I started writing online in January 2024, on the Medium blogging platform. After reflecting on that experience one year out, and realizing that having to sign up for a Medium account (albeit free) was a barrier to some readers who were interested, I decided to migrate all my posts here. I anticipate cross-posting going forward. What's here, at a glance: Disclaimer About liability, copyright and so on. Applies to all articles.
No one knowingly joins a cult. So what happens... and who is vulnerable?
How Culty Groups Are Like 1:1 Controlling Relationships (draws on personal experience in culty meditation group)
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I started blogging a year ago, on my 50th birthday. I was processing what were, to me, foundation-shaking new insights, about the founder of the meditation center I had been deeply involved with as a young adult, and the (culty) nature of that group. Now on my 51st birthday, I take a step back to reflect on what I’ve learned from this process — and to consider what might come next. In this post I take a look at distribution, who is reading (and how they are finding me), what readers are interested in, what I’ve learned about myself, and what I’m considering doing next. I would appreciate any feedback! Distribution Who did I envision serving as readers? Initially, just anyone who was interested in learning about high control groups, meditation malpractice, and savvy seeking. Actually, The Savvy Seeker is what I initially titled this project for myself — it would have had that name if I had gone the route of a standalone blog, or figured out how to do that on Medium. But I didn’t want to get bogged down in mechanics. I wanted to jump right into writing. After researching several platforms, I chose Medium because of its “discoverability.” It takes care of the search engine optimization side of things for the writer, drawing in people using search engines to research questions, when their questions relate to my content. Medium also has an established membership of readers who might take an interest in my pieces. As I had more conversations with other people with ties to my old group, and then learned that some of them were finding my pieces helpful, that increasingly became an audience I was particularly thinking of and aiming to serve. Each time I published a new piece, I shared links and blurbs on social media. I started with Facebook. Then I thought to start doing LinkedIn too. Most recently I’ve established a Blue Sky account and begun posting links to pieces there as well. I have included article links in individual correspondence with some folks too. And let the congregation I serve know that I was writing and how they could read if interested. (I generally work on this stuff on my time off from church work, and have come to think of this writing and organizing related to my old group as my side quest. But it’s not unrelated to my ministry.) One year on, I feel good about my choice of Medium. And it’s nice to be able to share via networks I have built over the years on social media. Who Is Reading, and How Are They Finding Me? It took me almost a year to get to 100 followers, and about a quarter as many subscribers. Granted, my topic is a pretty niche one — at least, in terms of peoples’ perceptions of how relevant it is to them. I’m firmly convinced that *everyone* should be educated about high control groups, because they are ubiquitous. And almost everyone will be vulnerable at some point in their life, if the right group should intersect with them. But you have to know something about these kinds of groups to even realize that that is the case. And most people know very little. You don’t know what you don’t know. You know? [Note: all of the below analysis is based on Medium, which is the sole place I published posts in my first year of blogging.] My subscribers — who automatically receive an email with each new article I post — are a mix of congregants (current and past), people with ties to the (intentionally unnamed) meditation group I’ve primarily been writing about, friends from various parts of my life, and Medium members who are otherwise unknown to me. Metrics for individual articles include a breakdown of traffic sources. Some stories skew more toward internal traffic, others toward external. So far, my stories are ranging from
The external traffic further breaks down to include, in order from most to least (though on some articles the order is different):
What it looks like for individual articles is search engines being the least common source of traffic when I first post, but then gaining over time as more people organically find the piece through poking around online. In some earlier articles, search engines are now the top source. Similarly, the portion of traffic that comes from external referral vs. internal on Medium typically increases over time. Reader Interests After the initial push when I published my first couple of pieces last January, the biggest jump in followers came in April. That’s when I wrote the most concrete, biographical pieces on my experiences with my old group — a before / during / after retrospective on moving out to work at the ashram / meditation center. (What I Wanted — What I Found — What I Lost) That last one — about what my group involvement ultimately cost me — got 50% more reads than the first two parts. Notably, the most-read pieces overall are the ones related to adverse effects of meditation. Far and away my most read piece is Calming the Kundalini Fire (how I recovered from adverse effects), with The Shadow Side of Meditation & Mindfulness and Is This Normal? tying for a distant second. How I Was Primed, one of my earliest pieces, trails not too far behind in 3rd place. Of course, the longer a piece has been up, the more reads and views it tends to accumulate. So the above list is tilted toward older pieces. Moving On from Your Spiritual Teacher, one of my most recent pieces, has generated a lot of reads and views in a short time. I believe folks from my old group have shared amongst each other. Perhaps people with ties to other spiritual teachers have found it relevant too. Readers have clapped, highlighted and commented on various articles. I appreciate the engagement and have tried to respond in a relatively timely way. Especially heartening to me has been feedback I have gotten from people who are processing the same discoveries I have been about my old group, and who have shared that my pieces have helped them better understand the group and their experience with it. In many cases, that article sharing has dovetailed with 1:1 phone and email conversations I’ve had with people. There has also been an unexpected outcome of this online writing on unhealthy religion — and of a modest amount of sharing about it in the congregation I serve. (A key example is my sermon last summer on Cults, Control and YoUU, in which attendees used my top ten list of culty qualities to rate the cultyness of the church. Anyone can use the rating sheet I shared than — it can be found on the back of the 7–26–24 Order of Service, available on this page). That unexpected outcome is more people showing up at the church who have had controlling experiences — most often, in fundamentalist organized religion. Such folks, perhaps with a member-friend’s encouragement, arrive feeling hopeful that I, the minister, may understand because of my own familiarity with and concern about high control spirituality — and with the hope that they may have a different kind of experience, a positive, healing experience, in this church. This makes me very happy. Because the needs people were trying to meet with their old group (before things went sour) are legitimate human needs that remain. And if the church I serve can be a good, *healthy* place for people to meet those needs — which I believe it can — well, we are serving our purpose in the community. We can be part of the healing for people who have been through church hurt. (None of the above changes the caveat I give in my Medium bio that I am not here to convert anyone to my particular tradition, or to organized religion in general — truly, I’m not. You do you. Different strokes for different folks. But it’s good when there are a variety of healthy, life-giving options out there for growing spiritual roots and building community.) What I’ve Learned About Me I like writing. It helps me to integrate learning — especially when I am voraciously learning in a new area, as I have been with high control groups. There are things about writing for reading — vs. writing for preaching and hearing — that I enjoy. (I also enjoy preaching. Each kind of sharing is its own thing with its own gifts. The mediums have different parameters which bring out creativity in different ways.) Writing for a wider audience, beyond my congregation or even my particular tradition, feels balancing to me. It gives me a sense of purpose beyond my local church, and gives me another place to channel my “intense” energy (as one lay leader I respect has characterized me). That is particularly helpful in times when I am at risk of getting ahead of lay leadership where I serve, wanting to move faster than they are ready to, or in directions that they aren’t ready to. So, though it might be counter-intuitive to others, having this outlet with a wider audience is good for my longevity and effectiveness in my parish role. It makes me more patient and content here. I especially like feeling useful. When I hear that my writing has made a difference to someone else, it makes all the time and effort feel worthwhile. I’ve had that feedback from a variety of people with different kinds of connections to me, and from strangers. I also enjoy the visual aspect of Medium. Choosing images that deepen or complement the written content is satisfying to me. Making memes that bring a little levity to tough material is fun. Who knows, in the future I might even create a few more of my own custom images, like the cult continuum graphic I drew that debuted in Who Joins Cults?. (I admire the work of David Hayward, who communicates powerfully about healthy and unhealthy religion via visual art. I lack his artistic talent. But I have ideas in my head inspired by the kind of stuff he does — the way an image can convey a concept succinctly — only for Eastern or New Age crowds more like my old group, rather than the ex-vangelical Christian crowd that are Hayward’s people.) My years of writing sermons have made me a better writer. I notice that I gravitate to shorter sentences and plainer language, more than I used to. And from the get go, not just in the editing stage. Writing for Medium has further enhanced this. I’ve written for the eye with more white space, subheaders, quotes and bullets. I have also learned that it is a relief to speak openly about experiences that, for so long, I held close to my chest. Let the sun shine in! It’s not only helpful to other people, it’s healing for me. That’s a small number of words for a big impact, that piece about unstopping the dam of unspoken things. As I discovered with my therapist in the past year, I have too many things-I-had-to-hold-back on my chronology of life events. (Also, too many betrayals. It’s a wonder my ability to trust has survived as well as it has.) I thank my colleague and one-time spiritual director, Mary Grigolia, for modeling this openness and the greater ease it brings into one’s life. All channels open. On a nuts and bolts level, this article is my 27th published in a year’s time (not counting the disclaimer). So I’ve averaged more than 2 pieces per month. I have learned I can fit this into my life. I wish I didn’t need to spend my days off and vacation time in order to write here, though. Multiple colleagues have made the case to me that this writing is *part* of my ministry and I could do it on church time. Perhaps I will a bit more in the future. That said, I’m finding the learning and writing I’m doing on these topics more sustainable than the D.Min. coursework I was doing in fall 2023. The time spent may not be that different, but this project is driven by my own internal, intuitive process, not an external structure imposed by someone else. I can pace myself as feels right for me. (Or as I feel impelled — that’s really it.) The structure had been part of the appeal of the D.Min. (Doctor of Ministry). But now that I have this platform, and a topic I am so passionate about that I can’t not do it, and a likely publisher if I decide to pursue a book at some point (perhaps when my sabbatical rolls around?) — well, I don’t need the D.Min. program. I took a leave of absence from the doctoral program after I heard that fateful podcast in Dec. 2023, with allegations of criminal misconduct against the founder of my old group. I was dramatically reoriented in that moment. It now seems unlikely to me I’ll ever return to the D.Min. program. I’m doing a doctorate’s worth of independent study on high control groups and related topics. The need for an outlet and for a certain kind of vocational growth is being met in this way. I mentioned above what people have most read. What they have least read are the pieces that I actually most want folks to read, the prevention-oriented ones: Seeking Safely for spiritual seekers and Safely Teaching Meditation & Mindfulness, for those who teach and mentor. I have learned, once again, that my personal pull is toward prevention and building effective systems, building the world we dream of. If I pursue a book, it’ll likely be along those lines — not just another cult survivor memoir, but a guide to savvy seeking in the Wild, Wild West of our current spiritual landscape. I also have creativity to give to experimenting toward the spiritual community of the future. The old model of church, the one we’ve known for decades, centuries, is slowly dying. Well actually, it’s dying faster as time goes on. What will come next? I want to play with that. And that is what it is to me, play. Very real and not without effort, but full of joy and juice and buoyancy. Happily, I am able to do some of that in the congregation I serve. What’s Next? I have quite a few topics left on my running list of things to write about here. The ones that feel most immediate are:
I am also considering whether I might, in the future, like to write about other topics. Particularly related to chronic illness; after the consciousness-raising I’ve had from a stack of books read in the past 3–4 years, I have Things To Say. I have energy that could use a constructive outlet, as well as some life wisdom to share. The chronic illness topic actually ties back to my cultic experience. My sensitive nervous system fared poorly in that socially dangerous environment, leaving a lasting imprint on me physiologically. However. I’m torn between my desire to continue shedding light on topics that were previously off the table for me, which includes chronic illness. Torn between that desire, and my inherently private nature — particularly when it comes to what congregants might know about me… and how those things can play out in family systems… it is SO FRAUGHT. I probably won’t go beyond the vague admission here, and if I do it would probably be behind a Medium members-only paywall. If you’re curious, the books I’m referring to are, in the order I read them:
There is also a small part of me that occasionally feels like opining about trends in my particular faith tradition or organized religion in general. I have the impulse to share and cross fertilize ideas in an area that one rubric of ministry labels leading-the-faith-into-the-future…. like the joyful juicy experimentation with programs and ways of connecting people. I’m curious to know whether YOU, dear reader, would be interested in any of the above topics — more high control group topics, the light and shadows of meditation, chronic illness, and/or the future of church (from my particular, Unitarian Universalist minister’s, perspective). If there are specific topics under those themes that you’d particularly like to read about, please let me know! There are also some ways of publishing online that I might try for the first time in future. Publishing in (Medium) publications is a possibility. In this past year, I have just wanted to get my writing out there, and keep it free, as I got going on the cult stuff. But I know that publications might help stuff reach more people, so it may be worth taking some time to explore that. The other thing I’m considering is publishing in member-only ways… besides publications on Medium (which I believe are mostly members-only access), I could also put some articles behind a paywall when I publish directly. For cult and meditation-related stuff, I anticipate sticking with free articles. But I’ll consider this for other topics. After all, Baby Bear’s college fund is sitting there, waiting for contributions. Relatedly, it has crossed my mind that I could create my own publication [within Medium], to separate the savvy seeking stuff (like what I’ve been writing so far) from any new territory I might venture into. Because people following or subscribing so far may only be interested in the sort of thing I’ve been writing so far. And/or, I could cross-publish the spirituality-related pieces on my ministry web site. Weebly surely has a blog feature. [If you are reading here, you know it does, and I have!] So many options… I welcome any feedback from readers — on what you’d be interested to read about, and/or how you would like to access it. You can chime in via the comments here, email me, etc. Thanks for reading! You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. Meanwhile, here are some other articles you may enjoy 👇 Seeking Safely … What’s A High Control Group? … The Accidental Buddhist Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life. Millions of U.S. Americans have been involved in cultic groups, with ~500,000 belonging to high control groups at any one time, and something like 85,000 entering and leaving cultic groups each year.[i] These numbers are likely underestimates. That’s because people are often unaware of the nature of such a group while they are in it. Plus, once they become aware (if they do), group-instilled fears and societal stigma may deter people from naming their cultic involvement as such.[ii] The point is, getting involved with a high demand group is a common occurrence. Sticking with Americans for comparison, a similar number of people are likely involved with culty groups each year as the number of people who experience a stroke.[iii] Having gotten engulfed in a high demand group, how — and why — does a person get out? Opting Out The most common way people exit cults is by leaving on their own. These Walkouts, as they are sometimes called, may realize that something is off with the group, without having enough knowledge about high control groups to realize that they were in one. That describes me and the group I left in 2006. In that way, I was typical. Janja Lalich explains, “Some people leave the group … knowing only instinctively that for their emotional or physical survival they had to get out.”[iv] Check. A person often reaches the limit of how many contradictions they can hold about the group while continuing to operate within it. They become “disillusioned, fed up, or burnt out, or they realize the cult is not what it said it was,” explains Margaret Singer.[v] In the early years of my old group — long before my time — the teacher encouraged students to believe they would reach enlightenment in twelve years, a typical expectation in spiritual settings in his homeland. Residents gradually increased their sitting time until they were meditating four hours per day.[vi] Yet, no one attained samadhi. Twelve years came and went, and little changed. Except, so slowly it wasn’t noticed, an escalating level of dependence cultivated by the teacher. The teacher — who never outright said he was illumined himself, though it was everywhere implied and assumed — eventually modified expectations. In the West, he now said, it would likely take them more like 25 years to reach enlightenment. Later, the goal posts were moved again, to 50 years. Finally, the teacher began to convey that it could take lifetimes — and his true students would return for as many lifetimes as it took to reach the goal. The carrot held out by the ashram would forever dangle just ahead of them, never to be obtained. When accusations of sexual impropriety by the founder emerged, a group of his early students could no longer repress their doubts or suspend their disbelief. After fifteen devoted years at the ashram, a dozen people left. They all cited the same reason. The founder had become stifling. “He degenerated from a teacher to a father figure they neither needed nor wanted, and ultimately evolved into a guru whose authority was not to be questioned.”[vii] Fizzling Out If a group’s core charismatic figure disappears from the scene, participation may fizzle out. The leader may choose to leave the group. (Cult leadership can get boring after a decade or two.)[viii] He or she may be convicted of a crime and jailed or deported. Mutinous ex-followers may kick him out of the community. Or, like the founder of my old group, the leader may die. Some explanation will have to be made for this departure. Whether the leader left voluntarily, was jailed, faced a coup, or perished, the community will need a story to make meaning of this turn of events. In a group where all allegiance flowed to the leader — and all power ultimately flowed from him — his disappearance is a major destabilizing force. Some groups don’t make it. My old group was in this stage when I moved cross-country to work for them. For years I chalked up much of the confusion and dysfunction I witnessed (and experienced) there to a haze of grief and disorientation. I now understand there was much more to the story. But that was a piece of it. They have made it several more decades. An early pronouncement that there would be no successor teachers — and the presence of the founder’s widow as heir-apparent — prevented a struggle for rights of succession. There would be no factions, no split, and no large-scale drifting apart. By the time the widow died, remaining true believers had articulated a series of principles the group would follow to ensure it remained true to the founder’s blueprint. A friend jokingly calls this The Purity Wars. I suspect the group’s increasing rigidity in retreats and teachings alienated more than a few people who had started coming closer to the group’s orbit — and decided, instead, to back away while still on the outer perimeter. While there is no named successor to take the place of the founder, just a legal entity and its board, this simply means that soft power prevailed. And thus, those who effectively use soft power have positioned themselves at the top of the hierarchical culture, which continues on. Some groups simply dissolve and disperse after the core charismatic figure is gone, in however short or long a time. Though my group has continued on, I have heard about individuals who chose to leave once the teacher was no longer there in the flesh. I suspect some, at least, have gone looking for sources of charismatic authority elsewhere, to replace the lost supply. I have heard stories of several who wound up in other groups with enthralling teachers. Back in my old group, the remaining true believers may well be following a pattern that is not uncommon in Eastern religious groups when a cult leader dies — waiting for him to reincarnate so they can return to their former way of life, with him at the center.[ix] From this perspective, it doesn’t matter if the group meets “success” by worldly criteria. In the fullness of time, its purpose can still be met. If the few remaining true believers slowly die off, until no one is left, they can still sustain themselves with this story that all will be united again in cosmic time. Dying Out In other situations, it is not (only) the founder, but one or more followers in a high control group, who leave the group through death. Cults whose violence risks, and sometimes takes, lives may be among the better-known examples of high control groups. You’ve probably heard about the 1978 murder-suicide of almost a thousand people in Jonestown, British Guyana, at the behest of Jim Jones, founder of the Pentecostal-leaning People’s Temple. Almost the entire commune died from cyanide-poisoned fruit punch, or like Jones himself, gunshot. I remember well coverage on Waco, Texas, in 1993. In a showdown between the feds and David Koresh at his Branch Davidian compound, he and eighty followers lost their lives. Government actors made poor decisions that contributed to the tragedy, but one cannot help but wonder why Koresh didn’t let his people go. It seems that cult leaders tend to prefer martyrdom to surrender. Another headline-grabber was the apparent mass suicide, in 1997, by members of the UFO cult Heaven’s Gate in San Diego, California. ![]() Heaven’s Gate was memorialized in my mind by one of my favorite movies, Contact. The film’s torn-from-life news sound bites includes a bit about “the recent cult deaths near San Diego.” And a subplot sees Jodie Foster’s astronomer character having brushes with an anti-science Christian fundamentalist, who ultimately blows up the space-traveling machine that will carry Foster away for an extra-terrestrial encounter. (Image: Jake Busey as the zealot / terrorist in the 1997 film Contact) Another group with violent events in this same time period, though one I don’t recall hearing about then, was The Order of the Solar Temple (OTS). It was noteworthy for ritualistic murders and suicides of 69 people in Canada, Switzerland, and France in 1994 and 1995. A fringe New Age group, OTS members believed they were on earth to fulfill a cosmic mission. When the group self-destructed, two leaders talked about their desire for a “departure … even more spectacular” than in Waco. These and other examples of headline cult news — with in-depth attention to Heaven’s Gate and the Democratic Worker’s Party — are explored in Bounded Choice, which endeavors to understand how true believers become motivated to take such drastic actions.[x] Departure by death need not always be dramatic. In my old group, now 50-some years after the ashram’s founding, a number of long-time residents have met their natural death. This may be the ultimate exit for the remaining true believers there. And some of the tragic deaths that end cult members’ lives happen on a smaller scale. For example, 38-year-old Ian Thorson died in the Arizona desert after being ejected from Diamond Mountain University, a neo-Buddhist organization then led by Michael Roach. At this point in 2012, Thorson and his wife appeared to suffer from mental health issues and be mutually dangerous to each other.[xi] But a high control group does not invite scrutiny from law enforcement or mental health providers, not even when lives are at risk. A cult will always put organizational interests over those of individuals. So at the behest of university trustees, instead the couple with a known history of domestic violence was — together! — banished from the community, with nowhere to go and no one to help them. Thorson’s death was attributed to dehydration. But it reads to me like it might more accurately be described as the result of being squeezed out from the group, as soon as he became more liability than resource to the organization.[xii] Which brings us to those who leave because they are … Squeezed Out A high control group always places its own needs first, above those of individual participants. Anyone who is deemed as a threat to the organization — or fails to contribute enough time, money, obeisance, or prestige to the group — may simply be pushed out. These Castaways, as they are sometimes called in the cult literature, may struggle with guilt and shame, taking at face value the rationale given for their ejection — which is likely to blame them for not measuring up. Without sensitive support from someone who understands cultic dynamics, they may be gripped by grief and loneliness. They may even develop suicidal impulses.[xiii] My old group provides several illustrations of different ways people can be squeezed out. There was one troubling incident related to my group that I learned about when I researched them online, before moving there. A long-time ashram resident had been arrested, while traveling, for indecent solicitation of a child — a person he believed was a 14-year-old girl. The group treated this as an aberration completely unrelated to the community’s culture. They responded by banning the offender from the ashram. When I learned about this illegal and immoral behavior, I had heard no other concerns tied to the ashram. So, to my later regret, I accepted the organization’s explanation that this was one bad apple, not reflective of the group’s ethics. This man had strayed badly from the founder’s teachings, they said. I now believe that this student was actually repeating behaviors of the founder. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as the expression goes. The relevant point here is that the group had to kick out the person who had so publicly offended, who might besmirch their reputation. More recently, since people have begun learning about gutting allegations against the founder — and his own transgressions with females at the ashram, including adolescents — those who ask questions or express concern have been squeezed out. A woman — I’ll call her Theresa — had been living at the commune for some years. She loyally participated in its lifestyle of spiritual practices, group meals and so on. When Theresa learned about the allegations, she took them very seriously. She personally knew one of the victims and believed what she had conveyed about her experience as a young teen. Before long, ashram leaders asked Theresa to meet with them. They informed her that she was being “relieved of kitchen duties.” (The implication — she was impure and should not touch their food. You can’t make this stuff up!) Theresa suggested to them that they were deliberately shunning her in hopes that she would choose to leave. The leaders did not deny this. Instead, they piled on — accusing Theresa of dishonoring their spiritual practice, their beloved teacher and so on. A student of nonviolence, Theresa clung to the truth as she understood it in that situation. She told the leaders that she cared about them, and that how they are responding is not spiritual and only reinforces the concerns that people have. The kicker: the leaders did not show any sign of caring. Theresa shared that they “just nodded at me like I was full of [crap].” She went on, “I wished them both well and then told them the meeting felt really creepy to me.” (Theresa also tried to find out, while in the process of moving out, if she could still meditate in the group’s meditation hall. The response that came back was, “Only [teacher’s] students may meditate [there]” — meaning, not Theresa anymore! She gently asked to have this guidance put in writing. But the leader, looking nervous, declined and scooted away.) People in not-so-inner circles have also been cut off — without notice. When they learned of concerns about the founder, members of a nearby meditation group affiliated with the ashram started discussing them together. The simple act of reading materials, trying to understand what is true and considering together what to do, was evidently reported back to the ashram by someone tied to the group who also works for the organization. That person indicated she and her spouse would not remain in the group unless it decided to continue working strictly with teachings of the ashram, its founder and spiritual program. Only one person in the group (other than the employee) had any contact directly with an ashram representative. In the course of a brief phone conversation — basically friendly chit chat after addressing a practical question — this person mentioned she was aware of some controversy going on at the ashram. The representative flatly denied anything was happening that was affecting ashram folks at all, and he promptly ended the call. Soon after, the caller discovered she had been omitted from a special mailing that she normally would have received; it appeared she had been dropped from a circle she’d previously been part of, simply for having used the word “controversy.” Subsequently, the entire local group — with one traveling member now back in the area — concluded their discussion about the allegations. They made the decision to disaffiliate from the ashram, and turn to other spiritual resources. This was shared with the person in the group who worked for the organization, for her own decision-making. No other contact took place with the ashram. A week later, many members of the group (now minus the employee and spouse) were left out of a mailing about upcoming retreats. Some stopped receiving print publications or emails they routinely received from the meditation center before, too. It appears a number of changes were made to the meditation center’s contact lists, reducing or eliminating communication for some group members — though on what basis is not entirely clear. This is nothing new for the organization. People who left in an 80s exodus were more overtly shunned, when they would later come across ashram residents in town. Loyalists would cross to the other side of the street to avoid the the defectors, averting their eyes. So much for family-like bonds. Shunning is a serious issue in high-control groups. It is “a silent form of bullying and rejection.” Psychology tell us that “the brain registers exclusion as physical pain that cuts deeper and lasts longer than bodily injury.” For innately social creatures like human beings, shunning can cause long-term mental health difficulties.[xiv] Counseled Out [xv] The other way people may leave a controlling group is through an intervention. Just as loved ones may gather around a person to express concerns about drinking, drug use, or hoarding, they can observe how group involvement has negatively affected a person, and ask them to learn and reflect on this. An intervention is typically arranged by family members who are working with a team of professionals, or at least an exit counselor — someone experienced in educating group members and their families about cultic dynamics and the methods of influence they systematically use. The aim is to provide factual information about the specific group, how such groups work in general, and to provide a safe, supportive space apart from the controlling group where the member can re-evaluate their involvement. The presence of someone else who has successfully left the group can be extremely helpful as “proof of life” after cult involvement. Groups often implant fears about what happens to those who leave, so a counter-example can be freeing. There was a time when some interventions were conducted without the person’s consent. That was a response to some groups’ increased vigilance against letting members out of their grip even temporarily, lest they be presented — and choose to take — the opportunity to engage in an educational process and reassessment of their membership. If coercion is the very thing you want to combat, you should not use it yourself. Forcibly removing someone from what they consider their home and family can cause trauma, no matter how well intended. Fortunately newer, cooperative ways of working with members and families have been developed. A mutually-agreed process of learning and consultation has now long been the standard for exit counseling. While a small percentage of people leave cultic groups this way, it is a valuable option for friends and family concerned about a loved one. The Official Story In its telling of its own history, a group can choose to acknowledge former members — or not. If it does acknowledge them, it can offer its own story about why they left. One former member — who I now understand to have been a sexual abuse victim of the founder — was sometimes written off as having been mentally unbalanced, and having to leave the group on that account. Trusting meditators, of course, might not think to ask which came first — the group involvement or the mental illness. It seems quite likely to me now that, like someone in a violent domestic relationship, it was the situation that was crazy-making — not the person who was, on her own, off-balance. Sexual and spiritual abuse by your supposed spiritual teacher, and institutional betrayal by the community you had considered your family, would do a number on anyone. Some past walkouts from my group were described by long-timers who stayed as simply not committed enough to stick with it. In other words, if there was any fault to be found, it would be attributed to those who left, not to the group. I suspect for others of us who came and went — many in my cohort of young adults — that pattern was publicly chalked up to being “on a family path,” in contrast to the monastic lifestyle that became the norm at the ashram. (Notably, it hadn’t originally been the norm — many of the founder’s first generation students had families and raised children at the commune. The founder probably felt he couldn’t get around at least some among original young adult students — the critical mass that made it possible to establish the ashram — having that inescapable desire. But that first generation certainly steered later ones away from doing likewise there. For more on the control of sexuality, including reproduction, see The Roots of Control.) Mostly, I don’t remember my group talking about those who had come and gone in the past. Official publications barely acknowledge this fact. Explanations would only be offered if asked. Thus, silence on the subject of past members may be the norm. If I had known, prior to moving out there, how many people had come and gone before me, I would’ve asked a lot of questions about that before making my own decision. So, omissions that are part of a cult’s deception are not just about the teacher(s) or group and its history. The (deliberately) missing information is also about past participants. Upshot Most people opt out of cults — walking away when they realize something’s not right, or that the group isn’t delivering on its promises. Others fizzle out when the leader is gone and a group disintegrates. Some members are squeezed out, while yet others remain members until they die — be it a natural death at the end of a long life, or a premature one in which the cult had a hand. Finally, a few have the opportunity of a supportive intervention, and manage to wake up and choose to leave at that time. If you are in a group, and considering any kind of change that would put you significantly more in the group’s field of influence, I will give you the advice I wish someone had give me before I took such a step: Find out who has already come and gone, and how, and why. And don’t just take the group’s word for it. Look for neutral third-party sources, or better yet, locate and ask the ex-members themselves. The only way to know for sure what led people to leave a group — and what they experienced while they were in it — is to ask them directly. Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life. Endnotes [i] Per Michael Langone, former executive director of the International Cultic Studies Association, in Prevalence, accessed 1–2–25. [ii] Ibid. [iii] According to Stroke Facts from the Centers for Disease Control, accessed 1–2–25, almost 800,000 people per year experience a stroke. [iv] Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich (1994, 2006, 2023). [v] Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace by Margaret Thaler Singer (1995, 2003). [vi] The events I’m recapping here are described in a news feature published by a California newspaper, chronicling events from the mid-80s: “A Split at the Razor’s Edge” by John Hubner, San Jose Mercury News (April 30, 1989; accessible to subscribers of the newspaper). [vii] Ibid. Ironically, I understand it was ashram officials who had taken the initiative to invite this coverage — perhaps having expected they could shape the story consistent with their own aims. [viii] The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power by Joel Kramer & Diana Alstad (1993). [ix] Take Back Your Life, Lalich. [x] Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults by Janja Lalich (2004). [xi] “Psychosis, Stabbing, Secrecy & Death at a Neo-Buddhist University in Arizona” by Matthew Remski, in Elephant Journal (May 4, 2012). Accessed 1–2–25 at https://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/05/psychosis-stabbing-secrecy-and-death-at-a-neo-buddhist-university-in-arizona/. [xii] Ibid. [xiii] Take Back Your Life, Lalich. [xiv] “How Religious Shunning Ruins Lives” by Fern Schumer Chapman, 3–27–24, Psychology Today (article online here). [xv] This section draws from two previously cited works — Lalich, Take Back Your Life and Singer, Cults In Our Midst. When one learns how commonplace cultish behavior is among humans, it can make a person feel a bit … guarded. Over the past year, as I’ve come to see my old meditation group in a new light, that’s really been brought home to me. I have literally had dreams about creating a cult-proofing curriculum for young people. Similar to programs on healthy individual relationships, training on healthy vs. unhealthy group dynamics ought to be available and used in mainstream religious organizations, high schools and colleges. Let’s start with what kind of group we are talking about, before getting into how to know what you are looking at. Defining The Cult-iverse My group happened to be spiritual in nature (Eastern / syncretic). But high control dynamics can develop in almost any human institution or arena. Such groups can be religious, political, therapeutic, or even commercial. Spiritual ones can be Christian, Eastern, New Age, etc. They are often seen as existing on a continuum of influence and control. As depicted in the continuum below (debuted in Who Joins Cults), the early, mild stages of influence may seem quite positive — group experiences that make you feel good and want to come back for more. Potential harm increases as you move down the continuum of cultiness. Tongue in cheek, these are my stages:
At one end of the continuum are nearly benign groups. No one seems to put a 100% benign group on the continuum. But add a shade or two of omission and coercive influence, and you are getting into concerning territory. At the other extreme are groups that so fully indoctrinate their members — and so rationalize their actions based on their particular transcendent ideology — that they may routinely engage in criminal behavior, or end in a blaze of violence. On the Continuum The word “cult” is often reserved for those at the extremes.Since “cult” has become associated with sensationalized cases and media coverage, people may be more likely to automatically dismiss the possibility that they could be vulnerable to recruitment, when the subject is cults. But keep in mind that cultishness comes in many degrees and flavors. And even groups that end in apocalyptic imagery — think the Jonestown massacre — didn’t necessarily start out sounding nutso. (Jim Jones first drew people through his charismatic preaching on community responsibility and the imperative of racial integration. What’s not to like?) More descriptive, neutral-sounding synonyms for cults are high control groups or high demand groups. These groups do not (necessarily) overtly mistreat people in the way that prisoners of war in totalistic systems may be treated — literally imprisoned, like in Robert Jay Lifton’s classic study of “brainwashing” in China. (Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of “Brainwashing” in China by Robert Jay Lifton, 1961) Instead, the kind of influence they wield over people is subtle — at least at the beginning. And influence or pressure is increased gradually, once people are hooked on the belonging and other benefits. Depending on the particular group and how deeply involved a person gets, their experience could be purely positive… a mix (there is always some good, otherwise people would not be attracted and stick with it)… mildly damaging… or deeply harmful. Keep in mind that for some people in some groups, it takes many years before any negative effects are observed. One can also experience harm without realizing it; participants may be taught to interpret negative effects as positive signs of their progress, for example, or simply to deny them. It is common, too, for people at different levels of closeness to the same group — or who are involved at different points in time — to have different kinds of experiences. Once you understand that almost anyone can be hooked by a controlling group at some point in their life — especially those who believe themselves to be invulnerable — it’s natural to want to protect yourself and those you love from potential harm. The needs that drive people to seek and explore do not go away; so how does one go about trying to meet valid needs, while managing the risks of culty close encounters? What to Watch For Following are some of the characteristics of high control groups often found on lists. If you are considering whether a group with which you are involved — or considering getting involved — might be controlling, you can check off any criteria that sound like the group, as you go through this list.
(Note that the zeal can be directed instead to the group’s ideology; the absence of an elevated teacher does not guarantee that a group is free from cultic dynamics.)
While the above list is geared toward spiritual or self-help oriented groups, core attributes will show up in other kinds of high demand groups too. Is a group a high control group if it only checks a few boxes? Not necessarily. Many religious groups have charismatic leaders, attract idealistic people who are seeking belonging, and may use language not used in secular society. These things alone do not make a group cultish. But if indoctrination, isolation, and emotional contagion are used systematically to trap people in the group and control their behavior — generally for the glory of a particular leader, ideology or goal — well, beware. You have entered the continuum! Interested in more resources on how to identify a high control group? Matthew Remski provides a good summary of the most widely known frameworks. For more on how cults camouflage their true nature, check out Hidden Levers and Dissolving Dissonance and Surprises, Blinders & Lies. An earlier, 3-part series describes ways that controlling groups have similar dynamics to 1:1 controlling relationships, drawing on my experience with my old meditation group: Power & Control in Collectives — Reading Between the Power Moves — The Roots of Control. Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life. After your spiritual teacher falls off his or her pedestal, what do you do? Learning that a long-revered figure was not the exemplar you long believed them to be can be gutting — and confusing. How might one move through shock, and eventually integrate the new knowledge? I started going through this process myself about a year ago, and during this time, have had many conversations with others with ties to the same organization. I share some ideas here in case any of them are helpful to others. But first, a couple of caveats. Caveat 1: I’m not a psychologist or a social worker. I do have some life experience and professional background that informs what I’ll share, and have been kinda obsessed with learning about exposed gurus, high control groups, recovery and the like over the past year. However, I’m still in the midst of my own processing. And I don’t pretend that my understanding or ideas will serve everyone else who might find themselves in a similar position. (See disclaimer.) I invite you to add any of your own insights or suggestions in the comments, if you are so moved. Caveat 2: Each person’s process — and pace — may be different. Absorbing and adjusting to stunning new information about a significant figure in one’s spiritual life is not a one-and-done event. It is an ongoing process. It may stretch over months, or years — just as the process of integrating the practices, community, and zeitgeist of your group into your life and being was likely a long, gradual process. That said, following are a series of principles I offer for your consideration. In practice, all of these realms intertwine; adapting is an iterative and holistic process, not a linear one made up of discrete steps. Befriend Your Feelings The new information about the leader / teacher, and its implications, are likely to generate a great variety of feelings in you. Emotions are a normal, healthy, human response to our experiences. No feeling is bad. And no feeling is final. Whether you prefer talking aloud to others, or writing in a journal, putting words to your feelings can help you recognize and accept what you are going through. It may also help your loved ones to understand how big of a deal the new revelations are. My previous post, All the Feels, is an example of naming feelings (mine). That post includes a handful of feeling wheels. You may find one or more of these feeling wheels useful as tools for exploring your own emotions. Another one I like, the Emotion-Sensation wheel, helps make connections between what is happening in your brain and what is happening in your body. If you find it easier to notice your physical symptoms than to zero in on your thoughts and feelings, this wheel may be helpful. Having trouble accepting all of your feelings as okay? In the first couple of years after I left my job at the ashram and moved back to my previous life, a book that helped me a great deal was Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Brach had been through a betrayal by a spiritual teacher earlier in her life. Hmmm.) She has some guided meditations online that promote this kind of radical acceptance of oneself and one’s feelings. Seek Support If you have a long or deep association with the fallen teacher / group / practice, you will need support to work through this upending of your inner world. A friend or partner who is a good, nonjudgmental listener may be helpful. While you are feeling tender, this is probably not the best time to bring in that pal who was skeptical of your spiritual group all along; “I told you so” vibes may only add to your feeling of vulnerability. Who from your life do you trust as a caring witness? There’s nothing quite like talking with other peers who share the same spiritual practice and affiliation. They can “get it” like no one else can. (Not that everyone will have identical reactions.) If you have a local or online practice group, can you connect with those folks, either altogether, or 1:1? Or perhaps you know people from retreats that you could reach out to. A therapist can also be an indispensable partner in your processing. My therapist has gotten an earful from me over the past year. She is a consummate listener; she doesn’t even have to say much for me to feel seen and validated. My therapist has also seen how my involvement with this group/practice, and the wrenching new revelations, fits in with the rest of my life history and post-traumatic growth. It may help your therapist help you if they are familiar with betrayal trauma. Better still if they know something about high control groups. Most therapists have not received education on such groups as part of their training. This article from Shelly Rosen, likening experiences with such groups/leaders to natural disasters, can be shared with your mental health provider. Mine found it helpful. To the extent that other people associated with my old group have formed a strong attachment to the founder/teacher, they may experience some degree of betrayal trauma in relation to the teacher proving unworthy of the trust they’ve given him. Separately, they may experience betrayal by the institution. The meditation center has, so far, remained in adamant denial of any possible misdeed by the founder, despite multiple credible allegations. The organization’s failure to act with integrity, when confronted about his misconduct, constitutes an additional betrayal. For anyone who had much of a relationship with the teacher (live or spiritual-psychological), and with the community that has offered programs and built relationships in his name, such betrayals are substantial. You need and deserve support as you deal with them. What About My Practice? This is an area for ongoing discernment for each person. There’s no one right answer. (That is, assuming that the practices one has carried on are harmless at worst. Sometimes the devil is in the details of how one implements a particular discipline — and that can be tweaked, if desired.) I found myself leery of meditation and other practices associated with my group, after I learned about the serious allegations against its founder (summarized in previous post). Ironically, the disorientation the new information prompted in me led me to want the steadying power of my old practices. But after sitting down to meditate several times without being able to actually get the peace I craved — my mind would just spin around on the new learnings, feelings, and questions I had — I realized I couldn’t force it. Anyway, there are many other things I can do to regulate my emotions and my nervous system — which I did instead. Walking in nature, taking it all in with my senses, is my favorite of all self-regulating activities. Good for body, mind and spirit. And working on myself with massage balls, doing self-myofascial release on a yoga mat, has become a go-to as well. At later points, I have come back to meditation and other practices. More when it welled up instinctively in me, reaching for a familiar tool, than when I made a conscious choice to do it. For me it has been important to choose any practice for my own reasons, and to do it on my own terms — including how, how long, and how often I meditate. When I do them, I am motivated by the benefits I directly experience in doing my old group’s method of meditation, or other practices. But I think it’s equally legit to choose to forego any of the practices indefinitely, while doing the emotional, cognitive, and spiritual work brought up by the new knowledge of the teacher and group. One can always pick back up with a practice later. One person mentioned to me that yoga and pouring himself into music have been his go-to activities lately, instead of meditation. He has recognized what will best meet his needs for centering and emotional processing right now. The old method of meditation is too fraught to be that thing for him right now — and perhaps he’ll never choose it again. I know some people affiliated with my old group who have chosen to stick with their spiritual practices. The only thing they have changed is to stop reading the teacher’s writings or listening to his recorded talks; they favor original sources for inspirational material (e.g., reading the Upanishads or the Dhammapada), rather than commentaries or other teachings by the meditation center’s founder. They still largely follow the program of spiritual practices he outlined; but they no longer consider him their spiritual teacher. Others have pursued new spiritual practices, finding that the long-used methods had ceased to help them meet their goals, even before they learned about the teacher’s past transgressions. That new knowledge has helped them feel freer now to try something else. All of these choices and more are available to a person who is integrating new information about the founder/group, and reassessing their relationship to all of it. You might even make one choice now, and a different choice later. What feels right for you? Making Sense of It I remember when I left my job at the ashram and moved back “home” years ago. I had a LOT to process from my journey with the group. But I wondered if this was self-indulgent somehow. Was I just navel-gazing if I spent time writing