Landmark — Local services in Seattle

Breaks relationships. Coerces, in a very sly way, to call your friends and family for a "graduation" when in fact the entire time, no one is being called to get a diploma, instead they are trying to sell you the same seminar or course.

COMPLETE brainwashing. You pay $600 or more for the course. Why? Just ask yourself that first.

Please, be careful. They make you call people you know and force it down your throat.

A huge majority that has taken this course, will automatically deny anything negative anyone says without even giving it a second thought. Why? It is not even constructive.

Brainwashing at it's best and so many fall for it. Please do not take this course unless you want to pretend to be happy.

It's just that my brother is acting COMPLETELY irrational and was harassing neighbors at 10pm (at night). He was yelling at everyone, "own your life," but the way he was acting was not himself, he was very aggressive and adamant about it. It's as if I could barely recognize him.

There is so much to this story. Please, please be careful of this fraud cult.

Not everyone has to have epiphanies (which they focus on in the program).

Here is how I got introduced to Landmark:

My brother calls and tells me he has been taking a wonderful life changing seminar and wants me to be there for his graduation. I am proud of him always wanting to challenge and better himself, I tell him, "when is it? Will I be able to bring Maya [my daughter]?"

He responds, "It's not for kids her age, but you should come." Maya is only 17 month and I still need to put her to sleep at night. He tells me the seminar was scheduled for 7pm-9pm. I feel like he REALLY wants me to be there and that it's a big deal for him. So I agree to it after making sure my husband is ok with it too.

When I get there, find out "graduation" is actually until 10pm. My mom was there too. I really needed to leave to put my daughter (his niece) to sleep, and he made it such a big deal.

When I think back, I should have been frustrated with him for lying to me. But he is so brainwashed to the point that he is not in control of what he is doing anymore. :( I am so sad.

Recently, he told me he was taking the course again. I started noticing even stranger behavior. A lot of fast talking. A lot of generalizing. Saying everyone is like this and that...I'm not going to get into the details, but basically, it was as if a person did not take this course, they are beneath him.

This place really reminded me of a cult. And my poor brother was so brainwashed he failed to see that.

I wish I had a lawyer to undo the damages this has caused.

There is so much to this story.

He freaked his girlfriend out. He freaked me out. Yesterday, he was not in control of his emotions at all. He went to his girlfriend's house, lost his cell phone somewhere, yelled at his friend, yelled at me. We were searching for him. Then my mom found him at home, he took a taxi back home because he left his car at his friend's house.

Btw, when I did go to the "graduation" aka seminar they were trying to sell. The first thing they do is try to get you to fill out a form with your name, address, and all your info basically.

Then I went in to see my brother, and there was a lady that greeted me and asked, "Don't you love your brother better now?"

That is a very leading question And I answered back saying, "I have always loved my brother. I am proud of him for always wanting to improve."

Lastly, when I went to the "graduation" a speaker said something along the lines of, "you all probably came here because you thought this was a graduation or .....but in fact it is because your life sucks and you need to change it" then he acted as if that was a joke. People were laughing. They also had people standing and guarding the doors, and exists. When I had to leave early, the people almost didn't let me. I had to convince them I needed to leave. I had to go through like 6 people to be able to leave early.!!! Btw, Google this company. THEY ARE BANNED IN FRANCE AND...

Initial Landmark Forum yes! The Advanced courses is a "maybe". As in maybe it's right for you. Did I say that I highly recommend the initial Landmark Forum? I'll get to the Advanced course in a sec.

I got a lot, in fact a ton from the initial Forum seminar. It's really stuff that should be taught in High School. My partner and I both use and discuss the topics (distinctions) even many many months after our courses. It's a progression of the old 70s "Est" training. Doing a little research, reading a book about Est and studying what the founder of Est (Werner Erhard) learned himself - it's clear the roots of the message is from Zen philosophy (not the posture and sitting part of Zen). Pick up a book on Zen Philosophy and you'll see the parallels.

The Advanced course deals more with getting others in your life involved with the Landmark message. They did some of this in the Forum itself and it was cool. It actually had me break some barriers with relatives. The initial Forum seminar did and will continue to change my life. But the Advanced course takes it on a different path than the Forum itself. A bit too much for me. In fact at the very end the facilitator aggressively pressured me to participate by "enrolling others" that a clash occurred (I was just sitting on the couch during a break). I explained I just wanted to witness the entire course and digest any new material offered. (to their credit there was about 10% new material). But the clash got to the point of me setting my name tag down but the assistant convinced me to stay for the last hour of the course (which was a weird sitting face to face thing with various other people). I didn't show up to the "follow up" Tuesday evening where you bring your friends to share landmark. I ended up getting a refund for the Advanced course unsolicited. Probably from my last hour encounter, or me not showing up Tuesday. Maybe both. The best part of the Advanced course was the members of our (separate) group. They were fun and good peeps!

Even in light of the sour events in the Advanced course I'm a strong supporter of anyone taking the initial Forum course.

I give the Forum a healthy 5 stars and for the Advanced...

I NEVER leave reviews unless they are a 5 Star positive review, but I can’t help myself. All I have gone to so far is the evening introduction. I attended with a good friend. I decided to register. They immediately got all my money. That’s when the care stopped. I had to reschedule because of an unforeseen conflict. I contacted the Fremont, WA office which is where I registered and planned to take the forum. Whomever I talked to was unprofessional and distracted, thus the purpose of my call was not passed on as promised. Upon my own follow up, I was told they had no record of my desire to reschedule. I re explained my reason and asked to be contacted by the appropriate person to work with me on the reschedule. This was never done and they ultimately called me this week confirming my attendance to the forum I have told them TWICE I can’t attend. I voiced my disappointment at the lack of follow up and lack of professionalism from a place that I paid a lot of money upfront to attend a forum that would supposedly teach me how to be my best when it wasn’t being demonstrated at all by them. The gal said she understood my concern and promised to have someone call me back ASAP. It’s been over a day and there’s been no call. This really bothers me and I now regret registering with them. Let’s see if I can get my money refunded. I’m going to go for it, I can assure you....