What is a destructive cult, or simply a cult? There is no commonly-accepted definition, and even if there were, ultimately, it's just a category. It's just a designation for a recognizable pattern that seems to recur among groups of people. Diagnosis of anything is useful only to the extent that it helps with prognosis and cure; otherwise it's just a masturbatory word game. (Not that there's anything wrong with that....)

Still, there's something worth exploring about the collection of phenomena denoted by the term "cult", however fuzzy its definition may be. The term isn't merely a pejorative designation to be flung at some marginal religion that doesn't appeal to you. It points to recognizable patterns of insularity, Narcissism, megalomania, coercion and exploitation. I've experienced the harm that comes from these things, and believe that aiming for a certain amount of description and pattern-recognition is appropriate. As with other social phenomena like road rage, hate groups and the like, destructive cults come in many flavors and degrees of "badness", yet tend to have certain themes in common. Recognizing such themes in a teacher or group might save you a little bit of trouble, not to mention -- should you find yourself more deeply involved -- loads of energy spent rationalizing away ever-more obvious bullshit due to cognitive dissonance.

The links below offer a variety of perspectives on cults. Think of them as springboard for further exploration, not ironclad rules. A useful way to think about cults is the "laundry list" method, wherein possible warning signs or red flags are raised. Again, no single one of these criteria is absolute; there will nearly always be exceptions to one or another "rule". Cults are like syndromes: one or two symptoms may not be much of a problem, but a lot of symptoms is probably sufficient to make a diagnosis. Don't miss the forest while nitpicking about the trees.

If a teacher or group has a number of "symptoms of cultism", some good questions to ask might include: Cui bono? (i.e., to whom does the benefit accrue?) How are such qualities beneficial to anyone's spiritual well-being? Exactly why did I get into spiritual practice in the first place? What am I seeking from this particular teacher or group that I can't do/get/be on my own, or with a different group of people?

Links loosely relating to cults and cultism:

Ma Jaya and Kashi Ashram Revealed: besides offering a great deal of background material on the charismatic cult leader Ma Jaya, this site links to a number of excellent sites on cults generally. One such resource is an excerpt from the book Captive Hearts, Captive Minds by Madeleine Landau Tobias and Janja Lalich.

The Daism Seminar: Useful site devoteed to free and critical examination of the cult where I happened to cut my teeth, headed by Adi Da aka Franklin Jones, or just "Frank". For some lively debate, check out the Daism Forum. Here's the Wikipedia article on Frank, to which I've made some contributions.

And here is David Deida, a spinoff of Frank. Frank "lite". Good example of meme drift into something more marketable; Deida has basically taken Frank's rap but apparently omitted most of the overtly crazy megalomania. More clownish than cultic, Deida's own rap struck me as so bad that it cried out for parody, and I was happy to oblige. (For some strange reason, there used to be a Death image, from Escher, on Deida's old site, but it's gone.)

The Cult Test, a good laundry list from the Leaving Nityananda Institute site. (Nityananda Institute is headed by Swami Chetanananda, a.k.a. J. Michael Shoemaker. It has nothing to do with the esteemed Swami Nityananda of Ganeshpuri other than the fact that Chetanananda's teacher Rudi regarded Nityananda as one of his teachers.) Also good from that site: The Guru Papers: Helpful Quotes.

Spiritual Responsibility: Avoiding Abuses and Pitfalls Along the Path, by Steven Hassan and Lama Surya Das. Quite useful pointers with some more laundry lists to consider.

Yet another good laundry list from The Wanderling at Geocities; mirror site at Tripod. (See also Wisdom page).

Rick Ross's page; lots of material.

Sarlo's Guru Rating Service is, AFAIK, the most amusing and extensive site of its kind. The ratings obviously are pretty subjective, but they're part of what makes the site fun, and there is a definite logic to them. Sarlo is cool! I wrote to him about Ammachi (see discussion further below) and he sent back an intelligent, funny email right away, and included my comments on his Ammachi feedback page (scroll to third comment, signed "JCB"; note that his rating system has changed since our email exchange).

More links to teachers of various stripes from Black Dot Publications.

www.spiritualteachers.org has more ratings and a couple of pretty good laundry lists.

