Some former participants in Landmark Education courses, as well as critics who have no direct experience of the courses offered by Landmark, have categorised it as a large group awareness training and attributed it with multi-level marketing or cult-like characteristics, mentioning words like brainwashing, hypnotism, parasitism or "biz-cult". (See http://home.swbell.net/danchase/forum.htm )
Methodology
Landmark, as an international employee-owned corporation, has more than half of its offices in North America and the remainder in European, Asian, African and Australasian countries. Landmark promotes the work and technology of Werner Erhard, though without stressing his name, his ideological forebears (people have cited Heidegger, Scientology, Fernando Flores and Zen) or his sometimes controversial reputation.
Landmark operates by enrolling guests of seminar participants to attend the Landmark Forum, encouraging them to transform their lives and to enrol their family members, friends and acquaintances in the meantime. Others see this as a process of recruitment of guests by word-of-mouth which initiates them into attending more and more seminars. The Landmark Forum has been conducted in 26 countries -
Stated Attitudes
Landmark presents itself as "not therapy" and opposes psychoanalysis (an attitude shared with or inherited from Scientology). However some participants suggest that some of its practices (or exercises) resemble psychotherapy.
Landmark forestalls some potential criticism by setting up (or creating) an atmosphere of trust and by disparaging reasoned questioning as cynical. At one time Landmark touted its new methods of training as non-linear learning. More recent changes in fashion have seen it associate its work with the concept of emotional intelligence.
Reactions
Landmark jargon may seem pervasive and confusing. Some participants' confusion/enthusiasm has allegedly led to mental illness issues and legal action (Refer the book by Martin Lell, Das Forum: Protokoll einer Gehirnwäsche: Der Psycho-Konzern Landmark Education, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, 1997, ISBN 3423360216). Most graduates of Landmark programs express quasi-religious commitment to "the work", at least initially.
Evaluations
A study commissioned by WEA suggests that attending a Landmark Forum has minimal lasting effect on participants' self-perception. (Refer J.D. Fisher, R. C. Silver, J. M. Chinsky, B. Goff and Y. Klar Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training: A Longitudinal Study of Psychosocial Effects Springer-Verlag, 1990, ISBN 0387973206)
Academic, peer-reviewed long-term studies of effects of attendance do not appear to exist.
Prominent Corporate Landmarkians: