"Landmark Forum"

[Triana]

Does anyone here know anything about this. What is it and what's it about? Some people call it a cult but is it?

?

Curious.

[wakeme2008]

1. Very much a cult....

I lost a friend to it.

She lost all interest in life other than doing Landmark Forum work after her normal job. She ended up going to "help" at Landmark classes 5 nights a week.

When she was not at classes at night, she was on the phone calling people to take classes up til 9-10 at night.

[Triana]

5. I read/heard that...

...a lot of people end their marriages/dump their S.O.s after taking it too because all their time and energy goes towards LF.

[tenshi816]

2. Completely, absolutely a cult

that messes with people's minds, takes over their lives and leaves them broke as well. It's as insidious and dangerous as Scientology.

I lost a friend to it a couple of years ago. Over the course of a few months, I saw a formerly sensible-yet-fun-loving, intelligent woman turn into an automaton who claimed she was "the happiest I've ever been in my life" over and over, yet who clearly didn't appear to be happy. She spent all her waking hours trying to convince friends and acquaintances to attend Landmark classes, and worked at least 5 days a week as an unpaid volunteer for Landmark. It became the focus of her life and she became incapable of talking about anything else.

I remember her telling me it would "fix what was wrong in my life". When I replied that there was nothing in my life that I felt needed "fixing", she tut-tutted at me and said that I would never truly know myself until I had experienced Landmark Forum, and that my happiness was fake. (Apparently I needed someone from Landmark to validate me.)

Have a look at this website if you want more information about Landmark: http://www.rickross.com. Rick Ross is a professional deprogrammer and he has a comprehensive cult website. The site contains a whole big load of information about Landmark Forum, including personal testimonies from former cult members. If you click on the Group Information Database link on the left hand side of the page, it will take you to an alphabetized list.

If you're contemplating becoming involved with Landmark, I strongly urge you not to, at least not until you read more about it. It's a frightening organization that destroys lives.

[Triana]

6. Uhh...

...The rickross info sounds like a mental 'boot camp'. I don't think I'd go to the thing, but my friend has a LF 'graduate' pressuring him to go - she's trying to get him to go to one of the 'intro' sessions (FREE!).

This is just scary.

[tenshi816]

7. The thing is,

those "intro" sessions are usually done as part of the "graduation" exercises of the people who invite them. From what my friend told me, her first seminar ran from Friday to Sunday, but as part of her "homework" that weekend, she had to phone someone to invite them to her "graduation" on the following Tuesday. The invitee would then attend that first Tuesday intro session free, but at the session be put under tremendous pressure to sign up for a weekend seminar. Then the whole thing starts up again with that person phoning still another person as part of his or her "homework" to invite them for a free intro session.

After I saw what Landmark did to my friend, I googled it and that's how I found the Rick Ross site, and what I found scared me a great deal. My friend, however, refused to read any of it. I haven't seen her since the spring of 2003 because Landmark took over her life. The last time I spoke to her, she told me her 18-year old daughter had signed up for a Landmark seminar as well.

You're right about the "mental bootcamp" aspect. They keep the seminar attendees in a tightly packed room for 12-15 hours at a time and won't allow them to go to the bathroom except during designated breaks several hours apart. I can't understand how any thinking adult would be willing to tolerate such treatment, especially if they're paying for the privilege.

Did you notice when you read about Landmark that it was formed by Werner Erhard, who also founded the Est program back in the 70s? He's no longer a part of Landmark, but Landmark is run by his brother, Harry Rosenberg (Werner Erhard changed his own name when he abandoned his wife and children and moved to California, where he subsequently started Est).

[Triana]

9. what is up with their use of the word...

..."extraordinary"?

They use that word a lot. It must be one of their 'keywords'.

?

[tenshi816]

10. Also "racket" and "clearing" and

"authentic" (as well as "inauthenicity") and "complete" ("Are you complete with me?). They also like "get it", as in "do you get it?" or "you just don't get it".

They also use "breakthrough" and "enlightenment" and, to me personally, those are big red flags. I don't trust anything that promises either of those things based solely on how much money someone's willing to throw at them. And from what I've read, there's always another course required to get that breakthrough needed for enlightenment.

Landmark is big on jargon.

[Triana]

12. All that phraseology ...

... definitely creeps me out and definitely reminds me of a cult. I hope my friend (who's a cheapo) will be too cheap to pay for this crap!

