Est and The Forum in popular culture

Werner Hans Erhard is an author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations...

and his self-improvement courses have been referenced in popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

in various forms of fiction

Fiction

Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...

al media including literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

and theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

. These courses, known as est, were delivered by the company Erhard Seminars Training

Erhard Seminars Training

Erhard Seminars Training, an organization founded by Werner H. Erhard, offered a two-weekend course known officially as "The est Standard Training"...

. Under the name The Forum, they were delivered by Werner Erhard and Associates

Werner Erhard and Associates

Werner Erhard and Associates, also known as WE&A or as WEA, operated as a commercial entity from February 1981 until early 1991. It replaced Erhard Seminars Training, Inc. as the vehicle for marketing, selling and imparting the content of the est training, and offered what some people refer to as...

. Also, the Landmark Forum, a program created by Erhard's former employees after purchasing his intellectual property

Intellectual property

Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...

, has had an influence on popular culture. Some of these works have taken a comedic

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

tack, parodying Erhard and satirizing the methodology used in these courses.

Other works have taken a more direct approach, and analyzed and questioned Erhard's early life and controversy through fictionalized accounts. Erhard read the science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

book est: The Steersman Handbook, Charts of the Coming Decade of Conflict
Est: The Steersman Handbook
est: The Steersman Handbook, Charts of the Coming Decade of Conflict is a work of science fiction cast as a nonfictional study. Its author, credited as L. Clark Stevens, usually went by the name Leslie Stevens. Stevens has a long list of credits in the entertainment industry, having worked on,...

, by L. Clark Stevens before developing est: note the convention of printing est in all lower-case stems from the title of this work. Erhard and his techniques are also referenced in the 2001 novel Pressure Points by Larry Brooks, and in Gregg Hurwitz's 2004 novel The Program
The Program (novel)
The Program: A Novel is a novel by Gregg Hurwitz, first published in 2004. It has since been released as an Audio CD, an Audio Cassette, and was reprinted in paperback format, in 2005. Hurwitz's prior book, The Kill Clause, will soon be made into a motion-picture...

.

Both est and The Forum have been depicted more often in film and television than in literary works. The 1977 film

1977 in film

The year 1977 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*In the Academy Awards, Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight win Best Actor and Actress and Supporting Actress awards for Network....

Semi-Tough
Semi-Tough
Semi-Tough is a 1977 film directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Lotte Lenya, Bert Convy, and Brian Dennehy. The plot involves a love triangle between the characters portrayed by Reynolds, Kristofferson and Clayburgh...

satirized Erhard and the est Training, through the fictional "Bismark Earthwalk Action Training." Bert Convy

Bert Convy

Bernard Whalen "Bert" Convy was an Emmy Award winning American actor, singer, game show host and panelist known for his tenure as the host for Tattletales, Super Password, and Win, Lose or Draw.-Early life:...

portrayed the Erhard parody character, and his performance was positively received. est students Diana Ross

Diana Ross

Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...

and Joel Schumacher

Joel Schumacher

Joel T. Schumacher is an American film director, screenwriter and producer.-Early life:Schumacher was born in New York City, the son of Marian and Francis Schumacher. His mother was a Swedish Jew, and his father was a Baptist from Knoxville, Tennessee, who died when Joel was four years old...

incorporated Werner Erhard's teachings into the 1978

1978 in film

The year 1978 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 1 - Bob Dylan's film Renaldo and Clara, a documentary of the "Rolling Thunder Revue" tour premieres in Los Angeles, California....

musical film

Musical film

The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...

, The Wiz
The Wiz (film)
The Wiz is a 1978 musical film produced by Motown Productions and Universal Pictures, and released by Universal on October 24, 1978. An urbanized retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz featuring an entirely African-American cast, The Wiz was adapted from the 1975 Broadway musical...

. The 1990 film

1990 in film

The year 1990 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* CGI technique is expanded with motion capture for CGI characters, used in Total Recall .* The first digitally-manipulated matte painting is used, in Die Hard 2....

