you don't alter what you know, you alter the way you know it

7/28/2019 You Don't Alter What You Know, You Alter The Way You Know It

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THE NETWORK ~ E V I E WSEPTEMBER 1983 NORTHWEST EDITIO VOLUME 1NUMBER 4

"You don't alter what you know, you alter the way you know itA CONVERSATION WITH WERNER ERHARDabout The est Training, philosophy,"enlightenment," authoritarianism and legitimateauthority, arrogance, leadership, and vision.

From their base at the Graduate TheologicalUnion if! Berkeley, California, members of

the Center for the Study of New ReligiousMovements have been exploring ways to evalua te the confusing array of activities they define as spiritual, self-development, or consciousness-oriented. A continuing seminar atthe Center has worked on criteria which laypeople and professionals can use to discriminate between harmful and helpful conditionsin groups pursuing such activities.

Werner alld 17 members of he seminar metin April1981 to discuss some of he distinctionsbetween authoritarianism and legitimate authority. The conversation covered other topicsas well. and the seminar leader, Dick Anthrmy, lorer commented that it was ··une of heimportant turning points in our meetings." An

edited transcript of the interview is scheduledto appear ill a /look. Spiritual Standards forNew Age Groups and Therapies, due to bepublished next Spring.

While The est Training is not a therapy or areligion, the conversation between Wemerandmembers of the seminar clearly applies to theissues raised by the book, and to everydayliving.

JOHN WELWOOD: I have questions about

whether The est Training is a quasi-religiousphenomenon . I've known a lot of people

who 've done it , and I've been impressed withthe fact that it helps make their lives moreworkable. But then there's something elsethat seems a little bit suspect to me , which isthat they seem to have a certain kind of -

WERNER ERHARD: Fervor?

JOHN: Fervor, yes, and also a certain arrogance, as if this were it-as if The estTraining

were everything, including a substitute forany other spiritual practice or meditation, or

any kind of transpersonal and transcendentalpath. I wonder if you could comment on that.

WERNER: It's helpful to recognize right awaythat the training is not the end of anything, or

substitute for another path to some end

point. Interpreting it as either of those willskew your assessment of it. At most, thetraining is a way to examine whatever pathyou happen to be on; but the training doesn't

tell anyone what the path is, or what it shouldbe.

So far, it looks like it's working that way,

too. People who take the training haven't

reported to us that they got any kind of end or

answer out of it. Also , the research done sofar on the results of the training indicates very "strongly that results occur over time, thatwhatever occurs in the training is an ongoing "process, and that the only ingredients necessary to keep tha t process going after the training are the normal , everyday circumstancesof life .

The most difficult par t of this whole process for some people comes just after theycomplete the training. And I'll tell you what,in part anyway, makes that so .

I remember the first time I swam underwater with a mask , in water clear enough to beable to see . For three days after wards , whenever I closed my eyes, I saw what I had seen

underwater. I talked about that experience toeverybody; it had been very moving for me .Since then, I've had one or two other experiences like that, and I've behaved the sameway when they happened. Over time, I'd

integrate the experience, and instead of

bringing it up all the; time, I'd start bringing itup only when it was appropriate. So , I thinkpeople 's reactions when they first get out of

the training are related to that kind of enthusiasm for the experience they've had .

JOHN: Are you saying that what people get

out of the training is equivalent to some kindof enlightenment experience, that there are

transcendental realizations, and that it's asubstitute for what we normally would think

of as religious or spiritual goals?

WERNER:

First , I wou

say that it's a

s titute fo r

thing, and seI wouldn't sait's religious a

also think mo

Werner Erhard Iigions aren't

religious. So

respect to the religion issue, let's talkabout the practices associated with relthen let's talk about the " truth" of rel

I don't think that the training has anypractices of a religious exercise , at lea

the way I see religion being practiced . T

is no worship in the training , no theolobody of knowledge, no particular dogmcode of beliefs to be propagated , and alist of other differences which , I think, cdistinguish the training from what we monly think of as religious practice.

