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Quotes from Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Madeleine Landau Tobias, Janja Lalich (Contributor), Michael Langone

Exes Comments Posted on Forum V There is this great book called 'Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships, That has a lot of good information about recovery from involvement in a cult. Here is an excerpt: Individual Differences Affecting Recovery Each person's experience with a cult is different. Some may dabble with a meditation technique but never get drawn into taking 'advanced courses' or moving to the ashram. Others may quickly give up all they have, including college, career, possessions, home, or family, to do missionary work in a foreign country or move into cult lodgings. After a cult involvement, some people carry on with their lives seemingly untouched; more typically, others may encounter a variety of emotional problems and troubling psychological difficulties ranging from inability to sleep, restlessness, and lack of direction to panic attacks, memory loss, and depression. To varying degrees they may feel guilty, ashamed, enraged, lost, confused, betrayed, paranoid, and in a sort of fog. Assessing the Damage Why are some people so damaged by their cult experience while others walk away seemingly unscathed? There are predisposing personality factors and levels of vulnerability that may enhance a person's continued vulnerability and susceptibility while in the group. All these factors govern the impact of the cult experience on the individual and the potential for subsequent damage. In assessing this impact, three different stages of the cult experience—before, during, and after—need to be examined. Before Involvement Vulnerability factors before involvement include a person's age, prior history of emotional problems, and certain personality characteristics. During Involvement Length of time spent in the group There is quite a difference in the impact a cult will have on a person if she or he is a member for only a few weeks, as compared to months or years. A related factor is the amount of exposure to the indoctrination process and the various levels of control that exist in the group. Intensity and severity of the thought-reform program The intensity and severity of cults' efforts at conversion and control vary in different groups and in the same group at different times. Members who are in a peripheral, 'associate' status may have very different experiences from those who are full-time, inner-core members. Specific methods will also vary in their effect. An intense training workshop over a week or weekend that includes sleep deprivation, hypnosis, and self-exposure coupled with a high degree of supervision and lack of privacy is likely to produce faster changes in a participant than a group process using more subtle and long-term methods of change. Poor or inadequate medical treatments A former cult member's physical condition and attitude toward physical health may greatly impact postcult adjustments. Loss of outside support The availability of a network of family and friends and the amount of outside support certainly will bear on a person's reintegration after a cult involvement. Skewed or nonexistent contact with family and former friends tends to increase members' isolation and susceptibility to the cult's worldview. The reestablishment of those contacts is important to help offset the loss and loneliness the person will quite naturally feel. After involvement Various factors can hasten healing and lessen postcult difficulties at this stage. Many are related to the psycho-educational process. Former cult members often spend years after leaving a cult in relative isolation, not talking about or dealing with their cult experiences. Shame and silence may increase the harm done by the group and can prevent healing. Understanding the dynamics of cult conversion is essential to healing and making a solid transition to an integrated postcult life. Engage in a professionally led exit counselling session. Educate yourself about cults and thought-reform techniques. Involve family members and old and new friends in reviewing and evaluating your cult experience. See a mental health professional or a pastoral counselor, preferably someone who is familiar with or is willing to be educated about cults and common postcult problems. Attend a support group for former cult members. The following sets of questions have proven helpful to former cult members trying to make sense of their experience. Reviewing your recruitment 1. What was going on in your life at the time you joined the group or met the person who became your abusive partner? 2. How and where were you approached? 3. What was your initial reaction to or feeling about the leader or group? 4. What first interested you in the group or leader? 5. How were you misled during recruitment? 