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Seed article to be published/Help needed!

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marcwordsmith:
Dear friends (and adversaries and neutral parties),

My online essay about the Seed (www.insidersview.info/theseed) will be published in an abridged form in January, 2007, in THE SUN magazine (www.thesunmagazine.org). Also, in that same issue, they'll publish an interview I did earlier this year with Maia Szalavitz, author of "Help at any Cost."

I need a little help.

 I wrote, in the introduction to my essay about the Seed:

"The Seed was highly publicized, and the attention eventually proved destructive to for the program. In 1974 the U.S. Senate published a study that accused the Seed of using methods similar to North Korean communist brainwashing techniques. The bad press, in conjunction with lawsuits, forced the Seed to scale back its operations dramatically. By the 1980s, the Seed had shrunk to a small fraction of its former size, and was only permitted to accept voluntary ?clients? who were at least 18 years of age. The Seed endured in this diminished capacity until it finally closed in 2001."

Now, I'm clear about the 1974 U.S. Senate study, and that The Seed shut down for good in '01.

What I'm not entirely sure about is the in-between. Is the following statement accurate?

"By the 1980s, the Seed had shrunk to a small fraction of its former size, and was only permitted to accept voluntary ?clients? who were at least 18 years of age."

Ginger, Greg, Stripe, anyone . . . please let me know. Maybe I should say "By the LATE 1980s . . ."?

Also, I just did a review of all the topic thread titles on this forum, and I saw some discussion of lawsuits about mistreatment (usually medical negligence) of particular kids.
But am I right to say that "lawsuits" are part of what forced the Seed to scale down?

I REALLY appreciate the help! Thank you in advance.

GregFL:
Awesome Mark!

Let me think about your questions.  I am not aware, personally, of any lawsuits that forced the seed to shut down.

Also, I know that the Seed was only publically taking over 18 kids, but I have been told (which is purely anecedotal) that there was the occasional under 18 kid being admitted.  I am not sure "permitted" is the correct word, but rather I think it was an internal decision.

I also think your statement," by the 1980s" is essentially correct given the 1973/74 size of the group.

Marc, with the limited availability of information coming out of the Seed, perhaps just a quick perusal of the forum topics of the 80s guy would help. Anyone who was around during that period of time, your help would be greatly appreciated.

Antigen:
I can tell you that in late `80, they wouldn't take me. I had run away because I got wind that my mom was trying to get me in there. And they found an empty, but pungent smelling baggie under my mattress. I never got any real reliable answers when I asked why that happened. My mom told me it was because of Art's rule against taking anybody who had been through other rehabs; citing all of my contact w/ the Seed since age 6. Basically, that I already knew the program frontward and backward and so it wouldn't work on me. Sounds to me like a cover story w/ other fringe benefits. John told me when I talked to him that it was because I didn't need it.

Who knows what to believe, though, considering the cloistered sources who would know one or another compartmentalized version of these events?

That's the story, imo. Not what precisely happened in any one instance, but the extreme difficulty, even all these years later, sorting it out for ourselves. Never mind the clusterfuck mental state this kind of situation creates while you're bobbing in it for years.

marcwordsmith:
Thanks Greg and Ginger! Hmm . . . an ambiguous situation . . . I will take your advice, Greg, and peruse The 80s Guy on this forum.

My wife and I just got back from a Thanksgiving weekend away. It's Sunday here, about 1:30 p.m. I'm going to try and "put this to bed" before I go to bed tonight!

Wish me luck!

Antigen:
Good luck

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