Islam—Facts or Dreams?

February 2016 • Volume 45, Number 2 • Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy
National Review Institute

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute. A graduate of Columbia College, he received his J.D. at New York Law School. For 18 years, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, and from 1993-95 he led the terrorism prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb New York City landmarks. Following the 9/11 attacks, he supervised the Justice Department’s command post near Ground Zero. He has also served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of Defense and an adjunct professor at Fordham University’s School of Law and New York Law School. He writes widely for newspapers and journals including National Review, PJ Media, and The New Criterion, and is the author of several books, including Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad and Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotages America.

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on February 24, 2016, at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series.

In 1993 I was a seasoned federal prosecutor, but I only knew as much about Islam as the average American with a reasonably good education—which is to say, not much. Consequently, when I was assigned to lead the prosecution of a terrorist cell that had bombed the World Trade Center and was plotting an even more devastating strike—simultaneous attacks on the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the United Nations complex on the East River, and the FBI’s lower Manhattan headquarters—I had no trouble believing what our government was saying: that we should read nothing into the fact that all the men in this terrorist cell were Muslims; that their actions were not representative of any religion or belief system; and that to the extent they were explaining their atrocities by citing Islamic scripture, they were twisting and perverting one of the world’s great religions, a religion that encourages peace.

Unlike commentators and government press secretaries, I had to examine these claims. Prosecutors don’t get to base their cases on assertions. They have to prove things to commonsense Americans who must be satisfied about not only what happened but why it happened before they will convict people of serious crimes. And in examining the claims, I found them false.

One of the first things I learned concerned the leader of the terror cell, Omar Abdel Rahman, infamously known as the Blind Sheikh. Our government was portraying him as a wanton killer who was lying about Islam by preaching that it summoned Muslims to jihad or holy war. Far from a lunatic, however, he turned out to be a globally renowned scholar—a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence who graduated from al-Azhar University in Cairo, the seat of Sunni Islamic learning for over a millennium. His area of academic expertise was sharia—Islamic law.

I immediately began to wonder why American officials from President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno on down, officials who had no background in Muslim doctrine and culture, believed they knew more about Islam than the Blind Sheikh. Then something else dawned on me: the Blind Sheikh was not only blind; he was beset by several other medical handicaps. That seemed relevant. After all, terrorism is hard work. Here was a man incapable of doing anything that would be useful to a terrorist organization—he couldn’t build a bomb, hijack a plane, or carry out an assassination. Yet he was the unquestioned leader of the terror cell. Was this because there was more to his interpretation of Islamic doctrine than our government was conceding?

Defendants do not have to testify at criminal trials, but they have a right to testify if they choose to—so I had to prepare for the possibility. Raised an Irish Catholic in the Bronx, I was not foolish enough to believe I could win an argument over Muslim theology with a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence. But I did think that if what we were saying as a government was true—that he was perverting Islam—then there must be two or three places where I could nail him by saying, “You told your followers X, but the doctrine clearly says Y.” So my colleagues and I pored over the Blind Sheikh’s many writings. And what we found was alarming: whenever he quoted the Koran or other sources of Islamic scripture, he quoted them accurately.

Now, you might be able to argue that he took scripture out of context or gave an incomplete account of it. In my subsequent years of studying Islam, I’ve learned that this is not a particularly persuasive argument. But even if one concedes for the purposes of discussion that it’s a colorable claim, the inconvenient fact remains: Abdel Rahman was not lying about Islam.

When he said the scriptures command that Muslims strike terror into the hearts of Islam’s enemies, the scriptures backed him up.

When he said Allah enjoined all Muslims to wage jihad until Islamic law was established throughout the world, the scriptures backed him up.

When he said Islam directed Muslims not to take Jews and Christians as their friends, the scriptures backed him up.

You could counter that there are other ways of construing the scriptures. You could contend that these exhortations to violence and hatred should be “contextualized”—i.e., that they were only meant for their time and place in the seventh century.  Again, I would caution that there are compelling arguments against this manner of interpreting Islamic scripture. The point, however, is that what you’d be arguing is an interpretation.

The fact that there are multiple ways of construing Islam hardly makes the Blind Sheikh’s literal construction wrong. The blunt fact of the matter is that, in this contest of competing interpretations, it is the jihadists who seem to be making sense because they have the words of scripture on their side—it is the others who seem to be dancing on the head of a pin. For our present purposes, however, the fact is that the Blind Sheikh’s summons to jihad was rooted in a coherent interpretation of Islamic doctrine. He was not perverting Islam—he was, if anything, shining a light on the need to reform it.

Another point, obvious but inconvenient, is that Islam is not a religion of peace. There are ways of interpreting Islam that could make it something other than a call to war. But even these benign constructions do not make it a call to peace. Verses such as “Fight those who believe not in Allah,” and “Fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war,” are not peaceful injunctions, no matter how one contextualizes.

Another disturbing aspect of the trial against the Blind Sheikh and his fellow jihadists was the character witnesses who testified for the defense. Most of these people were moderate, peaceful Muslim Americans who would no more commit terrorist acts than the rest of us. But when questions about Islamic doctrine would come up—“What does jihad mean?” “What is sharia?” “How might sharia apply to a certain situation?”—these moderate, peaceful Muslims explained that they were not competent to say. In other words, for the answers, you’d have to turn to Islamic scholars like the Blind Sheikh.

Now, understand: there was no doubt what the Blind Sheikh was on trial for. And there was no doubt that he was a terrorist—after all, he bragged about it. But that did not disqualify him, in the minds of these moderate, peaceful Muslims, from rendering authoritative opinions on the meaning of the core tenets of their religion. No one was saying that they would follow the Blind Sheikh into terrorism—but no one was discrediting his status either.

Although this came as a revelation to me, it should not have. After all, it is not as if Western civilization had no experience dealing with Islamic supremacism—what today we call “Islamist” ideology, the belief that sharia must govern society. Winston Churchill, for one, had encountered it as a young man serving in the British army, both in the border region between modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the Sudan—places that are still cauldrons of Islamist terror. Ever the perceptive observer, Churchill wrote:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. . . . Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Habitually, I distinguish between Islam and Muslims. It is objectively important to do so, but I also have a personal reason: when I began working on national security cases, the Muslims I first encountered were not terrorists. To the contrary, they were pro-American patriots who helped us infiltrate terror cells, disrupt mass-murder plots, and gather the evidence needed to convict jihadists. We have an obligation to our national security to understand our enemies; but we also have an obligation to our principles not to convict by association—not to confound our Islamist enemies with our Muslim allies and fellow citizens. Churchill appreciated this distinction. “Individual Moslems,” he stressed, “may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen.” The problem was not the people, he concluded. It was the doctrine.

What about Islamic law? On this topic, it is useful to turn to Robert Jackson, a giant figure in American law and politics—FDR’s attorney general, justice of the Supreme Court, and chief prosecutor of the war crimes trials at Nuremberg. In 1955, Justice Jackson penned the foreword to a book called Law in the Middle East. Unlike today’s government officials, Justice Jackson thought sharia was a subject worthy of close study.  And here is what he concluded:

In any broad sense, Islamic law offers the American lawyer a study in dramatic contrasts. Even casual acquaintance and superficial knowledge—all that most of us at bench or bar will be able to acquire—reveal that its striking features relative to our law are not likenesses but inconsistencies, not similarities but contrarieties. In its source, its scope and its sanctions, the law of the Middle East is the antithesis of Western law.

Contrast this with the constitution that the U.S. government helped write for post-Taliban Afghanistan, which showed no awareness of the opposition of Islamic and Western law. That constitution contains soaring tropes about human rights, yet it makes Islam the state religion and sharia a principal source of law—and under it, Muslim converts to Christianity have been subjected to capital trials for apostasy.

Sharia rejects freedom of speech as much as freedom of religion. It rejects the idea of equal rights between men and women as much as between Muslim and non-Muslim. It brooks no separation between spiritual life and civil society. It is a comprehensive framework for human life, dictating matters of government, economy, and combat, along with personal behavior such as contact between the sexes and personal hygiene. Sharia aims to rule both believers and non-believers, and it affirmatively sanctions jihad in order to do so.

Even if this is not the only construction of Islam, it is absurd to claim—as President Obama did during his recent visit to a mosque in Baltimore—that it is not a mainstream interpretation. In fact, it is the mainstream interpretation in many parts of the world. Last year, Americans were horrified by the beheadings of three Western journalists by ISIS. American and European politicians could not get to microphones fast enough to insist that these decapitations had nothing to do with Islam. Yet within the same time frame, the government of Saudi Arabia beheaded eight people for various violations of sharia—the law that governs Saudi Arabia.

Three weeks before Christmas, a jihadist couple—an American citizen, the son of Pakistani immigrants, and his Pakistani wife who had been welcomed into our country on a fiancée visa—carried out a jihadist attack in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 people. Our government, as with the case in Fort Hood—where a jihadist who had infiltrated the Army killed 13 innocents, mostly fellow soldiers—resisted calling the atrocity a “terrorist attack.” Why? Our investigators are good at what they do, and our top officials may be ideological, but they are not stupid. Why is it that they can’t say two plus two equals four when Islam is involved?

The reason is simple: stubbornly unwilling to deal with the reality of Islam, our leaders have constructed an Islam of their very own. This triumph of willful blindness and political correctness over common sense was best illustrated by former British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith when she described terrorism as “anti-Islamic activity.” In other words, the savagery is not merely unrelated to Islam; it becomes, by dint of its being inconsistent with a “religion of peace,”contrary to Islam. This explains our government’s handwringing over “radicalization”: we are supposed to wonder why young Muslims spontaneously become violent radicals—as if there is no belief system involved.

This is political correctness on steroids, and it has dangerous policy implications. Consider the inability of government officials to call a mass-murder attack by Muslims a terrorist attack unless and until the police uncover evidence proving that the mass murderers have some tie to a designated terrorist group, such as ISIS or al Qaeda. It is rare for such evidence to be uncovered early in an investigation—and as a matter of fact, such evidence often does not exist. Terrorist recruits already share the same ideology as these groups: the goal of imposing sharia. All they need in order to execute terrorist attacks is paramilitary training, which is readily available in more places than just Syria.

The dangerous flipside to our government’s insistence on making up its own version of Islam is that anyone who is publicly associated with Islam must be deemed peaceful. This is how we fall into the trap of allowing the Muslim Brotherhood, the world’s most influential Islamic supremacist organization, to infiltrate policy-making organs of the U.S. government, not to mention our schools, our prisons, and other institutions. The federal government, particularly under the Obama administration, acknowledges the Brotherhood as an Islamic organization—notwithstanding the ham-handed attempt by the intelligence community a few years back to rebrand it as “largely secular”—thereby giving it a clean bill of health. This despite the fact that Hamas is the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch, that the Brotherhood has a long history of terrorist violence, and that major Brotherhood figures have gone on to play leading roles in terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda.

To quote Churchill again:  “Facts are better than dreams.” In the real world, we must deal with the facts of Islamic supremacism, because its jihadist legions have every intention of dealing with us. But we can only defeat them if we resolve to see them for what they are.

 

Editorial

Gates Foundation failures show philanthropists shouldn’t be setting America’s public school agenda

Bill and Melinda Gates talk to reporters about their foundation in New York on Feb. 22. The two are co-chairs of the largest private foundation in the world. (Seth Wenig / Associated Press)

The Times Editorial Board  6/1/2016

Tucked away in a letter from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation last week, along with proud notes about the foundation’s efforts to fight smoking and tropical diseases and its other accomplishments, was a section on education. Its tone was unmistakably chastened.

“We’re facing the fact that it is a real struggle to make system wide change,” wrote the foundation’s CEO, Sue Desmond-Hellman. And a few lines later: “It is really tough to create more great public schools.”

The Gates Foundation’s first significant foray into education reform, in 1999, revolved around Bill Gates’ conviction that the big problem with high schools was their size. Students would be better off in smaller schools of no more than 500, he believed. The foundation funded the creation of smaller schools, until its own study found that the size of the school didn’t make much difference in student performance. When the foundation moved on, school districts were left with costlier-to-run small schools.

Then the foundation set its sights on improving teaching, specifically through evaluating and rewarding good teaching. But it was not always successful. In 2009, it pledged a gift of up to $100 million to the Hillsborough County, Fla., schools to fund bonuses for high-performing teachers, to revamp teacher evaluations and to fire the lowest-performing 5%. In return, the school district promised to match the funds. But, according to reports in the Tampa Bay Times, the Gates Foundation changed its mind about the value of bonuses and stopped short of giving the last $20 million; costs ballooned beyond expectations, the schools were left with too big a tab and the least-experienced teachers still ended up at low-income schools. The program, evaluation system and all, was dumped.

The Gates Foundation strongly supported the proposed Common Core curriculum standards, helping to bankroll not just their development, but the political effort to have them quickly adopted and implemented by states. Here, Desmond-Hellmann wrote in her May letter, the foundation also stumbled. The too-quick introduction of Common Core, and attempts in many states to hold schools and teachers immediately accountable for a very different form of teaching, led to a public backlash.

“Unfortunately, our foundation underestimated the level of resources and support required for our public education systems to be well-equipped to implement the standards,” Desmond-Hellmann wrote. “We missed an early opportunity to sufficiently engage educators — particularly teachers — but also parents and communities, so that the benefits of the standards could take flight from the beginning.

“This has been a challenging lesson for us to absorb, but we take it to heart. The mission of improving education in America is both vast and complicated, and the Gates Foundation doesn’t have all the answers.”

It was a remarkable admission for a foundation that had often acted as though it did have all the answers. Today, the Gates Foundation is clearly rethinking its bust-the-walls-down strategy on education — as it should. And so should the politicians and policymakers, from the federal level to the local, who have given the educational wishes of Bill and Melinda Gates and other well-meaning philanthropists and foundations too much sway in recent years over how schools are run.

That’s not to say wealthy reformers have nothing to offer public schools. They’ve funded some outstanding charter schools for low-income students. They’ve helped bring healthcare to schools. They’ve funded arts programs.

The Gates Foundation, according to Desmond-Hellmann’s letter, is now working more on providing Common Core-aligned materials to classrooms, including free digital content that could replace costly textbooks, and a website where teachers can review educational materials. That’s great: Financial support for Common Core isn’t a bad thing. When the standards are implemented well, which isn’t easy, they ought to develop better reading, writing and thinking skills.

And foundation money has often been used to fund experimental programs and pilot projects of the sort that regular school districts might not have the time or extra funds to put into place. Those can be extremely informative and even groundbreaking.

But the Gates Foundation has spent so much money — more than $3 billion since 1999 — that it took on an unhealthy amount of power in the setting of education policy. Former foundation staff members ended up in high positions in the U.S. Department of Education — and, in the case of John Deasy, at the head of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The foundation’s teacher-evaluation push led to an overemphasis on counting student test scores as a major portion of teachers’ performance ratings — even though Gates himself eventually warned against moving too hastily or carelessly in that direction. Now several of the states that quickly embraced that method of evaluating teachers are backing away from it.

Philanthropists are not generally education experts, and even if they hire scholars and experts, public officials shouldn’t be allowing them to set the policy agenda for the nation’s public schools. The Gates experience teaches once again that educational silver bullets are in short supply and that some educational trends live only a little longer than mayflies.

 

Hard Knocks

Three years in the life of the Capistrano Unified School District

By Daffodil J. Altan

Thursday, October 4, 2007 – 3:00 pm

The vast, glittering meeting room at Capistrano Unified School District’s shiny new headquarters is crowded this evening. It’s Monday night, the first week of school, and tonight’s board of trustees meeting is the first for the new interim superintendent, Woodrow Carter. He’s the third person to fill the slot in the past year.

The meeting begins with that staple of school-board gatherings across the nation, a syrupy video presentation about kindergarteners. Audience members chuckle at the squirmy kids on the two giant screens.

But many in the room aren’t laughing. Some watch with their lips pursed. Others shake their heads. Glances are exchanged across rows of chairs; the video does little to mask the tension that hangs in the room like a heaving storm cloud.

During the public speaking session, a bit of that storm erupts. After a few praises and minor complaints, one parent stands up, then a PTA president, then another parent, all with biting comments for the board.

When the final parent comes up to the podium, it’s difficult to make out what he’s saying. The microphone volume is suddenly lower. Parents crane their necks to hear; many probably miss his cryptic opening line: “My name is Tom Russell. My child is on the CUSD enemies list. So is my wife, and so am I.”

For Russell, as well as the other vocal parents gathered in the room tonight, the “enemies list” was the culmination of what many felt were years of intimidation, lying, mismanagement of tax dollars and neglect by Capistrano Unified’s former superintendent, James Fleming, his administration and the trustees who were supposed to keep him in check.

“CUSD does have all the ingredients for a good school district—except one,” Russell says to the new superintendent. “Unfortunately, the CUSD board lacks a majority with honesty, integrity and accountability. This is why we attempted to recall the Fleming-era trustees in 2005, and why we have been compelled to commence another recall, just recently.”

He looks at two of the board’s longest-serving trustees: president Sheila Benecke and former president Marlene Draper. Both are the subjects of the latest recall effort by a broad coalition of South County parents and residents. “They have permitted a culture of corruption to infect our school district,” he says.

Russell, whose taut face and big eyes are framed by a swell of thick gray hair, thanks the new superintendent for his interest in the district—after all, two previous interim school chiefs have already come and gone. But his voice climbs (despite the microphone problems) to make a few other points, among them the allegation that the board and the district have repeatedly engaged in illegal closed-session meetings and that they have recklessly spent $52 million on the new administration building everyone is sitting in tonight, while kids in the district still languish in “substandard portable classrooms.”

The 51,000-student Capistrano Unified looks good on paper: high test scores, affluent neighborhoods, high graduation rates and a half-billion-dollar yearly budget. But Tom Russell is no solitary disgruntled gadfly. The father of three is the ardent spokesperson for the CUSD Recall Committee, a group that has mushroomed over the past two years into a bipartisan, grassroots movement now hundreds strong. Some would argue the movement is directly responsible for some of the major changes—and disturbing revelations—that have come about in the district.

The district’s response to this movement, meanwhile, has led to criminal charges. Fleming is set to go on trial on charges that he misappropriated district funds to engage in illegal political activity against district parents; he faces jail time if convicted. Ex-assistant superintendent Susan McGill faces five years in jail if convicted of perjury. And district attorney’s office investigations into secret meetings by the so-called “Fleming-era” trustees, four of whom still sit on the board, are ongoing.

Larry Christensen, an engineer and newly elected trustee, describes life on the CUSD dais like this: “It’s tense up there.”

*     *     *
Kevin Murphy considers himself a pretty regular dad. He’s the president of his son’s Little League and coaches football. A few years ago, he says, he was paying little attention to what was going on in the district. “We were one of the insider families,” he says. His wife was an active PTA president, and his four sons were earning great grades. He had a second-grader at the time, and one day he stopped by his son’s classroom at Ambuehl Elementary on a rainy day to pick him up. He saw buckets and leaky ceilings. The more he looked into conditions at his kids’ schools, the more substandard conditions he found. “This is a district surrounded by million-dollar homes,” he says. “It didn’t add up.”

One night, his wife came home after a PTA meeting at which Fleming had spoken. The then-superintendent told the group of parents that the district had plans for a new administration building that would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 million. His wife, Jen, was told the money from the state could only be used toward new construction.

“Originally, my ire was at the state: How could they do that?” Murphy says, given the state of disrepair that many of the campuses were in. He decided to do some research, using his financial analyst’s skills. After looking through thousands of district documents, “I learned from their own website that the money could be used for anything,” he says.

Murphy was stunned. Had his wife been lied to? Why hadn’t the board of trustees questioned the district? Why would the district spend millions on a new building when the money could be used to fix his son’s school’s leaky roof or replace hundreds of aging portables crowding many of the district’s schools?

He met directly with the superintendent for breakfast one fall morning in 2004. “He talked for most of the hour and basically said that I didn’t understand school finances,” he says. “Halfway through the meeting, I told him what I do for a living and that I do understand what I’m doing and that someone is lying to me.” According to Murphy, the conversation then turned sour. “He basically said, ‘Even if you’ve done this research, what are you going to do about it?’ I stood up and said, ‘You know what? You’re fucking with the wrong Irishman,’ and I walked out.”

Murphy says he met with every trustee regarding the funding of the building and got nowhere. “They had no idea what I was talking about,” he says. His next move was a bold, if admittedly naive, one, he says now with hindsight.

“We’d just come off the recall of Governor Gray Davis, and I thought, why not do the same here? I had no idea what I was in for or how difficult it would all be.” He typed up a short note and circulated it at the next district board meeting. Anyone interested in getting involved in the recall of the district trustees was asked to include their e-mail address.

He was in luck. That night, parents angry over the district’s redrawing of school boundaries had shown up in droves. “I must have gotten 50 names and e-mails that night,” he says. “The boundary issue wasn’t my issue, was never my issue, but people were angry enough over different things that they signed.”

In attendance that night were Jennifer Beall and Tom Russell, also frustrated with the district for different reasons. “I had already lived almost three years with these lies,” says Beall, who, with other Rancho Santa Margarita parents, had spent months fighting the district’s expansion of an elementary school. After doing their own research into the district’s decision, they discovered that the $16 million expansion of the school was being paid for by a 1999 bond measure, which was promised for the repair of other district schools and which Rancho Santa Margarita residents weren’t even paying into.

“Really what drove us to the recall wasn’t that they built the school, but the process that got us there,” says Beall.

The future recall-committee leader says she had no problems with the district and the board until she began to interact with them. “I went to the meeting. I prepared a statement. I did what I was supposed to do,” she says. But after a few meetings at which she voiced her concerns over the district’s plan to build a high school in an office-park building, as well as the plan to expand the kindergarten-through-fifth-grade elementary school to a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade, things changed. She was voted off the board of Education for the Children, a nonprofit group that raised money for class-size reduction, which she had sat on for three years. “I was actually told to be quiet” by volunteers, she says. But, she says, she hit her boiling point when she first introduced herself to James Fleming.

“He put his hand out and then pulled it back,” she says. According to Beall, he then said, “Let me tell you the three mistakes you’ve made.” Someone else walked up, and she walked away before he got to the second mistake (the first was her involvement with Brad and Kathy Goff, vocal residents who didn’t have children in the district). “He never shook my hand. After that, there was no going back.”

The night he collected the signatures, Murphy went home and sent an e-mail to the 50 on his list and others he thought might be interested. Within a couple of days, he had received about 400 responses, he says.

In a few weeks, a group from far-flung corners of South County had gathered for their first meeting. They found their stories intersected on various levels. After years of trying to work with the district and the board over specific issues in their communities (residents in San Juan Capistrano were questioning the building of an overpriced school near a county dump; in Rancho Santa Margarita, residents were fighting a costly school expansion; Mission Viejo residents were trying to find out why their tax dollars had not been spent on their crumbling schools), many found that they had been stonewalled, intimidated or ignored.

Members of the group raised questions about a $65 million bond measure passed in 1999 that was meant to address some of the schools with the poorest conditions (no cafeterias, hundreds of leaky, crumbling, portable classrooms) and where that money had gone. It was later discovered that big chunks of the money were spent on the elementary-school expansion and the new high school by the dump (see “Surreal Estate,” Sept. 14).

They asked about the spending of a special tax paid by homeowners in planned communities that was supposed to be spent on schools. Later, it was revealed that $32 million of that money was put toward the building and loan repayment of the massive, resort-like administration building. Although the action wasn’t illegal, parents couldn’t understand why the building had not been discussed in board meetings or why the money hadn’t been used fix some of the most crowded schools.

“I was observing a complete lack of true independent inquisitiveness on their part,” says Mike Winsten, a San Juan Capistrano parent long frustrated with the board. “It really seemed when there was a discussion on some of these issues, they were just reading a script.”

It was decided at a second meeting that the group would launch an unprecedented recall of all seven of the trustees. Although it was the administration’s actions the group was questioning, many suspected that a long history of 7-0 votes by the trustees meant they were being unduly influenced by Superintendent Fleming. A core group of eight members—Tom Russell, Kevin Murphy, Jennifer Beall and Tom Winsten among them—was elected to coordinate the campaign.

*     *     *

What the group didn’t know at that second meeting—which was held at the home of Jennifer Beall and her husband, Rancho Santa Margarita Mayor Tony Beall—was that someone there was taking notes. Those notes would later become the subject of a confidential memo sent from Fleming to Marlene Draper, then-president of the CUSD board, and the rest of the trustees, according to district documents and grand jury testimony. In the memo, titled “Report on Presumed ‘Recall’ Effort,” Fleming says he did not actively seek out the “insider.”

The Bealls say they remember becoming suspicious during the meeting. Included in the memo are their names, as well as others’, and a note from the mole: “As can be seen, all of the above individuals are either SJHHS [San Juan Hills High School] or Arroyo Vista K-8 NIMBYs who are, no doubt, hoping to make inroads with some in the district who may be unhappy about the final attendance boundary decision.”

At the time, the group also didn’t know that its e-mail blast had made it to the superintendent’s office. What happened next would later become the subject of much controversy. According to grand jury testimony by Fleming’s former personal secretary, Kate McIntyre, at Fleming’s request, she had the IT department create a database of all the names on the e-mail, what city they were in and if they were connected to any school in the district. She said they requested the spreadsheet to find out how certain district e-mails had wound up on the e-mail blast. This was prompted, she said, after five or so parents from PTA Council had called wanting to know why they had received Murphy’s e-mail.

In her testimony, McIntyre said they never contacted Murphy directly to find out where he got the e-mail addresses. She also says she and the superintendent requested the database to “find out if they were parents in our district. If they lived in San Juan, if they lived in Arroyo Vista, Aliso Viejo, so we can find out where they had people unhappy with us.”

After the IT department supplied the database, according to McIntyre, she sat down with the superintendent, and they made notes on the names on the list—adding code letters next to them to indicate where they were from. “These were each areas where we had people upset with us for different reasons,” she said in her testimony. This list would not surface publicly until more than a year later.

By mid-2005, a massive recall campaign was underway; the group had embarked on the daunting task of collecting more than 20,000 signatures per trustee during a six-month period. In every district area, Jennifer Beall coordinated team volunteers, who then coordinated their own volunteers. They went door-to-door, stood outside schools during back-to-school nights and set up tables at grocery stores.

The group was met with sneers by those in the district who felt they had a right-wing agenda (referring to the members of the group angry over the boundary issues) or that they were a bunch of NIMBYs with too much time on their hands. “People would come up to me and say I hated children,” says Kathy Goff, a petition gatherer with a frank, brash approach who has been involved in the recall effort with her husband, Brad, since the beginning.

Trustee Sheila Benecke, one of the two board members who are being targeted for recall a second time, maintains that the group’s anger stems from the district’s redrawing of boundaries. “I look at it as a political ploy of the recall leaders to attempt to cause chaos and notoriety, to defund the school district and the students of the school district,” she says.

The group carved out a clear, simple message and put it on T-shirts, business cards, banners, posters, and on their document- and picture-heavy comprehensive website. It wasn’t hard to get parents to listen once volunteers shared with them photos of moldy portable classrooms with rat droppings and rotting wood at Newhart Middle School in Mission Viejo, and then compared those with pictures of the palatial administration building—which detractors dubbed “the Taj Mahal”—that was under construction and plainly visible from Interstate 5 in San Juan Capistrano.

By compiling their own paper trail, the group became a kind of district watchdog, exposing things for parents through their website and press releases such as the conflict of interest for Marlene Draper and her daughter, who is the vice president of the firm that does a bulk of the district’s environmental-impact reports, or the way they believe money has been egregiously mismanaged by the district.

Many of the concerns raised by the group during the first recall were later backed up by dozens of documents acquired through public-records requests by the recall group and other parents not involved with the recall, but who were fed up with conflicting stories they were getting from the district.

“Parents have been asking for the truth around those Mello-Roos funds for a long time, and they just didn’t know who to ask,” says one Mission Viejo mom, who wishes to remain anonymous out of fear of district retaliation. She and other parents tried for several years to find out how their money from the special property tax known as Mello-Roos, which was established in 1982 to fund schools and other facilities in new communities, was being spent. The money pot at the time for Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo was around $100 million, but no one knew exactly how it was being spent.

“We thought, well, what’s happening? Our schools are in terrible condition. Where’s the money going to?” says the Mission Viejo mom. Her children were attending Newhart Middle School; when she visited, she found an overcrowded school with rows and rows of dilapidated portables. This was just after the district had initiated construction of the new high school and the lavish administration building.

“We were told by the administration that we were too negative. That we should be thankful for what we had—and that made us really angry.”

