Bamboozled

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

In the middle of the night in 1968 in Oakland, California, Bob Hoffman was awakened from a deep sleep by the discontented ghost of his former shrink, Siegfried Fisher. Dr. Fisher, as Hoffman always called him, stood at the end of his bed and revealed to him a key piece of psychological insight that had eluded his mentor, Sigmund Freud, and the entire Viennese school: “Everyone is guilty and no one to blame.”

Thus was born the notorious concept of Negative Love and the "world famous" Fisher-Hoffman Process of Psychic Therapy; both have the dubious markings of revealed Truth, and Hoffman, the awakened Teacher—literally.

I listened to Hoffman’s psychic awakening tale many times, and although the basic outline never changed, I did manage to fill in some of the lacunae over my long association with him. For example, there is a lie embedded in the narrative—he confessed that he had been Fisher’s patient and not an old family friend or acquaintance from shul. That misinformation had been manufactured for marketing purposes, and Hoffman was a born salesman. But it never occurred to me to ask how his wife reacted to the whole affair. I think that they were still married at the time, but I don’t want to make any factual assertions without some evidence, so I can’t say if they shared a bed, and I don’t want to spoil the party with more misinformation. Did she even wake up? 

So how did a Jewish tailor with barely a high school education become a healer, a channel for this occult insight, coupled with powerful results of psychological investigation? Answer: the Spiritualist Church and, if you believe the proponents of the Hoffman Process enterprise, the gifts of a highly advanced, and compassionate, “intuitive,” the new moniker that has become the cover for knowledge that mysteriously surpasses the hard-earned therapeutic work of professional psychology. 

I chronicled as accurately as I could the creation of the “Process” as a psychological tool in “The Ontological Odd Couple—The Origins of the Hoffman Process,” and I tried to give everyone I interviewed a fair hearing. At the time, I imagined that I could resolve my long-standing qualms about Hoffman and his influence in my life by simply getting to the facts, but in fact, it only aggravated my personal pain. 

When my friend Stan Stefancic cautioned, “Remember that there's a lot of Claudio in the Process,” I thought long and hard to determine if Naranjo’s input was enough of a justification to accept Hoffman’s preposterous story. In a long rambling piece, Bob Hoffman, The First Encounter, I tried to understand why Naranjo took Hoffman to be some kind of modern-day shaman, and supported his work—I will not deny that Claudio did support Hoffman and tried to plant some professional practices in the Process. But it was a relationship fraught with jealousy on Hoffman’s part as well as a good deal of passive-aggressive behavior, all the while seeking Naranjo’s imprimatur. I asked myself the question, why do intelligent people believe nonsense, but again, I couldn't really find a good answer, nor in any way understand Claudio's infatuation with Hoffman.

 

To complicate the investigation, as if it were not already cloudy enough, Hoffman was a sexual predator. I had firsthand experience, and the effects of his abuse have lingered for decades. I tried to exorcise that demon by writing what became a long series of posts on my blog, beginning with Bob Hoffman—#GayMeToo. If the criteria for resolution is that I can forgive and forget, it has not been satisfied. At 77 I am resigned that his selfish and unethical behavior will be a trauma that I will carry for the rest of my life. I have given up looking for some reason why it happened. It makes no difference to me that he was a closeted, homophobic queer man and that it was a severe impediment to his happiness. It was. Yes, everyone is guilty, but I will continue to blame him. I have also given up trying to see some “wounded healer” motivation as a factor in his psychic therapy.  What’s the word? Bunk, as in complete nonsense.

So how was I bamboozled? When I read Henry Miller’s account of his experience just looking at a photograph of Madame Blavatsky, I understood him completely. Miller writes: “Now I don’t know if that had anything to do with what happened next, but I had a flash, I came to the realization that I was responsible for my whole life, whatever had happened. I used to blame my family, society, my wife . . . and that day I saw so clearly that I had nobody to blame but myself. I put everything on my own shoulders, and I felt so relieved: Now I’m free, no one else is responsible. And that was a kind of awakening, in a way.”

