “serious issues,” though…my life was great when I did the course 4 years ago, but the Landmark Forum took it from that to a new level I didn’t even know existed. I taught in Africa and ran the New York marathon within a year and a half of doing this course…totally unpredictable. A better way of putting it from my perspective is that Landmark delivers a ton of value for everyone that is serious about having it work for them, not just those with “serious issues.” Granted, those that are seriously unhappy might be more likely to be serious about having it work, but that’s not always the case.
If Landmark is a “Cult,” my attitude is we need way more cults in this world!!! They certainly work better than the things we have come to think of as “normal.” Normal is boring.
Serious problems as you mention should be handled by psychiatrics or medical doctors!!! Not some business with a group course without any certifications.
You would not want them performing brain surgery on you, neither should you consult them for serious issues. Go see a doctor if you have serious issues.
Hello, people reading this article!
I just want to say that I have participated in several of Landmark’s courses and I have found them to be awesome.
So much of my life has changed so dramatically, in such a positive way, that simple comment to this posting can’t contain it.
I am getting married in less than a year, and I’m wildly in love with my future wife! I’ve gone from being a high school English teacher (which I loved to start with), to working full-time as a professional webinar facilitator as well as building a part-time business that will retire my family so we can work from home full-time! I’ve surrounded myself with many intelligent, funny, thoughtful and caring people, a few of whom have done the Landmark Forum, and most of whom have not!
In other words, I’m one satisfied customer!
Hmm. I am a writer and coach among many other things. The main thing I want to chime in on is this: I think that the “pitching” of other Landmark Education programs within their programs is completely appropriate. How else is anyone going to find out about their programs. They do NOT advertise. And if they DID advertise and market like a mainstream business, their tuition would go way up.
As a long time graduate and someone who has assisted, of course, I am biased. That said, I’m also quite experienced in the world and I want Landmark to do well as a business so that it can continue providing what it provides for people: relatively low cost access to the dreams that have eluded them so far.
Everyone has gotten some of the things that they set out for; many of us have “blind spots.” I think that Landmark truly excels at allowing people to get profound glimpses at their own blind spots and then, routes to take significant action(s) to pursue their heart’s desires.
As for the coaching that people must have serious issues? I don’t agree with that at all. A lot of people have resigned to a quiet surrender to just putting up with “stuff” that’s neither serious or difficult but just can’t see past it. The Forum can be a real mirror that changes one’s own standards about how they want to live the rest of their lives; as a “ho-hum” existence or as a vital expression of their deepest selves. I pick the latter, and that’s what I got out of the Forum.
I have heard many pros and cons about Landmark, so I thoroughly checked out both view points. I have found very, very few negatives from people who actually participated in The Landmark Forum. The vast majority of the negative comments, including those on anti-cult sites, are from people who haven’t even taken The Landmark Forum, which is strange to me. Here are some of the positive things I have found; many are from very credible places.
New York Times story: http://tinyurl.com/4jasfby
Business Week/Panda Express story: http://tinyurl.com/4ln53am
Landmark Education in The News: http://tinyurl.com/49zjxmg
Pat Summerall on Discovery Channel http://www.tinyurl.com/4177kwl
Top 100 Adventures Rates The Landmark Forum as # 3 http://www.tinyurl.com/26z5w23
Landmark forum – cult, scam, or path to enlightenment? February 2011 http://tinyurl.com/6k2ucqo
Recent Participant http://www.tinyurl.com/4p6x8u7
Wall Street Journal April 16, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/4y9gy7c
Live A Better Life By Improving Your Communication Skills – CBS TV Los Angeles July, 2011- http://tinyurl.com/3d5jsu3
Landmark Forum: Creating a new relationship with your father Inlaw http://tinyurl.com/3c7aryv
so the here is my question about cults-from what I understand about cults is that they try to remove you from your family and friends-Landmark is about restoring your relationships and having even better ones-how is that a cult? Cults do not leave you alone-Landmark’s policies is after 18 months of no partipation they can not contact you you must contact them. and before that if you ask not to be contacted they will not-not much like a cult is it!?
I have been around Landmark for over 30 years and the only comment I would make is if you have drug or alcohol problems go to AA or treatment, after you get “well” then do the Landmark Forum not before And you do not need BIG problems to do the Forum it is for people up to big things and want to grow as a human being and have better relatonships with family and work and so on.
WE all have stuff from our past that gets in our way in the Forum you get to put the past in the past so that you can get on with it. Now that is what the Forum is about!
I liked your report on the Forum and Landmark Education. I think in recent years they have softned their “sales” approach but remember it is a business and business is in the business of making money.
They use cognative behavior theory as the basis for much of the ideas and language employed. There are many other theorists who suggest much of the same concepts, so the “technology” is not new, but just well presented.
I know Landmark spent a fortune on research to see if they are actually a cult or not. One of the biggest strikes against the theory of it being a cult is that all of the programs encourage you to invite all of your friends and family. Depending on when you took the forum… it was more than encouraged. The anti cult people all said that this goes against cult like behavior. The standard cult looks to separate you from your F&F and landmark survives on your F&F!
