Copy of articles published in The Observer, London, on 1st and 8th April
1979.

'SPACES IN THE ELBOWS'  by SUE ARNOLD

Forgive me if I seem a trifle confused this week.  I have been trying to
locate a space in the bones of my left foot -- without success.  This is
the homework I have been set and heaven knows, it's years since I did
homework.  I should explain that I am in the middle of my est training.

est? you cry, what the.....?  Patience, amigo, all will be revealed.

Regular readers (and by that I include the lady from Rouen who suggested
that I be hung over a pile of ordure for daring to speak lightly of St.
Wilgefortis) may recall that some weeks ago I wrote about an American
organisation called est which offers a 60-hour training course over two
consecutive weekends, which will enable the participants to realise the
potential to transform the quality of their lives: 
"Recontextualisation" in a word, an est word.

Smarting from the postal lashes of those readers who upbraided me for
treating of matters that I, myself, had not experienced, I scraped
together the tuition fees, £150 (plus VAT), and signed on.  In view of
the seriousness and expense, I shall break my usual practice of one
subject per week and let you know the final result of the ongoing
(sorry) process in next week's column.

I arrived at the Tara Hotel W8, a large modern establishment beloved of
international plastics tycoons and Irish air-crew, at 8am on Saturday. 
I was issued with a name tag with SUE in very large letters by an
unsmiling official, who directed me first to the bathroom, then to the
ballroom.  Wise advice.  Our first bath-room break, as they put it, was
at 2.30pm, our only meal break was at 10.30pm and the first day's
session finished at 3.30 am the following morning.  

What went on in the intervening 19 hours and again on Sunday from 10am to
1.30 am is difficult to describe, since being a family newspaper we do not
go in for four letter words.  But I will do my best.

The first surprise was to discover how many of the 250 participants were
foreign.  People had flown in from Paris, Stockholm, Rome, Madrid.  I sat
next to a German girl who said she hoped est would help her complete her
operatic training.  We took our seats in the ballroom facing a stage on
which stood two black-boards.  Green black-boards actually -- you see,
even half an est training goads me to speak the truth.  The first hour,
two hours, five hours maybe -- who knows, since none of us was allowed
to wear watches -- was spent in hearing exactly what was expected of us,
the ground rules.  The gist was that we would sit, stand, eat and pee
only when instructed to do so.

"What must I do?!" hissed the German Callas. "I have a banana in the
bag."

"No talking, Trudi" snarled a voice from the back. "Obey the ground
rules."

Our trainer was Ted, a slight bearded. greying man around 40, in a white
sweater.  Ted said that by the end of the course we would, if we stayed
that long -- and he personally didn't give a **** if we stayed or not --
get a result.  No doubt about it.  Our only duty was to be there, obey
the rules and take what we got.  If we wanted to say something we were
to raise our hands.  The rest of us would clap afterwards, four claps.

Francesca asked why the est officials were so fierce.  Hitherto they had
all been sickeningly sweet like the airline ads, all smiles and "Hi, I'm
Margie. Fly me"

"Who says they're fierce?  C'mon Francesca. what's the hang-up with you
that makes you think they're fierce?  Let me tell you something,
Francesca, you're so full of **** you dont know what hit you.  Sit down
and shut up."  Francesca sat down.  We all clapped four times.

Ted wrote key words on the blackboard like reason, decision, symbol.  He
used words like experiential and effortise.  He said that during the
training we would feel anger, terror, nausea, pain.  Several people
left.

Dave got up and said he thought Ted's language was, well, a bit hard. 
Ted unleashed a stream of abuse that would have made a midshipman
uneasy, and said what the **** did Dave mean "his language was a bit
hard?"  Dave stood his ground.  He said Ted's language wasn't the sort
of thing you would use in front of Royalty.

We went through the first of several processes or exercises.  We lay on
the floor, all 250 of us, with our eyes closed.  We were ordered to
locate a space in the muscles of our right elbows.

By the time we'd got to locating a space in our small intestines I was
feeling angry, tired and hungry.  Ted said we were all on a beach and
turned on a tape which played 20th Century Fox-type music.  The woman on
the beach next to me began sobbing, then screaming, them vomiting. 
Someone gave her a bag and did some mopping up.  Somewhere in the room a
man was yelping. Others were laughing hysterically, gurgling groaning,
vomiting.

So far I have not stood up to share an experience.  So far I think it's
a load of rubbish.  Watch this space.....

Continued the following week.

