|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Erhard Seminars Training or est (generally in lower-case letters), a sometimes controversial large group awareness training (LGAT) seminar-program, became popular during the 1970s. Werner Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg) founded est and conducted the first est seminar in San Francisco, California, in October 1971. Landmark Education bought the rights to the intellectual property contained in the est Training in 1991.
History of est
Growthest began [in] San Francisco. It expanded first to Los Angeles, Honolulu and Aspen, Colorado; then to New York, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. By 1978 it was offering trainings [sic] in eighteen of the nation's top twenty-five population areas... est grossed $9.3 million in 1975, $10.9 million in 1976, $13.3 million in 1977, $16 million in 1978, $20 million in 1979 and $25 million in 1980, according to est trainers V. Gioscia and K. Anbender. [4] ImpactIn his survey of the self-help movement, Steve Salerno summarizes the impact of est in its day: Werner Erhard touted a regimen known as "est," in which trainers would literally scream obscenities at followers in an effort to bully them past their hang-ups to a higher, more tough-minded phase of "beingness." But est remained on the fringe. It was too quirky, and its chief architect too flaky, to capture the popular imagination. Besides, like other upstart regimens that sold unabridged Empowerment, it depended on a worldview that was out of sync with what most people could plainly see happening around them. (Arguing for full control of one's destiny was not easy in the era of the draft.) [5] The Intended Purpose of the est TrainingIn Article written for Quest Magazine in 1998, titled "Est 20 years Later" Elie Sobel wrote: Perhaps the most eloquent and concise description of "it" that I have ever come across is from an Alan Watts essay, "This is is it":
Corporate changesIn corporate terms, est originally incorporated in 1973 as a non-profit foundation in the State of California under the name of the Foundation for the Realization of Man. An amendment to the articles of incorporation, filed in July 1976, renamed it as the est Foundation. The "est" organization metamorphosed — supporters might say "transformed itself" — in 1980-1981 into the corporate "Werner Erhard and Associates" (WE&A). WE&A replaced the "est training" with the course dubbed "The Forum" in 1984. [6] In 1991 a series of name-changes saw WE&A become "Landmark Education" and "The Forum" became "The Landmark Forum". Landmark Education continues to operate seminars with similar methods and teachings. Steven Pressman, comparing the Landmark Forum with the est course, states that the courses' "words and phrases ... had hardly changed", [7] and that a Landmark Education course presenter equated the two courses with the phrase "when this work was first presented". [8] As of 2007, Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) programs like Landmark Education contribute to promoting the estian ideas and concepts of Werner Erhard, though without stressing his name, his controversial reputation or his ideological forebears. Name originsIn his book Outrageous Betrayal, Pressman recounts how Erhard adopted the name "est" from a science fiction book he had read: est: The Steersman Handbook, written by L. Clark Stevens and published in 1970. [9] Authors Espy M. Navarro and Robert Navarro, in their book Self Realization: The est and Forum Phenomena in American Society, 2002, give a more detailed explanation: The word "est" in Latin means "it is." It is also part of the title of a work published in 1970 by L. Clark Stevens called EST: The Steersman Handbook: Charts of the Coming Decade of Conflict. This book which Erhard was very familiar with was about electronic social transformation (est). The series of essays talked about the unfolding of social transformation in America in forms never experienced before. The est people would be technical, eclectic, computer-literate individuals who would be capable of handling constructive activities that would be crucial to the earth's survival. They would also be people who would demonstrate love, care for others and who would help create the climate of freedom and peace that would be necessary to enable a social transformation to occur. Among the thinkers who are quoted are such luminaries as R. Buckminster Fuller, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Ralph Nader, Marshall McLuhan, Malcolm X, Albert Einstein, Lewis Mumford and Eric Hoffer. These are considered to be "est people", or the prime movers of the coming electronic social transformation. [10] Influences on and philosophy of estImage:Erhard Conducts Seminar.jpg Werner Erhard conducts a seminar The forebears of est allegedly include Martin Heidegger.