Between April and September of 2006 I was more or less continuously involved in some capacity with Landmark Education, now, almost a year later I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on my experiences with them.
The core Landmark course, The Landmark Forum, is one of those things that most people have heard about in some capacity before, I’d heard of a number of people doing it in the past, but hadn’t expressed too much interest until almost simultaneously two friends of mine contacted me saying they’d had an amazing experience on the course, and that I should have a look at doing it myself.
I had a look at Landmark’s website, and found the information a little sparse, there was a lot of positive stuff about the benefits of their courses, but very little about what the course actually involved. But spurred by my friends’ enthusiasm for the courses, I went on to do a little research and while doing so read stories of life-changing breakthroughs, and then right through the entire spectrum of experience to stories of people experiencing mental breakdowns, to claims of unusual experiences and cultish behaviour. Nevertheless, I decided to sign up for the course, and see what all the fuss was about.
I found the course to be incredibly challenging; both emotionally and physically. My emotions went from extreme sadness to intense happiness and back-and-forth all weekend. The long hours – 9am to almost midnight, for three consecutive days; then between half-an-hour to an hour homework each night – gave me time for a little over four hours sleep each night and left me totally exhausted by Sunday evening.
Nevertheless, despite the huge time commitment, I found the material to be very interesting, delivered well and intensely thought provoking. Whilst I am normally unable to even sit and watch TV without fidgeting, the fourteen-hours-plus class day seemed to fly by as I found myself completely engrossed in the material; and I have to say, for three comparatively short days, I found the results to be pretty remarkable.
There is a large body of work to complete over the duration of the course, which primarily targets beliefs you have about yourself and your life. These types of beliefs are ingrained in everyone, but the beliefs themselves are unique to you, and created by you as a response to failures you’ve experienced at key points in your life. Although we’re not generally aware of them at a conscious level, it is possible to dig them up and expose them. What is interesting is that these beliefs are self perpetuating; you believe a certain thing about yourself or the world, and because you believe that, that is what you experience, thus further entrenching that belief. The benefit of exposing these beliefs, is once you consciously acknowledge them, when they come up in your life, you aren’t stopped by them; you can recognise them and push through, and create new beliefs in their place.
There is a lot of work regarding being honest with yourself, and truly getting complete with your past so you can move forward unhindered in life. The biggest thing for me was realising I’d not completely dealt with my fathers suicide when I was 17; I believe at the time it was too much to bare, so I just ‘boxed up’ all my emotions and hid it in a dark corner of my mind. One exercise was to ‘clean up’ your relationship with your parents, so I wrote my Dad a letter.
As I sat in bed with my laptop perched on my knee in the small hours of the morning, the moment my hands touched the keyboard I knew what I wanted to say and the letter just poured out of me, all the thoughts I’d had surrounding my Dad’s death, and the things I’d left unsaid, spilt forth on the pages. Tears streamed from my eyes as I opened myself to fully experience the pain, and I wrote and wrote until everything I felt I needed to express had been said; and then – peace. Serenity washed over me; and I realised I had finally accepted my fathers death and I could close that chapter on my life. All that remains now is my love for him and my respect for his memory. He felt his life was intolerable, and he did what he felt he had to do, I can appreciate that now. I can move on.
Part of getting complete with the past, is to clean up your relationships with people; getting over old arguments, being honest about things you lied about, or obscured, basically making good with all the people in your life. I found making these calls to people, often in middle of the night, to have these really frank conversations about your history together terrifying and horribly difficult. Aside from admitting all the terrible things I’d done in my past, calling my friends and family out-of-the-blue, in a highly emotional state, and then launching forward with brutal honesty is incredibly weird and awkward for all concerned. My call to my Mum caused her great distress, as it would, having your child on the other side of the world calling in the middle of the night, incoherently crying and babbling, only to hang up without any clear explanation of what the hell was going on. Only when I called her some hours later could coherently explain what was happening, and we could have a conversation while I tried to ease her concerns. Nevertheless, despite the initial challenges these calls presents, the exercise is incredibly liberating, and a number of my relationships, including that with my mother, strengthened as a result.
As the course came to a close, I was euphoric, for the first time I could remember, I felt strong; invincible in fact. Completely unstoppable. This euphoria lasted for days, I was bouncing off the walls with energy, and everything just seemed right in the world. Eventually this subsided, but I was left with a noticeably increased sense of self-confidence and my overall experience of life seemed enriched, and the future suddenly brighter.
