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The Book of est
Recreates the highlights of the four days of Erhard Seminars Training, the explosively popular encounter program, presenting in fictional form the experiences of typical trainees. Bibliogs
271 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
46 people are currently reading
505 people want to read
About the author
Luke Rhinehart
31 books436 followersLuke Rhinehart was the pen name of the author George Cockcroft.
He was born in the United States, son of an engineer and a civil servant. He received a BA from Cornell University and an MA from Columbia University. Subsequently he received a PhD in psychology, also from Columbia. He married his wife, Ann, on June 30, 1956. He has three children.
After obtaining his PhD, he went into teaching. During his years as a university teacher he taught, among other things, courses in Zen and Western literature. He first floated the idea of living according to the casting of dice in a lecture. The reaction was reportedly of equal parts intrigue and disgust, and it was at this point he realized it could become a novel. Cockcroft began experimenting with dice a long time before writing The Dice Man, but this made progress on the novel rather slow.
In 1971, London-based publisher, Talmy Franklin, published The Dice Man, Cockcroft's first novel as Luke Rhinehart. Soon afterwards, Cockcroft was engaged in the creation of a dice center in New York City.
In 1975, he was involved in a round-the-world voyage in a large trimaran ketch. Later, he spent some time in a sailboat in the Mediterranean, where he taught English and from there moved to a former Sufi retreat on the edge of a lake in Canaan, New York.
On 1 August 2012, at the age of 80, Cockcroft arranged for his own death to be announced, as a joke.
Cockcroft passed away (for real) at the age of 87 on November 6. 2020.
He was born in the United States, son of an engineer and a civil servant. He received a BA from Cornell University and an MA from Columbia University. Subsequently he received a PhD in psychology, also from Columbia. He married his wife, Ann, on June 30, 1956. He has three children.
After obtaining his PhD, he went into teaching. During his years as a university teacher he taught, among other things, courses in Zen and Western literature. He first floated the idea of living according to the casting of dice in a lecture. The reaction was reportedly of equal parts intrigue and disgust, and it was at this point he realized it could become a novel. Cockcroft began experimenting with dice a long time before writing The Dice Man, but this made progress on the novel rather slow.
In 1971, London-based publisher, Talmy Franklin, published The Dice Man, Cockcroft's first novel as Luke Rhinehart. Soon afterwards, Cockcroft was engaged in the creation of a dice center in New York City.
In 1975, he was involved in a round-the-world voyage in a large trimaran ketch. Later, he spent some time in a sailboat in the Mediterranean, where he taught English and from there moved to a former Sufi retreat on the edge of a lake in Canaan, New York.
On 1 August 2012, at the age of 80, Cockcroft arranged for his own death to be announced, as a joke.
Cockcroft passed away (for real) at the age of 87 on November 6. 2020.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
October 4, 2019
The Prosperity Gospel for Graduates
The original edition of this book was published in 1976. My copy is from 2010. That’s quite a run in print. It claims, perhaps accurately, to be the greatest self-help book of all time. Of course it also admits that everything in it is a lie. Could it be both? If a Cretan says all Cretans are liars, is he credible? If this sounds to you like it might be a parody of what it’s promoting, you’re perceptive, but wrong. It just isn’t possible to parody either Donald Trump or est.
Werner Erhard, the creator of Erhard Seminar Training, was a genius who gave practical and popular voice to the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger with some Zen and Jungian spice thrown in. Or he was the most successful California cult leader and spiritual huckster to make it out alive. Each description is only words after all. Choose your poison.
‘Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.’ This is the essential message of est. Words mean what we want them to mean. And if we let them mean things which drive us crazy, we will be crazy. Or maybe not; maybe words are everything. So we must be very careful in the words we use, especially all the neo-logisms we learn in est-training: “ground of being,” “clearing space,” “truth-processes,” to “experience out,” “rackets” etc.
Words get in the way of our “authentic being.” They’ve been used by our parents, and teachers, and bosses, our culture to browbeat us into submission. Words and their oppressive connections are our enemies. We can only overcome this status of slavery to words and the devastation they wreak on our lives through... well, through more words, specifically those approved by Erhard.
Ideas and beliefs, that is to say words, destroy experience. They hide the real world and what’s going on in it. On the other hand that might sound remarkably like a belief. So it must be wrong... no right... no wrong.
