Talk:Aesthetic Realism/sources

AR being considered a cult, or cultish

New York Magazine

As Bing, William Atherton gives the same sandpapered, uninflected reading that looked positively heroic in The Day of the Locust. Mr. Atherton, he wants it to be known, is an alumnus of Aesthetic Realism, that cult of messianic nothingness that hangs out somewhere in the Village. It figures.

— New York Magazine, Review of "Rich and Famous" play by Alan Rich, March 8, 1976, p. 77

Harper's

When rumor got out that [this article] had been scheduled, someone rang Harper's to ask if it would be 'fair'..... 'Fair' is a word favored by the Aesthetic Realists, a.k.a. the Embattled Disciples of Eli Siegel and, in some of their incarnations, the Moonies of Poetry. They also favor impersonal constructions, world like "large" and "good," boiler plate like "having-to-do-with." What they push isn't poetry, though poetry is part of it; they push Aesthetic Realism, the banner of a way to psychic wholeness taught by Eli Siegel for forty years. They will testify that he changed their lives, and they cannot get over it. A few months ago some of them rushed a talk show on homosexuality and gave Phil Donahue a hard time. (Are you whole and serene if you stay obsessed with your deliverance? Donahue was too flustered to ask.) ... Thus the title, Self and World, of a posthumous prose 'Explanation of Aesthetic Realism,' from which we (and the press) can at last learn what the press has been Unfair to. Not that we're allowed to forget the intensity of discipleship that pickets, flaunts buttons, and testifies in chorus. At the book's threshold you bang your head on an introductory note by Martha Baird Siegel, who says Self and World is 'the greatest book ever to have been written. If you think I am saying greater than the Bible or Shakespeare--yes, I am.' After that, you'll not be blamed for walking warily. ... Sentence by sentence [Siegel] can be sweetly credible, and you'll not miss what he's overlooking till you come up for reflection. ... The introductory note laments what [Siegel's] isolation may have cost us: 'He thought, for example, if he had been able to work with doctors, he could have found the cause of cancer.' I'm afraid he did think that.

— Harper's: "Contempt causes insanity: The guru of aesthetic realism", by Hugh Kenner, April 1982 [1]

New York Times

(Their review of AR's first gay cure book.)

This is less a book than a collection of pietistic snippets by Believers.

— – New York Times, Sept. 12, 1971, in its review of AR's book The H Persuasion

Psychology Today

And today cults are not limited to religious groups but include EST, Scientology, yoga cults, psychotherapy cults, and philosophy cults such as Aesthetic Realism.

— "Cults and the Mind-Body Connection", Sharon K. Farber, July 19, 2014

Jewish Times

And while Mr. Siegel's supporters all use similar language to explain his life's work, his detractors do not mince words.

"Eli Siegel was an evil person. And I don't use the word evil lightly," said 38-year-old Adam Mali, who left the organization -- and his family -- in his early 20s.... "He was an incredibly manipulative, selfish, charismatic cult leader."

Mr. Mali's parents began studying aesthetic realism when he was only 2 years old, and he said that growing up under its influence has colored his entire life.

"I had to go through a lot of therapy getting out of this group," said Mr. Mali, who regrets that aesthetic realism proponents discouraged him from having a bar mitzvah ceremony or attending college. Mr. Mali even felt compelled to break up with his girlfriend of three years when she wouldn't buy into his family's philosophy. He also said that his family never traveled because it had to attend so many meetings at the foundation, a complaint of numerous former followers.

"All the meetings were lectures of Eli Siegel droning on for hours and hours. So you don't have a life outside of it," he said. And when he wanted to go to college, Mr. Mali found himself in the dreaded "hot seat."

"They criticize you -- they say, 'You have the greatest knowledge in the world in front of you. Is this what you really want? Do you think you can learn more in college?' Your peers basically get around you. It was like a little spider web in your brain. They get you to actually control yourself. A lot of people's lives have been hurt -- ruined.

"I find [the memorial] pretty baffling because I think he's nothing more than a child abuser," he continued. "I was screamed at. I was told I was evil. People are told that if they leave, they can never be happy. It was brutal.

"I was fortunate to get therapy to get back together. I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to be punished, and that went on for years."

Experts in the cult awareness field affirm Mr. Mali's experience.

"I think that [Siegel] was a cult leader, and that like many other cult leaders, he had a narcissistic personality and was a control freak," said Steve Hassan, a licensed mental health counselor and author of two books, "Combating Cult Mind-Control" and "Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves."

..."What's dangerous about them [is that] being in a mind-control environment, basically what happens to you is your identity gets assaulted, broken down, and a new cult personality is created," said Mr. Hassan. "You have a new set of beliefs that are a mirror image of Eli Siegel. You are constantly being manipulated by guilt and fear. I'm certainly not happy that there is any type of memorial to him."

...Ms. Cohen is not the only one who has been skeptical over the years. Heide Krakauer, a teacher still living in the New York area, met Eli Siegel through her then-boyfriend in the late '60s when he began to study aesthetic realism.

"We were 23 and sort of floundering and not that happy, even though it was popular to be not that happy then," she recalled. "I didn't think [aesthetic realism] was that amazing. I did not like it at all, but I was kind of lost, and I figured [my boyfriend] and I were not on very good terms, and I figured maybe if I joined this, we would get back together. They flatter you to death and tell you that you're so wonderful, and you have all these qualities that others have never seen. And then there's this horrible criticizing."

Referred to by some cult-awareness experts as "love-bombing," this initial flattery and attention followed by various forms of judgmental behavior and disapproval are typical.

"It's hard for me to tell how it took control and when," continued Ms. Krakauer. "I never believed it was a cult. I didn't see my parents for 15 years, and I thought nothing of it. I used to plan trips to go home, and all the cult members would get around you and talk you out of it. My parents would be so heartbroken when I canceled at the 11th hour. The point is, people who are in it do not know they are under mind control even though everyone has their private reservations."

..."Another sign that there is something wrong with this group is the paranoia -- that they think the world is against them -- that they're the elite, they've got the truth," added Ms. Bardin.

...When asked why anyone would want to denigrate Mr. Siegel or his philosophy unjustly, Ms. Tarrow said, "People have been angry that they had to have respect beyond a certain point. It is a tribute to Mr. Siegel that narrow people haven't been at ease with his largeness."

Libbe Madsen, administrative supervisor of the Cult Hotline and Clinic of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services, whose organization has a "fat file" on aesthetic realism, said that a number of people have an ongoing counseling relationship with her office about their involvement with the philosophy.

"When people are involved in a pretty intensive way, it can be extremely controlling, undermining of a person's capacity to trust their own judgments. It also leads to splits within families that are permanent," she said, and she believes the philosophy can be dangerous "for some people. And there's no telling ahead of time who they are. Certainly the people I've spoken to had very serious consequences."

...It appears that many new adherents to the aesthetic realism philosophy are teachers, a fact that disturbs many, including Ms. Madsen.

"I'm concerned that if a teacher believes that he or she has the right way of understanding the world, he would feel like the right thing to do is to pass it on -- that's true of any kind of true believer," she said.

...One former aesthetic realist has another word for it.

"I think it's repulsive," said the woman, who was active with the Aesthetic Realism Foundation for nearly a quarter-century, when learning of the memorial, "because [Eli Siegel] was a hurtful person. He was a sociopath. He was a control freak, and he was a cult leader."

..."The main reason [I left] was because [my son] left, and I was not allowed to have anything to do with him. He was my only child, and there was no way I was going to live without my son," she said, noting that she was not specifically forbidden to see her child but felt a great deal of pressure.

"You're never told you cannot do something," she said. "They just ask questions -- 'Will you like yourself if you talk to someone who has abandoned truth? Will you be proud if you talk to someone who doesn't want to be completely fair to Eli Siegel?'"

The former supporter also was experiencing some health concerns, and she realized that she wanted to explore other options in her life she felt had been suppressed. "For some reason, something normal in me was coming to the surface. I didn't like the way people were being treated, excoriated -- not that I didn't participate."

She added that her ex-husband, who is still active with the foundation, will not speak to her or his son. "It's heartbreaking," she said. "[Her son] misses his father very much. [He] worries about him. It seems no matter how old you get, you would like to have a father in your life."

...Many aesthetic realism supporters do elevate Eli Siegel to a status rarely earned by a mere mortal. Articles on the Internet abound, crediting Mr. Siegel with having the answers to everything from poverty, hunger and racism to family disputes, anorexia and suicide. This is ironic, since Mr. Siegel ultimately took his own life after complications from prostate surgery, according to one former adherent who was with him when he died.

..."People treated [Eli Siegel] more and more as a god, the perfect human. It was no longer a give-and-take -- it was the best, the greatest and the only -- and anyone who questioned that was seen as an enemy," said another person who left aesthetic realism when he felt his family was being hurt by its involvement with the organization.

"This is one of the characteristics of the organization that is cult-like -- you can't have reservations. Either it is the most important thing you have ever known and you have to devote your life to them, or you are an enemy," added the former supporter, who chose not to be identified for this article because he has only recently re-established contact with family members and does not want to jeopardize these tenuous relationships. "There is no such thing as privacy. Everything you do is public knowledge."

