Inside Landmark Forum (transcript)

FIRST DAY AT LANDMARK

NARRATOR

On a cold morning in December, we were given an appointment in a three-star hotel in Paris.  Inside, a company is offering a 3 day personal development workshop in exchange for 395 euros.  Disguised as an unemployed man looking for direction, we arrived that morning equipped with hidden cameras.  We are immediately directed by several people…wearing name tags bearing their first names, toward a meeting room.  The first test on the road to personal development is signing a document that’s referred to here as a contract.  Six pages, actually written by Landmark Education, the real organizer behind this big working weekend called The Forum.  This is what we can read to you from it.

VOICEOVER, READING EXCERPTS, LANDMARK FORUM CONTRACT

Each client certifies that he/she will take responsibility for any physical or psychological damage or emotional disturbances that may occur during or after The Forum.  Each client also agrees that Landmark Education is free and clear of any liability.  

NARRATOR

And an even more unsettling question:

VOICEOVER, READING CONTRACT

Have you ever been hospitalized for psychiatric care or mental problems?

NARRATOR

If the answer is yes, the document recommends not taking part in The Forum.  Once this matter is taken care of, the workshop can begin.  In a room completely cut off from the outside world, over 80 people will spend 72 hours together.  The rules are strict: no note-taking, no leaving without permission, and only one meal per day.  The staging is exact.  Facing the audience is a director’s chair.  On this chair is a man.  His name is Alain Roth.  He calls himself a coach.  He’s actually the director of Landmark Education in France.  On the first day, he explains the agenda to us, which is called The Forum.  

LANDMARK FORUM LEADER ALAIN ROTH

The Landmark Forum is a place, for 3 days, for you to fuck with the course, be unreasonable, do the things that you have never done, and abandon all your reasons and explanations for not doing it.  Are you interested to win a game called: “You bust out and nothing’s the same”?  Is that possible?  It is.  And there are things that produce these results: Technology itself.  We invented a technology - a conversation that literally revolutionizes what is possible.  If you do The Forum as it is meant, there’s a 99.99% chance it will work for you.  If you do it your own way, I can’t guarantee it.  

NARRATOR

A life transformed in 3 and a half days.  A life where everything becomes possible.  In these first three hours, Alain Roth never lacks for arguments to lure in his audience.  First break.  A chance to find people who’ve come here to become coaches in their daily lives.  

FORUM PARTICIPANT 1, MAN

What I want is to succeed in selling myself, to say OK, this is what I want to do, this is what I’m doing. A sort of recognition.  

NARRATOR

More confidence in yourself?

FORUM PARTICIPANT 1, MAN

Yeah.

FORUM PARTICIPANT 2, MAN

For me it’s about knowing if I make good decisions at the right time.  I don’t always feel like I make good decisions.  

FORUM PARTICIPANT 1, MAN

It’s funny because I’m also wondering - Is Landmark a cult?  

FORUM PARTICPANT 2, MAN

Yes, I asked myself the same question.  

FORUM PARTICIPANT 1, MAN

Where are we?

NARRATOR

Among the participants, doubt already exists.  The question has already been asked.  A chance to continue forming an opinion, because everyone is to return to their seats.  Now, they tell us, is when the course really begins.  In the first exercise, everyone is asked to take the floor to divulge their personal problems to the audience.  Daniele is the first to give it a try.  Alain Roth invited her to confide to the attendees.  Her troubles: she doesn’t get along well with her daughter.  

DANIELE, FORUM PARTICIPANT, AT MICROPHONE

My daughter, right now, when everything could be going well, right now, what I’ve told her applies: “You can’t trust men.”  So, she’s with a man who’s no good for her, and I can’t stand him.  

ALAIN ROTH

What’s this?  She’s going out with a man you’re not in love with?

DANIELE

Well, I control her since, in any case…

ALAIN ROTH

You are right that men…

DANIELE

that men cannot be trusted.  

ALAIN ROTH

Exactly.

DANIELE

She’s heard that all her life.  She was barely born when it was: “They’re all bastards.”  I’ve always made sure to – secretly – to make her believe that men are difficult.  

ALAIN ROTH

So you do that subtly.  You release the poison slowly.  

DANIELE

I realize that she’s totally taken it in…

ALAIN ROTH

You used your daughter to show your point of view.  You ruined her life.  It must be hard to look in the mirror.  That’s the cost, huh?  And what’s more, you claim you love her.  Are you kidding or what?  

DANIELE

I love her.  I warned her about it.  

ALAIN ROTH

You’re getting your revenge by living through her.  You’re an asshole.  Yeah.

DANIELE

No, no.  She…

ALAIN ROTH

Wait.  You have to wake up a little and start to accept how much of an asshole you are.  Really.  And stop pretending otherwise.  What’s controlling your life is a mechanism that’s about destroying your daughter’s happiness to get your revenge on men.  And you tell yourself, you tell yourself you love her.  It’s a disgrace!

DANIELE

Yes, I’m an asshole.  But I love her.

ALAIN ROTH

It’s serious.  No, you don’t love her.  You love yourself!  No, no, no.  You are a…

DANIELE

I sacrificed myself for her.  

ALAIN ROTH

No, you didn’t sacrifice yourself.  You sacrificed her for you!  

NARRATOR

This public humiliation has now been going on for 30 minutes.  Under the violent words, Daniele cracks.  

ALAIN ROTH

You spend your life whining.  It’s not a pretty sigh: “Bo, hoo, hoo.  I’m not happy.”  At the same time, you assassinate everyone.  Seriously, there are limits.  

DANIELE (crying)

I admit, I admit that I managed to –

ALAIN ROTH

You’re the one who did it!

DANIELE

I admit that I managed to convince her that men are jerks –

ALAIN ROTH

No.  To destroy her romantic life!

DANIELE

Yes.

ALAIN ROTH

Bravo!  And to make her feel guilty.  Bravo!  So don’t be indecent and say you love her.  

DANIELE

But since I didn’t want her to –

ALAIN ROTH

You claim you want her to be happy.  You make it so she’s unhappy.  It’s a racket.  It’s inauthentic.  

DANIELE

But she’s in a relationship and needs to –

ALAIN ROTH

And now you want her to get away from this guy who you got her together with.  Or some other guy, or to make it so she isn’t with any others.  You have destroyed what is possible in her life.  You!  And you have the indecency to say you love her.  

DANIELE

I admit it.  Yes, I admit it.  But what do I do about it?

ALAIN ROTH

Stop feeling guilty, to begin with.  

NARRATOR

50 minutes later, Daniele is worn out.  It doesn’t matter, he pushes even harder.  

ALAIN ROTH

Guilt is even more disgusting.  You spend your life kicking yourself to make yourself feel better, by letting those you’ve destroyed die off.  If you want to do something for her, I don’t know, you could kill yourself.  No, that’s not good enough.  No, kick yourself.  Find something that makes you suffer.  Get cancer.  Make it last for 29 years, so you suffer and die.  That way you’ll feel better about your daughter croaking.  So you have to accept it.  

NARRATOR

Alain Roth now takes the opportunity to teach everyone a lesson, in his own words.  

ALAIN ROTH

We are criminals when we feel threatened.  This is called “a racket.”  That’s the distinction “racket,” when you feel threatened in your identity.  It’s not even a physical threat.  No one is dying.  You’re rejected, not wanted anymore.  You write off all men, and you instill this in your daughter.  You use her for revenge.  It’s about destroying.  It’s not about loving!  

(END OF FIRST DAY)