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It has been suggested that this article be merged with Werner Erhard and Associates and Erhard Seminars Training. (Discuss) Proposed since January 2015.

Landmark Worldwide

Company type	Private LLC
Industry	Self-help
Founded	January 1991
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Key people	Harry Rosenberg, director, CEO;Mick Leavitt: President
Products	The Landmark Forum, associated coursework
Revenue	USD$77 million (2009)
Number of employees	525+ employees
Subsidiaries	The Vanto Group (formerly Landmark Education Business Development or LEBD, from 1993 to 2007) Landmark Education International, Inc. Tekniko Licensing Corporation Rancord Company, Ltd.
Website	Landmark's homepage

Landmark Worldwide (formerly Landmark Education), or simply Landmark, is a limited liability company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It offers programs in personal development.

The company started with the purchase of intellectual property based upon Werner Erhard's est training seminars. Landmark has developed and delivered over 40 personal development programs. Its subsidiary, the Vanto Group, also markets and delivers training and consulting to organizations.

Landmark's programs have been categorized by some scholars and others as religious or quasi-religious in nature. Landmark and many of the company's customers deny such characterizations, while some researchers question that categorization as well.

History

Landmark Worldwide LLC was founded in January 1991 by several of the presenters of a training program known as "The Forum". Landmark purchased the intellectual property rights to The Forum from Werner Erhard and Associates and used that as the basis for its foundation course named "The Landmark Forum", which has been further updated over the years. It has since developed around 55 additional training courses and seminar programs throughout 20 different countries around the world.

The corporation was originally registered as Transnational Education and changed its name to Landmark Education Corporation in May 1991. In June 2003 it was re-structured as Landmark Education LLC, and in July 2013 renamed Landmark Worldwide LLC.

According to Landmark, Werner Erhard (creator of the controversial est training which ran from 1971 to 1984 and from which the forum was derived) consults from time to time with its "Research and Design team". Terry Giles is Chairman of the Board.

Corporation

Landmark Worldwide LLC operates as an employee-owned for-profit private company. According to Landmark's website, its employees own all the stock of the corporation, with no individual holding more than 3%. The company states that it operates in such a way as to invest its surpluses into making its programs, initiatives, and services more widely available. In addition, its subsidiary, the Vanto Group, focuses on marketing and delivering training and consultation services to corporate clients and other organizations.

Business consulting

Vanto Group, Inc., founded in 1993 as "Landmark Education Business Development" (LEBD), a wholly owned subsidiary of Landmark Worldwide Enterprises, Inc., uses the techniques of Landmark to provide consulting services to various companies. The University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business carried out a case study in 1998 into the work of LEBD with BHP New Zealand Steel. The report concluded that the set of interventions in the organization produced a 50% improvement in safety, a 15% to 20% reduction in key benchmark costs, a 50% increase in return on capital, and a 20% increase in raw steel production. LEBD became the Vanto Group in 2007.

Companies such as Panda Express and Lululemon Athletica pay for and encourage employees to take part in The Landmark Forum.

Licensing intellectual property

Tekniko, Inc., formerly owned by Werner Erhard, was the successor organization to Transformational Technologies, which was incorporated in 1984 by Erhard and management consultant James Selman. Tekniko Licencing Corporation, a California corporation owned by Terry M. Giles, later acquired this technology. In 2001 Landmark Education formed Tekniko Licensing Corporation, a Nevada corporation, which purchased Tekniko Technology from Giles' company.

Since that time, the Vanto Group has used Tekniko to license the "Tekniko methodology and intellectual property to a wide variety of corporations".

The Landmark Forum

Landmark's entry course, The Landmark Forum, is a prerequisite for the majority of their other programs. The course varies in size between 75 and 250 people, and is arranged as a discussion where the course leader presents certain ideas and the course participants engage in voluntary discussions applying those ideas to their own life. Rules are set up at the beginning of the program, such as strongly encouraging participants not to miss any part of the program. Attendees are also urged to be “coachable” and not just be observers during the course.

