Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Seed Discussion Forum
The humiliating seed!
Anonymous:
I was doing a search on The Seed, Fort Lauderdale, to learn whatever became of that place and Art Barker. I stumbled across Marc Polonsky's article on his experience at the facility as a youth. In his reply, Marc sent me a link to this message board.
Florida was supposed to be a tropical paradise with pelicans or a rare sight of a pod of dolphins swimming in the Atlantic. Instead, it was eight months of pure hell! I was at The Seed from August, 1978 to March, 1979, but it seemed like an eternity. When I finally departed from that hell-hole and returned to Chicago, I did not believe that I was actually free of The Seed and Art Barker until I was actually on the flight back to the Windy City.
The bathroom door had to be unlocked while I was doing my business, practicing my faith was prohibited (even prayer was taboo!), I surrendered my jewelry at the insistence of my oldcomer, and that's just for starters! It was THE most difficult period of my life and it took me looong time to heal, both emotionally and psychologically.
GregFL:
Welcome! Marc's article was really good!
I am glad you found this website. While it isn't as active as it once was, there is a treasure-trove of information within. Further, people can validate your experiences that until now were probably your own private hell.
I too suffered pyschological terror while in the Seed. Many of us did, and there are valid reasons why we felt that way. The Seed was a nightmare of 60s pop culture mixed with totalitarian hero worship and cultic 'recovery' methods that included well established techniques used on prisoners of war to modify their behavior. These included sleep deprivation, love bombing, isolation from peers,ridicule,witholding of bathroom priviledges, family affection for submission, rejection of all outsiders, among other modalities.
How in the hell so many people were duped, I'll never understand. It speaks volumes for the collective low intelligence and gullibility of humankind
Anonymous:
Art Barker, Libby, John Underwood and company are some of the most disgraceful human beings to ever exist.
Anonymous:
Julio, go get some help.
If you have that much hatred in your heart (wanting to urinate on someone's grave or hating and naming people) you need help to get rid of the anger or the anger will kill you. Good luck with that!
GregFL:
Who said anything remotely resembling what you are accusing her of saying? She said they were disgraceful, and certainly the The Seed in the early 70s was anything but something to be proud of and resulted in an entire barrage of copycat treatment centers that have abused kids right on up to...right now.
This is a disgrace. However, I personally think that these things happened a long time ago which gives plenty of room for reflection and change on the responsible parties. Unfortunately, we haven't really seen much evidence of this.
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