WERNER ERHARD
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' Werner Hans Erhard '[2] (born 'John Paul Rosenberg') is a creator of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations[3] and is best known by the public for the programs he created named the “est Training†(1971 – 1983) and the “Forum†(1984 – 1991). Erhard’s programs were offered to the public successively by the following businesses: Erhard Seminars Training Inc. (1971 - 1975), est, an educational corporation (1975 - 1981), and Werner Erhard & Associates (1981 – 1991).
In 1991, Erhard sold his then-existing intellectual properties to Landmark Education, retired and left the United States.
Erhard, along with John Denver, Robert W. Fuller, and others, founded The Hunger Project in 1977.
Early life (1935-1971)
Jack Rosenberg graduated from Norristown High School, Norristown, Pennsylvania in June 1953, along with his future wife Patricia Fry.
Rosenberg married Patricia Fry on 26 September 1953
[4]
and they had four
[5]
children together. He was nick-named "Jack Frost" while selling cars in Philadelphia.
[6]
In 1960 Rosenberg left his first wife and family in Philadelphia and traveled west with a woman he met and married in Philadelphia, June Bryde. He changed his name to 'Werner Hans Erhard' and his new wife changed hers to Ellen Virginia Erhard. Erhard chose his name from ''Esquire'' magazine articles he read about then-West German economics minister Ludwig Erhard and the philosopher and physicist Werner Heisenberg.
[7]. The newly-renamed Erhards moved to St. Louis.
The next year, he sold correspondence courses in the Midwest, then drove to California to seek a better territory. He was assigned to Spokane, Washington.
[8]
After a few months, he took a job with Encyclopædia Britannica's "Great Books" program, and soon gained promotion to a position of area training manager. In January 1962 Erhard switched to the Parent's Magazine Cultural Institute, a child-development materials division of Parents Magazine[9]. In the late summer of 1962 he won promotion to the position of Territorial Manager for California, Nevada, and Arizona, and moved to San Francisco; and in the spring of 1963 to Los Angeles.[10]
In January, 1964, "Parents" promoted Erhard and transferred him to Arlington, Virginia as the Southeast Region Zone Manager. In August, 1964, Erhard resigned his position in Arlington over a dispute with the President of "Parents", returning to his previous position in San Francisco.
[11]
In 1967 Erhard was promoted to the position of Vice President of "Parents".
[12]
Early Influences
In California in the 1960s Erhard engaged in a wide variety of spiritual, New Age and transformative activities, including Zen Buddhism, Dianetics, Dale Carnegie courses, Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics, Fritz Perls' Gestalt therapy, Abraham Maslow's Transpersonal psychology, and Subud, among other psychological and spiritual methods.
Zen
In William Bartley's biography, ''Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est'' (1978), Erhard describes these explorations. Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging Zen as the essential contribution that "created the space for" est.
[13]
Bartley details Erhard's connections with Zen beginning with his extensive studies with Alan Watts in the mid 1960s.
[14]
Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging:
Of all the disciplines that I studied, practiced, learned, Zen was the essential one. It was not so much an influence on me, rather it created space. It allowed those things that were there to be there. It gave some form to my experience. And it built up in me the critical mass from which was kindled the experience that produced est.
[15]
Scientology
William Bartley, in his biography of Werner Erhard, said “When I asked Werner to sum up the differences between est and Scientology, he reflected for a moment.
The est training is quite different from Scientology practices and processes. The essential difference between est and Scientology is twofold. The first has to do with Scientology’s emphasis on survival and its idea that the purpose of life is survival. Est sees the purpose of life as wholeness or completion – truth – not survival..
The other main difference between est and Scientology lies in the treatment of knowing. Ron Hubbard seems to have no difficulty in codifying the truth and in urging people to believe it. But I suspect all codifications, particularly my own. In presenting my own ideas, I emphasize their epistemological context. I hold them as pointers to the truth, not as the truth itself.