She and other parents—who were not directly involved with the recall at the time—formed a modernization group, drafted a report, and snapped pictures of the decrepit, crowded portable classrooms and posted them online. “When that got around, it became part of the ammunition for the recall because people did not know that they had schools in their community like this. People lived in million-dollar houses, they drove their fancy BMWs and Mercedeses, dropping their kids off at school—and the kids were going to a school that was a trailer park and a pit.”

She and other parents never imagined, however, that money from the Mello-Roos taxes was being spent on the district’s brand-new administration building. Not until November 2005 did parents finally learn, through an Orange County Register article, that $11 million in Mello-Roos funds from Mission Viejo and Aliso Viejo had gone toward the construction. (The figure is now at $13 million.)

Past estimates have put the cost of the building at $52 million, a figure that also included interest on loans. According to the district, the cost of the building thus far is $36.4 million. With interest, the total cost is now estimated at $53.4 million. Chief Financial Officer Sherri Hahn says the district hopes to pay the loans off sooner in order to bring the total cost down.

Recall members also discovered, through records requests, that facilities director David Doomey did not see plans for the building before approving funding for it and that the contract was a no-bid deal. Doomey did not publicly admit that the district had misled the public about the funding of the building until a full year later, in 2006.

“I did not know how the administration building was being funded at the time,” says trustee Sheila Benecke. But, she adds, “The use of Mello-Roos dollars for district-support facilities is perfectly legal.”

*     *     *

The circulation of the portables pictures generated more interest in the recall and prompted CUSD to begin some improvements. However, 25 percent of the district’s 2,290 classrooms are currently portables.

Parents and teachers nervous about being affiliated with the group signed petitions at home. In October 2005, the group submitted more than 175,000 signatures to county Registrar Neal Kelly. “We had never really thought about what we would do if we didn’t make it,” says Murphy. “We had been told by the registrar if we were 10 percent over, we were fine.” The group submitted a little more than 25,000 signatures per trustee, well more than the required 20,421 per person. “We weren’t worried,” says Murphy.

On Dec. 22, 2005, the registrar announced that thousands of signatures had been invalidated and that, as a result, the rest didn’t reach the minimum needed for a recall election. “I was shocked and extremely deflated,” Murphy says.

A couple of weeks later, on Jan. 4, a group of committee members went to the registrar’s office to inspect the petitions that had been invalidated. Jennifer Beall and a group of volunteers began an exhaustive recount and research effort, discovering that 3,000 of the 8,000 signatures rejected for Sheila Benecke were done so erroneously.

Unbeknownst to the recall committee, district officials also made a visit to the registrar’s office in early January. On Jan. 6, then-Assistant Superintendent Susan McGill and Director of Communications David Smollar went there at the superintendent’s request to look at the same recall petitions—acts that were illegal, and for which Kelly, the county registrar, later apologized. During the course of a couple of hours, according to Smollar’s testimony in a separate case, he and McGill gathered the names of a few dozen people whose names showed up repeatedly as petition gatherers on the petitions.

McGill then allegedly gave her secretary, Barbara Thacker, a list that contained 24 names. McGill’s note read: “The following names were listed as petition-gatherers on dozens and dozens of signature petitions, accounting for as many as 90 percent of the petitions submitted to the Registrar.” A second list was compiled, with two dozen more names of petition gatherers who appeared on “10 or fewer petitions.” McGill then instructed her secretary to create databases containing the names, spouse’s names, children’s names, children’s schools, children’s grades, addresses, cities, ZIP codes, and phone numbers for both sets of lists. In a memo submitted to the superintendent on Jan. 12, McGill states, “Per your request, attached are the lists of individuals who were listed as petition signature-gatherers along with information on whether they have children in CUSD and which schools those children attend. I am available to answer any questions you may have.”

Oblivious to these acts, the recall group were focused on their registrar report regarding the rejected signatures. Around this time, Murphy, who had launched the recall, says he was exhausted and wanted to get back to spending more time with his family, so he resigned as head of the group. There were also, he says, differences of opinion “about which direction we should go in.”

Murphy and some of the people in his group decided to go forward with a lawsuit against the registrar’s office (now on appeal) and CUSD (subsequently dismissed), while the Beall-Russell group, which now heads the official “CUSD Recall Committee,” decided to focus their attention on electing three new trustees to the seats that were due to open up in November 2006.

“A lot of people ask me if I think it failed,” says Murphy of the first recall. “And I say, no. We brought all these issues out to the front, and I don’t think they’d ever been looked at before. . . . I probably voted for Marlene and Mike [Darnold] before without doing any research.”

“The recall made everyone operating on their own little island realize that we were not an island,” says one parent who was too nervous to participate in the first recall, but has since become active in the second recall.

“It raised the awareness about these issues throughout the county and made us feel like we weren’t isolated anymore,” says Barbara Casserly. “We realized, wow, this is going on everywhere, and it’s not just happening to us.”

Casserly, who for years has been active in the district through the PTA, was not directly involved in the first recall effort, but she did sign a petition at home. “I didn’t speak for years, out of fear,” says Casserly, who once lobbied for money for the district in Sacramento, but was warned by other PTA members not to ask around about district spending. “The PTA made us very nervous about talking to the press. That intimidation really did work.” Instead, she says, she stayed in the system, became a PTA president and kept her mouth shut.

She says she followed the district culture, which was to talk behind-the-scenes and to never publicly criticize the school district. “I wasn’t treated bad because I was in the closet. They didn’t know publicly where I stood.”

Casserly says the breaking point for her was later that year, in July 2006, when the Register broke the story on the political “enemies lists” compiled by Fleming. “When I learned that McGill had traveled to the registrar’s office to look at petitions in January 2006, I felt betrayed,” she says. “Parents, teachers were already so nervous about signing the petition, how could they go down there and do that?”

*     *     *

After the news broke about the political “enemies” lists, the superintendent repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the lists or that his office had generated them. Parents were outraged, demanding to know how this had happened. Members of several South County city councils called for Fleming’s resignation or termination.

“It’s one thing to come after me since I came after you. I’m fine with that,” says Murphy, whose name was on the lists. “But there’s no reason to go after my kids.” Less than a week after the story broke, Fleming announced his resignation but gave no specific date. At the end of the month, during a Saturday board meeting about the hiring of a new superintendent, the board voted to hire an independent investigator to look into the issue of the lists and other allegations made by parents at the time.

By this time, a county district attorney’s office investigation was already under way—and had been since February. “We had received a bunch of citizen complaints from different sources,” says Susan Kang Schroeder, spokeswoman for the DA’s office, regarding the initiation of the investigation.

On Aug. 14, 2006, DA investigators raided the district office, seizing Fleming’s computer and other district computers and files. That night, he was given a standing ovation during his resignation and farewell speech at the district board meeting. A few days later, the DA began what would turn out to be a year’s worth of grand jury witness interviews with 14 district administrators and employees.

In November 2006, the CUSD Recall Committee succeeded in helping to elect the three candidates they had endorsed to the board. The candidates ran as part of the “ABC” slate: Ellen Addonizio, Anna Bryson and Larry Christensen.

“There were a lot of volunteers that were energized because of the things that had happened,” says Christensen, who earned 46.5 percent of the votes against incumbent John Cassabianca. Christensen wasn’t involved with the first recall, but the Coto de Caza engineer says he was motivated to run after years of hearing stories from other parents. “When you read the [grand jury] testimony, you see that, yes . . . these people were correct in their suspicions about the school district,” says trustee Christensen.

“The children were getting a fairly decent education,” he says. The problem, he says, was infrastructure. “Money started to go into things that supported the administration, and because of that, it was taken away from schools.”

The administration building, he says, is a perfect example of the district’s skewed priorities. “There are kids in classrooms that are 30- and 40-year-old trailers that are actually, literally falling down around them; children who are at lunch hour during the rain are eating their lunches on the bathroom floor. Things like this are intolerable for south Orange County. I mean, it’s Third World.”

Addonizio had never considered running. But she met recall petitioners at a grocery store one day, became involved with the campaign and eventually decided to run for a board seat.

But since the so-called “reform” trustees took office, the transition has been bumpy. “It’s been uncomfortable,” says Christensen.

Longtime trustee Sheila Benecke also agrees that there’s tension on the new board. “A lot of it is they’re inexperienced. They don’t know how things work, but they think they know,” she says. “They don’t understand how the law makes us do something one way and not the way they thought it would make more sense.”

Trustee Marlene Draper was on vacation and unavailable for comment for this story.

“What the public is looking at is the items that were done in the past that they feel were wrong—the high school, the administration building,” Christensen says. “If anything is connected with them now, the votes are on a 4-3 basis to protect the previous votes.

“That’s why they wanted to do the recall again,” he says.

In addition to those 4-3 votes, for some parents who were not active in the first recall, the passage of the budget this past June was the final catalyst.

“They increased class size and gave administrators a 7 percent pay raise,” says Casserly, who is participating in the second recall. The goal, say proponents, is to pull Benecke and Draper out of office before the next budget is voted on in 2008. According to district spokesperson Beverly De Nicola, new superintendent Woodrow Carter says he will not comment on the current recall since it involves the board and not him or his administration.

Although Fleming and McGill have both resigned, their legacies are still the subject of ongoing controversy. In May, Fleming and McGill were indicted by the Orange County district attorney’s office for misappropriating taxpayer funds to defeat a ballot measure and for conspiring to commit acts injurious to the public. McGill was additionally indicted on perjury charges.

“Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like this,” District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said in May. “What we’re talking about is a very complete kind of enemies list, of not just the proponents and the people who did the signature gathering, but their children.” According to the indictment, Fleming used more than $1 million in district funds to have his administrators compile the lists.

Fleming and McGill are scheduled for a pretrial hearing on Friday. Fleming’s defense attorney, Ron Brower, says he will be asking for the pretrial to be rescheduled because of the amount of information involved with the case. “We’ve got a lot of material to gather and a lot of people to talk to,” Brower says, adding that he is conducting his own independent investigation. Brower estimates that the case will not go to trial until early next year. “We’re going forward with the case on the basis that he’s not guilty of committing any crime,” Brower says.

McGill’s lawyer, Kevin Gallagher, says he is filing a motion to find out specifically where the DA is alleging that McGill perjured herself. “It’s so vague it’s impossible for her to defend herself,” he says of the perjury charge.

Gallagher says that in all his years of working homicide and other serious cases, he hasn’t seen a witness treated like McGill was by prosecutors. “I’ve read all the transcripts in this thing. . . . They did a tag team on her and were absolutely abusive,” he says. “What they did to her was an OC version of Abu Ghraib.” Gallagher says McGill will stick with her not-guilty plea: “Her conduct was not criminal.” What she is, he says, is “naive and very forgetful.”

DA spokeswoman Schroeder says that investigations of alleged Brown Act violations by trustees, Benecke and Draper among them, are ongoing.

*     *     *
A big pink September sun is droppingoverthe rooftops of Newhart Middle School’s rows of portable classrooms in Mission Viejo. Lines of cars scramble up the hills, with drivers looking for parking. As parents rush toward the back-to-school night gathering, they are stopped once, sometimes twice by Jennifer Beall, Michelle Russell or any of the other half-dozen volunteers gathering recall-petition signatures. Volunteers are blitzing as many back-to-school nights as possible over a two-week period; these were some of their most successful signature-gathering nights during the first recall, says Beall—who is missing her own two daughters’ festivities to be here tonight. “I explained it to my daughters, and I’m meeting with their teachers tomorrow morning,” she says. “I need to be out here.”

As parents hurry past Beall, she gives chase, peppering them with one-liners: “These last two trustees just increased class size and gave a 7 percent raise to the administration . . . $16.9 million left our city to build a new administration building . . . Tell all your friends we’re out here; we’re just a bunch of moms . . .” Despite their harried expressions, many parents stop and quickly sign the two sheets. They don’t seem to need much convincing.

“It’s a pretty easy sell here,” says Beall. “This being one of the worst campuses, everyone is pretty appalled and well-informed.”

But it doesn’t take long for a series of similar questions to begin popping up from one or another parent: “Hey, how do you find out if your name was on that list?” one father asks.

“Who’s going to call me because I’m signing this?” asks another mom.

Then someone else: “Are we going to show up on the bad-people list?”

In some form or another, the questions keep coming: Will there be another list? Is my privacy protected? Is my kid safe?

“I am totally floored by what I see in this district,” says John Smith, a former teacher and school administrator in Cerritos who is out volunteering for the first time tonight. “I came from a district where the superintendent was just like Fleming,” he says. “I couldn’t stomach it anymore; I had to get involved.”

Smith is perched on the corner of La Paz Road and Oso Viejo. “I had parents tonight say they didn’t want to sign because they didn’t want their names to show up on a list. That’s the climate here,” he says.

Because of this climate, and because of the extensive recount the recall group did for their own report following the first recall, Beall says they are taking no chances for any errors this time around. Voters are asked to fill out every part of the petition, and each and every single voter is being verified via software the recall committee purchased from the registrar’s office.

So far, Beall says, of the signatures they’ve gathered, 85 percent have been verified as accurate by the software. With a goal of submitting 20,000 more signatures per trustee by November (in order to qualify for the February primary elections), she and dozens of volunteers are hustling every weekend.

Recall spokesman Tom Russell explains why they mean to get it right this time. “We’re dealing with a staff and a culture down there that has been trained with ethical and legal baselines that are completely different from anyone else,” he says. “They think that what they’re doing is right because they’ve been trained wrong. They’ve set the ethical bar so low that normal human beings who walk in there expecting fair treatment end up in an Alice In Wonderland.”

Future will demand more computer coders; schools not keeping up

March 27, 2016

By JOHN SEILER / Staff columnist OC Register

Computers run the world. And computers run on coding – the algorithms (instruction sets) that make up the programs. For example, modern cars rely on dozens of computers, as was highlighted by the recent scandal over the rigged programming of the computer chips that run VW’s diesel engines.

Yet a recent survey by the Sacramento Bee found computer coding classes are not that common in California public schools. “All told, about 35,000 California public high school students were enrolled in courses dedicated to computer programming or computer science last school year, state figures show,” the paper reported. “Another 22,000 or so were enrolled in engineering or technology courses such as game design, robotic technologies or network engineering that likely involve learning code.”

Those 57,000 students comprise just a fraction of about 2 million public high school students.

I checked with the Irvine Unified School District, one of the best in the state on test scores, in a city blessed with many computer companies. Northwood High School has 116 students in computer programming courses, out of a student body of more than 1,900.

This seems inadequate for the state where the Internet was invented and whose high-tech companies in Silicon Valley have some of the world’s highest market valuations. Orange County is no slacker in this area, boasting Western Digital, Kingston Technology, Broadcom, Conexant and hundreds of other major computer and tech companies, all of them needing coders.

Maybe there’s a perception problem. The popular view seems to be that computer coders are nerds who sit in front of their computers 22 hours a day, typing frenetically, as empty Mountain Dew cans and pizza boxes pile up.

Actually, just about anybody can go into the coding field. Naturally, as with any field, the most gifted typically rise to the top. But, as was pointed out by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, himself one of the top coders of all time, liberal arts majors make some of the best coders.

The reason is that, except at the farthest levels of abstraction, coding is kind of a combination of grammar and algebra. Almost everybody can be competent at those things.

A friend of mine got a degree in anthropology, then took a noncomputing job at an Orange County computing company. Encouraged and coached by colleagues, he took up programming on his own, became one of their top coders and now is a manager, having risen through several companies.

Indeed, despite the paucity of courses in public schools, one can learn programming online for free. CodeAcademy.com offers, “Learn how to code interactively, for free.” And KhanAcademy.com encourages, “Learn how to program drawings, animations, and games using JavaScript & ProcessingJS, or learn how to create Web pages with HTML & CSS. You can share whatever you create, explore what others have created, and learn from each other!”

Numerous other free resources include YouTube instruction videos and Facebook pages for the many programming languages. People always are willing to help.

According to U.S. News, the median annual salary for computer programmers is $75,500. For the top 25 percent of them, it’s $100,400. And if you’re really good, you might start your own company and become a billionaire.

But why not offer more courses to kids while they’re in school? The idea was endorsed by two candidates for District 5 of the Orange County Board of Education our Editorial Board interviewed.

“We do very little coding in general,” Incumbent Jack Bedell told us. “Some districts are looking into it.” As to the schools the Board of Education itself runs, “I’m not aware of any courses,” he said.

Challenger Chris Norby said more coding courses would be a good idea because “we need to constantly re-adapt the curriculum to new needs in the real world.”

As the late Steve Jobs might have said, jobs in coding are insanely great.

