User talk:Cirt/Werner Erhard/Cirt/People

Note
This page serves as a tabulated chronicle of roles of Werner Erhard associates in organizations related to Werner Erhard over time. -- Cirt (talk) 21:18, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I thank Cirt for compiling these sources.
I thank Cirt for compiling these sources. Of particular interest to me was a reference regarding Charlene Afremow, that I had not seen before. The reference is incorrect about her losing the lawsuit, however. She was awarded significant compensation (as mentioned in a comment on that usenet post). I have a particular interest in Charlene because I assisted in an Advanced Course led by her. (She does work with youth, for the most part, but she is a Forum Leader who, on occasion, does regular Forum Leader work.) That she was Werner Erhard's trainer (in Mind Dynamics) was the rumor at the Boston Center. It's believable. She was amazing, in her seventies, and going strong and clear.

Landmark education is not about personalities. It consists of a set of "distinctions," delivered using scripts and experienced personal "recreation," that lead, with unusual reliability, to the transformation of participants, beginning a process that deepens with time and further work. Landmark is a human organization, built by the work of human beings, none of whom are "perfect," and these stories show that. A basic distinction, however, is "there is nothing wrong here," and we can see through the history how "breakdowns lead to breakthroughs." That Werner was effectively hounded out of the U.S. led to the radical depersonalization of the work, which was historically necessary. Werner did not unilaterally originate the work, it was created out of what already existed, in various forms, some of it for a very long time. The presentation may have been his, and he certainly brought his own in-your-face style, which lives on in Landmark, sometimes considered or called "old Landmark." It's passing, in some ways, sometimes mourned. Landmark is transforming. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 17:45, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, a more complete account of the Afremow lawsuit is recounted in the Werner Erhard biography, Outrageous Betrayal by Steven Pressman. -- Cirt (talk) 20:53, 12 November 2013 (UTC)
 * I had researched Afremow on-line some years ago. There are many more details, such as the involvement of the Scientologists in going after Erhard (thus supporting Afremow). It's too bad that Pressman has such an obvious "story." I've seen other "expose" books that obviously involved major research, but then present it all in a structure that "tells a story," that was made up out of selected interpretations. An example I'm quite familiar with is Bad Science, by Gary Taubes, about cold fusion. Taubes himself became part of the story with his allegations of fraud (never confirmed, rejected). Taubes was pretty clear, apparently: he needed the "story" to sell the book. Pure fact would be boring. But what people tend to remember is the story, not what *actually happened.* That is, of course, a basic Forum distinction. It is also basic psychology.
 * Taubes is quite good on the facts, there are many historical details in Bad Science that are likely true, and found nowhere else, but he is lousy on the interpretation. By the time Bad Science was nearing completion, major evidence had appeared that contradicted his theme. He ignored it, it would have vastly complicated his story (unlike the other major critic of cold fusion, Huizenga, who remarked on it as "astounding," but merely expected it would not be confirmed.) I don't know about Pressman.
 * Taubes is heavily footnoted, sourced, like his later books. Apparently Pressman isn't? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 13:38, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Your "story" about Pressman and your inner voice and already always listening seem to be preventing you from actually reading the book. -- Cirt (talk) 16:43, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * that's your story. Mine is that I look forward to reading Pressman. I don't have a copy. Eventually, I will. Right now, I have other priorities. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 19:14, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You keep repeating over and over again that you've done sooooo much research about Werner Erhard and Landmark Forum amongst secondary sources, so it just boggles my mind that you haven't come across this book and decided to read it yet, until, presumably, now. -- Cirt (talk) 20:00, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * My, my, my. I did a great deal of *internet* research. I rarely buy books. Certainly I'd heard of the book. But I've never seen a copy. The only topic on which I bought books was cold fusion, and I bought Taubes, Huizenga and Park (very negative ), in addition to Simon and Hoffman  (neutral), Storms and Beaudette (positive). If I were researching the history of Landmark, surely I'd obtain Pressman. However, I care much more about the present reality of Landmark, than I do about the history.
 * When I researched Afremow, I'd actually seen her in action. It was personal interest. But I would not have bought a book for that. I have no books about or by Landmark or Landmark people. There is a certain book I've seen. First impression: low quality, compared to what is delivered in the programs. The training is not about text. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 22:11, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, you don't have to necessarily spend money on books when there's such things as libraries, lol. -- Cirt (talk) 22:44, 13 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Boring, Cirt. Of course I could go to the library, but when I'm doing research, I normally want to have to book for extensive reference. But I won't be reading it for research. There are two copies on Amazon, used, a hard-cover for $25 and a paperback for $44. No way that I would spend that for this book. Maybe I'll see it in the book shed at the local dump. I've picked up some great books that way. Next time I'm at the library, I'll see if they have it. I'm not motivated more than that.
 * The title of the book is "Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile." The Wikipedia article notes:
 * An analysis in Kirkus Reviews, noting the choice of title by the author, asserted that Pressman: "makes no pretense to objectivity here."[10] Kirkus Reviews criticized the book, saying "What the author dramatically fails to provide by bearing down on the negative (to the extent that nearly all his informants denounce est and its founder) is any real understanding of est's teachings--and of why they appealed so deeply to so many."


