seed'70

[Ft. Lauderdale]

I think you are over exaggerating Greg as usual.

Its kind of like a lie detector test I once took before I entered the Seed.  Let me clairfy this right away.  It was done at a place I worked before I ever thought about going into the Seed.
I thought I was being honest about drug usage, but I probably would have in reality been popping a pill every hour on the hour every day of my life if I would have thought about it. I was way off, but at the time I thought I was telling the truth.   They never fired me either, strange.  They must have liked me.  I in reality remember a couple of over the top raps.  I'm sure if you thought about it you would come up with the same figures.

[GregFL]

I have thought about it. The whole shebang was way over the top, IMO..including but not limited to the extreme raps and the "you couldn't fuck a coke bottle" style therapy some of the kids got.

[Antigen]

What, specifically, do you think he's exagerating, Lauderdale?

"sending people out to throw you in cars"

I remember talk of this happening back then, and so I wasn't at all surprised when it happened in Straight.

"padlock you in buildings at night"

Ditto. Padlocks, dead bolts, travelers' locks and even an instance of an attack dog tied outside the bedroom door.

"sit in wooden chairs for twelve hours a day"

'We come each day from 10 till 10....'

"getting screamed at and sexually humiliated."

I think we've pretty well reached a consensus on that one. Remember the rule about not doing that in front of "company" at open meetings? Why in the world would you need a rule like that if it were not going on when the parents weren't sitting there?

"No, the seed was scientology on speed, I am afraid you have that backwards."

I think there's a much darker side to Scientology than what the typical recruit gets. Remember Linda McPherson? Sure, now you can just google her name and read all about it. But back a few years ago, there were very few people willing to speak up about that whole ordeal. And the lawyer who pressed the issue was severely harassed.

I can't say the Seed ever was as scary as Scientology. Not that it drew from any higher moral well or anything. They'd do whatever they could get away with, just like anybody. But they never were so powerful a cult as Hubbard's little shindig.

I don't think that a drug that creates euphoria in patients with terminal diseases is having an adverse effect.
--San Francisco oncologist & AIDS doctor, Donald Abrams, M.D.

[Anonymous]

In the hippie subculture of the late '60s & early 70s, it was fairly common to believe that niacin "would clean your system." It's origin, to the best of my recollection, was Haight-Ashbury.
It was believed that niacin could help clean the acid out those experiencing bad trips.

[GregFL]

Well, scientology is big and scary because frankly it is big and powerfull.

I am talking about the every day techniques used. They are no where near coercive as the seed was.

Imagine if Art had accomplished building a major cult the size of scientology full with his "seed army", with thousands upon thousands of kids sitting captive in warehouses till they "got it".

[Antigen]

Well, looking at it slightly differently, we're halfway there.

I think of each of these programs as a part of a much larger movement. How scary are they? Ask a Nicaraguan or an Afghan woman who lived through US funding and support or anyone (long list) who's endured decades of covert and overt US military operations in their neighborhoods, austensibly in the name of the drug war.

But it's not a centrally organized, controled cult. It's more like a movement; I guess I'm describing what some people call the culture war. I think there still are two viable sides to the issue w/ a whole lot of uninformed, uninterested folks in the middle.

The wretchedness of religion is at once an expression and a protest against real wretchedness. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people.
--Karl Marx, German economist and political philosopher

[Botched Programming]

Scientology Fundamentals by L. Ron Hubbard
What is Scientology? Scientology is an applied religious philosophy.

The term Scientology is taken from the Latin word scio (knowing in the fullest sense of the word) and the Greek word logos (study of). In itself the word means literally knowing how to know. Scientology is further defined as the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, universes and other life. Any comparison between Scientology and the subject known as psychology is nonsense.

For Full Essay http://www.ronthephilosopher.org/page43.htm

Religion is all bunk.
--Thomas Edison, American inventor

[Ft. Lauderdale]

What, specifically, do you think he's exagerating, Lauderdale?

"sending people out to throw you in cars"

I remember talk of this happening back then, and so I wasn't at all surprised when it happened in Straight.

"padlock you in buildings at night"

Ditto. Padlocks, dead bolts, travelers' locks and even an instance of an attack dog tied outside the bedroom door.

"sit in wooden chairs for twelve hours a day"

'We come each day from 10 till 10....'

"getting screamed at and sexually humiliated."

I think we've pretty well reached a consensus on that one. Remember the rule about not doing that in front of "company" at open meetings? Why in the world would you need a rule like that if it were not going on when the parents weren't sitting there?

"No, the seed was scientology on speed, I am afraid you have that backwards."

I think there's a much darker side to Scientology than what the typical recruit gets. Remember Linda McPherson? Sure, now you can just google her name and read all about it. But back a few years ago, there were very few people willing to speak up about that whole ordeal. And the lawyer who pressed the issue was severely harassed.

I can't say the Seed ever was as scary as Scientology. Not that it drew from any higher moral well or anything. They'd do whatever they could get away with, just like anybody. But they never were so powerful a cult as Hubbard's little shindig.

HERESAY THATS WHAT ALOT OF THE ABOVE IS.

NO ONE SAT IN WOODEN CHAIRS SINCE 1972.  NO ONE EVER THREW ANYONE IN A CAR THAT I SAW.

ANYTHING COULD HAVE HAPPENED AND MAYBE ISOLATED INCIDENTS OF CERTAIN THINGS MAY HAVE HAPPENED.

