Really? What sort of error are you getting? It's a pretty straightforward blog page.
Anyway, here's one entry.
Discovery and Focus
When you first arrive you start to hear about seminars. The seminars are repeated every few months, and Discovery is the first one you must attend. You are required to attend the first Discovery that comes up, whether it?s your second day or your second month; this depends on the timing of your arrival. You must pass seminars to progress in the program, and to progress further up the levels. This process takes about 18 months. Since I was just waiting out my time, I never took the seminars too seriously. But most kids did, they had to, they knew they had to pass them in order to progress, and they were not easy to get through. We heard rumors of trainers failing entire seminars, every single participant. We heard the names of trainers, of their different personalities and who was the best trainer to hope for.
The first time I went to a seminar, was the first time we had got to walk outside the confines of the compound in a few months, so it was rather exciting. The seminar was held in a big wooden barn about a quarter mile down the main road. It was a very isolated location. They had us all line up outside, there was a lot of us. There were lines of port potty?s for us to use while we were waiting or during the lunch break. My first seminar was in the middle of the winter, so there was a lot of snow. There were a bunch of nametags they were handing out, and it was a very busy and confusing situation.
Our anticipation grew and we wanted to get inside the building already. They started playing music inside the building, opened the doors and told us all we must be seated before the song ended. (Years later I heard the song again, recognized it, and found out the title. It is David Lanz?s ?Cristofori?s Dream?, a piano and violin duet.) There was a rush to sit down and get quiet before the song finished. There were several dozen chairs lined up on each side of the large room. The girls were on one side, the boys on the other. Seminars were the only time we would be anywhere near the girls.
There were two big paper writing boards set up in the front, with big permanent markers ready to write. There were posters all over the walls with small phrases such as, ?There are no accidents?. It was strange, to say the least. The seminars are a whirlwind of an experience. It?s hard to explain. The guy who was in charge was David Gilcrease, in the beginning of the seminar he was randomly walking around the room making people stand up, and then verbally humiliated them in front of the large crowd. He did it to me; he makes you stand up and then proceeds to ask you questions and humiliate you based on your nervous and confused responses. For a great detailed account of what a seminar is like, please click on the link to the right, ?Breaking the Vow of Silence?.
Discovery lasted for 3 days. The first day is spent mostly humiliating everyone, and pressing people for deep dark secrets. David Gilcrease spoke in the beginning about emotions. There was no substance to anything really, it seemed like mind games. It was common for him to put people on the spot, making you speak in front of everyone, and then he?d press you by screaming things like, ?you brought your self here!? or ?your parents don?t love you?. It seemed like he would do anything to illicit an intense, negative emotional response from anyone not already in an overly emotional state. Throughout the day the emotional tension builds and then through more games at night, for example, beating the floor with towels wrapped up with duct tape, are used to relieve the tension. Everyone is in their own world, it?s very strange. Then they make you stay up all night, at least until 3 or 4 am writing 10 pages or more of ?homework?, front and back, about your childhood, and why you are at Spring Creek.
The next day we turned in our homework, and the staff went to go review it all. Then we hear more talk from Gilcrease, and he explains they?re breaking us up into groups to evaluate each other. If you didn?t have any dark secrets revealed in your homework, and didn?t blame yourself completely for being at the facility, you were not being responsible. It seemed to me like Gilcrease wanted us to break down and admit it was 100% our own fault for being at Spring Creek. Any mention of your parents, he?d tear you down and make you admit something and then rub it in your face.
At one point he tells us the staff knows everything we?ve ever did wrong at Spring Creek, even if we were never punished or confronted, they said they know because of what people wrote in their homework the night before. Gilcrease told people to stand up and admit what they had done wrong, before he reveals what they know in front of everyone. If you admit to it, they said you wouldn?t be punished. They said if we didn?t admit to anything, the punishment for our secret misdeeds would be much more severe than normal. You could see everyone get worried. Of course, we all had broken some rule while being there, so some people started admitting to stuff. They ended up all being punished for what they admitted to it turns out. Those of us who kept quiet, our secrets remained intact. They didn?t really know our secrets, just another mind game.
I never took any of the seminars seriously, I pretended the best I could, and would even pretend to cry, but most people did take it seriously. While being barraged by verbal intimidation from Gilcrease, some would admit to startling and shocking secrets in front of everyone. Rape, incest, molestation, you name it- we heard about it. It was pretty obvious some kids would get more emotional than the rest when we were doing certain ?exercises?, and they?d push these kids for admissions and secrets because they were close to breaking. Then they?d admit to something outrageous in front of everyone, and then from then on they were popular in the group. It?s difficult to explain to someone who has never been to one. The sense was if you didn?t hold back, the crowd of emotionally charged people, would accept you. There were many games played throughout the seminar that enforced whether people ?trusted? you or not.
It became obvious a few kids made up overly outrageous stories, that I definitely questioned in my own mind, but their emotional confession, real or not gained the respect of the crowd. I don?t have any shameful secrets from my past, so I just made something up as I?m sure many had to.
The activities the first day and a half were ridiculing and degrading. One game involved everyone standing in a circle facing toward the inside. One at a time, we would walk around the interior of the circle, facing the person on the outside, looking directly in the eyes. We were told to imagine we were on a sinking ship, and we could only save 5 other people. We were then instructed to walk around the circle of about 60 people, and let the person know if we intended on ?saving? them or letting them ?die?. They instructed people to scream ?DIE? like they meant it, screaming right into the faces. There were many games like this, which were emotionally charged. Either you were accepted by the group, or not. Each game reinforced this feeling, whichever way it might be. This was the test if you passed the seminar. If they felt you were ?manipulating? your way through, you wouldn?t pass. If they felt you were sincere, you would pass the seminar.
The last part was almost like a celebration. At the end we were broken up into groups and made to do skits, child like performances in costumes. They told everyone they had passed Discovery, so of course now everyone was very happy and relieved. It was a combination of exhaustion and euphoria and nobody was thinking clearly by this point. We just wanted to go back to sleep. Everyone was told to make a poster with three adjectives. You would then go up in front of everyone and scream with all your heart, ?I am a HAPPY, LOVING, CARING young man!? for example.
Now that I look back on the experience many years later, it is much easier to know what was going on. There is no substance to the seminars, just emotional games. I eventually went on to pass Focus as well, the seminar required to get to level 3. I bullshitted my way through that one too, but barely. They are much more discriminating with how ?real? you are being at the seminars. It was a very strange experience to say the least. I urge you to read the link on the right; it has a much more detailed accounting of the TASKS seminar experience.
Besides the seminars, I could just wait out my time at Spring Creek. Sometimes I?d get mad and say something I wasn?t supposed to towards staff or Jr. Staff and they?d take all my points away. It felt good to let out an insult or threat every once in a while, even if it cost you your brown sugar for a week. I was in the hobbit maybe three or four times, for different reasons. I tried to run once, only made it about 250 feet before a Jr. Staff tackled me and then a bunch of staff dragged me up to Special needs for several days. It gets so frustrating; darting into the snowy woods doesn?t seem like a bad idea at times. We would hear a train go by in the distance every day, I was trying to head towards that train.
posted by Spring Creek Dropout at 2:14 PM
If we had been born in Constantinople, then most of us would have said: "There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet." If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana.
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