Erhard Seminars Training

Erhard Seminars Training

Company type	Private Corporation (defunct)
Industry	Self-help, Personal development
Founded	October 1971 (dissolved 1981)
Headquarters	San Francisco, California, USA
Key people	Werner Erhard, Founder Laurel Scheaf, President Stewart Esposito, CEO Art Schreiber, General Counsel Harry Margolis, Tax Attorney Bob Curtis, In-house Legal counsel Gary Grace, CFO John Vincent, CFO, Marketing Vincent Drucker, Sales Enoch Calloway, Advisory Board Member Joan Rosenberg, Volunteers Supervisor Steven Zaffron, Executive Harry Rosenberg, Executive Gonneke Spits, Executive Fernando Flores, Curriculum Development Nancy Zapolski, est Trainer Brian Regnier, est Trainer Randy McNamara, est Trainer Joan Holmes, Consulting Educational Psychologist Robert Larzelere, M.D., Director Well Being Dept. Jack Mantos, M.D., Research Director
Products	Large Group Awareness Training
Revenue	$38 million USD (1981)
Operating income	$Unknown USD (1981)
Net income	$Unknown USD (1981)
Number of employees	300 employees (1981)

Erhard Seminars Training or est (generally in lower-case letters), a 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

(See also the timeline section below)

Growth

est 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.

Impact

In 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.)

Corporate changes

In 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. 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", and that a Landmark Education course presenter equated the two courses with the phrase "when this work was first presented".

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 origins

In 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.

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.

Influences on and philosophy of est

File:Erhard Conducts Seminar.jpg

Werner Erhard conducts a seminar

The forebears of est allegedly include Martin Heidegger. Erhard himself cites Zen, or as some have alleged, Westernized Zen (although the depth of his studies of Buddhism have come into question). 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.

Donald Stone records the interpretation, both internally and externally 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.

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.

Controversies

One 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'". 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.

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.

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.

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

• A look at est in education: Analysis, review and selected case studies of the impact of the est experience on educators and students in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education by Robert W. Fuller and Zara Wallace, published January 1, 1975, by est, an educational corporation (ASIN B0007ANT6A). Joan Holmes, current president of The Hunger Project, served as consulting educational psychologist for the preparation of this book.
• The Graduate Review, a public newsletter sent to graduates of Erhard Seminars Training. Later re-titled The Review.

Erhard Seminars Training and tax-evasion

The United States IRS settled a dispute over alleged tax evasion with Erhard by paying him $200,000 for wrongful disclosure of false information.

In another case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found Erhard accountable for civil tax evasion on February 8, 1995, in the case "Werner H. Erhard v. Commissioner Internal Revenue Service".

See also

• Ellen Erhard v. Werner Erhard, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Public Record, June 20, 1996, for issues related to IRS tax-petition disputes between Werner Erhard and his second wife, Ellen Erhard. The case decided as follows: "Ellen Erhard appeals the Tax Court's dismissal of her petition as untimely filed. We affirm."

Timeline

For additional information, see Landmark Education

Source: Hesse-Nassau Evangelical Church website:

• October 1971 — Erhard Seminars Training, first est seminar held: in San Francisco, California
• 1973 — The Foundation for the Realization of Man incorporated as a non-profit foundation in California
• July 1976 — est Foundation - amendment to the articles of incorporation, California
• February 1981 — Werner Erhard and Associates (WE&A) set up
• 1984 — WE&A replaces the est training with "The Forum" — later to become "The Landmark Forum" in the 1990s
• January 16, 1991 — Breakthrough Technologies

* signed by attorney Donald R. Share

* Arthur Schreiber as initial agent

• January 23, 1991 — Transnational Education Corp.
• April 29, 1991 — signing of the re-naming of Transnational Education Corp. as "Landmark Education Corporation"
• May 2, 1991 — filing of the re-naming of Transnational Education Corp. as Landmark Education Corporation

* Brian Regnier signed as President and Secretary of Transnational Education Corp

• May 7, 1991 — filing of the re-naming of Transnational Education Corp. as "Landmark Education Corporation"

* Harry Rosenberg as director and treasurer

• June 5, 1991 — filing of the re-naming of Werner Erhard and Associates as "Landmark Education International, Inc."
• June 5, 1991 — Werner Erhard and Associates International, Inc., now a subsidiary of Landmark Education Corporation

* Gilbert H. Judson, president

* Regina Tierney, secretary

• July 14, 1992 — Alexandria, VA - a federal district judge rules that Landmark Education Corporation did not have successor liability, in the case brought by a Silver Spring, Maryland woman for emotional damages allegedly due to participation in the Forum under Werner Erhard and Associates.
• February 2003 - Landmark Education Corporation became "Landmark Education LLC"

Successive organizational name-changes

Name	From	To
The Foundation for the Realization of Man	1973	July 1976
The est Foundation	July 1976	February 1981
Werner Erhard and Associates	February 1981	January 16, 1991
Breakthrough Technologies	January 16, 1991	January 23, 1991
Transnational Education Corp.	January 23, 1991	May 7, 1991
Landmark Education Corporation	May 7, 1991	February 2003
Landmark Education, LLC	February 2003	present

Finances

CEO 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.

