[This post edited 6/28: I've decided to take down some of the less substantiated things in this post. I am working on a longform essay about The Legacy Center which will have verifiable information in it. Until then, the factnet postings and the letter I sent to Hat are out. Rest assured, this does not mean I caved. I am trying to walk a line between honoring my personal experience versus that of my friend.]

No posts for a few days, sorry about that. I had alot going on. See, a few weeks ago, I went out to a party with Doh, BU, and Hat. I happened to mention in passing the bike trip I was half-assedly, pipe-dreamedly planning. While I would like to do this bike trip, or maybe read about someone else doing this bike trip, I have a very specific set of steps that must first take place: 1)winning the lottery, 2)paying off my credit cards, 3)writing a best selling novel, and 4)buying a house. The bike trip is a long way off.

Anyway, as soon as she heard about the trip, Hat was on it. “There’s some classes I’ve taken that could really help you with that.” She explained a bit about them, and I felt like I blew her off, as mildly and politely as possible. The next Sunday, Hat called me and said she wanted to talk more about the class. I didn’t have anything else to do, so I said she could come over.

She did, and I got a 2 hour grilling about the bike trip, work, my family, all this stuff, some of which I didn’t really feel comfortable talking with her about, since it was THE THIRD TIME WE’D SEEN EACH OTHER IN OUR ENTIRE LIVES. Then she said the class could make my dreams come true. I thought that was a little silly. I asked her about the school’s philosophy, and she didn’t know. I asked her about the founders; she didn’t know. I asked her what branches of psychiatry it was based on, nothing. She could not even tell me what credentials the trainers had.

Well, now, I can tell you. In the beginning, there was EST, which stood for Erhard Seminars Training. EST was the beginning of a movement called Large Group Awareness Training. These businesses, in order to sell their product, focus on creating breakthroughs for their customers, whether they actually happen or not. According to Michael D. Langone, Ph.D. Editor, Cultic Studies Journal, :

I know of no research, however, that convincingly demonstrates positive behavioral effects of these trainings. In my opinion, one of the best studies from a methodological standpoint was “Research on Erhard Seminar Training in a Correctional Institution” (Hosford, Ray, E., Moss, C. Scott, Cavior, Helene, & Kerish, Burton. Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 1982, Manuscript #2419, American Psychological Association). Of 313 inmates who volunteered for est training in a Federal Correctional Institution, 150 were randomly selected for the training, while the balance acted as a waiting-list control group and were given scholarships to be used upon release. The groups did not differ on demographics or variables related to criminal history. They were given a full battery of psychological tests and biofeedback instruments, with half of the group pre-tested and half post-tested (to control for the possible contaminating effect of testing). Three-month and 12-month follow-ups were conducted to assess behavioral outcomes (incident reports, furloughs, work performance, etc.). Although the psychological tests reflected some positive change, these self-report changes did not manifest themselves in alterations in physiological measures or in actual behavior.

The research and anecdotal evidence seem to indicate that LGATs are very successful at producing positive opinions about the trainings — an outcome that the financial officers of every service business would value. However, whether or not they have a substantial positive effect on behavior that is not due to placebo factors, is still an unanswered question.

Legacy’s founders, Rob Katz and Lori Todd, graduated from a group in DC called Lifespring. Lifespring’s founder, John Hanley, had one previous run-in with the law. I feel that this story is completely relevant:

In 1969 John Hanley, a 23-year-old college student, was fined $1,000 by the U.S. District Court in Des Moines, Iowa, and placed on five years probation. The social-science major had been selling franchises for toilet-cleaning routes that didn’t exist.

Doh took the class, he loved it. BU took the class, she loved it. Didn’t I want to make things happen in my life? I balked about the money; she told me that if I was serious about myself, if I valued myself, I would find the money. I told her I wanted to talk to Doh about it; she said he loved every minute of it and what it had given him. I asked her what Legacy had done for her; she said something vague about her family. I told her I wasn’t about to just hand over $400 on her say-so. “Don’t you trust me?” she asked. I didn’t, but I didn’t want ot tell her that. What if she thought I was an awful person? I caved and signed up. Thinking back on that decision, I kick myself everytime. I guess I was a little excited, if only because everyone else seemed to be so excited. I felt disoriented, like I was on the wrong end of a baseball bat. I have a tendency to tell people what they want to hear, but I’m working on that.

