Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Synanon, Part 2

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Buy tickets to The Big Magical Cult Show in Vancouver, Canada on February 21, 2025! Time for Part 2! Father Craigo helps us wrap up 2024 with the rest of his brain-tangling life story in the cult that inspired this whole dang pod, Synanon. This week, he's answering unfiltered listener Qs, sharing the harrowing tale of Synanon's downfall, and leaving us all with some takeaways for how to stay culty but not too culty in 2025. We simply cannot WAIT for next year, when your shameless cult leader trio Amanda, Chelsea, and Reese return to cover a slew of long-awaited topics, including a certain cult-followed beauty retailer, a book series that's turned into a full-blown religion, a freakishly ritualistic education system, a "nonprofit" "performance troupe" run by a "new religious movement," and more! Thank you so much for tuning into another fanatical year, culties. See you in the next evolutionary level above human!!! Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on YouTube! Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod @amanda_montell @reesaronii @chelseaxcharles Thank you to our sponsors!  Go to squarespace.com/CULT to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Start earning points on rent you’re already paying by going to joinbilt.com/CULT Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V. when you go to LiquidIV.com and use code CULT at checkout. Visit BetterHelp.com/CULT today to get 10% off your first month.

Canadian culties, this message is for you. Huge culty announcement, you are invited to come join the Sounds Like a Cult Cult in person for a one-night-only live show at the Jesper Laughs Festival in Vancouver on Friday, February 21st at 7 p.m. The show is called the Big Magical Cult Show and it is so much fun. Not only does the show involve a deep dive analysis into the cult of parasocial relationships, not to be missed, but there are also drag and burlesque performances, hilarious special guests, custom culty merch and drinks, a meet and greet and some truly ridiculous surprises that honestly can't be explained. They just have to be experienced.

Tickets are available now, so head to soundslikeacult.com to purchase and make sure to snag one before they're sold out because this is going to be an intimate little gathering. The Big Magical Cult Show is coming to the Biltmore Cabaret in Vancouver, Canada for one night only on February 21st and we hope you join us. This episode was recorded at the Spotify Podcast Studios in downtown Los Angeles. If you would like to watch this episode in beautiful high quality video, check it out on our YouTube channel. Link in show notes. The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult,

are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Before we get into the episode, I just wanted to make this very exciting announcement that my cult-tastic live show that I do, The Big Magical Cult Show, is coming to the Just For Laughs Festival in Vancouver on Friday, February 21st. If you are in the area and are a fan of Sounds Like a Cult, you will have to join us. This show is a night of nerdy, culty, spicy, witchy, deviance featuring drag and burlesque performances, special drinks, culty merch, special surprise guests, a PowerPoint presentation about the cult of parasocial relationships. It's almost like a Sounds Like a Cult episode on the freakiest,

silliest steroids. Again, the show is on February 21st, 2025 at 7 p.m. at the Biltmore Cabaret in Vancouver, Canada for the Just For Laughs Festival. Tickets are available now at the link in our show notes or at soundslikeacult.com. Come have the cultiest night of your life. I can't wait to see you there. Could you please tell the story of Sinanon's downfall? Yeah, I would say the first sign to me of Sinanon's downfall started right before I left. There was an incident in a Sinanon game. He got up, he had a cup of Coca-Cola in his hand, walked across the room and poured the Coke

over her head. Now, you could say that was a minor thing, and in retrospect, compared to what came later, that was a very minor thing, but to my knowledge, that was the very beginning, that was the first sign of breaking the rule of no physical violence. This is Sounds Like a Cult, a show about the modern day cults we all follow. I'm your host Amanda Montell, author of the books Cultish and The Age of Magical Overthinking. Every week on the show,

we discuss a different fanatical fringe group from the cultural zeitgeist to try and answer the big question, this group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, which of our three cult categories does it fall into? A live-your-life, a watch your back, or a get-the-fuck-out? After all, cultishness falls along a spectrum these days. Cultish

influence can be found everywhere. From your social media feeds to your fitness studios, the idea is not to avoid ritual and fanaticism altogether. That's kind of a futile effort. It's simply to clock where modern-day cultishness can be more destructive than you'd like. Typically on the show, we sit around and kind of poke fun at human search for meaning in the digital age while also more seriously scrutinizing how cultiness might show up in places where you wouldn't think to look. But today we're discussing a classic cult. This is a little bit different for Sounds Like a Cult, but still totally fitting because Sinanon is