Of course, the practices of religion arthe whole story of religion. There is als"truth" of religion , the "nature" of it,speak. Without getting into a long disc

on what religion provides for people, msertion is that the training provides a fumentally different experience from whligion is intended to provide. The trasimply provides an opportunity for peo

discover, or in some cases recover, theinatural ability to discriminate effective



A CONVERSATION WITH

WERNER ERHARD

Continued from page I

tween the different ways that you and I can

know and can be.People express a lot of things in the train

ing, and the training is designed to deal withthose expressions so that people can get adifferent grip on them. For example, a personmight find himself or herself operating in lifeas if they were obliged in some way to re

spond to something which to them seemsreal. As they participate in the training, they

may discover that this "something" is not aconcrete reality at all but is only a memory

recent, distant , it doesn 't matter. it's still justa memory. That discovery allows the personto behave appropriately to the "something"rather than inappropriately to it. We call that

"completing the experience." What occurs,simply, is a shift in the epistemological domain , from a place where there 's no discrimi

nation about something to a place wherethere is discrimination. What is known is not

altered; the lVay it is known is altered .So, to answer your question, I'd say that

people in the training experience some enthusiasm, which is natural ; it happens toeverybody-not just in the training-when

they have an exciting experience. Nothing

pernicious about that. Then there's something like fervor, which can have elements of

perniciousness in it; and as far as we can tell,

that's a phase through which many people gobut in which almost no one s e e m ~ to getstuck. People seem to go through it fairlyquickly, but , unfortunately, with a very highprofile. If we had our choice, we'd rather thatphase were a little more quiet.

WERNER: Yes, it is . Ye .

JOHN : What I'm

trying to get at isyo ur vi e w ofwhether or no t

what people get

from the training isso mehow eq u ivalent to what inZen, for instanco.:,

would be called en-lightenment.

JOHN: It's equ ivalent. You could get that in

two weekends?

WERNER : Yes, it is equivalent. and no, youcan't get it in two weekends . Tf it takes twoweekends, you didn't get enlightened_ Enlightenment does not t ke two weekends.Enl ightenment takes no time. The two wee kends ar a waste of tim . If we could eliminate those, and just have the enlightenment,we would do that. By the way, I know that

lots of people are infuriated by the suggestionthat enlightenm nt is possible without longpractice and great struggle. I consider the

notion of the necessity of practice and struggle to b nothing more than a notion. It may

be a notion borne out by lots of experience,but so was the notion that the earth i flat.

JOHN: Well , the Buddhists , for example ,would say that your true nature is en

lightened already, but nonetheless, you still

have to practice because there 's a long path torealization. We can act as though we 're enlightened, but there's still some kind of real

ization that has to happen, over a long period . You can ven have enlightenment

experiences , but they' re not particularly

trusted .

WERNER: I agree with everything you've said ,and I'm n t simply being nice about it. What

you said actually reflects my own experienceand m own observations. At the same time,I know it's possible to put the end of the

process at the beginning, and then do theprocess.

JOHN : So, just to get it on tbe record, you are

saying that the training does the same thing asthe spiritual traditions-

SEPTEMBER 1983

"Nothing happens next. This is it. "

DRAWING BY GAHAN WILSON; C II.JfUITIIE NF.W YORKER MAGAZINE. INC.

WERNER: You're not going to trap me intosaying that, because that's nonsense. It's the

same kind of nonsense that keeps people

from realizing that they 're already en

lightened.

Here 's an observation that I know will parallel what you've seen. People are wi ll ing to

give up anything to get enlightened. You andI both know people who've given up weal th,given up jobs, families, their health- peoplewill give up anything to get enlightened. Giveup talking, give up sex, givc up- you name it,they will give it up. There's only one thingpeople will not give up to get enlightened .They will do everything they know to hold on

to this thing that they will not give up no

matter what. The one thing people will notgive up to get enlightened is th e idea thatthey're not enlightened. That's the big holdou t. not anything dsc .

JOH ,: In the traditions the re's a lot of warn

ing about thinking that you're enlightened,that that's one of the greatest dangers of them

all.

WERNER: Discussing enlightenment or thinking about enlightenment is not enlightenment. In fact , we don 't talk about enlightenment in the training very much at all. We do

talk about it , but not much.

JOHN: I'm wondering why you're avoidingthe question of whether this is the same kindof enlightenment that's talked about in the

spiritual traditions.

WERNER: Because those who know don ' t t II,

and those who tell don't know.

DICK ANTHONY : I'd

always heard that

the training does

seem to claim thatit provides some

thing that is the

equ ivalent of en

lightenment , and is

Dick Anthony just as serious anexperience, just as

serious or valuable a state as is provided in

Zen or Hindu traditions , and I thought thatthat was implausible, that it must be some

kind of exaggeration.

WERNER: Well , I have never said that , nor

would I say it.

DICK: But when I went through the training

WERNER: Nor would I say the opposite was

true.

