Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1997, page 51
those of the wise teacher who causes his students pain and suffering in the short run, so
that in time they may prevail against adversity or develop the qualities needed to succeed
in their quests. We put ultimate faith in this teacher, handing over to him our judgment, our
perceptions, and ultimately our lives. He hitched a ride on the deeply embedded image of
God, an archetype perhaps that we all carry. Our culture has given us only male figures to
occupy that position, and also has exaggerated the analogy of man and God to the extreme
by suggesting that man is God for woman. Despite our conscious efforts to deny this, the
prejudice runs deep in our Judeo-Christian roots and, we believe, contributes in no small
way to the dynamics of coercive control exercised most often by men.
Intuition. Intuition, in the sense of vision and a feeling for truth, represents another
“feminine” quality that was derogated and denied, another quality to which women seem to
have easier access. Intuition serves as a navigational tool, along with anger and bodily
sensing, that contributes to a unique feminine way of knowledge. In our group, intuition
was perhaps the leader‟s strongest suit. A florid visionary, often he would give reports of
spirits‟ visitations to him in dreams or waking episodes. He also took to prophesying,
envisioning events to come. His intuitive ability to size up a person or a situation was also
uncanny and greatly contributed to the exercise of his folk-art form of guruship.
Intuitive vision in members, however, was condemned as imagination or fantasy, a
detrimental state of mind. He discouraged dwelling on visions, classing them as part of
distracting mind activity (much as it is in other mindfulness practices). Only he was
permitted legitimate visions. One of us recently attended a workshop in which we were
asked to visualize a “spirit guide.” No such figure came. Only a plastic, visquine sheeting
appeared like a veil on the field of inner vision, effectively blocking any further sight. We
had internalized a far-reaching program to ignore any perceptions other than the tangible.
This program, of course, built strongly on the one already laid down by our culture, which
rejects the reality of anything imperceptible to the five senses. For some of us, our
attraction to him as an intuitive visionary was an attraction to a projected part of our own
selves, a part with religious sensibilities that found little validation in our families,
classrooms, or jobs. While we had access to the visionary through him, he defined the field
of allowable perception for us and ultimately determined the validity of our perceptions.
Reports of auras or visions would be labeled “the instinctive center” --another derogatory
term, characterizing the body as the chief enemy of awakening. Although he often spoke of
spiritual beings working directly with his followers, he clearly had sole proprietorship of
visionary realms, and so established himself as the direct connection to the Divine.
Conclusion
Though we are loathe to acknowledge this, in our community, both men and women, like
battered women in a scene of domestic violence, lost their judgment and were held by fear.
Robbed of intuition, body knowledge, sexuality, and anger, we were vulnerable to assault of
the worst kind: spiritual and psychological assault. With physical abuse, you register the
blows, see the wounds. You know you have been hit. You know why you ache when you
wake up in the morning. With the more intangible psychological or spiritual assaults, you
don‟t know what‟s happened to you. You have been raped, used --mind-fucked, to use the
coarse but perfectly descriptive term --to cater to a trusted caretaker‟s needs. In the name
of your own good, you have been used to satisfy his drives for pleasure and power over
you, to absorb his smiling, hidden hostility. In this situation, you aren‟t sure why your heart
aches with emptiness, your limbs with exhaustion, and your gut with anxiety. You begin to
carry an unnamed fear.
This is the fear of the battered woman and the dedicated disciple, the fear that keeps you in
thrall to a destructive man. You begin to believe his propaganda with a visceral certainty as
a means of survival. Although anyone outside the circle of your relationship or community
those of the wise teacher who causes his students pain and suffering in the short run, so
that in time they may prevail against adversity or develop the qualities needed to succeed
in their quests. We put ultimate faith in this teacher, handing over to him our judgment, our
perceptions, and ultimately our lives. He hitched a ride on the deeply embedded image of
God, an archetype perhaps that we all carry. Our culture has given us only male figures to
occupy that position, and also has exaggerated the analogy of man and God to the extreme
by suggesting that man is God for woman. Despite our conscious efforts to deny this, the
prejudice runs deep in our Judeo-Christian roots and, we believe, contributes in no small
way to the dynamics of coercive control exercised most often by men.
Intuition. Intuition, in the sense of vision and a feeling for truth, represents another
“feminine” quality that was derogated and denied, another quality to which women seem to
have easier access. Intuition serves as a navigational tool, along with anger and bodily
sensing, that contributes to a unique feminine way of knowledge. In our group, intuition
was perhaps the leader‟s strongest suit. A florid visionary, often he would give reports of
spirits‟ visitations to him in dreams or waking episodes. He also took to prophesying,
envisioning events to come. His intuitive ability to size up a person or a situation was also
uncanny and greatly contributed to the exercise of his folk-art form of guruship.
Intuitive vision in members, however, was condemned as imagination or fantasy, a
detrimental state of mind. He discouraged dwelling on visions, classing them as part of
distracting mind activity (much as it is in other mindfulness practices). Only he was
permitted legitimate visions. One of us recently attended a workshop in which we were
asked to visualize a “spirit guide.” No such figure came. Only a plastic, visquine sheeting
appeared like a veil on the field of inner vision, effectively blocking any further sight. We
had internalized a far-reaching program to ignore any perceptions other than the tangible.
This program, of course, built strongly on the one already laid down by our culture, which
rejects the reality of anything imperceptible to the five senses. For some of us, our
attraction to him as an intuitive visionary was an attraction to a projected part of our own
selves, a part with religious sensibilities that found little validation in our families,
classrooms, or jobs. While we had access to the visionary through him, he defined the field
of allowable perception for us and ultimately determined the validity of our perceptions.
Reports of auras or visions would be labeled “the instinctive center” --another derogatory
term, characterizing the body as the chief enemy of awakening. Although he often spoke of
spiritual beings working directly with his followers, he clearly had sole proprietorship of
visionary realms, and so established himself as the direct connection to the Divine.
Conclusion
Though we are loathe to acknowledge this, in our community, both men and women, like
battered women in a scene of domestic violence, lost their judgment and were held by fear.
Robbed of intuition, body knowledge, sexuality, and anger, we were vulnerable to assault of
the worst kind: spiritual and psychological assault. With physical abuse, you register the
blows, see the wounds. You know you have been hit. You know why you ache when you
wake up in the morning. With the more intangible psychological or spiritual assaults, you
don‟t know what‟s happened to you. You have been raped, used --mind-fucked, to use the
coarse but perfectly descriptive term --to cater to a trusted caretaker‟s needs. In the name
of your own good, you have been used to satisfy his drives for pleasure and power over
you, to absorb his smiling, hidden hostility. In this situation, you aren‟t sure why your heart
aches with emptiness, your limbs with exhaustion, and your gut with anxiety. You begin to
carry an unnamed fear.
This is the fear of the battered woman and the dedicated disciple, the fear that keeps you in
thrall to a destructive man. You begin to believe his propaganda with a visceral certainty as
a means of survival. Although anyone outside the circle of your relationship or community
