Inside The Landmark Forum by Karin Badt, Huffington Post, 03/05/2008

"You're lying. You don't love your daughter. You just wanted her to keep away fr
om men because you were rejected by men. You ruined her life, admit it, for your
own selfish purposes. If you want to help her now, you can go kill yourself. No
, that's not good enough. Get cancer. Make it last for 29 years so you suffer an
d die."
The woman on the stand bursts into tears--"Yes, I am a bitch," she admits--and t
he leader of the Landmark Forum, Alain Roth, leans forth in victory on the stage
. She has "cracked": a breakthrough moment.
This scene begins the 2004 French Channel Three report on the Landmark Education
Forum in Paris. Reporters hiding secret cameras had snuck into the Landmark, a
self-help program launched in 1991 as the successor to Est, after Werner Erhard,
the founder of the organization, escaped from the United States a millionaire,
to avoid possible imprisonment for tax evasion. It was this TV program that clos
ed down the Landmark in France, leaving it only 24 other countries in which to s
pread its word.
Seeing this TV program, I was curious whether the French reporters had themselve
s manipulated the presentation of the Landmark or whether this organization, rev
ered as "life changing" by so many professionals and associates I knew in the US
, was truly the amazing fix they claimed: a three day seminar that can jump-star
t a new life. One woman in the US said it made her confront her mother, who had
beat her, after 20 years of avoiding all contact. Another woman claimed that if
I had only participated in the Landmark Forum, my relationship with my partner w
ould have been saved.
There was a reason to give the Landmark the benefit of the doubt. The Channel Th
ree program--which circulated on YouTube, until the Landmark subpoenaed the site
and got it suppressed--seemed to carefully select its scenes of abuse and brain
washing, out of context. It was edited with racy soundtrack music that made it s
ound like a spy investigation. And it also reflected a French bias: that radical
self-confrontation was always already a suspect activity. Quite frankly, it did
seem true that the woman on the stand had manipulated her daughter. What could
be at stake was a re-evaluation of the meaning of "parental love", unsettling ch
erished French clichs about how relationships worked.
I arranged with the Landmark Education Forum to take the seminar in London with
Sophie McLean, a charismatic 47 year old French Moroccan, self-proclaimed to hav
e once been a socialite, jet-setting from party to party until she too, at age 3
3, took the Landmark course and realized she wanted "to contribute to society."
Sophie would be the ideal leader to learn from: she is the official spokeswoman
for the Forum.
The first day was inspiring enough. 150 participants sat in a pleasant room in d
owntown London and listened to Sophie give a humorous lively presentation of the
Landmark's key tenets. We learn that most people perceive their future in terms
of their past, using past traumas to interpret and predict what will happen to
them in the future. "The problem with most people is that they put their past wh
ere their future should be," smiles Sophie, elegantly dressed in a ruffled green
shirt and midriff blazer. She draws three circles on the board, with past, pres
ent, future, and adds arrows to show the absurd reversal of time: a distortion t
he Landmark claims to solve by day three. She brings up Citizen Kane as an examp
le of a man who lived his future in the wrong direction, ending his life back wh
ere he started, obsessed with his childhood sled.
Already it seemed that Channel Three had unfairly presented the program as a cul
t using brainwashing techniques la Taliban in Afghan internment camps. The TV ann

