Posted on 12/01/2016 5:57:49 PM PST by Steely Tom
Did anyone here at Free Republic ever attend Erhard Seminars Training, back in the 1970s? Did anyone know another person who did?
If so, do you have any observations to share about the experience? Did it have any lasting influence over you?
Was it just an exercise in groupthink? Erhard certainly seemed to think he was on to something.
@justlurking: Not strange to me! LOL. I had never heard of "EST" until seeing it on this show.
@Reily: I lived TQM while working for a DoD dept in the late '80s-early '90s. Yep... it was going to be Utopia...(no, REALLY, for real this time!)
Now Transcendental Meditation I got something out of.
The requirement for that was very low. You were supposed to meditate once a day for 15 minutes. Anybody can do that.
You could not quantify its benefits, but I think it was relaxing and allow you to get better restful sleep at night.
They said he swallowed a lot of anger. Along with a lot of pizzas!
(Jabs Harold Ramis in the ribs)
I wonder if there are many people who know what EST is.
I'm sure in 1981, many people would have gotten the joke.
In 2016, I'd wager pretty few.
Is there a place where people go for something like this on the coast of CA, north of Hurst Castle?
My sister and brother in law went to one of the spinoffs. It took 6 months before they finally shut up about it. It’s nothing more than interrogation techniques wrapped up in new age nonsense.
USG approved “voodoo”!
http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/nasas-new-mission-and-the-cult-of-management-155873900/
It spread everywhere through the government like an intestinal flu !
You wrote: “He’s having trouble figuring out how to proceed.”
There are myriad questions buried in that statement. I mean questions your son has. Ask him to write out all the questions he has on a piece of paper. Then the two of you should get together over coffee or a beer and discuss them one by one. Both you and he should offer possibilities for finding answers to the questions, and write them down. Then your son should do each possibility.
They are tremendously important questions. It is better to honestly and fearlessly face the real questions than to go looking for someone or something that promises a fix.
We all have the same questions. Help your son find his own answers by guiding him. Maybe he needs to read philosophy, maybe he needs to look at what the world’s religions have to say, and maybe he needs to Google his questions and see what develops.
But EST? He’ll get more enlightenment taking out the garbage.
Yes...and it was horribly abusive in its presentation....not unlike Scientology.
Waste of time, money, and sanity.
Don’t ever ever ever get involved
Erhard was an abusive SOB. Abused his wife and daughters. Quite a trail of destruction.
Very good! LOL! I'm inclined to agree.
He has good work experience, and has been asked to return to every job he's had as a teenager. Got a good raise when he came back to his job last summer, so I'm confident he's developing well in that department, which is a huge blessing.
Your strategy is a good one. Thanks for taking the time to articulate it.
I did something called Actualizations in the late 70’s when I lived in NYC. It was a cousin of est. I learned to see life in a different way that was very helpful at the time. I was in my mid-20’s.
Some of what I learned was similar to est..being responsible for me, making concious choices. A couple of things stood out that I’ve used a good deal. “Make real through action”. The other was a simple and by now well-known exercise of getting to do something rather than having to do it. We were to think of a boring or tedious task we had to do daily, then say to our partner “I HAVE to (I chose kitty litter) empty the kitty litter every day”. After repeating it aloud (with appropriate emotion!) we then said “I GET to empty the kitty litter every day”.
This seems a silly and insignificant little mind game, but it opened my eyes to the mental habits I’d developed and the dreary way I viewed many things.
Smoke and mirrors? Perhaps. But it was the start of my growing up inside.
When my son reached the stage that it sounds like your’s is in I remembered something else I learned. I stopped telling (preaching!)and started asking him questions...about anything, everything. It was quite useful. He began having to think his own thoughts, ideas instead of reacting to mine:)
The foundation of what he was getting at (and making a ton of money doing it which is kind of an eastern tradition) grows out of certain eastern insights which are (quotes on purpose) 'true.' But they are true in that they remove constructions which if the constructions are believed to be the truth, are false and rob you of life ... but the technology is not 'true' because it constructs a map of reality that is 'true.'
Very different effects on different people, so people have strong opinions.
