If you see the Buddha in the road, kill him.

That’s a Zen saying, by the way. 

Once upon a time, Werner Erhardt was driving down a highway in California. He then became enlightened. 

From behind the wheel of his car, he got that he knew nothing, and that this nothing was the vessel for everything.

He couldn’t keep this everything/nothing to himself. He had to share it. He’d been experimenting in alternative spirituality for some time already, but this moment of driving down the highway, alone, became the lynchpin for everything to come: est, the Forum, Landmark Education.

No one got in his face, no one shamed him into psychological submission before a room of 100 people. He did not have to relive his past traumas in conversations with friends and family under the looming presence of a dominating leader, with the express intention of enrolling and registering them into this new way of thinking. 

None of that. He was just driving down the road.

Once upon another time, Byron Katie woke up from a deep depression in the middle of her bedroom floor. She then became enlightened. 

She noticed the bullshit way she was dealing with her thoughts and feelings and wanted everyone to know. So she started sharing, leading seminars and writing books.

No one got in her face, no one shamed her into psychological submission before a room of 100 people. 

She just woke up in her bedroom. She got to be the person in the front of the room instead.

Once upon another time, Eckhart Tolle wrestled with depression until he woke up from a collapsed, unconscious state. He then became enlightened.

He noticed the bullshit way he was dealing with his thoughts and feelings and rode his enlightened high for a year or so before sharing with people what made him so happy.

He then wrote a bestseller. And another. And so on. 

Just from waking up.

Participants in the Landmark Forum don’t get to wake up the way gurus do – just you and your soul having the difficult conversation in private, in ritual, or in some other safe context.

No. The psychic break necessary for enlightenment happens in a big room full of strangers with a looming attack therapist who is not required to have any training outside of Landmark to lead the program. 

All the gurus did was wake up. On their own.

This is not to say it’s easy or painless – enlightened people go through a lot of shit to get where they are. And they still trudge through it, every day. Another useful Zen saying is this: “What do you do to get enlightened? Chop wood, carry water. What do you do AFTER enlightenment? Chop wood, carry water.”

That’s it. 

And some people get enlightened just by virtue of navigating through trauma. Anyone who has an experience that forever changes the way they see God, themselves, and the universe has a psychic (or psychotic) break with reality that leaves the inner soul vulnerable to suggestion.

That little vulnerable space is where all the self-help gurus swoop in like vultures to market their philosophies. 

If they own that space in you, they own you.

If they can induce guilt and shame in you, in that space, they can cause you to crack open so that your emptiness can be filed with their teaching. You will be vulnerable, in pain, at a zero point. And there, they tell you you’re a liar, a cheat, an enabler, a manipulator, a coward, or whatever. 

Or Erhardt’s favorite: asshole!

And you believe them.

Because the only other thing there to believe is the darkness.

And you must choose: darkness, or this guru. Well, you’re obviously not there to choose the darkness! You’re not stupid!

If the guru has shamed you enough, you will submit to them. You will submit to the teaching to avoid the shaming. 

And the teaching could be the best thing in the world! It could be the very answer you’re looking for! It can save your marriage! Your job! Your family! 

It might do that. But what if, instead, you summon the will to get back in the face of your teacher and tell them to fuck off?

A Landmark leader would respond by demanding what your racket is.

A real guru – the Buddha-in-the-road kind – would just smile and close their eyes.

This one thing: Epilogue

My last trip to the local Landmark Center was many months after I had left the ILP and underwent treatment for major depression. I was well on my way to recovery, but I felt I had to do one more thing, if for no other reason than to prove my courage.

There was a new center manager, though many of the old staff were still around. One of them greeted me and said, “Are you still mad at us?”

Really.  He actually said that to me. (Fortunately, the center manager later assured me that she told this guy how inappropriate his question was.)

The center manager welcomed me gently into her office. There was nothing fake about her warmth. She was remarkably human, with a great love for Starbucks coffee and a smoking habit that she sometimes got the better of. She was the right person for this conversation.

We talked a bit. She knew a little of my history with Landmark, but I was able to give her a more complete account of what happened from my point of view, especially in those last weeks of the ILP when it was clear I had to leave. And she listened, saying nothing.

“I want my life back,” I said.

I was remembering a time that was more creative, spunky, and simple for me; when I had a passion for life. That was gone. But my life wasn’t taken from me; it was more like I had given it away before I realized that my life was truly mine.

