As anyone who follows her my site paulmornatz.com (approximately 3 million) or knows me, I have been more than just upset over Claire Clark’s book suggesting Charles Dederich was a hero (if he had not used, abused, brainwashed/imprisonment during the 60’s, I would agree there were some heros in Synanon throughout it history).
We think that because someone is an associate professor at a behavioral department at University of Kentucky we would expect a bona fide effort to present truth. Because I read most of what she has read, I know what she read that she intentionally left out.
It’s hard to conclude if she possibly crazy, just stupid or just wants to alter history. It is interesting at the same time AA in England published the opposite concerning Synanon. And I woman published a book about how cruel the environment affected young kids who were not allowed contact with their parents or vice-versa. Any and she may just be example of the Peter Principle, which eventually created in the 60s of a U.S.C. professor who argued that people rise in their profession until they reached the position where they are incompetent and there they stay.
Ms. Claire has refused to debate me, or answer questions, and just claims she was only writing about the 60s. But she also miss-wrote about the 70s and suggested Synanon took necessary actions in attacking and trying to murder his perceived enemies. My name is not mentioned, just the reference to “enemies.” There were no enemies and ultimately Dederich admitted it even though he pleaded guilty to attempted murder. These people were those who disobeyed, did not support, stole, came near their property, criticized. The Synanon Holy War against these people and the media for reporting the truth about Synanon, something Ms. Clark definitely avoided.
And contrary to her .Fairy tale, while it was always ever evolving, it was in the 60s that Dederich began brainwashing, creating a psychological imprisonment for which there was no return. It was in his 60s that Dederich began committing illegal acts and ordered that people were not allowed to leave the community without permission and to avoid contacts with nonmembers. Right from the start, Dederich referred to it as a cult. Also by the mid-60s the emphasis had changed to recruiting non-addicts (“squares” ) so he could take their money and use their skills and make him rich. Dederich bragged about it.
The story of Synanon from its birth is that it was knee dip in controversy and that Dederich knew that brought media attention and with it money. There were lots of professionals backing Synanon and believing they had a system of recovery despite the fact that there was no real statistics to support that.. But there was also those professionals who said that brainwashing cannot be a cure and that Synanon was keeping people forever, not treating them. Each side was extremely passionate in their positions and the story if you wish to read it (From Miracle to Madness, on Amazon, is how one side eventually proved to be correct. And while the Synanon clones who did not brainwash did help establish an industry, those that used the same processes got the same results as Synanon – – violence and abuse.
I have been contacted and interviewed by victims of these clones for the last 4 decades. As to juveniles, California prohibits Synanon’s abusive system of brainwashing, physical and mental punishments, and requires licensing for the rehab industry, Gov. Brown signing this law in 2016 at my urging. Long before at my urging, California requires a license for drug rehabs in order to ensure what happened at Synanon does not repeat.
Of course none of this appears in Ms. Clark’s book. Given her belief that she has the right to limit history to those events she approves, I assume her next books might be on how Hitler got the trains to run on time while omitting World War II and a nice book on how Charles Manson took care of runaways without discussing Helter Skelter .
Charles Dederich for Spies if he needs, abortions, changing marital partners, and trained a hit force at committed 87 attacks, putting over 100 in a hospital; many of which were teenagers. As Ms. Clark writes, Dederich, too, was rather inept. He tried to murder 3 times but failed.
Other projects have delayed me. I now starting on the page by page response to her book showing that the materials she quote were misquoted and key information was intentionally withheld.
For now, in my 667 page book on Synanon, which tells of Dederich’s childhood, alcoholism and playing God in his 60s and then the devil in the 70s., I have inserted at the end the below.
To Ms. Clark’s students at Kentucky or anyone else or to any other book publisher, if you read her book and thought there was any accuracy I strongly recommend you read mine. And then forevermore– assuming a normal IQ – – you will pay no further attention to what she says about anything.
At the bottom line, it appears she has no remorse for the victims of Synanon. It’s ironic she works at the behavioral department. In 1977 the FBI developed its behavioral department to study serial killers. That was the same year I began investigating Charles Dederich and a causes of sociopaths cult leaders and the dangers to society that they are. I know for a fact, they were following my work. If anyone is still therefrom that time, night not likely they would want to hire Ms. Clark.
From Miracle to Madness
2017 UPDATE
There are lessons from Synanon still relevant today but appear not only not learned but its methods embraced. In times of chaos, people are vulnerable to the twisted messages of charlatans, narcissists and despots. Dederich said he could run a nation; that he had the magic. Unfortunately today, Dederich clones are heads of states.
Synanon’s era was filled with the chaos of the Vietnam War, a nation divided by racial conflict and a frustrated generation of young people revolting against war and material wealth while searching for alternative philosophies and spiritual guides. It was a generation ripe for plucking by false messiahs that sprang up from this fertile soil.
‘Today’s social, economic and political morass may seem substantially different, but it is no less chaotic. Since the market crash of 2008 and the ensuing series of recessions, coupled with the advance of job-stealing robotics technology and the flight of many other jobs overseas, much of the working class has been stripped of secure livelihoods. That created rage throughout the country. The seeming inability of authorities to stem the increase in terrorist and/or racial attacks added fear.
And a dysfunctional, deeply divided government seemed to fail in all its attempts at reform. All these factors collided in the perfect storm in the 21 Century, leaving the country in the clutches of a mem who appears similarly flawed like Dederich but lacking his genius. The separations of power that when I was a kid I was taught protected us as has dissolved. Few fight for truth, justice and the American Way.
