When Erhard Bern first developed his Spin/Speed Awareness theories he was ridiculed as a crank. He was captivated by Robert Jay Lifton's research on thought control during the Korean War and suspected there was serious money to be made in what he euphemistically called "personality development."
He went on to create a small empire of Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) clinics around the country and has inspired countless individuals to seek the professional services of exit therapists, hypnotists, locksmiths, bounty hunters, family counselors, divorce lawyers, tavern keepers, marijuana dispensers and what Canadians like to call les filles de joie.
It was Bern's belief and ultimately his dream, that he could create a vanguard of like-minded ontological stormtroopers who, through severe and consistent training methods, successfully estrange ordinary people from their past.
Aside from the conventional forms of brainwashing - the long hours of indoctrination, the rejiggering of familiar vocabulary into strange new meanings, the constant repetition of illogical concepts until they acquired the urgent ring of truth and the sequestration of the initiates into intimate support groups, each with an assigned minder who Bern cleverly called a "coach" - he introduced a bizarre centrifugal machine (the 'Erwhirl') that literally spun a participant at high speed in order to physically empty their brains of potentially dangerous skepticism.
Bern eventually overplayed his hand and after a string of lawsuits and more than a few embarrassing disclosures about his private life, he sold the franchise to his cousin Manny and moved to the Cayman Islands with his chiropractor's niece.
A recent exhibition at the new Landmark Visual Arts Forum in Brooklyn has highlighted this interesting piece of popular culture and has provided an interesting aesthetic lens on the American obsession with programmed re-invention.
The Russian conceptual artist Boris Oushensky created an hysterical manifesto called "The Baby-Steps Toward Mindless Authenticity," (Небольшие промывают шаги к подлинности") which calls on all free citizens of the world to submit to "the integrity model of Vladamir Putin."
Los Angeles diva, Dahlia Danton somehow snuck her completely unrelated drawings into the show under the cover of some dubious philological connection.
But by far the most impressive piece was by a little known Montenegrin artist by the name of Davor Megukhach. He actually found the original blueprints for Bern's Erwhirl and had four built to their precise specifications. His subsequent videos, however disturbing, may pave the way toward Erhard Bern's eventual rehabilitation.
He went on to create a small empire of Large Group Awareness Training (LGAT) clinics around the country and has inspired countless individuals to seek the professional services of exit therapists, hypnotists, locksmiths, bounty hunters, family counselors, divorce lawyers, tavern keepers, marijuana dispensers and what Canadians like to call les filles de joie.
It was Bern's belief and ultimately his dream, that he could create a vanguard of like-minded ontological stormtroopers who, through severe and consistent training methods, successfully estrange ordinary people from their past.
Aside from the conventional forms of brainwashing - the long hours of indoctrination, the rejiggering of familiar vocabulary into strange new meanings, the constant repetition of illogical concepts until they acquired the urgent ring of truth and the sequestration of the initiates into intimate support groups, each with an assigned minder who Bern cleverly called a "coach" - he introduced a bizarre centrifugal machine (the 'Erwhirl') that literally spun a participant at high speed in order to physically empty their brains of potentially dangerous skepticism.
Bern eventually overplayed his hand and after a string of lawsuits and more than a few embarrassing disclosures about his private life, he sold the franchise to his cousin Manny and moved to the Cayman Islands with his chiropractor's niece.
A recent exhibition at the new Landmark Visual Arts Forum in Brooklyn has highlighted this interesting piece of popular culture and has provided an interesting aesthetic lens on the American obsession with programmed re-invention.
The Russian conceptual artist Boris Oushensky created an hysterical manifesto called "The Baby-Steps Toward Mindless Authenticity," (Небольшие промывают шаги к подлинности") which calls on all free citizens of the world to submit to "the integrity model of Vladamir Putin."
Los Angeles diva, Dahlia Danton somehow snuck her completely unrelated drawings into the show under the cover of some dubious philological connection.
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| The Genesis of Being: Bern's Bailiwick #3 |
But by far the most impressive piece was by a little known Montenegrin artist by the name of Davor Megukhach. He actually found the original blueprints for Bern's Erwhirl and had four built to their precise specifications. His subsequent videos, however disturbing, may pave the way toward Erhard Bern's eventual rehabilitation.
