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Erhard Seminars Training

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Erhard Seminars Training, Inc.
Company typePrivately-held corporation
FoundedOctober 1971
Defunct1984 (dissolution)
HeadquartersSan Francisco,California,United States
Key people
Werner Erhard,founder[1]

Erhard Seminars Training, Inc.(marketed asest,though often encountered asESTorEst) was an organization founded byWerner Erhardin 1971 that offered a two-weekend (6-day, 60-hour) course known officially as "The est Standard Training". The purpose of the training is to help one to recognize that the situations, which seem to be holding them back in life, are working themselves out within the process of life itself. The seminar aimed to "transform one's ability to experience living so that the situations one had been trying to change or had been putting up with clear up just in the process of life itself".[2][3]

Est seminars operated from late 1971 to late 1984 and spawned a number of books from 1976 to 2011. Est has been featured in a number of films and television shows, including the critically acclaimed spy-seriesThe Americans,broadcast from 2013 to 2018. Est represented an outgrowth of theHuman Potential Movement[4]of the 1960s through to the 1970s.

As est grew, so did criticisms.[5]Various critics accused est ofmind control[6]or of forming anauthoritarianarmy;[7]some labeled it acult.[8]

The last est training took place in December 1984 in San Francisco. The seminars gave way to a "gentler" course[9]offered byWerner Erhard and Associatesand dubbed "The Forum" (currently namedLandmark Worldwide), which began in January 1985.[10]

Training

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The est Standard Training program consisted of two weekend-long workshops with evening sessions on the intervening weekdays. Workshops generally involved about 200 participants and were initially led by Erhard and later by people trained by him. Ronald Heifetz, founder of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University, called est "an important experience in which two hundred people go through a powerful curriculum over two weekends and have a learning experience that seemed to change many of their lives."[11]Trainers confronted participants one-on-one and challenged them to be themselves rather than to play a role that had been imposed on them by the past.[12]

Jonathan D. Morenoobserved that "participants might have been surprised how both physically and emotionally challenging and how philosophical the training was."[12]He writes that the critical part of the training was freeing oneself from the past, which was accomplished by "experiencing" one's recurrent patterns and problems and choosing to change them. The wordexperiencemeant to bring into full awareness the repetition of old, burdensome behaviors. The seminar sought to enable participants to shift the state of mind around which their lives were organized, from attempts to get satisfaction or to survive, to actually being satisfied and experiencing themselves as whole and complete in the present moment.[13]

Participants agreed to follow the ground rules, which included not wearing watches, not speaking until called upon, not talking to their neighbors, and not eating or leaving their seats to go to the bathroom except during breaks separated by many hours. Participants who were on medication were exempt from these rules, and had to sit in the back row so that they would not interfere with the other participants.[14]These classroom agreements provided a rigorous setting whereby people's ordinary ways to escape confronting their experience of themselves were eliminated.[15][page needed]Moreno describes the est training as a form of "Socratic interrogation...relying on the power of the shared cathartic experience thatAristotleobserved. "[12]Erhard challenged participants to be themselves instead of playing a role that had been imposed on them[12]and aimed to press people beyond their point of view, into a perspective from which they could observe their own positionality.[16]AsRobert Kiyosakiwrites, "During the training, it became glaringly clear that most of our personal problems begin with our not keeping our agreements, not being true to our words, saying one thing and doing another. That first full day on the simple class agreements was painfully enlightening. It became obvious that much of human misery is a function of broken agreements – not keeping your word, or someone else not keeping theirs."[17]

