Here's my Prediction - Future Cult

[Khan]

This "Quinn" fellow's abuse of the English language causes me pain. My father would call that interview "a bunch of hippy dippy bullpuckey". How long before we hear that this dude has a cult in Waco? He is young enough to start quite the creeper cult. Attracting lots of single moms, since he has no "children of the blood." I know next to nothing about Unschooling. Does it really allow for children to skip learning English? I also loves his comments about not working. Really? Sounds like he runs a set of seminars teaching his lifestyle.

[lilith]

This "Quinn" fellow's abuse of the English language causes me pain. My father would call that interview "a bunch of hippy dippy bullpuckey". How long before we hear that this dude has a cult in Waco? He is young enough to start quite the creeper cult. Attracting lots of single moms, since he has no "children of the blood." I know next to nothing about Unschooling. Does it really allow for children to skip learning English? I also loves his comments about not working. Really? Sounds like he runs a set of seminars teaching his lifestyle.

He has fathered several "children of his blood" according to the second blog linked in the OP.

[Mustang Sally]

Why do so many people who identify as radical freethinkers spout the same meaningless new age-y platitudes as all the other self-identified radical freethinkers?

[Burris]

http://www.reverbnation.com/quinneaker

His baby lullabye is scary.

...the fuck did I just waste four seconds of my life hearing?

And this guy has a harem - and children? Oh, and I find yet another reason to weep for the future.

[Tesseract]

I've kept up with the online radical unschooling community for about 12 years. I remember the family and vaguely remember the article linked. He certainly does butcher the English language and is full of himself, but I don't know that unschooling in and of itself is to blame. It is not hard to point to many traditionally schooled adults with poor written language skills and bad singing, but yeah, there is something really "off" with him.

I would not hold him up as a poster boy for unschooling, but no single person is, including the ones with graduate degrees. They are all individuals and it is so much more complex than the method of education alone. Personality, mental health status, neurobiological influence, family dynamics, support systems in place etc... are all factors. He sure is drawn to extremes, has a skewed sense of his place in the world, and may very well become a cult leader, but he really isn't representative of how most of the kids from that visible community seem to be turning out.

All that said, I totally agree that he is one to watch out for.

[julie paradox]

I decided that I wasn't going to learn to play, I was going to just play!I did an intentional ceremony to connect with didgeridoo consciousness.

Um... yeah.

Still, at least he appears to have learnt circular breathing, so he's one up on me there.

His lullaby seems to be attempting to reproduce the didgeridoo sound.

[Tesseract]

Um... yeah.

Still, at least he appears to have learnt circular breathing, so he's one up on me there.

His lullaby seems to be attempting to reproduce the didgeridoo sound.

:lol:

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

Well, these are the kinds of folks who make me embarrassed to be a radical left-winger! :lol:

Anyone who thinks college classes are all boring, meaningless and unstimulating has just never participated in an engaging seminar or listened to a really brilliant lecture. There are moments of such incredible magic in higher education that I've dedicated my life to it. It's just sad when someone who has refused to participate (refused, not prevented due to circumstance) and convinced themselves that it's pointless turn around and badmouth it like they know what they are talking about. And then insist on top of that that they would easily ace it! Dude, please. You wouldn't last a day in my classroom*, since you can't just pull random profound-sounding bullshit out of thin air and have everyone treat you like a genius.

(No, not even in a literature seminar. ;) )

[rward]

There is an assumption that nudity and sex go hand in hand. “We were all born naked,†says Quinn. He is an authority because he has witnessed two babies being born.

:lol:

Over dinner one evening, I mentioned to a couple of the women that I had heard from a good source that Quinn has a premature ejaculation challenge. With a look of self-satisfaction in her eyes, Shellie unfolded, “Not anymore he doesn’t.†I looked at Inok and said, “Tell Shellie thank you, Inok.†With delight, Inok complied with a robust, “Oh, Shellie, thank you!†which was followed by a round of giggles. “As long as he washes off afterwards it is great when he goes to you first because then he lasts longer with me,†Inok jokingly told Shellie with a big sheepish smile.

:pink-shock:

This is just the first blog post. At least I won't be bored today. (Though I could have done without seeing Quinn nude with a hand over his junk. Just sayin'.)

[Savoring Samsara]

In the interview, dated May 10, 2010, he didn't have any children. By June 2012, he had three women as partners and had fathered two children. The blog writer is a fourth woman who brings her 12 year old daughter along with her to live on the property and observe as an "anthropologist". The blog only has a handful of entries; I hope she got the hell out of there for her daughter's sake.