Over the next 9 days, she called me every second day to tell me how great it was going to be. The school called me to interview me. BU and Doh were excited. I was weirded out because everyone was so unironically enthusiastic. I didn’t tell any of my other friends about it because I felt ashamed that I had given in. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t listen to the voice that was screaming at me. I didn’t listen to the Pixiedyke. Finally, I decided to listen to my gut and cancelled the class.

When I talked to Greg at the center, I told him that I felt Hat had been overly pushy, aggressive, and weird, and that I had talked to other friends, all of whom agreed that I didn’t need this sort of personal awareness seminar at this time. “I’m sure you don’t” Greg replied. “When you say Hat was acting weird, weird like how? Did it seem like she needed to see a doctor?” I replied that I wasn’t actually qualified to make that determination, and I’d like my money back, please. He agreed rather more easily than I was expecting.

I told people at the wedding about it. Not only had several people heard of The Legacy Center, they all warned me in no uncertain terms to stay away. It’s not so much a religious cult as a money cult. They turn these people into unpaid shills to draw in their friends, who in turn draw in more friends, and they walk away with 60,000 per week and no employee payroll. Because they are very careful to say that no therapy is involved, they bear no responsibility for any future emotional problems that evolve from having intensely personal revelations in front of a group of complete strangers without a trained professional present.

When I came home from the wedding, there were four messages on my phone, between Doh, BU, and Hat. I called Doh and BU, working out some kind of temporary truce until we could get together and understand each other again. BU encouraged me to call Hat, assuring me that it wouldn’t hurt her feelings to tell Hat that I felt pushed around and manipulated by her. I still didn’t feel ready to do that, so I didn’t.

Monday night, around 6:30, I was sitting at my computer, reading blogs as usual, when I heard a knock. “Oh shit,” I thought, “It’s Hat.” I looked out the window, and I was right. I laid down on the floor to consider my options. She called my phone and I didn’t answer. I laid on the floor while I listened to her go next door and ask my neighbor if I was at home. AN replied that, while my car was indeed in the parking lot, she had no idea whether I was currently inside my apartment. I listened to Hat walk up the stairs and knock on my other neighbors’ doors. Then, she came back down and sat in front of my door with her laptop out, apparently prepared to wait until I came home. I called Kirstie and left a message. Clarkton has since yelled at me for not calling her and her judo chop, but I feel that would have escalated the situation a bit too much.

After 45 minutes of huddling on my floor, I realized I was being ridiculous. I can continue to say ‘no’ until Hell freezes over. That is my only answer. So I got up and pretended I had just walked back from Earthfare. She heard me and knocked again. I let her in. “You didn’t think it would be that easy to get rid of me, did you?” I started, pictured her catching me peeking through the curtains, then said, “What?”

“Not returning my calls.”

“Oh, I just didn’t feel ready to talk to you yet, so I didn’t call you.”

I told her it was ok if we talked, and for the next 45 minutes, she tried everything she could think of to get me to change my mind. She accused me of not being open with her. She wondered why I had been so excited before. “Is this a pattern for you?” she asked. Well, I’ve never been asked to join a cult before, but I can guarantee I won’t hand over my credit card number again, so no, no patterns here. Finally, I got rid of her by promising to have dinner with her on Tuesday.

All day long on Tuesday, I wrote down everything that occurred to me to say to Hat. The letter was about half a page, and laid out all the feelings I had bottled up over the course of this experience. I left it on her truck, then went to a safe space with friends. She called me when she got the note. She was crying a little at the beginning, but by the end of the message she was begging me to call her back so we could “get clear.” I think this means something like ‘attain closure, but also make you agree to what I want you to do.” She did agree not to attempt to contact me again.

I have known Doh for longer than anyone else in Asheville except Smiley. He is a wonderful friend with a kind, compassionate heart. While he encouraged me to take these trainings, he never once tried to pressure me. Hopefully, we can still be friends even after all this stuff I’ve posted. I did it because I had to.

I’ve known BU for about 3 weeks. I really like her, and I think she is incredibly insightful and witty. Talking to her is like being probed with a velvet razor. She encouraged me to change my enrollment from the basic session to the combo basic/advanced package, but she also never placed any pressure on me, nor did she ever imply that there was anything wrong with me if I didn’t want to go.

There are Personal Growth Programs that are worth your money, and there are ways to find them. But Hat’s pitch about The Legacy Center raised my hackles, and I still let myself get sucked in. I will use this experience to remember to ALWAYS listen to my gut and do the research first. Recognize the hard-sell for what it is: an attempt to stop you from thinking.