Similarly, high control groups often move among us, unrecognized for what they are. I have written elsewhere about the Hidden Levers and Dissolving Dissonance that allow cunning cults to stay hidden in plain sight, as well as how they remain concealed through Surprises, Blinders and Lies.

Let’s look at another aspect of a high control group, its onion-like structure. This structure does two things:

1 — The layers create a pathway for pacing people through successively deeper levels of indoctrination and submission over time.

2 — The structure also facilitates the creation and maintenance of the illusions that are so critical to the group’s functioning. With tight information control, only those closest to the center may have access to unsavory truths about the founder or group — and they are unlikely to be able to see those truths directly for what they are, as it would blow up their world in every way. Instead, they have become adept at denial and rationalization as a matter of survival.

Layer by Layer

To illustrate the onion concept, I will flesh out the layers of my old meditation group. My understanding comes from the particular period of my peak involvement (~2001–2006), with insights gained from publications and conversations that speak to earlier eras, as well as tidbits shared by others (all included with permission). The layers might look a little different during various eras of the group; that is typical for any group, which will be fluid as it builds its empire and adapts to circumstances.

Keep in mind that other groups may parse the layers differently. They may have fewer, or more, layers. They may have front groups more disconnected from activity at the core. They may have more or less churn of members or lieutenants.

Regardless, a layered structure following similar principles will be found in a high control group of any kind, be it Eastern, Christian, New Age, commercial, therapeutic, political, etc.

This structure also appears in extremist groups — think ISIS — and political totalitarian regimes. The onion concept actually originates with Hannah Arendt, a German Jewish and American political philosopher who theorized on the origins of totalitarianism, after herself fleeing Nazi Germany.

At the Heart

The leader / founder / teacher / guru sits here, at the heart of it all. This person is the driver of the entire enterprise. They are the source of charisma and authority that grows and controls the group. Arendt writes:

“In the center of the movement, as the motor that swings it into motion, sits the Leader. He is separated from the elite formation by an inner circle of the initiated who spread around him an aura of impenetrable mystery which corresponds to his ‘intangible preponderance.’ His position within this intimate circle depends upon his ability to spin intrigues among its members and upon his skill in constantly changing its personnel.” [i]

Relationship Zero

Social psychologist and cult survivor Alexandra Stein uses the term Relationship Zero to indicate the first person captured in the thrall of the leader. This first relationship creates the model for the leader-follower relationship generally; any subsequent followers will replicate those patterns established in the original dyad.

For the founder of my old group, Relationship Zero was a young southern woman. I’ll call her Katarina here. She had already been dabbling in occult and mystical circles for several years when the future founder of my group appeared on the scene. She had a more enduring appetite for meditation than most of the other young people who first attended his lectures and meditation sessions in the Bay Area.

​I imagine Katarina in those early years as demure and malleable, the perfect devoted helpmate to a man who needed continuous affirmation (and perhaps visa help too). Katarina was his everything, from wife to chauffeur to business manager. At first, she worked full-time in the city, while the itinerant guru gave talks at no charge.

Before they had barely begun to get organized in the U.S., the couple returned to his native India together for several years. He supposedly became more “established” in illumination during that time. There may have been practical, immigration and bureaucracy- related reasons for this detour from building a proper following in the fertile fields of flower-child California.

In any case, this sojourn on the other side of the globe surely isolated Katarina more completely from her family, friends, and culture, engulfing her in his world and worldview. These years in a foreign land would have made her completely dependent upon her husband, the aspiring guru.

One could only speculate as to whether, in addition to isolation, other elements of the Power and Control wheels associated with controlling 1:1 relationship or similarly controlling religious groups came into play (religious wheel featured here).

I imagine she embraced the teacher with the same idealism that later students would, feeling privileged to be part of bringing the sacred science of meditation to the West. Her own personal history and psychology may also have influenced in meaningful ways how she responded to the attention of this charismatic figure, and why she attached herself to the particular person she did.

(Notably, women who suffered sexual abuse as children are far more likely to be revictimized later. I wonder if a similar parallel exists for those who have grown up in the shadow of narcissists or psychopaths.)

