Landmark Forums. Anyone have any experience with this?

[JeffR]

The husband of a dear friend of mine has been giving me the hard sell about this for ages. I finally broke down and did a little research, reading pro and con carefully, and didn't like what I found.

In response to his most recent email, I answered, "Wasn't aware that all this derives from est and Werner Erhard. That alone is enough for me to say this is not something I would be involved in, but thank you anyway."

Does anyone here have any personal experience or even second-hand knowledge of Landmark? I'd appreciate any feedback, positive or negative.

Thanks, DU!

:patriot:

[Jane Austin]

1. The only two people I know who were recruiting for these forums

ended up swindling money from their business partner.

[JeffR]

2. Thank you, janeaustin

Do you think the swindling had to do with their connection to Landmark, or were they just bad people to begin with?

[Jane Austin]

3. Just bad people.

I found out later that it was a pattern with them.

The question is, why were people like them promoting Landmark?

[JeffR]

4. I think you've hit on something there

Why indeed?

[Cronus Protagonist]

7. Perhaps they wanted to make a difference in your life?

Because they sure as hell didn't get paid or even get a toaster for inviting people.

[Jane Austin]

16. They did make a difference in my life.

And I'm still trying to recover from it.

[Cronus Protagonist]

20. Well, good luck then

Perhaps you need to bag some more on them for personal relief, but Landmark has nothing to do with their moral character. For that, they're on their own.

[Jane Austin]

25. I don't believe I ever said Landmark had anything to do with their

character.

In fact I said that they were probably bad people to start with.
I not only do not need to "bag" on them any more, I don't even need any relief for anything.

I merely answered the OP's post and I seem to have fallen within your sights.

Kindly leave me out of this, and especially kindly do not try to evaluate my mental state from the fact that I knew two swindlers who happen to try to recruit me and a number of people to take this course.

[Cronus Protagonist]

26. Good luck then

I don't know what more I can say, other than that I already said it. This is a discussion board, you know. :)

[Cronus Protagonist]

6. Landmark Eduction does not "recruit" - there's nothing to join!

Additionally, if these people you talk of swindled money from their business partner, I can assure you they were not practising anything they learned from Landmark.

You pays your money, you do the course and you're on your own. No notes. No books. No dogma. Nothing but a weekend long conversation with a few hundred people and people you know. That's all it is.

[Jane Austin]

17. They tried to recruit quite a few people I knew, including

several of their employees.

I have no idea why, and they didn't need any money from Landmark because they were skimming quite enough from their business partner.

[Cronus Protagonist]

19. Your'e not listening

There is no money coming from Landmark for inviting someone to participate. There are no toasters, gifts, brownie points or bragging rights. If someone invites you, it is their intention that you benefit from something they found valuable themselves. I've invited hundreds of people - I would feel very stingey if I didn't let people know the value of doing it.

I have never received even a letter of praise from Landmark for it, and certainly no money (I wish!)

As for the moral standards of these two people, that has nothing to do with Landmark Education or the courses. A crook who does a security course may use the information to break in somewhere, but that doesn't mean the course is about breaking into places, to use another example.

[Jane Austin]

24. I didn't say it had anything to do with Landmark.

Why on Earth are you trying to convince me of something?

We were all asked if we had any experience with this, even any second-hand experience.

I do and I answered.

Period.

[Cronus Protagonist]

5. I got my life out of the Landmark Forum

Truly. I spent $290 in 1990 for one weekend and when I was done with it, I told everyone I would have paid an entire years salary for what I got and still would not have repaid the value. If someone hasn't done it, quite frankly, their advice isn't authoritative. Talk with graduates if you want to know what it's like, or visit their web site and read the materials therein.

If you're at all interested in it, go check it out for yourself. There's always people who have negative things to say for their own reasons, but I can tell you my personal experience as a graduate, which is that it's worth at least 20-100 times what you pay for it. Really.

It is a bit more expensive nowadays, of course, but it still is/was the greatest experience of my life.

Here's their web site - check it out.

http://landmark-education.com



Educate A Freeper - Flaunt Your Opinions!
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[JeffR]

8. Thanks for your comments

I've looked at Landmark's website. I didn't mean to come off as necessarily anti-Landmark in the OP, but I really find the Erhard connection unsettling.

Anyway, I'm glad it's helped you. It's helped my friend's husband too, as far as I can see, but I've had a gut feeling that it's just not for me.

Appreciate your feedback!

[Cronus Protagonist]

11. I looked long and hard at it for over a year before I did it

And I looked into Werner Erhard and EST and all the controversy. Basically Werner was attacked by Scientology because he tried that for a while and rejected it, and when he became successful with his own education, L. Ron Hubbard stepped up the attacks accordingly.

