Werner Hans Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg; September 5, 1935)[1]: 7 is an American lecturer known for founding est (offered from 1971 to 1984).[1]: 14 [2] In 1985, he replaced the est Training with a newly designed program, the Forum.[3] Since 1991, the Forum has been kept up to date and offered by Landmark Education.[4] Erhard has written, lectured, and taught on self-improvement.
Werner Erhard | |
---|---|
Erhard in 2015 | |
Born | John Paul Rosenberg September 5, 1935 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | Author, lecturer |
Spouses | Patricia Fry
(m. 1953; div. 1960)Ellen Erhard / June Bryde
(m. 1960; div. 1983) |
Children | 7 |
Website | wernererhard.net |
In 1977, Erhard co-founded The Hunger Project,[5] an NGO. In 1991, he retired from business and sold his existing intellectual property to his employees, who then adopted the name Landmark Education, renamed Landmark Worldwide in 2013.
Early life
editJohn Paul Rosenberg was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 5, 1935.[1]: 6 [6] His father was a small-restaurant owner who left Judaism for a Baptist mission and then joined his wife in the Episcopalian denomination.[1]: 6 [6] where she taught Sunday School.[1]: 6 They agreed that their son should choose his religion when he was old enough.[1]: 6 He chose to be baptized in the Episcopal Church, served there for eight years as an acolyte,[1]: 6 and has been an Episcopalian since.[7]
Rosenberg attended Norristown High School in Norristown, Pennsylvania, where he received the English award in his senior year.[1]: 25, 29 He graduated in June 1953, along with his future wife Patricia Fry,[1]: 30 whom he married on September 26, 1953;[1]: 40 they had four children.[1][page needed]
From the early mid-1950s until 1960, Rosenberg worked in various automobile dealerships, with a stint managing a medium-duty industrial equipment firm.[1]: 42
In 1960, Rosenberg deserted his wife and their children in Philadelphia. Rosenberg and June Bryde assumed false identities and traveled to Indianapolis.[1]: 57 He chose the name "Werner Hans Erhard"[citation needed] from Esquire magazine articles he had read about West German economics minister Ludwig Erhard and physicist Werner Heisenberg.[1]: 57–58 Bryde changed her name to Ellen Virginia Erhard.[1]: 53 The Erhards moved to St. Louis, where Werner took a job as a car salesman.[1]: 54, 55
Patricia Rosenberg and their four children initially relied on welfare and help from family and friends. After five years without contact, Patricia Rosenberg divorced Erhard for desertion and remarried.[1]: 226
In October 1972, a year after creating Erhard Seminars Training, Erhard contacted his first wife and family, arranged to provide support and college education for the children, and repaid Patricia's parents for their financial support.[1]: 335 Between 1973 and 1975, members of his extended family took the est training, and Patricia and his younger siblings took jobs in the est organization.[1]: 242, 243
Career
editParents Magazine Cultural Institute
editIn 1961, Erhard began selling correspondence courses in the Midwest. He then moved to Spokane, Washington,[1]: 85 where he worked at Encyclopædia Britannica's "Great Books" program as an area training manager. In January 1962, he began working at Parents Magazine Cultural Institute, a division of W. R. Grace & Co.[1]: 112 [8] In the summer of 1962, he became territorial manager for California, Nevada, and Arizona, and moved to San Francisco, and in the spring of 1963 moved to Los Angeles.[1]: 82–106 In January 1964, Parents transferred him to Arlington, Virginia as the southeast division manager; but after a dispute with the company's president, he returned to his previous position as west coast division manager in San Francisco.[1]: 53 : 117–138 Over the next few years, Erhard brought on as Parents staff many people who later became important in est, including Elaine Cronin, Gonneke Spits, and Laurel Scheaf.
Influences
editDuring his time in St. Louis, Erhard read two books that had a marked effect on him: Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich (1937) and Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics (1960).[1]: 122 When a member of his staff at Parents Magazine introduced him to the ideas of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, both key figures in the Human Potential Movement, he became more interested in personal fulfillment than sales success.[9]
After moving to Sausalito, he attended seminars by Alan Watts, a Western interpreter of Zen Buddhism, who introduced him to the distinction between mind and self;[9] Erhard subsequently became close friends with Watts.[1]: 117–138 Erhard also studied in Japan with Zen rōshi Yamada Mumon.[10] In Bartley's biography, Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est (1978), Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging Zen as an essential contribution that "created the space for" est.[1]: 146, 147
Erhard attended the Dale Carnegie Course in 1967.[9] He was sufficiently impressed by it to make his staff attend the course, and began to think about developing a course of his own.[9] Over the following years, he investigated a wide range of movements, including Encounter, Transactional Analysis, Enlightenment Intensive, Subud and Scientology.[9]
In 1970, Erhard became involved in Mind Dynamics and began teaching his own version of Mind Dynamics classes in San Francisco and Los Angeles.[1]: 136–137 The directors of Mind Dynamics eventually invited him into their partnership, but Erhard rejected the offer, saying he would rather develop his own seminar program—est, the first program of which he conducted in October 1971.[1]: 178 John Hanley, who later founded Lifespring, was also involved at this time. In their 1992 book Perspectives on the New Age, James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton write that Mind Dynamics, est, and LifeSpring have "striking" similarities, as all used "authoritarian trainers who enforce numerous rules," require applause from participants, and deemphasize reason in favor of emotion. The authors also describe graduates recruiting heavily on behalf of the companies, thereby eliminating marketing expenses.[11]
est (1971–1984)
editStarting in 1971, est, short for Erhard Seminars Training and Latin for "it is", offered in-depth personal and professional development workshops, the initial program of which was called "The est Training".[12] The est Training's purpose was to transform the way one sees and makes sense of life so that the situations one had been trying to change or tolerating clear up in the process of living itself.[6] The point was to leave participants free to be, while increasing their effectiveness and the quality of their lives.[13] The est Training was experiential and transformational in nature.[14]
The workshops were offered until 1984, when the est training was replaced by the Forum. As of 1984, 700,000 people had completed the est training.[15] American ethicist, philosopher, and historian Jonathan D. Moreno has described the est training as "the most important cultural event after the human potential movement itself seemed exhausted"[16] and a form of "Socratic interrogation". Erhard challenged participants to be themselves and live in the present[17] instead of playing a role imposed on them[16] by their past, and to move beyond their current points of view into a perspective from which they could observe their own positionality.[16] The author Robert Hargrove said "you're going to notice that things do begin to clear up, just in the process of life itself".[17]
The first est course was held in San Francisco, California, in October 1971.[18] By the mid-1970s Erhard had trained 10 others to lead est courses.[9]: 385 Between 1972 and 1974 est centers opened in Los Angeles, Aspen, Honolulu, and New York City.[9]: 385
Werner Erhard Foundation (1973–1991)
editIn the early 1970s, the est Foundation became the Werner Erhard Foundation,[19] with the aim of "providing financial and organizational support to individuals and groups engaged in charitable and educational pursuits—research, communication, education, and scholarly endeavors in the fields of individual and social transformation and human well-being." The Foundation supported projects launched by people committed to altering what is possible for humanity, such as The Hunger Project, The Mastery Foundation, The Holiday Project, and the Youth at Risk Program, programs that continue to be active. It also organized presentations by scholars and humanitarians such as the Dalai Lama and Buckminster Fuller[19] and hosted an annual conference in theoretical physics, a science in which Erhard was especially interested.[20] The annual conference was designed to give physicists an opportunity to work with their colleagues on what they were developing before they published, and was attended by such physicists as Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking,[20] and Leonard Susskind.[citation needed]
The Hunger Project
editIn 1977, with the support of John Denver, former Oberlin College president Robert W. Fuller, and others, Erhard founded The Hunger Project, a nonprofit NGO. In 1991 the organization severed its ties to Werner Erhard, Erhard Seminars Training, and its philosophies.[21][22] The origin of the Hunger Project can be seen in the 1977 source document "The End of Starvation: Creating an Idea Whose Time Has Come", written by Erhard.[23]
Werner Erhard and Associates (1981–1991) and "The Forum"
editIn the 1980s, Erhard created a new program called the Forum, which began in January 1985. Also during that period he developed and presented a series of seminars, broadcast via satellite, that included interviews with contemporary thinkers in science, economics, sports, and the arts on topics such as creativity, performance, and money.
