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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Pedant17 (talk | contribs) at 02:14, 24 May 2010 (extra material on the allegations made on ''60 Minutes''). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Notice re Checkuser case

A checkuser case resulted in "confirm" on several users as sockpuppets of each other, that edited articles on closely related topics including Landmark Education, Werner Erhard, Landmark Education litigation, Scientology and Werner Erhard, Erhard Seminars Training, and Werner Erhard and Associates, among others. As a result, several of these users and sockpuppets of each other have been blocked. The checkuser case page is here: Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Eastbayway. Cirt (talk)

Removal of unrecanted allegations

On December 21, 2007, at 00:16 hours a Wikipedian removed material poin ting out that some allegations made against Werner Erhard in the 60 Minutes episode of March 3, 1991, remained unrecanted. This resulted in giving the impression that the entirety of the 60 Minutes documentary had no merit. We can redress the balance with clarified and expanded material like: Members (plural) of Erhard's family also alleged that Erhard beat his wife and children.<ref> http://wikileaks.org/leak/cbs-news-60mins-werner-erhard/cbs-news-60mins-werner-erhard-transcript.txt, cited in: {{cite web | url = http://boingboing.net/2009/08/31/suppressed-60-minute.html | title = Wikileaks re-publishes 60 Minutes piece on est/Landmark cult leader Werner Erhard | first = Xeni | last = Jardin | authorlink = Xeni Jardin | date = 2009-08-31 | work = [[Boing Boing]] | accessdate = 2010-01-07 | quote = Erhard is accused by family members of beating his wife and children, and raping a daughter, while still giving seminars on how to have relationships that work. }} </ref> When reporting recantation, neither Faltermeyer<ref> {{cite news | title = The Best Of Est? | author = | first = Charlotte | last = Faltermayer | url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101980316-138763,00.html | newspaper = [[Time (magazine) | Time]] | publisher = [[Time Inc.]] | issn = 0040-781X | date = 2001-06-24 | page = | accessdate = 2010-01-07 | quote = Then, after two decades and two divorces, the self-help messiah vanished amid [...] allegations of incest (which were later recanted). }} </ref> (despite the sweeping claim of Terry M. Giles that "an article from Time Magazine, March 1998, [...] clearly states that the allegations broadcast on 60 Minutes were in fact retracted and untrue"<ref> {{cite web | url = http://boingboing.net/2009/08/31/suppressed-60-minute.html | title = Wikileaks re-publishes 60 Minutes piece on est/Landmark cult leader Werner Erhard | first = Xeni | last = Jardin | authorlink = Xeni Jardin | date = 2009-08-31 | work = [[Boing Boing]] | accessdate = 2010-01-07 | quote = I am a lawyer and have represented Werner Erhard since 1990 [...] I am enclosing an article from Time Magazine, March 1998, which clearly states that the allegations broadcast on 60 Minutes were in fact retracted and untrue. }} (Jardin provides a link to http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101980316-138763,00.html as "the Time Magazine article referenced by Mr. Giles: 'The Best of est?,' By Charlotte Faltermayer, Sunday, Jun. 24, 2001.") </ref>) nor Libaw<ref> {{cite news | title = EST Is Back, More Popular Than Ever: Based on EST, the Landmark Forum Says It Can Help People Become Happier and More Productive | first = Oliver | last = Libaw | url = http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=91388 | work = [[ABC News]] | pages = 1–4 | publisher = [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]] | date= August 13, 2002 | accessdate = 2010-01-07 | quote = Erhard retreated into seclusion after [...] being accused of incest by his daughter. She later recanted her allegations of abuse }} </ref> report recantation of such allegations. -- Pedant17 (talk) 23:51, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Why should all un-recanted accusations be removed from the article? In general, certain accusations are historically important. In this particular case, the accusations by a child of sexual abuse by a parent, with a later recanting of the accusations have two important characteristics that make the recanting significantly questionable. First, a subset of accurate disclosures of parental sexual abuse are recanted by the victim. Second, the accused individual makes his living by using psychological techniques to alter the attitudes, perceptions and behaviors of the people around him. Generally, the episode where the subject's daughter made the accusation, and later recanted it is a significant issue in the subject's biography. It is important to include both the accusation and the recanting. --Tomdarch (talk) 17:29, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of Erhard work from bibliography

