est (14 page)

7
Tots, Teens, Grads, and Others

"I'm inventing new words and stuff. Like
'Nothing is impossible.'"
-- An eight-year-old graduate

There's no such thing as being too old for
est
training -- there
was a man over seventy who trained with me. And if you're at least
six years old, you're not too young. Although you can only get it in
the training,
est
, like its participants, comes in many shapes
and sizes.
Anyone who has graduated from the standard sixty-hour, $250 training can
review the entire training after six months by sitting in on a training
for just $10. (A special review training for graduates costs $35.) But
if that's too much of an ordeal, or if graduates want to explore special
areas or be involved with an ongoing program, there are the graduate
seminars.
The graduate seminar program includes several seminar series, each
consisting of from ten to twelve sessions and held weekday evenings.
The cost is low -- $27 to $30 a series -- and is a bargain compared with
therapy groups and college adult-education courses. (In fact,
est
says it loses money on these series when overhead and fixed costs are
figured in.)
The purpose of the seminars is to support the movement created in the
training and provide an environment where graduates can participate in
their own and each other's growth. The seminars are not essential to
experience the results of the training, but graduates are encouraged
to take them.
est
states that "most graduates have chosen to
participate in these programs after they have completed the training." The
official estimate is that about 80 percent of a given class of graduates
who live within seventy-five miles of a center register in graduate
seminars.
While I could not attend all the available graduate seminars before I
completed this book (there is no
est
center in Philadelphia), I did
attend some in New York and intend to participate in others. I have found
them valuable. What I experience is that I and others who keep attending
est
programs get clearer and expand what we got in the training.
The seminars currently being offered include: "Be Here Now," "What's So,"
"About Sex," "
est
and Life," "Self-Expression," and "The Body."
The names of the seminars describe what they're about. Although each has a
slightly different focus, the idea is the same: get off your point of view
and see what's really going on with yourself. Some graduates have already
taken all the seminars and are clamoring for more. I've been told that
Werner is creating new ones to meet the demand.
My feeling about these seminars is very positive. From my professional
viewpoint I feel it's important, and often essential, for any system
that jolts the psyche to provide a follow-up for those who experience it.
This is both to help the person integrate the experience and to ground him
if he's frightened or disoriented by it. The encounter/sensitivity
training/marathon one-shots of the sixties often failed to do this,
an omission which was sometimes merely irresponsible and sometimes
disastrous.
The
est
seminars provide environments, or "space," in which people
who begin to expand in the training can continue to expand. It seems to
me that this can have only a beneficial impact on both the individual
and on society.
est
graduates are beginning to take a hard look
at their own political, economic, and ecological irresponsibility in
this country. Perhaps they will soon begin to ask for the same kind
of self-responsibility from their leaders that they now expect from
themselves.
In addition to the ongoing seminars, there are periodic courses,
workshops, special guest speakers, and other programs. I have attended
two large-scale events: "Something about Nothing" with Werner (held
at Madison Square Garden's Felt Forum; capacity: 5,000) and "The First
Special Graduate Event" (at Lincoln Center). These occasions draw enormous
crowds with or without Werner. The thing they all have in common is a
wonderful sense of camaraderie and of being a part of a community of
people who are transforming their consciousnesses.
Werner once went on tour to introduce to
est
graduates Swami
Muktananda, an Indian saint whose trip to the United States had been
sponsored by The Foundation.* Friends of mine who attended the Muktananda
event in New York were singularly disappointed with it. Among other
things, although there was an interpreter, the swami didn't speak English.

* est supports a foundation which makes grants for a wide
range of consciousness-related activities.

