Not Ambiguous

I'm going to play devil's advocate here in an attempt to justify Bob's sexual practices:

Suppose there is mutual attraction between therapist and patient. Suppose against better judgment they fall in love. Suppose they discontinue therapy and allow a year to pass before entering into a sexual relationship. This may violate professional guidelines, but just maybe it's not something that should be considered abusive or unethical. 

Now suppose the therapist enters into such relationships with many patients. And has sex with them during therapy sessions. 

There's no ambiguity here. A therapist who does this would be considered a sexual predator. Depending on jurisdiction, they might even be considered a rapist. 

Proof?

There are (potentially) two categories of readers here on this sleepy internet backwater. There are those who live(d) in the cult, or otherwise had deep exposure. And there are those who did not. Naturally, proving the truthfulness of the claims I've made is a different proposition depending on category of reader. 

Cultists

No proof necessary. They were there. They know full well that...

• Bob was everyone's therapist, and he was paid for it.
• Bob had sex with his patients.
• The Firestones assumed control over businesses started by Bob's patients.
• Bob hit his wife and justified it.
• Babies were systematically removed from parents and bounced around from surrogate to surrogate. 
• Bob's books are replete with lies.

They're able to justify these actions based on their adherence to Bob mythology. Their demigod can do no wrong. (That said, I have a high degree of confidence that many in the group were/are secretly conflicted.) 

General Public

Most of my claims aren't provable. And since I'm just an anonymracter on the internet, critical thinkers will quite rightly take everything with a grain of salt. But certain evidence does exist:

• All talks were recorded and transcribed. Alas, this treasure trove isn't within reach.
• Birth and marriage records would prove that Bob fathered four children with wife (and former patient) Tam, followed by five more children with three "sister wives". 
• Birth and marriage records would prove that one of the mothers was Bob's former daughter-in-law. 
• Public records of stock transactions for the computer company would prove that Bob became wealthy, but his patient DJ (who started the company and who was the driving force) did not. 
• Biographical information placed on the internet by Bob (who took over the computer company), his wife Tam (who took over the design company), and his son Dan (who took over the second computer company) lacked educational and professional credentials for the lofty positions they assumed.

I wish there was more hard evidence for the unaware third-party enablers who collaborate with Glendon Association and Psych Alive. However, I don't intend to pursue these data sources.  

Gaslighting

Bob frequently berated the group as a whole. His anger was directed at what he perceived as childish behavior. In particular, he was angry that nobody was willing and able to be his equal, harkening back to themes expressed in Bob's Song. 

This provided Bob with a handy self-exoneration for the fact that, indeed, everyone did act blatantly infantile in relation to him. Bob never once took an iota of responsibility. The inequality was everyone else's fault. 

Once or twice a year, the kabuki theater would rise to a crisis. Bob would rage and threaten to move out. During some (most? all?) of these episodes, he was furious with his wife Tam. It was obvious that the anger Bob was expressing towards the group was a spill-over effect. But nobody said so. 

Cult leaders berating their followers isn't uncommon. 

Transcript

By happenstance, I have a transcript of a group in my possession. (All groups were recorded and transcribed.) The person who sent it to me doesn't remember why they have it. It's ordinary yet highly revealing. 

The transcript is labeled "Therapist Talk". According to the transcript, the talk took place in 1994 in a hotel room. (I wasn't there.) Readers who aren't versed in E speak need to understand Bob mythology in order to grasp what's being said. 

In short, the mythology consists of: Bob is uniquely able to recognize and love the real you, unlike your parents. And that causes the recipients of his love to retreat psychologically, to act out against him. Accordingly, Bob is the central character in everyone's psychological development. 

Here are some excerpts. Tam is Bob's wife. GF stands for girlfriend of Bob. My comments are indented and bold. Everything else is the work of the transcriber (except the anonymous names). 

*  *  *

Bob: What do you think it meant that you were angry that day?

Tam: I think it's because I felt good. I just felt good and sweet toward you and really enjoying myself and feeling close. Feeling how nice you were. I think it was a reaction against that. I really do.

Bob: You don't think it had to do with me suggesting the itinerary? 

Tam: No I really don't. You didn't dictate it. You didn't care. You were totally easy. But I could tell that whatever you were going to say, I was going to be against it. 

GF1 proceeds to talk about being angry at her primary boyfriend, Bob's son, for reasons similar to Tam.

Bob: You're angry at Danny?

GF1: Yes but I feel that in general I'm angry at you. 

Bob is always the central focus.

Bob: What would you say?

GF1: I feel like I just want to curl up and be left alone. I don't want to feel. 

GF2: This morning you (Bob) said that I had been acting out rather than talking. I had a fury at being noticed, someone caring about me. I'm so angry about that. 

GF1: I feel so much better when I admit the anger. My anger at living a feelingful life. I really hate you especially. 

Bob: We're getting somewhere with this. 

That somewhere being an intense focus on Bob. And not just the women... 

Don: Through knowing you, I was able to achieve levels of changing myself and advancing and learning to embrace my life. And then I'm out on a limb and I feel terrified and I resent you particularly. I turn on you because you were a friend to me and supported me. 

Bob: That's right. 

GF2: I wasn't happy before my relationship with you. Then I was happy about everything. 

GF3: I felt like I hated myself for so many years before I came here and before I met you especially. 