[11] Erhard himself cites Zen, or as some have alleged, Westernized Zen. The "est" principle that we ourselves created this world as God and created amnesia so as to play a game on ourselves (or Himself) derives from the writings of Alan Watts, a hipster popularizer of religious thought, most notably of Zen and of other eastern religions. (One should not confuse est with Buddhism, however: Buddhism, as a non-theistic philosophy, does not teach the doctrine of the self as the creator of the world.) As quoted in est: Making Life Work by Robert A. Hargrave, Erhard cited the influence of Zen, Subud, Encounter Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Scientology and Mind Dynamics. Erhard's supporters would later accuse Scientology of having engineered a campaign against Erhard for his borrowing of key concepts, such as "being at cause", meaning the cause of an event. The Church of Scientology regards est and Erhard himself as "Suppressive" and enemies of the Church. [12] Donald Stone records the interpretation, both internally [13] and externally [14] of seeing est as a component of the Human Potential Movement. Tipton summarizes the contexts of est thus: Various observers of est have traced its ideas to Zen, Vedanta, and Christian Perfectionism; behaviorist determinism, Freud, Maslow, Rogers, and Perls; Korzybski's "General Semantics", Dale Carnegie's "The Power of Positive Thinking", Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich", and the self-image psychology of Maxwell Maltz's "Psycho-Cybernetics". Its methods have been traced to hypnosis, autosuggestion, revivalism, psychodrama, encounter, Gestalt therapy and behavior modification; Subud and yoga; military, monastic, and penal institutions, sales and business motivation courses. [15] Responsibility assumption formed an important part of the est curriculum: however, skeptics can wonder whether estian responsibility operated only in one direction, from the top down — est Forum Leaders and Erhard himself tending towards autocratic shows of discipline. One can perhaps best grasp the nature of the est program by reading through some of the many personal narratives available on the web. These illustrate the nature of est from the points of view of both the program's supporters and detractors. The Psychology Today article gives a factual account and occasionally shows up in on-line sources. ScientologyMain article: Scientology In a book about Werner Erhard, Steven Pressman details some of Erhard's connections with Scientology in the 1960s and subsequent periods: Impressed by Monk's auditing sessions, Erhard delved further into Scientology literature and lessons. Between August and December of 1968, he purchased several books from the San Francisco Scientology office and enrolled both himself and some of his sales employees in the introductory communications course. In October a local Scientology official wrote to Erhard asking him about his interest in joining the staff. Scientology had a place for enthusiastic new converts like Werner Erhard. Although Erhard did not respond to the offer, he continued to study Scientology over the next several months, gradually rising through the various training levels - "grades" in Scientology jargon - that marked the path toward ultimate enlightenment. When a routine letter was sent in August 1969 letting him known that he had passed "Grade II" in his Scientology studies, Erhard immediately responded with his own letter claiming he had reached Grade IV. [16] According to Pressman's book Erhard later incorporated Scientological practices into Erhard Seminars Training: Still enamored of the Scientology practice of auditing, Erhard had incorporated Scientology's confessional practice into est's "consulting services group" that had been patterned after Hubbard's teams of auditors and organized as a separate branch of est. Under the overall supervision of Bob Larzelere, all est consultants had received extensive training in the Scientology practice of confessional auditing sessions in which the consultant (or auditor, in the case of Scientology) asked a series of questions designed to elicit frank responses on topics ranging from personal matters and job satisfaction to loyalty to Erhard. [17] Erhard and L. Ron Hubbard maintained a friendship prior to a falling-out. From the 1987 work, L. Ron Hubbard: Messiah or Madman?: Werner Erhard, of EST fame, called L. Ron Hubbard the "greatest philosopher of the twentieth Century." [18] Note that the Church of Scientology included "ERHARD, WERNER" [19] on a list of "suppressive persons" and "fair game"] (enemies) [20] dating from 1992. Erhard's brother Harry Rosenberg called in to Larry King Live when Scientology president Heber Jentzsch appeared on the show on December 20, 1993. During the call, as "3rd Caller", he identified himself and alleged that Jentzsch had utilized the Church of Scientology to threaten Erhard: Yes, this is Harry Rosenberg. My