Just an aside:

A directive from Werner Erhard instructed people to disassociate sex from love and that one had/has nothing to do with the other. It was a direct lift from the mind and stone-cold heart of a sociopath who wanted to both excuse his own dalliances and justify his behavior. Earlier followers hung on every utterance from the guru's mouth and accepted as gospel his sick and twisted view of the world. In addition, there was a "sex" portion of one of the older programs that included all sorts of gruesome and grotesque pornography. It was meant to desensitize people and persuade them of the meaningless of the act. Werner Erhard wanted to harness the sexual energy of his followers and channel it into sales. He used women as lures to attract men. I don't know how much of this is still carried on in current "programs." I suspect it's still there.


Ellen

No wonder they're really up-tight about the copyright to their manual for how to run the show. I bet that manual is kept under lock and key.

Ellen, are you able to indicate a possible year range for this happening as part of the course?

John

They've changed the courses and content so I can't tell you when they might do this now. Several old-timers have written about "Sex Night" during the "Six Day," which is now the "Advanced," I guess. You can search on afl (alt.fan.landmark) and pull up "estie's" old posts. She pretty much deprogrammed herself on the internet and her posts are fascinating. Here's one from 1999:



49. estie_lauder

More options Apr 18 1999, 11:00 pm
Newsgroups: alt.fan.landmark
From: estie_lau...@my-dejanews.com
Date: 1999/04/19
Subject: Re: The Fear Process and the Be With

In article <01be8855$54b99a00$0562490c@default>,
"Pamela Fitzpatrick" <p.f...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> So, what was your impression of "Sex Night"?

First there were the porno films. That was supposedly so that when, in real
life, we ran into the terms "Golden Showers" and "Fist F***ing" we wouldn't be
ignorant of what they meant. You know what? The *only* place I've ever run
into those terms was in those films. All that education for nothing.

Porno films don't really bother me, although I'm sure there were some people
there who would have preferred not to have been put into the positon of
watching them. I also don't see any value in them.

They really saved all the kinkiest stuff for the 6-day. I wouldn't have
wondered if they'd put us all up on stage naked if they thought they could
have gotten away with it.

We didn't have notebooks. They must have added that later. The sharing I
remember after the porno films was along the lines of surrendering your most
intimate secrets and "who hasn't done ___________ (fill in the blank)". And
the next day, many of the people who hadn't done things came back and shared
that they had now corrected those deficiencies in their experience. I think
the overall theme of the evening was to encourage the participants to engage
in just about every sex act imaginable (and possibly come to regret it
later).

IMO, the purpose of sex night was to get the technology into the most
intimate parts of people's experiences - to expand it's control. Also the
reason Scienos had to report every aspect of their sexual experiences, and,
I've heard, the same thing went on between the high level staff members and
Werner. If you surrender even your most intimate secrets ......

- Estie

Actually, this ties in well with statements made by Werner Erhard's family members regarding his behavior. It's in the 60 Minutes interview from May 1991. A recording is the video is sure to make it on to the internet one day.

John

At the sentencing, the judge gave Darren Mack the maximum sentence, 36 years:
[news.rgj.com]

The judge said: 'Despite all the time I gave him to speak yesterday, he never said 'I'm sorry,''
To the end, it seems Mack was trying to "create his own reality".

Spooky, eh? BTW, that 60 Minutes interview video I spoke of is now available as a torrent download.

John