The Spirit of '76 also parodied est, where Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner

Robert "Rob" Reiner is an American actor, director, producer, writer, and political activist.As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence as Archie and Edith Bunker's son-in-law, Michael "Meathead" Stivic, on All in the Family. That role earned him two Emmy Awards during the 1970s...

portrayed an abusive trainer for the est-like "Be, Inc. Seminars." Movie critics have also drawn parallels to est and Werner Erhard, in reviews of the films Fight Club
Fight Club (film)
Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by David Fincher and stars Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "everyman" who is discontented with his white-collar job...

and Magnolia
Magnolia (film)
Magnolia is a 1999 American drama film written, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, narrated by Ricky Jay, and starring Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, and Jason Robards in his last feature film appearance...

. Concepts from the Landmark Forum were utilized by the Wachowski brothers in their film The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 American science fiction film and the third installment of The Matrix trilogy. The film was released six months following The Matrix Reloaded. The film was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers and released simultaneously in sixty countries on November 5,...

. Werner Erhard's training programs have been parodied in television. The 1979

1979 in television

The year 1979 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1979.For the American TV schedule, see: 1979-80 American network television schedule.-Events:...

episode of Mork & Mindy, "Mork Goes Erk

Mork Goes Erk

"Mork Goes Erk" is the seventeenth episode of the first season of Mork & Mindy. The episode first premiered on ABC on February 8, 1979. "Mork Goes Erk" was later released on VHS on January 1, 1998 as part of a two-episode special which also included "Mork's First Christmas," and on DVD on...

", and the 2002

2002 in television

The year 2002 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 2002.For the American TV schedule, see: 2002–03 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1940s:...

episode of Six Feet Under, "The Plan

The Plan (Six Feet Under episode)

"The Plan" is the third episode of the second season of the HBO series Six Feet Under. The episode was written by Kate Robin and was directed by Rose Troche. It first aired on March 17, 2002. The episode features a parody of the program used by est and The Forum.- Plot summary :The episode begins...

", are the most notable. In the Mork & Mindy episode, the Erhard parody character was played by David Letterman

David Letterman

David Michael Letterman is an American television host and comedian. He hosts the late night television talk show, Late Show with David Letterman, broadcast on CBS. Letterman has been a fixture on late night television since the 1982 debut of Late Night with David Letterman on NBC...

.

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

's Broom Street Theatre produced a play about Werner Erhard and The Forum in 1995, called Devil In Paradise, The Fall and Rise of Werner Erhard. This piece dealt with a fictionalized version of controversial issues surrounding Erhard, including his early life before success with the est Training and allegations of familial abuse. The play received a positive review in the local paper, The Capital Times. Representatives of Erhard later contacted The Capital Times, and the paper issued a correction which highlighted points directly addressed by Erhard's people.

Background

Werner Erhard

Werner Hans Erhard is an author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations...

(born John Paul Rosenberg), a California-based former salesman, training manager and executive in the encyclopedia business, created the Erhard Seminars Training

Erhard Seminars Training

Erhard Seminars Training, an organization founded by Werner H. Erhard, offered a two-weekend course known officially as "The est Standard Training"...

(est) course in 1971. est was a form of Large Group Awareness Training

Large Group Awareness Training

Large-group awareness training refers to activities usually offered by groups linked with the human potential movement which claim to increase self-awareness and bring about desirable transformations in individuals' personal lives...

, and was part of the Human Potential Movement

Human Potential Movement

The Human Potential Movement arose out of the social and intellectual milieu of the 1960s and formed around the concept of cultivating extraordinary potential that its advocates believed to lie largely untapped in all people...

. 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

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

and narcissistic

Narcissism

Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...

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

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

Landmark Education

Landmark Education LLC is a personal training and development company which offers educational programs in approximately 115 locations in more than 20 countries worldwide....

in 1991, purchasing The Forum's course "technology" from Erhard.

Fictional inspiration for est

Werner Erhard drew on non-fiction

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

sources when he developed Erhard Seminars Training, including the self-help

Self-help

Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...

course Mind Dynamics

Mind Dynamics

Mind Dynamics was a seminar company, founded by Alexander Everett in Texas in 1968. Mind Dynamics later led to two other companies, est and Lifespring....

, cybernetics

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

, the book Think and Grow Rich
Think and Grow Rich
Think and Grow Rich is a motivational personal development and self-help book written by Napoleon Hill and inspired by a suggestion from Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie...

by Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill was an American author who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. He is widely considered to be one of the great writers on success...

