Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 12
overwhelming, Zweig encounters Swami Muktananda, or Baba (Father), the original founder
of Siddha Yoga. From Baba, he learns to anesthetize his ―mental busyness, ...obsessive
thinking and ...anxiety‖ (quoted in Lasch, pp. 21-25).
Cushman (1990) notes that
inner emptiness is expressed in many ways in our culture, such as low self-
esteem (the absence of a sense of personal worth), values confusion (the
absence of a sense of personal convictions), eating disorders (the compulsion
to fill the emptiness with food, or to embody the emptiness by refusing food),
drug abuse (the compulsion to fill the emptiness with chemically induced
emotional experience of ―receiving‖ something from the world). It may also
take the form of an absence of personal meaning. This can manifest as a
hunger for spiritual guidance, which sometimes takes the form of a wish to be
filled up by the spirit of God, by religious ―truth,‖ or by the power and
personality of a leader guru (p. 604).
The hunger for spiritual guidance, and relief from varying degrees of despair and fear, is
often what impels people to explore religious and secular self-improvement groups. Yet the
leaders of these groups typically do not attempt to help the seeker explore and make sense
of the difficulties that have led him to seek spiritual consolation or self-improvement.
Rather, the cult leader exploits the seeker‘s emotional vulnerabilities, and seduces the
seeker into a state of dependence. Promising the acquisition of success and power, salvation
and redemption, or relief from frustration and inhibition, the leader persuades the followers
that the leader‘s self-proclaimed perfection can belong to the follower as well. All one must
do is totally embrace the leader‘s ideology. In cults, this always means securing the leader‘s
favor by enthusiastically agreeing to recruit others to the leader‘s program.
While Zweig‘s malaise, referred to above, may provide a recognizable snapshot of the
zeitgeist of his pre-guru days (think Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate), Zweig is also
implicitly referring to the untold story of his own unique psychological history. Yet Zweig
strikingly omits a psychological analysis of his distress, apparently satisfied that the struggle
to make sense of and deal with his despair is rendered unnecessary and irrelevant by the
magical euphoria granted by contact with his guru.
I have found the work of Heinz Kohut, the founder of the school of self psychology, whose
ideas about narcissism have been highly influential, to be particularly useful in thinking
about the allure of cults (see also Kriegman &Solomon, 1985). Kohut coined the term
selfobject to refer to providers, initially parents, of basic psychological functions required by
infants in order for the sense of security, vitality, and connectedness to develop and
consolidate. Dedicated and loving caregivers, using their capacities for empathic
attunement, perform three crucial functions for the developing child‘s sense of self: 1) by
mirroring, taking delight in, the child‘s efforts to connect and be recognized, the child comes
to feel basic self-worth 2) by providing a model of strength and effectiveness the child can
idealize, the child internalizes a sense of security and 3) by encouraging the sense of
belonging and sameness, what Kohut called twinship, the child feels comfortable in and a
part of the human community (not isolated and alienated). The successful collaboration of
parent and child in negotiating these selfobject needs would lead to the child‘s experience of
a firm sense of self as a center of initiative and agency, with the confidence to develop
ambitions and ideals, and to realize them. Good enough selfobject provision is the basis
from which an individual learns to sustain and regulate adequate self-esteem (healthy
narcissism) throughout all the vicissitudes of maturation. Selfobject provision (or more
simply, parenting, when it is children that are being provided for) is by nature empathic and
respectful, as distinguished from the controlling, dominating, scapegoating and/or exploitive
behaviors characteristic of pathologically narcissistic provision.
overwhelming, Zweig encounters Swami Muktananda, or Baba (Father), the original founder
of Siddha Yoga. From Baba, he learns to anesthetize his ―mental busyness, ...obsessive
thinking and ...anxiety‖ (quoted in Lasch, pp. 21-25).
Cushman (1990) notes that
inner emptiness is expressed in many ways in our culture, such as low self-
esteem (the absence of a sense of personal worth), values confusion (the
absence of a sense of personal convictions), eating disorders (the compulsion
to fill the emptiness with food, or to embody the emptiness by refusing food),
drug abuse (the compulsion to fill the emptiness with chemically induced
emotional experience of ―receiving‖ something from the world). It may also
take the form of an absence of personal meaning. This can manifest as a
hunger for spiritual guidance, which sometimes takes the form of a wish to be
filled up by the spirit of God, by religious ―truth,‖ or by the power and
personality of a leader guru (p. 604).
The hunger for spiritual guidance, and relief from varying degrees of despair and fear, is
often what impels people to explore religious and secular self-improvement groups. Yet the
leaders of these groups typically do not attempt to help the seeker explore and make sense
of the difficulties that have led him to seek spiritual consolation or self-improvement.
Rather, the cult leader exploits the seeker‘s emotional vulnerabilities, and seduces the
seeker into a state of dependence. Promising the acquisition of success and power, salvation
and redemption, or relief from frustration and inhibition, the leader persuades the followers
that the leader‘s self-proclaimed perfection can belong to the follower as well. All one must
do is totally embrace the leader‘s ideology. In cults, this always means securing the leader‘s
favor by enthusiastically agreeing to recruit others to the leader‘s program.
While Zweig‘s malaise, referred to above, may provide a recognizable snapshot of the
zeitgeist of his pre-guru days (think Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate), Zweig is also
implicitly referring to the untold story of his own unique psychological history. Yet Zweig
strikingly omits a psychological analysis of his distress, apparently satisfied that the struggle
to make sense of and deal with his despair is rendered unnecessary and irrelevant by the
magical euphoria granted by contact with his guru.
I have found the work of Heinz Kohut, the founder of the school of self psychology, whose
ideas about narcissism have been highly influential, to be particularly useful in thinking
about the allure of cults (see also Kriegman &Solomon, 1985). Kohut coined the term
selfobject to refer to providers, initially parents, of basic psychological functions required by
infants in order for the sense of security, vitality, and connectedness to develop and
consolidate. Dedicated and loving caregivers, using their capacities for empathic
attunement, perform three crucial functions for the developing child‘s sense of self: 1) by
mirroring, taking delight in, the child‘s efforts to connect and be recognized, the child comes
to feel basic self-worth 2) by providing a model of strength and effectiveness the child can
idealize, the child internalizes a sense of security and 3) by encouraging the sense of
belonging and sameness, what Kohut called twinship, the child feels comfortable in and a
part of the human community (not isolated and alienated). The successful collaboration of
parent and child in negotiating these selfobject needs would lead to the child‘s experience of
a firm sense of self as a center of initiative and agency, with the confidence to develop
ambitions and ideals, and to realize them. Good enough selfobject provision is the basis
from which an individual learns to sustain and regulate adequate self-esteem (healthy
narcissism) throughout all the vicissitudes of maturation. Selfobject provision (or more
simply, parenting, when it is children that are being provided for) is by nature empathic and
respectful, as distinguished from the controlling, dominating, scapegoating and/or exploitive
behaviors characteristic of pathologically narcissistic provision.