They have strict rules about employees and volunteers doing business with eachother. They are careful not to even have a hint of taking advantage to the emotionally charged newly graduated forum participants.
I am not a spokesperson for landmark. What I say is based on my experience and opinion. I have told people numerous times… going to landmark is like going to a museum… you go and experience interesting things that will be with you as long as the memory exsists… your life is often enriched if what they have is what you are looking for… but if you don’t go to a museum, like landmark… you can still have an amazing life without it!
It is not for everyone. Each person’s perspective is different. I too went to prove it wrong and very quickly saw that who is the fool to pay that much and spend the whole time mad or in dissent! So I listened and some of it made sense and has provided value…
The greatest gift landmark has given me is a shared language to speak with my wife… we both have gone on to study other behavior theory and the language of landmark gives us a shared platform to discuss this. There were other nuggets too, but being able to speak the same language with your wife is priceless!
Thank you for your consideration and willingness to listen and look at it.
Woo-ha! What a bunch of controversy over Landmark. My goodness, you would think that people are so weak minded that they wouldn’t realize the fact that real programming, the type they are so worried about, is not detectible. It is a bit like stupidity. I’ve never met a stupid person that knew they were stupid. Stupid people think that they are smart! I have met smart people who sometimes think they are stupid.
In like fashion, the people I meet who have their minds heavily programmed (programmed = you believe someone else’s thoughts and ideas are your own thoughts and ideas) have no idea that they spend their lives arguing from a position of absolute ignorance of the subject they speak about. This isn’t an insult. Smart people who are programmed do this all the time because they don’t realize that they have been indoctrinated through programming into a “cult-like” perspective. That is they believe that their opinions are based on fact, but they are not.
Examples show this best. Landmark is the topic here. I have taken several Landmark seminars. For that matter, over the past few decades I have taken a number of personal growth seminars like Landmark. The idea has been around since the 1960s. Is it programming? Is it a cult? In a word, No. And, yes, some participants act like “born-again Landmarkers” for a while. There are some people in America, good people, who need a (metaphorical) whack in the head to wake up to themselves. They are so heavily programmed with other people’s thoughts and ideas that they truly cannot have an original thought. They have no idea who they are.
These people–programmed personalities–do have inklings of who they are. It is very, very difficult to program someone so deeply that they have no sub-consious memory of themselves. But, on the surface in their day-to-day lives, they are automatons spewing forth the propaganda of other people’s thoughts, beliefs, and ideas. What these people demonstrate (quiet correctly) is a sense of unhappiness and dissatisfaction with themselves. Their lives are unfulfilling to them and they don’t understand why. Organizations like Landmark do a great job acting as a mirror to allow people to see themselves, many for the first time in decades, as they really are.
The process of breaking through a lifetime of programming crusted over a personality is often filled with painful “letting go” and ends in a euphoric freedom that for a while is blissful. It is this blissful state that some people mistake for more than it really is. It does wear off and life does return. However, the person who has had this experience is forever changed so that when life returns, they make decisions that are more in tune with what brings them satisfaction and fulfillment–also known as happiness.
If you are “afraid” of a Landmark style personal life training, the odds are that you are speaking from a programmed perspective. It is healthy to question before, during and after. And, there is nothing holy about Landmark. It is a business. Yes they market to you. If they don’t they will disappear, the work will end, and the awakening process will fade. I’m not affiliated with Landmark, not trying to sell it to you, and not really interest if you try their trainings or not.
What I am interested in is that more people wakeup from their programming and companies like Landmark specialize in doing that. So, how do you tell if you are programmed? It is pretty simple. Ask, are you happy? Then, rather than listen to your mind’s answer, feel your body’s response. Your body won’t trick you, but your mind may. Are you happy with your career, your marriage, your body image, or the company you now work at? I don’t mean brimming with enthusiasm, life still sucks on certain days, but if you had it all to do over, would you change anything? If visiting these ideas creates pain or discomfort, then you are absolutely normal, and you have been programmed to live someone else’s life story–that’s all. And, you can un-program yourself so that you live your story. Easy? Yes. Uncomfortable? Very. Life saving? Every day!
Before you damn an organization like Landmark as a cult, ask yourself if maybe the cult that if filling your head with propaganda is something your already belong to. Learn about the impact of television in programming the brain. About the meta messages given to you hundreds of times every day in the United States that attempt to put another person’s thoughts into your head. Look around your home at all the ‘junk’ you thought you needed at the time, but now has become a burden because you never really needed it at all–someone else needed you to need it and you did for a little while.
Blessings to all.
wow
I agree with C, wow. I think you are on the mark.
Why do people obsess on this Landmark cult/scam idea? There’s so many more interesting things to talk about, such as how the programs work and whether or not they benefit people.
As an aside, I think the cult talk stems from the popularization of the term cult to go beyond the traditional definition involving people giving away their possessions and going to a compound to chant, and evolving into a general definition of some mass movement that seems cliquish, hard to understand, and a bit creepy. Of course, under this definition, the Boston Red Sox and followers of Ron Paul are more cultish than Landmark.