The center manager got this. She shared about a time when she was in hot pursuit of leadership roles in Landmark Education and there was a ton of pressure around her to always give more time, more effort, more energy, more blood-sweat-and-tears to Landmark than any other aspect of life. And it took a toll; she felt it suffocating her life and she got physically ill.

When she woke up to what was going on, she shifted. “From then on, I was going to have life go the way I say…” and with that, it did go that way. If she said she wanted more off-duty time in her life, she simply took it. If she said she needed rest, or a family play-date, she took it. And her ability to have life go the way she said got noticed…as trait of leadership.

Because that’s what it’s all about, really.

It’s not about how much life you can devote to self-transformation, it’s how much self-transformation you can devote to your life.

Finally, I was talking to someone who got it.

So then I dropped the motherload on her:

“I have an unreasonable request to make.” I swallowed. “I want Landmark Education to refund all the money I paid for every program I’ve registered for.”

She was quiet for a moment, looking gently at me. Then she said, “Sure,” and turned toward a file cabinet to grab a bit of paperwork. She didn’t flinch. She was actually going to forward my request.

She asked no further questions of me; just said we’d be in touch in a couple of weeks to see what headquarters had to say. I thanked her for her time and consideration before leaving the center for the last time.

I thought, I hope this girl remains the center manager for a good long time.

A couple of weeks passed and I got the call from her; LE headquarters would only refund my ILP tuition, but it was better than nothing. The check came in the mail, and that was that.

Even if I never see that woman again, I hope she’s still there. Or, at least, that she still has life going the way she says.

“Just let me go.”

THE NADIR – PART 2

When I was called a liar – just one more time – in front of the Introduction Leaders Program at Landmark, it was the beginning of the end.

I wanted it to be the beginning of something better, something new. For a while, Landmark did promise me that, after the whole debacle of exposing my mental health history to them.

Because I had inaccurate information about my mental health history on my original Forum application, I couldn’t become an Introduction Leader. But they had another option for me: I could be an Introduction Leader for the Landmark Forum for Young People.

Yes, there is a Landmark Forum for under-18 kids. It differs from the adult Forum in only two significant ways: 1) any child participant has to be under legal guardianship of a Landmark graduate, and 2) the course itself is shorter in length, but not because they trim the content.  They don’t. In fact, the Young People’s Forum is exactly the same as the adults’, with the same verbiage and everything. It just doesn’t run 19 hours long each day because young people are less resistant and they absorb the distinctions that much quicker and easier. They get out by 5 in the evening because they don’t come in with as much “baggage” as their adult counterparts, who are often writhing until midnight on an average day.

And rare is the child who attends an introduction to a Young People’s Forum and doesn’t want to register! They all think it’s cool! So leading introductions for these kids is relatively easy.

And, I thought, it should be more life-affirming than trying to deal with grumpy adults. I’ll give it a shot!

So I meet with a fellow Landmark peer who is already a happy Introduction Leader for kids, and I start to learn the ropes. I start off by sharing my latest authenticity with her – that my Forum application didn’t reflect my mental health history, and it was time to come clean about it. She totally got it: “That happened to me, too.”

…What?

It turns out that she had the exact same experience I had – a piece of mental health history that was not reflected on her Landmark Forum application. And because the center manager found out about it during her ILP, she was steered toward leading Introductions for the Young People’s Forum.

This struck me as eerie.

I reported the exact same experience she had, and now here we were together in the same assisting program. Something was not quite right about this. Is this where all the mental health cases in the ILP get put out to pasture?

For the first time, I didn’t feel the need to ask. I already knew the answer. I stopped returning phone calls from the center. When one of my fellow ILP participants called me up on her cell, I told her I was leaving Landmark for good. She said I was on a “racket” and discouraged me from leaving without “completing in front of the whole group.”

Hesitation. And then,

“…NO, Holly.”

It was the most powerful “no” of my life.

I followed it up with just one more conversation with my ILP leader, the one who first heard my concerns and thus started this whole crazy ball rolling. It was a pain, but I had to take the opportunity to reiterate to her that I was not a liar. I did not intend to lie about my mental health history on my application for the Forum, and when I suggested that I did during that ILP session, I was just saying what everyone wanted to hear so that she would stop yelling at me in front of the group.

I just wanted the yelling to stop! Was that too much to ask? I was crying on the phone for the last time. “Just let me go.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m okay with it.”