Reason is the realm of non-experience, and therefore of deception. To think is to engage in deception. So stop thinking. Now there’s a thought to ponder.
“Fully experienced experience” involves forgetting everything you’ve ever learned about life from other people. Including this lesson about fully experienced experience? Didn’t we say at the beginning it’s all a lie!
Knowing how to do something is not the key to doing anything. Words are inadequate to describe how to do anything. Doing something is the key to knowing how to do anything. Like, say, reading is the key to how to read? Well bad example. But that’s only because it has to do with those horrid words again.
Individual experience is the only reality. Since we can alter our own experience, we are solely responsible for that experience. We can create our own reality. It’s vitally important to remember that next time you get mugged. The mugging - every misfortune actually - is down to you, pal. If only my toothache would cooperate.
Just in case you’re confused: reading does not constitute any sort of experience. At best reading is a substitute for experience that you probably should learn to do without since it just inhibits the real thing. Funny how there are no blurb-quotes suggesting I give this book a miss.
Oh, and remember that bit about being responsible for your own experience? Well don’t take that too seriously because what you are really is an input/output machine that just... well, experiences whatever it experiences. You are not the Doer but the Done To. And also, by the way, you’re God. But your only power is to recognise you’re a machine. So now “get off it.”
And since you’re a machine, the only reason you have for doing anything is because you did it. Look no further for motivation, you’ll only rationalize the situation and drive yourself mad. Understanding any of this, or nothing, is just fine. “You get what you get.”
Est training goes on and on like this until you ‘get it’ or you leave. Whether profound or vacuous, during its heyday est was spread like a computer virus or chain letter. Part of the training was to entice new trainees as well as to enroll in more advanced trainings. This would of course not only expand one’s est-ed friends but also validate one’s previous brutal and expensive training experience - a stroke of sales and organizational genius comparable to any religious movement. Not something one might expect from a used car salesman and graduate of Dale Carnegie seminars, Erhard’s previous achievements; but talent does eventually show itself. And the man certainly has talent of a unique sort.
I have never engaged in est training. But at several points in my life I have been more or less surrounded by folk who have, several of whom were very senior in Erhard’s organization and who spent a good portion of their lives volunteering with almost no compensation to the mission of the programme. They attest to the techniques and effects that Rhinehart describes so vividly. Mostly these folk were educated idealists who did find something they felt they desperately needed through their est experience. Whatever they got, it wasn’t money. Erhard got that and with it buggered off to Central America to avoid prosecution on charges (subsequently dropped) of sexual abuse of his daughters. The programme then transformed into something called the Landmark Forum which in a somewhat less brutal tone continues to provide help and succor to seekers-in-need.
Ultimately, however, all the est-believers I knew seem to have departed from the precepts of their training as if from a worn out religious faith of their youth. It worked for them, until it didn’t. The abrupt departure of the prophet-in-chief may have played a part. But perhaps the magic stops working at the point when the contradictions expressed through est are either fully assimilated or become unbearable. Est is a sort of radical Romanticism, Kabbalah with jackboots, Derridan deconstruction without the intellectual foreplay, a Wittgensteinian language game in which there are no winners, or Marine boot camp with fewer push-ups. Or perhaps it’s just an innocuous middle-class hobby. No matter how it’s considered, I think we’re all better off with some good fiction. It’s more satisfying and much cheaper.
Postscript: Here is a clip from the film Semi-Tough which appears to be taken directly from the text of Rhinehart’s book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5XYN...
The original edition of this book was published in 1976. My copy is from 2010. That’s quite a run in print. It claims, perhaps accurately, to be the greatest self-help book of all time. Of course it also admits that everything in it is a lie. Could it be both? If a Cretan says all Cretans are liars, is he credible? If this sounds to you like it might be a parody of what it’s promoting, you’re perceptive, but wrong. It just isn’t possible to parody either Donald Trump or est.
Werner Erhard, the creator of Erhard Seminar Training, was a genius who gave practical and popular voice to the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger with some Zen and Jungian spice thrown in. Or he was the most successful California cult leader and spiritual huckster to make it out alive. Each description is only words after all. Choose your poison.
‘Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.’ This is the essential message of est. Words mean what we want them to mean. And if we let them mean things which drive us crazy, we will be crazy. Or maybe not; maybe words are everything. So we must be very careful in the words we use, especially all the neo-logisms we learn in est-training: “ground of being,” “clearing space,” “truth-processes,” to “experience out,” “rackets” etc.
