Werner Erhard Training Seminars (est) were hugely popular in the 1970s. Erhard took elements of Zen Buddhism, Freud, Dale Carnegie and Scientology and incorporated them into a rigorous workshop program lasting several days, a kind of psychological bootcamp, the goal of which was to improve the participants’ lives.

Erhard, a former used car salesman, was an effective and charismatic pitchman for teachings that were not without merit. He took his cues from some of the best, including the venerable and entertaining Alan Watts.

I knew dozens of people who took the workshops and felt they were useful. Others felt they were a waste of time.

Erhard’s reputation was the subject of several smear campaigns that were later revealed to be based on false information. One in particular, a 60 Minutes report, was devastating to Erhard’s career and was later renounced by CBS, which aired it, as being built on a foundation of outright lies and rumors. Accusations of sexual abuse, incest, and physical abuse were found to have been fabrications.

The damage was done and Erhard’s training seminars never regained the level of popularity they enjoyed before the bad press. Allegedly, Scientology was behind some of the rumors that helped topple Erhard’s est empire. L. Ron Hubbard didn’t like the competition and his organization can be ruthless when it comes to destroying a perceived “enemy.”

The essentials of Erhard’s teachings were really nothing new, but they set the stage for the new age/self help scene that has permeated American pop spirituality for the past four decades. Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson and ‘The Secret” all owe a debt of gratitude to Werner Erhard for kneading the modern brain into a nice quivering blob of supplicant meat.

Mr. Rocky Mountain High interviews Werner Erhard on the the Tonight Show on September 24, 1973