Francis A. Schaeffer: The Early Years Lesson 16

, page 1 © Fall 1989, Jerram Barrs & Covenant Theological Seminary Christian and Modern Art Father, we want to praise You for another beautiful day. We thank You that every aspect of the creation speaks to us of its being designed and full of order, beauty, and meaning. Father, we thank You that we live in a world that we know is created. We are not in a world that is uncertain and meaningless, going nowhere and coming from nowhere. We thank You, Father, that we live before You, the eternal and true God, our creator and redeemer. We ask that You will be with us in this time together, for Jesus’ sake. Amen. Let us start on this next article, which is the one called “The Christian and Modern Art.” It is from The Bible Today in March 1951. I found it very interesting reading this article. It is the first thing of Schaeffer’s that I have come across that he wrote where he talks about the arts in any detail. We have a couple of references already in one or two of these other articles that we have looked at. Let us recall where he has come from in this area. In his own background, he had no encouragement to be interested in the arts from his family or early education. Edith, whose own family background was very different, sparked his interest. There was much more of a delight in artistic things. It grew into life and took form on his first trip to Europe. As he went around visiting Christians all over Europe after the war in 1947, he found out the state of the churches there, he went to churches, cathedrals, and museums during every spare moment he had. He went to look at paintings and sculptures all over Europe, and he enjoyed himself enormously. Then it was spurred on and informed by his meeting with Hans Rookmaaker. We said that he met Rookmaaker in Holland at the first gathering of the International Council of Christian Churches in 1948 when they came back to live in Europe. They were on their way to Switzerland, and they stopped off for a few weeks in Holland. Every day he met Rookmaaker, who was at that time a young art critic. Later he became a professor of art history at the University of Amsterdam and wrote several books on art. Schaeffer and Rookmaaker discussed a lot together. You will notice in this article that he acknowledges his debt to Rookmaaker very early on. He says on page 163, “In writing on art, I acknowledge with pleasure the stimulating conversations I have had on this subject with a young Christian art critic of Amsterdam, A. M. Rookmaaker.” Schaeffer had a growing interest in the arts. The thesis of this article is that “there is no better way to understand the basic worldview of a period of history than to study its art forms.” This is a thesis that would become one of the major themes of his teaching through the next years. Here it is first formally stated. Schaeffer is simply saying that art is not created in a vacuum. You do not have someone who has a gift of painting or music who just goes out and paints. What people paint reflects the period in which they live and the worldview of the period in which they live. In a way, the arts reflect it better than anyone else. They often tell you which direction culture is going in. There are people who reflect and express with their creativity what is beginning to happen in the world around them. We often look at paintings or listen to music as if it was created in a vacuum. If you stop and think about it for one moment, though, it is nonsense. As soon as you begin to know anything about art, you can look at a painting or listen to a piece of music and say, for example, “That piece of music was written in India.” It sounds so totally different from Western music. A piece of art might clearly come from the Byzantine time period, or it could be an icon from the Eastern Church. A piece of art could obviously be painted in the twentieth century. As soon as you begin to know anything about art, you can tell some of these things. It is the same with music. You can go to a concert and, if you know anything about music, you can say the time period of when it was written. There is a progression of art. No matter how creative an artist is, she will express her creativity in a way that tells you an enormous amount about the culture from which she has come. Art is not produced in a vacuum. Schaeffer makes the point that art shows us the general worldview of an age. Francis A. Schaeffer: The Early Years Lesson 16, page 2 © Fall 1989, Jerram Barrs & Covenant Theological Seminary Art also displays people’s religious thinking as well. He gives a couple of examples from theology. He mentions a Catholic illustration by painter Hans Baldung of “Christ in the Stable.” There is the baby Christ in the stable, and in that picture the light emanates from the baby. There is no other source of light coming from anywhere. There is no light coming in from a window or a lantern. This tells you something about Catholic theology of the incarnation and the person of Christ. If you look at the paintings of Christ done by Rembrandt, who was a Protestant influenced by the Reformation, they are very different. In his nativity scenes, for example, the baby Christ is a normal human baby. He is really human; he does not have light coming out of himself. The glory of His divinity is veiled. He has emptied himself, as Paul says. Wherever you see a painting of Christ during His lifetime, He is an ordinary human person. Any light in the picture comes from some other source of light. He uses the illustration of Joseph holding a lantern, which casts light on the baby’s face. Schaeffer says, “The only time you see Rembrandt painting Christ with light coming from Himself is after the resurrection.” There is a painting of Christ with the disciples He met on the Emmaus road. In this picture, the light comes from Christ. It also comes from the window in Rembrandt’s picture, so there is real light as well. Ordinary light comes from the sun through the window, but genuine light comes from Christ Himself. That reflects Rembrandt’s theology, because he knows that after His resurrection, Christ is glorified. Jesus Himself told the disciples that some of them would not taste death until they had seen the kingdom of God coming in power. That is what Rembrandt illustrates in that painting. Schaeffer gives another example of how theology is reflected in his painting. It is a wonderful painting that some of you may be familiar with. It became one of Schaeffer’s favorite examples that he referred to over and over again through the years. It was one of his favorite paintings, that is Rembrandt’s painting of the erection of the cross. Christ has been nailed on the cross, and now the cross is lifted up to be put in its hole in the ground. If you look at the painting closely, you will see that one of the people who lifts up the cross wears a Dutch painter’s cap and is Rembrandt himself. It is a marvelous painting in which Rembrandt says in the clearest possible way that his sin is responsible for the death of Christ. Christ died because of Rembrandt’s sins. Schaeffer uses these as illustrations of how theology is reflected in art of every kind. He then goes on in the article to discuss modern art. He wants to encourage Christians to begin to take modern art more seriously. He starts off with a discussion of some of the techniques. His point is that many people reject modern art because they say it is distorted, unrealistic, bizarre, different, and experimental. They do not feel like they relate to it at all. He starts off by pointing out that some of the techniques that modern art uses are not modern at all. All artists throughout history have used these techniques. He gives examples of this, the first of which is the distortion of reality to heighten effect. The acropolis is a fascinating example of this. The Greeks built the acropolis with slanted lines. They are not in perfect perspective; it was not built absolutely square. This creates an effect of heightening its size and its lines. He gives another example from El Greco, and probably many of you have seen paintings by El Greco. He paints Christ as He is suffering in an enormously elongated way. It heightens the effect of suffering that you experience when you look at the picture. Schaeffer says artists have always used the distortion of reality to heighten an effect. He also points out the way time and space may be changed in order to communicate something. This has always been true in the arts. It is not just in modern art that you see time telescoped or that you see something that is an abnormal relationship of things in space to each other. He gives several examples of paintings where you see several events of a person’s life at different times put together in order to tell you something about the person. You have different times and different space put into the same painting. We may say there is something different in some modern art, because when time and space are distorted in modern art they try to say something rather different. It communicates that everything is relative, going back to what we said about Einstein’s theory of relativity. Francis A. Schaeffer: The Early Years Lesson 16, page 3 © Fall 1989, Jerram Barrs & Covenant Theological Seminary Fourth, Schaeffer mentions the use of the spectacular and unusual to gain effect for its own sake, which is common to modern art and earlier art. He gives some examples from Gertrude Stein and an amusing one from Picasso. He changed his views on Picasso later on. He does not speak very favorably about him here. He says that in modern art, and this is not completely new, you get people doing spectacular, unusual, and novel things simply to create an effect. When he speaks of Gertrude Stein, he talks about someone who did not use normal syntax in her poetry. You could think of some modern examples of this. Probably all of you have heard of this guy who goes around wrapping up buildings, bits of the California coastline, mountains, and forests. Here is a guy who has found a technique that makes money. He has found something spectacular to do that is unusual. One could not really call it art, but it certainly made him a living. Schaeffer says, “The spectacular is not something new in modern art. There is just simply perhaps more of it.” One of the worst examples I have ever seen was at an exhibition at the Wentworth Gallery in London that I went to a couple of years ago. They often have good exhibitions there, but this particular one was really awful. One of the pieces was called the artist’s breath. It was only a collapsed balloon sitting on a little wooden block. That was a piece of art. Someone has come up with a novel idea, but you can hardly call it great art. That is one of the problems we face today. It is very easy for Christians to dismiss modern art because so many people just do the spectacular and novel. People will look at it and say it is all like that, and none of it is worth looking at. It is important not to dismiss it like that, though. There have always been artists like that who have done spectacular things. The fifth thing Schaeffer points out is that some modern art is experimentation in line, color, and materials. He gives the illustration of Scandinavian design, where some of what was put on display in fine art museums was in fact drawings and experiments that were done in relationship to the development of designs for furniture and buildings in the new Scandinavian design. He suggests that it should be thought of as applied art rather than belonging in a museum of fine arts. There is a lot of modern art that is like that. You can go in almost any modern art museum, and you will find examples of computer designs. They are now very popular, but one cannot really call that fine art. It is more like applied art. They are examples of experimentation with techniques that are available through the new technology. Beyond this, Schaeffer wants to look at what modern art actually does. This is the heart of the article. He says, “It is very important that Christians do not respond to modern art by saying it means nothing. Christians ought to attempt to understand modern art. The general response of the Christian is simply to withdraw from modern art and to say we do not like it, we do not immediately understand it, so we do not want to have anything to do with it. No, we have got to be prepared to try to understand it, because then we understand something about the people among whom we live. Artists are like prophets of a doomed world, and modern art has been like that. It has been like a series of prophecies of what is happening in our culture. Artists are often very sensitive ahead of time to the direction in which a culture is going.” Here Schaeffer pleads, and this was almost 60 years ago, for Christians to be sensitive to modern art if we actually want to understand the culture in which we live. There are several points I want to make here about this. The first point is that, as we look at modern art, we can begin to understand where people are and where our culture is. There are several points that Schaeffer makes. In much modern art we see the loss of meaning and certainty. We have already thought about this in the context of the general culture. It is expressed in a very dramatic way in much modern art, whether we think about painting, sculpture, music, theater, novels, or short stories. The modern artist often presents to us a world that is chaotic, a world where there is unrelatedness rather than relatedness, and a sense of nightmare. In this we see a cry of lostness and desperation. Later on Schaeffer uses examples from modern film. Think of Bergman’s films The Silence, The Hour of the Wolf, or Persona. Several of Bergman’s films have the quality of the nightmare most clearly. You feel like you Francis A. Schaeffer: The Early Years Lesson 16, page 4 © Fall 1989, Jerram Barrs & Covenant Theological Seminary are in a really bad dream when you watch one of his films. Schaeffer also later used the example of John Cage, who purposely made his music as chance music. I remember going to a lecture of his 40 years ago. He actually produced on stage some chance music. It was really quite extraordinary, because he had this enormous computer, which today would probably be in a little box, but it took up a space about 10 feet long, three feet deep, and eight feet high. He had a technician with him in order to help him produce this chance music. I thought it was a tremendous irony to start with that, in order to get totally unrelated sounds, he had to have this extraordinary, complicated, mathematical and technical machine. That is exactly the opposite of a piece of chance. He did not appear to see the total discontinuity, though! If you have ever listened to any of John Cage’s music, he very purposely produces music where the sounds have no melody. They have no formal structure, and there is no particular relationship between the bits of noise that you hear. In the film How Should We Then Live very much later, Schaeffer actually had a scene of John Cage playing one of his pieces. It is “A Piece For Closed Piano.” John Cage comes out to a piano in the street, sets an alarm clock for two minutes, and sits down at the piano. He closes the lid of the piano and just sits there in absolute silence. When the two minutes are up, he turns off the alarm, opens up the piano again, and stands up. Everyone applauds because that was his music. He wrote another piece “For Twelve Radio Stations” where you had to tune them arbitrarily to different stations and play them all at the same time. I saw another piece of his on television a couple of years ago in Britain. He produced a piece of music sort of like an opera. The words were taken from James Joyce’s novel Ulysses, which has a breakdown of normal syntax in it. His directions for the sound said you had to take the center word on the eighth line of every page throughout the book. That is how the text of the opera was made up. In others words, it had words that bore no relationship to each other at all except that they occurred in this book. There were various musical instruments used in it as well. Cage’s music is a perfect illustration of what Schaeffer speaks about here regarding the loss of meaning and certainty and the use of chaos and unrelatedness. Cage understood that very well. He created music that said that we live in a chance universe. We are a product of chance; everything around us is a product of chance. My music will be a product of chance in order to show that. This is one thing that we see in a great deal of modern art: the loss of meaning and certainty. This is reflected in plays like Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. Another one of his is Happy Days, which is a play where you have a person up to their waste in a rubbish heap. All they have is a toothbrush and some toothpaste, and there is a monologue going on. Another one of his is called Breath, where he reached the very end of what he could say and the play was only three sounds: a baby crying, the sound of a couple copulating, and the sound of someone dying. There are no words at all. That is where Beckett came to in the end. You get the sense of total absurdity in a great deal of modern art, whether it is music, films, or theater. A second thing that Schaeffer mentions regarding understanding where people are through modern art is the idea that civilization is only a veneer. Underneath that veneer is the primitive, the animal, and the savage. We see that in a great deal of modern art. For instance, a period of French art was very much modeled on primitivism. Some of the work of Picasso and Gogan were this way. They glorify the savage and the primitive. Not only is civilization a veneer, but artistic conventions are also a veneer. Modern art felt free to break totally with the conventions of the past because it saw them as simply a veneer produced by the civilization from which they came. All the normal canons of art can break down completely once you regard civilization and culture simply as a kind of veneer. In modern art, one of the things we see is what you could call the skull beneath the skin. That is a phrase from Webster in the early seventeenth century. In modern art over and over again, you see something ugly, evil, and savage underneath the veneer of civilization. I remember an exhibition that was here in Saint Louis by de Kooning at the art gallery. He expressed this in a very dramatic way. You went in, and he had absolutely beautiful things that made you want to reach out and touch them. One was like a jewel box that was very Francis A. Schaeffer: The Early Years Lesson 16, page 5 © Fall 1989, Jerram Barrs & Covenant Theological Seminary beautiful. When you put your hand out to touch it, it was filled with very sharp pins that were almost invisible. It was only when you got very close that you realized they were there. There was a surface of beauty, and behind that was pain, suffering, and violence. Many of his pieces were like that. They had the appearance of beauty and civilization, but underneath it was something very sharp, painful, and hurting. The other thing we see in considering that civilization is only a veneer is the animal behind the human. In many modern paintings, you see human beings presented under the form of animals. The human is simply a veneer over the animal from which man is supposed to have developed. Related to understanding where people are through modern art is that personality has no basis. In a great deal of modern art, you see the breakdown of the human. I have seen art exhibitions in which human beings are presented as machines. I remember a very striking one where in place of a person’s eyes there were watches in some statues. The idea is that everything that goes on inside a person is simply mechanical. There is not a real human being there. Human beings might be made of bits of old rubbish that has been thrown away. This makes the same kind of statement. Jack Amity’s statues are always individual human beings in total isolation from each other. These elongated figures always walk off in different directions from one another. They have no human relationships at all. There is an acknowledgement that human personality has no basis, and ultimately we come from the impersonal. The things we regard as precious (love, relationship, individual significance, our uniqueness from the animals and the mechanical) rests on a lie. Ultimately this is not true. The human is broken down. Fourth we see that morality is only a social convention. You see this very frequently in films. In a recent lesson I mentioned Blow Up, which is a very good example of this. Morality, whether in terms of sexual morality or regarding murder as murder, is clearly declared to be simply a social convention. It does not rest on any final distinction between good and evil. Morality has no solid foundation, and everything decays. The theme of decay and fragmentation is repeated over and over again in a great deal of modern art. This is the first point that Schaeffer makes regarding how we can understand where people are and where culture is based on modern art. This does not apply to all of modern art. I made some generalizations, just as Schaeffer did. As we look at modern art, it gives us some understanding about where our culture is. Second, Schaeffer makes the point that the modern arts are more honest than modern theology. He says that basically modern theology and the modern arts have the same message, but the artists are more honest than the theologians. They have the same message of uncertainty, loss of meaning, and the relative. These are some of the things that we looked at in the last few lessons. Even though they believe the same thing, that human significance rests on a void and there is ultimately no meaning, they carry on using “God” words. The artist is much more honest and portrays reality as he really sees and knows it. Let me quote the discussion between Jasper and Bultmann. Jasper was a Swiss existentialist who used to tell his students that if they took his lecture seriously they would have to recognize that they may end up committing suicide. He regarded that as one of the real options that his students were left with when they understood how clearly he regarded life as completely meaningless. He had a debate once with Rudolph Bultmann, the very radical neo-orthodox theologian. At the end of the debate he said to Bultmann, “Surely you and I are saying just the same thing.” Bultmann replied that they were saying the same thing. Ultimately reality is completely absurd. Jasper asked him, “Why then all this “God” language? Why talk about Christianity, encountering Christ, and faith?” Bultmann said he had to have something to say to people in need. Schaeffer’s point is very profound here. He says that the artists who portray life as a nightmare are being much more honest than the modern theologians who think it is a nightmare but still carry on preaching the Gospel as if it were true when they do not really believe that it is. Modern theology has the illusion of meaning but with no basis. Modern art recognizes that there is no meaning and tells you quite honestly. Schaeffer suggests that this has far more Francis A. Schaeffer: The Early Years Lesson 16, page 6 © Fall 1989, Jerram Barrs & Covenant Theological Seminary integrity to it to be straight about the fact that life is absurd. They feel the human has no foundation, there is no basis for morality, and the skull is only just beneath the skin. The third point that Schaeffer makes as he thinks about modern art and the Christian understanding it is that in the past men who rejected Christianity have been inconsistent. They have rejected the biblical message about God, Christ, and our being called to live under God’s Word and authority, but they tried to keep inconsistently the biblical world. To think that you could have a moral, ordered, and meaningful society without God and Christ was dishonest. It was inconsistent and a form of cheating to believe that you could have the results of Christianity without having Christianity itself. You cannot have the relationship, the moral framework that it gives, the sense of meaning and certainty, and the basis for rationality if you dispense with God as an outmoded idea. Schaeffer says you see in modern art the more consistent recognition that if you get rid of God you have to be prepared to let go of everything else that comes with Him. This includes rationality, meaning to the individual life, a basis for morality, and a basis for an ordered society. The modern artist is like the existentialist who says let us be serious about what it means that God is dead. Schaeffer says, “It is as though God has released men to experience the consequences of their rebellion.” Though he does not tie it into Romans 1, he makes the point that Paul makes there. When people refuse to have God in their knowledge, when they suppress the truth of God, God gives them over to all those things that Paul lists there. He gives them to a debased mind, immorality, and the breakdown of every kind of social convention. As you read Romans 1, it is like a prophecy of our society, which has turned away from God and lives to experience its results. Some of it is very dramatic. Think of the expression on homosexuality in Romans 1 about sowing themselves the seeds of their own destruction. That has been so appallingly fulfilled in our culture with AIDS and the spread of every other kind of venereal disease. If we turn away from God and refuse to have Him in our knowledge, we have to work out in time the consequences of what that rebellion will mean in our everyday life. This is the point that Schaeffer makes. In the past people rejected Christianity but still tried to hold on to what it gave. But today we see in modern art people who have rejected Christianity who try to be consistent to what it means. They begin to experience in their art the result of the rejection of God. When Schaeffer made this statement in the 1940s and 1950s, it was a prophetic statement. There were very few Christians who understood at the time that modern art was a prophecy of what was happening in our whole culture. Most Christians simply dismissed it out of hand and said they did not understand it. It was irrational, it did not make sense, it was not beautiful, they could not make it mean anything, so they ignored it and went their own way. Schaeffer said we need to look at it because it tells us what happens in our culture as a whole. Artists are, generally speaking, on the front wave of a civilization as it moves forward. The whole of the rest of the culture is dragged along behind in the undertow from that wave. Today we see this: things the artists wrote, painted, and put into their music 40 or 50 years ago are now an everyday part of our society. They are an everyday part of the breakdown of the culture in which we live. The fourth point that Schaeffer makes is that if we make an effort to understand the drift of our age, and art provides a window into it, we may protect ourselves against the drift. The Christian who says he cannot be bothered to understand what happens and it is not worth looking at it is much more likely to be carried along behind the wave. If we do not think about what happens in our culture, we often have no means of resisting the direction in which it goes. It is only as we arm ourselves by understanding it that we can stand up against it. We could apply this in many areas; the most obvious one is materialism. If we do not think carefully about the materialism of our culture, we get washed away with it. It is only as we understand it that we can stand up against it. This is true in every area, and Schaeffer applies this to the whole drift of our age toward meaninglessness and the breakdown of morality. Francis A. Schaeffer: The Early Years Lesson 16, page 7 © Fall 1989, Jerram Barrs & Covenant Theological Seminary The fifth point Schaeffer makes is that as we understand modern art we will have a point of contact to communicate with the people of our age. He ends the article on page 169, “There are many people whom we may reach for Christ far better if we have an understanding of these things which exhibit the basic modern viewpoint. Therefore we can understand something of that by which today’s men are bound, not only in spiritual darkness but in an intellectual and emotional darkness which alternately are rooted and spring from that spiritual darkness.” Familiarity with modern art is a point of contact. If we see, hear, and understand the same things that people around us see, hear, and understand, we have a better chance of communicating with people. These are the major points that he makes in this article. Let me add a few final comments. It has been fashionable to criticize Schaeffer as what you might call a culture vulture. I have heard people say that about him, and I have read things written about him like that. Some people have dismissed him in that way. They have said he is not a professional art critique, he had no proper training, and he never went to school to study the arts, so we must regard him simply as a culture vulture. They accuse him of being someone who comments on art because it was a fashionable thing to do or trendy. It might appear to be clever and intellectual to make comments on modern art. Many times I have seen any of the comments he makes about the arts dismissed simply because he did not have professional training. The assumption is that he was a culture vulture. One can point out mistakes that he made sometimes in his criticism because he was not professionally trained. But it does not help to dismiss him as a semi-literal artistic philistine, which people sometimes do. He tried to understand things himself, and he had behind many of his comments the professional understanding of Hans Rookmaaker. They spent many hours over the years in discussion together about the kinds of things that Schaeffer said about the arts. In response to that criticism that he was a culture vulture, let me make several points. First, he was genuinely interested in art. He really delighted in seeing, hearing, and watching things that were created by other human beings. He saw their creativity as a wonderful expression of what it means that human beings are made in the image of God. Second, he was very anxious to understand the people of our day. He quite rightly saw that the modern arts are often the very best way to understand where people are. Third, he genuinely respected the honesty of the consistency that you see in a lot of modern art. It becomes a howl or cry of desperation. Think of Francis Bacon’s paintings, for example, some of which you may have seen. There is one of his of a cardinal in a glass cage. All you can see is an appalling howl on his face; there is no more of the head properly visible. Many of Francis Bacon’s paintings are like that. They have a nightmarish quality and demonstrate a tremendous anguish of human beings facing life. Schaeffer respected the honesty of the consistency that without God life becomes like that. That honesty was expressed in the fragmentation of meaning and form. That is one of the unique things about modern art. In expressing its message, if it is to do it with any artistic integrity, it has to express it with a fragmentation of form as well. You cannot really paint a message of total absurdity as if you were still painting something beautiful because you say that it is not beautiful. The form reflects that breakdown of meaning. It reflects the fragmentation of understanding. Fourth, Schaeffer was aware of the danger to the church. The church was not sensitive to culture. Finally, and the most important thing, is that Schaeffer had a tremendous passion to communicate to people. He was not interested in going to see things just because people would think he was clever. He had a tremendous passion to communicate to people. God used that over and over again. The young people who flowed to L’Abri in Switzerland over the years saw in him someone who really understood what they experienced. He understood the culture in which they lived that shaped the way they thought. They did not regard him as someone who tried to be trendy. They saw a man who sought to have a compassionate understanding of where they were. He wanted to answer the questions, needs, and struggles that were raised so acutely in so much of modern art. Francis A. Schaeffer: The Early Years Lesson 16, page 8 © Fall 1989, Jerram Barrs & Covenant Theological Seminary Sometimes people have thought that Schaeffer was simply negative about modern art, but he was not at all. When he speaks in what appears to be a negative way, he does not dismiss what is said and communicated in modern art. He really weeps for the people who produce these things and their lostness that is expressed so clearly in their work. His negative comments are not dismissals. It is the same with Rookmaaker. For instance, in his book on modern art, Modern Art and the Death of a Culture, people have felt that he was being negative. He was not being negative in a dismissing kind of sense. He was weeping for what that art expresses. It has been asked, “If this is part of the Reformed tradition, why is it so lacking in the Reformed tradition today? Why is there so little encouragement to young Christians to be involved in the arts and other cultural areas like that?” I would say that it is partly because the term “Reformed” in the United States took on a narrower meaning than it had historically. If you asked anyone in Holland or Switzerland what it meant to be Reformed, they would reply that to be Reformed is to understand that the whole of life comes under the authority of God. God is the creator of all things. He calls us to understand that everything we do, think, and say belongs to God. God’s sovereignty has to be understood as God’s lordship over everything. He calls us as His servants to manifest that lordship over everything. This is one of the central themes of Calvinism historically; it is one of the great contributions that Calvin made. Abraham Kuyper wrote a wonderful book on the contribution of Calvin. It was the unique contribution that Calvin made at the Reformation. He made other unique contributions as well, but particularly it was the recognition that the whole of culture, society, and life is to come under the authority of Christ. That has always been a central part of the Reformed tradition. In the United States, particularly in the last 50 or 60 years, “Reformed” has tended to take on the narrower meaning of a stress on the sovereignty of God in the sense of God as sovereign in salvation through election. That has always been a part of Reformed theology too, but it has simply been one part of the emphasis on the lordship and sovereignty of God. It was not seen as the central part of and the only distinctive of what being Reformed is. If you ask someone from Britain or America what it means to be Reformed, they would probably say that it is an emphasis on the grace of God in salvation. If you ask someone from the European continent, they will say it is an emphasis on the lordship of Christ over the whole of life. Let us talk about why this has happened, that there has been a retreat from that traditional Reformed understanding. The simple reason is exactly what Schaeffer gets at in this article. Often Christians do not understand what happens in our modern culture, so their response is to retreat from it. We do not understand what happens, we do not like it, so we retreat from it into our Christian sub-culture. We are frightened of what it will do to our children and to us, so we simply withdraw from the life of the general culture. We leave the general culture to the devil and all his works to the world. We will develop our own Christian art and music. You see that today: there are Christian television stations, radio stations, and art. But the only people who ever see it or listen to it are Christians. It is not a contribution to the general culture. It is not an acknowledgement of the lordship over the whole of life. It is simply a sub-culture trying to be completely self-sufficient on the side to avoid having contact with the world. God’s challenge in His Word is that we actually be light in the world and salt in the earth. He does not call us to a sub-culture. It is a very serious mistake we have made in withdrawing. The challenge to every Christian church, school of every level, and institution, particularly Reformed ones who have had the emphasis that is so thoroughly biblical that the whole of life belongs to God, is that we should be preparing people to make a contribution in the general culture, not in our sub-culture. Often in our sub-culture the standards are very poor. These are standards that would not be acceptable for one moment out in the general culture. Franky Schaeffer wrote a book called Addicted to Mediocrity in which he said that by retreating from the general culture we have been able to substitute well meaning for quality. If we were involved in the general culture, very often no one would buy the things that we produce. Schaeffer saw this very clearly. He saw that an emphasis on understanding, being involved in, and making a contribution to the general culture was a part of the Reformed tradition. It is not helpful to get caught in a side stream or tributary that flows off in some other Francis A. Schaeffer: The Early Years Lesson 16, page 9 © Fall 1989, Jerram Barrs & Covenant Theological Seminary direction of its own. Christ has called us to serve Him here in the world. That is His calling to us. It is tremendously important that we recognize that calling and commit ourselves, our families, our churches, and all of our Christian institutions to it. I can understand why people are afraid of our culture. I do not want to be critical on that level. It is simply a matter of having confidence in the power and grace of God. As those who are Reformed, above all people, we ought to have grace and confidence in the power and lordship of Christ that enables us to go out into the general culture and set up signs of His kingdom. We should do this rather than hide our light under a cover, which is what we do. God calls us to be in the world; Christ came and lived in the world. He was seen in the world, and He calls us to do the same. We do not need to be afraid, but we need to fear God. Scripture tells us to fear God, not the devil or the world. God is the one we fear most of all. If we fear Him, then we are prepared to obey Him by serving Him, bringing the whole of life under His authority out in the world. Practically, Schaeffer and Rookmaaker had an enormous impact in Britain. They began to speak in the 1950s and 1960s in Britain into a context where evangelicals of all stripes, including Reformed evangelicals, had retreated totally from the general culture. It was considered completely worldly in the 1950s and 1960s for young Christians to go into any area of the arts. It was considered an unspiritual, carnal thing to do. Any Christian who wanted to become a painter, ballet dancer, opera singer, actor, writer, or musician, unless it was to do something sacred in a corner, was regarded as being unspiritual and not really devoted to Christ. As Schaeffer and Rookmaaker came to England and did quite a lot of speaking in colleges, universities, high schools, and to groups of Christian students here and there, it had an enormous impact under the grace of God. There was a change, not in the older generation, but in the younger generation. A whole generation of young Christians started going into all the fields of the arts. They have begun to make a contribution there. Steve Turner is one of the results of that. It was very moving at Rookmaaker’s and Schaeffer’s memorial services in London, both held at All Souls, to hear various people who came forward who were involved in the arts in Britain. Every single one of them said the reason he or she was a poet, a singer, or a writer was because Schaeffer or Rookmaaker encouraged him or her to be and told them that it was not a worldly thing to do. Here you have people who really make a contribution and are being read or seen in the general culture as well as by Christians. That is where we have to seek to make a contribution. If that can happen in Britain where less than 5% of the population is evangelical, it can certainly happen in the United States, where probably far more than 5% of the population is Reformed. A huge percentage of the population is evangelical. We really need to take Schaeffer’s challenge seriously.

 

ESCAPE FROM THE CENTER FOR FEELING THERAPY (The Cult of Cruelty)

ESCAPE FROM THE CENTER FOR FEELING THERAPY
“The Cult of Cruelty.”

In Memory of Dr. Margaret Singer

by Paul Morantz
(c) Oct. 2010

This is the story of what the L.A. Times called “the longest, costliest, and most complex psychotherapy malpractice case in California history–Rains v. the Center For Feeling Therapy. This November marks the 25th anniversary of the Center’s closing due to revolt of its members.

* * *
As the criminal case and my civil case with Synanon concluded in l980 and only a few cases remained with that organization of which I was certain would soon be settled given the overwhelming evidence we had, a sad realization came to mind.

I was 35 years old and the emotional highlights of my professional life were behind me. It was inconceivable that anything in the future could have the intensity of my fight with Synanon. What could happen that would ever reach such emotional heights? What legal case could be compared to the intensity of one where they tried to murder you and it became a running news story for several years?

It was as if I lived the part of an Alfred Hitchcock character. The guy, minding his own business, accidentally discovers a terrorist plot that endangers society. The bad guys have good reputations and it is difficult to convince anyone of the danger. Worse, the bad guys become aware that you have figured it out and you know they are aware. Therefore, you either stop them your self or you die.

It is great dramatic fun when we watch it in the movies and the plot with its many variations have entertained us over and over again through out our lives whether it’s Carry Grant in North by Northwest or George Clooney in Michael Clayton.

But living it is another thing. It is beyond explanation although this site is an attempt to communicate it. I would later realize that I suffered post traumatic stress syndrome but I certainly did not think that was the case at that time.

But I did know that the rest of my life could be emotionally flat due to such an experience. I realized because a loved one had fled in fear I might need danger for emotional attachment. It seemed clear that having emotions over any litigation again like this was not likely. What could compare to this?

How wrong I was.
*…………………………………… * . …………………………………..*

I often joke that the divine power that had sent Golden State Manor, Synanon and est across my path was far from ever being through with me. During the Golden State Manor case I received a clue that Synanon would follow by the ironic selection by the defense for their expert Dr. Keith Ditman who in August of l957 had given the LSD to Charles Dederich from which experiences Dederich would later claim the concept of Synanon came into vision.

Now in the midst of the Synanon wars I received the clue to my next assignment.

Brainwashing would be again the issue but at the moment this time the target was me. I had to escape first in contrast to my helping people escape Synanon. Also before my entrance into the litigation all had escaped and my job was basically mop up. But before it was over I would attend more depositions, review more documents, interview more witnesses and spent more time than I did on Synanon. And I learned still more on the frailties of human beings.

The crystal ball to my future came in June of l978 in the midst of my getting the Butler kids out of Synanon (See Escape from Synanon III) when two young girls from the “Plant Pushers” who went to different buildings each day to sell plants met me in the lobby and sold me some plants. Having purchased from them they usually looked me up when they returned to my building and showed me the plants they brought. As I was not very good with plants I was often replacing them. My system was not adjusting to the plant, but the plant had to adjust to me. If it could live in the chosen space and be watered once a week fine and if not it had to be replaced. You might say I had a brown thumb. It made me a continual customer of the Plant Pushers.

I also would pick plants for my mother or gifts for a friend. I always thought plants made more sense than flowers because they could live a long time. And so the Plant Pushers became my friends, too. That they were young and girls may have something to do with it.

As I approached D-day in the plan to rescue the Butler children in June of 1978 I became so concentrated that the world around me was nonexistent. I remember after the rescue seeing a stranger in our office and finding out he had been hired weeks ago. But what I had been experiencing was so intense I had just not “seen him.” And in this condition with an apparent game day scowl the Plant Pushers found me alone eating lunch at the building outside Café.

They sat down and wanted to know why I was so sad looking. I told them about Synanon, the brainwashing, cruelty,violence and my hope to get 3 children out. The girls then said that as I was in such stress I should consider coming to the Center For Feeling Therapy where people lived stress free. I listened as they told me they were part of a community who lived together in harmony by following a better lifestyle. They said they lived in Hollywood around the Center for Feeling Therapy building where their lives were guided by wonderful therapists.

I listened and said what they were describing sounded like Synanon.

But they protested that no one was harmed and everyone was happy. They were having an open house on Friday evening and I should come see. They seemed happy and I decided to go. My curiosity was to see what made it different from Synanon; that it could succeed as they stated while Synanon had failed. We agreed to meet at a restaurant across from the Center building in Hollywood.

After I entered the restaurant they joyfully greeted and hugged me. Then they took me from table to table and introduced me to other members. Each member stood up and shook my hand and tried to make me feel important as they expressed how happy they were I was attending. As I looked around I realized that at each table a prospective recruit or recruits sat all waiting to be taken at the same time across the street to the Center for “Open House.”

The members were very organized, like Open House Night was a regular activity. I realized that I and the other non-members were there as recruits. While I was aware of what was going on because of my work, the others present who were being treated so graciously were unaware they were targets.

After dinner I was herded with the others across the street and into the Center Auditorium. A film was shown. It was about how wonderful and great Richard “Riggs” Corriere, Joseph Hart and other Founders were and how fortunate it was that they had dedicated their lives to making the world better for everyone. What was missing from the film was any explanation of the Center process or theory of therapy.

When the movie was over you really knew nothing more than you knew before it started other than that you have been watching smiling faces and fantastic people. Then a speaker came on stage and told of what a nerd life he had before he found his way to the Center. Then he introduced his wife who was a striking blond, the message being that if you joined the center you could be transformed into a person deserving such a mate. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.

We were then shepherd into another room where a woman explained the Associate Program. She said that after several months of therapy members would be able to be therapists themselves by being giving clients therapeutic advice to non-members for $50 an hour (which went to the Center) by mail and telephone.

At this point, my hand went up in the crowd. It startled the woman as apparently she was not used to being questioned. I said, “it is illegal in the State of California for an unlicensed individual to give therapy and it is unethical to give therapy by telephone or mail.”

The woman looked at me for a moment as if she had no idea what to say. Finally she said, “What we are concerned about here is not technicalities but helping people.”

I saw my Plant Pushers faces. They had the look of horror and disgrace. They knew it was known that they were the ones who brought me. They were responsible. They looked as if they feared punishment. Worse, I saw angry faces staring at them. And at me. Time to exit.

As I drove home I knew at the Center I was not going to find a Synanon alternate that somehow worked but rather a clone. I suspected the worst. But the worst I could dream up was nowhere close to the reality I would discover two years later after it all ended. I would litigate against the Center therapists for 5 years for what they did and stand over administration proceedings to revoke their licenses, taking part in over 225 days of depositions, countless motions, reading a room full of diaries and note books of over 40 patients covering the mean time of five years each, many 9 years.

What came out was what some have called the most horrific and brutal school of psychotherapy that probably ever existed and ultimately licensing revocation hearings that were among the longest in California History. Two books were written, one entitled “When Therapy Goes Insane ” by Carole Mithers.

For me the ultimate moment in investigation was when I read a transcript of a Center press conference at Esalen, where a Center leader after describing their process was asked by a reporter, “This sounds like Synanon?”

The Center therapist responded in agreement. “Like with Synanon”,” he said, “critics fail to see that once one learns to live from feelings he needs to live in a feeling community.”

Yet the recruiting brochures sold it as a 6 months to a year program.

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While as stated I had escaped recruitment in l978, so had all of the approximate 350 patients in late 1980 when the phone call came asking for me to lead the resurgence, i.e. sue. They were all going through the pains of separation and trying to reconstruct their lives and adjusting to how they would make their own decisions. They had come long ago thinking they were inept and needed transformation and now added was the concept there were so stupid they had bought in. A majority had received some counseling from a meeting with thought reform expert Dr. Louis Jolly West , the head of Psycho neurological Department at UCLA, and CBS had interviewed many for a televised a news special called “The Cult of Cruelty.”

It had been the way that the Center ended that perhaps makes it distinctive in terms of its historical significance. It confirmed Dr. Robert J. Lifton’s theories written in 1962 (See Characteristics of Totalitarian Movements) stating that people subject to thought reform at a suppressed level have a repressed anger to the control that if allowed to surface could rupture into rage. This was the basis of revolutions.

In support Dr. Lifton pointed to the events in May of l956, when satisfied with control, Mao Tse Tung decided to allow some independent thinking and freedom of debate to allow people to vent grievances. It was thought this would lead to new ideas and improvement. Mao called this letting a “Hundred Flowers Bloom” expecting this to be “as gentle as a breeze or a mild rain.” Instead it became a hurricane of disillusionment. In six weeks, the movement had to be squashed and refresher courses on thought reform instituted. The former critics had to denounce the criticism; those who did not were arrested.

This is what happened at the Center but the hurricane could not be stopped from running its course.

Ted Patrick’s theory (See Ted Patrick) was also confirmed. He said deprogramming occurs when a person realizes one lie. His brain will then work out all the others on its own.

The Center’s control over its members was based on the belief of 2 lies. One was how the Founders lived in perfect harmony. The Founders lived in a series of homes in the Hollywood area on Sierra Bonita with the rear facing Gardner Street where the fences were removed in between. There was a basketball court, barbecue, pool and Jacuzzi. This was known as the Compound. The therapist, the lie said, lived perfect lives due to the mental state each and reached by going through therapy themselves. The goal for each patient was one day to be worthy of living in the Compound although they could never reach the Founders’ level because the Founders, too, were still doing the therapy and continuing to evolve. Thus the patients would never catch up. At the time of the end the patients lived in assigned apartments surrounding the Compound hoping one day to be accepted in.

The 2nd false representation was that the therapists themselves had gone through the same humiliations and physical striking as the patients and as they have now happy lives it was proof that the experiences patients were suffering was necessary and good as it led them to an ultimate state of perfection.

In November of l980 some founders and junior therapists themselves in a attempted coup against its leader Richard “Riggs” Corriere let it be known both representations were false. Life was not Shangri-La in the Compound and the therapists were not happy with their own therapy received. They and the patients would be treated better.

Revolutions result, per Lifton, not from the tightness of controls but the lessening of controls that allows its members to taste freedom and then hunger for more.

This is what happened.

Money was collected from the patients to a build-a-gym-fund but no gym was built. However, a Ranch was purchased in Arizona where “Riggs” Corriere could play cowboy. Patients were rotated up as an honor to come to the Ranch but when present were used as ranch hands without pay, some sleeping in the barn. Riggs also worked the other therapists hard who were not so overjoyed at playing Ponderosa. Therapists back in Los Angeles, temporarily free of Riggs wrath, were verbalizing anger over their low pay and Riggs grandiose ego. They talked about Riggs dictatorship and pressure he was applying on everyone to make the Center grow. But the only one who would get rich was Riggs.

Patients at the Center reported to their groups on a Tuesday night as usual. Group 1 being the highest was led by Riggs. The lowest group—Tombstone– was for the people who were such losers they were in danger of being tossed out into the bad outside world where they would not have other people with whom to live with who also had ability to live by their feelings as they were taught. Their support would be gone.