name is — and I'm Werner Erhard's brother. And I find it hard to believe that Mr. Jentzsch doesn't know about the campaign his own organization has run against Mr. Erhard, given that the L.A. Times in 1991 on a front-page article, their own agent outlined the campaign to destroy Werner's reputation. And so I would just like to know how it would be possible for him not to know... There is no — Mr. Jentzsch, there is no law enforcement in the United States that's after Werner Erhard. You are continuing to do what you've done for years now. There is no law enforcement. How do you — how do you know that there's law enforcement? [21]. New members of Scientology would often have to go through an "Est Repair Rundown" if they had previously participated in Erhard Seminars Training: 'Est Repair Rundown: an auditing action designed to repair the damage done to a person mentally and spiritually by the practice of est (Erhard Seminars Training).' est was an offbeat group which used destructive techniques and some people new to Scientology are found to have been previously involved with est. It is necessary to undo the harmful effects of est before such persons can make adequate progress in Scientology auditing. [22] The Scientology Missions International website also describes the "EST [sic] Repair Rundown," and encourages Scientologists to go through the Rundown procedure even if they had participated in an "offshoot" of Erhard Seminars Training: If you attended Erhard Seminar Training (EST) or Forum (one of its off-shoots), this rundown can repair any damage done by this off-beat activity. EST practices contained just enough truth, “borrowed” from Scientology processes, to get a case into restimulation — and then left it in that state without any means to repair it. This rundown undoes the damage and removes any stops so you can get everything Scientology has to offer. [23] ControversiesOne participant, James Slee, died during a seminar when the trainer refused to allow paramedics to enter the room. The est trainer involved, David Norris, later asked all of the seminar participants "to consider the possibility that Jack Slee might have 'willed his own death'". [24] Slee's family sued the organization. Other participants had breakdowns. Researchers have reported a number of cases of psychotic reaction among those enrolled according to a study by M. A. Kirsch and L. L. Glass in 1977 cited in Marc Galanter Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion, Oxford University Press, 1989, page 207 (ISBN 0-19-512369-7). Marc Galanter, M.D., formerly of the World Health Organization, writes in his statistical study Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion: After an initial correspondence with Werner Erhard, I met at some length with the movement's director of research so that we might consider studying this transformation. Our discussions of getting it, however, yielded no operational definition. [25] Eileen Barker wrote of the ambiguous status of est, speaking of ... movements which do not fall under the definition of religion used by the Institute [for the study of American Religion], but which are sometimes called 'cults.' Examples would be est, Primal Therapy or Rebirthing. [26] Finkelstein wrote on the problems of categorizing est: [The] literature resembles the early literature on encounter groups and other vehicles of the human potential movement; it consists of only a few objective outcome studies which exist side-by-side with highly positive testimonials and anecdotal reports of psychological harm. Reports of testimonials have been compiled by est advocates and suffer from inadequate methodology. More objective and rigorous research reports fail to demonstrate that the positive testimony and evidence of psychological change among est graduates result from specific attributes of est training. Instead, non-specific effects of expectancy and response sets may account for positive outcomes. Reports of psychological harm as the result of est training remain anecdotal, but borderline or psychotic persons would be well advised not to participate. [27] A segment on 60 Minutes in March 1991 portrayed Erhard as physically abusive to his son and featured accusations by some of his daughters of incest and of physical abuse. One of Erhard's daughters later toned down allegations of violence, saying that a reporter had offered her two million dollars to "spice up" accusations. Defenders of "est" and Erhard alleged a sting operation by the Church of Scientology, as detailed in the book 60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard: How America's Top Rated Television Show Was Used in an Attempt to Destroy a Man Who Was Making A Difference by Dr. Jane Self. Associated publications
