I also feel that the training is very spiritual and I originally
did not want to acknowledge that. Werner, who himself has pursued
a number of spiritual disciplines, says, "The heart of
est
is spiritual people, really. . . . That's all there is, there isn't
anything
but
spirituality, which is just another word for God,
because God is everywhere."
Many people have deeply spiritual, mystical, or "peak experiences" during
or soon after the training. A young woman minister from New Orleans told me,
"For the first time in my life I know God, not from faith but directly."
Others described to me "sudden lightness," a revelatory "whooosh,"
and "going through a tunnel to a white light." Werner shared with
me a letter he had received from a nun graduate, which said in part:
"'The glory of God is now fully alive!' and it is thrilling to see and
experience the impact you have in helping us to experience, discover,
and realize all the potential we have."
Despite some minor objections, I feel overwhelmingly positive about the
est
experience both personally and professionally.
Only last week a friend of mine, an attractive and successful department
store buyer, arrived at my home in tears about her life situation. "I've
had three years of analysis with one of the best analysts in Philadelphia,"
she said, "and I understand everything that happened with my parents;
how my mother was hostile to my father and how I was put down by both
of them. But," she cried, "it doesn't make any difference. I haven't
changed anything in my life and I still feel awful."
It was a familiar story to me. I had felt the same way through and after
my own psychoanalytic therapy. All those endless, expensive hours of
monologue had done nothing to lift the Charlie Brown cloud that forever
hung over me. The analyst
can
create space for experience, but,
unfortunately, many analysts and therapists I've encountered don't see
self-experience as the goal of therapy.
In the
est
training, on the other hand, people have very dramatic
and deep experiences. The type of experience differs for each person.
Trainees experience to what Werner calls their "level of possibility."
While a religious person might have a religious experience, another might
experience love (many report rediscovering their love for parents they
had emotionally, and sometimes physically, discarded), for another it
might be a release of long pent-up feelings, for another it might be
experiencing an ongoing problem such as loneliness or fear.
Many people don't experience any effect from the training until days,
weeks, or months later. At the post-trainings I have attended, there
are invariably some graduates who share that they have become free
of migraine headaches, asthma, backaches, former husbands, nagging
mothers-in-law, and a wide variety of problems. I was at first skeptical
of these Lourdes-like miracles. Eventually, however, I realized that
they were almost inevitable as people give up their pretenses and lies;
they no longer need to hang on to the body ailments and destructive
relationships that camouflage their truths, and they are free to move on.
Because
est
makes every effort to screen out those who might
not be able to handle the training, the incidence of psychotic episodes
is low.
est
statistics show that since the introduction of its
screening process in 1973, breakdowns are lower than in the general
population.
est
says, "If you have a hundred people and you
send them to the grocery store, a certain percentage of them will have
psychotic episodes and if you send a hundred people to
est
, a
smaller
percentage will have pyschotic episodes." No official figures
are provided but it is my sense, through the professional grapevine,
that such occurrences are rare.
est
's brochure about the training states that it is specifically
pointed out to people before they take the training that if they feel
they need therapy or psychological, psychiatric, or medical services,
they should see a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, or physician,
as appropriate.
Shortly after the training begins, the trainees are informed (warned
would be more accurate) that they might experience every emotion possible,
that the experience might be very difficult and painful, and that their
tuition will be returned if they choose to go no further.
est
also makes available to the trainee's therapist the services of Robert
Larzelere, M.D., manager of the
est
Well-Being Department, for
additional information about the training.
The most definitive evaluation of
est
is being prepared with
est
's complete cooperation. Their "About
est
" brochure
states that "studies of
est
graduates have been conducted by
well-respected, independent researchers, including a survey of 1,400
est
graduates headed by Dr. Robert Ornstein, a noted psychological
researcher [his position and credits follow]. . . . The results of these
studies are consistent with what thousands of graduates have reported
about their experiences with
est
."
I called Dr. Ornstein to get a copy of the study, and I was told by
his secretary that the study, although completed, was not ready for
distribution. When I later spoke with him, he told me he was reluctant
to issue it for the reasons he had outlined in a letter he sent to the
participants of the study last June. In it he cautioned that "the study
is not, strictly speaking, an outcome study. There were no control
groups of non-graduates, and subjects were not surveyed both before
and after taking the
est
training. The study is a preliminary,
self-report, retrospective survey of
est
graduates, focusing on
health and well-being changes." He also stated: "the study revealed no
evidence that
est
harms anyone.
"This study does not demonstrate that people's health actually changes,
but only that they say it does." Nevertheless, he continues, "the reported
changes are strongly positive and the findings are powerful enough to
warrant further research in any of the areas mentioned above. We are
confident of the reliability and representativeness of the data because
our response rates are high." Ornstein goes on to state that "Respondents
reported strong, positive health changes since taking the
est
standard training, especially in the areas of psychological health and
those illnesses with a large psychosomatic component. These appear to be
sufficiently strong to justify controlled follow-up studies of particular
physical and psychological variables."
Another study was done in 1972 by Behaviordyne, Inc., an independent
psychological testing corporation, on personality changes in people
three months after taking the training. Its general findings were
that measurable changes in personality do occur as the result of the
est
training; that these changes continue to manifest themselves
three months after the training has ended; that more changes were noted
for the female participants than the male; and that "the psychological
picture that emerges is that of a happier, psychologically sounder and
more responsible person."