, Scientology

Scientology

Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...

courses and the writings of its founder L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard

Lafayette Ronald Hubbard , better known as L. Ron Hubbard , was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology...

. However, Erhard's self awareness courses were also influenced by a science fiction

Science fiction

book he read shortly before forming est, called: est: The Steersman Handbook, Charts of the Coming Decade of Conflict
Est: The Steersman Handbook
est: The Steersman Handbook, Charts of the Coming Decade of Conflict is a work of science fiction cast as a nonfictional study. Its author, credited as L. Clark Stevens, usually went by the name Leslie Stevens. Stevens has a long list of credits in the entertainment industry, having worked on,...

, by L. Clark Stevens. Though est is also an abbreviation for Erhard Seminars Training, usage of the term in all-lowercase lettering was borrowed from est: The Steersman Handbook. Shortly after reading the book and becoming very familiar with its contents, Erhard had an epiphany

Epiphany (feeling)

An epiphany is the sudden realization or comprehension of the essence or meaning of something...

while driving across the Golden Gate Bridge

Golden Gate Bridge

The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, the structure links the city of San Francisco, on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula, to...

, and he later cited this inspirational moment as the beginning of his development of the est coursework. The book later became required reading for associates on Erhard's Mind Dynamics

Mind Dynamics

Mind Dynamics was a seminar company, founded by Alexander Everett in Texas in 1968. Mind Dynamics later led to two other companies, est and Lifespring....

sales team. R. Buckminster Fuller, mentioned in the book by L. Clark Stevens as one of the "est people" that would bring about social transformation integral to Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

's survival, later helped Werner Erhard found The Hunger Project

The Hunger Project

The Hunger Project is a 501 non-profit charitable organization incorporated in the state of California.The Hunger Project describes itself as an organization committed to the sustainable end of world hunger...

est and successors in literature

Depictions of est and The Forum in literature have dealt with direct references to these trainings, and have provided educational background on the larger term encompassing these trainings, known as "Large Group Awareness Training

Large Group Awareness Training

." Erhard and est are parodied in the March 1980 issue of the Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck
Howard the Duck is a comic book character in the Marvel Comics universe created by writer Steve Gerber and artist Val Mayerik. The character first appeared in Adventure into Fear #19 and several subsequent series have chronicled the misadventures of the ill-tempered, anthropomorphic, "funny...

series, titled: "The Dreadcliff Cuckoos". In "The Dreadcliff Cuckoos", the character "Werner Blowhard" heads the organization "Bozoes Eagerly Serving Tyrants", abbreviated B.E.S.T. In his first appearance in the comic, Blowhard states "I've got It, Have you got It?". The "Werner Blowhard" character was later referenced in D. Keith Mano's 1998 novel, Take Five.

In Pressure Points, a 2001 novel by Larry Brooks, one of the book's protagonists asserts that the programs developed by Werner Erhard

Werner Erhard

Werner Hans Erhard is an author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations...

, William Penn Patrick

William Penn Patrick

William Penn Patrick was an American entrepreneur and businessman. He was the owner of Holiday Magic, Leadership Dynamics, and Mind Dynamics. Patrick was a proponent of the sour grapes philosophy, and has been widely quoted as stating: "Those who condemn wealth are those who have none and see no...

, and Alexander Everett

Alexander Everett

Alexander Everett was a British self-improvement and personal development consultant. He was the founder of the company Mind Dynamics, and author of the motivational books The Genius Within You and Inward Bound...

all came from the same source. The Program
The Program (novel)
The Program: A Novel is a novel by Gregg Hurwitz, first published in 2004. It has since been released as an Audio CD, an Audio Cassette, and was reprinted in paperback format, in 2005. Hurwitz's prior book, The Kill Clause, will soon be made into a motion-picture...

, a 2004 novel by Hurwitz, described a fictional large group awareness training called "The Program", and characters also used the term "LGAT" to refer to the course. In the novel, the seminar leader had "married two cult models," which one of the protagonists described as a blend of the "psychotherapeutic cult," and the "self-improvement cult." The character then tells his friend that "The Program", is similar to a combination of the Sullivanians and Lifespring

Lifespring

Lifespring was a for-profit private company, founded in 1974. The company promoted itself through books and word of mouth advertising. By 1989, officials stated that over 300,000 people had enrolled in the company's seminars...

