Fornits

Fornits Home for Wayward Web Fora
An open discussion about the troubled parent industry

Yeah, except he's the bastard that got me in the Seed in the first place! Oh well, it all works out.

He is a talented writer, too!

By the way, the journalist named Evan - he's my brother! He's been busy with his new book, but we managed to speak by phone yesterday, and talked about this site and you and ginger. Cool!

Hi, I'm scrolling through these posts and here's one by somebody I know! I was at the Seed the same time you were, and remember the same people. I know it's been a while, but I hope that you will respond to this. I'd like to hear from someone else who spent the early 80s sitting on a hard chair on SR 84 and relating!

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.

I seem to remember John Underwood referred to with reverence. Maybe he was the sourse of some if this. I never met him.

It's hard for me to believe this was started in 1970, pretty much over as a 'legit' program (except for a small number of true believers) by 1977, straggling on as a tiny inner circle until about 2002.

But the offshoots of this program live on in treatment techniques and public policy to this day!

Also ironic is that the techniques of the 1960s counterculture (Synanon) were picked up by Republicans in the War on Drugs! Reading about the Semblers and others is really scary. If anything, Striaght aqd some other offshoots were far worse than the Seed.

Even today, I wonder, how do you help people transoform their lives without stepping all over their rights? I live in an inner city neighborhood and there is so much pathology here. When I was at the Seed I did believe we were going to change the world, and the Seed picked up on my idealism and turned me into an automaton, trampling my free will.

So, what will the alternative turn out to be? Now that community, culture and politics are failing us?

More questions than answers.

Very interesting. It looks to me like most of the corporations have been dissolved; a pretty quick search indicates nothing currently active.

I could not find much property registered to individuals, but what was there was substantial.

Yes, those boys were working hard on making money. Supposedly to help other people - spread the word. Well, it's just a small hard core group and a rabid spinnoff - seem straight, inc. and varients were even more abusive and corrupt.

I do believe that Art & Co. are true believer in the creed; they made money for sure, but I think in general were frugal, at least during my tenure.

I think it's the idea of money, rather than enjoying it, that operates here. Plus, this communal kind of thing and the denial of needs. Spartan. But that's debatable. And if Art was involved in politics beyond his own ambitions - I don't think he trusts anyone but his core group. If they are involved politically than I am sure he is too. The head of the pack.

Everything done as a tight little paranoid group, without dissent or debate, top down. That's the Seed way!

Reading these posts is a powerful link to the past. I am enjoying reading the Moral Inventory posts, they pop me right back into that time and place. I can still feel the hard chairs, smell the hotdogs and PBJs we had for lunch, remember the sound and smell of 'lighting up' on the hour or when the rap leader did (of course we all smoked because Art did).

Some of the comments on this site make it clear that people are still struggling with issues that the Seed triggered. Some people had a positive experience and claimed the Seed saved their lives. Others are still angry at the time they spent there and the months and years lost. Others are interested because while there were both positive and negative experiences, it was a time that was unique, powerful and occured 'outside' of our normal day to day life. It's really hard to explain to people - was I in a cult? Was it a drug rehab? Was I at fault for 'joining?'

The problem is that it was a cult, although it carefully managed a non=cult image. We were told that, as oldcomers, we were free to go. I guess we were free in the same way I'm free to jump in front of a moving bus - because we were told that outside of the protection of the Seed 'madness, death or prison' were our only alternatives. When I was at the Seed there was a lawsuit brought by members of Cookie C's family, heirs to the Beneficial financial corp. fortune. Some judge determined that the Seed was not a cult - at least that's what Art told us.

In my case, I had been recommended to the Seed by a psych. professor from Case Western Reserve University, and Dr. Finkelstein was a big supporter in Cleveland - how more mainstream can you get? Many efforts were made to negate the cult aspects of the Seed. But they were there!