'ILLUMINATING MY ID'


The story so far:  Wide-eyed, wary news hound Sue Arnold has fearlessly
penetrated the ballroom of the Tara Hotel, Kensington to investigate an
American organisation called est which offers a 60-hour course on
"retextualisation", held over two consecutive weekends to anyone willing
to part with £150 plus VAT.

Participants -- 250 of them, many from Sweden, Germany Italy France --
have sat for 14 hours at a stretch without food while their trainer,
lithe bearded ex-californian lawyer Ted, harangues them about Integrity,
Experience and Reality punctuated with four letter expletives.  Many
have screamed, sobbed, vomited or left.  After 35 hours sceptical Sue
remains unmoved. Now read on....


Before I go any further I should point out that I am definitely not a
therapy freak.  I eschew all movements purporting to imbue their
students with Self Knowledge and Awareness.  I don't want people poking
about in my psyche and illuminating my id.  I like my id the way it is. 
I once tried to investigate one of those stage hypnotists who make
people think they've got ants in their pants and I went up on the stage
to be hypnotised.  I was summarily dismissed as being "a hostile
element" which is roughly how I felt when I checked in for my est
training on the second weekend.

We were asked to share our experiences of the previous week.  People
scrambled for the microphone to burble incoherently that their lives had
been completely changed.  Their relationships with mothers/fathers/
lovers/bosses/fellow commuters on the 8.26 from Rickmansworth, had
undergone dramatic improvement.  Everyone appeared to have tidied their
desks, pulled off incredible business coups, smiled at strangers on the
No.11 bus, felt Wonder, Aliveness and Love.   Everyone that is, except
me and a Spanish gentleman who told Ted that he was among other things,
a pain in the ass.

There followed another 19 hours of mumbo-jumbo about the illusion of
reality and how to create spaces to handle your problems. People kept
jumping up to share.  Ted's technique was formidable -- harsh, abusive,
derisive, implacable.  A woman said she had come to est because she
hoped it would help her to cope with her cancer condition.

"So what?" said Ted. "That's your problem.  You've got cancer.  You're
going to die.  Don't give me all that about hope. Did anyone ever cure
cancer with hope?  Stop being a victim."

"Yes, but how?" sobbed the woman.

"By stopping." said Ted

Sometime on Saturday (none of us were allowed to wear watches) Ted said,
"OK. This is it. anyone who wants to leave, leave now.  You'll get all
your money refunded.  But it is understood that the rest of you are
staying to the end, no matter what happens."

No one moved.  "Fine" said Ted. "Now let us get on to the big stuff --
the Mind.  All the rest was small potatoes."

A man got up and started to walk out.

"Where the **** d'you think you're going?" said Ted.

"I'm leaving," said the man.

"Like **** you are.  Its too late"

"I'm leaving."

"OK.  Leave.  But you realise you don't get your money back.  Thanks for
the donation."

In the bathroom break (there was only one) I talked to an elderly
Yorkshire woman who said she liked to do a therapy course every year.
Why?  Because she said she was bored with being normal, happily married
to a civil servant, nice home, nice kids.  Last year she went through a
rebirth process.  Her therapist put a blanket over her head and she
simulated struggling through the birth canal.  It was lovely.  The year
before she joined an encounter group, where everyone sat in a circle and
slung mud at each other.  Next year I thought savagely, she might try
Benidorm.

Hooray, a change of scene.  Under each of our chairs was a grape, a
lemon wedge, a strawberry, and a daisy.  We were told to pick up each in
turn, feel it lick it, smell it, listen to it.  I gobbled up my grape
with indecent haste (we hadn't eaten for hours) and wondered idly how
much 250 out-of-season strawberries had set the organisation back.  We
were told to imagine ourselves climbing up a 300 foot daisy and
parachuting off one of the petals.  The Australian doctor next to me
went berserk when he pulled his rip cord.  I wanted to go home to bed. 
Roll on Sunday, the last day.

Now comes the hard part.  Having remained coldly indifferent to three
days of training and secretly triumphant that I'd cracked the whole
racket, I have to reveal that just before the bathroom break on Sunday I
got it.  Got what? you cry, understandably confused.  IT.  Don't ask me
to explain.  I couldn't.  But I got it.

I suddenly knew what Ted was talking about.  I didn't feel any upsurges
of joy or love for my fellow-men (actually I was ready to throttle the
man who kept telling us about his mother) but when Ted said "This is it"
I knew what it was and it felt terrific.

I still think all that daisy stuff was a drag, and I don't think I'll
ever feel the same about ballrooms, but I've enrolled my husband on the
April training.  I daresay you think I've been brainwashed.  So what? 
That's your problem.

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