The Sullivanians:Through a Blue Window ((c) 2019 shelley feinerman's Podcast
CULT! This podcast chronicles the rise and fall of the Sullivanian Institute and its members. The psycho-sexual therapy] and institute existed on Manhattan's Upper West Side from the 1970s through the 1990s. Directed to abandon family and friends, as we all were, after five years my life was inextricably altered. The podcast begins with my childhood, then goes on to my time in the Sullivanians, and 20 years later, its self-destruction when it was characterized as a cult. It is entitled Through a Blue Window: The Sullivanians and is dedicated to mother, Ruth.
The Sullivanians:Through a Blue Window ((c) 2019 shelley feinerman's Podcast
Inside the Sullivanians: Annie, re deux ten years later
What if you found yourself trapped within a group that controlled every aspect of your life, from your relationships to how you spent your money? This episode unveils some of the dark realities inside the Sullivanians, the infamous cult that hid in plain sight on Manhattan's Upper West Side, in the years after Cora left. Learn about the group's manipulative tactics, inspired by the theories of Harry Stack Sullivan, which forced members into rigid and often detrimental lifestyles. These oppressive dynamics strained family bonds, induced severe anxiety, and left members grappling with emotional and financial turmoil.
After 10 years Annie Steinman re-enters Cora's life. You will hear her how the Institute's brutal regime upended her life. With the absence of June Geddes, Saul's unyielding control became even more suffocating as the women of the group became mothers as Annie did.. Annie shares the protocols of pregnancy and the devastating loss of her daughter, Rosie, to the Institute's grip. Her story is a stark reminder of the profound personal costs of such manipulative environments. This episode is an eye-opening account of the search for autonomy and the enduring impact of living under such a repressive system. And in two weeks listen for the climatic episode "Escape from Nirvana."
The complete documentary Through a BlueWindow can be seen on my youtube channel shellfein1. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you
My relationship with Chris came to an ignominious end After the Peppa debacle and our move to the East Village. Chris began to spend time with Mary Shelton, the bespeckled keeper of finances at the Open Union that eventually closed its doors after months of attrition and finally emptied the coffers when that transitory relationship ended. In short drift, chris traded up and out of my life with Catherine Pearson, a wealthy patron he met at Books and Company. I was still reeling from the years I'd spent in the group. I told my mother I needed a break from communicating with her and three years later she was dead. She had no idea why I'd continued to evade her. I just vanished from our close-knit family unit of three my mother, sister and I before she died.
Speaker 1:My involvement with the Sullivanians wasn't for ideological reasons. My journey began when I fell in love with Jackson, when my sublet unexpectedly ended and I needed a place to live. Without realizing it, my indoctrination had begun on our first date, as it was the mission of the Sullivanians to bring in new members. It was the mid-1970s and the group was at its height, numbering almost 500 members, and through Jackson I was introduced to a newly formed women's apartment. Eventually, my new roommates urged me to switch from my eclectic therapist to a Sullivanian one, and when I did, I officially belonged in the group. Being in the group included a share in a summer house and all the expenses that came with that, which meant that I needed to earn more money and my therapist directed me to clean group apartments. Part of Sullivanian protocol was to follow your therapist's directives. As a cleaner, I met many Sullivanians very quickly and they were interested in dating the newest member. I no longer had to worry about making friends something I was inept at or finding men to date. At one point I was dating 10 or more women and men, and during the years I spent in the group I had sex with over 60 men. There were so many dates to fit in the day that some began at midnight or later To keep track of the dates, schools sessions and work-filled days. Date books were derogare. No one was without their date book.
Speaker 1:The four horsemen, as I called them Saul Newton, helen Moses, joan Harvey and Ralph Kine led the Institute. The Institute's concepts were based on the bastardized theories of the late psychoanalytical pioneer psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan. In the group, anxiety was exacerbated by sleep deprivation and the pressures of dating and sex, turning down any request for sex from a group member was seen as subversive. Anxiety was something to repress with the readily available Valium. The trainees, as the lay therapists were called, and the licensed psychotherapists weren't like other therapists who followed a strict ethical code. The therapist of the group slept with patients and Saul in particular, asked for sex during sessions. They also gave specific like directives, such as when I was told not to go to my mother's funeral. Everything was secretive. I didn't find out until after I left that many others in the group had been given the same dictum when one of their parents had died. The nuclear family was the enemy, and mothers were seen as the cause of all problems. Anyone getting involved with the group who already had a child was seen as their own child's enemy. The solution was to get rid of them by sending them away to boarding schools.