Sessions lasted from 9:00 a.m. to midnight, or to the early hours of the morning, with one meal-break.[18]Participants had to hand over wristwatches and were not allowed to take notes, or to speak unless called upon, in which case they waited for a microphone to be brought to them.[19][page needed]The second day of the workshop featured the "danger process".[19]: 384 As a way of observing and confronting their own perspective and point of view,[1]groups of participants were brought onto the stage and confronted. They were asked to "imagine that they were afraid of everyone else and then that everyone else was afraid of them"[19]: 384 and to re-examine their reflex patterns of living that kept their lives from working.[20]This was followed by interactions on the third and fourth days, covering topics such as reality and the nature of the mind, looking at the possibility that "what is, is and what ain't, ain't," and that "true enlightenment is knowing you are a machine"[19]: 384 and culminating in a realization that people do not need to be stuck with their automatic ways of being but can instead be free to choose their ways of being in how they live their lives.[1]Participants were told they were perfect the way they were and were asked to indicate by a show of hands if they "had gotten it".[19][page needed]

Eliezer Sobelsaid in his article "This is It: est, 20 Years Later":[21]

I considered the training to be a brilliantly conceived Zenkoan,effectively tricking the mind into seeing itself, and in thus seeing, to be simultaneously aware of who was doing the seeing, a transcendent level of consciousness, a place spacious and undefined, distinct from the tired old story that our minds continuously tell us about who we are, and with which we ordinarily identify.

Participants' reported results

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Many participants reported experiencing powerful results through their participation in the est training, characterised by Eliezer Sobel as perceived "dramatic transformations in their relationships with their families, with their work and personalvision,or most important, with the recognitionwho they truly werein the core of their beings ".[12][need quotation to verify]One study of "a large sample of est alumni who had completed the training at least 3 months before revealed that" the large majority felt the experience had been positive (88%), and considered themselves better off for having taken the training (80%) ".[22]

History

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Werner Erhard reported having a personal transformation, and created the est training to allow others to have the same experience.[23]The firstestcourse was held at aJack Tar HotelinSan Francisco,California, in October 1971.[24]Within a year, trainings were being held inNew York Cityand other major cities in the United States followed soon after. They were carried out by Werner Erhard, who had recently resigned fromMind Dynamics.

Beginning in July 1974 the est training was delivered at the U.S. Penitentiary atLompoc,California, with the approval of theFederal Bureau of Prisons.[25][26][27]Initial est training in Lompoc involved participation of 12–15 federal prisoners and outside community members within the walls of the maximum security prison and was personally conducted by Werner Erhard.

By 1979, est had expanded to Europe and other parts of the world. In 1980 the first est training in Israel was offered in Tel Aviv.[28]The est training presented several concepts to these new attendees, most notably the concept ofspiritual transformationand taking responsibility for one's life. The actual teaching, called "the technology of transformation," emphasizes the value of integrity.[29]As est grew, so did criticism. It was accused of mind control and labeled a cult by some critics who said that it exploited its followers by recruiting and offering numerous "graduate seminars."[30]

In 1983 in the United States, a participant named Jack Slee collapsed during a portion of the seminar known as "the danger process" and died at the hospital to which he had been transported.[31]A court subsequently found that the est training was not the cause of death.[31]A jury later ruled that Erhard and his company had been negligent, but did not give Slee's estate a monetary award.[19][page needed]

According to a 1991 report by theLos Angeles Times,est had been the target of a smear campaign by theChurch of Scientology.This campaign had spanned several years, with examples being found in documentsseized by the FBIin 1977. This smear campaign involved hiring personal investigators to spy on Erhard, recruiting Scientologists to covertly enroll in and disrupt est courses, and compiling information from disgruntled former est participants which could be used to discredit est. Scientology founderL. Ron Hubbard(who died in 1986) believed that Erhard had copied Scientology. Erhard disputed this, saying that est was essentially different despite some similarities.[32]

In their 1992 bookPerspectives on the New AgeJames R. LewisandJ. Gordon Meltonsaid that similarities between est and Mind Dynamics were "striking", as both used "authoritarian trainers who enforce numerous rules," require applause after participants "share" in front of the group, and de-emphasizereasonin favor of "feeling and action." The authors also described graduates of est as "fiercely loyal," and said that it recruited heavily, reducing marketing expenses to virtually zero.[33]The last est training was held in December 1984 in San Francisco.

