The Book of est is a fictional account of the training created by Werner Erhard, (est), or Erhard Seminars Training, first published in 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston. The book was written by est graduate Luke Rhinehart. Rhinehart is the pen name of writer George Cockcroft. The book was endorsed by Erhard, and includes a foreword by him. Its contents attempts to replicate the experience of the est training, with the reader being put in the place of a participant in the course. The end of the book includes a comparison by the author between Erhard's methodologies to Zen, The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, and to Rhinehart's own views from The Dice Man. Reception to the book was mixed. There were reviews in Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, and The New York Times Book Review. An article about Erhard and est in the religious journal Quarterly Review placed the book among "the most accessible sources about est". Professor Walter A. Effross of the American University Washington College of Law cites The Book of est in an article in the Buffalo Law Review analyzing the control of new age movements over their intellectual property.
Background Werner Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg), originally from Pennsylvania, migrated to California. He was a former salesman, training manager and executive in the encyclopedia business. He created the Erhard Seminars Training (est) course in 1971. est was a four-day, 60-hour self-help program given to groups of 250 people at a time. The program was very intensive: each day would contain 15–20 hours of instruction. During the training, est personnel utilized specialized terms to convey key concepts, and participants agreed to certain rules which remained in effect for the duration of the course. Participants were taught that they were responsible for their life outcomes. By 1977 over 100,000 people completed the est training, including public figures and mental health professionals. Est was controversial. It had its critics and proponents. Werner Erhard and Associates repackaged the course as "The Forum", a seminar focused on "goal-oriented breakthroughs". By 1988, approximately one million people had taken some form of the trainings. A group of his associates formed the company Landmark Education in 1991. In 2013 they renamed it Landmark Worldwide LLC. Landmark fully purchased from Erhard the intellectual property in the Forum and other courses by 2002.
Publication The book was first published in 1976 in a hardcover format by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, and a paperback edition was released later in the same year. It was published in German in 1983 by Hugendubel. In November 2008, Luke Rhinehart, in association with Joe Vitale and Mark J. Ryan, re-released The Book of est as an E-book.
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