Erhard Seminars Training, Inc. (marketed as est, though often encountered as EST or Est) was an organization founded by Werner Erhard in 1971 that offered a two-weekend (6-day, 60-hour) course known officially as "The est Standard Training". The purpose of the training was to use concepts loosely based on

Zen Buddhism Zen (; from Chinese: '' Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka ph ...

for self improvement. 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". 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-series ''

The Americans ''The Americans'' is an American historical drama, period spy fiction, spy drama television series created by Joe Weisberg for FX (TV channel), FX. It aired for six seasons from 2013 to 2018. Weisberg and Joel Fields also served as showrunners ...

'', broadcast from 2013 to 2018. Est represented an outgrowth of the

Human Potential Movement 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 be ...

of the 1960s through to the 1970s. As est grew, so did criticisms. Various critics accused est of mind control or of forming an

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and ...

army; some labeled it a

cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...

. The last est training took place in December 1984 in San Francisco. The seminars gave way to a "gentler" course offered by Werner Erhard and Associates and dubbed "The Forum" (currently named Landmark Worldwide), which began in January 1985.

History

Early influences. 1960s through 1971

In W. W. Bartley III's biography of Werner Erhard, ''Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est'' (1978), Erhard describes his explorations of

Zen Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...

Buddhism. Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging Zen as the essential contribution that "created the space or est.Bartley, William Warren, ''Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est''. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978. , p. 121, 146-7. Bartley details Erhard's connections with Zen beginning with his extensive studies with

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British and American writer, speaker, and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Buddhist, Taoist, and Hinduism, Hindu philosophy for a Wes ...

in the mid-1960s. Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging: Other influences included

Dale Carnegie Dale Carnegie ( ; spelled Carnagey until c. 1922; November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955) was an American writer and teacher of courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. Born into ...

Subud Subud (pronounced ) is an international, interfaith spirituality, spiritual movement that began in Indonesia in the 1920s, founded by Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo (1901–1987). The basis of Subud is a spiritual exercise called the Latihan ...

Scientology Scientology is a set of beliefs and practices invented by the American author L. Ron Hubbard, and an associated movement. It is variously defined as a scam, a Scientology as a business, business, a cult, or a religion. Hubbard initially develo ...

and Mind Dynamics.

As est, 1971 to 1984

In 1971, Werner Erhard reported having a personal transformation, and created the est training to allow others to have the same experience. The first ''est'' course was held at a Jack Tar Hotel in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, California, in October 1971. Within a year, trainings were being held in twelve major cities and had over 62,000 graduates. Beginning in July 1974 the est training was delivered at the U.S. Penitentiary at

Lompoc Lompoc ( ; Chumashan ) is a city in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast, its population was 43,834 as of July 2021. Lompoc has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Chumash people, who called t ...

, California, with the approval of the

Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Justice that is responsible for all List of United States federal prisons, federal prisons ...

. 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, and in 1980 the first est training in Israel was offered in Tel Aviv. A few years later in 1983, the organization moved into a large facility built for the Marine Cooks and Stewards in

Santa Rosa, California Santa Rosa (Spanish language, Spanish for "Rose of Lima, Saint Rose") is a city in and the county seat of Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County, in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay A ...

. 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." In 1983 in the United States, a participant named Jack Slee collapsed during a part of the seminar known as "the danger process" and later died at the hospital.Ragland, 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). A court subsequently found that the est training was not the cause of death. A jury later ruled that Erhard and his company had been negligent, but did not give Slee's estate a monetary award. The

United States Tax Court The United States Tax Court (in case citations, T.C.) is a Federal judiciary of the United States, federal trial court court of record, of record established by US Congress, Congress under Article One of the United States Constitution, Article ...

in 1986, upheld an

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

(IRS) claim that est owed the federal government more than $3.3 million in back taxes "because of sham transactions involving the movement's 'Body of Knowledge." According to a 1991 report by the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', est had been the target of a smear campaign by the

Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religiou ...

. This campaign had spanned several years, with examples being found in documents seized by the FBI in 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 founder L. Ron Hubbard (who died in 1986) believed that Erhard had copied Scientology. Erhard disputed this, saying that est was essentially different despite some similarities. In their 1992 book ''Perspectives on the New Age'' James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton said 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-emphasize

reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...

in 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.

As Landmark, 1985 to present

The last est training was held in December 1984 in San Francisco, after which it was replaced by a purportedly "gentler" course called "The Forum," which began in January 1985. "est, Inc." evolved into "est, an Educational Corporation," and eventually into Werner 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. Landmark Education was structured as a for-profit, employee-owned company; since 2013, it operates as Landmark Worldwide with a consulting division called Vanto Group. Some sociology and religious movement scholars have classified Landmark as well as its parent organization 'est' as a "

new religious movement A new religious movement (NRM), also known as a new religion, is a religious or Spirituality, spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin, or they can be part ...

" (NRM).

Practices

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." 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. . Jonathan D. Moreno observed that "participants might have been surprised how both physically and emotionally challenging and how philosophical the training was." 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 word ''experience'' meant 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.

Anecdotal results

Some participants reported experiencing powerful results through their participation in the est training, characterized by Eliezer Sobel as perceived "dramatic transformations in their relationships with their families, with their work and personal

vision Vision, Visions, or The Vision may refer to: Perception Optical perception * Visual perception, the sense of sight * Visual system, the physical mechanism of eyesight * Computer vision, a field dealing with how computers can be made to gain und ...

, or most important, with the recognition who they truly were in the core of their beings". 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%)". Other est participants described the sessions more negatively.

Controversy

In 1976 psychologist Dr. Daniel Fullman called est more of a money making scheme than a practical way to provide therapeutic help. Dr. Leonard Glass, a clinical professor of

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, alleged in 1983 that participants of est showed "severe emotional problems, notably psychosis, which occurred in the midst of or shortly after EST training." A participant of an est seminar sued the organization in 1985 over

negligence Negligence ( Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances. Within the scope of tort law, negligence pertains to harm caused by the violation of a duty of care through a neg ...

and

fraud In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrato ...

, and est has been accused of mind control and labeled a cult by critics who said that it exploited its followers by recruiting and offering numerous "graduate seminars." In 1985, a group of psychology researchers studied participants of the Forum, which had just evolved from est and was classified as a Large Group Awareness Training course. These researched compared their outcomes to a

control group In the design of experiments, hypotheses are applied to experimental units in a treatment group. In comparative experiments, members of a control group receive a standard treatment, a placebo, or no treatment at all. There may be more than one tr ...

of non attendees. They published their results in the book '' Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training''. They found that while participants had a short-term increase in internal locus of control, or the belief that one can control their own life, no long-term positive or negative effects on the study participants'

self-perception Self-perception theory (SPT) is an account of attitude formation developed by psychologist Daryl Bem. It asserts that people develop their attitudes (when there is no previous attitude due to a lack of experience, etc.—and the emotional respo ...

were detected.

Related organizations

* The Hunger Project * Werner Erhard and Associates * Landmark Worldwide

References

External links

{{Authority control Werner Erhard 1971 establishments in California 1971 in San Francisco 1984 disestablishments in California Companies based in San Francisco Companies disestablished in 1984 Companies established in 1971 Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Large-group awareness training Privately held companies based in California Self religions New religious movements established in the 1970s