DICK: When I went through the training, thetrainer did in fact seem to be saying that. Idon't know if that was an eccentric trainer,but in fact , that was my understanding, and itwas the understanding of the other people in

the training that I talked to , that this man wastelling us that what was happening to us was

enlightenment, and was just as genuine anenlightenment as happened in any Zen monastery or up in the Himalayas , and that there

were no degrees of enlightenment; it wasenlightenment. Now, that seems like an outrageous claim to me; much of what goes on inthat training seems outrageous to me. Now, ifI understand that to be what the claim is , thenI don't think that I agree with it.

WER 'ER: As far as I know, that claim is notmade. I appreciate that you were there and Iwasn't. I still don't think it was made. The

reason I don't think so is that I've listened tomany hours of trainers doing the training,and they don't make that claim . At the sametime , I do understand how you could come tothat conclusion. -

Bu t none of that i the point. The point is

this: I think that discussions about enlightenment are useless, and I think making enlightenment sacred is even more futile. Myquesti on is, what's all this conversation

about?

What I'm trying to get across is that thestructure of your questions and our conversation doesn't allow for enlightenment. We ' re

not r lIy talking about anything. I don ' tknow how el se [0 respond to you. You can' t

ask , " Is this enlightenment like that en

lightenment?" That's counting enlightenments. That's nuts! That's truly nuts!

JOHN : Would the training then be a substitutefor any other spiritual practice?

WE RNER: No! That's craziness, that one thingsubstitutes for another. In the realm of en

lightenment there aren't substitutions. That

kind of mentality can't hold enlightenment.

JOHN: Would there by any value, for example, in meditating and practicing-

WE RNER: One of our trainers is a Zen Buddhist. He goes away and spends long times

sitting, meditating and practicing.JOHN : Why would he do that if he's done the

training?

WERNER : He would do that because he 's donethe training. Look , can't you hear what

you're saying? You keep saying that one

thing substitutes for another thing; your no

tions about enlightenment are all tied up withexclusivity and ideas about "one path" and"if his, then why that?" and ideas that there 's

someplace to get to. None of that is the wayenlightenmentworks. You need to go back to

whomever is talkmg to you about enlightenment and get them to talk to you about it

some more. You're talking about it inaccurate ly. I'm not kidding. In Suzuki Roshi's

book Zen Mind, Beginners Mind, he said if

you are enlightened, then you're out dowhat enlightens people. Enlightenment isa stage you reach, and your statements se

to come from the idea that enlightenmentplace you reach. There's no such thing

enlightenment to get to.

JOHN: Where my question comes from is

perception of some people I've seen -

WERNER: The arrogance.

JOHN : Yes , and smugness, like: "We've d

it. This is it , you don't need to do any of

other stuff. This is the whole thing. "

WERNER: No , no, no, no . I can't imaganybody saying that they don 't need tothat other stuff, since people who've cpleted the training- we poll them everyin a while to find out what theY're doin

report that they are doing all that other st

Half the room here has taken the trainRight here in this room are those arrog

people you're talking about . I want tothe person who says to me , "This is the othing." All I can find are people who say

know people who say that this is the othing." They've got to be talking about so

body and I'm trying to find that person. T

people in here who have completed the tra

ing don't think that it's the only thing. Itainly don 't think it is.

The one thing people will notgive up to get enlightened

i the idea thatthey're not enlightened.

So let me try to answer in this way.

arrogance that you perceive, I think , is thThe degree to which you think it's therd n't think it's there. That is to say, I d

think it 's something to be overly conceahout , but maybe that's hecause I've watcpeople from the time they get out of

training. I go out of my way to make su

have interactions with people who complthe training early, in 1971, '72 , '73, and

just to watch what's happening to those ple. I had a gathering in the country to w

we invited those people. The result was interesting. I could remember when thpeople were talking about the training,"the training" was every third word.

time nobody even mentioned it. Yes ,looked great: they talked about the th

they were doing, and how wonderful thwere; but nobody mentioned the training

It's like the stink of Zen. There's the sof est. The question is not whether the sexists, but whether it's pernicious

whether it's long-lasting. As far as I canthe answer is no to both questions . I

watching, because there's always the sibility for the answer to become yes.

As to the discussion about the real naof it, is it really enlightenment-yes, it's renlightenment. So is sitting in a room. H

TIus is enlightenment. You think I'm

saying that. I actually mean it. You tthat's some philosophy. It isn't. I thmk m

enlightenment games are pointless becthey're all about getting enlightened. Ge

enlightened is a cheat, because the moredo of that, the more the message is thataren't enlightened. Clearly, the practicnecessary. The practice of enlightenmenecessary, but it can be done from being

lightened, rather than getting enlighteWhen you do the practice from being

lightened, then each one of the stepscomes a step in the expression of the

lightenment.