GF4: There's so much love and hate directed to you in particular, because I've never met anybody who really is acknowledging of each person individually. That's why there's so much paranoia directed towards you. The minute someone turns against themselves they turn against you.

And so on ad nauseum. Creepy beyond belief and ever so typical. 

More Mothers and Children

In Mothers and Children I wrote about the systematic way that babies/toddlers were separated from their parents.

The parents would invariably acquiesce and the baby would be transferred to surrogates. Permanently.

Not quite. Most of the kids were bounced from one surrogate to another to another. These decisions came from on high, without input from the biological parents nor the surrogates. 

Again I will rely on reader/commenter GMC for their painfully insightful observations:

I understand, in retrospect, that a fundamental aim of Bob's was to prevent all deep attachments (bonds) between people except for their attachment to him. He was to be the center of everyone's world. This was especially damaging to parents and children.

I was told that I was "poison" to my young son. No explanation or specific evidence of this was given to me. Bob just said that if I cared about my child at all I would support his being raised by others. Like the other children - except for the Firestone children - my son lived in several different households while growing up. It was rare for the kids to stay in any given household for more than a year since any apparent "bond" between adults and children was to be avoided. Thus, everyone - parents, children, caregivers - were anxious and insecure about their relationships to each other. We were vulnerable and frightened. Just the way Bob wanted.

It's hard to imagine that experts wouldn't view this as obviously, seriously harmful to the kids and the parents. 

OPM

It's clear that reader/commenter GMC was there because the details are spot-on, and these sort of shennanigans were par for the course.

Background: Glendon Association is a non-profit that was setup to promote Bob's books and films. It was funded by the community.

I was a good friend and roommate of Anne B., who managed the Glendon Assoc. and much of the cult's finances.

Anne had considerable responsibility in the group, however, she apparently received a modest salary, for she rarely went on vacations, dressed inexpensively and drove an ancient car. She was serious, circumspect and definitely not a gossip.

After I returned to teaching after taking a 3 year break during which I slaved for Design One, I had my summers free and often worked - free - for the Glendon Assoc. with Anne. One day she seemed uncharacteristically upset. I asked her why and she blurted out that Bob, who was on vacation in the Mediterranean, had phoned, asking her to write a check for "thousands of dollars." "It's for SUNGLASSES!" Anne said. "He's bought all his girlfriends designer sunglasses!"

Not out of his own pocket, but with the group's money.

A small example of Bob appropriating our hard-earned money for his private slush fund.

Bob was all about OPM. Other People's Money. 

Lies by Omission

I've already detailed some of the explicit lies in The Fantasy Bond. There are some critical, damning facts that Bob omits. From chapter 20:

The friends had formed a general partnership where they contributed a certain percentage (33 percent) of their gross income to pay for rent*, food**, utilities, and boat expenses, and they decided to continue this financial arrangement on a permanent basis.

It's true that "the friends" paid 33% of income which covered most of the things that Bob enumerates. But what he fails to reveal is that everyone paid Bob for therapy in addition. Cash and only cash. The reason for this omission is obvious. He's obscuring the fact that he was everyone's therapist. He also fails to mention that the partnership paid a chunk of that 33% to him for services rendered.

An investment fund was started; with this new financial arrangement, each member of the “cooperative” became an equal partner in a general partnership.

First off, there was no transparency whatsoever for these financial arrangements. It's not until you depart the cult that the bullshit comes into focus. Somehow your ownership of an impressive array of assets...

• 36 unit apartment building in West Los Angeles
• luxurious 100 foot yacht  
• 80 foot schooner
• various large, deluxe motorboats
• investment property

... amounted to small change. 

And then take into account how Bob assumed control over businesses started by his patients.

The Firestone family is filthy rich. Emphasis on filthy.

* Implies more value than readers might imagine. We lived dormitory style, except for Bob and Tam.

** There was a communal dinner prepared four nights per week. For the first few years, it was prepared by the Firestone's long time housekeeper. It was truly awful. Think pot roast at Denny's with added salt and butter. This was the only "free" food. 

The Love Diet

As a friend stated so succinctly:

Fat Bob likes his women skinny

So Bob conceived The Love Diet. The concept was simple. The dieter relies on a person they love to tell them what to eat on a daily basis. In no time flat, almost every woman was on this diet plan. 

Bob viewed The Love Diet as a money-making opportunity, never mind if it was actually effective. He decided to write a book. But that presented a problem. The supposed greatest psychology theorist of all time can't be writing that sort of material. There was a simple solution. John, the one MD who lived in the community, was enlisted to attach his name to the project. John was a dermatologist. 

Make no mistake, this was Bob's project. That means that Joyce did all of the actual writing. I don't know how they managed to stretch this simplistic concept into a book (and I don't intend to find out). 

And it didn't stop there. The same guy who wrote Bob's Song proceeded to compose The Love Diet. This is all I remember:

There's a brand new way to lose weight

You oughta try it

A brand new way to lose weight

It's called The Love Diet

You don't need no doctor

You don't need no pills

All you need is ???? ??? 

The Love Diet swept through the group like wildfire, and it fizzled out in much the same way. The stupidity is (and was) beyond belief.

