Alexander Everett

Alexander Everett (1921–2005) was a British self-improvement and personal development consultant. He was the founder of the company Mind Dynamics, and author of the motivational books The Genius Within You and Inward Bound. Everett's coursework and teachings had an influence on the human potential movement.

Though Mind Dynamics only existed for a few years, it influenced many other forms of companies and self-improvement groups known as Large Group Awareness Training. After Mind Dynamics folded due to the death of its co-owner, William Penn Patrick, and due to investigations on its parent company, Holiday Magic, by the United States government on allegations of pyramid schemes, Everett formed another course called Inward Bound, which he taught in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Early life Born in England in 1921, Everett was initially inspired by Aldous Huxley's book The Perennial Philosophy. Everett became involved with Christian Science, the Unity School of Christianity, and Rosicrucianism. He also traveled the world in a quest for spirituality and education, visiting Greece, India, and Egypt. Everett also studied Theosophy.

He later settled down in Britain for a while, forming a preparatory school, Pendragon School at Bexhill-on-Sea, in 1950 in Sussex, England. While teaching at the school in Sussex, Everett contracted polio, and was told by his physicians that he would never walk again. Everett believed that he healed himself using the Unity School of Christianity's "Prayer of Faith", by Hannah More Kohaus. In 1963, Everett gave up his path to becoming a minister, and instead helped establish a preparatory school in Fort Worth, Texas, Fort Worth Country Day School, where he also worked as an instructor.

The first form of Mind Dynamics was non-confrontational, did not involve direct interaction with course participants, and participants did not share their own personal experiences in the coursework. In 1970, Everett moved the headquarters of his company from Texas to San Francisco, California. William Penn Patrick bought fifty per cent of the company's shares in the same year. Patrick owned Holiday Magic, a cosmetics company, and Leadership Dynamics, a similar company to Mind Dynamics that used more confrontational techniques. Everett stated that one of the goals of Mind Dynamics was to "get people to a higher dimension of mind".

Werner Erhard was a student of Everett's, and became an instructor in his own right in the Mind Dynamics training. Alexander Everett offered Erhard a vice-presidency in the company and a larger salary, but Erhard instead took his staff (including Laurel Scheaf and Gonneke Spits) to form Erhard Seminars Training. Everett was present in the hotel ballroom when Werner Erhard led his last Mind Dynamics course and announced to the audience that he would be soon forming a new company. The Inward Bound course was a two-day seminar that had similar characteristics to his previous coursework,