Outrageous Betrayal
Front cover
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| Author | Steven Pressman |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Richard Oriolo, design |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Erhard Seminars Training, Werner Erhard |
| Publisher | St. Martin's Press |
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Publication date
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September 1993 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 289 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 27897209 |
| 158 B 20 | |
| LC Class | RC489.E7 P74 1993 |
Outrageous Betrayal: The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile is a non-fiction book written by freelance journalist Steven Pressman and first published in 1993 by St. Martin's Press. The book gives an account of Werner H. Erhard's early life as Jack Rosenberg, his exploration of various forms of self-improvement techniques, and his foundation of Erhard Seminars Training "est" and later of Werner Erhard and Associates and of the Est successor course, "The Forum". Pressman details the rapid financial success Erhard had with these companies, as well as controversies relating to litigation involving former participants in his courses. The work concludes by going over the impact of a March 3, 1991 60 Minutes broadcast on CBS where members of Erhard's family made allegations against him, and Erhard's decision to leave the United States.
Representatives of Werner Erhard and of Landmark Education, the successor company to The Forum, regarded the book as being "defamatory". There are no references or citations provided in the book.
Pressman worked as a journalist after graduating from college in 1977. He worked as a journalist for Orange City News, the Los Angeles Daily Journal, California Lawyer magazine, and Congressional Quarterly's Weekly Report. During his time performing research for and writing Outrageous Betrayal, Pressman published articles for the Legal Times newspaper and wrote articles and served as a senior editor for California Republic. In 1993, Pressman worked as a San Francisco-based legal journalist for California Lawyer.
In the "Acknowledgments" section of Outrageous Betrayal, Pressman wrote that he relied upon both named and unnamed sources for information in the book, in addition to "previously published accounts, court transcripts, depositions, and other documents in which various individuals have recounted earlier conversations". In an article on fair use for Columbia Journalism Review, Pressman noted that he "gathered reams of written materials -- some of it private and confidential -- that were helpful in drawing a comprehensive portrait of my subject". In the Daily Journal, Pressman wrote that legal counsel for the book's publisher insisted on numerous changes to the book "in order to reduce, if not eliminate, the possibility of a successful suit for copyright infringement".
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