Something that I find very interesting about LGAT supporters – particularly those who have attended Landmark – is their claim that “you can’t knock it until you’ve tried it”. It seems quite likely that this exact argument is provided by Landmark, which allows unquestioning supporters to hold the belief that either:

• everyone who does the Forum loves it, or
• THEY didn’t apply the teachings of the course correctly, or
• THEY just weren’t ready to look honestly at themselves

All of these alternatives do not place any blame on Landmark – always on the participants (the irony of a course never accepting the least bit of responsibility for the damage it causes, yet preaching “taking responsibility” appears to be lost on adherents who, to preserve the validity of their own experience, seem completely unwilling to acknowledge the thousands of personal testimonies by people whose lives have been seriously damaged as a result of the courses.)

What also smacks of hypocrisy is the smug commentary that ”PEOPLE WHO HAVEN’T EVEN DONE THE COURSES” can’t claim that it is cult-like. This is inevitably by people who don’t have the slightest understanding of what defines a cult or what thought reform is. Because the word ‘cult' has been used differently by many different people it is easy to point out that LGATs don’t meet all of the criteria by one very specific definition. If one describes a cult as an organization that uses thought reform (as defined in Chapter 22 of Dr. Robert Jay Lifton’s book ‘Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism’ in 1961… ten years before est came into existence) then LGATs (including Landmark) use all eight techniques quite clearly. There are ample personal testimonies by Landmark graduates (both those with positive and negative experiences) as well as footage from inside the courses which paint a clear enough picture of what takes place to make a highly informed decision about whether thought reform tactics are being used.

Landmark supporters sometimes claim that commenting on the Forum without taking it is like reviewing a restaurant without eating the food. Considering that it uses a number of exercises and techniques that are well-researched it is a lot more like deciding you don’t want to eat a Big Mac in New York because you’ve eaten one in Chicago (while we’re all using thought-terminating clichés)

Landmark is a company that thrives on half-truths and manipulation. They use a statement by Dr. Margaret Singer on their website as evidence that they’re not a cult. They don’t mention that this statement was achieved through a lawsuit (duress) – it is clearly not Singer’s true opinion and she later stated that she was afraid to tell anyone what she really thought about Landmark. They also frequently make reference to a Harvard Business School case study and keep this study on their site despite the fact that Harvard has repeatedly requested that they remove it as Harvard does not endorse Landmark’s programs. A tiny disclaimer is used so that Landmark can imply that Harvard supports them. They still have the study on their site.

While using Singer as an “expert” to validate their non-cultishness, in other discussions they do all they can to discredit her – citing Raymond Fowler and the APA’s rejection of her initial study into cult-like groups. You can only get away with such blatant hypocrisy when you have unquestioning supporters who are doing all that they can to avoid acknowledging anything bad about you.

Also be very weary of the wording of their statistics. I’ve frequently seen Landmark supporters claiming that 94% of participants thought The Forum was great (this is taken directly from their website). What the study actually says is that 94% "of those surveyed" reported positive results. This data may be heavily skewed by who was actually surveyed. Landmark loves to claim that people who haven’t done the course cannot complain or make comments. Ask yourself that if you were a company that employed eight out of eight thought reform techniques (and if conversion was infinitely more likely if participants went through the whole thought reform process) wouldn’t you love to convince graduates that only brainwashed people were allowed to provide an opinion? Anyone who sees the course as oppressive, abusive and who is not convinced by the guises which hide the processes might walk out – this person is not going to be included in “those surveyed”.

Finally I’d like to point out that there are many casualties to The Forum – many of whom had no history of mental illness prior to participating. Any ‘screening’ that Landmark does is entirely inadequate, but as long as their revenues exceed the risk of out of court settlements for psychological damage they continue to operate and you (if you’re a LM attendee) continue to support this irresponsible business. Don’t pretend for a second that their videos of laughing, smiling participants come even close to providing participants with the opportunity to give their informed consent.

They are highly pushy and blatantly deceptive about what the programs involve and the true nature of them. They can do this because they employ sophisticated thought reform techniques and if they don’t convert you the chances are good that they’ll have at least convinced you that it was your fault for not enjoying it. WIN-WIN. They certainly know a lot about that.

Believe me, I was one of the casualties of Landmark. It has taken me nearly one year to piece my mind and identity back together. Doing the courses nearly caused me to commit suicide and I am sure that I became bipolar as a result. I had no previous history of mental illness.