In October of 1973, I had such an awakening over several weeks of psychological investigation in Claudio Naranjo’s SAT group. It changed my life, and I will be forever grateful to Claudio for providing the platform for the experience. But I had the bad luck to have had Bob Hoffman standing in the room, shouting nonsense. That was almost 50 years ago. I gave the charlatan power over me, but damn it, I’ve taken it back. 

To the ghost of Bob Hoffman, if you’re still lingering around, there’s an open invitation to state your side of the story at the foot of my bed in my flat in the Himalayan foothills. It’s 12 and a half hours ahead of Oakland time, but if you can’t figure that out, Google has a nifty world clock application. 

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

The Sad Demise of Bob Hoffman 

Jonestown and Our Deliverance from Cults

Bob Hoffman was a criminal. Simple 

A cruel joke: The Doctor and the Haberdasher

I am not without blame, but I imagined that I could get away with it. I cannot. I let my hatred for Hoffman surface and tried to hurt him. I imagined that I had volunteered to be the hospice caregiver. That was impossible because the patient was dying but would not admit it. He’d looked for a miracle from a psychic surgeon in Sao Paulo suburb, a terrible mistake that landed him in what remained of the Jewish Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. He then underwent a painful resection of his liver in hopes that world class oncologists could do the work where Doctor Fritz had failed. 

He was refusing to reconcile with the most important people in his life. He spurned his son and his wife was of course completely absent. He would die like a dog.

Sometime during his brief recovery from the liver resection, there were a few weeks where the dream of defying a cancer diagnosis once again seemed possible. Hoffman decided to host an elaborate dinner at the famous San Francisco restaurant, Tommy Toy's Cuisine Chinoise. He booked one of the dowager empress’s private dining rooms and invited all the doctors who had a part in his treatment, a virtual who’s who of the UCSF oncologists. He was set on making a show of his indebtedness as if it might act as a magic charm and prolong life.

I remember that there was a lot of fuss about making the booking and ordering the food. It was all done in advance. There was some concern about catering to the Kosher needs of some of the doctors and, more importantly, one of their wives--how could you go to Tommy Toy and not include the seafood bisque? 

But Hoffman already had the piqued look of a terminal cancer patient. If the pain of having half his liver cut out had not diminished, he was determined to make a show of being on the path to remission. He could blame his discomfort on the rich foods. 

At some point in the evening’s strained conversation, I think that he asked each of the doctors to tell a joke. Or perhaps it might have been one of the doctors who initiated the contest. Hoffman sat at the end of the table and would have the last laugh. 

I encouraged Hoffman to tell a joke that he’d told me, the tailor’s diagnosis. After some hesitation, he agreed and launched in.  

Marty Finkelstein, let's call him, was feeling poorly. He had headaches, devastating mind-blinding bouts of insomnia, dizzy spells when he could barely see straight. Something had to be done. He went to the trusted family doctor. After a full work up, careful examination, the doctor had a recommendation. He knew it would be hard to stomach but he was sure it would cure what ailed Marty: castration. 

It was such a shocking treatment that of course Marty hesitated, for weeks, and eventually months, but the symptoms persisted and, well to make long story short, finally he decided to undergo the procedure. He lost his nuts. The original symptoms disappeared but Marty couldn’t shake a persistent depression. The family doc had a treatment for that too, see your tailor and get a sexy new suit. 

So off Marty went to the habasher. A new suit. He went in and began to buy some nifty duds. He told the tailor that he was a size 42. The tailor looked surprised and said, politely but firmly, you’re a 43. Indeed a 43 suit jacket fit perfectly. Marty thought well, OK, but as for a shirt, give him a 16 and half neck with a 32 inch sleeve. Again the tailor looked skeptical and said, but I’m sure you’d feel much better in a 17 inch neck. And on it went from the inseam to the length of the cuff. 

Finally they got the waist size and underwear, the tailor was exasperated with Marty’s insistence that he was a 34 inch waist. He was a “36.” It was clear, and the results of trying to squeeze into 34 underwear were very terrible: headaches, devastating mind-blinding bouts of insomnia,  dizzy spells when you could barely see straight.

A terrible joke. Nervous laughter. My stint as Hoffman’s caregiver was over. I might have lasted a few more weeks--actually at the time I couldn’t see the writing on the wall. I was far too angry to do him the service of caring for his last weeks, days and moments.

