Sheridan Fenwick

Well, first of all, you can legally check out this book for free from this online library: https://openlibrary.org/ and read it for free online with your tablet phone or computer, or even offline if that very poor software known as "adobe digital editions" actually works on your device.

The first half of the book is a description of what the clinical psychologist author experienced in EST training, and even though it was just the introductory seminars and so she just stuck her toe in, it leaves no doubt that EST was a dangerous cult. In the second half she analyses the experience and describes a small selection of the ways that EST was manipulative and coercive, as well as pointing out the possible psychological dangers for certain people, and hinting at the very different nature of EST for people who were deeper into it, people who worked long hours for no pay and while sleep deprived, people who had to write confessions of their sexual activity and send them to the leader, Werner Erhard, for him to read.

The initial seminars were the public facing aspect of est, and the major cash provider, so it's difficult to get a full idea of the group from just these, but even at that it is very clear it was a dangerous movement.

In a nutshell people reached "peak experiences" under conditions of deprivation, duress and verbal abuse alternated with lectures (content stolen from other cults, self help books, and psychotherapy schools) and meditations / visualizations.

I put a detailed summary of the book here: https://counsellingandpsychotherapyresources.wordpress.com/2020/06/08/what-was-t...… (meer)