Comments on: Is Landmark Forum a Cult?

By: Sarah Clark

Sarah Clark — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:02:00 +0000

I went to the intro thing last night. I’ve never heard about it and my friend asked me to go. As she’s my friend and it seemed important to her, I thought that I could go and support her. While some of the things that they talk about are good and have been used in therapy, there’s a big problem with the over all program. Let me illustrate. I got up to do the demo and we covered some issues that I have been dealing with. People were amazed at how fast I arrived at my conclusions. They applauded, I felt embarrassed that I was telling this stuff in front of so many strangers. The problem was the reason I had “gotten” it so fast was because I had already been dealing with these same issues with a therapist. I didn’t learn anything new about myself. Unlike a good therapist that wants you to eventually be well enough to not need them anymore, the Landmark Forum just sells all these seminars and keeps you going. I felt really pressured to sign up after that. Why would I pay hundreds of dollars to learn things about myself that I actually already knew and was getting help for? My insurance is picking up most of the tab. Not to mention that I was getting to a place where I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel for my therapy. I’m now to go to one session after another, after another and pay a lot of my money towards it? That seemed counterproductive. There was something wrong about it, about what I was learning from that forum. Something that felt really off for me besides the money thing and the embarrassment to tell complete strangers about the pain that I experience in my life.

I did some research and found that the Landmark Forum has ties with Scientology. I have heard way too many horror stories about Scientology to be bought into it’s cousin, Landmark. So, I’ll happily pass on this, complete my therapy, and really get on with my life instead of pretending to while being tied down to going to seminars after seminars after seminars and paying through the nose in the process. No thanks.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:22:00 +0000

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.

By: poetry_petunia1

poetry_petunia1 — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 06:11:00 +0000

This is not so much a reply as addendum for those considering the experience. I took the Landmark Forum beginning and advanced, and the program is not run by a cult. Cults have crazed ego-driven leaders and dogma. Landmark does not. Landmark has intense exercises, which if you are neurotic or naive, might be shocking or destabilizing. People who have examined their lives and problems but feel stymied or unfulfilled can be helped by Landmark sessions. The leaders I had were excellent. They were one part zen master, one part entertainer, one part motivational guide and one part sharing human being. The mix works. Exhausting the defenses is a time-honored technique of therapists, spirit guides and friends! If you want to keep your arsenal of ineffective behaviors in tact, don’t go to these classes. Some exercises involve west coast Asian teachings. The courses are a heady combination of eastern wisdom and western can do. The Landmark philosophy involves change. I can understand people dropping out, but I can’t understand the wrath. I think much of that is fear-based. Cults drive people to dependency. Other than wanting you to take their courses and tell others to take them, I’m pretty sure they don’t want you hanging around. Some people like to facilitate. I never did and no one from Landmark ever tried to coerce me or pressure me to continue the relationship. Thus, no cult! Good luck, seekers of better lives. Christy

By: Jerry

Jerry — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 07:15:00 +0000

Danielle commented:
the top results all refer to it as being very cultish, but my friend and
I have had conversations that lead me to believe it really has
generated positive value in her life.

Don’t most cult members feel this way, at least for a while?

By: JackSF

JackSF — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 04:05:00 +0000

To clarify another misunderstanding about the course study, [Landmark] is NOT est.

Richard: That’s the current Landmark line on the subject and it is deeply misleading. The Landmark Forum is a kinder, gentler, shorter and somewhat modified version of The est Training. But if you’ve done both, as I have, it is pretty much like seeing the TV remake of an old movie. Not the same, true, but quite similar and with the same message.

Basically they toned down the boot camp aspects of est and made a few changes:

* They dropped the bathroom restriction. However, if you leave the room on your own, you void getting the promised benefits of the Forum.
* The trainer is now called the leader and behaves less like a drill instructor. The old est trainers would literally get right in your face and start shouting at you.
* The assistants aren’t quite so cold and robotic. (I’ve assisted at both.)
* The so-called “Fear Process” is now so mild you could practically sleep through it.
* The hours are much more reasonable and the leader follows the schedule much more closely. Back in the est days the sessions could go way past midnight.
* Some parts of the est Training (4.5 days) were dropped or moved to the Landmark Advanced Course.
* The concepts and jargon have evolved some since est.
* Materials similar to Scientology, Mind Dynamics and Silva Mind Control have been removed.
* Werner Erhard is almost never mentioned by name.

I’d be hard-pressed to say whether The Forum is better than The Training. It’s certainly less scary and less of a PITA. It’s less vulnerable to charges of cultism and threats of lawsuits. I’d also say it seems to have less impact on people — though the Forum can still deliver quite a punch as you testify. But back in the est days, people rolled out of The Training like early Christians on fire with redemption and a new gospel to transform the world. Est graduates were so enthusiastic that they could convince people to pay money to attend an introduction, i.e. sales pitch, to The Training.

Have fun and play safe!

By: Petaleater

Petaleater — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 19:23:00 +0000

Here’s a detailed account of exactly what happens in the landmark forum, that indulges in neither boosterism nor alarmism, that tells exactly what happens. It also addresses the whole ‘cult’ accusation.

http://thirtytwothousanddays.com/blog/2011/02/landmark-forum-cult-scam-or-path-to-enlightenment/

By: Bob Morgan

Bob Morgan — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:17:00 +0000

It won’t be long before you decide to be “Authentic” with your boss and get fired or quit . . . . . .
- then you will be volunteering as non-paid staff for this cult and you life will be set on a downward spiral financially as well as every other aspect of your life.
WAKE THE F*$K UP you dip-stick !

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:42:00 +0000

So did you ever go?

By: Richard

Richard — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 04:00:00 +0000

Hey Danielle! I was skeptical at first too and also did my reading up and was even more skeptical about The Landmark Forum! However, like you, I was invited by two different friends that it would be a helpful course to assist me with life changes I was going through and decided I would give them my trust and go for it.

In June 2010, I completed The Landmark Forum… and it’s transformed my LIFE! I totally understand about the “cultish” feeling that folks talk about, but those folks have likely never actually been through and/or applied the course content in their lives. If they did, they wouldn’t use these discriptors to describe the course.

So, beyond that, being SO impressed by The Landmark Forum, I immediately enrolled into the Advanced Course. This course was SOOOO intense and amazing. It takes the Forum to a WHOLE new level.

I’m currently in Boston with my sister (who lives in Maine). After hearing be talk about the changes it’s made in my life she decided to come down to Boston to attend the course herself. She’s having a blast! I was really kinda scared she wouldn’t like the course, but she’s SOO happy that she stood up in front of a room of 150ish people tonight to thank me for traveling all the way from Seattle and introducing this course to her life… everyone in the room was in tears by the time she was done.

To clarify another misunderstanding about the course study, it is NOT est. Est is the OLD program (granted it is the “origin” program). The est program had a strange reputation of not letting people go to the bathroom and all kinds of other weird manipulation…. The Landmark Forum, in current form, is nothing like that. The only resemblance is they both create life transformations.

Anyway, sorry this post is two years late, but hope you’d still consider the course. I have yet to meet anyone who completed the actual 3.5 day course who didn’t come out with new and powerful insights to their new life. I know that sounds weird…

Who do you know involved in Landmark? Maybe I know them! DM me on twitter to let me know!

By: NewtoForex

NewtoForex — Sat, 15 May 2010 23:25:22 +0000

Pardon me. Does someone realize how to find a smart Expert Avisor from bad and a true signal from fake? sorry for inconvinience