Returning to the realm of sanity, here’s other objective reviews of Landmark that I don’t think anyone’s posted on this thread:
Yelp Reviews of Landmark
It’s Not a Cult (funny website name) review of Landmark Forum
“I’ve never met a stupid person that knew they were stupid.”
That quote I will certainly remember LOL
One of the things I think that has gotten missed is why does Landmark Education exist? What it isn’t is a self help group, there for people with “problems” etc. What Landmark is pointing to is what is it to be a human being. Not from a survival point of view which as a race we have come along way. Landmark asks us to have a look at what would be possible if that restraint wasn’t there anymore. How is that restraint impacting other area’s of your life like relationships, Health, finance etc. Landmark exist for people who want more out of life. I have gained a tremendous amount from attending the courses Landmark offer so much so that the “problems’ I thought I had actually weren’t problem’s at all just things I didn’t know were in the way of me being able to make the difference that i wanted to. You do have to be ready to take on the course as it can be confronting to have to look at yourself and who you are being in life but when you do you become more committed to life because you can’t lie top yourself anymore and can be bitter sweet. I say Landmark course aren’t for the faint hearted they are for people up to big stuff.
For more information about veterans and Landmark Education, you can also visit here: http://landmarkforveterans.wordpress.com/
As the author said in his summery of Day 1, you are an idiot. It’s not worth saying anything else on the subject.
I did read all the way through these posts and I’m glad there are so many positive ones. To answer the first post directly, I, too, have first-hand experience. I wasn’t hypnotised, didn’t feel foggy, I never sounded weird or robot-like (I called plenty of people who afterwards thanked me for my call). I read a good quote about Landmark – it it’s a cult, it’s the only cult that sends you back to your family. Michael, I like your post but Landmark doesn’t MAKE you do anything at any stage. As far as being expensive goes, companies spend thousands on sending their employees on courses. Education is expensive. I realise all of this has been said above but this is for anyone who just reads the first and last post on this thread, lol.
Michael, thank you for writing this post, it got a really good discussion going.
I HAVE JUST TO SAY LANDMARK EDUCATION PROGRAMES ARE UNIQUE ONES.
Purnima 2 things in have changed my life one is study at IIT and other is Landmark, this is what a friend had told me lots of years back and this is wat I remembered when I was totally down. So i thought let me give it a try. So without even mentioning it the same friend, I went all alone to landmark introduction course. and then ohhhhhhhh how my life changed. It was a wonderful self discovery….
What i really got was I was able to accept myself. Lots of small things and lots of big things too…..
What I got from landmark is much much more than what I paid for it. I was able to look into myself. I was able to analyse my behaviour and patterns and find out what was behind the same. I discovered me.
I read somewhere Landmark forum was in TOP 10 list of things that people fear…..
Yes I asked (still tell if asked the opinion) my f&f to do landmark…. though not many have done it…. i wanted them to get what i got…. and it was freedom….
I have done landmark forum, landmark advance course (this was one of the best things i hv done in life. It was 4 days at that time) , SELP and some other seminars….. I have also assisted at Landmark. Though from past some years i have not been there.
I am really greatful to LANDMARK. Thank you landmark.
I love landmark.
I went to a Landmark Forum a few weeks ago in California and I had an interesting experience and I can see both sides of the argument. There were moments when I thought it was very cult like and then were moments were I thought that this was a very useful organization/program/technique.
Here’s what I thought was cult like:
At the Landmark Forum they make you agree not to drink and to stay in the room and come on time and they make you give your word and raise your hand. And I kind of had a problem with that because anyone who did have a problem with it (one guy) the Forum Leader kind of brow beat him until the guy agreed to the terms and it was just kind of weird. I agree with the idea that people should be able to go at least three days without drinking and without being late and it’s funny to think that it’s even an issue to agree not to drink alcohol for three days and to show up on time but what kind of erked me the wrong way was that the Forum Leader didn’t really take time out to listen to the guy it just seemed like he was using mind techniques to out-smart the guy and get him to do things the Landmark way.
Which, I do agree with partially and partially I don’t agree with. I think that if something is the right things to do then it’s not that bad of a thing to trick and/or use tricky wording to get someone to do the right things, but at the same time it seems kind of shady to watch someone be tricked/out-smarted at a seminar.
Here’s why I think it’s not a cult:
In my mind cults are cults because they have sinister motives and have sinster intentions. Landmark Forum in my mind has only good motives and good intentions. Sure they make money from doing the seminars but they’re running a business and their business is changing lives. For all the tricky wording I thought they were doing–and they were–it worked! I saw people on stage crying (including the guy from the first day who objected to having to agree not to drink, etc) it was an amazing experience and if this group is classified as a cult then maybe not all cults are bad.
I think you make a good point in the debate, a lot of it depends on how we classify a cult. Maybe it is a cult and maybe not all cults are bad. Not saying it’s true or not, just an interesting point.