Words get in the way of our “authentic being.” They’ve been used by our parents, and teachers, and bosses, our culture to browbeat us into submission. Words and their oppressive connections are our enemies. We can only overcome this status of slavery to words and the devastation they wreak on our lives through... well, through more words, specifically those approved by Erhard.
Ideas and beliefs, that is to say words, destroy experience. They hide the real world and what’s going on in it. On the other hand that might sound remarkably like a belief. So it must be wrong... no right... no wrong.
Reason is the realm of non-experience, and therefore of deception. To think is to engage in deception. So stop thinking. Now there’s a thought to ponder.
“Fully experienced experience” involves forgetting everything you’ve ever learned about life from other people. Including this lesson about fully experienced experience? Didn’t we say at the beginning it’s all a lie!
Knowing how to do something is not the key to doing anything. Words are inadequate to describe how to do anything. Doing something is the key to knowing how to do anything. Like, say, reading is the key to how to read? Well bad example. But that’s only because it has to do with those horrid words again.
Individual experience is the only reality. Since we can alter our own experience, we are solely responsible for that experience. We can create our own reality. It’s vitally important to remember that next time you get mugged. The mugging - every misfortune actually - is down to you, pal. If only my toothache would cooperate.
Just in case you’re confused: reading does not constitute any sort of experience. At best reading is a substitute for experience that you probably should learn to do without since it just inhibits the real thing. Funny how there are no blurb-quotes suggesting I give this book a miss.
Oh, and remember that bit about being responsible for your own experience? Well don’t take that too seriously because what you are really is an input/output machine that just... well, experiences whatever it experiences. You are not the Doer but the Done To. And also, by the way, you’re God. But your only power is to recognise you’re a machine. So now “get off it.”
And since you’re a machine, the only reason you have for doing anything is because you did it. Look no further for motivation, you’ll only rationalize the situation and drive yourself mad. Understanding any of this, or nothing, is just fine. “You get what you get.”
Est training goes on and on like this until you ‘get it’ or you leave. Whether profound or vacuous, during its heyday est was spread like a computer virus or chain letter. Part of the training was to entice new trainees as well as to enroll in more advanced trainings. This would of course not only expand one’s est-ed friends but also validate one’s previous brutal and expensive training experience - a stroke of sales and organizational genius comparable to any religious movement. Not something one might expect from a used car salesman and graduate of Dale Carnegie seminars, Erhard’s previous achievements; but talent does eventually show itself. And the man certainly has talent of a unique sort.
I have never engaged in est training. But at several points in my life I have been more or less surrounded by folk who have, several of whom were very senior in Erhard’s organization and who spent a good portion of their lives volunteering with almost no compensation to the mission of the programme. They attest to the techniques and effects that Rhinehart describes so vividly. Mostly these folk were educated idealists who did find something they felt they desperately needed through their est experience. Whatever they got, it wasn’t money. Erhard got that and with it buggered off to Central America to avoid prosecution on charges (subsequently dropped) of sexual abuse of his daughters. The programme then transformed into something called the Landmark Forum which in a somewhat less brutal tone continues to provide help and succor to seekers-in-need.
Ultimately, however, all the est-believers I knew seem to have departed from the precepts of their training as if from a worn out religious faith of their youth. It worked for them, until it didn’t. The abrupt departure of the prophet-in-chief may have played a part. But perhaps the magic stops working at the point when the contradictions expressed through est are either fully assimilated or become unbearable. Est is a sort of radical Romanticism, Kabbalah with jackboots, Derridan deconstruction without the intellectual foreplay, a Wittgensteinian language game in which there are no winners, or Marine boot camp with fewer push-ups. Or perhaps it’s just an innocuous middle-class hobby. No matter how it’s considered, I think we’re all better off with some good fiction. It’s more satisfying and much cheaper.
Postscript: Here is a clip from the film Semi-Tough which appears to be taken directly from the text of Rhinehart’s book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5XYN...
July 8, 2017
The book brings the reader behind the scenes of the controversial Erhard Seminars Training (EST) offered in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The seminars were notoriously draining—physically and emotionally. Rigid rules, few meals and bio breaks over a dozen or more hours were key elements of the EST programming. Couple that with the “in your face," Socratic method-like approach of the instructors and we’re talking a full-fledged boot camp experience.