 * Basically, if someone has impacted millions of people (a half million by the time of Pressman), there are going to be a huge number of stories to select from.
 * Dark journey? This guy made money hand over fist. He won a lawsuit against the IRS. "Exile" sounds like some terrible fate. It seems to me that Erhard has led an amazing life, he had more fun than I can imagine. Salons with the likes of Feynman and Hawking? Yes, there were dark passages. I've heard a Forum Leader describe his own dark passages. So?
 * I have no idea if I can trust the "facts" that Pressman reports. My guess is that most facts are correct, in general, but the problem would be cherry-picking, loss of context, etc. The book title says it. Yellow journalism. Scandal. Basically, gossip. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 00:46, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Wow. Interesting that you judge it without having read it or even trying to read it. And yet Landmark aficionados frequently say you can't understand Landmark -- that's right, without trying it! So for some reason you can't judge Landmark without trying it, but you CAN judge this book without reading it?!? at its best! -- Cirt (talk) 03:58, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Cirt, you have a complete misunderstanding of Already Always Listening. AAL is a normal and functional process, we use it to make routine choices. I have read many books, and this book has a title that telegraphs its nature, clearly, as is confirmed by every source I've seen on the book, and I quoted Wikipedia on this. We judge nearly everything without specific experience, it's routine, it is part of the "realm of survival," as is covered extensively in the Advanced Course. There is nothing wrong with the realm of survival, it's normal and necessary. The difficulty with AAL is where it prevents us from seeing beyond these conclusions from the past. If I refused to look at the book because of AAL, I'd be caught in my story. I have no such refusal, but I also do not have high motivation to seek out and find the book. I've read piles of critiques on Landmark, and consider it unlikely there is much there that would be truly new, and even less likely that it would be of importance to my life. I've invited you to share what you know from it that might make a difference, you have declined, "just read the book," you have insisted. I will read the book. Now, turn this around. Do you have a judgment of the Landmark Forum without having experienced it? Have you experienced anything like the Forum? (I pretty much expect the answer will be No, but you might imagine that something else is like the Forum, like, say, Scientology. Outside of imitations and independent replications -- such as Lifespring -- I very much doubt it. I had extensive "self-help" experience before Landmark and I know of nothing like it in detail. There are, as the Wikipedia article points out, many programs that have been inspired by Landmark, and the Landmark technology did not appear, lotus-born, there were antecedent programs, the closest being, apparently, Mind Dynamics. You have not disclosed your experience, nor have you actually disclosed your point of view, and you certainly declined the request for more information.
 * You also appear to be making assumptions about the meaning of my communication that is not clear in the communication. I *asked* about reliability of Pressman. Then I disclosed how the title occurs: yellow journalism, gossip. I do, Cirt, have experience with the *title*, and indirect experience with the content.
 * Nothing is wrong here, our interaction demonstrated how Wikiversity can handle various points of view and possible breakdown of cooperation, and I assume we will continue to cooperate to create deep educational resources. Do you have Pressman? You have not actually disclosed that. It could be useful for me to know. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 16:25, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * You don't have to try or  to know they are bad for you to even try once, do you? :) -- Cirt (talk) 19:49, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Your point? --Abd (discuss • contribs) 12:38, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
 * One does not necessarily need to directly experience something controversial especially something with potentially harmful psychiatric impact, in order to be able to read academic journal articles about that thing and learn about it from reading material in a non-experiential way. -- Cirt (talk) 22:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah. Potentially harmful psychiatric impact. Are you recommending an "academic journal article" about "that thing," i.e., presumably, the Landmark Forum? Is there something not covered by Rick Ross's site? Cirt, I now have well over two years of intense direct experience with Landmark. I know hundreds of people involved in the work. At one point I called the entire available Western Massachusetts graduate database. (That is, all persons who have had contact with Landmark in the last 18 months, after which the federal rules about phone contact apply.) I was doing this to organize a graduate group, not to "sell courses." If anyone who would otherwise be on that list had requested "do not call," I wouldn't have their phone number, there were a few names on the list with "DNC." So this is not a complete survey. However, in all this I have seen zero sign of psychiatric disorder. About two million people have taken the Forum. In a population like that, one expects some level of problems.
 * There is a myth that the Forum process tears people down (and then builds them back up with praise). That's an outsider judgment. It doesn't happen that way. Forum process is frank, but not abusive. It is not blaming and judgmental. Erhard used to call people "assholes," but the context was that we are all assholes, i.e, we lie to ourselves and others. (The deepest "lie" is that we believe the stories we made up are true, and society conspires with us in this.) Erhard called people to responsibility for their own lives, it's called being "at cause." It is not a "truth," it is a stand or approach. That approach looked like he was "blaming the victim," but the whole point was to guide people to a position outside of "victim," into empowerment. Others, observing this process, didn't like it, thought it was abusive, and that still happens. But the supposed "victim" of this abuse, in the videos I've seen, "got it," and left empowered and grateful, because, perhaps for the first time, someone was honest enough with them to penetrate the fog of "victim."
 * You are correct. If the Forum were harmful "psychiatrically," one would not need to take it to grasp that as a fact. Landmark does recommend that people with certain psychiatric issues not take the Forum. They used to prohibit it, but that was discriminatory and possibly illegal. So now there is an "informed consent" form that all Forum participants must sign. It recommends consultation and recommends that certain people not take the Forum, but the decision is up to the person. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 11:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Got it. Got it. Got it. But there are others ways to learn about a thing, aside from simply experiencing the thing. That is all I am pointing out. :) Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 00:36, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure there are. However, compared to direct experience, those are commonly shallow, and can be flawed in well-known ways. My training is in science, Cirt. Science is two things: a method and a body of experience and analysis. Direct experience is crucial to science, but it is impossible to directly experience everything. So we do depend on indirect experience, i.e., the experience of others. Where we run into trouble is where we depend on the interpretations of others, and interpretation includes the phenomenon of data selection. I.e., if one only collects evidence that points in one direction, and ignores evidence that points in another, one can create an appearance of logic and reasoning that conceals the underlying intention.
 * I *asked* about the reliability of Pressman and if you have the book. You did not answer. I also suggested that knowledge of the Forum based on indirect and circumstantial evidence was limited and easily can go astray. (So-and-so took the Forum. Then So-and-so shot the mailman. Therefore the Forum is Dangerous.)
 * I would not recommend that anyone take the Forum just to find out about it. Rather, I do recommend that people of reasonable psychological stability attend Introductions and Special Evenings or other open, free events, and meet Landmark people. One can actually meet some of the people listed on the page, i.e., Forum Leaders, and other Staff, the people who actually own Landmark and guide it. (Special Evenings, which mostly take place at Landmark Centers, are often run by Forum Leaders.) If one is afraid of "undue influence," don't take means of payment! (Graduates are encouraged to tell guests they invite that they may want to bring means of payment, but it's totally up to the guest, based on what the guest is comfortable with.)
 * But if one really wants to "get it," go to an Introduction with an intention to explore an area of life that isn't working, or not working as well as one wants, and to have a breakthrough with this. It often happens at Introductions. And one can go to as many introductions as one likes. The format will become familiar and could become boring, but in the ILP, I attended what may have been dozens of Introductions, and every time *I* got something out of it, well worth the time to be there, when I did the Possibility Exercise, which is core Landmark technology. (When I was Room Captain, I didn't do the exercise, but got something else, about the "space" in which Landmark process takes place. "Context is decisive.") One can attend as many Introductions as one wants, and Special Evenings. Introductions routinely take place just about everywhere within three hours or so of a Landmark Center, sometimes further. (The issue is travel time for an Introduction Leader, and these are all volunteers, and there is no expense reimbursement.) --Abd (discuss • contribs) 13:17, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Pressman is reliable. Yes I've read the book. It can be obtained from many libraries. Last I checked there were copies on for under five (5) dollars. That doesn't sound like too much money to pay for spiritual enlightenment, does it? :) -- Cirt (talk) 15:48, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Reliable is a judgment, how do you make it? I didn't say that Pressman was not reliable. I wrote that Pressman wasn't likely to be balanced as to the selection of evidence, and that's clear from the title, which is a heavy story. Your comment about price was surprising to me, because I'd checked, and found nothing like that (see above). Different edition? I don't know what happened, because I looked today and you are correct, though misleading. You didn't include shipping, which is almost as much as the book. However, I purchased Pressman and another book that seems to be considered neutral, that other book was cheaper by about $2. The total for both was about $15. I'll pay that much for the history. I don't expect to find enlightenment in any book not written by God. Are you claiming that, in buying Pressman, I am paying for "spiritual enlightenment? Cirt, you're weird. Scandals are a dime a dozen. We don't find enlightenment by studying the scandals of others, we might find something by looking at our own scandals. That is, in part, the work of the Forum. If that were all of it, it would suck. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 18:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The "Cirt, you're weird", comment, above, was uncalled for. -- Cirt (talk) 20:59, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * My apologies. Struck. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 22:10, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you, much appreciated, -- Cirt (talk) 01:17, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Bartley

