How did I first come to set foot on the web of illusion and manipulation that would eventually capture me? And what did I see on this first section of the path?

​In Quest Mode
 
I first encountered the work of my future group’s teacher, and began exploring the spiritual program they promoted, while I was far from home. I was already in a questing spirit. One that, at the time, I understood to be part of an ongoing process of discernment around my vocation.
 
In November 2000, I went to Kerala, south India, joining a delegation of North Americans on a “reality tour” put on by San Francisco-based non-profit Global Exchange. This trip focused on how the state of Kerala had implemented community development, in ways inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. I had long admired Gandhi for articulating and practicing principled nonviolence as a means of social change.
 
Besides being a budding activist, I had been working in the community development field where I lived for a couple of years, since leaving a sociology PhD program. When I signed up for the tour, I thought learning about community development à la Gandhi might help me identify a research topic for which I might have sustained passion – just what I’d been lacking when I left the PhD program. Perhaps it would lead me to go back and do a dissertation, then pursue a career in academia.
 
Instead, the most significant way that trip influenced my life, as I see it now, was by  introducing me to the writings of a certain meditation teacher. Another member of the group, “Linda,” recognized that I was already primed, with a curiosity aroused and positive associations already made with meditation, but lacking a concrete practice. Linda gave me a short book by “Acharya” (a.k.a. “AA” for his initials). The thin volume built on my interest in Gandhi, while introducing AA’s spiritual program in a brief, accessible way. The method of meditation promoted was said to be modeled on how Acharya had witnessed Gandhi meditating on the Gita.
 
So It Begins
 
Back home, the initial hook of Gandhi continued to draw me to Acharya’s works. I began to dabble in AA’s other writings and his spiritual program. I had little exposure to the guru model of spirituality, and even less interest in it. Acharya was simply presented as a knowledgeable writer on meditation and mysticism, who happened to be from “Gandhi’s India.”
 
Over that first year and a half, I slowly built consistency in my own meditation practice, while beginning to make connections to the meditation center founded by Acharya.

In this initial period, I progressed through three essential steps of early involvement: 

1. being drawn to a group/program through one or more hooks
2. building trust and a felt sense of safety
3. initial conditioning via the group’s propaganda

 
While the original hook for me had to do with Gandhi and my desire to be part of spiritually grounded social change, there were other hooks that, sooner or later, came into play. Looking back now, I see that I was also drawn to meditation and associated practices as a way to:

• regulate my sensitive nervous system
• ground me in positive ideals and uplifting imagery
• provide a supportive rhythm to my days
• explore diverse sources of spiritual wisdom (the program taps scriptures and mystics of all major religious traditions)

 
Meditation was presented as an antidote to restlessness, and as an aid to finding purpose and meaning. This was just what 20-something me was looking for.
 
It was while I was there in “Gandhi’s India” – specifically, AA’s Kerala – that other people and traditions first started to be leveraged to engender trust toward this new-to-me meditation teacher. Linda and Gandhi were the first of many figures to suggest, by association, that Acharya was trustworthy.
 
My own experience of meditation brought breakthroughs in trust as well; for while meditation could often be a slog, especially in the early months, there were times of breaking through to soaring beauty or deep peace. Even when my monkey mind remained restless during a particular sitting, I experienced viscerally how meditation almost always left my nervous system more settled. Plus, I noticed that my nascent meditation practice was having a stabilizing effect in my life, beyond individual sittings. This encouraged me to continue.

Another Step In
 
Less than a year after my initial introduction to “Acharya” and his method of meditation, in Sept. 2001, I attended my first meditation retreat. (I’ve lost any record of exact dates, but I would guess it was the first weekend of that month – before 9-11.)  I had mailed in one of the postcards that were tucked into all of Acharya’s books; you could fill one out with your contact info, and mail it in, to get on the group’s mailing list. I believe it was through journals or newsletters from the meditation center, that I  then began to get, that I learned about retreats, with specific, upcoming dates and places listed.
 
At the time, AA’s meditation center offered weekend retreats regionally throughout the United States. These programs promised to give a boost to my meditation practice and its practical benefits. I was also curious to learn more about the program of spiritual practices that Acharya wrote about in his books – eight practices altogether, with meditation as the foundation. What other benefits awaited me?
 
