Landmark Forum Review

I am joining a cult. My mind kept saying, Cult, Cult, Cult, Cult. Yes, okay so what if it’s a cult, does it hurt to go and see what they do for three days?

A friend of a friend of mine (lets call him Bob) told me ever so briefly that I should do the Landmark Forum. I was a little hesitant at first simply because none of the other people I knew were going to do it with me.

Then, of course, there was the charge, $575 AUD. Not that much when you consider some other seminars and self improvement seminars go for 10x as much.

The Monday of that week came and I still hadn’t signed up. Thankfully I had been sheltered from the selling process (something which I don’t particularly like) so I had no reason to doubt Landmark’s benefits.

Bob sent me a message over facebook asking if I had registered to attend the Landmark Forum, he put it briefly, I said to him, well, I am not really sure whether its for me or if its worth doing, he simply said, just do it, it’ll be worth it.

Here was a guy who had pretty much done most personal development seminars from Anthony Robbins to spending weeks in a silent retreat in India and he was recommending Landmark.

Three days is a long time, and it’s not three days, it’s three days and four nights. Friday to Sunday it goes from 9am-10pm and the Tuesday following it goes from 7.30pm to 10.45pm.

That’s 42 hours and 15 minutes of my life, AND, $575. Thankfully, I am open minded enough to give things a go, besides, if I hadn’t who would be here telling you his opinion of Landmark?

One thing I didn’t do, was go online and read Landmark reviews (something you’re doing!). I thought that if I just go with an open mind and without being clouded by judgement for or against, I would have a better time.

I emailed my team at work and let them know that I will be away for three whole days. Thursday night came along and I was trying to work out how on earth I could possibly sleep before my usual sleep time of 2am.

The first day required my attendance at 8.15am for a 9am start. I knew that anything that starts at 8.15 means it either starts at 8.30 or 9. In this case it was 9.

The events are held all over the world, from the United States, England, Australia and even soon in China.

Landmark has been running for over three decades and in that time has ‘educated’ over 1 million people.

Last year (2008) over 70,000 people went through the Forum. The numbers don’t lie, there must be something to it then?

8.17am and I had arrived. Still late but I knew it wouldn’t be an issue.

There was a man standing on the road with a Landmark Forum sign pointing towards the venue, there was then another man and another man and another man, each standing at each and every possibly point to make sure you get in okay. It was a cult, my mind quickly said.

That view was reinforced by the “Hello, how are you, I am Kelly” – “Hello, how are you, I am James”… “Hello, how are…” Oh dear.

I felt like I had gone on holiday to a tropical island. Nothing wrong with a hello how are you but when it comes at you ten times in 5 minutes it becomes a little concerning.

9am came, I had befriended a fellow confused “Am I joining a cult?” soul and we both headed to walk inside the seminar. One of the Landmark volunteers told me I couldn’t bring my coffee in, which was annoying to say the least.

I hadn’t drank coffee for about 3 months, I figured if I was going to be brainwashed for three days I could do with some help from my old friend caffeine.

The coffee was thrown out and in we walked. The first words out of the Landmark Leaders mouth set the tone. A joke about Landmark being a cult, he had some good points. First there is no one specific leader, there are currently 56.

They all only have one wife and so far as I could tell, no one had brought their teenage daughter along as a gift.

It all seemed a little too normal, everyone was thinking the same thing, what the hell am I doing her? There is nothing wrong with me, I don’t want to join a cult.

So let me get the myths out of the way. I wasn’t given a white or orange robe, they provided water but so far as I could tell, I wasn’t drugged, everyone seemed far too normal for what I had expected.

There is something really odd about 230 people in a room and one short English man speaking for three days. Firstly, and obviously, you start thinking, wow, these guys made over $100,000 running this one event. Definitely a cult.

You then start to look around and wonder who are the insiders, the ones that sit next to you and try to get you to join the cult.

While the thoughts were running through my head thick and fast, I decided to stay open minded, decided to actually give this a go.