My Hoffman Process Writings

I received a complaint disguised as a question from a senior Hoffman Teacher—why was I writing now about Hoffman’s unethical behavior? A.M., who choses to be anonymous, responded to my Facebook post about Hoffman’s sexual abuse by trying to shame me. He deleted his remarks after many people objected to what he said. I didn’t get a screenshot so I can’t quote him directly. However, this was the essence: “It’s been 50 years since Hoffman raped you, and he’s been dead 20 years. It’s too bad you still are playing the victim.” And in a second response he said: “I’m sorry that you can’t let go of it.”

It demands a response. Here is what I said:

“So the complaint continues. Is this a plea to “let it go” as if I am a bad person for calling attention to harm caused by Bob Hoffman, who presented himself as a healer, a spiritual counselor, and a trustworthy public figure? Let me be entirely clear. He got me drunk and raped me 5 months after finishing his Process of Psychic Therapy. It was not consensual. It was illegal, unethical, and under normal circumstances there would be consequences. His ineptitude destroyed my relationship with my father for 30 years. The damage was real. I should keep my mouth shut? Be a man and deal with it? This is just another form of bullying and if it’s the mind set that comes from doing the Process, we have a problem. My response is clear: a victim never has to apologize. Period.”

I have been writing about Hoffman for almost 20 years. It has been part of my therapy to deal with Hoffman’s sexual abuse. Here’s a list of all my published posts about Hoffman with their timestamps. I think that after revision and rewriting (I do repeat myself), there might be enough for an eBook.

Hoffman Process, Bob Hoffman Bibliography

31/07/04, The Ontological Odd Couple, and the Origins of the Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy. A lengthy examination of the people who contributed to the creation of The Hoffman Process. Revised September 16, 2006

09/04/07, Jonestown and our Deliverance from Cults. Remembering one FHPT client who did not die in the murder/suicide at the Peoples’ Temple.

02/08/07, Science vs. Spooks, skepticism, scientific research and the Nostradamus effect. Is a peer-reviewed study of spirituality even possible? Revised August 11, 2011.

05/06/08, New Age Miracle or Fraud. An introduction to my thoughts and experience with Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy, now known as the Hoffman Process.

21/11/19, #GayMeToo—Bob Hoffman. The traumatic sexual episode in my relationship with Hoffman.

23/12/19, "Bob Hoffman was a criminal. Simple." A respected Zen teacher reacted to #GayMeToo.

19/08/20, Forgive and Forget? Impossible. An inquiry into Victimization.

07/09/20, A Very Personal Question: Can I Forgive Bob Hoffman? In short, if I can forgive myself.

21/11/20, This Victim Refuses Silence It was difficult to write about Hoffman’s sexual abuse, and it might be difficult to read—but I had to be honest with myself.

22/01/21, Why Do Cults Need to Rewrite History? The institutional narrative about the creation of the Hoffman Process is awash in lies, distortions and fabrications.

13/02/21, The Sad Demise of Bob Hoffman. My experience with Hoffman at the end of his life.

18/02/21, Called to Jury Duty. The real story of waking up to my sexual abuse.

13/04/21, Sex in the Bushes: the real story. Hoffman ends it with his boyfriend. Yes the name says it all!

22/04/21, Bob Hoffman, the First Encounter. Why do intelligent people believe nonsense? My personal experience of the first Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy group with Claudio Naranjo’s SAT in Berkeley.

12/05/21, The End of Patriarchy and the Beginnings of a Cult. The inter-relationship of Hoffman, Claudio Naranjo and the SAT group process.

16/05/21, The Hoffman Process was birthed by TV sitcom “Bewitched,” Some wicked, nasty fun about the psychic origins of the Hoffman Process.

09/06/21, Bamboozled. “Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” Carl Sagan.

17/06/21, Why can I find nothing online about Bob Hoffman? An examination of the praise for Bob Hoffman and the Hoffman Process.

21/06/21, Tolman Hall, the first Hoffman Process, Hoffman and Naranjo end their collaboration. The predator begins to groom me for sex.

19/10/21. The Truth about Bob Hoffman

Tolman Hall, the first Hoffman Process.