In October 1987, Erhard hosted a televised broadcast with sports coaches John Wooden, Red Auerbach, Tim Gallwey and George Allen to discuss principles of coaching across all disciplines. They sought to identify distinctions found in coaching regardless of the subject being coached. Jim Selman moderated the discussion and, in 1989, documented the outcome in the article "Coaching and the Art of Management."[24]
Landmark Education
editIn 1991, the group that later formed Landmark Education purchased Erhard's intellectual property. In 1998, Time magazine published an article[25] about Landmark Education and its historical connection to Erhard. The article stated: "In 1991, before he left the U.S., Erhard sold the 'technology' behind his seminars to his employees, who formed a new company called the Landmark Education Corp., with Erhard's brother Harry Rosenberg at the helm." According to Landmark Education, its programs have as their basis ideas originally developed by Erhard, but Erhard has no financial interest, ownership, or management role in Landmark Education.[26] In Stephanie Ney v. Landmark Education Corporation (1994), a court ruled that Landmark Education Corporation did not have successor-liability to Werner Erhard & Associates, the corporation whose assets it purchased.[27][non-primary source needed]
According to Steven Pressman's 1993 book Outrageous Betrayal, Landmark Education agreed to pay Erhard a long-term licensing fee for the material used in the Forum and other courses: "Erhard stood to earn up to $15 million over the next 18 years."[28]: 253–255 But Arthur Schreiber's declaration of May 3, 2005 states: "Landmark Education has never paid Erhard under the license agreements (he assigned his rights to others)."[29][non-primary source needed]
In 2001, New York Magazine reported that Landmark Education CEO Harry Rosenberg said that the company had bought Erhard's license outright and his rights to the business in Japan and Mexico.[30] From time to time, Erhard acts as a consultant to Landmark Education.[31]
Critics and disputes
editErhard became the object of popular fascination and criticism, with the media tending to vilify him over several decades.[16] Moreno has written, "Allegations of all sorts of personal and financial wrongdoing were hurled at him, none of which were borne out and some [of which] were even publicly retracted by major media organizations."[16] Various skeptics have questioned or criticized the validity of Erhard's work and his motivations. Psychiatrist Marc Galanter called Erhard "a man with no formal experience in mental health, self-help, or religious revivalism, but a background in retail sales".[32] Michael E. Zimmerman, chair of the philosophy department at Tulane University, wrote "A Philosophical Assessment of the est Training",[33] in which he calls Erhard "a kind of artist, a thinker, an inventor, who has big debts to others, borrowed from others, but then put the whole thing together in a way that no one else had ever done."[34] Sacramento City College philosophy professor Robert Todd Carroll has called est a "hodge-podge of philosophical bits and pieces culled from the carcasses of existential philosophy, [and] motivational psychology."[35] Social critic John Bassett MacCleary called Erhard "a former used-car salesman" and est "just another moneymaking scam."[36] NYU psychology professor Paul Vitz called est "primarily a business" and said its "style of operation has been labeled as fascist."[37]
In 1991, Erhard "vanished amid reports of tax fraud (which proved false and won him $200,000 from the IRS[38][39]) and allegations of incest (which were later recanted)."[40] The March 3, 1991, episode of 60 Minutes covered these allegations and was later removed by CBS due to factual inaccuracies.[15] On March 3, 1992, Erhard sued CBS, San Jose Mercury News reporter John Hubner and approximately 20 other defendants for libel, defamation, slander, invasion of privacy, and conspiracy.[41][42] On May 20, 1992, he filed for dismissal of his own case and sent each of the defendants $100 to cover their filing fees in the case.[43] Erhard told Larry King in an interview that he dropped the suit after receiving legal advice telling him that in order to win it, he would have to prove not just that CBS knew the allegations were false but that CBS acted with malice.[44] Erhard told King that his family members[39] had since retracted their allegations, which according to Erhard had been made under pressure from the 60 Minutes producer.[44]
Erhard's daughters retracted the allegations of sexual abuse they had made against him.[45][46] Celeste Erhard, one of the daughters featured on 60 Minutes, sued Hubner and the San Jose Mercury News for $2 million,[47] accusing the newspaper of having "defrauded her and invaded her privacy",[47] saying she had exaggerated information, been promised a $2 million book deal, and appeared on 60 Minutes to get publicity for the book.[47][48] Celeste claimed that her quotes in the Mercury News article were deceitfully obtained.[49] The case was dismissed in August 1993, the judge ruling that the statute of limitations had expired, that Celeste "had suffered no monetary damages or physical harm and that she failed to present legal evidence that Hubner had deliberately misled her",[47] which is legally required for damages.