The day started with an introduction and then the opportunity for anyone that doesn’t feel that the event would be beneficial to them to leave. One person tried to but was talked out of pretty quickly.

The effectiveness of the Landmark Leader in psychotherapy has to be well and truly noted, the ability to use NLP in conjunction with modern psychology was quite amazing, even for someone like me who comes from a psychology background.

As the day progressed the material began to make a lot of sense. The resistance to accept it was enormous, surely if I gave in to this belief system I would lose a part of myself.

This is not a cult.

Should I repeat that again? This is like a big group therapy session with new cognitive behavioural therapy methodology, and when I say new, it’s been around for over 30 years.

The reasons why it seems like a cult are few but very obvious and somewhat annoying.

Firstly, the whole concept of the Landmark Forum is to make you realise just how much you don’t know, how much you know and how much you don’t know that you don’t know!

Additionally it’s to help you find completion, help you fix the relationships in your life (relationship with your parents, significant other, money etc). It’s to help you realise and improve in the areas of your life that you’re not doing so well. It’s to help you realise why you do the things you do, why you come across as stand offish for example, or why you always have to crack a joke or why you are a perfectionist etc…

If you love psychology, you should do the Landmark forum just for the experience. I was saying to a friend of mine that I learnt more about human behaviour from three days at Landmark than from four years of studying it at university.

The first time an attendee stood up and shared an experience that was moving, it set the tone. I for the life of me never thought anyone could get up and share with 230 strangers the abusive nature of their past.

At about Friday afternoon my aim and my desire was to gain something to help grow my many businesses, I was in the mindset that unlike the people that have gotten up and shared so far, my life is pretty darn good (and it is) and i’ve had a pretty normal childhood (not true).

Friday night came along and after 13 hours of lectures and sharing 10pm finally came about and I had a different mindset to the one I walked in with. I had realised just how much of my life was not true, how much I pretended, how much I put on a front to cover the truth. It was actually rather sad. There was no doubt that the majority of those 230 people felt the same.

The teachings encourage sharing what we’ve realised with those outside the forum. Those people that have been disconnected to us, those people that just won’t get out of our head, even if we haven’t seen them for years.

I walked out at 10pm and decided to call someone, a former significant other from a past relationship that had ended badly, I wanted to share with her and come clean about all the inauthenticities that I projected in our relationship. I couldn’t get through to talk to her, it was torture.

I called a few friends and talked to them, told them that I had a new perspective on life, how much I had learnt in just 13 hours. “So you joined a cult?” – “Stop drinking the water!” That was the unanimous response.

Do you see the problem? When you know what you know by the time you finish the Landmark Forum, it actually becomes hard to hang around those that live in oblivion. This is how the ‘cult’ like feel is developed.

Saturday came and by the break at 3pm I called her up again. Still couldn’t get through, she was denying me the opportunity to come clean. But something else happened, I realised the relationship that needed fixing the most was with my parents.

To give you some background, I come from Iran. I lived the first few years of my life on a border town during the Iran &Iraq war. My childhood memories are not as ‘normal’ as one would expect. My parents are simply the kindest, most loving people on earth.

Both of them gave up a lot to migrate to Australia, so that I could do what I am doing right now. So that I could run the successful businesses that I’ve ran, so that I could enjoy the freedom that I do. Amazing that you can take that for granted so easily.

However, even though my parents love me to death and have never done anything to mean or say otherwise, I’ve never been able to get close to them.

I’d spent the greater part of the last 10 years incapable of even saying I Love You. I really wanted to, I kept saying someday, someday, someday. But someday was never going to come.

Saturday night came and I had decided that I would write my ex an email to end it with her, instead I was going to focus on the relationship with my parents.

As I headed their way I began to think about how I was going to do this, I went into the landmark forum not realising just how much emotion would be brought up. I don’t think there was a single person in there that didn’t feel emotionally overwhelmed at one stage or another over the three days.