On December 21, 2007, at 00:19 hours a Wikipedian removed a bibliographic reference to work produced by Erhard, stating in the edit-summary "broken link - can't find any way to reference this publication". The link to http://www.xs4all.nl/~anco/mental/randr/werner.htm functions perfectly well as of 2010-02-19, and in combination with http://mysite.verizon.net/frautsch/quotes/erhard.txt and other (reliable) sources indicates that the cited work exists as a published text and that Landmark Education retains and defends the copyright thereto. We can readily restore/rework the removed material as a contribution to expressing the completeness of Erhard's written corpus, something like: === Works by Erhard === * {{cite book |last= Erhard |first= Werner |authorlink= Werner Erhard |title= If God Had Meant Man to Fly, He Would Have Given Him Wings; or: Up to Your Ass in Aphorisms |url= |origyear= |year= 1972 |publisher= [Privately published] |location= San Francisco <ref> {{cite web | url = http://www.xs4all.nl/~anco/mental/randr/werner.htm | title = A social net work of Mr. Erhard from namebase.org | work = www.xs4all.nl | accessdate = 2010-02-19 | quote = Erhard quotes including If God Had Meant Man to Fly, He Would Have Given Him Wings or: Up to Your Ass in Aphorisms by Werner Erhard - Copyright 1973 [...]Dear Ms. Chase: (snip) I also noticed that you have the Aphorisms book of Werner Erhard on your site. This is to inform you that this book is copyrighted and the copyright registration as well as the book are owned by Landmark Education. As a result, I request that you remove the book from your Site so as to eliminate further copyright violation.Sincerely, Art Schreiber General Counsel art.schreiber@landmarkeducation.net }} </ref><ref> {{cite book |first1= Jeffrey K. |last1= Zeig |author1-link= Jeffrey K. Zeig |first2= Stephen G. |last2=Gilligan |author2-link= Stephen Gilligan |title= Brief therapy: myths, methods, and metaphors |url= http://books.google.com/books?id=B2PNU6iuWSQC |accessdate= 2010-02-19 |year= 1990 |publisher= Psychology Press |location= |isbn= 9780876305775 |page= 89 |pages= 492 |quote= Erhard, W. (1972) ''If God Had Wanted You to Fly, He Would Have Given You Wings OR Up to Your Ass in Aphorisms''. San Francisco: Privately published. }} </ref> -- Pedant17 (talk) 02:11, 19 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV & Accuracy Tags

