The story
Founded by Werner Erhard in 1971.1
Early influences. 1960s through 1971
In W. W. Bartley III's biography of Werner Erhard, Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man, the Founding of est (1978), Erhard describes his explorations of Zen Buddhism. Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging Zen as the essential contribution that "created the space [for est]".
Bartley details Erhard's connections with Zen beginning with his extensive studies with Alan Watts in the mid-1960s.
Bartley quotes Erhard as acknowledging:
Of all the disciplines that I studied, practiced, learned, Zen was the essential one. It was not so much an influence on me, rather it created space. It allowed those things that were there to be there. It gave some form to my experience. And it built up in me the critical mass from which was kindled the experience that produced est.
Other influences included Dale Carnegie, Subud, Scientology and Mind Dynamics.
As est, 1971 to 1984
In 1971, Werner Erhard reported having a personal transformation, and created the est training to allow others to have the same experience. The first est course was held at a Jack Tar Hotel in San Francisco, California, in October 1971. Within a year, trainings were being held in twelve major cities and had over 62,000 graduates.
Beginning in July 1974 the est training was delivered at the U.S. Penitentiary at Lompoc, California, with the approval of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Initial est training in Lompoc involved participation of 12–15 federal prisoners and outside community members within the walls of the maximum security prison and was personally conducted by Werner Erhard. By 1979, est had expanded to Europe and other parts of the world, and in 1980 the first est training in Israel was offered in Tel Aviv. A few years later in 1983, the organization moved into a large facility built for the Marine Cooks and Stewards in Santa Rosa, California.
As est grew, so did criticism. It was accused of mind control and labeled a cult by some critics who said that it exploited its followers by recruiting and offering numerous "graduate seminars." In 1983 in the United States, a participant named Jack Slee collapsed during a part of the seminar known as "the danger process" and later died at the hospital. A court subsequently found that the est training was not the cause of death. A jury later ruled that Erhard and his company had been negligent, but did not give Slee's estate a monetary award.
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The United States Tax Court in 1986, upheld an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claim that est owed the federal government more than $3.3 million in back taxes "because of sham transactions involving the movement's 'Body of Knowledge."
According to a 1991 report by the Los Angeles Times, est had been the target of a smear campaign by the Church of Scientology. This campaign had spanned several years, with examples being found in documents seized by the FBI in 1977. This smear campaign involved hiring personal investigators to spy on Erhard, recruiting Scientologists to covertly enroll in and disrupt est courses, and compiling information from disgruntled former est participants which could be used to discredit est. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard (who died in 1986) believed that Erhard had copied Scientology. Erhard disputed this, saying that est was essentially different despite some similarities.
In their 1992 book Perspectives on the New Age James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton said that similarities between est and Mind Dynamics were "striking", as both used "authoritarian trainers who enforce numerous rules," require applause after participants "share" in front of the group, and de-emphasize reason in favor of "feeling and action." The authors also described graduates of est as "fiercely loyal," and said that it recruited heavily, reducing marketing expenses to virtually zero.
As Landmark, 1985 to present
The last est training was held in December 1984 in San Francisco, after which it was replaced by a purportedly "gentler" course called "The Forum," which began in January 1985. "est, Inc." evolved into "est, an Educational Corporation," and eventually into Werner Erhard and Associates. In 1991 the business was sold to the employees who formed a new company called Landmark Education with Erhard's brother, Harry Rosenberg, becoming the CEO. Landmark Education was structured as a for-profit, employee-owned company; since 2013, it operates as Landmark Worldwide with a consulting division called Vanto Group. Some sociology and religious movement scholars have classified Landmark as well as its parent organization 'est' as a "new religious movement" (NRM).
From Wikipedia’s article on Erhard Seminars Training, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3