 * Pressman has not arrived yet, but I just got my copy of Werner Erhard, by William Warren Bartley, III. Clarkson N. Potter, New York, 1978. W.W. Bartley, III Amazing book. It has a very detailed description of Erhard's search, including his early life, leaving his first family, lots of detail about his study of Scientology, and precisely where he moved away from Scientology. The descriptions of the various philosophies or techniques studied are erudite. The descriptions of Erhard's personal history, and especially the reunion with his family, are meticulously detailed, based on interviews with the family members. Bartley was a professor of philosophy, with substantial credentials, and did become a member of the Board of Directors of the Werner Erhard Charitable Foundation, and a member of the Advisory Board of est, according to the book. The book contains many interviews with Erhard. I had no idea that this book existed. It's heavily footnoted, as befits a book by an academic. The last words in the book follow, after Bartley has reviewed some scientific studies of est results:
 * In conclusion, it seems to me that one may take either what I call a "minimal view" or a "maximal view" of the "est" training.
 * According to the minimal interpretation, the est training does work in the sense that it is highly effective in rapidly producing resuilts agreed to be beneficial: it improves self-image and benefits health and well-being; it decreases righteousness and positionality; it takes people out of the self-destructive role of victim and into a more responsible and creative stance in their lives -- whatever the explanation. It produces such results, as a matter of practice, whether or not the est theory is correct.
 * A maximal interpretation, on the other hand, would content not only that the training is effective in the respects just suggested, but that it is also theoretically sound in all its particulars.
 * Werner Erhard himself does not take the maximal interpretation. He advocates the theory of the est training in a conjectural and nonpositional way as an effective way of looking at the world and dealing with experience. He is interested in finding out how well his theories stand up to scientific test, but he is not attached to their truth, and is absolutely opposed to their being turned into a belief system. Thus the interpretation held by Werner himself presumably lies somewhere between the minimal and maximal interpretations. Until further research is done, that is a good place to rest.