When I hung up, that was the end of my participation with Landmark. But it wasn’t “all over.” The worst of my depression and a real mental-health hospitalization were yet to come.

And thank goodness for that, because on the other end of that journey came the opening into a truer light. There was no looking back after that.

Liar

THE NADIR, PART 1.

Landmark wields the power of an emotional sledgehammer to get the truth out of people. That’s kind of their whole reason for being.

Not everyone survives the impact. Or deserves it.

The Landmark Forum had an elaborate application process in the early 2000’s when I registered. The form was several pages long with disclaimers and questions and blanks to fill out. It seemed pretty innocuous, but for a curious set of questions regarding mental health. It asked if I had ever been hospitalized for a mental health reason, or if I had ever stopped taking medication for a mental illness against the advice of my health care practitioner.

Neither applied to me. I answered “no.”

Two years later, I was deep into the Introduction Leaders Program – the first stop for any Landmark devotee wanting to advance to a leadership position. But I was deeper in debt, misery and fatigue than I had ever been in my life…deeper than anyone else around me, for sure. And no one knew how much.

Not even me.

And one day, it just dawned on me. I remembered a time way back in college when I was in grief over an impending breakup, and I was so upset that I threw a teacup against my dorm room wall, shattering it. And I collapsed.

Two hours later, the residence life coordinator of my hall found me curled up on the floor in tears and offered to help. I said that the loneliness of my single room was driving me crazy, so she suggested that I stay a night or two at the local hospital. There was a special program whereby college students could convalesce there if they had a bad flu, or mono, or just anything too gnarly to handle on their own. They wouldn’t be admitted to the hospital as a patient; the hospital would just provide a place for sick students to get away from the dorms and heal.

It sounded like a good option, and I took her up on it. I stayed there a couple of days, and it actually did a lot of good.

I thought nothing of that incident until the nadir of my ILP, a program that promised a mountain of miracles that weren’t going to happen for me. I wondered if that hospital stay in college qualified as a hospitalization for mental health reasons, and thus something to be noted on my application for the Landmark Forum.

If it did qualify, then things could get serious, because Landmark Education always turned down applications from people with certain mental health issues.

It could happen that I was never supposed to register for Landmark at all.

I called up my local ILP leader and told her my concern. I explained in detail what happened and described my college’s arrangement with the hospital as accurately as I could. She said “wow” several times and listened to everything. Then she said she would talk to the center manager about it to see what to do next, if anything.

The ILP was only a week away from completing its long run that year. I was entering the home stretch as an Introduction Leader hopeful; now everything was about to change.

My program leader got back in touch with me and said that yes, the center manager agreed that my hospital stay in college was, in fact, a hospitalization for mental health reasons (of course it wasn’t, because there was no admission, but these weren’t medical professionals I was talking to). Therefore, Landmark Education could not make me an Introduction Leader, or any other kind of leader. I could certainly finish out the ILP, and go on to some other assisting opportunities, but nothing more.

In a way, it was a relief. No more chasing after everyone in my life to get them to register for the Forum, no more groveling on the phone to offer or receive forgiveness. I could excuse myself from the rat race at the heart of the ILP, which was nothing but a big, aggressive registration machine.

A week later, my program leader, who listened so compassionately on the phone with me, allowed me to have my moment of authenticity in front of the whole group.

What a lovely way to cap it all off: I stood up in front of my ILP peers and shared authentically what I shared with our leader the previous week, and the acknowledgement from the group was astonishing, because they knew how I was floundering in the program. They saw how I was losing energy and getting more and more upset and withdrawn. The moment had come when I found the strength to turn it all around.

“But you lied.” The leader interrupted me.

My eyes shot back at her. “No, I didn’t lie. I didn’t remember it. I didn’t know.”

“Yes you did lie!…” Lie? On the application? To get into the Landmark Forum? What the hell is going on?

She started to go on a tirade, as leaders do when they think they’ve uncovered an inauthenticity. But no matter how many times I told her I didn’t lie, nothing appeased her. I quickly thought of something: “Ok, I minimized it.”

Everyone clapped! Yay! Ok, I admitted to a wrongdoing that never happened – I toed the party line just to get people to shut up about me. Our leader stood down and let me finish, awkwardly.

That was the beginning of the end of my whole career with Landmark.

