Part Two: Synanon: The Drug Rehab Program That Built Its Own Army

Robert is joined again by Paul F. Tompkins to continue to discuss Synanon.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Oh god, oh god, I hate that lady. I really
don't like her. I'm actually starting to get attractive. Yeah.
Just think we just talked. It just turned around. Yeah,
just now it's I mean it. She is a cop.
But I think we all remember the Little Wayne classic
Mrs Officer. It's like that sort of situation, right, like

(00:23):
she's she's caught you, but also she's intrigued and you
can't not be yourself and maybe you're gonna fuck in
the back of that squad car like Little Wayne absolutely didn't. Never,
never has a song been more clearly alive than Little
Wayne's Mrs Officer. Um, this is Behind the Bastards, the

(00:45):
podcast where we talk about Little Wayne songs with Paul
Left Tompkins. I can't believe we got this greenlit. I know.
I thought, like, first of all, this is not the
original idea. This is right before the pitch robertuns it says,
change of plans, just follow my lead instead of a bit.

(01:06):
It worked. We got fourteen million dollars in funding, so
we're going to take this to some fun places this year.
This is better than the gardening podcast we had planned. Yeah,
this is this is a lot better less Little Wayne
than the gardening podcast. I would totally listen to a
gardening podcast with the two of you. Just say that

(01:26):
sounds like a really good time to me. I'm getting
to be I'm getting to be a pretty good gardener.
My fucking cauliflower is going off the chain this year,
and my potatoes are I would brag more about my potatoes,
but they are potatoes, and it's the hardest thing to
funk up in the Pacific Northwest. If you can't grow

(01:46):
potatoes in northern Oregon, you might not be able to
grow things. This is now a gardening podcast podcast. I
take that as a challenge. I have a I have
a completely black thumb. I've ever been able to make anything,
keep anything alive. I will move to northern Oregon and
I will not grow potato. I'll try to Paul's dead

(02:12):
potato farm. Uh, Paul, how are you feeling it as
we enter into part two? How are you feeling about
sinning On? I feel good. That was such a good
cliffhanger last week that I'm I'm I'm I'm dying to
dive into what happens next? What's fun about this one?

(02:34):
Part one kind of a slow burn, right for a
lot of the episode broadly reasonable. You know, there's some
problematic aspects, but like also you compare it to you know,
it slowly turns into something really toxic. At this point,
they've just he just puts his foot on the gas,
like we we go very off the rails, very quickly here.

(02:55):
So by nineteen sixty seven, with the announcement that sent
it on, was no longer curing addicts. Um, Charles Debtoric
was pretty much a full on cult leader. Now this
slowly became obvious to some of the people inside, but
to our casual observers, it still seemed to just be
a drug treatment program that said it was a treatment

(03:15):
program that was now bringing in the modern equivalent of
tens of millions of dollars a year through a dizzying
variety of businesses, not just gas stations, but pottery shops,
apartment buildings, and a specialty branded item business that sold
pins and office supplies bearing different company logos. Since the
cult was technically a nonprofit, they advertised to businesses as

(03:36):
a charity, begging Fortune five companies to quote buy from
sinnan On and save a life. Now, yeah, that's what
you're not compelled by that pitch. The angle is ingenious.
I have to say it's. Yeah. Businesses love to be
able to claim they're supporting a good cause by doing

(03:58):
a thing they would do in any way, just the
thing that's in their best interest. If you give them
a way to say that this is a charity, they
love that ship. But in terms of cults, I mean,
I think that it's very rare that they they do
the move of presenting themselves as trying to help the
entire community and if you give us this money, it

(04:19):
goes towards this, that and the other thing. Yeah, you know, scientology.
I think they missed the boat on that making all
about the individual. I mean, I guess they do their
charity stuff, but nobody cares. Yeah it's like charity stuff,
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Like they showed up at
Katrina and gave e meter readings and ship it's like, yeah,

(04:40):
that's what we needed, thanks charity of scientology. Um. Bizarre.
So the reality is that sent and On had essentially
used the structure of occultability sizable corporation, one which did
not have to pay its workers or pay taxes, which
is the benefit of being a nonprofit like this. The

(05:01):
promotional item. Business would expand massively until it was making
more than ten million dollars a year in nineteen sixties,
money making branded ballpoint pins and wallets and T shirts
for corporate retreats. It was eventually the second largest firm
of its kind in the United States. Wow, this guy.

(05:21):
Once that seal was broken, this guy was like, I
am off to the races. Yeah, yeah, all gas, no
breaks on this motherfucker. Like he was just like thinking
of ship, like just inventing ship. Like how about this?
I mean, no one stopped me yet, I'll just keep going.
Would stop me? That's always what's going on with these guys.

(05:44):
Is it just isn't I'm gonna stop me? No, I
guess I run Hubbard. Is anyone going to stop me
from having my own navy and searching for gold and
the bambas? Nope, okay, guess that's my life now, um now.
Sinning On also made a lot of money from the game,
which when they open up the cult outside members. You know,

(06:06):
when they open up the program to people who are
not addicts, they start offering the game as like a
general self help things, so you can just drop in
and do with session of the game in the nineteen seventies,
um and it's you know, they make like a lot
of money doing this from l a magazine quote. Sinn
Aon rebranded itself in the nineteen seventies from a drug
treatment program to a psychotherapy program and started attracting middle

(06:30):
class people through the Sentanon game, says sociologist Richard Offsheet,
who spent time in the organization studying it as a
non resident. By the early nineteen seventies, some thirty squares
in California, New York and Detroit. We're paying cash to
participate in games. It was the heyday of the Human
Potential movement, when Americans were rushing off to therapist couches,
New age movements like e s t religions like the

(06:52):
Divine Light Mission, alternative communities like Slum, and cults like
the People's Temple and Sinnanon, many of which began in California. Yeah,
you know that is that that This the West Coast
is where this ship always happens. Because man, if you
if you're going to get thousands of people together and
try to start your own civilization, you're going to do

(07:15):
it in California, like or do it. You can't do it,
and where there's snow, you can't. You need you need
a temperate climate to start. You want a temperate climate. Um,
you also want a lot of wilderness, and you want
you want a place where everybody is a little bit
off their rocker, which is the entirety of the West Coast. Um,

(07:37):
it's just the perfect place to have a colt um.
It's like, you know, yeah, it's just great. So all
of this money had to go somewhere right there, taking
in way more money than it costs to operate this motherfucker,
and most of the money goes to real estate. In
nineteen sixty seven, the Colton purchased the club Casa del Mar,
a massive beachside hotel in Santa Monica, and turned it

(08:00):
into a dormitory for their members. Now, when they bought
the castle, it was still in use as a club
and still had members who the cult pressured to resign
their memberships. And this is one of those you know
you live in l A, right, Um, yeah, these you know,
they'll have these big beach clubs that will be like
some of them are just restaurants. Some of them have
like rooms, and they also have like a chunk of
beach that is theirs, and they'll have like you know,

(08:22):
cabanas and bars and stuff. That's what this is. Right.
So the cult forces the people who had been members
to resign, and a lot of these people complain and
the city of Santa Monica gets involved. In Santa just clear,
he buys this property. But the the the members of
the club are still like, I don't care. We have

(08:43):
a club. We have a club. I mean I want
my beach side cabana, right, Like, why I don't want
to give that up. I don't want to find another one. Um.
And he's like, no, this is from my weird cult.
Now you have to leave. We're going to make it
weird for you. Also, you can't buy liquor on the
beach now, And why even go to the beach. Why, Like,

(09:04):
you're not going to be a member of a beach
club and not order drinks on the beach. What are
you talking about? Um? So, yeah, these people complain and
the city of Santa Monica gets involved, and being the
city of Santa Monica, they immediately go ape ship in
a way that they don't have a right to do. Um.
They order like they basically say, hey, the beach front

(09:25):
property that this club owns. You don't actually own that,
that's property of the city, which was bullshit, right, Like
they did own the property. The city is breaking the
law here, but they send in armored, armed police officers
and bulldozers and destroy the cabanas and paved the courts
and or destroy the paved courts in front of the club,
which is like, so the city is in the wrong here. Legally,

(09:49):
they didn't have the right to do that, and they
they were. This is just like a massive like like, yeah,
it's just the Yeah, it's the city be it's the
city be in the city. You know, it's assuming like
what are they gonna do? Right, Um? What are they
gonna do? Um? Well, it turns out they had tens
of millions of dollars and a lot of Synnon members
were like Harvard educated lawyers. So this so part of

(10:14):
what goes wrong is that a bunch of Synnon members
protest and they're arrested in mass by the cops. Chuck
Dederic holds a press conference to claim that the city
had fallen into the hands of mad dogs, and of
course he promises to sue them all. We don't know
precisely what legal threats they sent the city of Santa Monica.
But the city surrenders immediately. And the result of this

(10:34):
is that for like a decade, Synnon is untouchable. No
city or zoning commission in California is willing to stand
in their way. They just don't have to obey zoning
laws for a decade now because of this, everyone's scared
of the uh. You know, there's a lot of people
talking about armed self defense these days, but nothing will

(10:57):
protect you from the government as well as a bunch
of frightening asked lawyers. That's the point. In a matter
of years, Sinnon became the largest landowner in Santa Monica.
The Cold bought a massive industrial building in Oakland, to
which they turned into a dormitory in a show room
where random people off the street could show up to

(11:18):
participate in the game. The state of California even gifted
the cult an entire building in San Francisco. And you
know San Francisco law and real estate. It's not as
expensive then, but like that's a big gift there was.
It was never cheap to own buildings in San Francisco
through the end of the nineteen sixties, Sinnanon and Chuck
de Eric began to exhibit weirder and weirder behavior. He

(11:41):
issued a policy of containment, which ordered that his members
ought to separate themselves from the world outside of the cult. This,
of course cut them off from their families and friends,
but also from hobbies or jobs that were not directly
related to Sinanon. Detoric justified this by claiming that Sinnanon
had a duty to lead the world into the twenty

(12:01):
one century. Doing this was going to take everyone's full
effort and quote, anything less than changing the world is
mickey mouse. Well now, okay, so at this point, how
many people are in this cult. It's hard to say,
but it's probably somewhere around two to three thousand full
time members, but then thousands of people who are taking

(12:22):
part in it to a lesser extent, you know, but
just a couple of thousand full time members, um, but
a lot of you know. One of the things, because
this is an organization of people who are addicted to
hard drugs. There's a lot of hard drug addicts that
have little in the way of resources. A lot of
the most powerful, talented people in the world are also
heavily addicted to drugs, so if you can get those

(12:45):
people in your cult again, some of like some of
his lawyers that were like cult members, had been top
of their class at Harvard like, which is why they're like.
You see what they did. They frightened the city of
Santa Monica and to saying no more zoning laws for
this cult, which is not easy. Um. And they clearly
have connections to the government in California. UM. But still

(13:07):
it's worth noting while all this is happening in the
late nineteen sixties, at the end of the nineteen sixty
sixty nine sent it On is still broadly respected. Right.
Judges increasingly were sending children there when they were caught
with drugs, and many addicts still claimed to gain benefits
from sinning On even if they didn't buy the whole
You never get to leave aspect. Art pepper is A

(13:27):
was a famous jazz saxophonist. He was one of the
biggest jazz players of his day. He checked himself into
sinning On in nineteen sixty nine when the weird Ship
was in full swing. He was immediately suspicious of the
self policing and the weird limitations to individual liberty. He
also didn't trust Detoric, who he called the old Whino,
but he still found value in the program. When he

(13:50):
found really valuable in the program was oddly enough, you
know how I mentioned that like twenty four hour day thing,
where like half the cult is twelve hours awake during
the day half the cult and night during the night.
He actually found that valuable. He said, quote, dope fiends
and nuts can't stand routine and when they get bored,
they have to do something crazy. So sinning On made
the insanity themselves. The people that ran it caused the insanity,

(14:13):
which allows He's arguing, if you're mentally ill, if the
organization you're in is crazy, it helps you actually be
on a more even keel, right. I guess that's his argument.
Like I don't know sure. It's like if you get
if you get a hit on the head with a coconut,

(14:34):
you will get amnesia. But if you get hit with
a coconut again, you you don't have an amnesia anymore.
You know what it is? I think a little bit
like we talked about this in my podcast about like
a second American Civil War, Um, it could happen here,
but um during the blitz in World War two before,
because everyone knew they were going to be cities bombed

(14:54):
in the next big war, but they didn't know how
people would react, and there was this white like they
euthanized all of the pet in London because they were
sure that animals would like go crazy and become dangerous, like, yeah,
that's the thing we don't talk about much, like all
the cats and dogs they could. Um. They also assumed
that people were going to lose their minds and start
committing crimes and mass and just like be completely uncontrolled.

(15:15):
But just because the being bombed would shatter their minds,
the opposite happened. And one of the things they noticed
is that people who had required regular therapy, who had
required regular psychiatric treatment, stopped receiving it at all. And
we're suddenly like working as ambulance drivers because when the
world fell apart around them, something it made they were

(15:37):
able to function more effectively. And there there's a variety
of theories as to why that is. Um it's been
observed in a lot of different disaster scenarios and so
maybe that's something of what he's talking about, right if
you and part of it is like you're dysfunctional in
the regular world. You get put in something that is
very much not the regular world, and maybe you're able
to be more functional. I don't know. There's a lot

(15:58):
to dig into in that statement by Alright Pepper, But
by the nineteen seventies, cinnan On was fully off the
rocker as an or whatever individual benefits some people may
have gathered, it's no longer about treating addiction. When health
problems forced Chuck to give up sugar and refined grains,
he banned them for all of his followers. No more

(16:19):
peanut butter sandwiches. When he started running in place to
lose weight, running in place became mandatory for everyone, and
when he shaved his head, everyone was pressured to shave
their heads as a sign of solidarity. People who refused
would have their heads forcibly shaved for infractions against the rules.
Chuck's most controversial rule change came when his doctors told
him to give up smoking. He banned cigarettes, which led

(16:42):
a hundred and fifty members to quit on the spot.
People are like, no more sandwiches. You gotta run in
place at random, and they're like alright, alright, oh yeah,
and you can't smoke. You know what this is a
bridge too far? It is. Yeah, do you understand what

(17:02):
nineteen seventy is. There's only two things to do cocaine
and cigarettes, and I can't do coke anymore. You're not
taking this from me. M one rule too far, dude,
Seeing cigarettes save lives. This is what I've been arguing
for years. So by that point, the early seventies, when

(17:27):
you know he banned cigarettes, sent it on, could afford
to lose people. By nineteen seventy two, the Cold had
more than seventeen hundred live in residents. These are permanent members,
some of which paid monthly dues because they were squares,
some of whom labored for free in one of the
Colt's businesses. Rich people had also started handing over fortunes
to dead Eric, including some old lady who gave him
a million dollars and some idiot who gave him gave

(17:49):
him a mortgage company. They operate a mortgage company because
some guy just gives uh. It's fucking great. Oh yeah. Slowly,
Chuck assembled an entire town of his own at Tamali's
bay Um, complete with the fleet of ships, hundreds of motorbikes,
an airstrip with a private plane, hot tubs, and writing stables.

(18:11):
This was his his perfect city. He called it home Place,
and it was only open to the top members of
the cult and of course to Chuck and his wife Betty,
So it is them and their friends basically, and the
other cult leader cult members are like, I mean, actually
it's not all bad, right, Like, if you're living on
the beach in Santa Monica, worst fucking living arrangements on
God's green Earth, that's not so bad. Well, home place

(18:35):
as I don't know if they have the hot tub
at Casa del March, yeah, but it is. It seems
like almost all of their real estate was pretty nice places, right,
you know, you know Santa Monica. They actually become the
largest landowners in Santa Monica for like two years, I know.
And that's like that wasn't that cheap a real estate?
Then that's a big deal. U And the Cassada Mark,

(19:00):
I think that was like their massive dormitory. And the
beach is still a hotel today like it's been. You
can go to that place like it's it's still in operation.
Not as part of the cult obviously, um, because I
guess it was just a good building. But you know
what is still in operation as part of a cult. Paul,
I have an idea, But why don't you tell me?

(19:22):
The sponsors of this podcast are all cults. That's the
only guarantee we make it behind the bastards. My suspicions
are confirmed. Yeah, absolutely, So you know, um, buy some
products purgeon unbeliever, cult ship, go do some cult ship
and listen to these acts. And while you're buying these products,

(19:43):
run in place. Oh yeah, yeah, run in place. But
you can smoke in all of our cults. That's the
that's the promise that I'm not monsters. In fact, smoking
is mandatory. It's mandatory mandatory. Are puffing away on a
camel while you're running in place? Yeah yeah, yeah, it

(20:04):
seems you know, the can't counterproductive? But okay I did.
I I when I was hiking volcanoes in Guatemala. The
guy who was by far the best at it because
he's a I mean, he now makes like authentic Viking
equipment for the History Channel and stuff using original methods.
But the guy that I would would I would hike
volcanoes with and he would chain smoke the whole way

(20:27):
up feed elevation. You know, yeah, just just just burning
him down. It was amazing. All right, here's ads. We're back. Ah,
we're back, and we're talking about sinning on now. In

(20:51):
nineteen seventy two, the San Francisco Examiner decided to take
a deeper, more critical look at this drug rehab program
that suddenly owned like all of California. They're like, they've
bought the whole state and they have their own cops.
Perhaps a journalist ought to look into this um. They

(21:14):
published a series of critical articles focused mainly on Charles Debtoric,
his weird policy of separating people from their families, and
the fact that he had gotten rich operating a series
of tax free businesses under the guys of therapy. They're
reporting was solid, but what was more solid was Debtoric's lawyers.
By this point, fort drug addicted legal professionals had joined

(21:35):
the cult, and Chuck set them all against the Examiner.
And when you have high grade office lawyers who don't
bill you, you you can do anything. You can do anything
in the world, right, that is the dream. Just a
squadron of frightening lawyers don't charge you. Good god. Yeah, Um,

(21:57):
so Chuck sets all of his lawyers again. Uh, the
Examiner and Hurst newspapers, who owned the paper, has to
settle out of court for I think two point six million.
I've heard a couple of different numbers, but like it
hurts you know, Um, this was the day when newspapers
had millions of dollars as opposed today where like if
you could give a newspaper a parking ticket, that that's it.

(22:18):
They're out of business, right like, sorry, we can't keep
doing this anymore. And I mean, did he have any
idea that this that this story was coming or was
it a surprise to him? And then it was a
couple of stories, so they were they launched like a
series and he sues, so he doesn't. I don't he
doesn't have intelligence inside. I think it's surprises and he
gets angry and he's sixes his law goouls on them.

(22:42):
The Examiner's suit scared most newspapers away from investigating the cults.
So they frightened all of the local governments in California
away from enforcing zoning laws. And now they frightened newspapers
away from reporting on them. Um, which is again not dumb.
The cult the this is so this is the game plan,
right if you're listening and you're going to start a cult.

(23:04):
I'm planning to start a cult. So far, so good,
except for the banning cigarettes part um. So uh, it's
unfortunate that the early seventies or when newspapers got scared
away for importing on centing on, because the early seventies
were also the time that Chuck Dederick decided it was
a bad idea for children to be raised by parents.

(23:25):
So it was a bad idea. What for for for parents?
For children to be raised by parents? Oh sure, yeah, sure, yeah, yeah,
you know the thing that has been doing for forever.
We should just stop that and immediately try the thing.
Just because we've been doing it for a long time

(23:46):
doesn't mean that it's perfect. I was raised by parents,
and let me tell you, it was not all smooth sailing.
It was not. So it's some scientology level shit. Oh no,
this is way more intense than what scientology. So we're
a phrase I don't hear often. Let's hear that. Let's go.

(24:06):
Chuck justified this by saying, basically, junkies are too much
our children, right, and kids can't raise kids. So he
started sending newborn babies and young children of his members
away to be raised in a central facility he called
the hatchery. Oh this is at this point. At this point,

(24:29):
he's like, why should I hide anything? Yeah, I'll call
it the hatchery. I know what that sounds. No, I
know what that sounds like. I gonna give a fuck. Yeah, hatchery.
No one stopped me yet. But make make the sign.
Make the sign. I don't have time bought Santa Monica
and Marim County. I can do whatever I want. So.

(24:49):
Children were to be reared communally by teachers in the
sinnan On School. Charles Derek called mothers who wanted to
see their own children too much head suckers. I want
to see your own kids. That seems like abusive behaviorad sucker.
Children were not allowed toys, to own toys, or anything
else of their own. They slept in large rooms with

(25:11):
many beds. There were only allowed occasional visitation from their parents. Now,
I actually found a book, a memoir by a man
who was raised as a child in a sin and
On school. Most of the book is not about that,
but that's how it starts, and obviously it has a
profound impact on him. This guy, Michael Jollette, writes that
he was raised to believe he was a drug addict
because his father had been one quote, he's like six quote.

(25:34):
We never used the words drug addict. We would just
say someone was a dope fiend. People said this with pride,
and I'm pretty sure that's what we are. If someone
were to ask us whether we are white or black,
or Dutch or Italian, I'm not really sure, but I
know we're all dope fiends, because that's all anyone ever
talks about. The book is written kind of in a
in a present tense right when he's writingbout his child. Um. So,

(25:55):
Michel was very young. M I k e l was
very young when he left the cult. I think again,
I think he was like five or six. I'm not
exactly sure. He was a little kid, um but he
reported not fully as like I don't know six, like
as like a first grader or so. He didn't understand
what a mother or a father was really like. He

(26:15):
would meet his mom occasionally, but he didn't really get
what she was or what his dad was, and he
had to be one of the when his mom leaves
the cult, their grandpa is who like rescues them, and
he didn't know what a grandfather was. He had never
heard the word before, like like that's the level of
like hiding from children. The concept of grandparents Jesus um

(26:40):
it is again. And in Michel's book Hollywood Park deals
with his life after the colt um, but it it
talks a bit about what it was like there, and
there are some heartrending passages about sin and on school quote.
The school is where they put the kids when they
took us from our parents. It's where we all lived
from the time we were six months old. Since Chuck

(27:00):
the Old Man said that dope fiends would just mess
up their kids anyway, we were all putting a building
together to become children of the universe. You had to
listen to Chuck. We had demonstrators who were like teachers
and classes and songs. And I was lucky because I
had a Bonnie. She would hug me every day and
sing songs with me and call me son and asked
me what I want for a snack. Most of the

(27:20):
other kids didn't have a Bonnie, though, and some never
even saw their moms or dads. They just never came
to visit. Dmitri said he doesn't remember his mom's face.
She was somewhere else, he didn't know where his dad was.
The demonstrators say, we don't need our parents because we
have each other, but we don't like sharing our toys,
and I don't know who to talk to when I
woke up with a bad dream or fell off of
the monkey bars. Mm hmm, Yeah it really is. That's bad. Yeah,

(27:48):
it's a bummer. Yeah, here's a Now we're into. Now
we're into more than more than just greed or yea megalomania.
Now it's like it's truly like devious, like this is well,
this is funny. With the other things that are even
abusive in the colt there's still an element of consent, right,
because you chose to do this, you choose to stay right.

(28:09):
Not that cold stone abuse consent and whatnot, But these
are It's one thing when it's a bunch of adults
who were choosing a lifestyle that may have abusive elements.
These kids have no choice at any point and they
are being fucked up. I'm going to read one more
quote um from Michel's book. Some of the kids were
very sad. Tony his brother used to sit alone at

(28:31):
the edge of the playground all day, and his brother
was a little older than him. He would turn away
when one of the demonstrators tried to hug him. He
doesn't trust the adults, and he doesn't play with other
kids that much. When Mom came to visit, she would say,
he's just like that, and he needs to learn how
to deal with his anger. But maybe it's because someone
did bad things to him. That happens. Sometimes the kids
would get hit really hard or locked in a closet

(28:51):
and there was no mom or dad to tell because
they lived somewhere else and you couldn't even remember their faces.
M Yeah, I mean how many kids didn't never recovered
from that experience and are like fucked up to this day.
There's an element of it that is I don't not worse,
I don't want to use worse or better. But it's

(29:13):
a different kind of like from a kid who sexually
abused but still understands, broadly speaking, what what a family is,
what grandparents are, like the basics of life and society.
These kids have to learn everything when they get it.
That's what Mickell's book is about. Is like realizing that
hotels exist, right, realizing that fast like all of this stuff,

(29:34):
like because you're just in this separate world. That's all
the dream of this weird guy, who, by his own admission,
can't connect with children anyway. Who's just deciding how these
infants are raised from six months on. Um, it's pretty
bad ball. It's real bad here, Robert. Yeah. In the

(29:55):
nineteen seventies, Chuck decided to launch a new version of
the game. This one geared towards provoking the same sort
of psychedelic experience he had had on LSD, but without
using drugs. He called this the Trip, and it was
initially offered to a select few the elite. Ded Eric
told them, at the end of this rainbow, there will
be a pot of gold. Through dissipation or long hours

(30:15):
of activity without very much sleep, we hope to bring
about in you a conscious state of inebriation. We want
to get you loaded without acid. Now there's ways to
do that. For my book, A Brief History of Ice,
which was like, I was experimenting with weird drugs. One
of the things that we do. I tried to recreate
this ancient Greek ritual where they had this weird wine
that was by some accounts like a mix of grains