the cult that my dad survived and was the basis for this entire show and all my work about cults. If you have not tuned in to part one from last week already, definitely give that a listen first because this episode is gonna pick back up with some listener questions about actually some of the positive qualities that kept people in Sinanon at the beginning that made it seem like this could actually be a really lovely and life-changing place. And then we will get into Synanon's dramatic downfall and of course, some dad wisdom, some dad advice from Craig for how we can all avoid a Synanon-esque experience in our modern lives. But before we get into it, I just want to present a super quick word from

our cult followed sponsors who make the show possible. Thank you to our sponsor Squarespace. Start with a free trial at squarespace.com. It's where dreams become websites. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to https://www.squarespace.com slash Colt to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. If you're a renter, you've got to start taking advantage of BILT.

Start earning points on rent you're already paying by going to joinbuilt.com slash cult. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash cult. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Joinbuilt.com slash cult to start earning points on your rent payments today. This show is sponsored by Liquid IV. Stay hydrated through the holidays with Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to LiquidIV.com and use code CULT at checkout.

That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code CULT at LiquidIV.com. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Find comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash cult today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash cult. Now I wanna relay some listener questions

and then we'll talk about the downfall of synanon and when it started to get really bad. Someone asks, are there any habits or ways of thinking that you learned from synanon that stick with you today? Sure, you know Chuck had a lot of his own cliches and one that I would say to myself at times even after I left if I was going through a difficult time, a really difficult time, is this. Chuck, I don't know if it's true, but people in Sinanon said that he coined the phrase, today is the first day of the rest of your life. And I thought that was pretty cool. You could say that on one hand, that's pessimistic, that means what happened before

was bad. But on the other hand, it's optimistic because it means that you shouldn't be restrained in terms of what you can do in the future based on what's happened in the past. And I would say that type of philosophy was, I think, very important. I think another concept that you learned in Synanon, which I think is very important, really stemmed from Ralph Waldo's Emerson on self-reliance and that is learning to be self-reliant. On one hand, people weren't truly self-reliant. They were clearly not. They were dependent on the organization and Chuck. And we should depend on one another in life to survive famously humans fare better in groups. Right. But you also had to take

personal responsibility. Right. And I also had to take personal responsibility. Right. And I think that was something that I learned. What I did not learn, I never learned to develop a thick skin from the Sidon game, but I did learn other things. You definitely passed that thin skin down to me. It's good. It's good to be sensitive. It's good to be sensitive.

It shows we're human. Something that you said just now that reminded me of a point that I think is It's good. It's good to be sensitive. It's good to be sensitive. It shows we're human. Something that you said just now that reminded me of a point that I think is really important to make is that one huge red flag in cults that totally applies to Sinanon is when you take a germ of wisdom that does contain goodness, if applied in the right contexts, and you turned it into a one-size-fits-all dogma. So like the fact that Sinanon was a really good, in fact, life-saving place for some folks who had struggled with addiction, that is real.

But there were so many pieces of like conventional wisdom that applied to addiction that were then spread to the lifestyleers that actually ended up really damaging their lives but because you can't question a tenant in a cult because you can't push back or say like maybe we should make an exception or maybe we should provide an addendum here then it got really bad and one of those was the separation of children from their parents so like I think you when I, as an outsider,

and someone who exists, you know, 50 years after Sinanon, when I look at the fact that kids lived far away from their parents in these like dismal barracks, being bossed around by parents on duty and demonstrators or whatever, PODs, I think like, how could anyone think that was a good idea? But you've told me that Chuck's notion was, well, your family enables you in a negative way.

And that can totally be true in addiction scenarios, but it doesn't fucking apply to the little kids who need their parents. Yeah, so kids of all ages, from the time you are six months old, all the way through your teenage years, you do not live with your parents at all. And so my one and three-year-old sisters, they lived in the Sinan school. And often these kids that were in the Sinan school would rarely see their parents.

They might see him a couple of times a month for a few minutes, maybe once a week, but not very often. Even I rarely saw my dad after I was in Sinai. I happened to run into him sometimes in the dining room, but I didn't see him very much. And so, yes, all the kids were separated. And actually, what became clear later is that Chuck wasn't that enamored with kids. I mean, to Chuck, kids were an annoyance. He was just like, send them over the hill.

They can live over there. Yes. And he had his own kids, but he was sort of a negligent father when they were growing up. Later on, his kids moved into Sinanot. Oh, no wonder Conrad liked him. But while those kids were growing up, he was not a father who was there. He was not involved in growing up.

