Gurus Up the Ladder

An autobiographical excursion through my cult experience written in 1996

Joe Szimhart

last edited 2021
 

references in text:
Bharati, A.
Blavatsky, H.P.
Da, Adi
Eliade, M.
Fallico, A.B.
Gurdjieff, G.I.
Jesus
Johnson, K.P.
Knight, J.Z.
Kramer, J. & Alstadt, D.
Lifton, R.J.
Masson, J.M.
Mehta, G.
Prophet, E.C.
Ravenscroft, T.
Webb, J.
Wilber, K.
Yeakley, F.
Zablocki, B.

Mind Control?

When I was a boy, perhaps seven years old, I learned that toads caused warts. It happened while I was fishing along a creek near my home in Pennsylvania where I noticed a toad in the grass. As I reached to pick it up, an older boy jeered at me for being so stupid: "Don't you know that you can get warts from toads?" His comment startled me. I pulled my hands back and wiped them on my jeans. For years I did not question his challenge until I studied biology in high school. There seemed to be a consensus among some of the other boys that toads did indeed cause warts. How could I question these "authority figures:" they would not lie to me, would they? They most likely believed it themselves. When I eventually learned that toads do not cause warts, that a virus causes warts, I rejected the false information. Thereafter, I could hold a toad while enjoying my newfound wisdom. I enjoyed it because my behavior was no longer controlled by a false idea.

I recall another incident when older boys influenced me and two other six-year-olds to do something destructive that was "good," even required. At the time, I lived across from a cemetery that had a large United States Armory adjoining it. It looked like a plain warehouse. We often played on unused areas of lawn in the cemetery. An eight or nine-year-old boy with crew-cut hair told us that the Armory was scheduled to be torn down and that we could break the windows. To prove his point, he threw some rocks that broke a couple of 8 x 10 windowpanes. There were dozens of large windows with 8 x 10 sections. This triggered a five-minute spree of flying stones breaking glass until a lady yelled at us from her back yard down the way. We ran, of course, now realizing that this was somehow wrong. The following week my friend and I returned to the scene of the crime to watch a military man dressed in fatigues replace windowpanes. He smiled at us and asked, "You boys didn't break these, did you?" We merely smiled and walked away.

Those were not the last times that I was conned or influenced by information that I later discovered to be false or not provable, or even destructive. Sometimes it cost me money, time, or prestige but the negative effects eventually passed, and I learned a few lessons. Once it cost me a marriage. In the name of a "positive" cause like saving the planet or attaining enlightenment many people have "thrown stones" at the "armory" of their marriages, careers, families, and good friends. The old structures were doomed anyway, so they now believed after some authority figure or new belief system convinced them. "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to separate mother from father, father from daughter, and mother from son"--to paraphrase Jesus, one guru whose teachings are commonly taken out of context.

That lesson that cost me a marriage began when I was in my early thirties in 1979. Then I was on the verge of complete capitulation to a new religious group with a controversial charismatic leader. My struggle to sort my way through the psychological and spiritual twists and turns in my search for the truth eventually resulted in my career as a consultant about cults. The process of undue influence can be nothing more than a shared superstition in the belief that toads cause warts. It can also be an elaborate web of suggestions that affect most or all our perceptions. My cult leader "was" the sole authentic mouthpiece for all the world religions and about the spiritual nature of the universe. Through the struggle to dispel my attraction to the latter notions, I emerged into an interesting and challenging job with heart-warming victories and heart-rending defeats. This essay represents a portion of my story as a cult information specialist and my thoughts about guruism.

Personal Story Revisited

I began to tell this tale in 1980 when friends of mine in Albuquerque asked: "Are you still in the Teachings?" It was probably 1984 before I could answer "no" to the entirety of what it meant to be "in the Teachings," but I could answer by September 1980, that I no longer believed in some groups aligned with the Teachings. I broke my attachment to the one group with which I was most active, the Church Universal and Triumphant (aka Summit Lighthouse), about the time I booked an around-the-world series of flights. The photo above was taken during my one month stay in Nepal and India. The friends were then devotees of Elizabeth Clare Prophet (1939-2009), the "Guru Ma" and "Messenger" of Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT). Her devotees mostly called her "Mother." [Elizabeth Prophet suffered from epilepsy since her childhood; a neurological disorder that can produce visionary experiences. By 1997, she exhibited advanced stages of Alzheimer's Disease, was quite demented, and could no longer function as a Messenger. No one in CUT has taken her place]. The Teachings referred to are a body of esoteric and occult traditions and rituals offered by a host of enigmatic sects with controversial charismatic leaders or founders. Sects representing this form of occultism and neo-Gnosticism range worldwide. Most practitioners are well-educated and from affluent nations. The telling of why I left the Teachings was simpler decades ago. I have meandered through many passages of experience and research since then, but my CUT experience taught me the most about how deeply the psycho-social grip of a conversion penetrates one's soul. I learned that these forces weigh heavier when one tries to break free or de-convert, so much so that the mind comes up with every fascinating excuse to remain converted.

CUT has claimed to represent the essential Teachings of a perennial wisdom under labels like Theosophy (see Madame Blavatsky's Baboon), Anthroposophy, Rosicrucian, Gnostic/Fundamentalist Christian, New Age, Mystery School, Arcane, Ordo Adeptorum Invisiblum, and Agni Yoga. It is a much longer list, but the Teachings include aspects of major religions as well: mostly Catholic Christianity, Mahayana Buddhism, and Tantric Hinduism. The key concept behind CUT and similar groups is the devotee's alignment through the Messenger or Guru with a hierarchy of spiritual beings called the Great White Brotherhood of gods, goddesses, ascended masters, and elemental spirits. The Messenger is the human being through whom the spirits speak and listen. Typically, this is a unique position. Elizabeth Prophet recognized no other messenger, especially not one from a rival group or ascended being. There are many rival sects worldwide. A very short list is: Bridge to Freedom, I AM Activity, Aquarian Education Group, Ramtha School of Enlightenment, Mafu, Lazaris, Doctor Peebles , Extra Terrestrial Earth Mission, Ashtar Command, Sananda, and the Aetherius Society.

