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Anonymous:
The Cult of the Seed?

The tribal mentality- we were all suppose to rely only on each other, Contact with people outside the seed was limited. Outsiders were viewed with suspicion and could not be trusted. The logic behind this was to learn how to develop our own set of morals and tastes. We were too weak to face the pressures of acceptance on our own. (At least on the first part of the program). Once we progressed on the program you were allowed more contact with the outside world usually though in the presence of another Seed member with more time under their belt. Although once a person graduated we were suppose to be able face the world on our own the mindset remained that all people outside the Seed were to be viewed with suspicion and at a distance including old fiends and family. I found this to be debilitating because this caused a person to become too dependent on the Seed. The Seed became a crutch rather than a support. I remember when contemplating the idea to move back home this created such turmoil in my head I choose not to confront it directly this in turn caused more turmoil coupled with a new found sense of frustration.
The Seed was a world onto itself it became your family your comfort your thoughts and deeds. You were guided by the set norms of acceptable behavior as prescribed by the group. As a result one lost themselves in the ability of what and how they wanted to grow and develop into. This type of conformity retarded and hindered ones growth. I remember listening in raps to some long timers and felt that had missed the point. I can remember thinking is no need to know oneself that well. I must admit this realization did not come to me until I was well past being a graduate and this was the beginning of my desire to leave and have my try at the outside world. As I wrestled with this idea I was indirectly confronted with my own insecurities and lack of esteem or even perhaps my own laziness. People made me feel that there was nothing better than the Seed and leaving would only bring unhappiness which in-turn could lead back into a downward spiral of ones accomplishments. Where would I find the Strength to survive and prosper? This was the very reason I should have left the Seed and forced myself to do some real growing.
Another thing practiced to discourage people from leaving is once a person left very rarely were they spoken of again. Sometimes a staff member would talk to the people most directly affected by the person?s leaving and explained how they had lost sight of what was really important and had acted impulsively and selfishly. When someone wanted to have a discussion with a staff member about venturing out in the ?real world? They tried to talk you out of it either by killing you with kindness or a very strong confrontation. One mechanism used was to make you feel like an ingrate and that you were turning your back on everything the Seed had done for you. Was the point of the program not to make a person strong and independent? (In my case I never had the balls to confront Staff). The pressure seemed only to grow on myself while I wrestled with these issues especially when one tried to hide and mask these frustrations from the group and from their Seed friends.
In the end this lack of honesty on my part only lead to the eventually blow out I had with staff which lead to my expulsion from the group. I could not have been happier when this happened. I felt like a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. The Seed had forgotten about the desire of freewill, which lives deep with-in a person. This freewill is what drives us and causes us to try new things to succeed and to fail but above all to grow. They should have been more secure in what they taught and had more confidence that their people had changed for the better.  
It is ironic to me that the Seed which had been formed to make people strong and self-reliant, had fallen victim to their own weakness and insecurities. Many of the long timers should have taken a chance in the world instead of hiding from the world at the Seed while they projected their own insecurities onto everyone else.  This I believe was the beginning of what many people see as the cultic mind-set of the Seed.  Was the Seed a true cult? To a degree it did get perverted somewhat from its original intent however, the main objective still remained true and strong which, was to get people straight.
 So rest assured Ginger, Gregg the Seed is gone for good and no one from the old core group has any desire to start a new Seed. I must admit it gave me much satisfaction to watch all the old timers now have to fight the same battles we had to fight once we decided to walk out those doors for good.

GregFL:

--- Quote ---On 2004-10-18 15:47:00, Anonymous wrote:



The Seed was a world onto itself it became your family your comfort your thoughts and deeds. You were guided by the set norms of acceptable behavior as prescribed by the group. As a result one lost themselves in the ability of what and how they wanted to grow and develop into. This type of conformity retarded and hindered ones growth. I remember listening in raps to some long timers and felt that had missed the point. I can remember thinking is no need to know oneself that well. I must admit this realization did not come to me until I was well past being a graduate and this was the beginning of my desire to leave and have my try at the outside world. As I wrestled with this idea I was indirectly confronted with my own insecurities and lack of esteem or even perhaps my own laziness. People made me feel that there was nothing better than the Seed and leaving would only bring unhappiness which in-turn could lead back into a downward spiral of ones accomplishments. Where would I find the Strength to survive and prosper? This was the very reason I should have left the Seed and forced myself to do some real growing.

