Let me first begin by saying that I took X-Bility in St. Louis a few years back, and I "graduated" from all three levels. The "trainer"/"CEO" was, and still is, Jo, and she "leads" it with her boyfriend Kavin. I will attempt to describe Jo and Kavin, and then I will share my experiences.

First, Jo is actually an extremely sad and pathetic person. Her father was an abusive alcolohic. If someone in X-Bility has or still does struggle with an alcohol addiction, then she will immediately hate him or her as a person. She claims to have a vast understanding of psychology, yet she does not have any type of college degree in psychology or a college degree period. She is an extremely passive aggressive person. She will tell you that it's okay to question everything that she says, but the second that you question her she will immediately begin to yell at you and belittle you. I have had her direct the "f" word at me numerous times for questioning her. She has screamed in my face and had others turn against me. Because she didn't like me, she tried to have her best friend to talk my wife, then fiancé, into calling off our wedding and leaving me. The funny thing is that she told her friend all of these things about me that were supposed to be kept in "confidentiality" in the classroom. She and Kavin consistently broke confidentiality, but if someone in the group broke confidentiality, then Jo would rain down fire and brimstone on that person. Needless to say, she is extremely unprofessional and emotionally abusive. During the final weekend we were supposed to give acknowledgements to everyone in the group. Because she hated me, she tore me apart with insults in front of the group. She and Kavin both believe in the universe, and thank the universe when good things happen. Jo is a false prophet, meaning that she has a form of godliness but denies its power. She runs a Ponzi scheme by taking money from innocent people through the money game, which I will touch on later. She is truly a wicked and evil person. I'm sure there are many things about her that I have forgotten over the years, but I recommend staying as far from her as possible.

Kavin appears to be a nice guy on the surface, but deep down he is just as malicious as Jo. Kavin will act like he's your best friend, but the minute you question one thing he says he will yell at you and belittle you. When I didn't agree with the money game and asked him where the money goes he started yelling at me and telling me that "I want to know how he runs the business" and that "I'm stuck in my own "s" and don't want to get out of it". I find it ironic that he and Jo steal money from innocent people, yet they accuse everyone else of being in their own "s". Kavin cussed me out on this same occasion. Another time he thought that my wife broke confidentiality, and he called her and screamed at her, and then he expected me to be okay with it. He and Jo are both full of double standards. They are two of the most manipulative people I have ever met. Also, if you are a Christian and/or a Republican they will hate you. They will try to change your Christian beliefs, and they are diehard liberals. I don't have enough words to describe how evil they truly are. Please take my advice and stay as far away from these people as you can.

Now that me describe my experience in the courses themselves.

My experience in the first course, which is the one described by SeekingTruth in her thread entitled "LGATS - one person's experience of Lifespring", is about 95 percent similar to SeekingTruth's experience.

The second course is a whole new ballgame. It is very scary. When you check in they give you one minute to get in your seat and not talk. If you're not in your seat after one minute, Jo yells at you. This is all a tactic for her to get you to be submissive. The first night after everyone is seated they make you sit in silence until someone is finally brave enough to talk. Everyone in my group was too scared to talk because they didn't want to get screamed at from Jo. After 45 minutes someone finally spoke up. The point of this was to try to find "your voice". After that we played a game called lifeboat. Each person had four popsicle sticks that represented lifeboats, and you had to give one to each person you wanted to save. If you didn't give one to yourself, then they asked you why you didn't value your life, which was the whole point of the game. This was another manipulative technique to try to convince people that they don't value their own lives, when they actually do. Another game we played was called mom-dad. They literally had us get on our knees and beat a pillow and pretend that we were trying to get our parents to hear us. They also forced the men to shave our faces. Then the men had to stand in front of everyone in nothing but gym shorts, and the women had to stand in front of everyone in gym shorts and a sports bra only. Each person had to do this individually. I don't know what the point of this was, but it was extremely inappropriate. After several other games, it was time to get our words. Each member of the staff would always tell us who they were. For example, someone might say, "My name is Bob, and I am a worthy, honest, loving, passionate man." Worthy, honest, loving, and passionate were examples of Bob's words. Anyway, Jo made it sound like this would be the most amazing experience of our lives since day one in the first course, which again is another marketing strategy for them to get people to come back and take another course. The "experience" was a joke. Jo had a staff member stand in front of me and continuously ask me over and over again "Who are you?" until I finally came up with my words. That's it. There was zero self-discovery in this process. When we all finally came up with our words Jo and Kavin told us that those words are who the universe created us to be. Really? That's how you discover who you are? It's a joke. There was a transgender in our group with AIDS, and one of his words was "pure". Now how does that work? The next day they assigned each person a song to sing and an act to perform in front of all of the past X-Bility groups. We didn't know that the past groups were going to be there. It was extremely embarrassing, and many of us felt like fools. The last day of the course we had to do a service project. There were other pointless, manipulative, and submissive exercises we did in there, but these were the main ones. At the end of the course they offered to let us do third (last) course for a discount if we signed up that same night. Again, they were trying to get people to spend money on an emotional whim. Being as naive as I was I signed up for it.

