Hi Folks –

This always happens when I wonder whether the cult is culting on …. someone asked me last week and I said, “I have no idea.”

Suddenly, I’m getting messages from people that have been targeted recently. Not only that, sounds like the cult is using the exact same tactics… sigh. You can read about those tactics here …

And remember, a “School”-free holiday season is a happy holiday season!

Enjoy your weekend!

Good morning, fellow “Disgruntled ex-Students” – Exciting news!

My fellow “evil” blogger’s cultic misadventure in “school” NYC (i.e. corporate headquarters) is now a published book!! I got to read a few excerpts pre-publication and can’t wait to read the rest. I’m confident that, true to form, Sir Spence’s beautifully written book, will make me laugh & cry, while demonstrating how one demented woman duped a group of intelligent, high-functioning humans into her staged production of “highly-evolved woman.” Buy the memoir. Compare it to your experience. Something tells me that you’ll relate.:

“We were invisible. We had to be. We took an oath of absolute secrecy. We never even told our immediate families who we were. We went about our lives in New York City. Just like you. We were your accountants, money managers, lawyers, executive recruiters, doctors. We owned your child’s private school and sold you your brownstone. But you’d never guess our secret lives, how we lived in a kind of silent terror and fervor. There were hundreds of us.”

Right under the noses of neighbors, clients, spouses, children, and friends, a secret society, simply called School—a cult of snared Manhattan professionals—has been led by the charismatic, sociopathic and dangerous leader Sharon Gans for decades. Spencer Schneider was recruited in the eighties and he stayed for more than twenty-three years as his life disintegrated, his self-esteem eroded, and he lined the pockets of Gans and her cult.

Cult members met twice weekly, though they never acknowledged one another outside of meetings or gatherings. In the name of inner development, they endured the horrors of mental, sexual, and physical abuse, forced labor, arranged marriages, swindled inheritances and savings, and systematic terrorizing. Some of them broke the law. All for Gans.

‘During those years,’ Schneider writes, ‘my world was School. That’s what it’s like when you’re in a cult, even one that preys on and caters to New York’s educated elite. This is my story of how I got entangled in School and how I got out.’

At its core, Manhattan Cult Story is a cautionary tale of how hundreds of well-educated, savvy, and prosperous New Yorkers became fervent followers of a brilliant but demented cult leader who posed as a teacher of ancient knowledge. It’s about double-lives, the power of group psychology, and how easy it is to be radicalized—all too relevant in today’s atmosphere of conspiracy and ideologue worship.

Hello fellow “Disgruntled Ex-Students”,

Here’s something you’ll probably find interesting: apparently, two former NYC colleagues (i.e. corporate headquarters) are demanding ” …wages for the alleged unpaid labor and a reimbursement of the many $400 fees collected.”

Read all about it in the article, Plaza Denizen Ran ‘Secret Cult’ Masquerading As Study Group: Suit.

My understanding is that this is a class action lawsuit, filed by Attny Mordy Yankovich, on behalf of all who provided unpaid labor to School, or Gans, or suffered similar losses. According to the Sharon Gans Cult Report, ” if anyone else was a member of school and wants to be part of the class, they can potentially collect damages by joining the class by contacting the attorney for the plaintiffs. You would not need to be named in the lawsuit to be part of the class.”

And, by the way, you can no longer reach OSG via phone … as “…number listed for the Odyssey Study Group is now out of service.” You can read about that, and more, in this article: Secret NYC ‘cult’ duped women into paying fee, working for free: lawsuit.

Here’s another article: Two ex-members of secretive NYC ‘cult’ say they paid $400 a month to serve as ‘assistants, cooks and drivers’ for actress and founder who lived life of luxury at the Plaza Hotel
That’s it for now.

Dear Readers,

It seems appropriate that I’m posting this message on July 4th, 2021. Ten years ago, in July of 2011, I decided, “hey, I need ‘school’ like a bullet in the temple” & moved on.

Best decision I’ve ever made!!

In July of 2014, I attended my first International Cultic Studies Association conference in Washington DC. I met ex-cult members from all over the world. These people had ‘joined’ (so to speak) ‘Bible studies’, ‘yoga schools’, ‘self-help seminars’, ‘business managements trainings’, blah, blah, blah. Like me, they all left cults. We were all telling the same. damn. story.

When boiled down to essential social & emotional needs, all of those “unique” groups, were exactly like ‘school.’ They seduced new members by claiming a super-secret-sauce for life! They exploited members using the exact same tactics. It’s like the group leaders all went to the same How-to-Start-Your-Own-Cult summer camp.

