West
Side "Therapy Cult" Conceals Its True Aims
By Dennis King
Heights
and Valley News, November 1977
Under
the guise of activist politics, a quasi-secret "therapy cult"--which
uses mind control techniques similar to those of Rev. Sun Myung Moon--has
developed a toehold of influence in our community. The group,
dominated by a former City College philosophy [professor] turned amateur
therapist, has operated on the Upper West Side since 1971, supporting
itself in part through solicitation on street corners (its members
are those polite young people with the tin cans frequently encountered
in front of the banks on Morningside Heights, or in front of Zabar's,
collecting for the "unemployed").
The
public name of the group has changed several times through the years
(always one step ahead of its creditors) from "If... Then" to "Centers
for Change" to the "International Workers Party" and now, the "New
York City Unemployed and Welfare Council." Only under this last
name has it begun to expand its influence and potential for recruitment,
thanks to sophisticated new tactics which involve the "surfacing" of
selected cult members to participate in the normal life of the community
while keeping their real agenda hidden.
The
West Side community has always been tolerant of kooky groups and this
reporter would certainly never dispute the constitutional right of
the therapy cult and its guru, Fred Newman, to "go to hell in their
own way." Nevertheless, this group has chosen to enter the civic
and electoral life of our community under false pretenses and for this
reason, if no other, they forfeit their right to privacy. After
all, we are speaking of a group which runs candidates in local elections,
which has a disciplined member of its inner directorate (Ms. Nancy
Ross) on Local School Board # 3, and which has another member serving
as secretary of the Mid-Westside Neighborhood Health Council.
Patients
Lured into Spider's Web
On
a more urgent level, we are speaking of a group which has used its
new respectability to lure an increasing number of psychotherapy patients
into its spider's web of controlled-environment manipulation and ego
destruction (fully described below), a trap from which, for some vulnerable
personalities, there will be no escape even after they are plucked
clean of all their personal savings and self-respect.
Given
the therapy cult's veneer of Left activism, there is a danger that
this article could be used to discredit honest people on the Left. Yet
the therapy cult's real politics are not of the Left--they are, rather,
the politics of mind control and are inherently linked to the type
of outlook that led the cult to associate itself for almost a year
with the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). The longer
the cult is allowed to continue with their Left cover, the more damage
they can do to the Left, as well as to the rest of the community. Indeed,
our last inhibitions about "going public" on this group were removed
when we were presented with proof that these so-called Leftists had,
in 1974, opened relations with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and passed to it information regarding the "Movement" (the very same
Movement which guru Fred Newman, in his writings, has attacked as "reactionary").
Interviews
with Former Cult Members
In
the course of our investigation, we interviewed over 30 people: former
members of the cult or of its front groups, former patients and colleagues
of Newman, and other persons with special information. We waded
through large piles of the cult's newspapers and internal documents
going back seven years. We examined the writings of Prof. Newman
back as far as 1965, when he did studies in the logic of belief structures
for the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Grant No. AFOSR529-65).
One
remarkable thing we found in our investigation was that, although the
former members and associates of the Newman cult left it for varied
reasons, and today espouse a variety of different political viewpoints,
they all give the same basic story with only minor variations. The
account which follows is a summary of the common elements that came
out in these interviews. The people we talked with were in most
cases people of intelligence, strong character and principled political
outlook, as indeed they would have to be to break from (or resist succumbing
to) Fred Newman's spell. Their story is well-documented.
How
the Cult Members Live
There
are about 35 individuals in the inner circle of the cult, mostly living
in semi-communal apartments on the Upper West Side. Through the
years, a combination of group pressure and Newman's directive therapy
has induced most of them to give up their jobs and to break off all
meaningful personal ties outside the group. Likewise, they have
been induced to turn over all personal property and savings to the
cult. They regard themselves as full-time organizers for the
cult's front groups, operating under tight discipline and secrecy. They
eat and pay their rent through a variety of parasitical activities,
such as the street corner solicitations (see picture caption), the
practice of amateur psychotherapy, the dunning of past and present
patients for "political contributions," and the occasional plucking
of an inheritance or trust fund from a patient.