Given the era and their backgrounds, the couple probably largely shared ideas around gender roles that worked in his favor. While they built his public image as a teacher of Eastern wisdom, Katarina was content to stay behind the scenes. To what extent she deferred to his goals and decisions, and gradually lost faith in her own intuition and critical thinking abilities, I could only speculate.

Katarina did wield considerable power in the group they built — and seemed to those who later left to have relished all the perks of power, and been complicit in the abuses of power on the part of the teacher that went unchecked. This kind of both/and reality — she was both a victim and a perpetrator of harm to others — is common in a high control group.

Whether the teacher’s control over Katarina was subtle and largely voluntary, or more dramatic and deftly orchestrated, the result was the same — her agency and individuality were subsumed to him as she became, first, his helpmate, and later, his most trusted surrogate within the cult.

Altogether the couple spent four years in India. During this time, as his group would later tell it, they lived with his ancestral family. Without the need to earn a living or attend to practical matters, they focused on immersion in meditation and other spiritual disciplines.

Geographic isolation, cultural-religious engulfment, and long hours every day of mind-altering practices — all of this would have made for a potent setting for Katarina’s indoctrination.

Surely, by the time the obstacles that had prevented their earlier return to California “fell away,” Katarina’s conversion was complete. From this cult of one, the guru would soon expand his reach.

Ring Around the Ruler

When the couple came back to California — now a more consolidated unit — the would-be spiritual teacher picked back up with his efforts to gather a community.

He had a handful of supporters from his earlier campaign in the Bay Area who had kept the faith. Most notable was a woman I’ll call Carrie, who provided the home that would shelter not only the guru and his wife, but additional early students.
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As the guru’s audience grew, an inner circle of close students and housemates developed. Eventually the group would obtain a rural property on which to establish a commune. The idealistic young adults who surrounded him there built the compound with their own hard labor.

​While the teacher continued to commute to the city to give public talks, he carved out a traditional guru-student role for himself with the young residents of his new ashram. There was a bait-and-switch tactic here that could make a used car salesperson proud.

In public talks previously, the eminently humble teacher had told eager meditators that he merely pointed the way to enlightenment; each person would have to do their own traveling. Once the young seekers were firmly ensconced as residents at the ashram, however — increasingly isolated from their families and the outside world, increasingly immersed in mind-altering spiritual practices, increasingly talking and thinking in the loaded language he supplied them — the teacher changed his tune.

Now he beseeched the eager seekers to surrender to him as their guru, if they truly wanted to attain enlightenment. The students had been acclimated over years of life with the guru before this pronouncement emerged. As one escapee told me emphatically, “I never would have joined a group where the leader said, devotion to the teacher IS the path.”

The guru’s inner circle at that time would have been drawn from this group of communalists, made up of those who were most loyal, deferential and compliant. At a later stage of his life, when he struggled with the health challenges brought by age, this inner circle would include his direct caregivers.

Within that inner circle, closest to the guru and his wife were lieutenants that enforced norms on their behalf. In some groups, these positions would have formal titles (like lieutenant). I don’t think that was the case in my old group; but the function was the same, carrying out the will of the leader within the group.

It probably made the holder of such a position feel special to be so trusted. Alas, there is typically higher turnover in these positions, who are exposed to more of the ugliness at the heart of the onion, and more at risk for disillusionment, burnout and misconduct, or grabbing power for themselves, any of which would make them a threat to the leader — and thus get them removed. No one but the teacher is irreplaceable.

Among those who were enforcers for the couple at the heart of the onion, one man got into trouble with the law when — repeating patterns of the founder, only outside the group — he attempted to serve his own sexual needs with an underage girl.

As I saw myself when I worked at the ashram, and have consistently observed from afar in the twenty years since, the Board of Trustees for the organization has always been stacked with loyalists. The organization scores poorly with external bodies on things like the independence of its governing board and the transparency of its financials. This kind of insularity is a red flag that a group is likely controlling in nature. It shows that even when the leader is gone, the onion remains intact, inner ring and all.

Residents & Workers

While the inner circle would, I expect, have drawn primarily from those who lived and/or worked at the ashram, not everyone there is equally on the inside. This larger pool of people created a community that could engage with the wider world.

