Anyone here know what "The Landmark Forum" is?

[Taverner]

Is it a cult? I have a friend who swears by it and is using their code talk all the time - sounds a bit dianetics-esque...

[blondeatlast]

1. Note carefully the edits I've made in boldface:

The website is disturbing indeed with all the shiny happy people.

(snip)
I have never attended a session of either est or Landmark but from what I can gather from those who have, the experience is not likely to be dull. Jill P. Capuzzo writes that "Other seminars may offer supportive hugs; this one hits you between the eyes." She also claims that "One of the most irritating aspects of The Forum is the hard sell to sign up future participants. Leaders encourage people to bring friends and family to session to help celebrate their newfound love of life and invite them to enroll in the next available weekend." Capuzzo claims that 20 percent of the participants in her sessions brought visitors to the open session and nearly half the original participants signed up for an advanced course.

Andy Testa, on the other hand, posted an account of his experience with Landmark Forum, in which he claims that he was hounded by recruiters who insisted that his resistance was proof he needed their help.

Info culled from Skepdic: http://skepdic.com/landmark.html

Run--don't walk--away, IMHO.

[Taverner]

2. Yes. I'm convinced she's crazy.

She is the epitome of follower...so this doesn't surprise me...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

3. Landmark Forum is a direct descendant of est/Werner Erhard.

Wife's friend put a major hard sell on us to join this at one time.

I was totally turned off by the hard sell.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

4. I have a friend who did one of those courses

Of course, I don't have any first-hand knowledge, but the things that he's said about it (as well as the look in his eyes when he speaks of it) have made me pretty convinced that it's cult-like -- if not exactly a cult.

Here's a little biographical info about the founder from Wikipedia. Take what you will from it.

"John Paul "Jack" Rosenberg, born on September 5, 1935 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sometimes subsequently known as Werner Hans Erhard, founded the large group awareness training program est, short for Erhard Seminars Training, which later gave rise to WEA (1981 - 1991) and to the "Landmark Forum"/Landmark Education (1991 - ).

Rosenberg married Patricia Fry on 26 September 1953 (Pressman 1993: 4) and fathered four (some sources suggest three) children. He first adopted the name "Jack Frost" as an alias while selling cars in Philadelphia (Pressman 1993: 6). He subsequently used the name "Curt Wilhelm VonSavage" when contracting a bigamous marriage with June Bryde (Pressman 1993: 6).

In 1960 Rosenberg left his wife and travelled west. He changed his name to Werner Hans Erhard and his lover, June Bryde, changed hers to Ellen Virginia Erhard. Erhard later said that he chose the last name "Erhard" almost at random, selecting it from a magazine article he happened to read about then-West German economics minister Ludwig Erhard. The newly renamed Erhards moved to St. Louis, where Werner Erhard sold used cars. After a few years, the couple moved further west to California.

After selling correspondence courses and encyclopedias, Erhard trained door-to-door salespeople for Grolier Society until 1971."

At least L. Ron wasn't a bigamist with multiple aliases...