Wow. So it was very much like model your parenting strategies after my parenting non-strategy because I am king, dad, God, whatever, God, man, man, God, whatever. Man, God, man, God. And the way the Sinanon school worked is they had what are called demonstrators. So for example, let me explain what I mean by a demonstrator. So instead of going up to the blackboard and teaching young children arithmetic, a demonstrator, and this could be someone who might not even have had a high school education, would sit

down and do some math. And the idea was, well, kids would come up and say, well, hey, what are you doing? And get involved and learn that way. And it sounds good on paper and it might've worked with some kids, but it didn't resonate with me. And it doesn't work as a dogma, a one size fits all dogma. And we can see in your two younger half sisters who were one and three when they joined

that living so far away from their parents did not serve them. I don't think so. I don't think so. I really don't think so. Not to my knowledge, not from what I can tell. Okay, a couple more of these like slightly more abstract questions from listeners.

Someone asks, did you become hyper-vigilant after your synon experience? How did it impact your ability to trust? I don't think it had any negative effect on my ability to trust. I think the bigger issue was the fact that, you know, my parents really weren't there for me as I was growing up. First, you know, my mom had her own set of problems and wasn't really equipped to be a nurturing mom. And so during the 12 years I lived with her,

she wasn't really there for me. And then the one year I lived with my dad before I moved into Sinan, he, for different reasons, he held a job, he was certainly a functioning individual, but he wasn't really into getting to know me and helping me grow. And then when I moved into Synanon, in effect, the situation improved because even though I didn't have parents, I was surrounded by a lot of people that were all sort of in the same situation. So I felt in a way, even though

I was a little bit of an outcast in Synanon going outside high school and an outcast in high school, not staying to do other things with kids after school, in some ways it was still an improvement for me. And I didn't feel that people were against me in Synanon. So it wasn't really an issue of not trusting other people. I certainly didn't feel that people were out to get me. I had opportunities. That opportunity in the lab was something that I took with me in a very positive way. So no, I did not have a trust issue. Yeah. I mean, your childhood was so unique and challenging that like you had a lot of reasons to mistrust the world, and

yet you still kind of do trust the world. Who knows why? Yep. My friends and family, as you know, say I'm an optimistic person. Very. And, you know, I'm just, I think I came out that way. Probably just came out that way. I feel like an optimistic person.

You are. Absolutely. Do you think of me as an optimistic person? Hell yes. We're optimistic skeptics. Yes, yes, yes. I am a skeptic, definitely. Totally, that's our style. I really like this question.

This is more kind of like a essay prompt. It's, do you think cults have changed much today compared to cults during your time growing up? Well, the difference is that when I was, say, in Sinan, as you pointed out, the concept of a cult really wasn't there. And I never heard the term when I was in Sinan. And now I think people's eyebrows go up much more quickly. And there's a lot more information out there from the internet, from the history of what's happened over the last 50 years. So I think that people are much more attuned to the early signs of cultishness.

But only when it looks like that 70s style cult that you would see in the movies. Yes. And as the listeners of Sounds Like a Cult know, there are elements of cultishness in so, so much. Like you even had a whole episode on the cult of academia and I'm a member of that cult. Oh, I mean, like you are a member of certain cultish communities even today. I can see a longing in you for community that, again, has way more to do with, like, your lack of parental nurturing growing up, I think.

But cultishness doesn't always have to be this, like like horrible negative thing. Like there is something to be gained from group rituals and like unquestioned community, like to an extent. Yes, well, you know, in academia, some of our rituals, we go to seminars on certain days and certain times, and I'm in the cult of rational thinking. How is that a cult? I don't know, but. Well, because it is good to entertain mysticism

and alternative ideas sometimes. Yeah, and I have to admit that I'm kind of resistant to that. You are. I think I'm sort of. More so than mom. Hyper rational. Mom does yoga and stuff.

Yeah, I don't do yoga. Yeah. But I know that's a great thing. I don't do yoga either. I don't mean it's a great thing that I don't do yoga. I think yoga is a great thing. Oh, yeah. No, I think it's a great thing.

I think yoga is a great thing. And I also think it's a great thing that we don't do yoga. I just don't have the hip flexibility for it. And I know that it could help me gain the hip flexibility, but I just don't wanna. And that's fine. Yeah, it's not for me. It's not for me either.