Marvelous set of ready-made, cultically-minded rebuttals to critiques of authoritarianism from Tara and Charles Carreon. (Whoops; link looks dead thanks to recent EZBoard attack, but see also American Buddha, mentioned below.)

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OK, then.

Enough about disease. Let's talk health for a meme-moment.

While no group is devoid of cultism, some manage to keep it in check far more than others. Here are some pages that focus a bit more on some teachers and ideas that, either in my experience or somewhat-informed opinion, have some really good things to offer, especially for those somewhat inclined in an Eastern-ly direction.

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old;
seek what they sought."
-- Basho

Home page of Ammachi, the famous "hugging saint" of India. Wow! Just when I thought I was all done with gurus, along comes Amma and tears my heart open and reimplants (or reignites) memes of hope and joy and forbearance. (This is your brain on Amma!) I will probably expand these brief comments into an essay at some point, because my feelings about Amma are mixed. While I perceive her to be a remarkably saintly being with the power to help some people cultivate positive states of mind, I continue to have certain reservations about her approach and her group. There is cultism present, but it's mostly of the New-Age, feel-good variety. (This is so for her group in the US; I can't comment on India.) Bottom line, take the good and leave the bad behind (and be mindful of whether or not the act of "taking the good" in fact enables the not-so-good parts to be perpetuated). Here is a somewhat starry-eyed but sincere account of my experience seeing her in July 2002. Also check out a Yahoo group I founded, Ammachi Free Speech Zone.

Neem Karoli Baba, Indian saint, also a major influence on yours truly. Best known in the West as guru to Ram Dass, who authored Be Here Now, a classic of its time, and a book that for many people succeeded in bridging the psychedelic experience with spirituality. (Never met him. If I did, I'm sure I'd leaven my positive impressions of him with real-life caveats, as with Ammachi above.)

Are you noticing the Moon,
or the finger pointing to it?
Blue Dove Books -- some nice hagiographical publications and the like.

Saints and Mystics, a page compiled by the Divine Life Society (founded by Swami Sivananda). Sincere stuff indeed, and more than a tad starry-eyed and naive, but still IMO a very nice vibe; see for example the page on Papa Ramdas.

A triad of links (gathered by an anonymous visitor to the Lightmind fora) on the Indian master Yogi Ramsuratkumar (1918-2001): Ram; Surat; Kumar. (Yeah, now that he's dead, we get to hear about all the good stuff. Ain't it the way?)

Peace Pilgrim, a saintly American wanderer who appears to have lived a very positive life.

Buddhist listmania! -- great stuff on which to meditate (especially if you're a tad Aspergerish, and really get off on lists of things): The Brahmaviharas, a.k.a. the Four Sublime States. (Alternate link with added commentary here; it's down at the moment, but is/was very good and may yet return).   Another fine list of qualities worth aspiring to: The Seven Factors of Enlightenment.

Zen Ponderings from The Wanderling. An extensive network of sites with a number of useful insights and inspiring tidbits. (I don't find everything on his site to be a pearl of wisdom; e.g., his presentation of the cause of suffering and human conflict as "our commitment to the illusions we call values, morals and ethics" strikes me as a complete perversion of the Buddha's formulation of tanha or craving.)

The Guru-Disciple Relationship:   Making Connections and Withdrawing Projections is an outstanding article by Victor Mansfield. This ought to be required reading for anyone approaching the "event horizon" of falling head-over-heels for a charismatic guru. Also, a good abridgement of this article has been presented by aforementioned Wanderling.

Land of No Buddha: Reflections of a Skeptical Buddhist, by Richard Hayes, is my favorite book on Buddhism. Hayes rocks. The guy's stuff is trenchant, witty and scholarly. His postings to the usenet group talk.religion.buddhism contain numerous gems.

Access to Insight is a wonderful resource for readings in Theravada Buddhism, with numerous translated Pali texts and modern commentaries.

American Buddha is an eclectic site worth checking out. Of special interest is an eloquent critique of authoritarianism by Tara Carreon entitled Another View on Whether Tibetan Buddhism is Working in the West. The site is a bit tricky to navigate; I couldn't readily find a link to the "Articles" section, which includes the above article by Carreon.

OK, that's about it! I hope you enjoyed and benefited from these links at least a fraction as much as I have. If you have any questions, comments or criticisms, please email me at:
healthy22-loka at yahooGURU dot com; remove the spiritual preceptor

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