Customer Reviews

Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of EST

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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.

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.

"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.

It amazes me no end how hard the cultists of cultism 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 first read this book back in 1978 when I was able to purchase a copy while at est, training to be a guest seminar leader. I was shocked at the honesty, openness and candid way in which Werner's life was laid out. It showed me that it is possible to live your life in a way that you would not be ashamed to have it published for the world to see. The way he cleaned up all of the mischief of his younger years, and then used it to make a difference inspired me then, and it inspires me today. One of his mentors, Alan Watts, once called Werner a "rogue." This always induced a chuckle from Werner. Indeed he was, but this didn't stop him from making a positive difference to society and to millions of people. Werner often said he took the "low road" to enlightenment. He did everything wrong, as a way of learning what worked. As a fellow, "low-roader" I am inspired to continue my own growth, despite all of my mistakes in life. The late Mr. Bartley has created a document which will be invaluable when historians look back at the age of the transformation of humanity. We are living in the middle of it, an can't yet see the forest for the trees.

The earliest review below states that there is no place on the planet to do the est training. est technology and the right to deliver the trainings was sold to Landmark Education Corporation. They are in most major cities in the US, and around the world. They do a fine job. Not only will they let you go home and sleep on it after an introduction, they'll even give you your money back if you're not satisfied. I began the training in January of 2002, and find the organization to be one of the most ethical and effective I have ever come across.

As a lover of Biographies, this is one of my favorites. This book gives so much more than the telling of a life of a brilliant man. This book shares Werner Erhard's life, his indelible impact, as well as illustrating his scholarly approach to what it takes to be human, in what was then and still is now an ever changing world. Reading this book is more of an experience that reveals what there is to do for the future, as much as it is a retelling of the past. As a young boomer I learned things about the societal change that shaped who we are today and so much more about one of the true pioneers of our own development, Werner Erhard.

The Forum, the successor to the est training, is predicated upon ancient Greek drama, which began hundreds of years before Christianity ever started. Bartley with his philosophical background has understood this like no other Werner critic. In his book on Werner, he describes the room set up as early example of a Greek theater. The est trainer, now the Forum leader, directs the audience, known as the Chorus in a Greek play, into a discussion of reality and how we know what we know. When you visit an archeological excavation of a Greek theater, the seats made of stone are described as where the audience sat. Bartley rightly points out that these archeologists do not know where the chorus sat. The actors were on the stage, but the chorus was in the audience. In fact, the audience was the chorus and was directed into a new reality by the actors present. Aristotle referred to this process as a catharsis. Bartley's contribution to the understanding of est trainings and its successors is to explain that the processes involved including the room set up are as old as ancient Greek plays if not older.

The principal process conducted in the room during an est training is the transfer of knowledge from the trainer to the participant during a "share". In this case, a participant stands up and "shares" their experience and is directly only by the trainer. There is no audience voting or criticism. However, Bartley shows that this process that is strictly controlled in this environment is a direct example of the Socratic method. While law schools use the Socratic method as a major method to transfer knowledge, the est training transfers knowledge from the trainer to the participant in an emotional sense concerned with different points of view or "possibilities" as the Forum now examines in its own sessions.

While I read the Bartley book years ago and have taken both the est training and the Forum, I cannot forget the references to Greek Theater. We know very little about the ancient Greeks. We know that they had music, but we have no examples of their music. They also had a religion, and it was more than a collections of myths. It was an est training.

After participating in a wide variety of self development programs, including Landmark, my curiosity about the sources of the est training was immense. I knew very little about Werner Erhard, and expected this book to be a biography of his life, his 'enlightenment', and a story about the founding of est.

Instead, the biography and timeline were merely a context to describe Werner Erhard's evolution and personal transformation. The book goes into surprisingly fantastic detail about the various books, teachers, trainings and colleagues he consulted on his journey to discover his life's purpose, the sharing of truth and transformation, the side effect of which had people to living fulfilled lives.

From Dale Carnegie to Zen to Scientology, Werner Erhard candidly discusses how each influenced his path and ultimately the est training. Information I once assumed to be secret or inaccessible is openly displayed in this book. For those who have done the Landmark training, certain distinctions are referenced and one can even see how they were created. I found, personally, that the information in the book provided a much-appreciated context/framework to the programs and training I've experienced, unintentionally and indirectly summing them up and showing how they all fittogether. (The book was written long before Landmark came to be).

I did not expect the book to deliver at this level. I am really thrilled to have read it and will refer to it for a long time to come.

This is a great book about a person who history will show as making the most difference in this time to people being able to access joy, power and fulfilment - and amazing results. Much more interesting if you have done the Landmark Forum and want to know more about how it got created. Hard to say if you will appreciate it unless you do the course first.