International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation Volume 9 2026 126
status in the hierarchy over genuine relationships.
Members’ natural inclination to build good relationships
was redirected to the cult. This shift resulted in changes
in the members’ principles and attitudes.
• Reinforced members’ dissociation and made them
more amenable to harsh cult attitudes
• Undermined parental authority
• Created confusion and insecurity in children about
parental roles
• Corrupted intra-family dynamics and eroded trust
within the family
• Undermined marital and member intimacy,
confused members about their relationships’
loyalty, and metaphorically brought a third party
into the marriage bed
• Created a constant striving to reach the top by
pulling others down
• Engendered the need to make oneself appear
perfect
• Reinforced black-and-white thinking
• Replaced true intimacy (or a relationship of equals
who gain pleasure through collaboration) with
gaining the cult leader’s favor
As a result, children learned to manipulate and compete
rather than connect with others. Children in the cult
learned to see themselves and others as “higher” or
“lower” based on the leader’s favor. This fostered harsh
self-judgment and judgment of others, hindering
healthy social interactions.
The Drive to Rise in the Cult Hierarchy Distorted
Family Relationships
Over the years, Anika’s mother achieved a high status
by spending time with people close to the leader and
advancing in the organization’s management. In 1976,
she facilitated the purchase of the first two facilities in
the northeastern United States. She played a key role in
the cult’s American expansion. She was one of the early
Westerners who travelled to India to study with the
leader. Over the next 44 years, she became a respected
“old timer.” She wanted to be the best possible devotee
she avidly worshipped the male leader and later, his
female successor.
The male leader refused Anika’s mother’s request to
take formal vows of celibacy because she was married
and had children. However, he gave her permission to
wear yellow to physically indicate her alignment with
that way of life while still respecting the needs of her
husband and family. Anika was unsure whether her
mother wanted her to pursue spiritual growth or to
advance in the organizational hierarchy, perhaps both.
Anika’s mother also physically placed her children
at the center of things, and they enjoyed their status.
When she managed the city-based cult facility, her
children had access to the inner offices and other
privileged areas. Feeling special was a huge draw and
a mechanism for retaining core cult members. Anika’s
mother believed that whatever was required to move
herself and her family higher in the cult’s hierarchy was
justified. Anika believes her mother wanted acclaim.
Everyone in the cult knew their family. The whole
family felt special because they had a place of belonging
and importance.
Observing her mother’s status made Anika want to be
special by also being at the center. Anika now recognizes
that her behavior was an attempt to receive her mother’s
approval by following her mother’s lead. Driven by the
cult dynamic of seeking status for recognition, personal
benefit, and spiritual advancement, Anika strove to
exceed her mother in the hierarchy.7
1
As a teenager, Anika was sent to India, where she
learned yoga and other skills, including Indian cooking,
public speaking, music, and reading Sanskrit. While
a resident of the cult in the USA, she also received
private tutoring in these areas. Anika became close to
the leader and served as the leader’s private cook in
her teens. The leader gave Anika gifts of gold jewelry,
silk saris, and other luxury items. She also received
special consideration and nice accommodations
near the leader’s rooms. Anika was given secret work
assignments. All of this played into her confusion
about and dissociation from the sexual abuse. Anika
changed from being known as her mother’s daughter to
her mother being known as Anika’s mother. As Anika
rose in the hierarchy, she felt more important than her
mother. Because of her cult-induced superior attitude
and elevated place, she began to look down on her
mother and further distance herself.
According to David, children in the cult also learned
7 Anika considers that this might have been, at least in part, an
unconscious way to retaliate against her mother for abandoning her.

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Lorna Goldberg |Intergenerational Transmission of Cult Trauma
that relationships were hierarchical. They observed
nonverbal cues and markers of cult power and authority,
noting who received more attention or gifts from the
leader, who sat closer to the leader in programs and
audiences, who was invited into the leader’s private
apartments, and so on.
Anika’s keen awareness of status was, in turn, adopted
by her son. David reports that, to defend against
feelings of “smallness” or powerlessness, children in
cults anxiously strive to rise in the hierarchy by being
closer to the leader and the cult’s ideals than their
peers. Children whom the leader currently favored
became a desirable clique to belong to. Being closer to
these children or these children’s parents was viewed as
favorable and might lead to further favor from the cult
leader, which led to transactional relations between
children and adults.
David was determined never to find himself in a
“lower” position, accompanied by feelings of shame
and worthlessness. Attempting to boost his self-esteem,
he reminded himself that his grandparents were long-
time respected members with elevated positions in
the cult. As a result of his early indoctrination, David
felt he had no close friends because he was constantly
jockeying with his peers for an elevated position. He
attended school outside the cult after his family left the
residential facility, though the family continued as cult
members. David sought out friends who were passive
or insecure, among whom he could be dominant by
appearing confident and sure of himself. This behavior
was his attempt to preemptively retain a “higher”
position in his relationships, which lacked empathy.
Sexuality as Hindrance to Enlightenment
In contrast to the leader’s sexual behavior, he
undermined intimacy between members. Sex was
considered a distraction from the goal of enlightenment,
which was one way the cult undermined intimacy
between members. Following the cult’s dictates,
Anika’s parents began to abstain from sex and to sleep
in separate beds in their city apartment. Anika’s mother
started to wear only yellow clothing, which signified a
commitment to refrain from sex.
As a child, Anika was confused about why her parents
began to sleep separately and wondered if there
was something wrong with their marriage. As they
navigated life in the city, Anika was embarrassed by
her mother’s yellow clothing and long skirts and her
habit of wearing her hair in a bun and placing a bindi
between her eyebrows to represent the inner-seeing
third eye. To a young girl and then a teenager, these
behaviors modeled a confusing relationship to sexual
normalcy.
Harsh Moral Voice Reinforced by Identification with
Aggressor
Cult processes induce adult members to regress,
feeling like children, and seeing their cult leader as a
parental figure. In addition to cult control mechanisms,
Ferenczi’s concept of “identification with the aggressor”
further explains how cult members respond to their
abuser.
[T]he aggressor disappears as part of external
reality and becomes intra—as opposed to
extra—psychic the intra-psychic is
then subjected, in a dream-like state, as is the
traumatic trance, to the primary process.... In
any case, the attack as a rigid external reality
ceases to exist and in the traumatic trance the
child succeeds in maintaining the previous
situation of tenderness .(Ferenczi, 1933, p. 162)
That is, cult members give up their sense of self
and completely submit. In doing so, they become
hypervigilant to the feelings (and demands) of the cult
leader, lose touch with their emotions, and, instead,
identify with the emotions of the cult leader, taking the
blame for being abused.
Impact of Cult Dissociation on Parenting and
Children
Shortly after her family’s cult affiliation, eight-year-
old Anika felt abandoned when her mother chose to
travel to India twice for several months. To cope with
her devastating sadness and the anxiety brought on by
the recurring loss of her mother, Anika now recognizes
how she protected herself by dissociating from her
overwhelming emotions. This early experience of
periodic abandonment resulted in a fear throughout
her life of abandonment by others. The experience of
being abandoned by her mother was re-experienced