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The art hoe s*x cult known as Zendik. :marseylongpost:

https://www.hipforums.com/forum/threads/zendik.4641

I think I originally came across this around 2009 and I found it a rather fascinating look into a world I'd never been exposed to before. The whole thread is interesting, but here's some snippets.

It all starts when one user has a simple question:

FREE

anyone ever heard of the zendik farm?

ive read alot about it,the good and the bad and im interested because ill be moving somewhere else in about 4 months and i wanna try this thing out but the more info the easier it`ll go ya know?


A :marseybluecheck: posts that they are going there in 6 days. Giving proof that even 20 years ago, journos were dumb.

jtwg50

I am a journ*list and writer from Miami Beach and I have been planning on moving to a successful, long-running commune for a long time. I am moving to Zendik on Saturday (May 30) and expect tp stay there a long, long time (maybe forever). It's a very cool place with a neat mix of people, mostly young, all creative.

Zendik offers a mini-utopia with a system that has worked for more than 30 years.


Some other users talk about their brief interactions, the funniest being the guy who was too pathetic to be invited to join a cult.

RevoMystic

I wrote a couple emails to Zendik, and their public relations person, Kaila, responded to me with insults, calling me names, and saying I probably wouldn't be "good enough" to join their little institution "anyway".

:marseyobamacope:


m6m

I ran into a one of their cadre in SoCal 25 or 26 years ago.

She were pedaling a little news-letter mostly composed by their self proclaimed genius leader Wulf.

It was funny, Wulf was advocating the kidnapping of children to ecologocally reeducate them.

Wulf was also propossing blowing up the evil Nuclear Power Plants.

While I was reading this, I was thinking of those characters Wulf Larson and his brother Death Larson in Jack


luna99

I've spoken with people from zendik at different festivals... they always say they love living there and never regret it .. (of course they are going to say that though, the whole reason for the road warriors are to go out and spread the word).... I have also read some "bad" things about zendik.. but until I saw it first hand, I woudln't believe any of it...

places like zendik get a bad rap and people who don't understand consider it a "cult"... I think you can go out and visit just for a few days if you are interested in moving there... give them a call...

I've even toyed around with the idea of possibly going out .... at least for a visit sometime... it looks like a beautiful place actually.. I've looked at pictures of the cabins and the grounds and it's just lovely....


Some ex members start replying and this comment sums up the general sentiment.

LaughinWillow

Had a friend who went to Zendik - sounded basically like the stuff people have already written... Arol runs everything, silences all dissent, makes sure her precious daughter has whatever she wants while the "worker bees" slave away. > Also, apparently they even have really fricked up ways of enforcing "body image" - one male visitor was ridiculed and berated for daring to take off his shirt while he was working - not because wearing shirts is mandatory - but because the Zendik hierarchy didn't find his body fat acceptable. I've also read on another board that they ridicule people who are in monogamous relationships and harass them to have s*x with other members in order to "show them" how wrong monogamy is.

Finally, I met some of these people in DC a couple years ago - some of the nastiest, most self-obsessed, arrogant BUTTHOLES I've ever met. I was all excited to meet them, because I had interest in Zendik for a long time, and all but one of them just kept shooting me dirty looks and being all uppity - for nothing. Nasty nasty nasty. After that - and then hearing all this crap about them - I wouldn't set foot at that place. They talk a good talk - but it sounds like a third world dictatorship to me. No thanks.


Now, the really good stuff, user Red Lentil tells her life story on page 3, the abridged story is below. She also elaborates between parts of her story, there's a fair amount of extra detail in the thread.

Red Lentil

PART 1

I WAS A TEENAGE ZENDIK

Part 1, in which a very young Red Lentil receives her first zendikian mindfrick via poorly illustrated propaganda and cannot help but come back for more:

I first heard of Zendik Farm in 1989, when I bought their 'zine off a "road warrior" in San Diego...

