Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum

Art Barker & the Beginning of the SEED

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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
--- End quote ---

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

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