Thanks again to Concerned OZ for finding this!
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www.u.arizona.edu]
[b:f1a91407d4]Invisible Bodies, the Disinherited, and the Production of Space in the Landmark Forum [/b:f1a91407d4]by Drew Kopp
Kopp's 40 page paper is the mental equivalent of a triathlon--gruelling, but well worth it. At the end, he comments:
'I would contend that this is a fundamental inauthenticity of Landmark Education, to use its own term to describe this dynamic and Landmark’s [u:f1a91407d4]lack of transparency [/u:f1a91407d4]of its operation.
'Landmark Education, in the form of any and all of its representatives, pretends to their customers, that participants can acquire this technology, its consequent powers, and then drop the tools that granted these powers at any given time in the future. For instance, the Course Leader, at the very end of the LF, will say, “I take it all back,” claiming that everything said in the course possesses absolutely nothing to believe in.
Yet, this is said against a background of [i:f1a91407d4]materially enforced re-conceptualizations [/i:f1a91407d4] (the special room set up, the scripted social interactions-Corboy) that have inscribed participants into a social space [i:f1a91407d4]the existence of which is completely tied up with continuing to participate with Landmark Education[/i:f1a91407d4].
Thus, Landmark’s technology compels participants to inscribe themselves further into more extensive and elaborate social spaces the organization offers participants to inhabit. This is the Faustian relationship with Mephistopheles, wherein desires are granted, [i:f1a91407d4]but only if the means used are promoted endlessly, ultimately gaining importance over the participant’s original aims. [/i:f1a91407d4]' (end of quote)