Even now, it's hypnotic to read about the experiences and the Moral Inventories posted. If Synanon was the source for much of the technique, I know that this emphasis on 'complete honesty' required people to alter their reality to conform with the group.

At the same time, the experience of sitting in a rap session for hours and hours induced a kind of hypnotic trance. I remember seeing auras around the group and feeling like I was falling, or just getting warm all over - getting into this kind of meditative zone where I just felt like I was sort of dreaming. It was kind of addictive and there were certain raps that did this for me.

I also enjoyed the humor raps where we talked about what losers we used to be. I felt a lot more authentic when I was relating this than talking about how 'great' I was now because truly I didn't feel great at all. I felt so below everyone else that hearing other people talk about insecurities made me feel less isolated, and the same for having people laugh at mine.

However, when I left the Seed I had a lot of work to do, because I had never been authentic with myself. I went from being a child and under the sway of my family's dynamic to being a part of the Seed, which dictated my every move. I had to work hard to understand what it was that I took from my family and from the Seed experiences, and grow up.

I think because I had given up my freedom at the Seed I felt so good in reclaiming it. The years since have been full of growth for me.

But thinking back on the Seed is still a huge part of my world, even though I have left it far behind. I so badly wanted to be a part of it. I loved my oldcomers and the staff - really - maybe partly in the way a prisoner 'loves' his keepers or a woman in an abusive relationship 'loves' her abuser. But mixed in with that was my own human feeling for other people that were genuine, and I am sorry that the Seed used that to keep me hooked in without honoring it authentically.

It was very hard to walk away from that world after 7 years. I literally woke up one night and thought, if I don't leave now I never will. I'll never have freedom, I'll never make my own destiny. Thank god I left.

The honesty I have with myself now is the gift I have given myself. I don't want to be a part of any cult, although I choose to engage in social, work and religious activiites - all of which have cult-like potential - I try to avoid 'group think' whenever and wherever I can, be true to myself, family and friends, and avoid demonizing people I don't agree with (this one is hard!)

I am so grateful to the posts on this site - I have gained a lot of insight.

Wally Gator [ This Message was edited by: cleveland on 2004-09-08 08:27 ]

I do remember talk of boxing in the Cleveland Seed. There was a tall, skinny black kid who was supposed to be really good at it. I remember he wanted to be an entertainer, and that he would do a modern dance routine to "Blackbird" ("Pack up all my cares and woe, here I go, singing low").

I do remember Evan from the Cleveland Seed. Also Wade, Eric and his sister, Jim A., my oldcomer, Wayne, another oldcomer, John G., Scott, Terri, Patty, LeeAnn, many others.

In Cleveland, I went home with these guys. I still remember how my legs were shaking when I walked into the house on Clague road. I remember one of the guys had made hotdogs or hamburgers on the grill, "specially for me." I remember sitting around the table, I had no idea what to say. I was struggling with myself because the whole thing seemed unreal; do you remember what it was like to be surrounded by a group, and each one has a turn telling their story, each one 'badder' then the next ("I did quaaludes, darvon, darvocet, coke, pot and alcohol, and I was days from trying heroin, and I just know, I was on my way to prison 'cause I was already selling drugs,") etc. etc. And then I'd say something, and immediately someone would say, "I can relate to that," and take off with their story. All this for hours and hours and with so much intensity, the conversation never flagging and everyone staring at you and telling you they loved you, to top it all off. Part of the indoctrination.

Anyway, I'd love to hear from some other Cleveland/Ft. Lauderdale people. I see that a lot of people read this, lurking I guess.

I get the feeling that some people are still under the influence of Art. Whatever! Tell your story people. Who cares if you spent some time in an obscure 1970s mind control experiment decades ago! Are you running for Congress? Mitch, Jim, Ginger, Cookie, and all of you I spent those years with, hope you are well. We were all kids just trying to make sense of a crazy world, looking for leadership. It wasn't the Hitler youth, it just used some of the same techniques!