For example, Judith Z. Knight exclusively channels a spirit called Ramtha, a member of the "same" Great White Brotherhood as Prophet's ascended masters. Knights Ramtha School of Enlightenment conducts expensive workshops in psychic development at her ranch in Yelm, Washington. Prophet's ranch/retreat has been in Montana. Only JZ can channel Ramtha because Knight has legally trademarked Ramtha--kind of how Disney trademarks Mickey Mouse. However, both women have channeled Jesus, who apparently cannot be trademarked. Prophet had channeled messages or "dictation" from more than thirty spiritual beings including Buddha, Jesus, the Count of Saint-Germain, Hercules, and Mark Prophet (her dead second husband, a.k.a. Lanello). Other channelers have made a career out of the "dictation" from one ascended being. Alice A. Bailey (died 1949) spent the last three decades of her life writing down the arcane wisdom of "the Tibetan," a nickname for Djual Khul. DK was "invented" in the late nineteenth century by "his" previous amanuensis, Madame Helena P. Blavatsky, or "HPB" as her devotees fondly call her. Blavatsky lived from 1831 to 1891. HPB remains the most influential prototype of today's channelers.

Occultists like code names and initials: The Master M for Morya, and KH for Kuthumi, K-17 (a CUT spy master). There has always been something conspiratorial about occultists. They are, after all, guiding the world through dark, evolutionary times. Evil lurks among them in the guise of false Messengers and disguised "black" Magicians. A word here about "black" and "white." These colors, devotees of the Teachings will tell you, have nothing to do with race or skin. The colors indicate metaphysical "values" apparent to gurus who read auras psychically. True members of the Great White Brotherhood have brilliant white auras, not skin color, they say. Those bad Magicians have "darker" auras. Just ask someone like Elizabeth Prophet, if you can't see it for yourself. ;)

Another word here about race [see note below on current "I AM" cult racism]. Theosophists and occultists are just as prone to believe in "superior" and "inferior" races as any Nazi. This is not to say that all of them do. The Nazis, by some scholars reckoning, garnered their Aryan race ideals from men who studied Theosophical racist notions (a la Helena Blavatsky's writings: see The Spear of Destiny by T. Ravenscroft, 1985:159) Ravenscroft has been criticized by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, 1992. The Occult Roots of Nazism (NYU Press)--a superior study on this topic, but Goodrick-Clarke still relates the inherent racism in Theosophy and how it influenced the "Volkish" movements in Germany along with Nazism (p 31). The Theosophists borrowed the Aryan race as the superior one from a phase of what we call Hinduism. It goes something like this: The lighter the skin, the higher the caste, the more spiritual the attainment one allegedly has in this incarnation. Don't quote me on that. I've heard and read as much in teachings derived from Vedic culture, but I have also spoken to many Hindus who see past this simple caste or jati limitation. Every cultural tradition has its difficult and nasty history with us versus them cultural distinctions.

Historically, "Aryans" from the north conquered and culturally absorbed the darker-skinned, indigenous peoples of India around thirty-five hundred years ago. Separation rules were established according to family, culture, talent and political power. Fixed castes evolved by two thousand years ago. There is no word for caste in India. One is born into a jati (birth and social group) and into a varna (color). Even today traditional Hindus tend to marry within their jati to fulfill a social if not sacred, inviolable duty. Color matters to each jati. Centuries ago the tawny Brahmins who were in the highest caste may have been miffed when those "heathen," lighter Brits arrived to rule them. It struck me as doubly ironic in 1981 to see Caucasian or whiter Hare Krishnas from America "being" Brahmins in Vrindavan, India, Lord Krishna's legendary birthplace.

CUT accepted blacks by the time I joined them in the 1970s. There was a time when they apparently did not. That exclusion was passed to CUT from its reluctant parent group, the "I AM" Activity founded by Guy Ballard in the early 1930s. I AMers eschewed black people in their midst due to a peculiar race-karma belief. Old, racist I AMers told me so. Mark Prophet, the founder of CUT, reportedly (by many ex-members I interviewed who knew him) believed that blacks in Africa were the result of an alien race mating with apes. As it stood in the 1990s, less than 2% of CUT members were African American. This is not to say that all or any CUT devotees are racist. I was not racist when I believed.

Let's be fair about this. Racism exists in every culture. Human nature encourages us to protect our turf, environmental or spiritual, and to cluster with our kind. Racism becomes insidious when one culture has power over another and when one race defines another as a lower "species." Asian racism is history. Read about the Japanese occupation of Manchuria before and during World War II. Note how many a Korean feels about Eurasian babies. Adoption anyone? The Hutus vs. Tutsis in Rwanda have left a tragic modern legacy in Africa, yet they are both black peoples. The Serbs and the Croats (racist Americans might not call either group "white") keep at each other due to an old feud fueled by differences in language and culture, differences that can support racist perceptions and "ethnic cleansing." Prison populations are instructive. The races tend to cluster with their kind. I taught art at a state penitentiary for a year in 1976 and observed it. This is not to say that there is not camaraderie among prisoners from differing races or ethnic backgrounds, but the tendency was to cluster with their kind. Human nature tends toward ethnic interaction in ethnic clusters.

The Teachings stemming from Blavatsky, however, convince a devotee of evolving "root races" and of an initial root race that existed eons ago and was entirely etheric without physical bodies. Physicality evolved until it resembled our current state [fifth or sixth era of root races] during the fourth or "Atlantean" round. CUT (aka Summit Lighthouse) taught that their devotees are preparing for a seventh root race to emerge most likely in South America. CUT/SU sustains a significant following in South America. So, a devotee of the Teachings must decide if their recalcitrant spouse who disbelieves in the Teachings might just be a less evolved individual reincarnated in an earlier root race. Spiritual or metaphysical racism is what I call this form of spiritual prejudice.

