12 ICSA TODAY
house where he had spent his last weeks in the center and clear
out his few possessions. In disgrace, our son found a cheap flat in
New York City. But he was determined, in the midst of his anger
and sadness, to make it in the real world outside the group.
We tried to reach him and communicate, but it was very difficult
and painful for our family. We paid for him to enroll in a private
business-school course, Internet Technologies, and he managed
to get a good job at a hospital. He learned as he went along.
His cheap second-hand car was broken into on the street by
his apartment, and drug dealers in his building made things
dangerous. This period is still difficult for us to discuss.
Though our son eventually got a good job on Madison Avenue,
we were still worried that we had not prepared him for life in the
ordinary world of high school, college, jobs, and girls. His mom was
especially worried about the lack of healthy dialogue and a total
lack of education about sex, a required topic in her native Sweden,
where our son had been raised for his first 8 years. We initially
interpreted our adolescent son’s rebellious behavior against our
spiritual values as just a stage he was going through. It was only
later that we realized that his resistance behavior was justified and
was a mature reaction to a truly disturbing (and deeply hidden)
situation in our spiritual group. It was this discovery, and the
actions our son took, that ultimately opened our eyes and enabled
us to leave the group, and also help bring about its unraveling.
What Our Son Discovered
Our son discovered that the supposedly celibate guru had for
years spiritually and sexually abused a group of young women
who constituted his Inner Circle girls. Later, the ageing guru
reportedly expanded his consorts to include some young girl
singers—some were barely of legal age. According to the girls’
own shocking testimonials, which ultimately appeared on the
Internet, the guru also induced these young girls to have lesbian
sex with each other—something that was damaging to many of
them. At first, these revelations were too shocking for devoted
disciples to comprehend, including us.
But not for our son. Instead of adopting a comfortable role as
a devoted disciple, he bravely opted for a much more painful
yet more authentic role, striking out on his own, without the
comforting and secure values and even (in his mind) the love of
his parents. Later, he sadly and angrily described himself as having
been “the boy inside the bubble” (referring to a movie about a
totally isolated boy, forced to be inside a totally germ-free plastic
bubble at a hospital).
Our son interviewed some of the women and was convinced by
the consistency and the details of their stories. He set up a website
and published first-person testimonials of several “divine consorts”
who had suffered or were expelled from the group, or both.
Newspapers, cult-awareness groups, and various authors began to
pick up his message.
He also had to contend with the Inner Circle of so-called first-class
disciples and other followers who tried to destroy his credibility,
his career, and his relationships. The guru and his closest disciples
threatened to get him fired from his Madison Avenue IT job. They
handed us a report documenting our son’s alleged misuse of
computers at his job because he used his computer to post to his
critical website. If he didn’t shut down his website, the guru said,
the group would give the evidence to his bosses, and he would be
fired. The guru had done this to several other bitter apostates. We
did the guru’s bidding and showed our son the evidence the group
had assembled against him. The result was that he did leave his
critical website, though he did not shut it down—he turned it over
to others who continued his work.
The Turning Point
It was after this experience that my wife and I went on a fateful
Christmas trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. At the Intercontinental
Hotel where our group was staying, the guru suddenly called us
from the lunch room: We were to come immediately to a totally
empty Grand Ballroom, all exits closed and blocked by our groups’
guards. During this secret interview, the guru spoke to us—almost
hissing—with eyes half-closed. He said, “They [devoted Inner Circle
guards] want to kill your son,” and told us that we were the “parents
of Judas.” Then, never withdrawing or denying or modifying this
threat, he just slid into other subjects as if he had never made it!
We were in a state of shock and disbelief.
Once the threat registered, I could imagine how Abraham must
have felt when he was commanded by God to kill his son Isaac. It
was the turning point for us. Though we outwardly continued to
appear devoted disciples—shortly after we returned from Asia, the
guru told us after a function, “I’m so proud of you, you’re on your
guru’s side…!”—inwardly we had begun our journey away.
We became “double agents,” feeding the guru relatively harmless
but true information about our son’s activities, then warning our
son of the dirty tricks the guru and his minions were planning. I
went with my son to the New York City police and filed a case of
aggravated harassment against the guru. I then reported to the
guru that my son had filed a report with the police (maintaining
my image as devoted disciple so I could continue our work against
the group). The guru was enraged. He was also afraid, since he
was not a US citizen. He was terrified of police and immigration
officials, and he knew what could happen to his visa status.
We were under enormous stress at this time trying to protect our
son. I had panic attacks, and my wife had to have an operation on
her throat because of severe acid-reflux damage.
Finally, on a Christmas trip to Australia, during a very private
interview, my wife confronted the guru. By this time he was using
us as his close confidants and quite openly discussing with us
some suspected enemies among his disciples. My wife suddenly
blurted out, “What’s going to happen with the death threat to our
son?” The guru was completely taken by surprise: No one ever
directly confronted the Divine Master! He was totally taken aback
and nervously answered, “Oh, that’s not going to happen,” without
even denying he had ever made the threat.
The very hard-fought Internet war, begun by our son’s critical
website, continued. The guru (a rural villager from Bangladesh)
was at first blindsided by the rapid growth of criticism of him
on the Internet. After initially relying on the traditional tools of
Once inside a group, to fit in,
we may ignore or suppress
our own inner doubts…
house where he had spent his last weeks in the center and clear
out his few possessions. In disgrace, our son found a cheap flat in
New York City. But he was determined, in the midst of his anger
and sadness, to make it in the real world outside the group.
