6 ms·

Shaved Heads, Snipped Tubes, Imperial Marines and Dope Fiends: On Synanon (2013)

73 points by lermontov 8y ago

oldmancoyote 8y ago
David and Kathy Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their exposes in their newspaper The Point Reys Light. They wrote a book on their experience: The Light On Synanon, and they were the subject of a made-for-TV movie.
saagarjha 8y ago
Interestingly, the movie poster halfway through the article seems to have filtered out the needle the man is using.
taneq 8y ago
Wow, that escalated rapidly at the end. :S
sverige 8y ago
The Orange Papers are a good source for why AA is a great breeding ground for this sort of insanity. http://aorange1.tripod.com http://aorange1.tripod.com
- thrower123 8y ago
  In my limited experience with it, it does not seem to be a place conducive to helping people lead a normal non-dependent life. The people that stave off demon rum seem to very often become addicted to the shame and self-abasement of AA meetings, to the point sometimes that they get itchy if they don't get their daily fix. Of course I see some of the more strident AA members coming in and out of the state liquor store all the time, too.
  - coleifer 8y ago
    Theres a difference between sharing honestly and vulnerably, and self flagellation. Or humility versus spiritual pride.
    - HarryHirsch 8y ago
      The Orthodox Church has the concept of prelest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelest It's something like spiritual misdirection and there should be greater awareness of the phenomenon in Western society.
- coleifer 8y ago
  Christianity has bred all sorts of craziness, too. Westboro Baptist church, the inquisition, etc. There are very extreme/fringe elements in christianity and elsewhere. Because they are so extreme they are necessarily more "visible". Synanon is to AA what the Westboro Baptist church is to christianity. Hardly even the same thing. AA members are supposed to be anonymous. This is quite the opposite: a cult of personality.
  - sverige 8y ago
    You've misunderstood me. I'm saying AA itself is very extreme / fringe. I consider it to be a cult (and Orange makes a convincing argument for that position). AA doesn't always manifest as obviously as Synanon, but that's partly because it has a legacy of very effective propaganda normalizing it for the past 80 years, and partly because the local manifestations that are nearly as extreme as Synanon are swept under the rug of "well, OK, but on the whole it's doing so much good for society!" There are many examples of AA meetings that have perpetuated a culture of exploiting people for sex, money, and power. Orange has some well-documented examples. As an aside, I have met some former Synanon members in AA rooms. Most of them miss Synanon and consider AA to be weak tea. My point is that it still has enough of the tea that they go there rather than somewhere else.
    - coleifer 8y ago
      I'd say being a junkie or alcoholic is pretty fringe and extreme. I don't get your point. In any movement with a spiritual basis you're going to find zealots, fundamentalists, cult leader megalomaniac, etc. That's all I was saying. Your comment that synanon folks think "mainstream" aa is weak is in agreement with the point I was attempting to make.
      - sverige 8y ago
