Scary Terri | 3. Marital Issues
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What warning does the episode give about sensitive topics?
The Binge. The Binge. Before we get started, I just want to let you know that we do discuss suicide in this episode. So please listen with care. Glenn Cooley was a student at North Texas State when he met Terry. He started showing up at CDBMS meetings before he could even drink alcohol. He was that young.
Sandy Brown here. He wasn't super tall, 5'8", 5'9". You know, he had a very kind of calming voice.
Glenn dropped out of college to be with her, and soon he became Terry's right-hand man. He was 20 years old when they wed. She was more than 10 years his senior. So Terry had the upper hand in that way. But she was also his spiritual teacher, the one guiding his development, telling him how to think in counseling sessions.
How did Glenn Cooley meet Terri?
I got some insight into how Terry was behind closed doors with students, thanks to those taped consultations with a follower named Dorothy. Terry could be charming, affable, a cheerleader if something good happened in your life, but also spent an awful lot of time telling Dorothy what to think. This went way beyond wanting to be revered as a teacher. At one point, it seems Terry was able to convince Dorothy that she had temporarily lost control of her own mind.
I was wondering, too, has anyone taken any of my faculties? No. Oh. Nobody else. I got your faculties back. Oh. You already got them back. I'm still in the process of working with them, but for the general purposes, we've got most of them back. Oh, that's quite a process, I understand. Well, that's wonderful. Yes, it is. It's nice to have your faculty back. Yeah, you're a busy, busy being.
What was Glenn's relationship with Terri like?
If she had this much control over any old student, it's hard to imagine how much sway she had over Glenn, a young man who was totally dependent on her, who used to sit close to her in group meditations so he could hold her hand. It must have been quite an unwelcome surprise for Terry when Glenn started thinking for himself, started questioning whether Terry was actually full of shit.
She and Glenn were having marital problems.
Janine, from the last episode, said the last time she saw him, he had just about had enough.
I remember overhearing a conversation at Sandy Cleaver's. Sandy was expecting me, but she didn't know I'd gotten there because I'd come in the kitchen door, said hi to Wheezy and moved on. Sandy was confronting Glenn and he was saying, you guys are just buying a bunch of bullshit. And Sandy said, that is not true. This is, and then she was explaining Terry's behavior, explaining Terry's something. And he was animated and intense about it. questioning her or questioning what she was saying or questioning what she was doing. I never put that together either.
What led to Glenn questioning Terri's teachings?
By the winter of 1976, Glenn and Terry were splitting up. Glenn was moving on, and so was Terry. She'd started seeing Ben Johnson, another younger man who'd later become her third husband. It was looking like Glenn Cooley had gotten out, out of his marriage, out of CDBMS. One night, February 2nd, just after the divorce was finalized, Glenn left Dallas for Flower Mound, Texas. It's a quiet community on Grapevine Lake, about 30 minutes outside the city. His parents had a cabin out there. It's this wide, pristine lake, perfect for summer sports on the water and for reflecting on your life after a long and tumultuous relationship that just ended. According to reports at the time, Terry, her new beau, Ben, and another follower named Alice Hoffman went to the cabin.
They wanted to check on him, but were horrified by what they saw. They opened the door and walked in. And there was Glenn, fully clothed and in his bed, an open can of beer on the nightstand, along with pills, Valium, and an anti-anxiety drug. He laid there motionless, a foamy residue spilling out of the corners of his mouth. He was non-responsive, dead on arrival.
How did Terri's behavior affect Glenn's mental state?
There's no doubt she killed him.
These shark eyes, those cold, dark eyes. The most sophisticated sociopath I've ever observed.
left behind a series of bizarre diaries and writings associated with Terry Hoffman and a group she founded called The Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Soul, Inc.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What warning does the episode give about sensitive topics?
0:00–1:33
2
How did Glenn Cooley meet Terri?
1:33–2:49
3
What was Glenn's relationship with Terri like?
2:49–4:17
4
What led to Glenn questioning Terri's teachings?
4:17–5:57
5
How did Terri's behavior affect Glenn's mental state?
5:57–8:28
6
What tragic event occurred after Glenn's divorce?
8:28–10:27
7
How did the Hoffman family become involved with CDBMS?
10:27–13:08
8
What role did Terry play in the lives of her followers?
13:08–29:42