I could stop here and let it stand as comic relief, except there's a disturbing footnote. A short time later, John was caught in the act molesting pre-pubescent girls. He was evicted from the group immediately. I assign no blame to Bob whatsoever. However, law enforcement wasn't called in. That would be too risky -- a kid might spill unrelated, uncomfortable secrets. (Did laws concerning mandated reporting exist then? Bob was John's therapist afterall.) 

And even after this occurred, when Bob and Joyce were extolling the excellence of the community in Bob's books, they continued to brag about the doctor in our midst.  

Fiction Unraveled

In chapter 20 of his book The Fantasy Bond, Bob writes about all aspects of life in the Environment (aka The Friendship Circle) in glowing terms. Readers are expected to believe that the group was comprised of happy, enlightened, independent-minded individuals. Most of it is fiction.

I've picked out a few of the lies, misrepresentations, and otherwise bizarre passages (which are indented) and interspersed my comments. 

Theraputic Community

New form of psychosocial milieu ... the people improved dramatically ... remarkably harmonious ... worthy of anthropological study

This sort of rosy commentary is throughout. This is Bob expressing his utopian fantasies.  

My professional associates and myself had been exploring techniques...

ROFL! There were no professional associates. The two other psychologists who lived in the commune weren't inner circle. They weren't even inner circle adjacent. In fact, they were relegated to the lowly bottom floor. They had absolutely nothing to do with the evolution of Bob's work. You won't see their names among the acknowledgements in any of Bob's books. 

We found that the majority of people were unable to sustain their undefended, feelingful state after returning to the “normal” world. Their daily interactions with well-meaning but defended family members encouraged them to return to a self-limiting, defensive posture.

Setting the stage for the highly insular nature of The Environment, where followers were strongly discouraged from having contact with family members and friends from the past.

At their first general meeting, members of the new community elected a committee of 15 people to be responsible for overseeing the practical problems of group living. 

A blatant lie. The committe (which was led by Bob's wife, and which was an obvious extension of his authoritarian control) wasn't established until The Environment had existed for approximately five years.

The children are well-behaved and well-adjusted. They stand out in their appearance and demeanor, according to teachers and other observers.

According to teachers? Without exception, they were home schooled. 

Never mind that two of the children raised in "the kids program" eventually committed suicide. 

Business

The group started a computer distribution firm and a commercial interior design company.

No, "the group" did no such thing. DJ started the computer company and Bob assumed control of it by installing himself as CEO. Jane started the design company and Bob assumed control of it by installing his wife as President. 

The work environment reflected the pride that the employees had in owning a part of their own company.

The work environment was nothing short of putrid. Indentured servitude was commonplace, particularly in the design company. People worked long hours for little or no pay while the Firestones sucked out the money. Resentment abounded. 

Yes, employees were granted modest stock options. But when the computer company went public, one and only one person became wealthy. That of course was Bob. This is because he forbade everyone from selling their stock in order to maintain stock price, and meanwhile he unloaded his shares which permanently crashed the stock. (It's also due to Bob owning a large percentage of the company for no good reason.)

Postscript

These are just several examples of the lies and misrepresentations. I could go on at great length.

As in his book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, Bob relies heavily on the  observations of Stuart Boyd who was Bob's professor in college. Boyd was elderly, retired, and of modest means. He was paid to write the sorry drivel that appears throughout. 

Bob was all about astroturfing. When his books came out, an organized effort kicked in. Followers were dispatched to book stores all over the greater Los Angeles area to buy out the books (using their own money of course). 

Gobsmacked

Imagine that you're rewriting American history in order to whitewash slavery. If you had unmitigated gall, you might write something like this:

As we were building this shining city on a hill, we realized we couldn't do it alone. So we invited our dear friends from Africa to join us. 

That's how severe the lies are in The Fantasy Bond, where Bob describes The Environment (aka The Friendship Circle) in great detail. 

Having already gone through this exercise with the Ethics book, I thought I knew what was coming. Oh boy was I ever wrong. The extent and the specificity of the bullshit is something to behold. If this entire blog was devoted to unraveling the lies in that one chapter, I'd still be scratching the surface. I need to figure out how to approach it succinctly...

The Fantasy Bond

Over the comings weeks, I intend to post on the topic of Bob's self-published book The Fantasy Bond. As with his book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, I won't be commenting on the psychological concepts. Rather, I'll be pointing out the many misrepresentations pertaining to The Environment (aka The Friendship Circle) and also the bits and pieces that support things I've written in this blog. 

Chapter 20 is titled The Psychotheraputic Community. (This is a precursor to the same writeup presented in the subsequent Ethics book.) I'm particularly amused by this piece of fiction:

The author, an original member of the friendship circle, was persuaded in time to leave a large psychotherapy practice to involve himself in this project on a full-time basis. Because of my innate interest and ongoing study of resistance in psychotherapy, and the desire to pursue this subject in a social context, I was pleased to avail myself of the opportunity.

The notion that Bob was "persuaded" is the comical part. But as to abandoning his practice, that didn't happen until The Environment was in full swing. He had two motivations:

1. Bob knew full well that he was crossing bright red lines in terms of ethical/moral behavior for a psychotherapist. He was fearful of repercussions. This is the main reason he shut down his public practice. Bob spoke about this openly in group on multiple occasions.
2. While Bob was affluent, he wasn't yet wealthy. The businesses started by his patients (over which he assumed control) had yet to emerge. However the income from his practice had been supplanted by income from within the group. Every adult in the group paid Bob for therapy. Cash and only cash. He was making a lot of money. I know this because I had visibility into the details of his personal finances as a result of helping him automate. (Not to mention, most members of the group started out as patients in Bob's private practice. There wasn't much private practice remaining once The Environment was formed.)