Various ideas are presented, asserted and discussed during the course. For example, the course maintains that there is a big difference between what actually happened in a person’s life and the meaning or interpretation they made up about it, and that human behavior is governed by a need to look good. Another tenet of the course is that people pursue an "imaginary 'someday' of satisfaction", and that people create meaning for themselves since "there is none inherent in the world". The course also maintains that people have persistent complaints that give rise to unproductive fixed ways of being, but that people can “transform”, by a creative act of bringing forth new ways of being, rather than trying to change themselves in comparison to the past. Course participants are encouraged to call people they know during the course, with whom they feel they have unresolved tensions, and either be in communication with the other person or be responsible for their own behavior.

An evening session follows closely on the three consecutive days of the course and completes the Landmark Forum. During this final session, the participants share information about their results, and bring guests to learn about the Forum.

Public reception

In his review of the Landmark Forum, New York Times reporter Henry Alford wrote that he "resented the pressure" placed on him during a session, but also noted that "two months after the Forum, I'd rate my success at 84 percent." Time reporter Nathan Thornburgh, in his review of The Landmark Forum, said "At its heart, the course was a withering series of scripted reality checks meant to show us how we have created nearly everything we see as a problem …I benefited tremendously from the uncomfortable mirror the course had put in front of me."

In 2004, France 3 aired a television documentary on Landmark in their investigative series Pièces à Conviction. The episode, called "Voyage Au Pays des Nouveaux Gourous" ("Journey to the land of the new gurus") aired during prime time, a first for the show, and was highly critical of its subject. Shot in large part with a hidden camera, the episode was an expose of sorts and had filmmaker Laurent Richard attend a Landmark course and visit their offices. In addition, the program included interviews with former course participants, anti-cultists, and commentators including the then vice-president of the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France, Jean-Pierre Brard, as well as Catherine Picard, Jean-Pierre Jougla, Jean-Marie Abgrall and Gilles Bottine, the secretary general of MIVILUDES. Landmark left France following the airing of the episode and a subsequent site visit by labor inspectors that noted the activities of volunteers, and sued Jean-Pierre Brard in 2004 following his appearance on the show.

The Pièces à Conviction episode was uploaded to a variety of websites, and in October 2006 Landmark issued subpoenas pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Google Video, YouTube, and the Internet Archive demanding details of the identity of the person(s) who had uploaded those copies. These organizations challenged the subpoenas and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) became involved, planning to file a motion to quash Landmark's DMCA subpoena to Google Video. Landmark eventually withdrew its subpoenas.

Following a series of articles in the national daily Dagens Nyheter and programs on the private TV channel TV4, Landmark closed its offices in Sweden as of June 2004.

Religious characteristics

Some scholars have categorized Landmark and its predecessor organizations as new age, self religion or a new religious movement. Other observers have noted relationships between the training programs and religion or a spiritual experience, including a lack of religious elements in the programs and the compatibility of the programs with existing religions. Others, such as Chryssides, classify Landmark as either quasi-religious or secular with some elements of religion. Various governments have also classed Landmark and its previous iterations as new religions and some have classified it as dangerous (although various scholars have disputed this characterization). or commented on characteristics shared with such groups without labeling it as a cult. Landmark has denied that it is a religion, cult or sect.

Journalist Amelia Hill with The Observer witnessed the Landmark Forum and concluded that, in her view, it is not religious or a cult. Hill wrote, "It is ... simple common sense delivered in an environment of startling intensity." Karin Badt from The Huffington Post criticized the organisation's emphasis on "'spreading the word' of the Landmark forum as a sign of the participants' 'integrity'" in recounting her personal experience of an introductory "Landmark Forum" course, but noted, "at the end of the day, I found the Forum innocuous. No cult, no radical religion: an inspiring, entertaining introduction of good solid techniques of self-reflection, with an appropriate emphasis on action and transformation (not change)".

