Crystal Lake’s self-help guru draws on a real 1970s seminar culture that gave leaders power over vulnerable people.
Wilhelm Richter (played by Nathan Darrow) shuts participants inside a self-help seminar and pushes them to disclose their trauma. His program, “The Experience,” draws on Erhard Seminars Training, or est, a real force in the 1970s self-improvement movement.
Richter promises to change people’s lives while subjecting them to humiliation and emotional pressure. His treatment of vulnerable women includes an attempted sexual advance on Pamela, placing his conduct inside the same relationship of authority and dependence that his seminar creates.
Werner Erhard’s est belonged to a wider boom in encounter groups, human-potential programs and commercial seminars. People came seeking personal growth, connection or help through a crisis. Some programs promised that intense group exercises could break down the ego and free participants from old patterns.
With little formal oversight in many of these settings, leaders could exercise considerable control. Documented practices across the wider movement included sleep deprivation, limits on bathroom breaks and verbal abuse presented as a route to a breakthrough. Dependence on a leader could also leave participants exposed to sexual exploitation and coercion.