Okay, I have more listener questions, but first, could you please tell the story of Synanon's downfall? Yeah, I would say the first sign to me of Synanon's downfall? Yeah, I would say the first sign to me of Sinanon's downfall started right before I left. There was an incident in a Sinanon game. I wasn't there, but I quickly heard about it. Chuck Diederich, he was there from September 70

to September 73, and not long before I left, he wasn't used to anymore anyone playing the game on him. He didn't like to be the target of the game. His wife Betty, he would allow her to do that to some degree. Occasionally, he would be game, but in a very soft and lighthearted way. But there was this one Sinan game. Again, I wasn't there, but this happened before I left, where there was a person who hadn't been in Sinan very long,

wasn't someone that was considered one of the leaders, someone of stature in Sinan, who was gaming Chuck. And he tried to get her to stop. She refused. Finally, he got up, he had a cup of Coca-Cola in his hand, walked across the room and poured the Coke over her head. Now, you could say that was a minor thing, and in retrospect, compared to what came later, that was a very minor thing. But to my knowledge, that was the very beginning, that was the first sign of breaking the rule of no physical violence. And then I think the years that I was in Sinanon was the heyday. The glory years.

Those were the glory years where Sinanon was really on its mission in helping the so-called dope fiends and other character sorters, the lifestyle-ers were really feeling enriched by being there. And then over the next few years, it started, it's spiraling downfall. Yes, so let's talk about Sinanon's downfall. First, can you tell the rattlesnake story? Because in addition to photos of all the Sinanon members with bald heads, the Paul Morant's rattlesnake story is the other piece of Sinanon lore

that I think even non-experts might be familiar with. Yeah, so what happened over the next few years is Sinanon, Chuck Diderick, really, and others started getting paranoid about people on the outside. There was always this dichotomy of inside and outside Sinanon. And a lot of the paranoia, I think, stemmed from the facility in Tomales Bay. This is in Marin County.

Tomales Bay is a bay in the southern part of Marin County, about 40 miles north of San Francisco. And by then, Sinanon owned over 3,000 acres in Tomales Bay. He lived there. And there were a lot of farmers and other people who lived around there. And there were a few incidents, not very serious incidents, where maybe people would come on to Sinanon property and Sinanon felt vulnerable when they would come on. But Sinanon overreacted and started feeling that they needed their own Imperial Marines to

defend them. They actually bought guns. They taught these Imperial Marines to, they didn't do a very good job, but taught them how to act like Marines to defend Sinanon. There were some incidents where split-tees would come back for one reason or another just to look around. Some of them got beaten up, some of them severely.

And then where Paul Morantz came up, the one that you mentioned, he was a lawyer who was looking into a whole bunch of issues that Sinanon was doing that stemmed from some of the violence and other things that they were doing that really were wrong that we could perhaps talk about later. And Chuck Diderick had gotten very paranoid at this time. And there were two people.

One was the son of Stan Kenton and there was another person named Joe Musico who took a rattlesnake, removed the rattler and put the rattlesnake in Morantz's mailbox. And one day Morantz came home and like every day he put his hand in the mailbox to grab his mail and was bitten by this rattlesnake and it was so he started screaming for help and the neighbors came out and he was rushed to the hospital he likely would have died if he didn't get that treatment he ended up having some physical problems for the rest of his life as a result of that he ended up writing a very very large book about the history of his life as a result of that. He ended up writing a very, very large book about the history of Sinanon that I think is worth reading,

but it's a very long book. And that was one of the violent incidents that contributed to bringing Sinanon down. Because Chuck Diedrich was arrested. Yes, he ended up getting, he did no jail time. He did no jail time, but. He ended up getting off in part because he discussed how, and his lawyers were discussing, because of physical reasons and his age,

that he shouldn't go to prison. But ultimately, over the next few years, as a result of this and other incidents, he was finally told that he had to dissociate himself from Sinai. Yeah, and so much other weird shit led up to the Imperial Marines and the Rattlesnake incident and the ultimate dissolution of this group. And I can't wait for you to tell those stories. But first, we got to take a break to tell the listeners about our lovely Sounds Like a Cult sponsors. Tell the listeners about our lovely Sounds Like a Cult sponsors. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is an all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online.

Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place on your own terms. Sounds like a cold.com is a Squarespace website? Many of you listening may know. I am not very technologically savvy, and yet setting it up was so simple and updating it is really easy too.