Since there still seems to be recent activity on this talkpage, is there someone here who could summarize the outstanding issues that have resulted in these two tags being on this article for so long? If no-one really remembers I will read through the archives and try figure it out, but I thought it might not hurt to ask.--BirgitteSB 21:26, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There have been many issues. The series of articles relating to this subject matter were dominated by a great deal of socks (at this point in time over 20 or so) for a significant amount of time, see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Eastbayway. -- Cirt (talk) 21:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Do you believe any NPOV or Accuracy disputes remain outstanding in the current version of the article?--BirgitteSB 22:22, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. 1) Accuracy: There are questionable spammy self-promotional and just generally Vanispamcruftisement-sources being used, some of which are also conflict of interest with the subject. 2) NPOV: There is the presence of spammy self-promotional language throughout the article, as well as the absence of a good deal of historical information on information critical of the subject, which has been heavily reported on in hundreds of independent reliable secondary sources. -- Cirt (talk) 22:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. (An apology: I just signed up for an account because of this article. I'm trying to learn the local culture and language, so the following will be, er, blunt.) This article screams of PR whitewashing and stands totally in contrast to essentially all other discussions of the subject. I know from personal experience that this article does not clearly address numerous questions that people will have in mind when they come to this page. For example, "If the subject returns to the US, will he face arrest or other legal action? If not, why has he not set foot in the US in years?" or "Did the subject take "classes" from or participate in Scientology as he was developing his product?" or "Did the subject's daughter accuse him publicly of sexually molesting her? What became of those public accusations?" As it stands, I clearly perceive the article as incomplete and biased. --Tomdarch (talk) 17:51, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Tom thank you for sharing your plans on this talk page. While I understand your thinking in this, I am afraid, as less familiar editor, you might run into a few problems unless you are extremely careful. Negative information about a living person (this includes people on death row, people who wind up on the news from because some took a cell phone video, as well as people like Walter Erhard) has a special policy calling for the highest scrutiny at Wikipedia:Biographies of Living Persons. Most Wikipedians just call this BLP, but many people misuse that acronym to refer to anything about living people, so I aviod it. The kind of information that you propose to work on will be more quickly dealt with and given greater erring on the side of removal attitude than almost any other kind of information found on Wikipedia. This is by design. The best way to avoid having your edits reverted is to talk about the sources you plan on using before you actually add any of this to the article. If you post a list of sources you have gathered at WP:RSN (a noticeboard about sourcing) and tell them you plan on using these sources for negative infomation about a living person, the people there will help identify any problems that may exist with the sources. Once you understand how they are evaluating those sources, you should be able to go forward and do it yourself in the future. When you have identified what sources are going to be acceptable, be certain to use citation templates with all the new information you add. You can find a guide for that at Wikipedia:Citing sources and futher help at Wikipedia:Help desk. It may turn out that some portion of information you hoped to add is not contained in any of the acceptable sources. This often happens because people forget that the goal is to write an encylopedic article rather than a news articles. Encylopedic articles are comprehensive summaries of what can be found in other reliable sources. If some hasn't reliably written about it elsewhere, it won't belong in an enclyopedic article. The last concern you might bump into is the one that brought you here: Neutrality. Part of neutrality is including all the applicable views of the subject, and I understand that you find a few to be missing right now. The other part of neutrality is weighting all of the views in a similar way to what is found amoung reliable sources. If some incident is only given a sentence or two in the five comprehensive sources plus the reports in daily papers the day it happen it would be inappropriate for half of the text of the article to be about that incident. That is an extreme example, but make sure you think about overall weight when addressing neutrality. Good luck with editing. And don't forget that main question that readers usually have about a biography is actually "Who the hell is Walter Erhard?" At least that was my first thought.--BirgitteSB 19:13, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the above assessment provided by Tomdarch (talk · contribs). Unfortunately due to the massive prior sockpuppetting that went on at this page, the article at present indeed does seem to be a whitewashing presentation of the subject matter. Tomdarch gives some great suggestions for additional things to include. -- Cirt (talk) 15:37, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you don't think I was disagreeing with Tom's assessment. Because I haven't read enough to form any kind of opinion about what this article should cover. I do think that writing about things that reflect negatively on a living person is like jumping into the deep end of the sharks tank for a novice editor. He will only succeed by seeking out lots of advice or through trial and error. And the latter method tends to be messy, dispiriting, and damaging to a novice editors reputation.--BirgitteSB 17:53, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was simply agreeing with the assessment of the article's current status, as given by Tomdarch (talk · contribs), with regard to the unfortunate whitewashing that has gone on in the past on this page. -- Cirt (talk) 03:33, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of discussion on allegations

