We know the work is mysterious and important. We know Lumon proports to “heal the world” - but of what? We know Kier Eagan founded this company on a basis of his deep disdain for The Four Tempers and impurity of the body. He was clearly traumatized by his childhood illness as depicted in The Youthful Convalescence of Kier. But what, indeed, does Lumon, as a whole, do?

Kier Eagan is overt in his philosophy (as recorded in Compliance) of purity of spirit, veins, soul, what have you. The company started as a topical salve maker, and their old and new logos are consistent with some kind of liquid/viscous product being a core part of the business. Jame Eagan, the current CEO at the end of season 1, wears a signet ring with the original company logo on it. One can presume this ring is ceremonially passed down or made anew for each incoming CEO, much like a duchy's crest is worn by the current duke.

Lumon also has business with water purification (see klear and Tumwater), and there is the emphasis on the Soap and The Bad Soap on the severed floor. Swab Girl is a soap and bath goods shop named for Kier Eagan's wife Imogene Eagan, who herself was a swab girl, charged with cleaning out the ether tanks in the factory where they met. Harmony Cobel pretends to run a shop she does not name, but the products she speaks of such as bath bombs are consistent with Cobel pretending to run Swab Girl. Cleanliness and purity are recurring themes of Kier Eagan's philosophy.

THEORY In keeping with that origin story, the Severance procedure takes on a new and ominous tone. If indeed the goal is to wipe away the outie memories of a worker, leaving their minds pure and focused only on Lumon's goals and work, that is a perversion of Kier's more personal/psychological desire to rid himself of troublesome feelings. The technology to utterly wipe a person's memory may be what is being tested on the Testing Floor and it may be triggered by the various protocols hinted at in the Security Office.