The High Octane Inspiration Porn of Landmark Forums
I know a few friends who have gone to Landmark seminars, and they seem pretty happy with it. One of them even suggested I would get something out of it.
Landmark, if you happen not to know, is a company that offers self help seminars around the world that cost something like $750 USD to attend for three days. They claim to, “bring about positive, permanent shifts in the quality of your life. Create power, freedom, full self-expression, and peace of mind.”
“Meh, seems like a cult,” was my offhand dismissal. To which there was a lot of objection from my friends who had attended. Enough that I felt I should look into it a bit more. Not so much because I give a shit about whether or not Landmark is a cult, but more as an exercise in checking my cynicism and exercising my ability to make objective evaluations.
The first thing I realized is that the question “cult or not” is a reductive binary that won’t help shed any light on what’s up with an organization like Landmark. There are definitely cults in this world. Some are obvious, like Scientology. Some are maybe less of a precise match for the term, like the Catholic Church, but I think of them as cults. And there are going to be lots and lots of groups and systems in a grey area where they have some cult like aspects, but maybe aren’t a cult in the sense of a…