One social force, however, can override (some say undermine) human tendencies to cluster ethnically. This is the force of belief in a trans-human dimension of spiritual powers and spiritual beings. Cult leader Jim Jones had a racially diverse Peoples Temple. His followers believed that Jones had thaumaturgic powers and saw him as God's prophet. Indeed, at one stage Jones stood on a Bible and declared, "I am God." On the other hand, an absolutist religious belief combined with ethnic superiority is a mighty mix. One scholar called it ideological totalism: "By this ungainly phrase I mean to suggest the coming together of immoderate ideology with equally immoderate individual character traits an extremist meeting ground between people and ideas"
(by Robert J. Lifton, 1989: 419).

The fascist style of a Rome ruled by Caesar transformed into a Holy Roman Empire with not a few decades of brutal Inquisition. The ancient Shinto cult of Japan has at times ruled the nation immoderately. Theocracies do not have a great track record in history. Nazism was a kind of theocracy. Church Universal and Triumphant and nearly all groups that promote the Teachings have this same theocratic agenda, albeit hidden from the uninitiated. It hides under patriotic flag waving in America, within obscure "sacred" lessons, and behind the First Amendment. To some degree, fascist or theocratic beliefs are legal in America and free to influence our government. Note the political maneuvers of the theocrat Reverend Moon in Washington. CUT has had theocratic agendas as well: It teaches that the Ascended Masters should be more directly involved in running our government through their "Christed ones" (CUT, Keeper of the Flame lesson, No. 29). Guess whose mouth these Ascended Masters will "use" to command their obedient chelas in Washington, DC? Hint: Only one can be a Messenger.

It bothered me to see guards at every entrance when I went to a CUT conference for the first time in 1979. It bothered me to have to go through a security check and give out the name of a CUT devotee who could vouch for me. It bothered me that I could not use my camera or tape recorder at the conference. It bothered me to wear a color coded badge that told everyone I was new to this. It bothered me that a tight-knit hierarchy of devotees formed a chain of command under Mother, the guru. Back then, hair length and styles were circumscribed by social influence if not outright instruction. Diet was also. Was I joining the military? What terrorist did this group fear anyway?

Whatever it was, I knew later that I was watching ideological totalism at work. It bothered me to not be allowed to attend dictation (ascended spirits using Elizabeth Prophet to speak to us) in the main chapel. To be fair, it was usually crowded. Neophytes and outsiders whose badge color matched mine watched the television monitors in other rooms. All this bothered me and much more. Did I leave? Of course not. I chose to be there, and this was a challenge, a test of my resolve to "serve the Masters." I believed I was intelligent. I would know when to leave. But my first wife divorced me over my CUT devotion a full year before I "divorced" CUT. I went to two more conferences over the next twelve months. Six months after attending the last one during Easter weekend of 1980, I finally rejected the cult, but not without huge inner struggles.

There were so many reasons to stay. I had made some good friends in the group. Did the group not teach a healthy vegetarian lifestyle, celibacy outside of marriage, avoidance of rock music, and clean, puritanical living, to live like a lay monk? I learned later that the highly regarded chelas on the CUT staff were secretly (back in 1979-80) eating meat. So was Elizabeth. Her daughter, Moira, later said it was prime cuts of beef, no less. Celibacy and sexual loyalty were not, reportedly, among the guru's better traits either (I tend to believe the firsthand witness accounts of her third, former husband, Randall "King"). Not least on this list of reasons to stay, I was haunted by the suggestion that it would have been better to never have heard of the Teachings, than to betray them in any way. It could mean "10,000" lifetimes of hell before I had this "opportunity" again. How could I know?

Anyway, I finally blew off all of it, all that talk about 10,000 lifetimes, because I was angry that I had ever entertained the "experience" of holiness within CUT as empirically real. I am sure that many devotees of Theosophy, CUT or any related group are, in fact, basically good people. True believers though they be, many are nevertheless good citizens, good neighbors, and caring parents. True believers in a bad idea perhaps. But what about the experiences? I "felt" a higher purpose among these people. And ahh, those feelings of bliss after twenty minutes of decrees. (We chelas were expected to chant specified prayers and commands over two hours a day. CUT provides a thick book of decrees). The bliss proved that the prayer worked. Some decrees invoked powerful cosmic rays (blue, green, yellow, violet, ruby and white; never red, orange, black, gray). Some decrees called on the Masters to manifest health, wealth, and peace for the devotees. Other decrees called for the judgment of bad people like Mikhail "communist" Gorbechev, David "capitalist" Rockefeller, all rock stars and liberal Democrats and not least of all, "disgruntled" former members that dared to speak against Mother or "the Masters" in public. I should mention those big, bad, black Magicians of the nether worlds too. Blaze, Blaze, Blaze them away with Bolts of Blue Lightening. Smash, Blast, Annihilate and Consume them away with Blue Rays of El Morya. Blue meant power! Blue meant protection too., that is, in the "I AM"/CUT paradigm.

I can recall once decreeing for blue protection rays to surround an airplane that just took off with my then one year old daughter and her mother on it. I had to. The blue rays might have been the difference between that 727 staying aloft or crashing. How did I know? An inner impulse, no doubt coming from my higher self and my I AM presence above, told me so. It was my experience that it was true. How can anyone argue with that? Since getting into my career of exit counseling, I have logged over five hundred flights (as of 1997) in an eleven-year period. No blue ray decrees. Airplanes seem to fly well without support of blue rays. The point is that I believed I could wield divine power, as all good devotees of occult teachings believe. Sorcery or "magick" is the fundamental cult of the neo-pagan, Wiccan and occultist. I once sat in a movie theater watching The Witches of Eastwick. In one scene we see a modern "witch," unnoticeable in an audience listening to a boring politician, cause a rainstorm to disrupt the political speech. It ended the tedious lecture much to the delight of the witch. Back in audience reality two middle-aged women seated in front of me laughed derisively when this happened. I heard one say to the other, "Oh, that's an easy one. Ive done that many times." She was serious! You rarely know who sits in front of you in a movie theater.