Ahd then there are the education workshops. Of the 14 percent of
est
graduates who are educators (teachers, counselors, administrators), 4,000
have responded to
est
's programs to assist them in adapting
est
to their work. The workshops provide a place for them to share
with each other how they've used
est
professionally in teaching
or learning and the results they've obtained. Out of this have come
classroom training for children (the Watts training reportedly raised
reading scores dramatically), in-service training credit for teachers,
and courses based on the
est
experience. I might add that I've
adapted some
est
techniques for use in my therapy practice and
have found them valuable, as have a half dozen therapists I've talked
with who have taken
est
.
The Communication Workshops are still another of
est
's programs.
est
describes them as including "principles and exercises designed
to enable people to experience
true
communication (as distinguished
from the plethora of words and symbols, that mass of explanation and
argument, which is erroneously called communication). . . . When one
achieves the condition of true communication, it results in harmony,
diminishing effort, expanding understanding, and increasing affinity
in one's relationships. In that area where there is true communication
there is the experience of completion, love, and satisfaction."
Communication Workshops run for three nights and two days at a cost of $150.
it is Werner's intention to support people whose job it is to communicate.
Workshops have been conducted for a mixed bag of professional and
special-interest groups, including psychotherapists, scientists, clergy,
doctors, and nurses, among others. In addition, workshops have been
held in Paris and London for
est
graduates and their friends who
live or work there. In some of the workshops, participants need not be
est
graduates.
All these programs, incidentally, are highly publicized.
est
makes a big point about never advertising, but it is relentless in its
efforts to invite graduates to bring newcomers to guest lectures and to
attend graduate functions themselves. Almost no event passes without
a pitch for at least one other event. And huge numbers of volunteers
are continuously involved with mailings and phone calls to solicit
attendance. At first, I found these tactics offensive, and I no longer
do, as I take responsibility for
my
response to them.
I feel
est
's most interesting ventures are with youngsters --
children and teen-agers. There are two teen programs, one a ten-day
"live-in," which takes place in a secluded natural setting, and the
other a standard training identical to the regular
est
training.
Werner, who has three teen-age children of his own, defines a teen-ager as
"an adult who doesn't have his or her act together well enough to have
it bought all the time." He talked about the teen-age training recently,
describing it as "the single most important educational experience of
my life. I discovered that no matter how old you are, you are still
a teen-ager.
"The teen-age years are a period of struggle for identity," he says.
"We are all still teen-agers because we are all still working hard to find
an identity, which we think we need to prove that we exist. . . .
"In the teen training we do a breakthrough process, which is done as
an activity until you lose control. The power releases when you lose
control, when you are actually driven out of controL At that point [in
the process], the trainees have the option of losing control or not; and
the 1,000 teen-agers who have thus far been through the training all did."
"Once you lose control," he explained in his Madison Square Garden speech,
"you find out what's true for you. And you find that out not by form,
symbol, words. You cry, sob, you spill over, you see yourself. You see
you we, not as a thought but as an expenence."
In planning the live-in training, Werner created an intense space for
this experience. Special emphasis is placed on diet, physical fitness,
and open communication about drugs, sex, and related subjects. The
brochure for this program says that teens "get to look at the patterned
ways of being that they are afraid people will see about them. Once the
pretenses are gone, they get to look at and communicate those things
which they were using the pretenses to hide." When Werner is questioned
about the teen-age live-In at graduate functions, his stock joke is,
"We transform your teenager or we don't bring him back. So far they've
all come back." The cost for all this is $750.
The
est
flier about this training includes part of a letter from a
Washington, D.C., mother of two teen graduates. I was deeply moved by it
(I, too, have two children). It says, in part, ". . . after the training,
we were able to start off together at a point in our relationships that
I would have felt lucky to have reached over a lifetime of trying. The
training stripped away the patterns of our old, habitual transactions,
unstuck us from our separate niches, rode right through the armor we'd
set up to defend ourselves against one another . . . best of all, it
totally erased all fear and anxiety regarding our future relationships
together; there is simply no problem that we won't be able to handle."
Soon after I read this I met Sam, who is a living testimonial for the
teen program. At sixteen, he is one of the most remarkable and together
teen~agers I've ever met. Sam has long, shoulder-length hair, and looks
like the kind that people used to label "hippie" and associate with
rebellion, marijuana, and loose sex. He's a good-looking and bright
product of an upper-middle-class environment. He took the live-in
training two years ago because his father, a successful stockbroker
and an
est
graduate, recommended it to him. Before he actually
registered, his mother (divorced from his father) "checked it out"
by taking the training herself.
"I had no idea how life worked before I did
est
," he told me.
He didn't have any "really heavy problems" before the training --
"just the usual teen-age stuff" -- but he saw himself as "unaware."
The training was held in a mountain retreat a couple. of hours outside
San Francisco. "We got up at 6:30 in the morning, ran down a dirt road,
and jumped into a mountain stream. There were sixty boys and girls,
thirteen to eighteen. Werner was our trainer. I see him as totally
powerful.
"I was skeptical before I went. I didn't think I needed it. And now
. . . now I'm very clear about what it looks like I'm doing. And what
I'm really doing. If you put your truths out there, you see that life
works by telling the truth."
His clear brown eyes looked right at me, steady, calm, convincing. "When
I get in an argument with my dad," he shared, "like I want the car and
he says 'no,' I get clear on what's behind that trivia. I find out pretty
fast if I'm playing power games with him and if I just want to be right.
"If I steal a handful of cookies and I'm confronted, I simply admit it.
I accept total responsibility for what I do.
"My relationships with my friends are better. I had a silly fight with
a friend recently. He was complaining because I was riding my bike in
front of him . . . he didn't like his bike as well as mine. . . .
He went on and on. Instead of fighting, I gave him the space to complain
and be what he is.
"And my relationship with my parents is honest. When they get into fights
through the mail or over the phone. I just stay out of the way. It's not
my problem.
"Everything in the physical world is based on withholding tensions or
problems hidden somewhere in the body," he explained, "and you get over
it. And the upset goes.
"I think," he said solemnly, "that the way for me is not to look for
happiness but to know why I'm upset. Then the happiness just comes. I
think" -- he laughed -- "that I might even enjoy school this year. It
will be the first time."
As much as what he said, the way he said it really impressed me. Sam was
direct, specific, and honest. He didn't "play" to me. Nor was there any
sense of superiority. He was spontaneous and very much his own person
at an age when many adolescents are walking tragedies.
And then there's the children's training, perhaps the most remarkable
of them all. Over 2,000 children have gone through it to date.
Any child between six and twelve, who lives at least six months of the
year with a parent who has taken the training, is qualified to take it.
The training is held for 1]fty children at a time, over four days on
two weekends from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. (they get it quicker, I'm told)
and costs $150. My research indicates that the results are worth many
times that modest investment of time and money.
est
describes the children's training as "designed to enhance
communication, participation, and responsibility. It is not psychological
treatment or mental health therapy, and it is not necessarily for 'problem'
children. The training provides the space for the children to better know
and understand themselves and others."
Gladys Kassebaum, a school psychologist who is
est
's children's
program consultant, has this to say about it: "Following the training,
the children evidence greater assurance and calmness. They demonstrate
increased directness in their communication with adults and peers and they
indicate a sense of pleasure in their willingness to take responsibility
for their behavior."
It sounded impressive. I wanted to find out more. I arranged to meet with
a young man who periodically assists at children's trainings.
"The children bring in almost exactly the same problems and go through
almost exactly the same procedures as the adults do," he told me. They do
a Danger Process. And, like the adults, they can leave the room to go to
the bathroom only when the trainer permits it. However, the children's
breaks are only two to four hours apart." He laughed. "But I think some
of the kids have even better control than the parents." One difference
he noted from the adult trainings was that the children were served lunch
in the training room. His enthusiasm about what went on during these
trainings, and the apparent results, was infectious. I wished I could
have attended one myself.
They share about their parents a lot, he said, and it's O.K. to say
things like "I can't stand my mother" and "I don't like my father." In
response, the children's trainer, Phyllis Allen, will simply acknowledge
their communication.
The assistant continued: "When someone gets out of line -- that is, not
keeping his agreement to be part of what's happening -- then Phyllis has
him take his chair out of line. When the child wants to rejoin the group,
he tells Phyllis and she asks him to communicate that to the group.
"Phyllis then asks the child if he's willing to keep his agreements.
'I'm going to have the group applaud if they feel they're getting that
you want to keep your agreement,' she tells him. And then she instructs
the children not to clap if that's not what they feel from him.
"What's remarkable is that kids
get
instantly who's straight,
who isn't, and who means to keep his agreement."
On the third morning the parents participate in the training for
approximately one hour with their children. They share their experience
of having their children in the training. Parents and children
commumcate about their relationship and look at their willingness to
take responsibility for contributing to and supporting one another in a
way that allows the relationship to work. There is also a post-training
in which the parents participate with their children and share their
experience.
I heard all this first-hand from an eight-year-old
est
graduate and
his parents, also
est
graduates, on my next trip to San Francisco.
Mason (not his real name) is a handsome, intelligent, clear-eyed child
who was eager to share his experience with me. He had taken the training a
year earlier, when he was seven. "Now," he told me, "I sort of run things,
which is
est
-ese for taking responsibility for his own life.
He began the interview with an overview. "Some parts of it weren't very
good for me. I couldn't understand because I hadn't learned the words yet.
Some I did know the words for, and that was more fun.
"I got that you listen and that if sometimes you don't like being there,
you deal with it." He looked straight at me with his big blue eyes and I
remember wondering fleetingly if this child wasn't an enlightened midget
in disguise.
"I'm inventing new words and stuff," he went on. "Like 'Nothing is
impossible.' That's one of my biggest ones. I didn't get that from the
training, just sort of from my own mind."
He detoured to explain what a mind is. "Your mind is like a movie camera
that shows 3,000 different movies all at the same time -- word movies and
picture movies -- and it goes around. The pictures on the left side are
what happened. The ones on the right side are what's going to happen. In
the middle is what is happening. Like if someone says, 'can you pour
me a glass of milk?' first it goes on the what's-going-to-happen tape,
then on the what's-happening tape, and then on the what-happened tape.
"The 'nothing is impossible' thing started when I thought of what it
would be like to jump off a cliff and land in a tire or fall into a
volcano and not get burned. And I thought, 'Well, that could happen
because it hasn't happened.'
"But I don't think you should try it," he advised me. He went on to
explain that he knows the real world works by agreement and that he
separates that reality from the reality of his imagination. His grasp of
incredibly sophisticated concepts was staggering to me. It reminded me
that children already
know
what thousands of adults were coming
to
est
to rediscover.
"Once I said to myself that the only thing that is impossible is to act
like everything is impossible. The other thing is going through sixteen
seconds of time and then going back and changing it. Now