I don’t think anyone ought to believe the ideas that we use in est. The est philosophy is not a belief system and most certainly ought not to be believed. In any case, even the truth, when believed, is a lie. You must experience the truth, not believe it.[16]
est: Erhard Seminars Training (1971 - 1981)
Erhard reported having had a revelation while driving across the Golden Gate Bridge on U.S. Route 101 in Marin County, California in 1971. He started to see the world as perfect "the way it is" and reported an insight that his attempts to change or modify either his physical circumstances or his mental outlook had their basis in a conception of the world (that it should differ from "the way it is") that precluded or at least limited one's experiential and creative appreciation of it. Erhard put together an intensive two–weekend course he called ''est''. He constructed the course in such a way as to attempt to bring its students into a conceptual place where they could experience a realization similar to his own Highway-101 revelation. This lengthy course (consisting sometimes of 18–hour days) became controversial and (to many people who went through the seminar) exciting.
Michael Zimmerman, Philosophy Professor at Tulane University:
He (Erhard) had no particular formal training in anything, but he understood things as well as anyone I’d ever seen. And I’ve been around a lot of smart people in academia. This is an extraordinary intellect I saw at work here, and a difficult personality.
Werner would be the first to admit that he learned a lot from other people. He has debts to other thinkers, to various religious traditions. When I teach my class on Heidegger, for example, I start out with referring to the influences on Heidegger’s thought: Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard – so many thinkers. So Werner, I think, has to be conceived in that way. He’s a kind of artist, a thinker, an inventor, who has big debts to others, borrowed from others, but then put the whole thing together in a way that no one else had ever done.[17]
Many est participants claimed to experience greatly increased vitality and better self-expression. A weekly program of seminars, each concerned with various aspects of life like integrity, self-expression, sex and intimacy, money, and commitment, etc. evolved. A more intensive six-day course originated as a communication workshop.
Werner Erhard and Associates (1981 - 1991) and the Forum
'Werner Erhard' conducts a seminar
In the 1980s Erhard worked with Fernando Flores
[18]
— philosopher, senator
[19]
of Chile and businessman — on aspects of language, setting up sets of practices which make a distinction between, on the one hand "speaking that describes being" with, on the other hand, "speaking that brings forth being". From 1982 to 1984 Erhard conducted a series of "Saturday Satellite Seminars" where he integrated into the est-training the work he had undertaken with Flores. These seminars culminated in Erhard's announcement in 1984 of the retirement of the est-training, after the participation of 750,000 "graduates", and its replacement by a new program called "the Forum", inaugurated in January 1985.
Erhard intended this new "work" to acquire more mainstream respectability and to appeal to business and management markets. What est had called "space" or the "space of being" now became "the domain of possibility" or the "possibility of being for human beings". Where part of est's "Day 4" had included a "three-circle talk" on "being, doing, and having", the Forum now featured three distinctions of the domains of "possibility, presence, and representation"
[20]
"In early 1991, he (Erhard) offered to sell the assets and liabilities of the company (Werner Erhard and Associates) to the employees and arrange for a license for the use of the technology he had developed."
[21] On February 1, 1991, the employees of WE&A purchased its assets, licensed the right to use its intellectual property, and assumed some of its liabilities,
[22] thus forming Landmark Education Corporation. Presentations that evolved from the Forum developed by Werner Erhard and Associates continue to take place today in major cities in the USA and worldwide as the "Landmark Forum" under the auspices of Landmark Education.
1991 - present
Since his retirement in 1991, Erhard has kept a low profile, except for a few public appearances. He has participated in some notable collaborations with various public figures. In recent years he has worked in the area of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland with author Peter Block.
[23]
On December 8, 1993, Erhard appeared on Larry King Live in an episode titled "Whatever Happened to Werner Erhard?" via satellite from Moscow in Russia. The show also ran clips from that earlier episode when it interviewed Scientology president Heber Jentzsch on December 20, 1983 (transcript)
[24].
Gonneke Spits accompanied Werner Erhard to a May 11, 2004 event at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, entitled "From Thought to Action: Growing Leaders in a Changing World". The event took place in honor of a longtime friend, Warren Bennis, who had taken Erhard Seminars Training and then consulted for Werner Erhard and Associates. Publicity at the event noted that Spits had "worked with Erhard for the past 40 years."
[25]
As of 2001, Erhard was reported to be living at least part time with Gonneke Spits in Georgetown, Cayman Islands[26][27] A 2002 book written by est graduates, ''Self Realization: The Est and Forum Phenomena in American Society'', states that: "He is married to his third wife, a former est trainer."
[28]
In 2006, Erhard appeared in the Robyn Symon documentary: ''Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard''
[29].
Awards and Acknowledgements
★ The Gandhi Humanitarian Award[30], 1988, Gandhi Memorial International Foundation.
