Hello,
I am a grad student of anthropology at CSUN looking to interview people who have gone through (or are about to go through) the Landmark Forum. I am studying the self-improvement process as a cultural experience and reflection of individualism in American society. This is an independent study, not affiliated with LEC or any other organization.

Please email me if interested and I will send you more info.
Thanks!
Kelly

kelkay1,

There needs to be more studies like this done.

Interviewing people prior to going into Landmark, is like interviewing people prior to injecting themselves with heroin.

This is a serious issue. People are not guineapigs.

Oz

contact the local LEC center and they'll hook you up even if that portion of your sample will tend to have a lot of bias towards the experience.

This is not an experimental project. The research is based on hearing what grads have to say about their own experiences, good or bad, and discussing that dialogue.

I have contacted LEC about helping me find volunteers (or observe at the seminars) - if they would permit me to find volunteers at the Introductions, but they will not. they put my proposal on file, and I have gotten the runaround as opposed to just a "no" answer, unless of course I go through the program myself.

I am looking for as many different perspectives as possible.

you can read a thread of alt.fan.landmark entitled "Psychological studies" which links to some web pages of two papers along those lines.

one gives a participant-observer account of Lifespring training (it really rips on the whole process) and the other does statistical analysis of the personality traits common to people in NRM*'s. I would really like to see one of those done on LEC grads.

* -- New Religious Movements

kelkay1, you could also try the landmark_forum_grads and GuruRatings list on Yahoogroups.

GuruRatings tends to attract a smart, articulate crowd and out of the six hundred members some most have had LEC experience, so you could also ask there.

Quote
kelkay1
Hello,
I am a grad student of anthropology at CSUN looking to interview people who have gone through (or are about to go through) the Landmark Forum. I am studying the self-improvement process as a cultural experience and reflection of individualism in American society. This is an independent study, not affiliated with LEC or any other organization.

Please email me if interested and I will send you more info.
Thanks!
Kelly

A couple of your premises are faulty, or at least incongruent with "official" Landmark doctrine, in my opinion.

Firstly, they would balk at the "self-improvement" connotation, as they market themselves as an "awareness" or "transformational" "training," which supposedly means not so much "improving" yourself as changing, enlarging, or stepping above your attitude about whatever it is you imagine needs "improvement." (Many words don't carry conventional meanings within the Landmark programs, so all bets are off concerning what some of these words mean to Landmarkers. They'll explain to you, at great boring legnth, but you'll have to devote plenty of time to this endeavor.)


Secondly, you suggest that these programs have anything to do with a "reflection of individualism." They are referred to as "mass trainings" and graduates emerge distressingly similar in attitude and demeanor. Despite their PR, the people who go through these types of programs are generally pretty easily recognized by their copy-cat uses of language and ideas, unsettling personality changes, and devotional alignment with a commercially designed "philosophy." Quite the opposite, a good portion of Landmark "graduates" turn into cookie-cutter robots.


Students of the particular phenomena that include this type of "training" or "programming" trace the roots back to the "mind-cure" movements of the 19th Century. For some reason, Americans in particular, have been quite eager to embrace the most appalling and irrational fads, weird religious movements, and "occult" practices. Landmark, and groups like Landmark, fall into this category.

Also, consider this: were you to desire information about some other cultic group, would your most likely source of information be a cult member, a bystander who had watched the activities of cult-members over a period of time, or an "ex" or disaffected former member? I think the least likely source of credible information would be the current and participating cult member. Think about it.


Ellen

Please refer to the thread on this board as to research feedback:


[b:ab32f6addd]Media & Academic Research into Landmark & LGATs[/b:ab32f6addd][/color:ab32f6addd]
[board.culteducation.com]

Oz