Lifespring

Lifespring was a for-profit private company, founded in 1974. The company promoted itself through books and word of mouth advertising. By 1989, officials stated that over 300,000 people had enrolled in the company's seminars. Lifespring has been classified as a New Age/human potential training company.

The book Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training made comparisons between Lifespring and Werner Erhard's Est training.

Lifespring was referred to in the media as a controversial motivational group. The company was the subject of investigative reports by the media, and was criticized by former staff and participants. After a series of lawsuits in the 1980s which alleged that Lifespring was responsible for mental damages to the plaintiffs, the company had to pay out damages as a result of settlements and one lost jury decision.

History
Lifespring was founded in 1974 by John Hanley Sr., after working at an organization called Mind Dynamics with Werner Erhard, the founder of est. Lifespring concentrates on how people experience each other, whereas est concentrates on changing the way people experience themselves. However, there are many similarities between the two, as well as with Scientology.

The former Director for Corporate Affairs of Lifespring, Charles "Raz" Ingrasci, also worked with Werner Erhard, promoting an est mission to the USSR and the Hunger Project. Ingrasci is now President of the Hoffman Institute which offers programs such as the Hoffman Quadrinity Process which some regard as similar to Lifespring.

Though John Hanley denied that Lifespring was a duplicate of Erhard Seminars Training, Melton and Lewis described the similarities between the two as "striking", in their 1992 work, Perspectives on the New Age. Melton and Lewis point out that both Werner Erhard and John Hanley had previously worked at Mind Dynamics. They then went on to cite specific examples of techniques utilized by both Lifespring and EST, stating that both used "authoritarian trainers who enforce numerous rules", both groups require applause after a member's "share" in front of the group, both deemphasized ratiocination, in favor of "feeling and action". The authors also pointed out that graduates of both Lifespring and EST were "fiercely loyal", and recruited heavily for their respective groups, reducing marketing expenses to virtually zero.

Course overview
The Lifespring trainings generally involved a three-level program starting with a "Basic" discovery training, an "Advanced" breakthrough course, and a 3-month "Leadership Program" which taught the students how to implement what they learned from the training in their lives.

Studies commissioned by Lifespring done in the 80s by researchers at Berkeley, Stanford, and UCSF, including Lee Ross, Morton Lieberman, and Irvin Yalom, found that an overwhelming majority of participants in these trainings called them either "extremely valuable" or "valuable" (around 90%). Many participants of these trainings found them to be among the most profound experiences of their lives and claimed they were able to produce substantial results in their lives as a result of their participation. Less than 2% found them to be "of no value". Students were often eager to share their experiences in these trainings with family, friends, and co-workers, although they did not receive any compensation for "enrolling" others into the workshops. More than 400,000 people worldwide participated in these workshops.

Analyzed in psychology sources
The term "LGAT" refers to Large Group Awareness Training. Academic researchers, psychologists and psychiatrists, have characterized Lifespring as a form of "Large Group Awareness Training"         , including the study Evaluating a Large Group Awareness Training, which had been funded by Werner Erhard and Associates.

Lawsuits
More than 30 lawsuits were filed against Lifespring for charges ranging from involuntary servitude to wrongful death. The suits often claimed that the trainings place participants under extreme psychological stress in order to elicit change. The group had to pay out large amounts of money to participants who required psychiatric hospitalization and to family members of suicides. The first jury decision came in 1984 in which Deborah Bingham testified she'd been in a psych ward for a month after attending two Lifespring courses and was awarded $800,000. Gabriella Martinez testified that she heard her trainer's voice in her head the night she swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills; Lifespring settled out of court. In 1993, Pittsburgh lawyer Peter N. Georgiades won a $750,000 settlement for a Lifespring trainee who was institutionalized for two years following Leadership training. In 1982, the family of David Priddle accepted an undisclosed sum when they sued Lifespring after he jumped off a building; Artie Barnett's family also reached an out of court settlement, when Barnett, who couldn't swim, drowned during a Lifespring training. Gail Renick's family received $450,000 after she died from an asthma attack during a training session. She had been led to believe her medication was unnecessary.

Critical viewpoints
In 1980, ABC's 20/20 aired an investigative report about Lifespring. They interviewed cult expert Dr. John Gordon Clark of Harvard Medical School, who said the group practiced mind control and brainwashing. In 1990 KARE-TV (Channel 11) ran a segment called "Mind Games?" that Lifespring claimed was deceptive and sensationalized. (The Minnesota News Council rejected the company's claim.)

The Skeptic a newsletter of The North Texas Skeptics, reported in 1989 on criticism from a participant that was a staff volunteer until becoming disillusioned with the organization. This former staff volunteer said that workshops were too stressful and disruptive, and that the program was "an urban cult". One prominent critic of Lifespring is Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Mrs. Thomas asserted in an interview with The Washington Post that she had to seek counseling after her decision to break away from Lifespring. She ultimately had to hide in another part of the country in order to avoid a constant barrage of phone calls from Lifespring members, urging her to remain in the organization. Thomas has spoken on panels and organized anti-cult workshops for congressional staffers in 1986 and 1988.

Cult awareness groups claimed that there was high pressure placed on participants to "enroll" family, friends, etc., in the workshops and to spend large sums of money on additional training. Many participants however, asserted that they found significant value in their participation and want to share the program with people around them.

In 1993, Rev. Dr. Richard L. Dowhower, conducted a survey of clergy attitudes toward and experience of cults. The 53 respondents were from the Washington, DC area and included 43 Lutheran clergy and seminarians, one Roman Catholic and one Jewish clergyman, and an Evangelical minister. The response chart indicates twenty eight (28) responses to "The cults I am most concerned about are:", with the answer "Scientology, est/Forum, Lifespring". . Dr. Dowhower was an advisor of the American Family Foundation, which published the Cult Observer.

Later developments
While trainings continued until the mid-nineties in certain parts of the country, the lawsuits and the bad press crippled the company. One Lifespring follower, Sue Hawkes, started a similar program, called Vistar, but it was unsuccessful. Lifespring training, once offered under a unified corporate umbrella, now appears in several guises world-wide delivered by differently-named companies. Some of these companies offering the training programs once offered by or based on Lifespring include Momentus; Insight Seminars; Resource Realizations;  The Great Life Foundation, Visionworks; The Impact Trainings; Harmony Institute; Spectrum Trainings; Phoenix2000, Vistar/Serendipidity; Summit Education; Personal Dynamics; Choicenter; Millennium 3; Asia Works; Argentina Works; Chile Works; MexWorks; WorldWorks; The Legacy Center; Essential Education; Rising Star Communications; Humanus Institute; and Wings Seminars. The new religious movement called Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness has been referred to as an "offshoot" of Lifespring.