Жоқ болған "Lifespring" ұйымының тарихы

Defunct American for profit organization

Lifespring was an American for profit human potential organization founded in 1974 by John Hanley Sr., Robert White, Randy Revell, and Charlene Afremow. The organization encountered significant controversy in the 1970s and '80s, with various academic articles characterizing Lifespring's training methods as "deceptive and indirect techniques of persuasion and control", and allegations that Lifespring was a cult that used coercive methods to prevent members from leaving. These allegations were highlighted in a 1987 article in The Washington Post as well as local television reporting in communities where Lifespring had a significant presence. Before becoming defunct in the mid 1990s, Lifespring claimed that it had trained more than 400,000 people through its ten centers across the United States.

Lifespring was founded by John Hanley Sr. along with Robert White, Randy Revell, and Charlene Afremow. By October 1987, Hanley owned 92.7 percent of the company. Prior to Lifespring, Hanley had worked for the multi level marketing organization Holiday Magic. Holiday Magic was founded by William Penn Patrick, co owner and board member for Mind Dynamics. Holiday Magic later folded amidst investigations by authorities and accusations of being a pyramid scheme. The Director for Corporate Affairs of Lifespring, Charles "Raz" Ingrasci, had also worked at est to promote a mission to the USSR and the Hunger Project. Ingrasci is now President of the Hoffman Institute, an organization founded in 1967 and also part of the human potential movement which offers programs which are similar to Lifespring's.

The Lifespring training generally involved a three level program starting with a "basic" training, an "advanced" breakthrough course, and a three month "leadership program" which taught the students how to implement what they learned from the training into their lives. "There is no hope" is a fundamental tenet in the course. The fundamental purpose of the leadership program was enrollment; the participants in the Leadership Program were essentially an unpaid salesforce with the sole mission of enrollment by any means. The trainers used high pressure and humiliation to force participants to achieve enrollment goals. This included yelling at the group as a whole at meetings, and singling individuals out and humiliating them in front of the whole group. Participants were told the city and the world is at stake and the only solution was enrolling as many people into the trainings as possible. Less than two percent found them to be "of no value". The basic training was composed of successive sessions on Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday day and night, Sunday day and night, a Tuesday night post training session ten days after graduation, and a post training interview. Evening sessions began at 6:30 pm and lasted until 11:30 or 12 or later. Saturday sessions started at 10 am and sometimes lasted until midnight. Sunday sessions started at 9 am and lasted until approximately 6 pm. The trainings were usually held in the convention facilities of large, easily accessible, moderate priced hotels (i. e., mid town New York). A basic training was usually composed of 150–200 participants, while an advanced training was composed of 75 100 participants. Approximately 50 percent of advanced training graduates participated in the leadership program. Training also included alumni volunteers who served as small group leaders, several official staff, an assistant trainer, and a head trainer.

The Post also reported in the same article that Hanley had been convicted of six counts of felony mail fraud in 1969, and was given a five year suspended sentence. In 1980, a federal judge rejected Hanley's request to have the felony conviction removed from his record. His request for a presidential pardon was also denied. In 1990 KARE TV (Channel 11, Minneapolis St. Paul) ran a segment called "Mind Games?" that Lifespring said was deceptive and sensationalized. One prominent critic of Lifespring is Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. A congressional aide when she took the course, Mrs. Thomas said in an interview with the Post that she was troubled by exercises that involved stripping, sexual questions, and body shaming. After talking with a cult deprogrammer, she decided she needed to stop participating, but it took several months of work to overcome the "high pressure tactics" to fully break with Lifespring. Afterwards, she received "constant phone calls" to pressure her to stay with the group, and ended up relocating to another part of the country to escape the calls.