Cults Inside Out: How People Get in and Can Get Out

by Rick Alan Ross

  CHAPTER 16

  LARGE GROUP AWARENESS TRAINING (LGAT)

  Before detailing an intervention regarding large group awareness training (LGAT), discussing the historical concerns surrounding some controversial LGATs is helpful. Today there are many for-profit, privately owned companies and organizations around the world that sell this type of training through extended weekends or longer retreats and seminars.

  An LGAT organization or company is typically based on selling the philosophy of its founder. The purpose of the training, other than making money as a product of the business, is to essentially persuade participants to accept and embrace that philosophy. This is done over a period of days in the context of an intensely emotional and frequently confrontational group encounter format. The philosophy LGAT proponents propose and promote is typically seen as the means for addressing virtually any human problem and often as an all-encompassing framework for curing the ills of humanity. A primary leader usually facilitates the LGAT, and that facilitator is most often carefully scripted. The underlying assumption is that adoption of the LGAT belief system will lead to a better and more productive life.

  LGAT participants are expected to undergo days of confrontation and scrutiny through a facilitated group encounter designed to promote a catharsis of change, culminating in an expected epiphany or sudden illumination. Despite discomfort, many new initiates do not leave due to peer pressure and the constraints of group influence. In their new state of engineered enlightenment, they have effectively embraced the LGAT’s philosophy. This is the requisite realization and planned outcome of a LGAT experience. In this sense LGATs demand a rather rigid conformity and adherence to a group mind-set. That is why some past participants and others have alleged that LGATs are engaged in a kind of “brainwashing.” Whatever trait an individual possesses that fails to conform to the LGAT paradigm is likely to be seen as negative and therefore should be purged from the participant or be destroyed.

  Psychologist Margaret Singer observed, “LGAT programs tend to last at least four days and usually five.”968 She explained, “Such programs seem designed more to get participants emotionally pumped up, suspending their judgment and following orders of the ‘trainers,’ than to impart anything connected with job performance.”969 Once the initial training is completed, it is often followed up and reinforced by continuing group involvement and a commitment to ongoing coaching through the LGAT organization.

  Subsequent to their enlightenment through the LGAT process, participants may become enmeshed in a kind of subculture revolving around the LGAT. This may include volunteer work for the LGAT despite the fact that most LGATs are for-profit, privately owned enterprises, not charities. LGAT graduates may also be encouraged to recruit and enroll others, essentially serving as a volunteer sales force for the LGAT company or organization. Such recruitment efforts not only provide the company with more paying customers but also serve to solidify the loyalty of its true believers. Frequently in an LGAT environment, emotions or feelings can become a subjective substitute for cognitive processes and objective reality. Reality in this sense can be turned on its head, denigrated, and even dismissed as if nonexistent. Psychologist Margaret Singer said, “The draw of these groups was the idea that each person is able to create his or her own reality.”970

  The stripping away of individual defenses, coupled with the seemingly arbitrary labeling of thoughts and emotions as either “good” or “bad” according to the LGAT philosophy, has at times produced very negative results. In his book The Politics of Transformation: Recruitment-Indoctrination Processes in a Mass Marathon Psychology Organization,971 author Philip Cushman warned about what he called “mass marathon training,” also known as LGATs. Cushman found that four potentially dangerous characteristics concerning encounter groups could also often be seen in mass marathon training. For this purpose he specifically cited the research of Irvin D. Yalom, MD, an authority concerning group dynamics, and his fellow researcher, Morton A. Lieberman, PhD.972 The four warning signs Yalom and Lieberman identified—and which Cushman referenced—are the following:

  “Leaders had rigid, unbending beliefs about what participants should experience and believe, how they should behave in the group and when they should change.”

  “Leaders had no sense of differential diagnosis and assessment skills, valued cathartic emotional breakthroughs as the ultimate therapeutic experience, and sadistically pressed to create or force a breakthrough in every participant.”

  “Leaders had an evangelical system of belief that was the one single pathway to salvation.”

