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Archive 1

Purported cult

This material is from the article List of purported cults, which we are paring down to a pure list. Editors here can best evaluate its statements and decide how to integrate it into this article. Thanks, -Willmcw 20:46, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Synanon
Synanon was founded in California as a drug rehabilitation program in the late 1950s, but turned into a profitable business enterprise and the cultish "Church of Synanon." Members were reportedly required to donate their savings, to work for the business, to participate in coercive group therapy, and to have abortions and vasectomies. It aquired a number of properties, some quite remote, to house as many as 1,700 members. Beatings of opponents and ex-members culminated in the attempted murder of a lawyer by placing a live rattlesnake in his mailbox in 1978. That led to the forced departure of the founding leader, Charles Dederich, and a number of enforcement actions that cause the group to fold in the 1990s. The Synanon program did work successfully for some persons. Synanon is credited by some with giving Jazz musician Art Pepper several more years of creativity, and it is also remembered fondly by some former members.

UFW

Any connection between the UFW and Synanon? Read this somewhere...--Rockero 09:59, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

Apparenty. [1] Wanna do some mor research and add it? -Will Beback 20:57, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

German Synanon

Synanon had an early offshoot in Germany that is still active to this day. German Wikipedia has some material on it. There probably should be a section on the German Synanon organization, though it would probably need to be written by somebody who reads German, since pretty much all literature on this group is in that language. Peter G Werner 02:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that info. I created a stub section and added the link. Perhaps someone who reads German can follow up and fill in some details. Cheers, -Will Beback 03:14, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Synanon (movie)

I'm surprised the article doesn't mention the eponymous movie about the movement/cult. (It's here at IMDB.) I remember seeing this twice as a kid, for some reason. ==ILike2BeAnonymous 07:13, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Famous Residents?

How about a listing of well-known individuals who were treated or lived at Synanon? (Other than the few jazz musicians mentioned.) For one, I know that former "Our Gang" member Matthew "Stymie" Beard resided there for many years. StanislavJ 23:52, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Synanon Game

I'd like to see a bit more detailed explanation of the "Synanon Game." It seems like a fairly central practice of the organization.

The explanation of it that is on the article now is "group truth-telling sessions." That doesn't seem to enough. More detailed explanations ae available, for example, on this page at The Religious Movements Homepage Project by The University of Virginia.

And it doesn't match the description from this page, an article on a drug treatment program "spin off" program called Amity, where the point is made that the attacks don't have to have any basis in truth. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.19.32.21 (talk) 00:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC).

Synanon, UFW cooperation

Yes, Synanon and the UFW were connected. Synanon helped the UFW set up a law school/law office at UFW headquarters, a former tuberculosis sanitarium near Keene in the Tehachapi foothills. ˜˜˜˜ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mike Wennergren (talk • contribs) 03:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

Synanon and Scientology

Was Synanon not related to the "Church" of Scientology?

So far as I'm aware there is no connection, though they had some things in common. If this is a significant rumor we might need to make some mention in the article. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 06:59, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Maybe the commenter is confusing Synanos with Narconon? Jope 22:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
That's probably it. Narconon has an article describing its connection to Scientology. ·:·Will Beback ·:· 23:37, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
The "rattlesnake in the mailbox" is sometimes (mistakenly) attributed to Scientology. AndroidCat 01:09, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Untitled

There is wrong information here. Cedu was sold to the Brown Schools about ten years ago. Brown schools went into Chapter 7 banduptcy a few years ago. It was Good Friday and I think the year was 2005 or 2006. I may be wrong about the year but I'm not wrong about Good Friday. In any case, as of that moment, Cedu ceased to exist. Several of the original Cedu Schools in northern Idaho have re-opened operated by Universal Health. but contrary to what the article says, Cedu no longer exists. While I know that Mel Wasserman was very close to Charles Diederich, I did not think he was a himself ever a participant in the Synanon program. Perhaps he was and that was simply something I did not know. However there clearly is no more Cedu. 24.3.65.68 (talk) 19:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It is correct that they now operate under new ownership, but according to surviviors of these program the strategy used in their behavior modification programs are much the same. Some of the seminars have been given less exotic names, but the number of LGAT seminars are still the same and Ascent (a wilderness program) is still used a punishment. For more info see: CEDU wiki - European Fornits Wiki copy. Covergaard (talk) 21:47, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

