Part II
In the wake of Eric Francis’ removal from the pages of Chronogram magazine and the airwaves at Radio Kingston, the veteran astrologer and investigative reporter claimed that his “deplatforming” was “political payback” for writing skeptically about the #metoo movement. In fact, a group of women did come together following publication of the piece in the February issue of Chronogram, and their allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior, gathered and recorded by Chronogram and Radio Kingston journalist Hillary Harvey, led to Francis’ dismissal from both.
But allegations of Francis treatment of women were already circulating before the “Take a Step Back” was published.
In a December 2017 Facebook thread on the page of astrologer Samuel F. Reynolds, a number of people commented on Francis and his reputation. Two women in the thread referenced personal experiences with Francis. Other commentators said that they had heard stories about his behavior.
The thread emerged as the #metoo was reaching a fever pitch with near-daily accusations of prominent men losing media “platforms” based on allegations of behaving badly with women. Harvey and other women familiar with the December Facebook posts suspect “Take a Step Back” was his preemptive response to a gathering storm around Francis’ own reputation.
“I have no doubt that he knew he was vulnerable because of his behavior, and he was trying to get ahead of things,” said Priya Kale, one of the women who commented on Reynolds’ thread.
Kale lived in Kingston and worked as managing editor of Planet Waves, Francis’ web-based publication, from 2006 to 2008. In 2013, she stayed briefly at Francis’ studio while helping prepare an event for the annual Chronogram street fair. Kale, a 41-year-old astrologer who produces the Cosmic Diaries website, considers Francis a former mentor and teacher. She said she left his employment after becoming disturbed by what she described as manipulative and predatory behavior towards women and what she describes as his emotional abuse and devaluing of her work.
“I can only speak for myself, but I found him to be extremely mentally, verbally, psychologically abusive, and sexually as well,” said Kale in an interview with Ulster Publishing, parent company of Hudson Valley One and Kingston Times. “I never had sex with him, thank God, but it has taken me years to heal from what I went through. He is very good at spinning his web.”
In 2013, Kale said she felt more confident as an astrologer and a woman and decided to take Francis up on his offer to help him set up the Chronogram event. Kale said that she stayed briefly at his studio and Francis made sexual advances toward her, which she firmly declined.
Kale said her work with Francis ended for good after he publicly berated her at a Kingston event. Kale said the verbal assault came after she came to the defense of young female employee of Francis whom he accused of stealing money (the missing money, Kale said, later turned up). But Kale believes the root of Francis’ fury was her rejection of his advances.
“He wanted to have sex with me so he dangled work in front of me,” said Kale, who shared an email from Francis sent after their 2013 falling out in which he relates a “jealousy fantasy” of wanting to masturbate while watching her have sex with another man. “And when that didn’t work it was, ‘I’ll throw you out of the house’ and that’s what he did.”
Kale said Francis’ reputation had been an open secret among astrologers who knew him personally. But, she said, most kept silent, either because they felt ashamed of their own relationships with him or because they found it professionally beneficial to keep him in their circle.
“Eric is like Windex,” said Kale. “Some people don’t know how toxic you are, so they use you. Some people do know, and they won’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. And some people know but they’ll still use you, just at a distance.”
‘Exploited, manipulated and coerced’
Another woman talked about her own experience with Francis. The woman, who does not live in New York, spoke with Ulster Publishing on the condition that her name not be used.
The 42-year-old woman said that in 2014 she was “dabbling” in astrology and looking to make the jump into professional reading. She had been a longtime fan of Francis’ work and reached out to him for advice.
The woman said that Francis made her an offer: In exchange for buying a $250 annual subscription, he would walk her through ten practice astrological charts. The woman, whose relationship with Francis and her account of events is corroborated by email correspondence shared with Ulster Publishing, said she was initially taken aback by Francis’ approach to their teacher-student relationship.
“He kept telling me I was sexy, I had a sexy smile, my chart was sexy,” said the woman. “I was kind of shocked, it wasn’t what I expected from a teacher.”
The woman said she found other things disturbing about Francis’ approach to his work, including a standing offer on the Planet Waves website soliciting women to pose nude for “Book of Blue” in exchange for astrological readings. In September 2015, she said, she was appalled when Francis hosted Jared Rutledge and Jacob Owens on his podcast. The men, who ran a coffee shop in Asheville, N.C., stirred national controversy when they were exposed as hosts of a podcast for “Pickup Artists” — an anti-feminist subculture that celebrates the use of psychological manipulation to have sex with women. The woman said she was horrified that Francis had given the men a platform and, she believed, a sympathetic ear.
By that time, she said, her relationship with Francis had taken a turn when she had an online sexual encounter with him. The woman acknowledged that the encounter had been consensual but, she said, after Francis stopped responding to her emails, she felt she had been manipulated and Francis had employed the same “game” used by the Pickup Artists. The woman said that she eventually ceased all contact with Francis after, she said, he insisted that she sell “Planet Waves” products without taking a cut.
