Large Group Awareness Training

Cult Observer
Volume 15, No. 1, 1998

In the 1960s the encounter group movement was born. Advocating enhanced communication and intensified experience, this movement evolved into something that was part psychotherapy, part spirituality, and part business. In some scholarly articles, these groups were referred to as "large group awareness trainings" or LGATs. Erhard Seminars Training (est) was the most successful of these groups, and it has been widely imitated. Even though it no longer officially exists, in the minds of many est is identified with the entire LGAT movement. It is in a sense the progenitor of a myriad of programs that have been marketed to the public and the business community. Lifespring is, perhaps, the next best known program after est.

It is probably not an exaggeration to estimate that there are hundreds of training programs in the genre that est made famous.  However, because most of these programs are businesses, they will usually emphasize that which they want potential consumers to think distinguishes them from their competition.  "Exciting" words and phrases, such as "breakthrough," "unique," "your full potential," "must be experienced," and "changed my life" are used again and again with training after training.

The est model of self-transformation is structured around an intense weekend experience which brings together several dozen or several hundred people and a "trainer" with one or more assistants.  People are together morning, afternoon, and evening. Breaks, even for the bathroom, tend to be highly structured and limited.  Participants are led through a long series of exercises that proponents say are designed to cut through psychological defenses, increase honesty, and help people take charge of their lives.  Undoubtedly, many variations of this basic model exist, and some LGATs may depart substantially from this model.

Although reliable scientific data are not available, probably at least a million people in the United States have participated in at least one LGAT, with several hundred thousand having gone through est alone.

Because many observers of this phenomenon have associated such trainings with the new age movement (NAM), LGATs have also been called "new age transformational training programs," or "new age trainings."  According to Dole and Langone, the new age can be defined as "an alternative religious paradigm that is rooted in Eastern mysticism, eclectic in its practices and beliefs, tolerant (or undiscerning, depending upon one's perspective) of nontraditional practices and beliefs, and optimistic about humanity's capacity to bring about a great evolutionary leap in consciousness."  New age transformational trainings use an eclectic mix of psychological techniques and exercises that proponents believe will improve one's spiritual, psychological, and material well-being.

Some observers and scientific researchers have also associated some LGATs with at least the potential to cause psychological distress to some participants.  Some compare the trainings to thought reform programs, or "brainwashing," and to "cults."

The implied, if not explicit, religious nature of many of these trainings and the potential for psychological damage in some trainings have resulted in lawsuits against some trainings and employers who have sponsored them.  On February 22, 1988 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a notice on new age training programs which conflict with employees' religious beliefs.  This notice gave official credence to the claim that some of these trainings are fundamentally religious in nature, even though they may be corporately organized as a business.  An article from Labor Law Journal elaborates upon the EEOC document.

Recently, AFF developed a packet on LGATs, containing the articles noted above as well as other articles.  With a few exceptions, the information in this packet tends to be critical of LGATs.  This is because the consumers who seek information from AFF are likely to have already been exposed to the sophisticated "sales" packages and activities that most such trainings excel at producing.\ There is no shortage of glowing testimonies and four-color brochures lauding the benefits of these programs. But the consumer will not so easily find material that examines negative aspects of the practices of some of  these trainings.  The packet is an attempt to rectify the informational advantage that LGATs have.

The new packet emphasizes scholarly articles because we believe that this area cries out for scientific research.  Given the person-hours devoted to LGATs during the past two decades, it is astounding how little solid scientific research has been conducted.  Indeed, there is not enough research to make any sweeping generalizations about this genre of training program.  The research on est suggests that a small, though certainly not insignificant, percentage of participants were psychologically harmed by the training in ways that are detectable by standard measures of psychological distress.  How much "subtle" harm occurs is still open to dispute.

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.

There are also a host of ethical questions that can be raised about how many of these trainings recruit new trainees and persuade graduates to continue to take more courses.  We hope that the material in the new packet will help readers appreciate the complexity and subtlety of the issues raised by LGATs.

Essay: Coping With Trance States

Patrick Ryan

Cult Observer, Volume 10, No. 3, 1993, "Guest Column: Coping With Trance States"; and first appeared in the Summer 1992 issue of TM EX NEWS.

Trance states, derealization, dissociation, spaceyness. What are they? What strategies can we use to cope with them? By trance states we mean dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization. In the group we called it spacing out or higher/altered states of consciousness. All humans have some propensity to have moments of dissociation. However, certain practices (meditation, chanting, learned processes of speaking in tongues, prolonged guided imagery, etc.) appear to have ingrained in many former members a reflexive response to involuntarily enter altered states of consciousness. (These altered states are defined fully in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM III]).

Even after leaving the group and ceasing its consciousness altering practices, this habitual, learned response tends to recur under stress. For some former members this can be distressing and affect their functioning. When this happens, it tends to impair one’s concentration, attention, memory, and coping skills.

