Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1996, page 68
and others more vulnerable to Lenz‟s mystical tricks. It took Laxer some time to learn that
any amateur hypnotist could reproduce the mystical experiences Lenz‟s students were
having: they saw Rama glow with golden light, they saw him change into past-life forms,
they saw him levitate and disappear, and they felt his powerful energy. These experiences,
as any meditator knows (or should know), are tricks of the mind and have nothing to do
with enlightenment in the strict Eastern sense of the concept.
Laxer estimated that by the early 1990s Lenz was making around eight million dollars a
year from his students. In Laxer‟s view, Lenz had never been “enlightened.” By the mid-
1980s, Lenz encouraged students to get into computer programming. Today, Lenz‟s group
consists mostly of computer programmers and a sophisticated array of businesses. Laxer
documents all of the above as well as many of the articles written about Lenz up until 1993.
Interviews with former members, summarized in the last chapter, ground Laxer‟s personal
knowledge of Lenz and his group after 1985.
Since Take Me for a Ride came out, Lenz has continued to attract controversy in the press.
After St. Martin‟s Press published his heavily hyped novella, Surfing the Himalayas in 1995
(see my review of this book in the Skeptical Inquirer magazine, July-August issue, 1996),
many reporters and reviewers referred to Laxer‟s book and interviewed him. On January 11,
1996, Washington Post reporter Richard Leiby wrote: “Laxer‟s book has gotten far better
reviews than Lenz‟s.... The Santa Fe Reporter said Laxer‟s portrait of himself as a young
spiritual seeker „comes across brilliantly.‟ On the other hand, the Denver Post panned Lenz‟s
book as „poorly researched crud.‟ „Terrifically dull and stupefying,‟ agreed longtime reviewer
Hart Williams, [who goes on to say], „Aside from failing at every level, there‟s nothing
remarkable about this novel, except that it was published.‟”
If Surfing the Himalayas is a best-seller while Take Me for a Ride has not made it on any
charts, it only demonstrates that many people are more easily hyped by advertising than
educated by research. Cult apologists in academic circles tend to denigrate the “atrocity
tales” of former members as unreliable. They call such writers “whistle blowers” or worse,
rarely taking the time to research the truth behind the stories. Yet, “whistle blowers” such
as Laxer provide society with the rare, valuable insight individuals need to evaluate
deceptive cult activity. Truth and honesty both come across clearly and sensitively in Take
Me for a Ride. If you are interested in Frederick Lenz, it is a must read. If you are interested
in how easily a bright young person can be duped by a slick mystic, this book will entertain
and educate you thoroughly.
Joseph Szimhart
Cult Information Specialist
Pottstown, Pennsylvania
America’s Alternative Religions. Edited by Timothy Miller. State University of New York
Press, Albany, NY, 1995, 474 pages.
America’s Alternative Religions is edited by Timothy Miller, associate professor of religious
studies at the University of Kansas. A brief, separate chapter covers the history, major
branches, beliefs, practices, and future prospects of each of the 42 “alternative” religions,
ranging from Adventism, including Branch Davidianism, to Zen Buddhism, including Soka
Gakkai. Most chapters were written by scholars associated with university departments of
religious studies or sociology. And, in the concluding chapter, longtime cult apologists Anson
Shupe and David G. Bromley consider “The Evolution of Modern American Anticult Ideology:
A Case Study in Frame Extension.”
I asked a Unitarian minister, writer, and editor, who, like most church-men, knows much
more about theology than cults, to evaluate this book as if he were skimming it for possible

Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 13, No. 1, 1996, page 69
purchase. “Interesting, informative, and scholarly” was his first impression. And, he asked,
“What does the editor mean by „alternative‟?” In his introduction, Miller, rejecting the terms
cult and sect as pejorative, defines alternative as nonmainstream and as “not inherently
inferior to” its mainstream counterparts. Miller then proposes seven categories: Established
Christian Alternatives (Jehovah‟s Witnesses, Quakers, Mormons, and Unitarians, among
others) Contemporary Christian and Jewish Movements (e.g., Children of God, Boston
Church of Christ, Branch Davidians) Religions from Asia (Hare Krishna and Unification
Church) Religions from the Middle East (Baha‟i, Islam) African-American Freedom
Movements (Father Divine, Peoples Temple) Ancient Wisdom and New Age Movements
(Theosophy, Spiritualism, Eckankar) and Many More (American Indian Religion,
Scientology, and Satanism).
The inclusion of the Established Christian Alternatives section serves, in my opinion, to
provide a false respectability to the destructive groups that follow. (I must admit my own
biases here as a longtime supporter of Unitarian-Universalism and Quakerism, as well as the
father of a former Unification Church member.) What especially infuriates me (as a cult
critic), and what my minister friend did not catch in a quick sampling, is that contrary to
Miller‟s claims of objectivity, the book is subtly biased. Consider Miller‟s own words:
Finally, it [this volume] seeks to convey objective sketches of the religions
covered, free from the taint of either adulation or vituperation. A great deal of the
available literature on alternative religions --in this case they are usually called
“cults” --comes from those determined to eradicate them, often in the name of
another religion held to be the One True Faith. This volume, written by scholars
with detailed knowledge of the groups they discuss, seeks a balance that much
anticult literature lacks.
Alas, such balance is not always evident. In his introduction Miller resurrects some old
charges against the “Anti-Cult Movement” (which in his view is composed predominantly of
born-again Protestant evangelicals): overestimating the size and menace of cults, scaring
the public by false claims of brainwashing, and so on. True, some chapters are indeed
objective, balanced, informative, and fair. For instance, the chapters on Quakerism,
Unitarianism-Universalism, Spiritualism and Channeling, Scientology, and Eckankar are
concise and factual. In contrast, treatments of the Unification Church and Hare Krishna are
slanted. (Terms associated with these latter alternative religions were rated by various
panels of experts in our research. See, especially, Dole, Langone, &Dubrow-Eichel, 1990.*)
In her report on the Unification Church, Eileen Barker, who cites few sources after 1988 and
ignores critical research (e.g., Horowitz, 1979**), minimizes published evidence of mind
control, brainwashing, Moon‟s federal conviction, and intensive proselytizing. In his chapter
on Hare Krishna, E. Burke Rocheford, Jr. writes: Asocial science evidence provides little or
no support for brainwashing explanations of conversion to new religions,” and “Anticult
propaganda, widely disseminated by the media, helped reshape the public‟s definition of
Hare Krishna from a peculiar, but essentially harmless movement. ISKCON came to be
identified as threatening and dangerous.” Although later Rocheford mentions guru
controversies, defections, allegations of drug use, weapons violations, sexual misconduct,
and murder, he does not attribute ISKCON‟s declining position to such well-known scandals.
Shupe and Bromley‟s concluding chapter so distorts the “Anti-Cult Movement” as to come
very close to humor. Their framework theory floats in a soup of jargon, unsupported by any
data. They conclude, “The ACM (Anti-Cult Movement) is, despite all its claims to being
*Dole, A.A., Langone, M.D., &Dubrow-Eichel, S.D. (1990). The new age movement: Fad or menace? Cultic
Studies Journal, 7, 1, 69B91.
**Horowitz, I.L. (1979). Science, sin, and scholarship: The politics of Reverend Moon and the Unification Church.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.