From: madhaus@netcom.com (Maddi Hausmann)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: Lifespring
Date: 24 Jul 92 00:40:18 GMT
Organization: It's on my desk somewhere, just give me a minute

mvp@hsv3.lsil.com (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
: In article <7649@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> eva@Apocalypse.CAD.UCLA.EDU (Eva) writes:
: >I was wondering if anyone out there had any tales to tell about Lifespring.
: 
: No experiences.  But it's just this year's alias for est, with the
: names changed to protect the guilty.  (Werner Erhard in particular.)

BZZZZZZT!  Thank you for playing.

est's new incarnation is called The Forum, and Erhard (whose real name
is Jack Rosenberg) sold the company to the employees.

Lifespring is similar to est in that it gives personal growth workshops,
and borrows some of the concepts, but has no relation to est in terms
of management or finanances.  

I have not taken Lifespring, but I have taken workshops with Summit,
which is in California only.  From talking with Lifespring grads, the
two also have similar structure and concepts.

Basically, these workshops are similar in showing that:
  - People would rather stay stuck because it's familiar
  - Most of people's fears are totally groundless
  - Most of the rules for life people have learned came from their
      families, and the rules are usually suboptimal
  - Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be
      (and Will Rogers said that before *any* of these programs were
      around

Where they succeed is by delivering this information on a "gut" or
emotional level.  If all someone needed to do to change his/her life
was read the words, then this mail message would do it.  But most
life change occurs after deep emotional experience, not the intake
of more information.

Now, your next question was whether Lifespring was a cult.  My answer
to you is: It depends on how you define "cult."  My dictionary gives:

  cult n. 1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with
    reference to its rites and ceremonies.  2. an instance of great
    veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by
    a body of admirers: _a cult of Napoleon_.  3. the object of such
    devotion. 4. a group or sect bound together by devotion or 
    veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.  5. _Sociol._
    a group having a sacred ideology abd a set of rites centering
    around their sacred symbols 6. a religion that is considered or
    held to be false or unorthodox, or its members.  [<L cult(us),
    tilling, care, refinement, worship, n. use of ptp. of _colere_
    to cultivate, worship, dwell]

I guess they can fit in definitions 2 or 4, as they do worship an
ideal of personal growth.  Some of the excesses of est do sound like
the worship of its founder, don't they?  I find that Summit does
have some slight "religious" overtones; not surprising given how
much society has changed relative to the major religions available.
New ones have to work their way in.

By they way, the workshop/personal growth model is not new.  It was
very common in the 1930s, in the United States.  Again, people look inward
after materialism fails them (the stock market crash of 1929).
-- 
Maddi Hausmann                madhaus@netcom.com
Humorist, Satirist, Tech Writer.  Take your pick.

Centigram Communications Corp, San Jose California  408/428-3553
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