Inside the alleged ‘cult’ that has been quietly operating in NY for decades

NYP ^ | 11 11 2019 | Anabel Sosa and Ebony Bowde

[yesthatjallen]

In December 1978, a bizarre theater company headed by an actress from the “Slaughterhouse-Five” film was run out of San Francisco.

Members of Sharon Gans’ so-called Theater of All Possibilities had come forward to claim they were pressured into arranged marriages, beaten if they didn’t sell tickets and had gone broke paying for classes — while Gans and her husband lived in a tony home in the posh neighborhood of Pacific Heights.

With the police asking questions and the ex-members’ claims splashed across the pages of local papers, the actress and her theater group closed up shop and seemingly disappeared from public view.

But they never really went away.

A new group sprang up in the 1980s in New York under the name Odyssey Study Group and has been operating here quietly ever since — still led by the washed-up actress, now 84, who reigns from an $8.5 million apartment at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel that was mostly paid for by devotees, according to public records.

A dozen former members have spoken to The Post — telling stories similar to those shared more than four decades ago, including claims that they forked over huge sums to Odyssey while being emotionally abused and exploited.

SNIP

[dfwgator]

I figured it was about the Democrats, they are a “cult”.

[ryderann]

Were they forced to vote a certain way?

[Red Badger]

A sucker is born every minute...................

[Jane Austen]

Weird group.

[originalbuckeye]

I thought this was going to turn out to be NXVIM.

[yesthatjallen]

There are likely many 'Eyes Wide Shut' cults, secret clubs, the rich gravitate to.

It's a nexus of wealth, fame, power, perversity. 'In Groups' that look out for and support their own.

And yes, most who join are suckers who fall for the 'this group will make all my dreams come true' and they sell their soul to a con artist.

[wally_bert]

I’m not rich or powerful plus I would never join a cult that would have me as a member.

[catnipman]

“I would never join a cult that would have me as a member.”

yeah, you, me and Groucho Marx ...

[HangnJudge]

... I would never join a cult that would have me as a member.
Groucho Marx would be proud

[Fedora]

"Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber, a lawyer and psychiatrist who founded the drug treatment program Odyssey House and went on to give widely quoted but sometimes disputed testimony on subjects like child abuse and pornography, died on Sunday in Manhattan. She was 68. . .In 1991, she went to Omaha to testify in court that her interview with a man convinced her he had witnessed four satanic ritual killings. She characterized herself as an expert at deprogramming survivors of satanic cults. . .In 1997, her marriage to Michael Baden, who had been the city's medical examiner and a top forensic official for the state police, burned out in a flurry of lawsuits and spectacular accusations. The marriage's beginning had also been unusual. Mr. Baden said in an interview with The Daily News in 1989 that he took her to an autopsy on their first date and proposed by phone while assisting in the post-mortem on the bullet-riddled body of the mobster Albert Anastasia. . .": Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber Is Dead at 68; Founded Odyssey House Group Drug Program