I Failed the Self-Help Seminar: The Landmark Forum (Part 1 of 5)
I spent $420 for the privilege of spending a holiday weekend — three 13-hour days — sitting in a conference room near LAX with 75 strangers. That was the price of admission to The Landmark Forum, a seminar that promises to transform the lives of its attendees in profound, permanent and meaningful ways.
Landmark Education has been around for a long time. Its history is sordid, with associations to a creepy self-help movement of the 1970s known as est and a founder (Werner Erhard) who, by most accounts, is a major douchebag. Prior to attending the Forum, I spent many hours reading about the experiences of other attendees, learning the lesson plans, and trying to understand the process.
I’m glad I did that research (thank you, journalism degree!), because it made me skeptical of the process; it made me pledge to think critically about all the material Landmark would put in front of me over the three days of instruction, to examine it thoroughly before deciding whether I agreed enough to incorporate its lessons into my life and way of thinking.
Admittedly, I didn’t go into the seminar fully open minded — and I know this sounds dramatic — but that probably saved my life.
Landmark has long been called a cult by many of its critics, an accusation that has some validity, primarily because Landmark’s many “graduates” are super enthusiastic about it, to the point of being annoying. Landmark engenders this kind of enthusiasm among its graduates because its methodology is very powerful.
Graduates are encouraged to recruit friends and family to take the Forum, to volunteer at its centers making phone calls (always unpaid), to commit to taking more classes (there are more than 60), and to subscribe to an ideology that is full of strange lingo and catch phrases such as “what you don’t know you don’t know” and “running rackets.” The language is not exactly boardroom buzz; rather, it’s very ritualized, teaching you to say things a certain way, and the ideology is nothing short of a religious dogma that must be adopted without question. There is no room for interpretation, examination or disagreement.
Landmark’s way is to tell you how to think, and they do it so effectively that, before long, you forget that you ever knew how to think for yourself. Having said this, I want to go on record and say that I do not think of Landmark as a cult. It doesn’t encourage participants to become isolated and break off ties with friends and family the way traditional cults do. Instead, it encourages everyone to join. It’s not really shrouded in mystery either. Anyone can sign up and take courses (though the Forum is always the first course).
I had heard rumors about minders following participants into the bathroom, taking their car keys and locking the doors during the Forum, but I did not see any of this. We were free to come and go as we pleased. I never felt trapped, nor was I tied to a chair with an interrogation light shining in my face.
But I did feel tremendous pressure to conform to the coursework, to accept everything I was told without reservation, to transform and submit and obey, and to toss aside my longstanding ways of thinking and replace them with Landmark’s dogma. This is brainwashing, and Landmark does it well.
Despite how that sounds, some of Landmark’s techniques are extremely helpful. I did learn a lot about myself and examined both my good and bad habits — and the events that likely shaped them. I learned how to think about situations differently and emerged from my three days of instruction feeling incredibly motivated. To that end, it was definitely money well spent. I took away several valuable lessons about life and possibility from my Landmark experience, but the majority of the coursework I left behind. Because while I don’t think Landmark is a cult, I do think it is very, very cultish. It is also very powerful.
So what happens at the Landmark Forum? Stay tuned for the blow by blow in part II.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Milla Goldenberg. Milla Goldenberg said: RT @OsmosisOnline: Is Landmark Forum a cult? Or can you drink — or even sip — the Kool-Aid? Watch Milla "fail the self-help seminar": http://bit.ly/ddxEFY [...]
[...] [Ed note: In case you missed it, Part 1 is here.] [...]
[...] the first day of the Forum felt long and uncomfortable and the third day felt dramatic and surreal, the second day fell [...]
[...] you miss part 1, part 2, or part 3? Click on the hyperlinks to get the back [...]
[...] will make no sense unless you’ve read part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4 [...]
[...] in any way affiliated with it. I haven’t attended a Landmark event since 2002, probably. I read Ms. Goldenberg’s articles with great interest, as it’s been about 10 years since I did the Landmark Forum. As it would turn [...]
So far I am on sock number 6 and though they are all white, none match!!!!!
Who knows how to stop the sock stealer? Or the matchingsock stealer?
Pain may sometimes be the reason why people change. Getting flunked grades make us realize that we need to study. Debts remind us of our inability to look for a http://www.myspace.com/571900011/blog – source of income. Being humiliated gives us the ‘push’ to speak up and fight for ourselves to save our face from the next embarrassments. It may be a bitter experience, a friend’s tragic story, a great movie, or an inspiring book that will help us get up and get just the right amount of motivation we need in order to improve ourselves.
When you are at work, do you get frustrated because things don’t seem to be happening the way they’re supposed to be? You see people milling around but nothing gets accomplished. And in the daily hustle and bustle, do you feel that your goals remain just that – goals. Then maybe its time for you to stand up and do something about it.
Humor is indeed the best medicine there is whenever you are. I mean anyone can pay good money to listen to a comedian just to make you wet your pants after laughing so hard. Despite of what’s been happening, and to those who has gone though the ordeal, it’s better to just laugh while facing the troubles with a clear mind than anger with a clouded vision. One of my favorite celebrities of all time may have to be Woody Allen. Now this is one guy who gives you the in-your-face bluntness that he pulls out with gusto, even without even trying. You can talk just about anything with a man, and he’s bound to mock the subject and you’ll end up laughing rather than being upset about it.