thanks John

If later, she says she has left Landmark and wants to get back together, please insist on exit counseling.



wisdom

Hi damaged,

You are very very welciome.

By all means, please take in all that you can get out of these forums. There will be times when you've had enough and that's perfectly fine and normal. Make the most of these phases as they happen. You're welcome as muich as you wish to drop in.

John

i didn't quite lose a friend to landmark, but the friendship was certainly well and truly damaged and hasn't recovered. it was painful to watch her go into debt to the point of bankruptcy for their stupid courses, and buying new computers and stuff because you need to believe to make it happen or whatever. how many times did she invite me to workshops, i can't count. at the time i had call display and used it a lot; she started blocking her number when she called so i couldn't screen her calls, so i just stopped answering any call from a number i didn't recognize. she would call me multiple times a day at work.

she's out of it now - i think they realized they weren't going to get any $ or recruits from her - but is still struggling in her finances and all her personal relationships. sometimes i think i should reach out and try to be a better friend, but she still uses some of the lingo and it creeps me out.

I like that this forum is a safe place to talk about these things,
every other forum or opinion I read about Landmark Education
ends up being swamped by people talking landmark jargon

I think the best friend you can be is just to be there if she comes out of it

I've spent so many years loving someone who was intent upon the Landmark path of
of total self , I don't know, I don't want to call her arrogant or stupid or deluded, I know she is better than all of that and that she is a victim (no victims in the landmark system...you are responsible) of coercive techniques...

now I have just had to accept that and hope that she sees her way out of it

for me I have to move on
this experience has been emotionally damaging

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A discussion on reddit. Someone led by asking about LEC.

Many respondants discussed other LGATs and MLMs in which 'friends' tried to
recruit them, then ended these 'friendships' when the respondant refused
to join the enthusiasm and become part of it.

Here are excerpted some of the comments on the discussion about Landmark.

(Quoted from reddit)

www.reddit.com/.../im_losing_my_sister_dear_reddit_does_anybody_know/ - 687k
Im losing my sister... Dear Reddit, does anybody know about ...Sep 6, 2012 ... Dear Reddit, does anybody know about, "Landmark Education? ... Thanks again
those who responded, ill follow up but im off to work. ... PLUS hes not even
fucking done divorcing his ex-fucking-wife ...... her family by sacrificing these
things for a relationship with a man who rejects her relationship with him.
www.reddit.com/.../im_losing_my_sister_dear_reddit_does_anybody_know/ - 687k - Cached - Similar pages


Note: (Quoted from reddit site)this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2012
554 points (82% upvoted)(Unquote)

Im losing my sister... Dear Reddit, does anybody know about, "Landmark Education?"

submitted 1 year ago * by throwaway103856

Thanks again those who responded, ill follow up but im off to work. Will check and consider everyones input.
My older sister (although a very intelligent person) has had a couple of bumps in the road of life. I wont get into any specifics unless it will help any opinions, but in short she has abandoned a lot of what I know is her. Here are a few things:
· She bought a dog but after joining Landmark, but she dumped her off at my parents place neglecting all the needed shots and upkeep causing financial and mental trouble for the family
· shes "dating" someone from landmark. (I use the term dating loosely because refused to acknowledge her as her girlfriend to others for a long while. PLUS hes older and has kids. PLUS hes not even fucking done divorcing his ex-fucking-wife
· He was a teacher or whatever in the program and she wasnt his student. Although she says its fine I still find it inappropriate. Its crossing lines, fraternizing ya know?
· She talks about wanting to have a closer family but she escapes from work to go to these retreats. As far as I know she called in 2 or 3 times in a 6 week span to her work. And although she says money is not needed I later hear it around $600 a weekend for shits like this.
· I cant even have a conversation with her. Whenever I do she goes into the practiced rhetoric about living life and how she wants to change the world and the family just has anger, and we would be all better if she shared landmark to all of us. Not just all of us, but our nephews and future kids that people in our family will have.
I told her im uncomfortable with this but we just end up arguing.
anyways coupled with with her history of not being able to be financially responsible and a slew of bad breakups, I think shes in a very vulnerable spot and its capitalizing on her both mentally and financially. I dont want to cut her out of my life but if she tries to shove this down my nephews minds im gonna flip my shit.
Does anybody know anything about this organization? Did she go too far? I try to find the good in everything but this whole thing creeps me out. How as a brother can I help her without being near her physically (my job has me travel)? Please, someone help me.

