Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Seed Discussion Forum => Topic started by: Anonymous on September 04, 2002, 03:29:00 PM
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In an effort to determine just how much of a goldmine The Seed was to Art Barker, I am trying to ascertain the fee structure over the years. I believe it started off 30 years ago at about $3,000 per child. What did the fee end up being, all those years later? If you all would please reply with the year you were in the Seed and the amount you believed your parents paid. Also, what location were you in, for how long, and approximately how many kids were in that location while you were there. Thank you.
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In '71 it was free, through donations, at least that's what I was lead to believe.
In '75 on my second go-around it was a $1500
donation, you didn't have to give it, you were only strongly urged, And boy did I ever hear about how much it cost from my parants after I got to go home.
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anyway, 1st time was Andrews ave., second time was on 84
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They charged 1500 per kid at st pete in 73, but actually would take less if you cried poor mouth.
The real money was made Friday nights, when hundreds of parents and observes would put money in the basket and try to outdue each other. $50s and 100s were common according to my father.
The warehouse was donated. Most staff was volunteer(except senior staff). Housing was free or next to it. All food was donated. Air conditioning was non existent.
Where did the money go? I got a pretty good idea.
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greg, airconditioning was very present on 84
upstairs in arts area, the rest of us simply seat or freeze, depending on the time of year.
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Yep, there were two offices in the front of St Pete with AC.
When I said non existent, I meant for all practicle purposes. We all know Art wasn't about the suffer
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Is that how much it cost for my incarceration? My parents never talked about it in real terms....only that they were spending money to make me better!!
I guess my father got off cheaper since he was banned from coming to the Open Meetings, because he was too drunk!
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Thank you for your responses to date. So far, the concensus seems to be about $1,500 per child in the early 70s, plus all the $50 and $100 dollar bills on Friday nights. Can we say 100 members per Friday night at an average of $75 each for a total of $7500 each Friday night? $7500 times 52 weeks is $390,000 times 10 years is almost $4 million, or $8 million for 20 years -- just coming from the Friday night collections!!
How many of you were there in the Seed at your location at any one time. 50, 100 kids? And how long was the program; i.e., the turnover rate.
Could more people please respond for later years? the late 70s, the 80s, 90s.
My brothers were in during the 70s and believe or not, my mother later billed each brother $3,300 for her cost. So I am thinking the amount per kid was greater than $1500.
Thanks for any / all input.
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I am not sure how many kids were with me. I think Greg has a better idea of our time period than I do.
Greg, I want to say 200+ kids, early 70's in St Pete, is that about right? You are sooo much better at the specific memories than I am.
Thanks
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There were over 500 kids in June of 73 and it flutuated down to about 350 up to 750. Most of the time, 500 was pretty accurate, and they were graduating kids like crazy. It was a true revolving door.
There was no incentive to keep you like there was in the later straight type programs where they billed your insurance company. So, they got you in, and thankfully, they got us out relatively quick in comparison to the kids that came after us in the spinoff programs like straight, kids, SAFE.
Some of those kids spent years on first and second phase.
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I agree, with that assesment, I remember in 73-74 when we first moved over to 84, we pretty much filled up the big room, between 500 to 750 at one time.
There were at least 3 to 5 front row newcomers then and that was 15 to 20 across
for each side.
Back then it wasn't unusal to see at least 3
newcomers come in ech weekday.
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that`s what i remember also.. about 500 people over at 84.
seemed like there were just as many over at the blimp hanger in opa-locka when i was there later..
blue
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Art Bragged in the Miami Herald that he could affectively handle up to 1000 kids at a time. I think at times group approached that figure.
Contrast that to a modern day Seed Spinoff, SAFE in Orlando, FL. There are times when there are 15 to 20 kids in there, motivating their little asses off with 3 or 4 staff members. Imagine hiding in that group?
Never.
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When my husband went to the seed in 1983 it cost us 10,000. This was not a donation. Donation letters were sent out all the time. My family gave many dollars to the seed till i put a halt to it. When my husband sat on the front row there were about 10 other newcomers at that time.
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And when I was there, there were about 750 kids. The seed went thru a kind of transformation over the years.
Tell me, is your husband posting here or reading? What is his opinion of his time there?
And thanks for participating.
:grin:
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Greg, what exactly is motivating? Does it mean just raisng hands or what? Thanks.
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No, it is far from just "raising hands".
I believe that motivating started in the St Pete seed while I was there. I went to the Ft lauderdale Seed after graduating and don't remember the extreme motivating behavior we were forced to participate in at the Seed St Pete
The kids, Us, were told we must "motivate our desire to be called on" and were given constant raps on why this was important. The boys started waiving one hand frantically and snapping their index finger against their middle finger. Soon whole sections of the Seed seemed out of control as one kid tried to outdo the other. The girls developed their own style which was slightly different.I saw a gradual but drastic change in group behavior that became more and more extreme as the kids tried to appease their captors by "motivating" their desire to be called upon.
The teenage Seedling graduates that became the original staff members of the straight took this behavior with them and over the years it became more and more extreme.
You can view the 31 year development of motivating at a video of SAFE, a direct linear descendent of the Seed.
click this link and then watch 28 daze, a two part news report on SAFE.
http://fornits.com/anonanon/video/ (http://fornits.com/anonanon/video/)
Safe used to be a Straight branch, and as you know, Straight was just a spinoff of the Seed. There are as we speak the seed rules, the three signs, the seven steps, all on the wall of SAFE, and kids have open meeting and public confessionals and all the other Seed alchemy that didn't work then and doesn't work now.
While you are in the video fault, may I suggest you view "Bingo" and some of the other videos? Enjoy.
And next time you are in Ft Lauderdale, drop Art Barker a line and Congratulate him on 31 years of "motivating". His contributions to the drug war were far reaching and had heavy impacts on many lives. He still lives in a bubble and believes he had a 90% sucess rate, a dubious claim with no facts to back it up.
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Thanks Greg. Was the closeness of the relationships among The Straight participants the same as the Seed participants? Did they feel the same illusion of closeness to each other as it was all "planned in the stars" :eek: ?
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That is an outstanding question and I would generally say they relationships among the inductees was similar. In the seed as in the Straight, as "close" as you might have felt to someone, you knew you could never trust them.. that any behavior that strayed from the Seed ideal would be instantly turned over to the staff for immediate punishment. You could neither be to the left nor the right of the behavior model or you were either exhibiting druggie behavior or "Super seedling" behavior which was viewed with great dismay. You had to toe the line and behave as the group excepcted or else, so there was little room for actual closeness to people unless you totally and completely bought into the thing hook line and stinker.
The difference? The Straight took a cult model with a cult hero and institutionalized it, turned it into a busines model which is something Art never really had. Along with this they became a cult without a kooky kool aide love cult leader, and Along with this change the lovey dovey thing kind of faded and it took a sharper, meaner edge. For example, kids in the Seed were rarely physically assaulted unless you tried to escape, instead they threatened that they would bring your parents in, they would throw you in jail, they would court order you, etc etc. The Straight, on the other hand, adopted physical restraint as a punishment for non compliance.
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As far as "planned in the stars", the whole astrology trip came after the Seed lost gas. During the seed's heydey astrology played no part that I remember. It seems that later, when the seed got small the astrology angle got introduced.
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I entered Cleveland Seed in '78 and I remember my parents telling me it cost $2000