Speaker 1:In later years, the Fourth Wall Theater, with its mandatory time and money commitment requiring each member to help repair the upstate camp that was bought in 1978, restructured the group's focus. Creators in the group were directed to train in computer sciences, which would lead to more lucrative careers. As more money was needed to maintain the exploding costs of therapy, monthly membership and annual dues in the fourth wall, as well as Saul's other real estate ventures the members Kondo and Joan Harveys, a former soap actress turned therapist, movie making and theatrical dreams, and the therapist's summer homes in Switzerland. You had to commit to the new rules dictated by Saul and if you left it was without the money you had invested. Having a date with the same person more than two times a week was strongly discouraged. Maintaining a relationship with a person for more than three months was called a focus, but this was largely ignored and most members had a focus while they continued to date others.
Speaker 1:The men in the group enjoyed the indiscriminate sex the group promised, but there were more women than men and the women were told to have sex with any male Sullivanian who asked. These women who didn't comply were told that they were repressed. Nobody wanted that tag hanging around their necks like a scarlet letter and there was unstated but strongly implied pressure to adhere to this dictum. Lesbians in the group were given ultimatums to get a diaphragm. Any illegal drug use was cause for immediate expulsion. The Institute had come under unwanted attention by the American Psychological Board because many of the original trainees hadn't finished college more than once, because each of my therapists fit into that category and left the program. I had four therapists in five years. My last was a former history teacher. His only qualification seemed to be his college degree.
Speaker 1:The group apartments took turns hosting open-door Sullivanian-only parties each weekend, with the no-drug rule strictly enforced. Alcohol was the drug of choice, and at parties there were 60-gallon plastic-lined garbage cans filled with a potent mixture of liquors helping to facilitate sexual encounters. Inhibitions were expected to be left at the door, music blared and phonetic dancing went well into the early mornings. Sometimes there were group gropes during the parties involving five or more men and women, and three-way sex dates. Grandiose was another concept that was brandished in the group.
Speaker 1:The Sullivanian belief that they were a vanguard party and that they were going to save the world sprang from the narcissistic and grandiose mind of Saul Newton, a lay therapist himself, whose presence was necessary for the group's continuation. He was the father figure of the Sullivanian family, but he was an abusive father who cultivated a tyrannical atmosphere. In later years, helen Moses, his wife at the time, reportedly told her patients to have sex with Saul, who was then in his 80s. And if you were a woman who wanted a child, you had to please him, and if you were a woman who wanted a child, you had to please him. During my first summer in Amagansett, when I had a session at the trainee's summer house on Barn Hall's landing, I caught a glimpse of Saul, a shrunken old man even then and he lived another 20 years. He had a shock of white hair and was draped in nothing but a white sheet, an alien, gandhi-like creature with the women trainees gathered at his feet as he fed off their youth. As I stated earlier in another episode, patients had two to three sessions a week where we disclosed our histories, our dreams, hopes and fears, and this was eventually used to keep us in tow, encouring Saul's wrath for anything he might judge a betrayal or perceived slight he saw as a threat. And boom, you'd be out without recourse and your so-called friends would be far in the distance.
Speaker 1:The group had acquired an apartment building as a condo for members on Broadway near 100th Street. On the evening of July 29, 1985, members of the Sullivanian Institute broke in and terrorized an apartment at 100th Street and Broadway because they wanted that lease. Dressed in dark colors and stocking caps, some beat the tenants with sticks, while others slit open mattresses and smashed the sink, toilet and television sets. It was a coordinated revenge attack intended to send a message to the group's neighbors who had allegedly started the drama by spilling paint on the Institute's wall as they were unhappy with their new neighbors. After the raid, the Sullivanian marauders returned to their condo and set up a security detail in case of retaliation. All of this was cited in a 1989 New York Magazine article.
Speaker 1:Saul's paranoia was pushed to the limit in the hours after reports on March 28, 1979, that the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor near Middletown, pennsylvania, had partially melted down. He ordered the therapists and their families to leave for Florida. Calls went out in the middle of the night spreading the news to all the apartments that Saul was leaving, and most of the group followed In camping at a Howard Johnson's where the atmosphere was hysterical. People didn't know if they would be allowed to return to New York City, but upon returning 10 days later, one member had a breakdown and was taken by his roommates to Bellevue Hospital where he disclosed the entire exodus to the doctors. He was released with medication because the doctors didn't really believe his story. One hour upon his return to his apartment, saul personally called and told him he had endangered the group and he had one hour to pack up and leave.
