PAGE 14 HIGH GEAR JUNE 1980

Advocate Experience' considered

continued from page 7

first leg of the program. They told us we would hear a bit about them and a brief explanation of the Advocate Experience; then. we should ask our questions. Both Cheryl and Peter were closeted before they took the Advocate Experience. For them it meant the ability to come out and no longer be ashamed.

Throughout Cheryl and Peter's presentation there was a strange amout of applauding. Before they spoke, after they spoke, after each question and after each answer Cheryl and Peter led the audience in applause. I began to feel like George Romney after his visit to Vietnam. I began to feel programmed. Not everyone was clapping: only a few who wore different name

badges than the rest of us. "This whole thing is a set-up" I concluded when my paranoia reached its peak.

Peter and Cheryl told us the Advocate Experience is a twoday "transformation" workshop which gets participants to 'look at yourself, your life and your relationship to other people." It costs $250 for the weekend, not including food and lodging; the sites are either New York. Los Angeles or San Francisco: you start at 9 a.m. each day and end at midnight; you get one major meal break each day and you do get to pee. (So much for the "traveler's companion".)

But what is the Advocate Experience? "It's a process. You get as much out of it as you put into it." But what is it? "It's a series of games you play not unlike the Hello' game you played when you came in tonight." But what is it? "Look, think of it this way. Do you have all of the happiness you want in your life? Do you have all of the love you want? Do you have all of the health you want? No? Well, then take the Advocate Experience and you will get all the things you want for $250." But what is it? "Have I answered your question? Let's give him a big hand."

After a short break, David Goodstein was introduced. Peter said he didn't "worship" David Goodstein but he thanked him for making him what he was today. Goodstein emerged from

The curtains at the back of the

stage. Enthusiastic applause by Experience graduates and other admirers mixed with a barely audible humming of Johnny Carson's theme song.

Goodstein was good. In fact he was very good. He looked great, he carried himself nicely and he emoted an inner peace and sense of security which he lacked at our last encounter in the mid-70s. He saved the show, especially when he announced that prior to taking EST he was a "judgmental prick". After he took EST, he said, he was till a "judgmental prick," but he was aware of it and began the process of change. He told us

that doctors had informed him some years ago that he would end up in a wheelchair because of a degenerative problem in his back he had since birth. But today he is walking and insists he has a better body than he did when he was 18.

There are 3,200 gradual the Advocate Experience, Goodstein, and 40 per ce them continue to be invo (There are advanced prograr. He acknowledged that the A cate Experience is the gay sion of EST, estblished hoc "in many of the non-c. P potential workshops the s most relevant to gay pri not touched upon." Goc said the majority of cradi. have confided they their humanity as gay :i ferently; that there is n ness to their lives. "Tha do it."

When the evening's p tion was completed, I talk some of the graduates: them I learned the reas behind the applause and tl. sive answers by Peter Cheryl. Applause is used di the Experiences as a mean positive stroking. Particip. learn to encourage themselv and each other with clapp" which seems to me to be a v nice idea. Because spontaneits such an important ingrediers the highly-personal weeke

graduates are discouraged t revealing details of the proce

If future participants know at the process in advance. argued, the impact of the kend will be lost.

down $250, plus expens sense that what they provi the opportunity to expr openly and safely long-held trations, fears and secrets) the means to help partici take charge of their own liv see it as an opportunity to com together with other gay peor who want to make changes their attitudes and to build upo each other's insights and strengths.

Both explanations a.. fectly plausible but poorly It seems to me that with David Goodstein and the cate Experience as lade myth and mystery as they organizers would do well to t up-front as possible about . potential source of appreh sion. If we have ony been tolr: the beginning about the ther on clapping and the theory ' secrecy, it would have been amet. I would think that this more productive program. A announced one guest. "ame here with all kinds of suspic and fears. I wanted to be op minded but you're reinfor everything I've heard about

I still don't know enough ab EST or the Advocate Exper" to feel comfortable recom -ing it or, at this point. plo

あ

ignityleveland

David Goodstein is an impr... sive product of his own prod as are a variety of people I ha

help process, like many others, is meaningful for s people but not for others. sons interested in this or sir programs owe it to themselve talk to people who have taken · program; not only recent gran ates but also those who have a year to reflect upon process.

Provides spiritual,

educational, and

social

programs for

Catholic and non-

Catholic gay men, Lesbians & their friends. For more information: PO Box 18479, Cleveland, OH 44118 (216) 791-0942 + 321-9456

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