Mindless
Adoration of the Guru
The
ex-members all agree that the single most striking feature of the group
is its total, mindless adoration of Fred Newman as leader, teacher,
therapist, and (in his own words) "benevolent despot." A common
statement by his followers is, "Fred saved my life" or "Fred is one
of the greatest thinkers in the world today." For some years,
the cult's publications featured icon-style photographs of Fred (they
are more cautious about such public displays nowadays). To attempt
to question a member of the cult about Fred's former connection to
the NCLC or about his peculiar living arrangements is even more frustrating
than asking a Moonie about Rev. Moon's ties to the Korean CIA. Indeed,
doubts about Newman expressed by anyone outside the cult are met either
with rage or with stony silence. Ex-members say that inside the
cult, if you oppose a decision of Newman's, the group will call your
sanity into question or, at least, say that you have an "authority
problem." Fred himself is given to irrational rages against people
who challenge his infallibility.
If
You Want to Join the Cult...
The
only way to join the cult is to go through therapy with Fred or one
of his lieutenants. Everything is structured around this therapeutic
relationship, and no one is fully trusted until they have poured out
their soul and been locked into the transference relationship. To
understand this system of control fully, however, you must understand
the type of people Fred recruited in the early 1970s. Most of
them were people in their twenties, with weak egos and grave doubts
about their ability to function in society; many of them had severe
sexual problems. Fred's veneer of false compassion and his deep-set
Rasputin-type eyes created strong transference feelings in these patients. But
unlike a responsible therapist, Newman showed no concern for moving
his patients beyond transference to emotional independence and adulthood. Around
patients targeted for recruitment, he spun a web of environmental controls
and emotional incentives that would keep them tied to the transference
relationship and to his own political power fantasies.
Creation
of a Pseudo-Family
The
key element was the creation of a pseudo-family in which these desperately
insecure people could escape taking responsibility for their own lives--the
benevolent despot--would make all decisions for them.
In
return for their total obedience, they would receive certain gratifications:
the diffuse sense of love and warmth within the cult (as long as you
didn't show any independence of mind) and also a sense of status and
position. Newman early figured out that one key to the hearts
of people with low self-esteem is to offer them pseudo-recognition
as "professionals." Thus he provided bogus training in psychotherapy
for a trusted few, and with the collectively pooled money he set up
a network of storefront clinics, schools and publications. None
of these operations ever had much of a real existence (indeed, Newman
has probably formed and disbanded more than 30 such enterprises in
his career as a guru). But they were not intended to have a real
existence--they were intended merely to provide a bureaucratic shell
with n which he could bestow titles (director of this, editor of that)
on individuals desperately in need of status.
No
Feedback from Reality
Thus
Newman constructed his controlled environment, with surrogate satisfactions
for whatever could be found in the outside world (and without the risk
of the latter). His groupies, cut off from the outside world
and with almost every waking hour spent either in "busywork" or interminable
meetings (so that independent thought could be kept at minimum), had
no feedback from reality. It was this lack of feedback, plus
the fact that most of the groupies had no prior political experience
whatsoever, that explains the ease with which Newman led them into
such bizarre adventures as their alliance with NCLC.
Although
Newman encourages an intense loyalty to the group (or the "group mind," as
he terms it), he is also a jealous Jehovah. Long-term romantic
ties within the group are often regarded as a threat to his domination
of the individuals involved, especially when one individual is "politically
more advanced" (i.e., more loyal) than the other. Indeed,
former members say that at least two married couples who joined the
group were persuaded to separate thanks to Newman's divide-and-conquer
counseling methods (playing the more advanced person against the less
advanced person, [and] then advising each of them in separate counseling
session that he or she would be happier without the other). Newman
has also counseled couples to remain together, but only when he was
confident that both persons had a greater loyalty to him and to the
group than to each other.
"We
Really Love Each Other"
Very
few permanent relationships have been successfully established in the
group (Newman and his two "wives" are one of the rare examples). Cult
members are fond of saying how "we really love each other" and "I really
love my comrades," but this does not translate into stable ties. In
the past six months, for instance, almost half the members of the cult
have split up with the person they were involved with at the beginning
of that time span. Such debacles, of course--and especially when
happening to people who have reached an age when they need stability--create
a devastating sense of guilt, which Newman is able to use to tie each
member of the group closer to him, since only he can dissipate the
anxiety.