And that is thanks to Squarespace's easy to use features like their asset library, where you can upload, organize, and access all your content from one place. They also have these amazingly flexible website templates, so you can get started with one professional template with designs for every category and use case, and then customize your look, update content, and add features to fit your unique needs.

You can even sell merch on a Squarespace website easily to create a passive income stream that engages your audience and scales your brand. Head to Squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to https://www.squarespace.com slash cult to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. PSA for anyone who rents. If you haven't heard of BILT, well, you haven't been paying attention to these sounds like a cold ads. Hello? No, but seriously, BILT is absolutely

changing the game as a service where you can earn valuable points on your rent and on spending around your neighborhood. It's truly so genius. There's no cost to join BILT. And as a member, you'll earn valuable points on rent and on your everyday spending. BILT points can be transferred to your favorite hotels and airlines, and even the ones you haven't heard of. There are over 500 airlines and 700,000 hotels and properties around the world.

You can redeem your BILT points toward. Points can also be redeemed toward a future rent payment and unique experiences that only built members can access. So if you're not earning points on rent, my question is why not? I personally would highly recommend built to anyone who like can't stand the soul sucking fiscal burden of like lighting your rent money on fire every single month. It's just such a unique way of applying the reward system models that a lot of us are already familiar with to purchases

that are literally inevitable, aka our rent. It's so smart. Start earning points on rent you're already paying by going to joinbuilt.com slash Colt. That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash cult. Make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you. Joinbuilt.com slash cult to start earning points on your rent payments today. This show is sponsored by Liquid IV. Whether you forget to take a sip of water during the office holiday party or start feeling parched after a long day of traveling or hosting, keep Liquid IV on hand to stay hydrated through the holidays.

Actually, the Montels are going out of town this Christmas season, packing up Craig. You know him, you love him, the people's princess, the culte's father, and my mom, and my brother, and his wife, and my fiance, and we're going on a trip. And you know what? Liquid IV comes with me whenever I travel because I get parched up there on the airplane. If I don't have my liquid IV I get off the plane and my body doesn't feel right and my skin looks bad. But when I've got my sugar-free lemon lime liquid IV, I am truly unstoppable. They have so many hydration multiplier flavors from

acai berry to piña calada, as well as their sugar-free flavors like mulemon lime or raspberry melon, white peach, and green grape. This is how Liquid IV works. Tear, pour, live more. One stick plus 16 ounces of water hydrates better than water alone. Powered by LIV HydroScience, an optimized ratio of electrolytes, essential vitamins, and clinically tested nutrients that turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration. Stay hydrated through the holidays with Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to LiquidIV.com and use code CULT at checkout.

That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code CULT at LiquidIV.com. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. How do you stay cozy during the winter months? For some, wrapping up in a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate or watching a movie with family is the best way to spend the month of December. But sometimes a cozy starter kit alone

is not enough when you're struggling. I know that for some, the holidays can be a triggering time. December has historically been a therapy-filled month for me. I have really benefited so much from therapy at different periods throughout my life. It can be really intimidating to find a therapist if you're in between therapists or if you're new to the concept altogether. So pursuing therapy online can be a really good option. I actually tried BetterHelp myself during the pandemic lockdown and it really tied me over. If you're thinking of starting therapy,

give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. Find comfort this December with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash colt today to get 10% off your first month.

That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Colt. So what were some other events that led to Synanon's downfall? So there are other really weird things that started happening. There was, for example, a time when Chuck Dederich, who was very heavy, was told by his doctors that he needed to Dederich, who was very heavy, was told by

his doctors that he needed to lose weight. Otherwise, he might die. He might get a stroke or heart attack. And when he decided that he needed to go on a diet, everyone in Synanon had to go on a diet. This was after I left. And there are these weigh-ins where people did public weigh-ins in the nude. And if you didn't lose the prescribed amount of weight,

you were humiliated in public or in the synonym game. There were other times that his doctor said that he needed to modify his diet in certain ways, then the whole facility modified their diet. Few years after I left, his long-term wife, Betty, died. And just a few months later, he remarried. And he thought this experience of having a new spouse, even though he loved Betty very much, was a really good experience. And he forced everyone in Synanon to stop being married to whoever they were married to, and they had to then marry

somebody else. And that's finally when your dad and his wife, who is not your mother, his second wife, decided to leave. Correct, that's when they left. That was the last straw. That was the last straw. And what year was that?

