Art Barker & the Beginning of the SEED

[GregFL]

Your welcome. Now do me two favors.

1) take your cap locks off.

2) post us a story from the old days in the house where Art used to give out free food.

Thanks in advance

[Antigen]

Sorry, Richard, I don't have a lot of good memories from those days. I wasn't in group at The Seed. I was just a little kid. My older brothers and one of my sisters were in group at various timese between around `71 and maybe `78 or so. What I remember is that our house was a great place to be a kid. Lots of people coming around to visit all the time. Like any family, we had our rough edges, but generally our house was a hub for my older brothers and sisters' social circles.

All that came to a screetching halt when my brothers first went into The Seed. Nobody came around. Our whole lives revolved around The Seed. After my sister went in and my mother tried to recruit all of her friends parents (and everyone else in the neighborhood) none of the other kids in the neighborhood were allowed to play w/ me. I lost what few friendships I had and spent the rest of my preadolescance completely socially isolated.

No matter how hard I tried to please my mom and be the perfect little Seedling, it became clear by the time I was around 14 that it wasn't going to work. She was going to put me in The Seed anyway. So I ran from home looking for someplace to hide out for 4 years till I could come of age. My sister turned me in when I turned up at her door in Massechusetts. For whatever reason, I don't go there. Instead, I went to Straight, Inc. in Sarasota, which had been set up by former Seed parents and staff after The Seed in St. Pete had been shut down.

I haven't stayed in touch w/ anybody from those days. I don't even talk to the McNultys anymore. See, they all either completed the program or continue to center their lives on stepcraft. I never did. I split for the final time when I was almost 18 and picked up where I left off getting myself established independent of the Program. That's the unforgivable sin.

All our liberties are due to men who, when their conscience has compelled them, have broken the laws of the land.
--William Kingdon Clifford

[Somejoker]

It is so fascinating reading the different perceptions and reactions people have to their memories of the Seed.

I particularly find fascinating those that hero worship Art Barker. To me during my program I despised him and feared him, yet was forced to sing love songs to him.

I felt like what I was, a prisoner in a cool-aide love cult struggling to survive, always casting an eye to the day I could get far away from that place. I remember Art coming into group,chain smoking, talking 100 miles an hour, spewing venom at his enemies, taking mini-surveys, cracking stupid fucking jokes and pretending like he was a big shot actor. What a pompous egotistical jerk he was.It was a wonder someone didn't beat the shit out of his short little ass.

Richard, maybe the early days were different, but the Seed St Pete had a decidedly hard edge to it.

Still waiting for your stories....




[ This Message was edited by: Somejoker on 2004-05-03 08:03 ]

[Somejoker]

BTW, I think this is a better mailing address...


BARKER,ART & SHELLY
1509 NE 6TH ST
FORT LAUDERDALE FL 33304-2916

Send your cards and letters.

[Anonymous]

the first  house before SR84 was
pretty much open house you came to meetings and enjoyed everyone, but when i came back in 73 to SR84 it was definitly 6 months of hell,  i was basically pretty much a street kid in those days, i did not have parents to force to to go. Art took me in unconditionally,
never expecting any money, maybe because i
was part of the earliest seed days. I actually signed myself in. It definitly was not easy sittting in those hard chairs from early in the morning till late at night, eating those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches  but i was so damaged that I needed that sort of boot camp to survice, some real love would have been better, but iIhad no other choices..I tried to escape several times when things got rough and even got away once, but I went home to my family situation and realized the seed was a better solution. When you sign yourslf into the seed it is the same as your parents signing you in, you can't leave until you
 complete the program. Everybody I knew outside the seed hated it., but whats that old saying, any love is better then no love at all..
The seed definitly set me on the right track,
after a couple of years of being clean i went back out for another decade in california of all places. But I now have 18 years of sobriety
and it was from the seed that was planted when i young, it all came back to me, well yes I was basically brainwashed., but with some very important steps, and some bad songs "ZIPPY DO DA ZIPPY DAY" I can look back and see the good in it all, It was an experience i will never forget. Art even asked me to join the staff and they were going to help me go to art school.  I turned him down, i guess i needed to make my own  way at the time.


Rchard

[Anonymous]

GREG,
           IS THIS YOUR ADDRESS FOR ART
REALLY HIS ADDRESS, I AM CONFUSED?
SOMEONE ELSE SENT ANOTHER ADDRESS

[Anonymous]

That is his home address. The other address is a building he owns.

And please....your cap locks.

On the internet, all caps is considered yelling.

[GregFL]

Thanks Richard. More about this house. It seems that maybe the seed evolved into something different than it started out as...

As you suggest, when you came back it was much different.

How very interesting. Please tell us more about the Seed while it was in the house. Who was there? What were the raps like then? etc, etc.