This was just one aspect of the system of rewards and punishment, i.e., a person could be moved up or down in group number based upon loyalty. The higher the group you are in the more status you had, group 1 patients having almost therapist like power.

But on this Tuesday evening each group was told surprisingly by its therapist-leader that not all was well and changes were coming, including less hitting (Sluggo Therapy) and demands on recruiting. In group 1, with Riggs the leader still wearing his Cowboy hat in Arizona, therapist Jerry Binder asked Rigg’s group to speak about what they think of Riggs. They responded with paying Riggs homage and expressing loyalty. But Binder stopped it and said what he wanted was what they really felt, and it was OK now to speak. He urged them to say what they really felt.

Expressing feelings of anger towards another in the Center was called a “bust” which was similar to a “haircut” in Synanon, i.e., a person stands while another shouts their disapproval with derogatory words about their behavior. In the Center, a therapist could bust a patient by shouting, swearing or even striking. Often other patients would join in and patients were taught to bust other patients outside the therapist presents if they witnessed negative thinking. Patients were sometimes physically struck and pushed around the room by their fellow patients until the thinking was corrected. The idea was to “interfere” with your fellow patient for the patient’s benefit. Some patients contended they eventually learned to self punish themselves or a negative thought.

But the idea of busting Riggs had been before unheard of and it was known prior critical statements had led to terrible punishments. Binder had to make an effort to get them past their fear and speak up.

Finally a patient did the inconceivable act. She shouted her anger over her treatment by Riggs and the pain he had caused. Other patients slowly joined in and then like wildfire it ignited, each trying to out do the other. The emotional release was so extreme that it was reported that some patients threw up over the balcony.

They fell like dominoes, patients suddenly free to talk to others about the complaints of brutality each had suffered. For two days the therapists busted Riggs over his treatment of them. Patients were allowed to watch. He was accused of being a dictator, cursed for his ethnic demeaning, particularly of jews who made up a significant portion of the community. Dr. Lee Woldenberg, it was said, complained he was not allowed to go to his father’s funeral and feared that he would go to jail for what they had done. He said since he had been part of a cult he was not responsible for what he had done to others. Another therapist complained of being struck in the face. Inappropriate sexual behavior was discussed.

Riggs denied guilt at first, but finally broke and apologized. Earlier, Riggs had warned the therapist if his power was ever attacked the Center would end. His prediction proved correct.

While the therapists at the Center tried to calm patients, the atmosphere in just 48 hours turned hostile. Vandalism occurred, threats were made and Riggs, in fear, left the state for Aspen. Colorado.

Now it was my job to explain to them what had happened and to seek redress against their abusers. How did this all come to be?

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To start, we have to go back to the 60s when America was undergoing social and cultural upheaval. By the 70’s hippies wanted to merge their social awareness with moneymaking and became yuppies. The humanistic movement led by Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers optimistically assumed the conceivability of transformation in behavior, attitudes, and encouraged people to participate in self-awareness that would free their inner selves. It led to such a concentration of self that the term “The Me Generation” was dubbed. It’s big error was it embodied the view that everyone has an innate tendency to goodness and self-realization.

It did not recognize it’s basic premise was false. Many have tendencies labeled as anti-social and their inner nature were anything but good. And so wanna-be-cult-leaders and self-help scams had a large market open to them; the ultimate demonstration of the movement’s horror potential displayed in the earlier Synanon violence, Manson murders and Jonestown murder/suicides.

The search was on for a newest and quickest way to reach self-actualization with the promise of rewards similar to he/she who would build a better mousetrap. In Marin County there was wooden hot tub therapy and in Los Angeles anywhere where you got to wear a robe was popular. You counted the number of Hollywood stars in attendance and if you got past 5 you were probably in a cult. By the 70’s people were looking for a quick fix nontraditional form of therapy.

After John Lennon (fn1) in a Rolling Stone article praised Arthur Janov’s Primal Therapy,(fn2) where people screamed out their anger to be rid of all contaminants, the Primal Institute was besieged by applications.

Janov was different than est, Synanon or Moonies in that it was still operated by a trained and licensed psychotherapist. Primal therapy argued neurosis is caused by the repressed pain of childhood trauma that could be resolved through re-experiencing and expressing the resulting pain during therapy (the primal scream). Janov criticized the “talking therapies” as they dealt with reasoning and not the emotional source of Pain. Scientology, also rising in popularity in the 70’s, was similar in theory. Both held the promise that through emotional re-experience one would be freed of past traumas.

So with the overflow of applicants at the Primal Center, Riggs and other Primal therapists thought the time was right to exit and start their own Center for Feeling Therapy. The prominent Joseph Hart, a student of Humanists Founder Carl Rogers, himself, also led the way along with physician Lee Woldenberg, Dominic Cirincione, Jerry Binder, Werner Karle, Steve Gold, Nancy Gold and Linda Binder. They would later be joined by 2 lawyers acting as therapists, Michael Gross and Paul Richler, and two true believer patients Paul and Patty Swanson. “Riggs” was the head man. Yet he was not yet a licensed psychologist. Nancy Gold and Linda Binder, the two women, later lost their titles as Founders.

Together they perpetrated what many considered to be the most outrageous psychological malpractice in the history of the profession.

Those who came were predominantly young, often college graduates peering out at the world they faced in fear, wondering if they would succeed in love, business and friends, feeling they had not so far and in need of some help to make their way to nirvana. Mistaken or not, most believed they lived Thoreau’s lives of quiet desperation not yet knowing that many were only feeling the pains of going through the difficult and unsure process of going from student to adult.

The Center operated from 2 corporate entities, a profit and nonprofit corporation, that had benefits tax wise. The real property itself was placed in the name of a partnership. Joe Hart and other founders were teaching courses at UC Irvine and recruited 25 students into the Center when it was opened. One day I would ask a department head at UC Irvine if they were aware of the student recruitment and I was told yes. I asked why it was not stopped and he said that there was a campus belief in allowing alternatives ideas ever since Angela Davis sued UCLA in the free speech days. I remember concluding I should have sued UC Irvine as well for turning their heads on students being convinced to join a therapeutic community with its teachers. Therapy is for those in need, teachers are not there to experiment with their lifestyles. Hart, while committing the acts he would at the Center was also teaching at my alma marter, USC. What was great about this was then after the Center litigation was over I was teaching at U.S.C. and one of the persons I taught about was Joseph Hart. I would play his tape of his striking his patient while demanding confession.

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The Center was almost incestuous in nature. The therapists were allowed to have sex with patients as long as they were not assigned to them. But one female student at UC Irvine had had sex with Riggs, Cirincione and Woldenberg before the Center ever opened. After it opened, Joseph Hart joined in with her and others as well.

Relationships appeared restricted to each other; arguably incestuous in nature. As to therapists, Steve Gold was married to Carol Gold while his sister Nancy married John Hart after being the girlfriend of Richard Corriere. Riggs married Connie who was previously the girlfriend of Dominic Cirincione who at one time had been Riggs’ school teacher. Dominick married Linda Binder previously the wife of Jerry Binder. Warner Karle married the girlfriend of a patient and Jerry Binder ultimately married a patient himself. Paul Swanson married therapist may Patti Swanson and lawyer/therapist Michael Gross married a therapist as did lawyer/therapist Paul Richler. Only Joe Hart had a non follower wife, Gina, but she left and did not reunite until the Center ended.

It was said that while Connie was still Dominic’s girlfriend, one night driving in the desert in the darkness of night Riggs ordered Connie out of the car as punishment and drove off with others. Later he returned for her and that night he took her to his tent and later they married.

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The pitch was that all were disordered by parental denial and discipline which denied their feelings. From that one could deduce that Riggs held his parents responsible for some childhood pain resulting from a restricted environment. The Center theory contended that a denial of “I want ice cream” interfered with the true feelings of wanting ice cream and thus caused harm which was defined as “insanity.” To become sane one had to be able to express their feelings and receive back true responses to them. Until people learned to live from their feelings all people on the street were just as insane as those in asylums.

They needed to recognize at the Center each was finally at “home.” In this therapeutic community, people would live from their true feelings and do only what they would want to do and by their very nature of their goodness there would be no racial discrimination and all people would be equal. People would not have to go to school and teaching would be unimportant. They would be a band together driven by mutual interest. It was even claimed that those who did not have the therapy could not have true sexual gratification.

The skill of a Center therapist was he/she could recognize what your true feelings were (and thus convince the patient what they were ). The therapy was also “Save Your Own Ass” which meant that a therapist should not let a patient disorder him by not living from his true feelings. Thus in a tape-recorded session when Dr. Joseph Hart, the darling of Humanistic Founder Carl Rogers, accuses a patient who talked of winning a chess match of setting the other person up and the patient denies it, Hart physically strikes the patient in the face and throws him around the room. In doing so Hart is protecting himself by expressing his feelings over thinking that the patient is lying. Hart warns this is what patient will get if he tries to set Hart up. By the end of the physical striking, the patient confesses and Hart starts demanding that the disgusting patient start confessing all of his life crimes. The patient would stay for approximately 8 years until the Center fell.
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The Center was in my opinion was a classic mental imprisonment by using what I have called the double-bind, i.e., that the patients are taught they are miserable people who could not exist without the Center and at the same time because they are at the Center they are part of a superior race that, as Synanon too believed of itself, was the best of the 20th Century. People outside the Center were called “NITS (not in therapy) and therefore for Center patients well-being all should be recruited to the Center. Patients were taught to bring their friends and families and people that might seem open (as the Plant Pusher girls had done with me). Thus because of the contrasting images–a success because you are there, but a mess without the Center– leaving was psychologically difficult.

To fit the times, in contrast to the long and never ending traditional talking therapies, the Center advertised that one would be cured from 6 months to a year. But by the time a year was up such promise no longer seemed relevant nor remembered when they were still there, some 9 years later, but somehow not well enough to leave. Of course, in the promotional material it did not say once you obtained a cured status to maintain it you must never leave. This revelation was only revealed later.

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The thought reform began even before the patient got there. To get in, each had to write a confession of how bad their life was and prove how desperate they were for help. After the first writing, they might be told they have to confess more and show more need to be accepted. Each expressed their willingness to submit to the Center’s guidance. Many who came had no more troubles than those that accompany youth but believed they were such losers they would do anything for “transformation.”

Loneliness, of course was a factor and there was no doubt the Center supplied the missing family and friends.

Like Synanon did, the Center would change to keep up with the times, later changing its emphasis to the current fad of dream therapy and then adopting to the physical fitness gym craze, classifying themselves as endowing “psychological fitness.” But despite titles and new verbiage for each book they would write on their new emphasis, the basic system did not change.

The Founders publicly admitted that their system “washed” people into a new belief system; that if misused their therapy would be the equivalent of an electric saw cutting off fingers; that they could make people believe that Atlantis as arising from the sea and that it would be easy to “use” patients but denied due to their virtue that the same would happen.

* * *

When a person arrived he was assigned to a therapist for a three-week intensive. This involved staying all day in a room with a therapist. The person was not to wear jewelry or makeup. During this time the patient’s innermost fears and emotions were probed and a declaration of dissatisfaction with life was promoted. It was, in my view, as if Dr. Lifton’s book on brainwashing was open and the therapists was enacting after reading the pages, obtaining the desired goals of confessions and then more confessions. The inductee was segregated from his normal surroundings, not allowed to read a newspaper or watch television and was kept awake for long hours. As a final humiliation one might be instructed to disrobe and to display his/her nude body to other patients for comments.

The verbal assaults, as with most thought reform campaigns, centered on the claim that the patient’s parents had ruined the patient’s life. Parents were described in one instance as “war criminals.” He/she was to accept therapists as “knowing ” with entitlement to being “arrogant.” The therapist was the lie detector (in Scientology the e-meter) that would recognize a disordered expression.

Salvation was the Center and only the Center. They were above everyone else and at the same time so pathetic they would be devastated if they ever left. They were sane because they were there, but all those not living from their feelings on the outside were insane and would make you insane as well. Like Synanon (containment) associations with NITS was discouraged.

And it worked. The Center achieved a remarkable dropout rate of only 20%., 13% leaving in the first months, meaning as to those who were still there after a few months only 7% ever left. If you were there six months it was arguably akin to welcome to Hotel California where the night man said you can check out anytime but never leave.

Patients were taught to be responsible for others and it was their duty to keep them there and guard against negative thinking. Friendship was to replace therapy and friends were to punish for negative thoughts by striking their friends and/or convincing them not to leave, in some cases physical restraining attempts at leaving. Another form of punishment was for therapist to levy financial fines from patients for ill behavior.

Like all malignant cults, the Center developed its own internal language. It went beyond just therapeutic terms, and included, as Dr. Lifton explained, a restriction of language that reduced reality by using old and new words with more narrow definitions.

The community was talked of as a new culture, a tribe and spiritual community. Comparisons of the therapists were made to Temple priests, exorcists, shamanists and Krishna communes. Only a Center therapist could give actual therapy. Other therapies had not gone far enough in providing the religious and philosophical need for personal meaning. The patients were taught to become therapists as a community could only work with each giving therapy to the other. No one could be transformed without being a therapist responsible for the others. Many patients obtained marriage and family counselor licenses or assistance permits and were assigned patients to work with. Some worked without any license.

A central feature of no privacy, common in all thought reform environments, was present. Alll thoughts were property of the community and secrecy and privacy were not to be maintained. It was the duty of each patient to express his negative thoughts to the community so he could be “helped.” (In Synanon this was called “breaking contracts.”)

Like Synanon, relationships were controlled and children were forbidden. Thus time would all be spent on the Center projects which created businesses that it controlled and from which patient’s worked such as the Plant Pushers girls that sold plants in my building. And they could better serve the therapists personal needs and recruit. Like at Synanon, pregnant women were told to have abortions and one who resisted was made to carry a doll around with her until she finally surrendered and aborted. She surrendered when weights were attached to the doll. Another woman, today a psychologist and cult expert, Donnie Whitsitt, was told to give up her children to her ex-husband as she was not fit to be a mother.

For patients to see their sins, assignments were given designed to humiliate. One woman had to moo like a cow; another accused of being a “suck on the group” had to bring a black dildo to group and suck on it; a former beauty queen was to wear her beauty pageant gown for a week sans makeup or shower and sleep in it; a man had to wear diapers, suck on a bottle and sleep in a crib. A patient who failed to lose her directed amount of weight was ordered to gain 20 pounds in order to experience being fat. A woman said to be too promiscuous was told in her group to get ready to be laid by every man in the group. This person claimed that when she went to Riggs he physically attacked her for saying she was leaving. Another claimed during her intensive a naked man grabbed her by the hair, pulled her down the hallway and dumped her in a room in front of Riggs where she was told she was too crazy and then locked in a room to think about it.

One Mexican-American patient who had criticized Riggs was assigned by Steve Gold for 2 weeks to be a housemaid for others while another was given laughing gas and then told to discuss sexual fantasies. Another was to assert her fingers into her vagina during group therapy and another was ordered to bang her head against the wall until allowed to stop. A therapist wrote that one patient was to become so humble she would not feel her “herpes hurting her cunt.” A document confirms that one patient was ordered to court or girl he did not like, i.e. have a “surrogate girlfriend” which not only indicates the cruelty to the patient, but to disregard for even the 3rd persons, i.e. the non-member targeted girl . Another patient was busted for failure to “get laid.”

Activity was regulated. Schedules were made for various people from the moment they woke up to the moment they went to sleep, including times for eating, seeing friends and sex. Even the type of sex was sometimes directed.

Center patients had to have permission to date and permission to break up. Permission is to who they could live with was also needed. They were told what clothes to wear, what their weight should be and what television program should be watched or not watched.

* * *

Above all, they were we to be loyal to the Center. Richard Corriere and Joseph Hart wrote books on the Center and appeared on Geralda Rivera, Johnny Carson and other television shows billed as the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid of psychotherapy who were dancing over the tombstone of an outdated Sigmund Freud. Just as Charles Dederich said at Synanon re himself , Center patients were told that the Founders would eventually win a Nobel Prize. Center patients were to call in to radio talk shows and ask questions pretending to be just listeners who were awfully impressed with what they were hearing. They would attend lectures and lead hand clapping and on street corners, like Moonies selling flowers, handout cards promoting the Founders books.

To teach to want to live from true feelings patients were assigned to go to bars and ask for sex. As result, women had considerable sexual promiscuity while the men had continual face slapping. Couples were assigned what days they could have sex, even ordered as to how many orgasms they should experience. Sex was like “shaking hands.” One document noted an assignment for a patient to have sex every day. At least one therapist, it was said, sometimes masturbated in hot tubs to show they were free. As stated, therapists had sex with patients not assigned to. As would be expected it was difficult for some patients to deny a therapist’s advance given the trust in the therapist knowing what was best, the concept taught they benefited from “favor” to therapists by having close “contact” and the esteem they would find in the community as their selection would be a stamp of sanity. In some instances, there were multiple partners. Unfortunately, as therapist moved from one affair to another, the discarded patients in the closed-in community had to witness their old therapist lover with a new patient-lover.(fn3)

Being taught to say your true feelings led to many patients being fired. New employment was encouraged for all in one of the many Center related patient-run businesses such as CAR (California Auto Repair) and Miskis Construction Company. One wealthy patient, Winn McCormack, was assigned to work for the construction company for one year without pay. Some businesses would give the therapists expensive gifts in return for their assistance. The Construction Company help build the compound and CAR gave Riggs a specialized dune buggy, ironically the vehicle of choice of Charles Manson. Ultimately the Center created MAC (Management Achievement Consultants) which assisted the operation of various patient businesses for either a flat billing rate or percentage of the gross. MAC in turn hired Riggs as its business advisor. Some businesses, some claimed, were instructed to pay MAC under the table to avoid taxation.

As stated, to oppose any Center concept was a negative thought and a suggestion that the person may still be crazy. Therefore patients were taught to recognize negative thoughts and beat them down without help from anyone; and when observing a negative thought in another, out of love, will save that person as if performing an exorcism. Patients were told they could “flunk therapy” which entailed not doing what a therapists told them.

As Dederich admitted to Synanon’s use of brainwashing, and was also so stated in Synanon’s resident historian Steve Simon’s dissertation, the Founders in their books admitted much of what the Center did, stating it “conditioned” patients to act in certain ways by use of “behavior modification” through strong intermittent reinforcement.

When the Center ended, so did many relationships. Patients who loved their mates found out that the other was only with them because of pressure. Some stayed married but feared the future of the relationship without the Center’s control. The Founders stated therapy was to be replaced by friendship, admitting the therapy was intended to set up social structure, omitting it supplied Founders with workers, supports and a financial base.

The goal was to bond patients to life at the Center; to take young people concerned they were living desperate lives, confirm that, and teach a lifestyle that held out as a carrot stick of promise of happiness—a lifestyle that included dedication and servitude to the Founders.

Center documents, brought to me by Doni Whitsett, suggested money was behind it all. The Center’s goal was to make the Founders rich.

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There was a document displaying a “Funnel” showing how the issues reached the Center. At the top was the associate program where patients gave cheap therapy by mail and telephone. At the bottom of the funnel was the Center community. The midway from the top to the bottom was the real moneymaker—The Clinic.

The Center itself was limited in financial growth. By its geographical nature, like Synanon, it could not have an unlimited population. But the Founders, the Whitsett documents suggested, had a plan to exploit the world. Patients were trained to become therapists and to obtain some form of license that could allow giving of therapy. In some cases it was a psychological nurse license, a psychological assistant, an M.F.C.C., etc. Then clinics were set up with plans to recruit clients to the clinics that would make millions for the Founders. Clinics could be built limited only by the financial growth necessary to keep building. But the plan was they would be expand from city to city. The Center ultimately owned 64 pieces of property, including the Arizona Ranch and the square blocks creating the Compound in Hollywood. Some clients were directed to take on Center therapists as financial consultants either directly or through MAC. Patients were directed to work for various patient-businesses as part of therapy, some without pay.

Some therapists at the clinics had gone through the Funnel and were part of the Center compound. As it had been taught to be well it was good to have contact with the role model Founders and to do therapy was part of therapy. It was easy to teach the desire to be a junior therapists working at the clinic (clinicians) for low pay, long hours and treated as slaves who could be punished, even fined, for failure to reach recruiting goals and for losing a patient.

As part of this plan Riggs wrote out a script, which was in Whitsett’s Clinic manual, wherein the clinicians would direct a patient to invite someone close to the patient to come to therapy so they could work on their relationship. Once the invitee arrived, it was scripted what the clinician would say to the guest in order to get the newcomer to become a patient. The clinician would say things in substance like now that the friend is here why not discuss things the friend would like to improve in his/her life. Added was how happy the clinician would be to discuss how the Clinic might help the target accomplish those goals.

Thus, people who had not even entertained the idea of going to therapy were being seduced as invitees to come with their friend/patient unaware the goal was their being convinced they could benefit from being a client. In California, such use of therapy as a recruitment tool is unethical. But as the woman who said to me in l978 when I remarked that certain Center practices were unethical, that per the documents ethics did not appear to be a criteria that the Center considered.

Clinicians, it was written, were taught that the Center was business and clients were investments; the Center selling the prestige of being in therapy. Financial information was taken on each prospective client so that the client would be treated in a fashion that would “max out” his ability to pay. The clients were encouraged to take out loans.

Another method to make money and recruit was to establish the Phoenix Associates which was a patient run public relations group designed to promote the Founders including delivering patients to cheer and clap when a founder was to lecture, or phone in with rave reviews when a Founder was on a TV show or radio show. The “underground” consisted of patients who pretend to be disinterested non-patients who would respond positively at the lectures, appearances and talk shows. They were also show up at college campuses and airports to give out Dream Maker cards that promoted the Founders new book. Contests were held as to who could give out the most cards. Riggs, per Whitsett documents, advised “every time you hand out a card– I exist– I’ve done this for years.”

According to Donni’s written clinic documents the goals was to establish 38 clinics in Los Angeles in 10 years with $4000 in payments from each patient. They would take areas where the highest income families were and they believed that they could eventually gross over $1 billion and provide 50% as salaries.

Another writing said the goal is to have 978 clients by next year and grossed $1 million. They bragged they had done one half million that year. Riggs and Warner, per the writings, boasted they are “the vanguard of a new psychotherapy and school.”

The Center even held a recruiting contest in which one competing patient team call themselves the “Body Snatcher’s.” The recruiters, per Donnie’s documents were to proceed in a “charismatic” style so that the target would like them.

A “target marketing’ profile was written. They wanted someone from Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Westwood, the type that can pay. One clinic was given a recruiting quota for one month of 40. The written complaint was they had only obtained 38 the previous month. It was written that the most “important thing now is recruiting– Recruit family and friends of the one-week (a Center workshop for the public) yours NOW!! This is the best time.”

It was very important to communicate, per the writings, a message to the recruit that at the Center they will be taken care of and they were also to say how wonderful it was listening to Riggs and Werner and to advise about how successful the therapy is. They were to say it was like hearing Freud speak and that the Founders were the foremost psychologists in the country, if not the world.

“Take your quotas seriously! You are responsible for numbers!”

That this was all a fraud was apparently not internally concealed, per the documents, or it is just assumed all therapists trusted all their instructions. Elsewhere (see Characteristics of Movements) I have stated smoking guns were found in all these type of cases I handled. The leaders gave too many written orders, and their egos lead them to tape record and write books. Whitsetts’ saved her copy of the Clinic manual and documents which gave written documentation of the plans, with multiple pages referring to the subject of recruiting and bringing back “terminations (patients to quit).”

*………………………………………*………………………………………*

At one time I asked a California Psych Board investigator why Center licenses were not removed when their books were published detailing unethical conduct. He said, “who reads.?

And I responded well read this piling on several Center books, brochures, manuals and patient diaries that had been in the possession of patients.

The Whitsett documents included instructions to keep an ambiguity about the organization in order to avoid lawsuits and to get patients to sign certain consent forms that might prevent them from ever suing while being told they were “just a formality.” In one document entitled “Ethical Consideration Re: Notes on Client Visits” it is stated that “it is important to document what you ( the therapist) are doing with your clients in order to protect yourself and the client should suit be brought against us or you for malpractice.” The document then gives examples of the “right”” wrong” ways to describe particular events that occurred in therapy including assault and humiliation. Instead of “busting” for being a “creep” you write about intervention to improve behavior.

The clinicians, per the manual, were given “Hints On How To Persuade” and recruitment quotas. They were instructed to tell the targets they were many talk shows Riggs had been on and that outsiders are psychological barbarians. It was written, “We are the only psychologist in the world who are in the 20th century.” The Clinic rule book stated the job was mostly to feed the therapy. They expected in the future to get people in groups from the Clinic into the therapy community. People were not to be told what it is, but only taught that a “Phase 2 was coming.”

The manual taught how the therapist were to be dominant in a session including telling a person to shut up, keys them or ridicule, even threatened.

One page referred to the value of asking questions that call for full disclosures and indicate this is success Scientology had in this area. Memos were written stating that goals were to “step up recruitment” and “step out termination.” If a therapist has a patient thinking of leaving the patient is to be told to take steps to prevent it accusing him/her of planning to fail.

One Clinic document instructed telling patients “I recommend that you increase your therapy impact right now by bringing in your brother, sister, etc.. Another document assigned one clinician to get 60 to 75% of people from a dream course (a Center public workshop) into the Clinic. Another added Donnie Whitsett was assigned to get two terminations to return.

They were even instructed in the documents to tell the same “Center Story” I had witnessed at the auditorium in June of 1978, i.e., that it all began because the therapists got themselves together because they felt good and wanted to share.

Sometimes the clinician manual used the words “sales” and “closing.”

It was written: “if you can get a person to believe they need your product, they will move a mountain to get it… best technique is to get a person to admit that they are not getting what they need. Use classical questioning… adults pay more attention to the face and tone of voice than the words. Paint a word picture to someone in their words that make them value what you have.”

A document directed lying by clinicians– “give a false deadline– I’m limited as to how many people I can take..”

Written orders stated “in each session, set a sales goal. Not therapy.

The clinician therapists were directed, per the manual, to practice selling one time a day for 5 minutes. They were to practice such sessions before doing them. Clinicians were further fined for losing clients or failure to bring in. A “hot list” was to be kept on high-priority people. It was to be advertised that they don’t take everybody because they are the best.

Paul Swanson, per Whitsett documents, directed it was a clinician’s job to know why a person was going inactive and to hold them. They must come to sessions, he wrote. Forms were kept for recording efforts of recruitment and the hours spent. Under “Training with Konnie” it was directed:

“Eyes…manipulate them, stare them down… are you going to commit?… Are you ready to commit your self to a successful life…? I want you to know you can have this.”

The target, per Whitsett documents, was also to be told he had to qualify and that he would not even be selected unless it was thought that person would benefit the Center as well. To get the clinic clients into phase 2, it was written, the theme was “bonding.” If the people claimed to be too poor there was a directive to suggest they takeout loan. If the prospect said he lived too far away, one clinician suggested he/she was to be busted for being lazy.

On another document Swanson directed each client must be maxing out his client’s ability to pay and another clinic directive stated that a patient in therapy for a year is not paying more would be a waste of the therapist skills, adding,

“Think of clients as your investment. By increasing their functioning, you are increasing your salary. Don’t have to recruit more people, just increase functioning.”

• * ……………………………………………..*

Hart and Riggs were intelligent people. This was not done, I believe, through error or good intentions, and while some other Founders and therapists would claim victim status Hart never did publicly. They knew sex with patients was not appropriate (how could they not?), and what they were doing appears from Whitsett’s documents to have been mainly for exploitation. While most cults offer a save-the-world motivation, and the Center did say they were the best, per Whitsett documents the goal appeared primarily money; a lot of it. They knew directing their patients to patient run businesses was interfering with their lives, because it was, and was to their profit. Patients became what Synanon called “dog robbers,” people assigned to the needs and care of a therapist which might run from cooking food to shining shoes. Therapists are supposed to help patients; but at the Center, per Whitsett documents, it was the intention the patient support the greed and self aggrandizing of the Founders.

When it ended 9 years later, the victims’ self-respect was shattered, their financial assets nil– as obtaining their own personal wealth had not been their goal. Worse, they lived with the knowledge the younger years had been stolen and could never be regained. And who would be they trust again?

Sometimes I debated over which was the worse horror. Both Synanon and the Center, and all cults that reach a malignant stage, create victims who live at two levels that conflict back and forth for supremacy—one that they are so happy because they have been taught they are sane and at same time have fear of having their negative thoughts arise and expose them as insane. As Dr. Lifton wrote, if the latter surfaces in mass the anger leads to a massive emotional explosion. Physical violence even murders is what you may have if the conflict is not stopped.

