Cults: Useful resources (continued)

Paul Morantz / Synanon Cult

Paul Morantz Website: http://www.paulmorantz.com/

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Morantz

Videos:

Paul Morantz on Cults, Confession and Mind Control http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RXEis52yQs

“A Conversation with Paul Morantz” University of California Television http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgZ2xw4VUpk

The Synanon Cult

How the cult started by Synanon cult founder Charles Dederich:

“The break with Alcoholics Anonymous occurred about the middle of August (1958) It happened right in the middle of an A.A. meeting. Our whole gang had taken over the Saturday night meeting of the Santa Monica A.A. group at Twenty Sixth and Broadway and built it up from its attendance of ten people to an attendance of about forty five or fifty. There was some objection on some issue by the members of the Board of Directors of the A.A. club. I recall the leader stopping the meeting. They didn’t like us. The alkies didn’t like the addicts, and they didn’t like me in particular…and they didn’t like my gang because they were mostly addicts. They made things difficult for us. I remember getting up in the meeting and saying, ‘All right, lets go home-the hell with this.’ So the whole meeting got up, and we all got into our automobiles and came down to the club, and we never went back to A.A. again. We were building something new and different. Although I will always be grateful to A.A. for helping me personally, Synanon has nothing to do with A.A., any more than a rowboat compares with an airplane. We have a live-in situation, with family characteristics. We emphasize self-reliance rather than dependence on a higher being. We assumed a responsibility; we had to get up the rent, we had to feed the people when they came in, and so on. This was the point at which the few alcoholics in the club began to fall out. They didn’t want any responsibility. In fact, it was even verbalized. ‘We don’t want to do this; we want to have a lot of fun; we want to have a club as a club.’ The alkies began to say, ‘Well, it’s our club,’ and I said, ‘No, it’s my club.’ I became the champion of the addicts, chucked the alcoholics out, and Synanon was then fully launched for addicts.”(Yablonsky, L. 1965) (Extract, How Drug Abuse Treatment Turns into Mistreatment By Juan E. Lesende - September 18th 2009) http://www.treatmentsolutionsnetwork.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/18/from-the-desk-of-juan-lesende-how-drug-abuse-treatment-turns-into-mistreatment/

Wikipedia – Synanon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon

Synanon Short Film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THu690d7qJE

Chuck Dederich Still Rules Synanon, but Now He Has 1,300 Subjects and a $22 Million Empire, Barbara Wilkins, PEOPLE magazine's archive: October 11, 1976, Vol. 6, No. 15 http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20066985,00.html

Charles Dederich Sr. Synanon Founder Dies, Los Angeles Times 04/03/97 http://articles.latimes.com/1997-03-04/local/me-34689_1_charles-dederich-sr 
Life After Synanon, Ted Rohrlich, Los Angeles Times March 29 1998 http://articles.latimes.com/1998/mar/29/magazine/tm-33727 
Los Angeles Times Synanon Articles http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/synanon

The Dark Legacy of a Rehab Cult, J.D. Dicky, The Fix, 05/09/12 http://www.thefix.com/content/aa-cults-synanon-legacy0009 

Cult Culture and the Twelve Steps, Maia Szalavitz, The Fix, 08/27/12 http://www.thefix.com/content/12-steps-rehabs-cults-abuse8851 
Will Prison Actually Help This Teen Mom Star? Maia Szalavitz, The Fix, 06/11/12http://www.thefix.com/content/teen-mom-amber-portwood-prison8327

Cheers

The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)

PS Our thanks to this contributor