JOHN : What's the difference between b"totally enlightened" and just believingyou're enlightened?

Continued on pa



less time per day, it would take more than thefour days, which are already a problem forsome peop le .

That should give you some idea of thespirit of the training. 1 think it would takemore time than we want to spend here todescribe the wh ole thing.

By the way, let me tell you somethingabout whether the training is authoritarian.Go into a prison and not be part of the sy.

tern, and get into a room wi th inmates wherether are no guards, and I want to see you beauthoritarian. We 've done the training in ' an

Quentin Prison with no guards in a room withprisoners, 250 ofth m and five of us. And thetraining works spectacularly. It works just aswell in Israel it doe in New York City. Itworks just as we ll in Davenport, Iowa , as inLos Angeles. It works as well with Harvardprofessors as it does witb-I don ' t kno w.What's the opposite of a Harvard professor?

NEVITT SANFORD: A Yale professor.

BRUCE FIREMAN: Do youthink that the people on thestaff f Werner Erhard and

Associates have the frame of mind in whichthey can assess your actions, and should youractions be bad for the goals you'r trying topromote , that they would get rid of you andcarryon the work without you? Are there

procedures in place by which-WE RNER: They don't need any procedures.They don't need to get rid of me . You see, Ibave no authority.

BRUCE: But could they, if they did need to getrid of you?

WERNER: I don't wonder abo ut it. I know thatthey would do that, and could do that, and asa matter of fact, since the organization's in-ception they've always had the wherewithalto do it, because I never held any position ofauthor ity. T had no form al authorit ,; mypower in the organization as exactly equalto my ability to be useful to the people in theorganization.

The actual fact about it is that I do have alot of authority, and I consider the authorityto be counter-productive. I don 't like authority - it just doesn ' t work . It's nowhere near

potent enough for the kinds of things that I'minterested in achieving.

So we've worked at the job of underminingmy position of authority. When you haveauthority with people, they can't hear you.They can neither hear whether you're sayingnonsense, nor can they hear whether you'resaying something useful.

S , that's a problem for us , as it is in anyrganization, nd it's a problem tho I think

we have dealt with. We have forums for people to express themselves; the first "rule" as astaff member is to agree to open, honest . andcomplete communication We have structures to support p ople when they don't feelpowerful enough to make those communications We have an ombudsman who's paid tokeep whatever he or she hears in strict confidence, and who e job it is to make sure that astaff m mber is not damaged by any commu

nicati n addressed to another staff member.We d n't think that any of those lhings are

necessary, because we don 't think we operatein ways that will damage anyone. But wethink that it 's possible for staff mem bers,when they're looking for an excuse not to beresponsible , to say to themselves, "Hey, Ican't tell the truth here , because £' 11 get introuble. " So we've just destroyed the opportunity to use that as an excuse. There's nowa that you as a staff member cann t sayexactly what's on your mi nd , because the reare so many systems to protect you.

So, yes, I get called to task. I don't getcalled to task often, because I happen to be

able to operate with a lot of accuracy. I alsohave one other endearing quality. When Imake a mistake I get off it fast . Maybe that'snot an endearing quality-

SEPTEMBER 1983

ROGER WA LSH: One of the

p u r p o ~ e s ?f this group that'smtervlewmg you IS to try todelinea te some guide Unesfor what constitutes beneficent versus harmful groups

and teachers . You've been through myriadgroups and trainings of one type or another,and certainly met a lot of people claiming tobe teachers over the last 20 years. What

ould you tell us , or what would you tellanyon , bout how to differentiate betweenbeneficent and harmful teachers and groups?

WERNER: This question is something that Ifeel a responsibility for, first off because of

my own opportunities and the opportunitiesof my associates , and also because of thelarger issue. The whole issue of leadership,authority, etc., seems to me to be a basicproblem in our society-any society.

When the source of the authority lies outside of those with whom the authority is exercised, you've got the beginnings of a possibleprob lem. You're not necessarily going to definitely wind up with a problem , but y u'ddamn well better be careful. See , if Dick isthe leader of the group, and is its leader b -cause God has given Dick a mission, and Godis not directly availab e to the rest of us todiscuss Dick's designation, that for me is theharbinger of a problem. If Dick's authority is

based on anything that is inaccessible to therest of the peop le in the group, then I am

concerned.The times when I'm least concerned are

when Dick's authority-and then I would notcall it authority-is in the hands of the peoplewith whom the authority or power is beingexercised, when it's clear to everybody thatthis is the case. I think you can con peopleinto agreeing with your position of authority,but you can only con them if they don't knowthat they are the source of your ·authority. Ithink that if you're attempting to avoid theevils of authoritarianism, one of the thingsthat hould happen is that the people in thegroup should be very clear that there is nonatural leader; that there are people whohave natural leadership qualities, but thatdoesn't make any of them the leader. There is

no outside authority which is unavailable tothe people in the group selecting the leader;the group is empowering the people who are

being empowered.

