Ted Patrick

Early life

Ted Patrick was born in what he calls "a red-light district" of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in which he was surrounded by "thieves, prostitutes, murderers [and] pimps. From his earliest recollections, Patrick says [he] saw people being killed, shot up, cut up, beat up. The place was so bad, even the police didn't want to come there."

Patrick had a speech impediment, which set him apart from the other children. Until he was sixteen, no one could understand what he said, which made him feel "shy and backwards and miserable and embarrassed" for most of his childhood.

According to Patrick, after being taken to countless faith healers, witch doctors and voodoo practitioners, the final straw was an embarrassing spin the bottle game, during which the bottle pointed at him, but the girl wouldn't kiss him. He then decided to take his problem into his own hands.

His speech improved, and with it his confidence and interpersonal skills. He dropped out of high school in tenth grade to help support his family. After working in a variety of jobs, he saved enough to open a nightclub called the Cadillac Club, with his cousin.

The venture was successful, and eventually he sold his share of the business to his cousin. Patrick was the co-chairman of the Nineteenth Ward in Chattanooga. He planned on opening a restaurant and cocktail lounge; however, according to Patrick, his political enemies obstructed this.

At the age of twenty-five, Patrick left his wife and infant son in Tennessee, and went with a friend to San Diego, California. There, he started the Chollas Democratic Club, to assert the rights of the black community.

Perhaps their main accomplishment was picketing supermarkets and other stores to get them to employ blacks. After Patrick had saved enough money, he brought his wife and children to San Diego. Other organizations he started in San Diego include the Logan Heights Businessmen’s Association, the Junior Government of Southeast San Dieg, and the Volunteer Parents Organization (VPO.) During the Watts Riots in 1965 the VPO was instrumental in keeping the violence from reaching San Diego. For his efforts in the Watts Riots Patrick was awarded the Freedom Foundation Award, which ultimately led to his job as the Special Assistant for Community Affairs, under then-Governor Ronald Reagan.

Career as a deprogrammer

Despite a lack of formal education and professional training, Patrick was hired by hundreds of parents and family members to "deprogram" their loved ones. A high school dropout, Patrick based his techniques and practices on his own life experience. According to Ted Patrick himself in a TV debate with members of the Hare Krishna group (May, 1979), "How I got into deprogramming was through my own son. All outdoor boy, couldn't nothing keep him in the house. Then one day, he was psychologic... psychological(ly) kidnap(ped) by a cult".

In this interview, Patrick also explained how this search to understand cults led him to speaking with "witches, warlocks, healers" and in fact, he went "all the way to New Orleans" to the same person his mother brought him to for his speech impediment. He also stated that he spent time in a religious group and after a week "...didn't know where I were, nor how I got there...I was hook(ed)."

Patrick stated this research and understanding of the mind from his ongoing struggle with his own speech, served as the background for his work in deprogramming.

On 12 June 1971, Mrs. Samuel Jackson (no relation to actor of the same name) contacted Patrick to file a complaint concerning her missing son, Billy.

As Billy was nineteen, the police and FBI would not look for him. Billy was involved with the group known as the Children of God, who had approached Patrick's own son, Michael a week prior. Patrick contacted other people whose relatives were in the cult, and even pretended to join them, to study how the group operated. This was when he developed his method of deprogramming. He ultimately left his full-time job, in order to work on deprogramming full-time. Patrick founded the FREECOG organization, later known as the Citizen's Freedom Foundation, in 1971. before merging into the Cult Awareness Network.

As one of the pioneers of deprogramming, Patrick used a 'confrontational' method:

"When you deprogram people, you force them to think.... But I keep them off balance and this forces them to begin questioning, to open their minds. When the mind gets to a certain point, they can see through all the lies that they've been programmed to believe. They realize that they've been duped and they come out of it. Their minds start working again."

Patrick stood trial several times on kidnapping charges related to his activities. After the first trial, which found him not guilty, he stopped executing the actual kidnapping but continued with his deprogramming. He testified before an ad hoc Congressional committee organized in 1979 by Senator Bob Dole. According to The New Republic, Dole intended the hearing to "provide a forum" for Patrick and other anti-cult activists.

In 1980 Patrick was paid $27,000 to carry out the deprogramming of Susan Wirth, a 35-year-old teacher living in San Francisco. He was hired by her parents, who objected to her involvement in leftist political activities. The process involved handcuffing her to a bed for two weeks and denying her food. She was later released and after returning to San Francisco spoke out against deprogramming but declined to press legal charges against her parents or Patrick.

A documentary about the career of Ted Patrick, directed by Mia Donovan, was released April 26, 2015 by EYESTEEL Film.

Civil and criminal proceedings involving Patrick

Some criminal proceedings against Patrick have resulted in felony convictions for kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment.

Publications