Another thing practiced to discourage people from leaving is once a person left very rarely were they spoken of again. Sometimes a staff member would talk to the people most directly affected by the person?s leaving and explained how they had lost sight of what was really important and had acted impulsively and selfishly. When someone wanted to have a discussion with a staff member about venturing out in the ?real world? They tried to talk you out of it either by killing you with kindness or a very strong confrontation. One mechanism used was to make you feel like an ingrate and that you were turning your back on everything the Seed had done for you. Was the point of the program not to make a person strong and independent? (In my case I never had the balls to confront Staff). The pressure seemed only to grow on myself while I wrestled with these issues especially when one tried to hide and mask these frustrations from the group and from their Seed friends.

In the end this lack of honesty on my part only lead to the eventually blow out I had with staff which lead to my expulsion from the group. I could not have been happier when this happened. I felt like a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. The Seed had forgotten about the desire of freewill, which lives deep with-in a person. This freewill is what drives us and causes us to try new things to succeed and to fail but above all to grow. They should have been more secure in what they taught and had more confidence that their people had changed for the better.  

It is ironic to me that the Seed which had been formed to make people strong and self-reliant, had fallen victim to their own weakness and insecurities. Many of the long timers should have taken a chance in the world instead of hiding from the world at the Seed while they projected their own insecurities onto everyone else.  This I believe was the beginning of what many people see as the cultic mind-set of the Seed.  Was the Seed a true cult? To a degree it did get perverted somewhat from its original intent however, the main objective still remained true and strong which, was to get people straight.

 So rest assured Ginger, Gregg the Seed is gone for good and no one from the old core group has any desire to start a new Seed. I must admit it gave me much satisfaction to watch all the old timers now have to fight the same battles we had to fight once we decided to walk out those doors for good.

"

--- End quote ---




Great post, very insightfull.

Was the seed a true cult you ask....

My answer is yes, a very strong cult on almost every key indicator of what makes a cult.

Whether the Seed is "gone" or not doesn't really concern me personally because they can't affect me. I have not feared Art Barker since about the age of 16 when I ran away from my family and the program in St Pete Florida vowing that they would have to kill me or jail me because I was never going back in. I paid a tremendous price for rejecting the program but it was/is well worth it.

I have heard rumour of a place in miami where some of these Seed insiders claim people are "getting straight" and I know that many of them worked on a project in Davie recently that is a long term residential drug treatment center, surprisingly christian based.  was the founder in the Seed? My guess would be yes.

The Seed modalities have continued on and persist to this day thru Seed offshoots. Straight Inc was started by a handfull of Seed parents and 6 or 7 Lakewood High Seed Graduates using seed techniques in the old St pete seed building when the seed left.Straight grew into the largest rehab in america but times were changing and people started taking the wacky stories at face value. As Straight, Inc. shut down thruout the nation due to lawsuits, abuse allegations and bad press, Offshoot programs sprang up and branches renamed and restaffed still using the Seed techniques.

I recently went to an open meeting at one such place and watched the open mike confessions, watched them motivate, yell I'm coming home to applause, sing seed songs, witness someone get yelled at on open mike by his parents and saw the three signs on the wall and the seven steps. I even got to observe a bit of a rap session before open meeting.

Even as the Seed was gearing down in the mid 70s, other programs using Arts tweaked synanon techniques were springing up. Some of the names of these programs were LIFE, Growing Together, Kids, SAFE...to name a few. All linearly connected to the Seed and using identical or slightly modified modality only lacking in Art's massive ego, bomber jacket, cigarrete holder and captain's hat.

Still further, the "teen help industry" rose up like a phoenix from the broken spirits of thousands of "helped" kids using synanon style treatment  and now has grown like a monster. You can now have your kid kidpnapped by professional thugs and be shipped half way across the world to be "helped" while the authorities look the other way.  You child will be isolated, his  will broken, ego crushed and rebuilt in the image of this "treatment center". They will be told that  they would be deadinsaneinjail without the program and many will believe it for a time, some for the rest of their lives.  Lawuit after lawsuit, death, suicide and abuse has been alleged and confirmed at these "rehabs" but the parents and some graduates claim that their lives were saved while others are broken and shattered by the experience.