We tried to reach him and communicate, but it was very difficult
and painful for our family. We paid for him to enroll in a private
business-school course, Internet Technologies, and he managed
to get a good job at a hospital. He learned as he went along.
His cheap second-hand car was broken into on the street by
his apartment, and drug dealers in his building made things
dangerous. This period is still difficult for us to discuss.
Though our son eventually got a good job on Madison Avenue,
we were still worried that we had not prepared him for life in the
ordinary world of high school, college, jobs, and girls. His mom was
especially worried about the lack of healthy dialogue and a total
lack of education about sex, a required topic in her native Sweden,
where our son had been raised for his first 8 years. We initially
interpreted our adolescent son’s rebellious behavior against our
spiritual values as just a stage he was going through. It was only
later that we realized that his resistance behavior was justified and
was a mature reaction to a truly disturbing (and deeply hidden)
situation in our spiritual group. It was this discovery, and the
actions our son took, that ultimately opened our eyes and enabled
us to leave the group, and also help bring about its unraveling.
What Our Son Discovered
Our son discovered that the supposedly celibate guru had for
years spiritually and sexually abused a group of young women
who constituted his Inner Circle girls. Later, the ageing guru
reportedly expanded his consorts to include some young girl
singers—some were barely of legal age. According to the girls’
own shocking testimonials, which ultimately appeared on the
Internet, the guru also induced these young girls to have lesbian
sex with each other—something that was damaging to many of
them. At first, these revelations were too shocking for devoted
disciples to comprehend, including us.
But not for our son. Instead of adopting a comfortable role as
a devoted disciple, he bravely opted for a much more painful
yet more authentic role, striking out on his own, without the
comforting and secure values and even (in his mind) the love of
his parents. Later, he sadly and angrily described himself as having
been “the boy inside the bubble” (referring to a movie about a
totally isolated boy, forced to be inside a totally germ-free plastic
bubble at a hospital).
Our son interviewed some of the women and was convinced by
the consistency and the details of their stories. He set up a website
and published first-person testimonials of several “divine consorts”
who had suffered or were expelled from the group, or both.
Newspapers, cult-awareness groups, and various authors began to
pick up his message.
He also had to contend with the Inner Circle of so-called first-class
disciples and other followers who tried to destroy his credibility,
his career, and his relationships. The guru and his closest disciples
threatened to get him fired from his Madison Avenue IT job. They
handed us a report documenting our son’s alleged misuse of
computers at his job because he used his computer to post to his
critical website. If he didn’t shut down his website, the guru said,
the group would give the evidence to his bosses, and he would be
fired. The guru had done this to several other bitter apostates. We
did the guru’s bidding and showed our son the evidence the group
had assembled against him. The result was that he did leave his
critical website, though he did not shut it down—he turned it over
to others who continued his work.
The Turning Point
It was after this experience that my wife and I went on a fateful
Christmas trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. At the Intercontinental
Hotel where our group was staying, the guru suddenly called us
from the lunch room: We were to come immediately to a totally
empty Grand Ballroom, all exits closed and blocked by our groups’
guards. During this secret interview, the guru spoke to us—almost
hissing—with eyes half-closed. He said, “They [devoted Inner Circle
guards] want to kill your son,” and told us that we were the “parents
of Judas.” Then, never withdrawing or denying or modifying this
threat, he just slid into other subjects as if he had never made it!
We were in a state of shock and disbelief.
Once the threat registered, I could imagine how Abraham must
have felt when he was commanded by God to kill his son Isaac. It
was the turning point for us. Though we outwardly continued to
appear devoted disciples—shortly after we returned from Asia, the
guru told us after a function, “I’m so proud of you, you’re on your
guru’s side…!”—inwardly we had begun our journey away.
We became “double agents,” feeding the guru relatively harmless
but true information about our son’s activities, then warning our
son of the dirty tricks the guru and his minions were planning. I
went with my son to the New York City police and filed a case of
aggravated harassment against the guru. I then reported to the
guru that my son had filed a report with the police (maintaining
my image as devoted disciple so I could continue our work against
the group). The guru was enraged. He was also afraid, since he
was not a US citizen. He was terrified of police and immigration
officials, and he knew what could happen to his visa status.
We were under enormous stress at this time trying to protect our
son. I had panic attacks, and my wife had to have an operation on
her throat because of severe acid-reflux damage.
Finally, on a Christmas trip to Australia, during a very private
interview, my wife confronted the guru. By this time he was using
us as his close confidants and quite openly discussing with us
some suspected enemies among his disciples. My wife suddenly
blurted out, “What’s going to happen with the death threat to our
son?” The guru was completely taken by surprise: No one ever
directly confronted the Divine Master! He was totally taken aback
and nervously answered, “Oh, that’s not going to happen,” without
even denying he had ever made the threat.
The very hard-fought Internet war, begun by our son’s critical
website, continued. The guru (a rural villager from Bangladesh)
was at first blindsided by the rapid growth of criticism of him
on the Internet. After initially relying on the traditional tools of
Once inside a group, to fit in,
we may ignore or suppress
our own inner doubts…
