Lifespring Cult

Summary

Flightless Bird: “Lifespring Cult”
Hosted by David Farrier
Episode Date: June 2, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, journalist David Farrier explores the infamous American cult “Lifespring,” which emerged from the Human Potential Movement of the 1970s. Through an in-depth interview with listener Jennifer—whose mother joined Lifespring when she was a child—the team examines how a self-improvement program meant to unlock “human potential” slowly became manipulative, damaging, and cult-like. The episode documents the organization’s psychological toll on individuals and families, drawing connections to similar contemporary movements like Landmark Forum.

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Key Discussion Points & Timeline

1. Introduction to Lifespring and the Human Potential Movement

[00:21–03:20]

• David and Rob introduce Lifespring as a group at the intersection of self-help and cult.
• Discussion of the popularity of self-improvement groups in America compared to New Zealand.
• Rob and David joke about their own “potential” and share stories about car mishaps (setting a casual, confessional tone).

Notable Quote:
“America just seems to do [cults] so much better. And by better, I mean worse.”—David Farrier [01:44]

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2. Exploring the Human Potential Movement & Large Group Awareness Training

[12:55–18:49]

• The origins of the Human Potential Movement in 1960s counterculture are explained.
• Introduction to “Large Group Awareness Training” (LGAT), the style of workshops Lifespring typified.
• LGAT’s hallmarks: marathon seminars, pressure, techniques akin to brainwashing, personal revelations in a group context.

Notable Quote:
“Tony Robbins kind of fits into this world. He’s a more modern, adjacent version of ‘there is so much in us and we can do so much more than this lame life you’re currently living.’”—David Farrier [13:51]

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3. The Story of Jennifer and Her Mother’s Involvement

[18:50–46:59]

a) Jennifer’s Childhood and Lifespring’s Reach

[18:50–24:10]

• Jennifer, from California, shares her memories of her mother joining Lifespring when Jennifer was eight.
• Her mother’s increasing absenteeism is noted: “She would come home and just leave us a note saying, I can’t talk to you for a week.” [21:28, Jennifer]

b) Family Intervention and Famous Deprogrammer

[23:01–25:07]

• Intervention attempted by Jennifer’s aunt, grandparents, and a cult deprogrammer (Evelyn Einstein, relative of Albert Einstein).

Notable Quote:
“They initially found...Evelyn Einstein. She actually has a fascinating story.”—Jennifer [23:42]

c) What Was Lifespring Actually Doing?

[25:07–27:33]

• Insert from an archival news report: Lifespring marketed self-improvement but applied intense pressure, borderline brainwashing, and hosted exercises involving shaming and stripping.
• Members suffered breakdowns, mental health crises, and in some cases, deaths from program negligence.

Notable Quote:
“Just the same as if they put a gun in her temple and pull the trigger. That’s the way I feel about it.”—Gail’s parent, news report [26:48]

d) The Fallout: Breakdown of Family

[33:31–40:41]

• Courts intervene; Jennifer and her sister move in with their aunt.
• Jennifer’s mother rewrites the narrative, accusing her family of kidnapping.
• Jennifer avoids her mother for decades; mother continues to champion Lifespring.

Notable Quote:
“40 years later, they’re still married. They still think that Lifespring was what brought—they, Lifespring brought them together.”—Jennifer [37:59]

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4. Long-term Impacts and Reflection

[40:25–46:59]

• Jennifer’s mother’s mental health deteriorates (multiple manic episodes and bipolar diagnosis).
• Jennifer reflects on being a “people pleaser” and how her childhood experiences with her mother’s cult membership shaped her.
• Ongoing generational trauma in her family.

Notable Quote:
“If I’m doing what you want me to do, you won’t leave.”—Jennifer [46:59]

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5. Deconstructing Lifespring: Techniques and Cultural Context

[47:54–53:20]

• Rob and David react to Jennifer’s story, reinforcing the manipulative tactics Lifespring used: pressure and release, interrogation, and emotional rollercoasters.
• Noted overlap with trends in modern-day self-improvement and therapy, touching on the dangers of “breakthroughs” and groupthink.

Notable Quote:
“By spending half the time making a person feel bad and then suddenly reversing the feeling through lots and lots of praise, the participants experience stress...and then moving through to like an endorphin high.”—David Farrier reading from Life 102 [50:10]

• Ginny Thomas (wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) is mentioned as one prominent critic, troubled by sexualized and shaming exercises in Lifespring.

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6. Lifespring’s Legacy: Landmark Forum and the Perpetuation of LGATs

[53:20–54:03]

• Landmark Forum, a similar organization still around today, is directly connected (via personnel and methodology) to Lifespring and other 70s LGATs.
• Even today, lawsuit and allegations of psychological harm surface around Landmark.

Notable Quote:
“Landmark sprung out of this shit…a very clear line from this very cultish thing to current Landmark today.”—David Farrier [53:04]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “She would come home and just leave us a note saying, I can’t talk to you for a week.”—Jennifer [21:28]
• “Nobody saw the side I saw…for years I saw her…grab my sister…dig her nails in and hold my sister there. So I saw that violent side that nobody even knew existed.”—Jennifer [42:30]
• “Her weakness is what let Lifespring in. When I think about cults and the type of people they prey on, she is that person. And so I don’t even blame her for getting into Lifespring because it just makes sense.”—Jennifer [45:21]
• “Are there specific groups now or fads or things that we will look back on and we’ll go: Holy, what were we thinking?”—Rob [52:15]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:21 — Introduction to cults/self-help in America
• 12:55 — The Human Potential Movement & LGAT explained
• 18:50 — Jennifer introduces herself and her mother’s Lifespring involvement
• 23:42 — Cult deprogramming attempt by Evelyn Einstein
• 25:07 — Archival news report on Lifespring’s brainwashing tactics
• 33:31 — Court intervention and Jennifer’s separation from her mother
• 40:25 — Present-day relationship and mother’s mental health
• 47:54 — Hosts deconstruct Lifespring’s cult techniques
• 53:04 — Lifespring to Landmark Forum: the legacy of LGATs

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Themes & Takeaways

• Manipulation via Self-Help: Lifespring used the language of healing and growth to isolate, pressure, and control.
• Enduring Trauma: Long after leaving, families and individuals continue to cope with the psychological impacts.
• Blurry Lines: Self-help movements, at their extreme, can cross into manipulation and cult-like behavior.
• Contemporary Parallels: LGAT offshoots like Landmark remain active—raising questions about exploitation via “personal growth.”
• Personal Resilience: Despite trauma, Jennifer builds a loving, healthy life as an adult.

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Closing Thoughts

This episode provides a vivid, personal account of how well-intentioned quests for self-improvement can cross the line into coercion, manipulation, and long-lasting harm—especially when exploited by opportunistic organizations at moments of individual vulnerability. Farrier and team remain empathetic but skeptical, asking uncomfortable questions about both past and present self-improvement movements.