On another occasion, in 1989, I sat with a handful of innocuous neo-pagans and a Ramtha devotee (all women) in a New Age shop near Brisbane, Australia. One of them was my client's estranged wife. He hired me to determine just how deeply she was involved in Ramtha and, hopefully, to educate her to rise above it. She liked me (they all did), but she did not realize at all that her husband had sent me (none of them, all aspiring psychics, to be sure, did). I listened to talk of occult power and light, talk of which crystals did what, talk of where they were on the metaphysical path. Finally, it was just too much, so I joined in the conversation. Or should I say monologues. This stuff was down my alley after years of interaction with several sides of the esoteric pathways. I could have channeled old Morya right there and they would have accepted it. Well, maybe not. It helps to believe in it if you are going to do it.

Those women, like so many New Age occultists I have met, tended to speak "non-judgmentally." This means sitting there politely while someone goes on and on about her consciousness, gnosis, or experience without fear of challenge. After all, their truth is their Truth. You wait your turn and announce your insights while others nod appreciatively. How nice. But how nasty when one leaves. One lady did. "Non-judgmental" insights into why the departed person was not progressing spiritually dropped all over the place. From this slice of another New Age soap opera, I got the distinct impression of hypocritical monologuing between higher selves. The pretense to wisdom and high self-esteem. 

My struggle with the Teachings was a common one among seekers interested in fully understanding the esoteric words that attracted them. To fully understand occult realities, one must "experience" them in some inexplicable way. Reading is not enough. For example, if a group suggests that chanting a mantra will bring about the changes you desire, and you do "experience" the change after chanting, then, says the occultist, this is proof of a cause-effect relationship between our mantra and your changes. The occultist will say only you, the experiencer, can really tell. You can talk about chocolate all you want, but you have to eat it [experience it] to KNOW it. If youre not sure, you ask the guru. The occultist asks you, "How do you "feel" about it, what does your "intuition" tell you?" Enough coincidences happen in anyone's life to seem to affirm the effect of any occult ritual, like chanting a mantra or lighting candles. The skeptically impaired, the superstitious and the confused easily make the leap past coincidence and misinterpretation into "this stuff really works!" I cannot emphasize enough how powerfully this notion of EXPERIENCE dominates students of the occult and related New Age groups. By experience occultists tend to mean magical awareness more than empirical participation.

An aphorism for occult seekers might be: It is true for me because I experienced it (I am magically aware of this). A narcissistic tone is at the core of the "Path" of the occultist because all reality stems from the world "Within," the true inner "Self" that is different from the everyday consciousness available to human beings. Through the Teachings I wanted to tap and use this world "within" not only for my self betterment (to "transmute" my old lower self into a godlike awareness and power), but also for the good of the world. And that is what the Teachings promised I could accomplish.

The notion of "going within" is hardly an alien one. We seem to act inside when we think, feel, hear, smell, and breath. We act out when we touch, build, play and speak. But the impulse or energy to do so comes from the energy "within" our bodies. The occultist presumes that this inner world is somehow connected with, even identical with, the same forces that govern and create the physical and metaphysical universe. Thus, the occultists motto: As Above, So Below. This presumption of tappable divine power (e.g., ESP, levitation, past-life recall, invisibility, thaumaturgy, and metaphysical healing and destroying powers) pervades the Teachings. In CUTs version, the devotee taps and increases his or her metaphysical energy by becoming one with the I AM Presence (the personal Deity) through "decreeing," an elaborate form of rapid chanting, also called the Science of the Spoken Word (Mark & Elizabeth Prophet, 1984. Summit University Press) . If God "spoke" the world into existence, so can our spoken decrees "manifest" what we want into existence. As above: In the beginning was the Word; so below: In the end, there is the chanting devotee.

Grandiosity? The manipulation of spiritual energy is a common pursuit among occultists, most of whom maintain that their rituals for self-perfection are ultimately unselfish. A "perfected" being can better serve others, so they say. Some, CUT devotees among them, claim to do the will of the ascended masters who benevolently, it is presumed, guide the destiny of mankind as well as of the earth itself. Their decrees are "offered up" as quantities (e.g., 144 Reverse the Tide decrees, 12 Lord Michael protection decrees, or 40 Heart, Head and Hand decrees) for the "perfect" wills of the ascended masters to use. We send the ascended masters and gods "electricity," it is stored in akasa [space, ether] and the masters/gods hurl the lightening to earth. Other occultists, those who follow Aleister Crowley for example, might be serving a spirit (Aiwass in Crowleys case) in exchange for occult power, but they are determined to believe that it is their own will that is primary. "Do what thou wilt is the whole of the Law," say those who believe their wills are aligned with "Will" itself. But the only apparent will that is being followed is that of a human being who is a self-proclaimed magus, whether above as the guru self or below as the devotee self.

That was precisely the bind I found myself in with the Teachings, the bind of distinguishing my "lower self" will from that of my "higher self." A double bind occurred simultaneously whenever I entertained the "authority" of a guru or the teachings of a guru as spelled out in books, tapes, or in the lectures. Whose will was I following anyway? The conundrum of experience, I discovered then, was that all experience is conditioned by an interactive environment even the gurus! I had no unconditioned will. Neither did any spokesperson for the teachings be they servant or spook. There was (is) no unconditional will in the human realm. Our will will change if we are freezing or starving. Once I realized that, I could let go of my fear to question and reject the gurus altogether. They were in the same soup I was. My job became one of sorting out the more elegant ways to know my "self" and my socio-spiritual environment. I ceased becoming a lower self and a higher self, a head, and a heart (and a hand in CUT), or an untransmuted self and a "perfect" monad. I became what I always was and will be, Joe Szimhart, a person with body parts like a heart, a head, hands, feet, navel, etc. After I forgot about them, all my chakras must have spun so fast that they interacted as one force no longer separate. My chi found one location and disappeared. I am being facetious, of course, but I was a person again and not a collection of symbolic parts with psychosomatic references.