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

The Sad Demise of Bob Hoffman 

Jonestown and Our Deliverance from Cults

Bob Hoffman was a criminal. Simple 

Hoffman, the sexual predator, grooms me. 

The public narrative about the creation of the Hoffman Process is that Claudio Naranjo’s strong, professional psychotherapeutic experience guided Bob Hoffman. I will make a case that there is little substance to this claim; that it is a myth and a marketing ploy. Naranjo says in his Introduction to “No One is to Blame” that he played the role of John the Baptist. Did he forget that the relationship did not turn out well? But both were Jews, so perhaps the subtlety escaped them. (For a serious examination of Claudio’s, and others’, contributions, see “The Ontological Odd Couple”).

By Thanksgiving, the conflict between Hoffman and Naranjo in the direction of the SAT Process was becoming apparent. Claudio’s directions insisted that our exploration be self-directed. The time-honored and well-tested practice of psychotherapy requires that discovery come from the patient him or herself, not the dictates or evaluation of the therapist. Hoffman had no patience and thought it was nonsense. 

Hoffman and Claudio might have talked about the purpose or therapeutic purpose of each exercise, but I cannot remember one evening that Claudio stayed after Hoffman began his presentation. Claudio maintained control over the direction of the work that we SAT members did through Rosalyn—3 hour group meetings once week with several small cohort meetings in between. For Hoffman, that was far too long, more than a month doing what he did in two hour-long sessions with the people who came for psychic readings in the basement of his tailor shop in Oakland.

After our second or third week of the “Bitch Session” against Mother, not even halfway through the Process, Hoffman announced that he and Claudio had agreed that “The Defense of Mother'' would be an OK place to end their collaboration, as if it were an amicable divorce. Actually, he’d had enough and discovered the Wiffle Bat as a way to get to the core of emotional anger. He said that he and Claudio had agreed to finish their work together and that be doing his own version of group therapy. 

Hoffman took me aside and strongly suggested that I join the group of people he’d “selected” to do the first 13-week Process in Tolman Hall. He would later tell me that he saw me sitting there in Claudio’s SAT, he knew I was “terribly unhappy.” What I didn’t realize was that I hadn’t been “selected,” rather that he’d singled me out to be a sex partner. It was not romantic. With Hoffman, it was transactional. I was being groomed for Hoffman’s self-gratification.

 

Hoffman made it seem like a huge honor that he’d been invited to use the prestigious Tolman Hall, the UC Berkeley’s Department of Psychology’s classroom and office building, as the venue for his presentation. In reality all it meant was that someone, Hoffman, even his secretary, or perhaps even a psychologist who supported Hoffman, called the campus rental Office, made a reservation, and paid a deposit on a room for an evening class. It was not a fancy lecture hall, actually just a drab narrow classroom with no windows and awkward plastic chairs, but Hoffman could always label his first group “Tolman Hall.”

 

50 or so people gathered on a January night for Hoffman’s first Process. 

 

The class, or session, was on Monday night at 7 PM. The 13-week Process quickly became a forced march. Each session had specific exercises with a clear objective, and we had to keep up. He warned us that stragglers wouldn’t make it, that we would resist, but we could just take it as an opportunity to learn about our defenses.  We had till Wednesday at 5 to deliver the week’s assignment to Hoffman’s Office on 14th Street in downtown Oakland in an office building close to his former tailor shop. We listened to his taped feedback the following Monday before the session began.

 

Hoffman presented the week's objective in a rambling style. It actually felt more like he was caught up in a mental tangent, just let it rip, stream of consciousness. He claimed that he was channeling Dr. Fisher. The spirits on the other side are apparently as disjointed and unorganized as they were in human life when they inhabited bodies, or more so—Hoffman was channeling a German professor of psychotherapy not known for flights of fancy. (It was recorded and I found out later that Mariam Brandstatter received the recordings in Tel Aviv and helped put some order and rationale into the presentation).