When you have authority wi thpeople, they can 't hear you.They can neither hear

whether you're saying nonsense,nor can they hear whetheryou're saying something useful.

One of the other things-and this one is alot more subtle , so I think a lot more dangerous-is the prevailing intellectual level orthe prevailing epistemological domain , th

realm of knowing that prevai ls in the group.If that realm of knowing is conceptualideas , beliefs, slogans-that for me is almostcertainly going to wind up ith a problemsomeplace. Ifit doesn' t, somebody is going tohave to be working really hard to make surethat it doesn't become a problem. It's almosta natu ral disaster.

When I see that conceptualization, thoughpresent, exist within a larger epistemologicaldomain that I call experience, I'm then a lotmar r laxed, because if somebody trie tosay, for instance, that Jews are bad, and in thegroup it's agreed upon that we verify things inour experience, I'm not so concerned thatwhoever is trying to get that one across isgoing to prevail. If experience is allowed, andif experience is recognized and respected,then I have less concern .

I begin to have almost no concern when in

addition to the domain of concep t or explanation and that of experience or process, thereis the domain of context or creation. It 's arealm in which people look not only at whatthey think, but at the realm in which theirthinking take s pl ace . At titu de is certainlyther in this realm, and allowed and appreciated , and a change or process of attitudes is

respected , but hen the group deals in theepistemological domain of the context of attitudes, then I become even less concerned.

BRUCE: One of the things that you referred toearlier was that people were too deferent toyour authority. That's something that everybody notices, these charges that people arerather slavish in their adulation of you. I wantyou to talk about the specific changes thatyou're making that will reduce the excessivedeference or adulation .

WERNER: We all know that a hundred thousand people can't love one person. If theycould , nobody would be able to observe themdoing it, because that isn't possible in thestructure through which we 'd look at the sit·uation. If what's occurring is actually what it'sconcluded to be-slavish adulation-I wantsomebody to explain why it nurtures thosepeople, because adulation doesn't nurture

people. It only makes them right ; it does notnurture them. People who are adulating

don 't get healthier , they don't get more self

expressive, they don't get more capable. The

people who are supposed to adulate mehealthy, expressive, able , and capable .like to suggest to you that the way yolooking at it is a part of the evil-that yo

looking at it in a way that says: "These arealternatives: pick ne ."

BRUCE: I'm asking you how you're lookinthe matter, and wh at you' re doing about

WERNER: I'm going to get to that.

BRUCE : We've had person apers n come in here fromferen t groups and tell us abhow their relationship wtheir leader has empowethem-people who were

fact very slavish in their adulation of leader-they were set on fire; they were "powered;" they went out and "dealt" wtheir problems. We've seen this time and tagain . Now, in order to accomplish ygoals for people, which is that you want thto be e mpowered and not slavish , yomaking changes in your organization . I wto know what problems you see, andthose changes are going to contribute to

relationship between yo u and your unlings in the organization -

WERNER: See , but that's th wh ole proble

BRUCE: Well , perhaps I'm using the wrword. But rather than make an issue ofwords-

Continued on pa

R. BUCKMINSTER FULLERJULY 12, 1895-JULY 1, 1983

INVENTOR ARCHITECT EN ' I E R MATHEMATICIA

COMPREHEN IVE DESIGNER CARTOGR PHEI POET

PHILOSOPH

;LOHAL CIT IZ

By any account, he w as an extraor linary man.

By his ow n account, he was an ordinary man.

"'Du orzly imp ortarllihi/l)? about me is that I a 11 an average, healthy hl//I1all beirlg .Athe things I've been able to do, any hwnall bein)?, or Q//y Oil } or yO/l, co uld do equawell or better. I was able to accomplish what I did by refos ing to be hooked all agamelife that had /loth ill)? to do with the way the universe wasgoing. I wasjllst a throwawwho was willing to co mmit myselJto what needed to he done . ..

Could it b e that Bucky really meant what he said? Could it

that his life is an unavoidable example that an ordinar pe

son's lifi can make a difference?

Bucky spoke about living one's li fe as an expression of com

mitment. He spoke about liv ing one's life in acco rdance w i

certain simple, discoverable principles. He said that by doin

so an ordinary p rson 's life could mak an extraordina

difference.