Like
the Moon cult, Newman's group gives rise to a readily identifiable
social type. Although they are often very warm and attractive
people on first meeting, they have a curious lack of depth--their true
feelings, which Newman teaches them are part of their "madness," are
tightly locked away. They have a knee-jerk reaction of secrecy
and lying--almost psychopathic in its intensity--toward the outside
world. For some reason, the entire cult is desperately afraid
of being "found out." Like small children, they will deny even
past incidents that are a matter of public record (for instance, their
former association with the NCLC). In addition, they have a compulsive
manipulative-ness toward the outside world--every person outside exists
to be used for the good of the "group mind." All outside contacts
must be justified in terms of: How can I recruit ("redeem") this
person? And failing that, how can I rip him or her off? Finally,
this social type is characterized by a complete suppression of critical
faculties--members of the cult will deny any fact, howsoever small,
that does not fit with what Fred has said.
Childlike
World of Dependency
We
spoke with Frank Touchet, a professional psychotherapist who is a leading
expert on therapy cults, having closely studied both the Reichians
and the "West Side Sullivainians"--forerunners of the Newmanites. "What
you are dealing with," he said, "is people who have been criminally
tampered with in the deepest [fibers] of their being, and who have
descended into a strange childlike world of dependency, in which the
rational functions of the ego are relinquished completely to Fred Newman--who
regulates their lives on the most intimate level."
This
type of power is always a very dangerous thing, especially when in
the hands of a megalomaniac. Although Fred Newman has not directed
his family into Charley Manson-type acts of violence and mayhem, he
has nevertheless initiated them step by step into a "beyond good and
evil" approach to life. Each act of moral and political dishonesty
(see below) compromises them further, creates deeper unconscious guilt,
and ties them more closely to their leader. Perhaps the worst
aspect of this, is that Newman is able to justify at all terms of a "historic
mission" of the cult--it must survive and grow in order to therapize
the world, and if this means covering up past mistakes and crimes--well,
just erase the tape!
Savings
Account Ripped Off
In
1973, the therapy cult launched a campaign to raise the down payment
for a $300,000 house on West 91st [Street], to be their new headquarters. One
of Newman's followers, it turned out, had a very large joint savings
account with his father, a postman. It was the father's life
savings, and he had given his son access to it under the condition
that he not use it without permission until after his father's death
(so it would be available for any emergency). The cult exerted
strong pressure on this individual and induced him to clean out the
trust fund without his father's knowledge. (According to one
former member, this individual had been given a position of authority
in the organization and was afraid of losing this authority--in effect,
of being rejected by the group--if he didn't demonstrate his "loyalty" by
turning over the money.) He was told, however, that if his father
ever found out and wanted the money back, the cult would somehow raise
the money. Later, his father did find out and did ask for the
money back. The cult then discovered that, as usual, they had
made a commitment they couldn't keep, and the young man was so totally
under their domination that he accepted the decision not to raise the
money with nary a whimper. (This story was told us on separate
occasions by various former members of the cult.) If the father
had been Nelson Rockefeller, some people might say the group's behavior
was pardonable--but a postman? Or are postmen, by Newman's definition,
no longer to be considered part of the proletariat?
Informing
to the FBI
In
April, 1974, Jim Retherford, a member of the therapy cult, broke with
Newman because he could not stomach the latter's alliance with the
NCLC, which was pursuing a policy of violent attacks on other Left
groups. Jim was the father of a child by Ann Green, but Ann was
one of Fred Newman's most devoted followers and remained with the cult. On
June 1, the therapy cult officially affiliated with the NCLC. On
June 15, not wishing to see his child Jesse raised among people he
regarded as lunatics, Retherford took the child and left town.
