The Landmark Forum: Transformation or Cult?
Landmark Education is most well-known for its flagship program, the Forum. The Forum promises transformation in three days of intense inquiry. While some people who have taken the Forum and other Landmark offerings have only good to say about it, others claim that it is a cult and urge potential enrollees to avoid it or be scarred for life. Which is true?
I took the Forum in 1992, and saw results in my life. I chose to review it again in 2011, and just completed the Advanced Course in January of 2012. Landmark Education has fulfilled what it promised for me, but I can see how some people are afraid that it is a cult. In this article I will examine thoroughly what a cult is, why Landmark can be misconstrued as a cult, and why only people who are functional and emotionally healthy should take it.
Landmark's Curriculum for Living consists of the Forum, the Advanced Course, and the Self Expression and Leadership Program. It is designed to challenge your assumptions, emotional habits, and beliefs that limit what you are able to accomplish in your life. If you are attached to looking good, inflexible in your beliefs, or uncomfortable with change, the weekend will be very difficult. Since these descriptions apply to most of us, few of us actually enjoy the process at first. The Forum is intensely uncomfortable, especially during the first few hours.
Other inquiries have been made into whether or not the Forum is a cult. Two journalists enrolled to find out for themselves.
Jack at thirtytwothousanddays and Amelia Hill at the UK Guardian have written about what they experienced. I encourage anyone who is on the fence to read these examples, to get a realistic picture of what goes on during the weekend and what the results can be.
The material presented in the Forum is not new. It's psychology in a digestible form, presented during a three day "conversation" that involves intense sharing and vulnerability by everyone who participates. Everyone learns from everyone else, and the language that is used, frequently called "jargon" by critics, is simply a way to encapsulate complex ideas into a language that participants can share and use later. The use of "jargon" does not make the Forum a cult.
Following are characteristics of a cult, why some people say that the Forum is a cult, and evidence that it is not.
These characteristics are condensed from a list compiled by The American Family Foundation.
1. The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
Landmark Education is a for-profit business that is owned by its employees. There is no one leader to whom members are asked to be committed to. The Forum leader who presides over the weekend intensive is one of many trained facilitators. The students of the Forum acknowledge the leadership of the facilitator for the weekend only, and may never see that person again. I have taken three weekend workshops and encountered three different leaders. None of them asked for or required loyalty to anyone.
2. The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
Landmark Education uses an aggressive marketing strategy. They do not advertise, relying instead on people who take the Forum to bring others who they think will benefit. There is a lot of hype and pressure on participants to do this, resulting in the label "cult". Bringing in participants is how Landmark stays in business, and participants in a weekend workshop are not "members". I disagree with Landmark's marketing strategy but aggressive marketing does not make the Forum a cult.
3. The group is preoccupied with making money.
Landmark is a for-profit business, and they are in business to make money. I found it to be a good value for the money I spent. While they are in business to make money, they are also in business to deliver value. Participants who register in the Forum also get a ten week seminar to help them hold onto the changes they have made in their lives.
4. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Forum leaders are often confrontational. This can feel bad to a participant. However, participants can leave at any time. Forum leaders also say periodically, "none of this is true". The purpose of this statement is to remind participants that the ideas presented are for their evaluation, they are not any kind of doctrine. Participants are not shamed or punished in any way.
5. Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
While the hours of the intensive are long, there are breaks every 2-3 hours, and dinner is 90 minutes. There is water available in the room at all times, and there is a nearby break room for eating and conversing during breaks. Leaving the room is discouraged during sessions so that participants get full value. Contrary to rumor, there is no restriction on using the bathroom.
6. The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).
Nothing remotely like this occurs in Landmark Education seminars. Participants are encouraged to think and choose for themselves. The Forum encourages participants to question assumptions they have made in the past and evaluate their actions and decisions in present time.
7. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
People who take Landmark Education seminars are encouraged to "make a difference" in whatever way they feel called. That's all.
8. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society. Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
This is probably the most obvious example of why Landmark Education is not a cult. The workshops are specifically marketed as a means for people to be more effective in their relationships, in their work, and in society. Repairing relationships is on the agenda at every break. Making a difference is a recurring theme. Landmark graduates go out into the world and use what they have learned to make it better. You can find some descriptions of what graduates are doing on the Landmark website. Many Landmark graduates have started charities or written bestsellers.
