Speaking Being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a New Possibility of Being Human

I did the EST training many years ago which was the most impactful event in my life. This book brings it all back.

This book is literally just a transcript of The Landmark Forum (or an older version of it), run by Erhard in the 80s, with some author's notes about how Heidegger's ontological philosophies relate to it. It's mainly transcript, though.If you have done The Landmark Forum, this book serves as a great way to get reconnected to the distinctions or deepen them. You can replay them and get represent to what you discovered. It's nice because you can speed up, slow down, rewind, and fast forward the ideas from The Landmark Forum in print form. Reading it doesn't change it's incredible power. The index also serves as a great way to focus on a particular topic or idea quickly. It is a great resource to anyone taking a Landmark course.If you have never heard of Landmark and you are just curious about this book, this is an interesting peak into how to explore the ideas of being and existence in a way that is hands-on through a dialogue (or observation of a dialogue in the case of this book) as opposed to a more traditional academic approach to these philosophical ideas. If you want to see what philosophical dialogue can look like, this book is an interesting dive into that work. It's a peak into what coaching, centered on dialogue around our identities as opposed to actions, can be.Final note, the book really does have a strange format. The transcript is on the outside of the extra large pages and the commentary from the authors is on the inside of the pages in a side panel. Almost all pages in the book are this format. This makes it challenging to read as an ebook or kindle format. I really do suggest the physical book.

This book is "not a book". It IS what the subject matter of the book IS ... A possibility for a powerful exploration into BEING and THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING FOR HUMAN BEINGS ... that LEAVES you with a freedom ... an empowerment ... in relation to Self and Life.It is also a priceless opportunity to BE WITH a Living Master -- Werner Erhard ... as he does "his thing". Nothing like putting the master chef IN THE KITCHEN!It is also a bridge to penetrating the work of Martin Heidegger, one of THE most important and controversial ... and difficult to "read" ... philosophers of the last hundred years.It is also an opportunity to juxtapose the work of Erhard and Heidegger in a way that further illuminates the work of both men.I was "in the room ... on the edge of my seat". I was IN the conversation.For me personally, I was thrilled to now have a verbatim transcript of a major section of Werner Erhard's work in the PUBLIC DOMAIN ... so future generations of people (including scholars) will have direct ACCESS to the Work.I know I will go back to this book many times it the years to come. It is a LIVING TEACHING of the highest order.A heartfelt THANK YOU to both authors.Namaste!

This book is amazing! It academically compares the German philosopher Heidegger to Werner Erhard's program, the Landmark Forum, that provides an environment in which participants' lives are transformed, thus attaining what Heidegger was talking about. The bottom line is in the title: Transformation happens in language; thus "Speaking Being". The inquiry is, what is the possibility of being for human beings? As a graduate of the est training and the Landmark Forum, I am enjoying reading the literal script taken from a 1989 program. It's so palpable, I feel like I am experiencing the program again! For those who have not taken it, I am not sure if simply reading the book will produce the enriching transformational result you would get from actually participating in the program. It's in most major cities in the US as well as around the globe. Human beings are the same no matter what their age or culture! I would recommend the book and the program to all!

While I can't really describe this book, I can and do totally recommend it to anyone interested in peeling away the layers of assumptions we all have about life, in order to reach a truer, deeper experience of it.I read at least a passage from this book every day. It's food for the mind and the soul, an aid in achieving an awakened life.I started with the intention of reading the Heidegger parts along with the Forum/Erhard parts, but now have set the Heidegger intervals aside till I go through the Forum sections at least once. (Heidegger is a challenge, yeow! It's amazing how Werner Erhard can present such ideas in everyday language.) I mention this so you can realize you can use this book in the way that best serves you.For me, it is a opportunity to touch base daily with essential aspects of life. It's so easy to drift along day to day, dealing with externals while inner life and the big questions await attention.If not now, when?

The transcripts of Werner's dialogues with Forum participants bring his philosophy to life as if you were right there in the room. His ideas are crafted with such meticulous care that not a word is wasted, and you can tell that the people with whom he is conversing are having lightbulbs popping all over the place as they see their situations in a new more helpful light.He is one of the most brilliant and influential thinkers of our time, and this book is a gift to us all. His work changed my life 45 years ago, and continues to shape the kind of person I am today. (Oh, I also think he's very funny.)I appreciate the authors' professorial sidebars on how his philosophy relates to that of Heidegger, but some of their explanations are way above my pay grade. Still, I'm grateful they undertook this monumental work.

