July 19, 1925 – April 1, 2025
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Robert Skutch, known to most as “Bob,” was an intrinsically helpful and modest man. Bob was a war hero, author, TV writer, stockbroker, healer, publisher, and Vice President of the Foundation for Inner Peace. He passed peacefully in his sleep at the age of 99 on April 1, 2025.
Bob was a natural athlete who played tennis well into his late 80’s. He earned a Purple Heart and Bronze Star in November 1944 while serving in Germany with a US infantry regiment during the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. After being shot, he spent 3 months in the hospital and was then returned to the front in the army’s chase to Berlin, after which he was returned to the States to be discharged. Upon his return, he finished his education at Dartmouth College, where he was the editor of Humor magazine. He spent the following four years writing freelance dramas and comedies for that newest form of media called “television.” He began a 23-year advertising career writing and producing commercials for two nationwide NY-based advertising agencies. His lifetime interest in finance also led him to work as a Wall Street stockbroker for ten years, preparing him well for the role he played at the Foundation.
Healing
From the time he was young, Bob was drawn to helping people. He would rub his mother’s sore shoulder, and she would feel better. During his marriage to Judy Skutch, she noticed his gift of helping relieve other people’s pain, and she started sending those in need of physical healing to him. At first untrained and instinctive, he eventually studied with a well-known South American healer, who chose him from her audience and said, “You are my student.” After his day job, in the evenings and on weekends, Bob performed countless paranormal healing sessions free of charge.
In 1969, Bob became interested in “automatic writing.” Intrigued after reading that the famed “The Sleeping Prophet,” Edgar Cayce, said anyone can do automatic writing, Bob started following Cayce’s instructions. At first, nothing happened, but then some meaningless sentences emerged, after which readable sentences appeared. Bob’s experiment in automatic writing lasted two years. Some personal and sophisticated psychological messages and exalted spiritual thoughts come through his scribing. They were published in a softcover volume, “Messages From My Higher Self,” which sold over 5,000 copies.
A Course in Miracles
It was during the spring of 1975 that Judy brought home the seven black thesis binders containing the first draft of “A Course In Miracles.” After hearing Judy’s account of the Course’s dictation through Dr. Helen Schucman, Bob thought, “the proof of the Course, to him, would be in the content and not in the form, for he had been doing a kind of automatic writing for the past three years…” (from “Journey Without Distance.”)
With Course scribes Dr. Helen Schucman and Dr. Bill Thetford, Dr. Ken Wapnick, and then wife Judy Skutch Whitson, Bob joined to help found the Foundation for Inner Peace. Its guided and directed, single function was to “publish, distribute and discuss A Course in Miracles.”
As orders for the Course started to arrive, Bob organically became the head of the mail order department, and in the beginning, he performed this function after he returned home from his regular job. Once orders started coming in from around the country and eventually from all over the globe, Bob’s administration duties became part of his full-time responsibilities for the Foundation. When Judy and Bob moved to Tiburon, CA. in 1978, Bob started to study the Course, meeting daily in a group that included Dr. Bill Thetford, Dr. Jerry Jampolsky, Dr. Roger Walsh, Dr. Francis Vaughn, and Judy.
Foundation for Inner Peace
From its founding, Bob embodied his official role as Vice President of the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP), which he kept until his passing. He was the Foundation’s behind-the-scenes “essence of integrity and dependability.” He was in charge of FIP’s orders, finances, and taxes. He carefully oversaw every incoming and outgoing expense, going to the bank three times a week for several decades. He was responsible for supervising all the printing and re-printing of the books, processing all of the book orders (initially packing and sending them himself), and going to the Post Office daily. He answered incoming calls. Bob initially read and responded to the many letters attesting to how the Course had changed lives. He was both taught and emotionally moved by these testimonials.
Concise and succinct when speaking, Bob often had the perfect quip, which augmented his finely honed listening and writing skills. Robert Skutch was the author of five published books, including two that sold over 100,000 copies apiece: the popular children’s book, “Who’s In a Family,” and “Journey Without Distance,” the non-fiction account of how “A Course In Miracles” came into being, which was published in 1984.
Family
With his first wife, Arlene, Bob had two children, Laura Skutch and Andrew Skutch, and later two grandsons, Kyle and Eric. With his second wife, Judith, he was a loving stepfather to Tamara and Jonathan Cohen. After his marriage to Judy ended, Bob wedded Lee Abben in 1983, to whom he was completely devoted and happily married for the last 43 years of his life. Remarkably, Bob, Judy, and her third husband, William “Whit” Whitson, remained extremely close friends, and the three of them continued to work together daily in the running of the Foundation until each of their passings. Judy used to refer to them as the three-legged stool of the Foundation for Inner Peace, with Bob in charge of finance, Whit in charge of translations, Judy in charge of relationships, outreach, and daily business, and the Holy Spirit in charge of them all.
When, at the end of his life, Bob was asked what kept him here at the age of 99, he answered, my beloved wife Lee, chocolate, and two weeks of ice cream in the freezer. He left us with a bit of ice cream in the freezer, limitless love, and the perpetual legacy of the Course publishing to uphold.
When, a few days before his passing, Bob was asked by so many people how he was doing, his response to all was this:
BOB SKUTCH, may you continue to be “fine” and may your Spirit rest in the Foundation for Inner Peace that you helped found for us all.
In lieu of flowers, we invite you to gift the Foundation for Inner Peace, where he devoted his life to the Course. Please visit our Donate page.