Well, the "anthropologist's" Facebook page now contains the following:

Keeping busy and occupied only helps for a little while. Eventually I must stop. Then, the horrible sadness and pain floods in. I cry myself to sleep. I miss my little girl so much. I miss my [name redacted] so very much.

Please God, open my mother's eyes and heart and help her to see how wrong she and her husband are to keep me and my little girl apart.

Please God, open my mother's eyes and heart and help her to feel the mother's pain I feel infinitely deep in my heart.

Please God, open my mother's eyes and heart and help her to hear my sobs and the torment of my heart.

Please God, open my mother's eyes and heart and help her to have the courage to do what she know is right and send my daughter home to her mother where she belongs, where we are happy together, where we can move on with our lives together.

I miss her so much. I love her so much. Please, please, God. Have mercy on my heart. I beg you.

:(

It also appears that she no longer lives at the "Garden of Eden."

[rward]

So. Quinn's mother is a bigwig in unschooling circles, it seems. (Or perhaps a self styled bigwig, I don't run in those circles.) Quinn is her masterpiece.

Quinn has 3 "wives" Shellie, Inok and Adrienne. Shellie, it turns out, was his mother's best friend. truelovelives.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/summer-spiral-3/

Usually, we went alone, without Shellie. She had come along a few times, but was slightly less than welcome since Barb had never really liked or approved of her former best friend hooking up with her son.

Quinn has the guru aspect down pat:

I was not able to withstand any of his usual “sword of truth,†telling me sharply how it was all my own responsibility that I felt the way I did, and demanding that I see the light or that I deserved to continue suffering.

Still looking for Adrienne. She must be pretty recent.

[Savoring Samsara]

Adrienne is a urologist in Texas, and big into attachment parenting and natural childbirth. I think she and Quinn may not be together anymore. At the very least, she doesn't appear to live at the Garden of Eden. Quinn is the father of the youngest of her three children. Here's that child's birth story, which seems pretty standard for hippies:

naturalbirthrights.com/Natural_Birth_Rights/Birth_Stories_files/Leila%27s%20Birth.pdf

Inok is by far the most "out there" of the three. Check out her story of giving unassisted birth to a breech baby in a Best Western in Costa Rica, where she and Quinn had traveled in search of their own sparkling childbirth adventure. She is incredibly fortunate that both of them are not dead.

rethinkingeverythingmagazine.com/uploads/6/4/0/8/6408350/remagazineparentissueonesmall.pdf

[salex]

It strikes me, reading the article and a few other things, that this guy has never been told "no" by his parents. That he has generally taken the easy path in his life, and managed to be praised for it (planned to live 3 months in the wild, but lived there only 1, because it was more difficult than anticipated, but praised because "how many other suburban youth could last a month".

He must be somewhat charismatic and somewhat intellingent to get followers-- but what happens when another bull shows up in his herd or someone tells him not only no, but hell no?

I think your prediction is dead on.

[formergothardite]

He looks like a cleaner, younger more crazy Currawong.

[Dixiebelle]

http://truelovelives.wordpress.com/2012/08/09/summer-spiral-3/

This reads exactly like fundie-speak to me. All of her problems were caused by her own rotten thinking, and would go away if only her attitude would improve. Blech.

(except....things didn't improve. How surprising.)

[rward]

It strikes me, reading the article and a few other things, that this guy has never been told "no" by his parents. That he has generally taken the easy path in his life, and managed to be praised for it (planned to live 3 months in the wild, but lived there only 1, because it was more difficult than anticipated, but praised because "how many other suburban youth could last a month".

He must be somewhat charismatic and somewhat intellingent to get followers-- but what happens when another bull shows up in his herd or someone tells him not only no, but hell no?

I think your prediction is dead on.

He's pretty typical of children who were never told no. He thinks he can get into any collage (sic) he wants. He thinks he can get any job he wants, not that he's ever tried. He does anything he can think of doing that isn't that much work. It's all about him and his pleasures and what he wants with nary a thought for anyone else.

IOW, he's a 3 year old in a man's body.

[DefraudedbyGothard]

Well, the "anthropologist's" Facebook page now contains the following:

:(

It also appears that she no longer lives at the "Garden of Eden."

She is an unschooler who it seems has lost custody of her daughter to her parents. Here is her background story in her words. She has a tough history if it's true. (sorry always a sceptic) Page down to Making Lemonade.

rethinkingeverythingmagazine.com/uploads/6/4/0/8/6408350/rethinking_everything_magazine_issue_six.pdf

[Savoring Samsara]

She is an unschooler who it seems has lost custody of her daughter to her parents. Here is her background story in her words. She has a tough history if it's true. (sorry always a sceptic) Page down to Making Lemonade.

rethinkingeverythingmagazine.com/uploads/6/4/0/8/6408350/rethinking_everything_magazine_issue_six.pdf

I saw that too. A lot of the women involved with Quinn Eaker seem to have gone through a lot of really difficult things in their backgrounds. I wish them the best in following their bliss, but I hope they will also keep the well-being of their children in mind as they work on finding themselves.