. Werner Erhard

Werner Erhard

Werner Hans Erhard is an author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations...

is quoted, prior to the opening of the prologue.

1970s

Werner Erhard and his est Training programs and later The Forum have been parodied in films, both directly and through more subtle references. Still in other films that did not directly intend to parody the subject matter, other reviewers have found elements of the est movement as applied to the genre of fictional self-help

Self-help

films. The 1977 movie Semi-Tough
Semi-Tough
Semi-Tough is a 1977 film directed by Michael Ritchie and starring Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Lotte Lenya, Bert Convy, and Brian Dennehy. The plot involves a love triangle between the characters portrayed by Reynolds, Kristofferson and Clayburgh...

, starring Burt Reynolds

Burt Reynolds

Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...

, parodied the est training. Bert Convy

Bert Convy

played "Frederick Bismark," a caricature of Werner Erhard

Werner Erhard

Werner Hans Erhard is an author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations...

. Bismark's organization and its training went by the name "B.E.A.T.", which stands for: "Bismark Earthwalk Action Training." A form of Rolfing

Rolfing

Rolfing is a therapy system created by The Rolf Institute of Structural Integration and is a system whereby the alleged manipulation of the fasciae by specific methods is theorized to yield therapeutic benefit....

was also parodied in the film, and Lotte Lenya

Lotte Lenya

Lotte Lenya was an Austrian singer, diseuse, and actress. In the German-speaking and classical music world she is best remembered for her performances of the songs of her husband, Kurt Weill. In English-language film she is remembered for her Academy Award-nominated role in The Roman Spring of Mrs...

's character "Clara Pelf" was described as: "a Rolf like masseuse." The press caught on to this satire of Erhard in the film, and gave these sections of the film positive reviews. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....

did not give an overall positive review, but did appreciate the portions where Werner Erhard was parodied: "The movie isn't much - an erratic ramble - But it has some pleasant moments, and a delicious send-up of The self-improvement guru Werner Erhard." The Charlotte Observer
The Charlotte Observer
The Charlotte Observer, serving Charlotte, North Carolina and its metro area, is the largest newspaper, in terms of circulation, in North Carolina and South Carolina...

praised Bert Convy's portrayal of the self-help guru Frederick Bismark, writing: "Bert Convy is a hilariously smug consciousness-raiser with a more than passing resemblance to EST's Werner Erhard." After the film's release, Bert Convy appeared on The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...

and discussed his experiences when he attended an est training seminar in preparation for his role as Frederick Bismark. During actual filming on Semi-Tough, Convy received a late-night phone call from actress Valerie Harper

Valerie Harper

Valerie Harper is an American actress, known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on the 1970s television show The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and for her starring roles on the sitcoms Rhoda and Valerie.-Early life and career:Harper was born at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, Rockland County,...

, known in Hollywood as a devoted student of Werner Erhard. She related to Convy that Erhard was "pleased" with the role, and she wished him success in the film. However, Convy suspected that her real reason for calling was to subtly pressure him to go easy on his parody of Erhard in the film.

The Grove Book of Hollywood wrote that the 1978 film, The Wiz
The Wiz (film)
The Wiz is a 1978 musical film produced by Motown Productions and Universal Pictures, and released by Universal on October 24, 1978. An urbanized retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz featuring an entirely African-American cast, The Wiz was adapted from the 1975 Broadway musical...

was influenced by Werner Erhard's teachings and est because actress Diana Ross

Diana Ross

and writer Joel Schumacher

Joel Schumacher

were "very enamored of Werner Erhard." The film's producer Rob Cohen

Rob Cohen

Robert "Rob" Cohen is an American film director, producer and writer.-Early life:Cohen was born in Cornwall, New York. He was raised and spent his childhood in the Town of Newburgh and graduated from Newburgh Free Academy in 1967...

noted that: "before I knew it, the movie was becoming an est-ian fable full of est buzzwords about knowing who you are and sharing and all that. I hated the script a lot. But it was hard to argue with Diana because she was recognizing in this script all of this stuff that she had worked out in est seminars." Schumacher spoke positively of the results of the est training, saying: "I will be eternally grateful for learning that I was responsible for my life," however he also complained that: "Everybody stayed exactly the way they were and went around spouting all this bullshit." Of est and Erhard references in the film itself, The Grove Book of Hollywood notes that the speech delivered by the Good Witch, played by actress Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

, at the end of the film was "a litany of est-like platitudes," and the book also makes est comparisons to the song "Believe in Yourself."