 * This is a remarkably clear insider view, that matches completely my own experience with the training (as is now served up by Landmark Worldwide). There is a technique or technology that is used in the trainings, but there is no dogma beyond a general idea that the technology usually works. There can be an attachment to the exact way that things have been done, that pencils are arranged a certain way, for example, or chairs have such and such a separation. Some people are greatly offended if anything is changed, it seems, but, after all, if we don't really know how it works, maybe some apparently inconsequential detail is actually quite important. "Inconsequential" is a story, an interpretation, not a fact, unless one has actually shown that it makes no difference through testing.
 * I have seen what happens when the "distinctions" are interpreted as if they were "fact." People get confused! The big one is "Life is empty and meaningless and it is empty and meaningless that life is empty and meaningless." That might as well be called Buddhism 1A. But, quite explicitly, it not a theological or definitive philosophical statement, it's just a set of words that have a certain effect if "tested" by considering them. It isn't saying that there is no meaning to life, in an absolute sense, it is pointing out that what we routinely consider as "meaning" is something we make up, invented, whether or not shared with others. We need to know, to move beyond our ordinary limitations, that we have invented them, they are not "truth," they are judgments and thoughts. "Positions." Truth is something else. The "meaningless distinction" is not the truth, it's only a position from which to observe certain aspects of life.
 * I'm looking forward to seeing Pressman. I rather doubt it's going to upstage Bartley (who seems to cover the "dirt" quite dispassionately), but we'll see. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 23:26, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The book "Werner Erhard" by William Warren Bartley is a biased source for the following reasons
 * Bartley's book Werner Erhard does have some interesting information and several revealing quotes by Werner Erhard. However, Bartley is a biased source.

