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Arthur R. Ceppos (April 4, 1909 - September 30, 1996) was an American publisher, best known as the original publisher of Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health by L. Ron Hubbard. Through his publishing houses Julian Press and Hermitage House, Ceppos was a catalyst for the sexual and self-awareness revolutions. He published seminal works on Gestalt therapy, consciousness, sexuality, homosexuality, transsexuality, psychiatry, yoga, hypnosis, reality, sexual behavior, spirituality and communication with other species among other topics. Julian Press and Hermitage House authors included Eleanor Roosevelt, John C. Lilly, Robert E.L. Masters, Frederick S. (Fritz) Perls, Ira Progoff, and Swami Vishnudevananda Saraswati.

Family life and early career

In 1931 Arthur Ceppos composed his first song, “Love is the Name of Our Game”, with his older brother, professional violinist Mac Ceppos (band leader, arranger and accompanist for Patti Page, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and others). Arthur wrote the lyrics for the song, while Mac contributed the melody.

In 1933, Ceppos went alone to Paris to study violin. In Paris, he met and travelled with Nahum (Nate) Lichter, whom Ceppos renamed Tschacbasov to further his artistic career. Tschacbasov later became a member of “The Ten” artists. Ceppos’ granddaughter would be named after Tschacbasov’s daughter Alexandra.

In 1934 the Ceppos family moved from Chicago to Washington DC as wife Marie Ceppos was hired by the US Treasury Dispensing Office.

Between 1934-1943, Ceppos lived in Washington DC in a variety of residences, including Conduit Rd., in Glen Echo MD, at 3230 P Street and at 2126 Pennsylvania Avenue a few blocks from the White House. Ceppos would offer directions for his P Street visitors to “Go to 32nd and pee”. One of Ceppos’ notable dinner guests was Ralph Bunche, later a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for special political affairs. Among other jobs while in Washington, DC, Ceppos drove a taxi for Bell Cab and ran a salvage company. Ceppos also played violin with the National Symphony Orchestra.

Ceppos received a draft deferment in 1942 due to his family dependency. Wanting to contribute to the war effort, Ceppos sought to enter an essential industry and he secured a job with Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyards in Baltimore as a Welding Foreman. At this time, the family moved to Belvedere Beach in Arnold, MD. In support of the war effort, Ceppos wrote a number of patriotic songs including “We’re Building Ships for Freedom” along with “We’ll be Back” and “We’ll be Back When the Victory is Won”.

At the end of the war, the Ceppos family moved to New York City, initially to Bank St in Greenwich Village and then to the now legendary Hotel Chelsea in New York, a home to numerous writers, musicians, artists and actors. Ceppos and family lived in suite 1023 at the Chelsea where he reunited with Tschacbasov who lived with his family down the hall in Suite 1003. The Ceppos family later moved to a suite on the fourth floor that had its own kitchenette.

Ceppos’ first wife, Marie Ceppos passed away in 1946 at the age of 39.

In 1950, daughter Romane graduated from New York City’s High School of Music & Art (HSMA).

In 1953 Ceppos married his second wife Prudence D’Amico in San Francisco while the marriage license was obtained in New York, New York.

Arthur Ceppos passed away on 39 September 1996 in New York, New York.

Publishing career

Between 1945 and 1948, after returning to New York, Ceppos joined Crown Publishing Group where he distributed Remaindered books. At Crown, Ceppos was reunited with childhood neighbor Abe Lieberman. Lieberman successfully encouraged Ceppos to run his own publishing company and in 1947 Ceppos started Hermitage House.

Hermitage House was registered with offices at One Madison Avenue, and later established its offices on East 62nd Street in New York City. Hermitage published 100 works and was most active between 1949 and 1954. Among Hermitage’s first books was Oedipus Myth and Complex by Patrick Mullahy (1948). Through Ceppos’ friendship with Ralph Bunche, another early Hermitage House book was Eleanor Roosevelt’s Peace on Earth about the UN that was published in 1949. Peace on Earth was reviewed in the New York Times in November that year. Hermitage’s books were in the fields of psychiatry, self-help and theater among others. Hermitage also published Public domain works such as Voltaire’s Candide.

In 1950, Ceppos was intrigued by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard's manuscript for Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health and its focus on the power of the mind and Ceppos agreed to publish it. Ceppos was further impressed that Hubbard had written Dianetics in six weeks. Having become a friend of the family, Hubbard visited Ceppos’ daughter in the hospital to ‘Clear her’ following her appendectomy surgery though Hubbard had declared Ceppos to be a ‘natural Clear’. Ceppos also agreed to join the Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation Board. Hubbard’s early lectures often included a revised and somewhat fictional history of Ceppos’ publishing career, including the myth that Ceppos had inherited the publishing company.

In 1951 Ceppos was hired by Kitty Messner to join Julian Messner, Inc. to head a new line and took over/launched The Julian Press, Inc. While this was just prior to Messner’s publishing of Peyton Place in 1956, Ceppos did obtain some notoriety related to that best-seller launch as a man working for and with women which was unconventional at the time.