  “Leaders were true believers and sealed their doctrine off from discomforting data or disquieting results and tended to discount a poor result by, ‘blaming the victim.’”

  The following examples of controversial LGAT programs provide a better understanding of why some LGATs have often been called deceptive and potentially unsafe.

  2004—Executive Success Programs (ESP) Suicide

  In February 2004, thirty-five-year-old Kristin Marie Snyder killed herself. According to authorities, she paddled a kayak into a glacier-fed bay in Alaska and capsized it. Her body was never found, but she was officially declared dead. Left behind was a suicide note. The environmental consultant with a master’s degree in plant ecology had written, “I attended a course called Executive Success Programs [ESP] based out of Anchorage, Alaska and Albany, New York. I was brainwashed and my emotional center of the brain was killed/turned off. I still have feeling in my external skin, but my internal organs are rotting. Please contact my parents…if you find me or this note. I am sorry life; I didn’t know I was already dead. May we persist into the future.”973

  At the time Snyder had been attending a sixteen-day “intensive” offered by a for-profit privately owned company run by a former multilevel marketing guru named Keith Raniere. On the second day of that program, Snyder reportedly seemed “delusional.”974 Her domestic partner, Heidi Clifford, said she had stopped sleeping and was threatening suicide.

  Kristin Snyder had been involved with ESP, now known as NXIVM (pronounced nexium).975 Her parents said they had become concerned when their daughter came home for a visit after her first sixteen-day ESP intensive. In conversation they questioned the cost of ESP, specifically the $7,000 she paid for an intensive. She then cut them off and called her “coach.”976 Snyder reportedly spent more than $16,000 in four months before she was done with ESP.977

  “I do, indeed, feel that her involvement in ESP was a first-cause factor in her death,” Kristin Snyder’s father told the press. “As it was, her personality disintegrated right before their eyes, and no one knew how to pick up the pieces. I do not believe that Kris wanted to kill herself. She cried out for help for almost a week, but was totally ignored,” her father said.978

  Carlos Rueda, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in New York City, stated that he treated three ESP/NXIVM students for psychological disorders he believed were related to its training. One case included a “psychotic episode” and required hospital care in January 2003. Rueda told the press, “I think that the stress and the way the courses are structured may make people who have a tendency to have a psychotic disorder have an acute episode.”979 The press contacted the woman who had experienced the breakdown, and she claimed that ESP/NXIVM told her, “We have to break you to reconstruct you.” She then concluded, “But they rebuild you how they want to rebuild you.” A spokesperson for ESP stated that “no civil action has ever been alleged against ESP in that regard.”980

  Other controversial LGAT programs include EST (Erhard Seminar Training), now known as Landmark Education, Lifespring, and the Mankind Project. These LGATs have also garnered press attention, complaints, and in some instances personal injury lawsuits.

  Psychologist Margaret Singer was specifically critical of EST and its program the Forum, which was sold in 1991 and then became known as Landmark Education981 in her book Cults in Our Midst,982 Singer later sai
d, “I do not endorse them—never have.”983 Landmark sued Singer, and as a part of an agreed settlement after years of protracted litigation, she stated that the group was not a cult or sect.984

  There is little to suggest that training through companies like Landmark actually produce anything other than subjective results. A group of researchers, led by Jeffrey D. Fisher, Purdue professor of psychology, studied the effects of Landmark training.985 They concluded, “In fact, with the exception of the short-term multivariate results for perceived control, there was no appreciable effect on any dimension which could reflect positive change.” However, even this perception of control among the Landmark participants studied dissipated after eighteen months.986 Author Stephen J. Kraus later referred to the Fisher study and said, “People who attend EST or the Landmark Forum generally report positive benefits from the experience, but a study that compared attendees with a control group of non-attendees suggests that the seminar produces only a short-term boost in locus of control, and no measurable long-term effects.”987 The British Psychological Society later cited the Fisher study,988 and an article in Nova Religio, published by University of California Press, cited it as well.989