Other than that, and with those caveats in mind, yes, it is a most interesting source of information. -- Cirt (talk) 16:28, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Bartley was a professor of philosophy at California State University and an old friend of Erhard.
 * 2) Bartley was very involved in the est organization, and was a devotee of the est training.
 * 3) He served for several years as the company's philosophical consultant, and was paid US$30,000 in this capacity during the two years he spent writing the book.
 * 4) Bartley also served on the "Advisory Board" of est.
 * 5) Bartley commented on his subject in an article on the book in The Evening Independent, stating: "He's not a huckster, although he's a great salesman. I think he's a very good man, a very important man. ... He's a fascinating man. People are interested in him."
 * 6) The book is seen by multiple reviewers as a biased.
 * 7) The book is part of a pattern of people close to Werner Erhard publishing things favorable to Werner Erhard with participation from Werner Erhard. Werner Erhard's lawyer Walter Maksym was the publisher of the book 60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard by Jane Self.
 * Bartley is open about his relationship with Erhard and est. However, to describe him as an "old friend of Erhard" is misleading. Bartley was a notable professor of philosophy first, then he describes how he met Erhard, it was by doing the est training in 1972, at the suggestion of his physician. That is, philosopher first, est trainee second, friend and supporter of Erhard third.
 * You are surprised that people who benefited from the training publish things favorable to Erhard or the training?
 * I'd think that was is much more remarkable is how honest the portrayal is. Warts and all.
 * My guess is that the stories of Erhard's personal life found in Pressman depend heavily on Bartley. Bartley may have been a bit starry-eyed at times, the conversations reported regarding the reunion with his abandoned family read "just too perfect" -- to me -- but he doesn't shy away from disclosing many Erhard "problems." (But I've never personally seen Erhard in action. Maybe he really did say and act as described. It's not impossible. It does appear that his former family was "enrolled" and "registered" into this "new realm of possibility."
 * What I found totally fascinating was the etiology of the training. I'm familiar with many of the antecedent sources, and, knowing the training (present, and indirectly, est) it is all very believable. Bartley knew his stuff. The role of Scientology was greater than I'd thought. However, the departure from Scientology is also made very clear. I have an old friend who was a major enemy of Scientology and who suffered greatly as a result, those people were truly nasty, and that is quite related to the difference that Bartley makes explicit. (In Landmark terms, Scientology operates in the realm of survival, est connected with the realm of the Self, which is not about survival, it is transpersonal and beyond identity, which, then, is what connects this work with the religious traditions, as noted by many.
 * Est (and Landmark) are so different from Scientology in practice that I didn't see the connections, beyond some words that are no longer commonly used, like "flat," but Erhard acknowledges them, and now I can see them. "Clear" is related to what is called "Present" in Landmark, and the concept that we are blocked from being "present" by stories from the past is a possible connection with "engrams." (Landmark generally considers the stories to be in language, but it's pretty obvious that there are emotional patterns underneath, in some cases.)
 * After reading some of the book (I've only skimmed much of it, then started to read from the beginning), I did some searching. I was interested in what happened with Ellen Erhard, that divorce apparently got quite ugly, it was the likely force behind the stories of child abuse. I found little. But I did read some Wikisource stuff, you had put up as Smee, I think, about the Margolis mess, and read more about Margolis himself. Margolis did "financial planning" for many celebrities; the complex nightmare he created caused actual damage when Erhard attempted to extract himself from it, that was clear in the court documents. That's where the tax errors were made (Erhard wasn't charged with fraudulent filing, only with interpretational error, and no wonder. That mess confused experts. Margolis was also never convicted of tax fraud, and all charges were dismissed or, when they went to trial, he was acquitted.) I was fascinated to see the Tax and Appeals court ruling that extracting Erhard's work from the Margolis "system" wasn't a legitimate business purpose -- in a business where public perception was crucial. That was the basis for the ruling that interest payments could not be deducted, the basic cause of Erhard's tax liability.
 * (This was actually a rather difficult interpretational issue. On the one hand, the IRS will impute interest if it isn't paid. To some of Erhard's experts, the transactions looked like arms-length transactions, but the court considered that Margolis was in control of every entity, in effect. Mess.)
 * It's quite clear in the book that Erhard is not exactly a saint. There are other written documents, later, from people who knew Erhard well, that make the situation even more clear. Flawed human being. Like most (all?) of us. Given that, Erhard's accomplishment is all the more amazing. Still, the ancient image is that the lotus flower grows out of the mud.
 * And he passed on the torch, deliberately. That's part of what radically distinguishes Erhard from Hubbard. Erhard let go. That's rare. It's actually part of the training in the Self-Expression and Leadership Program, it's called "relocation." --Abd (discuss • contribs) 18:56, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Pressman
The book arrived yesterday. My concerns about Pressman are confirmed. Bartley is telling the story of Werner Erhard as related to him by Erhard himself, and by Erhard's "family and friends and close associates in est." When conversations are reported, Bartley commonly reports his source. Bartley has plenty of material that can be considered negative, Bartley is not a "hagiography" (biography of a saint). It is, however, sympathetic, there is no doubt about that. Pressman is the opposite. He reports private conversations without disclosing how he knows what was said. His reports are laden with highly negative judgment, as to the language he uses. He reports imputed *motivation* as if it were fact. Given how ubiquitous this is in the book, and given how our impressions of the "meaning" of what people do can color our selection of facts to consider and report, Pressman is utterly unreliable. That doesn't mean that any given fact is necessarily wrong, but that there is blatantly and obviously no balance. *All of Pressman is negative.* From Pressman, we would never understand how so many highly educated, successful people supported Erhard and praised his work, based on their own experience of it.