If I give you Windex ... you can use it to clean your window ... and see more clearly.
Or, you can pour it into your eyes, blind yourself, and run around the rest of your life blaming Windex.
Is windex good? Is windex bad? EST is a set of ideas ... all they can do is communicate those ideas as best they can ... once you take them in, nobody can make you put them on either the window or your eyes ... and if you're not psychologically strong, clear and healthy, then YOU may not be able to control or know whether you put those ideas in the right place. I wouldn't do it if I wasn't psychologically healthy, strong, and intensely rational, also capable of being able to discard this or that, or say 'hey maybe they mean something else here, because the way I'm interpreting it, doesn't seem right, but maybe I'm just not seeing what they are saying, or maybe the guy communicating it just sucks at communicating it." Having seen it presented in a number of different ways, from different organizations ... sometimes it's effective, other times not as much. And maybe that had to do with me, my make up, or just what was going on.
It's roots are in the East, and therefore I would remind you of something the Buddha himself said ... "Do not follow me, do not believe me ... take what I say, and if you don't experience this for yourself as true, throw it out." Throwing it out doesn't mean you have to say 'It must be crap!' ... just that, it doesn't make your window clearer.
Are there charlatan's practicing it and following it both consciously and unconsciously? YOU BET! And they won't tell you who they are. Again, here, only you can know whom to trust.
Is it overpriced? Well, people regularly go out and spend 600 on a new set of tires. Would you spend that on yourself? But with a new set of tires, you know what you are getting. With this KIND of thing - maybe you don't. So, in life, there is risk.
A number of business grew out of EST based on the 'technology.' I don't know if they called it a 'technology' because they really thought of it that way, or because Eartheart and Hubbard were battling over copyright stuff, and therefore, they had to 'patent a viewpoint.'
I speak from knowing a few of the direct descendants of EST - I never did EST, but having become familiar with the descendants - and this is 20 years ago ... I knew many of the people who new EST very well. EST was a ... less gentle ... version of the ... more gentle ... descendants. But the message was and probably still is the same, unless it's been degraded as all ideas are as they go through generations.
If you decide to experience it, take full responsibility for yourself, and if you think it's bullshit, that's fine ... but maybe you also misinterpreted what the point is. The 'point' is actually an 'un-point.'
So I refer back to the Windex analogy (not a bad one! just pulled it out of my butt). EST is a tool. It is a viewpoint, not the truth, and if anyone presents it as the Truth, they are misusing or don't understand it. If I give you night vision goggles, it may allow you to see some new things, discern some new things. But 'night vision goggles' are not 'the Truth'. Nor even is what you see with them on. BUT! you might say "oh, that's why I always trip at night here, there is a rope across the path that I've never seen."
Not sure what your contemplating ... if you're the right kind of person, I highly recommend it, it's worth the money. If you're the wrong kind of person ... you'll probably have a negative experience. Windex is good if you use it on the window, not your eyes.
That's all kind of incomplete ... but hope it helps. Traditions out of the east strike westerners as a little weird - especially when they intersect with ways of conducting business and doing things in the West.
Finally - I guess it's worth noting that there are a bunch of people who hang around those things who are ... like Tom Cruise and Scientologists ... culty followers. The question isn't whether it's a cult. What makes a cult (what makes anything a cult) is NOT 'a strong set of viewpoints' ... or the fact that it attracts followers ... but your relationship to those viewpoints vis a vis your relationship to yourself. Also it's possible to be committed to a set of beliefs without being a follower ... I think you probably understand all that. Just that the fact that you'll see a lot of losers/followers/culty people around it ... is not a commentary of the value those night goggles can have in your life if you are dedicated to the capital T Truth. In this case, it's not there to GIVE you the truth, it's more there to get the dust out of your eyes, so you can see what already is and only what is, and not be confused by what isn't.
