Merry Death

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

I thought I would give you all some background on the program that has now claimed 4 people in my family.

About 6 months ago, my sister told my mother and I that she was considering going to a seminar for a group called Millenium3. This is how it is described on their own website:

Millennium3 Education is a Dallas, Texas based company which offers adult educational workshops designed to enhance personal effectiveness. The courses are based on the premise that all of us, as human beings, are often limited by our current belief systems. The workshops dare us to see beyond our current paradigms and explore the untapped possibilities that await us in life. As a result, success can be effortless and greatness becomes achievable!

We thought that it could be worse, considering she would not actively partcipate in AA and she was getting worse and worse with her alcoholism.

She went to the course and soon after visited my mother's house in VA. She was a 'whole new person'. A really freaky, crazed with happiness, brand new person. She was speaking the jargon of M3 which contained words like "commitment", "ownership" and "integrity". She told us that she was going to live her life with integrity, that her past no longer dictated her future. She explained that who she thought she was held her back all these years from who she really could have been. She realized that her marriage had been poisonous, he husband was controlling and mean, and that she didn't have any friends. Luckily, Millenium3 participants and alumni were more than willing to jump in and help her create a whole new woman, complete with a circle of new Millenium3 friends and peers.

This was just the Basic Course. After that, she went to the Advanced course (An intense 5 day adventure in which you get to take action and create breakthroughs based on the insights you had during the Basic Training. You will engage in a hands-on discovery of what it takes to live life consistent with your vision for your future, not determined by the past, conditions or self-imposed limitations. You will have the opportunity to reinvent yourself and create the future you declare.), and then to the Leadership Training (The Leadership Program is a 90 day intensive training experience in which you will receive daily coaching and practice translating your vision for your life into concrete actions and extraordinary results. You will consistently challenge yourself to create and bring into reality what may seem impossible. You will do permanent damage to the belief system that has you say "I can't", or "It's not possible". ). Each course left her more immersed than the last. Her friends now were the group and only the group. If you weren't in it, you weren't able to understand her major transformation.

Soon after, she left her husband and her home near Houston to move to Dallas to be near her friends, the center, and what she considered her new life. She attempted, on and ongoing basis, to recruit her family and friends. My mother and I would not agree to go. My father's wife and her daughter both went. My sister escorted them both. She also had her 14 yr old step-daughter enrolled in the teen version. Everyone saw big changes in my father's wife. She was now outgoing, less anxious, and had the ability to not take things so personally. Her and my sister hounded my father until finally he agreed to go to shut his wife up.

Dad went 3 weeks ago. His class was the week before Thanksgiving. On Wednesday of that week, my sister went into rehab for injecting Morphine. Dad and her made the connection over Millenium. He was able to mobilize her circle of friends to help her make it through the 3 day detox program and onto the inpatient rehab center. We all did, but he was 'most helpful' because he was able to rally the Millenium folks. We think its just because he could understand what the hell they were saying.

Now Dad is going through the Leadership Program. This is the 3rd tier. He has made amends with several issues that the group believes were holding his authentic self back. He called my mother to apologize for cheating on her and robbing her of self esteem, he called my sister and I am apologized for being absent as a father (mentally that is). He is into looking deep into your eyes now. He talks the jargon and tells his "breakthrough" story over and over. I have heard it all about 5 times now.

The calls started this past week. He called me to tell me that I must go. He told me that he would pay. He asked me to go 'for him'. He has kept me on the phone for 45 minutes telling me that the grass is greener, the sky is bluer andfor the first time in his life, he can tell you his daughter's eye colors. Its sickening, scary and uncomfortable. Please don't get me wrong, I am so happy for my dad. He is clearly having an awakening at 60. I am in awe of his commitment to this program and with him trying his best to get everything he can out of it. BUT.....I don't want to go. I am still under the impression that it is a cult. A white collar cult, but a cult nonetheless.

Millenium3 is an offshoot of LifeSpring. It was an organization based in LA that went belly up due to lawsuits and bad money management. After their close, someone adopted their pricipals and teachings to create The Legacy Group. Based, I believe, in Raleigh NC, this is a huge group that now comes under much scrutiny for their secretive and cultish behavior. I am at a loss to descirbe what really goes on there. I have heard many stories from my father and sister. Exercises include being berated by the trainers for being even 30 seconds late. No excuse is valid. You are pressured into sharing your experience with others by inviting them to guest lectures and celebrated for getting more bodies to join. My father, now being in the Leadership Program, MUST bring 3 people in to the fold. His #1 target is me.

I am not going to sign up. I am way to leary of who these people are and what they do. The look in my father and sister's eyes is crazed, freaky, intense. They use guilt, persuasion, and hard sell techniques to try and convince me to go. Worst of all, they have now shared this experience and truly feel for those who haven't. Say what you will, but this sounds a lot like born again Christians to me.

posted by Metalmeredith @ 7:27 PM