I saw that once the wedge of "awareness," of hip-Gnosis, is set into the psyche from the Teachings, the road to manipulation by gurus opens wide. And how they savor it, to be able to drive into your psyche and perfect your soul, to fine tune every nuance and micromanage your flow of being. The tolls had been paid by "experiences" that are often hypnotic: a successful vision quest, an ecstasy, a satori or samadhi, a hint of enlightenment to the impossible fact that you are not just you, but much more, oh, so much more. You are, your heightened awareness tells you, a "perfect" being, a monad or Thetan, but you do not know-tice it so well. You, oh unenlightened one, are living an illusion of the mundane self, suggests the enlightened guru. An example was G. I. Gurdjieff (died in 1949) who would have wanted me to remember my essence by practicing "Self Remembering." I met many persons devoted to Gurdjieff (Fourth Wayers), for example, walking about in simulated depersonalized states, watching themselves go through life or at least trying to—To live like that can be tiresome even for the most devoted, i.e., the "higher Self" watching the "machine." Remote control anyone? Who's pushing the buttons anyway? Mr. G loved programming his recruits. Many who submitted to G's will were once successful in the arts and financially secure--but many did not end up that way. The quest for enlightenment can take a real toll. [read The Harmonious Circle by James Webb, 1987]

Happily, few people in self-serving cults achieve complete roboticism (those that do might already have a mental illness and generally get kicked out). Some exhibit stilted behaviors temporarily during meetings as they try to be perfect or enlightened. I have noticed that newer persons who "succeed" in such "schools" or "trainings" or "intensives" tend to become hyper vigilant and hypersensitive to their environment for some time thereafter. Seasoned seekers who attend many "consciousness raising" sessions tend to get jaded. They usually find something good to say about their "experience" anyway, that is, until they find another experience to talk about. Most seekers of higher consciousness accomplish only a pretense of being depersonalized and get tired of it, of pretending to be aware or "awakened." They stop going to workshops and "mystery schools" of enlightenment and begin raising their kids again. It ain't easy playing God.

My CUT experience was my main entry into what happens in guru land when thousands show up for a "mystery school" weekend workshop or conference. I have since (usually vicariously) experienced variations on that theme by studying what happens in other cults of guru devotion. Different groups with similar social interactions and effects. Much the same theme, but always a different kind of drag. I mean, they dress differently, chant differently, gather money differently. They, the messengers of "don’t you wish you could be as much of a Higher Self as I am," might do things differently too. I wanted to believe that my experience in CUT was different, but it only looked different.

Aesthetics vs Empiricism in Spiritual Pursuits

Every new spiritual group offers a different aesthetic. Nothing basically wrong with that. It is what makes them unique. If you wish to attract a separate following, it helps to be unique. Uniqueness seems to flow from the charismatic people who found the new religions, therapies, and cultic movements. The groups take on the character of the leader in many ways through language, dress, diet, information, relationship, ritual, and goals. There are a host of psychological themes that shift inside of a person when they convert to the teachings of a charismatic leader. This is natural though it may upset outsiders who were once closer to the recruit. Natural because many studies show that human beings generally adapt to the environment’s social, psychological, or geographical in which they find themselves (e.g., prison, foreign culture, new government), or to which they convert (religion, political party, therapeutic cult).

Conversion, it can be argued, is an exchange, an interaction between the manipulative recruiter and the receptive recruit. I italicize the attributes of these social players because our average perception of manipulation is negative. It leads to the perception of victimization of the recruit whose free choice is then jeopardized. However, social interaction is a system of influence and all influence works through some degree of manipulation. We buy a hat because someone tells us where to buy it and how "good" it is. Sometimes we do not even think of buying a hat until we are influenced to buy one. For example, in the early 1980s, the Santa Fe Style (I lived in Santa Fe at the time) became a stylistic and architectural fad. Eastern city dwellers bought more Stetson hats, turquoise jewelry, and western boots than ever before. More city apartments were decorated with Navaho blankets and Pueblo pottery than ever before. We change our aesthetics when we believe in something or learn to value it. We also do it because we "appreciate" new ways to define ourselves, new ways to renew ourselves.

Renewal, or "renovatio," as Mircea Eliade stated it in his fine essay on the modern craze for the occult and cultic groups (Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural Fashions, 1976: 63), is a constantly recurring need in most people I know. Life does get stale sometimes we only need to regard marriage, career, or clothing styles to notice this. Our spiritual milieu can also get stale, boring, or meaningless. As superficial as this might sound, the appearance and outer expression (the aesthetics) are vehicles that we depend on to carry the meaning of our spirituality, to remind us of the meaning we seek and believe. The fundamental Roman Catholic aesthetic is dictated from the Vatican, but variations and additions to aesthetic themes surrounding Catholic liturgy are not always modest throughout the world. Catholicism in India might look radically different from Catholicism in Vermont or Haiti, but the ritual of the Eucharist, however, should remain consistent. The historic Vatican II conferences (in the 1960s under Pope John XXIII) aimed for renewal of Catholicism. The fundamentals remained but some of the the aesthetics changed.

Some readers might dispute my use of aesthetic as a noun that is primarily an adjective that means "beautiful" or "pleasing." Nevertheless, aesthetics is the philosophy of "sense perception." For example, it leads Arturo B. Fallico to state, "...an aesthetics or philosophy of art must be part of a self-accounting (Art & Existentialism, 1962:164). The same author cites "The Logic of Schopenhauer's Aesthetics" (IBID:56). It is tempting to launch into a discussion of existentialism and choice because it is central to the theme I am exploring here. Are we, as Sartre asserted, "condemned to be free." Are "all our decisions," as Fallico suggests, "like jumps off a cliff only rumors, and hearsay gives [us] an idea of where [we] will land" (IBID:59)? Or, are we a part of an interactive whole, more determined and influenced than we like to admit?

Perhaps the existentialist and the socialist draw from the same reality we participate in both philosophies on a complex spectrum of self-expression. Let them debate it. I am concerned here with the reality that some people get caught up with interactions that they later regret, and for good reasons. Some new religious movements are, after all, deeply flawed or rotten at the core despite the wonderful (aesthetic) testimony of the devotees. We may be "condemned to be free," but we are often conditioned and trapped by the choices we make. We are trapped in the aesthetics we accept. Once we choose, we exclude other choices. The potential power of the aesthetics over a person is clearly indicated in extremist cults. People in these groups behave in social and existential islands, circumscribed by a totalist milieu. Closure. Psychological closure appears in marriages when one partner joins a cult. The partner outside of the cult might share meals, house, and bed with the one inside, but something is radically different. "It is like she walked through the mirror. I can see her, but she's not here anymore." It is as if the partner fell in love with someone/something else.