Should one take Bucky at his w ord or dismiss him as a gre

man being humble?

Finatuial cotJ{ributious to l i l t otl,eoiug Jt.'l'eiopm etll (wd O rl1H1I4'lh Uf ;Ot, p rtyl:d.) Imd jdc Js (at! he madr to

Fri<l1ds rfB,ukmi/ISur Full,'r i-'ouJlJatioli. 845 Vi" de fa Pa z, #A 17/$, Pa'i}I' Palisade ', CA 90272 i21J) 472·8



CONVERSATION WITH

WE RNER ERH ARD

Continued fro m page 5

WERNER: I' m not mak ing an issue of thewords you use. I'm maktng the system fromwhich the words ar deri ed the probl m.

Given the system, 1 can't answer the question. You see, it's not simply th word s you'reusing that ar e the problem . What I want toconvey to you is this: In the assumptions fr mwhich you are asking the question, you allowfor no truthful answer to the ques ·on . The

words you use reflect your s s u m p t i o n ~ accurately, and glVen your assumptions, there 's

no solution to th problem. On e cannot solvethe problem in the system you are using. Infact, that system is the problem.

Now, I'm going to answer your question,becau e, you know, I came here and agreedto do that, but I want to tell you the truth

before I answer the question. So I'm tellingyou that my answer will make no sense if youlisten to the answer in that system from whichyou asked the question.

Th e answer is that the organization has forseveral years been shifting away from a structure that ha a central place or a top placefrom which decisions are made and pas ed

on. We always tried not to operate that way,and over the years we've become m re andmore successful at not ope rating that way.The structure of just about any ordinary organization, however , is that way. So when

you 're try ing to go left In a structure tha t'sgoing right , you can't get very far . We recognized that what needed to happen was whatwe called a transformation of the structure,because no mntter what ou r inten tions were,as long a' they were being expressed in astructure of authority, we would not achieveour e n d ~ .

Th e st(uctur we ave in mit\d is a networkof pe pIe, the center of which is where eTyou re. Dec isions get made locally. By contT t , if we' re a ll operating as a hi r rchical

r . mzatlOn , you know you might be the

bo ; yo 'd tell us what to du o We t<:!l l youwhat 's g ing on; you tell us wh t to do. In aystem hich is network-like rather than p r

amidal. what g t<; done in an given spot get

decided at the spot. Th e information flows tother from all o\ er that n twork , and theinformation from there fl ows all over the net

work .Th is is something that I've been studying

now for two and a half years , a nd I actua llythin k e' ve come up with some break throughs . est came to an end this year [19 1J,Iiterall 'Went out of xistence, because we 're

evo lvin in to a net work and we wa nted to putthe o ld orga nizational model t bed. So, forinstanc , the Master Th rapist rogram isdo ne by the en tity called Werner Erhard and

ssociates in a partnership with Dr . R b rrhaw, who's a psychiat rist. Lot s of programs

are do ne as partnerships, dnd more will bedone that way in the fut ure , where our net

work wi ll be affiliated with other networks.

Errors are important .They're how you get there.

Just let me cover a coupl more things veryquiCkly. We st arted a pilot program in 1981 inSan Francis 0 with a thousand people , aworkshop on communi ty in which we 'vebeen d ve l ping a program t be made available arou nd the country and around the

world, so that people in any community canwork on the community- ma ke mmunitythe ir business.

The Hunge r Proj ct, hich was really cre ated by people who have taken Th e estTraining but is no v much larger tha n es t graduates,has two million people who've enrolled.

The Breakthrough Foundation works in

international development in TlITal villages

and urban ghettos, on the the thatsufficiency is n ver a hi ved unless ther 'sind ividual and societal transformation . Wefeel we've dev eloped a technology that allows people to effect those transformationsf r themselves, independent of an out sidepersonality.

By the wa , many of these organizations

ar e wholly independent of We rner Erhard

and Associa es.

DlCK: That seems like anatural con lusion tothat line of questioning. na t her lin to consider will take a minu te to develop. I kno w

peopl ' who wor k for you r organiza ti n , or init , and what they seem to have in common is

that they work very hard and very long h urs ,and that they do n't have much going on intheir lives e xcept eSI. NO\ a certain kind of

fantasy about est gets set off by this fact. Itcombines with other things I see m to havenoticed about est: It is a very rapidl expanding organization; it has very high ambitions in

terms of wanting to transform the society or

perhaps the world; it hopes to be able to end

hunger in a certain number of years. and

other things that seem implausible from anormal frame of reference; it proselytizesvery forcefully, with very great energy. Putting all those th ings together, it's easy to viewest as a group of people with a self-involved,very convoluted system of beliefs that

achieve their plausibilit. by the apparent

ability of est to grow very rapidly.