or talking about those experiences? I even confessed to one of my fellow meditator YAs, who had left after I did, “at times I wondered if this was a rather narcissistic exercise … the hours I spent on it.” My best friend — who had been through A LOT of therapy herself, and was better for it — said something very wise to me. It helped me then, and it has come back to me many times since. “It’s important to make sense of your experience,” she observed. And indeed, that was exactly what prompted me to reflect and chew on my California year. I needed to understand what I had been through. I needed to find words for what I’d felt. And I wanted explanations for why the community had behaved the way it did. I didn’t want confusion to be my final feeling. I had written a five-page email explaining my experience, after my last day of work. This was after a friend from my cohort of young adult meditators, who was considering making a cross-country move to be closer, asked me why I was leaving. Was there anything he should know? he wondered. I’m so glad I wrote to him, instinctively, while it was fresh. A year and a half later, when I was safely re-established in my old city, returned to my old career and my long-time friends, choir and church community — and having the sense of groundedness, again at last, that having bought a house can bring — I was ready for a deeper dive. At that time (16 years ago to the day as I type this), I wrote a “letter” to the then-head of the meditation center; I’ll call her Katarina. One of the reasons I wrote, as I told her, was that “I believe naming these things will help me to integrate my experiences and continue to grow spiritually.” My “letter” to Katarina turned into an almost 60-page missive. There are sections on my path to that community, on what I experienced in the year I spent working there, on the “inscrutable ashram” (yep yep, inscrutable, though I did my best as an applied sociologist to make a case study of it), and on my “stabilization and realignment” (how I made my way forward after leaving). If the depth of my processing and the length of my writing were a good indication (and I believe they were), my friend had been quite right — it was important for me to make sense of my experiences! I started that tome with stating the things about which I felt gratitude — what I had learned from that community that I would carry forward with me. That felt kind of compulsory, as I recall. Partly, in order to be heard in the ashram’s culture of conspicuous humility and bubbling gratitude; if I didn’t demonstrate appreciation first, she might not be open to what I had to say next. Partly, it was simply that those values and behaviors were still so internalized in me that it was second nature for me to start with an extensive write-up expressing my gratitude. Otherwise, I would have felt myself to be selfishly unappreciative. Those dynamics aside, I suspect something like the gratitude list IS an important piece for many people in a time of integration or reassessment. It’s a cognitive and emotional part of the process of sorting through the meaning of one’s experiences. No one wants to feel their time was simply wasted. (And it rarely is.) If you are now in a similar period of taking stock, you might ask yourself — for what am I grateful? What do I choose to keep? What is of lasting value to me from this set of experiences? I did put that “letter” to Katarina in the mail. I hoped that it might be helpful to the community she led, to understand what one person experienced there and why I ultimately left. Perhaps, I thought, it would help them make their community more effective in the future. (You see how my pure, trusting heart survived my dark-year-of-the-soul there, intact?! Nothing changed, alas. From what others have shared, it seems the organization became only more rigid and unhealthy as the years rolled on. But I was still operating with a generous spirit and best-case thinking then — ever holding out hope for them.) Katarina wasn’t capable of really hearing what I shared. I hadn’t asked for any response beyond acknowledgment that she had received it. She did answer me, though. She suggested I must have misunderstood the support structures the community had created for its new YA employees. It wasn’t paternalism. Oh, no. If I had communicated more clearly, they would have helped me. She said she hoped that I might draw closer to the organization again some day. I remember reading her response in bewilderment. Um, did you read what I so painstakingly wrote, Katarina? I mean, I was not unkind, but I described some really deep problems that I found not only confounding, but fundamentally unhealthy. For anyone, but certainly, for me. How could you think I would ever come back to that? Not happening. So my heartfelt reflection did not appear to have been received in a constructive way by the organization. They couldn’t really hear it. (Hmm, feels familiar.) But it had served its purpose as part of my own integration and moving forward. Indeed, it was important to make sense of my experience. And for me, writing has always been one of the most effective ways to do that. I would go through later cycles of revisiting my experiences with that community, and seeing new layers of meaning in it. Particularly, when I was in theological school. But until recently, I was missing a critical insight. The new information that has emerged about the founder has finally allowed me to understand more fully the nature of the organization. And that, in turn, has released me more fully to move forward in my own spirituality and vocation. If you are in a similar time of reckoning, what kinds of activities, what modes of expression, help you to process emotionally, to sort things out cognitively, to integrate past experiences and allow your understanding to evolve? Such activities might include talking, prose, or poetry… music, collage, or painting… or ___ [ your thing here ] ___ . If your mind works in images, but you don’t like to make art yourself, you might try working with something like Soul Cards. The cards feature evocative imagery by artist Deborah Koff-Chapin. I have both sets, and I find them a good way to listen for my deepest self / intuitive mind / image-oriented part of me. They come with a variety of suggestions for use. I choose one or a few that speak to me and live with them for a while. They have proved meaningful to others in small group spiritual direction. This might be a way to listen to your inner child or your inner teacher as you are processing your feelings around your old group, and discerning what is next for you. Seeking Safely For anyone who no longer considers an old group’s founder as their spiritual teacher, or the program as their (exclusive) program, the world is your oyster. It’s also a bit of a wild, wild West of teachers, groups and programs promising spiritual growth, personal development, healing and so on — with plenty of grifters and opportunists mixed in with sincere folks. The internet has created new ways of connecting — YouTube, for example, is crowded with self-proclaimed teachers, coaches, channelers, and shamans. And there are still plenty of brick-and-mortar retreat centers out there too. If you decide to explore new teachers / programs / groups, I encourage you to be intentional about seeking safely, to avoid having a problematic experience (again) in the future. Alas, it is not uncommon for a person to leave one group that turned out to have been manipulative or dishonest, only to end up in another one. As the proverb goes: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I shared some suggestions for safe seeking here. If you have additional suggestions, I welcome you to mention them in the comments. What Are Local Groups Doing? A lot of people with ties to my old meditation center participate(d) weekly in a local meditation group. Some even had retreats put on in their area periodically. I’m aware of a number of local meditation groups that have grappled with the shocking allegations about the founder, and the organization’s non-response to it. Almost all of the ones I have heard about have eventually decided to disaffiliate from the organization, due to its failure to take credible allegations seriously and act accordingly. Some of those groups are dissolving; individuals are making their own decisions about their meditation practices. Other local meditation groups have decided to keep meeting, but change up what inspirational material they are working with together. They are taking the focus off of the old meditation teacher. One group in New York has even created a new regional collaboration, and is offering their first retreat (online) this month. They aim to continue providing spiritual support and companionship to participants, just no longer focused on the old meditation center and its teacher. Online study groups have a similar choice of whether to disband or simply change focus, drawing on materials beyond the old founder-teacher. In the resources section that follows, I mention some books and other materials that may be of interest to either individuals or groups who are broadening their source material. Resources Looking for SPIRITUAL READING for yourself or a group? Here are some suggestions: Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics: Lifestyles for Spiritual Wholeness by Marsha Sinetar. I don’t remember how I came across this book. But I read it after I left my ashram job, as I was integrating what I’d experienced there and seeking my own path, with a greater sense of freedom and self-trust. I have re-read it several times. Part of why I put this title at the top of this list as that it encourages people to find their own way — there is no one-size-fits-all program for spiritual growth or living. I also loved some autobiographical stuff I read: those of Etty Hillesum (An Interrupted Life and Letters from Westerbork), Karen Armstrong (post-ashram, I read The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness, she has two earlier ones also), and as I’ve mentioned already, Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance, which draws from painful personal experience and held important messages for me in my recovery. I had previously read Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words, which a friend from my former local meditation group had recommended to me. (I think I ordered it from the foundation created by friends of Peace Pilgrim, https://www.peacepilgrim.org/ … probably also available used.) All four of these have in common that they were by and about women. That felt especially important to me, for reasons I understand more fully now! The first three were also people who had flawed teachers and who found their own way forward. A few other random thoughts:
Want to learn about HIGH CONTROL GROUPS, and inoculate yourself against future manipulation? Many of my online pieces address this:
Book suggestions:
Podcasts — There are many podcasts out there on high control groups aka cults. The ones I have listened to the most are:
Lastly, SUPPORT GROUPS & WEBINARS for survivors of high control environments. These may be most helpful for people who have been in deep (such as living or working at the ashram). Although one can be psychologically “in deep” even from a geographic distance. Some resources on my radar:
Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. Meanwhile, here are some other articles you may enjoy 👇 The End of Silence … A Spiral Season … How I Was Primed Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life. So if you know me or you’ve read some of my posts, you know that in the past year, I have come to see in a new light the meditation group that influenced me significantly as a young adult. The understanding I originally had of that group has been turned on its head. Such a process can take one on quite an emotional journey. I’m talking about nothing more than feelings — and nothing less. I am thankful for ALL of my feelings. Putting emotions into “good” and “bad” categories, and trying to avoid “bad” feelings, keeps a person fragmented — alienated from oneself. In contrast, accepting and working with our emotions has integrating power. Naming and processing emotions is the opposite of spiritual bypassing. It is a pathway to authentic healing and wholeness as a human being. So, let’s review some facts, and then dig into the feelings they have generated. New Information In December 2023, I came across material online with shocking allegations against the best-selling author and beloved founder of my old meditation group. Someone born there relayed, on a podcast, that the guru had sexually abused adolescent girls who grew up at the ashram. This was the very place I had worked when I moved cross-country to support the group’s “spiritual” mission in my early 30s. (The founder had been long dead by then, and I had heard no hint of such happenings in the past.) I’d had a mixed experience, at best, when I drew closer to that community myself. I left after a year. And I’d been doing a dance of two-steps-away, one-step-back with that community, psychologically, ever since. The intervening 18 years, for me, have included various phases of moving away from some of the core ideas that the ashram community promoted, as well as adapting practices to my needs. All of which is to say, compared to others who have remained more firmly embedded in the group’s ethos, I probably was much better positioned to be able to receive new information about the founder. It is a portrayal that contradicts everything the ashram presents their teacher to be. Despite my relative distance, the new information shook me to my core. The cognitive dissonance was extreme. When I got beyond shock and confusion, it brought up a jumble of other feelings. Keep Going Difficult as it was to look right at the questions raised, no way was I going to dismiss them out of hand. I started poking around to see if anything else had found its way to the internet. That is, since my Googling of the teacher long ago, which had turned up nothing before my move in 2005. Indeed, other troubling accusations now popped up. About the teacher’s multiple marriages and abandoned offspring in his homeland. About his behavior with young women there. About similar misconduct said to have gotten him ejected from a prestigious program here in the U.S. But wait, there’s more. An old newspaper article, previously behind a paywall, describes a schism that happened at the California ashram in the 80s. Several female students came forward to tell the community about the founder molesting them. Latent doubts among many students then came to the surface, tension grew in the ashram community, and there was an exodus of people. I’d gained a vague awareness of the 80s schism during my year working there, but with no clue about what caused it. The last discovery was a pair of letters buried in a library archive, both from early ashram residents. A man who had lived at the ashram for 19 years before leaving calls himself one of the refugees from that place. After much reading and reflection, he writes, he’s come to realize how harmful the ashram community was, and that the founder betrayed the very ideals he espoused. The refugee wrote in hopes that others might avoid falling into a similar kind of trap. The second letter is the most damning of all. Here are the raw, heartfelt words of a woman betrayed by her so-called spiritual teacher. She asks for an explanation for his sexual abuse of her when she lived at the ashram, and for the pathetic justification he had given at the time (that it was somehow for *her* spiritual advancement) — how could that square with his teachings? She pleads for him to stop using women for his own evident gratification. She expresses her need for a sincere apology. There is just no reading these words without being moved to tears, and knowing in one’s bones that she speaks the truth. An Ocean of Feelings Over the past year, I have talked to so many other people who’ve had ties to that meditation center. Sharing what we’ve learned. Processing together. Trying to make sense of our own experiences in light of this new knowledge. And wondering what to do, in our personal spiritual lives, and as caring people. The community of those who are struggling with this new information is the potential audience that has come to be most often in my heart and mind, as I write online. I need to bear witness to the feelings that I and so many others have experienced (and are still experiencing), as we metabolize what has come to light. Of course, different people will have different feelings. And a single person may have many different feelings at different points in time. Sometimes, I have many different feelings all at once. All of this is so normal. Shock Some version of shock may be one of the first emotions to arise. Confusion, dismay, or disillusionment are all natural responses to learning that someone is not at all who you thought they were — who a whole community of people has, for half a century, presented him to be. A rug-pulled-out-from-under-me sensation fits in here. Because this is not just any ol’ person. This is a person lifted up as a beloved spiritual teacher, a role model, an illumined being. If that fact is wrong, then what else in that community and its teachings is not what it seemed? The implications are so deep and disturbing — demanding so much work to get through — that a person might well just stay in shock. If overwhelmed, one might instinctively push the troubling information away, at least for a while. More than one person has uttered “I just can’t…” The mind, the heart, cannot take it in. Alternately, to begin with, one might avoid exposure to any information that could put one in a precarious state. (That is just what the ashram leaders are advocating… but who does that really protect, in the long run?) I have cycled in and out of shock, blankness, and confusion since I first heard that podcast last December. Anger When the allegations began to penetrate, when I could move beyond shock, I was so angry. The podcast described molestation beginning when ashram girls turned 14. My own daughter was a few weeks shy of that age as I listened to it. The Mama Bear in me — who is fierce — reared back on her hind legs and prepared to lunge at the threat to any precious, vulnerable young teen. How dare he!!! NO. YOU. DON’T. But he already had. It happened long ago, and he’d been dead for decades. When I was centered enough to take constructive action, I wrote to the organization’s Board of Trustees to share what I had learned, and invite their response. (How about that — direct communication!) I received brief acknowledgment. Then