I did both courses. The Est and the Landmark. The Est was the superior course, Now doubt about that, I did it in LA in early times when still fresh and inexpensive. In the Landmark, to their credit, they have the sense to help you out to do more courses. I understand that Werner was ruined by a court case by his daughters who claimed they were molested as children. They apologized later and said they had been misled into false memories by a New Zealand group who took that sort of thing all over the world.
They kept on telling us in Landmark how the group is run by friends and relatives, who agreed to run the show until Werner sorted things out. Things were sorted out, but Werner had received a public death notice. As a smart cookie he had people like Stephen Hawking and Richard Branson as friends, and friends like those don’t come easily. He then moved on into teaching upper management courses and was very successful at it.
Of course, Scn was out to get him. How could Hubbard hope to compare to Werner who had no health problems? He was not out to get them. I went to see him at a meeting, and he gave them nothing but praise Scn. I don’t if he is retired, but he is over 80 now.
Just lately I have been reading books by Alan Watts and to my surprise I was doing an EST course all over again. Perhaps after Alan died his kids sold the book rights to Werner, for Werner got it right, to make a dollar you must spend a dollar. Alan is the original person here and cannot be accused of ‘stealing’ from Scn. I don’t know if Ron had taken anything from Alan, if so he made a mess of explaining the mystery of Zen. (Ah, so I now see it all, Mister Hubbard. That finger not point at moon - but point up ass!)
Another thing is Alan, as an ex-priest of the Church of England, didn’t accept reincarnation in a direct way. Neither does Landmark. However, Est did, and in a big way. I found Werner’s teachings as having more meaning. I “got it” which was the final realization of the course. I’m now wondering if the ‘friends and relatives’ mean of Alan Watts.