1990s

In the 1990 film The Spirit of '76, Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner

plays "Dr. Hedley Cash" (only referred to as "Dr. Cash" in the film), an abusive trainer for the est-like "Be, Inc. Seminars" who traps time-traveler Heinz-57 (played by Geoff Hoyle

Geoff Hoyle

Geoff Hoyle is a British performer who originated the role of Zazu in the Broadway theatre production of The Lion King. Hoyle has also performed in vaudeville shows, worked with Bill Irwin in "The Pickle Family Circus", performed with Cirque Du Soleil's Nouvelle Expérience, and performed with the...

) in one of his seminars and continually refers to him as "Heinz Asshole." In the DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

commentary for the 2003 release of the film, director Lucas Reiner stated that the "Absentee, oblivious, self-involved parents who don't notice their kids have a spaceship" was a reference to the self-involved nature of adults during the 1970s and their propensity for self-improvement. Lucas Reiner stated that these scenes were meant to symbolize the "'70s hunger for self-improvement," and the extreme ends that people would go to in order to improve themselves. Lucas Reiner had never personally attended one of Werner Erhard's seminars, but had heard that attendants were not allowed to leave, often peed in their pants, and were called "assholes" and insulted publicly. Reiner noted that once his brother Carl put on the "Dr. Cash" costume, he played his character perfectly. Heavyweights
Heavyweights
Heavyweights is a 1995 comedy-drama film, directed by Steven Brill and co-written by Brill with Judd Apatow. Heavyweights is about a fat camp for kids that is taken over by a fitness guru named Tony Perkis .-Plot:...

is a 1995

1995 in film

-Top grossing films:-Events:* March 22 - The Dogme 95 movement is officially announced in Paris by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.* March 28 - Actress Julia Roberts and singer Lyle Lovett announce their plans for separation....

comedy film

Comedy film

Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

about a fat camp

Fat camp

A weight loss camp is a term for a type of program where overweight and obese people of all ages go to lose weight. However in common parlance the term "fat camp" is today also often used to refer to residential programs, usually in rural settings, where adults stay to eat nutritious foods,...

for kids that is taken over by fitness guru

Guru

A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...

Tony Perkis, played by Ben Stiller

Ben Stiller

Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara....

. In a review of the film in The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

, Hal Hinson described Stiller's portrayal of the Perkis character to Erhard, and called him "the Werner Erhard of slide aerobics".

Fight Club
Fight Club (novel)
Fight Club is a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It follows the experiences of an unnamed protagonist struggling with insomnia. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, he finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups...

author Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk

Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter...

was a graduate of The Landmark Forum

Landmark Education

Landmark Education LLC is a personal training and development company which offers educational programs in approximately 115 locations in more than 20 countries worldwide....

, or "The Forum", for short, and this later influenced his work. In his review of the 1999

1999 in film

The year 1999 in film involved several noteworthy events and has been called "The Year That Changed Movies". Several significant feature films, including Stanley Kubrick's final film Eyes Wide Shut, Pedro Almodóvar's first Oscar-winning film All About My Mother, science fiction The Matrix, Deep...

film adaptation of the book

Fight Club (film)

Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by David Fincher and stars Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "everyman" who is discontented with his white-collar job...

, Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

likened the character Tyler Durden to Werner Erhard

Werner Erhard

Werner Hans Erhard is an author of transformational models and applications for individuals, groups, and organizations...

