I think Mark is a cult member. During the show Mark repeatedly insisted that cults tended to be more religious and Landmark is more philosophical. According to many definitions of the term religion, however, Landmark Forum could be thought of as a religion. I know many think of religions in terms of belief in the supernatural, but that is not always a necessary condition. For instance it is possible to be an atheist buddhist.
The philosopher Bertrand Russel distinguished between three different types of knowing: scientific, philosophical, and religious. Scientific knowledge is about things that can be empirically known and measured and this knowledge is acquired through logical analysis and experimentation. Science, however, can not answer non experimental questions such as: what is the nature of reality, what is the meaning of life and How should I live my life?
Religions tries to answer these questions as does philosophy. The difference is in how the two disciplines try to answer these questions. Religion, unlike science does not involve rigorous logical analysis. It attempts to answer these questions through dogma, established doctrines that you must believe. It typically tries to convince members through emotion rather than reason. Philosophy, according to Russell, is somewhere between these two. It attempts to answer the questions that are not empirically know, but it does through rigorous logic and debate rather than prescribing a set of beliefs that must be believed.
Now, I have never been to a Landmark class and had never heard of it before the show, but the feeling I got from listening yesterday was that these classes did not present these ideas in a philosophical manner, but in a religious manner, insisting that these ideas are true and must be believed. It sounds like they have mostly just taken ideas from certain existentialist philosophers such as Sartre, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heidegger and these are certainly very powerful and moving ideas. However, these ideas should be presented in a critical manner as is done in all philosophy classes.
I would suggest to mark and any others that that have gone to these Landmark forums to maybe look into signing up for philosophy courses, especially in existentialism, at a nearby college campus or perhaps more cheaply purchase or download some of the philosophy courses from the teaching company(
www.teach12.com) so that they are presented with these ideas in a more critical manner.