The notion that Bob was merely a "member" of The Frienship Circle is highly misleading. The group consisted of his patients (in addition to various friends). He was the leader; he made it happen. 

It's also amusing how he describes his practice as "large", helping to fill in the Saint Bob narrative. See Bob/Trump comparison. 

The Design Company, Outsider Perspectives

I appreciate hearing outsider perspectives. Two former employees of the interior design company who were not members of the cult have commented here and on reddit. Their observations are spot-on...

According to vast_bug_2143:

I used to work for one of their businesses. I picked up their cult activities after noticing some craaazy stuff that went on.  I was a young 21yo that just moved to LA and started working at Design One. I started to notice many of the employees had the same last name (Firestone). They were all married to each other but sleeping with different people. If they had children, they wouldn’t raise them. They’d hand their kids off to be raised by other cult members. They had a hierarchy system with the cult. Robert Firestone was the CEO but was NEVER there…if he would walk into the office, he’d be surrounded by a lot of young women…they treated him like a god, a movie star!  It was the craziest experience of my life. 

According to catg2424:

I worked at one of their Design firms for a short time. It was the weirdest experience. Half of us were not in the cult but when he would come into the office his cult group employees all knew he was coming in. They would all stand outside of their offices and greet him like their master.

Man Hits Woman, Fault of the Woman

In group on multiple occasions, Bob raised the topic of men hitting (or otherwise assaulting) their wives/girlfriends. He assigned blame to the women. His rationale: the women were withholding their love, and they provoked the reaction. 

Bob spoke about this in thinly veiled abstract terms. But it was clear to me (and everyone else, I'm quite sure) that he abused* Tam physically. In one of these groups, Tam was uncharacteristically wearing heavy makeup. 

* Cult members wouldn't use the word abuse. They subscribe to Bob's rationale. 

Editorial Miscellany

1. Virtually everything written here is based on my first-hand observations. The only exception (as of this post) is in Whitewashing the Original Sin where I rely on several people who were there during genesis, combined with tribal knowledge.

2. I've used pseudonyms for most of the people I've referenced. The only exceptions are the Firestone family and other members of the inner circle. Even though they too are Bob's victims, they have profited from the abuses, and they have acted as enforcers. (My sympathies have limits.) Another exception is people who have died.

3. Pardon me for any confusion caused by using four names for the cult.

• The Environment: The original, informal name
• The E: My abbreviation
• The Friendship Circle: Rebranding of The Environment for public consumption in Bob's books
• TheBobCult(.com): A short, memorable URL

Self-Aware Scammer or True Believer?

There are loads of people who are scammers, and they're aware they are scammers. And then there's the true believers who scam people, but it's driven by delusion. I often wonder about the motivations of various high profile individuals such as faith healers. Benny Hinn randomly comes to mind. We rarely get to know for sure; we're left to speculate. (Although now and then, the truth is revealed with clarity. My favorite example is James Randi's legendary take down of televangalist Peter Popoff.)

Most of the ex-pats I talk to think that Bob is self-aware when he abuses patients for financial gain. I beg to differ. When Bob assumed control over businesses started by his patients, I believe he genuinely thought it was in their best interest therapeutically. And that it's rooted in narcissism on steroids.

(The other ex-pats think I let Bob off too easy. I beg to differ here too, because if I'm right, then Bob is profoundly delusional. That's not exactly letting him off the hook. But again I digress.)

In any event, it's a false dilemma. The human mind is complex. I think it's possible to be a true believer and a self-aware scammer. L. Ron Hubbard comes to mind. 

As for Bob, we're left to speculate. 

Authoritarian Micromanagement

It was a common occurrence that highly mundane behaviors drew Bob's ire. And because of the way he was worshipped, his comments reverberated and followers fell into line. 

A group of people went to see the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. John came back raving about it. That disturbed Bob. He proclaimed that John was "cutoff from his feelings" and that it's the sort of movie that causes viewers to be cutoff.

Another time a group of people went to see the movie Rocky. Bob liked it a lot. Tim said he thought it was corny. Tim took flack in group.

There were a number of skiers in the group, and there were annual trips to various ski locations. Bob didn't go; he wasn't a skier. But he did go the time we went to Lake Tahoe because he enjoyed gambling. His wife Tam went too, because she was a skier. After the first day spent skiing, there was an ad-hoc group talk. Bob was angry at Tam because she was supposedly "cutoff" and "inward" after skiing. He preferred that she accompany him in the casino to shoot craps. And that's what she did the next day. 

Once a whole bunch of us went to Yosemite for a few days, including Bob. Gary was recruiting various people to go on a long hike. Bob got word and he was furious. Gary took a whole lot of flack and the hike didn't happen. 

In short, Bob frowned on activities that weren't Bob-centric. This especially applied to Tam and the inner circle. 

Baseball Games & Temper Tantrums

The most (bleakly) amusing manifestation of Bob's narcissism took place at our baseball games. We played every weekend, hardball no less.

Bob fancied himself as the best at everything no matter the realm -- the best theorist in the field of psychology, the best boat captain, the best at business, and the most enlightened person on the planet. He also fancied himself as the best baseball player among our group. Bob was in his late 40s at the time, the oldest of the regular players. Considering his age and poor physical shape, he was actually pretty good but nowhere near the best. 

