Fishy Invitation

On a social network that I'm on, I recently received an invitation to attend a Landmark Education seminar. The invitation included this description:

A breakthrough is often thought of as a one-time event—a quantum leap that moves us “outside the box.” This seminar addresses how to operate powerfully once we are in that new territory—how to manage and sustain a breakthrough and have that new place be a platform for generating the next level of living.

Breakdowns are an integral and critical part of any breakthrough. When breakdowns are seen as stepping stones to a breakthrough - something that was not predictable becomes possible. Breakdowns occur only against a background commitment - they are an occasion for extraordinary action, for making something happen that would not have happened otherwise.

This set off my BS-O-Meter: vague generalities with positive connotations, and a high buzzword density: "quantum leap", "outside the box", "breakthrough", "platform", "the next level".

The web site's What People Say page has the testimonials (read: anecodtal data) that one might expect, but also a section called "Independent Research", which I thought would be more objective. Unfortunately, none of the links there point to studies published in peer-reviewed publications. If this program were half as effective as its proponents claim, and they could prove it, surely they'd want the academic repute that would come with a published paper. Instead, the "full study" at the top of the list looks more like a sales brochure, or at best a poorly-done newspaper article, than a psychological or sociological study: no abstract, no references, no detailed discussion of methodology. That pushed my BS-O-Meter further into the red.

The people at the JREF forums aren't as kind as Wikipedia or me. My favorite line from that thread is

I went through one of the seminars years ago. A key stepping stone on my path to skepticism.

In the end, while I don't think the organization qualifies as a cult, it does seem to be a cross between life coaching (as seen on Penn & Teller's Bullshit!) and an Amway-style recruiting scheme. I don't think I'll be attending the seminar.