So, we all proclaimed gratitude for escaping & toasted our freedom under fireworks on National Mall.

Now, a decade after leaving, I help other ex-cult members recover as a career. I’ve written a book which is in the editing & publishing process. It’s time for me to try to be somewhat appropriate & focus exclusively on providing education and recovery tools. I’ll be posting those resources on my new blog, the GSR Healing Arts Blog, as well as sample content from the book.

This blog, Cult Confessions, has been critical to my recovery. Here is where I said fuck the secrecy – I told my story and in doing so, I reclaimed my voice. The catharsis was exactly what I needed. Reclamation of voice is reclamation of self. I cleared the ‘school’-instilled toxic clutter out of my psyche, so I could see ‘school’ for the dog & pony show that it is.

That is in large part thanks to you – readers, commenters and guest writers. Thanks you, all who shed light, lifted the curtain, exposed the Wizard, filled in the missing blanks, provided me with the context that I needed to understand that ‘school’ was/is a cult: the California history in the 60s & 70s; the physical and sexual abuse of ‘school’ back when it was “The Theater of All Possibility”; the cross-country exodus to the East Coast when San Fran kicked the ‘theater’ out; Alex & Sharon Horn; corporate headquarters in NYC; the amount of money that pours into the Horn coffers; Robert’s complicity; the secret arranged marriages; the heinous baby swapping history.

Knowing this truth– intentionally omitted by my ‘teachers’ –set me free.

I’ll leave Cult Confessions up, as a resource. I’ll post occasionally – especially if I get “school”-related intel.

Otherwise, I hope to see you at the new blog: GSR Healing Arts Blog

Hey fellow ex-“School” mates and current “students” – Do you ever wonder where all that “tuition” went?

You might want to read this post on the Sharan Gans Cult Report: Sharon’s Estate is Public Record.

Question: Who is Q? Who is the “Great patriot”? Where do the marching orders followed by Q Reps, Marjorie Taylor Greene & Lauren Boebert originate?

Answer: Turns out that Q is an ex-pat, tech geek, who “dropped” instructions from the Philippines, to his minions in the U.S. For years Ron Watkins administered the online cesspool called 8Chan (later it became 8Kun, when 8Chan got shut down when some of the hateful trolls followed up their gun and killing fantasies with deranged rampages.) But that’s another story. I’ll tackle the gun worship another day.

You can learn all about this QAnon thing by watching the HBO television miniseries Q: INTO THE STORM: You’ll get to meet Ron Watkins and his boss & daddy, Jim. Let’s just say, daddy’s got the money and son’s got the tech chops. What a team:

The Q heads are appropriately embarrassed about this; they’d believed that a don don crony was giving them secret orders from inside the White House.

Rather than admit that Ron & Jim duped them, they are now denying that Q is one person. And I supposed, now, it’s true. The overlords in Manilla have created an anti-American movement. Such is the nature of cults. It’s painful to admit that you’ve been played.

Q heads, you’ve been played.

Just an FYI, I think I’ve heard from enough people to confirm that Sharon, has, indeed, left this earthly plain. Still no obit, but I’m told that’s pretty “normal” for “School”. Whatever.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Elvis died in 1977, at only 42. For years after his death rumors floated around. He’d been spotted at a mall in Nevada, or on I95, driving north, escaping to Canada, or an IHop in Tennessee where his profile emerged in a pancake–stuff like that. As far as I know, none of those rumors were verified (prob b/c he was dead.)

Yesterday, rumors showed up via text on my phone: Sharon Gans, deceased. So, I tried to verify. Looked for an obit and found, well, nothing. Does anyone know for sure? Or is this a kind of reverse Elvis, rumors flying around that she died, while she is drinking Martinis in her NYC condo?

Well, if you have info that I don’t, lemme know. Thanks!

This is a quick one. If you have newly discovered Cult Confessions, because of an encounter with a strange Boston-based group of “friends” who discuss esoteric ideeeaasss … multiplicity, “the many I’s”, the law of three, the moving center, the emotional center, the intellectual center, awakening vs. sleepwalking humanity … blah, blah, blah.

If you’re searching online because you suspect that it could be a cult, you would be correct. This cult once called itself, “The Study” and before that “School” and before that … any number of other names, including the Theater of all Possibilities, back in the groovy 60s. Congrats!

What you probably don’t know is that the Boston group has a New York counterpart. And this blog also has a New York counter part: The Sharon Gans News Blog. Very informative! And funny! And incisive.

Check out the latest post: LMAO

Sounds about right.