Synanon began as an addiction support group that gathered in a grimy Californian flat in the late 1950s. It would grow to become a well-funded utopian society throughout the late ’60s and early ’70s, before declaring itself a religion in 1974. This organisation would attract Hollywood stars like Leonard Nimoy and Jane Fonda to participate in its so-called “Game”, and eventually break up married couples, force men to have vasectomies and women to have abortions, amass assets worth tens of millions of dollars, and become entangled in a web of violence. Synanon’s leader Charles Dederich is often credited with coining the phrase “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Support Let's Talk About Sects: a podcast about cults Links: American National Biography: Supplement — Oxford University Press, 2002Self-Reliance — by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1847 edition, Wikisource full textEstimating Emerson: An Anthology of Criticism from Carlyle to Cavell — edited by David LaRocca, A&C Black, 1 January 2013Charles Dederich, 83, Synanon Founder, Dies — by Lawrence van Gelder, The New York Times, 4 March 1997Synanon: Toward Building a Humanistic Organization — by Steven Simon, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 18, No. 3, Summer 1978Paul Morantz's website — with extensive writings by the attorney and investigative journalist about SynanonThe Man Who Fought the Synanon Cult and Won — by Matt Novak, Gizmodo, 27 August 2014Synanon's Sober Utopia: How A Drug Rehab Program Became A Violent Cult — by Matt Novak, Gizmodo, 20 April 2014The Rise and Fall of Synanon: A California Utopia — by Rod A. Janzen, Johns Hopkins University Press, 20012-year forced stay in drug rehab home inspires art exhibition — by Sam Whiting, San Francisco Chronicle, 22 January 2018SYNONYM — Ongoing art/research project by Phillip Andrew LewisFrom the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement — by Matthew Garcia, University of California Press, 2014SB-524 Private alternative boarding schools and outdoor programs — 2015-2016, California Legislative InformationThe Recovery Revolution: The Battle Over Addiction Treatment in the United States — by Claire D. Clark, Columbia University Press, 2017Hotel Casa del Mar websiteThe Story of This Drug Rehab-Turned-Violent Cult Is Wild, Wild Country-Caliber Bizarre — by Hillel Aron, Los Angeles Magazine, 23 April 2018Synanon (1965) movie trailerSynanon Women Join Men In Head Shaving Routine — Daytona Beach Morning Journal, 3 March 1975Fornits » Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform » Synanon — One of the message boards where posts from self-identified former Synanon residents can be readSynanon Visitor Commments — via Cult Education Institute, copyright Rick RossChuck Dederich Still Rules Synanon, but Now He Has 1,300 Subjects and a $22 Million Empire — by Barbara Wilkins, People Magazine, 11 October 1976Challenging Synanon can be hazardous to health and wealth — TIME Magazine, 23 October 1978The Light on Synanon: How a Country Weekly Exposed a Corporate Cult – and Won the Pulitzer Prize — by Dave Mitchell, Cathy Mitchell and Richard Ofshe, Seaview Books, 1980Three former Synanon Foundation members have told investigators the... — by Chris Chrystal, UPI, 11 July 1983Synanon Museum — "This site is devoted to Synanon memories -- for a way of life now gone which was by turns joyful and terrifying, but which none of us can ever forget. Here you can get an idea of how we lived, what we did, and what happened."SHAVED HEADS, SNIPPED TUBES, IMPERIAL MARINES, AND DOPE FIENDS — by George Pendle, Cabinet Magazine, Winter 2012-2013LIBEL SUIT COSTS HEARST $600,000 — by Les Ledbetter, The New York Times, 3 July 1976Synanon opens house in Potrero — The Potrero View, 1 April 1971SYNANON SIGNS UP 550 CITY ADDICTS —