Harry Margolis organized the accounting and distribution of profits.

The training

Tipton 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.

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.



"At the trainer's command, the trainees imagine a situation in which that problem has occurred and systematically explore the detailed bodily sensations and images associated with the problem itself. As the trainer orders the trainees to examine images from the past and from childhood, powerful affects are released. The room is soon filled with the sound of sobbing, retching, and uncontrolled laughter, punctuated by the exclamations of those remonstrating with figures from their past...Later in the second day, during the so-called "Danger Process,” trainees come to the dais in groups of 25 and stand facing the audience. The trainer exhorts those on the dais to "be" themselves, and reprimands those who appear to be posturing or falsely smiling, or who fail to make eye contact with the seated trainees. It is not uncommon, apparently, for trainees to faint or cry when called to the dais in this fashion, and some later recount that they found the experience liberated them from social anxieties."

Rules

The basic training aimed to transform participants' lives in 60 hours over a period of two weekends.

During the training, the participants followed a list of rules. : These included:

• No going to the restroom for 7 hours (later changed to 4).
• No talking to one's friend or neighbor during the training.
• No eating or drinking during a bathroom break.
• No meditating, sewing, knitting, reading, stretching, and other activities during the training while participants sit in their seats.
• Participants on medication had to sit in the last row, in the back of the room.
• No leaving the room for anything except during the prescribed breaks.
• No smoking or gum-chewing allowed during the training.
• No "If's" or "But's" used during the training. (The word "And" replaced those words.)

Attitudes

Tipton 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.

Appearances in documentaries

The Century of the Self

Werner 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.

Transformation

In 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.

Assessments and reactions

Academic studies of est

Stephen Tipton

Tipton 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.

Dr. Michael Langone

Dr. 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.

Rev. Dr. Richard L. Dowhower

In 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".

Quoted comments

Hunter 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.

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.

Jonas B. Robitscher, The powers of psychiatry:

... the Werner Erhard est seminar ... the ... lucrative application of pop psychology.

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.

Oblique comedy

File:ConvyErhard.jpg

Bert Convy as "Frederick Bismark," caricature on Werner Erhard from
film Semi-Tough, 1977

• The movie Semi-Tough (1977) parodies the est training. Bert Convy plays Frederick Bismark (a caricature of Werner Erhard). Bismark's organization and its training have the name "BEAT", standing for "Bismark Earthwalk Action Training". A form of Rolfing (which many est people received in order to straighten them out by painful forms of massaging) appeared in the film as "Pelfing". In real life, Erhard had a Mercedes-Benz whose licence plate read "SO WUT": in the movie, a limousine's license plate read "BEAT IT".
• An episode of Mork and Mindy had David Letterman playing an Erhard-like character by the name of Ellsworth offerring ERC or Ellsworth Revitalization Conditioning.
• In the movie Stripes, John Candy's character "Ox" refers to est during the recruits' "rap" session in the barracks.
• In the 1990 film Spirit of '76, Rob Reiner plays Dr. Cash, an abusive trainer for the est-like "Be, Inc. Seminars" who traps time-traveler Heinz-57 (played by Geoff Hoyle) in one of his seminars, continually referring to him as "Heinz Asshole".
• Six Feet Under (Episode 16, Season 2, (2002): "The Plan") features a seminar-delivery organization called "The Plan", which the character Claire Fisher immediately compares to "est".
• In a Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law clip episode "Mufti Trouble", which aired October 2, 2006, the character "Mentok the Mindtaker" admits that he was "..an est instructor for a summer in Marin."

Scientology procedure

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.

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.

