There was a time in American history when plenty of Americans were happy to fork over $275 (around $2100 in today's dollars) for group therapy sessions lasting a total of 70 hours spread out over two grueling and humiliating weekends. Eager submissives from all walks of life—businessmen, housewives, ex-hippies, actors, etc.—experienced the tyranny of “trainers” who all but confined them to their seats for sessions that could last 15 hours per day—sometimes 20. But they all understood that good things never come easy. There were limited bathroom breaks, and one food break (or none, at the whim of the trainer) per day. Talking, note-taking, and smoking were verboten.
The participants in these seminars endured the punishment because they'd been convinced they'd emerge from this tunnel with the keys to gaining levels of personal power, freedom and happiness. The man behind all the “convincing” was a former trainer of encyclopedia salesmen named Werner Erhard, founder of Erhard Seminars Training, Inc.—commonly referred to as “EST.”
This was back in the 1970s. The previous decade had seen thousands rising up in anti-war and civil rights protests. There was Martin Luther King's 250,000-person March on Washington. There were sit-ins, street riots, protests, Freedom Rides, and more. But people turned inwards after the disillusionment caused by the ill-conceived Vietnam War and the cynicism brought on by the Watergate scandal. Collective action was on the way out now, replaced by individualism. Self-improvement became popular in the new era that writer Tom Wolfe coined the “Me Decade.”
The reactions against the war and civil rights injustice demonstrated that Americans weren’t passive. They were willing to fight, and take beatings for their cause. Yet just several years later, hundreds would sit obediently in a packed auditorium while an EST trainer called them “assholes” and told them he didn't give a damn about them.
How did such passivity set in after the 1960s? Not all idealism crumbled under the weight of crushed expectations, but in the 1970s Americans became more concerned with improving their own lives. They wanted to recharge marriages, fix low esteem, resolve resistance to intimacy, and cure loneliness. Many sought the answer to the question, “Who Am I?”
So they turned to therapy, encounter groups, consciousness-raising, and books about personal growth. Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California became the center of the “human-potential” movement. Gestalt therapy groups encouraged people to focus on their immediate feelings and experiences. The Joy of Sex (1972), by Alex Comfort, became a best-seller. Other popular self-help books included M. Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, Eric Berne’s Games People Play, and Thomas Harris's I'm OK—You’re Okay.
EST found its place in this new zeitgeist by taking the me-centered emphasis of the times and providing it with a defined structure for improving individual lives. Esalen’s scenery and mineral baths were spectacular, but it was a long drive to California. Going to a nearby hotel ballroom on consecutive weekends to work out personal kinks was much more practical, albeit less pleasurable. Silver-colored barf bags were made available at EST sessions, and people often sobbed.
EST was a mashup of Zen Buddhism, Scientology (Erhard had undergone “auditing” around 1968), Gestalt Therapy, and Dale Carnegie “self-improvement” teachings, but Erhard and his team used word games to obscure the definition of their philosophy to maintain an aura of conceptual mystery. The stated purpose of the seminars was to break down participants' core beliefs to force them to accept absolute responsibility for their own lives. Treating the customers as if they were in an army boot camp—turning the A/C down to 40°, calling them assholes and turkeys, etc.—was the cudgel used to break them down.
To maintain control, Erhard had his trainers tell people that "all criticism is self-created and says more about the critic than the subject discussed.” A sensible person would take this as a signal to walk out the door, but the EST trainers’ intimidation tactics kept most of them glued to their seats. One trainer reportedly responded to a participant’s thoughts with: “Don’t give me your goddamn belief system, you dumb motherfucker.”
It was all about control. EST participants surrendered their egos for the shaky promise that they were on the path to controlling their own lives. EST taught that even if someone got molested or raped, it was still at least partially their own fault.
But it's hard to imagine how an “ESTie” could make any sort of breakthrough after being bombarded by EST’s gibberish. The trainers told them that “being” is far more important than “doing” or “having,” and that helping people keeps them infantile and teaches them to play for sympathy. And how much enlightenment can spring from putting people through exercises that ask them to imagine being inside a strawberry or a cherry tomato?
In the beginning, EST’s reputation got burnished by celebrity endorsements: John Denver, Yoko Ono, Cher, Jeff Bridges, Joe Namath, etc. But a movement that traps its adherents in windowless rooms for 15 hours straight is destined to fade out as soon as the novelty wears off. EST held its last session in December,1984 after facing media scrutiny, lawsuits and public criticism over its abusive tactics. The word “EST” soon became toxic, Werner Erhard repackaged his core philosophies into a "kinder, gentler" program he called The Forum.
With EST fading into oblivion, people no longer had to deal with the aggressive behavior of arrogant ESTies eager to set the world straight after two weekends of subservience. If someone was in emotional pain, they were spared being told it was just an illusion.
The coda for the EST movement was well-deserved. Magazines like Time and National Lampoon ran articles that turned it into a laughingstock. In the TV show, Mork & Mindy, Mork (Robin Williams) attends a seminar run by a predatory jerk named “Erk,” played by David Letterman. The joke was on EST now.