[Oe List ...] FW: Landmark Education News

Mon Oct 4 01:45:39 CDT 2010

Dear colleagues

There was a rumour around, in the late 70s, that Werner Erhard (originally Jack Rosenberg) had done RS-I.  I found no reference to this in any of the books about est (Erhard Seminars Training, or Latin for "it is"?) or Werner Erhard that I came across at that time.  But he did do a lot of homework before setting up his organisation.

I took the est  training in late 1978 or early 1979, in Chicago.  The same things that impressed Beret and Ron impressed me.  Of course, at that time anything remotely psychological was O:E/EI/ICA heresy.

I did a followup course in Philadelphia in 1979-80, and another one in Adelaide in 1980-81.  They were disappointing, with very litle new content or processes.  They assumed that doing another course was the only "next step" that was OK, while successive courses just concentrated on doing more courses, and on recruiting people to the basic est  training.  The volunteer and paid assistants were very poor at participating in discussion or dialogue around the edges - they behaved like the "est-ies" of the various caricatures and sendups of them in the movies.  Very much "Join our movement - it's the best!" in style.

So: at least one good event, but a crap organisation.  [I remember an Anglican clergyman saying something similar about EI about 1973:  "Great ideas, great courses, but I don't think much of the organisation."]

Worth reading: Luke Rinehart's Book of Est, and Bill Bartley's book about Werner Erhard.  Nothing else I came across took "the work" seriously enough to do a thorough commentary and critique - most articles and books never got inside the est  mindset, and its interplay of Zen Buddhist thought, psychology, and the middle-class audience, to be worth much.  I was trying to write some papers on "the consciousness movement" at the time, before Peter Russell or Marilyn Ferguson achieved any prominence, and I came across so much sensationalist garbage in my research.  A colleague said recently: "All organisations and movements have their blind spots".

I have heard little about Landmark Education, as the organisation is now known.  The est Seminar  has been replaced by The Forum, and has a small (?) Australian presence.

In the 1980s, the library at the high school where I was teaching received a thick volume about global hunger, as thanks for letting someone speak to a lunchtime meeting about The Hunger Project, an endeavour set up by the est  organisation.  It covered a variety of approaches, including comprehensive community/human development.  And in one of the Project's newsletters I saw a mention of the ICA work in Maharashtra State, India; so there was some information transferred there - did Werner of somebody visit India?.  One of the Project's themes was "the possibility of eradicating hunger".  Now there are T-shirts and so on on this theme - if smallpox can be eradicated, why not hunger?  Etc.

Cheers

Frank Bremner

Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 22:17:07 -0500
To: oe at wedgeblade.net
From: beretgriffith at charter.net
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] FW: Landmark Education News

I don't think there was any connection between RS-1 and EST. Ron and I took the EST training in Chicago in 1976 or 1977. Marshall's take is on target. Ron and I both felt the EST training was a unique avenue to getting people to look at their lives rather than escaping from life. It was far more aggressive than any thing EI/ICA did with people and I think it was an avenue of transformation of many people. There were about three hundred people in the training we took. The trainers were outstanding. In any EST event I attended trainers used no notes, the set-up impeccable, and no excuses were accepted for anything. While at the EST training we became acquainted with an interesting couple. We brought them over the Kemper to see the ICA. They were more interested in getting us to go to additional programs than in the ICA. We did not keep up the connection with them. The EST enrollment tactics were high pressure. 

There is a film out on his life which I have seen. Enjoyed it. There is a site with his quotes.A sample: 

“Happiness is a function of accepting what is. Love is a function of communication. Health is a function of participation.  Self expression is a function of responsibility.”-Werner Erhard

I think Erhard is an interesting character. Here is a bit on him from  http://www.wernererhard.net/ 
For nearly 40 years Werner Erhard has been the creator of innovative ideas and models of individual, organizational, and social transformation.  His ideas and models have been the source of new perspectives for thinkers and practitioners in fields as diverse as business, education, philosophy, medicine, psychotherapy, third world development, conflict resolution, and community building.  He has created new ways of seeing things in areas where progress has stalled or where breakthroughs would make a significant difference.  A majority of the Fortune 100 companies and many foundations and governmental entities have used his ideas and models.  Fortune Magazine’s 40th anniversary issue (May 15, 1995), in examining the major contributions to management thinking, recognized Erhard’s ideas as one of the major innovations of the last few decades. 

While Werner Erhard may be best known to the general public for applications derived from his models including The est Training and The Forum of the 1970s and 1980s, currently Erhard commits his time and intellectual effort almost exclusively to the academic world.  Werner Erhard's recent research and writing, and lectures and courses can be found on his author page in the Social Sciences Research Network – http://ssrn.com/author=433651.  More than two million people around the world have participated in the public, corporate and academic programs and courses he has created.  Social scientist Daniel Yankelovich said of a study he conducted of participants of The Forum: “Several of the study’s findings surprised me quite a bit, especially the large number of participants for whom The Forum proved to be ‘one of the most valued experiences of my life’. This is not a sentiment that people, especially successful, well-educated people, express lightly.”  

Werner Erhard is largely self-educated, albeit with tutoring from some important thinkers of his time, Sir Karl Popper, Hilary Putnam, Michel Foucault, Humberto Maturana and Richard Feynman to name a few.  Professor of Philosophy, Michael E. Zimmerman said of Erhard “He had no particular formal training in anything, but he understood things as well as anyone I’d ever seen; and I’ve been around a lot of smart people in academia.  This is an extraordinary intellect I saw at work…”  In recognition of his humanitarian work around the world Werner Erhard was awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Humanitarian Award. 

There is a site with his more recent papers. I'm going to take a look.
Beret Griffith

At 06:41 PM 10/3/2010, you wrote:

I choked and gagged reflexively when I read that RS-1 in any way birthed Werner Erhard's EST. [pardon me while I throw up]. 
The only similarity I can think of might be the style of boxing people into a weekend format and forcing them to deal with something rather than escaping into their favorite avoidance patterns. 
Hmm, sound familiar?
Or maybe this one: "There ISN'T any Messiah..."
Marshall
And I don't think we made people hold it until they wet their panties--a famous Erhard tactic.

From: "slottaglobalnews at earthlink.net" <slottaglobalnews at earthlink.net>
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Sun, October 3, 2010 4:04:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] FW: Landmark Education News

I think Landmark Education is a spin-off from RSI through the work of Werner Erhard. Once called EST it became Landmark Forum and then Landmark Education. It is still recruited pretty much like RS-I.

On Oct 2, 2010, at 10:10 AM, KarenBueno at aol.com wrote:

That looks like a dynamite organization.  I wonder if they have plans to replicate it.

Karen Bueno

In a message dated 10/2/2010 8:29:53 A.M. Mountain Daylight Time, amnoel at comcast.net writes:

the following video that has impacted my family and 3 million lives

_______________________________________________
OE mailing list
OE at wedgeblade.net
http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
_______________________________________________
OE mailing list
OE at wedgeblade.net
http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net

_______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE at wedgeblade.net http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net 		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20101004/d6e0af8d/attachment-0001.html>