Transcript

[David Farrier]

Hi, Davis.

[Rosabelle]

Hi, Rosabelle. What's the best thing that's happened in your day so far besides this call?

[David Farrier]

Well,

[Rob]

I bought myself a sneaky bag of lollies and I've been having little nibbles of lollies all day, which has been really nice.

[Rosabelle]

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.

[Rob]

Okay.

[Jennifer]

Yeah.

[Rosabelle]

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.

[Rob]

I haven't heard that phrase human potential, but I know what program in back

[David Farrier]

home here that you're talking about. What's it called?

[Rosabelle]

Do you remember? Because I forgot.

[David Farrier]

I think it's called the Landmark for Landmark Forum.

[Rosabelle]

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.

[David Farrier]

It all got a bit. A bit batshit, didn't it?

[Rob]

Yeah, but you bring them into the space, don't you? It's not just a call.

[Jennifer]

Like, I was never invited.

[Rob]

Nobody's ever wronged me enough to care.

[David Farrier]

Well, look, if you want to find

[Rosabelle]

out about the American version of a human potential group that does truly get out of control, keep listening, Rosabelle and

[David Farrier]

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.

[Rob]

More.

[David Farrier]

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 cults. LifeSpring has been described as a human potential organization founded in 1974 by three people, John Hanley, Robert White and Charlene Afromo. Pretty soon after joining, members found out it was incredibly hard to leave as their brains were still 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.

[Jennifer]

Flyless, flightless,

[Rob]

Flightless bird. Touchdown in America.

[David Farrier]

I'm a flightless bird.

[Rob]

Touchdown in America.

[David Farrier]

Rob, do you feel you have 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?

[Rob]

Full human potential? Probably. No.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. I mean, do we ever.

[Rob]

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 our tiny little brain can actually do.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And if you look around America at the moment, that feels very deeply obvious. Yes.

[Rob]

But on the spectrum of like full potential to ignorance is bliss. Like, I do think there is finding balance in there. True enough to where, I don't know that I. I need to do more. Reach my brain's full potential.

[David Farrier]

Have you ever. Have you had anyone in your family or have you ever wanted to go to a. I guess like a Tony Robbins or any kind of self help thing? Have you ever been dragged into one of those or come close?

[Rob]

No. I worked with a guy, he was my boss that loved that. And I even then was like, this stuff is.

[David Farrier]

This is not for me. Yeah, this is not gonna work.

[Rob]

Not for me.

[David Farrier]

I hear you.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

I feel this week I've reached my lowest potential. I had my first ever car crash.

[Rob]

Really?

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Do you not remember what happened?

[David Farrier]

So on Friday, Careful, the insurance people might be listening.

[Rob]

Sure.

[David Farrier]

Trade carefully.

[Rob]

Friday, you dropped me and a friend off at a roller rink.

[David Farrier]

Yes.

[Rob]

And you were driving. You almost hit a parked car. You get very close and I was like, david, David, David, it's close. Yes. But then you were like, I'm a great driver. I've never gotten in an accident.

[David Farrier]

I do remember that exact line.

[Rob]

And I said, you, you can't say that you're gonna get in an accident.

[David Farrier]

Now, I completely forgot about that conversation as I dropped you off. So what happened is.

[Rob]

And then you got in an accident like a day later.

[David Farrier]

So to be very clear, that night,

[Rob]

that night, very clear, how quickly karma caught up with you, huh?

[David Farrier]

It caught up with me almost immediately. So I gotta say, it was the most minor thing you could imagine, but it was adjacent to that near kind of swoop that I had with that other car that you're talking of, which, to be clear, didn't hit them, didn't come close.

[Rob]

I think I stopped you from doing it.

[David Farrier]

I was driving. I think there was a show on at the venue that's near our house. There was like a lot of like cars like clogged up the road.

[Rob]

What venue is near our house?

[David Farrier]

The one, the Greek one of those ones.

[Rob]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David Farrier]

So it was like a lot of traffic.

[Rob]

Okay.

[David Farrier]

And so I was crawling along. I think it was Rowena. No, it wasn't Rowena. It was Avocado heading towards Rowena Ave. One side packed with traffic. So I was really squashed up in there.

[Rob]

Yeah. For anyone that doesn't know the streets in that area, you can parallel park on one side.

[David Farrier]

Yes.

[Rob]

And drive both directions. But parallel park and drive. And from each side does not fit.

[David Farrier]

It's narrow.

[Rob]

Yes. Very narrow road. Especially with parked cars.

[David Farrier]

Exactly. So I was driving very slowly. Maybe 15, 20, I don't know.

[Rob]

I was crawling along 1520 on a 15, 20 mile an hour road. Were driving.

[David Farrier]

I was. 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, because 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 coyote walking like a. 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.

[Rob]

Clipped a parked car.

[David Farrier]

I clipped a parked car. I like to dramatize things. Is that a crash? Did I.

[Rob]

It's not a. Yeah, I mean, that's an accident.

[David Farrier]

It's an accident.

[Rob]

Yeah. You've talked to an insurance company.

[David Farrier]

I did, yeah. So I did that.

[Rob]

That's an incident report.

[David Farrier]

I. 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, 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.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Farrier]

And I thought, what do I do? Do I run? Do I get outta here? I looked around with the cameras on the houses looking at me.

[Rob]

Oh, that's what would've I Thought I

[David Farrier]

could get away with. No, I. I wrote a note on the car. I left my. My name, my number, my plates. I don't know, insurance thing. Left it under the thing. The story's 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.

[Rob]

Did they call you?

[David Farrier]

No one called me that.

[Rob]

No one's called.

[David Farrier]

You didn't call me. I called my insurance.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And logged the crash. No other insurance company. I was scared the owner was going to call me. Upset, barking at me.

[Rob]

I don't think you needed to call your insurance company yet. Then you don't need to file that in.

[David Farrier]

If I filed it.

[Rob]

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.

[David Farrier]

Oh, God. Yeah, you're right.

[Rob]

Yeah. Which is what? You know, if you were like, I

[David Farrier]

should have just paid for my door.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

And not logged it with the insurance.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

Fuck. I'm an idiot.

[Rob]

But if. If this person files the claim against you, then instead of paying for the whole sighting to be redone, I mean, you could offer to just pay for the repair.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Or you can do it through insurance. Pay your deductible.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Then they increase your insurance.

[David Farrier]

Straight to the insurance. I can't wait to see what it skyrockets up to next.

[Rob]

It's almost like you should have asked someone.

[David Farrier]

Oh, my 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.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

So I call it. I log it. I do my thing.