★ "Humanitarian Of The Year", 2003, Youth At Risk, Roosevelt Hotel, New York City[31]. Erhard founded the Breakthrough Foundation, which later became Youth At Risk.
★ The website of Excellerated Business Schools (which offers "transformational, entrepreneurial education") lists "Werner Erhard" in the category of "Other Teachers, Masters and Mentors" on its "Acknowledgments" page.[32]
Controversies
Warren Bennis in ''Leaders, Strategies for Taking Charge'' said, “Werner Erhard’s popular est seminars received so much attention, it was inevitable that some of [the attention] would be vituperative and sometimes unfounded.â€
[33]
The Church of Scientology included "ERHARD, WERNER"
[34]
on a list of "suppressive persons" and "fair game" (enemies)
[35]
dating from 1973.[36] Erhard's brother Harry Rosenberg called in to ''Larry King Live'' when Scientology President Heber Jentzsch appeared on the show on December 20, 1993. During the call, as "3rd Caller", Rosenberg identified himself and alleged that Jentzsch had utilized the Church of Scientology to threaten Erhard[37]
In a highly critical book ''Outrageous Betrayal'', author Steven Pressman recounts how incest allegations were made against Werner Erhard on CBS television's ''60 Minutes'' program in March 1991.
[38]. However, due to false statements, the archive of this program was deleted by CBS legal.[39]
Erhard filed and then withdrew a lawsuit alleging "false, misleading and defamatory statements" on the part of CBS,
[40]
the allegations were recanted by their source
[41]
and CBS took the extraordinary action of locking up and deleting the program from its archives.
[42]
Art Schreiber of Landmark Education noted in a letter
[43]
of July 31 1998:
There have been allegations that Mr. Erhard was abusive to his family. However, those allegations were later recanted. I am enclosing a copy of the article in the July 16, 1992 edition of the San Jose Mercury News regarding the lawsuit brought by one of Mr. Erhard's daughters against a San Jose Mercury News reporter for fraudulently promising her payment as incentive for her to make such false allegation to the media.
Celeste Erhard claimed to have been tricked by the ''Mercury News'' reporter into "exaggerating spicy details about her father's life".
Further reports of recanted allegations include: “The Best of est?†by Charlotte Faltermayer, Time Magazine, March 16, 1998;[44]; and
“EST is back, More Popular Than Everâ€, abcnews.com, August 13, 2002;[45]
In 1992 the court ruled that The Forum had not caused any “Mental injuries†to Stephanie Ney; however a default judgement was entered for Werner Erhard who was ''in absentia'' (due to not having been served a subpoena to appear).
[46]
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found Erhard did not have grounds for changing a previous tax decision February 8, 1995, in the case '"Werner H. Erhard v. Commissioner Internal Revenue Service"'.
In September 1996 Werner Erhard received $200,000 from the United States IRS [47] for wrongful disclosure of false information.
Related Organizations
The Hunger Project (1977 - )
Along with John Denver and Oberlin College President Robert W. Fuller, Erhard co-founded The Hunger Project in 1977. The Project had the initial stated intention of making "The End of Starvation within 20 Years an 'Idea Whose Time Has Come.'" Erhard served on the Project's board from 1979 to 1990.
Landmark Education
In 1991 Landmark Education purchased the intellectual property of Werner Erhard. In 1998, Time Magazine ran an article [48] about Landmark Education and its historical connection to Werner Erhard. The article stated that: "In 1991, before he left the U.S., Erhard sold the 'technology' behind his seminars to his employees, who formed a new company called the Landmark Education Corp., with Erhard's brother Harry Rosenberg at the helm." Landmark Education states that its programs have as their basis ideas originally developed by Erhard, but that Erhard has no financial interest, ownership, or management role in Landmark Education.
[49]
In Stephanie Ney v. Landmark Education Corporation (1994),
[50]
the courts determined that Landmark Education Corporation did not have successor-liability to Werner Erhard & Associates, the corporation whose assets Landmark Education purchased.
According to Pressman in ''Outrageous Betrayal'': Landmark Education further agreed to pay Erhard a long-term licensing fee for the material used in the Forum and other courses. Werner Erhard stood to earn up to $15 million over the next eighteen years."
[51]
However, Arthur Schreiber's declaration of 3 May 2005 states: "Landmark Education has never paid Erhard under the license agreements (he assigned his rights to others)."
