the seed , daa-ang.

[starry-eyed pirate]

i wonder with a name as overtly subtle as  "the seed" what was the seed like, down in FLA.  i heard alot of shit about St. Pete when i was in VA.  
"The Seed", daa-ang, just sounds like a crazy place.  
Who ran The Seed?  Did St. Pete form from the Seed? How did the Seed form?  Are there synanon survivors? And what the hell does syn-anon mean?  syn : with, together, at the same time.  Anonymous. huh?
i was in Straight in VA from 3/85-2/87.  From what i understand Straight inc. is a descendent of Synanon and The Seed and St. Pete.  How close are these programs.  i guess i'm kinda wonderin' how Straight inc., the infamous mental slavery institution, that i was in, evolved from its earlier forms.
What was the "Seed" like?  When did the Seed close?

[Verbal Razors]

Why not go to The Seed section and read up?

[Anonymous]

http://thestraights.com/the-straights/t ... hts-fc.htm

[Antigen]

There's a Seed forum on here. There's some history in it and a fair number of former Seedlings. Even my bro posts once in awhile.

War is God?s way of teaching Americans geography.

--Ambrose Bierce (died 1914)

[Anonymous]

:wave: Art would like to see his program spread, like the biblical mustard seed after which it is named. (In a parable, Jesus likened the growth of his kingdom and the spread of the gospel to the tiny mustard seed which grows rapidly into a large plant.) But like the alcoholic he was, Art takes each day as it comes.

"Success," he says, "is the journey, not the destination."  :wave:

[Anonymous]

:: For Art, the little, sandy-haired man with the charisma of Billy Graham and the build of Jimmy Cagney, the kids sing "America," and The Seed?s theme song, to the tune of "Greensleeves." lt sounds like the Mormon Choir.

"The Seed, indeed, is all you need, "To stay off the junk and the pills and the weed."

"You come each day from 10 to 10, "And if you screw up, then you?ll start again.".

"OK," says Art seated on a high stool. "How many of you bought. drugs in school?" A forest of hands shoots up. In the cafeteria, in the parking lot, they admit. Many say they bought pot, acid, cocaine, from their teachers, even from the friendly neighborhood cop.

A lot of them started in the fifth grade; all had by the eighth. Their ages range from 10 to 20. Art reckons 70 to 80 per cent of all school kids are on drugs. "They turn on their brothers and sisters; some of them turn on with their parents. The pusher has replaced the football star as today?s school hero."

The microphone is passed from hand to hand, for public confession is good for the addict?s soul. "My name is Robert," says one scrawny kid. "Speak up," shouts Art. "I didn?t like this place when I came," says Robert. "Now it?s like home."

"Love you," the boys and girls chant in unison; the phrase is as commonplace here as "Hi" A girl says, "I sniffed and smoked and finallytripped on acid, and when my mother came to the hospital, I looked at her and said, "I hate you." Once again, "Love you."

All except the newest intake, who sit awkwardly open to view in the front row, get their chance to confess. Then the mike is passed to the parents. Some are over-effusive ("Your room is ready and waiting, dear"), some jocular ("Your room is exactly as you left it, Marlene"). Some children, embarrassed, shuffle their feet, blushing. (Was a lack of rapport with their parents the reason they landed here?) "When are you coming home?" ... When I?m ready."

"The average parent who comes here for the first time is apprehensive and upset," says Barker. "So we put them in contact with other parents whose kids have gone straight."  ::

[GregFL]

The seed was a personality cult. The straight was the attempt to make a business model out of said cult.

Neither version of Art´s vision of a new and corrected american youth worked at all..as evidenced by us.

If you really want to know about the seed, go to the seed discussion forum. It is at once a fascinating and sometimes even creepy view of adult survivors of a personality cult.

[starry-eyed pirate]

So i went and read up some on the Seed and heard about Lakewood high school and read the list of founders of Straight inc. So like was there actually like hundreds of kids from the Seed at Lakewood high?  Was like half the town in the Seed or what?  It seems like a more localized phenomenon, i don't know if that's the right word.i mean the people that i was in springfield, VA with all came from different places; different parts of MD, up by Baltimore, and VA, including southern VA and D.C. and there were kids from PA and DE and N.J  .i remember one kid from California, named Randy. How did the Seed become St. Pete. The Semblers?