[Rob]

When I was in Chicago, your par. Your parallel parking was not a hit and run. I was living in a Lincoln Square apartment, and I'm pretty sure it was a halfway house that was across the street. 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.

[David Farrier]

Okay.

[Rob]

And I, like, panicked. Thought I hit them.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Went to leave a note, wrote a note, Went and put it in the windshield. And there was, like, a bunch of people that lived in the halfway house.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

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.

[David Farrier]

Don't do that.

[Rob]

Don't leave that note. What are you talking about? This car's all fucked up already.

[David Farrier]

So you potentially, in leaving that note, would have made yourself liable for something nothing to do with.

[Rob]

Yes.

[David Farrier]

If this person was.

[Rob]

I was not sure if I had done it or not.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rosabelle]

Okay.

[Rob]

So I was in this dilemma limbo.

[David Farrier]

I mean, I just went into, like, straight out, like, do the right thing mode.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Farrier]

I scraped the car. I leave a note.

[Rosabelle]

I have insurance.

[David Farrier]

It'll be fine. Didn't really think about the side of things, of just dealing with it on my own and not increasing my cost.

[Rob]

Well, I mean, that was. My immediate reaction was like, oh, I did this.

[David Farrier]

We're so lame. We're so, like, we're such pathetic goody goodies. That the initial reaction.

[Rob]

But then I did. I did realize it looked like it was one of those cars that just gets like, left on the street.

[David Farrier]

You're slowly decaying for weeks, slowly picking up months.

[Rob]

And there's like a lot of stuff in the back seat. And I think that's why they were like, what are you doing this car? I don't. We don't think you hit this car. Look at your car. Look at that car. I was just young and was like. I thought there was going to be street cameras and like, yeah, you're on camera. Someone reporting that I did this and that it was. And I was going to go to jail for this. And I was like this. I just need to pay my deductible and get it fixed.

[David Farrier]

Next time I hit a car or next time I hit anything in my car, I'm calling you.

[Rob]

Yeah, yeah.

[David Farrier]

Say, Rob, what do I do?

[Rob]

I do have a body shop. I've hit. I hit the stairs outside our studio once. Did you not?

[David Farrier]

Well, they're right there. I'm always scared I'm going to hit those stairs when I swing in.

[Rob]

I always do it when I get a new car.

[David Farrier]

That's the other thing. I'm in a different car.

[Rob]

Yeah, you're in a new car.

[David Farrier]

And I think. I don't know how wide it is.

[Rob]

It's almost without fail, though, within a few months of getting a new car,

[David Farrier]

you scrape the hell out of it somewhere.

[Rob]

Well, so, yeah, Matt, who you dropped me and him off at the roller

[David Farrier]

rink and I said, I've never crashed.

[Rob]

I. It was like a month into getting my last car, he opened his van door into the side of it, dented it. Car before that. I hit like a high curb and it just like scraped the whole bottom side.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, New car syndrome. You have a new car, it gets fucked up.

[Rob]

My current car, I hit those stairs and.

[Jennifer]

Oh, Rob.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Okay, there's a bit of background before I get into the doc. I want to talk a little bit about the atmosphere that we are playing in with this particular episode. There's a thing called the Human Potential Movement. Okay. It arose out of the counterculture of the 1960s, formed around a central concept of the extraordinary potential that is in all of us, but untapped.

[Rob]

So is this a religious organization or.

[David Farrier]

No, it is more like a bit, maybe hippie ish, a bit woo woo, a bit new age. Not about God, not like, not about a higher power.

[Rob]

And it's not like the Rajanishi or it's like meditation or a guru.

[David Farrier]

It is, I would say it is adjacent to that world.

[Rob]

Is there a leader? No, no leader.

[David Farrier]

Well, there are leaders, but not people that soup. And there's not like a central figure.

[Rob]

Not a central figure.

[David Farrier]

Which is why people that are into definitions of cults are like, technically this shit isn't a cult because there's not one key thing. It's more like a concept that was developed by a bunch of different people at the same time. And I would say that like Tony Robbins kind of fits into this world. He's a more modern, adjacent version of like, there is so much in us and we can do so much more than this lame life that you're currently living.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

So it's called the Human Potential Movement. I never heard of it until I started looking into LifeSpring. But it's basically looking to increase your happiness, creativity, fulfillment, and then you'll be happier, you'll do better in society, society will do better as a whole, et cetera. So out of the Human Potential movement came something called Large Group Awareness Training, or ALGAT for short. And this is groups of people that come together to do all the things that the Human Potential Movement advocates for. So just ascending and how good we are as people. But it's more organized. There's workshops, there's groups, there's weekends. And that's where the leaders come up. There's people that lead these groups.

[Rob]

Do you know what, what type of. When you say unlocking potential, what are they unlocking specifically?

[David Farrier]

I guess it is like how to

[Rob]

be a better person and help others. Is it how to like do math better?

[David Farrier]

Not math. It's more like your level of happiness and awareness and feeling like you are. It's weird to talk about because I Kind of bristle against all this stuff, but it's basically, it's, it's, it's, it's not to be smarter. It's about to be a more aware, more well rounded, better person. But you know those days where you kind of feel like your world is small and you're kind of like there surely there's more to this life. But how do I get it? And some people go to religion, some people go to drugs, but is that

[Rob]

through like servicing community? Is that. What are they actually? What is the action item?

[David Farrier]

We'll get into that.

[Rob]

Okay.

[David Farrier]

In the doc. A little bit more.

[Rob]

Okay.

[David Farrier]

It's making. But no, I. I would say overall as someone that definitely isn't an expert in this, from what I can tell, it's more you as a person. It's inherently selfish.

[Rob]

Okay.

[David Farrier]

You're not out to like help your fellow man.

[Rob]

Yeah. Help yourself.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. You're out to make yourself better at life.

[Rob]

Just be more actualized.

[David Farrier]

Be more actualized in who you are and what your potential is when. Whether that turns into making more money or being happier or being more open minded or feeling like you are ascending some kind of fucking bridge to total freedom like Scientology has. Is that kind of a vibe? And within these different large group awareness training sessions, they use things like meditation, biofeedback, jargon, self hypnosis, relaxation techniques, breathing, visualization, yoga. There's a whole bunch of shit. You say biofeedback, biofeedback, you're like plugging into like a bit of a WOOMU machine. Like you'll grab a rod and it will give you like a reading of like that sort of.

[Rob]

Okay.

[David Farrier]

Like the E Media and Scientology. Yeah, mostly. So large group awareness training. First one kind of appeared in the 60s. It was called the Leadership Dynamics Institute. Sounds kind of culty, right? Or sort of boringly culty. It was a private for profit company. It was owned by a guy called William Penn. Patrick. Again, all that shit. Personal development, self improvement. And then LifeSpring came out of Leadership Dynamics Institute. It was founded in 74 by three people. It was the most controversial of all of these kind of groups.

