About Joe Szimhart as artist and cult specialist

Please read my memoir if you wish to know more.

I studied at the University of Dayton where I finished in 1969 with a degree in Arts and Sciences. I completed art studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1975, then moved to Santa Fe, NM to pursue my art career. I taught college credit art courses at the New Mexico State Penitentiary under a federal program called Project Newgate and life-drawing at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM. When art income was down, I worked as a handyman for landlords doing a wide range of property repair and improvement. I exhibited in galleries and shows, executed murals and other commissions, and worked as a street portrait artist on the Santa Fe Plaza, at state fairs, and in malls through 1986 completing more than 7000 pastel and charcoal portrait sketches.

Through art studies, my interests veered away from engineering into philosophy, theology, and the occulture that modern artists participated in, especially since the 19th Century. I switched majors from engineering to the fine arts during my third year. I was especially curious about Pietism and theosophy after concentrating on the work of William Blake in a theology honors course. I continued art studies at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts until 1975 when I relocated to Santa Fe, NM where I began to study the radical theosophies of psychic Helena Blavatsky and many offshoots of her Theosophical Society including Agni Yoga, The I AM Activity, and Church Universal and Triumphant.

Beginning in 1980, my research and struggle to turn away from that line of group exposure and participation exposed me to the anti-cult movements. I re-engaged my skeptical/science oriented self and lectured often for skeptic groups. I was chairman of and lecturer for an interdenominational cult and occult awareness group in Santa Fe from 1985 through 1992. I began working with other cult interventionists in 1986, making most of my income from that career internationally until 1998 when I took a job as a mental health worker for a psychiatric emergency hospital in Pennsylvania. I continued activity in the cult awareness field as an educator, writer, and media consultant. Currently, I am retired from hospital work and am concentrating on family matters, cult-related projects and intervention cases, and the art world.

In 2016, I received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Cultic Studies Association.