9. The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
Not applicable.
10. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
Not applicable.
Allegations that The Forum is a cult are unsubstantiated.
I did a thorough exploration on the internet, and the evidence that the Forum was a cult was not available. The videos, the "60 minutes" episode, etc. were removed due to inaccurate or incomplete information or failure to abide by guidelines that establish credibility. There were some first person complaints that sounded to me like they were from people who were offended by having their belief systems challenged. One such example can be found here, with a rebuttal by a retired clinical psychologist.
When I took the Forum in 1992, I was working in an environment where the CEO was a Landmark graduate, and everyone in her managerial staff was encouraged to participate in Landmark Education. The result was that Landmark language was part of our workplace vernacular, and this helped me to retain the positive changes that I had experienced with Landmark. It was a great place to work, and we accomplished amazing things.
Landmark Education and the Landmark Forum are for people who want to be more effective in their lives. If you are basically happy, emotionally stable and interested in moving beyond "fine" into "amazing", the Forum is well worth your time and money. If you are deeply depressed, have a low tolerance for stress, or are mentally unstable in any way, therapy or a support group would be a more appropriate choice.
After taking the Forum and the Advanced Course, I am happier, less stressed and more effective. If you are considering the Forum, the worst that can happen is that you blow $550.00. No one will brainwash you and you will not be joining a cult. The best that could happen is that you change your life for the better.
I took the Forum in 1992, and saw results in my life. I chose to review it again in 2011, and just completed the Advanced Course in January of 2012. Landmark Education has fulfilled what it promised for me, but I can see how some people are afraid that it is a cult. In this article I will examine thoroughly what a cult is, why Landmark can be misconstrued as a cult, and why only people who are functional and emotionally healthy should take it.
Landmark's Curriculum for Living consists of the Forum, the Advanced Course, and the Self Expression and Leadership Program. It is designed to challenge your assumptions, emotional habits, and beliefs that limit what you are able to accomplish in your life. If you are attached to looking good, inflexible in your beliefs, or uncomfortable with change, the weekend will be very difficult. Since these descriptions apply to most of us, few of us actually enjoy the process at first. The Forum is intensely uncomfortable, especially during the first few hours.
Other inquiries have been made into whether or not the Forum is a cult. Two journalists enrolled to find out for themselves.
Jack at thirtytwothousanddays and Amelia Hill at the UK Guardian have written about what they experienced. I encourage anyone who is on the fence to read these examples, to get a realistic picture of what goes on during the weekend and what the results can be.
The material presented in the Forum is not new. It's psychology in a digestible form, presented during a three day "conversation" that involves intense sharing and vulnerability by everyone who participates. Everyone learns from everyone else, and the language that is used, frequently called "jargon" by critics, is simply a way to encapsulate complex ideas into a language that participants can share and use later. The use of "jargon" does not make the Forum a cult.
Following are characteristics of a cult, why some people say that the Forum is a cult, and evidence that it is not.
These characteristics are condensed from a list compiled by The American Family Foundation.
1. The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
Landmark Education is a for-profit business that is owned by its employees. There is no one leader to whom members are asked to be committed to. The Forum leader who presides over the weekend intensive is one of many trained facilitators. The students of the Forum acknowledge the leadership of the facilitator for the weekend only, and may never see that person again. I have taken three weekend workshops and encountered three different leaders. None of them asked for or required loyalty to anyone.
2. The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
Landmark Education uses an aggressive marketing strategy. They do not advertise, relying instead on people who take the Forum to bring others who they think will benefit. There is a lot of hype and pressure on participants to do this, resulting in the label "cult". Bringing in participants is how Landmark stays in business, and participants in a weekend workshop are not "members". I disagree with Landmark's marketing strategy but aggressive marketing does not make the Forum a cult.
3. The group is preoccupied with making money.
Landmark is a for-profit business, and they are in business to make money. I found it to be a good value for the money I spent. While they are in business to make money, they are also in business to deliver value. Participants who register in the Forum also get a ten week seminar to help them hold onto the changes they have made in their lives.
4. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. The leadership induces guilt feelings in members in order to control them.