The "inside" partner often perceives the other as a mere minnow of consciousness trapped in a fishbowl of mundane desires and attachments to money, pleasure, and image, or, to a worn-out model of the universe, a dead religion. At best the insider perceives the partner as one with an "unevolved" consciousness. "She" might be sympathetic to her partner's plight, but it is "his choice." Both partners might seek Truth, meaning, connection with the mysterious universe. Both might want self betterment and global healing. But the aesthetics, the "sense of perception," has radically changed one of them. The cultist does not mix easily in the outsider's milieu, especially in a marriage, unless he or she keeps the aesthetics in perspective. Aesthetics, the sense of perception, is indicative of the ultimate mystery we seek to approach, but it is not that. Even cult gurus tell us as much.

Theatrics

Another perspective that explains this "mind control" phenomenon or state comes when we analyze roles and identity formation. Human beings are especially adaptable to a wide variety of natural environments, diets, clothing and housing styles, social contracts, beliefs. Jobs, careers, technological advances, and artistic expressions exhibit how radically distinct humans are from "other" animals. Humans can adapt to a wide variety of roles and can pretend to be in intricate ways someone who they are not. We give out Oscars for that talent in Hollywood award events. Our "spies" make a career of playing a role without ever receiving Oscars. When a spouse observes a radical departure in their mate after that mate has aligned with a high demand group [could be multi-level marketing, religious, political, self-help or therapy, martial arts] it appears that the person is "not the same." I often have heard such concerned spouses exclaim: It is like she is dead to me; He seems to be in a trance; She's become another person; It is like the person I knew has died; They walked through a mirror--I can see them but they are in another world.

They are in fact playing out a new role on a stage managed by group leaders and perhaps a guru. In these cases, the stage is now reality, daring to drop the role and exit from the theater now becomes a major identity crisis if not spiritual suicide--there are heavy exit costs. Devotees of totalist groups commonly hear a version of: It would have been better that you had never heard of the Truth than to have heard and betrayed it . We find this ultimatum in the Christian testament. It begs the question: Is it the Truth we are betraying? Betrayal ostensibly invites harm, insanity, soul death, accidents, and any number of suggested personal disasters. This is not to mention the intimate sense of shame one must face for "choosing" a new identity that turns out to be not only false, but a really bad act---even totally ridiculous. You mean you believed in that crap--how could you have been so stupid! That threat of shame pain is enough to keep many people from even entertaining a doubt. Or, they may minimize the harm and call it a "learning experience" or some other euphemism. It is better to keep playing the role to some degree, the devotee thinks, even if it becomes obvious that the guru is flawed, and the group is not so great socially speaking. Professor Benjamin Zablocki suggests this is where "brainwashing" takes effect when one begins the struggle to reject and exit. The exit costs trigger the heaviest "mind control" response. Investment of identity is a huge investment not to mention money, time, and effort. How easy is it to say it was all for naught? Divorcing someone is tough enough, but then going back to that someone to say, "I made a big mistake" is another matter altogether. You can say, "I was not myself--I do not know what got into me." Sometimes even professional actors have difficulty removing themselves from their roles.

Bharati's Aesthetic

Confused? {Maybe it's my inept prose].  Perhaps Swami Agehananda Bharati (the former Leopold Fisher of Austria) can help. Bharati made a radical change as a teenager in Vienna when he chose to become a Hindu. That was in the late 1930s before he joined the Austrian military as part of the Indian contingent during the world war. Toward the end of the war, he was captured along with the native Indians by the allied forces he had so adapted to the Hindu languages and culture that the authorities took him for Hindu despite his Germanic appearance. Talk about aesthetics! Bharati did talk about aesthetics in his autobiography, The Ochre Robe (Ross-Erickson, 1980).

For me, he made a key point that can help all of us to comprehend what we do when we convert to a belief system. His life is instructive because he was born into a Christian jati, his varna was Caucasian white, not Brahmin tan, yet he somehow "legitimately" became an authentic swami in the highly exclusive world of Hindu caste. Two years after the war Leopold Fisher moved to India. He first joined an ashram founded by the radical, nineteenth century Hindu saint, Ramakrishna, for a year after he arrived in India. He tired of the ashrams pretensions and sought out the more traditional order of devotees of the Hindu saint Shankara (788-820 AD).

Eventually, by his erudition and pious behavior, Bharati convinced a legitimate swami to initiate him into the order. The swami knew full well that most orthodox Hindus would automatically reject this bold Austrian who would flaunt the Vedic rule of birth. He was born outside of the "twice-born" castes; therefore, he could not be a monk inside of a twice-born caste. Fisher would have to convince his swami peers of his authenticity, and he did it eloquently in later years. He taught clearly in several dialects throughout India over a decade. Hindus do make exceptions and the Vedas accommodate a wide spectrum of approaches. Bharati once testified in a US court that the Hare Krishnas were violating the sacred rite of Sankirtan (communal chanting, singing, and dancing in honor of God) with their fundraising schemes by the same name. At the end of his life he was a professor at Syracuse University in New York, yet maintaining his swami vows.

Bharati contends that the path he took was ethically neutral."[I]t was neither good nor bad, because choice of this nature is aesthetic [my emphasis] and not ethical" (The Ochre Robe, 1980:78). As a Hindu Bharati could be both a "secular humanist" and a monk. The Vedic tradition allows for a host of derivative positions within the Sanatana Dharma (the eternal, imperishable tradition) of Hinduism. Polytheists, atheists, and theists strive together under the same banner, unlike under the strict orthodoxy of the three great monotheistic religions. Bharati distinguished between "value" and "truth:" "....value in the ethical or aesthetic sense does not mean truth or validity" (IBID:79). Logical by most religious standards, Bharati valued belief, but he had a harsh standard for truth as standard that would please most skeptics.

"Truth must be obtained by other means: by investigation, by discursive thought, by comparison, by an exchange of ideas, by strict and uncompromising tests with objective criteria by logical, experimental or documentary proof" (IBID).

