Human Potential Movement

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 57. Chapters: Neuro-linguistic programming, Landmark Education, Erhard Seminars Training, Large Group Awareness Training, Werner Erhard and Associates, Voyage au pays des nouveaux gourous, Landmark Education litigation, Est and The Forum in popular culture, Outrageous Betrayal, Psychosynthesis, Esalen Institute, Est: Playing the Game, The Book of est, Nathaniel Branden, Jock McKeen, Re-evaluation Counseling, Mork Goes Erk, The Hunger Project, Joann Peterson, I'm Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional, Attack therapy, Robert W. Fuller, Bennet Wong, Maria Gomori, Frank R. Wallace, NXIVM, Joan Holmes, Frank Farrelly, Jonathan Young, Insight Seminars, Get Motivated Seminar, Seize the Day Inc.. Excerpt: Voyage au pays des nouveaux gourous (Voyage to the Land of the New Gurus), a controversial television-documentary, presented an investigation of the activities of Landmark Education. The investigative journalism program Pièces à Conviction started filming the documentary in 2003, and the channel France 3 broadcast it in France on 24 May 2004. The documentary has resulted in various legal repercussions in France, the Netherlands, Australia and the United States. Werner Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg), a California-based former salesman, training manager and executive in the encyclopedia business, created the Erhard Seminars Training (est) course in 1971. est was a form of Large Group Awareness Training, and was part of the Human Potential Movement. est was a four-day, 60-hour self-help program given to groups of 250 people at a time. The program was very intensive: each day would contain 15-20 hours of instruction. During the training, est personnel utilized jargon to convey key concepts, and participants had to agree to certain rules which remained in effect for the duration of the course. Participants were taught that they were responsible for their life outcomes, and were promised a dramatic change in their self-perception. est was controversial: critics characterized the training methods as brainwashing, and suggested that the program had fascistic and narcissistic tendencies. Proponents asserted that it had a profoundly positive impact on people's lives. By 1977 over 100,000 people completed the est training, including public figures and mental health professionals. In 1985, Werner Erhard and Associates repackaged the course as "The Forum", a seminar focused on "goal-oriented breakthroughs". By 1988, approximately one million people had taken some form of the trainings. In the early 1990s Erhard faced family problems, as well as tax problems that were eventually resolved in his favor. A group of his associates formed the company Landmark Education in 1991, pur