Forum leaders are often confrontational. This can feel bad to a participant. However, participants can leave at any time. Forum leaders also say periodically, "none of this is true". The purpose of this statement is to remind participants that the ideas presented are for their evaluation, they are not any kind of doctrine. Participants are not shamed or punished in any way.
5. Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
While the hours of the intensive are long, there are breaks every 2-3 hours, and dinner is 90 minutes. There is water available in the room at all times, and there is a nearby break room for eating and conversing during breaks. Leaving the room is discouraged during sessions so that participants get full value. Contrary to rumor, there is no restriction on using the bathroom.
6. The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel (for example: members must get permission from leaders to date, change jobs, get married; leaders may prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, how to discipline children, and so forth).
Nothing remotely like this occurs in Landmark Education seminars. Participants are encouraged to think and choose for themselves. The Forum encourages participants to question assumptions they have made in the past and evaluate their actions and decisions in present time.
7. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members (for example: the leader is considered the Messiah or an avatar; the group and/or the leader has a special mission to save humanity).
People who take Landmark Education seminars are encouraged to "make a difference" in whatever way they feel called. That's all.
8. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society. Members' subservience to the group causes them to cut ties with family and friends, and to give up personal goals and activities that were of interest before joining the group. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
This is probably the most obvious example of why Landmark Education is not a cult. The workshops are specifically marketed as a means for people to be more effective in their relationships, in their work, and in society. Repairing relationships is on the agenda at every break. Making a difference is a recurring theme. Landmark graduates go out into the world and use what they have learned to make it better. You can find some descriptions of what graduates are doing on the Landmark website. Many Landmark graduates have started charities or written bestsellers.
9. The group's leader is not accountable to any authorities (as are, for example, military commanders and ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream denominations).
Not applicable.
10. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group (for example: collecting money for bogus charities).
Not applicable.
Allegations that The Forum is a cult are unsubstantiated.
I did a thorough exploration on the internet, and the evidence that the Forum was a cult was not available. The videos, the "60 minutes" episode, etc. were removed due to inaccurate or incomplete information or failure to abide by guidelines that establish credibility. There were some first person complaints that sounded to me like they were from people who were offended by having their belief systems challenged. One such example can be found here, with a rebuttal by a retired clinical psychologist.
When I took the Forum in 1992, I was working in an environment where the CEO was a Landmark graduate, and everyone in her managerial staff was encouraged to participate in Landmark Education. The result was that Landmark language was part of our workplace vernacular, and this helped me to retain the positive changes that I had experienced with Landmark. It was a great place to work, and we accomplished amazing things.
Landmark Education and the Landmark Forum are for people who want to be more effective in their lives. If you are basically happy, emotionally stable and interested in moving beyond "fine" into "amazing", the Forum is well worth your time and money. If you are deeply depressed, have a low tolerance for stress, or are mentally unstable in any way, therapy or a support group would be a more appropriate choice.
After taking the Forum and the Advanced Course, I am happier, less stressed and more effective. If you are considering the Forum, the worst that can happen is that you blow $550.00. No one will brainwash you and you will not be joining a cult. The best that could happen is that you change your life for the better.
Published by Elizabeth Danu
Author of The Liberation of Persephone, a resource site for cancer survivors, Elizabeth is a five year survivor of Inflammatory Breast Cancer. She is a frequent contributor on Yahoo!News, and also maintains... View profile
12 Comments
Sign in to CommentExcellent article on LE. I did the Landmark Forum in 1999, and have done many graduate courses since then, up until the present. The people who think that Landmark's courses are brainwashing, cultlike, etc., should probably stay away from them, and seek therapy instead, or just be happy with life as it is. Landmark is in the growth and development business, which is different from health and healing. It is not psychology, because psychology is about fixing something that is damaged or broken, not developing beyond what seems possible. Doctors need a lot more training than fitness trainers, auto mechanics need a lot more training, education and expertise than someone who wants to adjust their carburator to get a little more speed out of their car. They are simply two different models, and those who go to the gym to fix a heart condition will be just as disappointed as they would if they did the Landmark Forum to get over an emotional illness. The LF is only for the healthy.
Thoughtful analysis of the Landmark Education/Cult question. I participated for years in Landmark Education programs and continue to benefit by causing ongoing breakthroughs in my life out of my participation in the weekly seminar program and other programs. I notice that this cult conversation comes up on the net from people who had a bad experience with Landmark. Thankfully, not all bad, unresolved interactions with major corporations indicate that the corporation is a cult, otherwise from my experience we'd have the cults of UHaul and PHH Mortgage...but I digress.