It was replaced by a gentler course called "The Forum," which began in January 1985. "est, Inc." evolved into "est, an Educational Corporation," and eventually intoWerner Erhard and Associates.In 1991 the business was sold to the employees who formed a new company called Landmark Education with Erhard's brother, Harry Rosenberg, becoming the CEO.[34]Landmark Education was structured as a for-profit, employee-owned company; since 2013, it operates asLandmark Worldwidewith a consulting division called Vanto Group.[35]

Early influences

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Further information:Werner Erhard § Influences

InW. W. Bartley III's biography of Werner Erhard,Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est(1978), Erhard describes his explorations ofZenBuddhism. Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging Zen as the essential contribution that "created the space [for est]".[36]

Bartley details Erhard's connections with Zen beginning with his extensive studies withAlan Wattsin the mid-1960s.[37] Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging:

Of all the disciplines that I studied, practiced, learned, Zen was the essential one. It was not so much an influence on me, rather it created space. It allowed those things that were there to be there. It gave some form to my experience. And it built up in me the critical mass from which was kindled the experience that produced est.[38]

Other influences includedDale Carnegie,Subud,ScientologyandMind Dynamics.[39]

Timeline

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  • 1971 – Erhard Seminars Training Inc, first est Training held in San Francisco, California
  • 1973 – The Foundation for the Realization of Man – incorporated as a non-profit foundation in California (subsequently the name of the foundation was changed to the est Foundation in 1976, and in 1981 to the Werner Erhard Foundation)
  • 1975 – est, an educational corporation.
  • 1977 – The first est training outside of the United States, in London.
  • 1977 – The Hunger Project was established
  • 1979 – The first est training in India
  • 1980 – The first est training in Israel[40]
  • 1980 – The Breakthrough Foundation was established (Youth at Risk)
  • 1981 – First of ten annual physicist conferences sponsored by the est Foundation
  • 1981 – est became Werner Erhard and Associates
  • 1984 – The last training was held under the name of est[41]
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See also

