Express 612; Life After Lifespring (Lifespring) / Meese?s Moves (Ed Meese)

The. Little. Things like spring change. Over here they take the human psyche into a mess around with my. Profile. I mean the controversial former attorney general who's coming back to the state got his start. Good evening I'm ginger Casey. Four hundred and fifty dollars. The human potential

company Lifespring offers weeklong workshops that promise quote a quantum leap in the quality of your life unquote. Most of life springs 300000 customers have made that leap successfully. But one Berkeley woman landed in a psychiatric ward after taking the workshop. She blames Lifespring for triggering her psychotic breakdown and she's taking her case to court in what promises to be a highly charged trial that begins next week in San Francisco. Peter ground reports on her case and the controversial methods of Lifespring. I walked in here Wednesday night and I looked around and I said Who are these people. And at that moment I would have paid to get out. After last night I realize all these people I'm just like. Come to life spring or at least the glimpse of life springs basic training course that

it's willing to reveal in the film. The weeklong seminar appeals primarily to young professionals seeking inner peace and career advancement Lifespring promises both for $450. My name is Dick and yesterday was really a nice day and I had a nice day nice day. Days ago and 3 great things happened during the what do you want thing I did not discover what I wanted. But at the end when I started crying I discovered what I had which is in there is absolutely everything I need to do to do anything I want to do. String teaches that you can achieve anything you want to by casting aside your old self image and taking full responsibility for everything in your life so Lifespring trainers have no formal psychological training and the company calls its course. Adult education not therapy hiring. And I finally left the room and said I don't do this anymore and I

mean it's scary but I finally see now where you are now. So you're left this person that you're going from going with Oh yeah now do you get that you're accountable for going in there and being wrong. Well yeah I don't have the problem with. Me. Say Lifespring was the best thing that ever happened to this. Child. That basically. Don't want to take the. Chance. Because another really. Think that. Pamela Miller never got that far. The 44 year old Berkeley legal secretary enrolled in Lifespring at the suggestion of a prospective employer. Pam Miller has not had an easy life. She's a former alcoholic who delved heavily into drugs while suffering two broken marriages and the accompanying child custody battles. But that was behind her and Miller says even the worst moments of her past don't compare with the psychological devastation she suffered in Lifespring.

You know they were trying to make you feel bad and they try to make you feel good and there be a lot of lights and loud music and and meditation or what they called. Guided visualizations and and there were a lot of people who after each exercise would be crying and things like this and it was. I didn't respond that way. I just didn't respond that way I was sort of observing and starting like oh you know this isn't I don't know about this. And by Friday morning when I woke up I realized that I was not comfortable. So I called my small group leader as I was instructed to do if you have any problems if there's anything Ross and he worried about call your small group leader. So I did what I was told and he said oh don't worry about that. You know just finish the training you'll see everything's going to be fine well trusted that when you know things were feeling bad when things were going wrong in the chorus Why didn't you just leave the people that dropped out were. Rude. Sort of not ridicule but scorned. Some people love war.

Well yes and yes. And the trainer held up the. Pamphlets that you sign and saying these people left you know and there was like a fan of them you know these people have left in the rest of us when those people can't you know do it in life. And it goes on for hours I mean Saturday it's like from 10:00 in the morning until one in the morning or midnight I mean it's like 12 or 13 hours of this with one break to get a hamburger you know and by the end of it I was that was they did I mean I wasn't there anymore I was. Sliding into a severe psychosis and. Did not return for the last day of training. And. Was taken to a mental hospital on Sunday. And I spent five days and then hospital totally psychotic. I thought that I was the only survivor that locked trapped in a locked room and I didn't know her. I thought that I was in Auschwitz for dust and that there were

Nazis kicking in hobnail boots and I thought I was going to die. Miller is sure that it was Lifespring and not her previous alcohol and drug use that pushed her over the edge. Her lawsuit charges Lifespring with negligence fraud false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional damage. She's asking for more than 5 million dollars in damages. How dare they take the human psyche and and mess around with it like this. We have made every attempt to give Lifespring the chance to tell its side of the story. We asked for permission to videotape the Lifespring training course and we requested an interview with a company representative. After initially welcoming our interest and assuring us that it has nothing to hide Lifespring turned down all of our requests on the advice of its attorneys who told us that Lifespring could harm its chances for a fair trial in the upcoming Pamela Miller case. Off camera company denies that its training is harmed anyone and points to a