In conclusion, I think
est
's philosophy and techniques speak for
themselves. Werner has created a system that encompasses and yet goes
beyond the viable discipline of every age and is proving effective for
both the laymen and the professionals who have experienced it.
Felice
Felice is twenty-five, thin and intense,
with fiery black eyes that immediately
held me. She is Hispanic-American and
grew up in a poor section of Brooklyn.
She works as a psychotherapist in a mental
institution.
I was afraid of everything. People, the dark, bugs, animals, crowded
rooms, open spaces. I knew I needed help -- that's why I went to
est
.
I chose January because that's the time of year I get suicidal. I knew
I had to live.
Now, after eat, I know I
don't
have to live. The intensity of
my desperation is gone. My desire to kill myself is gone. Every time I
feel suicidal I deal with my anger and it goes away. I have come close
to death and now I see how ridiculous all that was. That simple.
If someone used to criticize me, I felt the whole world was against me.
If it got too bad, I'd think about killing myself. That was my out.
Now I can take what people say and ask myself, "Is it them or me?"
If someone says to me, "Felice, you're doing a lousy job," I ask them
how. If they can't tell me, I laugh and tell them it's probably their
problem, not mine.
Now I can fight with my boss. He was in a lousy mood one day. I asked him
a question and he answered, "Why don't you look that up?" I felt hurt. So
I said to him, "I feel hurt. You put me down." He laughed and apologized.
I'm also using
est
with my patients. One patient left the unit
without permission the other day. When she came back she started cluttering
up the situation with a lot of junk -- excuses, reasons, justifications.
I wouldn't buy it. I told her I didn't want to hear her racket. I insisted
that she take responsibility for what she had done.
I felt incredibly strong. And I think she felt better because she had
to be straight with me.
I'm not so afraid anymore . . . of anything.
11
The Future
"Here is where it is. Now is when it is. You
are what it is."
-- Werner Erhard
I heard the other day that
est
expects to train 50,000 people
this coming year. That's a lot of people putting out a lot of money and
effort to go through a lot of physical and emotional discomfort for the
prize which is the
est
experience. Werner's intention to train
forty million suddenly doesn't seem quite so preposterous.
At this writing,
est
has opened an office in Chicago, bringing
to twelve the number of cities in which it is operating; has completed
workshops in Europe; has 12,000 people enrolled to take trainings
scheduled through the next four months; and gets an impressive
attendance at the guest seminars held almost daily on the East and
West coasts (one recent New York graduate brought twenty guests to her
post-training). This, just four years after it got started in a small
office above a restaurant in the girlie show section of San Francisco.
It appears that
est
can become as big as it chooses, and it is
apparent that it is choosing to become big. At this point the momentum is
so great that
est
could continue to grow without effort. The only
barrier to its multiplying is the current limited number of trainers (14)
and staff. Werner expects unqualified excellence from those who work for
him. And apparently he's willing to delay
est
's expansion until
the work can be done at the same level of excellence achieved thus far.
As
est
grows and increasingly reaches into the heartland of
America, will it make any difference? I think it will, and I think that
difference will be a significant one.
est
's impact will not necessarily come directly from
est
,
alone. Trainer Stewart Emery left
est
in 1975 to form his own
business. Like the other trainers, he is dynamic and aggressive and
I have no doubt that his variations on the
est
theme will be
successful. If he is anything like Freud's disciples -- Jung, Adler,
Horney, among others -- he will undoubtedly add his own consciousness
and creativity to the master's. And in
est
's long future, others
will probably follow.
Adding to
est
's expansion will be the teachers, psychotherapists,
and clergymen graduating from
est
and actively using it in their
work, as well as all the other graduates whose work and influence put
them among our power elite, trend-setters, and image-makers. (In my
training alone, there were two physicians, more than a dozen therapists
and social workers, teachers, artists, dancers, singers, journalists,
actors, business executives, bankers, high-level public relations and
advertising personnel, and a television news producer.) These are the
people we look to for our models and who create our value systems.
A surgeon relating to a patient and a copywriter promoting deodorant
coming from their
est
experience may have far greater impact on
the culture than the so-called average American.
Werner appears to be reaching influential men and women in this country
very rapidly. In addition to the standard trainings, he offers a different
type of
est
experience -- the Communication Workshops. Because
these workshops offer a way of breaking through the barriers to true
communication, they draw large numbers of high-level people, among them
doctors, management executives, university faculties, and professionals
in the fields of medicine, education, and psychotherapy.
A graduate in training with the guest seminar leaders program said to me
right after Werner spoke about training forty million people, "Can you
imagine what the world out there would be like if forty million people
stopped lying to themselves?" To that I add: and became (like
est
leaders) clear-eyed, clear-headed, open, direct, in the moment, and
rid of all the mental (belief systems) and physical (aches and pains)
baggage that gets in the way of aliveness? Incredible!
The main significance of
est
's work and impact, as I see it,
is to assist large numbers of people in getting in touch with their
own experience, which is what other New Age consciousness groups are
doing. Until recently only the avant garde, and relatively isolated gurus,
were exploring new ways of being. The enormous success of Transcendental
Meditation has begun to change that; those who are practicing TM are in
the vanguard of expanded consciousness.
Werner Erhard takes the consciousness movement an
important