On December 27, 2007, at 21:12 hours, a Wikipedian removed sourced discussion of publicly broadcast allegations made by Erhard's family, stating in the edit-summary "the statement is too vague to contribute anything here". Since the passage removed contributes to the understanding of the severity, extent and vehemence of the allegations and their consequences, lets restore and expand, as (say): Later, an August 2002, ''[[ABC News]]'' report referred to allegations by one of Erhard's daughters,<ref> {{cite news | title = EST is back, more popular than ever: Based on EST, the Landmark Forum says it can help people become happier and more productive | first = Oliver | last = Libaw | authorlink = | url = http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91388&page=3 | agency = | newspaper = ABC News | publisher = ABC News Internet Ventures | date = 2002-08-13 | page = 3 | accessdate = 2010-04-04 | quote = Erhard retreated into seclusion after a tax dispute with the IRS and being accused of incest by his daughter. She later recanted her allegations of abuse, [...] }} </ref> but failed to address allegations made by other persons, including another Erhard daughter.<ref> {{cite news | title = Re: Werner Erhard, "he beats his wife..his children, and rapes a daughter | url = http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?4,57625,57933 | newspaper = 60 Minutes | publisher = CBS | date = 1991-03-03 | accessdate = 2010-04-04 | quote = Deborah Rosenberg is one of Erhard's daughters, from his first marriage. Ms. Rosenberg told CBS that her father 'molested' her when she was sixteen. She also claimed that Erhard had abused her siblings with 'pornography all the way to rape.' [...] But Deborah Rosenberg told CBS that when she confronted her father about this claim he admitted, 'There had been sexual intercourse, and that it had been a nurturing experience for my sister. He said that "I did not rape her." ' When Deborah Rosenberg repeated what her father said to her sister she said that her response to his explanation was that 'it was not a nurturing experience for her. And she's had to have a lot of therapy about that' and it was not consensual. }} </ref> -- Pedant17 (talk) 01:58, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The first source seems fine to me, but the second is sourced a web forum and would not be appropriate for this kind of information. I don't see how we can expand this beyond the two facts given in the ABC articles without another source..--BirgitteSB 10:50, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How about using the Jane Self Book, which is actually...ahem... written on the subject? Mabye?
Both the Rick Ross site, and ABC news are unreliable, the ABC News show 60 minutes, actually retracted the statements about his tax evasion charges.
Best to actually CHECK THE PRIMARY SOURCES, instead of regurgitating secondary ones? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.167.15.50 (talk) 11:08, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That source fails WP:RS, it is essentially a promotional piece, with affiliations to Erhard from both the author and the publisher. -- Cirt (talk) 18:17, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Another source: we can quote who alleged what from the Wikileaks transcript accessible with comments and notes from Suppressed CBS News 60 Minutes on Landmark cult leader Werner Erhard, 3 Mar 1991. The transcript reads in part:

DAWN DAMAS

And he beats his wife, and he beats his children, and rapes a daughter [...] and then he goes and tells people how to have marvelous relationships. I'm sorry, that's what I have against Werner Erhard.

[...]

ED BRADLEY, VOICE-OVER

[...] Dawn Damas was the family's governess and is still a close friend. She says she saw Erhard assault his son St. John, or "sinjin" as he's called, when the boy was only twelve.

DAWN DAMAS

He started to ask St. John about school and started to notice St. John's grades, and got livid, and went over to Sinjin and started to slap him and hit him, and picked him up and threw him on the ground and started to kick him [...] in front of everybody and nobody moved, everyone was paralyzed.

[...]

ED BRADLEY, VOICE-OVER

[...] Erhard's daughter Adair says, she saw it.

ADAIR ERHARD

My dad took, he freaked out, he pushed him back on the chair, he fell over. At this point you know my brother was so petrified he actually peed in his pants. Um, you know he's down on the floor, he's kicking him, he's hitting him.

ED BRADLEY

Your father is kicking and hitting him?

ADAIR ERHARD

Mm, hm. You know, for a bad grade.

ED BRADLEY, VOICE-OVER

Sinjin, who is now twenty-three, didn't want to speak on camera, but he told us the beating did take place, and [...] that he wasn't the only family member to be a victim of Werner's abuse. His mother was too. [...] Erhard's daughter Adair recalls a time about thirteen years ago, when, at one of those meetings, he launched into a jealous rage toward his wife.

ADAIR ERHARD

He accused her of having an affair with this man, which was totally untrue. At one point someone picked up a statue and hit her over the head. Um, you know my dad constantly saying: "What aren't you saying, what aren't you saying?".

ED BRADLEY

And you saw your mom physically attacked, by your father and others?

ADAIR ERHARD

Mm, hmm. Yeah, he himself also got up and, while she was on the floor, and kicked her a number of times.