        I was unclear, I guess. I do agree that Synanon is more extreme than AA, on the whole. But AA is still extreme and fringe, all by itself. I disagree that AA is a "movement with a spiritual basis." It's not. To quote Orange, AA began as a branch of a cult religion invented by an evil fascist renegade Lutheran minister named Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman, who actually admired Adolf Hitler and praised the Gestapo leader Heinrich Himmler as a "wonderful lad." It's not at all "mainstream." So I guess the comparison for me is, AA is the Nazi party, Synanon is the SS. Neither is acceptable, though one is perhaps more obviously unacceptable on its face. So the Synanon members who hang out at AA meetings are like SS members hanging out at boring party meetings since they can't any longer go out and do the 'more exciting' things they used to do.
- sverige 8y ago
  I guess that link is down because Terry didn't pay the bill. Here's an archived link: http://web.archive.org/web/20161202185738/https://www.orange-papers.org/ http://web.archive.org/web/20161202185738/https://www.orange...
moretai 8y ago
That was an incredible read. Power corrupts I guess. The whole point was that he was his own savior, and he became other's saviors and that was the beginning of the end. Be very watchful of yourself.
sizzzzlerz 8y ago
I wonder how many readers of HN have ever heard of this. I grew up in the area at that time but hadn't thought about this in decades. It was big news in the San Joaquin valley towns near Badger. The family of my sister's BF at the time had a cabin in Badger, which, after Dedirich moved in to the area, they were terrified to visit.
OldFatCactus 8y ago
I would like to use this post to draw attention to the Toubled Teen Industry. Its foundations are rooted in the Synanon. Former Synanon members founded an organization called CEDU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDU CEDU created therapeutic boarding schools and wilderness retreats marketed for "troubled teens." These schools and programs used behavioral modification and therapy created by Synanon to control and brainwash the students. These schools still exist today as members of CEDU branched off and founded their own organizations. The best site dedicated to compiling this knowledge isn't even available right now http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php/Main_Page http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php/Main_Page
- coffeebean 8y ago
  Came to see if the troubled teen industry or Fornits was mentioned. Amazed to find out how far this cult has spread and how many it's affected.
incadenza 8y ago
Personalities like this are incredibly common in that whole industry.
ggm 8y ago
Anyone else think "a scanner darkly" was about some experience PKD or a close friend had in synanon?
- fjsolwmv 8y ago
  It's well known. The book is about X-Kalay canadian synanon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly
  - ggm 8y ago
    Thanks for the pointer! It's been years since i read the book, well before Internet days. I should have done my homework before posting.
pessimizer 8y ago
Synanon was just one insane phase of a weird American self-help/productivity/management religion which seems to have started with José Silva and his UltraMind ESP System, almost immediately reached its final form through William Penn Partick and Leadership Dynamics/Holiday Magic, then after Synanon becoming basically the entire 70s with est etc., next during the 80s the self-help book boom and the rise of pop management theory then lasting throughout the 90s, and the TED talk culture now. If Synanon hadn't tanked, they'd be controlling half of the country by now. Jordan Peterson looks like a Synanon revival from what I hear about him.

