turner (03/01/83)
#N:ucbesvax:1100006:000:1761 ucbesvax!turner Feb 24 06:54:00 1983 I have had indirect experience with the `transforming' effects of est on someone's life. A roommate of mine took the training. First, I would stress that this man was looking for answers. Not The Answer, necessarily. But there was a gap in his life that had him running from one thing to the next, mostly of an Eastern/Mystical nature. After the first weekend, he made a few (insufferable!) attempts at showing off his partial `transformation'. He deepened his voice, he minded his posture. I didn't buy it. After the second session, it became such a potential source of tension that I decided to avoid discussing it. He knew better than to try to convert me after that. It took about three months of being drafted to do phone-soliciting for the Hunger Project before it dawned on him that, not only had they taken a lot of his money, but they were getting a great deal of work out of him as well. Some years back, that great muckraker journal "Mother Jones" did a piece on Erhard that accused him of lots of semi-legal tax evasion in his financing of Erhard Seminars Training, and moral ineptitude in the case of the Hunger Project. At the time, he threatened a suit. Nothing came of it, for the obvious reason that he did not have a case (Even esties will admit that he'll go for any money he can get. If he didn't this time, it's because there was no chance.) My feeling about all this: anybody who posts n (n > 4) pages of praise for est leaves their objectivity open to question, at the very least. An additional screen or two of phone numbers clinches it: this guy is recruiting. Don't buy it. Not Afraid To Tell Werner Where To Go, Michael Turner