After such a positive experience with the Landmark Forum, I decided to go on and do the ‘Landmark Advanced Course‘, and the ‘Self Expression and Leadership Programme‘, the second and third parts of their three part ‘Curriculum for Living’. The courses each cover different material, and I found the Advanced Course in particular to be especially thought provoking.
The Self Expression and Leadership programme is a long duration course, spread out over three months, with one night a week at the centre, and one full day once a month. The coursework differs considerably from the earlier courses, as it focuses on creating a community project and bringing it to fruition. My project was an outdoor festival celebrating London’s backpacker community, a community I strongly identify with, but councils flatly denied me use of an public grounds, and private venues were equally un-enthused. After much deliberation with two major London drinking establishments, and despite having already signed a number of artists and obtained modest corporate sponsorship, they both eventually decided to pull out; and I decided to kill my project.
Still, despite my lack of success, a number of my fellow course participants had amazing results, such as one woman who managed to get over 2,000 books donated which were then sent to Africa where disadvantaged children didn’t have access to such things; and another who organised a street carnival which allowed local residents to meet and get to know each other, and in turn unite their previously antisocial community, apparently with great success.
Despite my overall positive experience of Landmark, there was one part that really bothered me; and that is the huge amount of emphasis on recruiting other people to enrol in Landmark courses; while I can appreciate their view point – If you are getting benefits from something, why shouldn’t you share it with others? – I found there was too way much emphasis on this aspect and the unceasing pressure to recruit was incredibly invasive and annoying. In addition to this, the few occasions I did bring guests to the introductory evenings, they were pressured, bullied and manipulated into joining courses, and it made me embarrassed that I’d forced my guests to endure such behaviour. Furthermore, it made Landmark look like a slimy operation; and I genuinely believe this is a shame, as there is a lot of good stuff to be learnt from the courses, and Landmark are doing themselves a disservice by trying to push it so hard.
It’s now been almost a year since I last attended a Landmark course, and I’ve now had time to gain perspective on the experience. My life has indeed improved in a major way since then, but that said, it’s hard to credit all the changes in my life exclusively to Landmark, undoubtedly a significant part is just the experience of growing up, my travels through South East Asia and the United States, and just meeting new and interesting people along the way; nevertheless I regard the course as catalyst for my own personal growth, and indeed a really positive experience.
Landmark offer a whole raft of other courses in addition to their ‘Curriculum for Living’ programme, but since finishing my course last year, I’ve had no desire to return to Landmark for their other courses, nor do I have any intention of returning in the future. While I gained a lot from the experience, there is something about Landmark’s practices that makes me uneasy. This said, I would still recommend the course to anyone interested, once you get through the high pressure recruitment, there is some genuine gems to be found.
Wow, well theres a whole lot I didnt know about you. Good stuff cuz keep it up :)
Hi Mark…brutally honest and right on about Landmark’s painfully intrusive recruiting techniques, which I experienced frist hand and ran from….Have done other such grueling and revealing workshops and like you feel something like this is an essential part of personal growth…opening us up, giving us the tools to live life as fully involved participants. Eye opening indeed. Thanks so much for sharing and DO KEEP WRITING. Love, Win
That’s really informative Mark, thanks … I’ve nearly been recruited lots of times by people over the past couple of years. It’s a shame their methods of “spreading the word” aren’t as good as what people get out of it. Might do it some day, but right now, I’m happy with where I’m at and what I’m doing with my life.
Hope you’re well!
Claire :)
Hi Mark, I stumbled upon your blog and enjoyed reading your posts. I haven’t had any contact with Landmark, but it does sound like a mixed bag. I have attended lots of psychodrama workshops – these are also geared towards personal growth but rather than a curriculum you just work with what’s present in the group at the time.
All of these things are just steps along the way – but it’s good to get a leg-up or a push from a weekend or a course sometimes.
Tui
An excellent summary Mark and very similar to my experiences.
Like you I had some pretty “abnormal” life experiences as my father was a convicted criminal (father’s are responsible for a lot aren’t they!) and the Landmark experience was a great opportunity to discover how those early life experiences influenced me. My forum was a truly incredible experience. I remember on the last night (the Sunday) 200 of us were just cooking! We wouldn’t let the Landmark forum leader go (a guy from New York) we were just celebrating full out! The Maori people in the forum were incredible too, 50 or so were present and it really touched them. At about 1 am on Sunday several spontaneous Hakas “erupted” from 3 different groups and I think the Forum leader feared for his life!
