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.
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
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.
Bm
A friend and his family became Estholes
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.
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.
I was a Rolfing model in college. Lying naked on a table and letting these idiots teach others how to painfully massage me supposedly to heal my inner pain. Right. I think it is all a total crock.
I had some reel to reel tapes at one time—may still have.
What helped me most was Rational Behavior Therapy as taught by Dr. Maxie C. Maultsby. I did read Albsert Ellis also.
Your son has already been brainwashed by Higher education to the point that he cannot even figure out what to do with himself. If you haven't helped him before, you can't now.
Five recommendations:
(1) Get a King James Bible. It costs $1 in Dollar Tree stores. Read the Gospel of John through, and read the Book of Proverbs, 1 chapter per day from now on, every day. Tell him to do the same.
(2) Throw out all your psychology and all your selfish-help books-they're all just timewasters.
(3) Learn these ABCs until it becomes a part of your life: (A) Actions arise from (B) beliefs, and they have (C) consequences. Nothing can help one better than to have the right beliefs.
(4) Tell him the United States Marine Corps, and serve out at least one hitch. You can't find a finer character-transformer outside of the Bible.
(5) Place him in God's hands and let go of him. Pray, and if you cannot, cry.
I was in SF years ago and was walking down the sidewalk and this beautiful gal walks up and asks if I would like to participate in life altering class. Thinking with my hormones I followed her up these stairs to a room with a few chairs. There were three or four other people sitting there so I sat and waited. So this guy comes in and writes EST on the black board and starts talking about crap I did not want to even understand so got up and started to walk out. This old oriental lady and two guys block my path saying I can’t leave. I’m six foot five and I said please step aside. She said you can’t leave, so grabbed one of the guys and threw him down the stairs and I said “ Oh Yeah”. The guy wasn’t hurt as I walked down and I asked “ what is this EST sh*t”. I later heard it was a brain washing center.
When all else fails,(and it will) you can always(literally)try the gospel of John, then the rest of the Bible. It may seem foolishness now or to some, but it is the word of eternal life.
I worked for a federal agency in the 70’s and 80’s which was very much into what was broadly called “organizational development” training. All of it was contracted and used transactional analysis concepts (see book “I’m OK-You’re OK) and self actualization methods to encourage teamwork and cooperation. I have seen this same framework used in both secular and religious settings (”Walk to Emmaus”). I would not say my participation in any of it was life-changing, but did admittedly give me the capacity for some introspection. But then again, I would say that time spent in quite isolated prayer/mediation/contemplation for me is just as productive as an intricately planned program of self-discovery.
The earliest iterations of this movement were laid at BU School of Social Research in the early 60s. A PhD grad of that program, Dr. B., ran a group for 3 years in the mid 60s at Crane graduate school in Tufts where I matriculated. The program was a break down build up group process that trained for group leadership. I learned to effectively control groups of people by encouraging them to pit themselves against each other. A typical session focused on one member with everyone in attack mode. I came out of this abhorring the skills I had developed and refused to ever put them to use.
My younger brother and his wife did and about all I can say is that they (brother and his wife) were intolerable to be around after that. They became very condescending and fooled themselves into believing that they knew things that they didn’t know.
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Two of my draftsmen attended EST, and it destroyed their lives through divorce and subsequent strife.
Didn’t do anything good for their work habits either. One of them began stuttering severly, and had to carry a note pad and pencil to communicate.
“Erhard” was just another self-hating american Jew, like the Democrat party is chock full of.
Most people that have their name changed are mentally ill, and Erhard was no exception.
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I remember John Denver was an est disciple. He never had a Top 10 hit again.