Physical Symptoms

[rjfro22]

Antigen,
              Summer of love? I was not talking about the summer of love, i was talking about
sex , drugs rock and roll the begining of the seventies, more extreme more dangerous and kids a lot younger. Drugs in your face everywhere,  it was expected of you by fellow peers.  Many of the kids in the Seed did have drug problems , and maybe just in the begining stages, some were saved and some were'nt and some went on to find that recreational use was no problem for them. So little was known about drugs then. But it was real , Yes there were good kids that  tried things a couple of times and got caught, but over all most kids in the Seed at the time were there because they needed to be there through the courts or whatever .  I am simply stating what
I experienced around me, I was there. Does anybody remember ?  I would like to state that I was not addicted to anything, I simply could not say no to what was in my face and reality was something I could not deal with at that time. I believe many kids had that problem as well, drugs were Epidemic.

[Antigen]

RJ, that's as common a story among former Seedlings as others. You really sound to me like you were a pretty typical, aimless teenager.

At one point, one of my brothers' friends took an appartment @ Hidden Harbour. Immediately, that became the community drug den. I remember being there with my brother one day when he stopped by when he was babysitting me. Next thing ya' know, the girl can't pay her rent, neither can anyone else, so the appartment goes away.

The girl wound up moving into our spare bedroom. She babysat me and other kids while working her way through college. She, thankfully, didn't get shanghied into The Seed but, instead, completed college and went on to be a teacher.

I can understand how something like The Seed would be very attractive to you. A lot of the popular cults of the day focused almost entirely on disenchanted or otherwise vulnerable young adults. When I was on front row, I remember thinking I'd no longer be such an outsider. Everybody had to love and accept me w/o question. It was a rule. (This, of course, was after around 6 hours of harsh browbeating in the intake 'interview')

But there are and were far better ways to find direction in life.

Government operates best when it allows all messengers to offer their views, allowing the American people to decide which take root and which wither away.
--Harold Furchtgott-Roth, member of the Federal Communications Commission

[rjfro22]

Antigen,
               Yes I was typical for that time period. aimless and hopless.
Please do me a favor and tell me what other choices there was for a poor boy or from a working family, Please don't say the service ..
The Seed was there and some how I found it.
I never felt brain washed , Yes I felt like I had to do it there way and I have been "come down on'  sometimes when I  deserved it and other times I could have use a little compassion.
It was what it was . I got through it.That little guy from Brooklyn  (Art}  saved my life and I  am forever grateful.  The Seed was just a stepping stone for me, and believe me I know it wasn't for everyone, But chalk it up and move on.  

I

[Antigen]

Oh, there were plenty of other choices! What did everyone else do who didn't go into The Seed? If you still believe they all died of syphilis and drug overdose like Art said they would, then you haven't checked.

Some got jobs, some went hiking, some threw themselves into religion. Remember the Green Room and Agape? Those were fairly strange groups, too, but at least they only met a few times a week and didn't prohibit communication w/ family and friends. But most just simply quit the excessive partying and got back to whatever they were doing. That's what usually happens.

Same thing was going on, btw, 15 years later when I met my husband. Our primary entertainment, broke as we were, was to go to the neighborhood party house just to see what happened next. All kinds of craziness going on there. All kinds of drugs and even a couple of aspiring rock stars.

But people grew out of it. By the time I met him, my husband had already quit all drugs but pot and beer after a bad experience w/ belladona. He was 18 then. But his friends were still his friends and some of them are still friends to this day. They all grew up, settled down, got jobs and spouses and kids (not necessarily in that order).

The little guy from Brooklyn didn't save your life, friend. You did that. He just stood there and took credit.

The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0451524934/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'>O'Brien, the apparatchik

[rjfro22]