CBS subsequently withdrew the video of the 60 Minutes program from the market.[50] A disclaimer said, "this segment has been deleted at the request of CBS News for legal or copyright reasons".[15]
In 1992, a court entered a default judgment of $380,000 against Erhard in absentia in a case alleging negligent injury.[28]: 262 The appellate court stated that he had not been personally served and was not present at the trial.[51]
In 1993, Erhard filed a wrongful disclosure lawsuit against the IRS, asserting that IRS agents had incorrectly and illegally revealed details of his tax returns to the media.[52] In April 1991, IRS spokesmen were widely quoted alleging that "Erhard owed millions of dollars in back taxes, that he was transferring assets out of the country, and that the agency was suing Erhard", branding Erhard a "tax cheat".[52] On April 15, the IRS was reported to have placed a lien of $6.7 million on Erhard's personal property.[53] In his suit, Erhard stated that he had never refused to pay taxes that were lawfully due,[52] and in September 1996 he won the suit. The IRS paid him $200,000 in damages. While admitting that the media reports quoting the IRS on Erhard's tax liabilities had been false, the IRS took no action to have the media correct those statements.[52][54]
A private investigator quoted in the Los Angeles Times stated that, by October 1989, Scientology had collected five filing cabinets' worth of materials about Erhard, many from certain graduates of est who had joined Scientology, and that Scientology was clearly in the process of organizing a "media blitz" aimed at discrediting him.[55] According to Erhard's brother Harry Rosenberg, "Werner made some very, very powerful enemies. They really got him."[45]
Further reading
edit- Bartley, William Warren III: Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of est, New York: Clarkson N. Potter Inc. (1978) ISBN 0-517-53502-5.
- Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human, Hyde, Bruce and Drew Kopp: Wiley (2019) ISBN 978-1119549901.
- "Being Well" Chapter 5 in Beyond Health and Normality: Explorations of Exceptional Psychological Well-Being, edited by Roger Walsh and Deane H. Shapiro Jr., Van Nostrand. 1983.
- "est: Communication in a Context of Compassion" with Victor Gioscia, The Journal of Current Psychiatric Therapies, Volume 18. 1978.
- The est Standard Training with Victor Gioscia. Biosciences Communication 3:104-122. 1977.
Works
edit- Creating Leaders: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model with Michael C. Jensen, Chapter 16 in Handbook For Teaching Leadership: Knowing, Doing, and Being, edited by Scott A. Snook, Rakesh Khurana, and Nitin Nohria, Harvard Business School. SAGE Publications, 2012
- Four Ways of Being that Create the Foundations of A Great Personal Life, Great Leadership and A Great Organization with Michael C. Jensen, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus Harvard Business School, 2013
- The Hunger Project Source Document, The End of Starvation: Creating an Idea Whose Time Has Come 1977
- Integrity: A Positive Model that Incorporates the Normative Phenomena of Morality, Ethics and Legality with Michael C. Jensen, and Steve Zaffron. Harvard Business School NOM Working Paper No. 06-11; Barbados Group Working Paper No. 06-03; Simon School Working Paper No. FR 08-05.
- Putting Integrity Into Finance: A Purely Positive Approach with Michael C. Jensen. Journal: Capitalism and Society, Issue 12, Volume 1, May 2017; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) #19986, March 2014;[82] European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) Finance Working Paper No. 417/2014; and Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab Bartley, William Warren III (1978). Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est. New York: Clarkson N. Potter. ISBN 0-517-53502-5.
- ^ Erhard, Werner. "Curriculum Vitae". Werner Erhard. Retrieved February 2, 2017.
These companies were: Erhard Seminars Training Inc. (1971–1975); est, an educational corporation (1975–1981), and Werner Erhard and Associates (1981–1991).
