Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Seed Discussion Forum => Topic started by: GregFL on December 28, 2001, 08:41:00 PM
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If you remember people yelling that at you as you rode down the road with your oldcomer watching your every move, wearing a white seed tee shirt,Seed license plate up on the dash, your hair parted on the side, a pack of smokes in your top pocket, and your eyes glazed over from lack of sleep,lack of food, and hour after hour of repetitive mind control practiced on your young mind, you have come to the right place.
In 1973, my father and step mother tricked my sister and I into the Seed St Pete and wham, we were thrust into a subculture experience that in retrospect, was truly bizzare.Never in my mind did I think that my family would be involved in a cult, and it took me years to even sort out that I was.
I eventually had to leave st pete and find sanity somewhere else, and my entire high school experience was ruined, my family shattered, and a deep divide between my father, my step family, and worst of all, my sister and I, existed for years.
I have long since healed my anger, but the memories of being 14 and being forced into a thought reform cult will never go away. I spent a part of my young adult life trying to understand what really happened there but it was too close personally and sometimes the confusion, shame and anger prevented me from really taking an objective look. That is no longer true.
Most people whom went to the seed do not talk about it anymore unless it is in brief whispers, or in short pre thought out sound bites."The seed sucked" "It was hard but I needed something" "I don't want to talk about that, it was a long time ago"
"I would be dead, crazy or in jail without it" and on and on. Ever stopped to challenge those thoughts? Ever wish you could speak to other people whom were there and remember the freaken insanity of the whole situation, or ever just wanted to really know what the hell it is they were doing there? was it all really just a random program, or did art Barker's "techniques" really come from somewhere else?
Well, if you said yes, welcome, and lets get this party started.
THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE
SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED,
THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED,
THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED, THE SEED
art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker,
art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker, art
barker, art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker, ART BARKER,
ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER,
ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, SEED, SEED,
SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, DRUG REHAB ST PETERSBURG DRUG REHAB ST PETERSBURG.
SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED,
SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED,
SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED,
SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED,
SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, SEED, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER,
ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER, ART BARKER,
art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed,
seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed,
seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, seed, art barker, art barker, art barker, art barker,
art barker, art barker, art barker
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I too am a graduate of the Seed in St Pete. It disrupted much of my life for many years.
I was the first student from Tyrone Jr High School. I believe it was 10/71 (or 72). I must say that it really angered me when even a couple of years later in Gibbs High School total strangers would come up to me and curse me for being a "Seedling"....even though I was no longer a part of that whole scene.
Luckily I had started working, and surrounded myself with those older (20-somethings) from work that accepted me for myself.So I had no need for teenagers to associate with, especially since they were still entering the Seed in droves...
But I truly felt isolated and as though no body could understand me for many years.
Many things are no longer in my memory, thankfully my brain switched them off. I do know that I was never quite able to believe a person that said "I love You"....for a very long time. I always wanted to know "why?"
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Hi Greg and Debi, and any other friends I've never met who might be reading this. I'm an ex-Seedling too. I did a Google web search on "the Seed" and "Art Barker" and discovered this site.
I have so many thoughts on this topic, I know I can't write them all in one post, but I'll try to get down the essentials. I am 44 years old and I live in California. I was in the Seed in Ft. Lauderdale in 1972, when I was 14. It came as quite a shock to me to be "kidnapped" by my parents into a "drug rehabilitation center," as I had never conceived of myself as a "druggie," having only tried pot a handful of times. I had no warning that it was coming . . . anyway, to jump ahead in my story a bit, in the years immediately following my experiences in the Seed, I found that--of the kids I'd been in the Seed with, and who had, like me, and like most everybody eventually, gone back to their old friends and gone back to experimenting with substances--I seemed to be the only one who still needed and desired to talk about the Seed a lot. The other ex-Seedlings I hung out with had apparently found a way to put it behind them without much trauma . . . it's all very mysterious to me still, how different people processed the Seed. I wish I could find and speak with some of the kids I knew at the time!
Anyway, here's a thought/insight that I'll share which helped me a lot when I realized it, and it came to me just about fourteen years AFTER the Seed . . .
