After years of successfully giving the impression of having managed to erase it from the internet, the documentary titled Voyage Au Pais Des Nouveaux Gourous (a voyage to the land of the new gurus)  is now available again and can be watched in its entirety here:

https://archive.org/details/VoyageDesNouveauxGourous

Somehow it manages to show an even worse side to Landmark than the plethora of stories one can find all over the internet.

Years back, two French journalists infiltrated the Landmark Forum with a hidden camera, capturing the mysterious and “innovative” techniques which manage to turn people into dazed, jargon-laden, proselytising automatons in no more than 3 and a half days.

“You’re an asshole. Kill yourself. Kick yourself. Get cancer.”

This was told by the seminar leader to a middle-aged woman who was wondering how to manage her relationship with her daughter, and albeit evidently wrong in her very guarded approach to men, which she had tried to pass on to her daughter, these words were clearly not the right way to advise her.

“This is not harassment; it’s only your interpretation.” “You are suffering and worn out because you resist.”

During the seminar, a lady asked the forum leader, Alain Roth, why she had been harassed into participating, mentioning four calls in a single week from Landmark, asking her to take part. She repeatedly referred to it as harassment.

The leader told her those people were calling out of concern and benevolence, to “make something happen for her”. The harassment, he said, had never occurred.

Apparently there is “what happens” and one’s “interpretation”. She had just “interpreted” the predatory pestering the way any normal person would and she was wrong to do so.

During the short break, the leader then approached her to convince her not to leave, still pinning her reaction on her and not himself or the company’s techniques. Telling her she was worn out and suffering because she “resisted” them.

Coaching people on asking for forgiveness from loved ones

You can also hear the forum leader directly coach a man on how to speak to his son in a phone call he was planning, word for word, correcting him at times and introducing jargon into the preparation of this very intimate conversation. He sounds cold and akin to an MLM supervisor teaching people how to sell.

What is even weirder is that the man in question called and returned to tell the rest how it had gone, describing his son’s reactions as a success. “The kid cracked, he started sobbing”. Then, a rain of applause.

Every seminar is staged down to minute details

The TV channel making the program obtained a detailed plan for a seminar, including – however ludicrous it sounds – when the leader should move his chair to the right or left.

It’s like a processing plant where they are processing people, all throughout making them feel that the experience is personalised and meaningful.

Former Scientologist: the jargon is identical

A former Scientologist, in the cult for 7 years, described, upon watching the footage, that the cryptic terms used were taken directly from Scientology, which is no surprise, since Landmark is a re-invention of EST, whose founder, a used car salesman who renamed himself Werner Erhard after spotting these names in a magazine, had taken Scientology courses, presumably finding them profitable for a future business.

The documentary concludes – at least part one; it’s unclear whether there is a part two – with a doctor describing how he was enrolling everyone around him, including, to date, a patient.

It’s a must for anyone who is considering going there.

Besides the infiltration footage, there is an ample discussion which includes former attendees, a cult expert, a psychiatrist, a mayor in charge of investigating cults and a former Scientologist. Previous inquiries into Landmark by French authorities are mentioned.