. Ebert wrote that Tyler Durden was: ".a bully--Werner Erhard plus S & M, a leather club operator without the decor." Fight Club film producer Ross Grayson Bell believes that his "creative synchronicity" with writer Palahniuk was due to their shared experience of attending The Forum. In the 1999 film Magnolia
Magnolia (film)
Magnolia is a 1999 American drama film written, produced, and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, narrated by Ricky Jay, and starring Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, and Jason Robards in his last feature film appearance...

, Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....

played a motivational guru named Frank T.J. Mackey, who was the author of a self-help

Self-help

book called Seduce and Destroy. This work was meant to teach men how to get women to sleep with them. The Frank T.J. Mackey character in the film has been likened to: "a sort of pop-TV blend of Werner Erhard and Bob Guccione, strutting around a stage with cocksure arrogance, indoctrinating his acolytes in the arts of machismo and seduction." The Frank T.J. Mackey character has also been compared to another motivational trainer influenced by Erhard, in Details Magazine. In an ironic twist, Tom Cruise has later been referred to as "the new Werner Erhard."

2000 - present

In her 2004 book Life Long Learning - Transforming, Learning Discovering Through Living Life in Unlimitless Possibilities, Patti Diamond writes that the Wachowski brothers got the inspiration for the screenplay to The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Revolutions
The Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 American science fiction film and the third installment of The Matrix trilogy. The film was released six months following The Matrix Reloaded. The film was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers and released simultaneously in sixty countries on November 5,...

while participating in a Landmark Forum "seminar series." Diamond also analyzes The Matrix Revolutions and the messages imparted in the film, in the context of her own personal experiences in the Landmark Forum. She describes a tautologous

Tautology (rhetoric)

Tautology is an unnecessary or unessential repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing...

exchange between Agent Smith

Agent Smith

Agent Smith is the main antagonist of The Matrix film series and multimedia franchise, mainly played by actor Hugo Weaving and briefly by actor Ian Bliss in the films and voiced by Christopher Corey Smith in The Matrix: Path of Neo.In 2008, Agent Smith was selected by Empire Magazine as number 84...

and Neo

Neo (The Matrix)

Thomas A. Anderson is a fictional character and the main protagonist in The Matrix franchise, as well as having a cameo in The Animatrix short film, Kid's Story. He was portrayed by Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Trilogy and The Animatrix. Andrew Bowen provided Neo's voice in The Matrix: Path of Neo...

in the film, where Neo is asked by Smith: "Why do you continue to do this Mr. Anderson?" and Neo responds: "Because I choose to." Diamond uses this example to explain the Landmark Forum's discussion of "choice and decision." Diamond provides further analysis of other Landmark Forum concepts utilized in The Matrix Revolutions in her book Stepping Into Spiritual Oneness: Spiritual Rememberings of the Soul Through Life Experience, including the concept that: "we all choose to BE who we are being in each and every moment of our experience."

Music

Alameda, California

Alameda is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. It is located on Alameda Island and Bay Farm Island, and is adjacent to Oakland in the San Francisco Bay. The Bay Farm Island portion of the city is adjacent to the Oakland International Airport. At the 2010 census, the city had a...

musician and Elvis impersonator

Elvis impersonator

An Elvis impersonator is someone who impersonates or copies famed American musician Elvis Presley. Professional Elvis impersonators can work all over the world as entertainers, and such tribute acts are in great demand due to the unique iconic status of Elvis...

"eXtreme Elvis" (EE) attributes the origin of his show to an experience he had at the Landmark Forum. eXtreme Elvis told Glen Silverstone of East Bay Express: "Before I went to Forum I didn't have the confidence to put myself out there. I couldn't have gotten naked and felt okay with being fat, with just being myself naked in front of people." He also compared his performance with the Landmark Forum: "I see a lot of parallels between my show and Landmark. Both have been accused of being abusive and being cults. But Landmark and my show are transforming, revolutionary experiences. People cannot possibly leave without having their lives changed." After completing the Landmark Forum, EE became a graduate instructor for Landmark Education.

