Personally, Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, seems a bit wacko to me. And her role in the last previous administration, especially it’s resistance to democracy, is extremely troubling.
At the same time, I have to respond to claims about Lifespring, so that her participation in Lifespring can be given some perspective. According to All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, today:
Ginni Thomas [in the early Eighties] was working for a Republican congressman when she became involved in a, well, a cult, known as Lifespring.
The term “cult” is used here as a pejorative, to suggest there is something wrong with the group (and by implication, Ginni Thomas). Originally, cults were groups with devotional religious practices, typically associated with a person or place. But people now use the term cult without any rigor about what it means.
So, what does it mean for Hayes to say she was “involved in” a “cult”? It’s vacuous.
Hayes cites The Washington Post as writing:
There are experts who believe Lifespring is a dangerous company that uses psychological tricks to manipulate minds….
Thomas gave her opinions for the article in which she says “she was confused and troubled by exercises”.
I should say that I took a variety of courses from Lifespring in the 1980s and her descriptions of exercises don’t match any that I remember. However, Lifespring tried a lot of different exercises over time, and her experience may or may not be authentic.
Thomas says that other trainees pressured her to “keep her commitment to Lifespring”. In my experience, a very wide spectrum of society participated in Lifespring. It therefore had its share of zealots and crazies.
In fact, there is a lot of similarity between Lifespring and evangelical Christianity. There is a feeling that participants have discovered something vital to life and want to pass it on to others. People outside the organization tended to be skeptical or hostile to Lifespring. The courses pushed people to improve themselves, and part of that was getting people out of their comfort zones, so that they could develop better self-esteem.
For those in businesses and families, finding out their person is suddenly more assertive and stands up for themselves can be quite a shock. Many groups depend on the quiet submission of members, and when members start to think for themselves, it can be, well, disruptive.
In fact, I had a conversation earlier today with a person I know from Lifespring, who told me about her experience as a member of a Big Eight accounting firm in the 1980s. (There actually were eight). She was warned behind the scenes not to get involved because it could be career limiting behavior.
So, a “commitment to Lifespring” is, in its deepest sense, a commitment to self actualization—to living the best life possible.
But if you have crazies in your life, then their interpretation could be different, and if they were empowered by Lifespring, I’m sure they could be very vocal about it.
According to Hayes:
In 1986, after she escaped Lifespring and was deprogrammed, Ginni Thomas spoke at an event for former cult members.
He then shows a clip of Thomas in another group saying she wants to expose Lifespring and keep other people going through that experience. (The words, “escaped”, “deprogrammed” and “cult” are all unwarranted here.)
After that, Ginni Thomas married Clarence Thomas and went to work in various right-wing groups. (I would call them cults, but then, isn’t that just me being pejorative?) Which brings us to last year, when she encouraged Mark Meadows to sign on to the illegal plot to stop the lawful ascension of Joe Biden to the presidency.
I have to say, given my experience with Lifespring, it looks very much like skills she learn in her courses helped her to be more effective. It’s a little bit like finding out that a kid I went to church with grew up to be a traitor to the United States. I don’t like the outcome, but did prayer help them get ahead?
I realize hosts and networks like Chris Hayes and MSNBC need to get viewers, and for that reason they tend to sensationalize things. I think Hayes needs to be more careful about tying Ginni Thomas to Lifespring. That devalues his commentary on her. What she’s done is sufficiently horrible enough on its own that he doesn’t need to wander off into critiquing a group he apparently knows nothing about.
Lifespring helped hundreds of thousands of people, and many of them in my experience have not gone around damaging society. They may have simply picked up on one of the most important takeaways: that it is our love for those around us and our connection with them that counts.
Nor is Lifespring specifically right-wing, although I can see how its philosophy that each person is individually responsible for their experience of life could be used by the right wing as a sop.
For perspective, I’m going to tell you a bit more of what I know about the origins of Lifespring. I’m going to give you the inside scoop (to the degree I know what went on inside). Before Lifespring, there was Mind Dynamics.
Mind Dynamics was founded in 1968 by Alexander Everett, who started (with others) the human potential movement. Everett used concepts developed by José Silva and Edgar Cayce. He pulled in techniques from theosophy and other esoteric practices to develop a course primarily for businessmen. He hired a number of trainers who went on to found the human potential organizations of the Eighties. Wikipedia lists several in its article on Everett, but important people include Werner Erhard (founder of est), John Hanley (founder of Lifespring), and Stewart Emery (founder of Actualizations).
According to Everett (as told in one of his Inward Bound courses), the name “Lifespring” was the title of the newsletter for Mind Dynamics. Everette says that the first Lifespring course was the Mind Dynamics training. Hanley took the course materials and stamped “Lifespring” on them. This was in 1974, shortly after Mind Dynamics closed down in 1973.
I took a basic training from Lifespring in 1983. All together I took about six courses. I did not find Lifespring to be cultish (it didn’t focus on a specific person or location, nor did it insist on strict conformance, nor did it have any overtly religious aspect). It was confrontational and experiential. It made me happy. Well, I chose to be happy, as a result of my experiences, including the large number of people I met.
I did not take any of the other Mind Dynamics derivatives, like est or Actualizations, although I did take course from Alexander Everett (sadly deceased in 2005). However, I’m told (by actual participants) that est was like Lifespring, only harsher. While Lifespring probably had about 400,000 participants over its lifetime, est is estimated to have had over a million.
Therefore, I’m willing to bet that many people on Daily Kos have had experiences with these trainings or ones like them. Lifespring (and presumably est) had major operations in the Washington, DC, area, so I would be shocked if there were not many, many high level officials who have taken one or more of these courses. Attacking them as cults doesn’t serve the public.
Instead, we might want to think more carefully about the individual. We have someone, Ginni Thomas, who apparently does not believe in democracy or the rule of law. Her right-wing ideologies are unsuitable for the United States. If Chris Hayes or anyone else wants to attack Ginni Thomas based on her associations (an iffy proposition that equates to guilt by association), they might want to associate her with Clarence Thomas.
I think that tells you all you need to know about the woman.