73 points by lermontov 8y ago

David and Kathy Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their exposes in their newspaper The Point Reys Light. They wrote a book on their experience: The Light On Synanon, and they were the subject of a made-for-TV movie.

saagarjha 8y ago

Interestingly, the movie poster halfway through the article seems to have filtered out the needle the man is using.

taneq 8y ago

Wow, that escalated rapidly at the end. :S

sverige 8y ago

The Orange Papers are a good source for why AA is a great breeding ground for this sort of insanity. http://aorange1.tripod.com http://aorange1.tripod.com

thrower123 8y ago
In my limited experience with it, it does not seem to be a place conducive to helping people lead a normal non-dependent life. The people that stave off demon rum seem to very often become addicted to the shame and self-abasement of AA meetings, to the point sometimes that they get itchy if they don't get their daily fix. Of course I see some of the more strident AA members coming in and out of the state liquor store all the time, too.
- coleifer 8y ago
  Theres a difference between sharing honestly and vulnerably, and self flagellation. Or humility versus spiritual pride.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    The Orthodox Church has the concept of prelest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelest It's something like spiritual misdirection and there should be greater awareness of the phenomenon in Western society.
coleifer 8y ago
Christianity has bred all sorts of craziness, too. Westboro Baptist church, the inquisition, etc. There are very extreme/fringe elements in christianity and elsewhere. Because they are so extreme they are necessarily more "visible". Synanon is to AA what the Westboro Baptist church is to christianity. Hardly even the same thing. AA members are supposed to be anonymous. This is quite the opposite: a cult of personality.
- sverige 8y ago
  You've misunderstood me. I'm saying AA itself is very extreme / fringe. I consider it to be a cult (and Orange makes a convincing argument for that position). AA doesn't always manifest as obviously as Synanon, but that's partly because it has a legacy of very effective propaganda normalizing it for the past 80 years, and partly because the local manifestations that are nearly as extreme as Synanon are swept under the rug of "well, OK, but on the whole it's doing so much good for society!" There are many examples of AA meetings that have perpetuated a culture of exploiting people for sex, money, and power. Orange has some well-documented examples. As an aside, I have met some former Synanon members in AA rooms. Most of them miss Synanon and consider AA to be weak tea. My point is that it still has enough of the tea that they go there rather than somewhere else.
  - coleifer 8y ago
    I'd say being a junkie or alcoholic is pretty fringe and extreme. I don't get your point. In any movement with a spiritual basis you're going to find zealots, fundamentalists, cult leader megalomaniac, etc. That's all I was saying. Your comment that synanon folks think "mainstream" aa is weak is in agreement with the point I was attempting to make.
    - sverige 8y ago
      I was unclear, I guess. I do agree that Synanon is more extreme than AA, on the whole. But AA is still extreme and fringe, all by itself. I disagree that AA is a "movement with a spiritual basis." It's not. To quote Orange, AA began as a branch of a cult religion invented by an evil fascist renegade Lutheran minister named Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman, who actually admired Adolf Hitler and praised the Gestapo leader Heinrich Himmler as a "wonderful lad." It's not at all "mainstream." So I guess the comparison for me is, AA is the Nazi party, Synanon is the SS. Neither is acceptable, though one is perhaps more obviously unacceptable on its face. So the Synanon members who hang out at AA meetings are like SS members hanging out at boring party meetings since they can't any longer go out and do the 'more exciting' things they used to do.
sverige 8y ago
I guess that link is down because Terry didn't pay the bill. Here's an archived link: http://web.archive.org/web/20161202185738/https://www.orange-papers.org/ http://web.archive.org/web/20161202185738/https://www.orange...

moretai 8y ago

That was an incredible read. Power corrupts I guess. The whole point was that he was his own savior, and he became other's saviors and that was the beginning of the end. Be very watchful of yourself.

sizzzzlerz 8y ago

I wonder how many readers of HN have ever heard of this. I grew up in the area at that time but hadn't thought about this in decades. It was big news in the San Joaquin valley towns near Badger. The family of my sister's BF at the time had a cabin in Badger, which, after Dedirich moved in to the area, they were terrified to visit.

OldFatCactus 8y ago

I would like to use this post to draw attention to the Toubled Teen Industry. Its foundations are rooted in the Synanon. Former Synanon members founded an organization called CEDU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CEDU CEDU created therapeutic boarding schools and wilderness retreats marketed for "troubled teens." These schools and programs used behavioral modification and therapy created by Synanon to control and brainwash the students. These schools still exist today as members of CEDU branched off and founded their own organizations. The best site dedicated to compiling this knowledge isn't even available right now http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php/Main_Page http://wiki.fornits.com/index.php/Main_Page

coffeebean 8y ago
Came to see if the troubled teen industry or Fornits was mentioned. Amazed to find out how far this cult has spread and how many it's affected.

incadenza 8y ago

Personalities like this are incredibly common in that whole industry.

ggm 8y ago

Anyone else think "a scanner darkly" was about some experience PKD or a close friend had in synanon?

fjsolwmv 8y ago
It's well known. The book is about X-Kalay canadian synanon. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scanner_Darkly
- ggm 8y ago
  Thanks for the pointer! It's been years since i read the book, well before Internet days. I should have done my homework before posting.

pessimizer 8y ago

Synanon was just one insane phase of a weird American self-help/productivity/management religion which seems to have started with José Silva and his UltraMind ESP System, almost immediately reached its final form through William Penn Partick and Leadership Dynamics/Holiday Magic, then after Synanon becoming basically the entire 70s with est etc., next during the 80s the self-help book boom and the rise of pop management theory then lasting throughout the 90s, and the TED talk culture now. If Synanon hadn't tanked, they'd be controlling half of the country by now. Jordan Peterson looks like a Synanon revival from what I hear about him.