[Rob]

What region is this coming out of?

[David Farrier]

Really good question. Let's have a look.

[Rob]

LifeSpring, assuming this is an American, organizationally American.

[David Farrier]

So one of the founders of LifeSpring, John Henley, he was working at the time for Holiday Magic, which was a multi level marketing scheme at the time.

[Rob]

Cults and multi level marketing seem to have some crossover.

[David Farrier]

So much crossover. So much crossover. So while he was working for Holiday Magic. He took a course at the Leadership Dynamics Institute. And from there he developed LifeSpring. At its maximum, it had 400,000 members. Started in the 70s, defunct by the 90s. And I talked with a woman who was a child when her mother joined. And so this is kind of like LifeSpring through the perspective of a child at the time, which is pretty trippy. And the story is really weird. It includes a relative of Albert Einstein. So here we go.

[Rosabelle]

Chapter one, Latchkey kids.

[Jennifer]

Yeah, it's been a lot of things I didn't realize until I was an adult. And it actually just started really coming together over the past couple months.

[Rosabelle]

Last year, Flightless Bird got an email from Jennifer, who lives in California. It was one of those emails that was straight to the point, instantly intriguing. My mother joined LifeSpring when I was

[David Farrier]

around 10 years old.

[Rosabelle]

38 years later, we just spoke for the first time in 10 years. We went back and forth over email. And a few weeks ago we had a call.

[Jennifer]

My name is Jennifer. I live in Martinez, California. So Bay Area.

[Rosabelle]

She tells me her life almost completely revolves around her dogs and her partner. Things are stable and she's happy. But recently she's been thinking a lot about her childhood, mainly about her mother.

[Jennifer]

Because one of my most amazing memories with my mom is that she would always massage my head. And so we'd go out, I'd get tired, I'd put my head in her lap, she would massage my head and I have that memory over and over and over again. That was it. And I was always on, like I always had to be touching her.

[Rosabelle]

Jennifer holds so many good memories from when she was a kid, but she also remembers what happened Next.

[Jennifer]

So I'm 48 now, so it was around when I was 8 years old. My parents got divorced when I was 3 and my sister was 5. So we moved with my mom from New York to California because I had an aunt here. My dad stayed in New York. And so it was my mom with a three year old and a five year old. And then when I think I was around 8, is when she joined LifeSpring.

[Rosabelle]

In the 80s, LifeSpring was at its peak, a self help program that promised to help its members reach their full potential. It had three levels that you are meant to advance through, all for a fee, of course.

[Jennifer]

We thought that she was like out with her boyfriend. Like that's what we. I think that that's where my hero is always. She's always at work or she's with her boyfriend. She, you know, she just Wasn't home. So she was never really there. And we didn't really know. We didn't know anything about LifeSpring because we were so young.

[Rosabelle]

Jennifer describes her and her sister as being latchkey kids. They lived in this little apartment across the street from a park a block away from their school. So on some level, it was a dream suburban childhood. On the other hand, Jennifer just really wanted her mom around.

[Jennifer]

And then she started doing things. Like she would come home and she would just leave us a note saying, I can't talk to you for a week. Just like, on a piece of paper. Which was weird.

[Rosabelle]

This was all thanks to advice from LifeSpring.

[Jennifer]

And then she was spending a lot of weekends away. We had a lot of weekends with friends, some cousins in the area. Like, we were constantly spending weekends with other people.

[Rosabelle]

Things got worse when her mom did get a boyfriend. Not an excuse this time, but a real one. And he happened to be another lifespring member.

[Jennifer]

My aunt started realizing that we were constantly having them come over. And they started looking into it. And they heard my mom talk about LifeSpring. And that's when they put everything together.

[Rosabelle]

Jennifer was still in touch with her dad, but not often. Not often enough for him to get a hint of what was going on

[Jennifer]

because they had a bad marriage and bad divorce. We didn't have. We had, you know, regular annual visits with him, but we didn't talk on the phone very often. So my dad had no idea that any of that was going on because we didn't tell him anything was going

[Rosabelle]

on with her dad. Unaware of how things were going at home, Jennifer's aunt had to step in.

[Jennifer]

He would come over because my mom was missing, and she would find me hiding in the wall next to my mom's bed. It was pretty much just my aunt who saw her absenteeism. Brought my grandparents in.

[David Farrier]

Ah, cool.

[Rosabelle]

That was the next step.

[Jennifer]

Yeah. And they. And it was about two years in when they decided to try doing a deprogramming.

[Rosabelle]

Oh, wow.

[David Farrier]

So they. They basically saw that your mum was

[Rosabelle]

kind of off with this other group

[David Farrier]

and thought they would, like, try and step in to really get her out.

[Jennifer]

Yeah, to first, like, the goal was to get her out and away from her boyfriend. And if that didn't work, get us out.

[Rosabelle]

Chapter two, the rescue attempt. Her grandparents and aunt found a cult deprogrammer, a good one.

[Jennifer]

They initially found. I believe her name is Evelyn Einstein. She's a famous deprogrammer. And I think they said that she's a relative of Albert Einstein. She actually has a fascinating story.

[Rosabelle]

Not to get sidetracked, but Jennifer's right. Turns out Evelyn Einstein was adopted by Albert Einstein's son. She worked a few different jobs in animal control as a police officer and as a deprogrammer. And one day, Albert Einstein's adopted granddaughter turned up at Jennifer's house to try and convince her mother to leave lifespring.

[Jennifer]

My grandparents came, they had a barbecue. I remember being in the hallway when everything was happening. So everything seemed to be going smoothly with the intervention. Like bringing first in the dinner. We're gonna have dinner, we're gonna talk about things, catch up, you know, your parents are in town. And then, oh, here's these people coming over because we're gonna have an intervention. And so from what my aunt recently told me, my grandfather, he at one point just got very frustrated and had to leave because it had already been about four hours and it was not, it was not going anywhere.

[Rosabelle]

Her mom was in too deep. And if you're like me at this point, you're going, what was so bad about lifespring again? What was it doing? And I think this old news report is a good indication of what it was about up front.

[David Farrier]

Tonight, LifeSpring, one of the most controversial self improvement groups in the US A self improvement group attempts to encourage people to create more value and less stress

[E]

in their lives by claiming that people

[David Farrier]

can find within themselves the resources to help them cope with the world.

[Rosabelle]

This story went out on October 30, 1980 for Eyewitness News.