The Center used “hitting” but never reached Synanon’s violence. But on the other hand Synanon probably never was the psychological threat the Center was to its own members. Charles Dederich wanted to be rich, but he had also the goal to be the Godfather of a small experimental community wherein he was worshiped and designed better behavior, even if most of it came from his childhood ailments (See birth of Charles Dederich and Synanon). Rather than conquer the world, he wanted to be left alone surrounded by his faithful. Further, in earlier years there was an actual effort by many in Synanon to make it a great place for educational and an exciting life. There were at times achievement in those goals.

Est and the Center sought global expansion so in some other ways were bigger threats. As stated their goals were money (for est see Escape from est — How I saved the Los Angeles Police Department). The Center patients, in my opinion, were far more harmed when the Center ended, then were Synanites, and certainly far more angry. They had lived believing any negative thought was a denial of true feelings and were given “assignments” to write down and review their faults, a constant reminder of an alleged better life now at the Center and how happy they were to be around the therapists. They believed the pitch if they learn to live from feelings there would no longer be social or sexual games, people would want to learn, there would be no racial discrimination, children would be equal to adults and people will live for the good of society.

When a patient disagreed with a Center therapist the therapist could bust the patient and direct a patient to his true feelings. And if that direction was not acceptable to another therapist a patient could be busted again and further redirected, never knowing which wind to follow. They never could be right.

While Synanon was a mixture in the sophistication of its population, the Center basically consisted of intelligent middle-class persons, professionals, left to ponder what could be so wrong with them if they ever could have been in such a state of servitude to people who in the end one could say that far less morals if not far more problems than they.

They were returned to society years later basically untreated for whatever problems they did have and unable to separate out what they didn’t have but were told they had. From the moment of their intensive they had been convinced to confess their craziness and to find more to confess. They had placed their vision of reality in the trust of the therapist. Bonding into the new community they were discouraged from contact with the prior life that they now had to re assume. Would their new found friends accept them or understand? In the Center it was okay to “eat with your hands” or “bust” another person with intent to interfere with their perceived disorder. But in the outside world, that accomplished lost jobs and being shunned. Their fears of their future that may have led them to the Center in the first place had now been magnified,for many almost a decade of advancement potential lost. They had been taught to forget society and lived by the Center rules of status which for some may have temporarily abated their fears and problems. But that status was now gone as were the given friends, places to live, mates and even jobs.

How were they even to learn to make decisions? Abuses they had suffered had been rationalized as therapy, but now that fraud had been exposed suppressed suffering surfaced. Dr. Lifton wrote this process turns people into something childlike and now these mostly young adults plucked just shy of adulthood were still very short of such status.

• * ………………………*……………………………………*

The lawsuit was filed in 1981 and I represented over 40 plaintiffs. I might just as well have represented many of the Founders and the therapist as arguably all save Riggs was harmed by the experience though I suspect that Riggs would say he was the victim of betrayal.

The first year and a half little activity took place in the case, which was good for me as that time allowed me to finish two more Synanon cases and assist the Department of Justice on the Synanon tax case. It is possible the Center lawyers needed that long to prepare before starting the depositions. With approximately 8 defense lawyers and over 225 days of depositions it was a cash cow for court reporter’s Patty Porter. In fact everyone made a lot of money. The insurance companies one might think would want an early settlement to avoid such cost but a medical malpractice insurance case cannot be settled without the permission of the defendants. We were not going to accept anything less than every dime available and thus defense lawyers wisely sought certain concessions from the insurance carriers before settlement to protect the defendants future exposure and somehow it never got resolved until trial was set. Having made an offer for full policy limits, the insurance companies risked by law being responsible for the entire judgment– which might have set the Guinness world book of record– if consent was given. Each was playing their own form of Russian roulette until finally they found their solution and the case was over

All the Founders and therapist were defendants. Yet I could see in most their own pain. One defendant broke down crying during deposition, and admirably and surprisingly the defense allowed me to take the therapist into a room alone and talk to her. Silently without comment they did it trusting I would never use this event in court, that the person needed help and I was probably the only one in the room who could give it.

What I new about cults was that those that bought in so deep they became part of the tyranny that oppressed the others suffered the most guilt and damage. They suffered not only what was done to them but for what they did to others; after the fall it hurt being defined as part of “them” and being shunned by the former members. Some of my clients who were too close to the top suffered similarly and were less accepted by my clients. While there were exceptions, some came knowingly to the top wanting power, say Dan Garrett, Dr. Doug Robson, Walter Lewebel in Synanon, Nazi Paul Joseph Goebbels, possibly Joe Hart. I had no doubt this woman was torn apart by the experience and her own resulting punishing conduct, as did the Swansons.

The lawyers never even asked me what I said. I told her that it was all right to cry. That all the plaintiffs had generally broken down and cried at the start of the 2nd day of the deposition. I said while she was a defendant I knew she was a victim to. “Everyone in that place was a victim.”

I assured the woman defendant that her life would return, that the litigation was just the post drama, there would be a settlement, no trial, but until then it had to be played out. I told her my clients in the end find the experience cathartic and healing. I said I expected she would to.

A gag order exists on the contents of the depositions in order to protect overall privacy of the non suing patients and unfortunately I cannot tell what testimony was given by Founders, including Riggs and Hart.

Lou Marlin and Stanley Saltzman headed the defense team. Both did the majority of examination. I had obtained a court order limiting the depositions to four days without due cause. A few went over. Both Marlin and Saltzman were brilliant attorneys and their examination, which I cannot quote, generally tried to take what the plaintiffs believed of themselves and thus question if so what was so wrong to bring it to their attention by blunt mechanisms. Second they hit at if it was so bad why do you stay? Marlin was brutal at times and eventually I took his condescending conduct before the court which put some limits on him. Fact is, this was Marlin’s weakness. A jury if sympathetic, as I believed it would be, such conduct by Marlin would be seen as an extension of the defendants. Lou and I were at war with each other. And he was clever. When serving interrogatories he varied the order of questions for each client to make it more difficult for me to set written guidelines for my clients in answering but I countered back with a formula referral system that allowed me to give advice to all questions one time rather than each one separately to each client as it had been designed to achieve.

In the end Marlin changed and before the case ended we were good friends. He was the brightest defense lawyer I battled but this was a war no defense team could win.

Saltzman was just as effective and maybe more as he could do it without being cold blooded. At first he was unfriendly but as time went on and he saw that I was obsessive enough to see this to the end, prepare all those plaintiffs and get them through depositions day by day, he knew, too, it was all just being played out. Once he said words in effect that a case like this can only get through if there is a Paul Morantz. I was not sure if it was a complement or a put down; perhaps a combination.

The first couple of depositions arguably went well for the defense in the sense of the plaintiffs were at a lost as to what to say to the challenges. But the remainder of the patients were told the questions they would face by me as each week I was in deposition by day and preparing the next at night. We also had designated time off. Knowing the approach, the patients had no problems with the questions. They were confused how to explain their conduct because it was not conduct that was rational or could be explained. I instructed they could answer as to how their beliefs were forced upon themselves and I told him before responding to any questions know there are two answers—one what they believed while at the Center and the other what they believe now and should ask to give both answers. If the questioner’s did not allow the same at least the record was set that there were 2 answers. Then they would give whatever prospective they were asked, not worried they had not been given full opportunity to explain. Importantly I advised when commentating on their self image to point out if it was created by the Center.

In advance of deposition, each plaintiff verbalized and thought out how he/she gave up his/her autonomy, what fears made them stay. They also listed the worst events and the ways they were now suffering harm.

As I suspected they might several of the Founders appeared at each deposition. I suspected this because given the dominance of the therapist they would have to consider that the ex patient just might come apart and redress to their past state. One of my clients could not testify in their presence and I attained a court order allowing him to testify in a chair with his back facing the room and his staring at the wall.

But as to the others, I rallied, in substance, saying you should hope that all the therapist show. “Because then you are going to look them in the face, right in the eyes, and tell the truth. And then the truth will set you free (In old Synanon saying).” And it did.

When we took Riggs deposition I rented the Riviera Country club in my Pacific Palisades so that as many of my clients who could would attend and watch Riggs forced to answer under my cross-examination. Seeing him in that way would demystify him. The ex female student from UCI Irvine that Riggs and the others used as a sex toy spent a lot of time assisting me. As she had been a Riggs dog robber and part of MAC it helped her regain acceptance from others. I also knew Riggs would likely cringe to see his former No. 1 fan, participating in going after him, worse, now my friend.

*……………………………………………….…*………………………………………………*

I initially had another attorney assisting me but his failure in this area and the expense we faced required more help. I split from the lawyer and instructed the plaintiffs to choose who they wished to represent them. I believe about 5 stayed whith that lawyer and he then made quick settlements .

I brought in Tom Girardi, of Girardi, Keese and Crane, who was probably the most feared trial lawyer of the time (and still is). He also seemed to have considerable political and judicial clout and was a master at keeping everyone happy. It seemed he gave gifts to many, perhaps some that judicially today would not be approved. Adjusters both feared and admired him and all wanted to be on his good side. But Tom loved the case and trusted me to do the job. He made a fair fee deal with me that took into consideration all the work done prior to his involvement and took over the huge financial responsibility. He also assigned Tim Milner to assist me who was an excellent attorney. Tim was eventually able to understand the concepts and relieved me at some of the plaintiffs’ depositions .

A book could be made on the depositions but the depositions were sealed to prevent inadvertent testimony becoming public re a non-suing person’s therapy. What we were all hearing and witnessing day after day was pain. Group dynamics definitely formed and an atmosphere of joking took over as a necessity to relief, an agreement we all knew would benefit no one to point out at trial, but a necessity for our own sanity.

As always, in all my cases, there were the smoking guns. And in this case, like Synanon, a smoking arsenal.

A young defense lawyer, my age, James Von Sauer, was a surprise. From the start he resisted the defense pressure to play team ball. He took the position that all of what the plaintiff’s were saying was true, but that his clients Paul and Patti Swanson had been patients originally too and were equally victimized and what’s more were suffering for what they had done. It was a brilliant move that took guts. But the idea was to save them from punitive damages which are not insurable. By testifying to truth against others, James knew I probably would not ever ask for punitive damages of the Swansons. And he was right.

In the middle of the case I got married. James attended the wedding. Eventually other non-founder therapists started seeing a similar light. After Jerry Binder lost his license in his administrative hearing even Lou Marlin surrendered having Werner Karle recount, apologize and state it was an abusive cult. It saved Karle’s license as he was able to make a deal for probation and temporary suspension in turn for testifying against the others. He would also lecture on what happened at the Center.

Joe Hart had actually left the Center shortly before its fall which was a major event the defendants had to soothe over with what most believe was a feigned explanation to their patients. But luck would enter. As stated above, after the Center fell the patients had undergone a mass session with known brainwashing expert Dr. Jolly West, who had spent a lot of time on television explaining Jonestown. Just before he left Hart had written Dr. West a letter asking for information on “brainwashing.” Dr. West gave us the letter.

Worse for Dr. Hart, his brother John wrote a dissertation on the Center called “From healing to hurting” basically stating what we contended. And we got a hold of it.

Dr. Hart lost his license and if it is true as I suspect that Dr. Hart finally figured out the horror of what they were doing and thus contacted West for information, and he most likely knew of his brother’s dissertation, somehow he should have separated himself from Barash and Hill, their private attorneys who controlled the case and who may have made the mistake of not providing him separate counsel who could have given him the opportunity James and Lou ultimately gave theirs—admit the truth and take a suspension.

Under the law, when intentional claims are pursued that may not be insurable the insured is allowed to select his own counsel. The Founders, save Karle and Binder, chose Barash and Hill. The carriers, as their right, brought in Fonda and Gerrard, Saltzman’s firm, into the case, which meant they paid two firms. They let Marlin proceed without assistance. Neither Barash and Hill nor Fonda and Gerrard saw the conflict or if they did they did nothing to prevent all swimming or sinking with Riggs. No attorney who represented Riggs, in my view, could represent any other defendant as to do so would deprive those of opportunity to argue, at least alternatively, that if there was responsibility it laid solely on Richard Corriere.

The other non Barash and Hill represented defendants could make decisions like the Swanson’s to tell the truth, as even Karle represented by Marlin did, but it was impossible for the other Barash and Hill clients to claim they were victims and point the finger at Riggs when their attorneys also represented Riggs. I suspect, perhaps, the role of Riggs dominance, that even Hart may have fled, was just not seen until they were too deep. I have little doubt that Saltzman saw it later, I am sure knowing myself I must have said something to him about it. Letting him know he made a mistake would be also be a reason for him to to push settlement. I felt comfortable that this case would settle.

Barash and Hill made an even bigger mistake. They filed a lawsuit by their clients against patients who had spoken on CBS show for defamation. We cross complained against CBS saying if there was any defamation it was the manner of CBS presentation which it controlled. What I was trying to do was get CBS in to the fray for its financial ability and contribution. I also did not like that the news, knowing of likelihood of suits, could use people for ratings but not protect them. The appellate Courts ruled CBS was not responsible for anything said not true and did not allow the suit.

Saltzman had told Barash and Hill not to do the defamation suit (Hart action) and Marlin wisely kept his clients out of it. What it did first was allow my clients to tender the defense to their insurance carriers (mostly home owner policies) which allowed them to select, as the complaint sought non insurable damages for intentional actions, their own lawyer, which was me. This allowed me to be paid for my time for the five years while holding a large contingency fee in our case outcome.

Now I was on equal footing for the next 5 years, i.e. paid for every hour they worked me although I doubt the pay was equal. I took the normal defense fee and cut it in half as I felt that was just since I had a contingency fee in plaintiffs’ case and both cases were consolidated for discovery. I then split that fee equally with the carriers. From what I understand, Barash and Hill did not so divide their fee half to each case suggesting they never expected to win Hart (defamation) action, a fact I planned to point out when I won the Hart action and filed a malicious prosecution case against the firm and the Hart plaintiffs. I let them know I would so file often loudly appraising Barash and Hill furniture. Barash and Hill and the Founders insurance companies also ended up in a fee suit.

Even better, because of the Hart action, my client’s insurance companies picked up the deposition bills saving Girardi a small fortune in advance expenses and saving my clients having to deduct from their settlement those high costs. Also, some of the insurance carriers brought in their own firms, in addition to me, which gave me additional attorneys to assist. All of them knew this was my area and deferred to me. I started each deposition and I dolled out the work loads, always careful that anything that required my specialty was only done by me.

*……………………………………………….*…………………………………………….*

One time I got angry at one of the woman lawyers on my team for errors and she started to cry. I apologized and said, “It’s not my fault my mother raised an asshole.” She then laughed.

*……………………………………………….*………………………………………………*

Barash and Hill, also to my delight, sued Dr. West who despite talking on CBS had a policy not to be an expert witness. If he had not been sued he would have not agreed to testify. Also of luck, the State of California for its license removal cases hired Dr. Margaret Singer, my friend and the expert on brainwashing. I already planned to use Dr. Singer, but now the state was paying the bill to educate her on the case. Another large savings for Girardi and an ultimate saving to my clients.

Added to all this our judge retired before trial and somehow the case was assigned to Judge Jack Tenner who everyone knew was a good friend of Tom’s. Judge Tenner was a judge in my opinion who did what he wanted to get what he wants, a breed of few, but not unfamiliar.

The Hart action was a distraction to settlement. The defendants did not want to dismiss it when I was telling Barash and Hill they were all going to be sued for malicious prosecution.

The prospect of a malicious prosecution over the Hart defamation case became better near the end when in the Hart case we deposed Dr. Lee Coleman.

Dr. Coleman was my hero, friend and expert in my big first case (See Escape from Golden State Manor) when with passion he analyzed records and testified as an expert for the first time, stating the Thorazine records indicated drug use to control. We both had admiration for each other and I called him first about being involved with Synanon on the issue of brainwashing. I had then not known he had been referred to me by a Scientology front group, not then that would have that mattered.

But he told me then, to my surprise, he was on the other side on this issue and thought the whole thing was made up by therapists to persecute religions. I wonder what he thought later when he read Synanon tried to kill me with a rattlesnake.

Now he was hired to testify as an expert for Hart plaintiffs that statements by Dr. West about the Center were not qualified based on a single meeting with patients. This boo boo by Barash and Hill was bigger than their filing the Hart case in the first place.

One, they had to realize my past relationship with Dr. Coleman, the trust he might have in me, and the possibility he might thus turn. When he showed up for deposition it was like seeing an old friend, and he let me know he was glad I survived the rattlesnake.

Second, they hadn’t really prepared him on what was in the Center documents and patient diaries, so they ran a real risk because Dr. Coleman was basically anti-psychiatry, a critic of the drugs and talk therapy. In his book Reign of Error he would ultimately write while with medicine there is some scientific rationale in psychiatry “you can do just about anything you want to” including what ever to make someone “more manageable.” Some treatments, he wrote, were in essence “torture.”

The lawyers should have foreseen Dr. Coleman’s response to what I would present in documented evidence. At this time, Dr. Coleman was making a good deal of his living as an expert, and if I could not turn him, I feared I may have been responsible for a Frankestein’s monster, i.e. introducing him to field of expert testifying.

In advance I obtained everything he had written and hit pay dirt. He wrote an article about where he was asked to determine if a boys home used “brainwashing” (the same thing I asked him to look into re Synanon but he refused) and he answered affirmatively showing a good deal of knowledge on the subject.

I thought what an impeachment tool if he testifies brainwashing is a myth or tries to deny Center methods correspond. He would never be able to testify again as his credibility would be destroyed for any litigation anywhere. I decided in the end he had been a friend and I gave him a message, stating, before we started, “I want you to know I have read EVERYTHING you have written” and hoped he got the message. If he knew I knew about what he wrote about brainwashing he would then, I assume, testify consistently with his article.

The result was Coleman mid-deposition, having also been shown internal Center documents, came over to our side, it set things me up for me to demand in writing based on his testimony the Hart action be dropped as it is clear any prosecution could only be malicious.

Instead, Barash and Hill dropped Dr. Coleman as their witness, instead hiring new expert. But as we had spent money deposing him by law we could call him to the stand.

* * *

Tenner near the end asked me to help fund settlement by having the insurance carriers for the defendants in the defamation case contribute because it would be cheaper than continuing to defend the Hart action. I was asked to ask them to come to court to discuss it. I refused, saying to me that would be a conflict and I would have no part of it. These carriers had a duty to indemnify my Hart defendants, but not to pay off my plaintiffs and Imy duties were owed to defense of their insureds and to their carriers. The carriers could do it, but I would not advise or participate. I told the Judge he would have to call them on his own.

After that, I dropped out of the settlement conference and let Girardi finish it. I went skiing with my wife taking along our one year old son. My being there was not a necessity. Girardi was clearly better at closing than me and with my feelings towards Tenner I thought I might interfere.

In a mountain restaurant in Utah I instead watched my son take his first steps standing up,

*……………………………………………..*…………………………………*

Some of the other smoking guns included Steve Gold’s letter to a person saying he is recovering from his experiences in the “cult.”

Each patient was instructed at the Center to keep a diary and maintain their own records. A big mistake. Approximately 40 patients turned over approximately 3 banker boxes each that I would search through. Somehow from Synanon I had learned to speed read through documents with my eyes automatically halting upon on a discovery. There would be pages upon pages of nightly dreams and meaningless notations, and then would appear one jewel, a reference to a assignment they were given, busting or other wrongful treatment. Reading it sometimes became both fascination and horror seeing how patients could describe nightmarish actions, their humiliation, but treating it as somehow for their benefit. But I had seen the same before with Synanon, and later again, over and over, in other cases.

One patient, call her Diane, had a letter addressed to a prior therapist she never sent. Expressing it as if she had wonderful therapy, Diane described doing volunteer work for her new Center therapist as a means of “contact” with her therapist. Diane described herself as constantly exhausted and that when she was pregnant she went ahead with the abortion. She talked about how the Center patients were recruited to itemize responses to a Center contests in the Star News. She described her therapists declaring she should be “chained” to a male patient romantically that she did not want. Diane wrote she went along because she knew any attempt to break up an appointed relationship would be met with strong opposition as being an inadequate expression of feelings. So she stayed in the relationship for 5 weeks but was yelled at and made to feel a horrible failure and non likable person in group. Diane eventually, she wrote, said she was leaving but others that caught her on the steps and dragged her back into the Center struggling. Diane wrote she was accused of trying to kill herself by leaving and told she might as well try suicide. Diane said she was pushed up against the wall when then struck she hit her attacker in the face who threatened to kill her if she tried it again. She wrote that later Joe Hart commented that the violence seemed to upset her. Domenic, she wrote remarked “just stay around for a while.” Calling herself “scared shiftless” Diane continued to go to therapy. Hart, she wrote, commented that Diane was becoming more “emotionally dependable.” Diane wrote she started trusting him now even though she felt it was “risky to trust them.” She penned:

“ It seems like I’ve been wandering through a dark tunnel for a long time. I’m still in the dark, but I think there’s a light up ahead. Maybe there’s an end to it. I want so badly to feel good here again. “

Upon his reading the letter, she claimed Werner Karle told her not to send it. I often wonder what if she had? What if her prior therapists had read the letter? Would he have contacted the California licensing Board? Would he have boarded a plane to Los Angeles? Would he be armed?

One can only assume that if the letter had been sent to Diane’s prior therapist the Center might have then ended then. I tried to imagine sometimes the scene of an army of state investigators descending upon the Center led by the former therapist, who if like me might have also brought the Marines; the patients huddled in confusion like the children at the end of the movie in Lord of the Flies when an adult rescue team finds them as they had evolved alone on an island.

*…………………………………..………*……………………………..…………………*

Doni Whitsett turned over her Clinic Manual which was the source of the Center Clinic financial motivation quoted above. It also contained directions to write entries in patient charts so as not to reveal busting or assignments. By example:

“ WRONG: John was really into her today. I busted him for being a creep.

“ RIGHT: client appear defensive and resistant today. I confronted him on his negative attitude and opinions.”

Threats of being tossed out or a sent to the clinic were recorded. Another document said: “it took 10 years for Riggs to develop his compound, and develop close ties to his friends” while another said,“Riggs needs us. Otherwise, he would not have environment to function in.”

Still another said that the Founders needed patients for their own survival.
*…………………………………………..*…………………………….*

Rains v. Center for Feeling Therapy also resulted in a landmark legal decision (see posted Rains v. Center for Feeling Therapy). The defendants succeeded in having our cause action for battery based on hitting (Sluggo therapy) thrown out on the grounds it was part of consented to therapy. I filed a writ of mandate, which are rarely granted hearings as the appellate courts have little time for pre-judgment appeals. But this one was granted a hearing and the appellate court reversed holding the alleged representation the hitting was therapeutic, while concealing it was for control, vitiated the consent.

A Professor considered the leading authority on Torts stated that the decision forces all doctors to properly explain their procedures are risk suit for unconsented battery.

* * *

In incident occurred during Joe Hart’s deposition I will never forget. There was an exchange between a Barash and Hill female lawyer objecting that I was reading questions from a book and should show the quotation to the witness and my responding I was not quoting the book and pushed it to her saying show me where I am reading it. It was a large round table and all were startled, most of all me, that anger shook within me released my hands in a two handed push such the book did not slide across the table as intended but flew never touching the table top across the diameter of a large round table like in Camelot that all the attorneys circled, all the time the book no more than an inch off the table in flight, but slightly rising. It reached her with such force she could have been harmed if her hand did not raise and deflect it. Even then it’s force caromed the book and it hit the wall hard.

It is something I knew I did not have the strength to do if I tried it again and wondered if anyone could do it. Retired Judge Jerry Pacht, who I had known well when he was on the bench, was Judge Tenner’s discovery referee. He was called in and after hearing the facts told me to go home for the rest of the day. The next day in front of the lawyers I gave the female lawyer an apology gift. She opened it and found a catcher’s mask which got everyone laughing. She took it pretty good which made me sorry for having to sue her later for the malicious prosecution of the Hart defamation action.

Trying to figure out what caused that book to fly remains for me an unresolved mystery. Was it all the pain of the Center case? Synanon, too? Anger that brainwashing is real? Was it my childhood hatred of being called a liar? Maybe all. But what I think most was maybe at that moment I had become a Center patient/therapist; Joe Hart striking a patient so he was not disordered by concealing his feelings towards the patient. I had heard all at the depositions, read it in the therapists books and seen it the records. The Feeling theory was that you disordered yourself if you did not express your feelings whatever they are. At that moment had I followed the theory I studied for so long, did I follow the command of my feelings and somehow pushed that book with strength my wrists did not possess?

I should have asked Joe Hart what he thought since he saw it and was there when I returned the next day and we resumed.

*……………………………………….…………*……………………………………..*

During the years falling the Center’s fall, the former Center patients kept in close contact, as did Synanon Splittees who formed the Network of Friends. Some difficulties between the ex-patients could be seen that paralleled who had more power in the Center and who did not. Some busting may have resurfaced when ideas for dividing the settlement were debated.

When the litigation ended, so too it seemed did their association. Synanon members eventually re-united through a closed web-site around 2000 but I doubt if any Center regrouping ever took place. Synanon members still had some fond memories of their closeness, Center patients only had pain. Personally, I thought while they definitely needed each other to cope with at the Center’s end and society re-entering, it was best they dissociate and scatter in order to put the hell behind them. Unlike most other groups, including Synanon, I am not sure I ever met an ex Center patient who found the experience positive.

*…………………………………….*……………………………………..8*

I believe three ex patients rallied for the Center and testified for the therapists, testimony including the other complaining patients were wimps. But 3 was not a large number and as I watched them I concluded they were still seeking Founders’ favor, to show they were sane and worthy of the compound that no longer existed. I doubted they had less pain, it was just more masked and departmentalized.

One of those that three the stand for the therapistshas since written me about the pain he suffered there, including losing his wife to a Center therapist. Another who had testified, and had never done well with women, had been given a girlfriend by Center therapists. He was her therapy assignment,one of many artificial relationships the Center created. A problem here was the assigned women has been said to have been lesbian. Whenthe Center was over she left him for a girlfriend. He committed suicide.

I suspect the other has long since suffered as well.

*…………………………………….*………………………………………..*

With Golden State Manor and John Gottuso there were latter case reunions. With Synanon a decade ago I tried to organize one but could not get enough key figures to commit to same date. I regret that. With the Center, I never entertained the thought. To me it would be like asking concentration camp members to a party celebration fifteen years later. I didn’t think such a get together would be beneficial.

*…………………………………………….*………………………………………. *

The insurance companies loved the job Lou Marlin did and started sending him work. He went from a lawyer working out of his home to a large defense practice. But he and Stanley Saltzman recognized each other’s talent and formed their own law firm, Marlin and Saltzman, which specialized in class action lawsuits which is where the money is in law. Good lawyers make fortunes in class actions and I am sure they are both well-off beyond dreams. The work on a large class action is highly time consuming, as was their experience together on the Center case, but it is generally far more financial rewarding than a cult case.

For years I kept in some contact, sometime calling Stanley to ask what he thought about a particular class action idea, always telling him to say hello to Lou who remained in Orange County.

James Von Sauer went into private practice and after a life of crazy romances recently married. He now lives in Republic, Washington. From 2003 to 2006, perhaps at my influence, he became the Prosecutor for Ferry County and is currently running for Judge. On his online site resume he lists among his complex cases, Rains v. Center For Feeling Therapy.

He also let the voters know his pre-law experience as:

1972-78 Free-lance actor, soundman, and asst. cameraman;1974-75 Automotive repair, Louie the Wrench, Hollywood, CA; 1966-67Tortilla Flats, NY, NY, food service, dishwasher, second cook, and, bartender; 1967-69 Art restoration apprentice to Roy Mosier, Hollywood, California; 1973-77 Bartender at the Bel-Air Sands Hotel, Edna Earls’ Fog Cutter Restaurant, Martoni’s and the Jolly Roger Restaurants; 1972-73 Bellman, limousine driver, and bell captain at the Bel-Air Sands Hotel.

* ………………………….…………………..*……………….…………………………*

Michael Lamb represented Dr. West and we became good friends during the litigation. When the Center case settled the Hart action was dismissed by the court on motions. Earlier, we had made a summary judgment motion attaching all the hot documents and arguing what the patients had said on CBS was true based on Center’s own documents. Other comments, we said, were justifiable opinions over a public concern and public figures. Tenner ordered it heard by a private judge which the law does not provide (private judges can be appointed for only discovery matters, not to resolve legal issues) and assigned the case to Judge Jerry Pacht.. Judge Pacht, who I had always respected, denied the motion but gave a speech, I have no doubt directed by Tenner, that the Hart action was weak and should be dismissed with a promise by patient/defendants not to sue for malicious prosecution. This would help Tenner get the case settled.