Why would anyone put themselves through this? The promise of life-changing transformation. EST training was known for freeing people from their past—a past that bound them to ineffective thoughts, behaviors, and actions, and prevented them from living their best life.
The Book of EST is an absolutely exhausting read. Kudos to Luke Rhinehart for re-creating the EST experience so effectively and powerfully. I held my breath or clenched my jaw through most of it, empathizing with every participant’s personal hell in that hotel room.
There is tremendous wisdom to be gained (experienced) by reading this book, including:
- We alone are responsible for our lives
- When we get out of our mind, release “old tapes” and prevent knee-jerk reactions, we can truly experience each new moment as just that—fresh and new
- By staying with difficult emotions, we move through them and release them once and for all
- There’s no good way around it: accept “what is.” Then move forward.
- The mind is merely a “linear arrangement of multisensory total records of successive moments of now” and that its purposes is survival. It works to justify its point of view, conclusions, and decisions—the helpful and the harmful.
The Book of EST is a wonderful choice for those who want a swift, hard-hitting approach to fuel fresh insight and spark personal transformation. For those who do better with more subtlety, study Eastern religions or metaphysics, start a daily meditation practice, and/or pick up any of the writings or books by folks like Pema Chodron, Emmet Fox, Byron Katie, Mike Dooley or most anything published by Hay House or Sounds True. All paths will lead to the same end point: transformation.
Why would anyone put themselves through this? The promise of life-changing transformation. EST training was known for freeing people from their past—a past that bound them to ineffective thoughts, behaviors, and actions, and prevented them from living their best life.
The Book of EST is an absolutely exhausting read. Kudos to Luke Rhinehart for re-creating the EST experience so effectively and powerfully. I held my breath or clenched my jaw through most of it, empathizing with every participant’s personal hell in that hotel room.
There is tremendous wisdom to be gained (experienced) by reading this book, including:
- We alone are responsible for our lives
- When we get out of our mind, release “old tapes” and prevent knee-jerk reactions, we can truly experience each new moment as just that—fresh and new
- By staying with difficult emotions, we move through them and release them once and for all
- There’s no good way around it: accept “what is.” Then move forward.
- The mind is merely a “linear arrangement of multisensory total records of successive moments of now” and that its purposes is survival. It works to justify its point of view, conclusions, and decisions—the helpful and the harmful.
The Book of EST is a wonderful choice for those who want a swift, hard-hitting approach to fuel fresh insight and spark personal transformation. For those who do better with more subtlety, study Eastern religions or metaphysics, start a daily meditation practice, and/or pick up any of the writings or books by folks like Pema Chodron, Emmet Fox, Byron Katie, Mike Dooley or most anything published by Hay House or Sounds True. All paths will lead to the same end point: transformation.
June 4, 2014
The best books are the ones that confuse you, the ones that allow you to break through to a different perspective of things.I am happy to say this book thoroughly confused me. The Book of est is told through the eyes of a trainee in the est program, though Rhinehart never uses the word "I". He only observes the training process; he leaves out all his personal opinions and thoughts. If you read this book, let it take you where it will and enjoy the ride.
June 15, 2011
What is Education?
Authors at book readings, often have the attitude several "ordinary" people who haven't written a book or become big successes are just as wise and their opinions respect-worthy as a good writer.
This sentiment galls when an apparatchik of the set, keeps you behind the wrong side of the velvet ropes after the show. Somehow, the charming nonsense of the cool lunch table manages without you. The vocationally unrealized are left to stagger amongst the fervid hive. "But I am wise - he said as much in the introductory preamble!"
Seminars like EST give you the chance to shine as a genius in a public of fellow magical genius people and some stewarding sharpies. A lot of educational systems are like that.
At this phase, I see several strange things about EST and it's thematic connections to other Philosophico-religious traditions namely Eastern Religions and a controversial new age organization.
I am concerned with the question "What is Education?"
This is a relevant issue to this book about EST. It is a re-education program in many ways.
I will update this review with my musings on this matter.
My feeling is these things are super-dangerous - then again so is showing gruesome cop-shows 24/7.
I muse - the essence of what is "wrong" with EST is the same as what is wrong with a lot of educational systems...
Authors at book readings, often have the attitude several "ordinary" people who haven't written a book or become big successes are just as wise and their opinions respect-worthy as a good writer.