Mork & Mindy

Parody and satire of est and The Forum in television has taken a more direct approach than in literature and film. Characters have been shown attending seminars, and having negative outcomes as a result. Mork & Mindy dealt with this in a lighter fashion, dealing with a small introduction of individuals to the training in a home environment, in season one, episode seventeen: "Mork Goes Erk

Mork Goes Erk

." In the episode, David Letterman

David Letterman

portrayed an Erhard-like character by the name of "Ellsworth" offering ERC or Ellsworth Revitalization Conditioning. In a 1982 article in the journal

Academic journal

An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

Theory & Society, Lewis & Clark College

Lewis & Clark College

Lewis & Clark College is a private institution of higher learning located in Portland, Oregon. Made up of an undergraduate College of Arts and Sciences, a School of Law, and a Graduate School of Education and Counseling. Lewis & Clark is a member of the Annapolis Group of colleges with athletic...

sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

professor Robert Goldman compared and contrasted Letterman's "Ellsworth" character and his training program to that of Werner Erhard. Goldman noted that the episode spent time: "lampooning Werner Erhard and est-like commercial pop psychologies." However, Goldman went on to note that the inherent problem with "Ellsworth Revitalization Conditioning" was not the training - but Ellsworth himself. Ellsworth is seen not just as a parody of Werner Erhard, but also of consumerism

Consumerism

Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...

: "As the self-help entrepreneur, Ellsworth is portrayed as a walking collection of lifestyle-status points and sign-values ("I've got my Rolls-Royce!"). Conspicuous consumption and commodity fetishism define his personality." Goldman explained that the Mork and Mindy episode succeeded in distinguishing between criticism of the Ellsworth training, and criticism of Ellsworth, citing Ellsworth's character traits of: "tyranny, selfishness, open greed, and flaunting of the accoutrements of his vulgar money-making." In the end of the segment of the episode parodying est, Mork wins out over the Ellsworth philosophy by instead calling to mind universal humanistic

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

moral values. David Letterman received positive praise for his portrayal of "Ellsworth" in the episode.

Six Feet Under

Six Feet Under Episode 16, of Season 2, "The Plan"

The Plan (Six Feet Under episode)

, featured a seminar-delivery organization called "The Plan", which the character Claire Fisher immediately compared to est. Actress Alice Krige

Alice Krige

Alice Maud Krige is a South African actress. Her first feature film role was as the Gilbert and Sullivan singer Sybil Gordon in the 1981 Academy Award-winning film Chariots of Fire...

portrays "Alma" the seminar leader of "The Plan" - who uses jargon

Jargon

Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...

related to the "blueprint" for building a house in order to convey concepts about self-improvement. She singles out the character Ruth and berates her for "tiptoeing around her own house like she's afraid of waking someone up." Ruth begins to use jargon from the course in her conversations with family, and complains to her daughter that she cannot yet go to sleep after coming home from her seminar because she must first do "homework" from the course. This homework includes writing a letter to her dead mother forgiving her for "all the terrible things she did to me", and writing a letter to herself, describing how she will "renovate" her life. During the following day of "The Plan", the seminar leader gives the group a new assignment: to go outside to ready banks of phones, and call their family members to inform them of specifically how they wish to "renovate their homes" together. In the seminar, the leader asks everyone to close their eyes and imagine that everyone else is laughing at them for being stupid, and then asks the participants if they get the joke. Everyone does, except Ruth, who rants at the course instructor. After her rant, the leader congratulates her for "knocking down her old house", and proceeds to tell her that now she can rebuild a new house.

Analysis in secondary sources and books on Six Feet Under have compared the training in "The Plan" to the current incarnation of Erhard's trainings, Landmark Education

Landmark Education

Landmark Education LLC is a personal training and development company which offers educational programs in approximately 115 locations in more than 20 countries worldwide....

. Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die For by Akass et al. have compared "The Plan" to est and The Forum. Akass cites the episode while analyzing the phenomenon of self-improvement, and notes that: "Repairing her shingles often leaves Ruth in shackles." She writes that: ".the series performs the logic of self-help, both its silly and seductive sides." However, she also points out that Ruth's rant at the end of her seminar is cathartic

Cathartic

In medicine, a cathartic is a substance that accelerates defecation. This is in contrast to a laxative, which is a substance which eases defecation, usually by softening feces. It is possible for a substance to be both a laxative and a cathartic...

for Ruth, and she ends her analysis of the episode by asking: "So, what do we make of our times when all this supposed nonsense actually works?"

