Talk:Erhard Seminars Training

Cultural Reference

In the first season of the TV series "Mork and Mindy" (ca. 1978), the episode "Mork Gets ERK" is clearly a parody of the (est) training. (A young David Letterman plays the trainer.) Perhaps someone should add a "Cultural References" section with this item in it. I'll leave it to the WP editors' community to decide if and how it should appear. 108.16.83.212 (talk) 22:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

I took the EST training in 1981.

Please guide me toward my next step. I want to learn more about my tribe and be able to give back.

Jonathan D. Moreno

There is a new book out by Jonathan D. Moreno called Impromptu Man that includes some material on the est training. I am looking through it for things to work into this article. MLKLewis (talk) 19:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I am working some material from this book into the article - it gives good overall historical perspective of the impact the est training had.--MLKLewis (talk) 00:46, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Merging Erhard Seminars Training (est) into the Landmark Education topic is a terrible idea

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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To merge with est what appears to be no more than just another seminar company would be to have the tail wag the dog. Although restricted mainly to large metropolitan areas, est was nevertheless a national phenomenon in the 1970s. It helped define for both the better and the worse the zeitgeist of that decade in particular. I have never heard of Landmark Education. Naturally Landmark Education bears resemblances to est. Christianity bears resemblances to Judaism, but that's not a reason to merge Christianity with Judaism. Erhard Seminars Training (est) should continue to stand alone as a topic.QuintBy (talk) 15:53, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, for the reasons given (especially: "est was nevertheless a national phenomenon in the 1970s"). DrSocPsych (talk) 22:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

The purpose of the proposed merger is to create something which does not at this point yet clearly exist, which is a clearly obvious main article, under whatever name, for the phenomenon of est/Landmark as a whole. It might be under the name Landmark, which is what I proposed, but that was just for the purposes of creating some sort of central article on the topic, and that final name could itself although be changed if indicated. But there does seem to be some sort of reason to provide a clear and obvious central article on the topic in general, which so far as I can tell the topic as a whole does not yet have. It has also been suggested that Landmark Forum become the topic of the central article. The final title is probably less of a primary concern than the establishment of a single central article on the topic as a whole under whatever name. John Carter (talk) 22:40, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no "phenomenon of est/Landmark as a whole". There was the E.S.T. product (est), and then the WE&A product (the Forum), and then the Landmark Education/Worldwide product (The Landmark Forum). These three things did not exist at the same time, they have different structures and intent, they have been received differently, they have different target audiences (apparently), and so forth. --Tgeairn (talk) 03:56, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