  Concerns about Erhard’s training are well documented. In 1977 it was reported that seven individuals suffered serious psychiatric disturbances after participating in EST.990 Concerned psychiatrists alerted their colleagues through an article published by the American Journal of Psychiatry of the possibility that some people might develop devastating effects regarding EST training.991 One of the authors Dr. Leonard L. Glass said, “We don’t know if more people become psychotic after EST than after riding on the F train.” But he opined, “There’s enough possibility of a real connection between EST and psychotic breaks to cause us to want to alert psychiatrists and psychologists.”992

  Apparently reflecting continuing concerns about the potential for such problems, Mark Kamin, a Landmark Education spokesperson, stated in a 2002 interview that the company had implemented a screening process devised by a board of psychiatrists. Kamin said, “We have a requirement that people must be emotionally stable at that time to participate in our programs.”993 A wrongful death lawsuit filed against Landmark in 2004 claimed that Landmark training had contributed to the mental state of a man who murdered a postal carrier.994 A court found the killer legally insane. He allegedly had been removed from a Landmark seminar for behaving strangely and extremely erratically. The lawsuit filed by the postal carrier’s surviving family was later dismissed.995

  Landmark Education, now called Landmark Worldwide, has become a global concern with offices around the world located in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Nagoya, Seoul, Tokyo, Osaka, New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Auckland, London, Nairobi, Bogata, Cape Town, Tel Aviv, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Mexico City.996 The company continues to maintain many offices across the United States including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Phoenix, Dallas, Washington, DC, Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Orange County, Atlanta, Denver, Detroit, Boston, and Ft. Lauderdale.997

  John Hanley Sr. founded Lifespring in 1974. Perhaps the most notable Lifespring graduate is Virginia Thomas, wife of US Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. She became involved with the group in the early 1980s but later left and sought counseling. Thomas told the Washington Post in 1987, “I had intellectually and emotionally gotten myself so wrapped up with this group that I was moving away from my family and friends and the people I work with. My best friend came to visit me and I was preaching at her using that rough attitude they teach you.” Virginia Thomas eventually sought help from private consultant and cult-intervention specialist Kevin Garvey.998

  At least thirty lawsuits were filed against the LGAT company Lifespring.999 In 1984 a jury in Virginia awarded $800,000 to a past participant who’d suffered a breakdown and was subsequently hospitalized. A Washington, DC, attorney who received Lifespring training received a $300,000 judgment for similar injuries. Lifespring reportedly settled many claims out of court. The company settled a wrongful death claim in 1982 regarding a suicide linked to its training. And in 1993 Lifespring agreed to a $750,000 settlement for a trainee who was institutionalized for two years after receiving training from Lifespring.1000 The company eventually dissolved, but many of its former trainers and associates went on to start their own LGAT companies. LGAT companies that use techniques inspired by Lifespring continue to thrive and expand. One example is AsiaWorks, which Chris Gentry founded in 1993.1001 Thousands have participated in AsiaWorks training.1002 The company now has offices in Beijing, Singapore, Jakarta, and Bangkok.1003

  Kevin Garvey, who studied LGATs for decades, said many use the same influence techniques through what he identified as their “conceptual core.” He noted “patterns of information control, language control, disorientation through altering food and sleep patterns [and] the manipulation of the environment through praise and discouragement.”1004 Garvey claimed that such techniques are “designed and orchestrated to undercut any comprehensible discussion, all behind the facade of being this profound self-exploration.” He warned, “The outcome for some people is very extreme.”1005 Psychologist Margaret Singer echoed Garvey’s sentiments. Singer said that, and she included LGATs in her book Cults in Our Midst “because they represent forms of coordinated programs of intense persuasion and group pressure.”1006

  The Mankind Project (MKP) is an LGAT that offers a program called the “New Warriors Training Adventure” (NWTA). In 2005, just fifteen days after completing the NWTA program near Houston, a young man committed suicide. Michael Scinto became distraught during the training, and it appears he never recovered.