Bob was a pitcher. His one asset was good control. However his pitches were slow and he barely had a curve ball. Even the marginal players would hammer his pitching. 

When Bob was pitching and fielding errors occurred, he fumed. He was so bent out of shape that he changed the way the teams were formed. At first the teams were formed randomly. But then it was changed to Allstars (consisting of the best players) and Underdogs (consisting of the lesser players). Bob designated himself as the starting pitcher for the Allstars despite that Scott was vastly superior. This arrangement placed the best fielders on Bob's team. Of course there were still lots of fielding errors, because we played more or less at little league level.

Donny was one of the best players. He played shortstop for the Allstars. Bob had high expectations for Donny's level of play. When Donny committed an error, Bob would rage out of control. It even bubbled up to group. Bob accused Donny of sabotaging him. That's because in the world according to Bob, nobody was capable of handling his love and recognition without retreating, without "acting out" against him. (Was it Sigmund Freud who said sometimes an error is just an error?)

When an Underdog made a good play in the field, Bob would fume at that too. "They never played that well when I was pitching!"

Bob's wife Tam maintained an official scorecard. Readers who are unfamiliar with baseball minutia may not be aware that a baseball scorecard is complicated. It tracks every play, not just the runs. Bob wanted the scorecard to reflect his pitching skill (as if anyone else cared). He looked over Tam's work when the Allstars were at bat, and instructed her to change borderline hits into errors. (Preserving his ERA, the most important pitching stat.) Oddly, he also instructed her to record certain errors as outs, which made a mess of things when three outs were recorded yet the inning was still in progress. That too angered Bob, as if it was Tam's fault. 

(I was going to include the scorecard anecdote in the Bob/Trump contrast and compare post, because it reminds me of Trump altering the hurricane track with his sharpie. Except it's too convoluted.)

In group, where every nuance of everyone's behavior was scrutinized, Bob's infantile behavior on the baseball field was never mentioned. 

Shangri-La

The story told in the fictional book Lost Horizon takes place in the Kunlun Mountains in Tibet. The people of Shangri-La live in harmonious bliss. They live to be hundreds of years old, while barely aging physically. But if they leave Shangri-La, they soon wither away and die. 

Shangri-La is the quintessential utopia. 

In his book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, Bob details how The Friendship Circle (a re-branding of "The Environment") came into existence. He then writes:

In spite of all its positive attributes, this environment has never claimed to be a Utopia.

This is a lie of the highest order. Time and time again, Bob specifically referred to The Friendship Circle as Shangri-La. He even warned his followers they'd severely regress psychologically if they left. They would "go mental".  

Readers of this book would be well advised to take every word Dr. Robert Firestone writes with a block of salt.  

Whitewashing the Original Sin

This is the third installment focused on Bob's and Joyce's book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships, in particular chapter one titled The Friendship Circle. (Here are installments one and two.)

From the book:

In the early 1970s I was one of a number of mental health professionals who, with our spouses and friends, were involved in seminars and discussion groups in which we talked about our most intimate problems in life, expressed our deepest feelings and, in the process, formulated a new lifestyle based on the impact this experience had on our understanding of psychology. 

Yes, there were several shrinks and friends and family members. But what Bob fails to reveal is this group mostly consisted of his patients. And that in those early days, before the commune was formed, Bob was already abusing his patients sexually. This included Joyce and Susan, both of whom became long standing members of Bob's inner circle. And it soon included Tam, who came to Bob for therapy with her husband for couple counseling. (Bob eventually divorced his wife and married Tam.)

Jane was a member of this group in those early days. She's the interior designer who founded Design One. That endeavor ended poorly for her a few years later. 

Visitors Get Five Star Treatment

When there were visitors to The Friendship Circle (aka The Environment) who Bob viewed favorably for whatever reason, they would receive five star treatment. A day sail on our 80' schooner. Some fine dining. An informal concert in the courtyard including a performance of Bob's Song. And sometimes they'd even even be invited to attend a group session, orchestrated to be all warm and fuzzy. 

That's how it came to be that Dr. Stuart Boyd, Bob's professor in college, wrote the sorry drivel that leads off chapter one of The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships:

This is a community of some 100 or more persons -- women, men and  children -- who seem to have achieved the better life together with a minimum of dogma, political authority, withdrawal, mysticism, insulation ... There is no golden lie, no coercion, no constitution ... It is not, nor claims to be, Utopia. 

This is so wrong it's hard to know where to begin. It's easier to point out the parts that are true: 

• 100+ members
• Free of mysticism
• There weren't written rules 

Everything else is the stark opposite of how things were in The Friendship Circle.

I don't blame Boyd. It's easy for a visitor to get snowed by the five star treatment.  

The Friendship Circle

Apparently The Environment sounded too creepy for public consumption. At some point, the cult was rebranded as The Friendship Circle, as presented in Bob's and Joyce's book The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships.

(Full stop. Readers should view the title of this book as nothing short of demented, if you accept what's written in this blog as fact. But I digress.)

From the outset, I stated that Bob's body of work should be judged on it's own merit. (By someone other than me. I lack the credentials, and I lack familiarity with the field.) Just because he's an abusive cult leader doesn't mean that his published work is invalid.  

