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

Seed/CEDU

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shanlea:
I've been reading stuff from Seed and Straight since I started over at the CEDU forum. There are many similarities in terms of raps, isolation from the outside world, control, insularity, and group think.

What I want to know is if you guys had anything like propheets.  Propheets are the ultimate in mind fucking experentials that last anywhere from 24 hours to a week. (I think there are 7 total.)You are isolated (and sleep deprived)with your peer group in a setting and subjected to extreme rap sessions that tear you to the core,intense exercises with heightened emotional subtext, and perform rituals that bond you to the group and in a way, makes every other relationship seem shallow. (It's all manipulative.)  Words, music, lighting, and setting are all used to manipulate the ambience. It is all very "top secret" and way to intense for developing minds. At the end of the propheet, you rejoin the rest of the "school" and give a testimonial (that doesn't divulge secrets) so that the entire room full of people who haven't been through it see it as finding their personal holy grail.

Any similarities?

cleveland:
I think the Seed was relatively low tech in comparison. During the time period that I was there, '78 - '85, the program was in a down sized phase, having shrunk from thousands of kids, many of them court-ordered, to a mere handful - ranging from 1 - 4 newcomers on the 'front row,' with about 25 'oldtimers' hanging around to support the program. We met in an old factory space on SR 84 in Florida, which was a big concrete bunker with row upon row of empty chairs, big garage doors that opened to the rough Florida swamp borders. There was a crude baseball diamond in the back we made ourselves. The only music ever used was what we made ourselves, I don't remember any recorded music of any kind. Raps went from 8 - 8 pm when I first came in the program, with a 20 minute break for hotdogs and koolaid. Soon after, we went to 8 - 6 I think. We had big 'Open Meetings' that had a revival flavor, with singing, yelling, and tearful testimonials from later phase and graduate kids (that read like they were straight out of The Source magazine, from today's programs!)Of course, 'what's heard at the Seed stays at the Seed,' and EVERYTHING was top secret.

Raps were often funny, sometimes brutal, but heartfelt (although limited to recitation of what was 'appropriate' - ie, Seed good, me bad, me good with Seed (maybe), me VERY bad without. Outside world - forget about it, 'they' just don't get it).

There were no Propheets (what a name!) but whatever we did, we did with intensity, especially if Art was around. If he decided we'd play baseball, we might play from 3 - 10 pm. If we were addressing envelopes for a mailing, we might work from 8 am to 10 pm, with a typical 20 minute lunch and maybe a break to sing some Christmas or other Seed songs. It was considered 'ungrateful' to do any less. There was a certain amount of euphoria in any of these experiences, but the manipulation was relatively crude by the standards you cite. Long hours, hard physical and psychological work, love-flooding.

When we went 'home' in the first phase of our program, we were sent to live with a group of (same sex) oldcomers who would stay up late, cajoling the newcomers with jokes, plying them with emotional, teary testimonials, teasing, yelling at them - whatever it took. The emotions never abated, you were never alone.

We had these intense 'talent shows' that were pretty crazy - kids singing and dancing and in outrageious, often sexy costumes they'd made themselves. Seems normal enough, but the intensity came from the fact that we were so stiffled in any other form of expression and sexuality that these talent shows had considerable impact, both on the Seed performers and Seed audience.

Guys and 'chicks' were strictly separated, except for the annual 'talent shows' and weekend ball games. Dating occured only among very senior oldcomers, and only with staff approval from the very top (Art Barker). Sanctioned dating typically led very soon to marriage for those priveleged few.

Failure to follow any of the rules, stated or unstated, or to be 'ungrateful,' led to immediate disapproveal from the group, perhaps yelling, verbal abuse, ostracisism, and banashment. Those who left were never spoken about again, perhaps years later and in hushed tones. Even senior staff members got 'started over' on the front row for some unnamed infraction, or just would disappear one day. You just knew not to ask; maybe you'd be forced to suffer a similar fate.

Of course, it wasn't always so serious, and a lot of our time there was full of serious bonding, and summer-camp like 'fun,' although of a very particular kind.