Taxation issuesIn 1991, several United States IRS spokesmen were quoted in the media as saying that Erhard owed millions in back taxes and was attempting to evade payment by transferring his assets outside the country. In 1993, Erhard filed a wrongful disclosure suit against the IRS, contending that the IRS spokesmen illegally disclosed tax information and that the statements they made were false. The case was settled in 1996, with the IRS admitting that the statements were false and agreeing to pay Erhard $200,000. [28] In another case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found Erhard did not have grounds for changing a previous tax decision February 8, 1995, in the case "Werner H. Erhard v. Commissioner Internal Revenue Service". TimelineSource: Hesse-Nassau Evangelical Church website:
For additional information on Landmark Education, see Landmark Education. Successive organizational name-changes
FinancesCEO Stewart Esposito controlled Erhard Seminars Training's $38 million USD budget, as well as managing 300 employees: As CEO of a 38 million-dollar international education company with 300 employees, he designed and implemented strategic plans and breakthrough initiatives[31]. Harry Margolis organized the accounting and distribution of profits. Tipton summarizes the system in operation at one point in time: In essence, Erhard sold his "body of knowledge" to an overseas holding and licensing corporation, to which est pays a maximal portion of its gross income in the form of pre-tax royalties. Now located in the Netherlands, this holding corporation pays 7 percent in Dutch taxes and then sends all its profits to the tax-exempt "Werner Erhard Foundation for est" in Switzerland, which owns the holding corporation outright. est, meanwhile, pays 30 percent in American taxes on its minimal post-royalty income. All the remaining profits go to the Werner Erhard Charitable Settlement, a tax-exempt trust on the Isle of Jersey, which owns est. [32] The trainingTipton characterized est in 1982 as follows: Erhard Seminars Training (est) describes itself as an educational corporation that trains its clients "to transform your ability to experience living so that the situations you have been trying to change or have been putting up with clear up just in the process of life itself." The standard training program takes place over sixty hours spread across four days on two consecutive weekends. A single trainer delivers it in a hotel ballroom to groups of 200-250 persons who are mostly urban, middle-class young adults, at a cost of $400 per person. "Graduates" of this program are encouraged to attend ongoing graduate seminars, occupationally specialized workshops and mass special events in order to enhance the training's effects. [33] The training itself featured lectures interspersed with exercises (known as "processes"). The "Truth Process" and the "Danger Process"Finkelstein et al. (1982) report on est's "Truth Process", an event occurring on the second day of the training. During this exercise trainees lie on the floor, eyes closed, meditating on an individual problem they have selected. RulesThe basic training aimed to transform participants' lives in 60 hours over a period of two weekends. During the training, the participants followed a list[citation needed] of rules. [35] These included:
AttitudesTipton summarizes the est ethic: Successful activity consists of first being whatever you wish to be by mentally expressing it, then doing it, then having it... What is good or intrinsically valuable, according to est, is the individual's experience of well-being and satisfaction. Acts of rule-compliance and agreement keeping are right, because they produce such experiences in the agent. [36] Appearances in documentariesThe Century of the SelfWerner Erhard appeared in the 2002 British documentary by Adam Curtis, The Century of the Self. He appears in episode 3 of 4. This segment of the video discusses the est Training in detail, and includes interviews with est-"graduates" John Denver and Jerry Rubin. TransformationIn 2006, Erhard appeared alongside Landmark Forum Leader Laurel Scheaf (pictured) and Landmark Forum Leader Randy McNamara (pictured), in the Robyn Symon documentary: Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard[37]. Assessments and reactionsAcademic studies of est
