est Read Free Page A

interview in East West Journal (September, 1974) in a

characteristically est -ian manner (some call it "mind-fucking";

others, who feel explanations are irrelevant, say that it doesn't really

matter what Werner says, it's how he says it; and still

others think his style is dynamite and emulate it all the time).

In answer to the Journal 's question, "What is est ?"

Werner said, " est is a sixty-hour experience which opens an

additional dimension of living to your awareness. The training is

designed to transform the level at which you experience life so that

living becomes a process of expanding satisfaction.

"Another part of the answer is there is no 'answer.' est actually

is an experience. But if you go around telling people that, you won't

have anything to talk about and you need something to say about it. It

is a very individual experience. And because of that, it's something

that is created by the individual. In other words, est is

not created by the trainer or the group that the person goes to train

with, it's an experience -- like all experiences -- which is created

by the individual who is experiencing the experience. . . . My notion

is that what happens in the training is that the individual is given

an opportunity to create original experiences, or to re -create

original experiences~~experiences which that individual originally

created. . . .

"It's definitely a way past the mind. It transcends the mind. Actually,

what I would really say -- because I think it communicates better than

anything, although it is not totally accurate -- is that it blows the
mind ." *
* My italics.

A friend of mine put it another way: "What you get out of est is that you stop being an asshole groveling in your shit and you start

finding out what being alive is all about."

How's your life?

Gerry and Marcia *
Gerry, thirty, is a real estate salesman.
    He is quick and friendly and immediately
    makes people he's with comfortable.
    Marcia, his wife, is an executive secretary
    and appears serious and gentle.

* This and the other autobiographies of est graduates throughout
    the book are representative of the many interviews I conducted.
    I have changed most of the subjects' names, at their request. There
    are no strongly negative statements simply because I was unable
    to find any. Just before this book went to press I finally met a
    woman who felt the training was useless, although not destructive.
"I don't feel saved, I don't feel not saved. I don't feel much
    of anything after est." she told me. "My life was pretty
    much O.K. way it was and its O.K. now." That was it!

GERRY: Our real estate office is like a branch of est . My uncle,

who owns the business, is a graduate and everyone else had taken the

training except me. I felt pressured to do est . I didn't want to

and, at the same time I also did.

Yeah, it worked. While the real estate business isn't great now, so I

can't claim dollars and cents results, I know I'm more confident and

aware in dealing with people. I can look them in the eye, literally

and figuratively.

Probably the main thing that's resulted from the training is that I've

thrown away my Bufferin. For years I had almost daily headaches from

tension. They're almost all gone. When I get one now, I don't fight it.

I just experience it. I've always had physical ailments. Last year it was

simulated heart attacks and pains in my arms and chest, which scared the

hell out of me. In college I used to get tonsillitis. I was always sick

with something. I was constantly abusing myself.

In the training I saw how I was never happy about anything. Just like

my Dad. He gets to feel like a total failure because some other guy has

a better car or house or bigger business. But I now see what a racket

that is.

My brother-in-law, an orthopedic surgeon, took the training. He went

into it skeptical and came out of it really impressed. Now he tells a

lot of his patients, "If you want to get rid of your