I believe that was 75, 1975, about two years after I left. And then there were other things that went on. I think one of the most horrible of all to me was a couple of years after I left, Chuck decided that they didn't want any more children in Synanon. And all of the males in Synanon, 18 and over, had to get a vasectomy. And they had these big vasectomy parties where people in mass would get vasectomies. And I remember in one of these documentaries on synon getting a very short glimpse, just for a second, of

my best friend and synon named Bruce seeing him right before or after one of these vasectomy experiences. Imagine that when a group aims to control men's reproductive rights en masse, it's known as a dangerous cult. When a group aims to control women's reproductive rights en masse, that's just called America. Well, I'm against both of them. Yes, I know. And as a result of the violence and many other things that were going on, it was clear that Sinanon was going to lose its ability to be tax-exempt. And so what Sinanon decided to do was to declare itself a religion. And that also contributed to Sinanon's downfall because after it declared itself a religion. And that also contributed to Sinanon's downfall because after it declared

itself a religion, this is now in the mid 70s, people became even more suspicious of Sinanon. There were articles written about Sinanon that were very negative and even large organizations that wrote negative articles got sued. Sinanon had many lawyers that were, of course, living in Sinanon, therefore working for free, and they had tremendous power to take on even the Hearst Corporation in lawsuits. Well, because they were collecting the earnings of all of their members.

For the lifestyleers would throw their money in if they worked on the outside. And then Sinanon, which early on touted itself as a very egalitarian society, it became more and more stratified, even economically. And- What did that look like? Well, so even when I was there,

it was very obvious to me that it was stratified in the sense that the leaders of Synanon, like Chuck and others, had much better living situations. I remember that when I went into the dining room in Oakland, even when I was there, I was perfectly happy to go up to the buffet. I was thrilled to get my mac and cheese and vegetables and all that. Wonderful. But I noticed that in the corner of the dining room, there was a sit down table cloth dinner

with waiters who'd bring much more special food if Chuck was there, but even if he wasn't, the director of the Oakland Club and others. And that sort of difference of stratification became much more pronounced as the years went by. Yeah. Okay, so I wanna talk about like how Synanon, despite having disbanded,

kind of still lives on today in various ways. Do you know of any former Synanoners who still get together, who still play the game? Or do you know of any organizations who've adopted a sort of ghost of the game? Yes, to both of those questions. First, in the immediate years after my dad and Judy, my stepmother left Synanon, they would get together with other split-tees, ex-Synanon people, and play the Synanon game occasionally.

And my understanding is that was also replicated in many other places, not just in Berkeley, California, where they lived. Even today, there's a website where ex-Sinanon people will post stories both about their experiences in Sinanon, maybe some of their lives that they had after Sinanon. And there's a certain bond that people have that have left Synanon that continues to this day, decades afterwards. And I myself, I am not in contact with anyone from those Synanon days, but I know that there are many others who still are, even 50 years later.

Yeah. And I've learned since writing Cultish and doing this show that the Sinanon game survives in an institutionalized capacity in ways I never even imagined. So I kind of hinted at this in part one of this episode, but I didn't learn until three or four years ago that the whole entire troubled teen industry, those abusive reform schools that Paris Hilton most famously came out to speak against, that whole industry was based on the Sinanon game. We have an episode on the cult of the troubled teen industry where I go a little deeper into that if you want to listen to it. Before we move on, I do want to speak to the second part of your last, the previous question,

which I didn't answer. There are many good organizations that are sort of culty, but they're still good, that exist today that were spinoffs of Sinan. And one of the very first ones that still exists today is in San Francisco. It's called Delancey Street. And it was started by a guy named John Maher, a very good looking guy who was kind of a street hustler, drug addict from Manhattan. Very smart guy. He left around 1972, 71, 72.

I got to know him. He was a really interesting guy. He started Delancey Street and they to this day have folks come in to help folks with drug and other addiction type problems like with alcohol. But, you know, Delancey street, unlike Sinanon, when I lived there in 70 to 73 has people graduate. You're there for a period of time and the intent is for you to go back in the outside world. A year or two before we moved into Sinanon, the idea was that when you moved in, you would stay there the rest of your life. Even drug addicts no longer graduate,

no graduation. You leave, you're a split T, you don't exist. But there are a lot of good organizations that exist today that play their version of the Sinanon game. And their MO is to help people, but they can graduate. That continues to come up as maybe the number one culty red flag above all others is a sky high exit cost or no exit strategy at all. Exactly. No dignified one or no one period. Okay, before we get to our Sounds Like a Cult verdict, I have to ask you to tell the story

of how you got out. Well, it was very interesting. I had always intended to go to college,, having not gotten advice from my parents, certainly not my mom or dad, neither of them graduated college, and my dad wasn't, we didn't really talk. He wasn't particularly interested in my interest in going to college, even when I brought it up.

