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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hi, Rosabelle. What's the best thing that's happened in your day so far besides this call?
Well, I bought myself a sneaky bag of lollies and I've been having little nibbles of lollies all day, which has been really nice.
Today's episode is about an American human potential group that sort of got out of control and turned into a cult. You know, one of those sort of self-help groups that suddenly gets out of control.
Okay, yeah.
And I had some memories of some of our friends in New Zealand getting involved in a group. Do you know what I mean when I say human potential and a bit culty?
I haven't heard that phrase, human potential, but I know what program back home here that you're talking about.
What's it called? Do you remember? Because I forgot.
I think it's called the Landmark Forum.
Landmark Forum. And if I recall, a big part of the landmark procedure is you call up people you've wronged and you either confront them or apologize or cut them off or something. It all got a bit batshit, didn't it?
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Chapter 2: What is Lifespring and its connection to the Human Potential Movement?
Rosabelle and whoever's listening to this podcast, here we go. I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now, if it's one thing America is not short on, it's cults. We have cults in New Zealand, but America just seems to do them so much better. And by better, I mean worse.
They're more perverse, more weird, more unsettling. More. They're just more. Today, I want to cast our eyes back to the 70s, to a cult called Lifespring. Lifespring was interesting as it blurred the lines between self-help group, which America loves, and all-out cult.
Lifespring has been described as a human potential organization, founded in 1974 by three people, John Hanley, Robert White, and Charlene Afrimo. Pretty soon after joining, members found out it was incredibly hard to leave as their brains were systematically broken down and dismantled piece by piece. Before the cult dissolved in the mid-90s, it boasted around half a million members.
Not giant, but also not too small. And as I found out putting this episode together, some former members still swear by it. So prepare to reach your full potential or have your mental health slowly collapse because this is the Lifespring episode.
I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America.
Rob, do you feel you've met your full human potential as you sit here across from me now? If your potential is on a pendulum from 1 to 10, where do you think you're at?
Full human potential, probably no. Yeah, I mean, do we ever? Do we ever reach our full potential? I don't think you can. Don't they say that, like, your brain can access, like, we're only using a very small percentage of what our brain can actually do?
Yeah. And if you look around America at the moment, that feels very deeply obvious.
Yes. uh but on the spectrum of like full potential to ignorance is bliss like i do think there is finding balance in there true enough uh to where i don't know that i i need to do more reach my brain's full potential
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Chapter 3: How did Lifespring operate as a cult in the 80s?
No, no. Okay. So to be clear, I was not speeding. I was going probably 10. Okay. What did I tell the insurer? I'm worried now. I wasn't really, cause I'm in kilometers in New Zealand. I'm unfamiliar with miles per hour. I get confused. anyway i was crawling along yeah the pace of a snail or maybe a slug and i got coyote walking like it was like a coyote slowly padding along the ground
And as I got to the end of the cars that were parallel parked on my right, I just gently swung in because I'm like, oh my God, there's room finally. So I sort of swung in in front of this car, just heard that awful sound of metal scraping on metal. So I clipped. Clipped a parked car. I clipped a parked car. I like to dramatize things. Is that a crash?
I mean, that's an accident.
It's an accident.
Yeah. You've talked to an insurance company. I did. Yeah. That's an incident report.
I stopped the car. I got out of the car. I felt a small moment of panic because the car that I had lightly scraped the side off. looked very fancy to me. It looked very sporty, very cool. And I went, uh-oh. Turns out it was just a Dodge, some sort of Dodge. It's not the most expensive car in the world. They just look kind of cool. And I thought, what do I do? Do I run? Do I get out of here?
I looked around with the cameras on the houses looking at me.
that's what would have i thought i could get away with this no i um i wrote a note on the car i left my my name my number my um plates i don't know insurance thing left under the thing the story is getting more boring the longer i talk about it my point is my human potential feels deeply low because i had my first american car crash did they call you
No one called me.
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Chapter 4: What were the effects of Lifespring on its members' mental health?
You don't need to file that. I filed it. If they don't come and ask you to fix their car, you don't have to file it. You can just go pay the repairs and not increase your insurance. Oh,
god yeah you're right yeah which is what you would know if you were like i should have just paid for my door yes and not logged it with the insurance yes fuck i'm an idiot but if if this person files the claim against you then i instead of paying for the whole sighting to be redone i mean you could offer to just pay for the repair yeah Or you can do it through insurance. Pay your deductible.
Yeah. Then they increase your insurance.
I went straight to the insurance. I can't wait to see what it skyrockets up to next.
It's almost like you should have asked someone.
god i didn't i didn't think i just sort of i just like the next day i was like i guess i call the i've got insurance yeah so i call it i log it i do my thing when i was in chicago um your pal your parallel parking was a hit and run um i was living in in a lincoln square apartment and i'm pretty sure it was a halfway house that was across the street uh-huh I was parallel parking.
I don't recall hitting the car. I don't know that I did. I parked, I get out and I see there's a scratch on the car in front of me, but nothing on mine. but it was like where I would have turned in.
And I panicked, thought I hit them, went to leave a note, wrote a note, went and put it in the windshield, and there was a bunch of people that lived in the halfway house hanging out front, and they were like, what are you doing? And I was like...
i i think i hit this car i'm gonna leave a note and they're like no don't don't do that don't leave that note what are you talking about this car's all up already so you potentially in leaving that note would have made yourself liable for something that you had nothing to do with yes if this person was not sure if i had done it or not So I was in this dilemma.
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