WE RN ER: So that gro\\1h ba ks up th b lief,ap pears to back up the be lief.

DICK : Yes. so peop le feel t a t t hey're reallysomehow achiev ing something important

with res ect to the ir ow n co nsciousness.

ow , hat would hap pen if suddenly estpeaked, and some of th plausibility structure s.tac.te.d to break own? me of the

othe r group tha t \ ' 'ye look ed al have rally.nfy gotten trouble when it taned to

look as if th\:)' wer n'l going to h ngc theworld fe r all, nd:-ls If the!> em t · 0-

pIe h d be n dt!v )ting them.-elvcs to \ ho i -heart Iy for five, ten . or fiftee n yea rs wasn't

really omnipotent. The whole shared group

fantasy started to break apar t . and things gotcrazy. Could you re lid to that?

WERNER: I know everybody'S trying to be

po lite, and I appreciate your being nice about

it. But , you see, it's no t just try ing to bepo lit . nd it's n t just tr ing to be ni e aboutit; it's a flat-out lie . nd language carried on

in lies. ven if hey' r well-meaning lies, Ie dvou to inaccurate conclusions .. What offends m \I f willingne s to carry

on the conv rsat ion wi thou t getting at thetruth fit. Tthink there 's a very big pos 'ibilit

of missing some of the real pow r and valuein the work that we are do ing and in the

whole dev lo r ment of that v rk , if you attempt to force It into the cate o rie whi ch youbring to it to try to understand it . because estis reany about the v ry nature of OUT inqu i-

ry. T he est Training is aimed at grasping thecategories wi th which one eals with theworld . It's not aimed at what one puts intothose categories.

You assume th at the long hours and the

high commitment of staff me mbers must be

bro ught ab ut by som e great vision . I d nythat that 's true. That isn't why I work longhours. I'm very committed-l ay "committed" and 1 know th thought tha t

lrough peo ple's minds: "H e believes in whathe's doing." I d n't beli 've in what I' m doingat all. I have absolutely no belief in what I'mdoing. I already know hO\ it's going to turnout. I know it's going to tum out exactl r as itturns out. It's been d in g that for e o n ~ .

So yo . ay, "But th n, W rn r, h t's your

mo tive, what the he ll are you working allthose hours fo r'I " I'm not motivated . Th reisn't any mo tive. There 's no damn vision motivating me. You know, if I stopped doing it

tomorrow, it wouldn't make one bit of difference, and ifI keep do ing it right to the end,it won 't mak e any differenc . Th only thing

thaC!> g ing to happen wh t h ppe .Now, tha t doesn 't tit into ur structure ,

into our cate gories. We kno w that you don 't

get up in th morn ing unless y u'v got amo tive . That's a great explanatIOn. Maybeyou can explain people's beh avior , but youcan 't do one thing to bring an ounce of wholeness and completeness into people's liveswith that theory, because the theory is essentially a theory of explanatio and doesn't getat the calise of things .

Motiva tion? It doesn 't bringan ounce of wholenessor completeness into people'slives because it'sessentially • . . explanation anddoesn't get atthe cause of th ings.

So I don't have a vision . I'm not sellingsome ideal. I don't know wher I'm going. 1know where I'm coming from. An d I thin kthat the people on the staff know wh re

they're coming from. I think it's a great excitement to them to discover where that takesthem , day by day, week by week. It's why wedon' t have any pro blem throwing th ings out.

See. if my life is abo ut wher e I'm going t getto , and ou make me change . then you'veups t me . If my life is abou t where I'm coming from , change is no problem-i f I'm !>Tart-

ing at the end , and going then through theprocess. inst of g in through th proce sto get to the end .

So wh do people work I ng hours? They

wor k long hou.c£ because there's work to bedone, an t.! doing tn ork i ' Ver y satisfying. Ididn 't say it was a s ~ , or plea an t; f sai it was

ti. fy ng. TI ey work long hou because inthat pponu It · they exp nenc th opportunity to make a di erence. No t to makethings differ nt . s e. but to mak a difference . T hey expe rience the opportuni ty of

being abl to be us fuJ- and the y don't experience that op portunity in a lot of places in

the "'orld

DICK : You

' re saying, I think , that est peo

plewon' t flip out an d get crazy if the w rid isn ' ttransformed , because they don 't have a certain point of vi w abn ut how the world isgoing to be transformed ; t hey don 't have abelief stru ture that has to be confirm d.