This sentiment galls when an apparatchik of the set, keeps you behind the wrong side of the velvet ropes after the show. Somehow, the charming nonsense of the cool lunch table manages without you. The vocationally unrealized are left to stagger amongst the fervid hive. "But I am wise - he said as much in the introductory preamble!"
Seminars like EST give you the chance to shine as a genius in a public of fellow magical genius people and some stewarding sharpies. A lot of educational systems are like that.
At this phase, I see several strange things about EST and it's thematic connections to other Philosophico-religious traditions namely Eastern Religions and a controversial new age organization.
I am concerned with the question "What is Education?"
This is a relevant issue to this book about EST. It is a re-education program in many ways.
I will update this review with my musings on this matter.
My feeling is these things are super-dangerous - then again so is showing gruesome cop-shows 24/7.
I muse - the essence of what is "wrong" with EST is the same as what is wrong with a lot of educational systems...
September 25, 2009
Joe Vitale says this book has hypnotic writing, I agree. The words put me in the room, I watched and listened to people as they were transformed by the EST process. Marvelous work and fun too!
September 19, 2013
hayatınızı değiştirecek yazan ama hicbir etkisi olmayan kitap :(
February 22, 2024
Художественное описание 4х дневного психологического тренинга по осознанности. Похоже на чтение рецепта или рассказа о китайской еде человека, сходившего в азиатский ресторан.
September 16, 2018
A Day By Day , Hour By Hour Account of "EST" aka "It is" or Erhard Seminar Training !!!
Picked up this book as had done Landmark forum long back and this book reviewed some of the things that happens in "Landmark Forum" plus adds few more.
Good book only if you have experienced "The Forum" or "est" !
Picked up this book as had done Landmark forum long back and this book reviewed some of the things that happens in "Landmark Forum" plus adds few more.
Good book only if you have experienced "The Forum" or "est" !
April 24, 2015
Before the touchy feely explosion of the self help field there was Est; a controversial personal transformation program started in the 70's and maligned for its intense/bizarre cult-like methods of indoctrination and training. Repackaged today under the name of Landmark Forum, Est continues to run 3 day training seminars which many have described as 'Scientology without the religion". The book condenses the weekend Est experience into written form. My curiosity is definitely piqued, but I'd be interested to hear from others that have, or know of others who've experienced this program. ⅘
Quotes - The sad fact is that the important experiences human beings cherish most—love and enlightenment, to name two—cannot be understood by the intellect. Possibly the most effective packaged enlightenment program is to be in a serious automobile accident and linger near death for a few days. By many accounts, the experience of being near death “transforms one's ability to experience living so that problems clear up, and so on. It makes cherished beliefs seem trivial. Strawberries become important. Such a near-death experience may be successful in a higher percentage of cases than the est training. As Samuel Johnson once said, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” The risk involved, however, makes auto accidents a relatively unpopular program for enlightenment.
Quotes - The sad fact is that the important experiences human beings cherish most—love and enlightenment, to name two—cannot be understood by the intellect. Possibly the most effective packaged enlightenment program is to be in a serious automobile accident and linger near death for a few days. By many accounts, the experience of being near death “transforms one's ability to experience living so that problems clear up, and so on. It makes cherished beliefs seem trivial. Strawberries become important. Such a near-death experience may be successful in a higher percentage of cases than the est training. As Samuel Johnson once said, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” The risk involved, however, makes auto accidents a relatively unpopular program for enlightenment.
March 4, 2018
An incredible look inside one of the early "waves" of the personal development movement. It's also a good assessment of how good ideas can be taken to an absurd application. The EST program, while heavily built on Zen/Vedanta worldview and one of the hottest workshops going on in the 1970's; was carried out in a brute-force method that took its toll on participants. The author is obviously a fan of the program. If people appreciate being "brute forced" into letting go of their limiting beliefs, is that a bad thing? I suppose if they come away happy, it can't be all bad. That said, I'd never want to undergo such a training (and I've been through many intensive pieces of training!).
November 20, 2017
Just what a I wanted, to relive the experience of the Landmark Forum. True, this is the est training from the 70's, but Forum graduates will "get" the elements they recognize. I found myself wishing I could have attended the more intense, in-your-face training of the 70's. If you have not graduated from the Forum or est, then it is unlikely you will like or get this book. But those who have, you will enjoy this fictional recreation of the experience.