Can something be a lie if there is no intent to deceive? Was I lying to myself about the significance of what I did in college?

Or was it really nothing and this Landmark representative was just being ignorant?

A few years later, my therapist was shocked that LE would ask such questions on their applications and deny registration to people for mental health reasons, when they have no mental health professionals on staff and no business asking about the medical history of their prospective clients.

But by that time, I also heard that LE actually removed those questions from their applications, insisting that participants should just be fully responsible for their mental well-being. If anyone asks about mental health or anything else medical with regard to participating in Landmark, the answer is always “the participant is responsible for their own well-being.” End of story.

An old Landmark friend said that this change came as a result of LE discovering that it was violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. He shared it with me as if I would welcome the news.

Gee…thanks. That changes…nothing.

In the eyes of Landmark, I was still the liar, the story-hoarder, the pity whore, the case. And admitting to these things was never enough. I could never grovel enough to be authentic to others or myself. Nothing would work. Nothing I did or said made a difference.

But there was nothing I could do except crawl back to them…again and again…because they still held the promise of transformation…

EX-coachable

That’s how I’m going to describe myself to any Landmark person who knows I’m familiar with the work and thinks I’m being squirrely.

If anyone asks me the classic Landmark question, “Are you willing to be coachable?” a “yes” answer practically guarantees that I’ll be exposed once again to the relentless enrollment and registration machine.

Or else it will give my companion free rein to tell me I’m a controlling, manipulative bitch (an old Landmark friend’s exact words to me on a coaching call).

Now, I understand that being coached involves hearing things you don’t want to hear. But it’s the yelling…

…the yelling…

…the yelling I couldn’t stand, and the pointed judgments, when I was taking courses.

If I were an NCAA football player, I could deal with a yelling, judgmental coach.

If I were being absolutely belligerent and didn’t give a fuck, I would need a little private face-to-face to sort things out.

And if I were still participating in Landmark, I could take a yelling, judgmental coach better now than I did twelve years ago.

But I’m no longer participating in Landmark, and I never will again. I’m out of that conversation. I’m ex-coachable.

I can happily work with you and further any transformation we do together if we have a common interest, or you know beyond a doubt what my commitment is to my life. If you care more about my commitment to my life than your own commitment to the Landmark machine, I may accept a form of coaching. 

I don’t say that to be manipulative; I say that so I can protect myself and the people I love from manipulation.

Because I’ve seen where it can go.

But if you can’t work with me unless I submit to Landmark rhetoric, or let myself be judged a petulant, resistant “criminal” (actual word a leader used to describe a whole room of people in an LE course), or go so far as to put that name tag on again, then you obviously haven’t learned a damned thing in your courses about transformation.

Because what the hell kind of transformation do you have if you can’t work with everyday people who don’t (or won’t) wear the name tag? How are you transforming life if you only stand for people who will say “yes” to the machine? 

It’s been said that a person who resists coaching in an LE program is resisting their own life. What this syllogism reduces to is, Landmark is life.

Sorry. No, it isn’t.

Now I can FINALLY…

The Introduction Leaders Program is one of the most rigorous leadership training programs on the planet. It runs for about six months, and during that time, you have to attend weekly classes, weekly assisting projects, and four long weekends in a regional center.

It’s the boot camp Landmark participants take on their way to becoming course leaders and high-level assistants.

So if you’re really dedicated to the work, and really committed to transforming the planet, get ready to hand yourself over to the machine completely and kiss the rest of your life goodbye.

And say hello to becoming a transformational superhero. Because that’s what they want to turn you into. And that’s what you want to be, deep down, because back when you took the Forum, you thought to yourself a couple of times how cool it would be to lead a course like that, to transform people’s lives.

Not only that, but it seems like the leaders are the ones that have it really together; they have great lives and high standards. They’re sexy. They’re always talking about how wonderful their relationships are, how nothing stops them from getting anything they want, how happy and amazing life is.

You want that. Bad.

I know I wanted it, as I was listening to a course leader share about the ILP. Part of the sales pitch of the ILP involves sharing a glowing list of what people get out of the program:

• They get promoted.
• They get raises.
• They get the relationship of their dreams (or turn their current relationship into the relationship of their dreams).
• They get the job of their dreams, if they don’t already have it.
• They get acknowledged for leadership.
• They win awards.
• They always get the close parking spots.
• Everything gets out of their way when transformation is afoot.
• Their level of clout and authority goes through the roof.

