72 International Journal of Cultic Studies Vol. 4, 2013
saintly Western women he met in India who
were completely devoted to Krishna and to their
work for ISKCON there. Yet, sadly, in
antiwoman Hinduism and ISKCON, these
women were not appreciated or allowed to fully
reach their potential in the movement, or to fully
realize their spirituality. This, of course, can be
true for women in our patriarchal Western
religions, as well. Gelberg points out that highly
spiritual male devotees also often lose out in the
ISKCON administrative structure to those more
adept at executive and networking skills.
I also enjoyed Gelberg’s chapter titled
“Confessions of a Hin-Jew.” Eli Weisel, one of
Gelberg’s mentors when he took courses at
Boston University after he left ISKCON, urged
him to examine why he had left his own religion
to become a Hare Krishna. Gelberg explains in
the book that his bland and uninteresting Jewish
religious education had never allowed him the
spiritual quest or imparted to him the emotional
fulfillment he found in ISKCON. I am happy to
report that Jewish education for youngsters has
greatly improved thanks to efforts of people like
my rabbi daughter, who is bringing the
emotional Jewish youth camping experiences
into formalized synagogue education.
Gelberg and his then-wife left the group when
his parents offered to pay their tuition to finish
their education. He writes poignantly of the
difficulty of leaving ISKCON, with which I’m
sure most ex-members of such groups would
agree:
After many years of inhabiting a
cerebral realm of universals, it is not
easy to return to a universe of
particulars, difficult to break the pattern
of subordinating personal perception
and experience to unassailable abstract
absolutes, hard to breathe the untreated
air of a non-ideological universe. There
is tremendous snob appeal, after all, in
being one among the elect – a privileged
consumer of revealed knowledge whose
sense of reality is unsullied by personal
subjective experience, who floats
serenely above human fallibility and
illusion. (p. 179)
Gelberg did study at Harvard Divinity School,
with courses also at nearby Boston University
but unfortunately he stopped at his MA instead
of pursuing a PhD as he had planned. Gelberg
did not become a formal scholar in the field of
what we used to call comparative religion in the
days when I taught it, and that is a great loss to
the academic world. He would have contributed
his brilliance and wonderful writing skills to that
discipline. However, he has written broadly and
is now also a successful photographer in the San
Francisco Bay area.
Anyone interested in India or Eastern thought or
cults, or just fascinating travel writing will enjoy
this wonderfully written and insightful book.
saintly Western women he met in India who
were completely devoted to Krishna and to their
work for ISKCON there. Yet, sadly, in
antiwoman Hinduism and ISKCON, these
women were not appreciated or allowed to fully
reach their potential in the movement, or to fully
realize their spirituality. This, of course, can be
true for women in our patriarchal Western
religions, as well. Gelberg points out that highly
spiritual male devotees also often lose out in the
ISKCON administrative structure to those more
adept at executive and networking skills.
I also enjoyed Gelberg’s chapter titled
“Confessions of a Hin-Jew.” Eli Weisel, one of
Gelberg’s mentors when he took courses at
Boston University after he left ISKCON, urged
him to examine why he had left his own religion
to become a Hare Krishna. Gelberg explains in
the book that his bland and uninteresting Jewish
religious education had never allowed him the
spiritual quest or imparted to him the emotional
fulfillment he found in ISKCON. I am happy to
report that Jewish education for youngsters has
greatly improved thanks to efforts of people like
my rabbi daughter, who is bringing the
emotional Jewish youth camping experiences
into formalized synagogue education.
Gelberg and his then-wife left the group when
his parents offered to pay their tuition to finish
their education. He writes poignantly of the
difficulty of leaving ISKCON, with which I’m
sure most ex-members of such groups would
agree:
After many years of inhabiting a
cerebral realm of universals, it is not
easy to return to a universe of
particulars, difficult to break the pattern
of subordinating personal perception
and experience to unassailable abstract
absolutes, hard to breathe the untreated
air of a non-ideological universe. There
is tremendous snob appeal, after all, in
being one among the elect – a privileged
consumer of revealed knowledge whose
sense of reality is unsullied by personal
subjective experience, who floats
serenely above human fallibility and
illusion. (p. 179)
Gelberg did study at Harvard Divinity School,
with courses also at nearby Boston University
but unfortunately he stopped at his MA instead
of pursuing a PhD as he had planned. Gelberg
did not become a formal scholar in the field of
what we used to call comparative religion in the
days when I taught it, and that is a great loss to
the academic world. He would have contributed
his brilliance and wonderful writing skills to that
discipline. However, he has written broadly and
is now also a successful photographer in the San
Francisco Bay area.
Anyone interested in India or Eastern thought or
cults, or just fascinating travel writing will enjoy
this wonderfully written and insightful book.
