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60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard: How America's Top Rated Television Show Was Used in an Attempt to Destroy a Man Who Was Making A Difference

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In 1992 Jane Self's impeccable research told the sordid tale - so impossibly hard to fathom by those who love Werner and discover so much in his seminars - of how Werner's alleged abuse of his children, tax evasion, and brutal treatment of his staff was a complex premeditated plot by an ex-wife, disgruntled ex-employees, and the Church of Scientology to discredit Werner for reasons that even twelve years later are still unclear. What is clear, however, is that directly or indirectly as a result of the "assassination", Werner moved his primary residence away from the United States.

Today, over a decade after this book was written, the IRS has recanted it's charges against Werner (settling, instead by paying Werner $200,000 in damages), the daughter who originally made claims of abuse has publicly recanted, and the work Werner started and subsequently sold to Landmark Education Corporation thrives around the world, "Landmark Education" having now become a brand name almost as well known as "Xerox" says Time magazine.

Interestingly enough, the media chose to completely ignore this vindication of Werner's integrity. It is, indeed, a sorry reflection on all of us when a firestorm of publicity can erupt based on lies, conjecture, and salacious claims and can ruin a man's reputation. Yet when the truth emerges, no one in the media stands up to correct or to apologize for the damage caused.

The information in this book is now dated. However, it is must read reading for anyone interested in how the media can fan shreds of disinformation into cataclysmic proportions with devastating and sad results.

Werner erhard has received mostly bad press for a long time. In the early 1990's, he was hotly pursued and accused of illegalities and improprieties with the IRS, his family, the participants in his programs, and his employees. In Dr. Self's book, this is reviewed with the facts behind the hype. As we all know, it's much easier to trash someone's reputation than it is to defend it. This is a case study of how a small group of people working for and/or with the Church of Scientology methodically undercut the reputation of Werner Erhard. What is clearly underscored is that the members of the media were willing participants, probably because of the sale-ability of trashing an already controversial person. It also shows that significant money can get people to say almost anything. While I don't think Werner Erhard is any better (or worse) a person than the rest of us, he did stick his neck out to teach people the basics of living a transformed life. That kind of life involves thinking for onseself, and history shows us many people who promoted such ideas who met with hard times or assassination of both character and body. This is not a "positive piece" about Werner Erhard. It's a factual account with dates, times, names, and references of what happened. This book does a lot to set the record straight about a mountain of misinformation. It also sheds light on the process by which our national scandels take shape.

Anyone who reads this book will see that it was very well researched. Jane Self obviously did not enter the writing project with an ax to grind, but as someone wanting simply to uncover the truth. I benefitted greatly from doing the EST training in 1972 and was active in EST programs for many years, including being a guest seminar leader, and know first hand about the truth of many of her assertions.

I was delighted to see someone stand up to the--surprisingly spineless--60-Minute people, who had done a real hatchet job on Werner Erhard in that broadcast. As other reviewers have mentioned, all the seemingly damning allegations have subsequently been recanted.

I worked for Werner's wife Ellen in 1973, and was in close touch with Werner all during the 70's and 80's, and still consider him to be one of the best friends I ever had. I think he has a heart of gold, and his greatest desire is to love and empower people. I assert that he's done a better job of it than just about anyone anywhere.

Which is not to say he didn't make mistakes, maybe some major ones. So who hasn't?? I know for a fact that he put in 100+ hour weeks every week, putting out the most positive energy he could, once again, to empower the greatest number of people possible. I'd think it is fair to say that he's surely done his best to rectify past mistakes the best way he can...and has moved on. Like I would hope we all do. More power to you, my dearest of friends.

This book is well worth reading.

FYI, I just discovered there is a new movie out about Werner, and is available on DVD. It's called "Transformation, the life and legacy of Werner Erhard."

The book is well researched and collects plenty of hard to find information in one place. The narrative connects the dots in a way the leaves Erhard's reputation intact (using Erhard's meaning of reputation, relayed somewhere in the book), even as we watch his media image go from bad to terrible. This is an important contribution to the historical record. No matter how cynical one is about Erhard, he deserves to have a say in how the story of his own life gets told (even as he works to remain above the "soap opera" in his philosophical outlook).

'60 Minutes' got its chance. Now we get a low budget response by a journalist who is up front about her agenda.

I'm writing this in 2004, long after the events in this book transpired. Charlene Afermow, mentioned in the book as a member of the anti-Erhard camp (and one my trainers -- Walter Kaufmann and David Raymond enrolled me at Princeton in the late 1970s), is still with Landmark as I understand it (my friend Sara says she led her advanced course). That's interesting. How did that defamation lawsuit filed by Werner's lawyer in a Chicago court turn out? In the book, it's still pending, as was one of the tax court cases.

Again, regardless of one's opinion of Erhard, whether based on first hand knowledge, or a picture of human nature and gurudom in general, he is/was a pivotal figure in my life time. A lot of energy was expended by a lot of people around the programs and organizations he worked to establish, for better or for worse (my own opinion is for better).

I also wonder if Self (the author) has an overly limited view of the scope of the anti-Erhard camp. Sure, the Scientology organization was out to get him at many levels (not true of all scientologists), but perhaps he was considered a threat by others as well -- a global network, connections in the Soviet bloc, rubbing shoulders with policy makers, and in the 1980s, the overlap with Buckminster Fuller. I could see this making a lot of people uncomfortable, besides Church of Scientology execs.