A long-time friend tried to drag me to a Landmark meeting. I was all:
"Hmmmm ... I'm kinda busy, but maaaaaybe. Call me the day of your meeting, and I'll let you know if I'm free."
She said "Yeah, don't worry about it. If you can come, that's great, but it's not a big pressure thing. Cool! I'll call that morning, so you can tell me if you're up for it."
Abut a week later, that morning comes along, and she calls and I said I had a couple of things to attend to, so I couldn't come.
She went apeshit. All angry and yelling that I had "promised" to come. She was panicked and kept saying:
"I have to bring two people! Oh God! Oh God! I'm not gonna have two people! Why didn't you say you weren't coming? They expect you to be there. I told them. Oh God!"
She pitched back and forth wildly between panic, anger, and almost tearful pleading. She was completely off the rails and didn't call back again for a couple of months. I was thinking: "Wow ... wish I would've gone there, so I could become a 'got it all together' person like she had become."
I have now decided: I will attend such a meeting for a convenience fee (paid to me for attending) of $200 per hour, money up front. But only if I can leave whenever I want without a word being said to me, and if I leave, I get a "your meeting sucked so bad I left" bonus of $500. Under those conditions, I will surely attend.

[–]petitepieuvre 9 points10 points11 points 1 year ago
You said she has kids. Please, for the love of Batman, keep those kids away from Landmark. My parents got pulled into that cult when I was younger and fell head over heels for their bullshit "everything is meaningless" take on reality. They throw out buzzwords and try to rope you into "fixing your life" by targeting people who are struggling and convincing them that if they just give up there money and time they too can be fixed. After a while they convinced my parents that me and my brothers needed to join their teen meetings. Thankfully I was in the peak of my snarky defiant puberty and the buzzwords and podium style preaching struck me as very Church/AA-esque and I immediately tuned it out. Fucking grown ups always trying to tell me how to live my life from their goddamn podiums. Time to scan the crowd for hotties instead. However my younger brothers were more mailable and for at least two years I lived in a Landmark Education house where every upset was a meaningless racket. Children should not be taught that life has an easy fix and one group of people knows just how you ought to live. I don't care if it's through religion, cult, or religious cult, there is no one right way and life is about figuring out where and how you fit with everyone, not how people's upsets are meaningless drivel and you ought to spend money to get fixed.
Sorry for the rant.
TL;DR Steal her children before Landmark Education steals their individuality and creative problem solving.

[–]lolsail 11 points12 points13 points 1 year ago
Feel free not to answer this.. but are your parents still together? I can't imagine a marriage surviving cultish interests like that. I'm assuming they weren't already split up in this case.

Nah they split 20 years ago. He stopped going to Landmark for ages but broke up with his partner recently which caused him to go back.


[–]lolsail 7 points8 points9 points 1 year ago
As I hit reply it occurred to me that this was exactly the answer I was going to get. I figured it would be something along the lines of a divorce that would drive a parent to this kinda thing.
I hope he gets sick of it and leaves sometime. :(