As much as I took much value along those lines from it ... I also had lived with a girl who participated in a descendant version of it. Maybe because her English was only 95% - it was good but still nuances could be lost - and anything in the philisophical/spiritual zone can be very nuanced ... she had an experience at the end of it, nothing all that dramatic, but a couple days later on the Train, had a complete out of body experience / sensory deprivation ... scared her deeply ... and she sought out a therapists help for it. This is possible because in some as it removes some ... hypnoses ... in your life ... some of those hypnoses may be foundational to your relationship to the world around you. That can be scary for some people. Her experience was not unlike some new Zen students ... who ... when only mostly experiencing what 'emptiness' is, suddenly fear they will fall through the floor.
We misperceive our maps of the world as being the actual world, which we never actually directly experience. So ... If you don't have a certain amount of trust, if those maps are shaken, and at the core of your being you've mistaken the maps for the actual - so much so that you believe the maps and concepts to be the actual reality, you may suddenly feel 'nothing is real, I might disappear, or fall through the floor'. People really do have those experiences.
If you're thinking of doing it - keep those things in mind, make a choice, whatever money you spend, so long as you don't get all culty ... is a tiny price to pay for what you may stand to gain in freedom in your life. (Even people who live in free countries ... are slaves to their minds ... and it's very difficult to be able to see where you are a slave ... without someone else's help ... this is the risk ... in part you have to open yourself up to things that could be dangerous ... but that's always the way in life. Just make sure you accept that. )
And feel free at any time, if you start, to say 'this isn't for me.' ... and leave. But I'd encourage you to stick it out if you're feeling challenged. Very unlikely anything bad will come of it ... maybe some psychological discomfort for a while.
If you DO get a lot from it ... keep in mind that nothing sticks without practice and repetition.
Waste of time, money, and sanity.
Don’t ever ever ever get involved
I was thinking more in terms of I check into it, then bring back what I learned to him.
Don't get the wrong idea, I'm inclined to look at it as you do. I'm aware of the connection between Erhard/Rosenberg and scientology, as well as with other aspects of the occult world. You shall know them by the fruit they bear is something I'm very much aware of.
But good advice though, and I appreciate it.
I was thinking of an internet project for myself, not of actually physically going through the process. At my age, I think I can get what I/he needs from a more abstract encounter.
It also might be worthless as an approach. I'm just questioning. Much good advice has been given on this thread.
What a wonderful place FR is.
Bm
A friend and his family became Estholes
Oh my, that's terrific advice! That's actionable immediately! Very good! Thanks so much.
Back when my son was a freshman in high school, and my daughter was in fifth or sixth grade, we were talking about life and growing up, and I said to my son "one of the ways you'll know you're becoming an adult is when you find that you enjoy doing the things you must do."
My daughter has repeated that back to me recently, and I didn't even know she was paying attention at the time.
That's kind of like your "I HAVE to..." vs. "I GET to..." habit.
I have attended one week-long session. I found it to be a hodge-podge of gestalt therapy, some zen concepts, a mixture of existential philosophy, and a sprinkle of new-age mumbo-jumbo thrown in to make it seem more mysterious. It was also a high-pressure sales job to promote additional "classes" that would ostensibly lead to even greater enlightenment.
While I say these things critically, I will also add that some people -- I would say most -- derived some benefit from the experience. It did force you to ask yourself probing questions and to confront some of the lies you tell yourself that you don't even realize you're telling.
But it was also scary in that the group leader could manipulate people into emotional corners and keep pressing them until they "broke." This was supposed to be seen as some kind of breakthrough, and it may have been cathartic, but it was certainly traumatic.
One lady simply blew up, started screaming at the presenter, and finally flung her chair away and stormed out of the hall. And nobody had done anything to her that I could see.
So it was a worthwhile experience if you want to push your personal psychic comfort zone and discover some things about yourself. But there's also a lot of claptrap and gibberish to sort through, which makes it a lot like cleaning out the stable hoping there's a pony under all the ... fertilizer.
So it can become a cult?
I noticed today that apparently Johnny Carson turned over his show one night to John Denver, who — while sitting at Mr. Carson's desk — spent the entire show interviewing Werner Erhard himself.
Thereby giving about $3M worth of free advertising to Erhard.
Scott Adam’s new one ‘How To Fail At Almost Everything But Still Win Big’ is a really good grounding in putting systems into place to make your life work well, too.
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