silence, and more silence. Frustration mounted as they stalled on any real communication. Then exasperation, when they finally provided a response that might kindly be called tone-deaf. (Picture a child putting their fingers in their ears and calling out “la la la la la — I can’t hear you…” when they Do Not Like what they hear. Kind of an adult version of that.) Are you freakin’ kidding me?! Determination set in when it became clear that denial — with a dash of victim-blaming — would remain the official line. Trustees have shown that they would rather question the integrity of sincere questioners than actually answer the questions. One friend, who had been involved longer than I, and had a student-teacher relationship with the guru while he was alive, reached out to the trustees some weeks after I did. His questions and concerns to the leaders have gone completely unanswered — not even acknowledged. Given not only the shocking concerns that had arisen, but also the radio silence, my friend was so hurt and furious that he eliminated from his home all possessions associated with the meditation center. First, he put his entire collection of books by the prolific meditation teacher into a giant garbage bag and set it out, with great delight, on trash pick-up day. (This friend is an academic and a book-lover, so dumping books is not a step he would take lightly; but he did not want anyone else to read THESE books.) Then into his outdoor stove, in batches, went handwritten letters exchanged with the teacher and other representatives… and keepsakes the community had sent over the years (oh, they knew how to nurture the illusion of connection, to make it feel anything but transactional)... in went newsletters and journals… and files of notes taken at retreats… It all went up in glorious flame. My friend found this quite cathartic. As for me, my initial anger about the harm done to vulnerable people came in waves. Later I would experience anger again, as I read up on high control groups. Slowly I was able to recognize some of those dynamics in my own direct experience with that community. Others with whom I was processing started connecting the dots too. What began as anger at the teacher’s sexual and spiritual abuse of girls and women, expanded into anger at the ashram long-timers for their participation in a wider pattern of deception and coercive control. I began to see that all of us who had come into their orbit were survivors of spiritual abuse. We had all trusted them. And we had all been betrayed. Vulnerability & Vigilance (Fear) In my first 3 or 4 months of processing, a feeling of vulnerability sometimes surged through me. I would get embodied flashbacks — from the year I lived nearby and worked at the ashram — of feeling trapped, confused, stuck. I can only imagine that if I had overlapped with the founder’s tenure, I would have been squeezed into an even smaller and smaller area of permissible thought and feeling. (Janja Lalich calls this bounded choice.) If my cohort had arrived a decade or two earlier, would some of my peers have been targeted sexually by the meditation teacher? What might I myself have been subjected to? Would I have been able to make any sense of what was happening? Would I have been able to break free? It’s a feeling of having narrowly escaped harm. With echoes of — do I still need to be vigilant? Is the coast really clear now? As I write this, my adrenaline spikes. I can name this emotion, but that did not immediately move it from my body to my mind. It is visceral. I left the ashram almost two decades ago, but this vigilance is still alive in me. It has been stoked by the recent revelations of wrongdoing and systemic deception. Sadness The more light was thrown on the teacher’s and group’s dubious history, the more I read from the literature on high control groups and recovery, the more time I spent in the land of sadness. I am heartbroken at the depth of harm done to the girls and women who were sexually molested by the teacher. I can only imagine the despair they have known. They went through successive betrayals, as the community disbelieved and shunned those who dared to speak up — which it continues to do. When I consider the wider community of people who have regarded this teacher as a central influence on them — a man who skillfully drew upon the spiritual wisdom of many traditions, in ways relatable today, who spoke eloquently, wrote beautifully, who oozed humble charisma, and yet who was, at heart, it turns out, a charlatan — well, it’s depressing. It’s depressing to consider the cumulative spiritual harm done to thousands of people who were misled and manipulated by this manufactured mystic. Under the umbrella of sadness, another primal emotion that can arise is shame. How did I not know? How was I taken in by this spiritual con artist and his twisted minions? What’s wrong with me, that I was so easily duped? (Note: If you were involved in this or a similar group, NOTHING is wrong with you. People like him — groups like that — figure out how to hook people through natural, deep human needs. Like the needs for belonging, for meaning, for peace, and for beliefs that make sense of the world. And usually, the people they hook happen to be then in a moment of particular vulnerability, such as all humans have at some time in their lives.) Another feeling in this family is grief. One may wonder: if I process this new information, and all the feelings it brings up, what will I have to let go of? Will I drift apart from a dear community, with which I had so many positive associations before? Am I going to lose my precious practice, my rock? Will I have a crisis of faith? Will I be afloat in a sea of uncertainty about what is real and true? For me, new grief reverberates through old grief. I’ve been through phases before of grieving my losses with this community. The loss of the reliable grounding and deep peace I had found in the early years of my meditation practice, which has never been the same since the kundalini syndrome began. There’s no going backward. The loss of the ashram and retreat house as places of refuge, after I moved there and had a very different set of experiences and associations in that place. (Existential losses explored here.) The loss of relationships that had been important to me, which could never be the same in the After as the Before — a loss of belonging and identity. These losses were complicated by the sense that I could not speak openly, plainly, about my experiences in the meditation community, even with the peers I had met there. Eventually I did have some frank conversations with a few of the others who came and went like I did. And I wrote extensively a couple years after I left — voicing and clarifying my experiences at least to myself, privately. But my socialization by the group was still deep enough in me that, even once I found some words for it, I censored myself from any wider or public naming of what I’d experienced. Speaking negatively of the group was implicitly a form of disloyalty, and loyalty was a defining value of the community. So there was no public acknowledgment of my grief. Taking in this new, heartbreaking information about the founder, and receiving a wholly inadequate response from current leadership, has added new ouches. It’s like someone is pushing on my old bruises. Though, in another way, I feel old scars healing more completely, thanks to the new perspective I’ve gained this past year. I now know, more clearly than ever, that the difficulties I experienced when I worked there were not on me. That community WAS deeply troubled, as I’d sensed. And now, I have a more precise understanding of why. Now, I am not the only one who sees it. In reality, I never was — so many people had come and gone from the ashram, before my cohort was cultivated, and while we were there, and since. Guilt I have long felt concerned about the friends who stayed behind at the ashram when I left, or who came after me. The one that particularly worries me is my former office-mate, who I remember hearing crying through the thin wall between us. ‘Madelyn’ is the only one left, at this point, of my cohort. And she is in sooo deep. A couple of decades in, her indoctrination seems to be complete. Though she is ostensibly their leader now, I get the sense that someone else is really pulling the strings. If I still have echoes of that stuck feeling, almost 20 years later, how trapped must Madelyn be at this point? So trapped she doesn’t even know what she genuinely feels, is my guess. So hemmed in by the culture, so behaviorally modified and bounded in choice that she is the perfect yes woman. Is the real Madelyn still in there somewhere? Will she ever get to come out again? Can she heal and know joy? I’m not sure how best to express what I feel about Madelyn’s situation. There’s an element of something like survivor’s guilt. To my good fortune, I’m the-one-that-got-away. I was the first of my cohort to leave. She is the last one still stuck. And she may never get free. Even if the group dissolves, she may never extirpate what has been inculcated in her, which is not really her. Intellectually I know I am not responsible for other people. But the friend and Mama Bear in me yearns to save Madelyn, or help her save herself. Regret is perhaps a lighter form of guilt. For me, regret comes from knowing that, as a result of my earlier enthusiasm for the meditation practice and the programs of the group, I introduced it to many other people. I gave away so many books published by the group — the teacher’s main claim to fame. I encouraged other members of my local meditation group to consider retreats, to come closer. At the church I belonged to at the time, I initiated and co-taught a workshop on the group’s spiritual practices. I nurtured relationships on behalf of the organization, and raised money, and represented the aspirations of the group to other people, first as a volunteer and then as a staff member. Even after I left my job there and began my long slow dance away, internally, I still believed there was wisdom in the founder’s words. After I entered the ministry, I quoted him from the pulpit numerous times, and introduced his books to congregants. No more! Have others suffered in any measure because I brought them into contact with this teacher, this community — this group that turns out to have been a Trojan horse? I hope not. I didn’t influence anyone to come as close to the group as I had. Well, other than my cohort of young adult peers; by design, we all influenced each other, culminating in a wave of YA migration to live and/or work at the ashram. I will never know fully just how my role with that meditation center affected others. I am left with whisps of moral injury. In this light, my writing publicly about my experiences, and my time spent talking to other meditators who are processing, is not only a part of my own healing journey, and in the hope of preventing others from enduring similar experiences. It is also reparation for any harm in which I may have unwittingly participated. Compassion This is the underlying source of much of my anger — compassion for the sexual assault victims whose humanity was violated, and compassion for all those who have been spiritually harmed by this group, which turns out to be a high control group. (You can disagree, of course; that’s my assessment, after a deep dive of study, and drawing on my own direct experience.) I also feel compassion for the long-timers. Who knows why they got stuck there, when so many others came and went. The ones who are left may have vulnerabilities that others didn’t have. In any case, they are among the most harmed. Some are so bamboozled they cannot even consider the evidence of their teacher’s behavior — and its implications for who he really was — not even when it is plainly presented to them by people who genuinely care about them. The emotional and social captivity of the ringleaders appears to be absolute. As they have been for decades, they are trapped within the assumptions, the habitus, and the relational system of the group. I’ll write more in the future about how I try to make sense of the long-timers — and why I have largely forgiven them. Freedom As I move through the many feelings brought up by the allegations and by the current leadership’s response to them (or lack thereof), I experience greater freedom within myself. Others have commented on this too. On the other side of the shock, the hurt, and the anger, beyond the sadness and confusion, a lightness often seems to emerge. The flip side of losing trust in the meditation teacher and his community is regaining some trust in oneself and one’s own judgment. The ashram cultivates dependence. So it makes sense that when one gets greater distance from that community, and all its expectations and strictures, one emerges into greater liberty. Remember my friend who burned all his meditation center memorabilia? Up to that point, his longstanding identity as a student of that particular teacher, the warmth and belonging he had experienced in the community of meditators — and I’d guess, the compulsory loyalty that the group subtly instills in participants — all this had previously made it hard for him to fully move forward on a different spiritual path, the one that best helps him to grow and thrive now. The new knowledge of the teacher’s misdeeds, and the ritual burning, helped him finally make a clean break from the group — one that he realized he’d actually been ready for for quite some time. Other people I have talked to are also feeling, in time, more able to trust their own experience, and their own needs — even if it contradicts what the meditation teacher and his community have long taught them to consider correct understanding or practice. We are freer to know natural joy and not just discipline. Each person can follow their own goals for their spiritual life, instead of an impossible goal implanted by others. Beyond the striving for Purity that the ashram now teaches and embodies, there is freedom to notice what practices work for you, and which people speak to you. There is freedom also to enjoy the gifts of life — not to waste them in the doomed pursuit of perfection. We have not come into this exquisite world To hold ourselves hostage from love… But to experience ever and ever more deeply Our divine courage, freedom, and Light! ~Daniel Ladinsky (inspired by Hafiz) More on Anger I have had to work long and hard to be able to claim my own anger. As a female socialized to be “nice,” ditto as a Midwesterner, as a thinker (enneagram 5w4) who takes refuge in my mind, and as a child of an alcoholic with a deep aversion to angry adults, anger is something I avoided, unconsciously, for a very long time. This doesn’t mean I never felt it, of course. Anger is a basic human emotion, a built-in biological reality. But I didn’t know how to fully FEEL it, or how to EXPRESS it. Anger often stayed below the surface in me, fermenting sometimes into sadness or helplessness. Ironically, words that first came to me through the meditation center — words of Gandhi — were one of the ways that anger has been helpfully reframed for me. “I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power which can move the world.” ~Mohandas Gandhi My life partner has also modeled for me the positive power of anger. I’m not saying every expression of fury is welcome — my first instinct is still to leave the room, because my sensitive nervous system will pay a price for hostile energy discharged in my presence. But the one who has the capacity for intense, instinctive anger — and who trusts these natural feelings — also has the capacity for tremendous joy and resilience. I see these twin powers come to life in my husband. They are two sides of the same energy, the same vibrancy. To cut oneself off from any feeling is to cut oneself off from all feeling. So these days, I honor my anger. It keeps open my access to joy. And it provides the energy for taking constructive action — something I want to keep doing. Coming next: resources for healing and moving forward — for individuals and potentially, for groups who want to continue together. Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. Here are some other articles you may enjoy 👇 Seeking Safely …….. My Spiral Sister, Karen Armstrong …….. The Roots of Control Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life. I cocked my head away from my computer screen, rubbing my sock feet together for warmth in the cold dampness of a Bay Area morning. Leaning toward the thin trailer wall that separated my office from my co-worker’s, I listened intently. Was she…? Yes, Madelyn (I’ll call her) was crying again. The sound was muffled but unmistakable. Should I try to connect with her after lunch? I had made overtures of support before, offering a hug or a listening ear. But to no avail. So I could only guess what she might be struggling with: some old grief welling up — perhaps the very grief that had made this place seem to her like a haven, from afar? The loneliness of life at the ashram, which was in equal measure insular, and yet also lacking in genuine emotional intimacy? The accumulated frustration of trying to figure out how to accomplish something in her job, in the opaque culture of this community? The memory is frozen, the questions still unanswered for me almost twenty years later. Because Madelyn, it seems, learned to do something that I ultimately did not want to do: to turn her attention away from the feelings that troubled her, and as we’d been taught, lean into a spiritual practice instead. Perhaps she mantramed her way through it. Or maybe she used the powers of concentration she had honed through years of meditation, and focused her attention back on some work task, as the untended tears dried on her face. She certainly would not have done what I sometimes did when struggling through my dark year of the soul there — console myself with a sweet treat. No, sense training had never seemed like a challenge for my waifish peer. She was adept at self-denial. Sidestepping Reality Instinctively, my young adult self at that meditation center knew that feelings provide information. And that to cut oneself off from difficult feelings would be to cut oneself off also from important insight — from the very reality of one’s own experience. When a person pushes away reality, they may well end up living in illusion. I didn’t have this vocabulary then, but now I recognize that I witnessed a good deal of spiritual bypassing at that ashram. Psychotherapist and Buddhist teacher John Welwood coined the term spiritual bypassing to refer to a frequent phenomenon in spiritual spaces. It means using “spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks.” [i] My old group promotes the use of a sacred phrase, or holy name, throughout the day. With enough repetition, the phrase becomes embedded deep in one’s psyche. The goal was to do it so often, for so long, that eventually it would go on repeating itself in the mind effortlessly. Such a practice appears in many different religious traditions, and I have no bone to pick with it generally. However, I believe it can be misused. If the holy name is repeated to displace difficult emotions — instead of actually feeling them, and finding out what they have to teach you — the practice becomes a method for spiritual bypassing. My old group did advocate repeating this kind of sacred phrase as a way to cope with strong emotions, such as jealousy or anger. Retreat leaders assured students that was not about suppressing emotions. Instead, they said, practitioners would *transform* difficult emotions through this discipline. What could that even mean — transform them into what? Granted, sometimes we need to pace ourselves to metabolize strong feelings. If a person uses their mantram just long enough to get grounded again, so they can then genuinely experience and deal with their emotions, well, I can see the utility in that. But I suspect that Madelyn — and many of her role models at the ashram — are just as apt to use spiritual disciplines to perpetually avoid “negative” things. To avoid grief, to skirt around cognitive dissonance, to veer away from anger that actually needs to be heard… to divert the mind from unwelcome questions, to postpone maturation of various kinds… suppress, suppress, suppress. Avert Thine Eyes! The current de facto leader of the group has gone all in on spiritual bypassing. In response to a series of credible allegations of wrongdoing by their founder, she is coaching meditators to push away information that might make cracks appear in their image of the organization and its founder. She urges them, instead, to focus on maintaining the purity of their consciousness. The chart below popped up on my social media feed recently. It captures very well the approach the leadership of my old group is taking. My old organization’s message to meditators is something like: Avoid exposure to ‘baseless rumors’ that could cause you turmoil; just do your practice and keep your mind steady. In other words, nothing to see here. Keep Calm and Meditate On. The organization appears to be largely ignoring sincere questions and concerns expressed by long-time practitioners who *have* reviewed the allegations. Emails simply go unanswered. Except perhaps by the silent repetitions of sacred words in leaders’ minds. Rama rama rama rama… Something’s Rotten in Denmark When an institution works to silence questions and maintain the status quo, even in the face of legitimate concerns, that tells me that something is broken in the institution. It’s a common enough pattern, sadly. I was sensitized to it as I completed seminary and started out as a congregational minister. My tradition was then going through a time of reckoning over ministerial misconduct, and the long-term harm it does not only to individuals who are targeted, but to whole communities whose ability to trust leaders is damaged. Shortly after I accepted my first call to serve a congregation, a major address at the national level powerfully broke silence on this issue. (The speech is not available from the sponsor organization Because Threat of Lawsuits, but it can be accessed from the speaker herself here.) The upshot: secrecy harms individuals and groups, while honesty is the beginning of healing. Let’s get real, people. “The [group’s] growth as religious people began by telling a secret. It continued with an analysis of power that our faith calls shared ministry — the priesthood and prophethood of all in covenant.” ~ Gail S. Seavey [ii] There had been voices crying in the wilderness for years. But a critical mass seemed finally to have been reached — in no small part, I believe, because of the preponderance of women now in the ministry in my tradition. It has been a period of breaking silences, clarifying codes of conduct, making training in healthy boundaries a core part of professional development, strengthening systems of accountability, and increasing transparency about all of it. It remains a work in progress. These are the kinds of things my old meditation group needs to do, if they are sincere about serving people. Start with the truth. Apologize to those harmed. Ask what will help them heal. Then, if the organization is to continue, get to work on building preventive systems. Alas, so far, my old group’s leaders seem bent on staying in denial. They’ve been telling their story a particular way for decades, and they’re sticking to it. The Sound of Silence Another of my colleagues, whose ministry began in the early 2000s, wrote powerfully from her own experience of the dynamics of silence. As Erika was on the verge of being deemed ready to serve — but before she had passed that major milestone — a senior colleague propositioned her. This mentor had all the power in the relationship. Including the ability, if he so chose, to derail her nascent vocation. Erika could hardly believe what was happening. She froze. What cut even deeper was the silence of the system. For while one faithful female colleague, when taken into confidence, protected Erika, the man who misused his position was largely, quietly, shielded from accountability. “When silence becomes a living character in our personal narratives, it’s often an accomplice to power.” ~ Erika Hewitt [iii] Gosh, that tale sounds familiar. In the stories I’ve heard about the founder of my old meditation group, the real kicker for victim-survivors was that the ashram community, who revered this man, largely did not — would not — believe them. Instead, those who stayed have been complicit in the silence. Complicit in letting the harsh truth fade into obscurity within the larger mythology of the group. So it wasn’t just one person, the supposedly most enlightened person, who betrayed the victim-survivors. In the end it was the whole community of those who participated in the silence-keeping. And for as long as they continue to deny the truth — to perpetrate their own Big Lie — the organization fails everyone they purport to serve. A Turning Tide? Now, more people once affiliated with the group are learning about the allegations. Person by person and city by city, the extended community of meditators are considering the evidence and consulting our consciences. Almost everyone who reviews the information finds the allegations credible, the pattern un-ignorable. Most are deciding that we will not be part of an organization more committed to maintaining its illusions than to caring for real people. We will not be secret keepers, or truth deniers. No. This is where the silence ends. Perhaps, as in the community Gail Seavey served, this is also where the spiritual growth deepens. If you’ve had your own journey with spiritual bypassing — or with breaking oppressive silence — I’d love to hear about it in the comments. Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. Up next… probably a piece that’s been brewing about All The Feelings I and others I know have cycled through, upon realizing that A) our meditation teacher did Very Bad Things and B) it was (is) a high-control group. Expect at least one feeling wheel. Meanwhile, here are some other articles you may enjoy 👇 The Shadow Side of Meditation & Mindfulness … How Cults Are Concealed Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life. Endnotes [i] Spiritual Bypassing: When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters by Robert Augustus Masters (North Atlantic Books, 2010). [ii] 2016 Berry Street Essay by Gail S. Seavey, sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, presented at UUA General Assembly in Columbus, Ohio, in June 2016. Essay available in writing and via video at https://www.gailseavey.com/2016-berry-street-lecture. Response available at https://uuma.org/berry-street-essay/2016-response-to-berry-street-essay-the-reverend-david-pyle/. [iii] “The Dynamics of Silence” by Erika Hewitt, in Braver/Wiser, November 15, 2017. Available at https://www.uua.org/braverwiser/dynamics-silence. Say you have benefited from a spiritual practice. Now you want to share this goodness with others — perhaps even make it your vocation, at least in part. But, say you also want to avoid common errors that can undermine your good intentions. You want to steer clear of meditation malpractice, and reduce the chances that those you support will end up experiencing adverse effects, instead of (just) the good stuff. If this is you, what can you do to help ensure that your actual impact reflects your best intentions? I offer the following tips for teachers, drawing on my experience as an ordained spiritual leader, survivor of a meditation-based high control group, and as one who has been through the fire of bizarre suffering stemming from my meditation practice, and made my own way to stabilization and integration. Understand That You Are Treading on Sacred Ground People explore contemplative practices for all sorts of reasons. Calming emotional turbulence. Following a vague spiritual longing. Seeking greater peace. Finding social support. Moving through grief. Improving focus. Gaining healthy detachment. Reaching for a connection to something greater. However well or poorly recognized, people turn to meditation to meet specific need(s). Any person you work with as a teacher of spiritual practices may be vulnerable in some way. In addition to the specific goals they may have for their practice, they may carry childhood trauma with them, or more recent betrayals. Into their experience of meditation — and their relationship with you — each person comes as a whole being, with their particular identities, their histories, their hurts, their hopes. The medical model can provide some useful insights for meditation pedagogy. And secular frameworks may be right for some people or some settings. Yet, mindfulness and meditation engage with the whole person: body, heart, mind and spirit. Such practices, sooner or later, may raise existential questions inside practitioners. About who they are. What life is. How to make sense of their experiences. What is the point of this human be-ing. The trust people place in you as a guide is precious and fragile. How will you earn that trust? How will you remain worthy of it over the course of a teaching relationship? A good place to start is by remembering that you tread on sacred ground. Take it seriously. Pledge to first, do no harm. Consider how you will stay clear on these First Things of teaching. “Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.” ~ Howard Thurman Empower Others If your commitment is first and foremost to the well-being of the people you teach, then your baseline aim with every student — regardless of what brings them to you — is to empower them. There can be no lasting growth without this. Empowering people is the opposite of creating dependence. Empowered students learn to know themselves, to trust themselves, and to do what is right for themselves. How does an empowering teacher behave? Consider these DOs and DON’Ts. DOs: 1. DO coach and model listening to the teacher within 2. DO use open-ended language and check your hunches with others (favor dialogue as a communication method, including when trouble-shooting) 3. DO invite students to listen to their own bodies, feelings, and reasoning, and to share their observations 4. DO believe this personal testimony — real experience trumps theory 5. DO encourage adaptation of practices to meet individual needs and circumstances 6. DO offer resources and options that the student can consider 7. DO welcome criticism with an open heart and mind 8. DO respect the needs and goals that drive participants’ interest — there is no one right or best reason to do the practice(s) 9. DO be mindful of group dynamics such as people-pleasing and social contagion 10. DO take a balanced approach to recognizing the potential benefits — and drawbacks — of the method(s) you teach DON’Ts: 1. DON’T assume that one size fits all 2. DON’T withhold important information about the group or practice 3. DON’T mold them in your own image, or that of anyone else 4. DON’T “correct” students when they use their own words instead of group jargon 5. DON’T reward “good” students with your attention and punish “difficult” students by withdrawing your time or regard 6. DON’T make individuals’ belonging in the practice group contingent upon conforming to rigid expectations 7. DON’T, under any circumstances, instill shame or use shame to generate compliance 8. DON’T discourage people from doing their own due diligence 9. DON’T reflexively just tell people to dig in and do the practice more — or assume they must be doing something wrong — when they encounter difficulties 10. DON’T treat meditation/mindfulness as a panacea What would you add to your list of DOs and DON’Ts, based on your own experience as a practitioner and teacher? Know Your Limits No matter how long you have been teaching, you are a regular human. You do not have to be all-knowing; you do not have to be perfect; no one can be. Learn about your own shadow side. There are many ways to do this. If you journal, what shadow material comes up there? What insight have friends and family offered you about yourself? (If you haven’t asked, now’s your chance.) Working with a mental health professional is another way to zero in on your growing edges. Do you know your enneagram type? This can be helpful for understanding your own motivations, insecurities and blind spots. Do you know your Myers-Briggs type? It reflects cognitive functions favored by different people for processing information, making decisions, and connecting with people. What strengths and challenges are common for people with your preferences? These are just some of the resources that may support you in knowing yourself and functioning at your best with others. Hone your practice of self-differentiation. This means being firmly grounded in your own values and personhood, so that others’ anxious or insecure behavior will not influence you (as much). When you are differentiated, you are able to stay connected to other people without absorbing their thoughts and feelings — or needing them to share yours. Relatedly, be aware that projection can occur with anyone, including students. And to the extent that others relate to you as an authority figure (even unconsciously), transference might pop up too. You don’t have to be and do everything people want from you. And you need not take responsibility for that which is not yours — in fact, you shouldn’t. The upshot? You can’t control how other people behave, including how they interpret what you say or do. But you can improve your own self-understanding and your own functioning within the relationship. You can effectively stay connected to others, while remaining grounded in your own beliefs and values, and respecting other people’s. Get Trained on Safety & Support You should be familiar with adverse effects of meditation and mindfulness, ways to reduce the chances of them occurring, and how to respond supportively when you or your students do experience them. Doing so will not undercut your effort to bring the benefits of meditation to others; on the contrary, it will help maximize the benefits and minimize the harms. Are you getting rigorous, unbiased information about these topics through the program or tradition with which you are associated? If not, you should take it upon yourself to find external resources. (You can also encourage your program to beef up their training for the future.) This may all sound a bit abstract. So let me share one concrete, useful thing that researchers have come to understand: many of the same mechanisms that account for the benefits people receive also account for some of the problems that can occur. As it turns out, the inverted U-shaped curve that scientists encounter regularly applies to meditation and mindfulness programs as well. Researcher Willoughby Britton puts it this way: “everything has an optimal level beyond which you … start to get trade-offs or negative effects… That’s true of any physiological process or psychological process… so [mindfulness] is just like everything else” in that way. [i] Some examples: [ii]
If you get sound training, and adapt your practices accordingly, you should be able to avoid making common mistakes that increase the risk of harm to students of meditation and mindfulness. Cheetah House is a non-profit, science-based organization offering training on a variety of topics relating to safety and support. They also provide professional consultation to teachers and teaching organizations focused on meditation and mindfulness. There are lots of free resources on their web site too. Know of other good resources? Please share details in the comments. Embrace the Best of Professionalization The role of teaching contemplative practices in medical, secular, or non-church contexts is a relatively new one in countries like the United States. Anyone can throw up a shingle (or a web site) and declare themselves a meditation teacher. This contrasts sharply with more established fields of service. Longstanding religious traditions, at their best, provide significant infrastructure to support the effectiveness of religious communities and those that serve them. Similarly, governments regulate fields like law, medicine, counseling, education, and social work. Wherever people are vulnerable and need to know if they can trust a provider to put their needs first, resources like these prove valuable:
Look for these kinds of professional resources for meditation teachers, and make the most of them. If they don’t exist yet, support their creation. Everyone will be better off. Make No Idols Want to avoid inadvertently slipping into insularity, rigidness, and aggrandizement of a particular practice or person? If you abide by the DOs and DON’Ts above, that will take you a long way toward that goal. Alas, it is all too human for a group or program to start out healthy, and slowly slide into cultish-ness over time. In a more decentralized arena like the mindfulness movement, this might seem less likely than in a religious context, or one with a clear leader and hierarchical structure. But mindfulness groups are far from immune to cultic dynamics. As mindfulness practitioner and researcher Willoughby Britton observes, “often the systems are set up to not allow people to do whatever they want; there is a right goal, there’s a right way to do things, certainly no allowance for criticizing the system.” [iii] Beware of treating meditation and mindfulness as the solution to every problem. Watch out for too-high goals like perfect peace or unending detachment. Don’t put anyone, or anything, on a pedestal. Absolutely welcome the benefits that spiritual practices can offer, and celebrate when they happen. But never put practices above people and their real experiences and needs. In sum:
So long as what you are doing helps people to gain deeper trust in themselves — rather than making them dependent on a person, program, or ideology outside of them — you will be sharing the treasures of meditation with them in good faith. For more about how groups behave when they become unhealthy, check out What Is A High Control Group? Did I miss something important in this article? Please chime in to share your perspective or resource in the comments. Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life. Endnotes [i] From March 2022 interviews of Willoughby Britton on Rachel Bernstein’s IndoctriNation podcast. Part 1: Invisible Virtue Part 2: The Sugar Coated Panacea of Mindfulness. [ii] Ibid. All references in this post are to those two podcast episodes. [iii] Ibid. Spiritual practices have much to offer. And indeed, daily new people continue to try meditation, mindfulness, and beyond. An ever-expanding array of sources offer support to seekers — from online influencers to informal community groups … from traditional religious entities to freelance coaches and teachers … from brick-and-mortar spiritual retreat centers to mainstream medical settings. There are more opportunities than ever to take up meditation. Yet, there are serious problems with the way meditation has spread. In a field that is newer — and which some governments, like mine in the freedom-of-religion U.S., are loathe to regulate — those who teach these practices are not systematically held accountable for doing so in responsible ways. Financial pressures, social dynamics, and ideological commitments can further obscure the truth about various practices. Programs with a veneer of secularity can be just as susceptible to these pressures as overtly religious ones. The result? People who turn to meditation looking for peace or better health sometimes end up experiencing, instead, a variety of adverse effects. These can range from moderate physiological and psychological problems clear through to psychotic breaks. Undesired effects tend to be interpreted by teachers as positive signs, or downplayed, when they are talked about openly at all. And there is often little real support when they occur — as they predictably will, for some portion of practitioners. (I have elsewhere described my own dark night, and my recovery process.) On top of all this, some opportunities to learn and practice meditation operate as doorways into high control groups. Vulnerable people may be drawn into deeper levels of involvement, where the risk of coercion and harm increases. Such teachers or groups will always present themselves as there to serve YOU — even when they will actually cannibalize your time, energy, money, reverence and idealism for their own benefit. What can be done? Here, I offer suggestions for seekers. Know Thyself Reflect on what you are looking for, and how you would know if you found it — ideally, before you check out a new group or program. You might journal or talk to a friend, using prompts such as these: 1. What needs are you seeking to meet? Write or speak of the ones that are most top of mind for you. Next, it may be helpful to go through a list, such as the needs list here from the nonviolent communications model. Identify any more subtle needs that might well lead you to respond to a group or program that speaks to those needs. 2. What sources of authority do you find credible? For some people, direct experience or scientific study might be most credible. For others, a particular scriptural source or lineage provides assurance. What role does the testimony of others play for you? Peers or role models? Other sources of authority you rely upon? It may be helpful to rank trusted sources in order of importance to you. Likewise, you can explore how you will evaluate the validity of each kind of authority that you trust. For example, if a particular program or group is promoted through science, how can you discern the independence of the researchers, the quality of study design, and the rigor of the analysis? 3. Identify your internal red flags. How do concerns or gut feelings show up in your mind or body? When has this internal warning system proven reliable for you before — accurately telling you whether a person, group, or activity is problematic for you? If this is an area you want/need to strengthen, you can ask a friend, therapist or other trusted person to be your gut-check buddy. 4. What do you believe to be the appropriate role of a teacher or leader? Explore this on paper, or with a friend. If you are later exposed to other ideas of how a teacher or leader should function in relation to you, you’ll have a baseline to return to for comparison. This doesn’t mean you can never change your mind. But you’ll be less likely to shift your understanding imperceptibly, without even realizing it, and without pondering the implications. Thinking through these core questions early on in your engagement with a practice or group is akin to getting a vaccine — it primes your system to recognize what is foreign or dangerous to you, and be ready to respond swiftly and effectively if/when that happens. Use Your Guardrails As you get involved — or get more deeply involved — with a particular meditation group, practice or program, observe how it functions, and how it is (or isn’t) working for you. Periodically reflect on what you witness, and how it fits with your inner compass: Is this group/program meeting the needs you originally set out to meet? Has it made you aware of any other needs that you now realize you have? What keeps you coming back? (see needs list) What sources of authority does the group/program draw upon in support of its approach? How does this square with those sources of authority that you find credible? Is there any gap between what is officially communicated vs. what is actually practiced? Are you reoriented toward particular sources of authority over time? Is anything tripping your inner warning system? Keep a record of any such instances. Pay attention to any patterns. Do NOT dismiss your spidey sense. Reflecting on these questions is like giving yourself a booster shot against groups or practices that would be unhealthy for you. It’s a good idea to do it annually, just like you might for the flu. Do Some Digging Ask teaching individuals or entities questions like these: 1 — What should I know before I take up this practice? 2 — What kind of training have you received to teach it? 3 — What adverse effects may arise as a result of this practice? (Are there side effects, beyond the results you are aiming for, that a practitioner might find concerning or that might negatively impact their daily functioning? What are they? How can I reduce the risk of that happening?) 4 — Are there any people who would be better suited to a different practice? If so, what are the criteria for determining that? 5 — What kind of training do you have to support people who do experience adverse effects? 6 — Who would you turn to for support if you realized you were out of your depth in a particular situation? 7 — What systems of accountability are in place in this tradition or for this practice? There should be real answers to these questions. In addition to the substance of the answers, pay attention to how the questions are received. Does the teacher or organizational representative respond with warmth and thoughtfulness? Do they become irritated or flustered? Do they deflect, or blow you off? Does the person seem aware of their own limits? Do they exhibit humility — are they able to say, “I don’t know, but I have some ideas of where I would go to find out”? You can also do some digging online. Web sites like Charity Navigator provide some organizational accountability metrics — you can see how your group scores on things like the independence of its governing board, and reviews or audits of its financial statements. Your favorite search engine is also your friend in research. See if anything noteworthy turns up when you combine the name of the organization, teacher, or meditation method with words like scandal, abuse, suicide, and misconduct. One bad review shouldn’t necessarily taint the whole enterprise, but if serious allegations arise — and especially if there’s a pattern — pay attention. Gauge Group Health on Key Criteria Go slowly, and watch for where the group or program falls in terms of its degree of health or risk. Along with whatever else seems noteworthy to you, following are some things to watch for. (A group could fall anywhere on the spectrum between each set of poles.) Encourages OR discourages awareness of your own feelings, use of your own critical thinking, and trust in your own direct experience and judgment. This can be subtle. My old group instructed that “strong emotions create a false self” (from retreat notes), with the founder consistently teaching that you are not the body, you are not the mind, but the timeless Self within. The metaphysics of being not (just) body or mind appealed to me at the time, but I see now how such teaching could be used on a practical level to encourage people to ignore what their own bodies and emotions tell them. Similarly, the idea that “every movement in the mind is insecurity,” also taught at that retreat, could easily be applied in ways that stifle legitimate questions and doubts. Promotes reasonable goals VERSUS sky-high aspirations. Sometimes a group will emphasize practical benefits at first, but eventually shift the focus to much loftier — perhaps impossible — goals. Illumination, nirvana, perfect peace that never leaves you, the end of sorrow, the cessation of suffering. Mere mortals may get exhilarating glimpses of these, with or without a spiritual practice. But if someone coaxes you to believe that you must keep going until (and that you have failed unless) you abide in spiritual perfection — well, they are setting a trap for you that isn’t about what’s best for you. It’s about keeping you dependent on them. Points to ponder VERSUS indoctrination. Are participants free to adopt only some of the teachings offered or practices taught, or must it all go together as a package? It’s helpful to be familiar with subtle forms of persuasion, social pressure, and positive or negative reinforcement that controlling groups use to guide people toward the correct behaviors, and by extension, the correct beliefs. (Here’s a brief primer on invisible levers of influence, and how cognitive dissonance usually gets resolved.) Supports development of community in ways that affirm the whole person, VERSUS supports relationships only on the basis of the shared practice/doctrine/etc. — and conditional upon adhering to group culture. “Love-bombing” is a classic red flag for high control groups, but I think it can be hard to distinguish healthy from unhealthy groups based solely on the behaviors that welcome and affirm people. Almost all human social groups, including sound ones, will try to give participants a positive sense of community and caring as they get involved. (Why would one return otherwise?) The trick with a controlling group is that positive attention is especially strong for newer people, and attention may become more scarce depending on whether the teacher/group is getting what they want from you, and has hope of getting more. If you waver in your compliance with the group’s belief system, spiritual practices, inside language and so on — or they discover you have little time, money, leadership to give to the group — a problematic group will get stingier with its attention to you. They may become cooler when you do connect. One clue as to the group’s real relational bent is how the group speaks of people who have come and gone from their orbit. Do they trust that each person will find the right path for them — meaning, people who left simply discerned for themselves that this wasn’t the best fit for them? Or do group representatives indicate, however blatantly or subtly, that anyone who left THIS path is to be pitied (bless their hearts)? Some groups actively shun ex-members, and speak ill of them to current members. Others barely speak of such people at all, as if they didn’t exist. My old meditation group literally air-brushed former ashram members out of photos after the first big exodus. Interesting choice, eh? Has a balanced approach toward ego, encouraging healthy humility, along with self-acceptance and self-love VERSUS cultivating self-abnegation, and a humility that may be either performative, or so sincerely extreme as to undermine self-worth and well-being. Other points from my group’s retreats illustrate this one: “humiliation helps dissolve ego”; “if you are agitated, a samskara is involved” (samskara = a well-established way of thinking/being, generally pointing to patterns like anger, fear, and greed, which the group regards as negative; the root of all samskaras was said to be ego). Actually, humiliation is NEVER constructive. Humiliation is a form of social-psychological violence. And one can be agitated for very good reasons, that need to be recognized and acted upon — such as being mistreated by a person or group. Permeability VERSUS purity and policing boundaries. A healthy group/teacher/program acknowledges that there are many sources of wisdom in the world, and that it does not have a monopoly on spiritual treasure. It does not try to control whether or how people engage with other practices or other inspirational materials. At the other extreme, a cultish group will guide people toward exclusive loyalty to its particular teacher / teachings. It will concern itself much with maintaining the purity of its own programs. It may not even trust its own leaders to lead, without falling back on the words or example of its founder(s). To what degree does a group or program function as an open system, interconnected with a wider web of wisdom, vs. a closed system, that has all the answers unto itself — and even sees the outside as a distraction or a threat? Light and limber VERSUS tight and rigid. A healthy organization may be serious about its mindfulness mission, but it will also create a community in which joy, laughter, and authentic connection can flourish. Spirituality need not be the enemy of fun! If you realize that you are overly constrained by the group — or by the norms you have internalized, and which you especially know to follow when together — that’s a red flag. One way this might show up is by feeling more free, more able to breathe deep and be spontaneously yourself, when you leave a retreat or sangha session and return to your own safe space. It can also be telling to compare long-timers with newer folks. And not just the ones that the organization selects to represent the program to newcomers in retreats and workshops — those are likely to be polished people who can smile and chat winningly over meals or down time. Instead, if you have the chance to get to know people who have been involved for years, and who are *not* presenters or teachers, their demeanor may tell you more about the heart of the organization. It’s a bad sign when people become more colorless and zombie-like the longer they are involved, or the closer to the inner circle they get. Transparency and truthfulness VERSUS opaqueness and deception. Is the practice secular or religious? (Personally, when it comes to claims that mindfulness programs are secular vs. patently or latently Buddhist, I consider a dose of skepticism healthy. More in The Accidental Buddhist.) Is the program genuinely inter-spiritual, or are all traditions filtered through the worldview of the founder’s tradition? Is the group honest and forthcoming about the founder’s past, and the organization’s? Are they aware and up front about the risks of adverse effects associated with the practices they teach? What about priorities, finances, and decision-making structures? (If you haven’t already checked them out online, it doesn’t take long.) This one can be tricky to suss out, because you only know what is shown to you, or what you can readily find. If it turns out that a teacher or group has omitted significant, problematic information from its story, that’s a big red flag. A healthy group can learn from its trials and tribulations, and share openly how it has grown as a result. Unless it is focused on perfection, and lifts up teacher(s) as examples of such, it will not need to cover up a one-off past lapse of its founder(s). A classic culty behavior is not only to gloss over or suppress troubling information, but to tell followers that ignoring concerns is actually in their own best (spiritual) interests. Think about that, though. Can the truth ever be against a participant’s long-term, deepest interests? Certainly, investigating the truth could be threatening to a group — which would be telling. Real-world accountability VERSUS internal ethics alone. Another dimension of open vs. closed systems is structures of accountability. Consider well-regulated fields like education, law, medicine, counseling and social work. These are open systems with healthy boundaries. Each has structures that provide such essential safeguards as credentialing processes, codes of conduct, continuing education, training specifically in ethics and boundaries, mentoring and peer support, bodies charged with intervening when a professional goes off the rails, and perhaps even resources to support those harmed. Such structures and processes benefit professionals and their institutions, as well as those they serve. They are win-win. Religious denominations may fulfill similar functions for clergy, other religious professionals, lay leaders and congregations. I have watched my own tradition — among the most radical to grow out of the Protestant Reformation — develop clearer boundary expectations for professionals, and more/better institutional support for misconduct victims, just over the past couple of decades. However, even among many long-established traditions, prevention and accountability remain growing edges when it comes to misconduct by those in positions of authority. Surely every Catholic, Southern Baptist, and news-consuming American knows this by now. Traditions that are hierarchical in their structure and culture may carry a particularly high risk of papering over problems, as the good old boys’ network lingers on. People in non-denominational churches are at higher risk still — there is not even the pretense of protective practices. Also at higher risk are those in cultures that place a high value on charisma and on traditional, alpha-male models of leadership. It strikes me that many meditation retreat centers may be in a similar position to charismatic, nondenominational churches. The meditation center I once worked for certainly was (and still is, it appears). However egalitarian their messaging or philosophy, a group that lionizes certain teacher(s), evangelizes their meditation program, and lacks any higher or external authority beyond the center and its leader(s), is ripe for misconduct — and for cover-ups in the name of protecting the mission. The counter-argument would be that a true teacher — perhaps an illumined person — has all the moral compass that is needed inside, or from God. But a long string of guru scandals tells me that spiritual teachers of meditation and yoga are no more immune to the corruptions of power than have been the countless priests and pastors who have been exposed as wrongdoers in this century. If it hasn’t happened yet, it’s time for meditation centers and groups to come together and develop the type of infrastructure that religious denominations at their best have provided. (If that *has* happened, I’d love to hear about it!) Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. I will write separately for teachers or teaching organizations, with suggestions for those that want to maximize potential benefits, and reduce the risk of potential harms, that are associated with meditation and mindfulness practices. The question of external regulation deserves attention too. Meanwhile, here are some other articles you may enjoy 👇 How Was Meditation Mainstreamed? … The Accidental Buddhist Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life. In recent posts, I’ve looked at
