Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2010, Page 139
inspiration resides within, the art spirit can trump institutional compulsion and historical
contingency.iv
************
With particular regard to those already on an artistic path at the time they join a cultic
group, my thesis boils down to something like this: Homo aestheticus (the human as seeker
of beauty) seeks the company of homo religiosus (the human as seeker of the divine), only
later to find out that homo religiosus has fallen under the sway of homo hierarchicus (the
human as builder of socio-political control systems). In other words, creative, aesthetically
oriented people often feel their creative path to be simultaneously a form of spiritual
growth—identifying art with a quest for meaning, truth, enlightenment, and ecstasy.
Because Art and Spirit share similar aims (and can be allies), artists sometimes find
themselves drawn to particular spiritual practices and religious communities. Once well
ensconced in a religious collective, however, artists often find themselves in an authoritarian
environment that is inherently hostile to the notion of individual questing, open-ended
experimentation, and any sort of artistic production that does not serve the purposes of the
collective. By that time, individual priorities frequently have been transformed and adapted
to those of the group, with prior artistic interests either rationalized away, or, cleansed of
personal inspiration and ambition, put into the service of the group.
Part II:
Autobiographical
After several years of growing disillusionment with the Krishna movement,v in 1987, I left
ISKCON (with my then wife) to begin a master‘s program at Harvard Divinity School. By
that time, I had let my parents know that institutional and personal changes had led me to
reconsider my status as a member. One day in March of that year, my father telephoned me
at the Philadelphia ISKCON center and made an offer I decided not to refuse—that if I left
ISKCON and returned to higher education, he would temporarily support my wife and me
financially. Although I had completed only one year of college before I joined ISKCON in
1970, I managed to get myself admitted to Harvard‘s M.T.S. (Master of Theological Studies)
program with the help of Harvey Cox and Diana Eck, two Harvard faculty members whom I
had come to know over the years in my capacity as ISKCON‘s de-facto liaison to the
academic world.vi
During my three intellectually rich and transformative years at Harvard, I studied (often
under scholars of international renown) Buddhist and Taoist philosophy, Hindu devotional
poetry, comparative scripture, hagiography, the notion of pilgrimage, the writings of the
American Transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau, the exultant spirituality of Walt
Whitman, Islamic mysticism, Hasidism (with Elie Wiesel), comparative theories of inter-
religious dialogue, and many other subjects concerning the religious dimension of human
life.
During those three years, I also launched into the project of reconstructing a life and, for
that matter, an identity. My ―pre-cult‖ identity as a spiritually inclined intellectual fascinated
with the mysteries of human consciousness was, happily, still intact. And although I had
greatly relished the intellectual stimulation at Harvard, I came to feel that all those years of
learning how to transcend the material world, followed by years of intellectual study, had
left me feeling rather unembodied and ungrounded, at home in cerebral realms but not at
home within my body and senses. Feeling that I needed something that would engage me
at a deeper, more personal and passionate level, I decided not to continue on to a Ph.D.
degree and the life of an academic. For a while I considered becoming a full-time writer, but
the idea somehow didn‘t satisfy. I found myself wondering, rather vaguely, if there were not
some way I might be creative within a less cerebral, more physical, visceral, tactile mode. I
inspiration resides within, the art spirit can trump institutional compulsion and historical
contingency.iv
************
With particular regard to those already on an artistic path at the time they join a cultic
group, my thesis boils down to something like this: Homo aestheticus (the human as seeker
of beauty) seeks the company of homo religiosus (the human as seeker of the divine), only
later to find out that homo religiosus has fallen under the sway of homo hierarchicus (the
human as builder of socio-political control systems). In other words, creative, aesthetically
oriented people often feel their creative path to be simultaneously a form of spiritual
growth—identifying art with a quest for meaning, truth, enlightenment, and ecstasy.
Because Art and Spirit share similar aims (and can be allies), artists sometimes find
themselves drawn to particular spiritual practices and religious communities. Once well
ensconced in a religious collective, however, artists often find themselves in an authoritarian
environment that is inherently hostile to the notion of individual questing, open-ended
experimentation, and any sort of artistic production that does not serve the purposes of the
collective. By that time, individual priorities frequently have been transformed and adapted
to those of the group, with prior artistic interests either rationalized away, or, cleansed of
personal inspiration and ambition, put into the service of the group.
Part II:
Autobiographical
After several years of growing disillusionment with the Krishna movement,v in 1987, I left
ISKCON (with my then wife) to begin a master‘s program at Harvard Divinity School. By
that time, I had let my parents know that institutional and personal changes had led me to
reconsider my status as a member. One day in March of that year, my father telephoned me
at the Philadelphia ISKCON center and made an offer I decided not to refuse—that if I left
ISKCON and returned to higher education, he would temporarily support my wife and me
financially. Although I had completed only one year of college before I joined ISKCON in
1970, I managed to get myself admitted to Harvard‘s M.T.S. (Master of Theological Studies)
program with the help of Harvey Cox and Diana Eck, two Harvard faculty members whom I
had come to know over the years in my capacity as ISKCON‘s de-facto liaison to the
academic world.vi
During my three intellectually rich and transformative years at Harvard, I studied (often
under scholars of international renown) Buddhist and Taoist philosophy, Hindu devotional
poetry, comparative scripture, hagiography, the notion of pilgrimage, the writings of the
American Transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau, the exultant spirituality of Walt
Whitman, Islamic mysticism, Hasidism (with Elie Wiesel), comparative theories of inter-
religious dialogue, and many other subjects concerning the religious dimension of human
life.
During those three years, I also launched into the project of reconstructing a life and, for
that matter, an identity. My ―pre-cult‖ identity as a spiritually inclined intellectual fascinated
with the mysteries of human consciousness was, happily, still intact. And although I had
greatly relished the intellectual stimulation at Harvard, I came to feel that all those years of
learning how to transcend the material world, followed by years of intellectual study, had
left me feeling rather unembodied and ungrounded, at home in cerebral realms but not at
home within my body and senses. Feeling that I needed something that would engage me
at a deeper, more personal and passionate level, I decided not to continue on to a Ph.D.
degree and the life of an academic. For a while I considered becoming a full-time writer, but
the idea somehow didn‘t satisfy. I found myself wondering, rather vaguely, if there were not
some way I might be creative within a less cerebral, more physical, visceral, tactile mode. I