On
June 24, acting under the direction of Fred Newman, two young lawyers
who belonged to the therapy cult, Harry Kresky and "Nathan Darrow" (political
name), prepared an affidavit which Green signed, and which identified
Jim Retherford as a former Weatherman. Between July 8 and July
25, under the direction of Newman, the two lawyers and Ann Green spoke
by phone and met personally with members of the FBI and told them that
Jim had harbored Weather people and had been in contact with fugitive
Jane Alpert in December 1973 or January 1974, in an attempt to induce
the FBI to search for Jim and thus help recover Jesse. (It is
significant that one reason Jim had been forced to seize the child
was that Newman\had driven a wedge between the parents by convincing
Ann that Jim was a "cop.") As part of the same plan, Kresky met
with members of the office of the U.S. Attorney in New York during
the same period to get them to pressure the FBI to act. The last
step in this strategy occurred on August 14 when Kresky wrote a letter
to the U.S. Attorney' office complaining that the matter had not been
acted on.
The
Secret Surfaces
In August
1974, the therapy cult broke with the NCLC, and set up the International
Workers Party (IWP). But they kept secret their contact
will the FBI, in spite of their claim to be a "communist" organization. The
matter finally came to the surface in the spring of 1976, when
a split occurred within the IWP between the therapy cultist and a
group of activists who had joined the IWP but had never submitted
to Newman's therapy. "Nathan Darrow" went over to the insurgent
faction and at this point decided to make a clean breast of his own
role in the FBI incident.
At
a meeting called by the IWP at St. Gregory's Church at 144 W. 90 St.
on May 2, 1976, the insurgent faction publicly raised the charges. Hazel
Daren, who was, chairing the meeting, was unable to deny the incident. Guru
Newman, from the audience, at first took what he called a "principled
abstention" from responding. After several long minutes of urging,
however, he managed to bleat out a one-syllable denial.
Nevertheless,
the cat was out of the bag--too many people already knew about the
incident. So on May 5, the IWP issued a public
statement (copies are available from this reporter) in which they
admitted to everything except Fred Newman's role. "IWP chairman
Newman" they claimed, "did not even know these activities were taking
place." They attempted instead to blame it all on the NCLC, saying
that the three people involved had acted under orders from the NCLC
legal and security staff, as a result of the latter organization's
temporary influence on their minds (in a sense, a plea of "temporary
insanity").
Newman is Guilty
This
version of the incident is highly unlikely: First, we have the
contrary testimony of Nathan Darrow. Second, we have the fact
that Ann Green was and is totally under the domination of her "infallible" political
leader, Newman--it is unthinkable that she (or Harry Kresky) would
have taken this step without Newman's approval and, indeed, his direct
orders. Third, we have the fact that the therapy cult, while
inside the NCLC, continued to function as a separate social group,
with its members' closest ties being to Newman and each other not to
the NCLC people (the therapy cult never fully agreed with NCLC's politics,
but entered it in order to change it.) Fourth, we have the fact
of Kresky's last phone call to the U.S. Attorney's office on August
14: Even if one assumes that the therapy cult's own chain
of command was temporarily in abeyance during June and July, the fact
is that by August 14 the Newman group had pulled themselves together
and were planning to split from the NCLC--by this date, they certainly
could no longer plead "temporary insanity."
In
their May 5, 1976 statement, the IWP claimed that Ann Green and Harry
Kresky had made amends for this incident and had been fully "rehabilitated." The
question, however, is not whether these two individuals are declared "rehabilitated" by
their own cronies, but whether the cult as a whole should be regarded
as "rehabilitated" by the Movement and by the community at large. This
writer submits that a group which covers up such an incident for almost
two years, and which, even when forced to admit the incident, continues
to cover for the person ultimately responsible, is far from being "rehabilitated."
The
Cover-Up Continues
In
fact, the cult figured (rightly) that most folks would forget the incident
or else never hear about it, and they could start pretending once again
that it never happened. When we found out about the incident
last month, we asked one of the leaders of the cult about it. This
individual tried to deny the existence of the IWP "confession" of May
5, 1976 (even though she herself, as a member of the leadership, had
certainly been involved in the decision to write it).