ED BRADLEY, VOICE-OVER

The assault on Ellen Erhard, her daughters say, went on for two nights. [...] Bob Larzelere is the one who choked Ellen Erhard.

DR. BOB LARZELERE

And finally he said: "Somebody's got to volunteer, to hurt Ellen, to punish her, and make her talk, and make her confess." And nobody did, until I thought, oh my god, this is an opportunity for me, finally, to get Werner's total approval. Now I can be a real soldier for him, now I can make him, proud of me, now I can get him to smile at me. Now I won't have to be afraid of him anymore. So I volunteered.

ED BRADLEY

Why did you choke her?

DR. BOB LARZELERE

To scare her into confessing. It's like, you know why do people torture other people, to get the truth.

ED BRADLEY

What did he say? Did he say: "Bob, you're going too far." ?

DR. BOB LARZELERE

No. No, he didn't. See he didn't stop. No. No, I was doing what he wanted me to do. He didn't try to stop. He didn't try to stop me I mean, at all.

[...]

ED BRADLEY, VOICE-OVER

Deborah Rosenberg is one of Erhard's daughters, from his first marriage. She's never spoken publicly about her father before, but she told us that her father sexually abused her.

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

I don't have a problem saying that it happened. I don't like describing, it. Um, but I don't have a problem admitting that he molested me.

ED BRADLEY

How old were you?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

I was sixteen.

ED BRADLEY

Has your father ever sexually abused any of your siblings?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

Yes. And it runs from, I don't know, maybe you want to call it pornography all the way to rape.

ED BRADLEY

Rape?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

Yes.

ED BRADLEY

What happened?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

Um, I wasn't there. But I believe my sister when she says that my father raped her.

ED BRADLEY

She told you what happened?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

Yes.

ED BRADLEY

And what did she say happened?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

She says that they were on a trip together, and um, they had come back after dinner and he had a very large suite and um, they were reading a magazine together and [...] you know I'd rather not go specifically into, you know the details, but, um, he forcibly had sexual intercourse with her.

ED BRADLEY

This is incest, you're [...]

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

Yes, I know that.

ED BRADLEY, VOICE-OVER

Deborah says her sister about eleven years ago while she was in her early twenties.

[...]

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

[...] What he did say when I confronted him about it was that there had been sexual intercourse, and that it had been a nurturing experience for my sister.

ED BRADLEY

He admitted it?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

He admitted that there was sexual intercourse, and that it was a nurturing experience. He said that "I did not rape her."

ED BRADLEY

You're very clear on this?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

Yes.

ED BRADLEY

So he's saying that she consented?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

Yes.

ED BRADLEY

Have you talked with her about this?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

Oh, yeah. Extensively.

ED BRADLEY

And [...]

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

It was not a nurturing experience for her. And she's had to have a lot of therapy about that.

ED BRADLEY

She didn't consent?

DEBORAH ROSENBERG

No she didn't.

Wikileaks provides a quotable secondary-source summary:

Release date August 27, 2009

Summary

The ZIP archive presents the video and transcript of an investigative report into "est" (Erhard Seminars Training) guru Werner Erhard by CBS News, originally broadcast on the program 60 Minutes on March 3, 1991.

Both, video and transcript, have been published at various points in time, but are not publically available anymore due to legal threats against publishers from Werner Erhard.

The material contains interviews with friends, business associates and family of Werner Erhard making serious claims against him. Erhard is accused by family members of beating his wife and children, and raping a daughter, while still giving seminars on how to have relationships that work. The story also includes interviews with two former staff members of Werner Erhard: Wendy Drucker (a senior manager) and Dr. Bob Larzelere (head of Erhard's counseling staff).

[...]

The material can be verified as the original CBS broadcast on 60 Minutes of March 3, 1991. The episode of 60 Minutes is Program # 2325. "Suppressed CBS News 60 Minutes on Landmark cult leader Werner Erhard, 3 Mar 1991". wikileaks.org. Wikileaks. 2009-08-27. Retrieved 2010-05-24.

-- Pedant17 (talk) 02:14, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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