I realized that, even with all the abuse, all the sleep deprivation, the all-night "coming down on me" sessions with my oldcomer and his cronies, the little and big humiliations, the thing that had really damaged me the most, the thing that had really hurt and twisted me up the worst, was that I had participated in my own brainwashing. I had tried, sincerely tried, to make the Seed's catechism true for me. That is, I had BETRAYED MY OWN EMOTIONAL REALITY . . . I had been an accomplice in my own mind-rape at some point, by trying to convince MYSELF that they were right, and that I had only read books like Siddhartha to be "cool," had never had any real friends, and, you know, the whole litany, that I had been utterly worthless and "full of shit" before the Seed and that I was grateful to the Seed for bestowing authenticity on my wretched self. So . . . it was my own inner attempts to destroy myself that actually wounded me the most . . . and once I could forgive myself for that, I began to heal a lot quicker and my life got a lot better. Now I'm not saying that I should have blamed myself in the first place, or that we were ultimately "responsible" for what happened to us--that's not the point. (Perhaps it was inevitable that I would have to try and convince myself the Seed was right, as opposed to trying to "con" the Seed which I never for a moment imagined I was capable of.) I'm just saying that, unconsciously, I DID blame myself, and I despised myself for what I had participated in. So, at age 28, I needed to look at the fourteen year old kid I had been in 1972, and understand the pressures he was under, and have compassion for the choices he made, and accept that I wasn't perfect, or maybe just not as heroic and invulnerable as I would have like to have been. I'm not saying the Seed didn't suck; it did. And I wish there was something I could do so other kids wouldn't have to go through that kind of thing today. It's one kind of hellish experience in a world of many different kinds of suffering.
My email is [email protected] if anyone wants share their thoughts with in a setting that's not a forum. Forgive the expression, but tonight I feel like I love you.
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Hey there Marc,
Glad you found the forum. My family was involved in Ft. Laud. Seed from sometime in the early `70's till whenever they officially shut down (went underground?) around `80 or so. I have only one thing to add publicly, then I'll write you privately and see if we know any of the same people.
I haven't been able to put this behind me either, and for one good reason that I know of; constant daily reminders. The people who brought us The Seed have also been responsible, in varying degrees, for the following:
- DARE
- Safe and Drugfree Workplace/Schools/Communities (urin testing)
- Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Taskforce (upon which the new, popular FX series "The Shield" is based.http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/the_shield/ (http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/the_shield/))
- Partnership for a Drug Free America (you know, those silly commercials, the most recent of which cost us a few million for prime Super Bowl ad spots?)
- Legislation mandating forced treatment through the courts
- Legislation denying public education funding for kids with posession convictions
- Massive public/private lobbying efforts to maintain bans on industrial hemp and medical/recreational marijuana
- Two Bush presidencies
- TOUGHLOVE hategroups established here, in Canada and Australia
- $19,000,000,000 in domestic Federal spending on the failed drug war
- Untold sums and resources on the local level in nearly every community
- Who knows the cost of our escalating involvement in Colombia's civil war, the militarization of Bolivia, etc.
And that's just what an amateur researcher/housewife like me has been able to dig up.
Before I started seriously researching just what manner of beast had chewed up my family and spit us out, I just wrote off to leftover paranoia all of these subtle, and not so subtle, reminders. I figured the Seed was now just a weird little cult in Ft. Lauderdale; no longer a force to be reckoned with in local politics, far less out of area. I heard that Straight closed up, and figured that was the end of that story. I knew there were other weird little cults scattered here and there, just as it's been in human culture since time out of mind. And I can accept that that's the way it will probably always be.
But I can't accept that my tax money is being used to support, promote and expand these whack jobs' authority and influence on myself, my kids and the communities that we live in. I'll give this over for something more fun, less stressful as soon as these sadistic lunatics learn to keep their slimy mitts off of my public policy and $$$$$.
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."
--Thomas Jefferson
[ This Message was edited by: Antigen on 2002-05-08 11:46 ]
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Welcome Debi and Marc..
When I first found the straight survivors group several years ago, it was 5 or six people that shared a bad experience in straight. They kind of thought that the seed was a kinder better place, but I educated them on the truth. I told them about the beatings, the kids thrown to concrete floors, and how the straight was directly lifted from the seed, and how we were sleep and food derived and subjected to sexual humiliation,etc. They knew the parents of the seed st pete had started the straight, (including my father) but the didn't know that the exact formula was taken from the seed. Did you know the first staff members of the straight were graduates of the seed from Lakewood High? email me if you want to know their names. Anyway, I am available on this forum or at [email protected],and I am excited to meet my fellow survivors.
