“Hello. Landmark Education. This is Alexia, how may I help you?”
“Hi Alexia, how are you?”
“Good. How are you?”
“Good. My name is Jones Brixton. I’m registered to do the Landmark Forum advanced course next weekend, and I want a refund.”
“Ochay, sure,” there was some sounds of clambering with the phone. “So what makes you think you want a refund?”
“I signed up to do it after I did the Landmark Forum. I felt like most everything I learnt in the Landmark Forum was stuff I already knew. I thought that the advanced course might be stuff that I hadn’t learnt yet, but as soon as I read the curriculum, I felt disappointed. It held no appeal for me. Then hearing people talk about what they learnt in the advanced course, I just didn’t see the point of it. And also I have $3000 credit card debt, so I feel my $800 could be put to better use elsewhere.”
“Ochay.” They all pronounce “Okay” as if it were a German word. “I got it! A large part of the advanced course is about your act. Your act is like your personality type that you’ve had since you were very young, that keeps you from feeling fulfilled. All your negative associations, and your masks to cover up your true self.
“Now, some people – not saying this is you -” That’s precisely what she was saying. “- some people have an ‘I know better’ act. So when they come in to do the Landmark Forum, they don’t get much out of it, but as soon as they start the advanced course, it all hits them at once.”
“Okay. I did the Landmark Forum. One of the main reasons I did it was because I wanted to know what was holding me back from finish my novel. It didn’t shed any light on that. In the end, I don’t think it matters how many courses I do – I think I just have to take responsibility for myself, and just do it.”
“Ochay, yes. The Landmark Forum teaches you responsibility. But just knowing that you have to be responsible doesn’t help you. You have to know how to put it into action. That’s where your act comes in. Your act is at the root of everything you do. You can’t see your act now – trying to see your act would be like trying to see the backs of your own eyeballs. So in the advanced course, we get to the bottom of your act and we create a new one.”
“I’ve done that already!”
She laughed “Maybe I was wrong about you being an ‘I know better’.” I laughed too.
I said “The reason I think that I’ve heard the stuff from the Landmark Forum before – while it was very good – the reason I’ve heard it is because I’ve studied, and actively pursued new paths to get knowledge, and -” I was going to continue, but suddenly I felt acutely aware that what I was saying could be construed as justifying myself. “- yeah.” She was judging me. I stopped talking.
“I got it!” Do you really. “By taking the advanced course, you can get to the core of who you are, so you can be free of your past and create a new act. That way, you can get on and be successful in your life.” And you won’t be doomed to failure, as you will without the Landmark Forum.
“Well, that’s a very clever sales pitch.”
“You can say that, but calling it a sales pitch is a very effective way of rationalising it so that you won’t have to face the truth.” The truth being that you should give the Landmark Forum your money. “You called me expecting to get a sales pitch. You’re seeing everything I’m saying through a filter.”
“No, I didn’t really have expectations. But here you are trying to convince me to not get the refund.”
“I’m not trying to convince you of anything, I’m simply -”
“Yes you are. Yes you are. Yes, you are!”
She stopped for half a second, and continued, without refuting what I’d said. “Jones, don’t think that calls like this aren’t routine. We expect calls like this to come through. People start getting nervous about what they might have to face in the advanced course, and they start looking for an easy way out. I can give you a refund – that’s fine. But is that really what you want? You seem very uncertain.”
All of a sudden, I felt very uncertain. I said “Let me think.”
I paused for a minute. One whole minute. I sat there in silence trying to find the essence of me, that still small voice that never leads me into folly. Out of all the high pressure situations I’ve been in, in my life, this would probably rank top three. I just can’t explain how weird it was. The leader of my Landmark seminar series would later try to explain to me that it was some kind of mistake, that maybe Alexia had been in a bad mood. But no, you don’t get mindfuck skills like this by mistake. This was well-trained ingrained, precise mindfuck shit. It was a work of art, really. You don’t do it like this just because you’re in a bad mood. This was much worse than a bad mood. It was a torrent of emotionless pressure, consistently applied until your mind broke. I felt pressure to be the ball of reactions that she expected me to be. It was fucked. It was brilliant.
There’s a rule in sales for the silent close. “Jones? Are you still there?” First one to speak, loses.
“Yes, I’m still here. I’m just thinking.”
“Okay… So what do you want to do?”
“I want my money back.”
“Okay… All but $110 is refundable. The charge will be reversed onto your credit card. Is there anything else?”