One particular person I remember was a really cocky self confessed criminal who made a complete U turn and pledged to come clean on his crimes and front up to the people he had wronged. I kept in contact with him over the SLP and sure enough he kept his word and ended up getting diversion for a number of car thefts and drug offences. He’s a changed man. Another was a self confessed Maori activist who by the end of the Forum had renounced his extreme activism.
My curiosity about the new freedom I found at Landmark and where it could take me was a little stronger. I went on and did what’s called the Introduction leader’s Programme or ILP. I didn’t graduate (or “candidate” as they call it) because I could not recruit enough people for the forum. I did, however, discover a few new skills on the ILP, i.e. the ability to relate to people at a level where they are prepared to open up to me and tell me their life story. As a result I got into coaching and have created a very rewarding career in “Business Life” coaching.
Initially I started my own company but later got recruited by an Australian firm of business consultants. Before all this I had a job as a computer engineer, so the change to coaching was a big leap! Other coaches who have seen me do it (coaching) have asked me “how do you do it?” but honestly, I don’t really know. It just happens. I put myself “out there” in front of groups of 20 or so people and something comes over me, I step into a new way of being and people just respond. It’s incredibly rewarding “work” and very lucrative.
I guess what I’m coming round to saying is if you think you may have reached the limit of what’s possible at Landmark – think again. There’s lot’s more in store. If the recruiting bothers you, then do what I did and test your ability to get agreement with other people by helping to raise money for a worthwhile cause – or even get a job selling something! Fear of rejection is the big hurdle for most people in business and in love. Once you have identified what’s stopping you in that area you can get a huge second blast of energy from Landmark. I’m 8 years on from my Forum but every week I see the evidence that the Landmark philosophy is still working for me.
Thanks for being objective in your reflections about Landmark and on behalf of the millions of people who have done the Landmark Forum – thank you and I wish you the very best of success in your life.
Great summary and interesting reading Mark.
I have just completed my Landmark Forum, our Tuesday evening session completed last night, during which I registered for the advanced course. This was after a powerful approach to enable me to register despite the barriers I created to stop me, such as Time, Money etc. The method in which Landmark encourage registration is a powerful use of language, and from a business point of view, is lucrative and successful.
This methodology can easily be construed as pressured business technique, and selling. However, if registering whilst aware of this (and Landmark have no qualms about acknowledging that they are a business which makes money). Then your registration is justified. It must be dually noted that the money paid for the course is fuelled back into the business to help subsidise and fund courses held in Africa and India, Asia, plus other countries not financially supported.
On completion of my first landmark forum, I still have those moments of doubt, and immediately I acknowledge them, focusing on the outstanding and profound feeling of completion I gained from the course. I was able to identify with those areas of my life and self that have held me back in making certain decisions in life. Though I have no regrets, I can now take forward the tools to create any possibility I want.
Even if all I want is to be open and honest with family & to have confidence in my own ability, then its money well spent. Already I feel like I can acheive anything and without those ‘hangups’ people have, without the need to complain about what I haven’t got I can choose my possibility and the people around me are inspired by my presence. They can sense a difference in me even in two days.
All I can say is make you own mind up about the Landmark forum. But please don’t knock it before you try it. I will be recomending it with complete peace of mind.
Thanks
Dear Mark,
I agree with all that you say about Landmark; I did the forum (nearly against my own will! But then a friend offered the downpayment and I was just that curious.) I’m not a fan of jargony pop-psychy endeavors, and I knew people whose parents had gone to est and I was deeply suspicious. I fully expected to go through Landmark, pull a couple of insights, then go home and tell everybody what was ‘wrong’ with it.
The quality of the Landmark Forum coach is what got me to change my tack, almost immediately. He was a much older man than I expected, but had the energy of a teenager. Not obnoxious energy, but good, motivating energy that came from some true place. He was also witty — sometimes I find people associated with such group enlightenment things to be un-witty, take themselves too seriously, and the world too literally. Not him. Roger Smith, in short, rocked, in every realm that a personality can rock. He had integrity, compassion, intelligence, and I’m telling you he was funny. He seemed to have a strong sense of self, but in that way that facilitates community endeavors, vs. facilitating his own ego.
