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independence, which feels out of control, self-annihilation may seem like the less terrifying
of two evils.
Those who become self-annihilating often turn to self-injurious behaviors. However,
annihilation of self is only one side of the attempt to overcome unbearable feelings of
powerlessness. There is an alternative to outright self-destructiveness which bears more
directly on the subject of cults:
The other side is the attempt to become a part of a bigger and more powerful
whole outside of oneself, to submerge and participate in. This power can be a
person, an institution, God, the nation, conscience, or a psychic compulsion.
By becoming part of a power which is felt as unshakably strong, eternal, and
glamorous, one participates in its strength and glory. One surrenders one‘s
own self and renounces all strength and pride connected with it, one loses
one‘s integrity as an individual and surrenders freedom but one gains a new
security and a new pride in the participation in the power in which one
submerges. One gains also security against the torture of doubt (Fromm,
1965, p. 177) (italics mine).
Fromm calls the power one submerges oneself in the ―magic helper.‖ When one feels
helpless and hopeless to express and realize one‘s individual potential, dependence on a
magic helper provides a solution which shifts the emphasis off the self, which is experienced
as empty and worthless, to the magic helper. The magic helper, in our fantasy, has all the
answers, can take care of everything, and loves and accepts us perfectly, thereby
confirming and validating our existence. Merging with the magic helper banishes emptiness,
loneliness and anxiety—and magical security is established. Then separation, individuation,
and its accompanying terrors can be averted altogether. One can join a cult and effect a
kind of separation from one‘s family and background—but the actual task of individuation is
not undertaken. The pseudo-separation attempt degenerates into a regression to deeper
levels of dependence and enmeshment.
Before further elaborating Fromm‘s concept of the magic helper, it is important to note that
Fromm, who was himself deeply interested in spirituality and religious mysticism, did not
intend to suggest that the idea of God is always and only a delusional, masochistic idea. On
the contrary, Fromm saw the magic helper concept as a perversion of spirituality and did
not intend his concept to be used as an argument against spirituality or religion.
In the relationship to the magic helper, ―the question is then no longer how to live oneself,
but how to manipulate ‗him‘ in order not to lose him and how to make him do what one
wants, even to make him responsible for what one is responsible oneself‖ (Fromm, 1965, p.
199). Paradoxically, obedience and goodness are among the most common methods used
to attempt to manipulate and control the magic helper. Yet the enslavement to the magic
helper that is then experienced is resented and creates conflict. This conflict must be
repressed in order not to lose the magic helper. Additionally, people who pose as magic
helpers eventually and inevitably demonstrate their imperfection, if not their complete
fraudulence. Thus, the underlying anxiety about the authenticity of the magic helper, or
about losing him through not being worthy, constantly threatens the security sought for in
the relationship. This is a real double bind. As Berger (1967) notes, ―the masochistic
attitude is inherently predestined to failure, because the self cannot be annihilated this side
of death and because the other can only be absolutized in illusion‖ (p. 56).
Kliger (1994), in her study of devotees of a leader named ―Guru,‖ demonstrates that it is
precisely this conflict in the devotees that results in the high degree of somatization she
found among them. Unhappiness and dissatisfaction amongst members was considered by
Guru to be hostile, a threat to the community. Guru demanded that devotees show a happy
face at all times, claiming that their unhappy faces made him physically and psychically ill.

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 17
(This is also what Gurumayi teaches her SYDA staff.) Because the devotees were
stigmatized by Guru for any expression of dissatisfaction, devotees suppressed these
feelings, which then emerged through somatization. Physical illness was more acceptable to
Guru, because he saw himself as a healer and could use a devotee‘s illness to demonstrate
his power. If his healing efforts failed, however, devotees‘ illnesses were deemed a
manifestation of their resistance, proving that they were hostile to Guru‘s mission.
Punishment by shunning followed, which led either to devotees‘ further submission, or to
their excommunication (Kliger, 1994, pp. 232-233). These kinds of shizophrenegenic mixed
messages were pervasive in SYDA as well. For most of those SYDA members that I knew
personally who worked directly with Gurumayi, attempting to please her would eventually
lead to breakdowns in physical and mental health. Gurumayi resented people who were
confident, and she was contemptuous of people who were weak. Trying to be what
Gurumayi wanted you to be so that she would remain pleased with you was impossible,
because she changed the rules at whim. It was common for staff members to disappear
suddenly because they had been sent to rehabilitation centers for various addictions or
disorders, or to a SYDA center in Honolulu for rest. In cults, breakdown is often the only
option for members who have humiliated and diminished themselves as far as they could,
and who unconsciously seek some sort of escape from the leader‘s insatiable demands for
further abasement and submission.
When the magic helper is a drug such as heroin, the annihilation of the self may culminate
in the death of the body. If it is food, the self is concealed in obesity, or enslaved to
anorexia and bulimia. When the magic helper is an idealized but traumatizing parent who is
ambivalently both hated and totally depended on, annihilation of the self manifests as the
inability to separate and individuate.
What makes cults so insidious is that when the magic helper is a cult leader, the annihilation
of the self, the loss of one‘s own voice, personal values, and integrity, can be paradoxically
experienced as a triumph, a conversion from hopeless badness to potential perfection.2
Again, SYDA provides useful material in support of this point. In SYDA philosophy, the ―ego‖
is devalued as something small and selfish that must be surrendered to the guru, to be
magically transformed into pure awareness of the transcendent ―inner Self,‖ which is one
with the guru and with God. The sense of ―doership,‖ of taking credit for or enjoying the
fruits of one‘s own actions, is in particular a sure sign of ―wrong understanding.‖ The right
understanding is that whatever the guru says or does is a direct expression of God‘s will,
and that everything good flows from the magic grace of the guru. By surrendering the ego
and the sense of doership to the guru, the sins of pride and selfishness are supposedly
expiated. Practically, this means that experiencing oneself as a center of agency and
initiative, as a creative person capable of taking pleasure in the use of one‘s own talents and
skills, should be a source of shame—because nothing belongs to oneself it all belongs to
and comes from the guru. On the other hand, one must always be ready to confess and
take credit for one‘s sins and transgressions—which in this system, are the sole property of
the follower and his small, impure, selfish ego. The cult leader depends on maintaining the
smallness, guilt, and shame of her followers as an essential means of sustaining her own
delusion of impeccable perfection. And the cult follower can come to believe that his
enslavement is the highest form of liberation, his alienation the highest form of connection.
Conclusions
In my work with former cult members, my aim is to help them make sense of their
experience in a way that feels meaningful. The psychoanalytically informed therapist will
seek to facilitate former members‘ ability to bear the many losses they have experienced,
not the least of which is the loss of belief in the cult and its leader. Former members may
also have guilt to bear, along with intense fears about their future. As they become better
able to bear the many kinds of pain connected to their cult experience, they can begin to