References

1. (January 7, 2002). "Landmark Education Celebrates 11 Years of Business and Growth". LandmarkEducation.com. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
2. ^ LandmarkWorldwide.com. Landmark Fact Sheet. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
3. (January 16, 1991). Articles of Incorporation, dike.de. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
   Quote: "This letter serves as the consent by Landmark Education Corporation for the use of the name "Landmark Education International, Inc." by our wholly-owned subsidiary, currently known as Werner Erhard and Associates International, Inc."
4. Pressman, Steven (1993). Outrageous Betrayal: The dark journey of Werner Erhard from est to exile. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-09296-2, p. 254. (Out of print).
5. LP/LLC information. California Secretary of State. Filed February 26, 2003. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
6. Corporation information. California Secretary of State. Filed June 22, 1987. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
7. See:
   • Farber, Sharon Klayman (2012). Hungry for Ecstasy: Trauma, the Brain, and the Influence of the Sixties. Lanham, Maryland: Jason Aronson/Rowman & Littlefield. p. 131. ISBN 9780765708588. One of them began as est, or Erhard Seminars Training, the most successful and most controversial of the encounter groups of the seventies, and the progenitor of hundreds of others that have been marketed to the public and the business community.;
   • Richardson, James T. (1998). "est (THE FORUM)". In Swatos, Jr., William H. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religion and Society. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira. pp. 167–169. ISBN 0761989560..
8. See:
   • Lockwood, Renee (2011). "Religiosity Rejected: Exploring the Religio-Spiritual Dimensions of Landmark Education". International Journal for the Study of New Religions. 2 (2). Sheffield, England: Equinox: 225–254. doi:10.1558/ijsnr.v2i2.225. ISSN 2041-9511.;
   • Grigoriadis, Vanessa (9 July 2001). "Pay Money, Be Happy". New York Magazine. New York, New York. Retrieved 6 September 2014.;
   • Eisner, Donald A. (2000). The Death of Psychotherapy: From Freud to Alien Abductions. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. p. 60. ISBN 0275964132.;
   • Ramstedt, Martin (2007). "New Age and Business: Corporations as Cultic Milieus?". In Kemp, Daren; Lewis, James R. (eds.). Handbook of the New Age. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Vol. 1. Leiden: BRILL. p. 196. ISBN 9789004153554.;
   • Atkin, Douglas (2004). "What Is Required of a Belief System?". The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers Into True Believers. New York: Penguin/Portfolio. p. 101. ISBN 9781591840275.;
   • Saliba, John A. (2003). Understanding New Religious Movements. Walnut Creek, California: Rowman Altamira. p. 88. ISBN 9780759103559..
9. Faltermayer, Charlotte; Richard Woodbury (March 16, 1998). The Best of Est?. Time. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
10. Dewan, Shaila (May 3, 2010). "Hired to Bring Order, Kings' Adviser Brings Peace". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2010-11-02. Terry M. Giles ... the self-improvement techniques of EST. (Werner Erhard, the creator of EST, is a client.)
11. Dow Jones & Co., Inc. (2010). "Landmark Education Corporation". The Business Journals. American City Business Journals, Inc. Retrieved 2010-11-02. Landmark Education Corporation - Company Executives - Terry Giles - Chairman of the Board
12. (February 1, 2008). "Landmark Education Business Development, LEBD, Changes Name to Vanto Group". Reuters. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
13. Logan, David C. (1998). "Transforming the Network of Conversations in BHP New Zealand Steel: Landmark Education Business Development's New Paradigm for Organizational Change", University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business, L984-01.
14. "General Tso, Meet Steven Covey". Business Week. 2010-11-18. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
15. "Lululemon's Cult of Selling". Fast Company. 2009-04-01. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
16. Norman Bodek (1985). ReVision: The Journal of Consciousness and Change, Vol 7, No. 2, Winter 1984 / Spring 1985
17. Case Financial Inc · DEFM14A. SEC filings on secinfo.com. Filed May 3, 2000. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
