THINK ABOUT IT
The Landmark Forum
Why People Go There
1. REASONS
Two major reasons:
a. One feels a desperate need for a positive change in life. In this case one is more
susceptible to outside influences.
b. An acquaintance is putting a long pressure on one. As a result of the Forum, many of
its attendants become zealots. The Landmark people encourage this. Landmark actually
relies on a technique called "Sell by zealot". This puts one in an awkward
situation, one didn’t really intend to go to the Forum in the first place, but
eventually ended there.
Both reasons are abnormal. The healthy way of purchasing a product/service is according to laws of supply and demand. For example, tap water won’t get the stains off my laundry. Since the previous sentence is a well known fact, I will look for a detergent before my clothes get dirty. I will watch commercials, consult people, go to the store and compare prices. Finally I will make a choice based on the actions I have taken so far, non of which are compulsory.
2. ESSENCE
The heart of the Forum is based on three meetings, at least 12 hours each, for three days.
Between 100 and 200 people are crowded into a room. Breaks are sparse. People are told
that going to the lavatory or exiting for any other reason might result in failure of the
course for them. These facts are very important, and not coincidental.
Again two reasons:
1. The lesser reason is make money as quickly as possible. Each person shells more than
300$ for the Forum. This means that is three days Landmark earns between 30,000$ and
60,000$ in one weekend! That’s a lot of money, when faced with the fact that most of
the workers are volunteers. However, it is not necessarily a bad thing to make so much
money over a short period of time.
2. The major reason has also to do with money, but with a longer perspective viewpoint. In
order to produce the largest amount of zealots in the littlest of time, one must press
hard, in order to get the message across (possibly a good thing), and to weaken any
possible criticism from participants. The effect is extremely strong. Participants’
minds are weakened physically and mentally. Since the overall tone of the Forum is the
good of the participants, all they will remember was a strong ("meaningful")
experience they "will never forget". The essence of the experience is diminished
to slogans (or jargon): "Making a difference", "Breakthroughs",
"Stop judging others", "Paradigm shift" etc. It sounds meaningful. It
is, but not the way the participants view it. Which brings me to the next section.