Some resided at the ashram, worked in the nearby community, and helped the ashram run through their contributions of labor in the kitchen or the gardens, or in maintaining the buildings and grounds.

Others took up specialized roles to support the mission of the outward-facing organization. The founder was their brand — when I was there, they even went through a rebranding phase where the web site, emails and everything else consisted of his name. That felt uncomfortable to me at the time, as I was still holding to the “he only points the way” side of the group’s propaganda.

No doubt the young enthusiasts over the decades were lauded for giving selflessly (largely anonymously, to the public) to the group’s work. Ultimately the group’s real function was to serve as a vehicle for glorifying the founder.

Students of the guru worked as volunteers or low-paid employees for public-facing programs. It began with his talks and lectures throughout the Bay Area; expanded to include a press that published a journal, and later books; special projects, such as those in the fields of health and conservation; and in time, overnight meditation retreats.

This ashram layer includes a group that doesn’t fit neatly into the schema — people who show up strictly as employees, live locally, may develop friendly relationships with the residents over time, may interact somewhat with the wider public served by the organization, but are not themselves meditators or students of the teacher. They are not exposed directly to the programs and teachings of the group.

I’m not sure how many there are in that category currently, or when it started. During my peak involvement, it included a local woman who cooked meals for the retreats, and perhaps some people who helped ship books from the press’s warehouse. This in-but-not-really-in group is depicted in my graphic as a shoot that touches all the layers from meditator-workers through the public.

Ashram Associates
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The next layer out was created later, sometime after a program of meditation retreats was well-established. What I’ll call here the Ashram Associates program was geared toward young adults when I started going to retreats. I’m not sure if it existed in some other form before that.

It used the social lever of scarcity — we have a limited number of spots, and you must apply and make your case for why you should be included. It offered the opportunity for a greater sense of intimacy within the participating cohort, and between those participants and the ashram long-timers. And it promised spiritual rewards for the deeper exploration in which we would be guided, over six months of intermittent in-person retreats, at-home work, and online connection among participants.

I participated in this program, along with many other young adults of my cohort. It proved an effective means of deeper indoctrination into the community. And it was a gateway to the next layer in — most of us ended up, sooner or later, moving to the area and living and/or working at the ashram.

For some this was a move from southern to northern California. For others, like me, it was from another region of the U.S. to the Bay Area. Still others came from other countries, even another continent.

Later a similar model was used, with the same name, but minus the focus on young adults. I suspect not enough of us “stuck” — young adults, after all, tend to be in a time of transition. Easy come, easy go. (I mean, not *really* easy — it upended my life! But we childless, early-career YAs were less tied down elsewhere.)

Subsequent cohorts included folks who were later in their careers, or even retired. Well-established and, I think, largely past the child-rearing stage. The ones I know of were professionals who had the resources, of money and time and skills, to be able to help carry out the work of the group. Most of the married ones seem to have been in relationships with people also practicing the group’s methods; they progressed inward in the onion structure together.

Participation in this program promised mature adults a sense of purpose and closer relationships, similar to the appeal for YAs. Only these folks would not soon conclude, as I had, that there was no way they could save for retirement adequately while working for the group. No, they already had that taken care of.

An overlapping category here may be those who would become program presenters. This is a structure that was developed after I left the group. The aging first-generation students were looking for ways to sustain retreats, while reducing reliance on themselves. For those offered the opportunity to serve in this way, it would have seemed a great honor to be so trusted. I gather their training was quite controlled, with scripts that required strict adherence.

Similarly, some people would come closer in other kinds of volunteer capacities, such as serving on the editorial team. They would work closely with — and be closely guided by — loyalists who were deeper/longer in.

Some of those later associates and presenters did end up moving to live near or at the ashram. As with my YA cohort, however, there was plenty of “leakage.” People who moved back outward again are seen in outer layers of the onion, or are made invisible beyond it.

The group was left with a challenge at the opposite end of the age spectrum from the one at which I entered — how to prevent older ashram associates, ones who had taken the leap to living on group property, from becoming a net drain on resources as they aged out of their productive years. I understand that some years ago, leadership adopted a rule — “voluntarily” embraced by all to whom it would one day apply — that associates would retire, and cease to live on group property, when they hit 70 years of age.