But that said, the very first chapter is titled The Friendship Circle. (It's readable online at Amazon.) The Friendship Circle, aka The Environment, is foundational in Bob's entire body of work. That makes these works fair game. One needn't be a shrink to witness the egregious level of abuse that took place, and to point out how those abuses were whitewashed.

In the following posts, I'll point out the misrepresentations and flat-out lies told in The Ethics of Interpersonal Relationships. They are plentiful. 

Never Mind the Facts

We lived in a two story apartment building in the Palms neighborhood of Los Angeles. Bob and the inner circle dictated the living arrangements. The in crowd lived on the top floor. 

We outgrew the building, so we bought a three story apartment building just outside Century City, allowing for more precise stratification based on status within the group. The new building required extensive renovation prior to move-in. It was a massive team effort. Everyone had a job to do, starting with the units on the third floor and working our way down. 

When the third floor was completed and work on the second floor began, Bob and many other third floor dwellers discontinued their work efforts. The work force winnnowed down further when the second floor was completed. The bottom floor people, having worked for months on the upper floors, were mostly left to fend for themselves when it came to renovating the bottom floor units. 

Marsha bravely brought this up in group, and the response was predictable. Without any consideration given to the facts, Bob tore into her. "You're selfish! You're paranoid! You don't appreciate what we have here!" And so on. And whenever Bob tore into someone, there was always a chorus joining in. 

It was a cardinal sin to criticize Bob in any way. It just wasn't permitted. Never mind the facts.

Freethought

The concepts surrounding Freethought sound good on paper:  

Freethought is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and should instead be reached by other methods such as logic, reason, and empirical observation.

A freethinker is "One who is mentally free from the conventional bonds of tradition or dogma, and thinks independently." Free thought is strongly tied with rejection of traditional social or religious belief systems. Modern freethinkers consider free thought to be a natural freedom from all negative and illusive thoughts acquired from society.

The problem with Freethought (and its philosophical cousin, the Skeptical movement) is a haven is provided for all sorts of deviant thinking. For instance, pedophiles frequently self-identify as free thinkers or skeptics. And of course, deviant thinking is a precursor to deviant action. 

Freethought was alive and well at Cal Berkeley when Bob attended, and he adopted it to the core of his being. He views conventionality as a cardinal sin. 

This is the mindset that enabled Bob to abuse his patients sexually. And to assume control of their businesses in the name of therapy. And to have a sexual relationship with his daughter-in-law (a patient), and to father a child with her (subsequent to her divorce). And to openly lament in group that his adult daughter was disadvantaged by being unable to enjoy the profound benefits of a sexual relationship with her very special father, due to conventional taboos. 

Ugh. I feel dirty just thinking about it. 

Another Computer Company

This is the third installment in the saga of the Firestone family assuming control over businesses started by Bob's patients. I barely need to edit the copy/paste of the first installment. 

Mick, having proven himself as highly successful at sales, established a company that brokered used computer gear. Soon thereafter, Mick started taking heat from Bob in group. "Your vanity is self-destructive. Being President of a company is feeding your vanity." 

The solution? Bob's son Dan was installed as President and Mick was demoted. This despite the fact that Dan was clueless about computers and he had zero business experience. 

This happened under the guise of therapy for Mick. Naturally, he acquiesced. 

Indentured Servitude

Most of the people who lived in The Environment worked for the businesses that were started by Bob's patients within the community.  I explained in previous posts (here and here) how Bob assumed control over these businesses. As a result, the extent of his control over his followers broadened significantly. 

The way this manifested in the design company was particularly disturbing.

Most employees worked 60-80 hour work weeks for years on end. If they were lucky, they received minimum wage. In fact, there were some who received zero pay.

Meanwhile... 

• Tam Firestone, having been installed as President, drew a healthy salary despite having no qualifications whatsoever, and despite that she worked part-time. 
• Bob used the company bank account as his personal slush fund. The company covered his (and Tam's) exorbitant travel expenses even though the travel was unrelated to business. 
• Susan, a core member of Bob's inner circle, drew a healthy salary despite that she did absolutely nothing -- there wasn't even a pretense. 

Business as usual in the Bob cult. 

Mothers and Children

I could have titled this Parents and Children except it was the mothers who took the brunt. 

The harm that mothers cause their children is a central theme in Bob's body of work. It was also a central theme in The Environment. 

Women who were deemed to be struggling psychologically were invariably diagnosed as repeating the sins of their mothers. (Which could well be true in general. I'm not taking a stance on the theoretical concepts.)

Members of The E of all ages were strongly discouraged from having contact with their parents. There wasn't a formal rule. The discouragement came in group, after the fact: "You've been a mental case since that day you had lunch with your mother." 

Quite a few babies were born in The E. With just one exception, the babies weren't raised by their parents. In fact, parents (mothers in particular) were strongly discouraged from having any contact with their children. Children in the E were taught a mantra that Bob originated: 

Don't be a dummy -- stay away from your mummy. 

The baby handover didn't happen on day one. It would play out over months. The mother would receive withering attacks in group, led by Bob and the inner circle...

You're smothering your baby!

Why are you spending so much time alone with her?

The way you hold her is weird!

The parents would invariably acquiesce and the baby would be transferred to surrogates. Permanently. I gained the distinct impression that several of the mothers were permanently broken (for want of a better term) by these happenings. 