ouncers had said the room was purposefully darkened with no windows, that people
were not allowed to go to the bathroom except on a limited break during the ent
irety of each twelve hour day of the three day weekend, and that eating, except
for one evening meal, was prohibited. I had come ready with candy bars in my poc
kets and a small flashlight for light recuperation, to avoid my own brainwashing
.
The truth was that we had breaks every two hours, at which point I stuffed mysel
f with delicacies at various local London diners. Having a restless syndrome, I
also excused myself to the bathroom every half-hour. While the shades were drawn
behind Sophie, giving the focus on her form, behind us the London daylight, or
its simulacrum, kept us aglow.
Perhaps the Forum had changed its Draconian techniques since that TV program. Bu
t it had not changed its method. Participants were invited to the microphone to
present their problems, and while speaking, Sophie would begin to smile, circle
closer to the participant, look them up and down with a steady glance, keeping h
er two feet firm on the ground, a rather effective theater technique, and then s
uggest: "tell me what happened to you when you were seven. What happened that is
similar to the way you are treating your husband now?"
One by one, participants who had been complaining about their husbands, mothers,
employers, children, began to realize how unfairly they were dumping their rese
ntments from childhood onto everyone around them. Without exception, each partic
ipant would burst into tears and realize what a "worm" she or he was. Sophie tea
sed them humorously. "When you die, the tombstone will read, X was abandoned at
a school one afternoon by her parents, and her life has been a revenge on that m
oment ever since. The end. What a worm you are." The smile would disarm the part
icipant with its evocation of tough love, and the concluding statement was alway
s a heartfelt: "thank you."
How could one argue with these basic tenets of the Landmark Forum? We all know h
ow we approach new situations with prejudices of the past. Many theorists have e
ven developed whole systems of thought from this premise: Freud, for example. Be
sides Sophie's interrogation at the stand had none of Alain Roth's nasty brutali
ty in the TV program: no suggestions to throw oneself over a bridge or get cance
r. This was a lot milder than I expected, and even helpful.
The tenets are prologue to practice. The main activity of the Landmark is to mak
e--not urge--participants to apologize to the people around them for the "racket
s" they have dumped on them. A racket is a state of being, Sophie explained, a s
tory one tells oneself where one is a victim in a permanent state of complaint.
We are constantly affixing "stories" to events rather than seeing the separation
between "event" and "interpretation," and these stories are usually based in ou
r self-righteous feeling of being wronged. Homework assignments were to call our
loved ones and apologize for the years of victimology; coffee breaks became the
cherished moment to make phone calls to parents and friends. By Sunday, partici
pants tearfully explained in testimonies how they had made breakthroughs with fa
mily members they had not spoken to for years. One husband of a participant even
came to an evening session to thank the leader for giving him back his wife.
There was nothing too objectionable about a program that has as a result reconci
liation in relationships, as well as a new commitment to responsibility for one'
s present. Philosophically, the concepts are too sensible to be controversial. F
orgiveness is a key feature of most of the world religions; so is living for a c
lean present. The idea reiterated by Sophie throughout the program, that one mus
t have integrity and honor one's word, cannot help but make anyone feel like a b
etter person.
So where is the rub? Why has the Landmark been subject to so many lawsuits and c

laims of being a cult?

