Outrageous Betrayal: The Real Story Of Werner Erhard From Est To Exile

Outrageous Betrayal: The Real Story Of Werner Erhard From Est To Exile

Product Description As the founder of a human-potential movement known as est, which stood for Erhard Seminars Training, Erhard in the 1970s and 1980s attracted hundreds of thousands of followers who sat through grueling sixty-hour training sessions that promised personal transformation and profound insights into human relationships. But Werner Erhard was eventually plagued by problems and controversy, culminating in horrifying allegations, which he hotly disputed, that he had forced his wife to live apart from her children and sexually abused two of his daughters. Erhard also became the focus of renewed charges that his est movement had taken on some of the trappings of a cult. At the same time, the Internal Revenue Service persisted in claims that Erhards est-related companies owed millions of dollars in back taxes. A bitter divorce battle between Erhard and his second wife further helped to fuel speculation that ests approach to personal transformation was both cruel and hollow. Finally, in early 1991, Erhard left the United States, preferring the solitude of self-imposed exile to the glare of harsh publicity. Based on scores of interviews and an exhaustive examination of court records, testimony, and crucial documents, Outrageous Betrayal provides the first comprehensive account of Werner Erhards meteoric rise and crashing fall. From Publishers Weekly Before he abandoned his wife and children, changed his name to Werner Erhard, moved to California and began promoting his self-awareness programs, known in the 1970s as est and later as the Forum, Jack Rosenberg was a car salesman in Philadelphia. Inspired by a self-help course called Mind Dynamics, by Napoleon Hills book, Think and Grow Rich , by Scientology and cybernetics, and advised by a skilled tax lawyer, Erhard launched est in 1971. And for 20 years he reigned as guru of the human potential movement. According to freelance journalist Pressman, the womanizing, charismatic and demanding Erhard collected tens of millions of dollars from 500,000 people who took his courses. Eventually lawsuits, desertions among his coterie and the rise of new New Age mind-improving programs ended Erhards empire and in 1991, owing millions to the IRS and others, he went into exile in Mexico. Pressman here cuts into him with surgical precision. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Pressman, a San Francisco-based journalist, offers a compelling account of the 1980s guru who rose from selling used cars to peddling personal transformation. Erhards dubious Est program--today known as The Forum--promises outlandish benefits in return for outlandish cash outlays. Like many of his predecessors, (notably L. Ron Hubbard, the demented fabricator of Scientology, whom Erhard briefly followed), Erhard progressed from a tireless, aggressive proselytizer to a psychotic egomaniac. Pressman skillfully documents Erhards ascension to godlike status, and his irrevocable, shameful plummet following an episode that aired in 1991 on 60 Minutes , in which Erhards daughter accused him of sexual abuse (a charge that Erhard allegedly deflected by characterizing it as a nurturing experience). Most public libraries should place this expose on the same shelves as Wendy Kaminers Im Dysfunctional, Youre Dysfunctional ( LJ 6/1/92). - Mark Annichiarico, Library Journal Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Kirkus Reviews Mud-slinging expos? of the notorious pop guru who got it- -and then tried to give it to the rest of the world. As his title makes clear, Pressman (a former writer for California Lawyer) makes no pretense to objectivity here: His Werner Erhard is a charismatic but abusive con man with a genius for repackaging and marketing others ideas. Erhard, he tells us, was born in 1935 Pennsylvania as Jack Rosenberg; grew up to be a married car-salesman with kids; fell in love and remarried, committing b