We
are not saying that the therapy cult today is a gang of police agents--only
that they are capable of becoming so when their group interests, or
the personal interests of one of their members, are threatened. The
nub of this unreliability lies in their unwillingness to come clean
about Newman's role and to remove him from the political leadership
of their group. Only such a step would prove that they have really
become principled community fighters, and until this is done they should
be regarded with suspicion.
The
Teachings of Fred Newman
Fred
Newman's vanity has betrayed him, in that he has not been able to resist
writing down his theory of brainwashing. Although the documents
in which he put this theory have since been withdrawn from public circulation
(the cult is desperately afraid of them falling into the hands of their
current crop of "enemies"), we were able to obtain them--and indeed,
they are the sort of thing the far craftier Rev. Moon would never have
put on paper.
The
heart of Newman's theory (and we will furnish any readers upon request
with copies of this stuff) lies in an analogy between the "political
state" and the "state of mind." Karl Marx said regarding the
political state, that the dictatorship of the capitalist class will
be replaced, through revolutionary overthrow, by the dictatorship of
the working class, which in turn will "wither away." Newman views
the "state of mind" in a similar fashion. Everyone in American
society is being driven mad by their "bourgeois egos." The job
of the therapist, as a "revolutionary leader," is to lead the patient
in overthrowing this bourgeois ego and setting up the "dictatorship
of the proletarian ego." (Since, of course, both Marxists and
non-Marxists agree that there is no such thing as this "proletarian
ego," and since it certainly could not in any event be created within
a tiny cult which has no ties whatsoever to the proletariat, what Newman
really means by the dictatorship of the proletarian ego is the dictatorship
of the therapist's ego; i.e., the dictatorship of Fred
Newman's ego--an interpretation which fully corresponds to the actual
facts of his total domination over his followers.) The overthrow
of the bourgeois ego (i.e., of the patient's individual Self)
is regarded as a "ruthless stripping away of the persona", a "violent" and "insurrectional" act. Once
the therapist's dictatorship is installed in place of the Self, however,
the "withering away" process does not begin immediately. Newman
clearly states that the withering away of the therapist's dictatorship
will only take place with the advent of world communism--and until
that millennium, Newman can have full use of his therapy slaves to
beg on street corners.
Abolishing
the "Self"
This
theory may sound foolish to normal people, but the results of it, in
practice, are devastating to the lonely, insecure types whom Newman
attracts. In fact, Newman carries his theory to even wilder extremes
than the above. He believes that the very concept of Self is "madness." You
have a sense of belonging to yourself, and this is based on the bourgeois
concept of private property. You must give this up, as well as
all beliefs you have ever developed about the objective world-beliefs,
after all, are private possessions. Likewise you must give up
all: private feelings of love and loyalty. These human
qualities are replaced by submergence in the "group mind" (which is
nurtured and directed by Newman.) This group mind is not based
on Reason or Logic, but on an intuitive awareness of one's connection
to the "flow of history." In addition, the group mind is "beyond
good and evil." If you accept it, however, and submerge yourself
in "sensuous practice," then Newman promises you power beyond your
wildest dreams: "As part of the (historical) flow," he writes, "we
have power. United with the masses and united with the dialectical
universe we have power. As a part of the ocean we affect what
it does. Separated from it we drown."
Beyond
Good and Evil
One
psychologist commented on these writings, "It sounds to me like a theory
for the systematic production of psychopaths." Certainly the "beyond
good and evil" part reminds us of a boast made by one of Newman's lieutenants, "We
never feel guilty about anything--we've abolished guilt." But
this theory has especially sinister implications considering the involvement
of the Newman cult in the education field; first, in setting up alternate
education programs for children in the early 1970s and now in their
activities around the public schools. As early as 1971, cult
leader Hazel Daren said at a workshop on children's liberation run
by the Women's National Abortion Coalition (by way of agreement with
a statement that "children never do anything wrong"): "The whole
concept of 'right' or 'wrong' is oppressive. You can be cruel
or you can be warm and that's what you are. To add right or wrong
holds you down." We would like to ask the Hon. Nancy Ross, member
of the District 3 School Board as well as of the therapy cult, and
currently sharing a psychotherapy practice with Hazel Daren: Do
you agree with this approach to early childhood education?)