“Yes. You keep saying that I’m interpreting everything you’re saying. I think it’s the other way around. Good bye.”
{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
If you are that upset I would ask for all your money back. They will give it to you. I would also send an email to Chuck Palahniuk. He says that he wrote fight club following doing the Landmark Forum.
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/
Before you write the whole thing off, you might want to ask him why he still talks about it when he is interviewed.
Either way. Good Luck with your writing.
hah yeah i heard that about palahniuk. for the record, i’m not writing the whole thing off, and i’m not upset.
i just think there’s something not right about an organisation that will teach you self-help principles, only to use them to manipulate you into buying their products later. up until i had this conversation about the refund, i heard about the hard sales they did, and i thought to myself “well, it’s a business, they have to make money.” after this conversation i realised no one was exaggerating about how bad the hard sell was – in fact, they had understated it.
i talked to my landmark forum seminar leader about the conversation, and he said “ochay, so you had that conversation – can you see that you made it mean that the landmark forum is bad?”
i said “yes, i see that i made it mean that. and i continue to make it mean that.”
he seemed to think that that was sufficient reason for me to go back there. i disagreed. to me, it seemed like (and i know this is an extreme example), say a man deliberately plotted to kill you, and started executing his plan, and you associate negative feelings with that man. you made it mean that he was a bad man. that was your interpretation of it, not actually what happened. you recognise that it was just your interpretation. so should you go and make friends with that guy? hell fucking no! that is to say: i wouldn’t, but then maybe it’s just a matter of opinion.
however i would never tell anyone that they shouldn’t do the landmark forum if they were considering it. i believe they have a lot of important stuff to teach.
the friend that referred me to landmark is going to do the advanced course at some time in the future. they keep ringing him every week to try to get him on board RIGHT NOW. they say he has to get on so he can remove all his rackets (his negative mental associations for non-graduates). he said his main racket is wanting to do more and more self-help courses when actually he has everything he needs to succeed. they didn’t know what to say to that.
i know i’ve said this before, but i just can’t stress enough how weird this experience is. i tried my hardest to communicate that in the story, but i don’t think i properly conveyed it… but geez. it was so fucking weird. anyone that knows me or reads my blog knows that i’ve been in some weird situations – this was weirder. a lot weirder.
Kurt – the LF “scared” the f**k out of me. What scared me? The fact that I discovered that I was one of the most righteous people around. Like my dad, always trying to have it all under control, the wife, the job, the kids, etc. The “scary” part was, I was never really present to the impact of that righteousness until about a year and a half after the Landmark Forum. I signed up for the Advanced Course too – and did the EXACT same routine – got all my money back.
I then hit an ALL-TIME low – without going into details about what I did – after the Forum for about a year and a half, and couldn’t realize why the Forum didn’t phase me anymore and I was back to my old self.
At one point I felt like I just wanted to scare everything that can be scared out of me, so I went skydiving. It was scary as s**t.
Then I did the Advanced Course and realized the big joke of who’s responsible for everything that happened or got created in my life, what’s real, versus what’s b.s., etc.
Sounds all “logical” and “common sense” – until you do the AC – it doesn’t matter.
It was one of the most liberating experiences I’ve had in my life. And I was more scared of doing the AC than skydiving. Then I said, f**k it – the worse that can happen is I will die after the AC, an unlikely event.
So I was ok with dying and I went and did it.
What happened afterwards is what you’d call enlightenment…. My identity was shred into bits, and I got to a state of nothingness that some say takes years to achieve through meditation, bla bla. Well, you can have it in 2 weekends if u do the LF+the AC…. Zen, like you won’t f-in believe, if you OPEN your ears and LISTEN for the gold – the gold being, that who you THINK you are is a god damned reflection of mommy and daddy, an outgrowth of their b.s. stories, and their b.s. identities…..
And then you turn around, and LAUGH your ass off at your entire life.
It doesn’t get more Zen than that. You will LIGHTEN up after the AC, to the point where you dont care if you die the same die. And really and honestly? YOU DONT KNOW if you will die. At any point. But you fear it inauthentically anyway….. Why? Cause you’re human. That’s why. KNOWING this makes no difference. Experiencing it does.