(30:38):
and like cheese and stuff and wine that was like psychedelic,
but they would not eat for a week before they
took it. Um, And I could and I only I
only I think I went four or five days without eating.
But it was like the first thing you put on
your stomach, especially, I like you do you hike up
a mountain, like before you take it, and like that
first putting something in your body especially, it's like it

(30:59):
hits heart, you know. Um. And say in the same way,
like if you don't let people sleep for days, they'll
start to trip, like you will hallucinate. Yeah, And the
key to this insight producing experience was to keep people
awake for days on end until they were delirious and
started to loosen. End. You get really suggestible, right if

(31:20):
you've ever been gone days without sleeping, Um, your your
willpower isn't the same. You know, Yes, you're damaging your
body and brain because it's very bad for you. Um.
People who took the trip were initially told that this
was an honor meant to expand their consciousness and capabilities. Uh.
Quote this is from Charles. You will learn more about yourself,

(31:42):
your fellow man, the world, the nature of reality, and
one weekend than you would in four years let your
ego go, let things happen to you. It's a feeling
of closeness to each other that we are after the
death of the ego, a reference point for the rest
of your life. You may change your value system, notions
about life and viewpoints about people. It will produce a
new breed of human and beings with greatly expanded potentials.
If you do your best, you can't fail. So that

(32:04):
sounds positive. But once the actual trips started, a different
reality was revealed. So the whole experience started. When a
an individual called a shepherd led the group, which usually
numbered about fifty, through the lobby of the cassadel Mar.
They were ordered to strip out of their clothes and
put on white robes. Watches were taken as time did
not matter anymore. Women were told to remove makeup and

(32:26):
jewelry in order to symbolically strip away their past selves.
And then, according to a write up by Tony Morants,
the guides, all experienced game players, turned each group from
enthusiasm to a depression and defeat, wallowing in its collective shame.
Sitting in comfortable green armchairs, they made the dope fiends
tell their tales of drugs, rape, crime and beatings. The

(32:46):
squares were pushed to confess their prior loneliness and despair.
The games turned on one and then another. Disoriented by
lack of sleep, each was moved to the point of
intense disillusionment. Aids who did their homework provided ammunition to
the conductors. On each tripper, everyone was ordered to cop out,
confess to pass. Since the result was implantation of a
common bond and sense of ideals, all identified with Synanon,

(33:08):
each tripper was to write on a paper or on
some feeling or admission. A big shot would advise the trippers.
They were not really chosen as an honor, but each
was really selected because each was a resistor thinking here
she knew better the direction sentnon should go. Part of
the dummies that hold Synanon back. Maybe de Oric said
one day we will just put the dingbats like you
against the wall and wash them off and bring them

(33:30):
back into the human race. So it starts like this
is a thing. You've been selected because you're special and
we're all going to grow, And then it becomes days
of not sleeping and being psychologically abused and being told
you're here because you're resisting the Coult. You're resisting the
teachings and you have to be punished and realize your errors. Now,

(33:51):
there were other stages of the trip too. It would
veer between. You would have these sessions of like profound
emotional abuse, and then all of these exhausted, weeping people
would be taken into a room filled with like other
members of the cult who were well rested, who would
start cheering and clapping and hug them and love bomb them,
and it was this, yeah, you get what this is doing, right,

(34:13):
It's like, it's so insidious, this guy, Yeah, it's you
gotta get You have to hand it to Chuck de Eric.
He knew how to funk up people. Truly, he truly did.
You can't take that away from the man. All the
lessons he he learned from a This is his improvement,

(34:34):
This is all his imp movement on alcoholicis a A
and and and one. Emerson essay, Oh my god, um yeah,
it's uh, it's pretty great. Um now. And it would
go on as long as like three, I think sometimes
four days without sleep, and by the end of it,

(34:55):
pretty much everyone was hallucinating and traumatized, but of course
also bonded with the people they've gone through experience with
and the trip was a massive success in its second year.
Was making Yeah. I mean it's one of those things
I can tell you I've had a number of like
like there was a festival I went to one year

(35:15):
that got like horribly, horribly reigned out to the point
where it was like it was it became a danger
and like dealing with it was actually one of the
most fun things that I've ever done with a group
of people, and everybody kind of came away like a
degree of bonding. The same thing was true last year
during the riots, Like you do a terrible thing with
a group of people and you all and some of
it's that, you know, if it's an actual dangerous situation,

(35:37):
you learn to trust people in ways that you don't
normally learn to trust. I think in this what it
is is that this breaks your ability to interact with
the rest of the world, which is something all trauma
can do. Um And so that's I think consciously what
he's doing is making it so that people can connect
less with the world, but it also draws them in
more to the cult because they're the only other people

(35:58):
who understand this thing. UM. So in its second year,
sinn On was making half a million dollars a year
selling access to the trip um or selling sessions, or
whatever you wanna call them, selling tricks um. In the
mid nineteen seventies, the cults repression of its own members
ramped up in ways that were even more intense and
eventually violent. Most histories of the cult will trace the

(36:21):
tipping point to one specific moment in the summer of
nineteen seventy three from Cabinet magazine quote Deric himself was
taking part in a game, but one female member was
showing him no respect and kept interrupting his nomaic utterances. Infuriated,
de Oric stood up, walked over to the woman, and
poured a can of root beer over her head. It
was a small gesture of frustration, but the effect within

(36:43):
Cinnenon was earth shattering. No matter the other changes that
had taken place, the rules of the game had always
been sacrosancd, no drugs, no violence. Now Dedoric himself had
broken one of them. Some wondered whether he'd gone crazy,
but his more devoted followers preferred to see it as
a line a colt to arms. Yeah I mean that, Yeah, yeah,

(37:08):
that's when you know your cult is firing on all
cylinders when you change the rules and people are like, yes, yes, yeah,
when you change, when you when you commit what I
would call the most minor act of violence imaginable, which
is pouring root beer on someone, and you're like, this
is a sign that we should attempt to murder our enemies.

(37:30):
You have, you have done it as a cult leader
when you hit that moment um. But you know who
will murder your enemies? Paul, I have a guess. But first,
the products and services that that's what was podcast that
that's that's really what we're selling with all of our

(37:50):
products is someone who will murder your enemies? So which
is to say, these products, yeah, which is a service? Yeah?
This is this is This podcast is entirely supported by
various death squads. So check it out. Oh we're back

(38:17):
and talking about the introduction of violence to Send it
On now. I think for reasons that are heartbreaking but
not at all surprising, the first violence, serious violence within
sent it On was done to children, specifically the dozens
of juvenile drug addicts. Well, I don't they weren't all
even drug addicts obviously, Like sometimes kids just get sitting

(38:39):
there some kids smoking pot. Right, you get sent to
the judge sends you to send it on because you
had like a joint on you, right, drug kids who
the court system had sent to sent it on right teenagers.
And these kids were not voluntary members of the cult.
They didn't want to be there, They didn't abide by
the rules. These kids had zero time for chops bullshit
and no desire to it in with these weird adults

(39:01):
doing dumb shit. Um So Debtoric couldn't handle that these
kids weren't willing to like listen to him or follow
the cult, so he put them into what he called
his Punk Squad, which was a militaristic boot camp style
unit dedicated to scaring still children straight through harsh discipline
and horrific physical abuse. Children in the Punk Squad could

(39:21):
be hit in the face, knocked down, or beaten with
objects and then run through the game so they would
beat the ship out of kids for misbehaving and then
immediately put them in a session of the game where
they would be mentally abused. Um yeah, and that was
became If you broke any of the rules as a child,
as remember the Punk Squad, you just get the ship
kicked out of you. There's no haircuts, there's just you

(39:44):
wail on them. Now, some older members of the colt
refused to accept this. Right, this is their cigarette. Um.
They're like, this is this is too far um. Right.
They had joined an organization defined in part by its
commitment to non violence UM. And so some people leave
at this, and the arguments over this lead to a
series of purges by Debtoric to remove all who complained. Betty,

(40:07):
the cult leader's wife, claimed, we're beginning to find some
creeps amongst the squares. The punk Squad was markedly ineffective
at stopping children from using drugs or otherwise breaking the law,
but it was extremely good at maintaining sent it Ons
tax exempt status. That's why they take these kids, is
that you don't have to pay taxes as long as
when the government sends you juvenile delinquents, you take them

(40:28):
in and beat the ship out of them. And because
it's already been established that journalists and the local and
the government are not looking into sent it On at
all because they're scared these kids have uh no one,
well not quite no one. We'll get to that in
a little bit though. In nineteen seventy four, Detoric decided
it was time for sent and On to become a religion.
For years he told, yeah, here we go, maybe here

