From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
est (always in lower-case), or Erhard Seminars Training, was a controversial large group awareness training (LGAT) seminar program, widespread during the 1970s. est was founded by Werner Erhard (born Jack Rosenberg), who conducted the first est seminar in October 1971.
Approximately 700,000 people participated in the seminars in the history of est, including John Travolta, Cher, John Denver, Valerie Harper and several other celebrity figures. Some of the unique est word usage became an enduring part of the popular lexicon.
The organization metamorphosed — supporters say "transformed itself" — in 1980 - 1981 into "Werner Erhard and Associates", eventually becoming "Landmark Education" around 1991. Landmark still operates seminars today with content similar to that of est.
Erhard's ideological forebears are said to include Heidegger, Scientology — of which he was a member — Fernando Flores and Zen.
Responsibility assumption formed an important part of the est curriculum.
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 [1] gives a factual account and occasionally shows up in on-line sources.
Individual est-oriented web pages are ephemeral so are not listed here. A search for "werner erhard est" will turn up many of them.
Nature of est
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