See also

Staff, participants and other individuals

Celebrity participants

• John Denver - est participant, co-founder of The Hunger Project. Wrote song "Looking For Space", which he dedicated to est. as their theme song
• Cher
• Yoko Ono
• Valerie Harper
• Four members of the Fifth Dimension
• Joe Namath
• Diana Ross
• Cloris Leachman
• Carly Simon
• John Curry
• Ken Blanchard
• Joanne Woodward
• Polly Bergen
• Raul Julia
• Ted Danson
• Anthony Zerbe
• Mike Oldfield

Others

• Wolfgang Somary - investment banker, loaned Werner Erhard and Associates $14 million
• Robert W. Fuller - est participant, co-founder, The Hunger Project
• Ellis Duell - est participant, past Chairman of the Board of Directors of The Hunger Project
• Lynne Twist - est participant, founding executive and past director of global funding for The Hunger Project
• Steven Pressman - author of Outrageous Betrayal: The dark journey of Werner Erhard from est to exile, (1993), St. Martin's Press
• James Slee - est participant, passed away suddenly during an est training session in 1983
• Charles "Raz" Ingrasci - headed est mission to the USSR; past officer of Lifespring and board member of The Hunger Project; now President and CEO of the Hoffman Institute

Related organizations

• Werner Erhard and Associates - immediate successor-organization to est
• Landmark Education - inheritor-organisation to est
• Landmark Education and the law
• The Hunger Project
• Exegesis, an est-like organization functioning in the United Kingdom in the 1980s
• Paradigm 3 - website
• Performance Design Corp.
• Hermenet Inc. - mention in article The Power of Words
• Action Technologies - website
• The Conversation Toward Autonomy /Arnold Siegel & Company, Inc. - website
• IAMATHON or Discovery Institute of Palo Alto Ca. 1975-1977 - website

See also the list of associated organizations.

Related publications

Books

Biographies of Werner Erhard

• Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile by Steven Pressman. Excerpted Ch. 4. A Door to Door Mind Salesman, Excerpted Ch. 7. Enlightenment in Two Weekends - The est Training
• Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of EST by William Warren Bartley, III
• 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 Jane Self

Other

• Adelaide Bry est (Erhard Seminars Training): 60 Hours That Transform Your Life. Harpercollins, 1976
• Flo Conway and Jim Siegelman Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change. 2nd edition, Stillpoint Press, 1995. [1] ISBN 0-9647650-0-4
• V.J. Fedorschak The Shadow on the Path: Clearing the Psychological Blocks to Spiritual Development. Hohm Press, 1999. ISBN 0-934252-81-5
• Sheridan Fenwick Getting it: the psychology of est. Penguin, 1977. ISBN 0-14-004467-1
• Carl Frederick est: Playing the Game the New Way. Delacorte, 1974.
• Robert Hargrave est: Making Life Work. Delacorte, 1976.
• Ray E Hosford, C Scott Moss, Helene Cavior and Burton Kerish Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology 1982, Manuscript #2419, American Psychological Association)
• Ray E Hosford, C Scott Moss, Helene Cavior and Burton Kerish "Research on Erhard Seminar Training in a Correctional Institution"
• Rhinehart, Luke, The Book of Est
• Steven M. Tipton Getting saved from the sixties: moral meaning in conversion and cultural change. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. ISBN 0520038681

Articles in periodicals

• Mark Brewerk. "We're Gonna Tear You Down and Put You Back Together", Psychology Today, August 1975
• L. L. Glass, M. A. Kirsch and F. N. Parris. "Psychiatric disturbances associated with Erhard Seminars Training", American Journal of Psychiatry. 1977; 134(3): 245-7.
• Peter Marin. "The New Narcissism", Harper's, October 1975, 251:45-56.
• Perry Pascarella. “Create Breakthroughs in Performance by Changing the ‘Conversation’” (Industry Week, June 1997)
• Eliezer Sobel. “This Is It: est, Twenty Years Later” (QUEST Magazine, Summer 1998)

External links

• Werner H. Erhard v. Commissioner Internal Revenue Service, United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Public Record, No. 93-70357 (9th.Cir. 02/08/1995)
• An account of the life, influences and controversies surrounding Erhard
• Conversations For Transformation: Essays By Laurence Platt Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard, And More, A friend of Werner's shares light on Werner's work.
• Uncomplimentary article about est in Psychology Today (August 1975)
• Independent Research, Case Studies, and Surveys (Landmark Education Website July 2005)
• Comprehensive list of articles on Erhard, est, Landmark, and the Landmark Forum at the Rick A. Ross Institute for the Study of Destructive Cults, Contoversial Groups and Movements
• Independent presentation of the history, sources, methods and potential dangers of "est" (The Skeptic's Dictionary)
• Independent Pro and contra presentation of est and Landmark Education, followed by series of links to articles (Apologetics Index - Resources on Religious Cults, Sects, Religions, Doctrines, etc.)
• Series of awareness-raising articles about est/Landmark Education (at SIMPOS, a Dutch "foundation for information on social problems and occult tendencies")
• Is Don Rumsfeld a Werner Erhard Disciple?, March 2, 2005, Cosmic Iguana
• "Voyage Au Pays Des Nouveaux Gourous", Pièces à conviction, May 24, 2004, Exposé (journalism), France 3 television network

Video viewable on Dailymotion, at Videos / Landmarkeducation.