[–]thewetcoast 3 points4 points5 points 1 year ago
Pretty much. My parents have always been into this new age crap, and when I was 14 they forced me and a family friend to go, despite insisting what utter horseshit it was and the money they were wasting. I don't remember much of it, except being bored out of my fucking mind being there the 12 hours and the food being crappy, but a lot of the people there didn't seem that fucked up. They were pretty much teenagers just getting overemotional about the shit teenagers do, and I got the sense that the employees or counselors or whatever were really trying to manipulate me into some sort of epiphany with condescending nonsense.
Oh fuck, then there was this segment where they made you call someone in your life that you had like, conflict with or whatever, to prove your progress or whatever, and I literally had no one to talk to, or anything significant enough requiring the outpouring they wanted, so basically, they hated me. And regarding their recruitment techniques, that's spot on. They called me like, four times a month for half a year (I'm assuming they were aware of me because of an application or something), then afterwards proceeded to harass me to refer others for another year.
Goddammit Mom and Dad, with the money you wasted on that shit, we could have gone to Disneyland. You aren't any happier, and you wasted 1200 dollars. Fuck Landmark.

musthavesoundeffects 100 points101 points102 points 1 year ago

Basically a lifecoaching cult. I had a friend who was all about landmark for a few years. Thankfully they aren't the murder you if you leave type of cult, but she did waste a lot of time, money, and goodwill on it.

·
[–]H5Mind 106 points107 points108 points 1 year ago*
I was invited to one of their open houses in Atlanta a few weeks ago by someone who is really into the transformative power of self help.
Self help/empowerment is great up to a point, but it can be used to "keep you in school". You have to graduate sometime...
Very slick, high-powered mind fuck operation. Standard cult-like practices. Make you feel like you have something in common with everyone else, that you are part of this group of new people (everyone wants more money right? Everyone wants to be successful at work, right? Etc). Apparently you are the only reason that you're unhappy, you make poor choices because you were never taught (it's not your fault up to now) how to make good choices. Choose to join us and we will teach you the techniques to unlock the potential in you that was there all along! Etc.
Very slick. First thing that I noticed: the artificially enthusiastic buzz in the room between "graduates". They're all seemingly delighted to see their cult buddies again. Waaaay overdone. If you are the needy type, you too could have these enthusiastic friends replace your original friends and family...
Second, the influence diffusion in the room. You will have a cult member sit on either side of you. You will be required to share with your "recruiter" your thoughts on various things and have them sell you on what sold them...throughout the night.
Finally, you will be challenged to look your. sponsor (the person who invited you) in the eye and politely tell them that despite all the pre-conditioning to never have an acceptable excuse that will deny you an opportunity for freedom from your in-authentic, flawed self, that you choose (because they're all about you making a choice and living with it) to reject their offer at this time but thank you very much for the invitation. Bitch I said NO!.
It sucked to see poor people and poor students get manipulated into this self-empowerment stuff.
There is truth behind the idea that people get stuck in a rut, allowing some past experience define their future choices. Outlook affects your attitude which affects how you perceive and act upon opportunities. Take a quick read of "Desiderata" (one page) or Rudyard Kipling's (?) "If". Now pay me $10G.
Personally, it was more interesting to figure out why my sponsor thought that an out of the box thinker would be a likely mark. I think that my sponsor thought that there would be more glory in landing a remarkably successful survivor who has evolved past the common societal barbs of more money, more career, more Facebook likes, more Reddit karma, more more more more more ...
I don't want what you want. I do what I wanna do. You're not the boss of me and no, I'm not on FaceBook.

[–]musthavesoundeffects 17 points18 points19 points 1 year ago
Well, she met someone outside of Landmark and got pregnant and married. This method may not work for everyone
.
[–]MagisterAcroama 1 point2 points3 points 1 year ago
My sister was similar; Landmark was (seemingly) the most important thing in her life. She would talk about it more than her husband. When she got pregnant, I asked how she was going to still attend Landmark with a baby, and she said she would get babysitters or her husband to watch. Luckily my nephew gave her a purpose Landmark never could, and she never went back.