(40:51):
we go. Yeah, you know, I thought it over thought
it over I think this is going. But I think
if there's one thing that could really take us into
the stratosphere, we should be a religion. And this is
you know l R. H. Friend of the pod Um

(41:12):
made this same call for a different reason. I think
he was really the driver of that called Chuck is
not the initial driver of this. So for years, Chuck
had told his followers that the cult was an experimental
society and an He would call it quote an every
changing group of people with ever changing goals, thrusts, directions
and so on, which means nothing. Um and yeah he

(41:34):
was not. So he was. He was going, definitely in
weird directions. He didn't initiate the push to religify sent
and On. It came because he was a Yeah he
was an atheist. That was not what it was about
to him. But his lawyer, Dan Garrett had an idea.
He pointed out that religions don't have to get licenses
for treating medical issues or for educating children, right you

(41:57):
don't have to get any kind of licensing. If you're
a fucking religion. You can do in anything without licenses
if you were a religion. Um, that's what he says,
And he also notes that becoming a religion would quote
eliminate a number of silly questions such as when do
they graduate and why do they have to obey? Nobody
graduates from a religion. Good ship. So Garrett pitched his

(42:17):
boss Guru this idea at a board meeting, and dead
Eric loved it. The board unanimously approved the plan. Um, yeah, yeah,
we should become a religious Like that's gonna happen to
fucking Amazon or Apple at some point. Some Why don't
we just become a religion. We have debate taxes. If
our religion is making these phones, maybe that will be

(42:40):
Jeff's revelation from space when he gets back to Earth.
Like I spoke to me. Yeah, I saw the planet
is one big blue marble and it was smaller than
I was, and I realized I'm God now. Yeah. And
by the way, warehouse workers don't get paid anymore. It's
a sacrament to work in our workshops. Um. Yeah, So

(43:02):
the board unanimously approves this plan, although one person we
don't know who wrote on a copy of the proposal
who would be God? Which is a good question to
ask when when you're again drug abuse treatment program becomes
a religious because you know it's going to come up later,
so you should haven't to come up. Yeah, you gotta
ask the questions. Yeah, yeah. So the switch to a

(43:27):
religion came right alongside a major expansion and sent and
on it's appreciation of violence. After children, the first group
to have violence okaid against them were split ease, suspected thieves, bies,
and enemies of the cult, people who were thought that
we're going to be leaving. Basically, if you're leaving, you're
a thief, you're splitty. Violence can be used against you.
Now they're made first major group of outside enemies, people

(43:50):
outside the cult that they go after. We're local ranchers
in Marin County. And this is because the only group
of people who cared about these abused teams were like
local far mers. Because a bunch of these kids would
escape UM and they would show up in the night
at the houses of these ranchers, and eventually the ranchers
start talking to be like, there's a lot of kids
talking about like horrible abusive ship going on at this

(44:12):
weird cult, and they started their own underground railroad to
help kids in the punk squad escape and get out,
get away from sin and On and like get to
somewhere where they couldn't be taken back to the cold,
which is fucking rad right, good on, good on those people. Yeah,
that's great, um. But Debtoric eventually found out that this

(44:33):
underground railroad was operating and he started seeking his followers
on ranchers. In nineteen seventy five, three Sin and On
members were charged with assaulting a Marine County rancher. Detoric
called them heroes. Shortly thereafter, another rancher was pistol whipped
by a cyanide while his family watched, Like they attack
him in front of his house and like beat the
hell out of him. And these are they do? They

(44:55):
not necessarily know that these particular ranchers had anything to
do with this. They're just these do these do they do? Okay? Okay,
yeah yeah, And you know this guy gets pistol whip
and the local sheriff does nothing because Dedoric is bribing him,
and both of his deputies were members of the cult,
like he's got like two deputies I guess in that
part of the county at that point, and they're both
called members. Yeah. Um. So again, every part of society

(45:19):
has failed the kids in this program except for random
Marin County ranchers, um, who are are definitely the heroes
of this podcast, along with a lawyer we're going to
talk about in a bit so. Um. In Santa Monica,
Cyanides mobbed and beat two black couples who had parked
their cars at a cent and on owned apartment building. Um.
And this is just because like they've gotten close to

(45:41):
the offices. Like I don't know if it was a
racist thing or not. They were both black couples that
might have been like I don't know why, but they
it seems to have been like a property dispute, like
you're parked on our properties. So we're just going to
assault you as a group. Um. Because now like a
real there's like a real paranoia that that exists in
this group and that they everyone has to be able
to look out for enemies. Yeah. And also you're a

(46:02):
hero if you do violence on behalf of the cult.
So a lot of people are just looking sure an excuse. Yeah, um, yeah,
non violence, Detoric bragged at a press conference, was quote
just a position. We can change positions anytime we want to.
So that's good now. The violence of Cyanides was ginned

(46:22):
up and encouraged by the Wire, an internal broadcasting system
installed in all cult facilities around the country. Twenty four
hours a day. The Wire broadcast messages from Debtoric and
from cult leadership. Yes, I have to say like he is.
It's like when you when when you can like there's

(46:44):
a musician that you like, and then you can sort
of see all their different influences and it makes them
into what they are. This guy is just like I'll
take this from here and this from here, and I'm
just I can't. I am trying to predict how this
eventually all falls apart, and I honestly can't because this
guy seems to be like really just rolling with every

(47:08):
punch he's adding ship like crazy, Like I'm dying to
see what is the thing that happens. Yeah, it's um,
it's coming. Yeah, I'm not trying. I will say this.
You're not gonna call it no, like you can't call
this specific twist phantom. Yeah. So many of the messages
that went out through the wire. We're just Chuck ranting

(47:30):
NonStop about enemies. He started pulling out a call for volunteers,
young tough men who were willing to fight. He called
them the Imperial Marines and had them trained in a
special form of karate name named sin O Doe. So
now the cult has its own karate and its own marine.
I mean, that's so good. This is Hall of Fame stuff.

(47:55):
I know, he's really hitting all of them out of
the part. This is the first cult leader who I'm
willing to like, this guy can sit in a room
without Ron Hubbard, you know, Like, that's gotta damn um. Now,
the major organizer of the Imperial Marines in their early
days was Chuck's wife, Betty. She attended their training sessions.

(48:16):
She gave ranting speeches about the need for a militant Sinnon,
our narcotics abuse program needs to a militant wing Debtoric.
As a result of his wife's dedication, started calling them
her Majesty's Imperial Marines. So things have gone a little
off the rails at this point. Now, while this ship

(48:39):
was going on, Sinnon's various corporate entities were still extremely
profitable the colt adopted the slogan the People Business, and
by nineteen seventy six it had assets. It had property
assets of more than twenty two million dollars, which is
around a hundred million dollars in real estate today. Now,
it is a misconception to say that the i r.

(48:59):
S grant to send it on tax exempt status as
a religion. You'll see that a lot in articles. That's
not true. The US government never recognized it as a religion.
It was tax free because it was the Dediction Recovery Charity. Um,
it was tax free, but not now they filed. They
try to become a religion, but they don't ever, like
like scientology didn't get that done until the nineties. Right. Yeah.

(49:21):
The main effect of sending On declaring itself a religion
seems to be that it drew a third wave of
media attention to the cult. Much of the scrutiny was
focused on the millions of dollars. Dedrick himself was making
EL a magazine notes and this is sorry, this is
el a magazine interviewing Detoric. So this is Dedrick here.
A lot of guys could do this thing from an
old Fort roadster and said on an orange crate. Their

(49:44):
holy men. I'm not I need a seventeen thousand dollar Cadillac,
he told Time magazine that year. Did you ever play
King of the Mountain when you were a kid? I
liked King of the Mountain. I won, I won. I
was their firstest, with the mostest. I was the smartest.
I was older than the rest of the guys. I one,
I one. The gang does not expect me to well,
let me say, let me say this terribly unforgiving thing

(50:05):
that is true of all people in position. I am
not bound by the rules. I make the rules in
very peculiar ways. I am adorable. I am gracious saying
that time. I'm One of my favorite cult recurring cult
things is when the leader has to justify their expensive car.

(50:28):
It comes up again and again. Yeah, it's always a thing,
and I love because even l R. H would be like, well,
you know, let me explain using words I invented why
this is positive for the human mind, or how we're
expanding cash. It's just like, I don't have to play
by the rules. Fuck you, I'm God to Time magazine.