- ^ Hyde, Bruce; Kopp, Drew (2019). Speaking being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a new possibility of being human. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. ISBN 978-1-119-54990-1.“The Forum replaced the est Training in 1985 and, indeed, it may be argued that this encounter was crucial in this development of Erhard’s work, which development continues to this day in Landmark Worldwide and in his new work with speaking the Being of leadership.”
- ^ Sobel, Eliezer (February 1, 2008). The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist's Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics, and Other Consciousness-Raising Experiments (1st ed.). Santa Monica Press. ISBN 978-1-59580-028-2.“Several years later, est had evolved into “The Forum,” which continues to flourish around the world today under the auspices of Landmark Education.”
- ^ Toner, Robin. "Hunger project aiming at global commitment". nytimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved November 20, 2023.
- ^ a b c Steven M. Tipton, Getting Saved from the Sixties: Moral Meaning in Conversion and Cultural Change. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982, p. 176.
- ^ Wakefield, Dan. "Erhard's Life After est Common boundary: March/April 1994". wernererhard.com. Archived from the original on May 12, 2010.
- ^ The Graphic Designer's Guide to Clients, by Ellen M. Shapiro
- ^ a b c d e f g Kay Holzinger (February 1, 2001). "Erhard Seminars Training (est) and The Forum". In James R. Lewis (ed.). Odd gods: new religions & the cult controversy. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-842-7. Retrieved November 18, 2010.
- ^ Rawlinson, Andrew (December 31, 1998). The Book of Enlightened Masters: Western Teachers in Eastern Traditions. Open Court. p. 261. ISBN 978-0812693102.
- ^ Melton, J. Gordon; Lewis, James R. (1992). Perspectives on the New Age. SUNY Press. pp. 129–132. ISBN 0-7914-1213-X. Retrieved August 5, 2021.
- ^ Rhinehart, Luke (1976). The Book of est. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
- ^ Erhard, Werner; Gloscia, Victor (1977). "The est Standard Training". Biosciences Communications. 3: 104–122.
- ^ Kettle, James (1976). The est Experience. New York: Kensington Publishing Corporation. pp. 51, 52. ISBN 978-0890831687.
- ^ a b c Snider, Susan. "Est, Werner Erhard and The Corporatization of Self-Help". The Believer. Archived from the original on August 6, 2007. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
By shedding the overt Erhard association with the program (occasionally Erhard still consults, the Forum admits), the Forum moved toward establishing itself as a common passage for the upwardly mobile young (or even not-so-young) adult, as well as for the fringe element it had always succeeded in catching.
- ^ a b c d e Moreno, Jonathan D. (September 22, 2014). Impromptu Man: J.L. Moreno and the Origins of Psychodrama, Encounter Culture, and the Social Network (1 ed.). New York: Bellevue Literary Press (published 2014). ISBN 9781934137857. Retrieved March 7, 2021.
- ^ a b Hargrove, Robert (1976). est: Making Life Work. New York: Dell Books. p. 127. ISBN 978-0440195566.
- ^ "hotel to hospital – farewell to S.F. era". San Francisco Chronicle. October 31, 2009.
- ^ a b "Werner Erhard Foundation". Werner Erhard Foundation. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
- ^ a b Susskind, Leonard (2009). The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics. Back Bay Books. p. 191. ISBN 978-0-316-01641-4.
- ^ Rick Ross (April 10, 2004). "The Hunger Project attempts to purge criticism and history from the Internet". Cult News. Archived from the original on May 7, 2004. Retrieved November 5, 2014.
- ^ Rick Ross (April 26, 2004). "Leader of controversial organization with ties to "cult-like" group tapped by UN Task Force to help cure world hunger". Cult News. Archived from the original on May 3, 2004. Retrieved November 5, 2014.
- ^ The End of Starvation: Creating an Idea Whose Time Has Come, The Hunger Project
- ^ Sourcebook of Coaching History, Vikki G Brock PhD., 2012
- ^ Faltermayer, Charlotte (June 24, 2001). "The Best Of Est?". TIME.