[–]pandasaurusrex 3 points4 points5 points 1 year ago
sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on
From what I've seen, the people who "leave" are those who can say to themselves "ok, I got this." They move on in their own time. My sister did Landmark, realized that it was basically a group class that employs some therapy tools, and just went back to therapy to deal with her shitty childhood and parent issues.
The people who stay are those who need support to make decisions and come to realizations. They are typically the type of person who is publicly unwilling to admit any fault of their own, or their upbringing. My uncle is still in it because he's a controlling ass who, at 50, still hasn't learned that his way isn't always the best way. He feels that he learns to move beyond this from Landmark. He is the type of guy where if you suggested that therapy might help him overcome his control issues better, he'd flip out at you, deny everything, and start yelling about how ignorant you are. But it's ok to use a lot of the same methods in a group setting, because therapy is for broken people and he's not broken.

[–]UptightSodomite 2 points3 points4 points 1 year ago

Yes. I've read about how they go after people who call them cults for libel.
But surely people can see the brain washing qualities? Even in the article I read on dailymail from an author who went through the experience and was defending the program, I could see similar techniques that are used to form soldiers.
Sleep deprivation, long hours, peer pressure/group transformation, mental/verbal abuse, etc. And this is what people go through so that they're capable of killing in war.
What place does it have in normal society?

[–]dubsideofmoon 2 points3 points4 points 1 year ago
Certainly. It's a little frustrating that someone obviously googled "landmark education cult" then clicked on the first thing they saw and used that as evidence that "Landmark Education is a cult!"
The thing is, I think it is pretty, well, cultlike. I know two different people who have fallen very far down the rabbit hole with this strange organization. One walked away from her non-profit she founded, another really got lost during his junior year of college. It's not good, what they do. If they are there to help you, they shouldn't pull you so far deep into their own teachings.

Dear readers: After some prolonged discussion on reddit, rebuttals appeared.

Okay, fair enough.

They fall into some catagories:

* Its more of a scam than a cult

* The product is fantastic, but I disagree with the marketing (hardsell)

* Mentally healthy people who are already well grounded benefit most. (A sly hit
at anyone who feels harmed -- insinuates that anyone who finds LEC unpleasant or feels harmed was weak.)

* EST was a cult like, LEC eliminated the bad stuff and kept the good stuff

* LEC is a business, with obnoxious recruiting tactics, but not a cult, not as bad as EST

* Just a few fanatics are ruining it for others.

(Some advised the first correspondant's troubled sister to read Alan Watts. Watts struggled life long with alcoholism and was promiscuous. He wrote fascinating books, but his know how did not translate into his own life - just Corboy's opinion.)

Im losing my sister... Dear Reddit, does anybody know about ...Sep 6, 2012 ... Dear Reddit, does anybody know about, "Landmark Education? ... Thanks again
those who responded, ill follow up but im off to work. ... PLUS hes not even
fucking done divorcing his ex-fucking-wife ...... her family by sacrificing these
things for a relationship with a man who rejects her relationship with him.
www.reddit.com/.../im_losing_my_sister_dear_reddit_does_anybody_know/ - 687k - Cached - Similar pages

(Quote)

[–]itsgonnagetweird 62 points63 points64 points 1 year ago

Indeed they do, but suing someone for saying you're a cult is the legal version of running and telling your mom someone said something mean about you. It may work for a while but sooner or later someone is going to go "you know, maybe there's some truth to this..."
Streisand Effect.
I agree to some extent. I just wanted an excuse to show their litigation history.

[www.culteducation.com]
·
[–]itsgonnagetweird 4 points5 points6 points 1 year ago
That's awesome.