A regional retreat was a comfortable step closer for someone like me, with an independent streak. I could drive up to the weekend retreat nearest to me, in Chicago, and have my own wheels. The retreat would be held at a Carmelite center in the suburbs. A weekend felt like a modest amount of time to be in the retreat milieu, with just one representative from Archarya’s organization there to present, along with other attendees like me. In other words, this felt like a gradual, safe way to explore a bit more, beyond meeting Linda and reading materials from Acharya and the meditation center he founded. (I would never meet AA himself, as he died the year before I received that first book in Kerala.)
 
Twenty-some years later, the Chicago retreats I attended largely run together in my mind. One thing that stands out about the first one I went to was that it was when I met “Joshua” (I’ll call him here). Like all the retreat presenters at that time, Joshua was a long-time student of Acharya, and a resident at his ashram in northern California. Joshua was also a scholar of Gandhi. He established his own non-profit, focused on nonviolence education in the vein of Gandhi and King. A retired professor, Joshua fell naturally into a mentor dynamic with young adults like then-me. 

Of all the presenters who might have led my first retreat, thanks to his focus on Gandhi, Joshua was the one who would most have connected for me. He was an important part of legitimizing Acharya to me. He happened to have a book of his own, just out at the time of my first weekend retreat, about principled nonviolence and its relevance today; upon discovering my interest in Gandhi, he gave me one to take home. I dug into it with great interest. Rekindling the Gandhi connection was just the thing, at that moment, to keep me interested in meditation, and seeing it as part of my larger vocational quest.
 
Becoming Established
 
One of the messages of the retreat, reinforced by further reading I did after that first program, was the importance of consistency in meditation. Every source hammered home that to derive the most benefit, one should practice daily, come rain or shine, sickness or travel. It was the first big message of the center:  whatever drew you to meditation, in order to get those benefits, your first priority must be to become established in a faithful, daily meditation practice.
 
My records indicate I really made a push in this direction in early 2002; it may have been a new year’s resolution to transition from what had become frequent meditation, to truly a daily practice. If memory serves, this was also around the time I learned that there was a local meditation group, or satsang, where I lived – perhaps I learned about it at the Chicago retreat, or maybe folks at the meditation center shared this with me after. I started going to those weekly gatherings with a small group in my city.
 
Meanwhile, through the winter and spring of 2002, I continued reading books by Acharya, building a habit of reading before bed each night, as the program encourages. Between the morning meditation, nighttime reading, weekly satsang sessions, and periodic journals and newsletters that were now coming from the meditation center, my everyday life began to be saturated by the group, its practices, and its point-of-view.
 
But A Humble Teacher
 
Acharya was portrayed as a college professor turned humble meditation teacher.

I was not the sort of person who went looking for a spiritual teacher, per se. There may have been some like that among retreat-goers, but I was left to feel that it was perfectly acceptable to relate to this meditation teacher much as one might a piano teacher or tennis teacher or any other sort of subject expert – as someone who had skills to share born of study and experience, along with the temperament of a teacher.
 
I don’t recall now when the title Sri was first introduced to me in connection with Acharya. Perhaps at that first regional retreat, by Joshua. Whenever it came in, “Sri” was explained as an honorific for a highly regarded teacher. I didn’t think too much of it, especially not being familiar with its cultural origin. I don’t think I started using it right away; yet, as a woman and a Midwesterner, I am well-socialized to make nice, and might well have picked it up sooner than later, just to be respectful of others’ ways. In the first year or two, I don’t think it had any more significance to me than calling a college professor Dr. So-and-so.
 
A Simple, Safe, & Powerful Practice
 
As for meditation, it was described as a simple, safe, and powerful practice. The benefits would begin to accrue immediately, and would increase over time with faithful practice. Whether you were looking for better concentration, improved relationships, a purpose to anchor your life, self-realization, or simply greater well-being, meditation could provide it.
 
Acharya’s method of meditation, along with the other practices in his program, were painted as non-sectarian, free of religious dogma and ritual, appropriate for persons of any or no religious background, and consistent with science, to boot.
 