And all weekend - morning to midnight with only designated breaks and him having to spill his guts and sell LF to others - doesn't *seem* like something he'd like to do but...still scares me. If he thought he could get a cute date out of it, he'd do it though. He's silly in that way.

Ugh...

[warrens]

14. I attended an EST thing back in the 70s

It was at Madison Square Gardens and we went as guests of a friend who got ensnared. They ended up throwing us out when some witch asked us at intermission what we thought of ol Werner. I said, not even very good manipulation techniques, too transparent. She went after us with her fingernails, screeching that we were going to hell. Then we got tossed out. Broke my wittle heart.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

3. I know someone...

...who attended several of their classes and seemed very happy with the results. She too would not shut up about it, trying to get everyone else to go, etc. However, she didn't go for the volunteer work or any of that other stuff and it doesn't seem to have affected her in any real way. That said, she's one of the strongest and most lucid people I know, and she has NEVER been able to adequately explain to me what exactly it was about the experience that was so good. That scares me.

[Triana]

4. I have a friend who's considering it....

...I've read enough about it to question it but he hasn't. I'm afraid I'm gonna lose him. He's quite 'lucid' too and wouldn't fall for much propaganda but I dunnooo...he won't listen to me...

[Just Me]

8. I attended a seminar.

I considered it something akin to a brainwashing event. You are to accept, without question, the psychological framework/structure. Thereafter, that framework is reinforced over time. Initially, I thought it could be an empowerment tool; but, ultimately, it seemed more a vehicle for denying reality.

What I found quite chilling, afterwords, was that numerous "key" words and phrases used in the Landmark Forum framework have also been used by this administration. So, I would recommend against attending the seminar unless it's purely for the purpose of scientific evaluation.

[Matariki]

11. I know a number of people who really got a lot out of it -

people who I have a great deal of respect for and who are active in my community in positive ways. They certainly don't make it seem like a cult, in fact I've never heard them actually talk about it much. My take on it is that they were not the type of people who had some void to fill in their lives in the first place.

On the other hand, I also know someone who is very into Landmark Forums who is one of those perennial seeker types - always "working on herself". She seems to have a more cult approach to it, but I suspect that she would do that with whatever she gets into.

My conclusion from this is that the cultish aspect is more to do with *some* of the people attracted to it.

I took the forerunner of Landmark Forums - 'est' - back in the 70's and am very glad i did - it have a very positive inpact on my life. (I'm not sure, but I think they are pretty different from each other.) There was nothing cultish about it in and of itself, although I know a lot of people who did it got very excited and pushed it on other people, making it seem cultish. For that reason I never told anyone I did it until nearly 25 years later.

[Triana]

13. It probably takes a person with a very strong...

...sense of self and a strong sense of security to keep from being 'cultized' by it.

This friend of my subscribes to some other things that are sort of cultlike and a bit strange though so...it still worries me.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

15. Not at all a cult. I did the est training back in the 70's and worked for

Werner Erhard in the late 1980's.

Why some people view it as a cult probably has more to do with their interpretation of their individual friend's behavior or the fact that some people who needed therapy or weren't "winning" in therapy lied on their information form.

The Forum is for healthy people. UNfortunately sometimes people who would be better served by the mental health community sneak through although we DID screen for that at the time.

The program is for people wishing to have a breakthrough in an area in life where they feel stopped..be it family relations, communication in general or productivity on a personal or business basis.

The majority of people that I saw complete the courses over the years reported positive differences made in their lives whether they continued to participate or only took the one course.

The one complaint that people have that I feel is valid is that there was too much pressure to sign up for other courses. WHen I was on staff, I often came to blows with other staff members over this point.

They have gotten better about that in recent years.

I haven't done anything lately, but I truly reject the manner in which Rick Ross has framed the Forum.

Even the Harvard Business School's study on the Forum demonstrated it was not a cult and that for the most part people did report back positive changes in their lives.

Unfortunately SOME people will do a transformational program with a desire to FIX other people around them rather than transform their own life. There's not much we can do about those people..they are often the same people that will use religion to hit others over the head. The Forum didn't create those people and can't help it if some participants use what they learned to be righteous assholes with others.

For the record, a poster above compared the Forum to Scientology. There is NO similarity between the two programs and Scientology is actually responsible for planting many negative stories in the press about the Forum.