When the staff of the Bellhouse Hotel in Beaconsfield, England, greeted guests arriving one day in 1972, they thought they were receiving a relatively quiet bunch who were there to attend a business seminar.
Then the screaming started.
During the four-day gathering, hotel employees said they observed coffins being moved into the meeting area; whips being brandished; and disgusting food, like lumpy custard and fatty pork chops, being ordered for the group to eat. Attendees howled in anger. The scene was so disturbing that another hotel, the Excelsior, had banned the group from the premises after hosting a similar gathering.
Such bizarre behavior was the norm for people attending seminars at William Penn Patrick’s Leadership Dynamics Institute, or LDI. To prove their psychological mettle, the participants were forced to climb into a coffin and endure the simulation of death. Some were strapped to a cross in a twisted misappropriation of religious dogma. Still others were physically abused to the point they would leave the seminar with welts and bruises—all in the pursuit of success. As for the terrible food, the general manager of the hotel explained that the “special menus” were ordered because, as he understood it, “people had to be taught to appreciate things.”
Patrick’s most ardent devotees believed that use of these unorthodox techniques could help them achieve their personal and professional goals. But some former followers had a different attitude—it was abuse,…