The most criminal aspect of the Landmark Forum's insistence on its methodology i
s precisely that: its insistence on its methodology. I clocked two hours the fir
st day devoted to "spreading the word" of the Landmark forum as a sign of the pa
rticipants' "integrity." If they had integrity, they would, like Martin Luther K
ing or Mahatma Gandhi, take courage to spread the beliefs of the Landmark Forum
to all their friends, enroll them in the program, get them to come to the famed
Tuesday night ending ceremony for their free introductory session. I clocked fou
r hours devoted to this subject on Saturday. I clocked the first three hours of
the Sunday session to the subject: including suggestions to bring our children f
or special youth landmark forums geared to get them started early in the Landmar
k, at age fifteen (alone) or at age eight (if accompanied by a parent). Yes even
little ones have rackets.
Participants, having heard the argument drone in their ears for 9 hours in a per
iod of 72, began to cheer and smile as they raised their hands to say they too h
ad the courage to stand for the Forum.
This was brainwashing. I began to clench my fists in the back as I heard the con
flation of Martin Luther King, integrity and the Landmark Forum. I now went to t
he microphone, and asked my question. I had noticed that all questions objecting
to the Forum were turned into problems of the self: the ad hominem argumentativ
e strategy seemingly working on all 150 participants, who cheered as any person
with an objection was pushed to confront the fact that their own lives were a wr
eck, from whence came their question. A woman objected to what I considered the
most objectionable exercise: the participants had been asked to close their eyes
and imagine being afraid of their neighboring participants, then the entire gro
up of 150, then all 7 million of London and finally the 6 billion fellow creatur
es on the planet, an exercise that had turned into mass hysteria of crying, sobb
ing, calling out "mommy mommy!" in regressed childhood voices, this until Sophie
invited them to laugh, to reach the conclusion that while these 6 billion were
frightening, imagine how afraid people were of you! Think of the bombed people i
n Iraq--aren't they afraid of us? The crowd, on command, burst into hysterical h
owls of laughter, aching belly howls that went on and on and on, an event which
frightened me far more than my 6 billion co-inhabitants, as a demonstration of h
ow easily mass emotion can be created, just by urging one to recall primordial f
ears.
The woman who objected to the hysteria was asked if there was "something behind
her question": perhaps a further disagreement with her estranged husband? Perhap
s her own inability to stand up to her beliefs, or honor her breakthrough in the
previous session about how she was being a worm in her marriage? The woman burs
t into tears and thankfully agreed: a new breakthrough!
I snuck into the stall next to this woman when she took a bathroom break and tol
d her I thought she had been manipulated. The woman said she did not care. The i
nsights she had gotten about her relationship were far more important.
Then I went to the stand. I noted I agreed with the basic tenets of the program,
but I questioned the slippery propagation of these tenets: the idea that these
tenets were original to the Forum, rather than an intelligent hodgepodge of the
best of East and Western philosophy; the evangelical emphasis on telling our fri
ends; the insistence that integrity should be applied to us spreading the word o
f the Forum, rather than to beliefs we already had developed in our lives and pr
ofessions. Finally, I questioned the odd apolitical bias of the program. Martin
Luther King and Ghandi were not just victors of positive thinking: they had a ra
dical political agenda to re-adjust political inequality. Their belief system wa
s based in believing in something more than ourselves.

Why were we being compared to Gandhi and King if we could stand up to our husban
ds and get a more successful career?
Let us say the participants were not on my side. I was being a party-pooper. If
the stakes were higher, I might have been stoned. As it was, I was just asked by
Sophie what was "behind my question."
"Nothing is behind my question besides my question," I noted. (Note: as a journa
list I had to sign a form that I could not quote or paraphrase any participants
in my article; I would hope that my own words are admissible.)
"Are you always so arrogant? Are you always such a know it all?" Sophie moved cl
osed, circled to me next to the mike, and looked deeply into my eyes. "Tell me K
arin, do your friends run away from you? Do you know how self-righteous you seem
to them?"
I had been prepared and curious to see what ad hominen approach she would come u
p with me. I was--as many people--inherently egotistical and vulnerable to judgm
ent--so was intrigued to see what I could learn about myself. I had an intellige
nt woman's cunning attention. Someone was finally telling me how it was, daring
to sum up my personality in a way that most of my friends would not dare to. I e
xperienced for myself the allure, the thrill, each participant had experienced b
efore the attack on stage. It is intoxicating to get full attention in front of
l50 people from someone who is truly gifted, as many fortune tellers are, with t
he power of quickly sizing up and reading one's personality.
Also as a professor, I am used to manipulation from students who have not done t
heir homework and risk failing a course: they will use any method to get me to "
weaken" my stand. Such as reminding me of my own faults in a course, or using a
charming smile, or, as Sophie was doing, sidling up and standing two inches away
from me as she asked me if people did not like me.
I quickly ran through my appallingly brief list of friends and wondered if she w
as right. Was I self-righteous? Had people run? If they had, I concluded, I woul
d not even know: they were long gone down the jogging trail.
"No," I said. The crowd snickered. I was not breaking. What an ass I was not to
admit my faults. I felt like offering up some other of my defects--of which ther
e were plenty I already knew about before this moment of enlightenment--to win p
eople to my side, to have their looks of empathy after the session, as everyone
else who had sobbed about their faults had as well. What is worse than a know-it
-all who could not admit she was a know-it-all?
Sophie seemed exhausted as I just repeated my question, and repeated again that
behind my question was just intellectual curiosity about how the Forum worked. N
ot my break-up with my boyfriend, my miscarriages, my mother speaking with an ac
cent when I was five years old in a New Jersey kindergarten.
"Okay you win," Sophie said. "You win but you have won nothing. This is why your
life is a wreck. This is why nothing works for you. Go on, continue. But I urge
you to spend the weekend questioning your integrity."
"A lifelong project," I said.
"Arrogant," Sophie said. "Rebellious child who has to get the last word."
We stood in silence in a truce. Sophie froze with an icy smile. I realized I wou
ld probably not be able to get the private interview I wanted with her for my ar
ticle. I would be shunned.