[–]pihkal 11 points12 points13 points 1 year ago
It's more of a scam then a cult. They way overcharge for wisdom that could be had for free elsewhere.
My mother was involved for a couple years, but eventually came to her senses. Hopefully your sister will, too.
The good news about it being a scam instead of a cult, is that they're less likely to keep your sister when she runs out of money.
Now EST, Werner Erhard's (not his real name, btw) original group, that was a cult.
· Now EST, Werner Erhard's (not his real name, btw) original group, that was a cult.
EST got a lot of bad press, but the company realized that it could still make the same profits and avoid the same bad press by dropping some of the manipulation/control techniques that they were using as EST. Same people, same profit goal. Not fundamentally different.
Be careful of the false dichotomy of "either it's totally a hardcore cult, or it totally isn't a cult." EST was much more heavy handed, but it was nothing like the Jonestown folks or Aum Shinrikyo. EST didn't meet most definitions of a full-blown cult, but just like it's new name, Landmark, it used some cult- techniques, just more of them and heavier handedly.
[–]g33kfish 222 points223 points224 points 1 year ago
I know this is going to be unpopular but I want to temper the black and white statement of "it's a cult." Also I have some advice for the OP at the end.
I was brought to an open house (recruiting session) and was immediately put off by the high pressure marketing they load on you. They play heavily on everyone's fear of missed opportunities and get a lot of people to sign up on the spot. Myself being eager to explore any new way of thinking about life I did sign up in spite of not because of the marketing. Also partially because a lot of what people said about its techniques sounded like what I was learning in my Masters program (studying mediation and conflict resolution).
Having completed the program I have to say that it is an incredibly slick, well dilivered amalgam of some very good philosophical ideas. In reality it's whole "point" boils down existentialism, the idea that nothing has inherent meaning, not even the "story" you've created about the events in your life and why they make you the person you are now. The idea being that once you acknowledge this as a possibility, you're now free to recreate your own meaning, and you're not limited by the stories that "made you shy" or "made you afraid of commitment." Those are all just things that happened, but you have a large amount of control of how they effect you.
Now, some background, I had already come to a lot of this conclusion on my own over about 5 years between graduating college, serving in the Peace Corps in West Africa, and now with my Masters program. So I really had no difficulty with anything they said, they were just giving me some different language to understand and explain it with, great! For some people, the facilitators really had to challenge their beliefs about the world, their agency in it, and their identity. I saw some really powerful self discovery and I saw a lot of pain as people let go of some long held beliefs that had been stifling to them and what they wanted to achieve. This was extremely emotional for these people. Essentially they were pushed, not gently, into perceiving the world and it's freeing meaninglessness the way I already did. Instead of getting there over 5 years of good and bad experiences, that experience was crammed into 2 days.
Now, in my experience, whenever you deliver a profound shift in understanding regarding world views and deliver it through a, possibly painful, emotional experience, people become attached. So what I saw at the end is a lot of people who had just begun to see how much ability they really had to effect the way they interacted and were effected by the universe and they all believed the Landmark rhetoric that Landmark is the only way to learn and utilize this knowledge.