He said that even intimate moments were scrutinized and discussed in aesthetic realism meetings. Attendees were grilled about dates with others -- and as in the case of Adam Mali, they were often discouraged from seeing these outsiders if they did not embrace the aesthetic realism philosophy.

"People were told that if their families did not support aesthetic realism, they were not their families," added the former supporter, though he does feel some of Mr. Siegel's philosophy is useful. "I think Eli Siegel had an awful lot to say that was really helpful. He was a very unusually perceptive person, charismatic. If it weren't for all of this worship around him, it would be fine."

Heide Krakauer's sentiments about Eli Siegel are somewhat similar. "He was an intelligent man; he just got carried away with the power he had over people. He became this egomaniac. He wasn't happy unless you could think of new ways to praise him. People are very strange about cults -- they look the other way," she said in response to the Eli Siegel Memorial. "It alarms me that people care so little about cults."

..."If anybody comes along and has all of the answers," she said, "then there probably is something not right there."

— Jewish Times: "[l Monumental Man: The controversial legacy of Eli Siegel]", by Melissa Goldman, August 2003. [[2]]

Boston Globe

Take New York journalist Paul Grossman, 25, for example, who last year wrote an article about being "an Aesthetic Realist for a day." To do the article, he was forced to take part in what he identified as their standard procedure - an hour-long, three-on-one session with "consultants" Roy Harris, Ted van Griethuysen and Sheldon Kranz, all of whom claim they've changed and have married.

"Three-on-one is a total power trip," Grossman said in an interview. "They reinforce each other. It's utter persuasion, all three with the same point of view. If I expressed a doubt about what was happening, they would say, 'It's your contempt'. With three people telling you that, it's definitely going to affect you. Their technique is forceful in a subtle kind of way. They tap right into the negative side of your self-identity, all of them feeding off each other."

In the article, Grossman calls Aesthetic Realism "a cult . . . employing all the subtle and manipulative techniques of mind control used by such masters of the genre as the Moonies, the Scientologists and, yes, even the evangelical Christians. Like all cults, Aesthetic Realism reduces the wonder and complexity of the world to a strict polarity of black-or-white reality.

"By cultivating an individual's sense of negative identity, the program weakens the ego enough to gain admittance and eventual control over a person's mind. Put most succinctly by a woman whose friend had made the change: 'I liked him when he was gay. At least then he was a person. Now he's just an Aesthetic Realist.' "

— "Aesthetic Realism and Homosexuality", by Kay Longcope, Boston Globe, April 18, 1982

The Virginian-Pilot

[A] woman with a curious button on her chest sat down beside us. Her button read: "Victim of the Press." She looked safe enough to ask questions. Some ruse. As she spoke of her cause, she began to emerge as, well, deranged....But she had found some answers, all under the umbrella of a philosophy she called Aesthetic Realism. Clearly, she had memorized the tracts she was passing out.

— "A media 'victim' meets the press", by Teresa Annas, The Virginian-Pilot, June 30, 1991

Albany Times-Union

[3]

Albany - Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has set up a $4,000 member item for a SoHo organization that says it has the answer to finding happiness, but which former members say is a cult.

Ortiz, D-Brooklyn, targeted the money for the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, whose program, according to ex-members, is anti-gay and employs strategies that split up families. Ortiz said he sponsored the expenditure in the 2008-2009 budget because the group asked him for funding for services at Brooklyn senior citizen centers.

He said he did not know anything about the foundation but he had heard good things about it from Raices, a Brooklyn-based senior services organization to which he has sent $2,000 in member items annually for several years. AR hasn't received public funding in the 13 years it has been providing senior programs in New York City.

According to former child member Michael Bluejay, who runs a Web site for fellow ex-members to share their experiences, the followers of AR and its founder, Eli Siegel, try to recruit the elderly by using art, theater, poetry and cultural lectures to get their views across in community appearances. Once they become members, he said, followers are discouraged from having relationships with nonmembers.

"When you're in it and you don't see your parents for 15 years, that's hurtful," he said. His parents and grandparents were devotees, he said.

AR spokeswoman Devorah Tarrow, who has been with the group for 36 years, said Bluejay is putting forth lies. She said the $4,000 is for workshops at senior citizen centers in Brooklyn, including some for people who speak Spanish or Chinese.

Tarrow said it isn't true that AR says it can change homosexuality.

"It is a fact that men and women have changed as a result of study of Aesthetic Realism," she said, saying the purpose of the foundation and the senior talks "was to have a good effect on senior lives. That is actually the purpose of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, to encourage the lives of elderly persons to be more energized."

Bluejay quotes from the writings of a leader of the group, including, "It is a beautiful fact that through study of Aesthetic Realism men have changed from homosexuality. Eli Siegel's statement of the cause of homosexuality (contempt for the world) is scientific law."

Rich A. Ross, who tracks cults for a living, backs Bluejay's assessment and said public funds should not be used for a group with such a narrow agenda.

"It's a very specific philosophy," Ross said. "Why would taxpayer money be used to fund that?"

Ortiz said the foundation asked other lawmakers for funding. It did not approach its own Assembly member, Deborah Glick, an openly gay Democrat. She said she would have denied the request.

"Not now, not ever," she said.

— Aesthetic Realism Foundation to receive $4,000 in state budget: Grant recipient alleged to be a cult, Albany Times-Union/April 21, 2008, By James M. Odato

New York Post

• [4]

At least two dozen city teachers are spreading the beliefs of a group some consider a "destructive cult" to schoolchildren and co-workers in hopes of attracting new followers, The Post has learned.

Supporters of the tightly controlled Aesthetic Realism Foundation idolize the group's dead founder, Eli Siegel.

They are bent on giving Siegel the widespread respect they feel he deserves for his insights into the human heart and for his remedies for social ills ranging from war and racism to bad marriages.

The SoHo-based group gained notoriety in the 1970s for claiming it could convert gays into heterosexuals. It has since dropped that inflammatory issue and now focuses on denouncing the "profit economy" and pushing the "Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method" in schools.

City teachers trained by the foundation inject Aesthetic Realism and Siegel's name into classroom discussions and fervently praise his philosophy among colleagues whenever and wherever they can - from teachers' lounges to professional workshops.

"It's a kind of recruitment," said Ann Stamler, a former longtime follower who used Aesthetic Realism in teaching college courses in New York.

"The idea was that other teachers and ultimately the students and parents would see how true Aesthetic Realism is and feel as worshipful as I did."

Heide Krakauer, a former city teacher who left Aesthetic Realism 14 years ago, called the teaching method a way to draw more followers. "The goal is to get teachers and parents involved."

She said followers were pushed by leaders to use Aesthetic Realism in their jobs and to spark interest among co-workers.

Krakauer said some teachers "thought it was too weird even laughed at us," but other teachers and principals were taken in.

Foundation leaders insist that they only want to share "the greatest knowledge and kindness in history."

But there's a dark side, former followers said - the group's charismatic leaders demanded total devotion and dictated how they should live.

"I think they did harm to me, my family, and other people - and are still doing it," said Stamler, a Manhattan fund-raising executive who left the group 13 years ago.

Arnold Markowitz, who runs a cult hot line for the Manhattan-based Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services, said Aesthetic Realism "Has elements of a destructive cult, such as controlling the behavior, activities and choices of the members."

"Over the years, I have met with 20 to 30 former members and families who have complained that they were seriously and adversely affected by the group's practices and beliefs," he noted.

"It's scary," said Steve Hassan, a former Moonie and the author of "Combating Cult Mind Control," who has counseled several former Aesthetic Realism followers.

"These are cult members who are trying to promulgate and recruit," Hassan said.

Reached by telephone, two teachers associated with the foundation refused to speak to a reporter. Others did not return phone calls.

In a letter to The Post, foundation leaders said the teachers would consider granting interviews only if The Post assured them it had "good will for the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel."

Spokespeople insisted the foundation has no "members" or "followers," only "students" and "consultants" who teach Aesthetic Realism.

City teachers who use Aesthetic Realism have identified themselves in letter to The Post and other newspapers and in the group's literature.

They say they proudly use the "Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method" in city schools and believe it helps kids learn, abstain from drugs, and get along with each other.

The group's efforts to get the city school system to adopt the method have met with repeated failure.

For years, literature and letters sent by the group to the city schools chancellor asking for a meeting have been ignored.

"It's not the purpose of the Board of Ed to advocate any particular school of thought," explained spokesman J. D. LaRock.

In an essay in a Texas newspaper, Monique Michael, a first-grade teacher at PS 30 in Harlem, claimed the method works with kids "horribly brutalized by our ugly, unjust profit economy."

She wrote that she uses opposites like straight lines and curves to help kids identify the alphabet. She said she explained that opposites are found in people, too, and succeeded in teaching them that prejudice is wrong.

"I told the children what I was so grateful to have learned from Aesthetic Realism, that when we use the fact that other people look different from us to feel we are better than they are ... we are having contempt."

Last Thursday, at is headquarters on Greene Street, the foundation held its annual education seminar, "Through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method, students choose knowing the world, not fighting with it!"

Moderator Arnold Perey compared Aesthetic Realism founder to Siegel to Darwin, Newton and other scientists whose theories were debunked before finding acceptance.

He blamed the press and the "educational establishment" for maligning the group's teaching method and preventing the city's children from benefiting from it.

