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

New-should run but can't

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Antigen:

--- Quote ---On 2005-05-19 11:40:00, Anonymous wrote:

He may have had his quirks like all of us do, but I never heard anything positive about Hitler.
--- End quote ---


Actions speak louder than words.
First management had plans and then strategic plans. Now we have vision, and we're only one small step from hallucination.
-- Ansley Throckmorton upon assuming the presidency of Bangor Theological Seminary in Bangor, Main per Information World 8-4-`97

--- End quote ---

marshall:


I remember hearing this too. I finished my senior year while at the seed. I'd already taken Psychology class the year before. They should probably have added another rule though. 'No reading books from the school library.' After I was given permission to go back to school, during study hall I would go to the library at Cooper City High (I think that's the name) and read all sorts of books on psychology, philosophy, world religions & science. Funny, but it was while on my program that I first read Carlos Castenada's mescaline-soaked tales of Don Quan. That was probably a big Verbotten.

As I recall, it was this extensive reading that  was a cause of my beginning to question the whole seed ideology. I can see why they encouraged a subtle anti-intellectualism...for the same reasons the soviets and maoists derided the 'stinking intelligentsia'. I can imagine what the effect might have been of reading all of the links that have been posted here relating to mind-control & cults if I had encountered them while on my program. Another rule for any present-day seed; "no unauthorized internet time."

Some have defended the seed's use of mind-control techniques on the grounds that we are brainwashed every time we turn on the TV or read a newspaper or book. There's one big difference. You can change the channel or turn the tv off. You can CHOOSE which papers or books to read or not to read. At the seed, we did't get to choose which raps we would attend or which dogma we wanted to accept and which to reject. We weren't consulted about or allowed to question the content of any of the material we were being force-fed. It was just the opposite. We were repeatedly told that we could not pick and choose.

Thank goodness they didn't think of the no-library rule, I might have made staff.  :lol:

Stripe:
Simply put, that's my main beef with The Seed.  There was never any personal choice there.  Physically, it was an extremely controlled enviroment.  Psychologically, it was a prison.  Rule, regimen and rhetoric.  One way to think, act, and prosper - all according to some elusive, unidentifed, value scale.

While I didn't spend years in the seed, I did spend a couple of years post-seed with a very abusive man.  The standards imposed upon me to avoid a physical violence, in hindsight, were the same kind abusive techniques used at the seed. Complete emotional evisceration and constant fear about when the "come down" would happen.  Since I wasn't a well person going into the marrige, it's no wonder it the person I chose was so similar to the only other deep emotional experience I had ever had up to that point- the Seed.  

In hindsight,I was a sick puppy, believing I deserved the denegration until one day when I performed my own amature reality test and lo and behold, the problems in my marriage were not all my fault. So, fear drove me to leave, like it drove others to leave the Seed.  In the dark of night, under angry circumstances, etc.  

I don't know of any cases where someone left an abusive realtionship on good terms - that's pretty much an impossibility, isn't it?

I feel such empathy for the people who stayed on there for years, in service to the "higher" good and seeking their own self-enlightment, yet being denegrated and psychologially undermined at every turn.

The mind control and verbal abuse used by Seed people really ended up stealing the days, weeks and years from many member's productive lives.  

[ This Message was edited by: Stripe on 2005-05-30 10:46 ]

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