[Antigen]

No, I think the Semblers came into it after the St. Pete location was already open. Not too sure of the details, but I thought it was the family who owned the Morgan Yacht bldg who were the major sponsors.

At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world.
--George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright

[GregFL]

A handfull of influential St Pete kids went to the ft lauderdale seed in 1972. By then the seed was two years old and had become a big thing in Ft Luaderdale. Once these kids became changlings and returned to St Pete all smiley faced and short haired, a committe was founded in St Pete to explore expanding to St Pete. On this committe was the father of Charlie Crist. within 6 months Art was  ready to open St Pete, having secured   The morgan yacht building  rent free for two years  and opened to a huge bang....within two weeks around 500 or so kids were there (including me). At times the group in st pete was just massive broaching over 1000 kids at a time and once reportedly up to 1400, and the twice weekly open meetings were amazing. Buckets were passed around  a la church donation and every parent placed money in the bucket.  Open meeting had no rap but often lasted way past midnight.

Lakewood was located in one of the wealthier sections of town (at the time) and a disproportinate amount of kids from lakewood went to the seed. St Pete was enraptured with the seed cult and children of lawyers, judges, police chiefs and business owners and leaders were at extreme danger of becoming a seedling for the slightest reason. Judges were sentencing kids to the seed for truancy and shoplifting and seedling as young as 9 were there for ¨druggie attitudes¨.

within two years the seed had lost its local reputation due to the couragous reporting of The St pete times and the late but nevertheless present criticism of the Evening independent. There was talk at one point by the parents of a "boycott" of the St Pete Times.  The local newspapers were relentlessly reporting the events at the seed, and then senator Sam Irvin´s report came out in 1974 pointing out that the seed was using brainwashing techniques on the kids. The seed parents already knew this as it was no secret...Art even admitted it repeatedly..but this  affirmation by the government helped take the wind out of the sails of new recruits, and most of the graduates had little or nothing to do with the seed by then. The seed had fallen out of public favor and judges stopped sentencing kids there and people stopped enrolling their children.  When it packed up and left town enrollment had dwindled to almost zero new clients vs the heydey when I was there when kids were coming in at an astounding rate. The remaining seed kids either were graduated or went to Ft Lauderdale, or voluntarily withdrawn by their parents upon the closing.

When the seed packed up and left group of influential seed parents whom thought they could replicate the seed but replace the problems (art barker) and turn it into a reputable business by lending their experience with running businesses. This they thought would replace the void left by The departure of the Seed.  Mel Sembler was one of those parents, as was my father. They had no experience or knowledge of running a drug rehab so they just hired Seed graduates (mostly from lakewood high) around 18 years old, took Helen peterman who was intimately knowledgable about the back office and intake procedures and had been around group long enough to understand how to break the kids, and this group of people  basically cloned the Seed, sans the actual cult leader Art Barker.

[GregFL]

bump.


any more questions?   Comments?

The seed is where it began, and every seed branch was a little different.  In ft Lauderdale they had the toilet seat..in Cleveland they had the boxing ring...and I am now certain motivating sprung from us seedlings in st pete, sitting in a group of 500 boys, each trying to outdue the other and snapping our fingers, often swaying into the next seat and pumping one arm (not two) furiously in the air.

Members of the ft lauderdale group were more orderly in their motivation and don't even understand the term like St Pete kids do.

[starry-eyed pirate]

Thanx for all the inside info. i have alot more questions and comments, i'm sure.  i'm doing the best i can to understand the relationships between the cults, i am trying to understand where certain influences in my life, and in life in general, have come from.  Anything you or anyone else wants to tell me about Str8s' evolution out of Synanon and the Seed will help. Shining a bright light into the dark past.

[GregFL]

Well, no connection to the synanon has been made, other than a commonality of techniques and Robert Dupont.

I have several theories on how the synanon inluence came to be on the Seed. The most prominent theory I have is that several synanon types appeared around the time Dupont gave Art the federal grant money.  Several staff members were older and obviously not brought up thru the channels like other seedlings, and these guys alluded to other places "up north".  

Art several years back denied any connection. I think perhaps he was telling the truth..that there is no direct connnection but instead The techniques arrived with several former clients of synanon style treatment centers up north that became seed staff members.