No, you are wrong anon, the Seed lives on thru copycat programs and thru synanon treatment centers thruout the world.  That small tight group in Ft Lauderdale really isn't my concern as much as the entire youth treatment industry that uses similar modalities and abuses kids every day across the united states and the world. This problem will not be solved overnight but with good people speaking the truth change can occur.  Call me idealistic but I believe that just speaking the truth changes things.

 

[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2004-10-18 16:45 ]

GregFL:

--- Quote ---On 2004-10-18 15:47:00, Anonymous wrote:

  This I believe was the beginning of what many people see as the cultic mind-set of the Seed.  Was the Seed a true cult? To a degree it did get perverted somewhat from its original intent however, the main objective still remained true and strong which, was to get people straight.


"

--- End quote ---


intent or direction doesn't exclude an exclusive group from cult status.

Remember, synanon started out as a drug rehab. Narconon is an offshoot of scientology.

I know you have insinuated before that the purpose of the group somehow rescued it from being a cult, but a "higher purpose" is always an element of a cult combined with some mystical element. Ours was a special gift of awareness that only we had (supposedly). Art started calling seedlings "homo superior" "the seed army" and other exclusive things.

Do a little research on cults and critically apply the model to the Seed and I think you may understand a little better.

The Seed is listed by Robert Lifton, the worlds foremost expert on cults, as a cult.

The Seed spinoff SAFE which uses almost identical technique was described in a Miami news cast as a destructive mind cult by Steve Hassin, international known cult expert.

I will post some signs of cults in below this post for discussion.

GregFL:
THE PURPOSES AND TACTICS OF COERCIVE PERSUASION

Coercive persuasion or thought reform as it is sometimes known, is best understood as a coordinated system of graduated coercive influence and behavior control designed to deceptively and surreptitiously manipulate and influence individuals, usually in a group setting, in order for the originators of the program to profit in some way, normally financially or politically.

The essential strategy used by those operating such programs is to systematically select, sequence and coordinate numerous coercive persuasion tactics over CONTINUOUS PERIODS OF TIME. There are seven main tactic types found in various combinations in a coercive persuasion program. A coercive persuasion program can still be quite effective without the presence of ALL seven of these tactic types.

TACTIC 1. The individual is prepared for thought reform through increased suggestibility and/or "softening up," specifically through hypnotic or other suggestibility-increasing techniques such as: A. Extended audio, visual, verbal, or tactile fixation drills; B. Excessive exact repetition of routine activities; C. Decreased sleep; D. Nutritional restriction.

TACTIC 2. Using rewards and punishments, efforts are made to establish considerable control over a person's social environment, time, and sources of social support. Social isolation is promoted. Contact with family and friends is abridged, as is contact with persons who do not share group-approved attitudes. Economic and other dependence on the group is fostered. (In the forerunner to coercive persuasion, brainwashing, this was rather easy to achieve through simple imprisonment.)

TACTIC 3. Disconfirming information and nonsupporting opinions are prohibited in group communication. Rules exist about permissible topics to discuss with outsiders. Communication is highly controlled. An "in-group" language is usually constructed.

TACTIC 4. Frequent and intense attempts are made to cause a person to re-evaluate the most central aspects of his or her experience of self and prior conduct in negative ways. Efforts are designed to destabilize and undermine the subject's basic consciousness, reality awareness, world view, emotional control, and defense mechanisms as well as getting them to reinterpret their life's history, and adopt a new version of causality.

TACTIC 5. Intense and frequent attempts are made to undermine a person's confidence in himself and his judgment, creating a sense of powerlessness.

TACTIC 6. Nonphysical punishments are used such as intense humiliation, loss of privilege, social isolation, social status changes, intense guilt, anxiety, manipulation and other techniques for creating strong aversive emotional arousals, etc.