Streams of Influence Let’s explore four overlapping reasons that the shadow side of meditation largely flies under the radar. The first two are specific to a U.S. context. 1 — American Religiosity The First Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees freedom of religion. Hence, a competitive marketplace of spirituality has been the norm since early in this nation’s history. The self-improvement culture of the country, its rugged individualism, and its waves of religious refugees have guaranteed that lots of people turn to religion or spirituality in their search for a good and meaningful life. Religious community is also one of the go-to balms for the excesses of individualism. We are a society of people seeking fulfillment, with a history of religious fervor — and weakened social safety nets, too. The Constitutional separation of church and state also means that the government treads lightly in the realm of religion. Religious groups can do a lot here, while being exempt from taxes, and subject to far less scrutiny than groups not identified as religious. No one wants to be accused of interfering with others’ religious freedom. If you’re objecting that Americans aren’t as religious as they used to be — all the “nones” and “spiritual but not religious folks” — that seems to me a distinction without a difference. What we are seeing isn’t the end of seeking so much as it is a turning away from traditional institutions like churches and denominations. And a turning toward all sorts of alternative sources of answers, practices, community. These trends feed right into the problem of meditation malpractice. 2 — The Almighty Dollar Spirituality and wellness — two categories with blurry boundaries — are big business in America. When I describe religion in the U.S. as a competitive marketplace, I am not speaking metaphorically. Religion has long been the top category for philanthropic giving in this country. What about church alternatives and the “spiritual but not religious” arena?Meditation centers may be registered as 501(c)3 non-profits and show up in philanthropy reports — that was true of the one I once worked for. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction is taught in institutions like hospitals that are also often non-profit. Other services, like yoga and meditation studios, operate openly as capitalist enterprises. As of 2023, over 36 million Americans practiced yoga, and the U.S. yoga industry earned over $9 billion annually.[i] The US “meditation industry” (you read that right) is said to be worth over $1 billion, with 14% of Americans and growing having tried meditation. [ii] Regardless of how the tax code treats the entities where meditation is taught, the people doing the teaching are making a living at it. When Jon Kabat-Zinn first experienced a calling to make (Buddhist) meditation available to people who would never go to the Zen Center or to an insight meditation retreat, what he calls a secondary motivation was to establish “a form of right livelihood” for himself, and possibly for many others.[iii] That certainly has happened. Whatever other motivations and ideals might be associated with teaching meditation, for some it becomes a career that supports themselves and their families. Journalist Tomas Rocha, probing these issues a decade ago, wrote: “Given the juggernaut — economic and otherwise — behind the mindfulness movement, there is a lot at stake in exploring the shadow side of meditation. Upton Sinclair once observed how difficult it is to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.” [iv] The research sector is not immune from financial pressures, either. Like non-profit organizations, researchers compete for funding dollars. What gets funded? Research that focuses on the things people want to know about. In the United States, that includes benefits like managing stress, helping one get along well with others, and enhancing focus and productivity in the workplace — the sort of things that are valued by American culture. As Rocha observed, “When the time comes to develop hypotheses around the effects of meditation, the only acceptable — and fundable — research questions are the ones that promise to deliver the answers we want to hear.” [v] This may be one of the reasons that research that asks about adverse effects of meditation — or even shares with funders and the public whatever happens to be self-reported by subjects — has been in the minority. Whether the beneficiaries of the meditation boom are individual teachers, researchers, or teaching entities of any tax status, once an income stream is established — and perhaps a reputation too — there is a vested interest in preserving it. Other factors beyond financial ones may be in play, but if someone has written a book or developed a program or makes a living teaching mindfulness, consciously or unconsciously, their interpretation of results may be filtered through their biases. Britton has found that people who have a declared, financial conflict of interest “statistically find fewer adverse effects in their studies.” [vi] 3 — Social Dynamics No matter how steeped we are in individualism, humans are social creatures. We need community, places and people with whom we feel belonging. And we are deeply influenced by the people around us. If I move in church circles, people espouse certain beliefs, which are embodied in shared practices. These beliefs are expressed in a particular vocabulary, and are even associated with a tangible material culture. For example, beliefs in the divinity of Christ and atonement theology show up in hymns and the act of communion (the Eucharist), and the ubiquity of crosses on building and necklaces. If I move in meditation circles, people are devoted to certain practices, which are built on tacit beliefs. The language participants speak is almost as much the glue of such groups as the meditation practice. And it’s all associated with a material culture too. The kind of meditation I long practiced, for example, slowly nurtured in me certain ideas about the nature of the human being, the conundrum of life on earth, and the way to overcome that challenge. These ideas were threaded through the meditation passages I took deep into my being, the books and talks I consumed, the retreats I attended, the satsang sessions. There was an associated material culture, too; my meditation chair and altar; my case full of sacred books that I collected together, and cherished no less than a devout Christian treasures their Bible; the necklace I wore with an image that could be interpreted as either a flaming chalice (its original and continued meaning to me) or as an oil lamp, a significant symbol of my meditation group. In the case of a typical church or a meditation group, it’s likely that there are people in the group who aren’t 100% on board with everything, but who don’t want to lose the community. So they fake it, or just try to shake off the parts that don’t fit them. Their friends, their family are part of the community. They may be at church multiple times per week. This is where the casseroles come from during a health crisis. This is where the kids have unrelated adults who know them and care about them. That’s hard to walk away from. I know this because some of those church folks who finally couldn’t take the rub anymore find their way to my non-creedal tradition, where they don’t have to pretend. They are relieved to find a community where it’s okay to be there FOR the community, and to have freedom to explore different beliefs or practices. I’m one of those people too; I left the mainline Protestant church as a teenager, when the dissonance was too much for me. Many people hang on longer, feeling pressure from their family or peers. This dynamic happens in meditation and mindfulness groups too. If a long-time meditator has a spiritual crisis and finds that meditation becomes problematic for them — or perhaps they are newer and the kind of meditation their group does just doesn’t prove sustainable for them (how many people with ADHD can maintain a meditation practice that trains attention?) — they may want to keep coming to sangha even if they aren’t meditating. Because it’s their community. “The one membership card to a sangha is that you meditate,” Britton notes. [vii] No need to mention the fact of their lapsed practice… Besides the powerful human need to belong, uglier kinds of social pressure can come into play. Willoughby Britton describes how she has been treated differently at different points in her research career. She chose to research mindfulness and meditation because she had benefited from it herself, and was a self-named “evangelist” for the practice. When she was promoting it in the way that others wanted, Britton was “venerated for that and given all sorts of opportunities and stroked and lauded.” Britton held off for years on publishing her first set of findings, on meditation’s impact on sleep. It went against the positive narrative of meditation as an all-good panacea. She hadn’t expected that. She knew it wouldn’t go over well. When Britton finally began sharing not only the positive findings of her research, but also the legitimate negative findings about meditation — the adverse effects hardly anyone was talking about — she reports that “the love bombing disappeared.” She receives threats and vitriol from meditation advocates on a regular basis. Including, from other researchers. One wonders how many researchers might be sitting on negative data — or choosing not even to ask questions about adverse effects — because they do not want to be on the receiving end of such treatment. 4 — Transcendent Ideology and Personal Purpose When people experience the benefits of a practice and community, commitment may develop to the tradition or worldview that has given them those positive experiences. Taking part in the community and the practices becomes not just a way of belonging and of continuing to reap practical benefits — it can also become a source of personal identity. Take the following attitude: I am a meditator. I have a disciplined practice. My life is made meaningful by my practices and by the ideas that undergird it. That was core to my own identity for a long time, so I get how this can develop for many people — even if it wasn’t something they (consciously) started out seeking. As concepts like vocation and right livelihood suggest, personal purpose and career can become anchored in the spiritual framework. This may happen in part out of a desire to share with others the same benefits one has experienced oneself — an altruistic motive. As someone who gave away dozens of books written by my (then) meditation teacher, and organized a meditation workshop in my local area, and eventually went to work for the teaching organization with a motive to help others, I understand how powerful the drive can be to share spiritual riches with others. It can offer a deep sense of purpose. Developing a strong identity tied to one’s spiritual practice can also lead one to want to protect the precious source of the goodness in one’s own life. You don’t want your spiritual practice or community to betray you, to cease to provide the peace, the connection, the clarity you’ve come to expect from it. A Perfect Storm When all of these forces converge — spiritual seeking… individual and collective economic pressures… the need to belong and group social dynamics… personal identity, existential security, and ideological commitments — it must create tremendous pressure on how meditation data is interpreted, from the sangha to the science lab. One type of meditation that has received enormous funding and research attention is Transcendental Meditation (TM). Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars from National Institutes of Health have been funneled to Maharishi University for such studies — but the money dried up by the 2010s. Similarly, a dearth of current TM studies at ClinicalTrials.gov suggests that the scientific community has lost interest in the potential of this practice. Writing in depth on the TM movement, former practitioner Aryeh Siegel summarizes the research landscape this way: “There are many reasons for TM’s precipitous fall from grace in the research world, including: poorly designed studies that rarely include a randomized active control group, often biased researchers who are affiliated with TM institutions and/or practice TM, and a history of exaggerated findings.” [viii] What about mainstream forms of spiritual practice? After learning how resistant many teachers and meditators are to information about adverse effects of meditation — including practitioner-researchers — it seems obvious to me that research on mindfulness meditation should be scrutinized as to whether it is riddled with flaws similar to those found in the body of research on TM. Willoughby Britton came to wonder whether it is “a basic human drive… to have this pristine category [of something that is] perfect and that we can love unconditionally.” She speculated it might be an attachment-driven process — a deep-seated human need for something you can rely upon as an anchor. Therapist Rachel Bernstein, who has spent decades working with cult survivors, found this confirmed in her practice. People “need to have this space that has that quiet, that makes sense, that is their retreat, and where they feel safe, and they don’t want anything to take it away,” she agreed. “We deify things so that we can feel like” we have the formula we need. Some people, “left without that,.. feel like they’re on this precipice, like they’re just going to fall off a cliff.” Bernstein finds that it can reflect a basic attachment need, at least for some people. Those are yet more motives for seeing only the up side of meditation and mindfulness, and rationalizing away any disconfirming evidence. Looked at through the lens of medicine — the context in which many people are learning mindfulness practices these days — this makes little sense. No clinician would hesitate to list the side effects of a medication, and treat them as undesired and potentially problematic effects; “nothing in medicine is unassailable and everything has side effects,” says Britton. Yet, she has observed that when meditation is the treatment discussed, “suddenly people are coming out of the woodwork and doing the most bizarre gymnastics to make it anything other than harm — including researchers … upstanding scientists and clinicians and people who recommend policy to governments … are actually doing these weird mental gymnastics.” Watching these reactions over the years is what has led Britton to look increasingly at the social dynamics playing out in the teaching and practice of meditation and mindfulness. Her big “aha” was recognizing, not only that cult dynamics might be at play in the mindfulness movement, but that “cult dynamics might be the default” for humans. She suggests that “unless you really go out of your way to learn about the dynamics and put yourself through the rigor in your organization to not repeat them, you’re gonna repeat them.” As a meditation cult survivor, ordained religious leader, and sociologist by training and disposition, I believe Britton is spot on. Next, I’ll delve further into what culty stuff can look like when it creeps into a meditation group or practice — how do you know it when you see it? And most importantly, I’ll explore constructive approaches to guard against those dynamics, to keep your meditation group and practice healthy. You can subscribe to get every new post sent directly to your inbox. I also post on Bluesky when a new piece is up. Meanwhile, here are some other articles you may enjoy 👇 How I Was Primed … At the Inscrutable Ashram … Lost in Transmission Please read this disclaimer carefully before relying on any of the content in my articles online for your own life. Endnotes [i] Yoga Industry Statistics published June 2023, accessed at https://www.zippia.com/advice/yoga-industry-statistics/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20pilates%20and%20yoga,2017%20to%2048%2C547%20in%202023. [ii] “What’s Next For The Mindfulness Industry?” at Fitt Insider, accessed August 2024. [iii] “Some Reflections on the Origins of MBSR, Skillful Means, and the Trouble with Maps” by Jon Kabat-Zinn. In Contemporary Buddhism, Vol. 12, №1, May 2011. Available for free download at Research Gate, among other online options. [iv] “The Dark Knight of the Soul” by Tomas Rocha, in The Atlantic, June 2014. [v] Ibid. [vi] From March 2022 interviews of Willoughby Britton on Rachel Bernstein’s IndoctriNation podcast. Part 1: Invisible Virtue Part 2: The Sugar Coated Panacea of Mindfulness. [vii] Ibid. This is the source of Britton (and Bernstein) quotes in this post. [viii] Siegel, Aryeh. Transcendental Deception. Janreg Press, 2018. |
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