There is plenty to question re: Landmark, and I think people should always ask questions. I don’t think people should enroll in things because someone else said, and I don’t think we should follow strong leaders sheep-like into the unknown. I think we simply should be open — b/c open-ness leads to possibility (that is a classic Landmark term — possibility — but it is also in the dictionary!)
So question all you want; fight with yourself (and anyone around you) all you want during the program. But keep open — and things will happen for you. Insights you never had before (even if you tend to be insightful, depthy, and explorative) … will ease you into owning your world and not being a victim of it, and other people.
I’m not going to tell you about the program b/c it won’t matter what I say — you have to do it. If you can’t do it (b/c of money, time commitment) then just put it in your hat for future reference. Some time when you have a little cash, or if you feel like it won’t put you at financial risk to plop down your last dollars on this program — do it. I would be shocked if anyone, no matter what background, personality, mindset, proclivity, went to the Landmark Forum and did not exit the program with the burden of the world lifted from their shoulders.
As the author above said, it doesn’t last forever, that feeling of freedom and euphoria. No, you have to create this, over and over. If you stay in touch with Landmark, and take advantage of the myriad seminars, you can stay present to this program. Landmark will tell you (in that blustery, won’t-take-no-for-an-answer way) ALL about ways to stay in touch. And these ways can be offensive, annoying, cloying, and anything else that rhymes with “oying”. I too brought friends to intro sessions, only to be embarrassed by the hard-sell they had to endure. Some of them did the program anyway, but others ran for the hills. I don’t blame them. I did not run for the hills, b/c I don’t believe in the perfect anything — and I did feel instinctively that there was something powerful to be gained through this program.
So despite the obnoxious welcome-wagon tactics at the intro sessions that do not reflect the true nature and power of the program, and despite the somewhat presumptious way of getting people to sign up for the next Landmark offering during the Forum, Advanced Course, etc., despite that, it’s a small price to pay for what you get. What you get is a renewed sense of what is possible, and how much that only has to do with YOU being responsible for creating your life vs. waiting for all conditions to be perfect; i.e., all relationships to be working as efficiently as Swiss clock batteries, all people to be illness-free, all forces of nature to spare innocent lives the tragedy of massive quakes and other shakings …. b/c all conditions never will be. Landmark will never deliver this perfect, grounded message perfectly, you will never be in the perfect state of mind to receive it — ever. If you wait, it will never come.
So, create — don’t wait. I think that’s the simplified point of the program. And the only way to “get” this enough to use it in your life and free yourself of so much frustration and pain, is to TRY the Landmark Forum, etc.
If you hate it, it’s a free country after all and you can tell everybody you did! But I’m sure you will love it. Not every spec of it, but the true essence, the core concepts. My life is much better since Landmark. The more responsibility taken upon oneself for this, the better the life can be.
Just try it — don’t be cynical! There is bad press, if you want it, but reading that and believing that would just be another excuse for you not to have to do something outside of your comfort zone; another way to judge something, and close a door to opportunity. It’s so EASY to close doors but the cost is huge; you don’t get to be aware of much, and you don’t get to create the best stuff for yourself.
Kia ora Mark
Hey just read your korero (speel) on Landmark Education and I thought it was great. I did the the Forum back in 1995 and it hand a profound affect on my life too. I was quite heavily involved with Landmark in Auckland for a number of years and then like you took a break. The tools and friendships I gained from Landmark have changed my life forever. I was one of the key initiators of the first Maori Forum to be held here in New Zealand and boy was that an amazing experience. Our country has just finished its general elections and the New Minister of Maori Affairs is Doctor Peter Sharples who was a participant at our 2nd Maori Forum held here in NZ, it’s like the saying goes “once your eyes have been opened you can never shut them again” Thanks for sharing mate, it brought back a lot of fond memories. Oh I was also interested in what one of the crew had to say PhilC on march 24th. He mentioned how he got into “life coaching” as a career. I’m interested in talking to him if you have any contact details because it’s an area that I want to take a look at. Or you may have some contacts of your own. Look forward to hearing from you and go hard bro.