Antigen,
            No one said the Seed was for everyone, And yes many people grew up and did just fine, The Seed was a small  dot in the scheme of things, Those other choices you mentioned I never heard of,  They sound more like adult programs . Again you were to 5 or 6 years old when I was in the Seed, it was very different then. I am here to tell you from where I came from,  I couldn't see the choices, I was pretty much on my own from 14 to 18, I didn't just pick up a telephone book and have the luxury of picking a place.
I think you are putting an adult spin on this, We were confused teens at the time.  at the time I went in, I was at rock bottom and Art ( The Seed) took me in and gave me some simple steps to follows some tough love and some things that I didn't agree with, And on that note I believe had that  not happened, I wouldn't have made it. . That was my experience. WE can only speak from our own eyes. I believe there were many people that did not belong there,  but that was because of thier parents, and partly because of the times, like I said it was a relativly a new problem (drugs), and people really did believe that weed leads to harder drugs, which by the way was true for many of us, So of course parents  who discovered pot or pills  on their children over- reacted. and sent them to the Seed.   No one really knew back then. I personally found high school to be cultist , mean spirited , the have 's and the have not's people impossing some real meanless garbage on me, I could go on about what a horror high school was, so I just didn't go regardless of the law and what my mother thought.  In the Seed we were all pretty much equal. .

[Antigen]

Are you joking? Art constantly said The Seed was for everyone! I remember all the talk of taking over the world.

Sunds like you were young and impressionable and got taken in by a smooth operator. But don't give him credit for saving your life. You did that.

Patient memoirs are a kind of protest literature like slave narratives or witness testimonies.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=us&q=G.A.Hornstein&btnmeta%3Dsearch%3Dsearch=Search+the+Web' target='_new'>G.A.Hornstein

[GregFL]

On 2004-09-25 11:17:00, rjfro22 wrote:

"Antigen,
 In the Seed we were all pretty much equal. ."

If there ever was a multi tiered unequal system, it was this cult.

First, there was Art Barker..Hero worshipped as the savior and you were lucky if he even smiled at you.

Then there was his spouse, which most of us didn't even know but somehow we reverred her as almost a saint.

Then certain staff members, John, Suzie, Libby, were almost non approachable by the inductees.

Next were the second tier senior staffers.

Then came the Junior staffers.

Next, Oldtimers. My how they were so much more seedlike (at least the ones hanging around).

Then, the oldcomers with juice...the guys that had been in jail or actual addicts. They were looked up to and called on so much more.

Then the oldcomers almost off their program that got to sit in the back row.


Then of course, the guys tough enough to pull guard duty. They were certainly more equal than the pussys that couldn't.

then olcomers in general.

Next, those guys that had earned the right to go home.

Then those guys that no longer had to public confess.

All the way to the very unequal guys on the front row.

All equal in the Seed?  


Hardly.




[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2004-09-25 17:37 ]

[GregFL]

On 2004-09-25 17:12:00, Antigen wrote:




Sunds like you were young and impressionable and got taken in by a smooth operator.

All the way to repeating Art's ever popular program mantra 30 years later, that he would be deadinsaneorinjail (or the shortened version..it saved my life)


and then we find out he just was wayward like most people are at some point in their life.

RJFR, where are all those bodies Ginger alluded to?  Are all your old friends really dead or in jail?  

That would be highly unusual to say the least, but we almost always hear that, at least initially, from people who support the program.



[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2004-09-25 17:55 ]

[GregFL]

On 2004-09-25 17:12:00, Antigen wrote:

"Are you joking? Art constantly said The Seed was for everyone! I remember all the talk of taking over the world.

We had 10 year olds that were barely 80 pounds standing up and relating about how they would have eventually been heroin addicts because they had druggie additudes and how the seed had "Saved their lives", and they were so small and meek you could barely hear them talk. I even had one such little guy, about 12, as a newcomer.

It was criminal to lock down these little children.

Here is Art's take on his vision of How the seed was for everybody...

 "I don't mean to just stop with a Seed in Pinellas. That might be the community which would be the right place for another dream I have. I can see a university type of complex with young people trained there who have come from all over the country to take the program back to their own communities. After Pinellas, we'll be getting a Seed going in Jacksonville. Then there will be no Flordia area uncovered....I see Seeds all over the country"






[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2004-09-25 17:35 ]

[rjfro22]

I really never took that  talk  to serious Art was a bit of a dreamer , my issues were saving my life. I left the Seed After I did my time and went on to do what I needed, I made some mistakes But  rebounded and looking back  with some fond memories and making  long team friends I feel grateful for having been a part of the program.  I never let  or felt like any one brain washed me,  I was a street wise kid when I went into the Seed. Like I always said , I knew what the Seed had to offer me ,and what  I felt like I did not need, I deleted it.  If you came from were I come from you would have seen the Seed as a blessing..
My goal was to live , and there were plenty of people like me that  needed what they offered,
if you want to make more out of it then that, go ahead. It really was very simple. You have a different story then me, and I won't speak for you.