  He wrote a letter to the Madison County sheriff’s office before his death, detailing his experience. Scinto said, “They provoked the men into a rage,” He wrote that when he asked to leave, a group leader said that “if I left, I would be causing harm to the other participants.” The young man further stated, “I was convinced that if I ran, they would catch me,” and “at this point I feared for my life.” Scinto was found in his apartment with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.1007 His family sued the Mankind Project in 2007, and the wrongful death lawsuit was settled in 2008.1008

  As part of that settlement, MKP of Houston was required to make certain changes. This included the requirement that a mental health professional screen potential participants. Allegedly the settlement specifically cited three changes to be made by MKP:

  “Members will be released from their confidentiality agreements and will be encouraged to tell anyone who inquires about the initiation and other MKP programs.”

  “The organization will revise its website and provide a detailed description of the initiation as well as publish new, detailed brochures.”

  “MKP will modify its confidentiality agreements and training program to reflect this new found transparency.”

  Many LGAT creators appear to have drawn on the same themes and/or origins. Werner Erhard and John Hanley Sr. were both once involved in Mind Dynamics.1009 Erhard studied Scientology1010 and reportedly blended its themes along with other idiosyncratically gathered concepts, such as Dale Carnegie, Zen, Gestalt, Encounter groups,1011 and the teachings of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger1012 to create his composite LGAT philosophy.1013 The particular paradigm put forth through the ESP/NXIVM intensive is called “rational inquiry.” This philosophy espoused by Keith Raniere is reportedly a blend of Objectivism (based on the writings of Ayn Rand)1014 and Scientology jargon1015 presented through EST-like seminars by an organization structured much like a multilevel marketing scheme.1016

  Raniere is known as “Vanguard” to his devoted “Espians,” which gather for an annual week-long celebration of his birthday called “Vanguard Week.”1017 Raniere was an only child of a ballroom dance instructor. His mother largely raised him alone and died from heart disease when he was in college.1018 Keith Raniere earned bachelor’s degrees in biology, physics, an
d math at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.1019 Like Werner Erhard, who in a previous incarnation was a used-car salesman,1020 1021Raniere once worked as an Amway salesman and later launched his own multilevel marketing company called Consumer Buyline. But that company was shut down amid lawsuits and an investigation the attorney general of New York launched.1022 It was after this business failure that Raniere embarked on creating an LGAT.1023

  Keith Raniere was featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine in its October 13, 2003, issue. The article was titled “Cult of Personality” and described Raniere as “the world’s strangest executive coach.” One unhappy customer was apparently billionaire Edgar Bronfman Sr., who once took a course and endorsed ESP. He later told Forbes, however, “I think it’s a cult.”1024 But despite Bronfman’s less-than-glowing words, NXIVM reportedly “swallowed as much as $150 million” of the inherited wealth of his two daughters, Sara and Clare Bronfman. The two Seagram’s fortune heiresses became deeply involved with Raniere and NXIVM.1025

  2011—James Arthur Ray and “Sweat Lodge” Deaths

  On November 18, 2011, fifty-three-year-old self-help motivational entrepreneur James Arthur Ray, once a featured guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show,1026 was sentenced to two years in an Arizona state prison for negligent homicide. Kirby Brown, thirty-eight; James Shore, forty; and Liz Neuman, forty-nine, died while attending Ray’s five-day LGAT called “Spiritual Warrior” due to heat stroke. The deaths were directly related to a so-called sweat lodge ceremony. Following a four-month-long trial, the jury deliberated ten hours before returning a guilty verdict. 1027 Juror Phillip Lepacek said, “It was a no-brainer there was heat. These people were baked.”1028

  James Ray, a “preacher’s son,”1029 ended his formal education when he dropped out of Tulsa Junior College in 1978. After various jobs, Ray worked in the sales department of AT&T, where he would eventually manage some training for the company, according to June Maul, a retired AT&T district manager. While at AT&T Ray became somewhat familiar with Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Ray later claimed that he worked for Covey. However, Debbie Lund, a Franklin/Covey spokeswoman, said, “None of us remember him ever working for the company, nor ever being a contract employee.”1030