Stephen TiptonTipton [38] spent several months in between December 1974 and May 1976 researching est and its clientele. He describes and discusses his method of "participant observation" in his theological/sociological report, Getting saved from the sixties: moral meaning in conversion and cultural change.[39] Tipton assessed est in the context of its times as follows: "The est organization is, in fact, a boot camp for bureaucracy."[40] and summarized it as: 2. organization: bureaucratic cult Dr. Michael LangoneDr. Michael Langone, in a 1998 article on Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs) (a term which collectively refers to est, Lifespring, and similar encounter groups), states: I know of no research, however, that convincingly demonstrates positive behavioral effects of these trainings. In my opinion, one of the best studies from a methodological standpoint was "Research on Erhard Seminar Training in a Correctional Institution" (Hosford, Ray, E., Moss, C. Scott, Cavior, Helene, & Kerish, Burton. Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 1982, Manuscript #2419, American Psychological Association). Of 313 inmates who volunteered for est training in a Federal Correctional Institution, 150 were randomly selected for the training, while the balance acted as a waiting-list control group and were given scholarships to be used upon release. The groups did not differ on demographics or variables related to criminal history. They were given a full battery of psychological tests and biofeedback instruments, with half of the group pre-tested and half post-tested (to control for the possible contaminating effect of testing). Three-month and 12-month follow-ups were conducted to assess behavioral outcomes (incident reports, furloughs, work performance, etc.). Although the psychological tests reflected some positive change, these self-report changes did not manifest themselves in alterations in physiological measures or in actual behavior. The research and anecdotal evidence seem to indicate that LGATs are very successful at producing positive opinions about the trainings — an outcome that the financial officers of every service business would value. However, whether or not they have a substantial positive effect on behavior that is not due to placebo factors, is still an unanswered question. [42] Rev. Dr. Richard L. DowhowerIn 1993 Rev. Dr. Richard L. Dowhower conducted a survey of clergy to assess their opinions of cults and published "Clergy and Cults: A Survey". The 53 respondents came from the Washington, DC area and included 43 Lutheran clergy and seminarians, one Roman Catholic and one Jewish clergyman, and an Evangelical minister. The highest percentage (28%) of those completing the sentence "The cults I am most concerned about are" gave the answer of "Scientology, est/Forum, Lifespring". [43] Quoted commentsHunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in America: ... Erhard Seminars Training (est), a pricey, psychobabbling series of long and demeaning behavior-modification sessions that preached the virtue of selfishness. [44] Philip Cushman, Constructing The Self, Constructing America: Even today, abundance theory is alive and well in many religious cults and in restrictive psychotherapy trainings such as est. [45] Jonas B. Robitscher, The powers of psychiatry: ... the Werner Erhard est seminar ... the ... lucrative application of pop psychology. [46] Alex Howard, Challenges to Counselling and Psychotherapy: There is a large potential market for the sale of "ordinariness" as a desirable commodity. Zen Buddhists, and other monastic communities, have been offering it for years.... A more modern version of ordinariness, on sale as a commodity, was Jack Rosenberg's 'est,' or 'Erhardt [sic] Seminars training'. 'est,' with its pretentiously small 'e,' was a sixty-hour marathon, staged over two weekends, and based in a large hotel room with up to two hundred and fifty trainees and one trainer. Erhardt used his skills as a philosopher and salesman to provide a glossy training package that integrated Zen with more contemporary psychotherapies. The aim was to get 'it' by the end of the training programme. The 'it' on offer was 'enlightenment,' the realization that there is no enlightenment, no key, no secret wisdom, no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In other words, candidates paid a considerable sum of money to get 'nothing' out of the training, and trainees were repeatedly reminded that when they finally left the hotel room, all that would happen would be that they would leave the hotel room and carry on with their lives... Sure enough, it worked. I got nothing out of it.... Unfortunately, although predictably, est 'graduates' tended to make rather too much noise and fuss about this 'nothing,' and lionized Erhardt as though he were something special. He, again predictably, tended to puff up with this sense of being special. Consequently, the whole movement became yet another American carnival of noise and messianism that grew rapidly at the end of the 1970s, with tens of thousands of disciples in the U.S.A. and Europe, only to decline just as quickly when it went out of fashion. Therefore the market is currently wide open for someone else to offer another version of 'nothing,' designed to help us come to terms with the miracle of nothing-special existence. [47] Oblique comedy
See alsoStaff, participants and other individualsCelebrity participants
Others
Related organizations
See also the list of associated organizations. Family tree
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