6. What did the group or leader promise you? Did you ever get it? 7. What didn't they tell you that might have influenced you not to join had you known? 8. Why did the group or leader want you? Understanding the psychological manipulation used in your group 1. Which controlling techniques were used by your group or leader: chanting, meditation, sleep deprivation, isolation, drugs, hypnosis, criticism, fear. List each technique and how it served the group's purpose. 2. What was the most effective? the least effective? 3. What technique are you still using that is hard to give up? Are you able to see any effects on you when you practice these? 4. What are the group's beliefs and values? How did they come to be your beliefs and values? Examining your doubts 1. What are your doubts about the group or leader now? 2. Do you still believe the group or leader has all or some of the answers? 3. Are you still afraid to encounter your leader or group members on the street? 4. Do you ever think of going back? What is going on in your mind when this happens? 5. Do you believe your group or leader has any supernatural or spiritual power to harm you in any way? 6. Do you believe you are cursed by God for having left the group? Excerpted from Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Madeleine Tobias and Janja Lalich (Hunter House Publishers, (800)266-5892). ©1994. Comments Date: Mon, Jul 10, 2000 at 18:02:27 From: Joe Subject: Psychological Manipulation Used By Maharaji Message: For some reason, I sometimes have a hard time admitting that actual psychological manipulation went on in Maharaji's cult, and that I was deeply affected by it. I think part of the problem is that I can't tell if the manipulation was intentional or not (which is really irrelevent anyway) and because in retrospect I feel embarrassed and stupid for ever having fallen for something that now seems so incredibly transparent and lame. But I think Maharaji, and as parrotted and repeated by the other members of the cult, used various 'controlling techniques' such as the following: Fear -- down below, posters have quoted the 'rotting vegetables,' 'break into a thousand pieces' and other speeches Maharaji gave that spoke of the terrible calamities that would befall someone who didn't practice knowledge, or have faith in him. Another one was what he said on Christmas 1979 (when he was 22 years old) that you would go to hell (just like Kabir said) if you didn't have total faith and devotion to Maharaji. The other fears were that you would slip up just for a minute and get lost forever in maya. Maharaji told a bunch of Hindu stories that stressed that, including the one about the guy to bent down to get a drink of water and ended up, horror of horrors, falling away from the master and getting married and having kids. There also was an implicit fear of displeasing Maharaji and this still exists. And it isn't because his followers love him, it's because they fear him. I think this is the reason that premies are loathe to ever criticize Maharaji, especially publicly where he might find out about it, or to do anything that might reflect negatively on him, or displease him. After all, most premies still think Maharaji has divine powers and might be able to throw oneu accross five universes, or whatever the saying was. I think there is still genuine fear about this among premies, and even many ex-premies. It takes awhile for fear to get de-programmed. As premies, especially ashram premies, we also lived continually with sleep deprivation, a lack of privacy, isolation from our families and friends from before we received knowledge, and a terrible attack on our self-esteem by constanting being told, by Maharaji and others that we were unworthy of the 'gift' we had been given and, like M said at Kissimmee in 1979, we didn't even have the right to look at him. All these things tended to break down one's ability to trust one's own feelings and judgments, and tended to make one more dependent on Maharaji and the cult. I think the 'practice' of knowledge was also a control technique. First, I think meditation was used to stop us from thinking and having doubts. Then, of course, there was Maharaji's commandment to 'NEVER LEAVE ROOM FOR DOUBT IN YOUR MIND', which was a recipe for self-censorship and mind control. Even though Maharaji doesn't talk about that commandment anymore, it is still engrained in the premie culture, and, of course, Maharaji lacks the will or the courage to explain that it was non-sensical or wrong, if that's what he really believes. There were other manipulations as well. Anything to add? Date: Tues, Jul 11, 2000 at 01:28:36 From: chr Subject: Psychological Manipulation Used By Maharaji Message: Hi Joe,It was-and I suspect still is-very much a part of the Maharaji/premie culture to never criticise M. Plenty of people criticised the organisation and the premies-any fuck ups were of course their fault, never Maharaji's. M reinforced this by regular ridicule of initiators and community coordinators at programs. Even after