Getting It: The psychology of est is a non-fiction book by psychologist Sheridan Fenwick, first published in 1976, analyzing Werner Erhard's Erhard Seminars Training or est. It is based on Fenwick's own experience of attending a four-day session of the est training, an intensive 60-hour personal development course in the self-help genre. Large groups of up to 250 people took the est training at one time. In the first section of Fenwick's book, she recounts the est training process and the methods used during the course. Fenwick details the rules or "agreements" laid out by the trainers to the attendees, which include not talking to others or leaving the session to go to the bathroom unless during an announced break period. The second section is analytic: Fenwick analyzes the methods used by the est trainers, evaluates the course's potential effects, and discusses Erhard's background. Fenwick concludes that the program's long-term effects are unknown, and that the est training could harm certain groups of people. Writing in Library Journal, psychiatrist James Charney describes the book as "the only useful critical look" at the training. Zane Berzins of The New York Times Book Review characterizes the book as a "calm and professionally informed view".
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_________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1467:
Troops under Stephen III of Moldavia defeated the forces of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary in Baia, present-day Romania. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baia)
1791:
The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, collectively known as the United States Bill of Rights, were ratified. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights)
1868:
Tokugawa Shogunate forces led by Enomoto Takeaki founded the Republic of Ezo in Hokkaidō, Japan's second largest island. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ezo)
1942:
World War II: The Americans engaged Imperial Japanese forces at the Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse in the hills near the Matanikau River area on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal Campaign. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mount_Austen,_the_Galloping_Horse,_an... )
1964:
The six-month long Canadian Great Flag Debate ended when the Canadian House of Commons voted to replace the de facto national flag of Canada, the Canadian Red Ensign, with an official one, the current Maple Leaf Flag. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flag_Debate)
_______________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
lucubrate (v) 1. To work diligently by artificial light, to study at night. 2. To work or write like a scholar. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lucubrate)
______________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
It is not the right angle that attracts me, Nor the hard, inflexible straight line, man-made. What attracts me are free and sensual curves. The curves in my country's mountains, In the sinuous flow of its rivers, In the beloved woman's body. --Oscar Niemeyer (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oscar_Niemeyer)