That's where the cultishness comes in. It's not a cult, it's a business. The product their selling is the most effective tool I've ever seen at taking someone from "my life sucks, all this bad stuff happens to me and makes me unsuccessful or unhappy" to "Hey, life isn't terrible. It just is. Events just happen. I actually have a choice in how I feel about them. That's awesome cause now I can break my iphone and not rage cause it's just stuff. Or I can say, that guy yelled at me, I wonder what's going on with him? Man, I can do anything. The Universe doesn't give a damn about me one way or the other, so I can just go do/get/achieve anything I want." The product is great, but the way they market it, and the way they take advantage of the fact that most of their students have never seen this stuff anywhere else is disgusting to me. I get that they need to keep making money and keep selling modules, but they do so by preying on the very ideas they just taught you.
By this I mean, they've taught you now that all the "obstacles" in your way only stop you because you let them (not universally true, but it is to an extent). Then they convince you that your reluctance to sign up for the next session is you letting yourself be held back in your growth. Then they convince you that the magic sauce to getting along with all the people in your life is Landmark, that people who haven't done landmark can't possibly get it.
I participated because I was pretty sure I already 'got' it, and it turned out I did. But they even had me worried that I was missing something for a little while, until the "big reveal" of existentialism (they'd never call it that).
I have seen people like the OP's sister who get sucked in really deeply and they don't even see the contradiction between the Landmark philosophy (the real philosophy not the business) and what they're doing. My advice is to find ways to show them that Landmark is not the only way. There's a million and one philosophy and self help books that are all essentially teaching landmark. Heck, Siddhartha (a great introduction to the life of the Buddha) is basically about a guy figuring out the core landmark philosophy. Basically find ways to talk about the ideas using a different script. Due to the short nature of landmark training people don't really have time to properly internalize the ideas, so they cling to these scripts about rackets and authenticity like a lifeline because they don't know how to actually apply those ideas without the words.
TL;DR. I've done landmark. I HATE their business/marketing practices, but the product is rich in value. It's not a cult, it's a business.
Advice for OP: Learn as much as you can about Landmark and what it teaches and find new ways (new language especially) to talk to your sister about those ideas and how they effect your relationships. (PM me and I'm absolutely happy to offer more detailed advice.)
[–]imbignate 7 points8 points9 points 1 year ago on
TL;DR. I've done landmark. I HATE their business/marketing practices, but the product is rich in value. It's not a cult, it's a business.
This was the experience my wife and I had as well. We found it was useful because it gave us a shared vocabulary for communicating within our marriage and being able to take a step back and examine what a situation "is" rather than what the meaning assigned to it is.
We completed the first 2 courses in the 3-part series and then dropped out because of life, kids, school, etc and they didn't ever really try to get us back in. I would definitely recommend that a person have a strong mental footing in reality before doing it because
1. they request that you not take any mood-altering or stabilizing drugs during the program, and if you need them they recommend you NOT do the program
2. They do not recommend the program for anyone who's currently under the care of a licensed therapist. I was repeatedly told that they were not there to "fix" you but to take a person and show them what's "possible" in a healthy life.
Sorry OP's sister is glomming onto this. Dating her forum leader definitely sounds shifty, and you might even consider reporting it TO landmark's offices. This experience can result in a strong bond forming, but the program I went through in no way advocated confrontation with family, cutting people out, loyalty to a particular person or persons, or radically altering your life to suit them.
tl;dr: Shit's not a cult, but it can create fanatics.