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I just stumbled across this forum. I grew up in St. Petersburg, FL and attended Lakewood High School from 72-75. The seed really did suck. Many of my friends were no longer my friends when they got out of there. Most were scared shitless of going back and begged me not to talk to them, and I didn't even DO drugs then! If I remember right, this big turd named Mel Sembler and his ugly wife were responsible for ruining many lives. The funny thing is, I have personal knowledge of one of HIS kids doing drugs at Lakewood, but do you think HE went to the seed? Nope. They're probably smoking dope right now over there in Italy.
I still have a copy from the school newspaper in 73 discussing the seed and seedlings. Reading it made me naseous all over again.
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Hello, and welcome. I went to lakewood as well, and I bet you anything we know each other. If you do not want to say your name on this forum, email me at [email protected] and lets talk! BTW, it is public knowledge that the kid you speak of went to the seed. In fact, he was there when I was there.
I look forward to talking to you soon!!
[ This Message was edited by: Somejoker on 2002-05-19 20:25 ]
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It's been awhile. My memory is a little hazy. I remember now that the Sembler kid was a seedling. You wouldn't have known it in 76 though!
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who are you? I GOTTA KNOW. Email me. Lakewood was crazy back then if you were in the seed. Everyone had to spy on everyone, and if you were caught talking to anyone other than a fellow seed cult member, wham, back on the front row. Everyone whom was not in the seed made fun of you and followed you around. It was miserable. Anyway, email now, please at [email protected], or post your name here. If you know any ex seed members, tell them about this site and tell them to please post, and have a beer and thank of my good friend, Rich Leverone, whom died of a drug overdose about 4 years after getting out of the seed.
Peace
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Greg - I have sent you an e-mail. I think I remember the name Leverone, but I'm thinking his name was Dave. Now I have to get out the ol' yearbook! haha Sorry to hear about your friend though.
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So sorry, Rich. Dave Leverone. I am still in touch with his older brother. Thank you for the email and the horrible news about Seed graduate, and my old friend Bennet Beverley.
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Hey, this goes to Wes' research. Have you contacted him? He won't add a name or story to the official list without substantial verification and coroberation. But he can't start on that without the first lead, either. So please let him know? (aw hell, I'll tip him off to look at the board)
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I was in the Seed in Ft. Lauderdale in 1971-72 when I was 17. First there is a lot about my experiences at the SEED that I don?t remember and very little remaining than I do. I was confronted by my family and a former SEED member to give this place in Ft. Lauderdale a try. Nobody kidnapped me, I even drove myself from St.Pete to Ft. Lauderdale with my family ridding in the back seat. The difference was I knew I need help, so I was willing to give it a try.
I did end up seeing a lot friends from school enter the SEED as time passed and eventfully making some new ones. After the SEED I broke off all contact with anyone from the SEED with the exception of a few. Over the next 2 years I lost two close friends from the SEED Bobby Frost and Dan Hubble who fell off the wagon, and the resulting guilt that followed just seemed to much for them.
Today I?m 47 and living in North Florida Panhandle, my biggest problems now are out living my money and finding where I put my reading glasses. :smile:
Peyton Yon
[ This Message was edited by: Peyton on 2002-06-07 11:50 ]
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greg you sound interesting, my brother was director of the st pete seed, i wonder if he remembers you.
I was 1st in in 71, on andrews, i'm a 3 time
graduate, i started at 12- did more drugs after, but knew how to play games.
now i'm a 43 grandfather, with a perfect family, and I owe it all to my wife who as a ward of the state, figured it out on her own, and then taught me. 23 years of wedded bliss.
I know a lot of old seed kids i'll turn on to this, they all hate arts guts
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Did your brother have a new york accent! Shit, if yes, I need you to email me privately at [email protected].
And get those seed friends posting!!!!
Your brother would def know me if he ran St Petersburg. My family was entrenched in the cult big time.
Anyway, email me.
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Welcome to the board,
I too was in the st Pete Seed, and learned to play the game once I "Graduated".
Congrats on your wedded bliss! :smile: Grandchildren too!! (envious me) My step children are old enough for children,my son is still too young! Those grandkids are only a twinkle in my eye! LOL
debi
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"...every five years I look back on my life and have a good laugh..." {Indigo Girls~~ "The Watershed"}
[ This Message was edited by: MommaDebi on 2002-08-15 16:06 ]
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Anyone remember Rick Butane,
flash forward - how about a staffer named Robin, short girl, jet black hair, I think she had a brother in too.
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Hi there, I remember Rick B. I am pretty sure that Robin is his sister.