The
Politics of "Mind-Fucking"
The
therapy cult will say this article is an attack on their "politics" (by
reactionary Democratic Party hacks, no doubt), so let's take the bull
by the horns and examine their political outlook. They claim
to be doing something called "strata organizing," which boils down
to middle-class white radicals going into poor Black and Latin neighborhoods
with a paternalistic attitude of "providing leadership" for the poor. On
this basis, they are able to carry out a systematic "mind-fuck" on
the West Side liberal community (their real target), by saying: "The
poor are suffering: you liberals should feel guilty: we of the
Unemployed Council are the only group with the courage to organize
the poor (a courage which you yourselves lack); therefore you should
give us (not the poor themselves) your donations." This pitch
is completely phony--people should not be intimidated by it, and should
reject it lock, stock, and barrel.
It
is true that the Unemployed Council pays the rent on several storefronts
in poor neighborhoods. It is also true that the cult has a network
of publications and bogus organizations many of which operate out of
a single office and all of which are designed to give an illusion of "vast
support." [M]ost of the organizing boils down to the middle-class
radicals gossiping with each other on the phone, conducting their therapy
sessions, doing the bureaucratic work of maintaining their paper empire,
and prowling the streets with their tin cans.
Paternalistic
Racism
A
few, of the cult members attempt to do serious organizing, but their
efforts are vitiated by their paternalistic racism (as expressed by
the attitude in their magazine Struggle, May, 1977, page 3,
that the minds of the Black and Latin poor are "virgin soil"). The
cult organizers do not live in the neighborhoods such as the South
Bronx which they claim to be organizing, but all come home at night
to the Upper West Side. They maintain a tight secrecy not to
let the poor know about their cult or their strange life styles. To
our knowledge, in the entire history of the therapy cult since 1971,
not a single Black or Latin person has ever been recruited to it. Yet
they use the slightest contact formed in the Black or Latin community
to brag far and wide about the strength of their ties among the poor. The
bogus nature of these ties was proven rather conclusively on Sept.
10, when the group held a citywide rally on the Upper West Side which
they claimed to have sent months building for in poor communities. Only
a few dozen poor people showed from around the city, in spite of the
rented buses. And most of these participants were young children
whose parents had consented (in effect) to let the Unemployed Council
baby-sit them for a day.
The
fact of the matter is that "strata organizing" does not exist to organize
the poor, but merely to give a sense of mission to the cult, feed the
vanity of the cult leaders, and provide a cover for various fund-raising
rip-offs among West Side liberals. The money goes to help the
cult members live as parasites on our community. And it's all
based on that simple mind fuck by which the guilt of the middle-class
is displaced from support for the poor to . support for Fred Newman.
No
Different from Heroin Pushing
At
the present moment, the most urgent problem is that the Newman cult
is moving aggressively (based on the prestige it has garnered from
the election of Nancy Ross to the local school board, among other things)
to recruit new cult members from among Westsiders seeking psychotherapeutic
help. In general, the cult makes a distinction between two types
of patients: those it deals with according to a mildly directive
form of rational psychotherapy simply as a way of earning money, and
those it earmarks for political and cult recruitment. The latter
are given a far more intensive dose of directive therapy and are "surrounded
by warmth and love" in a Moonie fashion.
This
fall, the "Institute for Social Therapy" is being geared up through
a series of training seminars to start the recruitment process once
again, while Newman has scheduled public lectures on his therapy for
December. Already the group is staging weekend parties where
its therapists and patients can get together on a social level (a practice
regarded as blatantly unprofessional and unethical by responsible therapists). Most
of the patients have no idea what they are letting themselves in for,
by opening their hearts to these phony witchdoctors. In our opinion,
now is the time for the people of this community, and especially health
care workers, to let this group know that we've had enough. Their "therapy" is
no different from heroin pushing, and it should be stopped.
Dennis
King was one of the first reporters to expose Newman's cult. While
his earlier estimation of the intelligence and sagacity of
IWP cadre was rather severe, his report on the destructive
nature and secretive tactics of the IWP remains true to this
date. |
