Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Rise and Fall of Synanon: A California Utopia

Rise and Fall of Synanon: A California Utopia

Janzen, Rod

Paperback

Religion General Addiction & RecoveryGeneral Sociology

ISBN10: 1421448106
ISBN13: 9781421448107
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: Sep 4 2023
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.06
Height: 0.73 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

The definitive account of Synanon.

On a fall day in 1978, Los Angeles attorney Paul Morantz reached into his mailbox to collect his mail and was nearly killed. He was bitten by the four-foot-long rattlesnake that had been put there by members of a cultlike group called Synanon.

Chuck Dederich--a former Alcoholics Anonymous member who coined the phrase Today is the first day of the rest of your life--established Synanon as an innovative drug rehabilitation center near the Santa Monica beach in 1958. Synanon quickly evolved into an experimental commune and religion that attracted thousands of members and was strongly committed to social justice and progressive education. Twenty years later, when Dederich was arrested for the Morantz attack, Synanon had devolved into a paranoid community that followed its egomaniacal leader in whatever direction he chose to take.

Also in

General Sociology

View All