Te Rangihau
Interesting. I experienced a Landmark devotee at a social function this evening, going on in great detail about how it had ‘changed her life’ etc. I felt like I was the subject of an Amway sales pitch. I have actually had a ‘life changing’ experience myself this year, walking 1500km in France and Spain……. but there wasn’t really any chance to offer any of this experience into the ‘conversation’. As I say, it felt entirely like an aggressive sales pitch.
Hi Mark and others – I stumbled across your delightful posts, and felt moved to add something from my own experience, and address the theme of enrolment.
I am 66 now and feel about 36 apart from some loss of physical strength. I attended the Landmark Forum in Auckland where I live in November 1990, and went on in the next 2 years or so to do all the programmes that Landmark offered including the ILP training (then called IFLP) which was a rigorous 6 month training. Total cost btw was approximately NZ$3000 and imo that was incredible value for money for the time alone even leaving aside the huge benefits which have flowed since. At the time I was a practising lawyer (barrister) with the deep seated feelings (1) that there had to be more to life than I was getting and (2) that I was in a rut
About 3 months before I enrolled, my wife had attended an introduction as the guest of one of her friends whom I regarded as “flakey”. I remember saying to her that it was “an American get rich quick scheme taking money from mugs and you’re the mug if you sign up, but by all means go”. I already “knew” that although I had never even heard of the Forum before, let alone done any research into it (my wife did not enrol). Then a friend of mine whom I was supporting to start a health business invited me to attend the final evening of her Forum and I did. At the event, a man stood up and said “the first thing I did after I had finished was to go round to my ex-wife and thank her for divorcing me.” That got my attention, because it was not what people in my world ever did – they usually spent a few years at war with ex-spouses and recruited (I use that word intentionally!) their family and friends to join the cause.
Before leaving the evening, I knew I wanted to do the Forum, but I didn’t sign up on the evening because of the derision I knew I would face when I got home (“Dad’s a salesman’s dream” is something my wife had told our sons not long before, and that voice was in my head at the time). I told the person in the room I would make and communicate my decision within 48 hours (a lie, because I’d already made it) and I did formally enrol within that time.
I will not dwell on the event itself as others have already given accounts of it, but would like to summarise the aftermath from a long distance perspective of 18 years.
As Te Rangihau says above “once your eyes have been opened you can never shut them again” (someone else said “you can’t unring a bell”). That is the risk anyone takes who enters the Landmark Forum (they will give you your money back if you insist that you got nothing out of it).
Within 2 weeks of the event, my wife was telling friends that Bruce was much easier to live with and soon after my son said to her “how come Dad used to be such an arsehole and now he thinks he’s [a certain holy figure]?”. Btw, he did the Forum too when he was old enough.
I realised that our marriage was not as good as I thought it was, and sought to use the insights gained from work at Landmark to improve the situation. My wife eventually left despite (or because of?) the undoubted improvement which she acknowledged in our communication. I was devastated for about 3 months, when one of my colleagues in a programme said gently to me “Bruce, isn’t it time to move on?”
His timing was perfect. To condense the rest of the story, I became a mediator and later a relationship counsellor, both roles which, unlike that of barrister, I thoroughly enjoy. They were creative rather than destructive. I did some extensive NLP training which I have found invaluable, and would not have done without the changes in outlook which resulted from my Landmark participation. I’m about to embark on a new enterprise as a business consultant (possibly similar to what PhilC describes) where I can utilise the training gained in ILP all those years ago and communication skills from both Landmark and NLP training plus the hands on experience from mediation and counselling.
I formed a new relationship with a woman in her forties who wanted a first child, and became a willing father again at 54 of a daughter (pre-Forum, I would have considered my parenting days were over) and have done a great job of parenting, something my two sons missed out on. The relationship did not survive my daughter’s 5th birthday (my choice to end it) but her mother and I have managed to co-parent without harm to our daughter whom we both love dearly. She is a gifted (high IQ) yet well rounded child, although there was a 10% statistical chance when mother was 46 that she would be born with Downs’ syndrome. (Ironically, I have a Downs grandson born to a 26 year old mother – that should tell you something about statistics, and how we shouldn’t let them run our lives.)
Both parents have re-partnered and our daughter has a great relationship with both partners as well as her parents.
I have finally found my soul mate, who incidentally had done the Forum and some assisting before I met her. She struggles still with the “hard sell” approach, so it comes as no surprise to me that most of your respondents above have reacted to this aspect of what Landmark does, so let’s move on to that in a moment. I’ll round off by saying that I plan to live another 35 years, or die in the attempt, and if I died sooner rather than later I would still say that I have lived a full and satisfying existence. Each decade since 20 has been better than the one before.