 

Usually Hoffman picked out one person for the demonstration of the purpose of each exercise. Often he’d just ask “who doesn’t understand, or who objects?” And the first person whose hand went up would be asked to come forward. There were compelling moments even if in retrospect they were needlessly brutal. I remember the demonstration of Negative Love in the first or second session. We had each brought a list of our mother’s negative traits to either the first or second session. One woman, she was a professional psychologist I think, a well dressed large woman—I have no idea why her image remains with me—volunteered to “work” with Hoffman.

Hoffman took the list she’d prepared of her mother’s negative traits and admonitions and started at the top. “Your mother complained about your father in an uncompromising fashion. Ok, how often do you complain about your husband?” “Never.” “Really? Be honest. Never? The thought never enters your mind? You’re always positive and loving? Don’t play your games. You never have to stop yourself from complaining, just like your mother did?” And eventually, the woman admitted that she had to fight with herself not to behave in exactly the same way that her mother treated her father. Onto the next trait on the list. Same interrogation. Same result: imitation to get love, or rebellion to the trait and experience conflict. Every thought, every action, every impulse was a conditioned response. There were no redeeming qualities, and no other possibilities. One thing was clear: we were nothing but the sum total of what we’d learned from our parents. Negative love was negative.

The woman was devastated. There was zero therapeutic, compassionate presence when Hoffman dealt with a person and their “games.” It was a frontal, take-no-prisoners assault, and he relished the fight. He ended the attack with a scripted, fake, all-knowing, condescending smile coupled with the assurance that if we honestly stepped into his Process, and submitted to him, we’d come to realize deeply that everyone was guilty and no one to blame, and finally be free from the chains of Negative Love.

Contrast Claudio’s careful, respectful, even compassionate invitation to look into oneself with Hoffman’s brutality and the reason why they separated couldn’t be clearer.

I also have to admit that I had never seen my own personality as some reflection of my mother’s in such stark relief before. It was enough to allow me to follow along. 

 

Hoffman, the Predator, Groomed Me! 

 

In the sixth or seventh week I had a very uncomfortable experience. The beginning of Hoffman’s sexual abuse started in a setting that was allegedly therapy!

 

Late one Wednesday afternoon I hand delivered my emotional “autobiography with father” to Hoffman on 15th Street. It was past 5, and the receptionist had left. Hoffman was sitting at his desk in a cramped office, with his feet on the desk. I stood in the open door. 

 

He told me to hand him my work, and he began to read it right on the spot. He would read a paragraph, comment on the emotional tone, and then try to make some connection between the specific circumstances I’d described and what he called the negative emotional patterns and character traits that I’d adopted from my father in an attempt to bargain for his love.

 

Hoffman read through to an incident I wrote about my father resetting the stone wall at the back of our lot. As Dad was lifting stones into a wheelbarrow, he uncovered the nest of a woodchuck who’d built her nest in a cranny between the rocks. As she was ferociously defending her cubs, my father killed her and her cubs with his shovel. As I remembered it, he began to beat her viciously. Her screams were chilling. 

 

Hoffman began by complimenting the emotional tone of my writing. But then he began to raise his voice. He said that obviously my Dad was a homosexual, and then, “You’re also gay too, aren’t you?” I countered with a question about how he could deduce that my dad was gay based on his bludgeoning a woodchuck? He just repeated “You’re gay.” His voice became louder and louder. Now he was almost screaming—obviously, my father was a sadist. What? Then he repeated his question: “You’re gay? Don’t play games with me. I know these things.” I admitted that, of course, I had gay feelings, but I was unsure if I was gay. By now, he was shouting loudly: “Don’t play games with me.” I had heard that Hoffman often attacked clients—he claimed that he was breaking us down in order to build us up—but I could barely believe it. 

 

I was in nearly complete denial about my homosexuality, but my Dad was not gay. I actually think that the idea of a same sex relationship never once crossed his mind in his entire life. I am also certain that Hoffman’s deductions from what I related in my writing were entirely projections and his own pathology. Other things that he said or implied were entirely off base and not even worthy of the weirdest pop psychology. But because there was one note of truth in the analysis, the whole thing became plausible, and I lost any possibility of a real relationship with my father for the next 30 years. In exchange, I got the debilitating transference to Hoffman. I also remember that the 13-week process cost $300. The real cost was devastating.

This part of my therapy with Hoffman happened in March. He began stalking me in September. He raped me in late October or early November.

