When covering Landmark, there is great emphasis (and rightfully so) on the accounts of those negatively impacted, at times in life-altering ways. With zero interest in its theories, people describe the real life implications of having interacted with it – broken relationships and marriages, estranged siblings and friends, financial ruin and so forth.

The Landmark curriculum is notoriously obscure, to the point of an outsider being unable to obtain clear information, being prodded to “just go and experience it” for clarification. If someone is trying to recruit you with what you suspect to be mind-fuckery, targeting you on a personal level, you might want to read on. You will see that they do this to complete strangers (usually without an invitation). What may seem to you like the genuine care of a friend or loved one is a typical selling method they apply at all times.

This post is divided into three parts and is a deep dive into what staunch supporters/ adepts say to those they are trying to “bring into the fold”, quoted directly from them.

Before delving into the quotes, three observations are necessary : first, the authority of the Forum needs to be indisputable for the game to work.

The brainwashing relies on one thing – invalidating or challenging someone’s perception at all times, until common sense disappears completely. The person is destabilised; their reality melts. Even the basics of life are carefully analysed, as well as every interaction with another individual. That can only work if one truly believes that subjecting themselves to this process is ultimately beneficial; that they embark on a set journey from point A to point B, and if ever confused about a decision, they can always revert to the Forum to figure out “how to think”.

If one were to place the higher-ups in the Forum, including its founder, in the same category as everyone else (always susceptible to errors in thinking and perception), trust in the program would at least be in question. One can’t just turn a mirror to these people and subject them to the same grinding “newbies” undergo, suggesting they just might be mistaken about everything. For instance, one can’t say to them:

You’re trying to “make me wrong” by berating me for not wanting to sign up to another course.

By complaining that I didn’t recruit anyone, you’re “in your racket”.

Why are you “resisting” giving me a refund? What other areas of your life are affected by resistance?

Me being “uncoachable” is just a “story” you tell yourself.

Being unable to use their own methods on them implies accepting their assessment of you as valid beyond questioning. It means accepting their authority.

Whenever a problem is signalled, adepts never blame the Forum or admit it might be (at least partially) flawed – instead, they find intricate ways to rationalise why it didn’t work as intended. They question everything under the sun, even things that are common sense, such as normal human reactions – everything apart from what the Forum has taught them. This is identical to religious zealotry – regardless of the evidence someone brings, there is always an explanation preventing the Forum/ deity from being considered imperfect.

Secondly, they use verbiage (re-framing) to disguise their obvious manipulation tactics, such as guilt-tripping, shaming, thought reform, pressuring and harassing. Apparently, they couldn’t possibly be guilt-tripping or shaming, because they don’t operate with notions such as “right”, “wrong” or “fault” – when in fact, in the normal world, their tactics are just that and produce the desired results of discombobulating the interlocutor. They would be classed as such in any other context. It’s like someone hitting you over the head, watching you bleed and saying they didn’t hit you because they don’t believe in shovels. It’s quite something.

And thirdly, their cognitive dissonance regarding empiricism – they emphasise the fact that the Forum is an experience, which cannot be accurately described and has to be lived in order to be understood. But that’s as far as their empiricism goes, as they claim that everything else is mere perception and perception can be altered to suit the person (which sounds like a ticket to the psych ward down the line). The only thing to be taken as is, without questioning or twisting at one’s will, is Landmark. The jargon, to be applied by the adept at all times, becomes more real and more important than observable reality.

The quotes below are screenshots from various threads on Quora; they are very revealing indeed.

“Right” and “wrong” are invalid notions

It’s worth pointing out these people seem to be living in a safe and comfortable environment, without being directly affected by anything substantial (that would trigger their survival instinct and take them back down to Earth).

Outside of artificial contexts, such as religion, the notion of wrong is necessary to point out that which causes harm to another being – the synonym being injury. Injury and suffering exist in nature. They are timeless and measures will always have to be taken to prevent or minimise them. Self-preservation, self-defence and the impetus to defend other members of the species also exist in nature. Just because an animal can’t verbalise something as harming it, it doesn’t mean it isn’t conscious of being harmed (you’ll surely find out when it bites back).