I'm sure others might have different experiences, depending upon when they came in, who they lived with, etc.

[ This Message was edited by: cleveland on 2004-12-30 07:08 ]

shanlea:
It sounds like a hell hole. It is hard to imagine anyone defending the Seed. Even if a kid really had drug difficulties, 12 hour raps would do more damage than good. If people want to help kids, it seems that would include opportunties to follow/ develop interests and learn how to thrive in the "real world."  Not isolating them in a bunker for hours without relief, cut off and insulated from the world they will eventually live in.

What I don't understand is how anyone could defend the Seed formula for "helping" kids. It's not based on any type of healthy, realistic paradigm for living and making good choices. Did someone actually think that putting kids in a bunker, yelling and humiliating them everyday,teaching them to bully and spy on eachother, and cutting them off from normal people and life was going to help them?

It still blows my mind.  

Anyway, at CEDU, I think the beautiful setting, comfortable environment, and good food all combined to legitimate the program in the eyes of the parents.  So we were all physically comfortable while we were emotionally traumatized and somehow, this made it okay. UGH!

GregFL:
I don't know what is worse, Shanlea..the false "comfortable rehab" sham or what we went thru.

 The Seed stripped the vener off and rejected the "country Club" setting of some of these other programs. This was behavior modification at its most base.  No comfort, the chairs were purposely hard and akward to sit in, no air conditioning except in the staff's office (and this was florida, 100 degree and high humidity), the food wasn't only scarce, it was bad. Ice cold peanut butter sandwiches and one small dixie cup of coolaide a couple times a day. No bathroom priveledges at all, you were watched while peeing and defecating and these actions were logged in a book by a bathroom monitor. You were walked to the bathroom after several initial refusals and then watched while you went. Night sleeping was lock down with no looking in mirrors, no looking at tv, no reading anything. You go home, write about your day, talk about your day, quick shower and in bed for 4 or 5 hours sleep under lock and key. back up again, transported to the seed and not allowed to look out of the car at billboards or anything. While at the seed, massive personal verbal attacks could come at any minute and if you nodded off or didn't look directly at the speaker, your fellow prisoners would be compelled to poke you hard in the back and furiously raise their hand to demonstrate their desire to yell at and humiliate you for the outrageous behavior of being tired, bored, or brazen enough to let your back rest against the back of the chair.

All actions were restricted at all times. Meanwhile, they constantly told you they loved you...sort of like an abusive spouse that smacks you in the face and then says they did it out of love...






However, the underlying behavior modification and humiliation was similar in all these synanon style programs.

Antigen:
Greg, the more I hear from some of our recent participants and the more I think about it, I have to wonder what kind and how much influence Clearwater had on the Program.

I remember most of those things as being part of The Seed when my older brothers and sister were in. However, I also remember staying up late to watch Monty Python w/ newcomers and swimming in the pool on weekends. My brother got together w/ a couple of other Seedlings, one of whom he later married, and formed a singing group call the Crusty Nostrils.

It was weird, it was intense, it was definitely cultish, but there was some fun thrown in too.

NOthing like Straight and not a bit like The Seed, St. Pete.

And people who came along in later years, like Walley, describe something far more like a voluntary cult than a lock-down facility.

CEDU seems a lot like that and the effects seem more similar among CEDU ppl and (most) Ft. Laud Seed people than to what we experienced.

I also wonder about the politics of the day. Seems that Art and The Seed had mad love from NIDA. Then the Semblers came along. Coincidentally or not, at about the same time, NIDA fell out of love w/ Art and The Seed went back to more of a hippy love cult while the bad bucks came rolling down for Straight.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if it turned out that I've had it backward all along; the Program hasn't been a negative influence in Repugnacan politics, but Repugnacns have been a negative influence on the Program?

Anyway, I get what you're saying. I think I'd feel dirty if I had had any real love for the Program. I'm almost glad the whole experience was bad or I'd have to sort it out.

To be an atheist requires strength of mind and goodness of heart found in not one of a thousand.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet, critic, journalist, philosopher
--- End quote ---

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