[E]

Driven by the complex pressures of modern life over the last decade, hundreds of thousands of American young people began searching for easy answers for mind altering drugs. The addiction of the next generation became mind altering organizations, the cults. Over the last five years especially America, has suffered an epidemic of sudden personality changes. The appeal of most of these organizations is to mainstream middle class young people. And the outward effects range from the dramatic, as in the case of the Hare Krishnas, to more subtle, as in the case of the Moonies. There is, however, still another category of mind altering Organization Members wear no robes and never panhandle at airports. They may be in the military or law enforcement or government. In short, most seem the guy or girl next door. And yet all these people have submitted to a technique experts tell us is akin to brainwashing. A semi psychological program. A mind game that helps some but apparently hurts others. This is lifespring.

[Rosabelle]

Towards the end of the report, Eyewitness News starts talking to the families of LifeSpring victims. Gail died from an asthma attack because the cult refused to intervene during a self help session.

[E]

Do you think that Lifespring contributed to the death of your daughter?

[David Farrier]

Just the same as if they put a gun in her temple and pull the trigger. That's the way I feel about it.

[Jennifer]

How could you stand there and watch a person gasp and beg and not

[Rosabelle]

do anything for for them?

[Jennifer]

I couldn't. Even if I hated a person, I couldn't stand there and watch them die.

[Rosabelle]

Other members suffered various meltdowns. The relentless pressure of the LifeSpring course too much to bear. I mean, these LifeSpring sessions were really intense. Yelling, screaming. Some former members have spoken of being made to strip in front of the group, face questions about their sexuality and sex life, and be shamed for their bodies and beliefs.

[David Farrier]

Do you hold Lifespring responsible for your wife's death? Absolutely. No doubt in my mind they caused it.

[Rosabelle]

Stuff like that is why everyone was so worried about her mum. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Support for Flightless Bird comes from Helix Now. Helix has been with us on this podcast since the beginning. We love to have them as a sponsor. They make premium mattresses and bedding that are customized to whatever your personal needs are and they're conveniently shipped straight to your front door, which they did for me and I've been sleeping on my Helix mattress ever since.

[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

Oh, I sleep hot.

[Rosabelle]

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[Rob]

My favorite part, though is rolling over to a cool part of the bed. So heaven. A mattress cooler? Yeah.

[Rosabelle]

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[Rosabelle]

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[Rob]

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[Rob]

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[David Farrier]

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[Rob]

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[Rosabelle]

I've seen your travel bag. It was horrible.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[Rosabelle]

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[Rob]

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[Rosabelle]

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[David Farrier]

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[Rob]

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[Jennifer]

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[David Farrier]

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[Jennifer]

She had no problem saying she was in Lifespring at that point, but she would not and still does not see that there was anything wrong with basically abandoning her kids and not being able to speak to her kids. You know, just, just with me it was hard because she was like my. She was my entire world. Yeah, like entire world. So I think for everybody, a lot of it was seeing the impact it had on me. That's when they really started to see that something was wrong. And so to see me, basically I would read in the closet all day, just hiding away because I was scared of everything that wasn't her. So they saw that and that's what really hit them.

[Rosabelle]

Despite having Einstein's relative involved, there was no getting rid of LifeSpring.

[David Farrier]

Things escalated.

[Rosabelle]

The courts had to get involved because, well, you can't just abandon your kids to go take part in a cult all day long.

[Jennifer]

After the intervention didn't work, my aunt, my grandfather had four daughters. So one of them got custody of us. And I do remember the court because I remember my mom bringing the principal of my elementary school, bringing the neighbors, us having to go to court to see if my aunt to become our guardian. My mom created the narrative to herself and anybody who had listened that her sister kidnapped us. It was always these, my sister kidnapped my kids and my parents had something to do with. So I want nothing to do with my parents. I want nothing to do with my sisters. She would call my aunt at all hours, leaving really just ranting messages on her answering machine accusing her of kidnapping us. She still feels that way. She feels as though her she has. She talks to every sister now except for the one who got custody of us.

[Rosabelle]

Jennifer's grateful her aunt got custody. She had a caregiver again.

[Jennifer]

It was after my 10th birthday. Cause I remember my 10th birthday party. So probably in between 10 and 11 she got custody of us when I was entering seventh grade.

[David Farrier]

Did you see much of your mom after that or did she kind of vanish from your sight?

[Jennifer]

We would see her weekly for probably a good year. I said we saw her weekly and we do therapy. Not with her. But she got married to the man she was dating, who she met in lifespring shortly after my aunt got custody of us. And we hated him. So her, she made that choice. That's where it pretty much became. You chose LifeSpring and Simon over your

[David Farrier]

kids at this point.

[Rosabelle]

And I'm curious to kind of pick your brain on this from a more

[David Farrier]

objective point of view with all the knowledge that you have now. What the fuck was your mum doing? What was she doing in there? You know, I can sort of imagine why is she learning new things? Is she. What. What the hell is. Like, what is she up to? Do we know?

[Jennifer]

It was almost like she was going to classes to become a stronger, more independent person.

[David Farrier]

She was almost off to like a

[Rosabelle]

therapy, kind of like a group that would help her get strong.

[Jennifer]

This big group of people, they would all support each other and bring each other up and, you know, you're going to. You're going to. We're going to teach you how to take control of your life. It was. It's almost weird, like the words like control and character and all, like picking yourself up and all of these things they did to her with the control. So it was very obvious, separate from family and friends. Like, you isolate the person, you build a community for them. They want to stay. She isolated herself from her family.

[Rosabelle]

Chapter 3 present day I think back to that first email I got from Jennifer. My mother joined LifeSpring when I was 10. 38 years later, we just spoke for the first time. That conversation had been a long time coming.

[David Farrier]

What's your relationship like with your mother now?

[Jennifer]

So we didn't talk for a long time. She would call me on my birthday, she would leave me voicemails. I ended up blocking her number for a long time. She would, like, find me on Facebook, so I ended up blocking her there too. I just was avoiding her.

[Rosabelle]

In short, Jennifer had made her own life separate from her mother. She found love. Love that was reciprocated.

[Jennifer]

I have an amazing family. I wasn't Nothing was missing, so I haven't needed her still.

[Rosabelle]

Mother and daughter have lived a 30 minute drive away from each other their entire lives. Jennifer says back on her 34th birthday, she saw her mum in the street. She promptly turned around and ducked around a corner, avoiding her. Her mum had married that Lifespring member. And while the cult had disintegrated, their allegiance to the Lifespring brand remained.

[Jennifer]

40 years later, they're still married. They still think that Lifespring was what brought they. Lifespring brought them together.

[Rosabelle]

But recently her mom's health has gone downhill. She had a fall. So they connected again.

[Jennifer]

So I went to visit her and my. They didn't tell her I was coming. So she just kind of saw me coming into the hospital room and just like her face just got so bright and she was so happy and then she just burst into tears. And then I almost started crying, but I didn't. It like I felt it coming. Then I was like, no, no, no, it's not happening. And she. Then for a solid hour, I didn't even sit down. My aunt sat down, I didn't sit down. And there were. They were. We were sharing a room with another person behind a curtain. So it was. It was a crowded space. And for an hour she ranted about. She like would go talking from one topic to another, always ending it with the bottom line is. But then never getting to the bottom line. And then she would go to the next topic. But it was very manic. It was like very. Just like her eyes were just like. And it was just.