Without the use of language, humans and animals of any age are capable of experiencing harm, reacting to it and learning from it (responding in a certain way to stimuli and feeling threatened). You don’t have to apply meaning to the sight of dead bodies, after a bomb drops, to be horrified. It’s instinctual and overpowering (maybe not for psychopaths who might enjoy that scenario or be indifferent – but most people aren’t psychopaths). I shouldn’t have to explain the effects of rape and murder, or severe and prolonged mental abuse.

Without the acknowledgement of harm and suffering, society wouldn’t have evolved towards reducing injustice, at least at the most basic level (forbidding murder, torture, slavery, assault, mob “justice” etc). Of course there’s always room for improvement, but I surely wouldn’t turn back time a few hundred years! These improvements, which Landmark graduates enjoy today, were made on the basis of some things being considered wrong. If you go to places where these are everyday issues and there is no protection from them, you don’t have the basic security of being alive tomorrow, let alone time and space to ponder on the nature of reality.

What utter nonsense!

This line of thought obliterates what makes us human – the ability to reason and empathise, regardless of the circumstances, social contract or any other formality. It is so dry and removed from consciousness it reads like AI attempting to grasp why humans react the way they do. It also suggests that anyone can re-frame anything at all to make themselves feel better, which would surely be a useful tool to those wishing to harm others. In fact, they likely do it all the time.

If this were true, people in societies with a primitive/theocratic legal system would never suffer when seeing others barbarically mutilated or executed – after all, these acts are perceived as legally and morally right in their countries. Nobody would ever rebel; nobody would ever push for change. In fact, nobody would have, anywhere in the world, throughout history.

Aside from any interpretation of an act, there is a commonality for everyone, and that is observable reality. That which exists and cannot be denied. Suffering and death (especially unnecessary and preventable) can be observed directly. You don’t need the law of the land to know the suffering murder causes. It’s not because they’ve entered into an agreement that most people don’t murder – it’s because they know what it is to be human and what is lost when life ceases, as well as the suffering of those left behind, which no one wants to experience. Is the world “making Chris Watts wrong“, after he killed his pregnant wife and two young daughters?

And now we get to the part about murder only being wrong to the victim, because the victim is…“making it wrong”. Jesus. I can’t even. What do you say to that…? Injury and the threat to one’s life are just a matter of interpretation, according to Landmark. So is attachment to other humans apparently, since murder is only “wrong to the victim”, as if a person lived in a vacuum and didn’t leave behind grieving family members and friends. I suppose losing a loved one, suddenly and tragically, is also a matter of interpretation.

If you kick a dog and it bites you, apparently, it’s because the dog is making it wrong. Not because you broke its rib and it’s trying to survive, like any other life form, including humans.

That’s an assumption that the “payoff” is “being right” – whilst sometimes it is, in certain cases it may well be preserving one’s life or safety, or someone else’s, depending on the context.

If you know or think someone is lying in a way that affects you, or you have serious issues with their behaviour, it’s not a matter of wanting to be right. At times it’s essential to get to the truth when you’d absolutely hate being right (such as having strong reasons to believe your spouse is cheating, that a loved one is involved in criminal activity etc).

Knowing your circumstances objectively, as well as other people’s actions or intentions, can be a matter of life and death. The truth is essential for someone to assess what the future might hold, what risks and illusions they are under (what the future definitely will not hold) and so forth. Every day people suffer the consequences of ignorance or malignant optimism, after ignoring signs for fear of appearing to make someone wrong when confronting them. Gaslighting (actual gaslighting, not the popular misuse nowadays) is a form of abuse because it undermines someone’s sense of reality in a calculated way. We deduce (and instinctively know) how important it is for people to have a grasp of what is going on around them. Confusion can lead to insanity.

