Eric was a refugee from the recently broken-up Kerista commune, a group of polyfidelitous families. They wanted to create a new model for communal love and went about it highly rationally, setting up a series of procedures such as "The Spinner" [spin the dial to find out who you were sleeping with that night] and publishing endless books on their theories, history, mysticism and such. Disputes were resolved through no-feelings-barred "rational exploration" sessions, inevitably leading to yet more new rules to follow to avoid stepping on someone's feelings. Originally they had ideas of raising children and forming a new society, but eventually decided this was impractical and thereupon required all male members to get vasectomies. They remained together for 25 years, of which Eric was there the last six -- and yet despite all this, and despite having endured perhaps the most horrendous "drug rehabilitation" camp in existence in the United States as a teenager, he was one of the mellowest, least dogmatic people I've met.