We filed a writ on the denial and the Supreme Court granted a hearing which meant it most likely was going to grant dismissal on free speech grounds, but when a back-load of work developed in l986 due to Chief Justice Rose Bird and two associates being removed, the writ was dropped by the High Court from their calendar. The voters had removed Bird for her voting consistently against the death penalty.

When the Hart case came to trial we refilled the motion in a series of motions in limine form arguing for advanced rulings as matter of law each basis of the suit was without merit and no trial was warranted. Again, we attached the Center documents with admissions and repeated the same arguments on free speech. The judge, preventing a 3-month trial or longer, granted our motions and the Hart case was over. I had two client/ex-patients who were not part of the Center lawsuit and thus did not participate in the settlement. So they sued Barash and Hill, Hart and Riggs for malicious prosecution, as did Lamb for Dr. West. Barash and Hill had not only made an error in filing the suit, they errored in naming two patients who had not sued and thus as they did not share in the settlement they were not motivated to drop their claims for wrongfully being sued. A malicious prosecution action requires that the original case be brought without supporting facts and for malicious reasons. Barah and Hill could have claimed it believed their clients, but once all the documents were discovered they were on notice the persons sued had spoken reality. Added was the ultimate testimony of their own expert Lee Coleman once he had been shown Center documents. Malice could be inferred from it being a tactic against the Center plaintiffs, an effort to silence them and not a bonefide claim. As it was, all the malicious prosecution suits were quickly settled.

*………………………………………….*………………………………………..*

Two of the Hart defendant insurance carriers did not pay their portion of fees and costs. The other carriers picked it up. But I sued the non-paying carriers and then settled for what they owed plus for bad faith damages for not defending. One company, Farmers, did not even pay the settlement and was sued again. Then they coughed up even more. After taking a normal contingent fee from the settlements the carriers that had picked up the non paying carrier’s tab were reimbursed. One adjuster told me I was the only attorney he ever knew do something like that.

*………………………………………..*………………………………………..*

A Pepperdine law student, Tony Ellrod, worked on the Hart dismissal motions and following he assited on the Molko case wherein the California Court confirmed right to sue for brainwashing (see Escape from Unification Church). Ellrod today is a partner at a major defense firm.
* ……….*…………………………………………*

I did not keep track of the other defense lawyers. I don’t even remember
all their names. Michael Lamb I saw in court a year ago. I didn’t recognize him at first but heard the judge say his name. I followed him into the hallway and said Michael its Paul Morantz . He didn’t recognize me at first. Then he saw I was not in good health. We hugged. I asked him to call me but he never did.

To my knowledge the State Bar took no action against Paul Richler or Michael Gross for practicing psychotherapy without a license. The statue does make exception for attorney’s counseling but I do not expect this was the type of counseling meant to be excluded. Even if counseling legal, if the conduct was so wrongful it arguably may have required action anyway. If asked, I would have said no. They were just victims like everyone else and there was no reason to conclude that free of the Center they could not practice law. Of the therapists, it seemed they had the fewest complaints. They probably had their own damages.

Judge Jack Tenner became a sought after retired judge hired for dispute resolution working at J.A.M.S. He died in 2008 at age 88. He was honored as a Judge who was involved in many of the city’s civil rights struggles over the last 60 years, including fighting restrictive housing covenants in the 1940s and helping to elect some of the area’s most prominent African American officeholders — including the late Mayor Tom Bradley.

One story on his death said: “A specialist in personal injury, product liability, malpractice and wrongful termination, he was known for his fairness and powers of persuasion that brought warring parties to the settlement table. He handled complex, multimillion-dollar settlements as a private judge or mediator in cases such as the Erin Brockovich case involving water contamination by Pacific Gas & Electric in Hinkley, Calif.”

Tom Girardi was a key figure in that contamination case for the Plaintiffs.

*…………………………………….*……………………………*

Art Janov continues on. In 1993 Janov stated his therapy has been investigated for over fifteen years by independent scientists and the findings confirm Primal Therapy is able to reduce or eliminate a host of physical and psychic ailments in a relatively short period of time with lasting results. Center therapists had made similar claims.

In 2010 Janov said primal therapy is one of the most heavily researched private psychotherapies extant in the world. On October 10, 2010, the anniversary date of my snake bite, Janov advertised on the web:

“Become a Primal Therapist.

“The Primal Center and Foundation is now calling for student applicants for the Fall semester. Please contact the Primal Center for information.
Dr. Arthur Janov “

*…………………………………….*………………………

As I had from Sanford Gage (See Escape from Golden State Manor), I learned a lot from Tom Girardi. Most of all was that after many conversations I had asking his input on responding to each of multiple options the defense might employ he made the good sense response, “Why waste the time trying to figure out the response to each rather than wait to see which one they select and then respond to just that.” I never forgot that advice for the rest of my career and applied it to all aspects of life.

As stated above, the case was settled while I was skiing. I spoke to Girardi on the phone and he paid me a compliment, saying he gave a lecture the other day (Girardi was and still is LA’s most powerful lawyer) wherein he stated to the audience that if he was ever in trouble the lawyer he would hire was Paul Morantz.

We reunited quickly again on a Scientology case that was in far away Riverside. For court appearances Tom some times had me delivered in his company limousine with Tim Milner. Tom breakfasted when available at a caboose shaped restaurant and generally that is where we met. We made a settlement in that case and I thought Scientology was acting very reasonably but our client would not accept it. Girardi then withdrew. Scientolgy had sued the client for defamation and I was his counsel paid by his carrier. But an agreement was made where the policy was sold back to the insurance carrier for a significant sum that was then given to another lawyer to finish his own case against Scientology. I did it because I believe the law was heading to no insurance coverage for all acts that could be only committed intentionally and so it was better to settle for a sum that another attorney would accept as a fee. Later a legal decision came down confirming my prediction was right. In the end, the new lawyer obtained probably a better settlement then we had. The client was courageous having also published a book on his experiences in Scientology for which they sued him also.

Unfortunately, that was the last I saw of Tom Girardi. The fee in the settlement of the Center case was held up in distribution for considerable time in trust while issues of referring attorney’s interest and interest of attorneys whose clients left them for us were resolved. When that finally occurred and my portion provided was missing one half of the interest on the money assuming it had been maintained in a savings account. After countless efforts at communication were ignored I was forced to file a lawsuit. I was then paid one half of the interest although I have no idea how the money was invested or held. Tom’s position seemed to have been that he was accounting for not getting any of my defense fees for defending the Hart defamation case for the insurance carriers. I countered that was my time, I did not bill full-fee and I had asked him if he wanted his firm to work on the Hart action and be billed at the same rate which he had declined. A legitimate issue or not, it was last I saw of Tom.

Girardi certainly did not miss me. While the Center at the time may have been one of his biggest cases, if not biggest, Thomas V. Girardi in 2003 was inducted into the Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame by the California State Bar. He is former President of International Academy of Trial Lawyers limited to 500 trial lawyers. He also became the first trial lawyer to be appointed to the California Judicial Council, the policy making body of the state courts.

Girardi obtained more than 30 verdicts of $1 million or more and has handled more than 100 settlements of $1 million or more. He has tried more than 100 jury cases.

Ultimately Girardi was behind a settlement, $4.85 billion – with pharmaceutical Merck for personal injuries to consumers of the drug Vioxx. It included:

In Re Vioxx Coordinated Cases, JCCP Case No. 4247
Settlement, $1.9 billion – for California consumers were defrauded by the manipulation of natural gas prices.
Natural Gas Antitrust Cases, JCCP Case Nos. 4221, 4224, 4226, 4228
Settlement, $1.7 billion – for California consumers were defrauded by the manipulation of natural gas prices.

Girardi’s advice to me once in the 80’s was put it in real estate. I assume he did. He may be thus the wealthiest lawyer who ever lived. I would have been a lot smarter to forget the interest claim. Maybe that is what you are suppose to do if you want to hang along and get the opportunities to go after the big bucks with the big guys.

But for me, I knew I was where I always would be, fighting cults. And for that I might need every dime I earned.
*…………………………………………………..…..*……………………………………..………*
•
By Lois Timnick, The Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1986. Copyright Los Angeles Times:

“ In what has become the longest, costliest, and most complex psychotherapy malpractice case in California history, the state is seeking to revoke the licenses of 13 psychologists and other mental health practitioners after investigating complaints of fraud, sexual misconduct, and abuse from more than 100 patients at the now-defunct Center for Feeling Therapy in Hollywood.

“The center – a once trendy “therapeutic community” that in the 1970s attracted a host of professionals seeking a fuller life – closed down five years ago and civil lawsuits filed by ex-patients have already been settled for more than $6 million, but the therapists have continued to practice elsewhere.

“As former patients confront their therapists in a cramped hearing room in a downtown Los Angeles state office building, one central question permeates the proceedings: Are the complaints merely the distortions and fantasies of troubled patients, as the defense suggests, or was the center a cult run by greedy, manipulative therapists who “brainwashed” patients into subservience, as the prosecution contends?

“Deputy Atty. Gen. William L. Carter, who is prosecuting the case, calls the case a tale of “brutality and fraud” made possible by brainwashing.

“Defense attorney Thomas Larry Watts and the key defendants declined to be interviewed. However, in his opening arguments Watts portrayed his clients as innovative therapists who developed unconventional techniques to treat “lost souls”: young adults caught in “the radical peace movement of the ’60s and the Yuppie generation of the late ’70s and the ’80s,” and consequently “uncertain of their place in society.”
‘
“Good Reasons for Techniques

“He predicted that ex-patients’ testimony “as to certain alleged events will range from outright lies, we believe, to such extreme exaggeration as to be totally unreliable . . .”

“Center psychologists had good reasons for their techniques, he said. For example, a psychologist might ask a female patient who was acting seductively in a therapy session to take off her blouse “as a technique to cause her to see her own behavior for what it is.”

“It has been three years since the state, through four professional licensing agencies within the Department of Consumer Affairs, moved to revoke their licenses, but hearings did not begin until late last summer.

“ Prosecutor Carter said the delays are the result of a combination of factors: the Board of Medical Quality Assurance’s initial skepticism about the bizarre allegations, stalling tactics by the defense, the difficulties of tracing witnesses years after the alleged violations, the scheduling problem posed by a series of hearings estimated to require a total of 61 weeks, and the sheer volume of the cases – which involve 150 witnesses, 200 pages of allegations, 800 pages of affidavits, and nearly 4,000 pages of documents.

“The psychologists are accused of having “engaged in and/or abetted the unlicensed practice of psychology, committed acts of dishonesty, fraud, or deceit, committed corrupt acts, engaged in sexual misconduct and other physical abuse of patients, and committed numerous other proscribed acts constituting grossly negligent conduct . The accusation states that their techniques smacked of “cult brainwashing,” and that “in order to break down and control center members [they] utilized racial, religious, and ethnic slurs, physical and verbal humiliation, physical, especially sexual, abuse, threats of insanity and violence, and enforced states of physical and mental exhaustion.”

“The Center for Feeling Therapy, which opened its doors in 1971, grew out of the human potential movement of the ’60s, when many in search of psychological fitness flocked to primal therapy or gestalt workshops. The center’s founders, some of whom trained at Los Angeles’ Primal Institute (which later disavowed them), were hailed by their patients. as “new Freuds” and trumpeted by an active public relations staff.

“By the time the center closed in 1980, it had about 350 members – mostly college-age men and women in their 20s and 30s who lived communally in a compound of Hollywood houses and operated a host of small businesses, such as car repair, construction, and plant sales. It also established clinics in Boston, San Francisco, Munich, and Hawaii.

“Feeling Therapy” combined the patients’ re-experiencing the past, expressing present feelings, dream analysis, and behavior conditioning in a rigidly structured setting and at a cost of thousands of dollars. The goal was to recognize and respond to one’s true feelings by working through “primal pain” caused by parental denial and discipline.

“Among the defendants are center founders and leaders Richard J.Corriere, now practicing in Aspen, CO, and New York City, and Joseph T. Hart, Jr., now director of counseling at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Both once taught at University of California, Irvine. The others are Stephen D. Gold of Mission Viejo, Michael R. Hopper of Fairbanks, Alaska, and Werner Karle of Corona del Mar. (Many states have reciprocal revocation policies that allow them to honor out-of-state license revocations).

“ Karle, in an effort to keep his credentials, has admitted to many of the allegations against him and his colleagues and, in testimony and a signed stipulation, acknowledged that “feeling therapy involved patient brutality” in a cult setting practiced largely by unlicensed individuals.

He said he had ridiculed some patients, calling them “stingy Jew,” “nigger,” and “crazy,” and abused, struck, threatened, pressured, and had sex with others.

“He asked to recommend that he be suspended for one year while he performs community service, including lectures to professionals about the danger that group therapy can produce “group thinking or cult-like thinking.”

“Corriere, 38, who has attended the hearings sporadically, conservatively dressed in gray pinstripes and aviator glasses, has yet to take the stand. Hart, a hulking, red-haired figure in corduroys, has completed two weeks of testimony in which he denied some of the allegations and attempted to explain others.

“Tape of Session

“For example, both the defense and prosecution played a tape recording of a therapy session conducted by Hart in which sounds of a patient apparently being beaten up are heard, and in which the therapist tells the man, “One more ___ time and I am going to rip you apart . . . I’ll knock the ____ out of you.”

“I believe I said ‘kick,’ ” Hart testified. He explained that he was only “directly confronting” the patient, and that while he had poked him with a batacca (a padded bat) and slapped him several times, he had not caused injury.

“ Several satisfied patients have testified that they were helped by center therapy, and last week defendant Hopper took the stand.

“Earlier, 19 former patients testified about specific incidents on which the charges are based. A few examples:

• “When one woman became pregnant, she testified, she was persuaded by Corriere and Hart to have an abortion for her therapy to be successful, although she very much wanted a child and had been trying for several years to conceive.
• “Another woman testified that Gold “assigned” her to have sex weekly, despite her objections, and that Corriere helped her complete the assignment by becoming her partner.
• “Corriere repeatedly struck a male patient in the back, kidneys, and stomach for more than 30 minutes, the man testified, because he complained of boredom. During the beating, Corriere taunted him, “Oh, the Harvard graduate is bored?”
• “An overweight woman was told by Hart she was a “cow” and ordered to take off her blouse and crawl around on the floor, several witnesses testified. She complied, sobbing.
• “A male patient was tied, wrapped in plastic, blindfolded and gagged by Corriere and left alone to hear a tape of his own voice, he testified, because he was “a nobody with no personality.”
• “Patients said they were ridiculed for their religious beliefs or race. A Catholic woman testified that she was forced to make a mock confession, with Corriere as priest, in which she held a crucifix, saying, “I refuse to give in to what you taught me.” Jewish patients were taunted as “kike” or “Jew boy.”
• “Other patients testified that they were pressured to donate large amounts of money to the center, administered “laughing gas” (nitrous oxide) in therapy sessions, and instructed to fight other patients, lose unreasonable amounts of weight, avoid medical treatment, work for little or no pay, and not try to leave the center because they were too “crazy.”

“They said they signed up for what they thought was a brief psychotherapy program run by licensed mental health professionals; instead, they wound up rejecting their past lives, friends, families, and often jobs for periods of up to nine years while receiving “therapy” from other patients and trainees.

“ As the result of an earlier, separate hearing, an administrative law judge has recommended that center psychiatrist Dr. Lee S. Woldenberg’s license to practice medicine be revoked, but that the physician be given 10 years’ probation on condition that he work only as a radiologist. He is said to be doing that in Toledo, Ohio. The proposed decision is still under consideration by the Board of Medical Quality Assurance.

“The board’s psychology examining committee has adopted the recommendation of another administrative law judge that psychological assistant Jerry Binder’s license be revoked and that the Corona del Mar resident’s application for licensure as a psychologist be denied. The proposed decision will become effective Friday.

“A separate hearing on accusations against Corriere’s wife, Konni Corriere, as a psychiatric technician, was interrupted and will be resumed this summer.

“And accusations against five marriage, family, and child counselors will be heard in September. They are Domenic L. Cirincione of Manhattan Beach, Carole A. Gold of Mission Viejo, Michael D. Gross of Pacific Palisades, and Patrick K. Franklin and Paul W. Swanson of Incline Village, Nevada.

“Moreover, the lengthy state hearings are only part of a series of legal actions involving the center. More than 50 former patients filed suit against the therapists; the therapists countersued those patients and others for libel, slander, and emotional distress.

“The insurance carriers and defense attorneys are also at odds over who should pay the mounting legal fees. About 24 patients have settled out of court during the past two years for amounts ranging from $2,500 to $200,000 each.

“And last January, a group of 31 former patients, represented by attorneys Tom Girardi and Paul Morantz, the anti-cult lawyer who was the victim of a rattlesnake attack by Synanon adherents in 1978, also reached a settlement, which is to be paid by several insurance carriers.

“The terms of the settlement have been sealed, but sources close to the case say it is about $6 million.

“The alleged victims of the Center for Feeling Therapy who have testified at the state hearings appear to be intelligent young professionals, hardly disturbed enough to remain immobilized for years in an atmosphere as destructive as their testimony would indicate.

“Anticipating such skepticism, prosecutor Carter called Berkeley psychologist and noted brainwashing expert Margaret Thaler Singer as his final witness. Singer, who has evaluated several former patients, testified that the allegations made at the hearing are “extreme departures from the standards of practice of psychology.”

“The goal of psychotherapy,” she testified, “is to help patients learn skills in thinking and in control and proper expression of feelings and in getting along with others so that therapy can end.”

“Center therapists, however, used brainwashing techniques to manipulate and control patients for their own purposes, she said.

“She concluded. ‘It was a cult.’”

*…………………………………………..*………………………………………..*

Lois Timmick, the author, was close to Dr. West, who after the Center case became a high priced expert. I hired him once before he passed on in l999 at the age of 74.

Werner Karle’s opportunity to lecture on how therapeutic groups can become cults as part of his license plea bargain was cut short. He was found dead after agreeing to testify against the others, allegedly have fallen off his roof while repairing it. He did have a history of epilepsy.

*…………………………………….*……………………………………………*

Bill Carter’s job was made easier by my presence as I provided him with key documents as to each Defendant Center Therapists although my constant supply of information probably drove him crazy. As administrative hearing findings are admissible in civil cases, my clients had an interest, as did society.

Today Carter is the Supervising Deputy Attorney General.

*………………………………………….*…………………………………….*

Margaret Singer never refused to assist me in a case and referred people to me. She died of pneumonia on November 23, 2003 in Berkeley, California, at the Alta Bates Medical Center. She was 82. An obituary in The New York Times described harassment, death threats against Singer, and dead animals found on her doorstep, due to her “battles” involving cults and brainwashing. A biography of Singer published by Thomson Gale states that her “enemies among cults” were responsible for harassing her. She had been twice nominated for the Nobel Prize for her work on schizophrenia and is considered the best authority on cults although the American Psychology Association with support of cult groups did not adopt her findings.

Another obituary that appeared in The Los Angeles Times claims that cult “operatives” went through Singer’s trash and mail, picketed her lectures, hacked into her computer and released live rats in her house. Statements made by her family to the San Francisco Chronicle, include allegations that one “cultist” worked her way into Singer’s office, stole students’ term papers and sent notes to Singer’s students, and that groups harassed her family as well. A Time Magazine article described Singer as an outspoken Scientology critic who traveled under an assumed name to avoid harassment.

I told the San Francisco Chronicle, “She looks just like the little old lady from Pasadena -until she speaks. Then she just grows in stature, and you see how incredibly smart she is. And tough.” I also told the Chronicle. “She is a National Treasure.”

In 2006, with no Dr. Singer to testify, I testified as an expert witness on cult conduct citing my own studies and works of Dr. Singer and Dr. Lifton, probably becoming the first expert to so qualify. The case settled after my testimony was over.

*………………………………………….*……………………………….…..*

Wikipedia tells the story on the Center and calls the lawsuit the largest ever psychology malpractice suit in California. “They were represented by Paul Morantz, who specialized in suing cults.”

*………………………………….…………….*…………….…………………………………………*

Richard “Riggs” Corriere had finally become a licensed psychologist during the latter part of the Center’s existence. He had been head man while having only an assistant authorization. During a break in his license revocation proceedings he appeared on CNN to tout his new book Life Zones where he smartly described himself as living in New York giving life coaching to people which he was careful to say was not therapy, knowing his license was going to be gone. When Riggs had fled the Center it was for Aspen and I believe he alternated between Aspen and New York.

I contacted CNN and asked them if they knew whose book they had just promoted? They got back to me and said they were shocked and implemented procedures to make sure nothing like this ever happened again. I asked them if they were going to do a new story on the fact they had promoted his book interviewing him while his license revocation proceeding was going on. I was told no.
*………………………………………..……*…………………….…………………*

Corriere and Hart’s licenses were revoked on September 27, l987. following a 94-day hearing before Administrative Law Judge Robert A. Neher.

The L.A. Times wrote Corriere:

“ …was found guilty of misrepresenting his professional qualifications and of fraud and deception at the center, which closed in 1980. He now practices in Aspen, CO, and New York City as a ‘personal coach’ and ‘counselor.’

“ Neher found that the therapists preyed on ‘young and credulous persons who were in a unique position to be misled,’ and that no patient who testified at the hearing could be deemed ‘to have consented to or anticipated the almost Gothic maelstrom that they were being drawn into.’

“He said the center purported to offer treatment by the world’s “premier psychotherapists” in a set-up that allowed the therapists ‘to solicit money, sex, or free labor from patients’ and to coerce them into ‘obsessive devotion.’ ‘By any definition it was a cult,’ Neher wrote of the center.

“The committee also revoked the license of former center psychologist Steve Gold, and placed another former center therapist, Michael Roy Hopper of Alaska, on conditional probation for five years. In all, 12 therapists associated with the center lost or surrendered their licenses since 1980, when the “therapeutic community” disbanded and state professional licensing agencies began legal action against its leaders.”

*………………………………………….. *……………… ………………………………*

Joe Hart started a new career at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande. He did not do counseling, but administrative work involving computers and extension education. As to his resume on his online website, former patient Win McCormack, editor of the Oregon, a weekly paper, (See Escape from Rajneeshpuram) wrote Hart, saying, “Joe, there seem to be years missing from your resume.”

His current online resume says:

“Interests:

Of course I enjoy Net surfing and Web roaming, but I also like various sports (real, not virtual) such as golf, tennis, fly-fishing, skiing, and hiking. I’m interested in digital photography… electronic music, digital audio recording, and podcasting.

“My main professional interests are the facilitation of distance learning, improving instructional design, applying educational technology, and using online instructional resources. I’ve been involved in computer-assisted instruction since the early days of mainframes and terminals. It’s exciting to me that the reality of computer-mediated communications has finally caught up to the futuristic promises. In 1998 I authored a chapter on “Becoming a Better Distance Learning Student” for the Prentice-Hall book, The Distance Learner’s Guide. A new edition of that book, appeared in 2004, released by Pearson (see the book’s web site for references and links). In 2004 I co-authored a paper for the EDUCAUSE ECAR Research Bulletins on “Instructional Repositories and Referatories…”

” I try to be multi-lingual when it comes to computing because I work with users who operate from many different platforms (Mac and PC/Windows, etc.)…

” Educational Background & Professional Affiliations:

Education–
B.A., Psychology, Lewis and Clark College
M.S., Clinical/Counseling Psychology, University of Wisconsin
Ph.D., Experimental Psychology, Stanford University
Academic Positions–
Faculty member at the University of California, Irvine, University of Southern California, and University of Redlands. Educational administrator at California Polytechnic University and Eastern Oregon University. Retired as Director of Distance Education at Eastern Oregon University.

Affiliations–

My most active professional work was with distance learning organizations: the University Continuing Education Association, EDUCAUSE, and WICHE/WCET: (the Western Interstate Commission for HE/Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications). I was the Oregon representative to the WCET Steering Committee for three years. During the 2002-2003 acadmic year I was on sabbatical, investigating the growth of online instructional repositories.

Here’s Looking at You:”

There is no mention of his time at Primal, the Center for Feeling Therapy, his inquire to Dr. West re brainwashing, the three books he participated in relating to the Center, his association with Richard Corriere or what happened to his California therapy license.

It is unknown if Stanford University late revamped or not its course(s) on experimental psychology.
\*………………………………………*……………………………………….*

Jerry Binder became an educator, writing and teaching about the Jewish role in American life, the reverse from the Center’s Antisemitism which included calling Jewish characters negative (“You are acting like a Jew!)

*……………………………………………*…………………………………………*

Long ago I was made aware a father was concerned that his ex-wife who had custody of his child married Richard Corriere. Apparently, they met when Corriere was giving training/counseling to her company Legal Assistants corp which I was told Riggs renamed Jobs in Cities. The company ended, I am told, about 5 years later. The father, I am told, got custody of his kid.

1. Com lists Riggs for once appearing on the Johnny Carson show. Riggs, like Hart, has gone digital, and is now CEO of a company which on its site describes itself as a digital tools company incorporating a wide range of fully integrated modular applications and lets clients choose from inventory desired digital applications.

The site says its technology collects, analyzes and responds to client data and adapts to the user experience.

Its vision, its site states, is to is to provide digital tools to engage, connect with and monetize their audience and advertisers; to do good for our customers, partners, society, employees, and investors and will serve “social good” and provide “children free reward-based learning of the highest quality.”

It offers careers, stating, as the journey continues, the shared passion is “transforming” the company and offers an environment for free ideas and learning.

Like Hart, Riggs resume leaves out the Center experience.

It says Corriere is a technology driven entrepreneur whose ventures have pioneered web and mobile service for companies and their customers, having pioneered an interactive communication tool for management and employees for MCI, KN Energy, Scientific Atlanta, and the Global 100 Saint Gobain and ealier company of his
developed a comprehensive suite of Internet-based management tools for J.P. Morgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, CNBC, Comedy Central, KN Energy, Ascom Timeplex, Anderson Consulting, Watson Wyatt, and Avon. Accenture acquired the other company in 2001. Accenture says it helps clients become high-performance businesses and governments.

It is said its first automotive client was Chrysler and has since help launch the Mitsubishi Outlander.

It claims to have partnered with FOX Television and major auto dealers. It says it has a SiriusXM dealer online rewards-based training program.

Years back I was asked on a documentary was Fox Television brainwashing. I said no, all anyone has to do is turn the channel, but did say its coverage of Irqaq war was irresponsible and its media intended to influence politically.

According to Domain Tool “Richard Corriere” owns about33 other domains
and his company is associated with about 241 domains.

*……………………………………..*………………………………………*

McCormack, now an expert on cults and, who went into the publication business, and was a lead investigator of the Rajneesh tragedy (See Escape from Rajneeshpuram)
on line has claimed:

“One of the revelations during the Center’s breakup was that Richard Corriere had been lecturing his therapy group on the virtues of Adolph Hitler. Among other statements Corriere had made was this: “If Hitler had won World War II, he would have eventually done good for the world, because all human beings, deep down, want to do good.”

*……………………………………………………*…………………………………..…….*

During its existence Riggs & Hart authored 3 books describing 3 phrases of the Center as it morphed to match current public phases. At the start, Going Sane wrote of the Center in Human Potential terminology. When dream interpretation became in, they wrote the Dreammakers. . Final when Olivia John sang lets get physical, they wrote Psychological Fitness.

A site, supported by advertisements, called Words of wisdom, wise quotes, inspiring quotes, great wisdom past includes:

“Richard Corriere & Joseph Hart Dream Makers. Without forgiveness life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation.”

…………………………………………*…………………………………………………….*

FOOTNOTES

(1) Lennon who suffered from twice abandonment by his mother, which may have been source of his dependency on Yono, was tailor fit for the theory. The Beatles had before advocated the Majanrish Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Transcendental Meditation (TM) which had also been accused of having cultish and thought reform aspects. TM n the mid 1970s, like est, was very popular, operating 370 US centers manned by 6,000 TM teachers.[3] At that time, the Maharishi also began approaching the business community via an organization called the American Foundation for SCI (AFSCI), whose objective was to eliminate stress for business professionals. The Maharishi’s message was a promise of “increased creativity and flexibility, increased productivity, improved job satisfaction, improved relations with supervisors and co-workers. This was the forerunner of the business consultants for psychological fit environments industry which Riggs would later become one of. In January 1988, the Maharishi’s palace in India was raided by Indian police, who reportedly confiscated $500,000 in cash, securities, and jewels. The raid occurred was over taxes and the movement was accused of lying about expenses. The Maharishi moved out of India and created a “Master Plan to Create Heaven on Earth”, to reduced crime and increased prosperity. In 2000, Maharshi created the Global Country of World Peace, a country without borders, and appointed its leaders. In 2008, he announced his retirement from all administrative activities and went into spiritual silence until his death three weeks later.