And this is the primary confusion of so many people caught up in cult behaviors, the confusion of their aesthetic worlds with the empirical one. Proof that God exists is not available to us if we accept the definition of God as infinite, ineffable, almighty, and eternal. We can only approach sacred mysteries through metaphorical beliefs, perhaps supported by rituals and doctrines. Our "experience" of spiritual realms remains aesthetic, no matter how real it "is" to us. It remains a perception albeit one that we value highly. This is shaky ground for a fundamentalist in any religion (and I include fundamentalist New Agers who believe in certain "truths" from aura reading, space aliens or astrology, for example) who equate beliefs with testable truth.

Bharati's distinction between aesthetic and empirical is the sane, democratic alternative to the unholy, destructive marriage called "occult science." Bharati argues vehemently that there is no such thing as yogic science or a "scientific Hinduism." There is only a yogic "method" or a system of Hindu beliefs, codes, rituals, and mythologies. By the same reasoning there is no Christian science, divine science, science of the soul, or sacred science. The CUT teachings encouraged me to believe that occult science was approachable as if it existed. The unholy marriage of those two realms leaves no room for discursive thought or healthy doubt. The occultist dares not challenge the Ancient Wisdom, unless, of course, he is the one making it up. It is too powerful. His motto is To Know, To Dare, To Do, and To Be Silent. The "Silent" part generally means don't talk about your unprovable axioms and magical experiences to skeptics or perceived enemies. Do not throw your pearls before swine!

Viewing a belief system as necessarily aesthetic removes the pressure of absolutism and the potential evil of totalism as an option for the believer. It allows for more lateral thinking and testing, and it avoids the manipulative relationship with "sacred science" from "above." Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad argue at length against authoritarian guruism for precisely this reason in The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power (Frog, Ltd. 1993). When a devotee perceives a guru as someone who has "transcended" normal human consciousness, as someone who has transcended the dualism of "good and evil," who has "Self-realized" to the point of "oneness" with the divine source, that devotee is prime material for manipulation. It works like this: By recognizing the enlightened status of the guru, the devotee asserts an ability to recognize an enlightened being, thus elevating his or her status on the ladder of spiritual progress.

This convenience is a relationship now removed from any grounding in critical attention. "Fear and Doubt" are now your demons. "Do not listen to them," says the cult guru. Once the devotee steps off the ground to get on the spiritual ladder under the guru, her or his only option is up. "It is better that you had never stepped onto the path than to ever betray it once you have" is a universal axiom within both guruism and occultism. The suggestion is that it is a long way down and that you will get hurt or fall into madness, suicide, accident, or thousands of lifetimes in karmic oblivion await you if you dare step down. Another suggestion is that the guru can protect you from all of that if you remain loyal. But guess who is always in the way to a direct relationship with the sacred? Guess who will not let you surpass them. This same conundrum exists in Christian cults of "discipling." The International Churches of Christ (unrelated to the mainline Church of Christ) under Kip McKean have been one the prime offenders in this area of authoritarian discipling, but there are many others. In these cases, the disciple is constantly under the discipler (guru) in his or her contrived relationship with God.

Whether it is Jesus or another sacred spirit that the devotee worships, it behooves that person to remember the democratic principle of aesthetics in spiritual matters suggested by Bharati. Regarding this ultimate sacred spirit or space, if that exists at all, is a moot point, according to Bharati we are all hampered by a mysterious relationship with it. There is no way to prove and replicate to everyone’s satisfaction that ascension to heaven, nirvana, or angels happen or exist. Science, by definition and domain, is purely a human activity through which we learn to better understand and manipulate "created" things. We can prove and replicate to everyone’s (those educated enough to notice) satisfaction that smallpox inoculation or satellite transmission work. We cannot prove scientifically that astrological divination the highly subjective art of interpretation of magical stellar motion and influence works. We may create new things, but we did not create the source materials that come from a nirvana or a heaven. That creation source remains a mystery.

Creation is the art and science of God if you will. Source Mystery if you will not. When we practice good, honest science (not the pretend, occult kind) we are sympathetic with the "science" of the Creator or Source. When we practice good art, we are sympathetic with the "art" of that same source. When we claim that our art is science, as do many astrologers and alternative healers, we witlessly pretend. Whatever we choose to practice we must remember that even our gurus (or scientists) are so far removed from this "source" or God, that their "superior" progress up the spiritual ladder is negligible, if it is there at all. If you are under one, then they must be sitting on you. What a burden. Stepping off and getting on with your life (your own, clear ladder to God or Source) is no big deal, but the illusion of having gone very "high" and getting hurt from the "fall" is both seductive and a very big deal. That illusion is called "cult mind control."

A few New Age authors recognize this democratic principle behind healthy spiritual pursuit. Ken Wilber calls it Eye to Eye (Shambhala, 1990) in a book by that title. What makes Wilber "New Age," despite his eschewing all the magical nonsense that falls under that category, is his continuing obsession to define "consciousness." The subtitle of Eye to Eye is The Quest for the New Paradigm. On the back book cover it states: "Ken Wilber is credited with developing a unified field theory of consciousness..." Okay...maybe not. In any case, Wilber does distinguish between the domains I mentioned, the aesthetic from the empirical. In his words: "To give a simple example, there is no empirical-scientific proof for the meaning of Hamlet [Shakespeare’s drama]. It is a mental-symbolic production and can thus be understood or apprehended only by a mental act sensory evidence is almost entirely worthless" (Wilber, 1990:48). The author is careful, like Bharati, to give science its proper domain without confusing it with other realms of the aesthetic domain. I say "realms" because Wilber has a propensity to subdivide consciousness of non-physical reality into numerous, derivative categories. By example, he posits nine levels above the physical: "Sensoriperceptual, Emotional-Sexual, Phantasmic, Rep-mind, Rule/Role mind, Reflexive-Formal Mind, Vision-Logic, Subtle, and Causal" (IBID:285).