(50:52):
So Charles kept seeking his legal team on journalists who
crossed him. He sued a local ABC outlet, and they
settled for a lot of money probably, But when Time
called sending on a kookie cult in the article we
just quoted from, Dederic decided something rather more serious was
in order. Multiple reporters from the magazine received death threats,
and Times editor in chief was stopped outside his apartment

(51:13):
by two Imperial Marines with shaved heads who told him
we are going to ruin your life now, Like were
these were these her majesties Imperial Marines? Yeah, her majesties
and perimans. Yeah, yes, yes, sorry, I I get you know,
I just wanted to make sure now. Like all good
cult leaders whose members start to commit crimes in their name,

(51:34):
Chuck claimed not to avoided the harassment campaign, but he
also was too much of a narcissist to fully deny
being involved in this, and in a TV interview he
used his denial of responsibility to further threaten Time magazine quote,
I don't know what these people might do. I don't
know what action they might take against the people responsible,
their wives, their children. Bombs could be thrown in odd places,

(51:57):
into the homes of some of the clowns who occupy
places in the time organization. I don't know why they're
doing this, but they might bomb your kids again. Amazing
ship to just say on TV. Wow, like and this
is who up till now. Every time he's pushed back
powerful organizations, the fucking cops, the local government's um newspapers

(52:22):
have been like, Okay, we're just not going to get involved.
So he's just he thinks there's no consequences. He thinks
he's fucking God. So he's just saying like, yeah, you know,
I didn't order them too, but I wouldn't be surprised
if my guys bombed your children to death. Might happen. Hey,
they might not to you know who they might not?
I said might. It's not a threat if you say might.

(52:46):
It's the first in minecraft um SO. Over its first
few years, Imperial marines and other synonites would be sent
to carry out attacks on more than forty people. Enemies
were often assaulted and beaten in public so that everyone
would the hit had been carried out for sinnan On
Detteric counseled members that if they were caught, they should
admit everything and go to jail and deny cent and

(53:07):
On had anything to do with it. The group began
stockpiling hundreds of firearms. By ninety eight, they had more
than two hundred thousand dollars and guns. One cult newsletter explained,
We're concerned about the rising crime rate. Look, with crime

(53:28):
the way it is, can you afford not to have
a marine corps? Right? You would do it if you could? Yeah,
I mean who wouldn't exactly? Who amongst us? Who amongst us?
In Night Angry, in a spate of negative news broadcast
by ABC affiliates, a number of Sinnonites bought stock in

(53:49):
ABC and attended a stockholders meeting. They read out the
names of other ABC stockholders and identified themselves as members
of a group called Murder Incorporated. Then they asked the
boat members if their wives had bodyguards. So normal ship, Paul,
just doing normal drug abuse? Wow, this is the boldest YEA, yeah,

(54:21):
I just don't have any fox together. I have never
heard of like this. I mean, like it's it's it's
the first time I've been impressed since scientology, Like the
absolutely good God. Yeah is very tame by comparison, like, yeah,
this is God. Yeah. While his followers engaged in mass violence,

(54:47):
Chuck ded Eric devoted himself to bettering his cult. It
had become clear to him with all of Synanon's issues
with troubled teens, that kids were problematic. Teenaged addicts were
at least profitable though right the children of cold leaders, though,
we're just a drain on resources until they were old
enough to become unpaid labor. So he had to get
rid of children from Cabinet magazine. Quote in a speech

(55:09):
he gave on the wire, he announced, there's no profit
to this community and raising our own children. Every baby
that we indulge a cent and on female with takes
up a bed and somewhere between a hundred and two
thousand dollars worth of energy. To those who claimed they
wanted to have a baby, he explained to the experience
was greatly overrated. I understand it's more like crapping a
football than anything else. Amazing, dude, I mean, look, it

(55:40):
was men referring to women as females a problem and
a problem now. Yeah, it wasn't long before Debtoric came
up with a practicable solution. All male members would receive
the sectomes Pregnant females were ordered to have abortions, so
mandatory of aseectomes and abortions. Some agreed, immediately rushing to

(56:01):
sentan On's hospital. Oh they had a hospital. Others need
others needed to be gamed into him. We're talking about
the game here regarding the baby band dedorick opined. Nothing
is sacred just because it's been done for a million years.
Curiously enough, only Detoric himself failed to receive the snip,

(56:23):
but then he was having his own problems. In the
nine seven, Betty died and Dedoric found himself alone. He
immediately announced that he would accept applications from any woman
who wanted to marry him. Six applied, and he eventually
chose a thirty one year old. He was so delighted
with the experiment that he ordered all married couples to
take separation vowels and pick a new mate every three years.

(56:46):
His wife dies, he gets married to someone half his age,
and then it's like, this is great. Everyone has to
get divorced immediately and marry someone new every three years. Now,
uh fucking amazing. Now. All these shifts in policy, like
the banning of cigarettes, caused some members to leave the cult,
but new people kept joining, and the more ridiculous rules

(57:08):
Charles put in place the more devoted and unhinged. Those
who remained became question like that is there any type
of fair game? And these people leave like in scientology
or they or they're just like we're about to talk
to that again, people who have feared. The second group

(57:28):
of people after teenagers that they use violence on is
split ease, which are people who try to leave because
they're stealing from the cultum. This is like the really
this is getting down into the real depths of of
the sadness here of like the people that are attracted
to this kind of thing, like truly broken people and
yet having them. This is this is always, always, always

(57:50):
at the core of these these fucking cults is the
preying on people who are having a hard time. It's
every time I think about it, it's so like you
are a truly depraved human being if you're if you're
doing this, and it's it's it's interesting because, um, you
know that that book with the kid who grew up

(58:10):
and sent it on his memoir he talks about his
mom and his dad. He barely knew his dad, but
his dad was a heroin addict and his mom said
he would have died from addiction. If he hadn't found
the cult. His mom, though, was a square, and she
got into it. She had been she went to Berkeley.
She was an activist at Berkeley the whole of like
the Raging sixties. She was like an activist against the guys.
She got tear gassed a bunch of times. She gets

(58:31):
traumatized as an activist. She falls in love with this
guy who has an addiction, and they get into the
cult to save him and Bush because she's so frightened
and like angry at the world and so so disgusted
with regular society. And it is like these people, Yeah,
that that's what you said. Um, it just breaks it

(58:51):
does It's I mean, the human the human shrapnel caused
by this organization is Titanic. As the nineteen seventies rolled
to a club, the former drug addiction self help groups
started to morph into a doomsday cult. This was partly
the natural extension of Dedrick's policy of having members separate
their lives entirely from family and friends and work outside
the colt a we they attitude formed, people grew paranoid

(59:14):
and increasingly assaulted outsiders near synan On property. That's why
they started attacking people like park nearby. It's like any
outsider who comes near as a danger. This attitude was
reinforced by the fact that in ninety seven, the church
picked up its most dedicated enemy, the man who would
eventually kill it, Paul Morants. Like most people in l A,
Paul had held a reandering career as a screenwriter and

(59:36):
a journalist while paying the bills. His main job was
an attorney um. He was first hired by a former
member who claimed the Colt had abducted and brainwashed her
when she tried to leave. He won a three hundred
thousand dollar judgment in this case, which sent Dedoric into
a rage. So Chuck start or Paul starts taking other
clients who have like who are people who tried to leave,
who have been abused by the church, and like kind

(59:58):
of going to war against the church. So Chuck gets
on the wire and he announces to every synnon member
that the organization had what he called a new religious posture. Quote,
We're not going to mess with the old time turn
the other cheek religious postures. Our religious posture is don't
mess with us. You can get killed dead, literally dead.
I am quite willing to break some lawyer's legs and

(01:00:19):
next break his wife's legs and threatened to cut their
child's arm off. That is the end of that lawyer.
That is a very satisfactory, humane way of transmitting information.
I really do want an ear in a glass of
alcohol on my desk. Yes, indeed, bring me an ear
Jesus christ Man. And again, this is all recorded, Yes,

(01:00:44):
this is this is all recorded going out to places
around the country. This is no. This is the Chuck program. Paul.
I'm not a law knower, um, but it seems like
that might cross the legal boundary over to incitement. Case
could be made. The case could be made. Paul was

(01:01:04):
certainly worried, and he had reason to be. A few
weeks earlier, the Imperial Marines had gone after an Apple
State named Phil, who had fled the Colt along with
a female cult member and her two children. Now Michael Joeett,
the kid we heard from earlier, was one of those
two children. Phil had become and like the months after
they leave the Colt, and he's like learning about the world.
Phil had been almost like a surrogate dad to him,

(01:01:26):
and when he was at home with his brother Sinnon
came for Phil because he was in an Apple state,
and this is what how Mickel recalled what happened next,
they being the sinn Anon Assault team, are holding skinny
black clubs that look a little like baseball bats. One
carries his low in his hand and the other taps
his softly on the ground as they walk up behind Phil.

