User:Astynax/Landmark Forum sourcing

Tgeairn's "review" of the citations that were used to support Landmark Education's inclusion on List of new religious movements is a series of bold mischaracterizations of perfectly good references, some of which s/he admits that have not even been read. Unfortunately, this is hardly the only instance of this type of misuse of sources to justify dismissing reliable sources. A comparison of the "spin" versus what the sources actually say...


 * Mischaracterization posted: "1. Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies (edited by Dinesh Bhugra) is a compilation and it appears that the reference to Landmark was an editorial decision without reference. The chapter in question ("New religions and mental health") draws on the work of Eileen Barker and her articles in the Annual Review of Sociology. All of these articles preceed the existence of Landmark by five or more years, and none of them mention Landmark. The reference to est is in Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 12, 1986 and in context is actually saying that there is a distinction between religious groups (like ISKCON, the Unification Church, the Children of God or Ananda Marga) which are likely to expect total commitment and HPMs (like est, TM, the Emin or Exegesis) which have a clientele seeking enlightenment or self-development. So, in context, this source is specifically saying that HPMs are not religious groups."
 * What the RS actually says: This represents bald-faced WP:OR, second-guessing the criteria upon which a scholar based a clear statement in a reliably published academic work; p. 126 "To illustrate rather than to define: among the better-known NRMs [New Religious Movements] are the Brahma Kumaris, the Church of Scientology, the Divine Light Mission (now known as Elan Vital), est (Erhard Seminar Training, now known as the Landmark Forum), [...]" —


 * Mischaracterization posted: "2. Social Theory and Religion (James A. Beckford) - a search of the google books edition (the same ISBN cited) does not include Landmark or est at all, so I don't understand the relevance of this source."
 * What the RS actually says: As I have repeatedly noted, scholarship usually treats Landmark and est together, and by the time this reference was published in 2003, one can be certain that the writer is completely aware that Landmark was the latest iteration of est. However, that Tgeairn did not manage to locate the cited reference does not mean that it is not there; p. 156 "Meanwhile, other commentators such as Tipton (1984) and Foss and Larkin (1976, 1979) detected a tendency for post-countercultural religious movements such as Erhard Seminars Training (now the Landmark Forum) to re-combine instumentalism and expressivism in ways that could help their participants to fit into the routines of mainstream social life." –


 * Mischaracterization posted: "3. Encyclopedia of American religions (2003 edition, J. Gordon Melton) - a search of the google books edition (same ISBN) does not include "Erhard" at all, but we are showing it as a source for "Werner Erhard" as founder. Again, I don't understand the citation."
 * What the RS actually says: Tgeairn likely could have supplied a better citation for this innocuous fact (i.e., Werner Erhard as founder), but instead again attempts to discredit a reasonable citation from a reliable source; p. 1039 "Also as a result of this visit, Westerners came in even greater numbers to Ganeshpuri, among whom was Werner Erhard, the founder of Erhard Training Seminars (est). At Erhard's invitation in 1974, Muktananda returned to the West, this time for two years." —


 * Mischaracterization posted: "4. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cults, Sects, and World Religions (Nichols) - is published by the niche Christian Press Zondervan, has questionable editorial oversight or peer review, and (to paraphrase the introduction to the book) the authors are committed to the belief that there is one objective truth (the Bible) and it is their task to challenge false refutations of that truth. This is not a valid source for who the founder of Landmark is or when it was founded, and is unlikely to be seen as a reliable source for anything else either."
 * What the RS actually says: Impugning the reliability of a reference based upon the possibility of it having a point of view is irrelevant. We frequently and legitimately refer to sources from universities and publishing houses with religious connections. Even in cases where the content of a particular title is polemical, it may still be reliable if carefully used. Indeed, such sources could be used to address the absence of critical content in this article. Nor, in this instance, was the citation used to source anything controversial (founding date and that it was included in the Human Potential Movement classification by various scholars). viz. "Forum; Landmark Forum; Landmark Education; LEC; (Formerly EST)" entry pp. 107–111: ' "The Forum is characterized as New Age and specifically as human potential. [...] The Forum began in 1971 by John Paul Rosenberg, alias Werner Erhard (b. 1935)." —