 

When I described this incident to my therapist, his response was: When you stayed, he knew he had you. And he did. 

 

 

Why can I find nothing online about Bob Hoffman?

An examination of the praise for Bob Hoffman and the Hoffman Process, formerly known as The Quadrinity Process or Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy.

I was recently interviewed for a book about personal transformation, specifically with regard to my experience with the Hoffman Process and the Landmark Forum. The writer asked me, “Why can’t I find anything online about Bob Hoffman except pro forma praise or what looks like infomercials?” So I Googled him.

I found the ghost-written and dated No One Is to Blame: Getting a Loving Divorce Form(sic) Mom and Dad, the Discoveries of the Quadrinity Process, which is so worthless that I can find no recommendation by the Hoffman Institute. I love the professionalism of the typo. We all make mistakes, but really, it's been 50 years, and you can't get the title of Hoffman's only book spelled correctly? 

Volker Kohrn of the Australian branch of the Hoffman Institute posted a piece called 50 YEARS LATER, BOB HOFFMAN’S DREAM LIVES ON which is so awash with factual inaccuracies (check out my blog post Why do cults need to rewrite history?) that I wonder if Mr. Kohrn actually met Hoffman. He certainly didn’t do much research about Dr. Claudio Naranjo’s contribution to the development of the Process.

You can buy You Can Change Your Life: With the Hoffman Process by Tim Laurence. Tim is the owner of the UK Hoffman Process and not an entirely objective observer. He “... came to the United States and ‘studied’ with Bob Hoffman, the gifted ‘intuitive' who founded the ‘world famous’ Hoffman Process.” I have a few admittedly snarky comments about Tim’s bio blurb.

I knew Hoffman, and I know a good number of Process teachers, including Tim. No one “studied” with Hoffman. If you “worked” with him, it usually meant that you were angling for an international license to sell the Process or a teaching credential. But it also meant that you put up with being verbally attacked, yelled at, humiliated, and belittled, yet always justified by Hoffman’s claim that he was doing it all for your own good, that he was “breaking down to build up.” I know this from personal experience as well as countless conversations and complaints by Hoffman’s early followers. If you were a psychologist or really any professional, you were singled out for Hoffman’s particularly abusive brand of attention. This “study” was more akin to a secret, brutal fraternity initiation than anything remotely resembling an education or a course of psychotherapy.

But in truth, there was nothing subtle to learn. Although Hoffman had an opinion about any subject from OJ Simpson to Henry Kissinger, I'd be hard pressed to distinguish much difference. I mention these two cases because I distinctly remember conversations with Hoffman about both. Kissinger “ran all over the globe” trying to please a father who never approved of him, but he did some good. OJ killed his wife because he never got unconditional love from his parents. Kissinger, as well as Madeleine Albright, were both Jews who succeeded, a Hoffman obsession, and he couldn’t tear himself away from Simpson’s TV trial, an obsession that he felt guilty about but could not control.

I recently wrote in a post “Bamboozled” that the use of “intuitive'' is a ploy to cover Hoffman’s roots in the Spiritualist Church—not the elite, hip Science of Mind organization, but the one with spirit visitations and ouija boards. A “gifted, compassionate Intuitive'' is an innocuous and deceptive moniker to present an unqualified and untrained person who claims special knowledge that mysteriously surpasses the hard earned therapeutic work of professional psychology. Nothing could be further from reality. 

An apparently sanctioned description by Dylan Jones appeared in the 24 September 2017 edition of GQ Britain: "Founded in 1967 by Bob Hoffman, a former tailor from Oakland, California, with no formal training in psychology, psychiatry or psychotherapy, the Process is designed to help the unmoored identify negative behaviours, moods and ways of thinking that developed unconsciously and were conditioned in childhood." At least Hoffman’s CV is accurate. I like the lyricism of "the unmoored." Really, let the precision of this precise psychological descriptor "unmoored" sink in before you plunk your money down.

Aside from the articles and reviews in either slick magazines or paid online infomercials, I know of at least one attempt to see if there were long-term positive benefits from doing the Hoffman Process. A group of professional mental health researchers at a California University conducted a peer-reviewed long-term study. It was funded by a donation arranged by the Hoffman Institute. I wrote about it in Science vs. Spooks, Skepticism, scientific research and the Nostradamus effect. "You get what you pay for," or "Follow the money." Either works.