YOU KNOW WHAT, THAT WAS OVER 30 YEARS AGO.  THAT SHIT I NEVER SAW AND YOU KEEP SAYING THAT YOU HEARD IT HAPPENED YOU WERE NEVER THERE.

I SAY GET OVER IT ALSO.  THE SEED WAS NOT PERFECT BUT YOU SURE AS HELL ARN'T EITHER.  

A HELL OF ALOT OF GOOD WAS DONE ...PEOPLE'S LIVES CHANGED FOR THE BETTER...I DON'T CARE WHAT THE F--- YOU SAY.  I WAS THERE.

PS  THE CAPS WERE USED , BECAUSE IT WAS EASIER.[ This Message was edited by: Ft. Lauderdale on 2005-09-27 13:14 ]

[Antigen]

Are you calling my brothers and my parents liars? Oh, and not only them, let's see, neighbors, friends, teachers, newspaper reporters... the list could go on and on.

Greg has said over and over again that, much to his shame, he himself participated in just such an incident. Even John confirmed that you guys did chase people down and lock them in. Not always, but often enough. His words exactly, if I remember right, were "Of course we did, we wanted them to stay".

Why do you feel such a strong need to contradict what is plain fact to all of us who were involved at the time? And yes, I was there, for years. Just because I wasn't in group from 10 - 10 doesn't mean I had no accurate information.

I am sick unto death of obscure English towns that exist seemingly for the sole accommodation of these so-called limerick writers -- and even sicker of their residents, all of whom suffer from physical deformities and spend their time dismembering relatives at fancy dress balls.
--Editor of the Limerick Times
(Limerick, Ireland)

[Helena Handbasket]

Well, Barker was almost half-right on the Niacin thing.  Chronic alcoholics are usually deficient in Niacin.  I used to ride on an ambulance, and we stocked niacin for the more symptomatic drunks.  Don't get me wrong - it never snapped them into reality, but it was medical protocol.

But strychnine pockets? Oh come ON! Where exactly were these "pockets" located?  :rofl:

_________________
Where are we going, and what are we doing in this handbasket??[ This Message was edited by: Helena Handbasket on 2005-09-27 20:02 ]

[Anonymous]

No one sat in wooden chairs since 1972?

Really, and to think, I came in in July 73 and all that time I coulda swore it was wooden chairs the kids would break pieces off to cut themselves with.

What were they then?

Heresay? Bullshit on that bigtime. Each and every one of the things I have mentioned were witnessed on a routine regular basis by people who were inprisoned involuntarily in your cult.  In addition, they were well documented in the press.

Ft Lauderdale, were you really in the seed?  All that shit was the culture of the day and if you would use the first and most comical rule, you would stop trying to deny or minimize the facts.

gregfl

[Thom]

On 2005-09-27 20:24:00, Anonymous Greg wrote:

"No one sat in wooden chairs since 1972?

Hey Greg, maybe he meant no one sat in wooden chairs continuously since 1972. 33 years would be a long sitting. At the Lauderdale Seed, I seem to recall mostly wooden chairs at first, then metal. As I have never seen or heard of wood turning to metal, I guess the kids eventually broke all the pieces off, or Art sent them to St. Pete to have that done. Probably the latter, as I don't  recall anyone being asked to sit on a single sliver of wood in Lauderdale. Then Art replaced them with the metal ones.  Hell, I suppose in single sliver condition, you couldn't keep calling them chairs anyway. At least not with a straight face.

Newcomers got tougher over time. Can you imagine breaking off chunks of STEEL with your bare hands to cut yourself with? The wooden chair people had it too easy in my opinion.

[Antigen]

Imagine? I've seen it done, bro! Not only that but those metal chairs are not just neat props for WWF events. They actually do make effective offensive weapons.

But wtf are we arguing about, anyway? Wood, plastic, metal, what's the difference? It's not good for anybody to be confined in a highly stressful, ongoing meeting for 12 hours a day, months at a stretch. But that remains a core element of the Seed spawned programs.

But I'm glad you're finally willing to admit to the cutting that went on there. Never saw that happen in school or in juvenile detention or anywhere else but in group.

[Religion is] the daughter of hope and fear, explaining to ignorance the nature of the unknowable.
--Ambrose Bierce

_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Seed Chicklett `71 - `80
Straight, Sarasota
   10/80 - 10/82
Apostate 10/82 -
Anonymity Anonymous

[Thom]

On 2005-09-28 08:44:00, Antigen wrote:

"Imagine? I've seen it done, bro! Not only that but those metal chairs are not just neat props for WWF events. They actually do make effective offensive weapons.



But wtf are we arguing about, anyway? Wood, plastic, metal, what's the difference? It's not good for anybody to be confined in a highly stressful, ongoing meeting for 12 hours a day, months at a stretch. But that remains a core element of the Seed spawned programs.



But I'm glad you're finally willing to admit to the cutting that went on there. Never saw that happen in school or in juvenile detention or anywhere else but in group.

Whoa, Sis. I'm not arguing anything. I don't deny cutting went on. There are not many claims made here that I am in a position to deny. I was simply trying to inject some humor into the day. If anyone is offended by that, please except my apology. My rambling was not intended to evoke anything but a chuckle.  :eek:

[Ft. Lauderdale]

Antigen,

It was once 12 hrs a day going back 30 yrs ago.

Lots of things have changed since the 70's 80's and even 90's.  

The last time I remember someone even getting yelled at in the group had to be 20 years ago.

I guess ALMOST all of us have evolved since then and moved on.

I never was in ST. Pete so I'm sorry maybe there were wooden chairs there.

Do you still use wire hangers?
 :grin: