A question I want to ask as a standalone thread because all of the (hype for want of a better word) about LF is about how life transforming and revolutionary it is.

My disclaimer I haven't done Landmark myself but I have read a few self help books - all of which present what I can infer as the garnish of useful information included at LF that could be put in a 1 hour TEDx talk.

Of course the Landmark line is that it's experiential.

But back to my question - what I seen in people I know (present and former Landmark participants of varying degrees) is that they are exhibiting and demonstrating none (and I mean none) of the cited benefits that Landmark people rave about.


Better relationships? No (and in some cases worse)

More money? Hardly - the ones past the Advanced Course and still doing more are scraping together money they can't afford in hope of "breakthroughs"

Better at Taking Responsibility? No

More Authentic? If authentic means speaking your mind when you maybe shouldn't then perhaps

More Honesty and Integrity? If that means repeatedly inviting to vague evening sessions while not being clear about what it is (i.e. a sales pitch to try and hook people in) then perhaps

People just seem to go to Landmark sessions, talk about breakthroughs, "getting it", etc from what I can see as a way to reinforce the sunk cost fallacy. I get the impression it's a place where people get group reinforcement that they're making constructive changes in their life. And to make sure they believe any positive results they experience are causally linked to Landmark.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2019 02:12AM by StopLGATs.

Where to begin?

I had met my recruiter in a 12-step group, a couple of years before she did Landmark. These were the changes I noticed in her:

She went from being an honest person to being someone who would lie without batting an eye. She also became manipulative and conniving.

She also went through a divorce - her husband had taken the forum, and she felt that he was not applying Landmark enough to his life and his marriage. He said it didn't work for him, and so of course, according to her, he wasn't facing his "stuff" or trying hard enough.

Within a year, she married another Lekkie, and that didn't last, either.

Far from taking accountability for her actions, after recruiting me very aggressively, she was involved in setting me up for some very nasty stuff, providing personal information about me. I never saw her take any responsibility for the harm done to me. She showed no remorse, and seemed very callous when I called her out. She went from being a compassionate person to being a callous b____.

At one time, she respected peoples' "space," but then she became obsessed with "taking a stand" for me, and a few others, to accept whatever premise Landmark was trying to push, so much so that she became very intrusive into the private lives of others, violating privacy and boundaries. She would not take "no" for an answer, (apparently the word "no" is a "racket").

Her priorities became skewed. One time, I picked her up from the airport. She needed to be at work, but had broken a fake fingernail. Obsessed with "impeccability," she had called a salon to get it repaired before work.

Traffic was bumper-to-bumper at about 65 mph, and I was driving as fast as I could safely drive, but she wanted me to floor it and cut in and out of traffic so she could get to the salon on time. She basically wanted me to do a 40-minute drive in 20 minutes.

I told her she just needed to go to work, and fix the nail later. She said, "It's not impeccable!" The woman was a nurse. I asked her if she thought her boss would find it impeccable if we crashed and took out a family of five in the interest of perfecting her f@cking nail.

Oh well, that's a start. (Oh yes, she was completed convinced that Landmark had empowered her and made her a better person).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2019 03:25AM by kdag.

Another thing I've overheard conversations between friends involved in Landmark about who could or couldn't be persuaded to do the forum. The impression I have is that's it's an exercise/assignment they need to complete.

And for emphasis I'll say again the conversations are about who could be persuaded to do it. Not about who might find it helpful (and in what way) with any specific challenges in their life.

People just don't seem to be able to describe Landmark in any coherent way. Here's a great video that emphasizes this - a (particularly slimy salesman type) LF forum leader talking for more than 15 minutes without him (or the space cadet interviewing him) actually saying anything at all meaningful. But it's exactly what forum takers sound like when they rave about Landmark.

Would you buy a used car from this guy? I can just as easily imagine him on a stage yelling about "the power of Jeeeeeeesus!"

[www.youtube.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2019 03:51AM by StopLGATs.

StopLGATs wrote:

"And for emphasis I'll say again the conversations are about who could be persuaded to do it. Not about who might find it helpful (and in what way) with any specific challenges in their life."

Yes. They have a quota, especially anyone who is in the ILP. I was in the "Assisting Program," (office work), and they had people sitting at phone banks calling people. They had to make "promises" about how many people they could get to sign up, and when they inevitably failed, the Center Manager would come out of her office and yell at them.

Friends who have done Landmark use terminology and words that are unrecognised in a normal conversation.

They're almost robotic and have no real personality. I noticed any questions against landmark or challenging Landmark have a cookie cutter response.

It all comes down to "when you do the landmark forum' you'll see for yourself.

I have just done a post with my story of my landmark experience which includes someone signing me up for landmark and getting me into $600 of debt knowing that I was already financially struggling. A real friend wouldn't do this to you.

With these 'friends' Landmark forum becomes the answer to everything.

SpeakingUp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Friends who have done Landmark use terminology and
> words that are unrecognised in a normal
> conversation.
>
> They're almost robotic and have no real
> personality. I noticed any questions against
> landmark or challenging Landmark have a cookie
> cutter response.
>
> It all comes down to "when you do the landmark
> forum' you'll see for yourself.
>
> I am researching coaching programs related to Landmark. My research was first driven by concern about the bizarre changes I was seeing in the behavior of friends and colleagues who participated in this 'training'.

One friend participated in a training program, "Ontological Coaching," which I now understand to be a facsimile of est/Landmark programs.

This program was six months in duration, on-site, on-line.

I can say that the individual became VERY secretive about what he was doing in his 'training program'...and, I did get the, "you just have to experience it"...

I noticed a certain arrogance..."I have all the answers'ness", which was out of character.

Here is the strangest bit, though...

To 'thank' me for providing a bit of mentoring during his program, this fellow invited me to a classical music concert.

The 'performer' was a child prodigy, allegedly age 10, but clearly the budding breasts had been taped.


The child played piano and violin, in a virtuoso but completely robotic fashion.

She appeared to be taking direction from someone standing in the balcony, her father.

From time to time she picked up a purple plastic tube (all sparkly) and said she was 'channeling' musical ideas through this.

The small theater's audience was filled with kids, and also adults. Some of these were the talent 'developers' famous for producing child 'entertainers' in the country I live in. Many are known as pedophiles/sexual predators.

I told my friend I was uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but he was absolutely entranced by this child performer, the whole weird scene, and to the extent that I waited for 20 mins in the lobby after show, while he tried to get a picture taken with the girl performer.


I believe my friend (not a music lover) must have heard about this concert, and display of magical human power (musical) from his coaching buddies.

Frankly, this event rated up there with the creepiest things I seen in my life.

I also felt I was sitting there with a stranger and somebody I did not know anymore.

Bakkagirl

Oh yeh, I would add constant, and gratuitous lying to list of behaviors I have seen.

I think most humans fib from time to time, and usually to spare someone else's feelings.

These people will lie about the weather, will declare that day is night, and the reverse.

And, there is constant prevarication about backgrounds, and credentials...usually, a professional bio BEGINS with their birth into the cult.

And, also, there would be the fantastical narratives about various fields, professional disciplines, which always feature members of their cohort in leading roles.

Reality must be nice when you just 'make it up' to suit your ego and other needs.

Bakkagirl