TACTIC 7. Certain secular psychological threats [force] are used or are present: That failure to adopt the approved attitude, belief, or consequent behavior will lead to severe punishment or dire consequence, (e.g. physical or mental illness, the reappearance of a prior physical illness, drug dependence, economic collapse, social failure, divorce, disintegration, failure to find a mate, etc.).
Another set of criteria has to do with defining other common elements of mind control systems. If most of Robert Jay Lifton's eight point model of thought reform is being used in a cultic organization, it is most likely a dangerous and destructive cult. These eight points follow:

Robert Jay Lifton's Eight Point Model of Thought Reform

1. ENVIRONMENT CONTROL. Limitation of many/all forms of communication with those outside the group. Books, magazines, letters and visits with friends and family are taboo. "Come out and be separate!"

2. MYSTICAL MANIPULATION. The potential convert to the group becomes convinced of the higher purpose and special calling of the
group through a profound encounter / experience, for example, through an alleged miracle or prophetic word of those in the group.

3. DEMAND FOR PURITY. An explicit goal of the group is to bring about some kind of change, whether it be on a global, social, or
personal level. "Perfection is possible if one stays with the group and is committed."

4. CULT OF CONFESSION. The unhealthy practice of self disclosure to members in the group. Often in the context of a public gathering in the group, admitting past sins and imperfections, even doubts about the group and critical thoughts about the integrity of the leaders.

5. SACRED SCIENCE. The group's perspective is absolutely true and completely adequate to explain EVERYTHING. The doctrine is not subject to amendments or question. ABSOLUTE conformity to the doctrine is required.

6. LOADED LANGUAGE. A new vocabulary emerges within the context of the group. Group members "think" within the very abstract
and narrow parameters of the group's doctrine. The terminology sufficiently stops members from thinking critically by reinforcing a "black and white" mentality. Loaded terms and clichés prejudice thinking.

7. DOCTRINE OVER PERSON. Pre-group experience and group experience are narrowly and decisively interpreted through the absolute doctrine, even when experience contradicts the doctrine.

8. DISPENSING OF EXISTENCE. Salvation is possible only in the group. Those who leave the group are doomed.

Antigen:

--- Quote ---On 2004-10-18 15:47:00, Anonymous wrote:

So rest assured Ginger, Gregg the Seed is gone for good and no one from the old core group has any desire to start a new Seed. I must admit it gave me much satisfaction to watch all the old timers now have to fight the same battles we had to fight once we decided to walk out those doors for good.

--- End quote ---


That's what I thought for about 18 years after I settled down back in Pompano. If that were the whole story, it wouldn't be anything of real interest, except to a very few people and I wouldn't go to the trouble of publishing to the net about it.

I know The Seed, Inc. is pretty much gone except for whatever they might be doing w/ their ecconomic and political capital in So. Florida. For example, I wonder what Robert is doing as deputy mayor of Dania; the city in which Port Everglades is located.

But The Seed was not a singular or unique phenomena. It was a small part of something much bigger. Around the same time NIDA was handing millions in expansion funding to Art, they also funded other Synanon based programs accross the country. Phoenix House and Delancy Street were among these. While that was going on, some other Synanon people established private "emotional growth boarding schools" out west. CEDU was one of those. Elan was another. These institutions took some court ordered kids as well as some foster kids from their own states and from other states. Many of these places are still in operation today, some still partially publicly funded and most still taking court ordered kids and adults.

But the mother (fucker) of all of them, in my opinion anyway, was Straight, Inc., which was established by Seed parents and staff in St. Pete around a year after St. Pete Seed shut down. Twelve or thirteen years later, when the wheels finally fell off of that enterprise, they didn't shut down. Some locations changed their names and stayed in the rehab business while the corporation changed it's name to Drug Free America Foundation and it's mission statement to... well, to the spirit and almost the letter of those "we're gonna take over the world" raps.

Here's a little bit about what the founders of Straight, Inc. have been up to over the past 30 years.

DRAFT
 
A STUDY OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE DRUG FREE AMERICA FOUNDATION. INC. (formerly Straight Foundation, Inc.) IN AMERICAN AND INTERNATIONAL DRUG POLICY

http://thestraights.com/reports/dfaf-an ... policy.htm

I can accept that there are weird little mind cults. It's tragic for some people who get squashed by them, but not a matter of broad interest. That these same sadistic lunatics are writing domestic and international policy for America, that I cannot accept quietly. I want people to move on from shrugging and saying, rhetorically, "those drug warriors must be crazy" to understanding just how bug all crazy and wreckless they really are.

No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober
--Samuel Stiles
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