The fact that his method of meditation is billed as safe at least implies that some kinds might not be – but not this one. As I have covered elsewhere, the possibility of any undesirable effects was barely acknowledged by my old group, and then mainly in the context of private guidance, and only to assure that it’s temporary, it’s a positive sign, and you’re in good hands with this group and Acharya’s first-generation students.

My own experience of meditation, in early stages, encouraged me to continue with the practice and build life rhythms around it. As clinical psychologist and cult expert Margaret Singer explains, meditation is one of the ways to enter a trance state. In such altered states, everyday awareness of our surroundings and our relationship to the environment dissolves. “For many persons,” she observes, “entering a trance state is pleasurable. It provides a respite from thought about the woes of everyday life.” [2]

The particular method of meditation my old group promotes, focusing on an inspiring selection from a scripture or mystic, can go beyond mere respite from everyday life and its quotidian concerns. These passages are similar in quality to Romantic poetry that has been found to lead to experiences of “sublime ecstasy” for some persons – highly sensitive persons, I suspect, who may be more likely to be drawn to this particular method of meditation. Singer notes that the resulting state from meditation may “best be called trance-augmented aesthetic experiences.” [3]
 
I found that these effects were further enhanced when I meditated with a group, such as at weekly satsang meetings or at a meditation retreat. The calmed mind, settled nervous system, tastes of sublime ecstasy, and sense of anchoring meaning that I experienced in meditation provided ample motivation to continue the practice, and to do it with others.
 
All That Glitters

I have shared above what I *could* see from my initial vantage point along the webbed pathway to surrender. In sum, what seemed visible to me from that first foothold on the golden path included:

• a universal, poetic method of meditation that could support my goals, and could only do good
• ways to plumb the wisdom of the world’s spiritual traditions, without the dogma and hierarchy of much organized religion
• a humble, harmless teacher – linked to Gandhi – who was only here to help
• a growing trust and sense of safety in his program and representatives

 
Sooner or later, I would discover that none of those promises would hold.

What I could NOT see in that early stage – what was hidden or minimized – included:

• the risks of meditation, and how ill-prepared the group was to support anyone experiencing (predictable) adverse effects
• the deep-seated insecurities (possibly even a personality disorder) that some believe drove “Acharya” to pursue the guru role, and to develop an ever-growing community of followers to prop him up
• the ways trance states leave people vulnerable to suggestion, potentially within meditation itself (through the messaging of the memorized passages), as well as immediately following it, as at retreats
• the established imprint of Orientalism, and savvy marketing of Eastern spirituality to Westerners, that Acharya leaned into – making his claims more credible
• how what began as palatable propaganda would gradually transition to indoctrination; for example, video talks were carefully curated to meet people where they were
• that Acharya had connected with other gurus to the West, and learned from other high-control groups, as well as evolving his approach intuitively through experience – a process his ashram continued
• how dysfunctional and damaging his ashram community would turn out to be
• the history of betrayed trust and harm “AA” left in his wake, allegedly in India and in his U.S. adventures before making his way to California, as well as (I am 100% convinced) since founding the ashram and meditation center

 
Early Qualms
 
In my initial exposure to Acharya’s writing, there was hardly any idea I objected to, really nothing to turn me off. He made clear that his brand of mysticism was warm to people who were wary of God-language, as I was when I was first introduced to the program; he drew from literature, with nods to science, as well as religious traditions of the East and West. And that first slim book I received in India spoke especially to leading a purposeful life – the very search that had led me to Kerala. Elsewhere AA spoke of the artistry of the spiritual life; this appealed to me too.

​As my exposure increased, there were occasionally things that didn’t connect with me, like AA’s reflexive belief in reincarnation. (He was, after all, Hindu.) The first rub I remember coming up at a retreat was at my very first retreat, in Chicago, where I struggled with the idea of putting others first as a spiritual practice. How was this different from the sort of subservience inculcated in domestic abuse victims, a dynamic I had learned about through volunteer work at a women’s shelter?
 