study commission that found no evidence of psychological casualties among a group of three hundred fifty Lifespring participants box. But Pamela Miller's attorney John Wiener discounts the credibility of that study and points to life springs internal records as evidence of numerous casualties. So you're saying each of those is a report of a problem that a participant had some problem that a participant had. Ranging from minor problems to the more severe policy but there's at least at least several hundred and perhaps thousands of cases of what you and I would call severe problems in its 15 year history Lifespring has been the target of more than two dozen damage suits. All but two were settled out of court. A Washington Post article reported that Lifespring has paid claims as high as eight hundred thousand dollars but the company denies that and won't disclose the actual settlement terms. Nevertheless Lifespring has prospered earning well over 200 million dollars by some

estimates enabling life springs founder and principal owner to live in a two million dollar timber and mansion. That man is John Hanley a veteran of the human potential movement and former colleague of asd founder Werner Erhard or at least if I could be good have people know what we know about them. They'd be so excited they could hardly sit still. Perhaps you. Would. Sit still for a family's life sprinklers if they knew more about you. Hanley is a convicted felon in 1969. He was found guilty of six counts of mail fraud in a sale scam involving an Iowa toilet cleaning service. A federal judge gave Hanley a five year suspended sentence and a thousand dollar fine. I made it in 1975 that Wisconsin Justice Department charged Hanley with running a pyramid scheme. Hanley paid a cash settlement to avoid going to court in that case. Attorney John Wiener claims that Lifespring is yet another of John Hanley's pyramid schemes. But this one threatens

its victim's sanity as well as their checkbooks. There's nothing there's nothing illegal about having a business this is a capitalist economy. I'm all for people making money. The problem with Lifespring is they make money by hurting people are part of what they do is to hurt people and the way they make money. Weiner claims the Lifespring course uses thought reform or brainwashing to turn students into unpaid company recruiters in the process. Some students become casualties. The system is set up. By lice brain where they break down a person's psychological defense mechanisms through hypnosis through the various exercises they do and then they attempt to build them up with the Lifespring philosophy so they will become deployable agents and unfortunately they do it at the expense of some of the participants who end up in mental institutions as a result of the Lifespring training. Weiner himself could make more than 2 million dollars if the jury awards Pamela Miller the

full amount she's asking for. And the personal injury attorney is looking for other clients. But recently Weiner had to amend another damage suit he'd filed against Lifespring because one of the four listed plaintiffs had never given formal recognition of why haven't why did you represent her Lifespring why Israel may bring us to that possible breach of ethics in court. I respect. Laurie Murphy's. Fear of suing Lifespring goods. She's not the only one there's a lot of people have come to me. Who. Initially think of suing them with and just get scared because of what their fate of what life means going to do to them because of what they've already done to them and you know and I hope that this is not cause turning onto our result. 3 began. This is. Emotional exercises to prod them to examine their personal and

professional relationship. And likely most of hold me's new students are recruited to the 300 dollar seminar by its graduate. None of that is surprising. Once you know that what I mean is run like 10 months and Lifespring graduate who also worked as life's rings business manager for two years I was there because I believe the work they do is good. I believe they make a tremendous difference in our world to the positive and I believe there are some people who would like to take advantage of a good thing and they do what they do with their derogatory remarks. I have never experienced some of the things that this company is accused of and when I read it in the newspaper I have to re read it sometimes because I can't see how they get you can't get there from Texas. I can't see how they can possibly unless the trains have changed substantially which I don't believe they have come to this conclusion Lifespring has been sued dozens of times and we talked to a woman who said in going through life spring it made her psychotic.

It caused her to have a psychotic break. I know the Lifespring basic real well. And my point of view and that's all I can give you is that I would be willing to bet this woman had problems coming in. I know of nothing I have said I have borne three children and a sister in raising three others. It's five of them attended the basic If I thought there was anything in the world in there that would harm them my children would not have attended the basic. I was trying to be open and loving but I didn't want to. I blew it. I got months and stresses that Hillary is not a clone is like spring but it never was much the same emotional grandma Pat Munson's personal philosophy coincides with when life springs teaching that everyone is totally responsible for what happens to them. How far does that go you're doing it for me. For me it for me it's 100 percent true. I am the only one that makes choices in my life.

You develop the disease. Cancer. You're responsible You bet. You're born with a birth defect. Are you responsible. From my point of reference yes. From YOU ARE YOU DO YOU CARE. Together we share from this is we need to get past months and also believes that people who attend the coarsely for life's prayers are accountable for any problems that result. Do you remember your life for this one success the company did everything possible to screen out people who might be harmed by the training. Applicants were warned that the course stirs up intense emotions and those who appeared to be unstable were turned away. Part of my responsibility when I was there as business manager was to be involved in a portion of the screening process. I sincerely believe that Lifespring and that's the only train I can really speak with any knowledge about because I haven't worked for any other company like that. Makes every effort. To