That is simply wrong. The est courses were still run for some time while the tweaked version of est that was entitled as The Forum (begun in 1983) was itself tweaked. After the Forum was formally announced, est was still the product until the seminar leaders were transitioned over to the new format. Erhard created and controlled both est and the "gentler" Forum format. The Forum in the same format as run under WE&A continued to be held by Transnational Education, using the same corporate leadership, corporate employees, seminar leaders, offices, equipment, client lists, volunteers, etc. used under WE&A (minus several assets Erhard retained and a very few people, including Erhard, that did not remain with the organization). Ownership of the intellectual property behind est/The Forum was retained by Erhard and only licensed to (not sold to as part of the deal) Transnational Education (later renamed to Landmark Education). Modifications occurred over time, as one would reasonably expect, not instantly–there was no time for anything new to be developed in the little over 2 weeks between Erhard's initial commitment to liquidate WE&A in mid-January 1991 and finalization of the deal later that month. Moreover, Landmark Education licensed the intellectual property behind the programs from Erhard. A couple of Landmark spokespeople have claimed that as of sometime around 2002, Landmark fully acquired the intellectual property rather than let their license to use the intellectual property expire, which underlines that est lived and lives on in Landmark's offerings, as reliable references actually do state. Sources also note that Landmark continued/continues to include in participation statistics the numbers of participants under est and The Forum as well as Landmark Forum and other programs—valid and reasonable if these are a continuum arising from Erhard's original est, but an egregious misrepresentation if it is held that these are not directly related. The story that Landmark created a substantially new coursework at its corporate inception, and that the company and products bear no inherent relation to est, WE&A, The Forum, etc. is a fictional rationalization. • Astynax ^talk 08:46, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree with Astynax here on the point that, if Landmark itself continues to count directly est-related statistics in its own statistics for the Landmark Forum or whatever, then we would be explicitly violating WP:OR to say that the company does not acknowledge the clear and self-admitted direct relationship, almost to the form of identity (barring slight changes, which most any product experiences over time) of the two groups. John Carter (talk) 15:33, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Where does Landmark count est statistics in their own? What are you basing that on? No one in this conversation is saying that Landmark does not acknowledge that they purchased intellectual property rights from WE&A, where did you get that from? --Tgeairn (talk) 22:28, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you have sources for any of this? So far in this (and other related conversations), no one has even mentioned "Transnational Education". When and how did that become Landmark? What spokespeople, to whom? I am again left with the impression that Astynax has access to extensive information about a company that he/she continues to promote as a religion. If all of that supposed information is indeed available in the sources, then an actual well-formed and well-sourced history would be valuable here. Most of what I have seen in what some editors are calling academic sources is not internally consistent, rife with errors, and generally consists of copy/pastes of other works (which are also errant at best). I understand that we are not here to interpret sources, but when they contradict one another so thoroughly, we should at least begin to question their reliability, right? --Tgeairn (talk) 22:36, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think any of that matters. Landmark should have its own article, because it exists currently and seems notable enough--apart from EST--to deserve to have an entry on Wikipedia. Even more so, EST needs its own article, because there are large numbers of people out there who remember hearing about EST in the 70s who may or may not have even heard of Landmark. DrSocPsych (talk) 20:43, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Is it est as "an organization" (which the article lead section currently states) or est as a variety of training seminars (the subject of the bulk of the article) that should have its own article? Erhard Seminars Training, Inc. never owned or developed the intellectual property and techniques upon which the est seminars (and later the Forum, Landmark Forum, and other licensed versions) were based. Certainly there is not enough information in the article to justify an article focused only on the company. It is also highly questionable whether there is enough information on the est seminars in its various licensed iterations to justify a standalone articles on each, given that many reliable sources point to the content as having the same core developed and refined by Erhard. • Astynax ^talk 23:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

@Tgeairn: I am somewhat confused by your statement that Astynax continues to promote Landmark as a religion. First, the use of the word "promote" is almost exclusively used in what would be considered a "positive" sense, and Landmark among others does not think of itself as a religion, so that description isn't necessarily "positive." Also, as I think can be seen, the Human potential movement which Landmark is generally a part of is counted as a new religious movement, whose name strongly implies "religious" nature but only implicitly, and in fact est is listed in the List of new religious movements I helped put together based on the articles contained in encyclopedic sources on NRMs I found. So there is in my eyes no real reason for really questioning est's inclusion as a NRM. In response to @DrSocPsych: if you have any sources available to help improve the article, or which might be useful in determining which article we should use as the primary article on this topic area, any input would be more than welcome. So far as I can tell, Landmark has pretty much said that they were initially using the est approach, although they have admitted to changing it subsequently (I'm not sure how much, or if they've ever specifically indicated in what ways). So it might be that something like Landmark Forum or some similar title might be the best main article for the topic of the seminars as a whole, with specific information on the various groups and companies related to it in articles on those topics. Maybe. This is a bit of an active controversy around here, and the topic area has recently been reviewed by ArbCom because of its contentiousness, but if you have any sources availableor other input which you think might be useful we would all welcome seeing them. John Carter (talk) 21:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