 * Mischaracterization posted: "5. New religions: a guide : new religious movements, sects and alternative spiritualities (Partridge) - I was unable to locate a searchable or online source for this, so I don't know what specifically it says on the topic. I do know that the publisher's description says that the book includes discussion of religious offspring including the worship of celebrities like Elvis and Princess Diana, but that doesn't preclude it as a source. If anyone can quote in context from this work, that would be appreciated."
 * What the RS actually says: The implication that Oxford University Press published some piece of fluff that is a questionable source is laughable. pp. 306–407 "Landmark Forum (est): Landmark Forum is a direct descendant, with substantial changes, of est (Erhard Seminar Training). est was one of the most successful manifestations of the human potential movement (HPM), and was founded in the 1960s by Werner Erhard (originally John Paul Rosenberg; b. 1935). [...] Werner Erhard's brother Harry became chief executive officer of Landmark Forum, but their official position is that there is virtually no continuity between their seminars and the est seminars. They are also adamant that Landmark Forum is not a religious movement, or a sect of any kind, but that they are solely an educational foundation." —


 * Mischaracterization posted: "6. The A to Z of New Religious Movements (Chryssides 2006) - The entry on Landmark Education Corporation specifically says "Forum seminars are not regarded as religious, although some participants regard their experiences as spiritual". Although there is some conflation of the two entities, Chryssides also has separate entries for est and Landmark, which again supports that they are separate and we should carefully consider confusing the two."
 * What the RS actually says: p. 121 "Although est and the Forum are frequently characterized as NRMs or 'cults' (q.v.), leaders and participants have typically denied that undergoing the seminars involves following a religion" —


 * Mischaracterization posted: "7. Handbook of New Age (edited by Kemp & Lewis) - The references to Landmark in this are of two varieties. The first is in a piece by Chryssides which argues that there are important differences between "New Age", "alternative spirtuality", "New Religious Movements", and "New Social Movements". Chryssides in this work appears to hold Landmark in the "New Age" category, although the only direct substantiation for Landmark's inclusion in this at all is a Brewer quote from 1975 (cited by Heelas in 1996), which clearly predates Landmark's existence by more than 15 years."
 * What the RS actually says: pp. 196–197 "Some spiritual management trainings, aiming at the self-actualisation—or rather self-realisation—in the corporate world, have advocated a rather authoritarian treatment of their trainees. A well-known example is Landmark Education International, Inc., a management-oriented derivate of Werner Erhard's famous seminars called est (an acronym for Erhard Seminars Training) developed in the 1970s. Participants of Erhard's seminars were typically treated as follows [...] In an article of the German management magazine Wirtschaftswoche, Landmark was indeed accused of 'brainwashing' [...] The trainings of Landmark, Block Training and UP Hans Schuster und Partner thus display strong similarities with the self-improvement seminars of Scientology, which are incidentally called 'auditing sessions', a term taken from the business world. In these auditing sessions, the auditor takes a position of absolute authority towards the 'patient': 'It cannot be too emphatically stated that the analytical mind and the dynamics of the patient never, never, never resist the auditor. The auditor is not there to be resisted.' (Hubbard 1997/1950:248)" —


 * Mischaracterization posted: "8. The Dutch and Their Gods: Secularization and Transformation of Religion in... (edited by Sengers, quoted by Aupers 2005) classifies est as a New Age movement that is not religious in nature. It also uses the same mistaken 1996 citation by Heelas of a 1975 Brewer quote to say that est operates today as Landmark, which appears to be inaccurate."
 * What the RS actually says: Again second-guessing scholarship via WP:OR. Nor is it at all clear that Erhard had no involvement in post-Landmark operations (despite Landmark denials of his involvement, it is known and can be backed by reliable sources, that Erhard continued to receive royalties, owned franchises and has continued to do consulting work with Landmark long after the reconfiguration into Landmark). The reference, however, was in support of the self-spirituality/religion sociological categorization; p. 193 "The first connection between New Age and business life started with the founding of Erhard Seminar Training (EST) in the US, California in 1971. In 1984 EST became known as Forum and nowadays it operates under the name Landmark. The founder of EST, a former member of the Scientology church called Werner Erhard, based the program on a combination of Zen meditation, gestalt therapy, psychosynthesis and management, but the main goal was self-spirituality." —