[Rosabelle]

Sounds manic.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jennifer]

Just like one thing after another. After an hour where I just stood and stared at her. It was so weird. It was just very awkward. I felt like I was in just a. Like not. I was not me. It was like I was just. I was just present.

[David Farrier]

Like my body disassociated a bit probably as well, right?

[Jennifer]

Absolutely. And then she goes, the bottom line is I just love you so much and you coming today is just the greatest gift. And then she said, so how about you? I was like, holy.

[David Farrier]

A question. Yeah, a question to you after an hour.

[Jennifer]

And I said, you know, I can't have a relationship with her. She still can't acknowledge that she did anything. Like, if she can't take any accountability for what she created, the kind of mess that she kind of created in me, she can't take any accountability. I can't have a relationship with her.

[Rosabelle]

Her mum's rambling and overall demeanour was a sign of things to come. She got 5150'd in February, hospitalised against her will for a mental health crisis. That's why I'm not talking to her mum for this episode. It's really not possible.

[Jennifer]

She had been hospitalized before because she had a manic episode where she was in. And this is like her husband told my aunt this recently and now it's come to me. They were in Italy and she just started talking. Like for straight six hours she just talked and she would write things out and she would manically yell. And so when they got back to the States, she got hospitalized and she was diagnosed as bipolar.

[David Farrier]

Right.

[Jennifer]

And when we started talking about this recently and her behavior, that manicness was already coming out in kind. Like when we saw. When I saw her at the hospital

[Rosabelle]

for that hour, I can't help but think of that news report from the 80s about various LifeSpring members and what happened to them. It might be entirely unrelated, it might not.

[E]

LifeSpring's trail of alleged casualties leads to the Los Angeles area. This is Linda Smith, a graduate of lifesprings basic training. Days after she completed that training, her family tells us her personality began changing drastically. Inside of two weeks, her behavior had become so erratic, so bizarre, her family had her committed to a mental institution. Once released from the institution, Linda was under constant psychiatric care for several months. She lived in a fantasy world filled with dreams of LifeSpring. One day, Linda didn't go to work. She just sat on the sofa listening over and over again to the music they had played during her LifeSpring training.

[Rosabelle]

Jennifer's been remembering other things too, from her childhood. Maybe the stuff was there before the cult. Maybe the cult exasperated it. Whatever the case, LifeSpring certainly didn't seem very sensitive to its members mental health.

[Jennifer]

Nobody saw the side I saw. Actually, I saw the manic side of her. For years I saw her and my sister would fight and she would grab my sister by the arms and dig her nails in and hold my sister there. So I saw that violent side that nobody even knew existed.

[Rosabelle]

Chapter 4 Making Sense of it all over the last few months, Jennifer has been coming to terms with all of this. She's been thinking back to her childhood some more when her aunt stepped in. She thinks about what the other adults in her life must have seen at the time and what they made of it all.

[Jennifer]

People would probably just see it as a single mom struggling. She didn't have a well paying job. She, you know, lived in an apartment. She got child support. Our School was right down the street. We could walk to school. It wasn't. Nobody would notice our neighborhood babysitter. The park was across from our house. We were at the park. People didn't. They knew that something was wrong with her, but they. She was able to hide that she was doing this because it's not something that you really can see. We would have no food in the cabinet. I ate Mac and cheese. Like, still love it. But like macaroni and cheese, jello. Like those were the things that I ate constantly. Our milk would be spoiled in the fridge. But people didn't really see that. And I would steal money from her and buy books. So that's all I really ever did. I would steal money, buy books and read in my closet. And so people didn't see anything wrong with that. Oh, Jenny loves to read. That's a good thing.

[Rosabelle]

What were you reading?

[David Farrier]

Do you remember?

[Jennifer]

I was reading. Oh my God. It was Sweet Valley Twins. All I wanted to read was books about like happy families. Like Utopia.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Jennifer]

Like I wanted to be blond hair, blue eyed, living in the suburbs.

[Rosabelle]

The American dream.

[Jennifer]

Yeah. Kind of lacking a lot of that stuff. So I had this. I had the perfect family in my head, but knew I was never gonna have it. That was never gonna happen. Part of me wishes that people had been able to see it and had been able to. To help her before she got too deep. Because I think if it had been caught earlier on, before she started this relationship with her husband. Yeah, they could have gotten her out. But once she had him, there was no getting her out. It was done. Having all these conversations recently. We're putting so many pieces together.

[David Farrier]

It's like solving a puzzle of yourself. Right.

[Jennifer]

She's a very kind person. Like, she has an amazing heart, an absolutely amazing heart. She was very open, giving. She. Her weakness is what let life spring. It is her willingness to just always take on, take on, take on. It's like almost like she was like the perfect person to get sucked in. When I think. When I think about cults and the type of people they prey on, she is that person. And I've all. And so I don't even blame her for getting into LifeSpring because it just makes sense.

[Rosabelle]

I ask if she ever sees any chance her mother will see things through her eyes to offer any kind of apology.

[Jennifer]

I think that's gone. I don't think that. I think that she might be. She's, I think 80.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Jennifer]

I think that that ship sailed. Even now, to this day, it's still having Impacts on my family. And like it all goes back to that with the guardianship. That blew so much stuff up and it's caused so much hatred through generations of people.

[Rosabelle]

All this makes it even more remarkable that Jennifer has her own family today and she's really happy she got through it. Still, she thinks about different aspects of her personality and how much of that hearkens back to those early childhood years when her mother chose a cult over choosing her.

[Jennifer]

My cousin thinks that I tend to be a people pleaser because if, if, if I'm. If, if, if I'm doing what you want me to do, you won't leave. So she says I'm constantly just saying yes and I'm always agreeing, even if I disagree because I don't want to cause conflict. As I get older, it gets easier. Knowing that I created my own world for myself, that's the other thing. It's like I know that I took, I took what I needed and have brought it into my relationships, which was somebody's presence, just feeling of safety, somebody being there.

[David Farrier]

So yeah, that was Jennifer. Flightless bird listener. She wrote in a while ago and just kind of crazy timing that she has just been working through the stuff in the last, you know, four or five months with her mother and family and trying to figure out what that really weird childhood was like. And while that doc was playing, we were chatting a little bit and I think we both have that same it. Is that that central question you had of like, what the fuck was it? Like what was she doing for all that time?