I don’t remember all of the points that were said, but these cover all the bases. Basically, you get to be the shit.

The only thing is, if you register for the ILP just for those reasons, your 6 months in the program will be Hell.

Because what you’re learning to be is a registration machine. You are learning what it takes to stand in the front of a room and sell the Landmark Forum to people. Everything you do is intended to serve that end. The transformation you undergo to become the shit is just a by-product of your reaching that goal.

I remember a revealing comment that a center manager once told me about a participant who completed the ILP. The participant shared in front of the class how amazing and exhausting the experience was, but now she FINALLY gets to start that project she’s been waiting 6 WHOLE MONTHS to start…!

The center manager said, “Why did she wait? Why wait until after the ILP to start having a great life? That’s not what it’s about. If what you want for your life is to do a project, do that; don’t put it off for the ILP.”

Gee, thanks. Someone could have used that advice 6 months ago.

There’s another one: Towards the bitter end of my ILP, I was actually sitting in an Introduction to the ILP, sharing with folks who were considering the program for themselves. A course leader was leading the conversation, and he gave the rundown of all the above ways an ILP graduate can be the shit from completing the program.

But he cautioned, if you do the ILP just for those reasons, you’ll have a really hard time; it’ll be difficult.

Again: Gee, thanks. Nobody told me that in my introduction, and here I am now, with a shit job and clinically depressed. All I did was say I was considering the ILP, and along came a course assistant to shove the application into my hand.

Because again, it’s all about registrations.

If you love the work of transformation at Landmark more than life itself, then you have to love registering people into Landmark more than life itself, because lots of registrations means there’s lots of transformation going on. And if you live for that, then you gotta live for the ILP, because that’s all the ILP is about: registrations.

And if you complete the program? Congratulations. You have assimilated into the hive mind.

But if you’re in the program wishing you were doing something else, do yourself a favor: stop fucking around and GET OUT.

The power of “NO.”

Never underestimate the power of “no.” One must understand that giving it well means taking it well, too.

At Landmark, I’ve seen people take “no” pretty badly.

I’ve seen a disastrous guest event at Landmark where a course participant cried in front of everybody – participants and guests alike – when the family members they invited didn’t show up. It was embarrassing. She cried because she knew what the stakes were. If she truly believed in her transformation, then her family was rejecting their own transformation – disaster. If, however, she was just trying to please the course leader, then she was deathly afraid of a painful, embarrassing reprisal from same – also disaster.

It’s funny, because one of the things that Landmark teaches is how to take “no” for an answer gracefully.

The thing is, “no” is just considered a stopping point on the way to “yes,” especially when it comes to registering people in the Landmark Forum.

“‘No’ isn’t ‘no’ forever,” I’ve heard it said. It’s true. “No” need never be final. But there are Landmark participants who flog that truth to death, so that eventually that “no” will turn into a “yes” and someone registers for the Forum.

Case in point: One of my fellow Advanced Course participants shared with the group how she registered for the Forum. Her friend, who had taken the course, made a couple of attempts to register her to no avail. Then, the friend made a strange offer: She would call her every day until she registered. She could say “no” in response every single time, and that was okay. She could say “no” to infinity, but she would keep calling.

My companion agreed to this craziness, and eventually, she broke down and registered for the Forum. Yay! Transformation wins out!

Lots of people register this way, as a result of someone nagging them. Just to get the asshole off one’s back. And some people are delightfully surprised by what Landmark has to offer.

Others aren’t.

Still others manage the courage to say, “Please stop asking me!” and never register. The thing is, the person who so passionately wanted them to join their state of transformation suddenly disappears…or becomes estranged. All for the love of transformation.

All because Landmark Guy becomes tired of hearing “no.”

Well, that’s only part of it. He’s also dreading the conversation with his leader or coach on how well enrollments and registrations are going. Which is to say, not. Because he was once coached to squeeze the “yes” out by any means necessary – all within the context of love and freedom, of course! But no one was buying it.

Landmark Guy is back to square 1, with broken relationships and irresponsible communication. So then he signs up for the next course…

Taking a break

One of the healthiest things Landmark people can do for themselves is take breaks. And I mean long breaks, over weeks and months, with no communication whatsoever with any Landmark center, leader or coach. Just live in the wilderness.