Speaker 1:The men's brownstone on West 89th Street was refurbished after the meltdown with screens monitoring hourly barometric, wind, rain and atmospheric readings, and Newton's laws went into effect. Food had to be inspected for residue radioactivity and you had to wash at a designated sink before you were allowed into the apartment and your shoes had to be removed at the door. When HIV became front page news, sex outside the group became forbidden. Every member was required to take an AIDS test which was administered by the several doctors in the group. They began their own food co-op and group members were recruited as cooks.
Speaker 1:Serena was my pipeline into all things Sullivanian and she told me Newton made threats to hunt down former group members and harm them. And that is when I heard from Annie Steinman. She had stayed in the group for another 10 years after I was unceremoniously thrown out of the apartment. To say I was surprised when she called begging to meet me is an understatement, but the urgency in her voice piqued my curiosity and a long-ago memory of the woman I had considered a friend. She was gaunt her once. Shiny dark hair was disheveled and lifeless, and then she told me she had given birth six months before. I thought she was making the whole thing up.
Speaker 1:We were seated in the back of a trendy midtown restaurant, far from the prying eyes of the Sullivanians. Her name is Rosie I don't have a picture I'm not permitted to she said, tears in her eyes poised to spread. But she sat up erect on the edge of her chair, holding her emotions in check. That was your grandmother's name, I said almost inaudibly. You remember Annie, asked from my history, repelled by the thought of her raising a child in the group. Just knowing the child's name was too much. But at the same time I was also fascinated.
Speaker 1:Annie, why am I here? The question was as much to myself as it was to her. I looked around the table at her and repeated Annie, why am I here? I wanted to leave, but Danny didn't. And then Saul gave us permission to have a baby, permission when a woman wants to conceive. Saul arranges a pairing and the couple has to get married for insurance purposes, but a pairing with a focus is forbidden and at first our request was denied. We were in love and then Saul changed his mind and we were thrilled. Do you have an audience with him? Is that how it works. No, you make a request through your therapist and then Saul decides I'm seeing Grace Miller now and Danny sees Saul.
Speaker 1:Everything was wonderful during the pregnancy and I thought I could put up with the restrictions, even the nursery. I knew I wouldn't always have Rosie with me, but I didn't know, cor. I didn't know. The tears finally came and she reached across the table and gripped my hand. I'm so sorry. She finally said Please, forgive me. I didn't know, I didn't understand. Incredible anger swelled up in me, but at the same moment I was overwhelmed with love for Annie, the young woman. I remembered my friend. I'd been blaming Annie all these years, but she was as trapped, as brainwashed as I had been even more, 10 years more. And so I continued to listen as she recounted a free association of her years in the group.
Speaker 1:Since I left, june Geddes was the intellectual center of the Institute and without her influence Seth has run amok. This was supposed to be a great social experiment. There's something very powerful about thinking you're creating a better world, you remember? I nodded and she continued Everything is filtered through your therapist, who gathers the information and reports to Saul. Saul in turn decides the kind of job you can have, where you can go to school, if you can have a child and with whom. If you don't follow what he says, your therapy is terminated without explanation, without recourse. But if you want to leave, you're told that's impossible.
Speaker 1:After Rosie was born, my therapist told me I had to stop dating Danny and date Saul. They threatened to send Rosie away. He said I had to stop being possessive of my own child. My roommate supported my therapist. I was too focused on Danny and Rosie. So I did what I was told. I dated Saul. I did what he wanted, everything. Could you imagine having sex with that old man? But they took her away anyway. And then Danny agreed and I knew I was lost. He was afraid we were acting too much like a family. Saul had gotten to him. At first they let me breastfeed her, but then I was told to return to work. I'm a computer programmer now and Saul controls all of our money too.
Speaker 1:So many women were giving birth that they turned one of the condo apartments into a nursery. And when my therapist told me I couldn't see Rosie at all for at least six months, the baby was weaned cold turkey to be cared for by the group babysitters. When Saul stopped dating me. He called me to the Institute. I was to have no say in plans for Rosie's future and I was put on probation and my therapist agreed. Once again probation and my therapist agreed once again. Annie's face was now brightly flushed when she finally let go of my hand. She said I need your help. She looked at me dry-eyed. Will you help me kidnap Rosie and go into hiding?