Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Erhard Seminars Training" in English language version.
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.
[...] 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.'
'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.'
Organizations generally associated with the human potential movement, such as Silva 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 as the Forum and 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 [...]' [...].
Accused by critics of being an authoritarian army, the est organization 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.
While not a church or religion, est is included here because it has often been accused of being a cult.
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.
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.
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%).
The criticism intensified as EST grew.
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").
