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
Making the Connections: Cora, Jackson Mory, and the Sullivanians
Two long years following my divorce I was financially situated to return to school without my mother's help. This episode delves into my seemingly innocent meeting and infatuation with Jackson Mory, the graduate assistant in my color theory class at Queens College, and how he became the gateway into the notorious world of the group and the Sullivanians, years later classified as a cult. Unbeknownst to me there was enormous pressure put on Jackson to encourage me to join the group and our 'dates' played a pivotal role in this entanglement.
Time to continue navigating the mysterious workings of the Sullivanian Institute, this controversial lesser-known side of society that after decades still spurs debate. So brace yourselves.
The complete documentary Through a BlueWindow can be seen on my youtube channel shellfein1. I would love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you
In March 1973, a New York Journal reporter who had infiltrated the group wrote a serialized account for the magazine. I remember reading the first article with some curiosity, as Rachel had dated someone who had worked with, someone, who had a friend who had been in the group. But at the time it struck me as odd and I dismissed it as sensational journalism Getting in. Cuny's new open admission policy had been in effect for two years when I was accepted into Queen's College Visual Arts program with a full scholarship. There was no prerequisites and my priorities were straight. I had no intention of joining anything. Then Clotho, atropus and Lachesis conjured up Jackson-Morrie and put him in my path, and he opened the gateway to the Salavanians. I had been given advance placement because of my previous college credits and, though officially not quite a sophomore, I could enroll in classes not usually open to incoming freshmen. That's how I wound up in Advanced Color Theory, where Jackson-Morrie was the graduate assistant. Though not conventionally handsome, his lopsided features seemed hashazardly tossed together until he smiled and then his broad face fell into alignment. It was then that you noticed his high cheekbones and the flecks of gold in his deep-set brown eyes. He was checking programs on the first day of classes, making sure that everyone was in the right place, dressed in denim overalls, the ever-present Dan, and Coffee yogurt bulging from his back pocket. I watched him shake that contents and drink it down. He was powerfully built, with a syrupy midwestern twang that got to me right off and from then on I couldn't resist thoughts of him, though he never seemed any more interested in me than he did the other girls in the class, and they did look like girls. When I stared at my face in the mirror, I saw a 24-year-old, almost divorced woman, her feelings, in a muddle Alone. I silently mocked him as stucked up and opinionated, just because he'd had a short story published as an undergraduate. But then I'd see him in class and my longing would become a hand around my heart like a lemon being squeezed dry. I was pinching the top of my hand every 20 minutes just to concentrate in class.
Speaker 1:My mother had been right about one thing traveling a round trip to Manhattan from my Upper East Side sublet every day was exhausting, and there I was on the train platform wistfully watching the e-train I'd just missed, with its glowing letter disappearing down the tunnel. When I spotted Jackson, he was coming down the stairs and though I tried to look the other way. He gave me a jaunty little wave and walked in my direction. Hi there, cora. I thought that was you, but I wasn't sure. He said, making eye contact, you going to the city. The station was quiet, now a momentary lull before the arrival of the next train through the tunnel.
Speaker 1:Yes, I live on 73rd Street, e73rd Street, I said, with your parents? He asked Parents, god forbid, I'm older than I look. I did grow up around here, though. I've been married and now I'm separated. Two years ago I used to live with a good friend, a woman friend, but then she went to Italy and I moved into my own place and finally I had enough saved. And well, here I am. That's impressive. He said You're right, I thought you were 18 or 19 years old. It's funny that we've never met on the train before. I mean different schedules, I guess. I guess I said actually I'm going to work. I have a great job as a research assistant in the Children's Learning Carnival and I also work with gifted students from schools around Manhattan. That's where I'm going now. It's pretty neat and better than moving home with my mother, I said babbling on. So what about you? I asked him stopping just short of describing every intimate detail of the last five years of my life. Well, he took a breath. Let's see. I live on the Upper West Side, but listen, before I get into all that. I've been meaning to tell you that I think you have a really great color sensibility. He smiled then and the roller coaster I'd been on took a sudden dip, leaving me momentarily breathless. I caught myself on the updraft and a moment later the F train roared into the station.