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References

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  1. ^abcBartley, William Warren, Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978.ISBN0-517-53502-5,p.164.
  2. ^ Fenwick, Sheridan (1976).Getting it: The Psychology of Est.Philadelphia: Lippincott. p. 44.ISBN9780397011704.Retrieved13 January2021.[...] printed on the first mailing I received after sending in my deposit: 'The purpose of the est training is 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.'
  3. ^ Compare:Rushkoff, Douglas(2011).Life Inc: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back.Random House. p. 140.ISBN9781446467787.Retrieved2017-02-05.'The purpose of the EST training,' we were told when I took it as a college student in the early '80s, 'is 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.'
  4. ^ Greil, Arthur L.; Rudy, David R. (1981). "On the Margins of the Sacred". InRobbins, Thomas;Anthony, Dick(eds.).In Gods We Trust: New Patterns of Religious Pluralism in America(2 ed.). Abingdon: Routledge (published 2017).ISBN9781351513067.Retrieved13 January2021.Organizations generally associated with the human potential movement, such asSilva Mind Control,est,Lifespring,Transformational Technologies, etc., are easily conceptualized as quasi-religions. Although it is now defunct and its founder, Werner Erhard, has moved on to other projects, such asthe Forumand Transformational Technologies, est remains one of the best known of the human potential groups. [...] Like other organizations within the human potential movement, est understands 'itself to be communicating epistemological, psychological, and psychosomatic facts about human existence [...]' [...].
  5. ^ Haldeman, Peter (28 November 2015)."The Return of Werner Erhard, Father of Self-Help".Fashion.The New York Times.Retrieved17 August2020.The criticism intensified as EST grew.
  6. ^ Haldeman, Peter (28 November 2015)."The Return of Werner Erhard, Father of Self-Help".Fashion.The New York Times.Retrieved17 August2020.The criticism intensified as EST grew. It was labeled a cult that practiced mind control (verbal abuse, sleep deprivation), a racket that exploited its followers (heavy recruiting, endless "graduate seminars" ).
  7. ^ Tipton, Steven M. (1982). "EST and Ethics: Rule-egoism in Middle Class Culture".Getting Saved from the Sixties: Moral Meaning in Conversion and Cultural Change.Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock Publishers (published 2014). p. 215.ISBN9781625646996.Retrieved25 November2020.Accused by critics of being an authoritarian army, theestorganization is, in fact, a boot camp for bureaucracy. Hierarchical, tightly rule-governed, and meritocratic, it trains its young volunteers and staff to answer phones, write memos, keep records, promote and stage public events, and deal smoothly with clients.
  8. ^ Lewis, James R.(11 September 2014). "Erhard Seminars Training (est)/The Forum".Cults: A Reference and Guide.Approaches to New Religions (3 ed.). London: Routledge (published 2014). p. 129.ISBN9781317545132.Retrieved17 August2020.While not a church or religion, est is included here because it has often been accused of being a cult.
  9. ^ Whippman, Ruth (10 March 2016). "Personal Journey? Its Not All About You".The Pursuit of Happiness: Why are we driving ourselves crazy and how can we stop?.London: Hutchinson (published 2016).ISBN9781473519602.Retrieved17 August2020.The Landmark Forum is the direct successor to the notorious 1970s programme est [...]. In the 1980s, Erhard reinvented his course in a gentler, more corporate incarnation as The Forum, which later became the Landmark Forum.
  10. ^ Kyle, Richard G.(1993).The Religious Fringe: A History of Alternative Religions in America.InterVarsity Press. p. 319.ISBN9780830817665.Retrieved17 August2020.In 1985, Erhard changed the name of est to 'the Forum.' The Forum is not substantially different from est. Ruth Tucker says that the changes made by Erhard are largely cosmetic, for the philosophy of the Forum is essentially that of est.
  11. ^Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World,by Sharon Daloz Parks, published 2005 by Harvard Business School Press; pp. 157– 158
  12. ^abcdeJonathan D, Moreno (October 2014).Impromptu Man: J.L. Moreno and the Origins of Psychodrama, Encounter Culture, and the Social Network.Bellevue Literary Press.ISBN978-1-934137-84-0.
  13. ^Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est,by William Warren Bartley, III; New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978.ISBN0-517-53502-5,p. 199.
  14. ^Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion,by Marc Galanter; New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 1999, p. 75
  15. ^Bartley, William Warren III (December 12, 1988).Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est.Clarkson Potter.ISBN0-517-53502-5.
  16. ^Bartley, William Warren III (December 12, 1988).Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est.Clarkson Potter. p. 233.ISBN0-517-53502-5.The training provides a format in which siege is mounted on the Mind. It is intended to identify and bring under examination presuppositions and entrenched positionality. It aims to press one beyond one's point of view, at least momentarily, into a perspective from which one observes one's own positionality.