Another instance I would bring up is toxic and abusive behaviour. Bullying. Of course, Landmark doesn’t believe in bullying or harassment. Should someone just take it? Yet another instance is being pestered with conversations that are so crazy, disturbing or repulsive one can’t just listen and nod along politely. Imagine having to hear someone elaborate on their racial supremacy for hours on end. Etc etc.

For that to happen, one thing needs to be present – bona fides on the part of the other person. If you’re dealing with a liar, a crook, a crazy person, someone being verbally abusive for the fun of it etc, there is no bridge to build. This whole rationale discounts the other person’s nature and intentions, as if they weren’t just as important as how someone handles a conversation.

Here’s another example: you’re in a public place and your friend suddenly wants to commit an act of violence. Do you remain passive because you don’t want to make him wrong?

Then there is the issue of guilt. Can guilt be artificial and damaging (for example in a religious context)? Of course. But most of the time, it’s a realisation or anticipation of the harm caused to others, and many times, it prevents people from causing said harm. Landmark proposes the obliteration of guilt, the only thing to consider being consequences as per the social contract (legal ones). In other words, if someone can cause harm knowing they’ll get away with it, “there’s nothing wrong with that”.

“Completing” relationships (even with potentially dangerous people)

According to Landmark, relationships – past or present – which bring discomfort are “incomplete” and must be “completed” by the participant, who would initiate communication, forgive or ask for forgiveness, and of course, invite the other person to Landmark. To go into details of the sheer insanity this can reach, here’s what – amazingly – this lady considered to be a great way to pitch attending the final evening of the Forum – the OP having correctly stated that its purpose was to recruit more people.

“You won’t see that anywhere else” because it’s batshit insane and irresponsible.

It gives you a little glimpse into the types of people you might encounter at these gatherings, if they accept the invitation of their victims – rapists, child molesters and who knows what else. Of course, I assume most slam the phone down and don’t attend, to be outed in front of a large group, which is yet another painful moment needlessly caused to the participant. Forgiveness is a private issue, first of all, and is never mandatory in order to heal from something. Irredeemable people exist; those who harm others without a conscience, again and again.

There was no mention of rehabilitation – whether this person had been charged and convicted or if they’d gone to therapy at all. There is never any mention of that in a story involving a potentially dangerous individual invited to Landmark to “make amends”. For all we know, such people might’ve got away with inflicting serious abuse on others for years or decades. They might still have that proclivity. Does anybody check or care? Do you bring predatory individual in with a bunch of people spilling their most intimate problems, some in a vulnerable state of mind? Wouldn’t that be the optimal hunting ground for any such person?

It’s baffling that Landmark considers this normal – for a rape victim, on the leader’s instruction, to be in the physical proximity of the rapist, discuss that publicly and for them to turn it into a glorious event. What does it say to the rapist and everyone else attending? That it wasn’t so bad after all – you see, there is applause at the end of it! It’s all good.

Think about it: they wanted to enrol the rapist… into a course minimising, even justifying his past actions. Because that’s what’s happening in this scenario. It’s obviously twisted even as some pseudo-therapy for the victim, if it has any benefits, but at least their intentions would be somewhat understandable. But why bring in the perpetrator to tell them they’d done nothing wrong? How likely is it for someone to re-offend after having their conscience cleared by Landmark?

This is a comment by John Hunter, who has been prolifically explaining the harm LGATs cause to people’s lives on many platforms. Please note that in devotees’ own words, everything a seminar Leader says is intended that way. This is what they teach – that one should open themselves to be re-traumatised all, and none of it matters, past or present.

Now imagine being a genuine victim of something horrible, being surrounded by these types and needing their help in real time. It’s chilling to think about, because there’s nothing these people won’t try to fix with Landmark.