[Anonymous]

The small house was more like AA meetings,it was lke a long living room with about 20 to 30 chairs, art had his own office and shelly had ext to his she was more like a receptionist. we did a lot of sharing and people could raise there hand and bust someone on there shit. I don;t remember  parents taking people home at the time we came to meetings on our own.  i am sure it did exist but on a very small scale. Somehow i do remember a toilet seat  use around peoples heads when they were coming down on them.
I remember  people making suggestions that i should cut my hair, but is was not mandatory
yet. there was a small record player there and we used to listen to records, rock and roll. i actually witness a beautiful small wedding there with one of the staff members. It was really a very loving place. Arts wife Shelly looked like a young flower chid (long dark brown hair) backt hem, i remember she said she was 29 at the time and she looked 17 and I was really surprised she was married to Art.
Art looked like her father.. I remember  a staff member named marlene, i think that was her name, she came from new york, she was one of the best staff people ever, she was kind and beautiful and  about 24 , she also had a small little girl . I think Art was helping her get her child back. Does anyone remember the toliet seat? they would have dinners cooked for the locals, the basic coffee and cookie, donut thing , sandwiches. I remember a  one older guy there that was more of an alcoholic, actually,
i do vaguely remember Art  talking about holding his first meetings on his yacht.
It is so many years ago, everything is vague,
except for SR84 everything there was drilled into me.

richard

[Anonymous]

My dumped two of my sisters and me in the Seed on SR84 in the summer of '72.  My older sister went to the one on Andrews' Avenue.  I remember the toilet seet, I also remember them putting a sign around my neck when I wasn't compliant.  Before I went into the Seed, I had never done any drugs, so I learned a lot there-which ones to do, which ones not to do, how to do them.  The food was atrocious and I loved kitchen duty rather than sitting in those smoked filled, hot, hot, summer meetings where they wouldn't let you drink enough water.  After two months of denying drug use, I finally made up a history, just so they would let me go home.  What a cluster f--k that place was-it was so inhuman.

[Anonymous]

I was involved with the seed since the 60's with family members & knew Art Barker well. Curious to hear your thoughts. Those of us involved/brainwashed long term...what kind of impact do you think that had on a person...was it true sobriety as described in AA or lacking.
Very curious to learn more about it.

[Anonymous]

Art was involved with AA & was Jackie Gleason & Art Carney's sponsor until he left AA saying "they were a bunch of cold pricks & he wanted to be a nice person". Very curious to learn more about my roots that were tainted back then.

[GregFL]

Welcome to the seed discussion forum. I visited the sr 84 location while I was a seed oldcomer and also drove by it many times after graduating and living in ft lauderdale. A few time I yelled "the seed sucks" As I drove by, half scared, half beligerent as driving by.

Many years gone by. What are your impressions of the long term affects of your involvement in the Seed cult?

[Anonymous]

Did you ever stop to think why Lybbi is so heavy into dog training...still controlling behavior of trapped spiritual beings...she controls their food, punishes them, withholds love/attention until the "appropriate" behavior is exhibited. But it's not considered abuse of children now. Poor puppies.

[Anonymous]

I was in the Seed in early 70's when it was on hwy 84 in the old blimp hanger. I think it was about a year before someone gave them a bunch of broken marble to put together for some of the floors.  My Mom was recruited by another Seed parent (typical of cults).  I tried pot 1 time but of course no one there believed me.  I had to make up stories to fit in and get better. I lost over one year of school which I would never be able to replace.  Did I need help? Yep, I was a spoiled brat. Being throw into the SEED was not what I needed.  I remember going back one time years later as an oldimer to help out. My finance called there to speak to me (I had a long drive with a very old car) and the last thing I remember was Art coming in and screaming and cursing at me for the gall of my finance to call me there.  After I ran to the bathroom crying, Libby came in after me to tell me Art was having a "BAD" day.  Art of course was above apologies.  NOBODY ever questioned Art, after all he gave his life to save ours...What a bunch of crap!  How he suffered for us, how he left his BIG career as a standup comic (later to find out he was washed up literally) to help us poor helpless kids.  I can still see him leaving in the limo driven by Robert. He had more money than anyone really knew about.  I also believe there were a few other things in his past he was not happy for others to find out.
 Being thrown into the Seed was the single worst thing that ever happened to me.  I took over a year to graduate, mostly because I couldn't come up with good enough stories to repent about.  The only fond memory I had was "skipping" the Seed as an old comer one weekend, was the best afternoon I had had in a year.  Ran dirt bikes through the Orbit area all day.  
Other than the Seed meetings being horrible, some of the homes I had to stay in were, well let me just say were different.  
The Seed and it's followers definitely fit all the criteria of being a cult.  You know what they say, "if it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck...."