Why do cults need to rewrite history?

Originally posted January 22, 2020

If I were Deep Throat, I’d tell you to follow the money. If you were asking whether to register for the Process, caveat emptor.

A core premise of all spiritual work is that we have to be honest with ourselves, including our faults and idiosyncratic distortions of truth. This applies equally to the healer. In a course of psychological treatment, you uncover parts of yourself that you’ve been hiding from and have cast their shadow over the rest of your life. You assume that your therapist has dealt with most of that material themselves, and can provide a reasonably unbiased mirror for your own work. That trust is essential.

Cults rewrite history in the interest of portraying the guru as having some access to privileged knowledge which is just a marketing plan to gain followers. The online biographies of Bob Hoffman, the founder of the Hoffman Process, or the Quadrinity Process, are awash in lies, factual inaccuracies, fabrications or, in the best case, distortions. I wonder how it could be possible that any of these people actually met or worked with Hoffman. If they did, they are not being honest. They cannot demonstrate that Hoffman had the clarity to be able to establish the trust required to do deep personal work, and thus the creation of the kindly grandfatherly “intuitive” figure who had everybody’s best interest at heart.

It’s of course total hogwash, and anyone of Hoffman’s early associates or teachers would have to admit if forced to testify under oath that he was not the gentle, sympathetic or insightful man of that narrative. They might try to get away with saying that his methods were unorthodox. Maybe they would even go so far as to say something like pig-headed. I know one who says privately he was a malignant narcissist.

His apologists might not fully agree with me that he was the bully and liar that I experienced, but I knew Bob Hoffman for more than 25 years. I discovered some of the lies he insisted he had to tell the world in order to promote what he considered his very important work. Most significantly he lied about his relationship with Sigfried Fisher. He was Hoffman’s therapist for many years, but Hoffman called him a family friend with whom he shared convivial dinners. Hoffman also closeted an unhappy, gay life. He would tell you that, of course, the people who worked with him closely knew that he was gay, but, in my view, that hardly constitutes being open. I would also say that he was what I'd call a closeted homophobe, but that is probably too much of a leap for me as I also had to deal with his sexual and emotional abuse.

The Process currently is not psychotherapy, but it does explicitly and purposefully dig into the psychological roots of emotional conditioning. Its roots are as an alternative to traditional therapy; the first version was called The Fisher-Hoffman Process of Psychic Therapy. The current version of the Hoffman Process is an intense, choreographed emotional rollercoaster that promises an experience of complete freedom and unconditional love in a few days. It costs a great deal of money. It’s a hard sell. It needs endorsement to pass the therapeutic hurdle as at least vaguely within the conditions of ethical practice. One glance at the waivers you agree to when you sign up and you know you’re in dangerous territory.

I Googled Volker Kohrn of the Australian branch of the Hoffman Institute, and came across a piece called 50 YEARS LATER, BOB HOFFMAN’S DREAM LIVES ON. The claims that he, or his copywriter, use to describe the endorsement of Claudio Naranjo are not accurate. Taken individually they might seem to be just a simplification of the actual history and thus not far from the truth, but in fact they are presented as if Naranjo had a strong hand in the development of the Process, giving it a kind of psychotherapeutic imprimatur. He did not.

Here are the claims:

• The renowned Enneagram teacher Claudio Naranjo did help Hoffman formulate his “world famous” process, but not in the ways described. In fact their relationship was far more complex and conflicted than either admitted. I have described my first hand experiences in both the first SAT version of the FHPT as well as Bob’s first group process in Tolman Hall.
• Naranjo’s medical education and his psychiatric internship were at the University of Chile. He was a Guggenheim Fellow at Harvard for a year, a very high honor indeed and worthy of note, but it does not include matriculation and graduation from the University. I suppose you could stretch it and say “Harvard educated," but it's not accurate. Perhaps just a minor point, and “Harvard educated” sounds very impressive.
• Naranjo did not coin the word “Quadrinity” to point to four aspects of our human nature, emphasizing the oft-neglected emotional and spiritual sides. It was the incredibly talented polymath Julius Brandstatter who came up with the word. That’s a fact. But of course if you were looking for a sign of real collaboration, why not insert that Naranjo gets credit for naming rights? Who after all is Julius Brandstatter?
• The writer claims that Naranjo also helped Hoffman formulate the 8 day Process. Wrong. Naranjo independently crafted a 3 day version of the Process for his SAT groups, and Bob realized that a shorter process would be more marketable. Claudio had no hand in formulating what is now known as the Process. Again Julius Brandstatter along with his lovely professionally trained wife Miriam were Hoffman’s main consultants. How do I know this? Hoffman himself told me when I was an observer at one of the initial 8 day processes in the Santa Cruz mountains, and Miriam herself recounted the experience in great detail when I visited her at her home in Mountain View, California during the last years of her life.I stand by my presentation of the history of the Process. I had detailed conversations with as many people who contributed to Hoffman’s Process as I could when researching my paper, The Ontological Odd Couple. The Hoffman Institute International’s copywriter is batting four for four. I might be less critical of the Process if the current practitioners at least did their homework.

But I beg the question.

Here are the reasons that anyone should be extremely cautious. The original Process was channeled from a dead psychiatrist through a bespoke tailor from Oakland California who had absolutely no professional credentials. Undertaking this exploration outside the clear guidelines of professional therapy can be very risky. It certainly was in my case.

The Hoffman Institute needs to highlight Naranjo’s involvement as it lends credibility to their product. And to that end they’ve invented a dubious resume.

Cults rewrite history.

Buyer beware.




Here's a link to my other writing about the Hoffman Process. Caveat: it’s definitely not promotional.