est: The Steersman Handbook

[Caligari]

Interesting references that the name est (Erhard Seminars Training) was inspired by Leslie Stevens book "est: The Steersman Handbook" first published in 1970,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Est:_The_Steersman_Handbook
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est: The Steersman Handbook, Charts of the Coming Decade of Conflict is a work of science fiction cast as a nonfictional study. Its author, credited as L. Clark Stevens, usually went by the name Leslie Stevens. Stevens has a long list of credits in the entertainment industry, having worked on, among other productions, The Outer Limits. The book was published in paperback in 1970, and reprinted in 1971. Werner Erhard's title for his company, Erhard Seminars Training, including usage of the abbreviation est in lowercase, was derived from the book's title.[1][2][3][4]
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http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2013/07/secret-star-trek-part-6-godfather-of.html
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Stevens had no connection to Esalen that I can tell, but his book est: The Steersman's Handbook, a left/libertarian manifesto that spelled out how technology would change society, would have an oblique influence on Werner Erhard (aka Jack Rosenberg) the self-help/human potential guru who seems to be Michael Murphy's Jenny O'Connor, meaning the onetime close associate who came to be a liability, requiring some juducious rewriting of the historical record.

All that's a discussion for another day, but suffice it say Erhard takes up a lot of real estate in Upstart Spring, the 1983 book on Esalen and not so much on later accounts. But this is par for the course:
Two weeks before Easter in 1971, Thaw wandered into the City Lights Bookstore and bought a copy of est: The Steersman Handbook, by L. Clark Stevens. Est, for Stevens, meant "electronic social transformation...Thaw says he left the book with Erhard's "Facilitator," a combination valet and sidekick.

Within two days, Thaw says, the name of Erhard's proposed organization was Erhard Seminars Training - or est.
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