JONESTOWN MASSACRE: 30 years ago today

[Rugby Punk]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp ... 9#27206055

A link to an old, but updated documentary on Jim Jone's cult that moved to Guyana. They drank the kool aid 30 years ago today.

Also, a book that I've been reading lately that makes for some interesting points is THE NEW BELIEVERS , by David V. Barrett. There's nothing about Synanon which is disappointing, but they do have a section on the Landmark Forum and some est branch off groups. Its also from the UK point of view which is why I think they have more on European groups and less of the American cults. Good resource.


RIP Congressman Leo Ryan and 900 other pour souls. :peace:

[Rugby Punk]

One more thing,
Seeing the interviews they did with surviving temple members really gets you to thinking how you could've stopped the madness in their shoes. Now transplant back to Cedu; do you flee, do you rebel from the inside, or do you shut your mouth and stay off the radar?

[Ursus]

...do you flee, do you rebel from the inside, or do you shut your mouth and stay off the radar?

'Tis the age-old dilemma. In my case, I was lucky that cyanide was probably a controlled substance in Maine when I did my gig...   :dose:

[Anonymous]

http://www.archive.org/details/ptc1978-11-18.flac16


Use discretion when watching this...it's pretty intense

[try another castle]

...do you flee, do you rebel from the inside, or do you shut your mouth and stay off the radar?

'Tis the age-old dilemma. In my case, I was lucky that cyanide was probably a controlled substance in Maine when I did my gig...   :dose:

Maine? Were you in Elan, Ursus?

[Ursus]

No... HydeHell...  :clown:

Psycho surgery without the Ring. We ran 8 mile laps, had a wrestling gauntlet ("sharking"), and dug and redug our own graves for fun, just like Cool Hand Luke (a literal cinematic inspiration for Joe Gauld).

[dishdutyfugitive]

what is sharking?

spare no detail

[Ursus]

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=9168&p=95401#p95401

When I was at Hyde Bath in '76 90% of the abuse was passed off as "sports". The worst was during the winter season wrestling. If you weren't a talented athlete already, you wrestled in the winter. The way Hyde won meets was to require large guys to starve themselves to lose an unhealthy amount of weight to get into smaller weight classes (Hyde rarely won unlimited). The punishment for not "making weight" was called "sharking". this meant that the whole team lined up and you had to wrestle one guy for one minute, then the coach blew the whistle, then a fresh wrestler came in, the whistle blew again, another fresh wrestler etc, etc, etc... You can't win. Also, people who couldn't perform were routinely accused of "being on drugs" (as if the townies in Bath would deign to sell us drugs :lol:)...

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=12108&p=149691#p149691

Soemtimes the abuse was more subtle, like many aspects of the sports programs. We've talked about sharking in wrestling. Remember "Bull in the Ring" in football? They'd get one guy and have every other player line up in a circle around him. Each person would be assigned a number. The coach would call out a number and that person would would go in there after the person in the middle. This wasn't so bad until the coach started calling out three numbers at once so you'd have three guys coming at you from different angles. This would go on until the person in the middle was on the ground, completely beat up & unable to defend himself.

[dishdutyfugitive]

so they had a real football team at hyde?

what is 'hyde bath'?

[Ursus]

Yeah, sports is kind of a BIG deal there. Not that they are any kind of super powerhouse in anything, although they do hold their own quite well enough... Rather, sports is seen as an excellent vehicle for "character development," haha! One's teammates form yet another group that one gets to be picked apart in by one's peers. Team meetings, the joy of it all!

Did you challenge yourself enough? I think you are slacking off. You could have lost more weight before the meet. I saw you eat some ice cream with your folks when they came to visit. Your time was half a minute more than your practice runs; what's going on? I don't think you're sharing enough with the team, you are selfishly reserving yourself. This behavior parallels what's going on in Discovery Group. We need to discuss image adjustment. I think you are faking that injury. Let's see what happens if you continue to use that leg for another week before we bring you to the doctor. No pain, no gain!! Are you on drugs? Do we need to have you tested? Where's your integrity? Nah, you can't

honestly say that you've done your best! What's that you said?!! Drop down! 20 push-ups on the go! One of you sissies did <some minor offense> so y'all get out there and run 15 laps 'till I get that name! Ah, get offa yourself and quit barfing, we know you're faking it, it can't be that bad, hahaha!! So give us another 10 laps for that show!! hep! hep! [/list]

'Hyde bath' just refers to the Bath, ME campus. Once upon a time it was the only one, but now there is also one in Woodstock, CT.

[dishdutyfugitive]

wow - I can't imagine a real football team program within a program.

You can't serve 2 masters. 1 would have suffered - significantly.

[try another castle]

Bull in the ring sounds suspiciously like "smear the queer."

heh. probably the most brutal sporting event we had to do at RMA was blob tag. Sure, we had shit like paul bunyan day and the pseudo olympics, as well as a soccer team (rather legit in terms of training and competing). But oh god, blob tag. It went on forever.

The 4 mile loop wasnt so hot, either. I think I only managed it once.

All in all, though. sports were pretty ok. Not in terms of fun, but just in general.

[Ursus]

wow - I can't imagine a real football team program within a program.

You can't serve 2 masters. 1 would have suffered - significantly.

It was a closed system. Most staff wore several hats. All of the coaches either taught a class and/or led seminars (Discovery groups) and/or were an Admin to boot. Most lived on campus and were also Residential staff. There was only one master: The Hyde Way.

[dishdutyfugitive]

did they play against real teams or just fig newtons of their thinking?

[Ursus]

did they play against real teams or just fig newtons of their thinking?

Oh, real teams. The sports program is how Hyde manages to still present the illusion that they are a bona fide "boarding school."

A friend of a former student stopped by in the Hyde forum recently with this insight:

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=12273&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=120#p316144

I know several people who attended Hyde in the last few years, because I graduated from a "normal" prep school in New England (the kind for high-achieving, self-motivated students) and we competed with Hyde CT in sports. The alumni I know all hated the school, and I had overheard worried discussions among parents in the boarding school world: "They don't have any psychologists on staff, or psychological evidence to back up these practices? That's troubling." "They way they treat sexuality and sexual activity is a little judgmental, possibly damaging."

...<snip snip>

(There's a lot more to that post, but that was the part that mentioned the sports program...)