Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est is a biography of Werner Erhard by philosophy professor William Warren Bartley, III. The book was published in 1978 by Clarkson Potter. Bartley was professor of philosophy at California State University and had studied with philosopher Karl Popper. He was the author of several books on philosophy, including a biography about Ludwig Wittgenstein. Erhard wrote a foreword to the book. The book's structure describes Erhard's education, transformation, reconnection with his family, and the theories of the est training.
The book went through five editions in its first year. Reviewers generally commented that the book was favorable to Erhard, and a number of critics felt that it was unduly so, or lacked objectivity, citing Bartley's close relationship to Erhard. Responses to the writing were mixed; while some reviewers found it well written and entertaining, others felt the tone was too slick, promotional, or hagiographic.
Background
This biography, written by a philosophy professor, tells Werner Erhard's early life story to elucidate his unconventional education and the creation of the est Training which he designed to provide people with access to their own transformational experience.
Werner Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg), a California-based former salesman, training manager and executive in the encyclopedia business,[1][2] created the Erhard Seminars Training (est) course in 1971.[3] est was a form of Large Group Awareness Training,[4][5] and was part of the Human Potential Movement.[6] est was a four-day, 60-hour self-help program given to groups of 250people at a time.[7] The program was very intensive. Participants were taught that they were responsible for their life outcomes.
By 1977 over 100,000people completed the est training, including public figures and mental health professionals.[6] est was widely ridiculed in the popular press and aroused a great deal of controversy. William S. McGurk, a lecturer in Clinical Psychology at Brown University, summarized:
Est promises dramatic awakening to its participants by enhancing the capacity to experience oneself. Trainees are given the opportunity to re-examine those belief systems and reflex patterns of living that keep their lives from working. Notions of self-responsibility are central in which we become cause rather than effect through choosing the inevitable. We can be the directors of our own determined fate. Needless to say, accounts of est are fraught with controversy and criticisms abound. Its major critics suggest that est is simply brainwashing. They also suggest that it is fascistic, narcissistic, and too superficial. Nevertheless, what follow-up studies have been done report strong evidence in favor of positive health changes among the respondents after the training (even though est claims not to be a form of therapy) Space does not allow for a thorough review of est's principles here. Let it suffice to say that est appears to have a powerful effect on people's lives in a short two weekends.[6]
In 1985, Werner Erhard and Associates repackaged the course as "The Forum", a seminar focused on "goal-oriented breakthroughs".[3]
By 1988, approximately one million people had taken some form of the trainings.[3] In the early 1990s Erhard faced family problems, as well as tax problems that were eventually resolved in his favor.[3][8][9] In 1991 a group of his associates formed the company Landmark Education, purchasing The Forum's course "technology" from Erhard.[3]
Author
William Warren Bartley, III, professor of philosophy at California State University, Hayward from 1973, prior to writing his biography on Erhard, had authored The Retreat to Commitment (1962), on the epistemology of Sir Karl Popper; Wittgenstein (1973), a biography of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein; edited (1977) Lewis Carroll's Symbolic Logic of 1896; and authored a book titled Morality and Religion (1971). Bartley was first introduced to and referred to est in March 1972 by a doctor whom he had consulted about his nine-year struggle with insomnia.[10] As a result of his experience in the est training his insomnia was cured.[citation needed] He then became very involved in the est organization,[11][12] and served for several years as the company's philosophical consultant.[12] He received payments of over US$30,000 in this capacity during the two years he spent writing the book.[13] He also served on the "Advisory Board" of est.[12] Bartley interviewed a number of individuals who were involved in his subject's life and made use of quotations from a wide array of sources.[14] Bartley commented on his subject in an article on the book in The Evening Independent, stating: "He's not a huckster, although he's a great salesman. I think he's a very good man, a very important man. ... He's a fascinating man. People are interested in him."[15]
Contents
