Imagine being a mother separated from her infant by an oppressive group like the Sullivanians with cult-like control. In this episode hear Annie's heartbreaking journey to rescue her daughter Rosie from the Sullivanians. With the crucial help of a women's shelter's dedicated legal advocates, I helped Annie orchestrate a daring escape and go into hiding. There is urgency and tension in every step of her plan to reclaim her daughter. Listen to the emotional turbulence that ev...

What if you found yourself trapped within a group that controlled every aspect of your life, from your relationships to how you spent your money? This episode unveils some of the dark realities inside the Sullivanians, the infamous cult that hid in plain sight on Manhattan's Upper West Side, in the years after Cora left. Learn about the group's manipulative tactics, inspired by the theories of Harry Stack Sullivan, which forced members into rigid and often detrimental lifestyles. These oppres...

After being forced out of the apartment by Annie I was more convinced than ever that that I could no longer tow the party line. In this episode and the next I will take a deeper dive into my relationship with Chris Crenshaw, first mentioned in episode four which covered Jonestown's and my realization the group was a cult and the group’s exodus to Florida after The Three Mile Island accident and partial nuclear meltdown ( it might be worth a re-listen) and the Open Union,&n...

In the five years I'd been in the group, its ranks swelled and the group with its emphasis on artistic endeavors that were once revered merged with the authoritarian cult-like Fourth Wall with its many directives and shifting focus. The shift coincided with Lein's marriage to his second wife a soap opera actress and aspiring stage director. It was her idea to merge the two. The Fourth Wall subsumed personal identities into the group's collective thinking. Membership was man...

This latest episode continues to expose the machinations of the Sullivanian Cult On a serene Labor Day morning, the summer house ignites into a tinderbox of drama and emotion after Sandra's inexplicable emotional breakdown behind the wheel of the summerhouse car. Annie, who is without empathy believes Sandra should be punished. A month later, when Stan takes a stand against Cora's relationship with Ollie she is stunned by his ultimatum: invite Oll...

This episode delves into The 1960s generational divide and societal pressures, and how it impacted my relationship with my mother which led to an emotional confrontation revolving around her cliched disapproval of our then-unconventional choice to live together. Her concern for social optics clashed with my desire for personal identity and love and framed my future. Are you struggling with familial bonds in the pursuit of individuality and independence? This episode d...

Today's episode begins Thanksgiving Day three years after I became entangled with the Sullivanians a seemingly benign group that supported creativity but would morph into the singular cult that remained undetected on Manhattan Upper West Side. Annie was my roommate and friend, but I on that day I began to realize her ardent belief in the Sullivanians as the vanguard party that would would soon shape the world's future was all encompassing. O...

This episode weaves an intricate tale that begins with a wedding invitation and pulls at the threads of an emotional odyssey navigating the murky waters of a narrative steeped in abandonment, lies, and a profound search for the truth from my mother and estranged father, that would pave the way to the Sullivanians There was a reunion where my sister and I were faced with the complex emotions of rekindling the long-lost connections with our father whose approval ...

Initially, the group was a vibrant blend of energy—artists, musicians, writers, actors, politics, and interpersonal drama. Serena left the apartment, and Sandra Aguilar, the only minority in the group, was added to the mix. In the group, there was an elite hierarchy among the trainees, the therapists of the institute, and the people they dated, who were given preferential placement in the burgeoning Marxist classes. In this episode, you'll learn about the conflict created by Annie's decision ...

-After two and a half years of shifting roommates and apartments, I finally found an apartment and a tight-knit group of women and the rewarding discovery of profound connections hitherto absent from my life This episode continues to explore the daunting task of navigating the tightrope of school, intense Sullivanian therapy, and the interpersonal dynamics of the group mixed with family estrangement, and memories that continue to haunt. Take a seat at the latest Sullivanan house ...

This painful episode depicts the moments of sexual awakening. First with Kenny, my summer crush who loved me, but then taking a sharp turn to the unsettling encounter with Robert Scheinman the most popular boy in the senior class. Imagine a house party that veered off-course spiraling into chaos, an event that would leave my mother in a rage if found out. And the disappointment in realizing that for Robert it was only about sex. The intensity escalates with a chilli...

Liz, who was new to the group, was my new roommate. Ours was her first group apartment and Aggie who could be a bully under the best of circumstances, had no sympathy for Liz when she spoke nostalgically about her life before the Sullivanians, holding her wedding album close, she'd often reminisce during house meetings. &nbs...

The History Tapes. The oral telling jumps to the early 1960s and with it more ammunition for the therapists to manipulate. A sixth-grade party goes horribly wrong taking with it my self-esteem as I enter Junior High School without friends. Wanting a more grown-up look for junior high school, Anita and I decided to cut our hair into the layered look, the au currant style of the time leaving me with dandelion fuzz every time the barometer went above fifty percent.&nbs...

Forty years ago the Sullivanians were exposed by NewYork Magazine and the Village Voice for their insidious practices, but as far as I know, Through A Blue Window is the only first-hand accounting, and the next episode of the podcast is about Amagansett and the group. I'd been in the group for six months, but I had no idea what to expect as I headed out to the East End of Long Island to spend the summer cleaning summerhouses. It was Memorial Day 1974, and during the long train ride, I&...

I was living in a group apartment but I wasn't officially in Sullivanian therapy. The next step in the process was to have a consultation with one of the four licensed therapists and as the day approached, my roommates were all a twitter. Though I had previously eschewed joining anything, from the Brownies to Gamma Gamma in high school, I seemed to adapt, one could argue, that I blossomed amidst the Arlettians, at first. Never mind that it meant severing all contact w...

The ‘group’ was self-monitoring by design, with the oral telling of one’s life, a history, at its core. Each history began with your earliest memory and ended on the day you entered the group and like Madame Defarge, all this information was knitted into the group’s collective conscious with every detail deemed significant. History sessions were recorded with the trainees passing the tapes on to their supervisors and then in turn to Seth. Childhood trauma was the bedrock of...

Two long years following my divorce I was financially situated to return to school without my mother's help. This episode delves into my seemingly innocent meeting and infatuation with Jackson Mory, the graduate assistant in my color theory class at Queens College, and how he became the gateway into the notorious world of the group and the Sullivanians, years later classified as a cult. Unbeknownst to me there was enormous pressure put on Jackson to encourage me to join the group...

]As this episode unfolds the eerie news bulletins of Jonestown bring with it the realization that the Sullivanians were a cult and I was part of it. Hoping, one last time to make a go of my relationship with Chris we move to the East Village, Still cleaning for two Sullianian apartments, a few months later the events of near nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island nuclear plant unfolds. Caught in the crossfire I learned of the treacherous events, marked by unprecedented...

New York made abortion legal in 1970 – three years before Roe v. Wade. I needed a late-term abortion and I was having trouble finding a doctor but then Rachel's mother found Dr. Lowenthal. He was brusque during the consultation and examination and as he explained the procedure to my mother in an emotionless monotone she became distressed. I assured her it was my choice but at the hospital a few days later when he rolled himself into the waiting area in a wheelch...

"I am asking the apartment to ask Cora to leave. I don't have to say anymore. My therapist said I didn't have to give my reasons and that I could just ask the apartment to ask her to leave. You could either vote yes or no based on my request." This is what Annie, my once-upon-a-time ally and friend in the group asked of our roommates, in the apartment where I had lived for three years. I had heard this uncompromising reasoning many times in my five years in the group. To me, it was bul...