    Quote: "Mr. Giles is the owner of Tekniko Licensing Corporation, which licenses intellectual properties owned by Tekniko to businesses throughout the world."
18. Pacific Biometrics, filings. Form SB-2. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
19. Landmark Education information.
20. "The Landmark Advanced Course". Landmark Worldwide. Landmark Worldwide. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
21. ^ Badt, Karen (March 5, 2008). "Karin Badt: Inside The Landmark Forum". The Huffington Post. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
22. ^ Stassen, Wilma (September 2008). "Inside a Landmark Forum Weekend". Health 24.
23. ^ Hill, Amelia (2008-03-05). "I thought I'd be brainwashed. But how wrong could I be…". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-12-09.
24. ^ McCrone, John (2008-11-22). "A Landmark Change". The Press.
25. ^ Odasso, Diane (2008-06-05). "My Landmark Experience". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2009-12-09.
26. Alford, Henry (2010-11-26). "You're O.K., but I'm Not. Let's Share". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
27. "Change We Can (Almost) Believe In". Time. 2011-03-07. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
28. ^ Roy, Anne (24 May 2004). "France 3: L'investigation prend du galon". L'Humanité (in French). Retrieved 2014-09-21.
29. "Une secte démasquée grâce à la caméra cachée". Le Parisien (in French). 24 May 2004. Retrieved 21 September 2014.
30. Tessier, Odine (20 May 2004). "Voyage au pays des nouveaux gourous". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 21 September 2014.
31. See:
    • Marie Lemonniera, "Chez les gourous en cravate", Le Nouvel Observateur, 19 May 2005, accessed 7 December 2008; French text: "L’'Inspection du Travail débarque dans les locaux de Landmark, constate l'’exploitation des bénévoles et dresse des procès-verbaux pour travail non déclaré." English translation: "Labor inspectors turned up at the offices of Landmark, noted the exploitation of volunteers and drew up a report of undeclared employment."
    • (May 26, 2004). "Landmark Education - Droit de Répons - France 3" (French). landmarkeducation.fr. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
32. Badt, Karin (17 November 2011). "Inside The Landmark Forum". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 21 September 2014. It was this TV program that closed down the Landmark in France, leaving it only 24 other countries in which to spread its word.
33. Palmer, Susan (2011-09-23). The New Heretics of France: Minority Religions, la Republique, and the Government-Sponsored War on Sects. Oxford UP. pp. 27, 186. ISBN 9780199875993.
34. Landmark and the Internet Archive. Landmark's letter to the Internet Archive. Landmark's letter to Google. Internet Archive's objections to Landmark subpoena.
35. See:
    • Christian Palme (2002-06-03). "Landsting köpte kurs av Landmark". DN.SE. Retrieved 2012-04-18..
36. Tidskriften Analys & Kritik - Irrationalismen
37. See:
    • Barker, Eileen (1996). "New Religions and Mental Health". In Bhugra, Dinesh (ed.). Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies. London and New York: Routledge. p. 126. ISBN 0415089557.;
    • Beckford, James A. (2003). Social Theory and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 156. ISBN 0-521-77431-4.;
    • Lockwood, Renee (2011). "Religiosity Rejected: Exploring the Religio-Spiritual Dimensions of Landmark Education". International Journal for the Study of New Religions. 2 (2). Sheffield, England: Equinox: 225–254. doi:10.1558/ijsnr.v2i2.225. ISSN 2041-9511.;
    • Beckford, James A. (2004). "New Religious Movements and Globalization". In Lucas, Phillip Charles; Robbins, Thomas (eds.). New Religious Movements in the 21st Century. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. p. 256. ISBN 0-415-96576-4.;
    • Clarke, Peter B. (2012). "New Religious Movements". In Taliaferro, Charles; Harrison, Victoria S.; Goetz, Stewart (eds.). The Routledge Companion to Theism. London: Routledge. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-415-88164-7.;
    • Heelas, Paul (1991). "Western Europe: Self Religions". In Sutherland, S.R.; Clarke, P.B. (eds.). The Study of Religion: Traditional and New Religions. London: Routledge. pp. 165–166, 171. ISBN 0-415-06432-5.;
    • Ramstedt, Martin (2007). "New Age and Business". In Kemp, Daren; Lewis, James R. (eds.). Handbook of the New Age. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Leiden: Brill. pp. 196–197. ISBN 978-90-04-15355-4..