The dust jacket says that Pressman is "based on scores of interviews and an exhaustive examination of court records, testimony, and crucial documents." Court testimony is primary source, it requires interpretation, and that is what judges and juries are about. Pressman is the judge and jury for his book, largely. Whatever appears as dirt or scandal, he reports. What might seem positive or some sort of benefit, is explained away. Erhard gives to a charity. It's to look good. People report benefit from the trainings. They are deluded.

There is a problem with memories of conversations. They shift with time, and with perceived significance. The source of the memory matters. Someone who likes Erhard may suppress memories of something he said that the person might ordinarily not like. Someone who dislikes Erhard may selectively remember what offended them, and not remember other parts of the conversation that might cast a different light on it.

The book starts of with a dramatic presentation of a suicide. Details are reported, creating a "significant image" that mayy exist only in the imagination of the author, because the only witness died. Nothing in the account actually ties Erhard or the training to the suicide. It looks like Pressman has seen her diary, but he doesn't actually tell us that, he could be relying on a second-hand account. The woman's apparent last written words: "Werner, thanks for keeping me alive this long."

Pressman *speculates*: "It was not until he read her diary entries that [her husband] realized with a chill just how powerful was the influence Werner Erhard had exerted in his wife's life. And perhaps in her death as well."

Yet the account is quite remarkable for what is not in it. This woman was obviously in deep despair. Why? What was the origin of that? I see only two clues: the training was important to her, and her husband knew little about it, apparently. She was, in her marriage, alone. Related to this, she and her husband were working on a "separation agreement." But those are weak clues. There is no basis in this for blaming her husband, just as there is no basis for blaming Erhard, or the woman, for that matter. But Pressman rather obviously is certain that Werner had "slipped off the hook, by offering a small settlement to the husband." Who put him on the hook in the first place?

I see nothing about what Pressman claims in this "Prologue" that indicates that the husband could have won a suit. But as Pressman surely points out, lawsuits can be bad publicity, though he also points out that "no jury had ever found est or the Forum legally responsible for any injury."

Given that the husband knew that his wife had been "terribly unhappy," it was actually strange that he considered filing a lawsuit and contacted Erhard. Given the magnitude of his loss, and that of the two children, however, I'll leave off speculation here.

By now, something approaching two million people have done the training (est/Forum/Landmark Forum). In that population, there will be suicidal people. The training can have a powerful effect on people, magical, it can seem, but it isn't omnipotent. Erhard wasn't God, though he may have blathered a bit about being the "Source." From Bartley, we can know that Erhard wasn't the sole source. He was passing on a "Body of Knowledge" (that's misnamed, though that is what it was called in the Margolis system -- it was really just a pile of scripts, an embodiment of a technology) that had been passed on to him, but he did put it together in a way that may have been new.