It wasn't really a topic he wanted. I would have been interested. And that's because you are a loving, empathetic person. Thank you, dad. But in any case, so I decided that I wanted to apply to a couple of colleges and I had enough money to apply only to two. And the reason I had any money at all

is that everyone got what was called walking around money or WAM, like a couple of dollars a week. Oh yeah, WAM, I forgot. Yes, and so I saved my WAM and I had enough money to apply to a couple of dollars a week. Oh yeah, wham, I forgot. Yes, and so I saved my wham and I had enough money to apply to a couple of colleges and I didn't know one from the other. The local college was UC Berkeley because I was living in Oakland. So I applied to UC Berkeley. You didn't know that UC Berkeley was a good school?

I had no idea. It was just the closest one. And then for reasons that elude me, my second choice was Chico State. So I applied to Chico. A less well-known school. It was a less well-known school. I think I was just looking through the catalogs from my high school and they happened to have one for Chico State for random reasons. PrincetonReview.com did not exist yet. Yes, it did not exist. And I noticed they had a bacteriology major. What the heck? I'll just apply to Chico State. So I applied.

I don't even remember what I wrote in my essay or anything. I bet it was good based on this whole story. I actually don't remember. And I can tell you that my grades from high school were not very good at all because I hardly had time to study. By the time I got back from San Francisco, the great guy, Ed, who drove me back would be like 5.30, almost time to eat dinner, you play the Sinon game. When could I study? So my grades weren't great,

but somehow I thought I could still get into college. I applied to both schools. And then I remember in, I forget when it was, around February or March, I got my acceptance to UC Berkeley. And I didn't know if I was going to get into Chico State and I didn't know the difference. So, okay, I accepted the admissions to UC Berkeley. And I remember mentioning this to someone in Synanon. And by then, just for the last few months I was in Synanon, I lived in the Marin County facility. I was there, microbiologist there. And I remember someone saying to me when I told them that

I got into UC Berkeley, first of all, they didn't like the idea of me leaving. They said, why don't you just go to college here? They didn't have a college, although they had something called the Academy, but that was something different. And then I told him, well, I got into UC Berkeley and he said, Berkeley, God, they must have lowered their standards. Anyway, so that was the story of getting into Berkeley. It's such an unbelievable stroke of good luck. It was good luck.

And I'm grateful for it. Okay, so now we've come to the ultimate sounds like a cult question. You're familiar with it, but I'm going to ask it two different ways because the answer is obvious. Out of the three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. Which one does Synanon fall into? So I'm gonna surprise you here. Because I'm gonna give two answers. Okay, because I was gonna ask it two different ways.

Oh, okay. The time I was in Synanon, I think for most people that were there, it was an extreme watch your back. Yeah. It was a watch your back, not quite get the fuck out, but it's still the reason that it was almost to get the fuck out is because you couldn't graduate, right? If you could graduate back then, I would say it was just watch your back.

You go there and if you were just interested in the lifestyle, you could find out if it was right for you and then leave. You wouldn't be ostracized as a split T. If you were there to try to get your life together as a drug addict, AKA dope fiend, and you got your life together, you could leave. But because you couldn't graduate, even the time I was there, it was almost to get the fuck out. But I have to admit that it did good for a lot of people. So I will say it's just on the watcher back before you get the fuck out during the time I was there. But after I left, it was a full bona fide, get the fuck out as fast as you can. Yeah. And this is why it's such a cautionary tale

because most people are involved with something cultish to some degree these days, whether it's a political ideology or just a really intense internet forum. And if there are good things going on and it's bringing your life a lot of meaning and you can't imagine yourself without it, only you can decide what to do. But a lot of groups don't just stay at watch your back level. Some don't know when to curtail

their power, especially if there's a leader like Chuck at the helm. And that's why, you know, we have this sort of like casual fluid rubric that sounds like a cult of culty red flags and a charismatic leader is one of them. There are so many destructive cults or cultish groups like QAnon, for example, that don't have a single leader. I mean, you could argue that Donald Trump is the QAnon leader, but not really, you know, like he's not totally participating. And for that reason, you know, you might not actually put QAnon on the level with Sinanon. Actually, like when I first heard the phrase QAnon, I thought it was related to Sinanon. But it wasn't. Because they sounded like, of course it's not. But like the fact that Sinanon didn't

let you leave and it had this charismatic leader, that was just inevitably a recipe for disaster. Also today in this country, even though America is a beacon of democracy, it can be fragile. Totally. And right now, this is before the general election. Yeah, we're recording this in September of 2020. And for people like me,

