Behind the Curtain of Landmark with Michael Yoder

IndoctriNation

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 566 Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this thought-provoking episode, Rachel engages in a captivating conversation with Michael Yoder, a writer and composer from Victoria, British Columbia. Michael shares his personal journey through the Landmark Forum, a self-help program that he initially found appealing but soon discovered to be rife with manipulative tactics and coercive practices. As he recounts his experiences, Michael reveals the unsettling similarities he observed between Landmark and other high-control groups, including Scientology and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Throughout their discussion, Michael reflects on the psychological pressures that participants face, from the initial allure of transformation to the harsh realities of life within the program. He candidly describes the confessional nature of the Forum, where individuals are pushed to declare their intentions and confront their perceived shortcomings in front of others, often leading to feelings of shame and betrayal. Rachel and Michael delve into the language used in these groups, unpacking terms like "transformation" and "getting complete," which often serve to obscure the true nature of the experience and keep participants engaged.

As they explore the aftermath of Michael's departure from Landmark, he emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and self-awareness in recognizing the manipulative dynamics at play in high-control environments. This episode serves as a powerful reminder of the resilience required to reclaim one's autonomy and the value of sharing personal stories to foster understanding and healing.

Check out Michael's book "Scattering Ashes"-

US:

https://www.amazon.com/Scattering-Ashes-Michael-Yoder/dp/0992029961

CA:

https://www.amazon.ca/Scattering-Ashes-Michael-Yoder/

E-book:

https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/the-scattering-of-ashes-1

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to indoctrination, a weekly conversation series about protecting yourself from systems of control.
0:11.2	I'm your host, Rachel Bernstein.
0:13.3	Hello, everybody. Today on the show we have Michael Yoder.
0:17.4	Michael lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and he was involved in Landmark in the mid-2000s,
0:25.6	but started noticing some disturbing elements to the program. Volunteering for the forum,
0:32.5	the landmark program, he realized that this program to quote-unquote transform people didn't really do that.
0:40.9	Volunteers were treated like slaves and that experienced caused him to leave completely. Finding
0:47.0	limited information about landmark, he started exploring Scientology and started to see the connections.
0:54.0	Michael's first novella, The Scattering of
0:57.1	Ashes, is an exploration of his time at Landmark and includes inferences to Scientology and
1:05.2	Jehovah's Witnesses. He was introduced to Landmark around 2008, and he participated in the forum and the advanced course
1:13.5	and assisted a friend in his own work on the Introduction Leaders Program, the ILP.
1:20.0	After these, he assisted as a volunteer with the forum where he saw, quote unquote, the man behind the curtain, and his eyes were open.
1:29.8	He went on to investigate Landmark and its founder
1:34.9	and other esoteric ideologies
1:38.7	that were of interest to him because of this.
1:42.6	He is an interesting man, and it was great to talk to him.
1:49.2	Here is Michael now.
2:06.3	I am delighted to have Michael Yoder with me today.
2:19.3	This was really kind of a spontaneous and fortuitous thing that happened where I was able to reach out to you to see if you were interested in coming on the show because I felt like over time of you listening to podcast episodes,
2:27.3	seeing things on YouTube,
2:28.9	and that you would respond always with a very thoughtful and knowledgeable comment, I thought,
	...

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