Because the wilderness is where transformation actually lives. It’s a great way to hit the reset button on your perspective, to really be present to life just as it is, and test your listening and communication.

Let go of any intention to share Landmark or try to register people. Just be out there, living a transformed life, with nothing else planned.

Don’t have a coach. Use the distinctions that live inside you wherever necessary.

Don’t coach anyone else. Love people, serve them, listen to them, yes. But don’t be a coach.

People who live transformed lives with no hint of agenda are people I regard very highly. They’re not keeping score. They’re accountable to no one above them. They’re not part of the hive mind.

I’ve noticed in my time away from Landmark that the distinctions do live on inside me, but they’re there for me to use and work with when the moment calls for them. They’re not there as weapons for the Landmark army. If they’ll work for the task at hand, I’ll take them out of my toolbox.

If not, I’ll leave them there. Because I have other tools as well.

There’s nothing wrong with that.

And if you find yourself called back to the Landmark center to experience more, it ought to be that much more refreshing, because then you’re coming back as a person who has lived life and seen where the power of transformation can go next.

Landmark is not always supportive of people who say they want time away from the center and the programs. They always wonder what the inauthenticity is, what the racket is, or why there’s resistance. I’ve seen participants get yelled at for this.

But I think spending your whole life at Landmark 24/7 is itself an indicator of resistance to something. What’s stopping you from just living a fully transformed life out among your family, friends and coworkers – those very communities you were committed to transforming? Isn’t that your life?

Or has Landmark become your life, your perpetual cocoon? Instead of transforming your life, haven’t you just traded one life for another?

Standing for your life

Yes, it does happen: They will call you, they will follow you, they will even drive to your house and knock repeatedly to get you to come back to Landmark.

They do it because they’re standing for your life.

There’s a stifling urgency in the atmosphere of Landmark Education. Everything is urgent and immediate, and the stakes are through the roof. Taking the Forum is a matter of life and death, so if you want to register, it’s gotta be now. And there’s at least a couple of follow-up calls afterward to make sure you’re going.

If you’re late getting back to the room after a break, you can’t go back in unless you own up to being late and acknowledge how careless you are with time. Because time is urgent.

If you’re sharing in front of the room and the leader has you realize that you have to reconcile with your wife over something, you gotta get her on the phone now and do it. Don’t wait for the next break; don’t settle for just leaving a voice mail. Talk to her now.

Because people can die suddenly! There can be a disaster!

If you try to sneak out and leave the course, oh boy. They will track you down. They will dispatch your friends to call you, over and over again. Or they will drive to your house.

Because they’re standing for your life. They’re standing for your transformation. That’s how important it is. For you to break a rule or leave the course would be devastating, it means you will die without being transformed. You will die without living an extraordinary life. You will die without making a difference.

I remember storming out of the Landmark center once while one of my friends was yelling at me across the parking lot: “I’M STANDING FOR YOUR LIFE!!!”

…

Ok.

There are ways of getting people to understand that yes, the present moment is precious and it is all we have without resorting to harassment and stalking. 

Besides which, do you really love me that much? Or are you just trying to demonstrate how transformed you are, how much of a stand you are, in front of your Landmark peers?

Would you stand for my life if it meant nothing to you? Would you stand for my life if I left the Landmark conversation altogether and put my number on their “do-not-call” list?

I can name two specific people in Landmark who absolutely do stand for my life, and I feel it, and I know it, because they got the hint when I told them I was never coming back. And they knew why, and didn’t have to ask. They knew better than anyone else that the way to stand for my transformation was to just let me be.

And they still respect my choice.

“They have mistresses in every city…”

Landmark Forum Leaders are celebrities in the organization. They have enviable lives by pure design. They have the best relationships, the healthiest outlook on life, near-super-human powers to manifest anything they want, and the ability to transform the lives of thousands of people worldwide.

Sure.

They can manifest anything they want – as long as all they want is to further Landmark Education in the transformation of the planet according to their system alone.

They have the healthiest outlook on life – if life is about Landmark Education and nothing else.

They have the best relationships with their significant others – as long as these others are also LE devotees and conditioned to be perfectly OK with their Forum Leader sweeties travelling the globe, being constantly away, and, according to an old LE friend – having “mistresses in every city.”

They can transform the lives of thousands of people – if those people just repeat canned phrases over and over again in unison and agree that Landmark Education is the answer to everything.

In other words, it’s best to stay out of their way.