Theatre

In February 1995, the Broom Street Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin

Madison, Wisconsin

Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....

produced a play entitled: Devil In Paradise, The Fall and Rise of Werner Erhard. The play was written and directed by Joel Gersmann, and performed with a cast of seven actors. The play was described as "a fascinating character study of the man who founded the wildly successful "human potential movement," as well as the many people who bought into it." The work was a satire of Erhard, which educated the audience about a (fictionalized) rendition of his early life, but the piece was also criticized for its lack of structure. Short scenes and blackouts were described as confusing, and yet Gersmann's script itself was seen as a success.

The production was reviewed in The Capital Times in March 1995, and the staff of The Capital Times was later contacted by representatives of Werner Erhard, and asked to issue a correction regarding statements made in the review. The paper later issued a correction, which emphasized that the play was indeed a fictionalized account, and stated that: "Erhard never admitted abusing his children, and his daughter retracted in July 1992 her earlier allegation of sexual abuse by her father." The correction also noted that Erhard did not leave the United States to avoid any Internal Revenue Service

Internal Revenue Service

The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...

investigation, but rather was contesting certain business deductions and had not been charged with tax evasion

Tax evasion

Tax evasion is the general term for efforts by individuals, corporations, trusts and other entities to evade taxes by illegal means. Tax evasion usually entails taxpayers deliberately misrepresenting or concealing the true state of their affairs to the tax authorities to reduce their tax liability,...

. The statement sent by Erhard's representatives concluded by noting: "Erhard denies that the programs he created, est and the Forum, were or are pyramid selling schemes, self-help programs or mind therapy movement."

In 2008, Climate Theater in San Francisco, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

showed a play called The Group, written by Robert Quillen Camp and performed by Ryan Eggensperger. Climate Theater described the play as "Inspired by the largely American tradition of packaging and selling self-empowerment, from EST and the Landmark Forum to Norman Vincent Peale and The Secret". The play's performance ensemble cite "EST and the Landmark Forum" among inspirations for the parody. The play is an immersive performance piece, and Robert Quillen Camp explained: "Our aim is to create a fun but ultimate unsettling experience reflecting simultaneous attraction to and repulsion from organizations that promise a better and happier life." Audience members sit in a circle and wear audio headsets, through which they listen to the charismatic leader's voice and sound effects. The production ran from May 29, 2008 to June 14, 2008.

Robert Avila of the San Francisco Bay Guardian
San Francisco Bay Guardian
The San Francisco Bay Guardian is a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco, California. The paper is owned mostly by its publisher, Bruce B...

called The Group: "in-your-face comedy in a droll send-up of EST-like self-actualization programs," and a spoof of "recent incarnations" including The Secret and Landmark Forum. Avila gave the play a positive review, noting its "inspired writing, sharp humor, and simple yet slick production". In a review of the play for the San Jose Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
The San Jose Mercury News is a daily newspaper in San Jose, California. On its web site, however, it calls itself Silicon Valley Mercury News. The paper is owned by MediaNews Group...

, Karen D'Souza wrote: From est to 'The Secret,' this is a playful lampoon of 'healing philosophies'". D'Souza also reviewed the play positively, writing: " Writer-director Robert Quillen Camp slyly pokes fun at reducing the human experience to one-size-fits-all platitudes and besmirching belief systems with "cash-only" workshops." Pat Craig wrote in Contra Costa Times
Contra Costa Times
The Contra Costa Times is a daily newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, U.S.. The paper serves Contra Costa and eastern Alameda counties, in the eastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area...

: "After a lifetime of enduring various human potential programs, from the chanted mantras of transcendental meditation to the institutionalized loathing of est, 'The Group' seems a bit tame for satire to a veteran of the high-profit mind games." In a review for the San Francisco Examiner, Leslie Katz described The Group as "one of those parodies that's so good, you almost don't know it's a fake," and commented: "In the end, the show provides excellent therapy. As those who aren't swayed by expensive self-help seminars know, laughter is indeed the best medicine."

External links

Werner Erhard, Web site of "Friends of Werner Erhard"

Parodies

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Background

Fictional inspiration for est

est and successors in literature

1970s

1990s

2000 - present

Music

Mork & Mindy

Six Feet Under

Theatre

See also

External links