Nuns behaving badly

In the 1960s in California William Coulson and a group of radical psychotherapists were able to convince a group of nuns to become guinea pigs in a bizarre psychological experiment. The Convent of the Immaculate Heart in Los Angeles, one of the largest seminaries in America, was the place chosen. Quite why the convent approved of this experiment is beyond me but I suppose they wanted to appear hip and trendy. The nuns were going to be put in an encounter group. This is defined as “a typically unstructured psychotherapy group in which the participants seek to increase their sensitivity, responsiveness, and emotional expressiveness, as by freely verbalizing and responding to emotions”. They most certainly did that.

The convent was transformed. This quote from one of the nuns indicated that strange things were happening:

You are trying to assert yourself, trying to find out who you are, who you are becoming, at the same time you are trying to live a life of dedication of service and you are trying to make all of these things fit into who you are, and it’s such a turmoil at times that you just blow a gasket and do silly crazy things. Running around the orchard and stealing oranges and taking Cokes out of the refrigerator, crazy things.

The nuns voted to discard their habits but that was nothing compared to what was about to happen. These sessions unleashed forces previously that had previously lain dormant – sex. Nuns started seducing each other. It may sound like a Larry Flynt production but it really happened.

Within a year 300 nuns, more than half the convent, had petitioned the Vatican to be released from their vows and six months later the convent closed its doors. All that was left was a small group of radical lesbian nuns.

http://molivam42.wordpress.com/2010/02/28/five-famous-psychological-experiments/