The core premise of spiritual work is to be honest with ourselves, including our faults and idiosyncratic distortions of truth. This applies equally to seeker and healer. Psychological treatment uncovers 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 that material themselves and can provide a reasonably unbiased mirror. That trust is essential.
The fictitious backstory of the Hoffman Process originally portrayed Bob Hoffman as having access to privileged knowledge from the spirit world. Cults rewrite history. The online biographies of the founder of the Fischer-Hoffman Process of Psychic Therapy, the Hoffman Process, or the Quadrinity Process, are awash in lies, inaccuracies, fabrications, or, at best, distortions. Hoffman lacked the clarity needed to establish the trust required for deep personal work.
Hoffman was not a kindly, grandfatherly, “intuitive” person who had everybody’s best interest at heart. That’s just marketing. He was a bully and a psychopath. He ran roughshod over everyone. If forced to testify under oath, every one of Hoffman’s early associates would have to admit that he was neither gentle nor sympathetic. They might duck the issue, saying his methods were unorthodox, pig-headed, and unprofessional. They won’t say that he was a malignant narcissist. I will.
His apologists will not agree with me that he was the bully and liar I experienced, but I knew Bob Hoffman for over 25 years. I uncovered the lies he insisted on telling the world to promote his “very important” work. Most significantly, Sigfried Fisher was Hoffman’s therapist for many years, but Hoffman created the fiction of a family friend with whom he shared convivial dinners. Hoffman also led a closeted gay life, and he was a homophobe. That is probably too much of a leap for his supporters, but I had to deal with his sexual and emotional abuse. He raped me.
The Process claims it is not psychotherapy, but it explicitly and purposefully digs into the roots of emotional conditioning. Its original version, the Fisher-Hoffman Process of Psychic Therapy, was billed as an alternative to traditional therapy. The current version is a choreographed emotional rollercoaster that promises an experience of unconditional love in a few days, and it costs a great deal of money.
This is a hard sell. One glance at the waivers you sign shows you’re in dangerous territory; it might not pass the conditions of ethical practice. It requires professional endorsement.
Volker Kohrn of the Australian branch of the Hoffman Institute International published a piece called 50 YEARS LATER, BOB HOFFMAN’S DREAM LIVES ON. Volker's or his copywriter’s descriptions of Claudio Naranjo are not accurate. They are presented as if Naranjo had a strong hand in developing the Process, giving it a psychotherapeutic imprimatur. He did not.
Here are the false claims:
The renowned Enneagram teacher Claudio Naranjo did help Hoffman formulate his “world-famous” process, but not in the ways described. Their relationship was far more complex and conflicted than either admitted. I have described my first-hand experiences in Bob Hoffman was a Lunatic, a Liar, a Criminal, & a Fraud.
Naranjo’s medical education was at the University of Chile. He was a Guggenheim Fellow at Harvard for a year, a high honor worthy of note, but it does not include matriculation and graduation from Harvard. You might try to stretch Guggenheim Fellow to “Harvard educated," but that's still inaccurate. It’s just reassuring to an affluent Western audience.
Naranjo did not coin the term “Quadrinity” to point to four aspects of human nature, emphasizing the oft-neglected emotional and spiritual sides. The talented polymath Julius Brandstatter invented the term. That’s a fact. But of course, if you were looking for a sign of important collaboration, why not falsely claim that Naranjo gets naming rights? Who, after all, is Julius Brandstatter?
The writer claims that Naranjo helped Hoffman formulate the 8-day Process. Wrong. Naranjo had no hand in formulating what is now known as the Process. When Naranjo independently crafted a 3-day version of the Process for his SAT groups, Hoffman realized that a shorter process would be more marketable. Again, Julius Brandstatter and his lovely, professionally trained wife, Miriam, were Hoffman’s principal consultants. How do I know this? Hoffman himself told me. Miriam recounted the experience in great detail when I visited her during the last years of her life. I stand by my presentation of the history of the Process. When researching my paper, The Ontological Odd Couple, I had detailed conversations with almost everyone who contributed to Hoffman’s Process.
The Hoffman Institute International’s copywriter is batting four for four. I might be less critical of the Process if they did their homework.
WARNING! Buyer beware. Cults rewrite history. It’s advertising copy.
Hoffman and the Hoffman Institute needed Claudio Naranjo’s endorsement. They claimed that a dead psychiatrist’s ghost channeled psychological insight to a bespoke tailor with zero professional training. Those are very difficult claims. They’ve invented a dubious backstory.
Undertaking this exploration outside the guidelines of professional therapy is risky. It certainly was in my case.
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My other posts regarding Bob Hoffman and the Fisher-Hoffman Process of Psychic Therapy:
The Ontological Odd Couple, and the Origins of the Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy
Bob Hoffman was a Lunatic, a Liar, a Criminal, & a Fraud
Why Do Cults Need to Rewrite History?
The Truth about Bob Hoffman
The End of Patriarchy and the Beginnings of a Cult.
It’s a cult, damn it. Nothing more
Jonestown and Our Deliverance from Cults
Bob Hoffman was a criminal. Simple