It is a terrible, exploitative and predatory organization which teaches black and white thinking
(they tell you that you see the world as good/bad, right/wrong, win/lose etc - all aspects of depressive thinking), nihilism ("your life is empty and meaningless" which they enforce upon you as if it is a fact rather than just their point of view), circular thinking ("your life is empty and meaningless, and it is empty and meaningless that it is empty and meaningless"), aims to break down, weaken and destroy your sense of self (telling you that all you are is a "racket, strong suit meaning making machine"), is highly contradictory and often nonsensical (e.g. they say there is no such thing as the word "is"), uses meaningless statements such as "getting to nothing" and tries to get you to forget who you were by making you believe that your past is purely something that you made up, that there is no objective reality except that which is in your mind and that who you are is who you decided to be based on "failures" from your past. They tell you that you "collapse" "what happened" with "what you made it mean" and that all that ever happens in life is "what happens" and that the rest is only a "story".

They tell everyone that at the ages of 5, 15 and approx 20 or so every single person on the planet decided that we didn't belong in the world, that we thought we were all alone and that we made up an "act" which is who we pretend to be. That we are all "inauthentic". They then go on to assert that "there is no hope, no change and it is never going to get better". And so much more...

It's just destructive.

What happens in landmark is that everyone walks in as an individual. The problem is that individuals are hard to control. They then create a new identity for you over the course of a weekend. That is, during that weekend you are led to believe that you are all these terrible inauthentic horrible "jerks" and "assholes" who don't know "their ass from a whole in the ground" and that you are who they say you are.

They then get you to map your life onto the version of life that they have constructed, leading you to believe in very intense, emotionally challenging sessions where you are deprived of outside light so cannot see the passage of time, where you sit in a highly controlled environment (they control the distance of the chairs from one another, the temperature of the room etc), where your movements are monitored and where you have to listen to one person (the "leader" - even the word itself indicates that you doing the course are a follower) talking at you for 36 or more hours, with very few breaks to give you time to think, and where they distort language (they redefine words like 'decide' and 'choose' and 'integrity' to give their own meaning rather than the standard societal meaning), and give you their own world paradigm, so that you walk out of there not as yourself, but as what they have told you that you are.

They spend 36 hours with everyone talking about the problems in their life, to give you a negative view on the world, and use hypnosis to make you suggestible (that's what that 'fear' exercise is about where you sit and they tell you your'e afraid of the person next to you, and then those outside, and then those in the whole world and that everyone is afraid of you too), play on your emotions, and badger you down if you dare question them...

Once you are too tired, overwhelmed with information, suffering from sensory deprivation, emotionally drained and so on, they then talk about signing up to the next course!!

And that's just in the Forum!!!!

These people are evil. All of this just to make money?

If you buy into it, from there it is just a slippery slope.

And it is a cult. The ultimate 'leader' is still werner erhard. He just has taken himself out of the equation and made "landmark forum leader" into a clone of himself. They all learn to 'recreate' him as part of their training.

They are sick and should be shut down.

Search on this forum for postings on Landmark, there is a massive amount of critical material about the dangerous and dishonest Landmark sect, which exists only to make profit for Werner Erhard and his family.

Friends, have a look at the first three citations in this series.

They were written by me but contain links to posted material given by "Guy" who was once a Landmark Forum Leader 'FL" and then chose to describe the mechanics of it all.

[forum.culteducation.com]

A very big part of it is sleep deprivation

[www.google.com]

and, believe it or not, setting the room up in a particular way.

[forum.culteducation.com]

[forum.culteducation.com]

Has LM changed it's recruiting efforts lately?

I know a few Landmarkians who seem completely sucked into it and have made efforts to recruit me. None of them have succeeded, and they finally have not brought it up. ( so I thought...)

Recently I was invited to hear one of them speak at a non LM function by another Landmarkian. The person mentioned that the speaker did not agree with the aggressive recruiting efforts and felt that people should come to LM on their own free will. The topic is not about LM, but these people bring it up at many opportunities. What LM has done is infiltrate other public events in the area and then bring it up. So you don't get invited to a LM event, but another one, and they are there as a sideline.

Well, this only looked to me like a wolf in sheep clothing. I know the speaker is a charismatic person who can be very influential, even if he does not say it outright. I don't believe for an instance that recruitment is not the goal of this talk.