screen their people to the degree that I feel is responsible beyond that it's your money. Take your chances. In the Pamela Miller trial Lifespring can be expected to present a vigorous defense of its practices by arguing that its teachings are protected by the First Amendment and that brainwashing is not a recognized scientific phenomenon. But in the end it will come down to Pamela Miller's claim that life springs quest for more money caused her to experience a psychological nightmare. They might win but at least I will have known that I have done everything I can at this point to. I mean I'm only one person I am only one person but what happened to me should not happen to anybody. This week's inauguration of George Bush as president brings to a close eight

years when Ronald Reagan and his team set the agenda for the nation. One of the most controversial members of that team was Ed Meese who started as advisor to the president and ended up as Attorney General Meese left office last fall after his ethics had been seriously questioned. Even though he was investigated three separate times. No charges were ever filed against him. MEESE recently returned to his roots in the Bay Area at least part time with an appointment to the Hoover Institution at Stanford. Spencer Michaels talked with him about his years in power and his future. For more than two decades Ed Meese could be found at the center of controversy. None so intense as that surrounding his own ethics as U.S. attorney general. This to me is why did you help with that. I don't know that I helped What. All I did when I was in the White House is do as we did with every other company individual organisation.

Well the controversy hasn't ended. ICE has left the contentious hallways of Washington for posts to a think tank the Heritage Foundation in D.C. and this one the Hoover Institution on the Stanford campus bases for his new career. I do a considerable amount of speaking. I do some writing. I've spent enough time in government I like to stay in the private sector. There are a lot of reasons but not the least of which is the fact that they haven't made a lot of money during my career except when I was in the private sector. And so what I'd like to do is now build up what's necessary to have some kind of a retirement Miss never has been affluent half a century ago. Ed Meese was growing up in this house in Oakland the oldest of four sons. His father served as Alameda County Treasurer and tax collector and sent young Edwin to Yale and to bolt law school on the UC campus. That campus erupted with student sit ins and anti-war protests in the early 1960s and me says a young deputy district attorney advised

Governor Edmund Brown to call in the police. He did in the police cleared the hall. Meese and other deputy DA's on the scene pioneered the mass arrest techniques that would later become routine in California protests throughout the 60s. I had concerns as a government official to be sure the law was obeyed. My only concern was that people would disobey the law and when people disobey the law then they had to be prosecuted for it. Today talking about those campus protests. Nice sticks to his guns. Do you feel more kindly toward those protestors that they had a point worth making. Maybe you didn't realize then. Well I don't know. No I don't think so. I think the point was being made much better by those who didn't involve themselves in illegal acts in the mid sixties as a part time lobbyist in Sacramento for state prosecutors missed caught the eye of Governor Reagan and joined the new

administration as Clemency secretary where he heard pleas to spare the life of convicted cop killer Aaron Mitchell. The appeal was turned down and Mitchell died in the gas chamber. I don't think any of us like it when a person puts himself in the position because of his criminal activity that the death penalty must be imposed upon him. But when he does do that and subject himself to the imposition. The death penalty then the public officials responsible. The Department of Corrections the judges and others have the responsibility of carrying out the law. Mrs. philosophical and personal compatibility with Ronald Reagan assured his advancement. First in Sacramento and later in Washington his presidential advisor and then as attorney general he became the flag bearer for conservative causes. He calls the election of George Bush a landslide that proves most Americans have adopted conservatism. What a conservative stands for they can swear they stand for free market economics. They stand for a position of leadership in the United States and seeking world peace

that they stand for peace through strength. They are there for individual freedom. Today the so-called liberal movement as you call it has drifted far to the left and today the what we might call the conservative values represent mainstream America. But Mrs. role as conservative guru has been overshadowed by the controversy over his ethics special prosecutors looked into several allegations that he violated conflict of interest laws by owning stock in telephone companies while participating in government decisions affecting those companies. But he failed to pay his income taxes on time that he pushed for a Mideast oil pipeline at the behest of a friend. That he helped the Savings and Loan official get a high level government job while Delaine payments on a home loan that he got jobs for others who had helped him. The special prosecutor concluded that while Mays probably broke three laws there would be no prosecution because there was no pattern of disobedience and no motivation for personal gain.

He was certified not as clean but as having committed no crime. As you and I know from everyday behavior one can be a despicable person and commit no crime. Professor Robert post like many Americans who have followed Mrs career through the media has serious questions about the attorney general's actions post teaches constitutional law and professional ethics at Mrs alma mater last. The real issue around at least is did he act in a morally appropriate way for someone of that stature of that office. And that's the cloud that hangs over his head. He left a wake and ethical wake wherever he swam and that tended to cloud the waters for his other policies. Well I don't think there's any basis for people using me as an example of ethical problems there's no question that there's been a lot of political attacks there's been a lot of distortions by the news media. But if anything I would hope I would be an even an example of someone who refused to bend to those attacks who ultimately got the truth proved. And the record before the court and that on that basis was totally exonerated.