Why am I so harsh on an enterprise that has allegedly helped many people achieve some measure of inner peace and resolve unfinished business in their relationships with their parents? In my case, Hoffman’s sexual abuse was severely damaging, and it took a very long time and a lot of money to resolve. The Hoffman Process is not psychotherapy but poses as an alternative. It’s a free world and anyone can subject themselves to anything they choose, but I feel that honesty obliges me to present another, less popular view so that people can make an informed choice.

_____________

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

The Sad Demise of Bob Hoffman 

Jonestown and Our Deliverance from Cults

Bob Hoffman was a criminal. Simple 

© Kenneth Ireland, 2021

The End of Patriarchy and the Beginnings of a Cult

The old Tolman Hall UC Berkeley

I received an email from a Hoffman Process teacher about my last post, “Bob Hoffman, The First Encounter.” After noting that we hadn't spoken in perhaps 20 years, and acknowledging that indeed Bob Hoffman was a difficult guy and, by the way, sorry for the way he treated you, he then asked why I didn’t acknowledge that there are different people teaching the Process now? Why didn't I mention the “defense” of the parent? And why now did I write this “hit piece”?

I will answer this teacher’s questions in reverse order: why now did I write this “hit piece”? I have been writing about the Process for nearly 17 years. When the current owners of Hoffman’s “intellectual property” began to fashion a narrative about the Process that I felt conflated, confused and distorted some of the history, I meticulously researched and chronicled the early development of the Process in The Ontological Odd Couple, and the Origins of the Fisher-Hoffman Psychic Therapy which was published on July 31, 2004 and revised September 16, 2006. 12 other pieces followed, several critical of the Process, others talking about my experience of Hoffman and the Process, as well as my sexual abuse at the hands of Hoffman within 6 months after I finished the first 13-week Process, clearly a criminal offense. Nothing I wrote was a “hit piece.” I have been as honest and accurate as I can be about the facts and dates. I have carefully described the personal interactions as such, and when I’ve stated an opinion, I’ve labeled it. If any of this does not match some other narrative, please present evidence to support the counterclaim. Just labeling what I write “a hit piece” is not good enough. Ad hominem arguments are the bottom of the barrel.

Now to the “defense” of parents. I ended “The First Encounter” with a description of Hoffman’s unprofessional behavior with his students, patients--the people who signed up for the Process. I said that it was my opinion that it was borderline unethical and abusive. Hoffman claimed that he was “breaking down to build up.” I say he was acting out as a bully for whatever reason his own psychosis demanded, and it went unchallenged. I know I didn’t call him out and over 25 years I didn’t hear anyone really confront him despite an enormous amount of complaining behind his back. If you contradicted Hoffman, you would be considered unsuitable as a teacher or Process owner, and that would cost you a career and money. I know several people who did try to confront him and were fired. He was a dictator who was also very interested in money. I stand by my assessment.

Our SAT group was the first and only Process that Hoffman did under the auspices of Claudio Naranjo, and, as I will show, it was incomplete. A lot has been said and written about Claudio’s assistance, most of that cast as approbation plus stamping it with the seal of legitimate psychotherapeutic practice. I cannot deny that Claudio did remain one of Hoffman’s supporters, and that he continued to see Hoffman as a kind of shamanistic healer through Hoffman’s death. I helped take care of Hoffman at the end of his life and remember Claudio’s visits well, but I want to review and question other claims.

I went back to what Claudio had written about the Hoffman Quadrinity Process in “The End of Patriarchy” to review his actual comments. I was an actor and participant in this history, so it heightened my interest, though it also colored it. Claudio describes his position as that of an ambassador between the intuitive world that gave birth to the Fisher-Hoffman Process and the world of scientific psychology, a role akin to that of John the Baptist. Leaving aside the preposterous messianic claims, he goes on to describe his involvement in the formation of Hoffman’s group process: “Reza Leah Landman led a group of about fifty people (with Bob present as silent witness) using the format of written guidelines. (I produced these guidelines at a time of rare inspiration, and when I visited Bob shortly afterwards, he interestingly commented, quite spontaneously, that Dr. Fischer had been with me.)”