[GregFL]

Nor will I speak for you, but things we have in common I think we both should be open to each other.

Again my friend, tell us about all those dead bodies.

Just so you know, I got a few. Some of my old friends, Dale Long for one, that did not go to the Seed, died of drug overdoses or suspiciously.

The funny thing most of my people dead, or my bodies if you will, are all seedlings.

Go figure...









 "Yes, He'll be ok...he died"


Mother of a seedling upon answering her front door for another seedling who stopped by to pick him up to go to group. The mother explained that he wouldn't be going to group, that Jimmy went around to the side of the house and shot himself earlier that day.


Source, former seedling "Surdal", the SDF

[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2004-09-25 18:22 ]

[GregFL]

And covering another leg of this wobbly three legged stool, what about in jail?

I know of one Seed graduate on death row right now and he tried to use the abuse he endured in the Seed as a death row appeal.


Here is an excerpt from the courts ruling (which denied  Jason Walton a new trial)


"evidence was also introduced which revealed that Walton had abused drugs as an adolescent and teenager, and had been enrolled in a radical therapy program which likely left him severly emotionally scarred, but which had not halted his continued abuse of illegal drugs."




I guess he ended up deadinsaneorINJAIL in spite of being a seed graduate, eh?  Also emotionally scarred and on drugs according to the appeal judge that reviewed the evidence.



This shit is just too out there to make up.










[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2004-09-25 18:21 ]

[Antigen]

Rjfro22, when you were done and left, did you stay in touch w/ other Seedlings?

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
--Anonymous

[rjfro22]

just to name a few of my friends that have died
that never sought out help: Connie, Tom, Flo, Carman and her brother Ron, Brian, Patty, Arthur, Kenny, Coco and Victor. My own family,
my two sisters and brother suffer heavy disabilities from years of drug use. My question is what  did the Seed do to drive someone to kill themselves, I honestly don't remember anyone killing themselves or at least because of the Seed. If the seed came to my door to get me and I really did not want ot go, I would have taken off,  If my choice was suicide or getting loaded, I would have gotten loaded .  The Seed  was only a few months out of our lives, Are you trying to tell me most of your friends commited suicide because of the Seed.  I hear you but I can't by that,.

[GregFL]

I don't know their mind set when they committed suicide. In fact, I was out of touch with most if not all of them at the time..

My points that you are missing.


 we were told that we would be deadinsaneorinjail without the Seed. Supporters constantly point to their own lives as PROOF of this, including you.

I submit to you that you are just parroting the Seed mantra and that you really don't know the path your life would have taken without the Seed. Would you have died? Maybe. Become rich and famous? Maybe. This is a mystery.  

My next point, for every person you can name dead or stunted or harmed because they didn't get treatment, someone can counter with a dead guy, emotionally scarred or drug addicted graduate. The 90 percent success rate was nothing but a lie. It never existed

Many people that were graduates died of drugs and or other things or ended up in jail. I submit this as evidence that the seed wasn't the thing that saved people from this outcome and if it was so powerfull, that you must attribute all outcomes post seed, including those harmed.

Studies from the 70s and reports from Pyschologists confirm that people leaving the Seed were doing so in states of emotional and psychological harm.  And I will tell you from first person and from multiple conversations with many people that very very many people felt alone, inadequate, full of despair, and had suicidal thoughts post seed.  We were told we were powerless if we rejected the Seed, and for those of us that rejected it, we paid a emotional price which was varied and unique to each of us.

More quotes for you.....

 "if any credence is to be given to the observations of the national, state and local experts, then the serious possibility exists that those who complete The Seed may return to drug use or develop other serious psychological, emotional or behavioral difficulties"


From the House congressional committee staff report.


And if this was really happening, Art Barker with his immense love for his Seedlings, must have immediately reacted.  You suppose?

 "The man is a liar and a fool."
"The psychiatrists can't do a damn thing with kids on drugs"


Speaking of Dr. Raymond Killinger, a Ft lauderdale psychiatrists who claimed to be treating "an increasing number" of children who entered psychiatric hospitals after being harmed by the Seed.








[ This Message was edited by: GregFL on 2004-09-25 19:06 ]