The extent of my unpopularity was revealed when I sat down, and all the particip
ants avoided my eyes, except three people who came and put their hands on my sho
ulder, as if I needed comfort for my "humiliation." One man eagerly told me: "We
were all waiting to see when your armor would break, but no you stayed composed
."
Why were they all waiting in gleeful anticipation for me to break? What does thi
s say about group psychology?
Sophie announced a break herself right after our conversation, as if she too was
disoriented, as revealed by the uncharacteristic lack of charisma in her face a
nd her stiff shoulders. But when she came back, she was ready. She pointed her f
inger at me and said: "Karin is a journalist."
The crowd nodded. She could have substituted "communist" or "non-patriot". The e
ffect would have been the same.
The irony was that I had no problem with the Forum. I did experience my own brea
kthroughs. I was glad I went. I did see how I used my past in my future; I did c
ontemplate the rackets I laid on my friends and family. I thought overall this w
as a healthy experience.
I just did not see any reason to 1) prevent critical thinking and 2) make evange
lism the marketing strategy of the Forum.
It also disgusted me to see people unwilling to have their transformative weeken
d tampered with by critical thinking. One participant at the break said he objec
ted to my critique of the Luther and Gandhi references. True my point was valid,
but couldn't I accept that a mass of average people might get so much mileage o
ut of the inspiration of being compared to these great leaders that I was spoili
ng their fun if I was too logical and "intelligent" about it? Another thought I
was being needlessly picky when I pointed out that using Sarkozy as an example o
f integrity (he sticks to his word; he admits his Carla Bruni affair in public)
pointed out a rather shallow rightwing prejudice.
The last hours of the Forum were thankfully devoted back to the life lessons of
the Forum, rather than the push to call every last friend we knew to come on Tue
sday night, so that one day the world could be "transformed" and we would live i
n a community of the Forum--an urging that inspired one woman from Slovenia to v
ow to open the Forum in her country, as well as a man from Spain to do the same.
Instead, Sophie gave a brilliant, truly brilliant, performance of how human bei
ngs are like donkeys (this said, running around the stage following an imaginary
carrot at her nose), who are always pursuing an imaginary "someday" of satisfac
tion. She repeated the most original philosophy of the Forum, one that I was qui
te taken by: don't change your life, transform it. Change is based on adjusting,
modifying, always having the past dragging behind you (like the chair she dragg
ed behind her, in demonstration). Transformation is simply deciding and declarin
g a new way of being, tout court.
She also gave a mini-lecture on existentialism, citing Shakespeare's "sound and
fury signifying nothing" as well as a little known poem by e.e. cummings on "not
hingness". Create your meaning; there is none inherent in the world. Do not live
in hope, but in action. As throughout the Forum, she sprinkled her lecture with
an inspiring array of quotes, including my favorite: "A successful person goes
from failure to failure with enthusiasm" (Churchill) and concluded, per forma, w
ith moving descriptions of Gandhi and King.
Sophie was a gifted speaker, who kept our attention and enthusiasm during each t
welve hour day, making her speeches seem original, with personal anecdotes; only
later, searching the web, do I find the same speeches cited by other landmark l

eaders: the "nothingness" argument, the "Citizen Kane". It is a script.