- ^ "Landmark Education, media Q&A". Landmarkeducation.com. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
- ^ Appendix A. Text of Court Ruling in Ney Case – Source: LEXIS-NEXIS – STEPHANIE NEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LANDMARK EDUCATION CORPORATION; RON ZELLER, Defendants-Appellees, and WERNER ERHARD; WERNER ERHARD AND ASSOCIATES; PETER SIAS, Defendants. – No. 92-1979 – UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT – 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 2373
- ^ a b Pressman, Steven (1993). Outrageous Betrayal. St Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-09296-2.
- ^ Declaration filed May 5, 2005 at the US District Court of New Jersey, civil action 04-3022 (JCL), pp 3 and 4
- ^ Pay Money, Be Happy, New York Magazine, Vanessa Grigoriadis, July 9, 2001.
- ^ "Landmark Education website". February 10, 2002. Archived from the original on February 10, 2002. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
- ^ Marc Galanter: Cults: faith, healing, and coercion. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-19-505631-0, page 80.
- ^ Zimmerman, Michael E. "est: A Philosophical Appraisal".
- ^ "Documentary, 2006, Directed by Robyn Symon". Transformationfilm.com. Retrieved April 24, 2014.
- ^ Carroll, Roberta (2004). The Skeptic's Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions. John Wiley&Sons. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-471-48088-4.
- ^ MacCleary, John Bassett. (2004), The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopedia of the 1960s and 1970s, Page 165., Ten Speed Press, ISBN 1-58008-547-4
- ^ Vitz, Paul C. (1994). Psychology As Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 26. ISBN 0-8028-0725-9.
- ^ "Lunch with the FT: Werner Erhard". The Financial Times. April 28, 2012.
Erhard is an autodidact… Jensen is an emeritus professor at Harvard Business School… Together they are writing academic articles and touring the world's best universities.
- ^ a b Faltermayer, Charlotte (June 24, 2001). "The Best Of Est?". Time. Retrieved September 28, 2007.
- ^ Charlotte Faltermayer (June 24, 2001). "The Best of est?". Time. Retrieved November 3, 2012.
- ^ San Jose Mercury News staff (April 7, 1992). "Est Founder sues critics: suit names Mercury News writer". San Jose Mercury News. p. 8B.
- ^ United Press International staff (March 4, 1992). "EST guru sues CBS, Enquirer, Hustler". United Press International. p. Domestic News.
- ^ Werner Erhard vs. Columbia Broadcasting System, (Filed: March 3, 1992) Case Number: 1992-L-002687. Division: Law Division. District: First Municipal. Cook County Circuit Court, Chicago, Illinois.
- ^ a b Steve Jackson. "It Happens – Page 8 – News – Denver". Westword. Retrieved November 13, 2011.
- ^ a b Grigoriadis, Vanessa (July 9, 2001). "Pay Money, Be Happy". New York. New York Media Holdings. Retrieved November 12, 2010.
- ^ Charlotte Faltermayer (June 24, 2001). "The Best Of est". Time.
- ^ a b c d Fischer, Jack (August 14, 1993). "$2 million suit against MN dismissed – No harm to Erhard's daughter seen". San Jose Mercury News. California. p. 6B.
- ^ "Daughter of est founder sues Mercury News over two articles", San Jose Mercury News, July 16, 1992
- ^ "Suit against MN ends in paper's favor". San Jose Mercury News. January 14, 1994. p. 2B.
- ^ Jardin, Xeni (August 31, 2009). "Wikileaks re-publishes 60 Minutes piece on est/Landmark cult leader Werner Erhard". Boing Boing. boingboing.net. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
- ^ Wikisource:Ney v. Landmark Education Corporation and Werner Erhard
- ^ a b c d "Leader of est movement wins $200,000 from IRS". Daily News of Los Angeles. Los Angeles, California. September 12, 1996.
- ^ "IRS starts liening on Werner Erhard". Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago, Illinois. April 15, 1991.
- ^ "IRS Settles Lawsuit brought by Werner Erhard," Business Wire, September 11, 1996.
- ^ Welkos, Robert W. (December 29, 1991). "Founder of est Targeted in Campaign by Scientologists : Religion: Competition for customers is said to be the motive behind effort to discredit Werner Erhard". Los Angeles Times.