The Best Of Est?

(2 of 3)

The Forum started promptly at 9 on a Friday morning, when a svelte, spiky-haired woman named Beth Handel walked in and introduced herself as the Forum leader. The Forum, she said, is a game called transformation. Like every other game, it calls for good sportsmanship. One should be "coachable," or open-minded about the Forum's concepts, and committed to "forwarding the action." The name of the game is participation or, more specifically, "sharing," which was to take place at three microphones. The weekend, Handel warned, will be "an emotional roller-coaster ride."

First, though, Handel took a few preliminary questions. "What is Werner Erhard's role?" someone asked. Handel simply described him as the man who developed and sold the technology behind Landmark. "What if I doze off?" "Then you doze off," Handel replied with a shrug. A visibly nervous woman stepped up to the mike. "You said this was going to be a roller-coaster. But I'm afraid of roller-coasters. I never get on them." "You will learn how to stop letting fear hold you back," Handel reassured her.

Handel, 39, then drew diagrams on a blackboard as she held forth on a series of concepts: facts have no meaning; it is the stories we concoct out of those facts that give them meaning. She explained that "our rackets," that is, ongoing complaints, are "killing our lives." And "our winning formulas" are really losing formulas. She cautioned that Landmark's ideas ("Be for each other like that" and "People 'is' to death") aren't meant to fit together: "The Forum is holographic. It's not linear."

But outreach was clearly part of the agenda. Pupils were assigned to call or write people with whom they "want to make a breakthrough," thereby introducing others to Landmark. On graduation night participants were encouraged to bring guests, who were then led away to learn more and sign on. From Day 1, attendants were told that for a limited time, the Forum's tuition included a $95 follow-up, "The Forum in Action." The crowd was also repeatedly invited to sign up for the $700 "Advanced Course." Act now and get a $100 discount.

Some Forum grads weren't sold. Rabbi Yisroel Persky, 24, who chose to get his money's worth and take "The Forum in Action," today remains "unfazed" by what he calls the Forum's common-sense concepts cloaked in esoteric packaging. For Richard Giordanella, 49, a software executive, the Forum was enough: "I'm still high on the Forum's main message, that my life is in my control. But I can do without the narcotic effect of their reinforcement."

Others, though, are hooked. Anthony, 32, a stockbroker, came to the Forum because he didn't know whether he wanted to be married anymore. He owned up to stashing $50,000 in cash for a clean getaway. During the Forum, he said, "I had been pointing the finger at my wife. But I've got to work on me." Now Anthony has completed the "Advanced Course," and is taking the final course in the curriculum, "Self-Expression and Leadership." He says he feels like a newlywed. His wife agrees. "It's a miracle," she says. And the woman afraid of roller-coasters? Mildred Rodriguez, 33, has signed up to be a Landmark volunteer. Says she: "I'm glad I got on for the ride."