I mentioned there was an exception. The only babies who weren't separated from their parents were the children of Bob and Tam. 

My point here doesn't have to do with child rearing per se. It has to do with the authoritarian nature of the E, the rigidity of Bob's concepts, and how people were coerced to conform. 

The Design Company

This post might seem like a copy/paste of an earlier post. It more or less is. 

Jane went to Bob for therapy before The Environment, and that continued once the E  came into existence. Jane was an interior designer. She started a company. It was successful. 

In group, Bob confronted Jane about her supposed flakiness concerning business matters. This apparently was a theme early on, in her private therapy sessions. According to Bob, the re-emergence of Jane's flakiness was self-destructive and something needed to be done about it. 

The solution? Bob's wife Tam was installed as President of the company and Jane was demoted. This was despite the fact that Tam had no experience as a designer and no experience in business. In the world according to Bob, the demotion was in Jane's best interest psychologically. It was therapeutic. Jane acquiesced.  

Bob was masterful at using the weaknesses of his patients as a way to manipulate them. 

This pattern would repeat yet again a couple years later. 

The Inner Circle

Bob's inner circle consisted of several women. Each of them had come to Bob for therapy before The Environment existed, and each of them had a sexual relationship with him. (These relationships were common knowledge because they were discussed openly in group.) Perversely, the woman who Bob eventually married, Tam, initially came to Bob for therapy with her then husband for couple counseling. 

These women surrounded Bob around the clock, attending to his every need in the most servile way you could imagine. 

While they enjoyed certain benefits on the top of The Environment power structure, the inner circle also took an extraordinary amount of heat in group. Tam was a frequent recepient of Bob's rage. It was a constant theme that she was "withholding", and that she was unable to accept Bob's love. He frequently accused Tam of harming their children psychologically. 

Joyce was Bob's co-author. She did all the writing, under his direction. When Bob was dissatisfied with Joyce's work, he would rage at her in group. She was a "withholding piece of shit" among other choice words. All under the guise of therapy.  

Susan ran away several times. She sneaked out without a word, like a teenager. She would eventually return a few weeks later and confess her thought crimes in group. The confession invariably consisted of "I acted out because I was unable to accept Bob's love and recognition". (This same confessional was repeated time and again by followers who were deemed to have slipped psychologically.)

The women comprising the inner circle all acted as therapists within the group. With the possible exception of Joyce, none of them possessed credentials. 

Bob's Song

Bob's Song, written by a particularly obsequious follower, provides a glimpse into the Bob mythology. It was invariably performed at parties and other gatherings. Bob (and most everyone) would become highly emotional at these performances. My comments are interspersed in bold: 

The house was filled with emptiness
For that New York City boy
All he wanted was happiness
He thought life could be joyful

But he knew he couldn't hang on
To what he hoped might be
He had to go on searching
Like a sailor on the sea

So he took his heart out in the streets
Looking for a friend   
Faces left in windows
But there's freedom round the bend

Bob's inability to find a friend was a constant theme. That's because in Bob reality, nobody was capable of being his equal. (It's lonely at the top!)

Westward towards Denver
Pacific bound they say
Chasing truth and dreams along the way

With nothing much to guide him
He set out young and strong
Learning from who and where he could
And then just moving on

And with no one to hold on to
The man was free to be
No one came between him
And the things that he could see

He took his heart out in the street
Saw a lot
Along with joy and laughter
Saw some things he'd rather not

Saw the lonely and the crazy
A child lost in pain
Reflections of that child in every man 

With ideas born from listening
And a feeling of his own
A way of life grew up inside
A path was clearly formed  

Leading to the formation of The Environment

A way for man to live his life
Without those chains that bind
Free that frightened child
That we've all locked up inside

So he took his heart out in the streets
Told everyone he saw
Shouted from the rooftops
And he wrote it on the wall

But can you feel his sadness
When the truth was finally told
No one seemed to really want to know

Bob never got the recognition as a theorist that he felt he deserved. In Bob reality, his body of work was too radical for the conventional, narrow-minded thinkers who dominate the field.

Now a cynic's choice when faced with pain
Is to leave his world behind
Lose himself and the things he loves
Find fences to hide behind

But indifference was a feeling
That the man just could not bare
Had to keep on moving
There was just to much to share

So he took his heart out on the street
The only life he knew
Going back inside himself
Was the thing he could not do

People may not want to know
But someday someone might
He'd find the friend he's looked for all his life

Cult Checklist

There are countless resources on the internet that list the attributes of cults. I'm going to use the first one that Google served up, that being Cult Recovery 101, and render my opinions about how closely the checklist aligns with The Environment. My comments are interspersed. 

1. Group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.

Beyond any doubt

2. Group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

No

3. Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

Beyond any doubt

4. Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

To an extent. Things that happened in group could be described as denunciation sessions. And there were occasional all-night group sessions intended to break down inhibitions. 

5. The group is preoccupied with making money.

Beyond any doubt

 6. The leadership dictates sometimes in great detail how members should think, act, and feel.

Beyond any doubt

7. The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and members.

Beyond any doubt

8. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which causes conflict with the wider society

To an extent. Conflict was avoided by being secretive. For instance, the children were home-schooled specifically to avoid one of the them revealing too much to a teacher or counselor. 

