The anthropology & political economy of the 'Landmark Fo
Date: April 12, 2005 07:28AM
Like many people, I was drawn to the Landmark in 2002 through a 'friend' (ie. now no longer) who had enticed me along to one of the introductory sessions. Her timing was unfortunate, because I'd been going through some bad times with a generic feeling of isolation and that my chosen path in life just wasn't really going anywhere. Perhaps this made me vulnerable to suggestion, but I've always been quite receptive to different ideas that seem interesting, at least initially (luckily however, I also have a strong independent streak and am very wary of 'groups' and 'movements'). Anyway, despite misgivings about the heavy sales pressure, I signed up for the Forum.
People can get a pretty good idea as to what goes on within the Forum from the 'personal stories' on this site. That is not my focus here. I am interested in exposing the group and power dynamics that pervade Landmark, which deserve some special attention. As far as my own experience is concerned, suffice to say that I did the 'whole thing', despite deep reservations if not repulsion against their methods (particularly the 'boot camp' style authoritarianism, and the wholly reprehensible obsession with a 'hard sell'). I even 'got' something out of it, but this was primarily insight into the dynamics of altered states of consciousness and mass psychology that I learned - fascinating in itself from the point of view of an anthropologist, but nothing of what was supposedly on the 'curriculum'. So after doing the basic Forum and attending one rather anally absurd follow up meeting, I quickly gave the whole thing up for good.
On the surface, the social dynamic of the London based Forum I attended appeared to be quite positive. There was a thorough mix of ages, genders, religions, occupation groups, races and nationalities. I met designers, musicians, 'new agers' (of course!), lawyers, social workers, housewives, students, and even a truck driver. On balance though, there was a heavy predominance of high powered professionals in their 20s and 30s (a significant observation I shall return to). What was common to almost all, however, was a feel of restlessness and disconnectedness to life in general; a great hunger for something intangible yet gapingly vacant from (typically) sophisticated, metropolitan lives. How the authoritarianism, (ab)use of language and mind control operates within a Landmark group is intriguing, but once again this is perfectly adequately described in the articles on this site. What has not been addressed however, is how an initially heterogeneous Landmark group is able to pare down through the process of 'seminars' and 'advanced courses' to the young(ish) professional core we observed earlier. The question should arise in the inquiring mind as to why this is the case.
I was able to observe this weeding out process in action through retaining contact with a friend I met there, who, unlike me, continued with Landmark and is now entirely in a world of his own, or to use the Orwellian jargon of the Forum, 'transformed by his curriculum for life'. Through remaining in contact, I was able to observe his ever widening circle of new (Landmark) 'friends', and wonder at the remarkable process of 'natural selection' that seemed to be at work behind the scenes. For the more 'advanced' the Landmark devotees became, and the more seminars etc attended, the more they began to narrow down into an homogenised, exclusive group. Most remarkable was the disproportionate numbers of young, slim and glamorous professional class women, circulating and flirting around generally older (sometimes quite a lot older), but equally 'ideal' (appearance wise) men. Another remarkable phenomenon was the rapid dropping off of the old, very young, non-white (the only possible exceptions being one or two Asian and mixed race), and other minority (gay, disabled etc) participants from the basic Forum. Of course it is impossible to say with certainty why the latter groups had shed away, but considering the ruthless market orientation of the Landmark and its myopic obsession with the most superficial and conformist aspects of PR, it behoves to ask whether possibly 'less desirable' recruiters 'fell' or were 'pushed'. I suspect that the answer is a bit of both. Yet whatever the cause, the end result was invariably a core of fashionably dressed, apparently confident, 'up with it' and articulate 'graduates' who conveniently also exuded an enticing sexual allure, and thus formed the perfect recruiting agents for Landmark's unashamedly commercial purposes.
