"'Father of self-help’ Werner Erhard, 90, accused of abusing staff"

Werner Erhard was celebrated as the “father of self-help” and his teachings were hugely popular in Hollywood in the 1970s.

Celebrities including Yoko Ono, the singers Diana Ross and Cher, and the actor Jeff Bridges were devotees, as were symbols of counterculture activism such as Jerry Rubin and the British Olympic skating hero John Curry, who credited the movement with a change in his mindset that won him a gold medal in 1976.

Now Erhard, who lives in a £5 million flat overlooking the Houses of Parliament, is accused of physically and verbally abusing staff at his London-based company.

Court documents seen by The Times allege that Erhard hit, slapped and shook staff, pulled their hair and put his hands around their necks, “restricting their breathing”. He is also accused of using verbally abusive language.

He denies wrongdoing and has insisted that any physical contact with employees was to “get their attention, including placing his hands on their shoulders”, and “did not involve abuse”.

The self-help guru moved to London after his Erhard Seminars Training (EST) became dogged by allegations — including in an investigation by The Times in the early 1990s — that it was involved in mind control, was a “cult” and had fostered an abusive culture.

He created the Erhard-Jensen Ontological/Phenomenological Initiative with Michael Jenson, the late Harvard economist known as the “high priest of greed”.

Two members of staff at his movement, which is registered as a charity in Singapore, have made employment tribunal claims.

Daniel Rogerson, a research assistant who worked at Erhard’s London property, claims in legal papers that Erhard was “regularly physically violent and verbally abusive” towards his staff.

Rogerson claims in a witness statement that “he saw [Erhard] physically assaulting staff … at least 40 times”. He alleges that he saw Erhard “hit, slap, shake, push and chase after staff” and “put his hands around … necks and hold tightly, restricting their breathing”.

Erhard, 90, allegedly subjected staff to “demeaning, dehumanising and humiliating” abuse.

Rogerson says that Erhard’s “verbal abuse frequently took place when he was drunk in the evenings” and that this “verbal abuse intensified into an unrelenting rage”. The New Zealander says that Erhard’s “criminal and unethical acts have been and are continuing to be deliberately concealed”.

The research assistant, “along with seven others, reported [Erhard] to the London Metropolitan Police” in May 2020, the claim says.

Rogerson alleges that Erhard and “organisations associated with him have a history of using strategic litigation to prevent disclosure of … harmful behaviour”. Rogerson said he became a “whistleblower” in an effort to “prevent [Erhard] from endangering” staff.

When Rogerson and four other staff members raised the issues with senior members of Erhard’s entourage, he was allegedly told “not to communicate further with our current staff”.

Rogerson claims he was representing Dr Maxime Grisley, another staff member, in her employment tribunal. He says Grisley was offered a settlement on condition that he would “agree to confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions”. Rogerson says that the stress led to him developing Addison’s disease, a life-threatening autoimmune condition that requires medication and has debilitating side effects.

The Erhard-Jensen Ontological/Phenomenological Initiative has responded in court filings claiming that Rogerson is the subject of “confidentiality obligations”. It highlights his 2019 resignation letter, in which he wrote “it has been an honour to have had the opportunity to contribute to this organisation” and that he was “especially grateful for the extraordinary support I have been given since I was diagnosed with Addison’s disease”.

The charity’s legal submission says: “On occasion, Mr Erhard would make physical contact with such individuals to get their attention, including placing his hands on their shoulders. However, this did not involve abuse … the claimant’s allegations of verbal and physical abuse against Mr Erhard were in whole or in part false.”

It claims that Rogerson “began waging a campaign” of “communicating allegations of abuse against Mr Erhard” and complained to the Met, which “took no action against Mr Erhard”. The charity claims Rogerson made the allegations “in the hope of financial gain for himself and/or others”.


An employment appeal tribunal dismissed the claim against the charity in April 2023 after ruling it was brought too late, but the Court of Appeal reinstated the case in a ruling this month.

Erhard was born John Paul Rosenberg in 1935. He married in 1953 but seven years later left his wife and four children and moved to St Louis with a new partner. On the way, he read an article that mentioned Ludwig Erhard, the West German economics minister, and the physicist Werner Heisenberg. He changed his name to Werner Erhard and, throughout the 1960s, moved around the US working in magazines and educating himself with voracious reading.

Erhard became familiar with the human potential movement, which was hugely influential within countercultural activism, learnt about Zen Buddhism and took lessons from Scientology. He launched EST in 1971. More than 700,000 people took the course between the early 1970s and the mid-1980s.

The ideas influenced Harvard Business School, infiltrated the White House and filtered down through myriad wannabe self-help gurus, movements and business schools. They became so embedded in American culture that Erhard was parodied in the television sitcom Mork & Mindy and in Hollywood films including Semi-Tough, starring Burt Reynolds.

Erhard sold his intellectual property rights in EST in 1991. The organisation is known as Landmark Worldwide and is led by Erhard’s brother, Harry Rosenberg. It operates in more than 20 countries, including the UK, and 3.5 million people have taken part in its programmes.

Erhard did not respond to a request for comment on the allegations.