I read the book and I still do not know exactly what he is talking about so don't ask me to explain his "hierarchy" of consciousness, but I do know that he derives his metaphysical aesthetic (not science) from psychologists, philosophers, Hinduism, Buddhism and one controversial, pathologically narcissist guru who keeps changing his name [Adi Da, e.g.]. This hierarchy is Wilber's pallet with which he tries to paint a picture of our reality. Some people appreciate it. We might all recognize his talent, namely, his erudition, his honesty, his flexibility, his accuracy (where it applies), and his openness to scrutiny. he may be less narcissistic than Adi Da, or the guru-that-keeps-changing-his-name, although the guru might dispute it. That guru "sits" on his devotees on the spiritual ladder below. Former devotees observed that the guru has literally [measurable by science] "shit" on selected aspirants when Consciousness so moved him. He is "God." The devotee’s job in that cult of guru devotion is to transcend the guru's mangling of reality or shit, and meet G-d. But all he gets is the guru. If you believe that your guru would never do such a nasty thing, think of your position on the ladder.

In Christian circles the great leveler of guruism, or the discipling movements, is the Gospel itself. Jesus is quoted as teaching his disciples:

"As for you, do not be called Rabbi. You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called Master; you have but one master, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted" (Matthew 23:8-12).

Jesus is not railing against using Rabbi or father to address a pious man or scholar; he is condemning the false spirit that some men and women endorse when they exalt anyone human to divine status. The controversy over Jesus being the exception is cleared up when we realize that his fullness as "God" was not firmly recognized (spoken and later written as the gospel) by early Christians until after he died and "ascended" to "sit at the right hand of the Father." Until his death, Jesus lived as a "servant" and an itinerant minister. He taught a challenging doctrine with universal implications. More specifically, the disciple's full recognition of Jesus as "God" occurred during the charismatic descension of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. That mystical event converted the fearful disciples into bold preachers. This was the baptism of fire (spirit) predicted by John the Baptist, and later by Jesus just prior to his ascension. Christians derive their aesthetics from events like the Pentecost gathering.

Lest anyone think that I am dissing all guruism in any religion, I am not. Bharati clearly notes that rogues exist among the Indian swamis in great numbers. He implies that some monks are great souls with high ethical values. Most Hindu monks are probably no worse or better than religious ministers in any religion from the secular standpoint. It is a sad tribute to Eastern religions that so many flawed gurus have created cults around themselves in the West. Sadder still are the cults that have formed around western born gurus appropriating the eastern "godman" status without the ethics, morals, and training that a saintly teacher uphold. Stories from disenchanted devotees about bad gurus are legion.

Positively Speaking

What, then, is a good guru? If you follow my metaphor of the ladder to heaven, then the good guru is one who helps you get on your ladder and steps aside. I am talking about spiritual matters, not scientific or empirical, not factual, or behavioral I am not speaking about the mundane world where we might be "under the thumb" of a strict professor, corporate executive, or military ruler. With the "grounded" guru, teaching takes place only on the ground between "brothers" and "sisters," not between guru and chela (literally, "slave"). Between the guru and the chela model the mundane model of a military chain-of-command is grossly transferred from realms that the guru can only pretend to know and experience. A confident pretense or an artful presentation fools many devotees, especially those prone to mystical "experiences."

The hierarchy of rungs is universally the same for you as anyone else, and the universality includes the psychopathic guru. Once on the ladder, as far as we can humanly tell, we are on our own, so to speak, now in a relationship with the ineffable. The most common expression of this experience of the sacred is: "I have no words." But we do have metaphors made up of words and images that communicate what we think was going on. Note all the angel and out-of-body experience tales that are on bookstore shelves these days.

An atheist or hardened skeptic might argue that the ladder, the metaphors, or the images are constructs of the mind that have other explanations, even scientific ones. However, if you make the claim, show me the evidence so I can test it. No evidence? Then I assume you are speaking aesthetically, not empirically. The argument cuts both ways into both skeptical opinions and occult axioms. A Buddhist might agree that the ladder is a mental construct. So might a Hindu, especially those that follow the Advaita (non-dualist) philosophies. Swami Bharati said as much also. His position, as I stated before, treats the debate about what is more real, the metaphysical or the physical, as moot. Bharati acknowledges the debate only but does not take sides. To him it does not matter.

Bharati's position is a variation on Blaise Pascal's famous Wager for his skeptic friends: It is better to believe in God just in case He does exist; if He does not, it will not make much difference [paraphrased]. To Bharati it makes some difference because we must choose to live our lives some way, even if we choose not to choose and flow with the status quo. He chose Hinduism because the "style" suited him. He liked the archaic traditions, the cacophony of deities, the languages, and the scope of philosophy that Hinduism affords the monk. In a simplistic sense, he was like the art aficionado who sees a painting and buys it just because he likes it. The elegance with which he later came to understand and experience his "purchase" speaks both of his richness of being as it does of the richness of the Hindu aesthetic. He achieved what I like to call an elegant Hindu life. He did not get trapped below a guru for life. His guru was Shiva, the "high God" of his order. Whether Shiva, Allah, or Yahweh, Bharati argued that in the end it is only the "high God" who knows whether a monk is truly worthy. The ladder, after all, is only a symbol of our effort, a metaphor that only God can understand perfectly, but one that we can change and refine on our journeys home.

Some extra reading:

One intriguing example of a good guru is the fictional character of "Naga Baba" created by Gita Mehta (1993) in her beautiful story of the paradoxical Indian tradition, A River Sutra (Doubleday). It is a wonderful counterpoint to her witty Karma Cola (1979, Simon & Schuster).

For more on Blavatsky see K. Paul Johnson. (1994) The Masters Revealed: Madame Blavatsky & the Myth of the Great White Lodge. SUNY Press.

Jeffrey M. Masson (1993) weaves a great autobiographical account of the subtle, insidious control guru Paul Brunton wielded over his family in My Father's Guru: A Journey Through Spirituality and Disillusion. Addison-Wesley.

Flavil R. Yeakley, Jr. (1988) researched and edited The Discipling Dilemma (Gospel Advocate, Co.). He analyses how Christian guruism or "discipling" has adverse effects on personality development.