[52]
In 2001 the ''New York Magazine'', reported that Landmark Education's CEO Harry Rosenberg said that the company had bought outright Erhard's license and his rights to the business in Japan and Mexico.26 From time to time Erhard consults with Landmark Education,
[53]
but (according to a Landmark Education statement) he has no ownership or management interest in that company.
Timeline
★ 1971 — Erhard Seminars Training Inc, first est Training held in San Francisco, California
★ 1973 - The Foundation for the Realization of Man - incorporated as a non-profit foundation in California (subsequently the name of the foundation was changed to the est Foundation in 1976, and in 1981 the Werner Erhard Foundation)
★ 1975 – est, an educational corporation
★ 1981 - Werner Erhard and Associates
★ 1984 — WE&A replaces the est training with "The Forum"[54]
Documentaries
''The Century of the Self''
Werner Erhard appeared in the 2002 British documentary by Adam Curtis, ''The Century of the Self''. He appears in episode part 3 of 4
[55]. This segment of the video discusses the Est Training in great detail, and includes interviews with Est graduates John Denver, and Jerry Rubin.
''Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard''
In 2006, Erhard appeared alongside Landmark Forum Leader Laurel Scheaf (pictured) and Landmark Forum Leader Randy McNamara (pictured), in the Robyn Symon documentary: ''Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard''
[56].
Fictional depictions
★ ''Semi-Tough'' - satirical movie spoofing Erhard Seminars Training
Biographies
★ Werner Erhard The transformation of a man: The founding of est, , William Warren, Bartley, III, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., , ISBN 0-517-53502-5
Other Books
★ Self, Jane (1992) ''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''. Breakthru Publishing. ISBN 0-942540-23-9
★ Pressman, Steven (1993) ''Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile''. New York, New York, USA. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-09296-2
★ ''Raising Hell: How the Center for Investigative Reporting Gets the Story''. (Chapter on "Let Them Eat est.") Addison-Wesley, 1983.
★ ''The est Experience'', by James Kettle. Zebra Books, 1976.
★ ''est: The Movement and the Man'', by Pat R. Marks. Playboy Press 1976.
★ ''The Book of est'', by Luke Rhinehart. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976.
See also
★ Erhard Seminars Training
★ Werner Erhard and Associates
★ Scientology and Werner Erhard
★ The Hunger Project
★ Landmark Education
References
1. http://www.wernererhard.info/career.html
2. William Warren Bartley, ''Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man'': ''The Founding of EST'', Clarkson Potter, 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5, page 7
3. "Distilled Wisdom: Buddy, Can you Paradigm", ''Fortune Magazine'', May 15, 1995
4.
Pressman, Steven, ''Outrageous Betrayal: The dark journey of Werner Erhard from est to exile''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. ISBN 0-312-09296-2, page 4.
5.
Bartley, William Warren, ''Werner Erhard: the transformation of a man: the founding of est''. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5, p. 51
6.
Pressman, Steven, ''Outrageous Betrayal: The dark journey of Werner Erhard from est to exile''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. ISBN 0-312-09296-2, page 6.
7. Bartley, William Warren, ''Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man'': ''The Founding of EST'', Clarkson Potter, 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5 pages 57-58
8. Bartley, William Warren, ''Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man'': ''The Founding of EST'', Clarkson Potter, 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5 page 85
9. Bartley, William Warren, ''Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man'': ''The Founding of EST'', Clarkson Potter, 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5 page 112
10. Bartley, William Warren, ''Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man'': ''The Founding of EST'', Clarkson Potter, 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5 pages 82-106
11. Bartley, William Warren, ''Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man'': ''The Founding of EST'', Clarkson Potter, 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5 pages 107-114
12. Bartley, William Warren, ''Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man'': ''The Founding of EST'', Clarkson Potter, 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5 pages 117-138
13. Bartley, William Warren, Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5, p. 121, 146-7.
14. Bartley, William Warren, Werner Erhard: the transformation of a man: the founding of est. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5, p. 118
15.
Bartley, William Warren, Werner Erhard: the transformation of a man: the founding of est. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5, p. 121
16. Bartley, William Warren, Werner Erhard: the Transformation of a Man: the Founding of est. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978 pg 151 and 157
17. Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard, Documentary, 2006, on-line, Directed by Robyn Symon
18.
Fernando Flores, website, "biografia"
19.
