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

the higher power...or the making of a cult.

<< < (2/3) > >>

cleveland:
Greg and Filobeddoe,

I guess I fall somewhere in the middle here. I have seen AA help people, and I have debated with myself at time whether the Seed 'helped' me. I certainly survived it and emerged stronger - BUT - the more I think about it and read these posts, the more I am convinced that there is a destructive element here. I think it's a real problem with our society.

Drug and alcohol abuse are huge problems. I have seen my mother succumb to total alcoholism, and I have other family that have stopped drinking thru AA. And I am fine with that as long as you can 'take what you want and leave the rest.' At the Seed, it was ALL or NOTHING. And yes, I agree with Greg that Art encouraged hero worship while appearing to play it down. In Raps, 100% of the people in higher power raps said, The Group or Art Barker is my higher power. Not healthy!

We are also missing small towns, churches and family - it's not Mayberry in America anymore. Not to glamorize the past, there was racism and inequity and small-mindedness - but now it's violent rap and consumerism and sex and violence and waving the flag! Everyone is confused about what is the right thing to do and many people are looking for a Savior, whether it's George Bush or John Kerry or Jerry Falwell J. Lo or Crips and Bloods. Or Scientology!

Everybody from Scientology to Synanon to the Oxford Group to the Seed has demanded Total Honesty - and then mobilized people's sense of shame to have them yield their will. I don't think the Seed was particularly evil - they just wanted you to be a faceless part of the group and Worship Art - but oh there is potential for abuse here.

So we are ripe for cultic thinking. At the same time, people need something to believe in - that is missing. Everyone will find someone of thing to follow.

GregFL:
Good post Cleveland. I too have watched alcohol destroy a person in my family, and I have also watched AA type treatment further erode my family and seen it fail first hand.

I have also listened to the rabid AA types talk and they have a religious fervor about them. Then I will talk to the next guy and he will tell me AA helped him but he doesn't go to meeting anymore.

What really helped that guy? Steps? serentity prayers?

Perhaps he just choose not to destroy himself anymore and AA was in his life during that time.  AA operates under a myth that Alcoholism is a disease. It is a choice, a bad one at that, and a compulsion, and a developed physical craving , but it is not a disease. There is no "alcohol gene", your cells do not "cry out for alcohol" six months after quitting drinking, "once an alcoholic always an alcoholic", "if you are drinking you are sinking" and the myriad of myths promulgated under the AA model. Does AA work? For a few yes. For others it becomes a replacement for their compulsion to drink and AA becomes the focus of their lives. For many others it becomes a crutch and an excuse for their failures and relapses. They are powerless, after all...they have a disease, after all. For many many others it becomes a temporary diversion in their lives and they either continue to fail or choose to stop all on their own.

I find AA devotees annoying, but I support their right to choose to go there. When the court system starts ordering people to go worship a higher power, I have a problem with that.  A big problem.

And finally, all this talk about AA negates the fact that The Seed was anything but an AA program. They do not lock you up, Isolate you, belittle and humiliate you, sleep and food deprive you, prevent you from speaking to outsiders, demand you cut your hair and wear your clothes in a certain way, pulbically sexually humiliate you, poke you in the back when you don't pay attention, force you to keep your back off the back of the chair for hours, force you to face foward or be stood up and screamed at,force you to say you love everyone,force you into chairs 12 hours a day with no fluids and deprive you of your right to determine when to move your bowels in AA.

The Seed, like heavens gate and Synanon, was the bastard cult child of AA and had less in common with it than it had differences.





[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2004-09-14 10:09 ]

cleveland:
Greg,

Very powerful. I agree with you. I am not comfortable with compulsion.

When it comes to kids, adolescents, I recently watched a powerful but disturbing show about an 'outward bound'-type program for kids with behavioral disorders. The idea was to plunge the kids into a tough, wilderness area with backpacks and 'counselors,' force them to break down and then rebuild their confidence. Same thing that's done in the military, a gang, a cult. It was powerful to watch the kids break down, cry, and swear to change. But will they? For how long.

One of my best 'pre-Seed' friends became a well-known musician and TV personality; another went to prison for selling drugs, had his teeth knocked out when he was raped in prison, and later lost a leg in motorsycle accident. They were both my friends; they were both good people at heart. One survived adolescence, the other didn't. What makes the difference?

You're a parent, so you know what I am talking about. Before I went in the Seed I tried Nichren Shonen (or something like that) Buddhism, did drugs with friends, got high, (tried to get) laid - anything to feel like I was a part, and accepted by my peers. Personally, as an adult, I reject anything that compels me to 'surrender' my will. It's a question of maturity. How do you help someone grow up? Certainly Seed-type solutions are appealing in that they are dramatic, but they are loaded with problems. How many people thrive in the military only to fall apart in civilian life later? I don't think you can 'force' someone to grow up in this way.

I agree, at this point, that alcoholics 'choose' to drink. The drug DOES cloud their ability to say no, though. Hey, I used to smoke, it is more than just a choice. It's an addiction. BUT - every addict at some point thinks about the benefits of being stoned as opposed to the well-known risks of using any drug. And they make that choice. That part of it is not a disease. AA may work for some people but I think a lot of their dogma is crap.




_________________
Wally Gator[ This Message was edited by: cleveland on 2004-09-14 11:34 ]

Anonymous:
me too

Somejoker:
Click on the video link....



http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/topics.do?topic=12

Catch the show if you get a chance...and then perhaps reflect on Art's claimed 90% success ratio of which he was still claiming recently.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page