Also have done Landmark courses. I concur with pretty well everything pointed out above. Fantastic product, absolutely abusive marketing practices.
Very useful if you happen to have solid mental health to begin with, but especially if you have insecurities about not being "good" enough to begin with, can become obsessive and abusive.
In Landmark you are encouraged to see yourself as the "source" of your experience of the world, as opposed to the victim of it. The problem is that when circumstances don't work out like you'd hoped, then you're encouraged to find out where you are "out of integrity" and get it corrected. Where you are most encouraged to practice this skill is in inviting others to experience the transformation that you have gotten, or in other words, getting people to the introductions.
I've witnessed someone who was involved in Landmark (who was driving six hours once weekly to attend a program), who was going to school full time and working full time have a complete mental breakdown because they weren't able to do it all. The breakdown included physiological symptoms, including panic attacks that were so intense that this person would pass out.
Landmark encouraged her to keep participating despite this. Despite enjoying some of the content, I ceased participation after that.
[–]g33kfish 16 points17 points18 points 1 year ago
Yeah this is one of the dangers I would say, and something I see in my coworkers who have done it. If you buy into the "I am the source" too much, there's no room to allow for those things which are truly out of your control. It leaves people ill equipped to deal with truly uncontrollable outcomes.
[–]pour_some_sugar 1 point2 points3 points 1 year ago
If you buy into the "I am the source" too much, there's no room to allow for those things which are truly out of your control.
If you buy into anything too much, it's going to be a problem.
However I don't think that lack of common sense is the fault of whatever it is you bought into too much.
[–]SemiautoPenguin 13 points14 points15 points 1 year ago
soAs another former Landmarker, this is 100% spot on. It's a great method/system for helping people self actualize and start to get what they want out of life, and it definitely reinforced some things I had started to learn on my own. However they market it as if they are the sole purveyors of the truth. That's what gets people to behave in such a cultish fashion; there's a specific lingo/lexicon Landmarkers will use because that is how they have been conditioned to express themselves (getting complete with someone, "that's your story, what actually happened?", "I get that", etc.) They want so desperately to bring their friends and family in because they perceive that the training has helped them and they believe it to be the only way.
Have your sister read "Man's search for meaning" by Victor Frankl and "Flow" by Mihaly Czikzentmihalyi. This stuff isn't new, Lamdmark just puts it in some slick packaging.
[–]pandasaurusrex 25 points26 points27 points 1 year ago
This, this, this.
My brother is in Landmark, his wife is in Landmark, my uncle is in Landmark, and my sister did Landmark years and years ago. Has it helped them? Yes and no.
The thing that they all have in common is that they are all pretty controlling people (less so my sister, which is why she didn't really pursue it). If things don't immediately go their way, when and how they want it, they lash out in anger and frustration. Landmark has helped this, has made them (overall) less angry people. I 100% agree with the above poster that it's a philosophy that's found in other places as well, that Landmark isn't the only place you'll find these ideas. I think that what separates me (and my sister) from my brother and his wife (who have done several of the courses) is introspection. Me and my sister are pretty introspective people and came to the realizations that Landmark can provide on our own. My brother is kind of a narcissist (so is my uncle), and really needed that group atmosphere to figure out that other people have different perspectives on things, and that that doesn't make them inherently wrong or bad or stupid. I think that's what Landmark's biggest impact has been on them, making them realize that their way is not the only, or best, way at all times. Shocking, I know.
Now, to the OP. Is your sister becoming lost to Landmark? Well, no, but she's getting pretty annoying about it. When my family members started Landmark, it was all they could talk about. They tried to get everyone to join it. But you should try to understand this from her point of view. She's spent her life feeling like bad shit just happens to her, and that people are shitty to her. Now she's in a place where they're teaching her skills to move beyond that, to think "hey, maybe my reactions are not always the best." She's being taught, at an steep rate, that she cannot change how other people react, that she can only change how she feels about the past, the present, and the future. That can be some empowering shit when you've felt like a victim of fate. She just wants to share that news to everyone she thinks might benefit from it, and to her that's pretty much everyone. So is she annoying and pushy right now? Yeah. Is she wasting her money? Not if it's helping her, overall. From my experience, the fervent follower faze passes. It might take a while, but it will.
If she comes to your nephews (I'm assuming their not little kids?), just explain to them that she's taking classes about life coaching, and that she just wants everyone to have the same feeling she's experiencing in them. That doesn't mean that the ideas are unique to the program, or that they need to, or should, do it. Just that she's found it to be personally helpful, and that she's really amped on having everyone feel as awesome as she does right now. [–]Garage_Dragon 7 points8 points9 points 1 year ago
Funny, my mother and sister did Landmark and they both got a lot out of it too. They're also both pretty controlling people. My mother sold it hard to my wife and I - even suckered us into attending the "graduation".
They may have some good points, but then I'm sure the church of Later Day Saints has its good points too. That doesn't make them any less of a cult, though.
I have a natural instinct to back away from a hard sell. I won't go near them.
[–]pandasaurusrex 5 points6 points7 points 1 year ago
soI totally agree, man. I see it as filling the same role as organized religion to some people. They are getting guidance from a community. But i think we need to be careful about calling organizations cults. Cults alienate people from their families, strip them of assets, and make it extremely difficult for the people to leave the cult. A branch of my family are scientologists, and that is a cult. They have alienated the entire family, have tons of debt they got by needing to pay for classes, etc... Is landmark that extreme? No. Is the Mormon church that extreme? Not really. I think we should reserve the word "cult" for organizations that really deserve it, lest the word become diluted.
[–]throwaway103856 2 points3 points4 points 1 year ago
I hope it dies down in intensity. Its a level of extremism that ive only seen with religions... something I try to stray from.
As for the kids, 6 and 2. Too young to be pushed an idea that they NEED something in order to be happy. I think everyone is entitled to happiness, but they have to find it.
[–]cms1990 2 points3 points4 points 1 year ago
I too know someone who got a lot of good from Landmark. He's one of the most successful people I know, and one of the most insightful. I didn't know him before Landmark, but he swears he wasn't the same. He has never pushed me to Landmark; just once stating that I should try an intro course. Just from this limited personal experience, I wouldn't call it a cult, but from what I've seen, it is life changing.
Perhaps Landmark itself is less the problem, and more how OP's sister is processing it?
[–]pandasaurusrex 2 points3 points4 points 1 year ago
That's what I'd assume. Every organization has its fanatics.
·

