I'm interested in knowing how people got lured into Landmark?

I got lured into Landmark because I thought I was going to be taking classes that would help me out in business and investing. A friend of mine (currently still in Landmark) told me it would help me out and that it had helped her out in business. I met her right before she went into Landmark. Then after a few months she bought a much nicer car and a really cool house. I thought if it works for her it'll work for me! So without doing any research I just signed up, and later went to an introduction. I treated it like any other educational class I had taken. I was already taking a lot of classes on Real Estate Investing and had just finished two weeks of corporate sales training.

I looked at the Landmark website and the types of classes they offered. The titles reminded me of what I have seen listed in Local Community colleges. It also reminded me of stuff I'd seen listed on Corporate Training sites.

My friend did tell me at one point that people might say it was a cult but to not believe them. No one I knew at the time even knew what Landmark was. I thought it strange that she said that to me so blew it off.

I took the Forum and was surprised at the beginning on how it started out. I kept wondering when they were going to get into the meat and potatoes of this stuff? When are they going to start discussing real business concepts? I thought it strange we couldn't take notes. I thought it strange when at one point the instructor told every one we could leave if we wanted to and our money would be refunded. I thought it strange that it was going to last so long during the day. At one point I think I did wonder what I had gotten myself into. I had never in my life seen anything like this. I wish now that I had gotten up and left and got my money back.

But instead I decided to stay because I had taken a day off of work and spent money on the course. I figured I might as well stay and try to atleast get my money's worth out of the thing and maybe I'd learn something eventhough nothing really made sense. I got really bored during the Forum so inorder to pass the bordom I decided to try to make sense of the stuff. After all I believed in trying to educate myself and learn stuff.

I basically got screwed because I was looking to improve my skill sets, was not willing to walk away and loose my money after the chance to get my money back had passed, and naievely trusted a trusted friends advice with out checking things out. I know that my friend was only trying to help me out because she believed I could be more successful. I realize now that she was / is merely a Pawn of Landmark.