I wonder how many waves of these special programs there have actually been over the decades. Each time, the organization netted some short-term free or cheap labor and donations. Each time, one or a few people may have stuck and become long-term residents / workers, replenishing the heart of the onion that would keep it all going.

Ultimately, though, it doesn’t seem to be enough. I don’t see the ashram community or the 501(c)(3) program provider surviving past the dwindling population of current residents. The remaining stalwarts may themselves have come to terms with this; those who fully embrace the teacher’s story of reality may expect that they will be reunited with him in future lifetimes, when all are reincarnated and can pick back up with the work in same way.

Retreatants

The guru expanded from public talks to overnight meditation retreats sometime in the mid-80s. These began in an existing retreat center in the Bay Area. Over a decade later, the group would establish its own retreat house, much closer to the ashram.

The guru was aging by this time, and was purposeful in training hand-picked students to learn to present his program of meditation and related practices. (When the long-timers did likewise with non-residents, they were simply replicating the train-the-trainer model.)

You can get pretty deeply indoctrinated just from retreats, which provide a focused period in a controlled environment, a closed community. Meditating together in person seems to amplify the effects of the practice. That in turn makes one more suggestible to teachings presented in that time.

(If they haven’t already, I expect someday scientists will measure how our minds affect each other. We know that our nervous systems can do this — children cue off their parents’ responses to surprising events, to know whether to respond with alertness or calm. Perhaps our alpha-states are somewhat contagious, just as emotions of various kinds can spread between us humans, who are such social creatures.)

Over time, a variety of options were developed in the retreat program. In person near the ashram, for a weekend, or a whole week. Special pilgrimages of one’s own to this sacred site of the guru. Regional retreats, held for many years in major cities throughout the U.S., and even overseas. More recently, especially since the pandemic, online retreats.
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After the guru’s death, the retreats continued, with his long-time students facilitating workshops, and playing recordings of his talks. As a retreat-goer, after all the talks viewed, not to mention books read, and stories shared around the retreat house dining table by long-time students, it felt like I knew the teacher myself.
​​

​I was taking in his words daily in one form or another, even at home. Within a couple of years, I could reel off any of the spiels on various spiritual topics myself, using the group’s own language, as if it were second nature. Such restricted use of language is a sign of increasing control over one’s mind.

Satsangs

A program more recent even than retreats are satsangs, local groups of people that meet weekly in their city to meditate together, based on the methods of the teacher. Coordinators follow guidelines provided by the ashram, and focus on the teachings of its founder. I remember my old satsang sometimes watching and discussing videos together, too, of the teacher’s recorded talks.

In retrospect, I see how the organization tried to establish boundaries, keeping satsangs only for those who were faithfully doing their method of meditation. In practice, some folks just interested in reading or viewing the materials, and sharing fellowship with others who have spiritual interests, could turn up too, depending on how rigorously the coordinator of that particular group enforced the intended boundaries.

The satsangs were framed as a way to provide fellowship and support where you live for your meditation practice. And they did do that. Along with nightly reading of the founder’s books and journal articles, frequent home viewing of his videos (via a DVD of the month program, or later, an online video archive), periodic retreat attendance, and volunteer work for the ashram, the weekly satsang in one’s own community added yet another touchpoint in one’s life that reinforced the practices, the identity, and the relationships tied up with the founder and his ashram.

The result is a category of people that I see as in a gray zone of indoctrination. They might never identify themselves as having been part of a high control group, even if they someday learn how such groups work, and learn previously-withheld hard truths about its founder. Because they didn’t get in *that* deep. From the outside, they would seem to be leading normal lives in their communities, with work and families and friends.

However, on the inside, it is quite possible to be plenty indoctrinated while living far from the ashram. It’s all a spectrum.

Someone who just read some books, took to the meditation practice, and perhaps plugged into a local satsang might recover relatively quickly from the shock of contradictory new information about the founder. In contrast, it might be much more world-shaking for someone who had become more deeply enmeshed relationally and spiritually with the group, through years of retreats, perhaps personal acquaintance with the guru or core first-gen students, perhaps going through an ashram associate program or serving as a presenter or getting in deep as a skilled volunteer who is virtual staff, and being deeply invested in one’s own identity.

