Alexander Everett

  • 1921
  • England, UK
  • Died January 16, 2005
  • Oregon, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
  • Occupation Author

Known for Founder of Mind Dynamics

Alexander Everett (1921–2005) was a British self-improvement and personal development consultant. He was the founder of Mind Dynamics, and author of the motivational books The Genius Within You and The Inner Frontier. Everett’s coursework and teachings have been influential in the human potential movement.

Although Mind Dynamics has only been around for a few years, it has 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 US government investigations into its parent company Holiday Magic over allegations of pyramid schemes, Everett formed another course called the Inner Frontier, which he has taught in the US, Europe and Asia.
early years
Everett was born in England in 1921. Aldous Huxleek book Eternal Philosophy. Everett became involved with Christian Science, the Unity School of Christianity, and Rosicrucianism. He also traveled the world in search of spirituality and education, visiting Greece, India and Egypt. Everett also studied Theosophy.

He later settled in the UK for a while, forming a preparatory school, the Pendragon School at Bexhill-on-Sea 1950 in Sussex, England. While attending a school in Sussex, Everett contracted polio and was told by his doctors that he would never walk again. Everett believed he had healed himself using the “Prayer of Faith” from the Hanna Mohr Kohaus Christian Unity School. In 1953, Everett founded and became Principal of Shiplake College at Henley-on-Thames, Oxford, England. Everett later acknowledged that the Oneness Church influenced his development of self-improvement courses, including Mind Dynamics, and he incorporated Oneness techniques such as the use of silence, focusing on the intuitive inner voice, and affirmations into these practices.

Mind Dynamics

In 1962, Everett moved to the United States, first settling in Kansas where he originally intended to become a minister at the Christian Unity School. For a time he worked at the Unity Church in Kansas City. In 1963, Everett left his path to the ministry and instead helped open a preparatory school in Fort Worth, Texas, Fort Worth Day School, where he also worked as an instructor. There he also met José Silva, founder of the Silva Mind Control Method, and began studying mind control techniques, self-hypnosis, and meditation.

Everett used techniques learned in the Mind Control methodology of José Silva, as well as concepts from Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), to form Mind Dynamics in 1968. Jess Stern wrote a book, The Power of Alpha Mind (1969), about Everett and his mind dynamics course.

Mind Dynamics students included Dr. O. Carl Simonton of the Simonton Cancer Center.

Mind Dynamics proved to be the forerunner of other groups using similar methods. Alexander has been referred[by whom?] as “Teacher of Teachers” and “Father of the Human Potential Movement” … including his collaborators Werner Erhard, founder of “est” Erhard Training Seminars and of the Landmark Forum; John Hanley Sr., co-founder with Robert White of Source of Life; James H. and Janet Quinn, founders of LifeStream, LifeResults, LifeSuccess and New Perspectives; Randy Revell, founder of Context Trainings; Tom and Jane Wilhite, founders of PSI World; Robert White, founder of ARC and Life Dynamics; Howard Neese, founder of Personal Dynamics; Bill Schwartz, founder of the Milwaukee Meditation Institute; Stuart Emery, Founding Workshop of Actualizations, Russ and Carol Bishop with Insight Seminars; Robin Clark, one of Everett’s original 12 Mind Dynamics instructors/facilitators, later founded the Mind Dynamics Institute in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The first form of Mind Dynamics was non-confrontational, did not involve direct interaction with course participants, and participants did not share their personal experiences during the course work. In 1970, Everett moved his company’s headquarters from Texas to San Francisco, California. William Penn Patrick bought fifty percent of the company’s shares that same year. Patrick owned Holiday Magic, a cosmetics company, and Leadership Dynamics, a company similar to Mind Dynamics that used more confrontational methods. Although Mind Dynamics was built as a commercial, self-improvement company, it has also been described as a spiritual discipline. Everett stated that one of the goals of Mind Dynamics is to “bring people to a higher dimension of the mind.”

Werner Erhard was a student of Everett and became a mind dynamics instructor in his own right. Having reached instructor level, Erhard was also chosen by Everett to be in charge of developing the Mind Dynamics course.

revived Erhard to become a company vice president and get a higher salary, but instead Erhard took his staff (including Laurel Sheaf and Gonnecke Spitz) to form Erhard Seminars Training. Everett was present in the hotel ballroom when Werner Erhard gave his final course on “Dynamics of the Mind” and announced to the audience that he would soon be setting up a new company. Although Everett publicly took the stage and declared his support for Erhard and expressed regret at his departure, privately he was furious at Erhard for planning his departure and new company behind Everett’s back.

Alumnus and Seminar supporter Robert White joined Mind Dynamics as President and worked with Alexander to expand the course to Australia, England, Italy, Denmark and Finland. The company closed in 1973 along with Leadership Dynamics and Holiday Magic, in part as a result of the death of William Penn Patrick in a plane crash. The US government investigated allegations of Patrick’s companies operating as pyramid schemes. However, the Mind Dynamics course still had a huge impact on the New Age movement.

After years

After Holiday Magic, Leadership Dynamics, and Mind Dynamics ceased operations, Everett left the United States in 1974 and studied Eastern religions and philosophies in Russia and India. He formed a personal development program called Inner Frontier in 1977 and continued to be active in the field of self-improvement.

Everett was brought to Japan in 1993 by Robert White to conduct his Inner Frontier seminar with Life Dynamics alumni and train the trainers. Everett also organized a course called “Samata”. The Inward Bound course was a two-day seminar that had the same characteristics as his previous coursework and also included concepts from the Unity Church. Everett continued to teach Inward Bound for over twenty-five years and lectured annually in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He also wrote a book about this course called The Inner Frontier. Everett created and recorded two audio seminars, “The Genius Within You” and “Wealth Within” with the Nightingale-Conant Corporation. His last spiritual course, Love, Life and Light, was taught annually for the last 12 years of his life. He recorded these teachings on a 20-hour CD titled Cosmic Consciousness.