38. See:
    • Ben Porat, Shahar (April 2006). "Teacher of the Confused". Time Out. Israel. pp. 42–44.
    • Cannon, Patrick Owen (June 14, 2007). "Communication for Planetary Transformation and the Drag of Public Conversations: The Case of Landmark Education Corporation". Tampa, Florida: University of South Florida: 1–504. SFE0002150. Retrieved 26 January 2010. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
    • Lazarus, Baila (April 11, 2008). "Attain Freedom from the Past". Jewish Independent.
39. See:
    • Bhugra, Dinesh (1997). Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies. Routledge. p. 126. ISBN 0-415-16512-1.
    • Chryssides, George D. (2006). The A to Z of New Religious Movements. Scarecrow Press. pp. 197–198. ISBN 0-8108-5588-7.
    • Kronberg, Robert; Kristina Lindebjerg (2002). "Psychogroups and Cults in Denmark". Cultic Studies Review. 1 (1). International Cultic Studies Association.
    • Beckford, James A. (2003). Social Theory and Religion. Cambridge University Press. p. 156. ISBN 0-521-77431-4.
    • Partridge, Christopher (2004). New Religions: A Guide. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 406. ISBN 0-19-522042-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
    • Arweck, Elisabeth (2005). Researching New Religious Movements. Routledge. p. 166. ISBN 0-415-27755-8.
    • Lewis, James R. (2005). Cults. ABC-CLIO. pp. 123–124. ISBN 1-85109-618-3.
40. See:
    • Beckford, James A.; Demerath, Jay, eds. (2007). The SAGE Handbook of the Sociology of Religion. London: SAGE. pp. 229, 687. ISBN 978-1-4129-1195-5.;
    • Chryssides, George D. (1999). Exploring New Religions. New York, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 314. ISBN 0-8264-5959-5.;
    • Bromley, David G. (2007). Teaching New Religious Movements. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-19-517729-9..
41. See:
    • Wright, Stuart (2002). "Public Agency Involvement in Government–Religious Movement Confrontation". In Bromley, David G.; Melton, J. Gordon (eds.). Cults, Religion, and Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 114. ISBN 0-521-66898-0.;
    • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Office of International Religious Freedom (2005). "International Religious Freedom Report 2005: Austria". Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of State. Retrieved 28 August 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link);
    • Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, Office of International Religious Freedom (2006). "International Religious Freedom Report 2005: Sweden". Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of State. Retrieved 28 August 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link);
    • Commission d'Enquête (1999). "Les sectes et l'argent". Paris: Assemblée nationale de France. Retrieved 28 August 2013.;
    • Investigative Commission (1997). "Enquette Parlementaire" (PDF). Brussels: Belgian Chamber of Representatives. Retrieved 28 August 2013..
42. See:
    • Chryssides, George (1999). Exploring New Religions. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 229, 687.;
    • Schneider (1995). "Der Pädagogische Bereich als Operationsfeld für Psychokulte". 20 Jahre Elterninitiative. e.V.. University of Tubingen, Theologische Abteilung: 189–190. ISBN 3-927890-23-5. ISSN 0720–3772. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help);
    • Sharot, Stephen (2011). Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities. Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press. p. 182. ISBN 9780814334010..
43. Goldwag, Arthur (2009). Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies. New York: Vintage/Random House. pp. 29–30. ISBN 9780307390677.
44. Puttick, Elizabeth (2004). "Landmark Forum (est)". In Partridge, Christopher Hugh (ed.). Encyclopedia of New Religions. Oxford: Lion. pp. 406–407. ISBN 978-0-74-595073-0.

External links

• Official website
• Suits Against Anti-Cult Blogger Provide Test for Online Speech, Charles Toutant, New Jersey Law Journal, January 10, 2006, includes Landmark Education's response at bottom, from General Counsel Art Schreiber

• Articles to be merged from January 2015
• Companies established in 1991
• Employee-owned companies of the United States
• Companies based in San Francisco, California
• Training companies of the United States
• Human Potential Movement
• Personal development
• Large-group awareness training
• New religious movements
• United States case law lists