WE RNER: That's right.

DIC K: I think that ' · valid . I think that that i. adifference between est and some of the other

gr ups that we've se n .

WERNER : T he ther thing is that they don' tthink they 're " good ;" there fore, they 're not

made craGYby som bod y 'aying they're ()ad.rdon't think The est Training is good . I don 'tthink it's righteous , I don't think it 's d'swor k. G d is not talking to me per onally anydiffe rentl . th n She talks io everbody. Youkn w. the re's no great mission. Or , es, thereis a great m ission , but it's the great mission

everybody is on . We h ve no private access tothe mission nd no special knowledge about

the mission .By th way. before est I vas an expert in

mo tivation . In the rea lm f motivati n expert s, on m c a s u r pe rtise by income .Given my income, before est, I was an expert

in mo tivation. That was my business . A t one

time , I was fairly cl r, I wa s One of the fe wpeo ple in the country who kne w what moti'ation was. I knew it " up on the line"-my

income depended on being able to teach it top . pie . U ltimately mo tivation is counter

productiv , b 'aus inherent in it is the message that you 're nOI . It It:aches you th atyo 're not, and it re inforces that you 're not.Even achieving that towards which you werem tivated seals the fact that you 're not.

So, for ex mple, if you examin inte ll

peo ple-part icularly people who wear

intelligence on the ir coat sl ve -and

get do n und erneath it , you find invar

that they are intellige nt to avoid be ing stInvariably, when intd igence is not nu

ing , it is a device for overcoming somet

it is a mo ivated kind of 'nt lIigen ce . Iexperience and in my observa tio n,ligenc is a natural expression of self. O

self is int lligent.1don 't mean that we should throw all

vation ut , be cause moti ation is usefulintenm device , as some thing through wto go , something to master. But ultimmotivation is a true exercise of authorita

ism. O ur whole society i base on it,say that people are not freed by the valuthis society, or ennobled by them ; thdominated by them. I think it's perniciostart with; you don' t need to get to Jotown. It 's already pernicious. nd nobo

really teaching an ybody about the scand the technology and art of coming f

Th thing which i really difficult-an

notice this a lot in the work that we're din development around the world-ispeople cannot believe that there i. omethat moves people other than moti va

There's just no possibil ity of ontology bbehind it. That is not held as possihle. Th

fore, if you see somebody moving , b Gthey've got to be up to som ething. Th egot to be moving towards something. It

be that the y're just moving.

PHILIP ZJM B ROO: Doesn 'tH unger PrO ject h ve a visi

W ERNER: Ye.<;, I uggcst thyo u read wha t we call

"source document" for

HUfl:£er Project, you woul d see hoihat l' e jus t s id is true and that they a

vision-t he 'ision do preclude whjust said.

he ng r P o je t's mi. l ' to f

conte xt for the end of hunger. Now t

on ly tha t would b half-assed, if youTherefore, you have to fa up to also eing a goal , the end of hunger; but it'scontext whic IS The Hun g Project':

and in tbe context "the end of hun ger ,"

is is the xpression f the end of hun

Therefore you don 't fail, in the cont xt.

PHILIP: But you cou ld fail in that vision .

WER NI:.R: Yes. You can fa il and-no ,kno w you will fai l in the obje ti\' S.

hopes not to fail ultimate ly, but n ":1

on wi ll fa il in the ob j ctives. That \ a pa

the expr ssion fa cont ·t of u c ~ e dinthe contex t f succeeding, failure istaine ; th refor , failure i' not invalidaFail ure doesn't destroy anything. As a mof fa ct . it forward things. Enors arc imtan t. Th ey 're how you get ther . i ~ t a k ethe pa th .

I'll tell you the one thing that bu rnspeople out. It's when th y think tbey a t

to happen at xactly that mom nt wthey figure they have it made, the y hatogethe r, the y understand it now. And itdeadly, it's really sad. Th y may go n t

very successful, but their success neverthe quality of m king a differenc again

JOHN: Do they c me out of it ?

WERN ER : Some do . Th jury's still o usom e , and I think some won't. A nd youit's very 1 ar to me that everybody wilI'm now talk ing in tha t context. Maybetime around , some won't, but ul tim telall will .

Reprinted by special arrangem ent with Shaha/a Publicalions, Inc., 1920 /3th Street, Bo uCO 80302. This article is excerp(ed from (he fcoming book, SpirilUal Standard, r NewGroups and Therapies , edited by Dick AII/hBruce Ecker and Ken Wilber, to be publSpring 1984; $17.95 cloth, $8 .95 paper.

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