The third course was the biggest scam of all three courses. We met on three separate weekends. The first weekend we all met and were "invited" to stand up in front of the classroom to share how we were feeling. Then we played a dumb game to get our partners assigned to us. I got stuck with a moron. I don't remember much of that weekend except that it was a "feel good" weekend that was designed to get us to come back for the second weekend. We also got assigned mentors that we had to call daily. The second weekend was the money game weekend. Basically, they wanted to teach us how to act with our money. After a pointless game, everyone was forced to raise $1,000 by the next day by performing valuable services, such as painting or other chores. This was supposed to help us see that we're valuable. It turned out that we are valuable to X-Bility because they got to keep each person's $1,000! Oh, and by the way, I had to raise $2,000 by myself because my partner didn't want to play the game. Before my group played the money game, the other groups only had to give away $500, but because the "business" is going broke Jo and Kavin doubled the amount of money to be raised. Anyway, Jo went around and asked everyone if she could have their $1,000, and everyone agreed to give it to her except for me. She repeatedly asked me if she could have it, and I denied her. She pretended to be okay with this, and then we took a break for the torch passing, which is when the previous group "passes the torch" to the current group (just more "feel good" garbage) After the torch passing, we sat back down, and Jo had Kavin ask me if he could have my money. I just threw it at him and said, "Whatever. Take it." What a snake! The funny thing about the money game is that Jo will only accept cash. The obvious reason for this is because she doesn't want to have to pay taxes on the money she stole. I spoke with someone who financially advised Jo, and she confirmed that Jo consistently performs the act of tax evasion. The money game is another form of manipulation and submission. They tell you how valuable you are and encourage you to raise the money, but when you raise the money they force you to give it to them or you will be thrown out of the group for not "playing the game". By this point, you're so deep in X-Bility that Jo and Kavin have people believing that getting thrown out is the worst thing in the world. Therefore, you feel forced to submit. It's sick and appalling. Between the second and third weekend was when Kavin and I had my argument. He gave me an ultimatum and told me I was in or out, so I picked the latter. However it was temporary because my group members and mentor convinced me to come back. I threatened to report them for tax evasion, and thst really made them mad. For the third weekend my group members and I all met at a grocery store parking lot. We were blindfolded and put in a van and taken to a former X-Bility member's house. Creepy right? Well it gets creepier. When we got to the house we had to remain blindfolded, and we were forced to stand up and have people whisper in our ears. We then formed a line and we had to walk through a group of people while they rubbed their hands all over our bodies. They called this the angel walk, and it was supposed to help us experience love. It was one of the weirdest and creepiest things I have ever experienced. After that we all went home. The next day we all met and prepared to ride together to go to our "third weekend". The destination was supposed to be a surprise, and our group leader was given an envelope with the directions in it. After our pointless scavenger hunt, she opened up the envelope. Our destination was Innsbrook, Missouri, in St. Charles County. Pretty much all third weekend consisted of was the acknowledgments that I described earlier in which Jo blasted me in front of about 25 people. We then graduated on the last day.

I am embarrassed that I ever fell for this cult in the first place. I've only touched on the tip of the iceberg. Please heed my warning and stay away from these people. It is definitely a cult. You will leave this cult feeling like a worse person than you did before you joined. If you are looking for help, then please seek a licensed counselor. Save yourself several thousand dollars and put it towards something meaningful. These people have their best interests at heart, not yours. Other people in my group are still active with X-Bility because once you're in it they try to keep you in it for good. They also offer other courses, such as "The Art and Science of Connection", which my wife and I regretfully wasted $300 on. Stay away from any type of course they offer. Jo and Kavin will offer marriage and parenting advice. Neither one of them has children or has ever been married. They have no professional qualifications whatsoever. Again, please stay away from these people. You'll be glad you did. Feel free to reply to this post/thread with any questions or comments you may have. Thanks for reading!

I forgot to add that they force the men to completely shave their faces and stand in front of the group in nothing but gym shorts, and they force the women to stand in front of the group in either a bra and underwear or a bikini. Then they make you stare at yourself in the mirror. The purpose of this exercise is not described by Jo or Kavin, but I believe it is a control mechanism used to shame people so that Jo and Kavin can control their "customers".

I would like to apologize for some of my inappropriate comments on here. While I believe my comments to be true, some of them are subjective and just my opinions only. I apologize for bringing up Jo's father. It was unkind. My intent was not to be hurtful, but rather to explain that she dislikes alcoholics. I also stated that X-Bility is a Ponzi scheme. While they do accept people's hard earned money during the money game, it does not fall under the definition of a Ponzi scheme. Jo and Kavin also don't physically steal from people. They will, however, throw someone out of the group if they do not play the money game, which consists of giving Jo and Kavin $1,000 of the money that someone worked for. As I mentioned above, they convince people that getting thrown out of X-Bility is absolutely terrible, so people play the money game to avoid being thrown out of X-Bility. It comes across as very manipulative on X-Bility's part. I also apologize for bringing up the transgender in the group. My intention was not to hurt the transgender person by referencing his/her AIDS. I was not trying to single anyone out. It was to give an example of how people's "words" are not "who they really are". No one can be pure. My belief is that God determines who we are as individuals, and it is He we should seek in the self-discovery process. Also, while I have heard from others in X-Bility that the business is going broke, I cannot prove this statement to be true. I have not seen the company's financial records. All I can say is that the money game used to be $500, and when I took it they doubled the cost to $1,000. While someone who financially advised Jo did tell me that she and Kavin will only take cash for the money game to avoid paying taxes on the money, I cannot prove this to be true. I cannot prove that they are committing tax evasion. That is only an assumption on my part. However, I do find it fishy that someone can only pay them cash for the money game. To sum it all up, this entire post was my opinion. Others may have a different opinion. While I believe that my statements are true, I am not insinuating or suggesting that they are objective truth and/or definitive.