Werner started his own education which was just him talking to his friends over coffee. They were called "coffees", and one thing led to another and later on he had started an organization to deliver his thoughts in a structured way. The course content then, as now, is based on some personal insights of Werner and his staff, and some common therapeutic techniques, almost all of which are used in common practice in many fields of discipline from psychology through philosophy.

What made EST different was that the techniques combined together, in a predetermined sequence, created a result that was completely unexpected and not predictable. Werner essentially created a method by which the result achieved was worth more than the sum of its parts might have been predicted to yield.

At that time, Warner was being heavily attacked bt L. Ron Hubbard because Ron saw people leaving EST with a better result than Scientology, without the baggage of a "religion" and for FAR less money. Almost all of the negativity surrounding Werner Erhard was generated by Scientology hit men.

Some of Werner's methods were criticised by others in other areas and the courses were improved by the input of both supporters and detractors. Like any business, they had growing pains and the education was being developed literally as they worked.

Later, Werner Erhard left EST, as he had become a lightening rod and Scientology had put out a hit on him, so he was concerned for his life. He sold the company to the employees and left them to develop their own body of work, standing on the shoulders of the work done previously. This has now become The Landmark Forum and it bears only a passing relation to Werner's work nowadays, while retaining the fundamental benefits and expanding them to new heights. I happen to think the new work is even better than that which Werner had developed, but they've had several decades since then to perfect it. And the body of work continues to grow. The company is still an employee owned firm to this day.

About Werner

http://www.wernererhard.com/

History of Landmark

http://www.landmarkeducation.com/display_content.jsp?top=26&mid=654&bottom=665

Enjoy!

[rox63]

9. They wouldn't happen to be related to

the 'Landmark Legal Fund' mentioned in this article, would they? :scared:

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/index.php?ntid=81327&ntpid=1

[Cronus Protagonist]

12. Not at all

I can't imagine a Republican neo con doing the Landmark Forum.... they might come out a bleeding heart liberal :)

[enlightenment]

10. Did Don Rumsfeld attend this training?

From a page of their web site --

"Standard educational methods enhance what you know and explore what you don’t know. Landmark Education gives you access to what you don’t even know that you don’t know." (emphasis added)




yikes.

[Cronus Protagonist]

13. He might have... who knows?

Because there is no dogma and no religion and no text and no books from Landmark, all you get is the training and yourself. From there, one can choose anything, including being Don Rumsfeld.... brrrr....

Actually, the concept that there is something out that that you don't know and you don't know you don't know it is a common one that goes back many years. Landmark uses it to indicate things that you don't know about yourself, but the intelligence communities use it to think out of the box and not for personal transformation. It's been common knowledge as long as there have been human beings interested in the psychology of the mind.

[elehhhhna]

14. good post. I did est in late '80s and it was a very beneficial

experience. Go ahead and look into it -- it might be worthwhile for you. Your level of involvement is up to you--and yes, there were some culty types who were overinvolved in it, but so what?

[sendero]

15. Many years ago..

.. I was hanging out with a (female) friend who was way into this. She went to ongoing meetings, etc. She asked me if I was interested, but did not put a "hard sell" on me at all.

I was going through a post-divorce rough patch, and I thought, what the hell? All I can really lose is a weekend and the $500 or so they were asking.

I went in to register and the dude asked me if I was taking any psychiatric medications. I told him I was, having been recently diagnosed bipolar. He says this could be a problem, but he said probably not. I said ok. He said, tell me what you are taking. I said well, I don't know, that's a bit personal and if it's a problem maybe I should bail. He finally said I'm sure it will be ok.

I told him I take lithium. Well, that was it. He said I was not eligible for the course. At this point I became pretty angry. I take a nominal dose of lithium and after all I lived 20 years of adulthood without being diagnosed, in terms of severity I have a 2 or 3 on a 10 scale, have never been arrested, been to a psych ward or a hospital, never punched anyone, even people who richly deserved it :)

He called the director over and it just became a big downer. He was like "maybe" but there would be hoops to jump through. At that point I'd felt like the first guy was dishonest with me and I just decided to forget it. But I guess I'll never know :)

I'm sure the program, whose main focus is on getting people to accept that they and they alone are responsible for everything about their life (among other things) is useful for some people.

[Cronus Protagonist]

18. The Landmark Forum is for healthy people

It's not therapy and it's not treatment.

A manager or someone like that can make exceptions for you but, like in any circumstances where your real life butts up against the rules, you need to stand up for yourself to have them make exceptions on your behalf. In short, you really have to be committed to doing it to get to do it, if you're under the care of a healthcare professional. Basically, if you are under the care of a psychiatrist, therapist or physician, you have to get their permission to do the course. That's not too much to do if you really want to do it.