Well there certainly seems to be an appearance of impropriety. I don't think there's any such appearance in the mind of most people who've looked at the facts. There is a perhaps of people who've been misled by the news media and this is why I resent very much the one sided press attention that's been given to this by some of the people in the news media. But when you look at the facts it is very clear and that that at no time have I done anything that is improper unethical or illegal. But at the same time the independent counsel indicated that he thought that you had been involved in things that were very questionable that might have been criminal activity but he didn't want to prosecute. Well and the reason they didn't want to is he knew there was no case there is to me as you always laugh off these ethics questions but a lot of people think that there's something there. There's nobody who has looked at the facts who is objective and reasonable who would say that there's anything there. And there are far more people who are knowledgeable about this who have come to exactly the opposite conclusion. A favorite target of Democrats at least took stands on legal and social issues

that thrust him into the limelight even before the ethical questions around him and says that he was critical of the American Civil Liberties Union long before George Bush made it an election issue. He heartily endorsed the report of his own commission on pornography which took a hardline stance especially against violence and child porn. Current federal laws are being violated and thus I am committed to redoubling the federal effort to ensure that those criminal elements who are trafficking in obscenity are pursued with a vengeance and prosecuted to the hilt. Morning gentlemen. He advocated more widespread testing for drug use and he thought the Supreme Court's Miranda decision which requires that criminal suspects be advised of their rights to be silent and to have an attorney hampered the police and favored the criminal. My concern with the Miranda rule is that many times totally voluntary confessions or statements are made and then these are thrown out by the courts on technicalities that have nothing to

do with arriving at the truth and I don't think that's a good idea. Shouldn't a suspect in a crime be told that he has certain rights that he has a right to an attorney that he doesn't have to talk. I have no problem with that that's been done by the federal government for Karsh 60 years that's the essence of MAHER I don't know I don't know if it's the way in which Miranda is applied in the courts. Things such as as I say voluntary statements being thrown out on technicalities or the fact that a person who now makes up a story when he gets to the stand. Cannot even be asked Why didn't you tell that to the police officer if that was true at the time. Those are the kinds of things that I think are part of the complexities of the Miranda rule that shift the balance too much in favor of the criminal and against society. My own perspective is really quite different. I tend to see as much of a threat organize law enforcement as I see from organized crime. They're each in my judgment a threat and they each need to be controlled. I mean conservatives often say that this allows people who are guilty to go free in fact that seems to be not very well supported me says

already begun writing arguing the new has conservative positions in articles and meetings with colleagues with whoever but out of government. He may not have the ear of the influential and well-heeled coterie that it was surrounded President Reagan with his association with Reagan and his friends often is interviewed by journalists as the key to me says personality. The book on Ed Meese I think you started out in modest circumstances you rapidly moved into circles that seemed to be above you at least economically. You heard this analysis you've read it I'm sure. And I wonder what you think of that sort of idea that it would only be natural to try to emulate to try to get into that leak. No I've never tried to get into that league and I've never had any interest in it. I've been interested always in what I was doing. I enjoyed being a deputy district attorney. I didn't make an awful lot of money but I enjoyed the work I enjoyed being in state government with Ronald Reagan. I stayed there longer than I'd planned. I never really did plan to make

any money I have made some money in business and elsewhere but quite frankly I found that didn't satisfy me very much I enjoyed doing things and being a part of the action and law enforcement and public policy matters and so on and that's what that's really been my interest as the former attorney general walks the campus travels around the country. He says he finds that his image is mostly intact. Well I think there's an image as we talked about earlier sort of a distorted image created by some people in the press. But I think more people have the correct image at least. I can hardly walk through an airport without people coming up and thanking me or congratulating me things like that when the great history book is written someday aren't you concerned about being remembered for your troubled past and all the questions about your ethics rather than for the reforms you instituted. I think this is something that you can't spend your time worrying about. You do what you what you know you should do. You complete that and

you go on to something else and that's what I'm doing now and I'm not spending my time worrying about people in the 50 years. This may not mean watering the Justice Department to an internal Justice Department report on the case which was released this week concluded that he had engaged in quote conduct which should not be tolerated of any government employee especially not the attorney general unquote. Lisa's lawyers called the report a travesty of justice. Next week on express an exclusive report on the story behind the murder of a young security guard in a drug infested Oakland housing project. And we'll

profile a former street drunk who's turned his life around and is helping others to do the same. That's all for tonight. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again next week. Good stuff.