Reply to Antigen "was Art intentionally recruiting wealthy heirs? And what was the point if he was going to pressure them into disowning their families anyway? Or is that just something that got out of control? Like maybe he expected the families to come along and kick down great sacks of loot?"
OK, I know there were some wealthy families, and that the 'admission fee' was $2000 in 1978, when I went in, and that there were donations and federal money...but I don't think money was the big motivator.
First of all, Art was incredibly frugal. Personally, he owned an old boat - a very nice one, to be sure, but it was apparently a wreck when he got it - and he lived in nice housing. But he didn't own a home until later, about 1982 I think. And it was nice, very. But he lived there with other senior staff. He had a nice car, but it wasn't that nice. It was a new silver Buick in my day. If you ate at the Seed you knew that the food was not expensive!
But this morning I was thinking about the 'inner circle.' We were not supposed to care about material things but most of the top dogs spent a lot of energy making money. Some of them have likely made good money since - they were in law, real estate, sales and insurance. As far as I know, Art never asked them for money although some may have made donations. He never asked for money from me, just that I kick in for the group home expenses. But I wasn't part of the inner circle.
My feeling is that there may have been some money, and maybe it was a lot. I think the heirs to wealth that joined sometimes had family support and other times not. I don't think Art cashed in on this. And I think Art turned down a lot of federal support in order to retain his independence. This may not have been true of other Seed offshoots. If he had wanted to cash in, he could have.
I think it was ultimately about power, control and being the center of his own world. Art just wanted to do everything his own way because he's sure he's smarter than everyone else, and all those around him support him in this.