May 22, 2015
This is a great follow-up if you've already done Est or the Landmark Forum. I don't think it would be very useful if you haven't, however. You can read all you want about tasting ice cream or riding a roller coaster. It can remind you of what it felt like, but is not a direct substitute.
Read
July 19, 2015i think that if you want to get there you have to have open mind , elevated feelings , flexibility , self respect basis for humility and follow instruction ,trust who you have chosen to guide your and be grateful
July 19, 2015
How liberating!!!
What is, is! Spent 40 years trying to figure out how to deal with life... Now I see my own resistance to what is and caused pain in myself and my dear others. How liberating!!!
What is, is! Spent 40 years trying to figure out how to deal with life... Now I see my own resistance to what is and caused pain in myself and my dear others. How liberating!!!
October 23, 2021
Almost as good as the real thing.
I have done the forum twice and many of landmarks programs and trainings.... no Est. (I'm born in "85.) But this was a fun and enjoyable read. It also had many moments of wow
I have done the forum twice and many of landmarks programs and trainings.... no Est. (I'm born in "85.) But this was a fun and enjoyable read. It also had many moments of wow
October 22, 2017
One of those unknown, hard to find, banned books, showing the deep hidden truth about human ape.
[2017/10/22]
[2017/10/22]
September 22, 2018
True experience, true transcendence.
Transformation by the book.
Transformation by the book.
June 2, 2017
This book is an experience. But I would not recommend it for everyone.
November 13, 2017
Definitely worthwhile
March 17, 2018
Yooooi
Plowing books is about lifes navigation u cant beat a good easy reading fun book its not real ok u
Plowing books is about lifes navigation u cant beat a good easy reading fun book its not real ok u
September 22, 2025
Good read a way to understand what you will be getting out of your experience in the forum.
February 13, 2019
A fictionalized recounting of the est training of the 1970s which grew into the Landmark Forum in the 1980s.
The book is a "creative re-telling" of four days spent at an est seminar circa 1976. There isn't much here about the background of est, including its creator Werner Erhard.
The training itself... if the book is any indicator, any explanation I give will be superfluous. Est resembles Eastern mystical philosophies, with a notable shout to Zen Buddhism, in maintaining a strong division between the explicit and the tacit. The explicit is the stuff of Western thinking -- what you believe, think, know, feel, what can be put into words, given a full description, explained by observation and testing, and so forth. This is Plato's metaphysics and the epistemology of Descartes and Locke.
The tacit is that collection of skills, capacities, capabilities, and activities which are necessary for, but not fully expressible in, explicitly rendered thought and language. We can gesture at them, allude to them, speak of them in metaphor. But the situation is always that of the eye trying to position itself so as to see itself. The eye is a condition on seeing; it cannot see itself.
That rambling explanation of why explanation isn't always possible is a paradox...which is the point for est as it is for the Zen master.
A book like this has to be ranked on multiple considerations. It was entertaining enough. Rhinehart's narrative makes the read much more interesting than a simple gloss of the facts. If it were nothing but a piece of creative non-fiction it would be worth spending a few hours.
Est, like many self-help movements, suffers an unfortunate association with a cult of personality. Werner Erhard is everywhere and nowhere, here, being the god of this little universe and almost invisible. I've developed enough of a skeptical eye for gurus over the years that its hard not to feel some lingering wariness. Still, the training here has sound history -- Erhard's originality lies in packaging up the ideas for an American audience, and to be fair he does create something new.
There are ideas here which I found useful and helpful, even with my background in Eastern mystical practices and Western developments of them. On balance I think that The Average Person, who is positively in love with his/her feelings, desires, beliefs, and judgments, would benefit from reading this and much more besides.
Either way, next on my list is Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from Est to Exile
The book is a "creative re-telling" of four days spent at an est seminar circa 1976. There isn't much here about the background of est, including its creator Werner Erhard.
The training itself... if the book is any indicator, any explanation I give will be superfluous. Est resembles Eastern mystical philosophies, with a notable shout to Zen Buddhism, in maintaining a strong division between the explicit and the tacit. The explicit is the stuff of Western thinking -- what you believe, think, know, feel, what can be put into words, given a full description, explained by observation and testing, and so forth. This is Plato's metaphysics and the epistemology of Descartes and Locke.
