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Brad69
Ellen, about the books you mentioned... Please tell us a little more about them. There are only two customer reviews on Amazon about "The Wrong Way Home" and I gave up looking for "Game Free" after I went through eight pages of possibilities.
"Game Free; A Guide to the Meaning of Intimacy," Thomas C. Oden, 1974
Like you, I originally read everything I could get my hands on. I started in the library and just read the whole shelf. The more I read, the more fascinated I became. This was a book that stands out in my memory, though it is long out of print and mostly neglected by the anti-cult crowd. I'm always reluctant to recommend anything written by a theologian. Oden reveals his bias up front, which I find refreshing. You can factor it in or out, as you please. Amazon shows used copies starting at $0.75.
One of the faddish ideas and psychological revelations that became a part of the culture at the time when Werner Erhard and his cohorts were designing these "seminars" was the idea that people are more than prone to "dysfunctional" game-playing. The various "games," which are really psycholgical and neurotic manipulations with "set-ups," hidden agendae, and "pay-offs" are really quite common and the book, "Games People Play," is a hoot if you haven't read it. I imagine Werner Erhard replaced the word "game" with "racket" at some point. They are roughly the same concept as far as I can tell.
Oden de-constructs the whole game-playing thing and shows why it is a foolish, frustrating, immature, and often destructive way of going about getting what you want. We've all known game-players. They wear you out after a while. Because Werner Erhard was a con-artist, the idea made more than enough sense to him and it is at the bedrock of his silly "programs." The idea that "Life is a Game" is part of est/Landmark and most subsequent LGATs because he was running a con-game. I think that's his own little private joke.
Ellen