[Rob]

Such meaningless, vague. Yeah, To Jennifer's point at one point was they were just preying on vulnerable people essentially.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And you pay to be there and you I guess think that you were having breakthroughs in there or I don't know, I mean if I was being, I don't know, any kind of self help thing. I mean I still have this barrier with therapy of like how much of this is helpful.

[Rob]

What if we find out therapy is

[David Farrier]

the new life considered a cult? So what the hell? I mean here in la it kind of feels that way sometimes. And to be clear, therapy, no, it is not very hard, but it's like that mindset of.

[Rob]

But when you're, you're. They were doing it because they thought they were improving their lives.

[David Farrier]

They, her mom.

[Rob]

Same way that therapy.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, they were in that mindset of I'm getting something out of this and to the point where her mum obviously thought cutting off my daughter and not spending time with her as she's a Young child is somehow okay.

[Rob]

Yeah. I mean the creepiest part for me is the like the trend of people becoming manic and just kind of losing it after leaving there. And whatever they were doing was so intense that it.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Broke these people and the word though.

[David Farrier]

There are examples within LifeSpring of people having to strip in front of the group. And like there's certain. Actually I took some notes. So there's a book called Life 102. It was a former participant. The author Peter Williams describes the basic technique of these marathon training sessions as pressure release, Good cop, bad cop, police interrogation style. And like a revival meeting in a church. By spending half the time making a person feel bad and then suddenly reversing the feeling through lots and lots of praise, the participants experience stress, react action first and then moving through to like an endorphin high. Yeah. So just like a roller coaster over an eight hour day. Yeah.

[Rob]

And. And just breaking these people that are searching for answers in community and.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Self improvement.

[David Farrier]

A prominent critic of LifeSpring, Ginny Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Ginny was a congressional aide. When she took the course, she was troubled by exercises that involved stripping, sexual questions and body shaming. After talking with the cult deprogrammer, she decided she needed to stop participating. So. Yeah. And also this was like a trend of the time, like 70s, 80s, 90s. This was a big thing. But one thing I did find out, which I talked to Rosabelle about at the beginning, was a thing that a couple of people in New Zealand I know got involved with called Landmark Forum. Do you know this?

[Rob]

I've heard of Landmark. Yeah. That's what I mean. That's the hard thing with some of these is like on paper it doesn't necessarily sound as bad.

[David Farrier]

Totally.

[Rob]

Which is kind of my joke about therapy now. But. But like in that time when this was happening, a lot of people thought it was amazing or just thought it was normal or. Or just something they didn't know about. It just makes me wonder what things now are the equivalent. Totally that.

[David Farrier]

And I think none of us are saying therapy is that.

[Rob]

No, no, no, no.

[David Farrier]

But it's just like that mindset is like these people thought, like we think about therapy now.

[Rob]

Yeah. Therapy as a whole is way too broad in general.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. And has a lot of evidence behind it.

[Rob]

Yes. But. But like are there specific groups now or fads or. Or things that we will look back

[David Farrier]

on and we'll go, holy, what were we thinking?

[Rob]

Yeah, this.

[David Farrier]

So Landmark Forum. I thought it was just a new Zealand thing because I'd worked with a couple of people that had done it, and essentially they were sessions that you'd go and do on a weekend. Part of it involved you bringing other people into the group. But when I was looking into Landmark, which spread to New Zealand, turns out the founders of LifeSpring, which we've been talking about this entire episode, also worked with a thing called Mind Dynamics, and that became the basis for Landmark Education, which turned into Landmark Worldwide, also known as. Best known for the Landmark Forum, which is what my friends did in New Zealand. So it all. My point is it all like Landmark sprung out of the shit.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Like a very clear line from like this very cultish thing to current Landmark today.

[Rob]

And it is all just like, spend this money and it's promising you the world as a result.

[David Farrier]

Landmark, I don't think is stripping people naked.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

In saying that, there's been a bunch of lawsuits within Landmark. There was one in 2004. A lawsuit was filed then accusing the business of causing a psychotic episode in someone who attended a Landmark seminar. And as a side bit of information, third episode, second season of Six Feet under, the plan that was based on. That was based on LifeSpring or parodying LifeSpring.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Thank you, Jenna, for talking to me for this. It's kind of just a crazy thing to think that you went through that as a kid. And also amazing. You built up your own amazing life out of that. Feedback.

[Rob]

Feedback.

[David Farrier]

If you have feedback. If you are a member ofLandmark or LifeSpring, FlightTheSpreadchatmail.com or other cults. Or other cults.

[Rob]

The cults you left, family members left.

[David Farrier]

We'd love to hear from you. Karen wrote in regarding timeshares. My husband works for Wyndham and is the general manager of a timeshare property in a beautiful part of Arizona. We are not timeshare owners. And in order to make it worth your money, you have to use them strategically and often. Our previous neighbors were retired owners with platinum status.

[Rob]

I'm sure my parents have platinum status. They were. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

They spent at least two weeks a month at the properties where they could stay. They loved it. I have to clap back at Rob that they're shitty condos. These were beautiful high end properties.

[Rob]

Yeah, there were. There were nice ones.

[David Farrier]

There are nice ones in the mix.

[Rob]

There were nice. I mean, we didn't always stay at the nice ones. Some of them were shitty.

[David Farrier]

Some of them are shitty.

[Rob]

I do think some of them came in and took over in the Wyndham ones. Are nice. But there was like the timeshare that they owned was also part of another organization. And my dad would have this like book with all these codes of like here's, here's the places we can go. Like go through these cities and see where you want to visit.

[David Farrier]

I feel like we need your dad on the couch to quiz him about love that three hour episode with your dad and his booklet.

[Rob]

We also ended up in some like cool places. Like we wouldn't have gone to Pagosa Springs, Colorado otherwise.

[David Farrier]

Sounds like you are walking back your negative view of the timeshare.

[Rob]

I still think. I mean they're not owners.

[David Farrier]

Eric wrote in in regards to Anna Conkle losing her favorite trading card. When I was in second or third grade, I took my entire basketball trading card binder to school for show and tell. My parents were out of town and my grandma was watching me and she apparently didn't know any better. Someone stole them from my locker. Years and years worth of collecting gone. I never got into collecting again after that. Quite a sad story for me.

[Rob]

Similar. Our. Our house's basement flooded and they lost a collection of cards and did you. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Do you remember how old you were and that happened?

[Rob]

No.

[David Farrier]

Devastating.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Basements seem like in America seem like dicey places to store things. I feel like basements are always flooding.

[Rob]

Yeah. Makes sense. Basement just. It was a finished basement. So there's more access to it then.

[David Farrier]

Okay.

[Rob]

The attic was just a wooden plate in the ceiling.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Right.

[Rob]

With exposed insulation. We wouldn't go up there much.

[David Farrier]

We have a great episode of this podcast called Addicts and Basements. If you want to learn more about that. Lauren said at the end of the PEN15 episode, a listener writes that the parents were able to buy alcohol for minors at bars in Wisconsin.