Our leaders demand loyalty from all as Dederich did. All who serve must say “yes” and defend with zeal or perish. As Dederich said, he “did it all with words” and bragged of making miss-truths about the enemy while applying false propaganda and vicious media attacks; today that game plan is global. The current tyrants are like Dederich on steroids. Nixon lied; so did Clinton. George W. Bush built an entire war around a huge whopper. But nobody has lied as consistently and brazenly, and so far, without consequences as now occurs in many or present leaders. Facebook is even making AI that will lie for you.
Dederich’s New Religious Posture speech approving murder and mayhem—from killing to throwing people downstairs–pales to this country’s current leader approval of violence on critics and open support for tyrants who keep order by murdering dissidents. In one year his plan to increase global warming puts him possibly on top of the list of mass murders with more to come, given his snubbing of Arabs in Jerusalem and .schoolyard taunting of North Korea’s Kim Jun Un. These developments renewed my long-held concern that the lessons of Synanon, Jonestown and other cults have faded over time and now the planet is in danger.
And it hasn’t helped that on occasion a false history of tyrannical leaders like Dederich or Jim Jones is written.
*****
I painstakingly wrote two books to assist our need of knowledge on how brainwashing and/or patrotism turns good people into terrorists. I told all sides of the once- Synanon controversy and tried to show the good with the bad and ugly. I tried in this book to leave no facts out
And yet interestingly in 2017 alone, three more Synanon-related publications appeared. In Synanon Kid , C.A. Whitman describes how her mother kidnapped her as a small child from her father and left her parentless at a Synanon school for five years. That she can still remember those years in such detail tells you the power of the experience. It’s a moving piece on the dangers of separating children from their parents and raising them under such rigid controls. She wrote a flattering acknowledgment to me and my books and for discussion Synanon with her.
In the AA Minority Report 2017, the British cult watch group AACultWatch traces cults over the decades and establishes how false beliefs and many misinformed case studies have led to a history of abuses-many exceeding Synanon’s. The report, which cites this book, notes the success of an early Synanon public relations campaign led to decades of abusive copycats. So if you are going to write about Synanon, it’s important to get it right, which brings us to the third publication, a shameful account of Synanon’s history by Claire D. Clark, an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky who wanted no discussion with me or anyone armed with actual Synanon documents other than what Synanon wanted people to see.
To Ms. Clark’s dissertation, Synanon was a revolutionary development in the treatment of substance abuse that was forced to later change “in order to prepare to fight its enemies.” It suggest there all the violence, including the attack on me, was necessary. It was sort of Trumpish: a mixutre of omissions and misquotes. Between the covers of her book, there aren’t any mentions of beatings, at least three attempted murders committed by members, harassment of neighbors, bogus lawsuits against media outlets who dared to tell the truth, forced vasectomies and abortions, the forced separation of children from parents—all directed by Synanon founder Charles Dederich . That Dederich was convicted for conspiracy to commit murder is to her not worth mentioning.
She as to busy writing Springtime for Dederich.
Nor did she recount Synanon’s eventual admissions during the periods she writes of, of controlling members through brainwashing, humiliation, fear, containment and isolation as well as violence, and this was all in materials she read. She did note that Synanon experimented with multiple sexual partners, about the only negative comment in the book—but even that was wrong. Dederich forced couples to switch partners, not take multiple partners. While hailing Synanon’s methods, she even omits Dederich’s own testimony that the program was a failure that couldn’t cure anybody. She intentionally left out the treatment she praised beame a psychological prison from which no one was granted parole. She cites Steve Simon, a Harvard graduate but leaves out his dissertation noted it was brainwashing and eventually he took part in the violent conspiracy, cover up and went to prison.
She states correctly older drug abusers can clean up without treatment but that youth was the problem. She omits original members were from 35-60 years old but it failed when youth came. She cites Synanon as being set-up in prisons but omits all those programs failed. Dederich , she onits, in 1966 decided it was such a failure he turned his emphasis to building an empire on tax-free addict labor, donations and recruiting non-addicts. No one was to ever leave until he decided to “squeeze” them out and steal the money.
I take some small exception to Dederich’s declaration of failue, that his comment may have been part ruse to justify using their labor forever to his benefit. I met too many people who had been rehabilitated at Synanon to ever call it a failure. Synanon did provide hope to many that the dream of addiction rehabilitation was possible. It was a great concept in terms of shelter and support but its version failed because the seed of evil was planted by Dederich as he spiraled into madness.
It’s hard to explain how this affected me after all these years reading, in effect, I was an enemy who had to be dealt with, and after so many have written trying to explain what it was about Synanon that led it down the slippery slope to violence and destruction. I never thought I would see an author suggest that all the violence directed against both insiders and imagined enemies in the outside world by Synanon was justified, as was all the lawsuits and harassment suffered by so many. Her suggestion that Dederich never resulted to mass beatings and murder attempts — 87 such accounts according to its own documents – – led me to understand how Jews feel about Holocaust deniers. It is as if someone wrote a book suggesting that Hitler was a great leader because he made the trains run on time. Or a book on How Charles Manson cared for runaway children. In an email, the authors of AA Minority Report called Clark’s effort “lying by omission.” So when you can’t trust Ph.D.-laden educators for insights into sociopaths and despots, who do you turn to? For that, I still rely on law enforcement agencies that I’ve worked with frequently and learned to respect, and the press. Say what you want about the press—lord knows it’s got its faults—but it has bailed us out of Watergate, Viet Nam, Bush’s phony war and many other governmental crises. It helped save us from Synanon
Clark, on the other hand, if she was triplets would probably be like the 3 monkeys—See no evil, do no evil, say no evil.
I wouldn’t recommend students in her class or at Kentucky or Columbia that approved her falsifying history try Harvard.