Readers

It’s been over a half century since the founder of my old group started teaching meditation in this country, and building an organization to further that work. And the most common way people come into contact with his work now is his books. (I say “his” books, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say books published in his name, since virtually all of them were, I now understand, ghost written.)

Perhaps a hundred people have resided at the ashram over these 50+ years.
Thousands have surely come to public talks and retreats. And who knows how many have watched the videos of the founder’s talks that are, by now, available online.

But books and other publications bring the teacher’s exposure exponentially higher.
​

Millions have read the books or translations published in the founder’s name (or read e-books or listened to audio-books). The translations in particular, I’ve heard, are on the shelves of yoga studios hither and yon.

This is the most common point of entry into the onion. Many people will stop at that layer. But without the books, some who end up deep inside might never have even heard of this particular teacher and meditation practice.

What the Onion Structure Accomplishes

The layers of my old group illustrate fairly well how these onion structures tend to work for high control groups generally.

Moving Down the Pipeline

The layers provide the group a means of cult-ivating people into deepening levels of involvement.

The books are a feeder for the retreats — I recall postcards that came in them, by which one could be added to the mailing list and indicate interest in learning about programs. The retreats further funnel some people into special programs, volunteering, and even, eventually, living and/or working at the ashram. This may have been true of other programs that came and went before my time in the group. Human resources are drawn from the periphery in toward the center of the onion.

​​All publications and programs also provide some level of income to support the ashram. I suspect, though, that such income might be a wash, financially, if not for the charitable donations of the most committed supporters. Especially, the estate gifts that are surely “maturing” with increasing frequency in this decade.

There is an element of choice in this process. Individuals are encouraged and/or self-select to go deeper — or not. As I explored in Who Joins Cults?, this process is akin to a non-profit’s systematic cultivation of donors. If done with full transparency for mutual benefit, such a process is ethically sound. Transparency, alas, is usually spotty at best in a high control group.

The self-selection part of the process is evident. I chose to try out this particular method of meditation after I learned about it from a fellow traveler. Later I chose to read book after book by that meditation teacher, and eventually to go to a regional retreat. Later still, I decided to attend a weeklong retreat at the headquarters. Further down the line, I applied to participate in the Ashram Associate program. This is part of how the illusion of choice is created — this is the part we know about.

A high control group quietly influences participants throughout the process (part 1 ​part 2), not least by withholding critical information for individual’s decision-making. I certainly would have made different choices if I had known the truth about the founder and his community.

In addition, puppet-masters in the group are making unseen choices about who gets to go deeper — and who doesn’t.

Any steps the group takes to encourage or bar participation may only be visible to the individual involved. I remember interactions with several different long-timers from the ashram who encouraged me to feel that I had something valuable to offer as a potential employee, should I choose to draw closer in that way. These were private conversations. No doubt others who made the move had their own experiences of love-bombing or gentle nudging.

On the other hand, the group could quietly decide who to prevent from moving further inside the onion. The Ashram Associate program I participated in seemed open to anyone with a genuine interest and ability to make the commitment. However, I now understand that there were other criteria applied to admission decisions.

I recently learned that one woman who had gotten involved with the community was barred from participating in young adult programs, despite falling within the indicated age range. She was told that she was not eligible because she was married. She was crushed! It really hurt. She didn’t understand what her marital status had to do with why she should or should not have access to this opportunity for spiritual growth.

I would guess that had her spouse been a fellow meditator, and had they both applied to participate together, the outcome would have been different. As it was, her relationship with her uninvolved spouse would have made her harder to indoctrinate into the group. So they chose not to invest in her. That piece of the process was not publicized, of course.

​Similar gatekeeping between layers may have been carried out, based on whether particular individuals had skills needed by the organization. For example, desirable skills in my old group, at certain points in time, included everything to do with publishing (copywriting, editing, graphic design, translation, marketing); fundraising (annual fund, grants, major donor development); digital editing of the teacher’s old talks, administrative and HR skills, web site management, presenting, and so on.