_Enrolment_. “Recruitment” is a loaded word because of its military overtones. “Hard sell” and “pressure” are perceptions not realities. Landmark use the word “enrol” not only in the context of people committing to enter a programme, but also (for example) enrolling people into visions or ideas, or into how a person is being. Try this for meaning: “generating possibility in the listening of others such that they step into that possibility committedly, and act.” Getting someone interested is not enrolling them. (Interesting aside here – I have sometimes had people say to me after I’ve had an enrolment conversation with them: “sounds like it’s really good and it works; I don’t need it, so I’m not interested, but I’ll send my husband along because he does”. Actually, no-one needs the Forum and people all over the world survive not doing it. It offers only the possibility of a richer life. It is sometimes said that the Forum does not work. I agree. It does not work – the participant does, and the work she or he does may be much more effectively directed as a result of participation in the Forum. It depends what the participants takes out of it and above what ACTION they take. End of digression.)
Most if not all of us have a resistance to change, because change involves leaving our comfort zone and taking risks. It is easier to stay in familiar discontent than to step out into the unknown. If we didn’t have resistance, we would be vulnerable to all sorts of unscrupulous people. The problem we all face in the modern world (I suspect in the ancient world as well) is to distinguish the valuable from the worthless before we get hooked in.
Mark, you’ve said it all and yet come up with a (to me) puzzling conclusion. May I quote you here?
“Despite my overall positive experience of Landmark, there was one part that really bothered me; and that is the huge amount of emphasis on recruiting other people to enrol in Landmark courses; while I can appreciate their view point – If you are getting benefits from something, why shouldn’t you share it with others? – I found there was too way much emphasis on this aspect and the unceasing pressure to recruit was incredibly invasive and annoying.”
Everyone else on the page who has actually participated has positive results to report and I can confirm that is the norm in my whole experience. Most of the knockers are those that haven’t participated. The point then is that if someone hadn’t persisted sufficiently with each one of us (some harder to convince than others) none of us would have had the opportunity and hence benefit. I shudder to think how my life would have turned out if I had not passed through that pivotal event.
I haven’t so far mentioned the other resistance which mysteriously sits inside most of us: resistance not to being “sold” to, but resistance to “selling” to others. I’m not going into the psychology of it here but you will know what I mean. That is what Landmark Education or rather its Forum Leaders, staff and assistants face. If there is a better way of doing it, you might think they would have discovered it by now (or you could be generous and tell them if you know a better way). What I know for certain is that what they do does work because the events are still being run all over the world, and Landmark has not died from lack of participants and is thriving. This is crucial because if Landmark were to go out of business, the Forum would not then be available for others to derive benefit from.
Advertising does not work except possibly to get people into a room where they would still have to go through what some see as “the hard sell”, and the cost of advertising would have to be added to the course costs (which are not high by current standards). Similarly, the large number of volunteers (who are volunteers not conscripts whatever anyone says) who assist on programmes enable the cost of them to be kept to an affordable level.
The other inherent challenge faced by all those who seek to enrol others is that it is hard anyway to describe a personal experience in words and it gets harder when one realises that each person has had or will have their own unique experience of a process that is itself quite complex, and whose outcome cannot be known precisely in advance. A lot of trust and credibility is involved, and that derives mainly from the person who introduces a relative, friend or colleague to Landmark – from you, someone they know. “Selling” something you can’t adequately explain is indeed a challenge, and being too “nice” may not achieve the “sale”.
So, the “hard sell” and the unpleasant reactions to it are, I suspect, related to overcoming our natural and healthy resistance to people trying to sell us something, and, in the case of those of us who have already participated, to our less logical resistance to passing on to those we love or like or value something we know to be good for most humans.
In simplistic terms, it seems to go like this.
1. [Conversation] “I have been given the secret to a happy life. Would you like to know it too?” “I wish I could be happy too. No thanks”
2. [Internal conversation] “My life is so much better since the Forum. It certainly worked for me and seemed to work for most of the other people there too. I’m sure ….. would get heaps of benefit from it. But I don’t want to lose my friendship with …. or for him/her to think
I’ve lost the plot /
been conned /
been brainwashed /
am a needy character /
wasn’t coping
been …. /
am a …. /
couldn’t ….
so I’ll just casually mention the Forum in passing and get their reaction and if it’s positive I’ll tell them a little more about it …. .”