“‘Exploit’ is the word,” the woman said. “I really felt like I was exploited, manipulated and coerced into things I would never normally do. You go through life, you have experiences with men and sometimes they’re not so great. But this was the first time I felt like something was stolen from me.”
In mid-June, the woman reached out to organizers of the Kepler Conference, an astrological convention slated for January 2019, where Francis was scheduled to be a featured speaker. The woman told organizers that Francis had a history of being sexually manipulative with women. By that time, Courtney Conrad Roberts, director of the Kepler Conference and sponsor of the Canaveral Institute, had already heard of the allegations against Francis, based on his own writing on Facebook. On June 14, Roberts said, her board of directors voted to rescind Francis’ invitation.
“What really did it for me was his Facebook screed about being dismissed from Chronogram,” said Roberts of the decision. “There was no sense of taking personal stock, just denial and attacking his accusers.”
Roberts said that the allegations against Francis are part of a bigger issue of sexual harassment in astrology. Roberts said the dynamics of the industry, in which most of the followers are women while the majority of the field’s “superstars” are men, leaves ample room for abuse. Roberts added the act of reading an astrological chart could be deeply personal, similar to a therapy session, leaving recipients open to manipulation — sexual and otherwise.
“A lot of people really look up to astrologers. It’s like they’re this superior human being who has some special insight into me and my life,” said Roberts. “There’s just so much room for potential abuse, and when you combine that with sexual domination it’s just awful.”
Francis has denied ever using astrological readings or spiritual work to manipulate women for sex. In a July 22 email to Kingston Times editor Dan Barton, Francis wrote; “Also, to mix sex in any form and a spiritual session, someone would need to have a gun to my head. It’s not appropriate. It violates all ethics. It did not happen — ever.”
‘Just felt wrong’
Francis’s reckoning with his accusers comes in the midst of an ongoing #metoo campaign exposing men for behavior ranging from the violent sexual assaults that disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein to behavior that in times past might have been described as “caddish.” The movement has also opened up a debate on what constitutes socially acceptable sexual behavior by men and, in Francis’ case, whether it’s possible to push the boundaries of conventional thinking around sex without becoming embroiled in a #metoo moment.
“Eric is very open about his sexuality and it freaks people out,” said Zoe West. “But in my experience he was never forceful about it.”
West, 28, is a professional model who travels widely posing, often nude, for professional and amateur photographers. In 2008 she was 18, just out of high school and working in a cigar shop on Broadway when Francis approached her about modeling work. She would go on to pose for his “Book of Blue” — an experience she described as positive and empowering. She credits Francis with launching her modeling career and still considers him a friend and mentor.
For West, Francis’ frank approach to sexuality was within her comfort level, a level she freely admits is a bit broader than most women’s. Would West recommend fellow models work with Francis? “I would definitely give the disclaimer that he’s very open about his sexuality. But it’s a matter of perspective knowing him as I do, as a friend,” she replied. “I wouldn’t recommend that a model goes into shooting with him without an understanding of his behavior. But as a model you’re going to experience men like that. It’s part of the job.”
In a July 18 statement to Ulster Publishing, Francis, who has so far declined to answer specific questions put to him for this story, wrote via email: “For the past three and half months (since April 4), I’ve been the subject of a trolling, harassment and defamation campaign spread on Facebook by a small group of people. This was payback for an article I wrote earlier this year about the ‘Me Too’ movement. In that article, I warned about the possibility of men being the subject of false accusations, and that is precisely what happened. I am pursuing the matter legally, and through other governmental remedies.”
Francis himself freely admits to being up front about his sexuality in a way that could cause discomfort while fiercely denying any impropriety with any of his accusers. In a July 22 email to Kingston Times editor Dan Barton after last week’s publication of Part 1 of this story, Francis wrote, “That is the problem with the article’s premise: that I have been dividing my character and something is now being ‘revealed,’” Francis wrote. “The reality is, I exposed my inner character all along, by describing my actual sexuality and relationship orientation, and that pushed some people’s buttons over the years.”
But women like Dana Barnett — whose allegation that Francis had manipulated her into an unwanted sexual encounter when she was an 18-year-old college freshman sparked the #metoo campaign against Francis — saw reflections of their own negative experiences twisted and filtered though Francis’ lens of enlightened, “sex-positive” feminism. Whether in an erotic poem, a horoscope, or an article on #metoo, Francis’ New-Age take on sexuality felt more like cover for old-fashioned predatory behavior. And they see it as something worse — a form of “gaslighting,” the practice of spinning a web of deceit and manipulation dense enough to make a victim doubt their own perception.
Hillary Harvey points to those women who feel that “Take a Step Back” was Francis’ attempt to gaslight the entire #metoo movement.
“For the women who came to me with their stories [experiences with Francis] didn’t feel sex-positive,” said Harvey. “They didn’t feel feminist, they didn’t feel empowering. They just felt wrong.”
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