“In est [Erhard Seminars Training]…you are God…Therefore you cannot look to any supreme being for any special treatment, goodness, or reward.” (Est, Four Days to Make Your Life Work, by William Greene p. 131)
Landmark Forum and Scientology
(Romans 8:28 promises that all things work together for someone who loves God and experiences are not "meaningless" as the Landmark Forum may suggest.)
My Landmark Experience
The final drive of the weekend is heavily steeped in Zen. All we have is the now. We are only responsible for ourselves. Life is meaningless.
Reporters with hidden cameras closed down the Landmark Forum in France
…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 closed down the Landmark in France, leaving it only 24 other countries in which to spread its word.
Previously known as Est, Landmark Education was founded in 1971 by Werner Erhard, a former used-car and door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, after he quit Scientology. Like other US direct-marketing companies, it relies on word-of-mouth for promotion and recruitment of new clients.
Landmark's links to Erhard are a BIG touchy point. Werner Erhard (a name he assumed to dodge an abandoned wife and children), was an ex-used car and encyclopaedia salesman who, like Penn Patrick, did the self-actualisation rounds in California in the 1960s; he seems to have been most strongly influenced by his stint in Scientology. (The idea of a "technology" that promises to deal with all the maladjustments of life is familiar from there.) According to a range of credible witnesses, Erhard was a violent, delusional despot in pre-Landmark enterprises called est (Erhard Seminar Trainings) and The Forum: calling himself God, and giving brutal beatings. His daughters said he had sexually abused them. (The girls later recanted, claiming they had been bribed and coerced to lie about their father - but their stories of abuse are widely regarded as more plausible than their later claims of bribery and coercion.)
Est (like Scientology) became a multi-million-dollar enterprise. The allegations from the American media against Erhard were, however, so devastating that from 1991 he went into hiding. (He is said to be living high somewhere in the Cayman Islands.) But, in the meantime, he had licenced the seminar "technology" to his brother. Methods were toned down. Leaders no longer screamed obscenities at participants in the "seminars" or forbade them to move from their chairs for any reason.
Landmark sued Elle magazine, apparently for nothing but not incorporating Schreiber's "package" into a 1995 article on Landmark. The lawyer cited "lack of research", "shoddy research", "irresponsible statements" and the "evident intent of the writer to denigrate the reputation of Landmark".
The article was about the author's personal experience of a Landmark seminar. She truthfully reported what happened there, and she came across as moderate in her comments. Was "research" into the package supposed to have stopped her from saying anything negative at all? Landmark dropped the suit with no reported concessions from Elle, but the company's approach to the media does not seem to have changed.
This may be because aggression often pays off. Landmark sued the Cult Awareness Network, for example, helping Scientology-associated groups bankrupt the organization through litigation in 1997. (Scientology then bought the CAN and runs it through an affiliate. Anybody seeking help in exiting a cult should perhaps consider contacting some other hotline.) Just the threat of a lawsuit by a large American corporation can terrify most people into submission. In 1999 Schreiber was able to list six magazines that had printed retractions of the accusation that Landmark was a cult (and I have copies of two more retractions since then). Landmark treats the cult accusation as a straw man, as if knocking that down should end discussion of the company's practices. But here's the really cute part. You don't have to say that Landmark is a cult to get forced into a retraction of that statement.
…The truth: between est and Landmark, Erhard ran a somewhat toned-down version of est called The Forum. Landmark's basic course is called The Landmark Forum and sometimes The Forum. They didn't even bother to come up with a distinct name. And why would they? They have the license to Erhard's "technology". Landmark CEO Harry Rosenberg, Erhard's brother, worked for est. Landmark seminars are indistinguishable in basic techniques, differing from est mainly in their being less harsh and aggressive…
Don't Tibet on it
Some of the "graduates" of David Ure, once a Landmark seminar leader in Cape Town, have been firing up their recruiting with the story of "a seminar held for 300 monks and the Dalai Lama in the foothills of Tibet"; a seminar by which "Landmark took on transforming the political situation there". When we contacted Tibetan exile officialdom for comment, we got a very polite version of "What the @#%& are you talking about?" The UK Landmark office, where Ure is now based, promised that he would get back to us, but repeated reminders produced no contact. Indian Landmark offices were likewise unresponsive. Meanwhile, the story of the Dalai Lama as a Landmark graduate spreads via Landmark disciples. One confirmed that the Tibetan bulletin came straight from David Ure's mouth – but the disciple became nervous at the idea of my investigating the information and publishing the result. At this point it emerged that the facts might be "confidential."
…As noted above, there is much talk of commitment in Landmark, to excellence, to honoring yourself and others, to integrity. In the end, the system only supports a commitment to self, doing whatever makes you happy, and a commitment to Landmark as the source of your power, the gift of which you should share with others. Its ideology specifically discourages actions outside of Landmark based upon obligation, duty, sacrifice or guilt. It might be interesting to have historical statistics of the close relationships (family, friends, loves) of long-term Landmark participants, and learn whether there is a measurable propensity for them to be unable to maintain serious, committed relationships than the general public…