What I find in Bartley is a picture of Erhard as a human being, as seen by his friends and family, but this picture, like all pictures, is incomplete. Pressman presents a dark side, so dark as to be a caricature of evil. Pressman uses many stereotypes to convey the "evil," starting with the "used car salesman" trope. Erhard was a salesman, for sure. But what do salespeople do? In the stereotype, they cheat and deceive people and trick them into buying what they don't need. In the positive image, they connect people with what they need, they inform and empower. It is no surprise that training in transformation would be associated with sales, because both involve effective communication. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 22:28, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Pressman and Bartley each have their own point of view. I have shown above how Bartley has a both financially and personally. I would encourage you to read the entirety of both books, and attempt to keep an open mind throughout during the reading experience. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 23:28, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Both authors have apparent conflicts of interest, but they have different natures. Bartley was an academic, a professor of philosophy. He tells the history of Erhard and the development of the training from a philosophical, historical, and biographical perspective. He was indeed a Graduate of the training, but did not develop his opinions about Erhard and the training out of a conflict of interest. The possible conflict of interest arose later. Bartley's style is academic and neutral in tone, for the most part. Given Bartley's long career, it's unlikely that he was influenced by the financial support he received. He was paid as a consultant, not as an author. What you are saying about Bartley is very likely from Pressman, who has this, on which I will comment in detail:
 * This public portrayal of Erhard [as a "transformed human being who had figured out the secrets of creating 'inspiring' relationships with others" was bolstered further in the fall of 1978 with a much balleyhooed publication of an authorized biography that purported to tell the amazing story of Erhard's life and the creation of est, complete with selected details of Erhard's family life.
 * Every paragraph in Pressman is replete with language incorporating Pressman's theme: Erhard was a fraud, a con artist, and the training was useless, hypnosis, bogus, and anyone who praised it was deluded or lying. Pressman himself relies on Bartley, it appears, for much of his history of Erhard. Bartley does tell the story of Erhard's life, which is, indeed, an amazing story, so why add the scare words "purported"? Why is "inspiring" in quotes? Reports of inspiring relationship breakthroughs from the training are ubiquitous, even from people who were overall skeptical. Clearly, Erhard had put together something that works, at least on some level. What is that? Pressman doesn't seem the slightest bit interested. He's busy, he's got a scandal to cover! --Abd (discuss • contribs) 17:11, 7 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Sure, the details are selected. Bartley may not have had access to some of the "details", which are also selected in Pressman. We don't know how reliable those details are. What I do know from my own life and from my experience with others is that we all "select" details to remember, and we tend to remember what events meant to us, that is, what we derived from them or that which had an emotional impact on us. Memory is plastic, it is well known, and memory shifts, long-term, according to the meanings we have created from it. "Irrelevant" details are forgotten, and other details, the ones implicated in our creation of meaning, are emphasized. Under some conditions, these details are actually created, they did not exist in the original experience. That is, if we have concluded that someone was lying in what they said, we may imagine what that would look like, perhaps the eyes were shifty. We imagine that, and our imagination can become incorporated in the memory. Pressman's stories are full of "details" like that, what are, in fact, complex judgments made at some point, either by the witness on whom Pressman is relying, or by Pressman himself. (In some cases, the detail was clearly supplied by Pressman, in his narrational style of adding small details to make his account seem believable, it's a technique used in writing fiction.
 * The book was written by a college philosophy professor and est enthusiast named William Bartley III, who had been paid more than $30,000 as a "philosphical consultant" to est during the two years he worked on the book.
 * That is almost all that Pressman has to say about Bartley. This alone demonstrates his clear bias. All Pressman can see about Bartley is summed up as "college philosphy professor" -- which occurs to me like he might be teaching in some local junior college, and that would be Pressman's design -- and "est enthusiast," completely covering up the reality of this publishing event. W.W. Bartley, III was not a simple professor, and "est enthusiast" is a relatively minor part of his life. Yet Pressman relies heavily on Bartley, because those "selected details" include many of the facts, that, ripped from context, are used to condemn Erhard.
 * So we can see, here, how Pressman selects facts, to create the impressions he desires to create. Pressman is a yellow journalist. Yellow journalists may sometimes see themselves as "noble crusaders" out to "tell the truth" in spite of massive obstacles. There is an historical example of this in Gary Taubes, who wrote an expose of cold fusion in the 1990s, Bad Science. Taubes is a far more careful writer than Pressman. His book was based on 257 interviews, and is meticulously footnoted. As to historical fact, Taubes is unparalleled. However, the jacket says: "Taubes unveils the darker side of science, where politics, ambition, and misguided obsession can corrupt its ethics and its purpose. Bad Science is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how science functions and what can happen when the scientific method is jettisoned in the pursuit of wealth and glory."
 * The problem with Taubes is that he does not himself follow the scientific method. He is reported as having acknowledged that his purpose in writing the book was to make money, that he had developed a story of "error" and that was what would sell. Cold fusion as a possibility offended a huge economic interest, the hot fusion research effort, a billion dollars a year. It offended common scientific understanding, and scientists are human, we don't like our paradigms challenged (Hoffman, 1995 ). A cascade developed, where cold fusion was rejected as bogus and error and the result of "delusions," as Taubes reports, but "delusion" is not a fact. Nearly everyone involved made mistakes, Pons and Fleischmann did not understand what they had discovered, but they were also scientists and expert in measuring their primary claim: anomalous heat. The P-F experiment was extremely difficult to replicate, and there was inadequate information available early on, so there were many replication failures. It was some years before direct evidence was developed that demonstrated the reality of the effect. Taubes' story was plausible, but he also went so far as to formally claim fraud with respect to tritium measurements, and he was apparently mistaken about that. The tritium work -- which is possibly irrelevant to the main reaction in "cold fusion," has been widely confirmed, as shown by recent reviews; but Taubes stopped his reporting at about the time that confirmations started to appear.