  17. ^Kiyosaki, Robert; Kiyosaki, Emi (January 2009).Rich Brother Rich Sister.Vanguard Press.ISBN978-1-59315-493-6.
  18. ^Ruys, Chris. "Can you unchain your mind through est or TM?". No. January 23, 1977. Sun Times (Chicago).
  19. ^abcdefKay Holzinger (2001). "Erhard Seminars Training (est) and The Forum". InJames R. Lewis(ed.).Odd gods: new religions & the cult controversy.Prometheus Books.ISBN978-1-57392-842-7.
  20. ^McGurk, William S. (1977). "Was ist est?".Contemporary Psychology.22(6): 459–460.doi:10.1037/016030.
  21. ^Sobel, Eliezer (1998). "This is It: est, 20 Years Later".Quest Magazine(Summer).
  22. ^ Galanter, Marc(1990). "Altered Consciousness".Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion(2 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press (published 1999). p. 75.ISBN9780198028765.Retrieved18 February2021.The whole thing [ "getting it" ] is treated as a joke, discomforting the new converts. [...] Nonetheless, one study of a large sample of est alumni who had completed the training at least three months before revealed that the large majority felt the experience had been positive (88%), and considered themselves better off for having taken the training (80%).
  23. ^Bartley, William Warren, Werner Erhard: the transformation of a man: the founding of est. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978.ISBN0-517-53502-5,p. 165.
  24. ^"Hotel to hospital: Farewell to S.F. era".San Francisco Chronicle.October 31, 2009.
  25. ^Woodward, Mark (1982)."The est Training in Prisons: A Basis for the Transformation of Corrections?".Baltimore Law Journal.Archived fromthe originalon November 13, 2013.
  26. ^"est in Prison" by Earl Babbie, published in American Journal of Correction, Dec 1977
  27. ^Rogin, Neal (7 June 1978)."Getting 'It' in Prison – The First est Training at the Federal Correctional Institution at Lompoc, California in 1974".Internet Archive.
  28. ^Despair and deliverance: private salvation in contemporary Israel by Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi page 121
  29. ^The Herald Sun;March 1, 2008;http:// news.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23298425-664,00.html
  30. ^Haldeman, Peter (2015-11-28)."The Return of Werner Erhard, Father of Self-help".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.RetrievedNovember 6,2017.
  31. ^abRagland, Jr., Gerald F. (1984)."Complaint in Trespass for Wrongful Death – Demand for Jury Trial".Civil Action No. N 84 497 JAC(United States District Court for the District of Connecticut).
  32. ^Welkos, Robert W. (December 29, 1991)."Founder of est Targeted in Campaign by Scientologists: Religion: Competition for customers is said to be the motive behind effort to discredit Werner Erhard".Los Angeles Times.RetrievedDecember 2,2019.
  33. ^Melton, J. Gordon;Lewis, James R.(1992).Perspectives on the New Age.SUNY Press. pp. 129–132.ISBN0-7914-1213-X.
  34. ^McClure, Laura (July–August 2009)."The Landmark Forum: 42 Hours, $500, 65 Breakdowns".Mother Jones.Archived fromthe originalon October 18, 2010.RetrievedOctober 13,2010.
  35. ^Bass, Alison (March 3, 1999)."Soul Training: A Retooled Version of the Controversial est Movement – Seekers of Many Stripes Set Out on a Path of Self-examination".The Boston Globe.RetrievedOctober 11,2010.
  36. ^Bartley, William Warren,Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est.New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978.ISBN0-517-53502-5,p. 121, 146-7.
  37. ^Bartley, William Warren, Werner Erhard: the transformation of a man: the founding of est. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978.ISBN0-517-53502-5,p. 118.
  38. ^Bartley, William Warren, Werner Erhard: the transformation of a man: the founding of est. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978.ISBN0-517-53502-5,p. 121.
  39. ^Bartley, William Warren;Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est.New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978.ISBN0-517-53502-5,pp. 144–148.
  40. ^Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin (July 1, 1992).Despair and Deliverance: Private Salvation in Contemporary Israel.State University of New York Press.
  41. ^"» History of the est Training".erhardseminarstraining.

Further reading

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  • Bartley, III, William Warren:Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of est,New York, New York, USA: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc (1978)ISBN0-517-53502-5.
  • Bry, Adelaide:est: 60 Hours That Transform Your Life,HarperCollins (1976)ISBN978-0-06-010562-4
  • Fenwick, Sheridan:Getting It: The Psychology of est,J. B. Lippincott Company. (1976)ISBN0-397-01170-9
  • Hargrove, Robert: est: Making Life Work, Delacorte (1976)ISBN978-0-440-19556-6
  • Kettle, James:The est Experience,Zebra Books (1976)ISBN978-0-89083-168-7
  • Marks, Pat R.: est:The Movement and the Man,Playboy Press (1976) ASIN B004BI5A3E
  • Moreno, M.D., Ph.D., Jonathan D.Impromptu Man: J. L. Moreno and the Origins of Psychodrama, Encounter Culture, and the Social Network.Bellevue Literary Press (2014)ISBN1-934137-84-7
  • Pressman, Steven:Outrageous Betrayal:The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile
  • Rhinehart, Luke: The Book of est, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1976)ISBN978-0-557-30615-2
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