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

Mon Oct 4 18:28:24 CDT 2010

When one of our colleagues took the Landmark course here in Seattle, there
was a paper on Maliwada that they used for a follow up session.

Nancy

2010/10/3 frank bremner <fjbremner at hotmail.com>

>  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<http://www.masteryfoundation.org/peace/ireland/blockanderhard/>,
> 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 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortune_%28magazine%29> 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 <http://www.wernererhard.com/> may be best known to
> the general public for applications derived from his models including The
> est Training <http://erhardseminarstraining.com/> 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://www.ssrn.com/> –
> 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<http://www.danyankelovich.com/>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<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/>,
> Hilary Putnam <http://www.webalice.it/af_gazzola/putnam/home.htm>, Michel
> Foucault <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/>, Humberto Maturana<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humberto_Maturana>and Richard
> Feynman<http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-bio.html>to name a few.  Professor of Philosophy, Michael
> E. Zimmerman<http://www.colorado.edu/ArtsSciences/CHA/profiles/zimmerman.html>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
>
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