This is indeed an excellent description of Landmark.
To OP: I'd suggest getting your sister some recordings of Alan Watts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts) lecturing. He has an incredibly succinct way of talking about the same things Landmark talks about in their courses. Given that he died before Landmark (and it's precursor EST) existed, it might be a good wakeup call that Landmark is not the only way. Also, I wouldn't be too concerned. A lot of Landmark graduates (I am one) get wrapped up in their P2P marketing strategy(scheme) and wind up coming off crazy at first. I assure you, she's still your sister and will want to hang out with you and your family as long as she doesn't feel persecuted. Try explaining that you appreciate that she wants you to have the experience she had, that you're not interested and would appreciate if she would quit the hard sell.

Some advice, seemingly very good was offered. Do the course in order to
learn the vocabulary being used by your estranged loved one. Do the course
without being pulled in by the techniques.

"But if you're prepared to explore it curiously, and are wise to the tricks they use, you can ignore the tricks, get the value, and then actually have a critical conversation with your friend who clings to the language like it is the meaning."
"
You will be an insect walking right into the Roach Motel if you do this.

The LGAT set up has been fine tuned for decades, to throw the most
intelligent of us off kilter. And a most important part of this is physical.

The room set up.

Everything arranged so that subjects have messes cleaned up and chairs rearranged, so that no physical mark is left on the physical environment.

You sit so close to other persons that your boundaries are subliminally disrupted

Light and dark and changing patterns of sunlight and shadow are excluded.

You are kept up past your bed time and circadian rhythms disrupted.

The LGAT cocktail is mental, emotional, social and -- PHYSICAL. This last bit
is kept hidden, and when we discussed this years ago, many attempts were made
to disrupt the discussion. A sign that we were on to something important.

Few are aware that Large Group Awareness Trainings are more than a collection
of verbal tricks.


Manipulating the Room Environment

[forum.culteducation.com]
[–]g33kfish 4 points5 points6 points 1 year ago

I think the biggest challenge in these situations, and the goal of anyone trying to help should be, is to extract the valuable meaning of what's being taught and make it distinct from the source. Is Tony Robbins teaching some good ideas?

Probably. Does it matter that they came from him? Not at all.

The tough part is that the best way to do this is to lean into the thorns and meet our loved ones where they are. That sounds super touchy feeling but what I mean is, you can't expect them to understand what you're showing them unless you can talk to them in their own language. A lot of these courses introduce very specific language. This serves both to really crystalize what their teaching (which was great for someone like me where I already had the meaning) but it also serves to isolate the students from people who don't have the language.

It sucks cause it basically means you have to do it too. But if you're prepared to explore it curiously, and are wise to the tricks they use, you can ignore the tricks, get the value, and then actually have a critical conversation with your friend who clings to the language like it is the meaning."

It does matter if that someone is a master of language arts.

One of our discussants, The Anticult, has an understanding of marketing technique. Here are insights about Tony Robbins

[forum.culteducation.com]

The 'try it for yourself' trap

[forum.culteducation.com]

Unpaid volunteer labor

[forum.culteducation.com]

Werner Erhard's Library

[forum.culteducation.com]

It's amazing.

We are so aware today of scams on the internet along with telephone scams and we see stories everyday warning us of a new one and yet when it comes to these LGAT seminars, WE GO.

God help us. The best we can do is warn others. If you go, know that you may look back and regret.

Please do your research!