(flashback harp sounds)

I was 15 years old and had just spent half a dozen years being molested by a sibling. My parents didn't know that this had happened. I was socially stunted, depressed, angry, insecure, naive, idealistic, totally disillusioned, and cute. In otherwords, I fit the Zendik recruitment profile perfectly.

The artwork and writing in the publication meshed comfortably with my psychic state-- doom and gloom, apocalyptic and angsty. The writing was cynical and death-obsessed, with vague allusions to what a better world might require, and vague threats against the state (which made them seem like badass militant leftists, which was cool). I'd never seen a 'zine before, and the thoroughly unprofessional look of the thing was deeply appealing. I read it over and over, approaching its alien tone and mysterious invented terminology with the same affected attitude of reverence with which I had approached the Bible as a child (I'd rejected christianity years earlier, with good reason).

Of course, nothing I had read in the magazine stopped me from attempting suicide later that year. I swallowed insecticide pellets (if only they'd taught Kafka in junior high!). Needless to say, it didn't work. I spent a couple of days throwing up, told my folks that it must have been stomach flu, that something was going around at school. That first night, while we were sitting watching TV together, my dad flipped to a movie in which Sissy Spacek (who looks just like me) was making complicated preparations for her own suicide (putting the bills in order, cleaning the gun, etc.) while her bedridden mother shouted objections from the next room. I kept thinking "He knows. My dad knows. He put this movie on to let me know that he knows." He didn't know.

My kitschy fascination with Zendik turned into fanatical obsession immediately following the suicide attempt. I secretly swore that I would try to kill myself again if I didn't make it there by the time I turned 18. I firmly believed that there were only two options: Zendik or death. The Zendik literature introduced and perpetuated this fatalistic perception. This "choice" I had to make. I was ripe for the picking. They pulled me in.

I subscribed to their 'zine. I mail-ordered books and buttons, even their famously crappy music. I had never been exposed to philosophical inquiry, social criticism, political theory, or communalism-- so I didn't know that Zendik wasn't actually giving me these things. What's more, the Zendik "philosophy" clearly expressed that all non-Zendik ideas were irrelevant, guaranteeing that I wouldn't go elsewhere for my "Truth". I shut my ears to other voices.

I made some small lifestyle changes, trying to be as "zendik" as I could while I waited for the opportunity to move there (I had to finish high school first). I started dressing like them (or so I thought), started quoting Wulf, tried proselytizing. The Zendik literature offered no clear picture of what Zendiks actually did, so there wasn't much that I could do to emulate them. I went to school (sometimes) and did typical teenager stuff. The Zendiks were responding to my letters, inviting me to visit them. My folks were warming up to the idea. Suicide was no longer on my mind, which was a huge relief. I was confident, feeling for the first time as if I had a future. I had something to believe in. It was great.

Two years later, on the anniversary of my suicide attempt (what a coincidence!), my dad put me on a plane to Austin (Zendik Farm was located near there at the time). I had $60 and a small suitcase. I don't know how my dad felt about this. He knew that I was excited and serious about Zendik, that's for sure. They had spoken with him on the telephone, reassured him that I would be safe. If he thought that the group was harmful he wouldn't have let me go...


Red Lentil

PART 2

Hey, I'm glad you guys are interested in this stuff. I'm finding it extremely difficult to write about what happened to me at Zendik-- there's just too much to say about it, and the experience left me with a full set of ptsd (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms, which make my memory a dangerous place. It just takes some time to sort through.

Here's some more of it:

SON OF I WAS A TEENAGE ZENDIK

Part 2, in which a still very young and newly bald Red Lentil receives a new Zendik identity in exchange for control of her mind.

I forgot to mention that I had shaved my head bald (to the skin) a couple of weeks before leaving for Zendik Farm. I've got photographs, can't look at them. I'd used sideburn clippers (a tiny electric razor, about an inch wide). It was a patchy shave, so I finished the job with a disposable safety razor. Shaving cream on my head. I got some razorburn. I looked like a chemo patient.