This description is simply not accurate. I was in that group. Claudio was never present (perhaps briefly at the first session to introduce Hoffman. I can’t be certain, but he was definitely never present at any of the other sessions that followed). Bob Hoffman was not in any sense a silent witness. I have described the attitude of Hoffman in the group--after a few minutes of Reza Leah’s low-key instructions, she invited Bob to take the floor and he did. I will also add that I am certain he hated the group process, whether or not he told Claudio that Fisher had inspired the written guidelines. The pace was far too slow, and he had no patience for interpersonal work. The evidence that it displeased Hoffman is that he ended the experiment before it was finished. After about three weeks into the prosecution of Mother, he announced that he and Claudio had agreed to end their work together, and that he would “take us through the defense of Mother” which would be an “OK” place to stop.

That occurred just after Thanksgiving. He also announced that he would be leading his own 13-week process beginning at the end of January in Tolman Hall, the facility of the UC Berkeley Psychology Department. He came up to me privately and suggested that I strongly consider taking part in that process. I remember our brief conversation very well. In my later therapy, I recognized that this was the beginning of his predatory grooming.

The part he did feel had been “inspired” by Fisher was the physical, emotional, verbal, and I would add, necessarily violent expression of anger. It opened the possibility of a deep emotional catharsis after which the artificial process of understanding and forgiveness would foster a deep understanding that “everyone is guilty and no one to blame.” If our pain had been as great as we’d experienced in the Prosecution of Mother, her own pain had to be equally deep and debilitating.

The Defense Process entails envisioning your mother as a pre-adolescent child, telling her story. It is conducted in your sanctuary with your spirit guide as the interlocutor. Hoffman called these imagined scenarios “mind trips” and insisted that they were the channel for real information. You are instructed to ask questions about the origins of the Negative love traits and admonitions that you unwittingly inherited, one by one, leaving no stone unturned.

Of course, in the real world, this is all “Best Guess,” or assumption, or hearsay, or fantasy, or hallucination. If I were to be generous, it might be a “good enough” narrative to allow you to see that your parents suffered the same kind of programming that they passed on. The origins of the exercise were the psychic readings in the tailor shop on 15th street, when Hoffman looked into your past and saw the incidents that excused your parents.

But I do not choose to be so generous. In my own case, the narrative I created was so far-fetched that it destroyed relationships with both my parents. I was actually led to believe that somehow I could get to the root of my struggles with them. After I completed the Process, and the quirky working out of the loving divorce that Hoffman promised, I had so alienated my parents that they cut me off for nearly 20 years.

Of course, this is not good psychological practice. That's a fact. It’s seeing a witch doctor. That's an opinion.

Claudio faults psychoanalyst Mauricio Knoble, who observed in connection with No One is to Blame, “The traditional historical background was missing, as well as the scientific background, the theoretical foundation, the experimental data, the statistical validation, and the bibliography.” It’s a fair question to ask what he replaces it with. Claudio says [I] “hope that I may show that, while the ‘traditional historical background’ has not been known to Hoffman, his work is most congruent with it, as well as with the background of current psychological discourse.” My experience points to a less optimistic view of Hoffman’s methodology, one that skirts the necessary professionalism of psychological work.

The request that I take into consideration that a new cohort of Process teachers followed Hoffman and did not share his unorthodox, borderline practices leads into more New Age mire. The majority were people who came from the same mix who took the Process, members of the SAT groups, refugees from EST, and the work of Werner Erhard, sannyasins who had followed Osho in Antelope and Pune, and a few licensed mental health professionals. I will have more to say about this phenomenon after I describe my experience of the first 13-week Process in Tolman Hall and the story of Hoffman’s stalking and abusing me, which, by the way, was a criminal action.

Here is a link to the description of "Tolman Hall, the first Hoffman Process. Hoffman the sexual predator grooms me."

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

The Sad Demise of Bob Hoffman 

Jonestown and Our Deliverance from Cults

Bob Hoffman was a criminal. Simple 

© Kenneth Ireland, 2021