In contrast to seeking instant bestsellers like Peyton Place, Ceppos had a longer view. In an interview on the history of Gestalt Therapy, for example, co-author Laura Perls observed that, “He was always after new things… Arthur Ceppos said at that time that the book would go very slowly in the beginning and in ten years would become a classic and he was right.”

Julian Press’ 243 works were in the fields of Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Hypnotherapy, Psychedelia, Philosophy, Sex and Sexual Behavior, Spirituality, Theology and Yoga. Julian’s offices were located at 119 Fifth Avenue and then at 150 Fifth Avenue in New York City. The Julian Press, Inc. was most active between 1951 and 1979 and was later purchased by Crown Publishing.

Not long after becoming involved with L. Ron Hubbard, Ceppos became disillusioned with the practices of the Dianetics Foundation and, together with J.A. Winter, stepped off the Board in October 1950. In 1951 under the Julian Press imprint, Ceppos published the first critical view of Dianetics, A Doctor's Report on Dianetics, by fellow former Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation Board Member J.A. Winter, MD.

Following the publication of Winter’s critique, Hubbard wrote a letter to the Attorney General accusing Ceppos, J.A. Winter and a number of others, including Hubbard’s wife, of being communists at the height of McCarthyism. This was one of several Hubbard letters accusing former Dianetics employees and supporters of being communists. “The FBI did not take Hubbard’s allegations seriously and an agent annotated his correspondence with the comment, "Appears mental".” For his part, Ceppos disapproved of communism.

In the 1970s, Ceppos worked with Penthouse Magazine publisher Bob Guccione on a project to create Penthouse Books which were to be focused on Science Fiction. Ceppos was designated as the President of Penthouse Publishing though this venture was ultimately not realized.

In the early 1990s, Ceppos donated Hubbard’s original Dianetics manuscript to the Church of Scientology.

Songs by Arthur Ceppos

• Abe Ceppos, Mac Ceppos (19 Sep 1931). Love is the name of our game. Unp. Catalog of Copyright Entries 1931. New York.
• Arthur R. Ceppos (10 Mar 1941). Knowing you. Unp. Catalog of Copyright Entries No 250642. Washington, DC.
• Arthur R. Ceppos (10 Mar 1941). Zulu twist. Unp. Catalog of Copyright Entries No 250643. Washington, DC.
• Arthur R. Ceppos (10 Mar 1941). My big moment. Unp. Catalog of Copyright Entries No 250644. Washington, DC.
• Arthur R. Ceppos (6 December 1943) We're Building Ships of Freedom. Unp. Catalog of Copyright Entries 1943 No 356565. Arnold, Md.
• Arthur R. Ceppos (6 December 1943) I Found My Love. Unp. Catalog of Copyright Entries 1943 No 356566. Arnold, Md.
• Arthur R. Ceppos (2 March 1944) We'll be Back. Unp. Catalog of Copyright Entries 1944. Washington 10307.
• Arthur R. Ceppos, Mac Ceppos (5 Sep 1944) Singing to a Dream. Unp. Catalog of Copyright Entries 1944 No 389325. Long Island City, NY.
• Arthur R. Ceppos & Tyler Vance. (20 Nov 1944) We'll be Back When the Victory is Won. Main Street Songs, Inc. New York.
• Arthur R. Ceppos, Mac Ceppos (3 Dec 1963) That's the Law of Reality. Catalog of Copyright Entries.

References

1. Eugene Chadbourne. Mac Ceppos Biography. AllMusic.
2. Decisions Show Tightening Up on Deferment Policy. Evening Star Publication: Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Sep 11 1942.
3. Catalog of Copyright Entries: Musical compositions, Part 3. Library of Congress, Copyright Office., 1943. P 47748.
4. Catalog of Copyright Entries: Musical compositions, Part 3. Library of Congress, Copyright Office., 1944. P 50912.
5. Hermitage House. Open Library.
6. Lie, Trygve, with Brock Chisholm, Herbert V. Evatt, John Boyd-Orr, Charles Malik, Ralph Bunche, Eleanor Roosevelt, Benjamin Cohen, Jaime Torres Bodet, Ludwik Rajchman and Carlos Romulo (1949). Peace on Earth. 251 pp. New York: Hermitage House.
7. Erwin D. Canham (20 November 1949). The U. N. Path to Peace. New York Times. Section B, Page 4.
8. Toth, Emily (1980). Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious. United States: Doubleday. P 102.
9. Cameron, A. (2015). Unbuttoning America: A Biography of "Peyton Place". Germany: Cornell University Press. P 100.
10. Edward Rosenfeld (1977). An Oral History of Gestalt Therapy. Accessed at: 16 August 2023.
11. Julian Press. Open Library.
12. Atack, Jon (1990). A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed. Lyle Stuart Books. ISBN 081840499X. OL 9429654M
13. Memo from F. J. Baumgardner to M.H. Holm March 7, 1951
14. Letter to Director FBI from SAC Newark, March 21, 1951
15. Letter to The Attorney General, May 15, 1951
16. Methvin, Eugene H. (May 1990). "Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult". Reader's Digest. pp. 16.

Images

1. "Arthur Ceppos". Hand colored photographic print taken and colored by Louis Ceppos, . Brant Family Archives, .

• American book publishing company founders
• Scientology
• 20th-century American composers
• 1996 deaths