(01:01:48):
At first, I think maybe they're playing a joke on him,
because I've heard people play dress up on Halloween, even
though we never did it and sent it on. Why
else would they have those masks over their faces. Why
else would they hide behind the orange camper van where
Phil can't see them. Phil looks up at me and
smiles when he gets out. Before I can say anything,
one of the men runs up behind and hits him
over the head. Phil falls onto the ground. It's weird
how he falls, like a stack of Lincoln logs that's

(01:02:10):
been topped tipped over. His body folds into a weird
shape with his legs sticking out under him. I jumped
back and look around the doorway to see if anyone
else saw it. I don't know if I'm supposed to
scream or run or yell, but I don't want them
in to see me. The second man hits Phil's legs,
which seemed to bounce around like rubber. One of his
gray sneakers flies off. Phil puts his head between his
arms and his face down and starts to scream. They

(01:02:33):
nearly kill Phil. He's in the He's in a coma
for a week. Um, like he he comes very close
to that. He does survive, he does get better. Um,
but he could well have died. And they clearly were
willing to kill him. You know, you're hitting people in
the head with a bat, you're accepting, Yeah, we might
kill his motherfucker. Um. So Phil's story was fresh in
Paul's Paul Morant's mind when he learns that he's made

(01:02:55):
Chuck dead Rich's shit list. So, first off, Paul buys
a gun to protect himself. Uh, he checks under his
car for bombs before starting it. But when Sinnon eventually
makes their move against Paul, it is in a way
that he could not have expected and that no one
could have expected, because I've never heard of anyone outside
of a James Bond movie doing this ship. I'm gonna
quote from l A magazine here. As Moran's returned to

(01:03:17):
his small home in the Pacific Palisades the evening of
October eleventh, ninety seven. He was eager to turn on
the TV and relax over Game one of the World Series,
the Dodgers versus the Yankees for one moment. I'm not
going to think about sinnan on, he told himself. I'm
just going to watch the baseball game. Morans placed his
notebooks on the kitchen table and walked to the mail
slot by his front door. Through the grill of the mailbox,

(01:03:39):
he could see the outline of an unusually shaped package
a scarf. Perhaps it was hard to tell without his glasses.
Morans remembers not so much the pain as the rattlesnake
sank his fings into his outstretched rattlesnake him rattles Wow,

(01:04:04):
he remembers, not so much the pain, but the regret.
They don't get me with this. I'm not that stupid,
he was thinking. Then he heard a scream and realized
it was his own the four and a half put
foot reptile. It's rattler removed to keep it quiet, dropped
to the floor, and recoiled. Morants dashed out the back door,
yelling call the police, Call an ambulance. I've been bitten

(01:04:25):
by a rattlesnake. It's sent it On, sent it On,
got me. They cut off a rattlesnakes fucking tail and
put it in the mailbox. That's out of its goddamn mind.
They even hurt a snake. Yeah, that snake didn't do anything.
Snake Paul nearly died. He was in the hospital for

(01:04:50):
eleven days. The attack was so bizarre and extreme that
it went nineteen seventies virulent once. And this was sent
it On's big funk up. You can't ignore a rattlesnake
assassination of news anchor. Walter Cronkite called it bizarre even
by cult standards, which is a good tagline for the

(01:05:12):
whole Sinnon story. It's weird for colors. Yeah, now uh.
There were criminal trials, of course, for conspiracy to commit murder.
When he was deposed, Chuck Deteric claim to only have
a quote very dim memory of nineteen seventies seven due
to a series of strokes. Even so, his ego was

(01:05:34):
too great for him to claim total ignorance of crimes
committed by his followers. He told the court this most
of what Sinninon did in nineteen seventy seven. At least
what I knew about I approved of, because, as I
pointed out before over and over again, I'm one hell
of a good executive. And not too much ever went
on in the organization that I ran that I didn't
approve of. I don't know everything that went on, of course,

(01:05:55):
Like so you can't. He's too much of an egomaniac
to fully deny and assassination attempt with a Rattlesnake. It's amazing.
Oh my god, God, he's the best ship. I want
to statue with this guy next to my Hubbard statue
and my eventual compound. God, this dude honestly like he's

(01:06:19):
taking all comers. It's like he's really going for it.
Why is he not a household name. I don't understand.
It's a well because he gets stopped. I guess because
L L R H who is never gets stopped. You know.
That's kind of the thing. Now, there is still some
debate as to whether or not Charles Debtorick explicitly ordered

(01:06:41):
a Rattlesnake assassination or just told people he wanted this
guy dead and somebody independently was like Rattlesnake, I mean
this is the ear in the jar. Guy, I think
the worst. I feel like the rattlesnake passed his lips.
I think he said it's so weird and specific, it
has to be Charles Dederick. You know what, Hualta. Yeah,

(01:07:05):
that's at the very least, the cutting off the tail
with his suggestion. M hmm. It might have been a
pitchmating someone says rattle sneak. He's like, we're gonna have
to deal with the rattle. Yeah, that's an idea, man,
sort of. I didn't hear that, but if I were you,
I would cut off the Yeah. If I and Minecraft
were mailing a rattlesnake to a lawyer, I would cut
its rattler off. So um. Multiple members of the cult

(01:07:30):
were eventually arrested and sentenced for planning and executing a
murder attempt, and the law did come for Debtoric himself
for conspiracy to commit murder. Thirty police officers were sent
to arrest him once the charges dropped. The prosecutor, John Watson,
was there when Debtoric was arrested in his compound in
Lake have A sou They found him quote in a stupor,
staring straight ahead, an empty bottle of Shivas Regal in

(01:07:53):
front of him. Oh no, he really laughed, He real laughed.
The king, Oh, Chuck, we were so proud of you
up till now. Um. He was so drunk he had
to be carried to jail in a stretcher. This is
the one time it's okay to laugh at a relapse.
I feel like he earned it. In nineteen eighty, Debtoric

(01:08:19):
pleaded no contest to conspiracy to commit murder. He was
fined ten thousand dollars and sentenced to five years probation.
Marands himself agreed to let the cult leader avoid prison
time due to the older man's poor health. Chuck was, however,
barred from having any further contact with a cult he'd founded,
and without him senting on slowly collapsed. The I R
S revoked its tax exempt status because it was found

(01:08:42):
that they owed the I R S seven h seventeen
million dollars in back taxes. A series of court battles ensued,
organized by Debtoric successors, but in ninety four at California
court ruled that sent Anon quote had a policy of
terror and violence and a practice of quote diverting. Corporate
resources for the enrichment of end of jewels. Sent Anon
declared bankruptcy and in nineteen ninety one dissolved entirely. I

(01:09:05):
think there's one branch in Germany still, yeah, ninety there's still,
at least according to one article, there's still a branch
in Germany. I don't think it's affiliated with like the weirdest.
I don't know, though, Maybe look into that, maybe look
into that. Yeah, hey, look the basic ideas circle and

(01:09:26):
yelled at each other. Yeah, it's like having a family. Yeah. Um.
After being convicted, de Oric moved with his new wife
to a double wide trailer in Visalia, California, which some
might argue is a fate worse than prison. Everyone I
know who grew up in Vissally will argue that for sure.