While Landmark's Forum may be an outgrowth of est, it is now a separate entity. Landmark has an identity in today's world, is an actual force in people's lives, currently, and deserves it's own Wikipedia article. Est is a part of history and is now defunct. It should have it's own Wikipedia article as an organization that had an impact on the culture in the '70's and '80's. On another point, I can see why Tgeairn wants to count the Human Potential Movement as a 'new religious movement," because some players in this movement are "spiritual" in some aspect of their beliefs. An individual involved in developing their potential might include a personal, spiritual awakening, but a greater spiritual awareness does not a Religion make, nor a "new religious movement." According to Wkipedia's article about the "Human Potential Movement," many contributors to the Human Potential Movement are not religious, but come from the fields of Psychology, Education, the Arts and culture. Notable contributors are Fritz Perls, Psychologist, Aldous Huxley, author, Viola Spolin, Theater innovator, Alan Watts, philosopher, Virginia Satir, educator, George Leonard and Michael Murphy, founders of Esalen, an educational retreat center. My point is, the "Human Potential Movement" is encompassing of all human endeavors that are aimed at increasing our capacity, as humans to be fully what we can be, when we are functioning at our highest capacity. Religion may be included in this effort, but not necessarily. Therefore, to force est or Landmark into the limiting category of a 'new religious movement" is short-sighted, impolitic and is based on a particular bias or opinion that is not founded in fact.RecoveringAddict (talk) 00:50, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

If I may be so blunt, I think the most shortsighted things I have seen here are (1) the claim that topics "deserve" articles, a determination which is based more on policy and guidelines than any sort of "right" to being covered, and (2) the rather obvious refusal to familiarize oneself with the topic of new religious movements in general, a topic which does and has had an article for some time, pre-eminently, of course, because the topic is one which has had several academic reference works dedicated to it, including those which were used in the construction of the List of new religious movements. There is also a rather obvious belief that categorization is "limiting", which is so far as I am aware rather contrary to policies and guidelines. There is nothing at Help:Category indicating that categories are in any way "limiting," just that they are a means of linking related articles. And, yes, a movement which has been specifically indicated as being a "new religious movement" can in the eyes of most independent observers be seen as being reasonably linked to that topic. John Carter (talk) 01:08, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

@RecoveringAddict:Just to clarify, I am not saying that Human Potential Movements are or should be treated as a New Religious Movements. It appears that others are arguing for that point of view, but I (and the reliable sources) do not find it. An example of the difference is visible at Talk:List_of_new_religious_movements#A_NRM_definition, where the definition favored by Barker is shown, followed by the definitions used by several other authors. There is also extensive discussion at Talk:List_of_new_religious_movements/Archive_2#Removing_Human_Potential_Movement_entry and the RfC that followed that conversation. Despite John Carter's comments above, there is little foundation for the idea that "the Human potential movement which Landmark is generally a part of is counted as a new religious movement".

@John Carter: Astynax's promotion appears obvious to me. Do you need diffs? They have been promoting and arguing for this idea across multiple articles and talk pages for months. I don't know whether that promotion is intended to be "positive" or not, I had not considered it. --Tgeairn (talk) 02:13, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

{e-c) Unfortunately, that is rather a separate and, date I say, irrelevant point, and, actually, irrelevant on two distinct points. First, this article is not about Landmark anything, but the Erhard Seminars Training subject. Please see the title at the top of the page. Also, please note that the entry in that list is in fact Erhard Seminars Training, not anything "Landmark." I would perhaps suggest, in light of the fact that discretionary sanctions on this topic have in fact already been authorized by the number of supports, even if they have not yet been implemented, that all individuals try to more closely and visibly adhere to the standard rules of conduct, including not engaging in prejudicial rephrasing of the statements of others. Honestly, the only thing that seems obvious to me is that you seem to have some difficulty in differentiating between this topic and Landmark. Also, please read the citation, #252, in the List of new religious movements, which cites several sources from several leading scholars which I think more than sufficiently establishes that est is in fact reasonably counted as a NRM. John Carter (talk) 02:16, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It is rather disingenuous to use the fact that I am discussing this article and the Landmark company to then say that I "seem to have some difficulty in differentiating between this topic and Landmark", when the thread topic is specifically about the idea of merging this article into the Landmark Education article. Of course I don't have any difficulty differentiating at all, and I have clearly argued that they are distinct for quite some time.--Tgeairn (talk) 02:28, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

