Synanon

From RationalWiki

Synanon was a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center and movement from 1958 to 1989 in California, which relied on communal living and bizarre methods such as group "truth-telling" sessions they called "The Game", and requiring married couples to split and take new partners and female members to shave their heads. Synanon taught lifetime rehabilitation but also that full recovery from addiction was never possible, and therefore it was necessary to stay within Synanon for life.

Starting in 1974 authorities and media began investigating the group as a cult; Synanon countered by proclaiming themselves the "Church of Synanon" and claiming tax-exempt status as a religion. In 1978 there was a series of events in which former Synanon members who had fled the group were beaten by members, and reporters and attorneys investigating the group subjected to harassment including one incident where a rattlesnake was placed in the mailbox of an attorney who had sued Synanon. After the arrest of Synanon leader Chuck Dederich and two of his associates at the end of 1978 and continuing trouble with the IRS, the group fell on hard times, officially folding in 1989.