Erhard Seminars Training

"In est, the organization's purpose is to serve people, to create an opportunity for people to experience transformation, enlightenment, satisfaction and well-being in their lives."

"I knew that I couldn't create the space for other people to participate as long as my ego was in the way. It was after I solved that problem that I started est. The way I solved the problem was by realizing, 'How dare you not have an ego! How dare you! That's the ultimate ego!' The ultimate position of ego is to try not to have an ego. So, where my ego is, is right here, and I handle it by taking responsibility for it rather than by being the effect of it. Instead of being my ego, I have an ego."

"Some people think est came into being because of my past. Actually, est came into being because I completed my past … Having confronted it, taken responsibility for it, communicated, and corrected it, it is now completed for me."

"The purpose of est 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."

"My plans could be said to be to make est as public as possible. My notion on how to do that is through the educational system. So I would like to give est up to the environment."

"I am a sort of revolutionary. I have a strange ambition, though. I don't want any statues. I don't want any ordinary monuments. What I want is for the world to work. That's the monument I want. There's egomania for you! The organizing principle of est is: 'Get the world to do what it is doing.' I want to create a context in which governments, education, families are nurturing. I want to enable, to empower, the institutions of man.[emphasis italics in original]"

""A critical part of ‘the training,’ as practitioners refer to it, is freeing oneself from the past, accomplished by ‘experiencing’ recurrent patterns and problems rather than repeating them, where ‘experience again has a technical significance. To fully experience the pointless repetition of old, burdensome behaviors is to ‘experience them out’.”"

""The American obsession with Transformation isn’t new. It is about as old as the nation…But it was Werner Erhard who created the first modern transformation when he founded est seminars in 1971. It’s a tribute to the power of his central concept…that more than 20 years after he sold his ideas to a group of employees who went on to create Landmark that Landmark is still the natural first stop in any transformation tour.”"

"The purpose of est was to help people shift their contextual state of mind from attempting to feel satisfaction in their lives to actually being able to experience that satisfaction. Werner's seminars strove to free people from their pasts and allow them to live fully, in the present moment to moment, (just like excellent actors try to do in their work)."

"Est was a wonderfully empowering experience for me. It took a lot of struggle and conflict out of my day to day decision-making and helped me imbue my life with more focus and intention. I learned that there was a difference between committing to try to live a certain way and actually living the way you intend."

"More direct evidence comes from a careful study of Large Group Awareness Training programs, variously known as Erhard Seminars Training (est), Lifespring, or simply the Forum. The basic procedure of these courses parallels the group training workshops … but the emphasis shifts from group effectiveness to personal development. By talking through life challenges, aspirations, fears, and the like with fellow participants and professional counselors/teachers, individuals hope to change how they view themselves, their family and friends, and their prospects for a fulfilling life."

"...two friends of mine went through est, and I observed in both of them obvious, immediate alterations. As opposed to the fast-lived high that overtakes one after an encounter-group weekend or a week at a salon or a Zen retreat, these changes seemed to persist and expand as time went on."

"So, having set up my credentials as a bona-fide cynic, I’ll simply tell you that after having taken the est training, and having spent the last months immersed personally and professionally in the subject, I think that est has been one of the truly powerful experiences of my life."

"In 1985, est was discontinued and replaced by a program called The Forum, which is very similar to est."

"Est was known for its intensive workshops that promote communication skills and self-empowerment. The purpose of est was 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."

"It brought me a new kind of freedom. I was no longer plagued by nerves … I was buoyant, eager to do my programmes and very sure of myself. Even more important was the fact that I was no longer lonely."

"He [Steven Tipton] pointed out that the youth of the early 1960s rejected the traditional ethics of American society and tried drugs, sex, communes, sit-ins and be-ins, but finding them unrewarding turned to religion, in one or other of the three main forms. The first of these he described as 'born again' charismatic Christianity, which he examined in detail in his case study of the Living World Fellowship. Secondly, he examined the way of enlightenment in his study of the 'Pacific Zen Centre'. Finally his study of EST (Erhard Systems Training) provides an insight into the work of the human potential movement which aims at self realisation."

"Life works on a set of rules and you don’t have to believe them—another est motif. Just look at them. Get them. “Gravity doesn’t give a damn whether you believe in it or not.”"

"“In many ways the training was the most important cultural event after the human potential movement itself seemed exhausted…”"

"The seminar and organization have undergone numerous transformations and name changes through the years. Est was discontinued and replaced with The Forum, and in 1991, Werner Erhard and Associates (WE&A) was dissolved. In its place, Landmark Education was incorporated, with Erhard's brother, Harry Rosenberg, serving as CEO and overseeing the current seminar, which is called the Landmark Forum."

"Erhard Seminars Training ('est') was not founded until 1971, but as time progressed it gained one of the more devoted followings of the human potential groups (Tipton, 1982) Blending a brash, pragmatic self-help ideology with a mixture of psychic experience, self-awareness techniques and social concern, it 'trained' some 20,000 people during the first three years of its existence."

"“Over the years there have been negative stories, rumors, accusations of cultish behavior, disaffected employees and so on. The usual stuff we have come to expect. But there are also far more people in the world, by a long shot, who are among the million or so participants that attended Erhard’s training who were thrilled by the results they received. People had enormous and powerful changes occur for them in a very short time—it was a two-weekend course—and no naysayer could talk them out of the very real value they experienced in their lives as a result of participating in est, whether it was dramatic transformations in their relationships with their families, with their work and personal vision, or most important, with the recognition of who they truly were in the core of their beings."