I don't know why I shaved my head. My folks were also baffled. I wore a hat all the time and when I walked down the hall at school the kids yelled "Uncle Fester" and "Sinead O'Connor" and "Kojak".

None of it mattered. I would have a new life soon.

I was picked up at the Austin airport by two Zendiks (Ev and Trebor) in a primer-grey van. It was dark when we got to the farm. Jinn (the Zendik girl who had been my pen-pal) gave me a little tour of the place, and I was taken into their office to fill out some paperwork. I signed something, don't remember what it was. They asked me if I had any money, and I gave them the sixty bucks my dad had shoved into my hand as I'd lined up to board the plane. The money had been his way of saying "sweetie, I know you're convinced that these people are your friends-- but if you need to get the frick out in a hurry, this will help". Adios, caution. I was serious. Zendik or death. I handed the cash over.

I had a first impression of the place, and quickly buried it. Zendik or death. But now I can speak my mind:

I found the Zendiks seriously intimidating. They were humorless, cold, unwelcoming and detached. Casual (spontaneous, non-preachy) conversation was frowned upon. If you engaged in frivolous conversation-- which is what I (like any teenager) did most of the time-- somebody would yell "Elevate!", which meant that you had to either shut up or start talking about Wulf's "philosophy". Usually we would just shut up.

I was given one of twelve bunks in the oldest, most run-down house on the property-- a two-room wooden shack we sometimes referred to as "the slave quarters". The structure was over 100 years old, made from split logs, uninsulated. Light shone (and wind blew) through some of the spaces between these boards, and if you pressed your face against a crack you could actually see outside. This is the house where all the new people and visitors stayed, with a couple long-term members mixed in to keep an eye on us (be our Zendik role models) or as an indication of their low status-- rank was indicated by where you lived, and the quarters got better as you got closer to Arol's inner circle. I come from poor rural folk, so I was comfortable with the "rustic" accomodations-- but I soon longed for a bunk in the main house, which would be granted to me as soon as Arol and her cronies decided that I deserved it.

Little did I know that my new Zendik friends were pulling me along a well-worn path of.. well.. mind control.

I'm not kidding! The BITE method of mind control describes the Zendik indoctrination process perfectly:

http://www.ex-cult.org/bite.html

The first thing they tackled was my wardrobe. Somebody actually sat down with me and sorted through my suitcase, telling me what I could and couldn't wear. Silkscreened t-shirts were forbidden. Goodbye Led Zeppelin! I was given silkscreened Zendik t-shirts to wear. Did I mention that Zendiks live in physical isolation from the rest of the world (with the exception of magazine-peddling excursions)? My new Zendik shirts would only advertise Zendik to Zendiks.

My lack of hair was another problem: I was to wear a head covering at all times. The "aesthetix" administrator (I'm not kidding-- there was always someone to report to, or someone to report) found me an acceptable hat. The one I'd come in with wasn't "funky" enough or something. I keep thinking of the Dead Kennedys song "California Uber Alles"... "it's the suede-denim secret police.. they have come for your uncool niece..". I was also instructed on posture, told to always wear a bra (Keep 'em pointin' toward the TruthWay, girls!) and told to wear clothing that would hide my little pot-belly (at 5'5" and 119 pounds I was far from fat).

By the end of the day I looked like everybody else (whereas in my old Deathkultur life I stood out in a crowd). "So this is HONESTY, eh?"

More to come..


PART 3 (Still interested?) Go to the OP there's too many :marseylongpost: )


The son of the actual leader joins to defend mommies honor.

revel

OK (hehe)... hello to you all:::

this is just a short response to all of the BS and actual questions I've read so far.

You'll have to forgive me, because I haven't had time to read the whole thread, (as I have stuff to do, you understand)....

First::: there have never been any chains or shackles on anyone who came to visit/live at Zendik Farm. Those who claim that they were "lied to" are either insane, demented, or otherwise incoherant.