Many former members coming from groups practicing prolonged consciousness altering find that the intensity, frequency, and duration of the episodes decrease when they deliberately and consistently use the strategies outlined below.

It is important to note that when one is tired, ill, or under stress, the feelings of spaceyness, dissociation, depersonalization, and derealization may temporarily return. By developing the ability to immediately label these states and attempting the following strategies, one can return to a consistent state of mental functioning.

Maintain a routine.

• Make change slowly, physically, emotionally, nutritionally, geographically, etc.
• Monitor health, watch nutrition, get medical checkups. Avoid drugs and alcohol.
• Take daily exercise to reduce dissociation (spaceyness, anxiety, and insomnia).
• Avoid sensory overload. Avoid crowds or large spaces without boundaries (shopping malls, video arcades, etc.) Drive consciously without music.

Reality orientation

• Establish time end place landmarks such as calendars and clocks.
• Make lists of activities in advance. Update lists daily or weekly. Difficult tasks and large projects should be kept on separate lists.
• Before going on errands, review lists of planned activities, purchases, and projects. Mark items off as you complete them.
• Keep updated on current news. News shows (CNN, Headline News, talk radio) are helpful because they repeat, especially if you have memory and concentration difficulties.

Reading

• Try to read one complete news article daily to increase comprehension.
• Develop reading "stamina" with the aid of a timer, and increase reading periods progressively.

Sleep interruptions

• Leave talk radio/television and news programs (not music) on all night.
• Don’t push yourself. After years or months, dissociation is a habit that takes time to break.

Profile: Patrick Ryan

Patrick Ryan (BA in Interdisciplinary Studies, Maharishi International University) is the founder and former head of TM-Ex, the organization of one-time members of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement. His association with AFF involves frequent attendance at conferences, where he is often a speaker, work with other ex-cult members, and a book about his personal experience, Recovery From Cults, to be published this August.

TM recruiters were allowed into his high school in the mid-'70s, a time when the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was a frequent guest on the "Merv Griffin" and other TV shows. Mr. Ryan attended an informational meeting which led to a weekend, then a week, with "no privacy, endless tapes of chanting, meditation, and lectures." Mia Farrow's sister, Prudence, was one of the teachers. She and her husband attended MIU, to which she persuaded Mr. Ryan and 250 others to go for both "academics and enlightenment." `His five years there provided "a mixed bag academically."

The school was accredited through the Ph.D. in various subjects, and because courses were taught by the "block system," good faculty could be brought in briefly for good pay. Out of three months, two were allotted for academics, one for meditating, sometimes as many a 7 hours a day for 7 days at a time. There was an average of 4 hours' trance-inducing activity per day, and all for academic credit.

After graduating, Mr. Ryan worked a year for a Maharishi community. A family intervention when one of his sisters joined "a cult" (The Way) began his questioning process, and he started to see parallels in his situation. He sought insights from former TM-ers, and was further disillusioned. Several lawsuits against the organization exposed hitherto secret tales of "yogic flying," adding to its embarrassment. An attorney in one such suit urged Mr. Ryan to visit Dr. Margaret Singer, who put the "crowning touches" on his liberation. She sent him to a Cult Awareness Network conference where he met many families of TM members. Thus began his exit counseling career which, after he gave up a thriving import business, soon became full-time. He works with a variety of cult members, stressing that he does "no involuntaries."

The young man once trained as a "spiritual warrior" for TM (a distinction reserved for heroic meditators, not the mere 20 minutes a day kind) is now an internationally recognized cult expert, relied on by families and media in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. He is also another of those AFF associates whose advice to law enforcement officials might, had it been heeded, have helped avert the Waco debacle.

Cult Observer, Vol. 10, No. 06, 1993

Critical Response to TM Article

The following excerpts are taken from letters to the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association responding to "Letter from New Delhi -- Maharishi Ayur-Veda: modern insights into ancient medicine" (JAMA, 1991; 265:2633-2634, 2637). The letters appeared in JAMA, 1991; 266(Oct. 2): 1769-1773.

Useful Information

Maharishi Ayur-Veda stands out as having a coherent and easy-to-understand philosophy, and it is backed up by rigorous scientific research. . .  I hope we can look forward to more of this kind of information being published in the leading journals.

Michael T. Greenwood, M.B., B.Ch., Victoria, British Columbia (Dr. Greenwood reports using Maharishi Ayur-Veda in his practice.)

As a board-certified neurologist, I have found that my training in Maharishi Ayur-Veda has been absolutely invaluable in dealing with those problems typical to this specialty.

David Pearlmutter, M.D., Naples, FL. (Dr. Pearlmutter reports that he is an Ayur-Vedic physician.)

Just as quantum mechanics was incorporated into physics, it is time for medicine to transcend classical mechanics and to investigate the benefits of quantum field-based health maintenance.