The Beatles were also supporters of Timothy Leary who showed them “Lucy in the Sky” through acid and ruined a generation plus as the pied-piper of LSD. He was called “the most dangerous man in America” by President Richard Nixon, one of the few things Tricky Dick said I absolutely agreed with.

(fn 2) In 1968 The Primal Institute was founded by Arthur Janov and his first wife, Vivian.[77]
In January 1 1970 Arthur Janov published his first book The Primal Scream. In March Arthur and Vivian started treating John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

In 1973 a birth simulator was in use at the Primal Institute. The simulator was a 10-foot-long adjustable pressure vinyl tube. The patient was covered with a substance to simulate birth. Reports were made of finger bruises on patients reliving their births. In 1977 Arthur Janov filed suit against Psychology today for calling Primal Therapy Jabberwocky.

In 1982 the Germany courts ruled insurance companies did not have to pay for Primal Therapy. In 1982 Arthur Janov and his second wife offered Primal Therapy in Paris until the Parisian operation closed it down in August of 1985. Janov wrote then a letter saying he would not “not live anymore in the midst of pain and misery; after 35 years of seeing patients, it is time for me to live my own life.”

During the Center litigation I found Janov at his home in Malibu where he agreed to speak to me. He was curious to hear what had happened at the Center. He said he had concluded when the therapists worked for him that Riggs was a sociopath. He also was surprised and pleased I saw the similarities between Primal and Scientology theories.

(fn3) At Synanon, word got out Dederich was not performing all the time with his new younger wife he had taken after his wife Betty died in 1977. Dederich not wanting to admit weakness stated he was practicing a form of sexual tension by not finishing each time. He advocated that all others follow, but this notion was not as successful as most were.

(fn4) It was alleged Center had forced the abortion of McCormack’s child by making the mother see what carrying a child around would be like by directing she full time carry a doll with weights tied to it. After learning about cults from me, and his experience, McCormack believed Corriere should have been arrested for murder. I transmitted the idea to authorities but no such action was pursued. After the Supreme Court decision in Molko in l988 (See Escape From Unification Church) there might more precedent for such a claim, i.e. no consensual use of thought reform (brainwashing) to force an abortion regardless of whether or not therapists is doing it for self interests (kids get in the way) or for conceived best interest of patient. I have no knowledge at what age a fetus, if any, must be to be eligible for being classified as murdered.

(fn5) Before a limited gag order by court on formal discovery,interrogatories, depositions and court documents were sent from case court were sent by some former patients to University of Alberta which maintains them as an archive. So researchers do have access. As they are thus public the gag order is irrelevant. A court has no power to seal anything ever made public. USC archives gets my files. See http://www.usc.edu/libraries/finding_aids/records/finding_aid.php?fa=0346.

(fn 6) Not long ago I went with a group of friends, including my son, to see the movie Inception. At the end, as the audience exited the popular movie seemingly having loved the experience I stood swearing at the film in almost uncontrollable anger. I finally asked one of my crowd, a young man named Jake Shirer, if he understood why I hated the film. He said correctly, “because they were brainwashing.”

What I had seen on the screen in fact had led me to memories of the Center and the need to write this story. This film, in contrast to the original Manchurian Candidate where the heroes fight mind control, or the film Dreamscape where the hero goes into a dream to save the dreamer from intruders, has a plot for the hero, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, to lead a team into the brain of a person so as to implant the idea as to what he should do with his father’s inheritance.

Leonardo’s character is motivated by the reward of getting to return to the United States where he is accused of a criminal action and for the others its money. The one hiring the unit wants the target to make a decision to get out of businesses that compete with his.

The female lead actress plays a person with a conscience always wanting to make sure that the others know of certain psychological problems of Leonardo’s character that might get in the way. But never does her conscience ever consider the ethical right or wrong of others for greed to psychologically convince another without consent as to what to do with his/her life.

The movie says it’s okay to manipulate another, even making him do something by a method he cannot control or fight, forcing him to believe wrongfully he has accepted it, if it meets your goals.

What a sad moment for society I thought that this movie was made. What a bad commentary on the morals of all who participated. No one seemed to recognize it was a horror film. Yet I knew somewhere out there, at least approximately 350 people existed who might have seen it and definitely recognized it’s terror.

(fn 7) CANHELP one of many sites seeking for a fee to offer alternatives to those with life threatening cancer (now run by a social worker) was founded by Patrick M. McGrady who co-authored with Richard Corriere, Ph.D. of Life Zones as well as a book on Nathan Pritikin. It’s website does not list medical physician licenses, and is, like the Center, was to some extent, arguably engaging in activities if done in California for what it lacks appropriate licenses to do. One may not treat cancer, in my opinion, in California, for cancer, if not a licensed physician, whether alternative to medicine or not.
Psychological treatment would be limited to psychological handling it, stress management to avoid cancer might be permitted, but could not be represented as a cure.

Pritikin, which took over Synanon building in l978, and many have thought the health diet program had cultish characteristics.

fn 8 Dominic Cirincione, too wound up in business consulting. His current company notes his past fields of clinical psychology but fails to mention it was the Center or the outcome that resulted. Instead it brags of his internal management consulting, training,executive coaching and that his Doctoral work in Organizational Psychology “focused on the subject of Individual and Organizational Integrity.”

It is stated Dominic has served as r Rain Bird Corporation, Rank Video Services America, Hyundai Motor America, and American Honda Motor Company Inc. and currently principal in his own firm which promotes Fitness.

His clients it is said include, Universal Music; ARCO/BP; American Honda Motor Co. E.& J Gallo Wineries; Sit ‘n Sleep, Pacific Care, Baxter Biotech, Amgen Corporation, Pacific Life Insurance, Time Warner Cable , and KFC YUM Corporation, and others.

Dominic focuses on creating emotionally intelligent relationships in the workplace and restoring a spiritual dimension to the world of work. Typical consulting assignments include, conflict resolution, communication styles and skills, facilitation of meetings, team building and one on one coaching.

Dominic mentions his several years studying philosophy and theology in the Jesuit order but his 9 years at the Center remain silent.

However most everyone at the Center, except probably Riggs, and maybe Hart, was a victim. Dominic may be just where he would have been but for perhaps his own victimization, and one only hopes he separated out what has been said the cruelty he once received and dispensed.

 

Financial Woes Plague  Common-Core Rollout

After 45 states adopt educational standards, many have second thoughts

By

MICHAEL ROTHFELD

Nov. 2, 2015 8:30 p.m. ET

EDMOND, Okla.—Educators in this Oklahoma City suburb jumped into action when state leaders in 2010 adopted the Common Core academic standards that were sweeping states across the country.

The Edmond school district has a big military population that moves frequently, so officials liked the idea of using the same standards as other states. They also saw Oklahoma’s old standards as inferior. They spent about $500,000 preparing teachers and students, collaborating with educators in other states and buying materials and computers for a new Common Core test, finishing a year in advance.

Then state politicians backtracked, for reasons both financial and political. They dropped plans to give the new test, and during an election campaign in which the standards were hotly debated, they repealed Common Core. Edmond employees came in at the end of the summer last year to rewrite their curriculum again.

“The cost for me in time and training was phenomenally huge,” says Tara Fair, Edmond’s associate superintendent. “That’s one of the things that made me really sick when we went back to the old standards.”

Five years into the biggest transformation of U.S. public education in recent history, Common Core is far from common. Though 45 states initially adopted the shared academic standards in English and math, seven have since repealed or amended them. Among the remaining 38, big disparities remain in what and how students are taught, the materials and technology they use, the preparation of teachers and the tests they are given. A dozen more states are considering revising or abandoning Common Core.

One reason is that Common Core became a hypercharged political issue, with grass-roots movements pressing elected leaders to back off. Some conservatives saw the shared standards as a federal intrusion into state matters, in part because the Obama administration provided grant funding. Some liberals and conservatives decried what they saw as excessive testing and convoluted teaching materials. The standards are a hot topic in the Republican presidential race. Last month, Barack Obama recommended limiting the amount of class time students spend on testing, saying excessive testing “takes the joy out of teaching and learning.”

 

Money trouble

But politics isn’t the only reason for the turmoil. Many school districts discovered they didn’t have enough money to do all they needed to do. Some also found that meeting deadlines to implement the standards was nearly impossible.

The total cost of implementing Common Core is difficult to determine because the country’s education spending is fragmented among thousands of districts. The Wall Street Journal looked at spending by states and large school districts and found that more than $7 billion had been spent or committed in connection with the new standards. To come up with that number, the Journal examined contracts, email and other data provided under public-records requests by nearly 70 state education departments and school districts.

The analysis didn’t account for what would have been spent anyway—even without Common Core—on testing, instructional materials, technology and training. Education officials say, however, that the new standards required more training and teaching materials than they would otherwise have needed, and that Common Core prompted them to speed up computer purchases and network upgrades.

Much more money would be needed to implement Common Core consistently. Some teachers haven’t been trained, and some schools lack resources to buy materials. Some states haven’t met the goal of offering the test to all students online instead of on paper with No. 2 pencils.

Academic standards are statements of what students are expected to know and do at specific grade levels. In the past, those standards differed from state to state. Students in one state, for example, might have been expected to memorize and identify an algebraic formula, and in another to use algebra to solve a real-world problem.

Common Core advocates hoped to make standards uniform—and to raise them across the board. Their goals were to afford students a comparable education no matter where they were, to cultivate critical thinking rather than memorization, to better prepare students for college and careers, and to enable educators to use uniform year-end tests to compare achievement. They wanted to give the tests on computers to allow more complex questions and to better analyze results.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which signed on to the effort in 2008, so believed in the cause that it has spent $263 million on advocacy, research, testing and implementing the standards, foundation records show. Vicki Phillips, a Gates education director, says its Common Core-related funding of new curriculum tools developed by teachers has led to student gains in places such as Kentucky.

But after a burst of momentum and a significant investment of money and time, the movement for commonality is in disarray.

Some states, including South Carolina, Indiana and Florida, have either amended or replaced Common Core standards. Others, including Tennessee,  Missouri, Louisiana,New Jersey and North Carolina, are in the process of changing or reviewing them. A total of 21 states have withdrawn from two groups formed to develop common tests, making it difficult to compare results.

The issue has become so politicized that some backers have stopped using the name.

“Common Core is a phrase that—we don’t use it anymore,” says John Engler, the former Republican governor of Michigan who leads the Business Roundtable, an association of corporate chief executives that believes the changes will make U.S. students more competitive globally. Mr. Engler says they now refer to them just as “higher standards.”

Some advocates say that, despite the troubles, the effort will make a difference.

“It certainly won’t have been pretty, or kind of even in its implementation,” says Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, an association of urban districts. “But I think that this decade will ultimately result in higher expectations and academic standards that are better than what they were before.”

For some urban districts struggling to pay for basic educational needs, preparing for the standards has been challenging.

The Philadelphia school district unveiled a plan in 2010 to implement Common Core and won a $500,000 grant from the Gates Foundation. But a budget crisis the next year resulted in nearly 4,000 layoffs, including of some putting the plan in place.

“It was something of a perfect storm, where expectations were rising while resources were diminishing,” says Christopher Shaffer, Philadelphia’s deputy chief of curriculum, instruction and assessment.

Some grant money was spent on summer training that wasn’t well attended. “The teachers were all on vacation,” says Anh Brown, then a district curriculum official.

Ms. Brown says district leaders sent the new standards to school principals without sufficient guidance. Teachers were struggling with the new standards when she arrived at the George W. Nebinger elementary school as principal and began to train them.

Since then, the district has created a teachers’ guide for integrating the standards into lesson plans. Administrators conduct weekly training sessions. But budget problems have meant little has been spent on buying new instructional materials, officials say.

Preparing teachers to implement the standards can be costly. New Mexico spent $5.2 million training about 11,600 educators—about half of the state’s total, officials say.

Some states turned to grants from the $4.3 billion federal educational-reform program called Race to the Top to help fund a move to the standards.

But now most of that money is spent, leaving school districts to shoulder the continuing costs.

Tennessee won a Race to the Top grant, in part because of its plan to use Common Core, and spent $18 million of the grant training teachers. Then, besieged by complaints from parents and other Common Core opponents, the governor and state lawmakers agreed to replace the standards with a more state-specific version in 2017.

State officials say their training wasn’t wasted on the 60,000 teachers who learned valuable methods.

An early priority of Common Core supporters was persuading states to use the same tests so student achievement could be better compared. But high costs have set back that goal as well.

Back in 2010, state officials held a conference call to discuss banding together to create exams. “Everyone had a clear desire to be able to compare student achievement results across a maximum number of states, ideally all fifty,” wrote Michael Cohen, president of education-policy group Achieve, in an email after the conversation.

That goal seemed within reach when 46 states joined two groups. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium were awarded a total of $362 million in federal funding to develop tests.

Many states quit before the tests were ready to be used last school year, with some deciding to give tests specific to their states. PARCC now has only seven states and the District of Columbia using its test, and Smarter Balanced has 15.

For some states, shared tests saved money. Others dropped out after discovering their previous tests were less expensive.

Georgia, for example, quit PARCC after learning English and math testing would run up to $35 a student, or up to $40 million a year. “That just would have been significantly higher than anything we have ever paid,” says Melissa Fincher, a deputy state superintendent.

PARCC’s costs have fallen, but Georgia pays less with another vendor—$23.1 million this year for testing in English, math, science and social studies.

South Carolina, where schools reported spending $46 million to implement Common Core, gave a test based on those standards in the spring but has since moved to new standards and a new test.

The Missouri Legislature forced the state to drop out of Smarter Balanced by cutting $4.2 million from last year’s $27 million testing budget.

Computer challenge

For many urban and rural districts, enabling students to take the test on a computer—a goal of advocates—proved another hurdle.

Some districts needed more equipment and better Internet connections. Some big states, including New York and Pennsylvania, have given tests almost exclusively on paper because of technology shortcomings.

California has allocated $4.8 billion to local school districts that they can use for Common Core implementation, but some have asked a state commission to order more funding for giving the Smarter Balanced test.

One of those districts was the Plumas County district in the northern Sierra Nevada, where 2,000 students attend schools spread out over 80 miles and high-speed Internet service is only now making its way through the peaks and valleys.

Officials figured they needed $1.6 million to make the technology improvements needed to give the test properly. With decaying buildings and a strapped budget, the school board decided not to borrow.

This spring, students took the test on the few computers that weren’t outdated. In May, for example, 20 students at Chester Elementary School—half of one class—crowded into a makeshift computer lab strung with extension cords. A server and a stack of computers sat in the corner, with a box fan cooling them.

“We have 127 kids being tested on 20 computers,” said the principal, Sally McGowan.

In states that have reversed course on Common Core, it has been a time of upheaval.

Oklahoma spent up to $2 million preparing for the new standards, including recruiting teachers to train other teachers, says Janet Barresi, the former state education chief who also served on the executive committee of PARCC. But after state officials learned the cost of the exam, they dropped it.

“We couldn’t afford it, and we didn’t have the technology infrastructure to support it,” Ms. Barresi says.

In May of last year, Oklahoma lawmakers voted to repeal Common Core and return to the standards known as PASS. Gov. Mary Fallin signed the bill shortly before Ms. Barresi lost a Republican primary in which she was criticized for supporting Common Core. Joy Hofmeister, who defeated her and is now superintendent, says the PASS standards had been certified as adequate by a state panel, but better ones are being developed.

In some Oklahoma schools, vestiges of Common Core’s brief life remain.

At the Edmond district’s West Field Elementary School, Principal Lisa Crosslin keeps a cabinet of books hidden away. One is “Vocabulary for the Common Core.” Others are “Pathways to the Common Core,” and “Using Common Core Standards to Enhance Classroom Instruction & Assessment.”

Teachers who still find Common Core methods useful sometimes take them out and peruse them. Then they put them back.

Ms. Crosslin says parents don’t like to see those books out anymore.

—Mark Maremont and Andrea Fuller contributed to this article.

 

Common Core  Business gets Schooled   By Peter Elkind

Photograph by Sam Kaplan for Fortune; Styling by Brian Byrne

When Exxon Mobil, GE, Intel, and others pushed for the education standards, they incurred the wrath of Tea Party conservatives and got a painful lesson in modern politics.

In February 2014, two of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates and Charles Koch, dined together at a West Coast restaurant.

They made quite the odd couple: the Seattle Microsoft  MSFT 0.31%  co-founder, now devoting his time and fortune to changing the world, and the Kansas industrialist, still running his private conglomerate while working to shrink government to the size of a pea.

The two discussed many subjects and even touched, diplomatically, on topics they disagree about, such as climate change. There was a second sensitive subject that Gates broached, and it didn’t come up by chance. His team at the Gates Foundation had engaged in a process it calls a “faction analysis” and identified Koch as a key opponent on a crucial issue. Gates had a mission that night: He wanted to persuade Koch to change his mind about Common Core.

The two men were bankrolling opposite sides in a raging war over the future of American education. Through his charitable foundation, Gates has spent more than $220 million on the Common Core education standards, aimed at boosting the dismal performance of American children. Starting in 2010, 45 states adopted the benchmarks—which spell out what kids from kindergarten through high school should learn in reading and math—with little controversy. But a backlash ensued, and by early 2014 the standards were under fierce political attack, facing repeal in many states. Koch and his brother David were sponsoring several Tea Party–aligned groups that were fueling the rebellion.

The ABCs of Common Core

• Replacing a hodgepodge of separate guidelines in 50 states, Common Core aims to provide a rigorous, more focused nationwide blueprint for what students should know at each grade in math and English language arts.
• It seeks to improve the U.S.’s poor educational performance relative to other countries’, making graduates “college- and career-ready” and assuring the nation’s economic competitiveness.
• It’s paired with new standardized tests to measure progress in meeting the new standards and to allow comparisons among states.
• Though developed without government funds, Common Core received a boost from Race To The Top, a competition for federal education grants, prompting unexpectedly rapid adoption.

 

Now Gates tried to convince his dinner companion that opposing Common Core was bad both for Koch Industries, which employs 60,000 Americans, and the rest of U.S. business. “Bill talked to Koch to understand what his concerns were and to explain what he thought was the potential and the promise for the Common Core,” says Allan Golston, president of the U.S. program for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “When someone doesn’t believe in what you’re doing, it’s important to engage with them.”

But Koch wasn’t willing to engage with Gates on the issue. Instead, like a senator politely brushing off a constituent, he gave Gates the name of one of his staffers who focuses on the subject and suggested Gates call the staffer. The Microsoft billionaire left empty-handed. (Both men declined to discuss their dinner.)

This extraordinary tête-à-tête is just one example of how the war over Common Core has personally engaged—and bedeviled—some of America’s most powerful business leaders. Hugely controversial, it has thrust executives into the uncomfortable intersection of business and politics.

In truth, Common Core might not exist without the corporate community. The nation’s business establishment has been clamoring for more rigorous education standards—ones that would apply across the entire nation—for years. It views them as desperately needed to prepare America’s future workforce and to bolster its global competitiveness. One measure of the deep involvement of corporate leaders: The Common Core standards were drafted by determining the skills that businesses (and colleges) need and then working backward to decide what students should learn.

Organizations such as the Business Roundtable have devoted considerable effort to the initiative. The education chair for that association of CEOs, Exxon Mobil  XOM -2.02%  chief Rex Tillerson, has played a particularly prominent role. A stern, commanding figure with an Old Testament glare and a chewy Texas drawl, Tillerson is an unlikely person to lead a campaign of persuasion. (Never a fan of the press, he declined to speak to Fortune for this article.)

Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, has led the Business Roundtable’s advocacy for common core. The staunch Republican has found himself accused of promoting big government.Photo: Susana Vera— Reuters

But Tillerson has taken on the challenge with trademark intensity. He has pressed other CEOs to join the cause, spread the word by appearing at education summits, underwritten TV advertisements, and personally called legislators in multiple states to press for their support. His company went so far as to cut off campaign contributions to some politicians—even those who support the oil and gas industry—who spurned Tillerson’s entreaties on Common Core.

Other companies have been much more timid or have retreated in the face of the controversy. For example, General Electric  GE -1.55% —once among Common Core’s biggest supporters—has fled the fight after becoming a Tea Party target. “There’s a somewhat unwritten rule that if you’re a CEO, you only get your business involved in an issue that rewards your company in some fashion,” says former Intel chief Craig Barrett. Education reform is “such a hot topic,” especially as Common Core made it “more of a tar baby,” that “it’s sometimes difficult to get people enthusiastic,” he adds. “A lot of people just sit on the sidelines.” Adds Barrett, with exasperation: “It’s turned into a political food fight instead of an education discussion … The hope is that rational minds will prevail.”

This is a story about the role Big Business has played in the war over Common Core: how a handful of executives helped turn a decades-old ambition for education reform into reality, their fumbling bewilderment at finding themselves assailed by opposition they didn’t expect or understand, and how they’ve regrouped and rallied to defend what they wrought. It’s a high-stakes conflict that has generated breathtaking political flip-flops (see “The Flip-floppers and the Wafflers”) and upended traditional alliances, turning natural bedfellows into bitter enemies. It has seen some of the nation’s foremost capitalists accused of promoting an “immoral,” “freedom-robbing,” “socialist agenda,” aimed at turning America’s children into “mindless drones for the corporate salt mines.”

Along the way it has reinforced the depth of a growing divide that once would have seemed inconceivable: the gap between America’s most ardent conservatives and Big Business, which the former increasingly view as part of an undifferentiated “establishment” and hence nearly as odious as government. For now, Common Core has established itself in the vast majority of states and seems to be taking root. But the conflict over this issue shares many traits with the crusades over Obamacare, and one of them is this: Its most fervent opponents show not the slightest sign of relenting.

Protesters outside a State Board of Education meeting in Irvine, Calif. in 2014.Photo: Anna Reed—The Orange County Register/Zumapress.com

For decades, CEOs have bemoaned the state of U.S. education—with justification. American 15-year-olds ranked 27th out of 34 industrialized countries in math, and 17th in reading in the most recent international tests. Colleges complain that significant percentages of their entering freshmen require a remedial course. Businesses say they can’t find enough skilled U.S. workers.

But the executive mind-set on the issue—favoring consistency, efficiency, and accountability—has clashed with the American tradition of local control. “Why on earth can’t we insist on universal standards at least for 9-year-olds?” asked Alcoa  AA -2.42%  CEO Paul O’Neill at a 1996 education summit convened by then-IBM  IBM -0.93%  CEO Lou Gerstner and attended by business leaders and 43 governors. “Can’t a 9-year-old multiply by nine and get the same answer in all 50 states?”

To CEOs, the issue has always been a no-brainer. In an increasingly global economy, what sense does it make for America to have 50 different sets of education standards? Gerstner helped establish a nonprofit called Achieve Inc. in 1996 to promote education reform. With a board filled with governors and CEOs, the group served, over the next two decades, as a sort of lab for the national standards movement.

The modern era of U.S. education reform actually dates back to 1983, when a commission convened under Ronald Reagan produced a landmark report titled A Nation at Risk. “A rising tide of mediocrity,” it warned, “threatens our very future.” In response, William Bennett, Reagan’s education secretary, promoted mastery of a “common core of worthwhile knowledge, important skills, and sound ideas.” (Bennett went so far as to design a full K-12 curriculum.)

Conservatives cheered. But the idea was strictly voluntary—“It remains a matter best left for final decision to state, local, and private authorities,” Bennett noted—and it didn’t get far.

Uncle Sam’s role in education is an exquisitely sensitive issue: Federal law bars the government from dictating education standards or classroom curriculums. And state and local officials—who provide about 90% of public education funding—prize their control.

Reform efforts have needed to dance around that by seeking to persuade 50 states to embrace change voluntarily. “You really can’t work this issue on a national level,” says Gerstner. “You’ve got to work it state by state, city by city. It’s messy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t yield completely to reason, which businesspeople like.”

Every president since Reagan has flailed at this issue. George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton convened special education panels and launched commissions in unsuccessful attempts to establish voluntary national standards. Finally, the Clinton administration was able to pass a watered-down initiative that required states to adopt standards and tests—but left them entirely up to individual states.

Most established tragically low expectations. President George W. Bush’s 2002 education reform, “No Child Left Behind,” only worsened this problem. It set the impossible requirement that 100% of students be “proficient” in reading and math by 2014, and punished schools that weren’t making adequate progress.

Photo: Nelson Ching—Bloomberg via Getty Images

To bring themselves closer to 100%, many states simply lowered the score needed to pass their tests. The result: In 2007, Mississippi judged 90% of its fourth graders “proficient” on the state’s reading test, yet only 19% measured up on a standardized national exam given every two years. In Georgia, 82% of eighth-graders met the state’s minimums in math, while just 25% passed the national test. A yawning “honesty gap,” as it came to be known, prevailed in most states.

Finally, in April 2009, organizations representing state governors and education chiefs agreed to develop a single set of rigorous standards: the Common Core State Standards Initiative. The ambition was to make all children “college- and career-ready,” with the same expectations in Mississippi as in Massachusetts. The standards would spell out what students should learn at each grade level, without dictating curriculum or how it would be taught. They would be accompanied by tough new standardized tests to measure progress in meeting the benchmarks. The tests were the hammer to drive improvement and provide accountability. The goal was universal acceptance. This would allow comparisons among states, help the children who move annually to a new state stay on track, and permit sharing of education ideas, textbooks, and teaching materials.

Promoters of the Common Core took three big steps to smooth adoption. First, they developed standards for only English language arts and math, avoiding the ideological land mines in teaching history and science, such as slavery, evolution, and global warming.

Second, they enlisted Bill Gates, whose foundation had already sunk hundreds of millions into other education initiatives. The Gates Foundation would help bankroll virtually every aspect of Common Core’s development, promotion, and implementation. “This is like having a common electrical system,” Gates told the Wall Street Journal in 2011. “It just makes sense to me.” His spending would be critical—but it would later feed a view among some that one rich man shouldn’t have so much say over a national policy.

In the short term, though, Gates’ millions helped make possible the third (and most important) step: writing the new standards without a penny from Uncle Sam. “State-led initiative” became advocates’ mantra for describing Common Core. “It had been crafted as a local-control issue, and we wanted to keep it that way,” says former Intel  INTC -1.04%  CEO Barrett. “All the groundwork had been done very carefully.”

When it came time to draft the provisions, career readiness was a central focus. The writers spent their first two months learning what colleges and businesses wanted high school graduates to know by the time they arrived on their doorstep. From there, the writers “back mapped,” crafting grade-by-grade benchmarks to get them there. The resulting standards were then reviewed by teachers’ unions, state education officials, academic groups, feedback panels, and independent validation committees. Two drafts were published online, generating 10,000 public comments and prompting further revisions.

 

Like the CEOs, federal education officials always knew this was treacherous terrain. “There was definitely discussion about whether the feds should get involved because of the potential for political backlash,” says Joanne Weiss, a former top deputy in the U.S. Department of Education under Obama. Now a consultant, Weiss acknowledges that the administration walked a tightrope. “The department tried to get involved in a way that just handed money back to the states, that let them do their own thing. We wanted to be both supportive and arm’s length—admittedly a hard balancing act.” Common Core’s architects also worked to avoid any federal taint.

For a time, it all worked according to plan—in fact, far better than anyone had imagined. The new standards rolled out to general praise from educators and endorsements from business groups. The most detailed appraisal (funded with $959,116 in Gates Foundation money) was conducted by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning Washington think tank. Its 370-page analysis found the Core standards “clearly superior” to those in place in “the vast majority of states.”

Forty-five states, more than half of them led by Republican governors, adopted Common Core by the end of 2011—remarkably short order. The only holdouts were Virginia, Alaska, Texas, and Nebraska; Minnesota took up the standards, but only for English.

The Obama administration tried to tiptoe. It didn’t attempt to mandate implementation, but it strongly encouraged it. The administration accelerated the process by launching Race to the Top, a competition among the states for $4.35 billion in federal grants. Applicants received 70 points (out of a possible 500) for approving “enhanced standards and high-quality assessments” (most obviously Common Core) by August 2010. In the midst of a deep recession, the cash promoted a quick embrace. The federal Education Department also provided $350 million in grants to two consortia set up by the states to develop the new Common Core tests.

In the 45 states, adoption of the standards, which typically required just a public meeting and approval by the state education board, stirred little notice. “Zero,” recalls Tony Bennett, the elected superintendent of public instruction in Indiana when the state signed on. “No controversy. No criticism.”

Victory in hand, Common Core advocates turned their energies toward the task of implementation. They didn’t foresee that a deep well of opposition was about to erupt. “In a sense the early days almost went too easy for us,” Gates would later say. “Everything seemed to be on track … We didn’t realize the issue would be confounded.”