And it is just as disingenous, if not more so, to ignore the fact that the article is not about Landmark. Please drop the stick, and try to deal with the topic of this section, which is a proposed merger of two articles, rather than continuing in indulging in rather obviously completely off-topic comments which are in no way related to the topic of this thread, which is a proposed merger, and is not in any way necessarily directly related to what seems to be your almost sole point of interest in this discussion, which, honestly, is so far as I can see completely unrelated to this article. John Carter (talk) 02:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree, this article is not about Landmark. Therefore, I am opposed to a merge of any kind. --Tgeairn (talk) 03:57, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

@ John Carter & Astynax: I asked above (at 22:36, 17 January) if you have any sources for the block of assertions made. That block begins with "That is simply wrong" and ends with "is a fictional rationalization." John Carter then adds a little as well. We have nothing in the article that even mentions "Transnational Education" or most of the rest of this. Please provide reliable sources for these statements.

I also asked above (at 22:28, 17 January) for sources for the assertion "Landmark count est statistics in their own". Please provide a reliable source for that. --Tgeairn (talk) 02:28, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Landmark's own site in 1999 claimed "Since its introduction in 1985, almost 500,000 people have participated in The Landmark Forum", in 2000 claimed "Since its introduction in 1985, almost 500,000 people have participated in The Landmark Forum", in 2001 claimed "Since its introduction in 1985, almost 600,000 people have participated in The Landmark Forum", in 2002 claimed "Since its introduction in 1985, almost 600,000 people have participated in The Landmark Forum", etc. As Landmark didn't do business under that name until mid-1991, they are claiming figures for earlier programs. You can follow those numbers right through the present. Nothing wrong with that, except that it doesn't support the fictions that Landmark invented something new and that the Landmark Forum is not a continuation of Erhard's est and Forum. Landmark spokespeople have on at least a couple of occasions acknowledged in some form that the basis for the Forum is in est and the techniques they licensed from Erhard; e.g., a paper co-authored by Steve Zaffron includes, "Werner Erhard (the founder of the training program from which the Landmark Forum developed)"; the New York Magazine article states ""Landmark says Erhard has no role in its business, although their courses are based on his 'technology'—the structure, style, and system of beliefs he used in est and later in the Forum"; etc. That Landmark Forum is a continuation of est and Erhard's Forum is nothing novel to anyone who has checked the sources, and multiple other references have been provided in the Landmark-related articles and talk pages over the years. I'm not sure how quoting sources warrants the "advocacy" charge, and I'm sure that has nothing to do with the discussion here. • Astynax ^talk 04:55, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

When I said (above) that Landmark "deserves" to have an entry on Wikipedia, or that EST "needs" its own article, I was speaking normally/colloquially and not with the kind of precision I would use for a journal article (or even a Wikipedia article); I simply meant that each article independently and for different reasons clears the policy bar for sufficient notability. DrSocPsych (talk) 19:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article Uses Phoney Name for EST-Founder

The article incorrectly calls the EST-Founder "Werner Erhard". That wasn't his name; it was his phoney self-designated name.

For the sake of honesty and accuracy, the article should indicate that "Werner Erhard" wasn't his original name, and should call him by his actual name, at least at one place in the article.

The article has the attributes of an EST promotion.

