For complete article click on link in Title
Boston Globe/November 6, 1998
By Alex Beam
The Harvard Business School seems to be out of the business of selling $6,000 videotapes with Rosabeth Moss Kanter droning out platitudes like "Great companies are focused in their approach to doing business." (They will, however sell you a $495, 30-minute video on "Managing Future Performance.") Now the B-School has a brand-new bag: flacking for the "personal development" seminar known as The Forum.
The San Francisco-based Forum came into being when Werner Erhard (John Paul Rosenberg to his parents) sold the "technology" for Erhard Seminars Training -- est -- to his brother Harry. The Forum, formally known as the Landmark Education Corp., has enjoyed considerable success with the self-actualization crowd, and with the Cambridge intelligentsia. That success is now chronicled in an HBS case study so sycophantic that Landmark has been using it -- improperly, Harvard says -- as a promotional tool.
The document, originally written for classroom discussion, is also sold to the public. Last revised in April, it reads like a 22-page advertisement for Landmark's "breakthrough in paradigm thinking." Authored by professor Karen Hopper Wruck, the case breathlessly quotes Forum executives who compare their work to that of Galileo and Socrates (!). The study also quotes from a Forum-sponsored Daniel Yankelovich survey of graduates. Surprise! All six veterans of the Forum's weekend training quoted by Wruck loved it!
Wruck quickly dismisses critics who call the Forum a cult. The Forum is listed on the Internet FACTnet database of "cults, groups and individuals that are alleged to be using coercive persuasion mind control techniques," but they have sued people who call them a cult. In an appendix, she quotes at length from four experts who insist the Forum is not a cult, but cites no contrary opinions.
Had Wruck been seeking to find anyone critical of the touchy-feely Forum she needed only to cross the campus and chat with Radcliffe public policy fellow Wendy Kaminer. The Forum is the subject of acidulous commentary in Kaminer's best-selling book, "I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional." "If you want to experience or 'process' New Age's heady combination of pseudoscience, religion, and money," writes Kaminer, "visit a session or two of The Forum, the new incarnation of est."
In her defense, Wruck told me: "I understood that it was a controversial company, but I wanted to study a company that directly addressed issues around human behavior. A case study is a pedagogical vehicle, not a position paper or an endorsement." Harvard has affixed an unprecedented disclaimer ("Please be aware that . . . the school does not endorse this company or any other company") to the document.
Mark Kamin, a Landmark spokesman, said his company ordered several thousand copies of the document after it was published. He adds that Landmark signed an agreement with Harvard not to use the case for promotional purposes, "and we've endeavored to keep that agreement." When I told him that a recent seminar attendee said the case was being used to puff Landmark, Kamin said, "I can't guarantee that people who led seminars didn't say, 'Hey, there's this case study.' "
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Psychiatric Disturbances Associated with Erhard Seminars Training ...
psychoses. after. participation. in Erhard. Seminars. Training .... Harvard. Medical. School. Address. reprint. requests. to either. author. ...ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/134/11/1254.pdf - Similar pages - Note this
Control and Code I: Regulation Through Technology
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ptc2008/Control_and_Code_I:_Regulation_Through_Technologyrom
Technologies and Politics of Control
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=harvard+and+erhard+seminars+training&btnG=Search
Dr. Vijaya Nair"I was in Singapore in January 2003 and led a "preliminary“ Introductions to the Landmark Forum. We called it “preliminary” since at that time we did not have a scheduled date yet for the Landmark Forum in Singapore."Nevertheless Ramesh and our outstanding team of graduates shared about the Landmark Forum, and I led the sessions just as I have led any other Introductions. I was left with how great we Singaporeans are… and what an awesome match we are in Singapore for this Landmark Forum!Vijaya Nair, MD. MS., did her post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University Medical School in Community Psychiatry and Epidemiology and completed her Masters in Epidemiology at Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health. Among her many endeavors, she was involved in a project to present Health and Wellness Symposiums and Workshops to clinicians, staffs and students at Columbia University/Hospital.
Dr. Vijaya Nair was a Landmark Introduction Leader of Landmark Education New York. She was one of the many outstanding graduates featured in the documentary - a public recognition of Landmark Education as "Champion of Industry". Hosted by Pat Summerall of IndustryView this report ran on the Discovery Channel in the United States and was available on line in 2003 to 2005. A tape or CD version of this media was during the same time available for purchase at some of the Landmark Offices. In this 10 minutes on line video clip, Dr. Vijaya Nair appeared from the 6:47 segment.
The Landmark Graduate Program in Singapore.
The basic information about the Landmark Forum.
A Harvard Business School Case Study: Landmark Education
A University of Southern California Case Study: Landmark Forum
Landmark's Educational MethodologyThe Landmark Forum: Course SyllabusIn .pdf Format, Adobe Acrobat Reader Required
April 3, 2004
Alumnus: Dr. Edgardo Perez, Homewood
With whom I had a face to face meeting about the nurse who was using the original training of this system.
A Harvard Business School Case Study: Landmark Education Corporation: Selling a Paradigm Shift
http://www.landmarkeducation.com/landmark_forum_independent_research_harvard_case_study.jsp
Harvard Business School published a case study titled, “Landmark Education Corporation: Selling a Paradigm Shift,” that focuses on Landmark Education Corporation. The case study is copyrighted by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and is not currently available for purchase.
The study says, “Landmark refers to the concepts used in its conversation management technology as ‘distinctions’… In total, LEC’s technology contains approximately 150 unique distinctions, each of which is intended to provide individuals and organizations with an insight into how to become more effective and/or access to a way of being which they had not thought possible.”
Just a Bowl of Cherries
http://www.ex-cult.org/Groups/Landmark/landmark-cherries.dir/_XOOM/apostate/index.htm
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