[Rob]

Yeah. A lot of people gave. That was.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. This is amazing to me.

[Rob]

The most contested comment of the episode,

[David Farrier]

the episode was that essentially Lauren says, believe it or not, this is true. I'm from Massachusetts. Am I saying that right?

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

Thank God. But have looked into this a lot because my mum was insistent that it was legal for us to drink as long as she was with us. It isn't in that state of Massachusetts, but in Wisconsin. It's one of the states where it's okay. This is from Wisconsin's Department of Revenue website. Persons under age 21 may possess and consume alcoholic beverages if they're with their parents, guardians or spouses of legal drinking age at the discretion of the licensee. Fucking crazy. You're telling me you can Have a five year old at a bar having a beer if the parent's there. Holy shit.

[Rob]

Yeah, that seems wild. I'm gonna, I'm looking up, this is,

[David Farrier]

I'm looking up, I'm reading it. Persons under 21 may possess and consume alcohol if they're with their parents at a bar. Like what the hell is this? Gotten to the point where we're at.

[Rob]

I mean, I would imagine if a parent brought a five year old into a bar, allowed them to drink, give them permission, that they would take those kids away.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. Surely it becomes a health and safety issue for the child.

[Rob]

Yeah, I can imagine.

[David Farrier]

But it is a 10 year old. Any better to be boozing up on a cask of wine?

[Rob]

States allowing underage drinking with parental presence in a private location. 29 states permit minors to drink in a private non selling location with a parent present in consenting. Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Ten states allow minors to drink even at a license establishment with parental approval.

[David Farrier]

And that includes Wisconsin? Yeah.

[Rob]

Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

[David Farrier]

So that's incredibly fucked up. Like that's so weird. Yeah, that's like, that's batshit. I'd love to know how many kids are drinking with their parents. Is it common? Is it like a thing of like, here, sunny, have a little tiny bit of my wine. You know, what's the purpose? Try a little bit of beer. What?

[Rob]

Apparently the rules vary significantly. Some states require the parent to actually provide the alcohol.

[David Farrier]

Oh, that's like, thank God.

[Rob]

Others just require them to be present.

[David Farrier]

What? So you have some where kids are like paying for their own beer with cash if their parents there.

[Rob]

Well, I think it is like a bar will not serve the kid even if the parent allows. But if they bring a flask, it's allowed. States like California and Pennsylvania have no parental exception at all. It's illegal regardless of permission.

[David Farrier]

Yeah, good. Yeah, go California.

[Rob]

So most of these states set no explicit minimum age for the parental exception. It applies to anyone under 21 3. However, there's a few. Wisconsin is more restrictive.

[David Farrier]

Okay.

[Rob]

The minors have to be at least 18 for this exception to it.

[David Farrier]

That's a lot more sane in my mind.

[Rob]

Mississippi also applies only to Those at least 18 for beer, light wine and what?

[David Farrier]

It's, it's, it's kind of wild.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

And I'm sure not. I'm sure most parents aren't doing this, but the fact it's legal just seems amazing to me.

[Rob]

Yeah. Yeah.

[David Farrier]

I mean, I'm taking Vinnie off to a bar and, like, giving him a glass of wine. And that's okay.

[Rob]

Yeah. I mean, I get it a little more when it's like 18, 19, 20.

[David Farrier]

Oh, as do I. Yeah. It's like, it's like a thing of. I mean, I don't know. I'm not a parent, so it's like a. Be responsible.

[Rob]

Yeah. If you. Or. Or like, if you're gonna do it anyways.

[David Farrier]

Yeah.

[Rob]

Would rather you do it with me. With somebody hiding it from me. Where. Which. Yeah. Kids when they're 16, 17, 18, like, that's when they get into drinking. But bringing like a 10. A 10 year old out to the

[David Farrier]

bar, I mean, I'm laughing. It's one of the craziest facts that have come out of this podcast. And I want to know more. I want to hear from any bar owners that have ever dealt with this. Have you served a beer to a 5 year old? Flightthesbreadchatmail.com no judgment. I just want to know, do you let your kids drink at a bar with you in these places? Is that okay? I know my parents let me have a beer with them when I was maybe 16, and I think their purpose was to make it not cool and just make it normal and not be something I had to, like, secretly go off and do, which I am sort of grateful for. But it wasn't at a bar, you know?

[Rob]

Yeah. Calvin is asked to have Calvin's logo. Well, he loves getting mocktails.

[David Farrier]

Oh, great.

[Rob]

Which is just juice.

[David Farrier]

Fancy and sweet. I like a mocktail.

[Rob]

And I will occasionally get a non alcoholic beer at dinner. And he will ask to try that. I will not let him. Yeah, there's also, like, trace, like, small, small amounts of alcohol. Totally still in certain.

[David Farrier]

Yeah. But even that he was like, no, I don't.

[Rob]

Well, I don't need you to start craving beer.

[David Farrier]

Don't get, like, what if he tastes it? He's like, this is my favorite drink.

[Rob]

I'm pretty confident he won't because I've. I have done this with coffee.

[David Farrier]

Huh.

[Rob]

Where like, he wants to try matcha or coffee and we don't let him have caffeine.

[David Farrier]

No.

[Rob]

Yet. But we were. We were backstage at a concert that had like a cold brew nitro thing. And I was like, all right, I'll let you have a sip. And he hated it so much.

[David Farrier]

This bitter nightmare.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

It's like a kid who wants some sugar.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[David Farrier]

He's like, never again.

[Rob]

So he stopped asking.

[David Farrier]

Try that with vodka next. Yeah. Fucking outrageous. Very quickly, McKinley said, you're absolutely right. The leisurely pace of supper clubs is a huge part of it. I grew up going to them. I have such fond memories of sitting at the bar with Shirley Temples and ice cream while my parents caught up with friends or family. McKinley was probably fucking drunk the whole time as well. Going on while we're just learned she wasn't. Richard says Catching up in episodes I just listened to the Goodyear blimp a bit behind. Anyway, about the white you're behind a year behind. Richard Rich is drunk as well. Anyway, about White Dog poo. It was a thing here in the UK where I'm listening from when I was younger, around 10 or 11, my brother dared me to lick a rock. So I did. I picked it up, looked like a rock licked it. Turns out it wasn't a rock. Hilarious. And with that we reached the end of another Flightless Bird episode. If you have any info about drinking at bars as a child age between 3 and 10, I'd love to hear from you. If you were a member of Lifespring or any other cults or just have any feedback at all. Flightless bread chat gmail.com we have bonus episode over on our patreon patreon.com flightlessbird we have an Instagram account like and subscribe. Thanks for listening.

[Rob]

See you next week.

[David Farrier]

See you next week.