 

The “confounders” would turn out to be just the sort of people who today cause fits for billionaires and CEOs used to exercising power through traditional channels: passionate regular folks linked to activist networks with a firm grasp on how to maximize the power of the Internet and social media. Gayle Ruzicka, who volunteers as Utah state president for Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, had long been battling to preserve local control of schools. Indeed, Ruzicka takes “local control” far beyond where most parents would: She homeschooled all 12 of her children. Ruzicka was deeply concerned by what, in late 2010, she began to hear about Common Core. To her it sounded like, as she puts it, “a backdoor way in to national standards.”

States had adopted Common Core, Ruzicka says, “before parents even knew what happened.” In retrospect, approving an education transformation without building parental support would turn out to be a huge mistake. It meant that the opposition would mass and organize before many potential allies of the standards even realized they needed to be defended. Ruzicka began gearing up to fight it. She coined a phrase that crystallized her view of the problem with devastating rhetorical force: “Obamacore.”

Photo: Alex Wong—Getty Images

Ruzicka wasn’t alone. In the fall of 2011, an Indiana mom named Heather Crossin became alarmed about changes in how her 8-year-old daughter was being taught math. Her third-grade homework didn’t ask her just to solve three times nine—it demanded that she explain the reasoning behind her answer. Crossin was at a loss to help. The principal at her child’s school blamed the changes on Common Core.

Crossin, who once served as a legislative assistant to Republican Rep. Dan Burton, began organizing Hoosiers Against Common Core. She approached local Tea Party groups and welcomed the help of national organizations opposed to the standards, including the American Principles Project, where a man named Emmett McGroarty served as education director and as a key figure in the fight. They fed Crossin’s group anti–Common Core “white papers,” set up its website, helped plot strategy and write leaflets, and even flew in for local rallies and media interviews.

The grass-roots moms’ rebellion, fanned through social media and the Tea Party network, quickly gained momentum in multiple states. Says Business Roundtable vice president Dane Linn, then education policy chief for the National Governors Association: “We heard the rumblings in the states. It was like prairie fire after prairie fire.”

One of the first shocks for supporters of Common Core came in Indiana. There opponents targeted superintendent Bennett, a conservative Republican whose advocacy of school vouchers, charter schools, tough teacher evaluations, and Common Core had made him a darling of national reformers. In November 2012, Bennett was defeated in a reelection bid by a massively outspent Democratic opponent, a former teacher who had voiced skepticism about the standards. In the same election, Tea Party Republican Mike Pence succeeded Mitch Daniels, the term-limited GOP governor who had backed the standards. A few months later, Indiana delayed its implementation of Common Core.

Photograph by Sam Kaplan for Fortune

Tea Party groups soon made Common Core a national rallying cry. In 2013, Glenn Beck took up the cause, declaring it “Communism—we are dealing with evil.” That April the Republican National Committee passed a resolution condemning Common Core as an “inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children so they will conform to a preconceived ‘normal.’ ”

In the hands of opponents, the “state-led” plan, commissioned and adopted voluntarily by nearly all the nation’s governors and school chiefs, was recast as a “national takeover of schooling” developed “behind closed doors” by “private trade groups” and, of course, Barack Obama. Indeed, the president’s perceived imprimatur was the chief cause of opposition, in the view of some supporters. “If we had a Republican president, I don’t think we would have had this backlash,” says Cheryl Oldham, a former George W. Bush administration official who is now vice president of education policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “It was because it was viewed to have been something that was Obama-led and -driven and forced on everyone. That just fueled a lot of the pushback.”

Critics claimed that Obama’s Race to the Top funding had “forced” states to adopt Common Core. In fact, the federal government has a long history of granting states money to write standards. And the agreement that governors signed to develop Common Core explicitly welcomed Uncle Sam’s cash, acknowledging an “appropriate federal role in supporting this state-led effort” with incentives. Obama would give critics further ammunition by repeatedly praising the higher standards, even as he took pains to note that they’d been developed “not by Washington.”

To be sure, there were legitimate questions: Was the implementation schedule too rushed for such a massive classroom change? Were the standards too tough—or not rigorous enough? Some people were suspicious of business’s support of the standards, charging that they were aimed at turning out corporate “drones” and “minimally educated worker bees.” Did the English benchmarks emphasize analysis of “informational texts” too much, at the expense of literature? Would it all be too costly? Some questioned the premise that smarter standards would boost learning at all.

 

Teachers’ union leaders—who had endorsed Common Core at the outset—complained bitterly about its rollout, especially objecting to the immediate use of new standardized tests in their performance evaluations. This criticism of “high-stakes testing” would later bring Common Core under assault from both ends of the political spectrum.

But it wasn’t wonky details that threatened to unravel the initiative. It was the most extreme claims, which spread like wildfire. Schlafly called Common Core an Obama scheme—in collaboration with book publishers and Gates—to “dumb down” schoolchildren, “indoctrinate them to accept the left-wing view of America,” engage in “active promotion of gay marriage,” and “dismantle moral society.” Bloggers warned that Common Core would allow the federal government to engage in wholesale data collection on schoolchildren—including iris scans—then sell the information “to the highest bidders.” Parents charged that Common Core forced 10th-graders to read pornography out loud in class and required graphic sex-ed instruction. One Florida legislator asserted that the state’s Common Core testing will “attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can.” Never mind that none of those assertions were true.

Common Core was becoming politically radioactive for Republicans. “All of a sudden in 2013, you saw these Common Core repeal bills getting introduced all over the place,” says Fordham Institute president Mike Petrilli. “Those of us for it were caught pretty flat-footed. We realized this thing was at risk.” If somebody didn’t fight back, it appeared, Common Core might go down in flames.

 

“It is utterly distressing to me to sit and watch these political debates around a subject that is so vitally important to our children, to the future of our country, and competitively,” fumed the silver-haired man in the dark suit and gold tie, waving his arms in exasperation. “And I’m going to tell you, I’m extraordinarily disappointed in my home state. I’ve spent many hours on the telephone during the last legislative session. To no avail. Could not make a dent. So the political forces around this are powerful. But they have to be taken on.”

It was a strange thing indeed to hear Rex Tillerson, CEO of Texas-based Exxon Mobil, bemoaning his impotence at a 2014 panel discussion in Washington, D.C.  But such is the frustration of serving on the frontline in this war. Like other CEOs engaged in education reform, Tillerson sees high national standards as a “business imperative.” Companies simply can’t find enough skilled American workers.

But Tillerson articulates his view in a fashion unlikely to resonate with the average parent. “I’m not sure public schools understand that we’re their customer—that we, the business community, are your customer,” said Tillerson during the panel discussion. “What they don’t understand is they are producing a product at the end of that high school graduation.”

 

The Exxon CEO didn’t hesitate to extend his analogy. “Now is that product in a form that we, the customer, can use it? Or is it defective, and we’re not interested?” American schools, Tillerson declared, “have got to step up the performance level—or they’re basically turning out defective products that have no future. Unfortunately, the defective products are human beings. So it’s really serious. It’s tragic. But that’s where we find ourselves today.”

Exxon Mobil’s philanthropy has long been focused on math and science education. Tillerson himself became deeply engaged in the Common Core fight in early 2012, when he became chairman of the education and workforce committee for the Business Roundtable, the powerful Washington, D.C., and trade group for 202 big-company CEOs.

But while opponents like Ruzicka and Crossin harnessed the power of the web, Tillerson’s team turned to an older, more genteel form of media—the kind that is better at reaching silver-haired CEOs than, say, blogger moms. In April 2012, Exxon Mobil ran an advertisement during the CBS telecast of the Masters golf tournament. Common Core is “unlocking a better way to prepare our children for college and careers,” the ad argued. The tagline: “Join Exxon Mobil in supporting the Common Core State Standards Initiative.”

It’s hard to say whether the Exxon ad had any impact when it first appeared. But by the time it aired again a year later, it generated a reaction—a deeply hostile one. Glenn Beck responded with a 12-minute polemic, and emails—99% critical, according to ExxonMobil Foundation executive director Pat McCarthy—cascaded in. “Big Businesses Whore for Common Core,” headlined one blog post discussing the ads. Critics began urging a company boycott. Wrote one: “Cut the gas cards up … this is disgusting.”

Even the government expressed frustration. In May 2013, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan scolded executives at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event for failing to do more to defend Common Core: “I don’t understand why the business community is so passive when these kinds of things happen.”

Many companies stayed on the sidelines. Worse, one staunch supporter—GE (see below)—abandoned the fight.

 

As the threat grew during 2013, Common Core’s supporters struggled with how to fight back. “Our responses initially were fact-based,” says Achieve’s president, Mike Cohen. “But the opposition’s appeals were more emotional than that. It turned out facts didn’t often matter.”

Everyone wanted to coordinate strategy; supporters considered a national advocacy campaign, including TV ads. But advocates didn’t want to reinforce the very notion they were trying to combat. “Having someone from Washington explain that there’s not really a conspiracy here doesn’t really put the fire out,” notes Cohen.

Grass-roots rage had made Common Core a potent issue. Many Republican officials who had backed the standards were now flip-flopping. Presidential aspirants performed some of the most remarkable acrobatics. In Oklahoma in 2013, Common Core supporters enlisted Mike Huckabee, the former governor of next-door Arkansas, to fight a growing repeal movement. Huckabee wrote a two-page letter urging lawmakers to stay the course: “I’ve heard the argument these standards ‘threaten local control’ of what’s being taught in Oklahoma classrooms. Speaking from one conservative to another, let me assure you this simply is not true.” Huckabee called the Common Core standards “near and dear to my heart … something to embrace.”

Less than two years later, after announcing plans to seek the Republican presidential nomination, Huckabee had a different view. “We must kill Common Core and restore common sense,” he declared on his campaign website. Huckabee was hardly alone in reversing his position.

Conservative politicians cast Common Core as a looming threat to liberty. Even in Texas, which never adopted the standards, the state legislature—in the name of defending local control of education—passed a law in June 2013 making it illegal for any school district to use the Common Core standards. In his successful run for governor, Greg Abbott vowed to “crush” Common Core.

At the Business Roundtable, Tillerson importuned his fellow CEOs at every meeting to “be visible in their support” and “pick up the phone and call key state leaders to voice their support for staying the course,” according to Linn, who became the group’s education specialist around that time. The Exxon CEO urged them to wield their lobbying and economic clout, especially in states where they operated major facilities with lots of jobs. Tillerson was so persistent that he annoyed some of his CEO peers.

Some companies—such as Intel and Cisco  CSCO -2.48% —promoted the standards. But the response from others fell short. The Exxon Mobil CEO simply couldn’t move his peers amid the political heat.

Tillerson didn’t hesitate to flex his own muscle. In May 2013, after Pennsylvania delayed implementation, he fired off a letter reminding the governor and others that his company had “significant operations” there. Common Core, he advised them, was necessary to give Exxon Mobil “the confidence that the education standards we require for employment will be met by your state’s graduates.” An education blogger quickly branded this a “Mafia-style letter,” and suggested Pennsylvania’s governor “may soon wake to a horse’s head laying in his bed, which will smell vaguely of gasoline.”

Five months later, Tillerson was even less subtle, warning lawmakers contemplating repeal that Exxon Mobil might not hire anyone from states that don’t have Common Core. “If I can’t find the workforce in the state that I’m in, I will go to the next state and find that workforce,” he told NBC’s Tom Brokaw in an interview on stage at an education conference. “And I’m going to look in states that are using the Common Core State Standards because I have a high degree of confidence in the kids that graduate under that system.”

The persistent advocacy from Exxon’s gruff CEO, a staunch Republican and blunt critic of federal regulation, drew some particularly improbable attacks. Tom Borelli, then a leader of Tea Party group FreedomWorks, called Tillerson’s support “another example of the Big Business establishment joining ranks with big government to expand centralized control of our lives.”

Fourth grade students discuss fraction problems at Piney Branch Elementary School in Takoma Park, Md. in 2013.Photo: Linda Davidson—The Washington Post via Getty Images

By early 2014, the tide seemed to be turning against Common Core. Indiana became the first state to drop out entirely. South Carolina soon followed. Over the next year state lawmakers would introduce more than 100 bills to limit or halt implementation and 40 to drop Common Core altogether, according to a tally by the National Conference of State Legislators.

Oklahoma would become the site of the most dramatic reversal for Common Core to date. Mary Fallin had won election as the state’s first woman governor as a strong supporter of Common Core. She vigorously defended the standards in a January 2014 speech to the National Governors Association.

That spring the Oklahoma legislature overwhelmingly passed a bill that didn’t just scrap Common Core. It dictated that the state eventually implement new benchmarks—subject to a 10-point comparison to make sure they didn’t even resemble Common Core.

Fallin had not indicated whether she would sign the legislation, and activists descended en masse to persuade her. One group of opponents besieged the Capitol wearing green T-shirts reading common core is not ok. National organizations swamped Fallin’s office with thousands of calls urging her to sign the repeal. School administrators and teachers, meanwhile, warned of educational chaos; they had already prepared classroom plans for the fall aligned to Common Core. Business groups urged a veto. Tillerson, in Oklahoma City to deliver a speech at an energy conference, urged Oklahoma not to retreat from its “prior commitment” to “high and meaningful standards.”

In the end, Fallin sided with Common Core’s opponents. On June 5, 2014, she signed the new legislation, citing the “widespread concerns” that Common Core “gives up local control of Oklahoma’s public schools”—the very concerns she’d previously dismissed.

It was about this time that Tillerson’s company adopted a new policy for its corporate political action committee. ExxonMobil PAC would make no more donations to elected officials actively opposed to Common Core, even those who typically back the company’s principal business interests.

Among the first to be affected: Oklahoma Gov. Fallin. Her campaign committee had received a combined $6,000 in annual donations from ExxonMobil PAC in 2011, 2012, and 2013. In 2014, as she campaigned for reelection, ExxonMobil PAC gave her nothing.

 

Even before the defeat in Oklahoma, Common Core’s supporters had begun to recognize that they had to step up their defense—and do so in a more localized way. The real fight was occurring in individual states considering repeal. The proponents unrolled a “ground game,” helping launch state advocacy groups with full-time staff and websites, featuring testimonials from local teachers and business leaders supporting Common Core.

Recognizing the need for conservative political and PR savvy, Common Core backers turned to a new nonprofit they’d established, called the Collaborative for Student Success, to “ensure fact-based discussion.” (The group’s funding includes $27.9 million from the Gates Foundation, as well as grants from the ExxonMobil Foundation.) To run it, leaders of eight big foundations hired Karen Nussle, a former Newt Gingrich aide who had become a Washington PR and marketing operative. Nussle assumed the role of “conservative whisperer.” She established a rapid-response operation, to spin news about Common Core and respond fiercely to opponents’ charges.

She also retained William Bennett, one of the fathers of Common Core, as an advisor. In ads and media interviews aimed at calming the right, Bennett bashed the Obama administration for meddling (“That messed up everything,” he tells Fortune), but defended the standards as “still excellent” and a “conservative idea.” America, he told theManchester Union Leader, needed to adopt “real standards” across the country “so we can stop being the dumb asses of the industrial world.” Nussle says Bennett, now an author and radio talk-show host, makes an ideal advocate because he is “unassailable as a hard-core conservative.” (Still, assail him they have. The conservative blog RedState.com put it this way: “Bill Bennett paid to pimp for Common Core.”)

A few business leaders stepped up their efforts too. State Farm helped fund Biz4Readiness, a smartphone app developed by the Committee for Economic Development, as a sort of electronic cheat sheet for CEOs to use in promoting the standards. It included statistics, talking points, videos, and rebuttals to “common myths” about Common Core. In 2014 the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable bankrolled a two-month round of ads. They aired on Fox News rather than during a golf tournament.

A fourth-grader in San Pablo, Calif. explains his solution to a math problem for his classmates in 2013. Math teachers are changing the way they deliver lessons to students to adapt to new Common Core curriculum standards.Photo: Kristopher Skinner—TNS/Zumapress.com

The anger against Common Core remained fierce, with politicians facing intense pressure. And yet most state education officials and many teachers continued to view the substance of the standards as extremely valuable. In the face of these opposing positions, an almost-too-easy third way began to emerge.

Instead of dropping out, 27 states simply renamed their education standards. In most cases they tweaked some of the provisions while retaining the vast majority. In Florida, for example, the dreaded Common Core was dead! Long live … the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards!

This provided political cover for Republicans. For their part, supporters of Common Core concluded they had no need to fight such initiatives. (The advocates note that any serious standards will necessarily share many elements with Common Core. Says Rich McKeon, head of the education program at the Helmsley Charitable Trust, a philanthropy that has given millions to support the standards: “It’s hard to get rid of Common Core completely unless we don’t want kids to do a lot of math and writing and deep analytical thinking.”)

The moves lowered the temperature in the fight, and by 2015 the repeal forces seemed to be losing momentum. The battle of Arizona may have been the turning point. The state’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, took office in January 2015 after campaigning against Common Core. Tea Party–backed legislators promptly prepared a bill to dump the standards, which had been embraced under Ducey’s GOP predecessor, Jan Brewer.

Opponents took aim at both the standards and their supporters, including former Intel CEO Barrett. Once again the accusations were wild. A Republican, Barrett had retired to Arizona and served as an education adviser to Brewer. A group called Arizonans Against Common Core declared that Barrett “has UN ties!” and advised that “Common Core Science Standards”—actually, there are none, since Common Core doesn’t deal with science—“Teach Global Warming!” The repeal bill passed the Arizona house and went to the senate, where Republicans had a big majority.

This time, though, the business community had seemingly learned how to tangle with the organized opposition. The Arizona chamber of commerce—and Barrett—fought back hard. The chamber lobbied furiously, senator by senator, arguing that the state, which had been struggling for years to improve its poor-performing school system, needed the standards to attract jobs. They made the same case to Ducey, a former CEO of Cold Stone Creamery. Soon after, the governor publicly stated that getting rid of the Common Core standards wasn’t “necessary” after all. A week later, the Arizona senate voted 16–13 to preserve the standards.

 

The adversaries of Common Core have no intention of capitulating. In 16 states, it now faces various implementation “reviews.” The clock ran out in 2015 without any more states dropping out. But in 2016, legislative assaults will undoubtedly resume.

That said, Common Core has become a reality. Like Obamacare, it’s reviled in many quarters. Yet it’s increasingly impractical to undo. Countless schools have established curriculums designed around the standards, retrained teachers, and bought new books and materials. Reversing course would require redoing all of that again. Today, 42 states remain officially committed to the Common Core (under whatever name), while South Carolina, Indiana, and Alaska have standards of their own that experts say closely resemble Common Core. After decades of controversy and conflict, a single set of thoughtful, higher standards is shaping the education of most American schoolchildren. (Exxon Mobil is confident enough of the standards’ staying power that it has rescinded its policy of withholding campaign contributions to opponents of Common Core.)

It remains unclear how well this grand experiment will meet its ultimate goal: better preparing kids (and our country) for a challenging future. A key element of the Common Core effort—common standardized tests to allow honest assessments of progress—remains unfulfilled, swept back by a wave of parental concern about over-testing and teacher anxiety about being judged too harshly too soon. (Indeed, even the Gates Foundation—a staunch advocate of testing accountability—has urged a two-year moratorium on using new Common Core exams for teacher evaluations or student promotions, citing the need to give everyone time to adjust.)

Of 43 states initially enrolled in one of the two consortia established to develop new Common Core tests, only about half remain. Dropout states, which must use their own tests, have cited teacher and parent concerns, as well as unhappiness with the new exams and their cost. But for states unwilling to repeal the standards, abandoning the tests has also become a way to assert local control—and appease anger about the Common Core.

The first states started using the new tests this year, producing refreshingly honest—if predictably dismal—results on student proficiency. As education experts see it, it will take several years to assess how successfully the combination of standards and “aligned” tests can drive improvements in the classroom.

“We’re better off than we were before Common Core,” says veteran education scholar Chester Finn, a senior fellow with Stanford’s Hoover Institution. “We’ve got better standards. There’s less lying about the performance of kids and schools. There’s some better curriculum in place. If you were hoping for a 100% gain, today we’re probably looking at a 37% gain. But honestly it’s still early days. The aircraft carrier of an education system turns really slowly.”

GE’s Retreat

General Electric was a leading supporter of Common Core—until it began facing political pressure over the initiative.

Photograph by Sam Kaplan

Initially, no company supported the Common Core standards more enthusiastically than General Electric. In February 2012 the company’s charitable foundation announced an $18 million grant—“the largest corporate commitment to date for the Common Core,” its press release noted—to help states transition to the new standards. That August, GE gave another $7 million to Achieve Inc. to aid Common Core’s implementation.

GE, which has been active in education philanthropy for decades, didn’t just write checks. Led by foundation president Bob Corcoran, a 34-year GE veteran, it evangelized for Common Core. For three years the foundation convened an annual Business and Education Summit focused heavily on Common Core. The 2012 event was dedicated to developing a “unified business effort” backing the standards.

The foundation simultaneously held a separate weeklong conference for educators at the same location, dedicating most of the agenda to Common Core. GE Foundation education director Kelli Wells opened the 2011 event, according to a video posted by an attendee, by declaring, “We’re going to be focusing on the Common Core so much that you’re going to be eating and drinking and dreaming about the Common Core.”

The GE Foundation website asserted that “the future health of business depends on this historic initiative.” It urged executives to promote Common Core with state officials, give speeches, “engage the media,” and “keep pressure on school boards.” GE recruited 73 executives—including the CEOs of Alcoa, Boeing  BA -2.27% , and State Farm—to sign an open letter backing Common Core, which was published as a full-page ad in the New York Times in February 2013.

GE also urged companies to remain resolute in the face of the political storm that the reforms were sure to generate, noting, “The business community can be the spine of stability in a changing environment, helping others stay the course too.”

As it turned out, GE didn’t maintain its own “spine of stability.” In 2013 the Tea Party, which was already accusing GE of “crony capitalism” for backing the Export-Import Bank, began attacking the company on Common Core. That April, protesters from FreedomWorks, a Tea Party group, picketed GE’s annual shareholders meeting at the New Orleans Convention Center. They carried signs reading GE LEAVE EDUCATION ALONE! and GENERAL ELECTRIC STAY OUT OF MY CHILD’S EDUCATION.

In July 2013 the GE Foundation devoted a conference to Common Core for the last time. That October, Corcoran retired as head of the foundation, replaced by GE’s chief diversity officer, Deborah Elam. With that, GE would stop making new grants and advocating Common Core. Says the Business Roundtable’s Dane Linn: “They stopped funding anything Common Core related.”

Wells, who remains director of GE’s U.S. education philanthropy, insists the foundation “never took a stance on Common Core, in the sense of the yes-or-no piece of it.” She says GE merely gave money to help educators required to teach to the standards. “It wasn’t something where the foundation was saying it’s right or wrong,” says Wells. “Both sides had valid points and positions.” While denying any “retreat,” Wells acknowledged that the growing controversy made GE uncomfortable. “That was not something we wanted to be involved with.”

Corcoran says he left GE of his own accord. Unaware of the capitulation until Fortuneinformed him of it, he says the GE Foundation was “absolutely totally committed” to backing Common Core during his tenure, calling it “some of the best work the foundation has ever done.”

Adds Corcoran: “If GE has moved away from that investment, it saddens me. If Common Core dies because it’s been abandoned too early—moving on to new investments while others tear it apart—you won’t see an effort to increase the quality of education systemically in this country for 20 more years.”

A version of this article appears in the January 1, 2016 issue of Fortune.

 

PHILOSOPHY OF COACHING    Russell C. Smelley    Westmont College  (reviewed 7/31/15)

Professor of Kinesiology and Head Coach M/W Cross Country and Track & Field: Fall 1979 to present

Athletics is about competition and the relationships that result from a shared commitment to excellence. How a coach approaches these two factors is of the utmost importance and makes all the difference in the athletic experience of individuals. Athletics should be a transformational experience for an athlete that is guided by a coach who cares about the athlete’s personal development more than the transactional events of winning and losing. A coach is successful when he/she is able to influence the physical, emotional, social and spiritual development of students while producing excellent athletic results.

Athletics is not an end unto itself but an opportunity for training and developing character in the unfolding story of an individual’s life. Coaching should provide a transformative experience for young people by fostering the development of trust, confidence, self-respect and a positive self-image. Team members need to know they are cared about as an individual so that they can develop a sense of trust that allows them to take risks for improvement. A transformational coaching style is about relationships and should encourage, challenge and guide young people through an important transitional time in their lives. Competition is the vehicle of this pursuit. Relationships are the outcome of athletic endeavors.

Any student can participate on my teams regardless of previous experience or ability. Athletic competition offers every individual the opportunity to fulfill an innate human desire to learn whether one can be depended upon to perform to the best of one’s ability under pressure. In this context, winning is best defined and reflected in each team member learning how to train and compete to the best of his or her ability. When this occurs, the athletic goal of winning contests can be attained in a positive and affirming manner.  Winning is an anticipated outcome when every individual is committed to do their best.

It is crucial that I continually learn to put on the character of Christ in answer to his call to be a servant to others as a teacher and coach. Therefore, I am committed to mentoring each team member to encourage personal growth and an energetic faith in Christ. I believe that Athletics is an integral part of a liberal arts education as it adds breadth and depth to the academic curriculum and a student’s life. Athletic endeavors can provoke deep expressions of the soul that can reveal to young people their need for personal growth. My passion is to facilitate student growth through my coaching and personal care for the individual so they might be transformed by their athletic participation.

Excellence is encouraged in all aspects of an athlete’s life. An important character trait to engender for excellence is taking responsibility for personal choices and their outcomes.  They need to learn to be trustworthy to themselves and to others in a gracious manner. Athletics is meant to be a safe crucible of experiences for learning valuable life lessons through winning and losing. Athletics is a chosen form of adversity in the training and competition and this helps students learn to live with a sense of resilience and integrity that allows them to persevere and recover during the vicissitudes of life. Athletics teaches them to live in a disciplined manner and how to be patient for long term results.  This includes the perspective of how to relax and recover from the hard exertions of life through Sabbath.

The process of training and competing will help team members to gain insights into their character and provide a means for their personal growth. Through the athletic process, I guide team members toward becoming more cognizant of living transformational lives that are not defined by what they do in the transactional results of winning, losing, grades or personal prestige. Who they are becoming in Christ and the value they place on relationships are outgrowths of the athletic experience that reflects much more than winning and losing.  The process should reflect people who are grateful and exhibit a positive self-image full of character and living with integrity. In this outcome, God is glorified and Athletics has served its most subtle, yet noble purpose.

FAITH & VALUES

Are people better today than yesterday?

RABBI MARK S. MILLER  CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST

In terms of scientific achievement, technological progress, life expectancy, range of choices and material abundance, we are vastly superior to any previous society. But our ethical development, moral advancement and spiritual achievement have not kept pace.

We know more, but we are not wiser; we can do more, but we are not clear if we should; we are better off, but we are not better; we have more information, but we have less appreciation; we have conquered what is distant, but we have not mastered what is close at hand.

Human nature has not improved over the ages.

Surely, there is today at least as much greed, pride, betrayal, narcissism, aggression, disloyalty, prejudice, hypocrisy, hate, cowardice and apathy as ever before. We are hardly more forgiving, tolerant, compassionate and selfless than people of generations past.

Do we keep commitments better than our grandparents? Are we more trustworthy than our ancestors?

So many today choose pleasure over responsibility and personal benefit over the common good. Boundaries and limits disintegrate before the onslaught of relativism.

There are three conclusions that guide behavior: right, wrong and “everybody does it.” Surely, we are not more able than our forebears to resist temptation. There has been an astonishingly rapid eclipse of the very idea that there are shared moral norms. We emphasize feeling good over doing good. In a society of plenty, awash in physical splendor, there is an emptiness, a hollowness within. Many young people exhibit hopelessness.

Yes, there is a visible proliferation of houses of worship, but are they facades for many who make a pretense of piety? Yes, religiosity is more visible, but so much suffering and pain remain invisible to us, by our choice.

Is our spirituality mirrored in Mark Twain’s description of the Platte River? “A mile wide and an inch deep.”

People may more vocally espouse “religion,” but what of a commanding and demanding faith? And, though we have at our disposal ever more efficient means of communication, are we speaking from our hearts and telling the truth?

It is a wise commentator who observed: “We have learned to swim the oceans like fish, to fly in the sky like birds, to sail through space like satellites. Now, let us learn to walk the earth as human beings.”

If only we were as good as we think we are!

Mark S. Miller is rabbi emeritus at Temple Bat Yahm

in Newport Beach.