And of course, closer to the center of the onion, going back to the guru’s lifetime, those admitted to the innermost circle would’ve been those who most met his needs, be they practical, psychological, or otherwise.

Gradual Conditioning

The more time passes, and the deeper into the onion one goes, the more one’s whole life becomes colonized, from the inside, by the group and its worldview.
First, the way they behave becomes the way you behave — doing the practices, whatever they may be in a given a group.
​
Through this immediate experience brought on by behavior, as well as through instruction, the way they think becomes the way you think. (Or the way you don’t think — the suspension of thought is a big part of the process.)

Likewise, you learn what are appropriate ways to feel and you perform accordingly, restricting and denying even to yourself feelings that are outside the bounds of permissibility. Janja Lalich calls this bounded choice. [ii]

The concept of bounded choice helps me greatly to understand the apparent blindness of the long-timers in my group to what it has become, from its promising beginnings as a group of idealistic young people, to a community riddled with shameful secrets that no one signed up for — and no one still left seems willing or able to look at.

While I understand there are groups that quickly isolate and strip away the identities of new recruits, my experience in my old group was much more gradual. It happened as I came closer, layer by layer.

One of my old friends from my YA cohort observed something that illustrates a deliberate aspect of this process. The information shared by the group is geared to the particular layer you are in — and perhaps even, at times, what they read you as an individual to be ready for, open to.

For example, the videos of the teacher’s talks are curated and calibrated to meet a person where they are at, in their particular layer of the onion. When he was alive, he would have done this calibration himself, of course. Now those exerting leadership in his absence continue to do the same with his videos and writings.

Some talks viewed by ashram die-hards would never be shown at an introductory retreat — only a fraction of the talks archived would be considered suitable for the public. Potential recruits and newbies are kept on a diet of palatable propaganda, until moved deeper into the onion.

The spiritual practices and ideas which draw them in can be found in various teachers and traditions, and are artfully expressed by this particular teacher who speaks charmingly to their time. No one says at the outset: “Once you come to trust this teacher, this community, the message will slowly change. Loyalty will start to mean something different.” No, that has to be worked up to over a long period of time.

Alexandra Stein explains, “propaganda plays an important role in what we might call ‘voluntary’ recruitment.” These are “the ideas, messages, images and narratives that are used specifically to communicate with the outside world… those to whom propaganda is directed are not yet isolated or only partially so… Propaganda can be seen as the softening up process that gets the recruit to the point where indoctrination processes can start to be implemented… As recruits enter more fully into the life of the group the language and messages change.” [iii]

I have described elsewhere an evening ritual after meditation that was orchestrated at the end of the Ashram Associate program for my cohort. In our highly-suggestible post-meditation state, within the shared circle of identity of the cohort, we were invited to ACT OUT a kind of reverence and submission toward the guru (see the end of The Roots of Control).

This is something I would NEVER have imagined myself going along with before I took up this method of meditation. I was not someone who had started down this path seeking a guru, nor a devotional relationship, much less SURRENDER. I barely remember the experience, which may be partly because of the twilight mental state (and literal darkness in that garden — it feels like a dream). But that may also be because it’s not consistent with my self-understanding, so I didn’t let it up to the surface. That whole cognitive dissonance thing.

I guess that was my generation’s version of the bait-and-switch that the guru’s early students had experienced regarding the role of the teacher.

All Is Maya… The Membranes’ Function

At the innermost layers of the onion, in my old group, the real world is not regarded as terribly real. This is not the highest reality; no, from the plane of enlightenment, where the guru presumably is and everyone else has been conditioned to want to be, this reality is no more real than a dream is to waking consciousness.

Perhaps it is more than coincidence that illusion plays such an important metaphysical role. It certainly plays an important practical one in the group.

​Consider Hannah Arendt’s concept that each layer in a totalitarian movement (or in my case, small, non-political cult) serves a double function. It protects the inner core from too much contact with the real world, from which they have grown disconnected and out of touch.

And it protects the outer layers from the weirdness at the heart of the onion. Including the truth underneath the mythology of the founder, and his less-than-morally-exemplary behavior.

