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In the two years prior to the publication of the article, I had slowly and painfully begun to
acknowledge to myself and others that there were aspects of SYDA and its leaders that I
found unethical and disturbing. In particular, I had witnessed and personally experienced
Gurumayi verbally and emotionally abusing her followers, publicly shaming and humiliating
those with whom she was displeased in cruel and harsh ways. I had heard her tell lies and
witnessed her deliberately deceiving others. I witnessed her condoning and encouraging
illegal and unethical business and labor practices, such as smuggling gold and U.S. dollars in
and out of India, and exploiting workers without providing adequate housing, food, health
care, or social security. I was aware that for many years, Gurumayi, and her predecessor,
Swami Muktananda, had been using spies, hidden cameras, and microphones to gather
information about followers in the ashram. I had heard whispers that Muktananda, contrary
to his claims of celibacy and renunciation, had extensive sexual relations with female
followers, which he then lied about and which he attempted to cover up with threats of
violence to those who sought to expose him. Later, after I exited Siddha Yoga in 1994, I
came to recognize in Muktananda‘s and Gurumayi‘s behavior toward their followers the
hallmarks of abuse: the use of power to seduce, coerce, belittle, humiliate, and intimidate
others for the ultimate purpose of psychological enslavement and parasitic exploitation.
I had deeply suppressed my doubts about SYDA for many years, but they suddenly and
dramatically crystallized when I heard the story of the young woman I knew. In the phrase,
―Don‘t ever tell anyone about this, especially not your mother,‖ I heard a chilling echo of the
voice of the incestuous father, the battering husband, the sexual harasser, the rapist. As
Judith Herman says, in her seminal work entitled Trauma and Recovery (1992), ―secrecy
and silence are the perpetrator‘s first line of defense‖ (p. 8). It was hearing these words,
―Don‘t ever tell,‖ that broke for me what Ernst Becker (1973) has called ―the spell cast by
persons --the nexus of unfreedom.‖ I recognized that, like many of my social work clients
who were abused as children by their parents, I too had been subjected to abuse—by the
person I called my guru.
In this paper I will: 1) present a psychoanalytic conceptualization of the psychopathology of
the cult leader 2) discuss ways that cult leaders manipulate, abuse, and exploit followers
and 3) present theories about individual relational and also broader cultural factors that
influence the individual‘s psychological organization in ways that may contribute to
vulnerability to cult participation. I draw from various psychoanalytic schools, including
object relations (both Kleinian and Middle School), interpersonal, self psychology,
intersubjectivity and contemporary relational schools. As a former participant in a cult, and
now an observer of cults working as a psychoanalytic therapist with former cult members, it
is my hope that the psychoanalytic formulations I discuss here will be helpful to others
concerned with understanding cult phenomena.
What Is a Cult, and Why Do People Get Involved in Them?
Cult experts estimate that there are several thousand cultic groups in the United States
today and that at least four million people have at some point in recent years been in one or
more of such groups (Langone, 1993, p. 29). The former Cult Awareness Network, before
being taken over by the Church of Scientology in the late ‗90s, reported that it received
about 18,000 inquiries a year (Tobias &Lalich, 1994). Those of us interested in the
phenomenon of cults have attempted to define our terms in various ways (see, e.g.,
Langone, 1993, p. 5). In this paper, I am defining a cult largely on the basis of the
personality of its leader. In my definition, a cult is a group that is led by a person who
claims, explicitly or implicitly, to have reached human perfection or, in the case of a
religious cult, who claims unity with the divine and therefore claims to be exempt from
social or moral limitations or restrictions. In the language of psychoanalytic diagnostics,
such people would be called pathological narcissists, with paranoid and megalomaniacal
tendencies. Without the cult leader, there is no cult, and from my perspective, in order to

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 7
understand cult followers, we must simultaneously seek to understand cult leaders. I will
attempt to describe the interplay of psychological dynamics between leader and follower
that can enable cult leaders to dominate and control followers, and enable cult followers to
be seduced and manipulated into submission.
The questions most often asked of former cult members, usually with incredulity, are ―How
did you get into something like this? And why did you stay so long?‖ The unspoken subtext
seems to be, ―How could someone like you end up in something like this? There must have
been something wrong with you.‖ Certainly, people who join cults are not seeking to be
controlled, made dependent, exploited, or psychologically harmed when they first commit
themselves to membership. Cult members actually come to embrace and even glorify these
kinds of mistreatment in part because their leaders, and their followers by proxy, have
mastered the art of seduction, using techniques of undue influence (Cialdini, 1984). As
Hochman (1990) notes, cults, by employing ―miracle, mystery, and authority, promise
salvation. Instead of boredom—noble and sweeping goals. Instead of existential anxiety—
structure and certainty. Instead of alienation—community. Instead of impotence—
solidarity directed by all-knowing leaders‖ (p. 179). Cults prey upon idealistic seekers,
offering answers to social problems and promising to promote bona fide social change.
Recruitment addresses the anxieties and loneliness of people experiencing personal
problems, transition, or crisis by holding out the promise of transformative healing within
the framework of a caring and understanding community (Tobias &Lalich, 1994). Cult
recruitment often takes place in sophisticated settings, in the form of seminars featuring
persuasive, well-credentialed speakers, such as successful professionals, respected
academics, or popular artists, writers, and entertainers. Cults target members from middle-
class backgrounds, often directly from college campuses, and the majority of members are
of above average intelligence (Hassan, 1990 Kliger, 1994 Tobias &Lalich, 1994).
In recruitment programs, speakers and members present various kinds of misinformation
about cult leaders, including concealing their existence altogether. Otherwise, the leader
may be represented as a humble, wise and loving teacher, when in reality he or she may be
a despot in possession of a substantial fortune, generated from member donations and
(often illegal) business activities. The apparent leader may be only a figurehead, while the
identity of the actual leader is concealed. False claims of ancient lineages may be made, or
the leader is falsely said to be revered and renowned in his or her own country. Cult leaders
rewrite and falsify their own biographies. Recruitment programs generally do not, for
instance, inform participants about leaders of the group having criminal records, or a
group‘s history of sexual abuse of members, or the group‘s involvement with illegal
activities. Seduction in cult recruitment typically involves strict control and falsification of
information.
The Psychopathology of the Cult Leader
Thought reform, or mind control, is another important component of my conceptualization
of the seductive power of cults, although it is not a psychoanalytic concept. The psychiatrist
Robert Jay Lifton (1987) studied the methods used by the Chinese Communists during the
Korean War to turn war prisoners into willing accomplices, and called these methods
thought reform (see also Hinkle &Wolff, 1976 Schein, 1956 Singer, 1979). Thought
reform techniques are readily found in use in any cult, yet it is my belief, based on my own
exposure to and study of various cults, that many cult leaders are not necessarily students
of thought reform techniques. One might argue that meditation and chanting, for example,
are techniques specifically designed to control others, and they can be. But they are also
ancient traditional spiritual practices. Cult leaders who require their followers to perform
mind-numbing, trance-inducing practices may do so while fully believing that such practices
are for the greatest possible good of the follower. In religious philosophies that emphasize
detachment and transcendence, for instance, trance states are highly valued as avenues