 * Taubes is great at exposing Bad Science, in fact, and went on to do this in fields where his general theme -- which has become much more modest -- is probably correct. With cold fusion, Taubes must have seen the direct evidence, before the book went to press, but he would have then had to revise his book, which depends for its Bad Science theme on the absence of such evidence. I.e., his story is that scientists "believed in" cold fusion in spite of the absence of evidence for it.
 * An author, writing a book intended for popular consumption, is not disinterested, generally. This is especially likely when the book tells the story in ways to amplify its dramatic, lurid qualities. Outrageous Betrayal. Bad Science. Taubes' early title for his expose of Bad Science in the field of nutrition and disease, "What if it's all been a Big Fat Lie"?
 * Bartley is practically unique. I know of no other book that describes, in anything like this depth, the etiology of est. Landmark Worldwide certainly doesn't tell this story, and some of the official corporate material presents different impressions, such as the non-relationship with Scientology. Bartley establishes the relationship and then some of the differences, and the differences are crucial.
 * I do intend to read all of Pressman, but it is like slogging through a pile of excrement. It has been said that if one throws shit against a wall, some of it will stick. The shit is the impression formed from reading Pressman. That impression is created in the mind of the reader, because Pressman is conveying alleged fact together with incorporated meaning, usually that Erhard -- and his followers -- are utterly disgusting. "Outrageous betrayal."
 * I can see the training and Landmark in that way. I've been "betrayed." Yet that is also a story, even a racket, and it's obvious when I tell it, I know the marks, they are unmistakeable.
 * There is a reform movement in Landmark, the entire enterprise is under redesign. It's difficult, because we tend to think of reform as fixing what is "wrong." And "wrong" is a story. (That is, it isn't a fact, it is not present in "what happened" -- other than as occurrings.) So those who are defending the status quo, which is very human, can easily claim that any change is based on "story" and "racket." And sometimes it is. But, So what?
 * To move beyond this, within Landmark, requires actually doing the work at a far deeper level; this is well known in other, ancient traditions. I can see this in Erhard's story, as it continued through the 1990s. He wasn't completely "cooked," to use an image from Rumi. He was -- and still is -- a work in progress, as are all of us. Pressman presents him as a failure, Perhaps Pressman needs some "moral," i.e., his is a classic morality tale, which must end with the downfall of the evil person. Yet Erhard, to me, seems to have been radically successful. He failed to become perfect, at least as far as we know the story. Yet the work he did is continuing to develop. (And, of course, "perfection" is a story.) The abuses that are described in Pressman as continuing into the 1990s are not so visible now. They do apparently boil down, where they are not utter misrepresentation, to Landmark leaders being human. Big surprise, eh?
 * Because Pressman never understands the appeal of the training, he is utterly incapable of seeing what was known to the ancients: out of the mud grows the lotus. He is incapable of understanding the many layers of meaning present in, as an example, a reported statement of Erhard in response to "Are you the messiah?"
 * "I am he who sent him."
 * That was a response of high sophistication, cutting through the BS of the question. All Pressman can get from it is "I'm God." Erhard doesn't believe that he is God, not in any exclusive way, if at all. Erhard is communicating something that is available to anyone. As did Jesus, by the way. Who sends the Messiah? If the Messiah is an answer to a question, we could suggest that the question, by being asked, sends the Messiah. The Messiah, in this way, is the Son of Man, i.e., the creation of man, or, in Landmark language, of the Self.
 * What I came to myself, in my own study and thinking -- before doing the training --, was that, in our time, the Messiah appears as a collective phenomenon, not as an individual. Erhard was speaking for the entire human community, at that moment. (I would say, if asked this question when awake, "We are who sent him," not so easily misunderstood.) I got the possibility of this in the Advanced Course, I saw how always before I had allowed my individual identity, the creation of my own story, to block this, and I started to experience the reality of the Self, and to be able to -- occasionally -- speak for the Self. "IT" -- the reactive brain -- tries to own this, to assert control, and from this attempt much ugliness can arise.
 * How a "used car salesman" manages to come up with an answer similar to those reported from ancient mystics would seem to be, if we ignore the etiology of est as presented by Bartley, a mystery. Of course, Erhard consulted with many, people with pieces of the answers, and he apparently listened, and put it into practice. It was actually clockwork.
 * What Pressman says about this (p. 147):
 * "Undoubtedly, there were many in the room who were sure they had just witnessed the ultimate transformation of a man: Werner Erhard wanted them to believe he was on a par with God."
 * Erhard certainly didn't say that. Pressman said that. (The tip-off is "undoubtedly." Where does that certainty exist?) Did Erhard "want" them to believe anything? If so, he was acting in direct contradiction to the training.
 * I imagine that if I'd been there, and if it became clear to me that Erhard meant what Pressman claims was obvious, I'd have taken off my badge. However, the statement simply doesn't mean what Pressman makes it mean. Just before this, Pressman has reported another statement, saying that it is a a "hint" about Ernhard's own "illusion of mystical power."
 * "When you get to a field of open snow, on which you have never walked before, and on which no one has ever walked before, and on which you don't think it is possible to walk, look for my footprints."
 * No "mystical power" is asserted. The field of open snow is a metaphor, that's obvious. Werner is indeed making a claim here, but it is only a claim of possibility, that he has walked where we might think it impossible to walk. I suggest that's quite believable. Indeed, where he has already walked, where we know he walked, still can seem impossible. If Pressman's accounts were true and factual, and some may be, this is all the more a miracle. Out of the mud, out of the muck and the "outrageous betrayal" of life -- eli, eli, lama sabachthani -- comes something that justifies it all, something beyond all those stories of wrongness and anger and blame, something that can endure even death. --Abd (discuss • contribs) 17:11, 7 December 2013 (UTC)