 As of 1984, 700,000 people had completed the est Training.American ethicist, philosopher, and historian Jonathan D. Moreno has described the est training as "the most important cultural event after the human potential movement itself seemed exhausted” and a form of "Socratic interrogation".Erhard challenged participants to be themselves and live in the present instead of playing a role imposed on them by their past, and to move beyond their current points of view into a perspective from which they could observe their own positionality.