Anything else that’s good we’d happily share with our loved ones, and if they said we were being too generous, we’d insist that they took the gift.
If anyone thought I lost the plot in 1990, that was their thought. Mine is that I started to find the plot in 1990 and have been discovering more of it ever since.
For anyone in or from New Zealand I’m happy to be contacted at 09 629 3255 (I hope it is ok for me to put that on your site Mark) as I value feedback or enquiry. Email address is mediate@ihug.co.nz
I’ll end with my favourite quote (which I was alerted to by a Forum leader when I was assisting and which profoundly affected me at the time) “The greatest tragedy for humans is what dies inside us while we are still living.” Albert Schweitzer (as far as I can ascertain). It still affects me.
Thanks Mark for your post here. It’s really interesting reading. I only wanted to contribute one further comment to what is posted here. I was involved in an organisation that sounds similiar to Landmark once also. I certainly received many blessings from my time there, but ultimately, all organisations have their limitations, by virtue of the fact that they are just that, organisations. To be an organisation you need to be organised, and that means developing a culture and a justification for your existance, and it means trying to grow. I believe that truth is within us, and organisations such as Landmark provide a vehicle for accessing some home truths. But the real truth is, that you don’t need an organisation to get there. It might help, for a while, but fundamentally, the voyage we are on is an individual one, that is intimately interconnected in everyway with every other atom in the entire universe – and possibly beyond. At the end, organisations can empower us at first, but then we come to depend on them for our security, identity, and wellbeing. We become deeply attached to the vehicle, and lose our freedom.
I subscribe to the Krishnamurti line of thought that “Truth is a pathless land”. Having the confidence and courage to navigate only with the compass of our own heart, requires by far the greatest level of integrity and learning there is. Enjoy Landmark then for what it is, a vehicle of insight. But can we take what is offered without developing attachment for the vehicle? If not, we are inadvertently enslaving ourselves, even as we are seeking to become free.
Many blessings to all.
Damon.
Hear, hear, Damon. A lot of people get there quietly on their own.
Clare
There’s an excellent unbiased write up of How the Landmark Forum works on this website http://www.rickross.com/groups/landmark.html/
Andy
I attended Landmark forum too just to check it out and indeed there were some incredibly amazing results particularly in identifying stuff that really make people stop at not living life as God intended. However, i want to point out the life experiences people shared in the forum which thank God i had divine strength to witness. Hearing these experiences caught me unaware, some were extremely disturbing but hopefully encouraging to know that people actually out live this really shattering experiences. I could not relate with these experiences at all and this made me count my blessings one by one and accept that as human beings we all go through undesired experiences. This forum made me appreciate my Christian Faith the more and knowing that even though life has its emptiness there is Hope in Jesus. It was particularly challenging to relate the Landmark forum with my Christian faith but through the help of the Holy Spirit i was assisted to pick what works for me. This needed a higher level of understanding and would not recommend it to a luke warm Christian. Concerning the recruiting of more people, i chose not to recruit people and leave them to choose for themselves. I want to acknowledge the Land Mark’s work of uniting families. This is a base in my Christian Faith. However, i do have a vision of talking to Church ministers into incorporating this method among their faithfuls we need more than usual preachings in our churches and our faith should be our possibility. And we need this methodology for FREE to liberate the children of God. thanks
Queeny
I have a friend who is going through some really tough times at the moment, and has been attending Landmark forums/workshops etc and has found it really helpful. She wanted me to go with her tonight for a three hour introduction. I considered the offer but eventually declined due to a visceral reaction I had. I get the impression the course is very intense and involves letting go of one’s mental constitution before being programmed information that is not openly discussed by Landmark. I have found that as I am getting older I am becoming more strongly minded and I increasingly enjoy challenging other people’s authority and perspectives. I always respect the opinions of others but I don’t feel the need to go along with what others are saying. Therefore I don’t think the nature of Landmark would work with my core values.
If you really want to resolve your past horrrors you have to make a conscious effort to let it go. I really do think that it is as simple as that for most people. A really good book to read is The Secret Garden. I know it’s for kids but it really tackles many of the issues Landmark claims to deal with. Also, an old video worth watching is Holy Smoke directed by Jane Campion.