Speaker 1:The Sullivanians. As reported by Bob Meyerson, the Sullivan Institute was founded in 1957 by Saul Newton and Abraham Lincoln Brigade veteran with a BA in philosophy, and by his second wife, psychiatrist Jane Pierce. They co-authored the conditions of human growth, a bastardized tome pulled from the works of Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal theories of psychiatry. They had once been affiliated with the prominent Allison White Institute. However, when censored for issues concerning some questionable practices, they left with a small cadre of like-minded therapists and their patients, forming the nucleus of the newly founded Sullivanian Institute and its controversial training program for lay therapists. The training program consisted of therapists with no psychological background and, in many cases, no college degree. Newton called it therapy for the masses and supervised the training program together with Getty's and the four other psychiatrists associated with the Institute.
Speaker 1:In the beginning, the patients were young people in their 20s, though this changed over time, with most needing a place to live. Soon, as directed by Newton, the lay therapists were facilitating meetings between their clients patients, and the suggestion was made to join together in groups of four or fives and rent large pre-war apartments on Manhattan's upper west side to be near the Institute, which was located on West 81st Street. The self-named group was born. Twice weekly apartment or house meetings were mandatory, often starting at 11 or 12 midnight. The meetings could go on for hours and were used to discuss financing, shopping, scheduling and interpersonal problems, but more often than not, roommates would talk about their therapy sessions. Information learned at these house meetings was reported back to the therapists and then to Newton, who used the information to monitor and influence patient and apartment activities.
Speaker 1:Therapists dated patients and group sex was commonplace, with excessive drinking and the wide abuse of valium. No decision from whom to date or which job to take seemed to be made without tacit or explicit therapist approval. This highly directive therapy style program helped to control group members, who were expected to keep their Sullivanian life a secret, while in the real world. Patients were directed to spend as little time as possible with anyone not in therapy and to carefully schedule their time to be with other group members and to never sleep alone. Families, especially mothers, were considered toxic and if you did keep in contact with your family you could likely suffer a mental breakdown that might end in suicide, they were warned. Mothers in the group were persuaded to have their children raised by others and sent away to boarding schools. Jackson and I began to travel back to Manhattan together every afternoon after class. Eventually, our travels ended and evolved into what Jackson called work dates. These dates were always at his apartment, usually surrounded by one or more of his four roommates, and sometimes their dates. It was in this way that I was slowly indoctrinated into the world of Sullivanian therapy and the group.
Speaker 1:In contrast to my tiny studio apartment with no tub and the shower in the kitchen, jackson's apartment was majestic, with its four separate bedrooms, a huge eating kitchen and maids room that was used for bicycle and sports equipment storage, a pantry and two and a half bathrooms, a formal dining room that was going to be divided into two more rooms and a large wood paneled library that served as their command and communal workspace, the common room. At the center of the common room were four makeshift desks, large wooden doors sitting atop filing cabinets fitted together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. You couldn't see where one began and the other ended, and the surrounding wall and floor space was given over to a hodgepodge, most particularly to the male gender basketball, sneakers, type writers, piles of clothes, plants and hundreds of books. Adding due to the collective clutter were two, five high stereo speakers and hundreds of albums courtesy of one roommate, a freelance reviewer. Another roommate was Jackson, the art student, and there was his easel, his tubes of paint and brushes.
Speaker 1:Two sessions a week were mandatory and anyone involved working or going to school. Their day went well into the night, with all kinds of dates work dates, dinner dates, drink dates, sleepover dates and breakfast dates. It was strongly suggested by the therapist that all this activity be kept track of in case of an emergency, and in Jackson's apartment a large blackboard had been hung in the kitchen wall for just that purpose. No one seemed to want to spend any time alone and, like his roommate, jackson had no contact with his family. It was not a topic he talked about, it just was. The only real information I knew about Jackson was that he had come to New York from Ann Arbor last year when he was accepted into the graduate program at Queens College, he got a consultation with one of the psychiatrists and he's been in therapy for about a year.
