Cult News

A man sought by authorities for the murder of his wife and questioning concerning a sniper attack on a Reno family court judge was deeply involved for many years in Landmark Education, a controversial large group awareness training (LGAT) program.

Darren Roy Mack, 45, reportedly “traveled extensively to lead the courses” for Landmark. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that until 2002, Mack and his estranged wife worked for the privately owned for-profit company.

The LGAT Mack attended called the “Forum” was first concocted essentially by est founder Werner Erhard (a.k.a. “Jack” Rosenberg).

Amidst a flurry of bad press and legal problems Erhard reportedly sold out in 1992 and the company then became “Landmark Education,” which is run by Erhard’s brother Harry Rosenberg.

Four minutes after Reno Judge Chuck Weller was shot in a sniper attack, Darren Mack called his cousin and said, “If anything happens to me, don’t forget your promise — put out to the press the word on Judge Weller…The rest of the world has to know just how oppressive he is.”

Before that Mack reportedly engaged in an Internet campaign to discredit the judge. The respected jurist was presiding over Mack’s bitter divorce.

Paranoid delusions?

Darren Mack sounds like a madman, but his cousin told the press that he was “the kindest, gentlest, nonviolent person you would ever want to meet.” That same relative also told the San Francisco Chronicle that Mack could be responsible for his wife’s death.

Charla Mack, 39, was brutally stabbed to death and an arrest warrant has been issued her husband with murder.

What could have possibly changed this once successful and “nonviolent” person into a suspected sniper and wanted killer?

Charla Mack’s mother said the couple both were devoted to Landmark Education, which “was a big part of their lives.” Ms. Mack was a five-year staffer for the company and in 2002 was sent to launch its LGAT program in the Philippines.

“I know these two…It doesn’t make sense to me — it’s not who I know them to be,” said the alleged murderer’s mother-in-law.

One of Mack’s Landmark friends named “Gidget” wanted this statement posted on his Myspace site.

“Darren, I know you from Landmark Education…I just wanted to remind you about what you used to teach others – about integrity and completion of the past and affinity. Remember? You know you’re driving yourself crazy with all the things you’re telling yourself. You also know the only way through this is through it. I know you have the ability to get this complete – as hard as it’s going to be for you. You can do it. Turn yourself in and start the process of getting it complete. Get in communication, Darren.”

This “loaded language” filled with Landmark jargon like “communication,” “completion” and “integrity,” begs a question; how could someone as advanced in Landmark’s curriculum for self-improvement, end up “driving [himself] crazy”?

After all, according to Landmark its LGAT provides “major positive results,” and graduates claim they experience “permanent shifts in the quality of their relationships.”

What happened to Landmark veteran Darren Mack and the relationship he had with his wife Charla?

Landmark also touts that its courses will make a “profound lasting difference in the way [people] live their lives.

Mack’s life has profoundly changed, but it can’t possibly be the “shift” he wanted.

Instead, after years of Landmark training Darren Mack’s life is a disaster.

Critics of Landmark have called its leaders “mindbreakers” and described its seminar as an “extraordinary scene of humiliation and control” where its said that the course and its leaders must “break them and remake them.”

But what if some people are broken, and never quite come back together again?

In 2002 Dr. Donna Marie Anderson was charged with stabbing her 13-year-old son to death in California. Described as a “bright, accomplished and highly motivated woman” the 48-year-old obstetrician participated in “multiple sessions” of Landmark’s training reported the Pioneer Press.

Much like Darren Mack’s mother-in-law the doctor’s friends described her as “very nice” and a “perfectly normal-appearing individual.” Anderson’s sister-in-law said the woman that murdered her son “was not the woman we knew.”

At the time Landmark spokesman Mark Kamin said, “We have a requirement that people must be emotionally stable at that time to participate in our programs.”

Landmark claimed that Anderson was asked not to participate anymore when she seemed unstable.

Kamin explained that Landmark participants must pass a screening process devised by a board of psychiatrists, including a series of questions aimed at assessing mental stability before they are allowed to participate in its programs.

Kamin’s concerns are understandable given the history of est, Landmark’s predecessor.

In 1977 doctors warned about possible serious psychiatric disturbances suffered by those that participate in the est program. These psychiatrists alerted their professional colleagues about the possibility that such LGATs might have devastating effects on some people.

The psychiatrists may have been prophetic. A year before Dr. Anderson murdered her son Landmark participant Jason Weed shot and killed an Oklahoma mailman Robert Jenkins. His surviving family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Landmark Education.

In that lawsuit plaintiffs stated that the murderer Weed attended “Landmark’s classes” and that “Landmark knew, because of their prior experiences, that [his] type of disorder¦was a likely and foreseeable result of attendance of their classes.”

The plaintiff’s attorneys then specifically cite a supposed “screening process and tests” used by Landmark “to eliminate person[s] who were likely to develop mental disorders as a result of their seminars.”

Apparently, the “screening process” either wasn’t done or failed to prevent Weed from attending Landmark’s LGAT.

This is also not the first time that a Landmark leader like Darren Mack has been sought by law enforcement for heinous and violent crimes.

In 1995 David Grill, the executive director of Landmark’s offices in Dallas, sexually assaulted a Landmark volunteer. In the lawsuit subsequently filed against Landmark the plaintiff stated that the company “should have been aware, of Grill’s propensity to commit criminal sexual assaults with students from a time preceding his assignment as executive director.”

Grill was convicted and sent to prison for his crimes. Landmark later settled with the plaintiff for an undisclosed, but substantial sum.

Landmark now seems anxious to erase any record or memory of the Macks.

Charla Mack can be seen standing front row in a photo of Manila Forum graduates, but her name has been removed.

It seems like Landmark wants everyone to forget about the Macks and what happened to them.

Landmark may also hope that hope David Grill, Dr. Donna Marie Anderson, Jason Weed and their victims will also be forgotten.

Perhaps this is because according to Werner Erhard’s philosophy there are no “victims.”

Erhard preached that we create our own reality and therefore are responsible for whatever happens to us.

This realization is what est and Landmark devotees claim as a sort of epiphany at the end of the LGAT, that’s when they say you “get it.”

So perhaps within Werner’s world there may be no mourning for the victims of Darren Mack, Donna Anderson, David Grill or Jason Weed.