|
Erhard Seminars Training (est), an organization founded by Werner H. Erhard, offered a two-weekend (60-hour) course known officially as "The ''est'' Standard Training". The purpose of ''est'' was "to transform one's ability to experience living so that the situations one had been trying to change or had been putting up with, clear up just in the process of life itself."〔Getting it – the psychology of est, by Dr. Sheridan Fenwick, p.44〕〔Life inc: how the world became a corporation and how to take it back, by Douglas Rushkoff〕 The ''est'' training was offered from late 1971 to late 1984. == Training == The est Standard Training program consisted of two weekend-long workshops with evening sessions on the intervening weekdays, as well as each Wednesday night. Workshops generally involved about two hundred participants and were led by a trainer designated by Erhard and several assistants. Ronald Heifetz, Founder of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard, called est “an important experience in which two hundred people go through a powerful curriculum over two weekends and have a learning experience that seemed to change many of their lives.”〔Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World, by Sharon Daloz Parks, published 2005 by Harvard Business School Press, copyright 2005 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, pages 157- 158〕 Trainers confronted participants one-on-one and challenged them to be themselves rather than to play a role that had been imposed on them by the past.〔 ISBN 978-1-934137-84-0.〕 Jonathan D. Moreno observed that “participants might have been surprised how both physically and emotionally challenging and how philosophical the training was.”〔 He writes that the critical part of the training was freeing oneself from the past, which was accomplished by 'experiencing' one's recurrent patterns and problems rather than repeating them. The word ‘experience' was used to mean a process of fully experiencing the pointless repetition of old, burdensome behaviors so as to not be run by them.〔 The seminar aimed to enable participants to shift their contextual state of mind around which their life was organized from the attempt to get satisfaction or to survive, to an experience of actually being satisfied and experiencing oneself as whole and complete in the present moment. The est training offered people the opportunity to free themselves from the past, rather than living a life enmeshed by their past.〔Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est, by William Warren Bartley, III; New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1978. ISBN 0-517-53502-5, p. 199〕 Participants agreed to follow the ground rules which included not wearing watches, not talking until called upon, not eating at or leaving their seats to go to the bathroom except during breaks separated by many hours.〔Cults: Faith, Healing, and Coercion, by Marc Galanter; New York: Oxford University Press, second edition, 1999, p. 75〕 These classroom agreements provided a rigorous setting whereby people’s ordinary ways to escape confronting their experience of themselves were eliminated. Moreno describes the est training as a form of "Socratic interrogation...relying on the power of the shared cathartic experience that Aristotle observed.”〔 Erhard challenged participants to be themselves instead of playing a role that had been imposed on them〔 and aimed to press people beyond their point of view, into a perspective from which they could observe their own positionality.〔 As Robert Kiyosaki writes, "During the training, it became glaringly clear that most of our personal problems begin with our not keeping our agreements, not being true to our words, saying one thing and doing another. That first full day on the simple class agreements was painfully enlightening. It became obvious that much of human misery is a function of broken agreements – not keeping your word, or someone else not keeping theirs." Sessions lasted from 9:00 a.m. to midnight or the early hours of the morning, with one meal break. Participants had to hand over wristwatches and were not allowed to take notes, or to speak unless called upon, in which case they waited for a microphone to be brought to them. The second day of the workshop featured the "danger process".〔 As a way of observing and confronting their own perspective and point of view,〔 groups of participants were brought onto the stage and confronted. They were asked to "imagine that they were afraid of everyone else and then that everyone else was afraid of them"〔 and to re-examine their reflex patterns of living that kept their lives from working. This was followed by interactions on the third and fourth days, covering topics such as reality and the nature of the mind, looking at the possibility that "what is, is and what ain't, ain't," and that "true enlightenment is knowing you are a machine"〔 and culminating in a realization that people do not need to be stuck with their automatic ways of being but can instead be free to choose their ways of being in how they live their lives.〔 Participants were told they were perfect the way they were and were asked to indicate by a show of hands if they "had gotten it".〔 Many participants experienced powerful results through their participation in the est training, including dramatic transformations in their relationships with families, their work and personal vision as well as recognizing who they were in the core of their beings.〔 One study of a large sample of est alumni who had completed the training revealed that “the large majority felt the experience had been positive (88%), and considered themselves better off for having taken the training (80%).〔 In her book, ''I, Rhoda'', Valerie Harper reported, "Est was a wonderfully empowering experience for me. It took a lot of struggle and conflict out of my day-to-day decision-making and helped me imbue my life with more focus and intention. … I was happier, more alive, and everything seemed lighter."〔 Robert Kiyosaki, entrepreneur and author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad wrote, "In March of 1974, I walked into the est training, and two weeks later, as (sister ) had promised, my life changed. And my 'changed life' went well beyond the two weekends I spent in the est seminar. I realized I had the power to create the best destiny for my life, or the worst. It was my choice."〔 John Curry, Gold Medal winning ice skater said, "Quite honestly, I can say that from the day I signed up for est and from the first time I did it, my skating just changed. I suddenly realized that it was me who is doing the skating. I was the one in control. I was doing it, and it wasn't other things that could make me fall over, or make things go wrong." Activist Lynne Twist said, "Everybody has milestones and epiphanies. Mine came in the est training which I took in 1974 with Werner Erhard. It just revolutionized my life. I really came to understand that I could turn my life over to making a difference… I became fearless about living authentically." Another est graduate, comedian, Harvey Korman credited the training as a turning point for him. "Before est I had a lot of analysis and a lot of therapy and got nowhere… All through the years that you say I was a success I looked at myself as a victim. I wasn't getting enough of anything. 'They' had it. Whoever 'they' are! One of the liberating things about est for me is that I realized I was doing precisely what I wanted to do. I wasn't a victim. I chose my career, created it, and wanted it… It's very liberating to take responsibility for what you're doing and what you've done."〔Chicago Tribune 8/22 1976 http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1976/08/22/page/203/article/harvey-kormman〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Erhard Seminars Training」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|