Life story
The book recounts how Erhard's childhood events, job positions and self-education led to the development of the est training. Born Jack Rosenberg, Erhard was an inquisitive child who was close to his mother. In his student years, he read profusely and earned superior grades. As a teenager, Erhard experienced both conflicts with his mother and a growing dissatisfaction with his life. Shortly after graduating from high school he married his girlfriend Pat Campbell, who had become pregnant.[1] Instead of pursuing his plans for higher education, he took on a variety of jobs including meat-packing, heating and plumbing, estimating and selling cars. By the age of 21, Erhard had become the top car salesman at the dealership he worked for. By the time he was 25, Erhard and his wife had four children and he was feeling increasingly restless and constrained. He formed a friendship with a woman named June Bryde, which gradually deepened into an affair. He secretly arranged a flight from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with June in 1960, leaving behind his wife and their four children, who would not hear from him for twelve years.[16] The couple settled for a time in St Louis, and it was at this time that he changed his name to Werner Erhard with June changing hers to Ellen Erhard. After more work in car sales, Erhard joined the sales staff of Parents Magazine and was rapidly promoted to training manager and eventually appointed vice-president in 1967. During this period Erhard moved frequently to different parts of the US as dictated by the demands of the job, finally settling in San Francisco. When Parents Magazine was sold to the Time-Life group, he was recruited by the Grolier Society as Divisional Manager. According to Grolier vice-president John Wirtz the intention of appointing Erhard was that he would bring "integrity, honesty and straightforwardness" to their sales practices.[1]
Personal search and self-education
Shortly after moving to St. Louis Erhard began to embark on a program of inquiry and self-education. Initially he focused on self-improvement books such as Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill [17] and Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. From there, he widened his search to Human Potential Movement psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, a range of traditional Western philosophers, and Eastern disciplines such as Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Subud and the Martial arts as well as contemporary movements including Mind Dynamics, and Scientology.[18]
Creating the est training
Bartley recounts a revelation that Erhard said he had experienced in March 1971 while driving into San Francisco, California to work at Grolier Society.[19] Erhard described to Bartley what the revelation experience felt like: "What happened had no form. It was timeless, unbounded, ineffable, beyond language."[20] He told Bartley that he realized: "I had to 'clean up' my life. I had to acknowledge and correct the lies in my life. I saw that the lies that I told about others — my wanting my family, or Ellen (his second wife), or anyone else, to be different from the way that they are -- came from lies that I told about myself -- my wanting to be different from the way that I was."[19] His desire to share this experience led to the plans formed later that year to create the est training. The first promotional seminar was held in September with over one thousand attendees, and the first est training took place in October 1971 in a San Francisco hotel. In October 1972, while leading an est session in New York, Erhard realized that the time had come to reconnect with his family after an absence of 12 years.[16] Although his long absence from his family caused them feelings of confusion and pain, he re-established cordial and loving relationships with all of them.[16] His brother and sister became est Trainers and took on prominent roles in the business. He also set up a separate business venture for Ellen that gave her the financial freedom to choose how to structure her life and her relationship with him.[1]
Key concepts of the est training as defined by Erhard and described in the book include:
Completion: the acknowledgement of actions or decisions taken in the past, and the taking of steps to bring a resolution.
Rackets: behavior patterns ostensibly involving complaints about people in one's life, but actually resulting in the perpetuation of the complaint and the securing of a payoff such as dominating the other person.
Integrity: being whole and complete, and honoring one's word. In the est context the word is used to depict a matter of workability, rather than with the moral overtones it has in everyday usage.
Stories: the interpretations of experiences which are regarded as reality, leading to conflict with other people who have created differing interpretations of the same events.
