Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good book on its own merits, September 10, 2004
Mine is a review of the book and not of the "est" Training or the Landmark Forum, neither of which I have attended. Although written by pro-Erhard philosophy professor William Warren Bartlett III, now deceased, the book is not a whitewash of Werner Erhard's life. This is a biography which appears to deal fairly honestly both with the man's gifts and his flaws. The book is a study in the evolution of his thinking, and provides a wealth of information on the sources that Erhard drew on in creating the "est" training. The author traces Erhard's development, beginning with his fascination with Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" and the work of Dale Carnegie, which eventually led him to Maxwell Maltz's "psycho-cybernetics" and the work of psychologists Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. From there Erhard started to voraciously investigate anything he could get his hands on that related to human potential, including meeting and working with Alan Watts, learning about Zen Buddhism, checking out Ron Hubbard's dianetics and Silva Mind Control, and eventually becoming a trainer in Mind Dynamics. It was his dissatisfaction with the Mind Dynamics training that led Erhard to create the est seminars.
The author is also frank about Erhard's failings, including his tempestuous relationship with his mother, why he abandoned his young family, why a half-Jewish man adopted a German name, how he fled his former life, and how cheated on his second wife. While it is rather well known that Erhard began life as a used car salesman - as if that were any more significant than Einstein having been a postal clerk - what is not so well known is how Erhard began to succeed in business, especially at Parents magazine, and in particular how he began to apply the principles he had learned to his management activities. As a manager he attracted an extremely loyal following, many of whom followed him into the est organization. The author also draws the relationship between Erhard's two seminal experiences - a "peak" experience in 1963 and subsequently his experience of "true self" while on the way to work in 1970 - and how Erhard tried to make those experiences available to the trainees in his seminar. The author is frank in describing the training as a "siege of the mind," and how Erhard wanted to break down his student's mental constructs in order to give them the space to experience their own "true" selves.
My chief complaint with this book is that in places it is too abstruse, that it reads too much like a philosophy text book. Also, he spends a little more time than he should simply quoting Erhard from their conversations together. But the author, although impressed by Erhard's apparent genius, seems also to have a good handle on his limitations.
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24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Conversations For Transformation, September 17, 2004
You won't get transformed reading this book. The way you get transformed is by participating in Werner's programs and by speaking and listening transformation in face to face conversations with people. That is why, for the most part, Werner's work has never been widely distributed in books, films, video and audio tape, or other media. Transformation is not gotten that way. Transformation is being in conversations for transformation.
Having said that, this book is remarkable on two fronts.
In the first instance, this very human story of how Werner's life headed inexorably from birth toward that fateful moment out of time on the Golden Gate Bridge when he experienced transformation for the first time makes for riveting reading.
In the second instance, Bill Bartley has provided intersecting chapters giving the essence of the various disciplines Werner immersed himself in before he experienced transformation and then created the est training out of his own authentic experience of who he really is. Each one of these intersections alone is worth the price of the book itself. They are masterfully crafted gems, distilling the very essence of each discipline in very few words - a difficult task for most writers in this genre, yet one in which Bill Bartley succeeds brilliantly.
The book ends after the creation of the est training and does not cover subsequent iterations of Werner's work like the Landmark Forum.
The sense of transformation which pervades this book (which you will want to read again and again and again) is palpable to the point where if you have ever wondered what transformation is, in reading this book you will almost be able to taste it.
Read this book.
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24 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Man and the Conversation, October 9, 2000
"A human being is part of the whole called by us universe , a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty...We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive." -- Albert Einstein"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence." Werner Erhard is, like most great spirits, greatly misunderstood. Whether you adopt what seems to be the media's position ("He can't be for real, he must be a phony"), or what seems to be the position of satisfied graduates of est and/or the Forum ("He's as real as anyone could ever get"), or somewhere in between, you have to admit that he created something very powerful in the est training. Yes, opinions differ on the direction of that power. Since this work was published, Werner has been the object of what appears to be a Scientology-directed smear campaign, which resulted in allegations of family abuse and an IRS judgment, both of which have been overturned. The book was authored by William Warren Bartley III, an eminent philosopher whose achievements at the time of the book's publishing included the discovery of Wittgenstein's lost work of the 1920s, and the missing second volume of Lewis Carroll's work on symbolic logic. Although Dr. Bartley was already a thoroughly proven sleuth, it should also be noted that he had become involved with The est Foundation's work. I found the book to be fascinating. After having read all manner of slander and misrepresentation of est (and later Forum) events in the popular media, it was interesting to see the same history logged in an honest and detailed fashion, versus the 10-20 word summaries usually proferred, i.e., "Werner Erhard, whose real name is Jack Rosenberg, was a used-car salesman who got enlightened one day as he drove across the Bay Bridge." If you're interested in what happened over the twelve years represented by the above quote, read this book. WARNING: Even the most staunch anti-Erhard critics may well find themselves inured with Werner's beyond-honest approach to life. All of us make mistakes, but very few of us clean them up as powerfully as he did. This is not strictly an entertaining read; Bartley's chronological conversation is interspersed with philosophical examinations and comparisons between all of the dominant psychologies of the millenium. The good news is that reading the book could well improve your quality of life. I was inspired to deepen my relationship with my wife, my family, my friends and co-workers, in much the same way that est graduates are reported to do. Ironically, neither the book or the est training are available any more. Well, you might find the book in an auction or from one of Amazon's warehouse connections, but there is definitely nowhere on the planet to do the est training any more.
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