Werner Hans Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg; September 5, 1935)[1]: 7  is an American lecturer known for founding est (offered from 1971 to 1984).

[1]: 6 [6] His father was a small-restaurant owner who left Judaism for a Baptist mission and then joined his wife in the Episcopalian denomination[1]: 6 [6] where she taught Sunday School.

[1]: 53 : 117–138  Over the next few years, Erhard brought on as Parents staff many people who later became important in est, including Elaine Cronin, Gonneke Spits, and Laurel Scheaf.

[12] Erhard also credits being tutored by philosophers, Michel Foucault, Humberto Maturana, Sir Karl Popper, and Hilary Putnam.

[13] During his time in St. Louis in the 1960's, Erhard read two books that had a marked effect on him: Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich (1937) and Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics (1960).

[1]: 122  When a member of his staff at Parents Magazine introduced him to the ideas of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, both key figures in the Human Potential Movement, he became more interested in personal fulfillment than sales success.

[14] Over the following years, he investigated a wide range of movements, including Encounter, Transactional Analysis, Enlightenment Intensive, Subud and Scientology.

[1]: 136–137  The directors of Mind Dynamics eventually invited him into their partnership, but Erhard rejected the offer, saying he would rather develop his own seminar program—est, the first program of which he conducted in October 1971.

In their 1992 book Perspectives on the New Age, James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton write that Mind Dynamics, est, and LifeSpring have "striking" similarities, as all used "authoritarian trainers who enforce numerous rules," require applause from participants, and deemphasize reason in favor of emotion.

He consulted with Heideggerian scholars (Hubert Dreyfus and Michael E. Zimmerman) who noted consistencies with the est training and elements of Heidegger’s thought.

[18] The est Training's purpose was to transform the way one sees and makes sense of life so that the situations one had been trying to change or tolerating clear up in the process of living itself.

[21] American ethicist, philosopher, and historian Jonathan D. Moreno has described the est training as "the most important cultural event after the human potential movement itself seemed exhausted"[22] and a form of "Socratic interrogation".

Erhard challenged participants to be themselves and live in the present[23] instead of playing a role imposed on them[22] by their past, and to move beyond their current points of view into a perspective from which they could observe their own positionality.

It also organized presentations by scholars and humanitarians such as the Dalai Lama and Buckminster Fuller[25] and hosted an annual conference in theoretical physics, a science in which Erhard was especially interested.

[27] In 1977, with the support of John Denver, former Oberlin College president Robert W. Fuller, and others, Erhard founded The Hunger Project, a nonprofit NGO.

Also during that period he developed and presented a series of seminars, broadcast via satellite, that included interviews with contemporary thinkers in science, economics, sports, and the arts on topics such as creativity, performance, and money.

[35] In 1999, Erhard and Peter Block worked with a nonprofit organization for clergy and grassroots leaders to come up with new ways to deal with the peace process in Ireland.

"[45][non-primary source needed] In 2001, New York Magazine reported that Landmark Education CEO Harry Rosenberg said that the company had bought Erhard's license outright and his rights to the business in Japan and Mexico.

[22] Moreno has written, "Allegations of all sorts of personal and financial wrongdoing were hurled at him, none of which were borne out and some [of which] were even publicly retracted by major media organizations.

Psychiatrist Marc Galanter called Erhard "a man with no formal experience in mental health, self-help, or religious revivalism, but a background in retail sales".

[48] Michael E. Zimmerman, chair of the philosophy department at Tulane University, wrote "A Philosophical Assessment of the est Training",[49] in which he calls Erhard "a kind of artist, a thinker, an inventor, who has big debts to others, borrowed from others, but then put the whole thing together in a way that no one else had ever done.

"[52] NYU psychology professor Paul Vitz called est "primarily a business" and said its "style of operation has been labeled as fascist.

"[53] In 1991, Erhard "vanished amid reports of tax fraud (which proved false and won him $200,000 from the IRS[54][55]) and allegations of incest (which were later recanted).

[21] On March 3, 1992, Erhard sued CBS, San Jose Mercury News reporter John Hubner and approximately 20 other defendants for libel, defamation, slander, invasion of privacy, and conspiracy.