From: gascan@dcst16.dc (Bill Gascoyne)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Lifespring
Date: 24 Jul 92 22:04:11 GMT
Reply-To: gascan@dcst16.dc
Organization: LSI Logic Corporation

I participated in Lifespring starting about ten years ago, and I was somewhat active                                                                          for three or four years.  I found the program very interesting and helpful. Did it                                                                          "change my life?"  Of course it did.  To what extent?  Not a whole lot, but the impact                                                                     was, overall, quite positive.  Is Lifespri



ng a "cult?"  I would say that some people                                                                          can get caught up in it to the extent that it may have an overpowering effect on them.                                                                        Lifespring is (and they make no bones about it) a profit making corporation, and they                                                                        certainly don't discourage the kind of participation they get from these enthusi



asts.                                                                    But, on the whole, they don't require or pressure participants into devoting    
their lives to the cause, so in that sense I would not say that it was a cult.  
At the time I took the courses, they were offering a money-back guarantee, and I spoke 
to some people who got their money back.  Most of these thought the program was 
positive, just no worth as much as they were charged.                           
                                                                                
One of the catchphases used in Lifespring is that "you are in control of your own                                                                             experience."  Some people take this to be literally true (a la Richard Bach's   
"Illusions"), but I take it to mean that you are responsible for your own perception                                                                      of your experience.  For example, it's never too late to have had a happy childhood,                                                                      because "happy" is a value judgement that can be whatever you want it to be (within                                                                         reason, lest you go completely looney), and bes



ides, what you remember isn't what                                                                            really happened anyway, because you're perceiving it through the filters of all of                                                                          your experiences, both before and since childhood.  Therefore, claiming that you had                                                                         an unhappy childhood, and then using this as an excuse for how terrible your life is    



                                                                     today, is counter-productiv and a cop-out.                                      
                                                                                
This sort of thing may seem obvious to you, or nonsense, but to some people it is a                                                                            powerfully liberating message, and that's the sort of person who would say that 
Lifespring is the greatest thing that ever happened to them.
---
1. Bill Gascoyne
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic