[Marxism] A fascinating article on a self-improvement cult

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Just before I left for Kansas City to go into industry, I worked for 
a consulting company in NYC called Automated Concepts, Inc. It was 
run by a handsome, well-built, perpetually smiling fellow by the name 
Fred Harris who everybody knew was a graduate of est, a 
self-improvement cult that was almost as powerful as Scientology at 
the time. I got to know Fred fairly well through a series of dinners 
I had with him when I was giving computer classes to his headhunters. 
I can't remember him ever coming up with a single intelligent remark 
although he was certainly a charismatic figure and capable, I'm sure, 
of selling refrigerators to the Innuit. I imagine that his 
perpetually elevated mood was something he got out of the est 
seminars. I myself preferred cocaine at the time.

Years later after I was working at Goldman-Sachs and had money to 
throw around, I joined a health club not far from my building and 
even hired a trainer. This guy, an aspiring actor, with bulging calf 
muscles and a lantern jaw, invited me once to go to a meeting to hear 
some really exciting ideas. Since liberal-minded fellow workers were 
always willing to come to a Militant Labor Forum with me when I was 
in the Trotskyist movement, I thought that I'd accept his invitation 
in the same spirit. The meeting was sponsored by something called 
Landmark, an innocent enough sounding name. I thought I would hear 
something about how to succeed in business or something, but it 
turned out to be a pitch to sign up for seminars in what amounted to 
est's latest incarnation. Werner Erhard, the founder of est, had sold 
his business to Landmark Education that was carrying out the same 
approach. One meeting was enough for me. After spending 11 years in 
one cult, I was not about to get involved with another.

Check this out for some fascinating background on est.

http://www.counterpunch.com/gardner04142007.html

Werner Erhard's website: http://www.wernererhard.com/

Wiki article on Erhard: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Erhard#est:_Erhard_Seminars_Training_.281971_-_1981.29


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