(01:09:48):
He died in nineteen ninety seven, almost eighty four years old.
Despite all that had happened, he still held the respect
of some influential people. He was mourned openly on the
or of the House of Representatives by California Congressman in
future Oakland mayor Ron Delams. Ron said, quote, Dederic distinguished

(01:10:10):
himself in the area of drug rehabilitation and amassed great
realp before his organization was associated with violence and tax problems,
which is a hell of a way to summarize tried
to rattle snake murder a lawyer, his approach to rehabilitating
drug addicts has become a major parrot. I'm for drug
recovery and therapeutic communities the world over. And here's the

(01:10:30):
most fucked up part of the whole story. That's not inaccurate.
It's not a good thing, like Ron Delams thinks, but
it's not inaccurate. Synanon remain remains maybe the most influential
drug abuse treatment program of all time. You remember the
Punk Squad, Paul, But what what? What? What do you
ask me? Do you remember the punk squad? Right? I

(01:10:52):
do remember the Punk Squad. They're never far from my thoughts,
never far from your thoughts. Have you heard of the
troubled teen industry? No? I have not. You know those
camps where they send teenagers who were delinquents and like
a lot of like beaten and molested and murdered. Paris
Alton's doing a documentary about them. Dr Phil was involved
with them, these like ranches and the cans. It starts

(01:11:14):
because of Synanon. The first variants of that is the
punk squad. And I'm gonna quote from Mother Jones here.
No fewer than fifty programs can trace their treatment philosophy
directly or indirectly to. An anti drug cult called Synanon,
founded in ninety sold itself as a cure for heroin
hardcore heroin addicts who could help each other by breaking

(01:11:35):
new initiates with isolation, humiliation, hard labor, and sleep deprivation.
Studies found that Synonons and counter groups could produce lasting
psychological harm, and that only ten to fift of the
addicts who participated and then recovered. But despite not working,
and despite the guy who dreamed of synonyms treatments you
know had also tried to murder a lawyer with a rattlesnake,

(01:11:56):
they remained the basis for the multimillion dollar teen troubled
teen industry to this day. In nineteen seventy one, the
federal government gave a grant to a group called the Seed,
which applied Synanon tactics to troubled teens, many of whom
were only suspected of having tried drugs. In nineteen seventy four,
Congress opened an investigation into the Seed, finding it had

(01:12:17):
used methods quote similar to highly refined brainwashing techniques employed
by the North Koreans. Fearful of bad PR, supporters of
the Seeds spun off a copycat group called Straight Inc.
This is where Scared straight comes from. Okay, wait this

(01:12:37):
how how far is this go? But I mean, but
I mean this is the seventies. This is when centenons
at its peak is people are spinning off from it.
So people picked up the punk squad and ran with it,
with these others and ran with it. Yes, and this
I think in the eighties when um, well no, this
in the seventies. Still when I'm uh, Straight Inc. Is found.
And the guy who found Straight Inc. Is a fellow
named Mel Simbler, who is a close friend of the

(01:13:00):
family and became the GOP's two thousand finance chair. He
also headed Scooter Libby's Legal Defense Fund. Now Males Abused
Teens Away from Drugs group was a hit. By the
mid nineteen eighties with Cynon and Shambles, Straight Inc. Was
operating in seven states. Nancy Reagan declared it her favorite
anti drug program. Of course, Straight Inc. Was a was

(01:13:21):
a factory for child molestation, physical abuse. The group was
so inundated with millions of dollars in legal judgments that
it had to close in ninetee. But because the premise
of Straight Inc. Was so replicable and profitable, and because
the Republican Party was now in bed with this whole
growing industry, um and drugs, hit were such a boogeyman
of Republicans in this period. State after state carved exemptions

(01:13:43):
into state laws that allowed programs shut down from mass
child abuse to reopen under different names with the same
staff as Troubled Teen and Scared Straight programs made hundreds
of millions of dollars. They spread beyond the borders of
the United States from Mother Jones. Confrontation and humiliation are
also used by religious programs such as in Sque La

(01:14:04):
Caribe in the Dominican Republic, and myriad emotional growth boarding
schools affiliated with the Worldwide Association of Specialty Programs w
w ASP, such as Tranquility Bay in Jamaica. W w
ASPS president told me that the organization took a little
bit of what Synanon did. Lobbying by well connected supporters
such as w w ASP founder Robert Lickfield, who, like Simbler,

(01:14:26):
is a fundraiser for Republican presidential aspirate Mint Romney has
kept stant regulators at bay and bought blocked federal regulation entirely.
Utah's where a lot of these are based. By the nineties,
tough law had tough love had spawned military style boot
camps and wilderness programs that thrust kids into extreme survival scenarios.
At least three dozen teams have died in these programs,
often because staff cy medical complaints is malingering. This May,

(01:14:49):
a fifteen year old boy died from a staff infection
at a Colorado wilderness program. His family claims his pleas
for help were ignored. In his final letter to his mother,
he wrote, they found my weakness and I want to
go home. Oh God damn. Yeah. Like the idea of
of first of all, stay away from any organization called

(01:15:13):
WASP that's terrified to be honest, Straight, to be honest,
Straight inc We'll get right away from Straight Incorporated. None
of you's gonna come there. I mean, you know, the
idea of of Like when I was a kid, it

(01:15:33):
was this was never a threat for me, but the
threat you would always here was military school. Yeah, if
you funked up, that's where you were going to end
up going. But you know, there's there's a certain amount
of leeway. I guess we give the military for completely
breaking someone down, but just to send them to some
weird camp where I mean, of course I never thought

(01:15:56):
about it. But of course they were molesting kids, of course,
be like, of course it wasn't just like drill sergeants
yelling at them. Of course there was this horrible ship
going and they weren't molesting that. They were letting them
die of exposure in the wilderness of Utah. Like, yeah,
a friend growing up that got sent to a ranch
in Utah and they left her outside for a week

(01:16:16):
with no food, no water, and she had defend for
herself and definitely could have died. That's just like not
a thing that most people need to know, you know
what I mean. Yeah, I don't think that's going to
help you avoid crimes. Most people are not adventurers, and
they don't they don't need to know how to survive
in the fucking wilderness. Well, and adventurers learn how to

(01:16:38):
survive in the wilderness, not by being left to die
of exposure with small children, generally by training and how
to make that experience not be dangerous or as dangerous rights. Yeah, um,
it's good. It's fucking rad. It's a situation that just
gets a little worse every year. And because the entire

(01:17:01):
Republican Party is heavily invested in, um, the troubled teen industry,
every time there are attempts to regulate it, they get
shot down. And because the Democratic Party is invested in
continuing the criminalization of substances, kids keep getting sent to
horribly abusive programs they have no choice to be in,
where they are then molested, in mass or murdered. Now

(01:17:23):
that's what I call bipartisanship. Thanks Chuck de Eric, you
made it possible for everybody. You united a nation. We
couldn't have done it without you. Buddy, oh Man, who boy, God,
what a guy, what a dude? What I fell just

(01:17:45):
flabbergasted like he from the just the sheer, the sheer
uh enormity of the moves from one thing to another
as you went along. Is I mean this dude everyone
should know about him and I I yeah, Robert, I
salute you, I salute I have to say, you know,

(01:18:09):
most of the bastards we talked about don't get any
kind of come uppance. Uh, And I would have to
say that, like, you know, he's right up there, like
Saddam Hussein, you know, getting getting hung in public. I
would say having to live in Visalia is is definitely
a public execution level level punishment. So at least there's
mean the the Shivas regal relapse is like it's like

(01:18:31):
it's scripted, like it's it's There is there no movie
about this guy other than the one there is there
is a movie with Earth to Kid about this guy.
I don't think there's been one. I know there's been.
I think there's been a couple of documentaries. I'm sure
there's been a couple of documentaries. I believe I heard
about at least one, But I don't think there's another,

(01:18:52):
like fictional movie about it where Eartha Kit plays his wife. Um,
I wonder what she's about that when you know the
rattlesnake thing happens, you know what. Taking this one off
my reel, he had that struck from my resume. It

(01:19:15):
was a good earth a Kid. Thank you, well, Paul,
that's gonna do it for Behind the Bastards this week. Well,
thank you for having me. And honestly, like I am so.
I'm glad I didn't know anything about this guy. I
was thrilled to learn about him from you. What a story.
It's really insane. Jesus, just man, I didn't. This was

(01:19:37):
one that, like someone on Reddit was like, hey, you
should check out this story to do an episode, and
like I read halfway through one article and I was like, well,
I gotta I gotta reach out to Paul. I gotta
tell him about this rattlesnake ship. I am. You thought
he's got a lot of that, and I didn't. Man, well, um,

(01:20:01):
all right, uh we did plug holes rights. My memory
is broken. Plug plug Hey everybody, Um, I'm at p
F Tompkins on Twitter and Instagram. I will always be

(01:20:23):
talking about myself, always self promoting. That's where if you
want to find out who the funk I am, go
there and you'll find out, I promise. And you can
also find out his enemies. If you have a rattlesnake
you're willing to send them. That's true. I'm not saying
that that's going to happen. It's something that could happen.

(01:20:43):
It's something that could happen. Right, you can't vouch for
all of the people who are fans of you, They
might say, right now you know and probably well, you
can find me on this podcast, which you know how
to find because you just listen to it for three hours.
You can also find my book After the Revolution in

(01:21:04):
audio form. It's podcasts. Just look for After the Revolution.
You can also find the e pub of the book
at a t r book dot com. That's a t
R book dot com. Check it out. Uh, go with
God and figure out who he wants you to rattlesnake
to death.