The concluding remarks were powerful. Sophie had tears in her eyes as she thanke
d us for letting her serve us. (I found the same speech on the web). She also me
ntioned her personal life again, how upset she had been when on her honeymoon, a
s a young girl married to an elderly millionaire, the man sadly had an aneurism
and died (leaving her millions), and how she would have continued to live in dis
appointment, with rackets, but the Landmark convinced her to leave the past behi
nd.
At the end of the day, I found the Forum innocuous. No cult, no radical religion
: an inspiring, entertaining introduction of good solid techniques of self-refle
ction, with an appropriate emphasis on action and transformation (not change). Y
es, they urge us to proselytize, which rather than a cult technique, might just
be an unfortunate mistake in marketing strategy: I would never urge anyone to do
the Forum precisely because they urged me to do the Forum. Such methods backfir
e on me.
No, the problem with the Forum is the participants. Why do they willingly put cr
itical thinking aside, not wanting anything to disturb their pleasure? Why does
no one flinch when we are told to enjoy the fact, in a joke, that the Iraqis aft
er all are afraid of us? Why did they not raise eyebrows when Sophie compared he
rself, obliquely, to Mother Teresa, generously devoting her time to us (she clai
med not to need the salary) because she "loved us" and wanted (hands pressed to
chest) our "transformation"?
It was particularly shocking how quickly every participant adopted the vocabular
y, kit and caboodle. Nobody seemed to find it troubling that the Landmark vision
was delivered as if it were absolute truth, sui generis. Gandhi, the hero of ou
r seminar, would have objected. His most urgent philosophy, repeated throughout
his speeches, is that one must have a commitment to truth without ever presuming
its absolute nature. In his words: "When the symbol (of any given religion) is
made into a fetish and an instrument of proving the superiority of one's religio
n over others, it is fit only to be discarded."
In contrast, most of my fellow participants threw out whatever value system or p
hilosophy they had ever had and began speaking of everything in their lives as e
ither "rackets" or "strong points." At the testimony session on the last day, ea
ch contestant reported the same sort of "breakthrough", a trauma at age seven an
d a subsequent script, as if dutifully following a blueprint. One chatty young w
oman turned to me as I was looking over her shoulder for a friend and announced
(self-righteously): "Hey, you're racketing with me! You're not listening! You've
got some racket going on!" "I'm not racketing," I said. "I'm looking for my fri
end Roy. Excuse me." Another young man began repeating verbatim the "nothingness
" argument, as if finding no contradiction with his earlier avowed dedication to
serve Christ.
People are desperate, it seems, for any supportive positive value system to sust
ain them--for any peak experience to give them hope--which says less about the F
orum than the communities we live in. The tenets of the Forum are those fundamen
tal to any healthy close-knit community: work on your relationships, be positive
, don't dwell on the past and stop being a pill. Its own strong point is what wa
s--and still is, in many parts of the world--the fabric for faith and celebratio
n of life. Why the Landmark is so popular, attracting l million participants ann
ually, with an 86 million dollar revenue and 3 million dollar profit (divided am
ong only 400 employees, as the Landmark relies on obsessed volunteers to run it)
, why it inspires upper middle class people around the world (at 700 dollars a w
eekend, it is only for those with means) not only to enroll, but to continue tak
ing classes (which oddly enough, get more expensive, as one gets more "advanced"
) is that our industrialized societies have apparently led to a breakdown in val

ues beyond individualism and capitalist gain. "There is no meaning but what you
give to it," explained Sophie for us, drawing a new empty circle.
Interestingly, the only way to get these individualists back on track--to feelin
g some sense of "religious" duty and inspiration--is to appeal to their individu
alism. This program will make YOU transform, as well as enhance your bank accoun
t (we are told in the closing remarks, that Landmark Forum participants tend to
make 30 percent more money after taking the Forum). We transform to be more powe
rful in our individual lives, not to change social structures, not injustices, n
or to reach truth (there is none). Our aim is freedom to be, the end of any mark
eting campaign, and like a chain letter that must not be stopped, we must contin
ue to spread the word. Perhaps the hope is that someday those letters asking for
giveness will reach us as well.