Speaker 1:In contrast, I was open maybe too open about myself. I told him about my relationship with mother, my father's abandonment, how my therapist had encouraged me to call my father and how my timing had sucked and my mother's reaction to the news, how she freaked out and told me everything I've been avoided hearing about my father for the last 24 years. After a month of work dates, I'd become resigned that our relationship was going to be strictly platonic, even though my infatuation had become a veritable smorgasbord of desire. Whatever you like, there seemed to be no hope that that desire would ever be realized. But that all changed one Friday in late October 1973.
Speaker 1:After working for several hours, jackson suggested a food break. So we headed to the kitchen, where I slid into one of the black director's chairs that surrounded the round wooden table at the center of the kitchen and I grabbed an apple off the top of a large pile of fruit. Jackson was making himself a sandwich at the counter, and then he asked me a question that threw me off God. So how are things between you and your mother now? You sounded pretty angry when you told me about that the other day. What did I sound angry? I mean, I asked kind of defensive, wouldn't you be? Is anger verboten in your therapy? I mean, I wasn't aware that I was angry. I shot back defensively, but I guess you're right, maybe I was.
Speaker 1:My mother still thinks my art is a hobby, and even though I'm putting myself through school without a penny from her, thank you very much. But not much has changed since my separation. She still doesn't get it and it takes every step I take to be independent. Personally, she never understood that I needed to be on my own, my own. In the first place I thought she'd accept marriage and once I was married I felt committed to making it work. At least I think I tried to give it a chance. We were just too young.
Speaker 1:Anyway, there I go again. This stuff is really boring. It's not boring, jackson said. Not boring at all. An anger or feelings of anger are very much topic in therapy, he explained. As he talked, his voice had a calming effect on me. Good to know. So where is everyone, I asked.
Speaker 1:Changing the subject, I think this is the first time I've been here with no one else around. Well, it happens sometimes, he said. But we do keep schedules on the chalkboard. So how did you guys meet? Well, we knew each other from around the group and then this apartment formed after the summer. This past summer you mean Really, I would never have guessed. You all seem so, I don't know organized A lot of apartments form after the summer. Then, after a momentary pause, he turned the subject back to me. So how are things in your therapy going? I guess he saw our shift in my posture because he quickly added I know it sounds strange me asking you about therapy and all but around here we talk about our sessions all the time, especially during a house meeting, but if it feels weird to you, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Jackson had moved to the table to sit next to me. His sandwich lay half eaten on the countertop. He reached for my hand and said you know, cora, remember when we were trying to make all those dates and I couldn't find free time? I want you to know. I really wanted to see you, but I'd made those other dates weeks ago and I couldn't change them. It's really frowned upon here.
Speaker 1:At that moment I realized I had mistaken his commitment to the group as disinterest in me. I said I understood, but I really didn't, because it didn't make sense to keep dates with one person when you'd rather be with someone else. But then he asked me to stay with him that night and it didn't matter anymore what I thought. Can you do that? Don't you have somewhere to go? I asked incredulously. I wouldn't have asked if I did Listen. He said let's make some dates right now.
Speaker 1:Okay, then he grabbed his date book, a small green leather bound affair, from where it was lying on the countertop between the boxes of rice krispies and frosted flakes and Cheerios. He popped off the rubber band and quickly thumbed through the pages. How about this Sunday night and the following Wednesday? But that will have to be late. Can you come here?
Speaker 1:He went on and on ruffling some more pages and in five minutes we'd made a month of dates which he jotted down on a paper napkin for me. He leaned in and he kissed me, and then he took my hand and smiled Don't you think it's time for you to get a date book of your own? He asked, laughing. Then, still holding my hand, he pulled me towards him and we kissed again longer and deeper, and moments later we were in his room, shutting the door behind us. I didn't know it at the time, but Jackson was being pressured by his roommates and his therapist to bring me into the group. I understood this firsthand years later, when I had a boyfriend outside the group and I became the target of my own apartment's wrath. But in that moment ignorance was bliss and I was unaware of how dearly I would pay for this wondrous feeling, nor that I was losing myself to the hive.