It amazes me no end how hard the cultists of cultism work to try to bad-mouth the est Training & Werner Erhard and the new Landmark Education Forum, as in a few reviews below. I did the est Training in 1978 and have been using the technology of transformation in my life every day since, something the cultists cannot fathom. And that is so even when I'm not able to participate in Landmark courses, such as the multi-week seminars. I saw a redneck bigot give up his bigotry in a weekend during the CAP Course, and that was not even a covered topic -- the man moved from racial slurs to asking to hug the 250-pound black man that he had offended the day before.

I honor Werner Erhard and the est/Landmark technology because it happens to work quite well when applied to one's life. Didn't work for a reviewer below? Maybe because he needs a reason for his life not working... My life might be full of tribulation, but applying the Landmark technology turns things around every time.

I attended EST in the late 70's and found the CD brought back many memories on the process and enlightnenment gained while attending. I never knew what happened to Werner until watching this documentary. Werner may have been contraversial, but he and EST, helped me get more in touch with my inner self and become the person I am today. I've unknowingly incorporated much of what he instilled through the seminars, to be completely responsible for our own individual lives, and not be the victim of our circumstances.

Alan Wilkerson - Nov 2008

I did the est Training in 1982, and also the very first Forum held by Werner Erhard & Associates, in 1984. Over the following years, I ran hot & cold with enthusiasm for followup seminars by Werner Erhard, popularly known as the first of the self-help, New Age, Me-Generation Occidental gurus who founded two major weekend seminar programs, est, back in 1971, and its education-for-living descendant (some have said yuppification) known as The Forum. By 1992, I had dropped away from all Werner's work. Little did I know that it was shortly to be "Werner's" no longer, as it was in March of that year that "60 Minutes" - as author Jane Self accurately called it "America's Top Rated" expose-news show of the time - aired a program which, in 20 minutes, according to Ms Self, brought down a global career and sent its creator into what looks now to be permanent exile. Within that timeslot, Mr Erhard was accused of raping one of his daughters. This book counters the popular dismissal of Erhard - before and since that time - as an unaccredited but highly clever snake-oil vendor of pricey self-help programs. Ms Self does so on an almost strictly biographical level, exploring the man Erhard and his character, as well as those of his friends, family and allies - and also that of his enemies. Now, I would say that Ms Self comes down squarely on the pro-Erhard "side" - almost to the point of sounding like a Werner-groupie at times. Nevertheless: Only since having turned 50 or so, have I come to fully appreciate the value of Werner's work - and especially since the production last year of an extremely shallow "biographical" movie "TRANSFORMATION" by one Robyn Simon that totally misses the point of that Work - I have felt that Mr Erhard has been one of the most maligned celebrities in American popular culture. I say "maligned" because - and as the subtitle of Ms Self's book says - this was a man and a man's work that was indeed "making a difference". Incidentally, Werner coined, or at least put into popular currency, that phrase, long before it became corrupted, like so much of his work and language since, by corporate culture. Ms Simon's millimeter-deep DVD movie actually focusses on those now-cheapened, worn-out corporate cliches (including, God help us, "appropriate"), as examples of how Werner "made a difference". But Ms Self's little-known book does much to redeem damage done - by Ms Simon inadvertently; by many others, including "60 minutes", deliberately - to Mr Erhard, and, much more importantly, to his Work. (For much more on that Work itself, see the late William Bartley III's WERNER ERHARD: THE TRANSFORMATION OF A MAN, THE FOUNDING OF est. For a living instance of the closest thing an American citizen is likely to get of Mr Erhard's work, The Forum seminars are still being run in major cities, by his former staff, dba Landmark Education.)

This book attempts to shead light onto the life and downfall of a great man. A man that aimed and did make a big difference to thousands. Due to unfounded lies being spread for years by Scientology, he was forced to leave the country fearing for his life. A scary but factual account of the lenghts people will go to to cut down tall poppies and an enlightening insight into how easily the media manipulates our society.

If ever a truer book was ever written about Werner Erhard and Scientology this is it. The sad thing is Scientology's leadership succeeded in eliminating him as a competitor. The good thing is, he was planning to leave anyway. Jane Self is a writer with the courage to fully investigate a story and to leave no stone unturned. As someone who worked inside Werner Erhard's organization, and was around when the events of this book occurred, I attest to its accuracy and honesty. Why am I writing this anonymously? I don't want them coming after me like they went after Werner Erhard.

I never met Werner Erhard, but I assisted briefly at est's "Area Center" in New York in the 80s. I saw more open-hearted, committed people humiliated and verbally abused there in those few months than I have in all my years since. I was therefore stunned by Jane Self's breezy dismissal of the anger, sadness and sense of betrayal Werner's former employees have expressed.

A good part of Self's book focuses on Erhard's daughters recanting the claims of child sexual abuse they made on 60 Minutes. Self blames the daughter's drug use and Werner's ex-wife Ellen for poisoning the children's minds. Okay, so they recanted the stories. Fine. But what Self never asks is, "What was going on in that house that someone who was supposed to be one of the world's leading guides to enlightenment and integrity was raising a pack of drug-addicted liars?"

Late in the book, Self leaves us with Werner saying that he has "taken responsibility" for what happened within his family. Forgive me, but-- so what? Self wants us to see what happened to Werner as an enormous injustice. I want to know what happened to those children first. And if they lived every day what I experienced working briefly at the Area Center, I'm surprised they didn't do worse.

That said, the book DOES succeed in portraying the sinister side of Scientology, and for that reason it's worth reading.