Four city school teachers told the seminar audience of more than 100 how they used the method in the classroom.

Barbara McClung, a science teacher at JHS 56 in Manhattan, said she taught her students to think of their lives as similar to the stars in that sometimes they're turbulent ad sometimes at rest.

"But the two opposites are at one in the world," she explained.

The other speakers - Lori Lerner, a kindergarten teacher at PS 59 in Manhattan; Donita Ellison, an art teacher at LaGuardia HS; and Leila Rosen, an English teacher at Norman Thomas HS - also described how they worked "opposites" into their lessons.

No matter what the subject - art, history, math or science - students get an earful about Siegel and Aesthetic Realism from the teacher-followers who sometimes show up for class wearing the group's white button that says "Victim of the Press."

La Guardia HS senior Lauren Rabinowitz said she wrote to the foundation at the suggestion of biology teacher Rosemary Plumstead.

"She talked about it so much, I just had to figure out what could possibly make a person so devoted," Rabinowitz said.

"She forced it on us," said LaGuardia senior Yana Suzanova, who had Donita Ellison as her art teacher.

"From the first day of class she started talking about it, and didn't stop until the end of the term."

A Norman Thomas HS student described teacher Leila Rosen as soft spoken and sweet. "She mentions it [AR] all the time, that it makes the world a better place."

Norman Thomas HS Principal Joanne Frank told The Post she considers Aesthetic Realism "a wonderful means of instruction." But she conceded that she didn't know how to explain it.

Myron Liebrader, a principal of Grover Cleveland HS in Queens, said he would be concerned if any of his teachers brought up Aesthetic Realism extensively.

Earth Science teacher Larry Rabinowitz, in a union newsletter to other teachers, advocated Aesthetic Realism and explained how he used it to lead a lesson about sedimentary rock into one about self-analysis.

Noting that rocks break down and build up again, Rabinowitz wrote that he asked his class: "Can we break something down in ourselves so we can build up something more beautiful later on?"

He wrote that his students "spoke about mistakes they seemed to repeat, habits they were ashamed of and wanted to break. We saw that the way the Earth puts these opposites together gave us more hope for our own lives and had us feel more related to things."

The principles

These are the four principles of Aesthetic Realism, as outlined in the group's literature:

•Every person is always trying to put together opposites in himself. •Every person in order to respect himself has to see the world as beautiful or good or acceptable. •There is a disposition in every person to think he will be for himself by making less of the outside world.

•All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making on of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.

— Foes Accuse teachers of 'cult': Aesthetic Realism center of storm, New York Post/February 1, 1998, By Susan Edelman, Maria Alvarez and John O'Mahony

• [5]

Former followers of Aesthetic Realism brand it a "cult" that controlled their minds and manipulated every aspect of their lives - from money to sex.

They told The Post that their innermost feelings were scrutinized and condemned - and that they were pushed to submit to the group's beliefs ultimately losing their free will.

They said Aesthetic Realism leaders told them where they should live and with whom, what friends and relatives to talk to, and how to use their spare time - all to ensure complete devotion to the group's beliefs and its charismatic founder, Eli Siegel, who died in 1978.

"I feel I threw out 15 years of my life," said Heide Krakauer, a former city schoolteacher who lectured on Aesthetic Realism at the foundation. "It was the biggest mistake of my life."

Krakauer said she joined the group after she finished college and was unsure about her future. She said she was indoctrinated by Siegel and was completely enthralled - until she was criticized for wanting to start a family.

"I wanted to have a regular life. But they didn't want that. They thought all I should do is be out there proselytizing."

Krakauer, who married another follower, said she had no privacy.

"They were in every aspect of your life. Every minute of your life was observed. I was criticized for buying too many clothes."

She said she and her husband were pressured to live with another couple - so they could keep an eye on each other.

"I feel very sad for the people still in there," said Krakauer, who has a young daughter. "I'm speaking out because I don't want other people to get sucked in."

Another ex-follower, Ann Stamler, a Manhattan fundraising executive, agreed.

"It hurt me. It muzzled my expression," said Stamler, who left the group 13 years ago. "It's a system only allowing activities and thoughts that Aesthetic Realism would approve of."

Stamler, raised in the group from childhood, said her parents still belong and refuse to speak to her.

"For years, my parents and I had nothing to do with the rest of our family because they didn't believe that Aesthetic Realism is the most important thing in the world," she said.

Former followers say life revolved around the foundation's three-story SoHo headquarters, where seminars, classes and "personal consultations" are held.

They were required to pay $40 for the consultation, which they described as a grueling session at which they were bombarded with probing questions.

"The consultee [was] ganged up on to adopt certain ideas," said one former follower.

The Post spoke to former AR adherents who said they gave the foundation up to $20,000 a year.

Nothing was off-limits. Followers say they were told that marital sex can be a way of encouraging love for Aesthetic Realism.

Homosexuality and masturbation were acts of "Contempt" - an Aesthetic Realism term used to explain social ills. Oral sex was taboo.

Adam Mali, a former follower who was raised in the group from birth, broke free at age 23 in 1988. now a ski instructor in Vermont, he said, "I was very lonely. I was getting yelled at all the time. My learning, my growth and my development were interfered with."

He said his high-school years were miserable because he couldn't go to dances, play baseball or keep friends who were not involved in Aesthetic Realism.

He said he finally fled after leaders pressured him to drop college courses. "They said everything I needed to know I could learn at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation."

He said his final days were horrific, with followers warning he would die, get cancer or suffer other "terrible things" if he left.

When he did, he said, his father, who still belongs, disowned him.

— 'I threw out 15 years of my life', says ex-follower, New York Post, February 1, 1998, By Susan Edelman and Maria Alvarez

• [6]

For a politician, sponsoring a pork-barrel item to fund seniors' classes should be a simple, feel-good, voter-friendly action, as easy as shaking a hand or kissing a baby. What could go wrong?

Brooklyn assemblyman Felix Ortiz is finding out. He sponsored a $4,000 earmark in the state budget for a Soho nonprofit called the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, which has the incredibly bland-sounding goal of assisting "people throughout America and the world to see each other and reality fairly."

The Aesthetic Realism Foundation was founded by poet Eli Siegel in 1941 to educate the public about his philosophy, which includes such radical ideas as that "all beauty is a making one of opposites" and that humankind's "largest desire is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis." Today, the organization promotes his philosophy through dramatic presentations and classes on art, poetry, music, and marriage. The foundation also offers "consultations"—a kind of personal therapy in which students are individually counseled by a group of Aesthetic Realism teachers.

In a statement released on April 23, Ortiz said that the foundation "was well-regarded in my community for the services it provided to senior citizens," which is why he carved off a chunk of the state budget to fund some additional workshops at a Brooklyn senior center. And who could possibly criticize him for helping the elderly through such an innocuous-sounding nonprofit?

Turns out that several ex-students are happy to do just that. "It sounds to me like the assemblyman got duped. I don't think the taxpayers should be paying for their enterprise," says Michael Bluejay, who was born to devotees of Aesthetic Realism and attended consultations as a child and teen. "They determine who you marry, whether or not you can go to school—it's definitely mind control." Bluejay believes the workshops would be used to recruit seniors into the group's controlling grip.

Adam Mali, who was also raised by devotees of Aesthetic Realism, calls the funding "baffling." His mother was the director of the Aesthetic Realism Foundation for a time, but both she and Mali left the group around 1990. "Typically, you were excoriated in the public meetings if they didn't like what you were doing," he says. "Your decisions had to be made [on the basis of] what was best for the group." Mali says he was pressured to break up with his girlfriend, who wasn't part of the group, and to bypass college because everything he needed to know could be learned at the foundation. "My father is still in there, and he doesn't talk to me anymore because he thinks I betrayed the group, " Mali says.

Both Mali and Bluejay admit they don't know much about how the foundation is run these days, but say they doubt that things are much different. Bluejay now runs a website tracking the foundation's activities and posting narratives from other ex-students.

Steve Hassan, a former Moonie and the author of two books on controversial religious groups, describes Aesthetic Realism as a "psychotherapy cult." He has counseled eight former Aesthetic Realism students over the last two decades and says the foundation employs all the typical methods of undue influence: "The group was cutting people off from loved ones, regulating all aspects of behavior—their thoughts and feelings—and encouraging the idolization of Eli Siegel."

Aesthetic Realism Foundation spokeswoman Devorah Tarrow turned down requests for an interview—and an employee of the foundation refused to let the Voice into its office. However, in a written statement, Tarrow called the accusations "an attempt to change something wide, cultural, and very kind—the philosophy [of] Aesthetic Realism—into something it definitely is not." Regarding the seniors' classes that Assemblyman Ortiz helped fund, Tarrow insisted that "to say they're for the purpose of 'recruiting' is ludicrous! They're on such subjects as 'Every Person Can Tell You Something About Yourself'; 'Love Is for Liking the World'; 'Memory Shows That We're Connected to the Whole World.' "

Had Assemblyman Ortiz or his staff investigated the group, they might have discovered that from the 1960s through the '80s, the Aesthetic Realism Foundation ran a program intended to turn gay people straight, and claimed to have successfully "changed" 150 people. (The foundation ended that program in 1990, and today insists that "Aesthetic Realism is for full, equal civil rights for everyone.") Later, its members held regular silent vigils in front of the New York Times building, claiming they were "victims of the press" because no one would write about their philosophy.

Apparently, neither the assemblyman nor the director of the RAICES senior center had any inkling of the group's odd history or the accusations against it until last week.

When the foundation previously conducted a health workshop for seniors at RAICES, "there were no overt problems," says director José Ortiz Ortiz. However, he adds that he hasn't spoken with anyone from the foundation in at least a year, and wasn't aware that it had requested state money to do more workshops at the RAICES center. "I would have to look into the organization in greater detail before I would even contemplate [allowing] that," he says.

As for Assemblyman Ortiz, he says he's investigating the charges. "Should the outcome of the investigation reveal any substance to these allegations," he adds, "I will take the appropriate action."

— A Brooklyn Assemblyman's Earmarks Are Political Surrealism: A local pol gets singed for his attempt at pork for Aesthetic Realism, By Maria Luisa Tucker Tuesday, May 6 2008

• [7]

Most people have never heard of the late Eli Siegel, the little-known winner of a 1925 national poetry prize.

But his name and philosophy ring loud bells for many students at Fiorella LaGuardia HS in Manhattan.

The reason: art teacher Donita Ellison and biology teacher Rosemary Plumstead, who wear "Victim of the Press" buttons to school and weave Eli Siegel and his Aesthetic Realism into class discussions.

"She talked about it quite a few times in class," said senior Maurice Tyne, 18, who had freshman biology with Plumstead. He said he enjoyed the class.

"We were not only learning biology, we were learning about a new philosophy called Aesthetic Realism," he said. "It focuses more on why people do things and what makes them do it."

Tyne said he didn't fully understand Aesthetic Realism.

"I'm not sure exactly what she was talking about," he admitted. "I guess we were too young to understand exactly what it was. But we got a basic grasp of it."

The teacher told the class she attended seminars on Aesthetic Realism, Tyne said.

"She told us there was such a thing as an Aesthetic Realism discussion group, and if an individual wanted to know more about it, she'd be happy to answer their questions."

Vera Radunksy, 16, also liked Plumstead and enjoyed lessons peppered with Aesthetic Realism.

"She [Plumstead] explained how it helped her. She told us she was a negative person before and that she's really positive now."

Vera said Plumstead told the class that the place where she learned Aesthetic Realism "is accessible if we wanted it."

Heide Krakauer, a former city teacher who studied Aesthetic Realism for 15 years, said a popular teacher can draw students into Aesthetic Realism.

"It's really the personality of the people who present the ideas that wins people over," she said.

Krakauer argued that high-school students who are insecure or have suffered setbacks are likely to be attracted.

"What the Aesthetic Realism followers say is that through AR, you can resolve your inner conflicts."

Some LaGuardia HS students were not won over.

Eric Sanchez, who took art with Ellison, said he felt he had to understand Aesthetic Realism and its theory of opposites to pass the class.

"I asked her to explain it 20 times," he said.

Another student, Yana Suzanova said Ellison seemed to favor students who showed interest in Aesthetic Realism.

"I think she pushed that on us too much," Suzanova said. "She'd tell you that that's the way everything is supposed to be."

A Board of Education official said the high school has received no complaints about Plumstead or Ellison's use of Aesthetic Realism in the classroom.

In fact, he said, other LaGuardia HS teachers asked Plumstead and Ellison to give a presentation on their method. Six to eight teachers attended the workshop last November.

But he added that educators should not step over the line in espousing their personal beliefs.

"Every teacher brings their individual personality into the classroom to some extent," he said. "That becomes a problem only when it reaches the level of proselytizing or dogma."

Aesthetic Realism Foundation followers refused to be interviewed by The Post. Instead, they sent letters defending the organization.

They refuted suggestions that their group is a cult.

"One can accuse anybody of anything -- and no matter how preposterous the accusations are and no matter whether they are denied, an impression has been given to people," foundation officials wrote in a Jan. 19 letter to The Post.

"You can even make a course in political science at Yale look like a cult by labeling the students 'members' and the teacher 'the leader.'"

In response to allegations by former followers that the foundation controlled their lives, the letter suggested that the grievances could all be traced to "an individual who has been trying to smear Aesthetic Realism."

"She resented the scholarship of Aesthetic Realism and its ethics" and wanted to use the foundation "as some vehicle for personal power."

"She has been on a vendetta, which has consisted of trying to present us as a cult," said the letter.

The foundation praised its philosophy.

"Aesthetic Realism explains: the economic agony in America and how it can end; the cause of prejudice and racism and what can stop these; what real love is and what interferes with it; why children can't learn and how in New York City classrooms through the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method they do."

The letter concluded by saying that Aesthetic Realism is "not only great, but loved by many, many people. We are immensely proud of the integrity of Aesthetic Realism!"

Another letter stated, "There is no greater friend to children than Aesthetic Realism.

"The insinuation that through Aesthetic Realism hurt is coming to children is sick and a complete malicious lie.

"It is also damaging to the reputation of teachers who, with pride and gratitude, use the Aesthetic Realism teaching method in New York City and elsewhere and to many other professionals known for the study of Aesthetic Realism and the use of it in their work."

— "Students dish out mixed grades", New York Post/February 1, 1998, By Susan Edelman and Maria Alvarez

• [8]

But it is worth noting that the movie, entirely gratuitously, gave flesh to a supposition that underlies much of the narcissistic culture that came after and skewed the culture in unhelpful ways. It made a tacit connection between Clyde’s impotence and his nothingness, assuming therefore that he had an inborn right to somethingness. When Bonnie tells his story (the film plays clever tricks with the real Bonnie’s naive folk-poetry) and newspapers publish “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde,” his sudden arrival at somethingness charges him sexually, completes his life. It reminds me of those screwball buttons an odd New York psychiatric cult used to send out, protesting the New York Times’s refusal to acknowledge them, insisting on “Aesthetic Realism’s Right to Be Known.” I suppose that underlies the 60s and the Boomers who ran it: that feeling of an innate right to be known. And of course it’s all utter fantasy, or at least, as both Guinn and Schneider point out, there’s not a single shred of evidence to sustain the impotence angle. But we loved it in 67, when we had just discovered the cocoon of our own profound specialness.

— "Clyde and Bonnie Died for Nihilism", Stephen Hunter, July/August 2009

Vice Magazine

I joined NYC's most Ryan P. McCarthy, boring cult, Aug. 27, 2013

ListVerse

Siegel believed that he had discovered the one true route to happiness, and his followers soon formed into a cult around his ideas.

— "10 Insane Non-Religious Cults" [AR was #4], David Tormsen, April 9, 2015

Erasing Reason

An entire book devoted to AR's cult aspects: ERASING REASON: Inside Aesthetic Realism - A Cult That Tried to Turn Queer People Straight, by Hal Lanse, Ph.D, 2012

1962

These two sources show that AR had been considered a cult as early as 1962: [9] [10] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.48.98.204 (talk) 09:19, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Cult Aspects

Belief that they have the ultimate truth (if only people would listen)

"The purpose of the foundation, says a brochure, "is to have the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel studied by the people of America, to have it be the basis of the educational system of America."

— – "AESTHETIC REALISM' AND HOMOSEXUALITY" Kay Longcope, Boston Globe: Apr 18, 1982

Op-ed in the Bangor Daily News (Nov. 24, 1997, p. 14) says that anti-depressants and psychiatry is ineffective at treating depression, because the real cure is through Aesthetic Realism, as AR is the only thing to recognize that all mental trouble is called by contempt.

"Eli later became the founder, leader, guru, rabbi -- take your pick -- of a movement he called Aesthetic Realism....And he had a host of believers who followed the teachings of Aesthetic Realism....He told me this once when I ran into him on Jane Street almost forty years later. 'You need Aesthetic Realism in your life,' he said, looking me in the eye. 'I know the kind of man you are. It'll straighten you out. And not only you -- it can straighten out the whole world. Aesthetic Realism can straighten out the whole world, if only the world will listen to me.'" --Max Gordon, Live at the Village Vanguard, 1982, Chapter 3

Victim of the Press Campaign

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=8jdDAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ka0MAAAAIBAJ&pg=5983,1853036&dq=aesthetic-realism&hl=en

For many years in New York's Greenwich Village, decorously dressed followers of poet and guru Eli Siegel ("Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana") used to wear buttons proclaiming themselves "Victims of the Press." Their perennial complaint was that the newspapers did not print their dense disquisitions on Siegel's philosophy of Aesthetic Realism, which they believed could solve most of our individual and collective problems.

— "Pennsylvania's victims of the press" by Nat Hentoff, The Daily Sentinel, May 4, 1993

Siegel and his followers believe that only a conspiracy of silence by the press has kept Aesthetic Realism from sweeping the world. In an attempt to break through, they regularly picket The New York Times because of its persistence in error.

— "The Day of the Locust" by Tom Buckley, The New York Times Magazine, June 2, 1974

Siegel's followers operate out of an art gallery located in a studio loft at the edge of SoHo. They wear black and white lapel buttons that say "victim of the press" - a claim apparently based on 40 years of the world's indifference to Siegel, "the man we believe to be the greatest human being who has ever lived."

Said Tarrow: "They (the media and the psychiatric establishment) would prefer to act as though Aesthetic Realism and Mr. Siegel did not exist." (Ironically, a pre-arranged trip to New York to interview Aesthetic Realists was canceled midstream; Tarrow, who had asked The Globe to write about the group, said that the group had consulted and decided "not to talk with the press.")

So what is this group that claims to be able to cure a form of sexuality that most psychiatrists believe to be a fixed state of behavior; that claims an obscure poet is the "greatest person" who ever lived; and that cries out for media attention one day and denies it the next?

— "Aesthetic Realism and Homosexuality" by Kay Longcope, Boston Globe, April 18, 1982

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=H-5HAAAAIBAJ&sjid=4_8MAAAAIBAJ&pg=5777,3616047&dq=aesthetic-realism&hl=en

The purpose of the Aesthetic Realism release was to protest what believers insist is a nationwide deliberate news blackout of their views. They are passionate in their plea for coverage so that all may have an opportunity to seek the truth Aesthetic Realists want to share.

— "There's no contradiction in opposite notions", by Allan S. Church, The Morning Record and Journal, April 24, 1980

On behalf of the poet Eli Siegel (1902-1978), less noted than he might be, VICTIMS OF THE PRESS buttons have been distributed and The New York Times, I'm told, has been picketed. (And if you were the Times, would you let yourself seem to be pressured? Little word of Siegel, therefore, in the Times.) When rumor got out that the present review had been scheduled, someone rang Harper's to ask if it would be "fair." I'm sure she was told something tactful. "Fair" is a word favored by the Aesthetic Realists, a.k.a. the Embattled Disciples of Eli Siegel and, in some of their incarnations, the Moonies of Poetry.

— "Contempt Causes Insanity: The guru of Aesthetic Realism", by Hugh Kenner, Harper's, April 1982, p. 96

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=i7A_AAAAIBAJ&sjid=71YMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3016,5736608&dq=aesthetic-realism&hl=en

For over a decade [Ann Landers] has known that men can change from homosexuality through the study of Aesthetic Realism....Landers has received many letters asking her to let people know that men can and have changed. Yet she has refused to do this and instead continues to lie. Twice recently in her column she has led people to believe that the cause of homosexuality is not known and that homosexuality cannot change.....The American public will question more and more why needed knowledge has been kept from them. The reason is that people like Ann Landers would rather continue to lie and ruin lives, than say that they have something to learn from Aesthetic Realism.

— "Ann Landers' 'lies'", The Vindicator, Dec. 30, 1984, p. 22

A woman from New York wore a "Victim of the Press" button. Of course I had ask her what it and she explained no paper, "not even the New York Times, would write about a philosophy I follow, called aesthetic realism." She defined it as a billed that the opposing forces of order and freedom are at work in all things. I hope this [article] makes her take off her button.

— "Traveling From Sea To Shining Sea—By Amtrak", The Hour (newspaper of Norwalk, CT), May 26, 1977, p. 44

• AR's double-page ad in the NY TImes [11]
• (dead link) [12]
• Letter to the editor of the Village Voice by an AR critic, 1964 [13]
• AR's ad in the Village Voice, March 1962 [14]
• AR's ad in the Village Voice, June 1962 [15]
• Column in the Wilmington Star News mentioning AR's complaining about a lack of coverage [16]
• The Village Voice, May 22, 1969, as per the "Aesthetic Realists" section below
• New York Magazine, 1995, as per the "Aethetic Realists" section below
• Getty Images, as per the "Aesthetic Realists" section below
• EA Schwartz, as per the "Aesthetic Realists" section below

Purpose is to spread the gospel

• Village Voice, Jan 9, 1957, p. 3, by Nancy Starrels, Field Secretary, Society for Aesthetic Realism: "The purpose of the society is to have Aesthetic Realism known by more people."

Doctrines cannot be understood without intensive study

• * Village Voice, Jan 9, 1957, p. 3, by Nancy Starrels, Field Secretary, Society for Aesthetic Realism: "We thank the editor of The Voice for his invitation to explain 'What Aesthetic Realism Is' in one column of this paper; but it cannot be done."

Use of the term "members"

By the Aesthetic Realists themselves:

• Village Voice, Jan 9, 1957, p. 3: "The Society for Aesthetic Realism was organized in 1946 by students of Eli Siegel....Members of the society include established artists....[W]e include sentences by some of the 29 members of the society...."
• an ad in the Village Voice, Jan. 16, 1957: "Discussion of this definition by members of the Society for Aesthetic Realism."
• Village Voice ad], 1962: "members of the Society of Aesthetic Realism" [[17]]

By the media

• Village Voice, Jan 2, 1957, p. 2: "The end-all purpose of Siegel's teachings (the society has 28 members) is the use of objects to understand oneself."
• Village Voice, Jan 9, 1957, p. 3: "In an article on Jane Street in last week's Village voice there was an item about the Society for Aesthetic Realism which members of the society felt did not adequately represent the nature and purpose of their association."

Changing gays to straight

Professional opinion on the subject

Can Therapy Change Sexual Orientation?

No; even though most homosexuals live successful, happy lives, some homosexual or bisexual people may seek to change their sexual orientation through therapy, often coerced by family members or religious groups to try and do so. The reality is that homosexuality is not an illness. It does not require treatment and is not changeable. However, not all gay, lesbian, and bisexual people who seek assistance from a mental health professional want to change their sexual orientation. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people may seek psychological help with the coming out process or for strategies to deal with prejudice, but most go into therapy for the same reasons and life issues that bring straight people to mental health professionals.

What About So-Called "Conversion Therapies"? Some therapists who undertake so-called conversion therapy report that they have been able to change their clients' sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Close scrutiny of these reports, however. show several factors that cast doubt on their claims. For example, many of these claims come from organizations with an ideological perspective that condemns homosexuality. Furthermore, their claims are poorly documented; for example, treatment outcome is not followed and reported over time, as would be the standard to test the validity of any mental health intervention.

The American Psychological Association is concerned about such therapies and their potential harm to patients. In 1997, the Association's Council of Representatives passed a resolution reaffirming psychology's opposition to homophobia in treatment and spelling out a client's right to unbiased treatment and self-determination. Any person who enters into therapy to deal with issues of sexual orientation has a right to expect that such therapy will take place in a professionally neutral environment, without any social bias.

Is Homosexuality a Mental Illness or Emotional Problem?

No. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals agree that homosexuality is not an illness, a mental disorder, or an emotional problem. More than 35 years of objective, well-designed scientific research has shown that homosexuality, in and itself, is not associated with mental disorders or emotional or social problems.

— American Pschological Association, "Sexual orientation and homosexuality", accessed May 30, 2010

AR counseling/therapy

"Therapy"

Depending on his or her background in the field of human relations, any of the following psychotherapy models may be drawn upon: client directed, psychoanalytic, Adlerian, Jungian, problem solving, behavioral, cognitive, humanistic-existential, Gestalt, rational emotive, transactional, aesthetic realism, direct decision therapy, interpersonal process recall, or intensive journal therapy (sec Corsini, 1984: 223-).

— Denzin, Norman K. The Alcoholic Society By Norman K. Denzin, John M. Johnson

[18]

In the early eighties a young man at Yeshiva University, troubled by his homosexual desires, came out to a religious studies teacher and was sent to Aesthetic Realism, the once popular philosophic cult of Eli Siegel, who had a theory for healing homosexuals. The therapy enforced his self-blame and made his situation worse. Six months later the young man attempted suicide and was sent home by the university, never to return.

— Steven Greenberg (2005). Wrestling with God and men. United States: U of Wisconsin Pr. p. 293. ISBN 0-299-19094-3.

In what could be viewed as a precursor to the current ex-gay movement, three counselors began specifically working with homosexual men, many of whom were married off to female members...

— BILL SCHOELL Apr. 25, 2008 The New York Blade

In the 1970’s, when Aesthetic Realism, a humanities based therapy movement, gained limited notoriety as a means for homosexual men to “change,” she was among the first people chosen by its founder to “teach” the “philosophy.”

— International Cultic Studies Association, Ann Stamler profile, accessed May 29, 2010

Following reference to support:

• Professional psychologists opinion that reparative therapy is ineffective, and possibly harmful
• AR described as conversion therapy
• Ineffectiveness of AR's gay-change program
• Harmful effects of the program claimed by those who underwent it

But those who advocate this approach do so in spite of a 1997 American Psychological Association finding that reparative therapy to convert homosexuals is scientifically ineffective—and possibly harmful. The gay Orthodox individuals interviewed for this article attested to that finding.

Consider "Shalom," a gay Jewish physician in his early 40s who was in conversion therapy for 11 years. Shalom was raised in an Orthodox home and realized he was attracted to men in his high school yeshiva. A rabbi told him to get therapy to help him change—to purge the gayness from his system. He tried behavioral therapy, wearing a rubber band around his wrist and flicking it every time he felt attracted to a man. He went to Israel, where a rabbi told him to eat dates and recite a psalm every day. When that failed, he entered Aesthetic Realism, a New York-based group that works with gay people to change their sexual orientation.

At the same time, Shalom dated women. The right one, he believed, could help him change. On one of those dates, Shalom flew to New York from the West Coast. After the date, he broke down in the cab and began crying. "I felt emotionally raped," he says. "I couldn't keep acting. I decided to accept it. At 31, I came out to myself."

Conversion therapy, Shalom says, is emotionally destructive. He says a friend of his who was "cured" of gayness later tried to take his own life. "You don't change," he says. "You only end up hating yourself even more."

— Naomi Grossman, "The Gay Orthodox Underground", April 2001, Moment Magazine

Both "counseling/counselor" and "therapy"

A gathering of Transformation Ex-Gay Ministries tomorrow in Falls Church will be small compared with the numbers involved in the American sexual revolution, but its topic is no less explosive. Former homosexuals will talk about how they were "healed" by counseling, behavior changes - and religious awakening. The group, one of about 200 such ministries in the nation, is the Washington chapter of Exodus International, the largest umbrella group in the movement. [...] The secular school of therapy is called "Aesthetic Realism," which holds that homosexuality arises from a learned fear or hate of the opposite sex. But it is the religious approach that is growing.

— "Movement puts major focus on changing homosexuals Professionals reject claims of `healing'" Larry Witham. Washington Times. Washington, D.C.: Feb 3, 1995. pg. A.2

AESTHETIC REALISM The most unusual part of the aesthetic realism system is probably the use of a troika-type of counselor therapy.

— Encyclopedia of Psychology by Raymond J. Corsini - Psychology - 1994 - 2408 pages ISBN 9780471558194

The foundation also offers "consultations"—a kind of personal therapy in which students are individually counseled by a group of Aesthetic Realism teachers.... Steve Hassan, a former Moonie and the author of two books on controversial religious groups, describes Aesthetic Realism as a "psychotherapy cult."... [F]rom the 1960s through the '80s, the Aesthetic Realism Foundation ran a program intended to turn gay people straight, and claimed to have successfully "changed" 150 people.

— Maria Luisa Tucker, "A Brooklyn Assemblyman's Earmarks Are Political Surrealism", Village Voice, May 6, 2008

The program described in general terms

Can Homosexuals change? Roy Harris has and so have nearly 150 other men and women who have taken part in a unique educational program for homosexuals offered by the Aesthetic Realism Foundation at 141 Green St. in Soho....So far, consultants at the foundation have talked to about 500 men, and some have received help from as far away as Kansas and California.

— John Lewis, "Gays who have gone straight", New York Daily News, March 15, 1981

On the emphasis/importance the Aesthetic placed on the gay-change program

"He's not preoccupied with homosexuality, contrary to the Aesthetic Realists. To them, it's as if H' is the most important question in the world. The question is why?"

— James Harrison, a psychologist quoted in "Aesthetic Realism and Homosexuality" by Kay Longcope, Boston Globe, April 18, 1982

Though Aesthetic Realism gives seminars and "dramatic presentations" on a variety of topics - acting, anthropology, art, business, drugs, ethics, family, insanity, marriage, music, photography, religion - the main emphasis appears to be changing homosexuals into heterosexuals.

— "Aesthetic Realism and Homosexuality" by Kay Longcope, Boston Globe, April 18, 1982

Other references to the gay-change program as a purported "cure"

{{quotation|There used to be a "homosexuality cure" called Aesthetic Realism. It argued that it is aesthetically pleasing that male and female fit together. By contrast, male and male and female and female don't possess the proper connectors and so are "unaesthetic." Of course, this ignored the fact that homosexuals find members of their own sex attractive. To homosexuals, homosexuality is aesthetically pleasing. Like most cures, Aesthetic Realism assumed homosexuality doesn't really exist.| Toby Johnson, Gay Perspective: Things Our Homosexuality Tells Us About the Nature of God and the Universe, 2008} http://www.tobyjohnson.com/mobiusstrip.html

Other

Fringe groups, such as Aesthetic Realism, of New York City, send converts into the streets— and onto popular television shows—repenting their. gay ways and extolling the superior joys of their newfound heterosexuality.

— Judith Hooper, "Gay origins: Mind", Omni magazine, March 1982, p. 22

Ellen Reiss, a teacher at the foundation, said: “We are not psychiatrists; psychiatry has essentially failed. People who go to psychiatrists don’t change. They don’t get better."

— John Lewis, "Gays who have gone straight", New York Daily News, March 15, 1981

Note the choice of words: Gays who see psychiatrists don't get *better*. This is yet more evidence that AR really does see homosexuality as an affliction.

THE AESTHETIC REALISTS: An oddball presence in SoHo for more than twenty years, the Realists espound a philosophy that focuses on a oneness between opposites (art being the medium in which they say this principle is most apparent); most famously, thegroup has also held that gay men can be converted from homosexuality, which "arises from contempt of the world, not liking it sufficiently. This changes into contempt for women." Aesthetic Realists' contention that the media ignored their "cure" led many of them to wear the familiar VICTIM OF THE PRESS buttons for much of the last decade.

— New York Magazine, January 2, 1995, p. 27

link to above source (link will not embed inside the quote for some reason)

• p. 4 [Eli Siegel's bullet points on homosexuality]: "1. All homosexuality arises from contempt of the world, not liking it sufficiently. 2. This changes into a contempt for women", again quoted verbatim by van Griethuysen on p. 10. (after which Black adds: "I think homosexuals will probably find quite a lot that is offensive in some of those points." and his two co-interviewees Harris and van Griethuysen add "I did. I don't know why they wouldn't" and "I did too."
• p. 4: (Eli Siegel): "5. Homosexuality, like biting one's nails, depression, excessive gambling, arises out of a disproportionate way of seeing the world. 6. There are other ways a person has of not liking himself, but homosexuality is one." (also repeated verbatim by van Griethuysen on p. 10.)
• p. 19: (Kranz): "Mr. Siegel said it to me many times: "Get rid of your contempt and you will get rid of one of the chief ingredients in homosexuality."
• p. 38: (Kranz quoting Siegel): "get rid of your contempt for people, and you'll get rid of one of the chief ingredients in the H problem."
• p. 48: (van Griethuysen): "Eli Siegel does not approve of homosexuality, but this does not stop him from respecting a person who has the question."
• p. 87 : (Harris): "Mr. Siegel has shown me that I have contempt for women".
• p. 92: (Shields): "I read books on homosexuality. Some said that it was a disease; some that it was a way of life. But none of them said, as Aesthetic Realism does, that it was a poor aesthetic job, a way of getting self-importance."
• p. 118: (Siegel): "H is not the only bad thing in the world"
• p. 125: (Siegel): "H, drugs, drink, are the revenge for having given ourselves to the outside world. In other words, H is the disgust of a person for not having been "good" to himself through his interest in art."
  — The H Persuasion, book published by the Aesthetic Realists

This is less a book than a collection of pietistic snippets by Believers. There is no reason to believe or disbelieve these ex-homosexuals who claim that Eli Siegel put them on the straight and narrow by showing that homosexuality was unaesthetic and therefore contemptuous of life. By the aesthetic realization that Beauty lies in Opposites, they were cured. Nor is there reason to believe that anyone reading this volume would be moved, intrigued, or piqued enough to try the cure.

— New York Times, Sept. 12, 1971, in its review of AR's book The H Persuasion

Pity the lot of the Aesthetic Realists, a New York-based group with fewer than 200 members who are mad at the New York Times because the Times, they claim, refuses to print a story that 123 homosexuals have changed (to heterosexuality) through Aesthetic Realism. In fact, the AR people are so mad they've been bombarding the Times' city desk with more than 65 calls a day demanding that the story be run. Not just that - they have also taken to holding vigils in front of publisher C. L. Punch Sulzberger's home and those of other top Times officials, and to staging little protests in the Times news room. It's really quite funny, in a sad sort of way, a friend at the Times tells us. They come in a couple of times a week - three sorry-looking guys flanked by two women. The guys wear signs around their necks saying something like 'I used to be a homosexual but Eli Segal (founder of the AR movement) saved me.' At least they had an identity when they were gay; now they look as if they've been put through the laundry. The Times, we understand, is holding to its rise-above-it-all stance and has no plans to publish the story.

— "FYI Put those fears away, all citizens-to-be" Robin Green. The Globe and Mail. Toronto, Ont.: Apr 28, 1978. pg. P.8

Handbook of Innovative Psychotherapies By Raymond J. Corsini Wiley, 1981.

Finally, there is the tantalizing shred of hope that holds-just out of reach-the possibility that same sex oriented people can change. [...] Recently, a system of study called aesthetic realism has also been attracting attention with claims of having changed same-sex oriented persons. [emphasis in original]

— Borhek, Mary V. (1983). Coming out to parents: a two-way survival guide for lesbians and gay men and their parents. New York: Pilgrim Press. p. 70. ISBN 0-8298-0665-2.

Earlier in April, Aesthetic Realism, by invitation only, premiered a film, "Yes, We Have Changed." It sanctifies Siegel and presents a series of persons (all but two male) telling how they changed. Rothenberg said that "the common denominator seems to be aversion to their own homosexuality. There's nothing sadder than self- hatred. It's like all those black publications that, years ago, ran ads for straightened hair and light skin. You don't have to practice homosexuality, but not practicing it doesn't change your instincts." Though Aesthetic Realism gives seminars and "dramatic presentations" on a variety of topics - acting, anthropology, art, business, drugs, ethics, family, insanity, marriage, music, photography, religion - the main emphasis appears to be changing homosexuals into heterosexuals. In a booklet published in 1978, Kranz, purportedly the first to change, reported that Aesthetic Realism has converted 84 percent of the men who have come for assistance. Over a six-year period, Kranz said, "we have spoken with 297 men ranging in age from 14 to 60. Of the 297 men, 107 had seven consultations, which we see as the minimum number of hours necessary for us to begin to know a consultee with some depth, and for him to begin to understand some of the basic principles of Aesthetic Realism. Of these 107 men, 90 have said they have changed." No tally is given for lesbians.

— "AESTHETIC REALISM' AND HOMOSEXUALITY" Kay Longcope Globe Staff, 'Boston Globe', Apr 18, 1982. pg. 1

About 250 persons rallied on Boston Common yesterday to demand that The Boston Globe "print the truth about Aesthetic Realism," a New York-based educational foundation that claims that gay men and lesbians can change and become heterosexual. Several speakers at the gathering protested a Globe article on April 18, which reported that the organization's heterosexual claim was "staggering to psychiatrists and psychologists and . . . both amusing and enraging to gay people."

— "GROUP PROTESTS GLOBE STORY; [FIRST Edition]" Boston Globe (pre-1997 Fulltext). Boston, Mass.: May 14, 1982. pg. 1

I recall only two others: Kenneth Bowdoin, an experimental southern poet, and Eli Siegel, who founded a school of writing called Aesthetic Realism, which amon other bizarre claims, professed to "cure" homosexuality. Thinking of Siegel, a man in his fifties whom I had known from the WPA Writers' Project as a mirthless, self-important intellectual, made me wonder who would discover a cure for heterosexuality. He enjoyed, if that is the correct word for a grim-faced maven whose long nose sniffed disdainfully at everything, a minor notoriety for a poem called "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana", which in the 1920s or 1930s won a prize in Nation. Based on long Whitmanesque lines, it was actually about the weather. But Williams was right to include him; the poem defied existing norms with a flat, bland insouciance that mocked conventional taste.

— Norse, Harold (1989). Memoirs of a bastard angel. New York: W. Morrow. pp. 217–218. ISBN 0-688-06704-2.

Help Is Available for Homosexuals Having received help in her struggle with homosexuality, a Christian woman wrote me, "I know Aesthetic Realism is not a religious organization but, in a way, that's what made it so encouraging to me. They didn't say homosexuality is wrong because the Bible says so. But they gave really good explanations as to WHY it is wrong. Regardless of religion or AIDS or society's view, homosexuality is just not a real way to find happiness." [...] Another thing that impresses me about Rachel's attitude is that she does not seek to justify homosexual practices. She wrote, "Just this week, I received a newsletter from a (name) church I used to attend. They're having a study on homosexuality where they're going to look at the passages that deal with this topic in the Bible. I got the impression from the wording that it is to try to make the Bible say homosexuality is OK. I appreciate that those people don't want to condemn, but I believe that people think it is such an unconquerable feeling that God certainly wouldn't condemn it. For a study like that, I believe you have to know beyond the Bible what is wrong with homosexuality. Aesthetic Realism taught me that, and I am very grateful." [...] It is unlikely that many homosexual persons will be reading this, but some of you may wish to pass this information on to others who may be eager for help. Some may not want help, but for any who may yearn for change, these addresses taken from literature of the two groups are supplied. [...]

Aesthetic Realism Foundation, 141 Greene Street, New York, NY 10012; (212)-777-4490. This is not a religious organization. Homosexuals Anonymous Fellowship Services, P.O. Box 7881, Reading, PA 19603; (610)-376-1146. This group has chapters in various states. They can also point you to many helpful books. ~Cecil Hook (March 2001)

[19]

The Aesthetic Realism Foundation was founded by poet Eli Siegel in 1941 to educate the public about his philosophy, which includes such radical ideas as that “all beauty is a making one of opposites” and that humankind’s “largest desire is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis.” Today, the organization promotes his philosophy through dramatic presentations and classes on art, poetry, music, and marriage. The foundation also offers “consultations”—a kind of personal therapy in which students are individually counseled by a group of Aesthetic Realism teachers. [...] Had Assemblyman Ortiz or his staff investigated the group, they might have discovered that from the 1960s through the '80s, the Aesthetic Realism Foundation ran a program intended to turn gay people straight, and claimed to have successfully "changed" 150 people. (The foundation ended that program in 1990, and today insists that "Aesthetic Realism is for full, equal civil rights for everyone.")

— "Political Surrealism" Maria Luisa Tucker. The Village Voice. New York: May 7-May 13, 2008. Vol. 53, Iss. 19; pg. 11, 2 pgs

Unfortunately, Siegel and his followers believed that homosexuality was an illness "caused" by self-contempt. As early as the mid-'40s, some members claimed they had converted to heterosexuality through the foundation’s teachings. In 1971, in what could be viewed as a precursor to the current ex-gay movement, three counselors began specifically working with homosexual men, many of whom were married off to female members, most of whom were lesbians.

In the '70s AR heavily promoted the myth that they could convert people from gay to straight. Members appeared on talk shows, and AR placed full-page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times that listed the names of those who had "changed." New York’s Gay Activist Alliance responded by infiltrating [or "zapping"] their meetings at their Greene Street headquarters and passing out pro-gay literature with accurate information. In return, AR members claimed that they were victims being "persecuted" by GAA.

As late as 1986, AR published vehemently anti-gay tomes. Until the mid-1990s, AR members wore buttons that read “Victims of the Press.”

Feelings of persecution, intolerance of criticism, slavish devotion to a leader, a belief that only they know the one true path to enlightenment—these are distinguishing characteristics of a cult.

Many ex-members of the group, including those supposedly “converted” to heterosexuality, contribute horror stories to a web site put together by Michael Bluejay, who was a child member of the group and whose own grandmother was one of those who was allegedly “converted.” (The web site is michaelbluejay.com.)

“AR no longer gives counseling sessions to try to ‘cure’ homosexuality,” Bluejay told The Blade. “They still believe that homosexuality is a psychological deficit caused by one’s contempt for the world—they have to continue believing this, because Eli Siegel said so—but it's not a part of their curriculum any more. And they avoid talking about it as much as possible—to the point of even seeming to deny that they ever had such a thing as a gay cure.”

However, they remain privately homophobic. Their official position, as laid out in an e-mail from Friends of Aesthetic Realism (which runs a web site, Countering the Lies, to respond to criticism of the group) is: “Aesthetic Realism does not see homosexuality as a ‘sickness’ or something to ‘cure.’” On this same site AR executive director Margo Carpenter claims that “AR is for full, equal civil rights for everyone.” She labels claims that AR offers a cure for homosexuality as a "hoard of lies."

— "Anti-Gay Cult Pulls Fast One: Aesthetic Realists wrest $4,000 in state funds for a program that allegedly teaches art to Brooklyn senior citizens. But the group has a history of “converting” gays to heterosexuals." By BILL SCHOELL Apr. 25, 2008 The New York Blade

(ARF claims gay to heterosexuality "conversion")

— Freedom Activist Network (no date) http://freeact.net/orgsa.html#Aesthetic Realism Foundation

Use of the term "Aesthetic Realists"

1. By the Aesthetic Realists themselves, in their book "PERSONAL & IMPERSONAL: Six Aesthetic Realists", Sheldon Kranz, et al., Definition Press, 1959 Aesthetic Realism website, Amazon
2. James H. Bready in the Baltimore Sun, a column which the Aesthetic Realists like so much they put it on their own website: Evening Sun, Baltimore, Wednesday, July 28, 1982. [20] "Rather than set up branches, Aesthetic Realists keep in touch with people in other cities by phone."
3. The Village Voice, May 22, 1969. [21] "Also downtown, the Koppelmans (Chaim and Dorothy), noted Aesthetic Realists, are having their first show together in five years at the Terrain Gallery on Grove Street. Their petition to gain a review from the Time quotes Hilton Kramer as saying he'd 'puke' if he got another telephone call from them. I know what he means. Aesthetic Realism, its philosophical merits aside, is the best reason for getting an unlisted number. Nevertheless, I saw the show. It's okay. Mr. Koppelman's works are particularly sensitive. I really doubt that the Koppelmans 'are being punished being of their stated conviction that the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel is a true approach to art and to life.'"
4. The Village Voice, "A Brooklyn assemblyman's earmarks are political surrealism", May 6, 2008. [22] "Assemblyman Felix Ortiz: Thinking twice about bacon for Aesthetic Realists"
5. New York Magazine, "A Scene in Two Acts", Jan 2, 1995. [23] "THE AESTHETIC REALISTS. An oddball presence in SoHo for more than twenty years, the realists expound a philosophy that focuses on a oneness between opposites.... Aesthetic Realists' contention that the media ignored their 'cure' [for homosexuality] led many of them to wear the familiar "Victim of the Press" buttons.... Two people identifying themselves as Aesthetic Realists approach the group from the street. They agree to help the XXXGays, insisting that Aesthetic Realists are not against homosexuality."
6. Getty Images. Image title, "Aesthetic Realists", Jan. 1, 1978. [24] "Adherents of the philosophy of Aesthetic Realism, founded by American poet Eli Siegel, protesting in Central Park, New York, about what they see as a deliberate lack of coverage of their movement by the media, April 1978. Some students of the philosophy maintain that its teachings have enabled them to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Two men at the demonstration carry placards to this effect."
7. Photographer EA Schwartz, 1974, photo caption. [25] "Aesthetic Realists, [followers of] Eli Siegel, picket the New York Times. They contend their ideas are given insufficient attention in the Times....1974"
8. Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History, original 1978, rev. ed. 1992, p. 129, as cited in a California court appeal. "Astrologers, Scientologists, Aesthetic Realists, and other quack philosophers have followed the medical profession's lead with their own suggestions for treatment."
9. Mark Hufstetler Bozeman, professional historian, "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana", October 21, 2009. [26] "The statement was certainly admirable, but eventually the movement evolved into an often-inappropriate self-help agenda that became thoroughly cult-like. Today, the Aesthetic Realists are a tiny and eccentric fringe group, probably wondering why the Scientologists are the ones who get all the attention."
10. Bill Samuels, "Gay Activists Alliance", February 3, 2009. [27] "Not that I didn't enjoy the 'zaps' or actions that we held. Infiltrating a meeting of the homophobic cult the Aesthetic Realists (who married off self-hating lesbians to self-hating gay men, a forerunner of today's "ex-gays") and passing out pro-gay literature to the members and observers."
11. Anthony Haden Guest, "For a Different New York Woman", 2005. [28] "I'll put her on the mailing lists / Of the Scientologists, / The holocaust revisionists, / And the Aesthetic Realists".

On the need for disambiguation

"Aesthetic realism" has at least three distinct meanings:

• 1) Eli Siegel's philosophy about opposites and contempt
• 2) Analytical philosophy that properties of objects exist apart from subjective interpretations
• 3) Artistic design geared towards being life-like or 'realistic'

The following list references instances of 2) and 3), unrelated to Eli Siegel

• [29] The Wikipedia Realism disambiguation page lists over 40 pages in philosophy and aesthetics with 'realism' in their title.

• [30] 2005 article in the British Journal of Aesthetics (Oxford) called 'A Note on Two Conceptions of aesthetic realism': "The term aesthetic realism has recently taken on great currency in analytic philosophical aesthetics. What is not generally known is that the American philosopher Eli Siegel called the philosophy he founded in the 1940s aesthetic realism... Thus, two distinct uses of the same terminology exist, and should not be confused."

• [31] Chapter 3 of the Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics titled: aesthetic realism

• [32] From a 2007 article in American Prospect titled "How America Does Art: "Classicism's surrender to aesthetic realism represented progress toward Walt Whitman's "Democratic Vistas," to be sure. But was pop art's move from abstraction to representation democratic?"

• [33] In 'Aesthetics and Material Beauty: Aesthetics Naturalized' By Jennifer A. McMahon the book summary reads: "In Aesthetics and Material Beauty, Jennifer A. McMahon develops a new aesthetic theory she terms Critical aesthetic realism - taking Kantian aesthetics as a starting point and drawing upon contemporary theories of mind from philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science."

• [34] In 'Solving the Puzzle of Aesthetic Testimony' the author proposes to: "While we are quick to form beliefs on the basis of what others tell us about many non-aesthetic matters, we are hesitant to form aesthetic judgments on the basis of what others tell us. And while we are often comfortable counting someone as justified on the basis of nonaesthetic testimony, we tend not to be so inclined in the aesthetic case. These are puzzling disanalogies, and – as I shall show – they lend some attraction to aesthetic anti-realism. But aesthetic anti-realism can be resisted. I offer a solution to the puzzle of aesthetic testimony that is perfectly consistent with full-fledged aesthetic realism."

• [35] In the Oxford Journal 'Screen' there is an article titled "Between science fact and science fiction: Spielberg's digital dinosaurs, possible worlds, and the new aesthetic realism."

• [36] In 'The Metaphysics of Beauty, by Nick Zangwill': "Here Zangwill sets out a working notion of aesthetic realism, which amounts to the minimal claim that there are mind-independent aesthetic facts..."

• [37] In 'The Illusion of Conscious Will' by Daniel Wegner: "...action theory and philosophy of mind, but by those working in moral psychology ... since in some chapters he attempts to defend aesthetic realism..."

• [38] In a paper called 'Fashion Models and Moral Realists' by Charlie Knuth at the University of California San Diego: "The realist might seek to bolster this version of the “proves too much” reply by modeling a fashion realism along the lines of Slote’s (1971) case for aesthetic realism or Railton’s (1986b) realism about an individual’s non-moral good."

• [39] Blaise Pascal University paper by Laurent Jaffro titled: 'Some Difficulties with the Reidian Argument for aesthetic realism '.

• [40] In a Salon.com article called 'The quest for the perfect game face': "But shortly after "Indigo" was launched, Cage began to receive complaints about the game's aesthetic realism, which one reviewer labeled, disparagingly, "atmospheric, but not stellar." The most significant flaw was the face of Lucas Kane, the hero of "Indigo Prophecy." In some scenes, Kane's face looked wooden; in others, the muscles around his mouth moved too much, giving him an eerie, reptilian quality." (nope)

• [41] British Journal of Aesthetics article by Marcia Muelder Eaton titled Intention, Supervenience, and aesthetic realism '.

• [42] Paper by Shelton Waldrep titled, 'The aesthetic realism of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray'.

• [43] Pitt University article 'Faultless Disagreement and aesthetic realism ' Karl Schafer

• [44] Robin Johnson's 2008 Paper 'Struggling With Reality: Technology and aesthetic realism in "Game Developer" Magazine'

• [bjaesthetics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/45/2/111] British Journal of Aesthetics: ' Aesthetic realism and Emotional Qualities of Music' by Malcolm Budd

• [45] University of Calgary's History of Intellectual Culture: 'Hutcheson's aesthetic realism and Moral Qualities' by Susan M. Purviance

• [46] Article: 'Is one taste better than another? A case for aesthetic realism ' from the Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society by David E.W. Fenner

• [47] University of Lisboa dissertation: "This dissertation defends aesthetic realism: the view that there is a (non-mental) aesthetic reality, which our aesthetic beliefs and assertions can be reckoned to represent more or less adequately. The focus is restricted to contemporary discussion conducted in the analytic tradition (including some arguments by Hume and Kant that analytic philosophers have addressed, and which will be considered more or less on their own)."

• [48] Journal of Scottish Philosophy article: 'Thomas Reid's aesthetic realism ' by Roger Pouivet

• [49] In "Pleasure, preferenace and value", an essay by Philip Pettit: 'The Possibility of aesthetic realism '

...try searching site:www.jstor.org "aesthetic realism" -siegel -contempt -"making one of" -racism for 100 more 71.224.206.164 (talk) 08:28, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Michael Bluejay as a quotable authority

Aesthetic Realists have charged that Michael Bluejay is not a quotable authority, so here are examples of his being quoted on Aesthetic Realism specifically in the press.

"It sounds to me like the assemblyman got duped. I don't think the taxpayers should be paying for their [the Aesthetic Realists'] enterprise," says Michael Bluejay, who was born to devotees of Aesthetic Realism and attended consultations as a child and teen. "They determine who you marry, whether or not you can go to school—it's definitely mind control." Bluejay believes the workshops would be used to recruit seniors into the group's controlling grip.... Bluejay now runs a website tracking the foundation's activities and posting narratives from other ex-students.

— "Political Surrealism: An assemblyman gets singed for his attempts at pork", Maria Luisa Tucker, Village Voice, May 6, 2008, p. 11

Many ex-members of the group, including those supposedly “converted” to heterosexuality, contribute horror stories to a web site put together by Michael Bluejay, who was a child member of the group and whose own grandmother was one of those who was allegedly “converted.” (The web site is michaelbluejay.com.) “AR no longer gives counseling sessions to try to ‘cure’ homosexuality,” Bluejay told The Blade. “They still believe that homosexuality is a psychological deficit caused by one’s contempt for the world—they have to continue believing this, because Eli Siegel said so—but it's not a part of their curriculum any more. And they avoid talking about it as much as possible—to the point of even seeming to deny that they ever had such a thing as a gay cure.”

— "Anti-Gay Cult Pulls Fast One: Aesthetic Realists wrest $4,000 in state funds for a program that allegedly teaches art to Brooklyn senior citizens. But the group has a history of “converting” gays to heterosexuals." By BILL SCHOELL Apr. 25, 2008 The New York Blade

According to former child member Michael Bluejay, who runs a Web site for fellow ex-members to share their experiences, the followers of AR and its founder, Eli Siegel, try to recruit the elderly by using art, theater, poetry and cultural lectures to get their views across in community appearances. Once they become members, he said, followers are discouraged from having relationships with nonmembers. "When you're in it and you don't see your parents for 15 years, that's hurtful," he said. His parents and grandparents were devotees, he said.

— Aesthetic Realism Foundation to receive $4,000 in state budget: Grant recipient alleged to be a cult, Albany Times-Union/April 21, 2008, By James M. Odato