65.8.169.50 (talk) 14:25, 23 January 2015 (UTC)Michael Ossipoff

We know it isn't his birth name. However, that isn't the only indicator we use in determining how to identify things here. Our naming conventions are such that we use the most commonly recognizable name, and the name by which that individual is most regularly and consistently referred to, even in print reference sources, is Werner Erhard. The article Werner Erhard goes into more detail on that topic, which is basically appropriate because the question of his name is most relevant to the topic of himself. John Carter (talk) 19:25, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The name of the person who founded est was Werner Hans Erhard. The historical detail about Werner Erhard, that he changed his name from John Paul Rosenberg to Werner Erhard before he started est can be found in the article about Werner Erhard, which is a fact about the individual.RecoveringAddict (talk) 00:24, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:NPOV

Parts of this article sounds like endorsements taken from a brochure for the seminars. There is no indication that there are any criticisms of the est seminars nor references to the fact that est has been parodied a number of times in popular culture. The est seminars were among the first self-help group seminars that have become quite common today. Thus, it has been referenced and parodies frequently. The article needs work on Neutral_point_of_view#Explanation_of_the_neutral_point_of_view

In fact, the article EST and The Forum in popular culture does a better job of explaining the est seminars as an encyclopedia article should. For example, the Est and the Forum in popular culture article places the est seminars in context:

"est was a form of Large Group Awareness Training, and was part of the Human Potential Movement"

It describes the est seminars without as much heavy detail as this article and yet provides additional helpful detail:

"The program was very intensive: each day would contain 15–20 hours of instruction"

I added a link to the "Est and The Forum" article in the "See Also" section.

Although one of the books that is well known for an analysis & criticism of est is mentioned, there isn't really anything about the book or any other criticism in this article. The book is significant enough that there's an entire Wikipedia article about the book. I added a cross-reference to the article on the book. This is just a minimum indication of what else is out there. There maybe other articles in Wikipedia, and certainly other material outside of it. In a quick search I found one right away: http://skepdic.com/landmark.html

Several quotes from Jonathan Moreno's book that are complimentary of of est are included. I suspect there's more to Moreno's discussion of est than this praise. This article needs more work. Ileanadu (talk) 06:24, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

You are quite right. This is a biased article all the way through. With respect to the Est/Erhard/Landmark articles, the Wikipedia system is currently protecting COI editors and blocking neutral ones, so I fear it will take some time before somebody has found enough courage to clean up the mess. Theobald Tiger (talk) 10:41, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I have found this on other Wikipedia article pages also. In a number of cases (mostly "new religious movements" or similar groups) the article seems to be policed by adherents of the particular group, who very gradually delete or obscure almost all the criticism and pad it with material that sounds like it comes directly from the group's literature. I realize there is a structural problem with Wikipedia in this regard, but is there some mechanism at least to get neutral Wikipedia editors involved to try to maintain a more NPOV article? DrSocPsych (talk) 21:48, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree, but I don't think there is such a mysterious and beneficial mechanism. The best way forward is to agree upon a fixed set of reliable and notable sources that are, as such, not in doubt. Those sources should provide both the facts and the framework. But even that will be impracticable, I fear. Theobald Tiger (talk) 22:16, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Look for example at the opening sentence of Werner Erhard: "Werner Hans Erhard (...) is a critical thinker and author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations." Erhard is whatever you want, a visionary, a smart eclectic, a selfmade man, a skilfull user of mass-psychological techniques, a man with an entrepreneurial spirit, a charming personality, or what have you, but he is definitely not a 'critical thinker', and neither is he an 'author of models' if words still mean something sensible. The source is extremely poor, a newspaper interview with Leonard Susskind by a journalist who obviously hears the name Werner Erhard for the first time, and who is trying between brackets to summarize biographical information about Erhard to inform the ignorant reader: "(Erhard is a critical thinker who made his fortune with the New Age group, est, and is something of a “physics groupie”, presiding over meetings of some of the world’s greatest physicists.)" Perhaps we should rewrite the first sentence so that Erhard triumphantly emerges as a 'physics groupie'? Theobald Tiger (talk) 22:47, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

It seems that you didn't understand my question. If the most egregious violators of NPOV and Conflict of Interest can't be barred from editing certain articles, can we at least get some uninvolved and presumably neutral editors to join us in order to have more reasonable people editing a particular article instead of mostly adherents of the group in question? DrSocPsych (talk) 22:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)