Steele Belok, M.D., Harvard Medical School, Boston. MA.

A Religion

The article . . . does not belong in JAMA. . . I am frightened that JAMA would print , and thus give credibility to magic, astrology, rituals, and potions for the prevention and cure of disease. . .  [The authors] are followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. [They] are "converts" to his religious system. . . By failing to cite the contraindications/problems with headaches, insomnia, concentration, gastrointestinal upset, hallucinations, anxiety, depression, and destruction of personality of Maharishi Ayur-Veda, the authors violate the ethics of informed consent.

Patrick L. Ryan, Philadelphia, PA.

(Mr. Ryan is a former TM member who speaks publicly against the organization as an educational consultant.)

Hocus-Pocus

I recommend that you follow "Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Modern Insights into Ancient Medicine" with republication of "The Emperor's New Clothes." The use of the word "ancient" in the title is the key: the ideas expressed were pure hocus-pocus and truly ancient ignorance. Pathetic.

Gary Gorlock, M.D., M.P.H., Los Angeles

A Destructive Cult

As president of the American Family Foundation [publisher of the Cult Observer], an organization of professionals including lawyers, psychiatrists, and psychologists, as well as religious leaders dedicated to educating the public about the dangers of destructive cults, I am appalled that this letter [on TM] found its way into your journal. Clearly, this letter is part of a carefully orchestrated and well-financed plan by the TM movement to obtain credibility and acceptance in our society for its unscientific jargon and religious rituals.

Lending your journal to a campaign of this kind seriously exposes you to legal liability for those who might rely on your reputation and follow the described advice and practices. . .

Herbert L. Rosedale, Esq., Weston, MA.

I have been working in the field of destructive cults for 20 years and have concluded that the TM movement is a dangerous cult, damaging both physically and, especially, psychologically to its followers.

Marcia R. Rudin, M.A. (Ms. Rudin is director of the International Cult Education Program [and a member of the editorial board of the Cult Observer].)

A Recruitment Enterprise

[The letter] is a subtle attempt to recruit new followers into the TM movement. . . The Maharishi, referred to as "His Holiness" by his followers, aggressively markets his brand of meditation, TM, as a health benefit to improve quality of life. In fact, the meditation instruction is a front for a missionary enterprise, encouraging students to meditate for large parts of the day, along with increasing participation in a form of demythologized Hinduism. This conversion is done by the gently titrating exposure of TM devotees to Hindu philosophy and practice, without initially defining them as such.

    . . .  Many Jews and Christians with limited knowledge of their own heritage are misled by TM to believe that their new activities and beliefs are not incompatible with the religion of their births. . . those on spiritual quests should be aware that meditation practices are found within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, and also in a true secular format via contemporary psychology.

John Hochman, M.D. , Los Angeles [Dr. Hochman is a member of an advisory committee of the American Family Foundation, publisher of the Cult Observer.]

School for Abuse

My work has provided a disturbing view of wife abuse, violence against children, health abuse, and a total disregard for the psychological horrors that TM techniques foster and justify. The causes of these practices are, like TM Ayur-Veda medicine, woven together by TM's strain of Hindu mythology. . . The medical program of TM, based as it is on TM's notoriously suspect "research," is a form of "mind over matter" magic. . . . [The letter's description of the mind, for example] as "a physical expression of the self-interacting dynamics of an underlying abstract field of intelligence" . . . is a reference to Hinduism's concept of Maya (matter is an illusion), Maya's integral relation to Monism (all things are made of one substance), and the belief that this substance is spirit. Transcendental Meditation defies all medical knowledge because it accepts the archaic belief that disease is the result of assault by female demons! This bit of truth, of course, is not acknowledged to Western audiences. If a method's veracity and effectiveness should be tested before being recommended and applied, then your readers have the benefit of over 2000 years of de facto research. The laboratory is India itself - chaos, epidemics, caste-dominated cruelty, and bizarre superstitions reign. This - rather than a pristine world of joy, health, and serenity - is what TM breeds.

Kevin Garvey, Hamden, CT.

(Mr. Garvey is a paid consultant on TM activities for attorneys [and a member of advisory committees of the American Family Foundation, publisher of the Cult Observer].)

Cultic

According to TM-EX, TM uses deceptive recruiting practices and the organization's rules and regulations are presented to members as being absolute. A new vocabulary is taught to recruits to explain ordinary phenomena, and the group uses undue influence techniques of mind control, guilt, and phobia induction to maintain membership. . . JAMA should have looked into this movement a bit more before giving it such a bold place in our premier medical journal.

Ralph Smith, Jr., M.D., Charleston. WV.

[Dr. Smith is a member of an advisory committee of the American Family Foundation, publisher of the Cult Observer.]

Cult Observer, Volume 8, Number 10, 1991