For those people out there that are anti-Landmark Education, I encourage you to take your complaints back to Landmark and get them complete. However many years ago it was, say what you need to say to someone at Landmark who can actually do something about your negative experience, even if you have to take it to the CEO. Please get it complete and then go make a difference in the world in an area important to you.
I was a victim of this institution in 1997. The fact that it is called "Landmark Education" is misleading. This organization claims to enlighten people with the "possibilities" and potential that lie within them by breaking down their beliefs systems and building them back up in "new age" and godless beliefs. A frightening organization with tremendous leaders who know the fundamentals of brainwashing.
After discovering very positive information about The Landmark Forum, I participated in The Landmark Forum. I have completed several other Landmark courses since then. They have all been truly life altering in many ways, including, I have a stronger and more loving relationship of my wife of 42 years than I ever dreamed possible and also with our daughter. My relationships with all of my family members and friends have never been better. My wife, daughter and many family members and friends have also had positive results after participating in The Landmark Forum.
Some early comments requested information from well known sources. Here are some I found. I have shown (dot) instead of a . so they could be posted.
- CEOs Evaluate Landmark Forum tinyurl(dot)com/46s2y61
- Pat Summerall on Discovery Channel tinyurl(dot)com/4177kwl
- Top 100 Adventures, tinyrul(dot)com/26z5w23, rates the Landmark Forum as #3.
- Businessweek Article, Nov. 2010 on Panda Express and Landmark: tinyurl(dot)com/2d
Worst #$%$ ever!
Landmark Education has the stats to back up their results. Just ask. If most organizations tracked their results the way Landmark Education does, they would see the explosive results that the attendees of Landmark experience.
Landmark is not a cult. The organization does offer a tremendous opportunity for those who have taken the Landmark Forum. It's called the assisting program. Just like anything in life, mastery takes practice and this is a great way to practice. The is one of a host of follow up programs for those who want them. For those who don't want to go on, that's fine too.
this is replying to mark and in effect everyone: landmark does fully meet the textbook definition of a cult. the fact that it is not the kind you see in a 30 minute tv show or a 90 minute movie, the fact that it hasn't led to mass suicide (yet,) the fact that it isn't highly publicized (we should stop and consider this fact and what it means) makes it all the more unsettling to make the discovery for yourself, to "open yourself up to creating the possibility" as it were, that landmark fully and faithfully fulfills not one, not two, which would be reason enough to question its, dare i say, integrity, but it completely and wholly meets and fulfills every textbook checkpoint. again, this is not heresay, this is not blinded by reading all of the internet slander. i am a person who is involved in the pain it has caused. please consider.
through personal experience and not heresay, i can disprove every defense you have presented in using truth and a basic knowledge of mindfulness. let me reiterate, personal experience. i've seen a lot of gray area back and forth nonsense about the nature of these programs. i can confidently and honestly say i have a complete clarity and understanding of what i know is true. the forum, and the entirety of landmark, is in full a dangerous, careless, and irresponsible organization. i can provide further explanation and a complete description of the statements i am confidently declaring, which i know is the very kind of careful thinking that landmark discourages. i am saddened by how fully i can clear up these explanations you provide to the criticisms. my involvement with this group has been an extremely unsettling, terrifying and eye opening experience. i urge anyone reading this to consider what i have said here, and i can clarify fully if i am asked. thank you.
I have also taken "The Forum", and while there are aspects of the seminar that I found useful, the ongoing emphasis on doing more and more courses and signing up more people was an issue for me. Some documentation would give your article a lot more weight with me. How 'bout a few quotes from mental health studies or from leaders in the field of psychology to back up your endorsement. A "thorough search of the internet" doesn't exactly qualify as a scholarly exploration of the issue. In fact, your own admission that any material that disagrees with LEC has been taken down from the web sheds light on what may be the favorite strategy of LEC, silence critics with the threat of litigation. (Examples can be provided, Thaler's "Cults in Our Midst" being one, the author being forced to remove passages or face litigation) Is it a cult? In my opinion it has aspects that are similar to a cult, but it probably does not meet the textbook definition of a cult.