C’est la vie.
that’s cool.. thanks for sharing that.
omg >_< Advancedcoursegrad…= faahrreeaaak
Landmark is nothing more than a money marketing pyramid scheme. The people who say they feel great and they’ve experienced things they never have before can easily obtain this without shelling out $440 to $800. I’ve talked to many people in and out of the forum, researched the company myself and actually been to a “graduation.” Their mind tactics are laughable to say the least. Some people I know can’t see through the smoke screens but I can happily say I can. Landmark as your blog says continues to bug you over and over and for what? The main thing they were after the whole time, money. Yes their is self-help, yes it’s an LGAT but they use that as scapegoats for the REAL goal, money. I’m glad this experience happened to you because you have first hand knowledge of what these people are like. I know the Landmarkians(as I like to call them) will come here defending Landmark but for every person that does their will be someone to criticize them and rightfully so.
you’re one person that would benefit greatly from participating in the landmark forum.
Hey Kurt,
I just wanted to say, that I’ve just got off from the phone from the Landmark people and have to say the conversation I had with them, was almost word-for-word to what happened with you. It’s left me frazzled to say the least! All I wanted was to transfer the course I was booked in for to another weekend! The conversation got to the point where the girl was asking me if I’d read the health warnings and if I was maybe experiencing some of them – in other words – I’m nuts! All I wanted was to change my course date, because something had come up. I don’t see no harm in that! I’m now considering not doing it at all. I felt bullied and pressured in a big way and that they were going against what they preached! It turned me off completely.
wow. so she implied that you were psychotic or something? i don’t see how that’s going to get many customers.
strange, strange people.
they left a voicemail for me months ago, saying i could get a full refund. i haven’t called them back yet because i just don’t want to talk to them. even listening to the voicemail made my skin crawl.
I respect that you made a clear decision in the end to get your money back. However, at first I thought that you were writing what you wrote as a kind of in depth look into the mind of someone who refuses to get it.
I have done heaps of self development, and none of it in paid courses. I learned long ago that if you want to learn something new, then you don’t go into a course with your head full of what you already know. It was hard for me to do that, but I commited to “try it on” and take the point of view that whatever I thought I believed, was not the truth. As a result, I got a lot out of it. If you listen very badly and interpret everything to mean what you want it to mean, it is easy to convince yourself that you already know something.
It isn’t about proving to yourself or others that you already know a lot and don’t need help. If that is the case, then just finish your book.
I too am an author. it isn’t always easy to find the motivation, but if you apply declarations and the four pillars (learned from the seminar series) then you will finish it. No compromising.
Please take this as useful, rather than offensive, but “Get out of your head, and get into your life.”
Before someone says that I am biassed or brain washed, I will just say that I think there are many things with Landmark that I believe could be done better, from reminder phone calls, marketing etc. and some of the teaching emphasis. One of the problems that happens is that when they call people, they often talk to everyone as if they are a graduate of the LF and a graduate that really “got it”. Sometimes they need to listen better to who they are dealing with rather than just assuming that the person is offering themselves to be coached.
I just did the new advanced course and it was great. There are some things that I think could have been done better, but I won’t mention them here.
Good luck.
i think you guys read the first couple of paragraphs and assume this is standard landmark-bashing tripe and react accordingly. i just wrote what happened.
This cult needs to be stopped, my partner did it, it has destroyed her, like that comment above, advanced course = freeeeeeeeaaaakk, our relationship is falling apart because they have brainwashed her into hounding me to do it, i have said i would slit my wrists before letting this cult wreck my life and distort my mind which to me seems to be working in perfect order, i am intelligent, run my own successful internet business and i know something evil when i see it.
They asked to speak on to my 7 yo son on the phone last night, i was in the office and unaware that they spoke to him till later that evening, he told me they said to him, Looking forward to seeing you in Sydney, do you know what commitment means Christian?, its like a promise, and we don’t break promises do we?” i am currently investigating Legal action, not over the fact that they have destroyed the family union by brainwashing my wife, (something i tried to stop by inundating her with facts from the internet, but had her brainwashed best friend that had just completed the forum working against me), but because they have commenced implementing their dirty tactics on a short phone conversation with a 7yo minor, and that the legal age is 8, my god, can you believe they can have access to manipulating a childs mind at that age?? Not only is it immoral on 1000 different levels, but destructive and dangerous on a developing childs mind.
Thank God they need the consent from both parents to enroll, as i will be blocking it, but the blocking of this will cost me my 12 year marriage, and my house, but this is a loss i will just have to live with knowing that this white collared cult cannot destroy my childrens lives and that they can grow and learn like any other normal child.