A Very Nineties Weekend (excerpt)
The Tablet
By Annabel Miller, May 1999
At the end of the millennium, there is a search for self-awareness.
Personal development courses are in vogue.
“I decided to go on a course myself, and chose The Landmark Forum, which originated in the United States and is now based in San Francisco. It is proving popular in London and many other parts of the world, from India to Australia.”
“Arriving at the Landmark Centre near London’s Euston Station on a Friday Morning for the first session of my three-day Forum course, I was prepared to meet a bunch of impressionable, New Agey types who spent their lives engaged in “personal growth”. Instead I found a mixed group of more than 200 people, ranging from beautiful well-dressed youths to a dignified, grey-haired male academic, most of them appearing sane, successful and ready to ask the same questions as I was. The first thing we all wanted to know was why we had to stay so late (sessions finished after 11 p.m.). We were told that there was a lot of material to cover in a short space of time, but I suspected that the tiring regime had more to do with getting people to absorb the process emotionally as well as mentally. We were not allowed to take notes, and great emphasis was placed on arriving on time.”
“At first, these rules seemed petty, but then I began to see the point. If you consistently say you will be on time and you are late, your life is out of control. In a nutshell, The Forum is about regaining control of your life. I had expected the leaders to tell us what we wanted to hear; that we were wonderful people and that all our dreams were going to come true. Instead it was like an emotional boot-camp led by a tough talking Italian-American called Angelo d’Amelio. He challenged us on the ‘stories’ we tell ourselves about how people see us and about the way our lives are heading. He lambasted us about living in the past, so turning our past into our future. When people stood up and tearfully told the group how parents or partners had hurt them, Angelo declined to share their pain. ‘You’ve got a choice,’ he would say. ‘You can carry on making them wrong and yourself right. Or you can call them up, say you are sorry you made them wrong, and build a new relationship. Your choice.’”
“I had only gone along to write a story. I felt I had become much more aware of the way my mind works, and better able to master myself.”
“As the course progressed, I had tried to compare its message with that of Christianity. There were some striking parallels: the outrageous demand that people drop grievances against others could be simply translated into Christian forgiveness. The call to live in the present was one I had heard declaimed from pulpits. …Several Catholic priests and religious sisters have endorsed Landmark. The Trappist monk Basil Pennington has praised the [Landmark] Forum for bringing about a ‘full human enlivenment’ which make people ‘more lively’ in the practice of whatever faith they have.”