Responsibility: the willingness to accept oneself as the source of outcomes in life – whether welcome or unwelcome – rather than blaming others for them.[1]
Intersections
The biographical chapters on Erhard are interspersed with chapters that Bartley refers to as "Intersections". These chapters contain Bartley's scholarly overview and analysis of the various disciplines that Werner Erhard explored before founding the est training.[21]
Reception
The book was 8th place on the Time non-fiction bestseller list of November 20, 1978.[22][23] Bartley told The Evening Independent in February 1979 that the book had sold a total of 110,000 copies and gone through five editions.[15]
Jonathan Lieberson, writing for The New York Review of Books, described the book as "attractively written, never shrill or unduly proselytizing, careful to avoid the hysteria and tribalism that usually characterize the early years of movements like est", but considered Bartley to have "fallen" for Erhard.[24][25] Given Bartley's previous work, Lieberson stated, he might have made an ideal interpreter of Erhard, but he found this expectation "disappointed [although] the book is nevertheless instructive".[24][25] A review of Werner Erhard in Kirkus Reviews similarly concluded, "Too entranced to be truly objective, Bartley is nonetheless an insightfully partial observer."[26]Booklist stated that Bartley, as an est student, had made the "mistake of being too close to his subject to be objective or critical."[27]
In Psychology Today, Morris B. Parloff stated that Bartley had written his biography of Erhard "carefully, lovingly, and well".[21] Kris Jeter, writing in Cults and the Family, commented that "wise researchers know and teach that one should be in love with their research topic", and counted Bartley's book among several in which "this love was highly evident".[11] Steve McNamarra, in the Pacific Sun, said that the book was "clearly written and, while basically sympathetic" was not "an adulatory 'house job'." McNamarra found the sections detailing Erhard's "soap opera", making up three-quarters of the book, the easiest to read, while the "intersections", passages in which Bartley provided concise summaries of the philosophical traditions underpinning Erhard's est training, were tougher but ultimately rewarding.[28]
Kenneth Wayne Thomas, in Intrinsic Motivation at Work, described the book as "somewhat sympathetic" to Erhard and the est philosophy;[29] Steve Jackson, writing in Westword, similarly included it among "books sympathetic to Erhard, est and Landmark", written by an "old friend of Erhard's".[30] Stephen Goldstein, in a Washington Post review, said Bartley had made it "obvious from the start that he cares about his subject and his own est experience" and had told "a rather simple, straightforward story that pretty much lets you draw your own conclusions [about Erhard] or keep the ones you have already reached."[31] A reviewer in Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries stated he was "enthusiastic about this book", praising the "personal quality [of] the narrative, which, though, sometimes becomes overly detailed."[14] He highly recommended the book for general and college libraries focused on the social sciences.[14]
Other commentators felt that the book was unduly favourable to Erhard. A review of the book in The Christian Century stated that Bartley had got "sucked into" writing a "promo on Erhard, founder of one of the pseudo-therapies of the '70s."[32] The Los Angeles Times commented that "[Bartley's] philosophical justification of est as a mishmash of totalitarianism, hucksterism and existentialism makes this book more a public relations product than an objective study."[2] A Chicago Tribune review described the book as a "painstaking ... act of devotion" that nevertheless failed in its mission: "No one reading it is likely to agree with Bartley that the founder of est is a philosopher and spiritual leader of Gandhian magnitude except the already convinced."[33] James R. Fisher, in Six Silent Killers: Management's Greatest Challenge, and Suzanne Snider, writing for The Believer magazine, referred to Bartley's book as a "hagiography",[34][35] and Rachel Jones of Noseweek considered the book "sycophantic".[36] A review in The Evening Independent described Bartley as Erhard's "friend and admitted booster", telling his "often-sordid story in detail."[15] E. C. Dennis, writing for Library Journal, found that Bartley's work "has a slick tone and more than a trace of hero worship".[37] Dennis acknowledged that the book gave "the full details of Erhard's 'soap opera,' often in his own words," but was critical of Bartley's writing, saying he cast "a Freud's-eye-view on his subject's youthful failings, but after the famous 'transformation' his tone becomes almost reverential."[37] Dennis stated that the book failed to ask important questions, but that large public libraries should carry a copy, given its status as an "authorized" biography.[37]
Erhard Seminars Training, Inc. was an organization founded by Werner Erhard in 1971 that offered a two-weekend 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".
Werner Hans Erhard is an American lecturer known for founding est. In 1985, he replaced the est Training with a newly designed program, the Forum. Since 1991, the Forum has been kept up to date and offered by Landmark Education. Erhard has written, lectured, and taught on self-improvement.