Super util

This book is allowing me to relive the Forum which I did around the same time (1987-8) in London with a most wonderful and inspiring Forum Leader, Denis Percy. The Forum completely changed my life and I went from being a downbeat dispatch rider, delivering parcels, to owning and running multiple insurance companies and now, semi retired, writing books on Buddhism. I cannot put into words here how much the Forum influenced and helped my life decisions for the better. If you have done the forum, this book allows you to imagine yourself back in a seat in the Forum but this time with Werner leading it! What I am doing is stopping at each chapter and really taking on board the questions and distinctions that Werner reveals. You can bring these into being by opening out related conversations with your friends. Having a friend read it at the same time is useful as you can share experiences. This is the practical part but also in this book you have the philosophy of Martin Heidegger superimposed which allows you to get a greater depth of understanding of how Werner came to deliver such a brilliant and transformative course that the Forum is. As is said in this book, the Forum, with little fanfair or acknowledgement has transformed the world. Many distinctions which are now accepted into the main stream were delivered to society through the Forum. Examples being 'sharing' and 'coaching' as in 'life coaching'. I would say that if you have actually done the Forum, approach it in the way I have suggested here and you will get the same out of it that you did the first time. If you haven't done the Forum I would suggest doing the actual Forum and then read the book. I would give this book and the Forum 6 stars if I could. An absolute must read if you've already done the Forum!

I did the est training in 81 and most of landmark's work over the years. it has had a profound impact on my life and will be forever grateful to my sister for turning me onto to it. i am a third of the way through the book. it is like being transported in time and into the room and being with not only the participants but with Werner and the other leaders, where they are making major distinctions. I find myself in the room on the edge of my seat, as the distinctions are revealed and tried on. Just like balance, it has to be explored and tried on, before one sees it and can own it for one's self. the huge opportunity here in the book is to go at one's own speed, and even go back and reread a section, etc. being in the actual room it all comes at you, ready, fire, aim. not so in the book. i hope this book comes out in audible as well.

First, a comment on the Landmark Forum because book is somewhat like participating in one. If you'd like to directly read about the book skip the next two paragraphs.In 2015, after a 25year long corporate career, I was training to be a life and leadership coach with one of the best ICF MCC coaches and a lovely man- Peter Reding, when a dear friend shared with me, what he got at the Forum. I continued to go back to him with doubts and cynicism for almost a year, sure that this wasn't for me, particularly because of what was said about it online - it seemed enigmatic and somewhat cultish. People were either all for it or all against it. I finally risked it and did the Forum in 2016, in Delhi. It was nothing like I thought, nor was it like any of the programs that I had attended before, during my corporate career as a business head, or my subsequent trainings in coaching. Landmark Forum was brilliantly surprising and brutally confronting- the problem as it turned out was me! So I promptly proceeded to also do the Advance Course and two Communications programs same year. In 2019, I reviewed the Forum and the Advance courses again. And during the covid 19 lockdowns of 2020, I participated in a couple of online courses too.While, I wouldn't trade what I have gained from the rich Indian spiritual literature, and my coaching work, for anything in the world, I found the Landmark events most effective and efficient in raising my awareness, responsibility and accountability in the matter of my life, relationships and career. I now feel better aligned and more fulfilled in my new job- as a teacher and coach, though I earn a fraction of what I once did. I feel that I now live more wholesomely, connect heartily and contribute better - to my family and others. Since I attended these programs, there is a certain freeness to be, do and create. A freeness to be that is not possible by knowing and learning-about stuff. This work offers that.Now, the book - it seems to have lifted my understanding of Landmark's work to a yet higher place. To me Werner's mission now seems to be an endeavour of discovery and methodical research into one's true nature and being. A topic generally neglected off-late, and the kind of work that I feel ought to be encouraged in the interest of human evolution.The book is brilliant, after all what do you expect when you are reading Werner leading the Forum, he is so ruthless in his compassion that it becomes delightfully humorous and frequently wicked.The book is sometimes frustratingly difficult particularly when you are reading Heidegger’s work but when you do finally ‘get’ it, it lights you up! It challenged me to be present in a manner that I am not used to; and to examine myself - as I have rarely, if ever done, outside the programs at Landmark. The effort left me with a deeply transformed view of myself, others and life itself - of empty meaninglessness - that has latent in itself the potentiality to be as I choose and create.In the end as I approached the finish, I found myself feeling deeply grateful to the two wonderful authors for their brilliant effort to study, compare and find alignments in pathbreaking works of two extraordinary thought leaders.Since I have finished it, I have found myself opening it every few weeks. New understandings and insights continually show-up. I find these contributing richly to my spiritual journey and meditations.I honestly feel such insight into human life is rare.I would strongly recommend it to all.

Jeder der das Landmark Forum absolviert hat wird dieses Buch lieben! Es ist ein genialer Meilenstein und weit mehr als einfach nur ein Buch: es ist ein lebendiges Meisterwerk, das einen direkt in das 1989 von Werner Erhard geleitete Forum versetzt. Man wird Zeuge der Transformation die die Teilnehmer durchlaufen und bekommt auch selbst einen direkten Zugang zum eigenen Dasein.