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Tha sounds a bit familier, but Robin was a short staffer, and I think her brother was on the program with me.
Rick Butane was sort of a bigger guy, and he was always there from the begining it seemed,
his claim to fame was he started the truckers, who were basically abunch of guys that went around and fixed things.
He would lead group every now and then.
Do you remember Paul? He was senior staff above john U when we first moved to 84. I can't remember his last name though, I think it started wiyh a G. ring any bells.
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Sembler's kid was in the Seed, his name was Brent, he was my old comer. I enjoyed your post! Good Luck
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Robin? About 4'11"?,black hair?,slight sway back?I was in the st pete program up till it closed, and we had a girl named "Robin" on junior staff. Very decent person and seemed a little more "grown up" than the most of the staff.I remember the first time i really got come down on hard in group.It was a 3 hour + comedown rap, and i was the guest of honor! Robin was the only staff member who didn't join in the feeding frenzy. Darlene, Lbby, and John U left the group and Robin was left in charge. As soon as they left Robin told me i could sit down. I'll never forget her kindness.BTW i was come down on because my hair had gotten too long(my hair covered the top of my ears)! Obviously i was full of shit!
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it was rick burtain..a real asshole and my first oldcomer..gotta say this he was brave..dont know why i didnt whip his ass..and paul g. that was possibly gerlach..a so called friend from my pre seed days and child hood ..and was the one who originally did me the wonderful favor of droppin a dime on me to my folks and initiating the whole damn thing..a dispicable human being a weasel.. a worm....
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Howdy fellow seedlings! :wave:
I was at the St. Pete Seed 73-74, and attended Lakewood High around that time. I attended Omega Free School 72-73. My name is Debbie--blonde, blue eye, chubby and tall. I was active in the Art Department at Lakewood. Other than that I didn't talk to many folks.
The 'leaders' or whatever the heck they were called that I remember most are Darlene and Libby, and a black girl but her name escapes me.
"You're full of shit." "You getting into your head?" "You don't know what it means to . . ."
Very painful times for me. Screwed up my chance at college after high school(though I went much later). Did WONDERS for my already screwed up self-esteem. What a blundering mistake. Thanks, Mom.
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bump
:wave: If life were fair, Dan Quayle would be making a living asking 'Do you want fries with that?'
John Cleese
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bump...this was the first post and first thread ever in the forum.
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I believe the bumper stickers said NOT that the SEED SUCKS...
but the SEED SUCCEEDS, right? LOL
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No, they were license plates and they said "the Seed loves you"
Welcome to the forum Robin.
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Packed away somewhere in my boxes of things I still have a Seed plaque with the Seed Emblem
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I always wondered about that huge "Seed Loves You" sign on SR84. It was about 4x8 feet and very elaborate. It looked like one of the license plates.
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I know of "The Seed Loves You" license plate but also do remember a few bumper stickers (in response to those which read "The Seed Sucks" that said "The Seed Succeeds". Maybe that was a local thing in Clearwater Beach...
This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: The freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: Any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual.
--John Steinbeck, American novelist
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Or maybe my brain can't recall it. Great info tho.
Robin, you the "chick" that Thom was alluding to? Were you on staff in St Pete. If so, tell us about it.
You may remember my family as well if you were there in 73. Email me at [email protected] and lets figure it out.
WELCOME AGAIN>
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Nope - never wanted "staff status". I went in first, my brother Mark came in 2 weeks later. After graduating, I dated Doug S. who was a staff member for a while and an avid skydiver. He lived w/Bob R (also a staff member)and his brother and a black guy (staff) whom I gave my cat "Sunny" to when I moved to CA. I lived w/ 4 other girls Mary C, Julie, Renata (sp)in St. Pete and when I moved vowed I would never live w/ another girl as long as I lived LOL!! Many good times!!!
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Better late than never. I just this past week have come to the same conclusions. It was hard then and it has been a hard 30 years since then, trying to find some peace of mind.
I have three friends from there whoI am still in contact with. What pain and weirdness we have all shared over the years. I was 15 my brother was older, but no way were we as fucked up as they said. No way. Have others replied?
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anon, which post were you replying to?
Do me a favor..pick a user name and participate often. When responding to a post, it is better sometimes to use the quote feature for continuity.
We all look forward to your participation.
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Greg, if you have noticed those that have responded about life in compound or homes are 70's 80's but not one has responded to a detailed eplanation about lifew in 90's.
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O0 O0 :birthday: O0 O0