Landmark Worldwide, or simply Landmark, is an American employee-owned for-profit company that offers personal-development programs, with their most-known being the Landmark Forum.
The term large-group awareness training (LGAT) refers to activities—usually offered by groups with links to the human potential movement—which claim to increase self-awareness and to bring about desirable transformations in individuals' personal lives. LGATs are unconventional; they often take place over several days, and may compromise participants' mental wellbeing.
Werner Erhard and Associates, also known as WE&A or as WEA, operated as a commercial entity from February 1981 until early 1991. It replaced Erhard Seminars Training, Inc. as the vehicle for delivering the est training, and offered what some people refer to as personal and professional development programs. Initially WE&A marketed and staged the est training, but in 1984 the est training was replaced by WE&A with a more modern, briefer, more rigorous and more philosophical program - based on Werner Erhard's teachings and called "The Forum".
The Human Potential Movement (HPM) arose out of the counterculture of the 1960s and formed around the concept of an extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people. The movement takes as its premise the belief that through the development of their "human potential", people can experience a life of happiness, creativity, and fulfillment, and that such people will direct their actions within society toward assisting others to release their potential. Adherents believe that the collective effect of individuals cultivating their own potential will be positive change in society at large.
Mind Dynamics was a seminar company, founded by Alexander Everett in Texas in 1968. The company ceased operating in December 1973 after the death of co-owner William Penn Patrick and the resignation of President Robert White, alongside investigations for fraudulent representations and practicing medicine without a license.
Semi-Tough is a 1977 American sports comedy film directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Robert Preston, Lotte Lenya, and Bert Convy. It is set in the world of American professional football.
William Warren Bartley III, known as W. W. Bartley III, was an American philosopher specializing in 20th century philosophy, language and logic, and the Vienna Circle.
Joan Holmes is an American psychologist. She was the founding president of The Hunger Project, and served as one of 31 members on 'Task Force 2 on Hunger' of the UN Millennium Project of 2000–2006. She worked as a consulting educational psychologist for Erhard Seminars Training (est) prior to establishing The Hunger Project in 1977.
Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile is a non-fiction book written by freelance journalist Steven Pressman and first published in 1993 by St. Martin's Press. The book gives an account of Werner Erhard's early life as Jack Rosenberg, his exploration of various forms of self-help techniques, and his foundation of Erhard Seminars Training "est" and later of Werner Erhard and Associates and of the est successor course, "The Forum". Pressman details the rapid financial success Erhard had with these companies, as well as controversies relating to litigation involving former participants in his courses. The work concludes by going over the impact of a March 3, 1991 60 Minutes broadcast on CBS where members of Erhard's family made allegations against him, and Erhard's decision to leave the United States.
Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training: A Longitudinal Study of Psychosocial Effects is a non-fiction psychology book on Large Group Awareness Training, published in 1990 by Springer-Verlag. The book was co-authored by psychologists Jeffrey D. Fisher, Roxane Cohen Silver, Jack M. Chinsky, Barry Goff, and Yechiel Klar. The book was based on a psychological study of "The Forum", a course at the time run by Werner Erhard and Associates. Results of the study were published in two articles in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology in 1989 and 1990. Fisher and co-authors gave initial context for the study, providing analysis and discussion of academic literature in psychology regarding Large Group Awareness Training.
est: Playing the Game the New Way is a non-fiction book by Carl Frederick, first published in 1976, by Delacorte Press, New York. The book describes in words the basic message of Werner Erhard's Erhard Seminars Training (est) theatrical experience. Erhard/est sued in federal court in the United States to stop the book from publication, but the suit failed. The book takes a 'trainer's' approach to the est experience, in that it essentially duplicates the est training, citing examples and using jargon from the actual experience.
William Penn Patrick was an American entrepreneur, businessman, and fraudster. He was the owner of Holiday Magic, Leadership Dynamics, and Mind Dynamics. Patrick was a proponent of the sour grapes philosophy, and has been widely quoted as stating: "Those who condemn wealth are those who have none and see no chance of getting it."
