International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 8, 2017 77
author’s courage and honesty. A few still claim
that the CEDU experience for their teen was
beneficial, and perhaps some teens, now adults,
praise their CEDU experience for helping them
to become better people. This is not unusual.
The nastiest of cults have their advocates who
might claim that the cult experience saved their
lives or continues to inform the truth for them.
What does come across clearly in Bonnie’s
treatment is that this was precisely the wrong
approach for someone with attention deficit and
anxiety as a misfit kid.
Bonnie may have been a handful to raise as a
result of his disobedience to rules, smoking,
indiscriminate sex with girls, and habit of
running away and ditching school. His well-off,
frustrated parents enrolled him in an expensive
boarding school at age 13 in Pottstown,
Pennsylvania. I grew up in Pottstown, so I knew
The Hill School very well. While in high school,
I competed against The Hill in tennis and
scrimmage football. Lately I have exhibited art
and curated a show at The Hill School gallery.
Bonnie lasted only a month there under its strict
rules, getting kicked out for insubordination and
smoking. He did not get caught for smoking pot
with a fellow student. Nevertheless, his parents
had had enough and signed him into RMA out
of exasperation, it seems. Bonnie offers this
view of his errant youth for readers to better
understand where CEDU-type retraining
programs get their clients.
I mentioned that this book reads like pulp fiction
because we are not spared vulgar language and
raw yuck stories about sex, drugs, and bad
behavior that emerged in the hours-long
encounter sessions, or “raps.” An elite RMA
session called a Truth propheet (sic) began with
pithy quotes from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran.
A Truth propheet included bizarre human
“smoosh circles.” These were human chains
wherein teens would lay their heads on another’s
tummy or thigh, linking up this way around the
floor, stroking a partner’s face or hair as people
shared intimate stories. Many were reduced to
tears. Spent tissues littered the area. I had an
image of Freud’s couch in group therapy without
the couch. This quirky smoosh eroticism was
attended by a strict rule or agreement that no
sexual contact or flirting was allowed. (Oddly,
smoking was allowed, so Bonnie continued his
nicotine habit).
Breaking an agreement got the teen placed on
bans, which meant no talking or communicating
with anyone except during program rap sessions.
We learn that some teens began to exaggerate or
even lie, as Bonnie did, to better fulfill the
requirements of the authoritarian program
directors. Loud, “snot-ripper” songs, including
some by Barbra Streisand and from the film
Chariots of Fire, played repeatedly to drive
emotions to tears during all these sessions.
Nearly all self-transformational, mass-therapy
cults have played loud, snot-ripper recordings.
This is a provocative book. Bonnie effectively
conveys his story as if he were telling it at age
14, while interspersing mature commentary after
decades of recovery. I came away from my
reading feeling that I needed a psychological
shower to wash away the vulgarity, and a stiff
drink to quell my anger that these bogus rehabs
are allowed to operate. I have encountered many
young people (in the intake area of the psych
hospital where I have worked since 1998)
recently emerged from a teen boot camp, not
unlike a CEDU program. Most were feeling
suicidal when I met them, for a variety of
reasons beyond surviving a boot camp, but all
told similar stories to Bonnie’s. Despite their
psychological disorders (depression, anxiety,
ADHD, social phobia, substance-use disorders),
to the person, they described their sequestered
boot-camp experience as a “cult” that used
“brainwashing.”
In the end, Bonnie offers what he found to be
useful sources, including works by Margaret T.
Singer and Robert J. Lifton. He recommends
Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic and
Appropriate Use of Residential Treatment
(ASTART) and International Cultic Studies
Association (ICSA). Bonnie maintains a
website—deadinsaneorinjail.com—where one
can go for notification about Book 2. Today,
Zack Bonnie advertises himself as an actor, a
tournament gambler, and an avid hiker who lives
in Virginia. He wants to contribute to research
that exposes what happens to the brains of youth
in sequestered “emotional growth” camps.
author’s courage and honesty. A few still claim
that the CEDU experience for their teen was
beneficial, and perhaps some teens, now adults,
praise their CEDU experience for helping them
to become better people. This is not unusual.