Alexandra Stein puts it this way:  “the deeper you go toward the center of the system, the more distant from reality you become … The life and beliefs of the innermost circle are so extreme that the outer circles must be protected from it until they are ready and have moved through the intervening layers, becoming sufficiently conditioned along the way. On the other hand, the inner circle must also be protected from the reality that might burst their fictional bubble… the group employs secrecy and deception to maintain the separation between layers.” [iv]

At this point, I’d guess the long-timers still remaining at the ashram are so deeply embedded in the guru’s story of the world — and so far entrenched in betrayal blindness, if they’ve made it this long — that there’s little risk of their bubble being burst. They can hole up on their ashram, in their insular community, reinforcing these illusions for one another, until their dying days.
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That is, as long as they push away knowledge of the people who have left and WHY they have really left.

So I suspect that in my old group, it was the guru himself, at the very heart of it all, who most needed to be buffered by his inner circle. Once he created that community, he was surrounded by devotees always. This meant he was never confronted by normal people without his most enthralled supporters there to reinforce his positive self-conception, and shield him from anything that might disturb it.
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The books and retreats of my old group serve an important function for both sides. Stein explains, “Front groups allow rank-and-file members [ashram residents] to feel ‘normal’ as they have channels to interact with the outside world — although these interactions are rigidly scripted and controlled. They also present a benign face of the group to the outside world while nonetheless being a way in, a wide-open entry point into the no-exit lobster pot of the group.”

Any Way You Slice It

Any way you slice it, the onion structure of a high-control group reveals layers of conditioning and control.

In sum, “The attributes of the structure — its closed nature, the fluctuating hierarchy, the highly centralized, onion-like layers, the secrecy and deception, internal and external isolation, duplication, and endless motion — ensure power and control remains in the hands of the leader.” ~ Alexandra Stein [v]

The leader of my old meditation group has been dead for decades, yet thanks to this onion structure, he is still somehow calling the shots. The group continues to glorify him and cement the legacy of his teachings. No inconvenient truths about his dark deeds of the past — or their own complicity in manipulating people and information — will be allowed to change that.

I hope, though, that if the truth gets out more widely, fewer new people will get drawn in, unawares.
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Meanwhile, here are some other articles that may interest you.👇
Seeking Safely … What I Found … What Is A High Control Group?

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Endnotes

[i] From The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, as quoted in Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems by Alexandrea Stein (Routledge, Second Edition 2021).
[ii] Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults by Janja Lalich (University of California Press, 2004).
[iii] Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems by Alexandrea Stein (Routledge, Second Edition 2021).
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ibid.

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!
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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?
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[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

• 27%-75% internal (people who are already paying members active in Medium’s eco-system)
• 30%-73% external (everyone else — people who have learned of the piece from me, including from subscribing to emails of my articles previously, or from a search engine, or when someone else shared it with them).

The external traffic further breaks down to include, in order from most to least (though on some articles the order is different):

1. Email (which I believe includes subscribers who click the link in the email to read it online), IM (chat/messenger apps), and direct (bookmarks / not traceable)
2. Facebook
3. LinkedIn
4. Search engines (Google, Duck Duck Go, Bing etc.)

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.
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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).
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​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.
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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:

• Beware the Mystic East — a catalogue of fallen gurus (the one from my old group is no anomaly… the pattern is stark!)
• Why Did He Do It? (explaining the founder of my old group, my best educated hypothesis about why and how he became a guru and cult leader, falling into the traps that so many of them do)
• Why They Stay — and Why I Forgive Them (explaining the long-timers who are sticking it out… this will have to be a series, as there is so much to say — a review, really, of the core models in the social science cult literature)
• What I Keep & What I Release (exploring where I am now in my deconstruction process… which I hope will be a useful model to others disaffiliating from my old group, or from similar groups — or for that matter from fundamentalist church — who are at an earlier point in the looooong process of unpacking what you absorbed, consciously choosing what to take forward and what not, and reclaiming agency)

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.
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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:

• Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World by Elinor Cleghorn;
• The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke;
• Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon; and
• The Lady’s Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness: A Memoir by Sarah Ramey.

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.
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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.