July 2008

Welcome to Paul Morantz, aka user:Paulmorantz. Everyone who has read this article knows who he is. Though an expert on this topic, he may not be familiar with the editing process at Wikipedia. One aspect of that process is that we all freely give our contributions to the project and allow them to be edited (mercilessly!) by complete strangers. Other important aspects are verifiability and the "neutral point of view". Let's all work together to make this article the best possible, in conformity with the norms of this project. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:51, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

"Everyone who has read this article knows who he is." I have no idea who he is. All I know is that Vorlons are not mentioned once in this article! Gingermint (talk) 05:12, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Game clarification

it keeps talking about the Synanon Game, but never says what exactly it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.145.251.34 (talk) 20:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

This is exactly what I was thinking! Could someone pleeeeeeze explain this? Mia229 (talk) 17:48, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

"church of synanon"

(Shades of Scientology....)

I would like to know how, or if, the IRS responded to Synanon's claim to be tax-exempt on the grounds of being a "church." I'm no legal expert, but it seems to me that, as a for-profit business, it would be ineligible for 501(c) status regardless of whether it chose to call itself a religion. I think it might be worthwhile to include a sentence or two conveying this information (if we can find it), especially if they ended up having to pay a lot in back taxes.

Also, does anybody know the origin (or alleged origin?) of the name "Synanon?" Presumably it's an imitation of Al-Anon and other recovery groups, but what does the "Syn" refer to?

Thanx! Mia229 (talk) 18:02, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Possible reference

  • Novak, Matt (2014-04-15). "Synanon's Sober Utopia: How a Drug Rehab Program Became a Violent Cult". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2014-04-25.

I came across what seems to be a well-written article on Synanon, but since it is a blog there's the question of RS. It's not just some guy's blog page (which would disqualify it), but more like what would have been a running column of a magazine in the dead tree era (which would be okay). The question would seem to be how much editorial standards and fact-checking does Gizmodo have over their blogs. I don't know, so I'll leave it here. AndroidCat (talk) 13:45, 22 June 2014 (UTC)

re: "church of synanon"

Mia229, I have some answers to your questions. Synanon became tax-exempt in 1960 because it was purportedly "organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes," not because of it being a religious organization. Synanon did not begin referring to itself as a church until 1975. The IRS revoked Synanon's tax-exempt status on the grounds that it was a profitable business in 1984; Synanon appealed the decision and was not successful. Nine members of the organization, including the CEO and Dederich's daughter, were charged with conspiracy and fraud. More details:

Apocryphally, 'Synanon' is the result of an addict slurring together the words 'symposium' and 'seminar' to describe a 1958 meeting of what was then named "The T.L.C. Club." I think this story is mentioned in the Gizmodo article referenced just above by Matt Novak, and I have seen it other places.

Algognarl (talk) 01:55, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

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Narconon

I propose a link to Narconon in the "See Also" section. Chockyegg (talk) 14:28, 7 September 2019 (UTC)

After reverting some POV edits, I also removed the following external links because I feel that they need discussed as to whether they are appropriate in this article. Note that to my knowledge, aside from the "german offshoot", there is absolutely no website which is "official" nowadays - thus any external links must meet the policy at WP:EL - specifically Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons. Personally, I do not believe any of these sites contain "neutral and accurate" material (per WP:NPOV and WP:RS) which is "relevant to ... understanding" (if it is, find the information in RS and cite it in the article) - and anything that they do contain can be integrated into the article with reliable citations.

External links removed

Please feel free to ping me with any questions. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:33, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Rattlesnake citation

As tagged on the front page, p 214 of the book says nothing about the case that I can see. The book is available here, you can borrow it with a free account [2]. The content may be in the book, but it's certainly on another page.--222.109.91.138 (talk) 01:32, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Biancaalvarez, Igarcia80, Lesleym, Aleharo, J-lassiter.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:35, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

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