The nastiest of cults have their advocates who
might claim that the cult experience saved their
lives or continues to inform the truth for them.
What does come across clearly in Bonnie’s
treatment is that this was precisely the wrong
approach for someone with attention deficit and
anxiety as a misfit kid.
Bonnie may have been a handful to raise as a
result of his disobedience to rules, smoking,
indiscriminate sex with girls, and habit of
running away and ditching school. His well-off,
frustrated parents enrolled him in an expensive
boarding school at age 13 in Pottstown,
Pennsylvania. I grew up in Pottstown, so I knew
The Hill School very well. While in high school,
I competed against The Hill in tennis and
scrimmage football. Lately I have exhibited art
and curated a show at The Hill School gallery.
Bonnie lasted only a month there under its strict
rules, getting kicked out for insubordination and
smoking. He did not get caught for smoking pot
with a fellow student. Nevertheless, his parents
had had enough and signed him into RMA out
of exasperation, it seems. Bonnie offers this
view of his errant youth for readers to better
understand where CEDU-type retraining
programs get their clients.
I mentioned that this book reads like pulp fiction
because we are not spared vulgar language and
raw yuck stories about sex, drugs, and bad
behavior that emerged in the hours-long
encounter sessions, or “raps.” An elite RMA
session called a Truth propheet (sic) began with
pithy quotes from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran.
A Truth propheet included bizarre human
“smoosh circles.” These were human chains
wherein teens would lay their heads on another’s
tummy or thigh, linking up this way around the
floor, stroking a partner’s face or hair as people
shared intimate stories. Many were reduced to
tears. Spent tissues littered the area. I had an
image of Freud’s couch in group therapy without
the couch. This quirky smoosh eroticism was
attended by a strict rule or agreement that no
sexual contact or flirting was allowed. (Oddly,
smoking was allowed, so Bonnie continued his
nicotine habit).
Breaking an agreement got the teen placed on
bans, which meant no talking or communicating
with anyone except during program rap sessions.
We learn that some teens began to exaggerate or
even lie, as Bonnie did, to better fulfill the
requirements of the authoritarian program
directors. Loud, “snot-ripper” songs, including
some by Barbra Streisand and from the film
Chariots of Fire, played repeatedly to drive
emotions to tears during all these sessions.
Nearly all self-transformational, mass-therapy
cults have played loud, snot-ripper recordings.
This is a provocative book. Bonnie effectively
conveys his story as if he were telling it at age
14, while interspersing mature commentary after
decades of recovery. I came away from my
reading feeling that I needed a psychological
shower to wash away the vulgarity, and a stiff
drink to quell my anger that these bogus rehabs
are allowed to operate. I have encountered many
young people (in the intake area of the psych
hospital where I have worked since 1998)
recently emerged from a teen boot camp, not
unlike a CEDU program. Most were feeling
suicidal when I met them, for a variety of
reasons beyond surviving a boot camp, but all
told similar stories to Bonnie’s. Despite their
psychological disorders (depression, anxiety,
ADHD, social phobia, substance-use disorders),
to the person, they described their sequestered
boot-camp experience as a “cult” that used
“brainwashing.”
In the end, Bonnie offers what he found to be
useful sources, including works by Margaret T.
Singer and Robert J. Lifton. He recommends
Alliance for the Safe, Therapeutic and
Appropriate Use of Residential Treatment
(ASTART) and International Cultic Studies
Association (ICSA). Bonnie maintains a
website—deadinsaneorinjail.com—where one
can go for notification about Book 2. Today,
Zack Bonnie advertises himself as an actor, a
tournament gambler, and an avid hiker who lives
in Virginia. He wants to contribute to research
that exposes what happens to the brains of youth
in sequestered “emotional growth” camps.