Those whom were here while Wulf was alive will know that he was an incredible artist, therefore, may not have had the time nor inclination to personally council each of you in the way you might have expected.

Second:::

Arol is the most humane and human of teachers of truth that you would ever find..... what you may call bitchiness may just be a true fact that you were not ready to here.

Third::: yes, Wulf is here in WV. 'nuff said.

Fourth::: things are sometimes seen as illegal, (execpt if you are a non-profit arts foundation, or you are a highly righteous warrior for the planet earth).

Fifth::: the sale of the NC property was done on a short 2 months.... mainly because they were building three golf courses on the top of the mountain which served as our back yard.... in other words, they are putting a golf course/development/sewage treatment plant above our water-table.... we said frick this and decided to sell after we found a great property in WV that borders a National Pakl and State Forest. We wanted to sell the place as quickly and as efficiently as possible. That's what happened.

We have work to do, and sometimes, the "PC" solution doesn't work.

rev

You'll notice the total lack of addressing the real concerns... like coerced s*x, shit living environments and stealing.

these keep coming up too

Spanky

There was one situation where a female was having sexual problems so she would be chaperoned on a date by another female who would critique her activity, no pressure there!! :coomer:

There's a lot more discussion too with various little tidbits but in the end, like all other things on the internet, the post is locked by a janny.

Bonus: an ex member wrote an FAQ here

The best part of this FAQ?

What do Zendiks do for fun?

They play World of Warcraft. I’m not sure if this started before I left or after, but my sources tell me it’s all the rage now. Why? Beats me. Maybe because Urs (Fawn’s firstborn) enjoys it. In any case, it’s close to mandatory now—it’s even possible to get “input” on how you play. But wait…if it’s required…does it really qualify as fun? Hmmm…you’d have to ask the Zendiks. My other theory as to why World of Warcraft is the Next Big Thing at Zendik is this: The Zendiks believe that if they triumph in the virtual realm, this will somehow translate (by way of the Infinite Psychic Field—see the section on “Psychic Phenomena”) into instant hegemony on the physical plane. Far-fetched? Yes. But only a little moreso than thinking you and your twenty-two minions are going to save the world.

:brainletchair: Playing WoW actually helps you ascend to a higher plane of existence

Some other discussions:

https://blog.purplearth.net/marketing-the-revolution-my-13-years-at-zendik-farm/

https://www.ic.org/fifty-shades-of-community/

https://highlandscurrent.org/2017/05/09/leaving-zendik-farm/

https://web.archive.org/web/20081101222508/http://www.geocities.com:80/theangryearth/collective.html

Zendik seems to have shut down in the early 2010s so maybe WoW beat them. :marseyxd:

46
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Anyone remember how there used to be posts in the Canadian subreddits years back about one of those horse farms where crusties would go to work in exchange for room and board and horsing and everyone was like this dude is super creepy and thought he was responsible for disappearances? That’s a sentence.

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What

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:marseyaleistercrowley:

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Love is the law, love under will

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Great find, I fricking love weird cult stories.

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They were (are? IDK, haven't seen much of them for a long time) a somehow shittier version of the Twelve Tribes cult.

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Wow thats a deep cut, they harrassed our church and several Christian events I went to when I was younger. One of the first rabbit holes I dove into

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If you engaged in frivolous conversation-- which is what I (like any teenager) did most of the time-- somebody would yell "Elevate!", which meant that you had to either shut up or start talking about Wulf's "philosophy". Usually we would just shut up.

:soyjak: :!soyjak: "yeah how bout that weather were having pretty crazy right"

:soyjak: :soyjak: :chad: "ELEVATE!"

:seethejak: :!seethejak: .

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:#marseycope:

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I feel so bad for normies that can't even win a battle of wills against a narcissist. Just a completely boring nobody blob and on top of it all if someone says they don't like you, you're halfway to tying the noose

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I have to admit, it's fascinating reading through stuff people wrote 18 years ago on the internet. Its crazy how little the niche internet forum formula has deviated to today :marseynotes:

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