When “incomplete” relationships are benign but somewhat troubled, initiating contact seems to train the participant to focus on their own needs, regardless of inconveniencing another person. Some of the calls are made late at night, many times involving people who had limited (if any) contact with the participant for years. Imagine getting a phone call out of the blue at an inappropriate hour, from someone previously distant, looking for a deep and emotional conversation. My first thought would be that the person was on drugs or in the middle of a psychiatric emergency.

This in and of itself seems benign, but again, it’s lack of consideration towards another person, as well as lack of social awareness, which is something no one wants to adopt as their behaviour, as it has its own consequences. Imagine making ten such phone calls over small matters long forgotten, creeping people out without warning – and telling them that your heart-to-heart is a Landmark exercise, which I imagine is off-putting to many.

“Distinctions”

Graduates commonly refuse to explain the slightest thing about the curriculum; some in fact claim it’s impossible to verbalise what Landmark teaches, which is very strange (like Scientology, Landmark claims to help people express themselves more efficiently).

As a side note, that attitude is incredibly arrogant, given that people searching for information contemplate forking out hundreds to attend the seminar – with graduates scorning them for wanting to know what they’d be paying for. Imagine a hard sell for any other product the seller refuses to give any details on. You’d slam the door in their face within half a minute.

Apparently, distinctions can be understood as follows:

The author of this comment seems convinced distinctions are by default “powerful tools” (implying they are useful and benign). I beg to differ. It all depends on the validity or at least innocuousness of the entire caboodle, so to speak. In an actual field of study, or in more liberal spheres such as the arts, they are, of course, useful.

Distinctions are, of course, present in cults and radical ideologies as well. They are fictitious notions in a fictitious paradigm – but unlike innocently partaking in fiction, adepts are encouraged to apply them to their surrounding reality, placing labels on things and people and treating them according to those labels. Anyone making up a new way of seeing the world creates their own distinctions, and they are not always benign.

Lori Vallow, for instance, incorporated zombies as a distinction into her life (and had her children killed as a result, believing them to be zombies). This didn’t happen overnight – she was part of a doomsday cult. Gradually, she internalised this artificial notion and ended up applying it to her own offspring. Similarly, some religions hold the distinction of sin as central to them – in some cases, stoning or hanging the “sinner” for adultery or a different sexual orientation.

In Landmark’s case, distinctions include “racket” (a complaint someone persists in) and “story” (a fabricated narrative someone tells themselves). Apparently, the facts involved in the “racket” or “story” are irrelevant – as in whether these might actually be logical (even beneficial, if they bring awareness of a dangerous person or situation). All that matters is that they make the graduate feel powerless. Anything can be re-framed and reason (or one’s survival instinct) can go out the window.

Without the terms racket and story, each assertion would have to be analysed on its on merits – it seems way too easy to label any complaint, suspicion, discontentment etc as such – and I imagine many times it’s self-serving, to the detriment of others. This can lead to the person being dismissive, sliding into malignant optimism (which is dangerous) or engaging in toxic behaviour without the ability to admit that they may have hurt others. After all, they are now “free from mind games” and superior beings (nobody ever is). Slapping these terms left and right, onto a wide variety of situations, is a negation of one’s ability to reason or empathise through each of them. It’s an invitation to distort reality anytime it stirs negative feelings.

“Occurring”

This broadly refers to someone’s perception – of themselves, other people and the world in general. Whereas there’s nothing wrong with merely finding a new synonym for perception, here’s the next level – changing that perception to achieve what we want. Can that be beneficial? Sure. If it still remains grounded in reality, that is. Looking at a person or situation from all angles is always best, as opposed to superficial judgements.

Here’s the caveat: perception, while susceptible to being skewed by biases, also arises from intuition, accumulated knowledge, reason and life experience. In other words, what allows people to think critically and listen to their survival instinct (which intuition is related to). It involves observing one’s environment, detecting non-verbal cues, assessing the risks of certain actions.