The tacit is that collection of skills, capacities, capabilities, and activities which are necessary for, but not fully expressible in, explicitly rendered thought and language. We can gesture at them, allude to them, speak of them in metaphor. But the situation is always that of the eye trying to position itself so as to see itself. The eye is a condition on seeing; it cannot see itself.
That rambling explanation of why explanation isn't always possible is a paradox...which is the point for est as it is for the Zen master.
A book like this has to be ranked on multiple considerations. It was entertaining enough. Rhinehart's narrative makes the read much more interesting than a simple gloss of the facts. If it were nothing but a piece of creative non-fiction it would be worth spending a few hours.
Est, like many self-help movements, suffers an unfortunate association with a cult of personality. Werner Erhard is everywhere and nowhere, here, being the god of this little universe and almost invisible. I've developed enough of a skeptical eye for gurus over the years that its hard not to feel some lingering wariness. Still, the training here has sound history -- Erhard's originality lies in packaging up the ideas for an American audience, and to be fair he does create something new.
There are ideas here which I found useful and helpful, even with my background in Eastern mystical practices and Western developments of them. On balance I think that The Average Person, who is positively in love with his/her feelings, desires, beliefs, and judgments, would benefit from reading this and much more besides.
Either way, next on my list is Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from Est to Exile
April 12, 2019
One of my yearly reads books, alongside Power of Now, Three Laws of Performance, and The Art of Possibility.
I'm a graduate of the Landmark courses, the current gen evolution of Est, and this book serves as a review of the paradigm shift that Landmark presented to me nine years ago.
The book is a reimagining of the two weekend seminar that EST was, putting the reader in the perspective of a participant.
Must-read for Landmark graduates (Est was harsher back then than what we got, fellas). Not sure if I'd recommend this to "normal" people. Landmark was recommended to already mildly successful people, so it might be the same for this book. Definitely not for psychologically unstable readers (people who don't have their shit together, hormonal teens, etc, although may help some people with PTSD, or daddy issues).
I'm a graduate of the Landmark courses, the current gen evolution of Est, and this book serves as a review of the paradigm shift that Landmark presented to me nine years ago.
The book is a reimagining of the two weekend seminar that EST was, putting the reader in the perspective of a participant.
Must-read for Landmark graduates (Est was harsher back then than what we got, fellas). Not sure if I'd recommend this to "normal" people. Landmark was recommended to already mildly successful people, so it might be the same for this book. Definitely not for psychologically unstable readers (people who don't have their shit together, hormonal teens, etc, although may help some people with PTSD, or daddy issues).
September 24, 2020
I read this book after going through transformation training (the successor of the forum and est) and I have to say that this book can be very insightful and deep depending on whether you attended the training prior to reading it or not. Without doing the course it would probably make no sense to me at all.
June 4, 2022
Good book. Werner erhard is the founder of est (erhard seminar training) which the precursor of the current day landmark forum. I did this course and then read this book. The things that they teach in forum are life changing and will be useful. Most of the things are reflected in this book. My concern is that the book and the forum itself has a strong proselytising nature.
February 19, 2023
It was a great experience to feel as if I was part of the EST training. I appreciated this idea, and in the last chapters how the author reflects on the impact of and criticisms about EST. The key message "You are responsible for your own experience" and "Everybody is afraid of everybody" stuck with me.
November 6, 2018
Interesting read
EST has been touted as a cult. But from reading this book I feel that it was a misunderstood program that helped people shed the 'stories' that create the 'reality' they are experiencing right now and experience reality as it is.
EST has been touted as a cult. But from reading this book I feel that it was a misunderstood program that helped people shed the 'stories' that create the 'reality' they are experiencing right now and experience reality as it is.
November 27, 2018
Worth reading
This book will make sense for you if you have participated in the Landmark forum. It gives you the real deal of the program which is now being taught in a watered down version in forum. Werner has made a lasting impact to the quality of life for mankind.
This book will make sense for you if you have participated in the Landmark forum. It gives you the real deal of the program which is now being taught in a watered down version in forum. Werner has made a lasting impact to the quality of life for mankind.
January 1, 2019
An amazing book for all the EST and Landmark Forum Graduates to re-experience the sessions. Good book for non-graduates of EST/Forum to get some theoretical background.
November 17, 2019
I enjoyed reading, and re-reading this book. Lots of insights.
This book isn't for everyone, but for those of us who took the training, it's terrific.
This book isn't for everyone, but for those of us who took the training, it's terrific.
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