9. The group’s leader is not accountable to any authorities.

Yes. However this item reeks of apologetics for organized religion e.g. LDS. (See full text at Cult Recovery 101 for context.)

10. The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify means that members would have considered unethical before joining the group.

Beyond any doubt. In particular, the ethics of a therapist having sex with patients, and assuming control over businesses started by patients, were never questioned.

I'm not particularly impressed by this list. A common characteristic that's missing is members being discouraged from having contact with family members. This was very much the case in the E. 

The Bob Mythology

It's hard to grasp how a group of reasonably intelligent people buys into a situation where their therapist has sex with his patients, and assumes control over businesses started by said patients. The key enabling factor is the mythology surrounding Bob. That mythology consists of:

Bob is unique. He is uniquely compassionate. Uniquely enlightened. Uniquely feelingful. Uniquely unburdened by narrow-minded conventions. Uniquely able to recognize and appreciate the real you, unlike your parents with all their limitations. Uniquely able to live life to its fullest, and uniquely able to help you achieve same.

Bob casts himself as the central character in the psychological development of each member of the community. His acknowledgment of the real you is a shock to your defense system, and that causes psychological retreat. 

Bob unabashedly described The Environment as Shangri-la. We were special. We were enlightened. 

But you better not leave. Like those who abandoned the Shangri-la in Lost Horizon, you will wither away. Unable to accept Bob's love, you will regress into a paranoid psychotic. (I'm not being hyperbolic. Bob applied those labels with abandon.)

The Computer Company

As a teen, DJ was Bob's patient. This continued into adulthood when The Environment came into existence. 

DJ was successful in the computer field. He started his own company. It quickly became successful. 

In group, DJ started taking heat from Bob. "Your vanity is self-destructive. Being president of a company is feeding your vanity."

The solution? Bob became CEO and DJ was demoted. This despite that Bob didn't know thing one about computers and he had no business experience whatsoever. Naturally, DJ acquiesced. 

The result? Bob became wealthy. DJ did not. 

This pattern would repeat over the years. Later on, I'll have a couple more posts that will more or less be a copy/paste of this one. 

The Narcissists I Have Known

I'm loathe to get political here, but when I contemplate the nature of cults -- personality cults in particular -- it's hard to avoid the one we all live amongst these days here in Dystopia, USA. And funny(?) enough, as I've observed Trump over these years, and read what experts have said about his narcissism, it's hard to avoid Bob.

Before I get to the similarities, there are glaring differences. Bob is highly intelligent. At his best, he is engaging, funny, and generally charismatic. (Yes, I know lots of people think Trump is charismatic. I'm unable to process that.) He's adventurous. It's mainly because of Bob that we sailed around the world in an 80' schooner.

And then there's the similarities.

The Greatest Ever. To the depth of his soul, Bob believes that he's the single greatest theorist to have ever existed in the field of psychology. "The ideas", as he would call his body of work.

Skin thinner than a grape. Even the most trivial slight would draw Bob's rage, sometimes in group under the guise of therapy for the perpetrator.

Master exploiter. Bob assumed control over businesses that were started by his patients and became wealthy as a result. More on this later.  

Used Non-Profit as Slush Fund. See OPM.

Taking credit when credit wasn't due. All things good flowed through Bob.

Blame Shifter. Things that went wrong were never Bob's fault.

Ostentatious display of wealth. The Mazerrati, the extraordinary yachts, the house in Bel Air. Bob was all about money, especially OPM (other people's money). I should mention, he has much finer taste than does Trump.

I'm going to be a bit audacious here and turn the table (or couch if you prefer). Bob is a narcissist on steroids. 

Three Paths In

Bearing in mind that I'm describing how things were in the early years, there were three pathways into The Environment:

1. Birth 

2. Bob's friends and family 

3. Bob's patients. This by far is how most people got involved. 

Unlike many cults, there was no active recruiting.

Make no mistake, once you lived in the E, you were Bob's patient. Every adult paid Bob for therapy. Cash and only cash. There was group therapy and there were private sessions which cost extra.

Intro

I recently watched a fascinating documentary called Love Has Won, about a truly bizarre cult surrounding a woman with a god complex. This group bore very little resemblance to the commune/cult I lived in several decades ago, which came to be known as The Environment. But still, when I see these cult documentaries, I'm surprised and dismayed that The E hasn't been publicly exposed after all these years. I've started this blog to remedy that. 

The E wasn't about supernaturality or religion. It was a cult of personality surrounding Dr. Robert Firestone, an acclaimed psychologist who I presume is retired because he's in his 90s now. I call him Bob because that's how I've known him every since I was a toddler, and that's the name he went by. 

The reality of what went on behind the scenes in the E is in stark contrast to the respectable public face, in the form of websites, books, and documentary films...

Bob's website:
https://www.drrobertwfirestone.com/

Psych Alive, a website operated by Bob's wife (a former patient):
https://www.psychalive.org/

The Glendon Association, a non-profit established to promote Bob's books and films: https://www.glendon.org/

... which should be judged on their own merit, irrespective of the egregious financial and sexual abuses that Bob's patients were subjected to.

I aim to be factual, and to make it clear when I'm crossing into opinion. I'm doing this in bite-size pieces, because otherwise I'll get bogged down by my irresistible urge to endlessly edit. 

I dedicate this effort to Bob's many victims. Names changed to protect the innocent. 

And with that said...