Overriding it to see what you want to see (because it seems beneficial in the moment) implies constructing a perception in your mind that may be so far from reality it puts you at a grave disadvantage. In colloquial terms, that is also referred to as “delusion”, but can also take the form of naivete or malignant optimism. Some people would still be alive today had they been present enough to assess their environment or companions without said naivete.

Remember the young man who a few years ago went to an island populated by the most primitive community in existence, with a Bible in hand, knowing said population was so cautious of outsiders they would kill them instantly? His perception was, against all knowledge regarding that area, that aided by his deity, he could simply approach them and convert them. Needless to say, he was very quickly killed. He could have gone on to lead a successful life, putting that courage to good use – had he remained anchored in reality, at least to the point of not dying so stupidly.

By no means am I suggesting seeing the world through the lens of paranoia. The world is a beautiful place and most people are not malignant. I am merely saying that sometimes people choose to ignore clear warning signs and suffer as a result.

Another great example (which is not extreme) would be the quest for fame young people have, in an environment which is known to be corrupt, depraved and full of abuses of power. It surely sounds too good to be true, the person “recruiting talent” comes across as a creep, and success stories are few and far between (with the casting couch as a prerequisite). But what do they do? They go back because of the mirage and perception they want to have. The same goes for catfishing and other scams, some extremely personal and damaging.

I want to stress that de-programing from a cult, religion, ideology etc is the exact opposite of what these people propose: although it’s a radical shift in perception, it’s meant to bring the person back to reality and keep them there, whereas Landmark proposes altering one’s perception for any purpose.

Notice that the technique above doesn’t involve inquiring to see how the world actually is – it merely proposes replacing a potentially skewed (and limiting) perception with any illusion of one’s choice.

Notice that after this person says “I disagree”, they don’t deny Landmark holds that view, but merely state that it’s not original, as if that had been the point. No, Landmark doesn’t tell you you can do what you want, as there are clear consequences for some actions. It does, however, by invalidating right and wrong (and meaning in general) provide a context for not having a conscience, training oneself to not experience guilt (unless one had that proclivity already)..

Apart from that, it’s utter nonsense that people are only limited in life by their perception, as if their abilities, social condition, state of affairs in their environment (political, economic etc) didn’t matter one iota. LGATs and the like are for people with relatively comfortable lives. If their teachings could truly lift anyone out of a miserable situation, they would apply universally. Would they go to a war-torn country, or a dictatorship, and say that people were only limited by perceptions?

“Already always listening”

Sounds benign, doesn’t it?

Until you learn that dropping those “filters” entails foregoing the basic notions described above, such as right and wrong. Not only are participants to be in this blank slate/sponge mode during the courses; they are supposed to remain so in perpetuity. When someone, as per Landmark’s instruction, leaves their beliefs, values and life experience at the door, those are to remain there.

Of course, the claim can be made that people are often reactive – if not reactionary – and don’t listen to others with an open mind, taking a strong stance from the beginning. That is true and unfortunate for some. What Landmark proposes is that a graduate has their guard down at all times, adding jargon such as “there is nothing wrong here”, which also silences intuition. Essentially, they want these adults to be child-like, training themselves to have no reaction to what is being said to them, no matter how absurd or malicious.

The grand irony here is that graduates don’t listen, especially when someone refuses their proposal. I wouldn’t make that claim if I hadn’t read dozens and dozens of interactions between Landmark adepts and those not wishing to try it or contesting its validity. How can people be good listeners when they have an established conclusion (their interlocutor needs Landmark) and goal (to recruit them)?

They listen in a data-gathering fashion, in order to find an angle to pitch the Forum from. Crooks and MLM reps do the same, so it’s not necessarily based on good intentions.

Furthermore, they have labels for normal thought processes and feelings: excuses, rackets, stories – labels they can place on what others express so they don’t have to process it.

Since this post is long enough, it will be followed by another one on manipulation techniques they employ with strangers online, and yet a third one containing the colourful views they have on outsiders and detractors – although this is always publicly denied by Landmark, it transpires in most conversations with graduates.