I went home with the mission to improve the relationship with my parents. I talked to my parents, actually listened to my dad speak for the first time in a while. Actually listened, stopped perceiving and judging, just listened. It was extraordinary, I was in the moment with my dad, listening to him talk. We talked for a few minutes, I gave him a hug and said, dad, I love you. It was a longer than usual hug and he said it back.

I walked out of the room rather quickly, went in the bathroom as I had tears coming down my face. I couldn’t believe it, it had taken so much of me to do this and I was completely overwhelmed by it. I felt fantastic. I felt like I had finally told my dad something I had so badly wanted to tell him in so long.

I then walked over to my mum and said the same thing.

I slept that night with a smile on my face. I had completion with my parents. I felt as though I no longer had any regrets no matter what. It sounds so simple what I did, but for me, it was enormous.

Others had different results. Many managed to talk to their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, exs from the past. Some who hadn’t spoken to their parents for years had rekindled their relationships.

Those who were completely contempt with their life made even stronger relationships. Like many of you reading this. I felt as though my life was pretty darn perfect. I run a great business, I do what I love doing and I am happy to be alive. But having spent three days at the Landmark forum has been hugely inspiring.

If the only thing I got out of the whole event was to tell my parents just that once, that I love them, it would have been worth it. But I got so much more.

I understood why I do some of the things I do. I understood why I have put on a front that I have to be different, I understood why I can be unauthentic when being authentic yields better results.

I understood why so many people in my life do the things they do and more importantly, I understood that it’s not my place to make them wrong.

I understood that what really happens in reality and what meaning I give it is completely different. I understood my hesitant nature to accept anything that is believed by the masses (trying to be different).

I understood that I lived my life in the past and the future and never in the now. I realised that by being someone who is true to himself, the actions which will supersede that will cause the results that I have always wanted.

I understood that life was meaningless and that meant nothing. I understood that from that point of nothingness, I could create a whole new life for my self.

Wow.

What happened to me? There must have been something in the water.

The Landmark Education is not a cult. It’s really a set of belief systems by which you can chose to live your life. What I got out of Landmark Forum was priceless. I had found peace and completion in a few areas of my life.

All of this in three days?

Tuesday night came along and I realised why some can see it as a cult. The one problem with the Landmark forum is their hard sell. There is a bit of pressure on guests who come with graduates on Tuesdays to sign up. Some sign up simply because what they’ve heard from their friends sharing their experiences moved them and inspired them to do so.

Many are turned off by hard sells. For example I have now signed up to do the Landmark Advance Course but the way in which this was sold to us was far too pressure based.

I had already made the decision that I would do the advance course and so had many others. My guests on Tuesday told me that they felt uncomfortable in the way in which the Forum conducted its sign up procedure and I have to agree.

But it must have worked as they both signed up! One who I thought never would. Perhaps I had moved her in the right direction.

The conclusion that I can come up with to describe the Landmark forum is simple. If you go in with the mindset of proving the person who referred you wrong, you will get a lot less out of it.

If someone has told you about the Landmark forum and seems a little too enthusiastic about you doing it, I can see why, and you will too when you finish on Tuesday night.

The Landmark Forum is not a magic wand, it doesn’t fix anything unless you apply it to your life. The best example was that of learning to ride a bicycle, once you know how it works, you don’t forget, but you can put the bicycle away for as long as you want.

The teachings of the Landmark Forum are the same, if you apply them to your life, happiness is almost guaranteed, but you don’t have to and for many, the motivation after such a huge high is short lived.

As a result, for the initial price you are given months of weekly seminars to keep you on track. For those wanting to go further, the Advanced Course follows from there.

If you’re sitting now in your chair reading this, wondering if I work for Landmark or if I got paid to write this. You should already notice by now your negative state of mind and how you perceive things in life .

I had a few profound breakthroughs during the three days that I was with Landmark.

For what it is, for what it can do and for how it managed to improve the lives of 230 people that weekend. The Landmark forum is necessary education for anyone that wants to find freedom in life. Of all the people that I know, I can’t think of a single one that will not benefit from attending the Landmark forum.

Related posts:

1. Landmark Advanced Course Review
2. Book Review: Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman