Inside The Weird-Ass Cult Adam Driver's Connected To

In My Tabloid Era

Today, I’m bravely going where the Daily Mail and the Post have gone before: what’s up with Adam Driver’s (tenuous) connection to a cult?

Let’s back up. Last summer, I read Spencer Schneider’s Manhattan Cult Story* after spotting it on a bookstore shelf. The memoir documents his journey into — and out of — a cult called Odyssey Study Group (or “School” as members call it), which is based on the esoteric teachings of George Gurdjieff.** Gurdjieff was an Armenian philosopher, mystic and spiritual teacher who devised The Fourth Way — an approach to self-development that he formulated over years of traveling the East. On their own, his ideas and methods constitute standard self-help stuff; but in the wrong hands, they became a pretense for coercion, exploitation and abuse.

In the 70s, actor Sharon Gans and her husband, director Alex Horn, founded OSG — then called the Theatre of All Possibilities — in San Francisco. The group existed partly to produce Horn’s plays; meanwhile, Gans became best known for playing Valencia Merble in the 1972 film adaptation of Slaughterhouse-Five. In 1978, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that former members and others with knowledge of the theater alleged “beatings, child neglect and a student fee structure that reportedly yielded huge revenues for [their] enterprise.” Gans and Horn eventually fled to Montana and had made their way to the East Coast by the early 1990s. There, Schneider became ensnared in the group for 23 years.

By the time he’s nearing 37, Schneider is anxious to settle down because that’s “the age by which Sharon expected us to be married” (138). Gans sets him up with another School member, “Beth”, and they’re engaged within months. Beth is a pseudonym for Cynthia May, whose daughter Joanne Tucker is now married to — you guessed it! — Adam Driver.

Not reported on nearly enough (or perhaps at all?) was Gans’ suggestion that Schneider impregnate one of May’s daughters from her first marriage — “Hannah”, who was 19 at the time — so they could have a biological child (May was 42).

She got right to the point. She announced, “I don’t like the idea of Beth getting pregnant at her age. It’s potentially dangerous. The child could have Down syndrome and you would have to put it up for adoption.” I protested, something I could sometimes—sometimes—do when speaking one-on-one with Sharon. I reasoned that it was safe and that Beth wanted to get pregnant. “No, Spencer, what you should do is impregnate Hannah, she can carry the baby, and you and Beth can raise the baby as your own” (139).

Schneider and May were horrified at the idea and Gans never brought it up again. But it’s indicative of how involved she became in members’ personal lives, dictating marriages, divorces and in-group “adoptions” of children. She was also homophobic and essentially advocated for conversion therapy, which created some PR issues in 2002. Honestly, I recommend a deep dive into the batshit craziness of OSG; its bizarreness extends far beyond the scope of this post. Though Gans died in 2021, the group still operates — so beware if you’re on the West Side.

*Apologies to Mr. Schneider, but this wasn’t even the first memoir I’ve read about a Manhattan-based cult. That honor goes to Daniel Barban Levin’s Slonim Woods 9 (as documented in Hulu’s Stolen Youth).

**Gurdjieff’s teachings aren’t uncommon in theater and acting circles; Brian Cox wrote about the philosopher in his memoir, Putting the Rabbit in the Hat: “Gurdjieff taught that most humans live their lives in a state of hypnotic ‘waking sleep,’ but that it is possible to awaken a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential” (347).

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Bronwyn’s a gifted writer, comedian and podcaster (she co-hosted Bad Romance with Jourdain Searles). She’s also effortlessly cool without being pretentious. Check her shit out.

See ya!