Alexander Everett (1921–2005) was a British self-improvement and personal development consultant. He was the founder of the company Mind Dynamics, and author of the motivational books The Genius Within You and Inward Bound. Everett's coursework and teachings had an influence on the human potential movement.
Werner Erhard and his courses have been referenced in popular culture in various forms of fictional media including literature, film, television and theatre. The original course, known as est, was delivered by the company Erhard Seminars Training (est). Under the name The Forum, they were delivered by Werner Erhard and Associates. Also, the Landmark Forum, a program created by Erhard's former employees after purchasing his intellectual property, has had an influence on popular culture. Some of these works have taken a comedic tack, parodying Erhard and satirizing the methodology used in these courses.
"Mork Goes Erk" is the seventeenth episode of the first season of the American television sitcom Mork & Mindy. The episode aired on ABC on February 8, 1979. It was issued on VHS on January 1, 1998, as part of a two-episode special release that also included "Mork's First Christmas". It was issued on DVD on September 7, 2004, as part of the Mork & Mindy - The Complete First Season boxed set.
Getting It: The Psychology of est, a non-fiction book by American clinical psychologist Sheridan Fenwick first published in 1976, analyzes Werner Erhard's Erhard Seminars Training or est. Fenwick based the book on her own experience of attending a four-day session of the est training, an intensive 60-hour personal-development course in the self-help genre. Large groups of up to 250 people took the est training at one time.
The Book of est is a fictional account of the training created by Werner Erhard, (est), or Erhard Seminars Training, first published in 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. The book was written by est graduate Luke Rhinehart. Rhinehart is the pen name of writer George Cockcroft. The book was endorsed by Erhard, and includes a foreword by him. Its contents attempts to replicate the experience of the est training, with the reader being put in the place of a participant in the course. The end of the book includes a comparison by the author between Erhard's methodologies to Zen, The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, and to Rhinehart's own views from The Dice Man.
↑ Cerabino, Frank (May 28, 1989). "Erhard Went From Encyclopedia Sales to Marketing 'It'". The Palm Beach Post. Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc. p.15A.
1 2 MacNamara, Mark (May 5, 1988). "Guru II: the return of Werner Erhard". Los Angeles Magazine. pp.106–115.
↑ Marshall, Jeannie (June 1997). "The est in the business". National Post. Vol.112, no.5.
1 2 Psychology Today, "How Werner Got It", by Morris B. Parloff (chief of psychotherapy and Behavioral Intervention Clinical Research Branch), National Institute of Mental Health, November 1978. p. 136
↑ San Francisco Chronicle staff (February 9, 1990). "William W. Bartley III". San Francisco Chronicle. p.B7.
↑ "William Warren Bartley, III," Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale 2001. Literature Resource Center.
↑ The Christian Century staff (January 31, 1979). "Werner Erhard: the transformation of a man: the founding of est". The Christian Century. 96: 108. ISSN0009-5281.
↑ Chicago Tribune staff (December 10, 1978). "The guru with the most-est". Chicago Tribune. p.E5.
↑ Jones, Rachel (December 2003). "A Landmark Encounter: A long-overdue critical examination of Landmark "lifestyle training" – Rachel Jones is cajoled, threatened and bullied, and risks having her wages attached for the rest of her life in an attempt to find out the truth behind a purportedly life-changing training". Noseweek.
1 2 3 Dennis, E. C. (October 15, 1978). "Werner Erhard: the transformation of a man: the founding of est". Library Journal. 103: 2102. ISSN0000-0027.
Further reading
Book reviews
Merkin, Daphne (January 1, 1979). "Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est". The New Leader. 62: 14–15.
Milder, Phyllis (March 1978). "Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est". Best Sellers. 38: 388. ISSN0005-9625.
New Realities staff (August 1978). "Werner Erhard". New Realities. 2: 35.
Publishers Weekly staff (August 14, 1978). "Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est". Publishers Weekly. Vol.214. p.58.
Psychology Today staff (November 1978). "Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est". Psychology Today: 136.
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