I must take issue with this, though:

I'm sure the program, whose main focus is on getting people to accept that they and they alone are responsible for everything about their life (among other things) is useful for some people.

That is not the main focus of any of Landmarks' courses. I don't fault you for it, rather, your interpretation is not based on direct experience, so it is understandable. Of course, taking responsibility in life is always a good thing, but the main focus of the Landmark Forum is that you live your life to the fullest, living a self-created life you love.

I certainly do and have that, and perhaps you might want to consider taking the course another time now that you know what's required for participation.

:)

[sendero]

23. After I wrote that..

... I realized that my "interpretation" of what it's about might be bullshit. Thanks for setting it straight.

I had a psychiatrist make a diagnosis 10 years ago. Literally months afterward, he quit his practice to do some teaching or somesuch. At the time, he said my problem was no longer psychiatric, but medical, in that I needed someone to write me a prescription for lithium, and a doctor to do liver/kidney panels every 6 months for safety. He asked if my "family" doctor might be willing, and he was.

I haven't seen a psychiatrist in 9+ years, so I'd have to find one and visit with him a few times and it's really not worth all that to me, I feel I'm a reasonably well adjusted person although Kerry fans on this board would most certainly disagree :)

I wish I had done it at the time, but basically although the details are fuzzy, the rep I was working with lied to me and it pissed me off. I realize that one jerk does not invalidate the efficacy of a program like that, and I also realize that it is pretty intense and probably not for everyone, so I can understand their caution on some level.

[Cronus Protagonist]

27. Yeah, I have encountered some jerks everywhere *ahem*

I "thought about it" for a year myself :)

Having said that, I did note afterwards that I wasted a whole damn year out of my life. No kidding. I don't know if I was clear enough before, but I think you can still do it if you're committed to doing it. You just have to be committed to doing it. Your own doc can write a little note indicating that he thought it a good idea for you to do the Landmark Forum - talk with the center manager and off you go!

I thought it was a cult. And it took me a year to know for sure it is not.

Anyway, I noticed, after a while, all my concerns and interpretations were repetetive, I was acting like a robot, and not just when Landmark came up. Finally, I had to do it, not because I needed it, not because I wanted it, but because I thought it would be an awesome, inspiring experience. And if I didn't do it, I knew I would always have the same lame, dead excuses for everything else in my life that I was afraid to confront.

I have not looked back once.

[InfoMinister]

21. Wow, Here's Some Pretty Negative Things About It I Just Found

It appears to be the Penn and Teller forum where some people have commented on this.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/106337/message/1126425781/What+do+you+think+of+Landmark+Forum-

Also, here's a skeptic page they linked to
http://skepdic.com/landmark.html

Here's someone's account
http://www.religio.de/therapie/landmark/landmark.html#2

So this has connections to Scientology?

[beachmom]

22. I went to one of those "check it out" meetings at somebody's house

A friend from my church invited me. The first half of the afternoon was good. It was like the usual self improvement stuff. I enjoyed it.

Then came the second half, which raised red flags for me immediately. It was an extremely hard sell; because I have small children I cannot do a weekend long course PLUS have to return Tues. evening (the closest course is 3 1/2 hrs away). But these people would NOT shut up -- the worst was "oh, can't you drop your kids off with a neighbor?" Excuse me -- these are my kids, and I don't just dump them anywhere!

(I also was highly disturbed when given the "wisdom" of Donald Rumsfeld thrown at me. I raised the concern that he had taken the course, and the guy there said, "oh yeah, maybe", like that was somehow a good thing.)

The next day, I checked it out on the internet, and really became alarmed. Any article even partly critical of the course had been taken down (because they were threatened with lawsuits), and this one guy (can't remember the name) who has a Cult Watch site had saved them and put them all there. They were just articles from Elle magazine and so on, and they really weren't even that bad, but this organization had lawyered up against them?

In regards to the poster who is on lithium. The reason why they wouldn't take you is because the Landmark course can be quite stressful and intense, and there has been problems in the past with people with some mental health problems. Plain and simple, it was about liability for them.

Let me just end with this. I'm not saying there aren't aspects of this course that aren't praiseworthy. But a full weekend -- 8 AM to midnight? That's highly suspicious and IMO unhealthy. The truth is that life is difficult (M. Scott Peck) and even if one gets a high from one weekend, it doesn't mean you're going to solve all of your problems, and in fact, your utopian high may cause you to make things worse in the long run. The two people I know who are totally into Landmark both had very troubled childhoods; they claim that Landmark has "changed their life". But that concerns me that people so vulnerable are being sucked in. I wonder if simply spending an entire weekend journaling, reading spiritual books, walking in nature wouldn't be just as effective, a lot cheaper, and safer for your pysche.