[Burris]

This reads exactly like fundie-speak to me. All of her problems were caused by her own rotten thinking, and would go away if only her attitude would improve. Blech.

(except....things didn't improve. How surprising.)

From the blog:

This was not to be. One day when he came back to our bedroom from a private session with Shellie, I told him plainly that it made me feel really bad that he had left me alone to go be with her, intimately. His reply was simply “That’s fine, but I am not going to let that stop me from feeling goodâ€. And that was his stance. Nothing I could say or do or feel was going to stop him from doing whatever he wanted, whatever he felt like doing, whatever he enjoyed. Nothing.

I couldn’t fathom how he could “love†me and have such little regard for my feelings. Here I was, the most vulnerable I have allowed myself to be since childhood- hopelessly in love, pregnant, in a new home, at the mercy of my lover. And he had no compassion, no inclination to restrain or restrict himself in the slightest for my sake. He was utterly unfazed by my heartache.

Wow. What a catch. :/

[Haligh the Liar]

Why do so many people who identify as radical freethinkers spout the same meaningless new age-y platitudes as all the other self-identified radical freethinkers?

No matter! He's unschooled, unfettered, unconventional, uneducated, unwashed, and possibly uncircumcised. Though I suppose the last doesn't matter except in combination with unwashed.

The depth of his egoism and delusion are infuriating, but the lives of his female companions are heartbreaking. Based on reading LaVonne's story of abuse and difficulty in life, and how she bounced around from solution to solution-Christianity, art, Wicca, tarot, hippie douchebag, I'm convinced that she and the others are using this as an escape from life. Quinn's control and ego allows them to abdicate responsibility and rest, while the 'do what you feel' provides an escape from the pressures of the world that failed them. Meanwhile, his patriarchal hippie bullshit is accepted due to a history of familiarity with similar abuse. The whole situation disgusts me, and reminds me a lot of the cult in the movie Martha Marcy May Marlene. I'm sure Quinn will grow up to look just like John Hawkes, too.

As an aside, I was born in St. Louis two years before Quinn. Sadly, my parents did not respect my innate knowledge and freedom, and I was confined in the prison of excellent schools and activities. Today, I teach collage and have impeccable hygiene. The tale of Quinn mocks me by showing me what I could have been had my parents not bound me in the chains of conformity. :|

[oil]

life. For what felt like a long time, I could feel only the flux

of frustration and despair.

I told Quinn I didn’t know if I could do it, that I felt so tired

and so weak. He asked me if I

wanted to give up, if I wanted to

go to the hospital. I replied “noâ€

to both. Then I was surprised to

hear him say, “Then quit fuckin’

around!

This when shes in labor. Quinn is a prick.

[libmomj]

According to the Garden of Eden residents' public Facebook pages, as of July 12, another child of blood is due any moment. I hope mom and baby are safe and healthy.

Quinn's harem appears to have shrunk in the past year. It seems that only one fertile female is living on the property at the moment. Last time around, however, Inok learned of Adrienne's pregnancy shortly after giving birth herself. As someone who has struggled with insecurities in their arrangement, she's got to be freaked out that another woman will climb out of the woodwork sustainable, organic pile of debris.

I really hope that those who left can find some peace and stability (and keep it off the internet, at least when it comes to the children.)

[Pathfinder]

I am a Certified Nurse Midwife and I find that birth story appalling on so many levels. When you put your desire for a mind-blowing birth experience ahead of the health/welfare of the baby, it is wrong.... totally wrong. These people are darn lucky that their baby girl is alive and well.

[DefraudedbyGothard]

I am a Certified Nurse Midwife and I find that birth story appalling on so many levels. When you put your desire for a mind-blowing birth experience ahead of the health/welfare of the baby, it is wrong.... totally wrong. These people are darn lucky that their baby girl is alive and well.

When you are as self absorbed as this lot it is no surprise. The navel gazing is off the charts.

[Sobeknofret]

I am a Certified Nurse Midwife and I find that birth story appalling on so many levels. When you put your desire for a mind-blowing birth experience ahead of the health/welfare of the baby, it is wrong.... totally wrong. These people are darn lucky that their baby girl is alive and well.

CNM's Rock! I had a CNM for most of my pregnancy with my son, and she saved his life and probably mine as well. Thanks for being a CNM-- you and your colleagues do an awesome job!