I live in fear of a populist leader that people are just following because they're mesmerized for whatever reason they're mesmerized by this individual. We have to remember that we have to protect ourselves against folks who become very pernicious for society as cult leaders. Yeah. And I think in the digital age where some young social media users in particular tend to have almost like a nihilistic attitude where, you know, nothing matters and reality is subjective and everything is a meme. A person could almost kind of join in on a mass online political joke as a bit that turns into a real life cult without their even noticing.

So that's an important warning. Thank you for that, dad. You can be the cultie's dad today. Okay. Before we end, can I make a selfish pitch? Of course you can. So for many years, you, my darling daughter, who I'm so proud of, has been pressing me to write a memoir. And I've been, you know, because I have a day job and I have taken a very long time to write it, a memoir that started when I was around six or seven years old and ended on the day I left Synanon.

At this date that we're recording this, I am in the middle of my very last chapter. And I hope by the time that this is actually aired, it will be done and I hope to get it in print. So for those of you who are interested in learning more about my beginnings, my life in Sinan, and also how, you know, even though there were difficult times, there were many positive things that happened.

That- You have a very unique story and a totally singular perspective. So be on the lookout for it. I don't have the quality of writing of Amanda Montell, but I'm doing my best. You're doing great. You've been writing it for, I mean, since I was what, in college, in high school?

Yes, yes. Are there any literary agents listening who are interested in representing this man? I'm going to take the opportunity to dispel the rumor. Did you know that there are some, I forget where I saw it, but there was some rumor that you had gotten me my book deal for me. Oh, I wish I had that kind of power. I actually tried to get him a book deal and I was unsuccessful. So anyway, I got my own damn book

deal. All of Amanda's success is her own. Thank you, dad. I would have loved to have been born a Nepo baby. That sounds very relaxing. Actually, that's not even true. I am so grateful for my upbringing. I'll have you know. Well, you know, we have no literary connections. Set the record straight. Yeah, we have no. Amanda's ability to be where she is today is because of her talent and hustling. That's so nice. I mean, most people I know who have book deals do have a foot in the door, so it's a fair assumption because it is really hard to get a foot in the door, but I want to be your

foot. So listen up. I'll take even a toe. Yeah, take even a toe. Well, you're two feet in the cult of Sounds Like a Cult, that's for sure. Okay. Well, thank you, Dad, so much for joining for the Sinanon sequel. Any excuse to spend an hour or so with you,

I will take no matter what. That's very kind. Well, that is our show. Thank you so much for listening. Stick around for a new cult next year. We're gonna be back in 2025 with myself and Reese and Chelsea, all co-hosting episodes together. Some will be with the three of us, some will be with me and Chelsea, some will be with me and Reese and Chelsea all co-hosting episodes together. Some will be with the three of us,

some will be with me and Chelsea, some will be with me and Reese. And genuinely, I've never been more excited about this show. The episodes that we have coming have been like utterly delightful to record. Sounds like a cult has truly never brought me more joy and fulfillment to make. Reese and Chelsea have just like lit up my life

and this show and of course so have you listeners. I'm so grateful that you're here. I learned on my Spotify wrapped that 48% of this year's listeners were brand new, which is wild. So I guess it's belated, but feels only polite to say welcome, thank you, for joining the Sounds Like a Cult Cult. There will be more next year, but in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. But not too culty. But not too culty.

But not too culty. Sounds Like a Cult is hosted and produced by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore of the PodCabin. Our theme music is by Casey Kolb. This episode was made with production help from Reese Oliver and Katie Epperson. Thank you as well to our partner, All Things Comedy. And if you like the show, please feel free to check out my books, Words Let, A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language, Cultish, The Language of Fanaticism, and the

forthcoming The Age of Magical Overthinking, notes on modern irrationality. If you're a fan of Sounds Like a Cult, I would really appreciate it if you leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.