Most interestingly, we can therefore detect under the Landmark surface gloss a deep concealed conformity to racist, sexist and various other 'ist' norms, while at the same time they openly profess to be 'modern', 'liberated' and 'free'. Attending (with my enthusiastic Landmark friend) 'graduate' and 'team management' parties also enabled me to observe the power and sex dynamics of Landmark devotees at first hand. Remarkable here was how quickly the young women had conformed to a male sexist's wet dream. At one party I was dragged along to, a group of city girls I discovered had all taken up a bizarre passion for part time pole dancing - nothing strange in this of course; just the natural consequence, as they explained, of a woman's desire to achieve 'personal liberation'. 'Pole dancing for men makes me feel so empowered', as one said. And where had they got this idea from in the first place? Needless to say, it was initially conceived as a 'breakthrough possibility' from the 'team management and leadership programme' they were attending. A sort of pallid, zombie like hedonism was quite openly on display at these dismal affairs, and it was odd to observe supposedly intelligent, confident women vacantly gyrating through the night for the attentions of the perceived alpha males (this based solely on their Landmark credentials). Clearly then, Landmark had yet another unstated purpose: to provide a pool of young and available females, each ripe for plucking by the universally heterosexual, aspiring Forum Leader alpha males. Female aspirants are obviously rewarded by a different set of criteria, but no doubt they achieve their status in the same way as the men; this being entirely based upon the manipulative 'pulling' or recruiting powers that they can exercise on behalf of the organisation.
The Landmark 'values' and ideology are riddled with contradictions. At the start, there is a proclaimed emphasis on 'people' and 'sharing', and the very real importance of families and friends. Very shortly, however, these 'values' are revealed as highly conditional. Families and friends are in fact only 'important' in so far as you encourage them into participating in the Landmark Forum. Then, as the Landmark fastens its grip on the devotee's consciousness, these proclaimed 'people values' are turned right round on their head and subordinated to the twin needs of Landmark and unfettered personal desire; effectively meaning that any 'non-useful' or 'troublesome' family, partner or friend relationships therefore require immediate surgical 'conclusion', and must be cut off without any sentimentality or remorse. Conventional man/ woman partner relationships with children are likewise initially broadcast as the 'ideals' Forum participants should be aspiring towards. But once again, this red herring is quickly exposed as conditional, if not downright expedient. For as the devotee must submit to Landmark and pursue his or her own desires above all other restraints, then inconvenient partners (and children who cannot be 'Landmarked') must be jettisoned without further consideration. In this way, everything becomes utilitarian; family, job, religion, friendship networks and recreational activities are determined by two factors only: firstly whether that person, institution or activity can further the devotee's personal gratification; and secondly, but most importantly of all, whether the subject under analysis can serve to further the evangelical aims of the Landmark Forum. All other considerations are ideologically irrelevant. The above are just a few of the contradictions in evidence. For example, strict discipline is universally enforced at both the Forum and its derivative seminars; these restrictions covering food, drink, sleep, medication and the taking of alcohol and drugs. Yet at the dreary 'parties' I have described above, the drinking of alcohol was not only widespread, but cocaine and cannabis was conversely either indulged or tolerated by budding leaders and 'advanced' devotees alike - espoused under the Aleister Crowley/ Bhagwan Rajneesh like tenet of 'once you have broken through to your own authenticity, then anything is permitted'.
A perhaps even more alarming propaganda vehicle than the Forum is the 'Landmark Education for Business Development' enterprise. I would suggest that an in depth monitoring of which corporate organisations have signed up (and how deeply they are involved) are in order. On the Landmark website they boast that AT&T, Exxon and Lockheed Martin (amongst others) have 'benefited' and 'profited' from the LEBD course. One cannot help but note that a substantial section of the corporations listed have dubious ethical and environmental standards to say the least. Of particular interest might be to discover what the Landmark's 'business advice' course's techniques and methods are; whether it serves as another outreach for the Landmark Forum, and whether participating employees get ritually humiliated for independent thought and dissent in the same manner. What is evident however is that Landmark is successfully linking itself in directly to corporate power and finance as well as influencing individuals, which raises some disturbing questions as to its wider agenda.
I have noted in the two years even since I did the Forum that Landmark's tentacles now reach into many more cities and regions in Europe than before. So not quite a Starbucks or McDonalds yet then, but obviously trying hard. Surprisingly large numbers of people seem to have heard of Landmark, and a few have even been advised or pressured to attend the Forum as a 'training exercise' for their work. This may be 'scary' - or not, as it is impossible to say how many people are being sucked in and how many turned off by their Forum experience. Judging by the excessive zeal which seems to grab converts like a ravening lamprey, this would translate very poorly into a normal work environment, for example. Persistently evangelical employees would be (and are) eventually fired from their jobs, and in the case of a small business owner, taking the step of becoming a Landmark devotee could quite well spell commercial suicide. In the case of large corporations where the managerial strata has been persuaded to do the LEBD, however, this could of course be a different matter altogether (as their market position is a dominant one and Landmark could generate a persuasive ideological control and spin mechanism, oiling the dark arts within an already firmly established and hierarchical institution).