Republica de Chile Senado, website, Senate of Chile, retrieved 9/14/2006
20.
See ''Industry Weekly'' June 15 1987 article (vol 233, no 6), "Create Breakthroughs in Performance by Changing the Conversation," by Perry Pascarella; among other sources forthcoming.
21. Harry Rosenberg, CEO, Landmark Education, quoted in ''Landmark Education Corporation: Selling a Paradigm Shift'', Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA, Karen Hopper and Mikelle Fisher Eastley, 9-898-081, p.3, Rev. April 22, 1998
22. ''Landmark Education Corporation: Selling a Paradigm Shift'', Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA, Karen Hopper and Mikelle Fisher Eastley, 9-898-081, p.1, Rev. April 22, 1998
23. [1]
24. [2]
25.
[3] "From Thought to Action: Growing Leaders in a Changing World". John F. Kennedy School of Government, May 11, 2004
26. Pay Money, Be Happy, ''New York Magazine'', Vanessa Grigoriadis, July 9, 2001.
27.
28. Self Realization: The Est and Forum Phenomena in American Society, , Espy M., Navarro,, Xlibris Corporation, , ISBN 1401042201
29.
Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard, Documentary, 2006, on-line, Directed by Robyn Symon
30.
V. J. Fedorschak, ''Shadow on the Path : Clearing the Psychological Blocks to Spiritual Development'', Hohm Press, October 1999, ISBN 0-934252-81-5
31.
Laurence Platt, Conversations For Transformation, November 11, 2003, Jackson, Mississippi.
32.
Excellerated Business Schools, [4], "Other Teachers, Masters and Mentors"
33. Warren Bennis, Leaders, Strategies for Taking Charge, page 68-69
34.
THE SCIENTOLGY ENEMIES LIST, F.A.C.T.Net, Inc., Golden, Colorado
35.
"Erhard in Exile Fearing Scientology", ''The Cult Observer'', Vol.11, No.7, 1994.
36. http://www.esatclear.ie/~dialogueireland/landmark/lifeafterest.html
37.
Harry Rosenberg on Larry King
38. Pressman, Steven, ''Outrageous Betrayal: The dark journey of Werner Erhard from est to exile''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. ISBN 0-312-09296-2.
39. The “60 Minutes†segment was filled with so many factual discrepancies that the transcript was made unavailable with this disclaimer: “This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons.â€
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200305/?read=article_snider
40.
Pressman, Steven, Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. ISBN 0-312-09296-2, pages 257-258.
41. “The Best of est?†by Charlotte Faltermayer, Time Magazine, March 16, 1998. http://www.time.com/time
42. "The “60 Minutes†segment was filled with so many factual discrepancies that the transcript was made unavailable with this disclaimer: 'This segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons.'"http://www.believermag.com/issues/200305/?read=article_snider
43.
Art Schreiber, letter, General Counsel and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Landmark Education, July 31, 1998, to Linda Chase
44. Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101980316-138763,00.html
45. http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91388&page=1.
46.
Pressman, Steven, ''Outrageous Betrayal: The dark journey of Werner Erhard from est to exile''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. ISBN 0-312-09296-2, page 262.
47. P.J. Huffstutter, ''Los Angeles Daily News'', September 12, 1996.
48. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101980316-138763,00.html
49.
Landmark Education, 'Corporate Website', Landmark Education, Media Q & A
50.
Stephanie Ney v. Landmark Education Corporation, 1994, Case Reference
51.
Pressman, Steven, ''Outrageous Betrayal: The dark journey of Werner Erhard from est to exile''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993. ISBN 0-312-09296-2, pages 253-255.
52.
Declaration filed 5 May 2005 at the US District Court of New Jersey, civil action 04-3022 (JCL), pp 3 and 4. retrieved 2006-11-15
53.
Landmark Education, website, archived, controversy, Landmark Education, website
54. http://www.wernererhard.info
55. [5]
56.
Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard, Documentary, 2006, [6], Directed by Robyn Symon
External links
★ Werner Erhard page at Working Minds website
★ Werner Erhard Biographical Website
★ Conversations For Transformation: Essays By Laurence Platt Inspired By The Ideas of Werner Erhard, And More - a friend of Werner Erhard sheds light on Werner's work.
★ Campaign Contributions, list of all political campaign contributions by Werner Erhard in the state of California, data provided by the Federal Election Commission, 2006-09-11.
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