I am not going.. but wonder if this is a new LM strategy...

Quote
paperlane11
Has LM changed it's recruiting efforts lately?

I know a few Landmarkians who seem completely sucked into it and have made efforts to recruit me. None of them have succeeded, and they finally have not brought it up. ( so I thought...)

Recently I was invited to hear one of them speak at a non LM function by another Landmarkian. The person mentioned that the speaker did not agree with the aggressive recruiting efforts and felt that people should come to LM on their own free will. The topic is not about LM, but these people bring it up at many opportunities. What LM has done is infiltrate other public events in the area and then bring it up. So you don't get invited to a LM event, but another one, and they are there as a sideline.

Well, this only looked to me like a wolf in sheep clothing. I know the speaker is a charismatic person who can be very influential, even if he does not say it outright. I don't believe for an instance that recruitment is not the goal of this talk.

I am not going.. but wonder if this is a new LM strategy...

Not really a new strategy - they've been doing that sort of thing for years with their sub-company called " Landmark Education Business Development " - which operated from 1993 to 2007 as LEBD then changed its name to " Vanto Group " for some unknown odd reason ... ???

Landmark Education Business Development aka LEBD aka Vanto Group has as its CEO Steven Zaffron.

Zaffron first became an executive for Werner Erhard and was an “est trainer” in Erhard’s company “Erhard Seminars Training” (Outrageous Betrayal by Steven Pressman, St. Martin’s Press: 1993, page 217). Currently, Zaffron serves the Landmark Education corporation as CEO of “Vanto Group”, formerly known as “Landmark Education Business Development”, and in addition, Zaffron has the highest-ranking “trainer” title in Landmark Education called “Landmark Forum Leader”.

Interestingly, in a publication by Steven Zaffron as its author, “The Promise of Philosophy and the Landmark Forum”, Contemporary Philosophy, Vol. XXIII, No. 1 & 2, Jan/Feb & Mar/Apr 2001 Barbados Group Working Paper No. 01-01. -- Steven Zaffron acknowledges Landmark Education is a form of " Large Group Awareness Training " or LGAT .

In this paper co-authored by Zaffron, the phrase “Large Group Awareness Training” is used multiple times in reference to Landmark Education. Example on page 52: “Dennison’s dissertation,7 which categorizes the Landmark Forum as a “large group awareness training” is a qualitative study based on interviews with Forum graduates. He also reports predominantly positive outcomes and in addition, briefly summarizes philosophical components of the Forum. The extensive research literature on “large group awareness training” published in the 1970s and 80s (summarized in Finkelstein, Wenegrat, and Yalom8) is framed in psychological more than philosophical terms, albeit there is some reference to the training as existential psychotherapy.” Two different academic treatises are cited as references in the paper co-authored by Zaffron (see page 59, endnotes 7 and 8, Dennison 1994 and Finkelstein 1982) – and both have the phrase “Large Group Awareness Training” in their titles.

Thanks, this reminds me of those pyramid schemes that keep changing their name once people catch on to the old one. Same stuff, different name..

I would assume that Est aka LM, aka LM Business, aka Vanto will continue to have metamorphoses of the same stuff.

What amazes me is how many of these organisations there are that are almost identical.

When I first sought help I went to see an old psychiatrist who charged a lot of money per hour. He said that back in the day when it was called EST he had dealt with 5 people who had become psychotic as a result. "I thought I had seen off the last of the EST casualties" was how he put it.

They all seem to use the same methods and gimmicks. I am surprised they don't sue each other.

I've seen the Landmark training manuals for registration fulfillment, they are sales call scripts just like other sales scripts but Landmarkians "volunteer" (or are bullied into it) and are unpaid, they don't even get commission. They use the "promise" line on subjects, if people don't register for another course then they are breaking their promise agreement, they even have a promises report. Even if someone cannot afford to do a course they are trained to not take "no" for an answer and tell the person to borrow money from someone. But they don't move up to sales calls until they've done their share of cleaning, toilets, hoovering etc. They must be hypnotised. Where does all this money go?

Oh yeah they love that idea about how you are going to wash cars or whatever and so you can do the next course.

The money goes to 1 or 2 guys at the top.

In a way it's genius how they have fooled people into working for this business for free.

The incentive seems to be that these people are "working on themselves".

It's the work of the devil the whole thing.