I had left M, it took me a long time before I was able to look at him and see his faults, the conditioning was so strong. One thing that helped was that a couple of years after I was completely out, I went to see M speak and give a K review-it was in 1995 I think. As I sat there with a long time instructor who was now also an ex, we both realised what a lot of dribble he talked. I became increasingly irritated at the canned laughter that would erupt at every inane joke or putdown and by the end of it all I was downright angry. When I came out premies came up to me with knowing smiles. The standard comment was 'Where have you been?' as if I'd been on Mars or somewhere or 'Its good to see you back.' One even looked at me with glassy eyes and said with a treacle voice, ' There's really no where else to go or be, is there?' I told her that there were plenty of other places to go and be, and then walked off. Date: Mon, Jul 10, 2000 at 23:47:39 From: TD Subject: Psychological Manipulation Used By Maharaji Message: There also was an implicit fear of displeasing Maharaji and this still exists. And it isn't because his followers love him, it's because they fear him. I think this is the reason that premies are loathe to ever criticize Maharaji, especially publicly where he might find out about it, or to do anything that might reflect negatively on him, or displease him. After all, most premies still think Maharaji has divine powers and might be able to throw oneu accross five universes, or whatever the saying was. I think there is still genuine fear about this among premies, and even many ex-premies. It takes awhile for fear to get de-programmed. This is so true Joe. And that piece from that book was spot on. How EV could read something like that, which defines a cult, and not see all the glaring similarities with M and K - is beyond me! Actually prior to being a premie, I'd done the odd bit of writing - it was a bit of a sideline passion - but you know while being a premie everytime I'd sit down to write, I was constantly fearful that what I'd write would be wrong and not conscious enough and Maharaji would be angry (even though he'd never see what I wrote) - it was just this stupid fear I had, that actually was so bad - I didn't write for the whole time I was a premie. I certainly believed that M had divine powers, because of so many of the mystical darshan stories that premies would tell me, and I did believe he was like JC and Buddha who legend tells us could do groovy magic things. Fear in displeasing Maharaji is such a debilitating sickness in the premie community. I saw it at a participation event at Amaroo, whereby some premies were quite upset that M had commented negatively on the amount of cow-poo around the place, and they really took it to heart - as though it was their fault, and a major fuck-up that a cow had strayed in and took the odd crap. I mean, get it in perspective. Date: Mon, Jul 10, 2000 at 22:30:29 From: Lotus Eater Subject: Psychological Manipulation Used By Maharaji Message: He uses isolating techniques of emotional dependency and still does, ie he constantly stresses that family and friends, your children, your neighbour, will let you down, but he says knowledge and the master will never abandon you. He says it's safe and it's cool to give your love to the master, and unsafe and uncool to love anyone else. Then he suggests you be kind and loving with the people around you, after having said that they are the living dead, puppets, dummies with fake smiles among other choice phrases I remember. Oh, and the fear bit, as if that wasn't enough, you only live yourself in remembrance of him. Date: Mon, Jul 10, 2000 at 18:10:55 From: VP Subject: Psychological Manipulation Used By Maharaji Message: A huge manipulation is the aspirant process--for that matter, the entire secrecy surrounding the four techniques. Premies told you how wonderful it was, BUT they couldn't tell you anything more about it. That is a serious psychological manipulation. Date: Mon, Jul 10, 2000 at 18:19:13 From: Joe Subject: Manipulation in the Aspirant Process Message: Right VP, I hadn't even gotten to the maniuplation in the aspirant process, that I think TD and Daneane have addressed pretty well. Right: The premies keep telling the aspirant that the experience of knowledge is so wonderful, but they can't tell them what it is. Maharaji and the instructors do the same thing. Plus, there isn't any set 'course' or guidelines for how to 'get' knowledge. You just have to be 'ready' and that is entirely subjective and unstated as to what that is. That tends to make many people want it even more, because it's supposed to be so great, you are completely dependent on being 'selected' and if you are, especially because others are invariably rejected, you feel like a part of a special, privileged group. It's only later that the fear is brought in to keep you from doubting and leaving.

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