I remember expressing my discomfort and asking if this particular formula wasn’t outdated. I don’t precisely recall the official response – something along the lines of, when it’s freely chosen, as the program advocates, that’s totally different… it doesn’t mean undercutting basic needs or safety… and Acharya’s granny demonstrated that it didn’t mean becoming a doormat. Me, internally:  I’m going to think of it as ‘serving the whole’ instead of ‘putting others first.’
 
It continued on like that for me. When I reflected back on my journey with this group in writing, some years after my peak involvement, I recalled:  “with retreats, I found I had an inner tussle between what ‘they’ taught and hearing my own inner voice. I felt a reaction to certain teachings and authority role and always had to go back home and let things settle out to feel what was right for me and trust that.”
 
Another way of looking at this was that cognitive dissonance had started to build fairly soon in my association with the group, but initially it seemed manageable. I thought I could just take what made sense to me, what worked for me, and let other people have their own understanding and experience. The group did not appear heavy-handed at all, and seemed to acknowledge individual variation.
 
The Illusion of Choice
 
I did not know, then, that unseen levers of influence would be used to keep me engaged, even when I inwardly declined some aspects of the group’s messaging. Humans are triggered to take shortcuts in decision-making – largely unconsciously – in many circumstances. 

For example, we tend to be more persuadable by people when we like them. There’s an automatic instinct to reciprocate when others show care or provide support. People easily default to conforming with those around them when uncertain about something. Experts are valued (and listened to) in their area of authority. And when we have expressed a commitment, it increases the likelihood of following through.
 
As Robert Cialdini, a scholar of influence, observes, anyone who is savvy about such principles can quietly, systematically use the ordinary levers of influence that people usually respond to unthinkingly. 

My old group was quite skilled at creating the illusion of choice. Certainly there were choices I did have while participating in their program. But each choice existed inside a box – a confined set of options – that the group had carefully constructed. Some examples:

• I chose which meditation passages to memorize and use in my meditation practice… but I chose from their curated collection; or in the few cases that I wanted to go beyond selections already designated as appropriate, I was coached to first consult the then-leader of the group for guidance on the suitability of any passage that interested me.
• I chose a short sacred phrase, or mantram, to repeat during daily life… again from their curated list, and in the specific ways called for in their program.
• I chose what spiritual reading to do… but following the path implicitly laid out, it was heavily focused on works of the group’s founder. At one point they would make a distinction between reading for inspiration vs. reading for instruction, so that even when people read more widely, it kept the influence on one’s practice emanating from them.
• I chose to attend retreats… though without informed consent; in a bait-and-switch situation, one does not know where the program is actually designed to take you.

 
Margaret Singer describes the process of a high-control group as consisting of a double agenda, taking people through “a series of steps, each sufficiently minor so that you don’t notice the changes in yourself and do not become aware of the goals of the program until late in the process (if ever).” Singer describes the double agenda:  the program “on the surface look like one agenda, while on another level, the real agenda is to get you, the recruit or member, to obey and give up your autonomy, your past affiliations, and your belief systems.” No one would sign up if they knew the real agenda, which is why the second agenda remains hidden. [6]

​When I cracked open that first book from Acharya, or attended my first retreat, or decided to work toward daily meditation, I certainly had no idea that the underlying purpose of all of this was not really to support me in my life goals. Instead, the real aim of the meditation center’s programs was to redirect as much of my resources as possible – time, money, skills, ideals – toward sustaining the teacher’s organization and burnishing his reputation.

Next up:  attending my first retreat at the meditation center's headquarters north of San Francisco - a weeklong retreat.

Sources:
​​[1] A Little Bit Culty: Navigating Cults, Control and Coercion by Sarah Edmondson and Nippy Ames (The Self Publishing Agency, 2026), 45.
[2] Cults in Our Midst by Margaret Thaler Singer (Jossey-Bass, 2003 edition), 157.
​[3] Singer, 157.
[4] Edmondson and Ames, 73.
[5] Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini (HarperCollins, 2021 edition), 18.
​[6] Singer, 64-65.

​High control groups are like orb spiders. They diligently construct gossamer traps, then wait for curious people to cross paths with the sticky stuff.
 
Wildlife educator Monica Macoubrie explains that “Orb-weavers are true sit-and-wait predators… you can spot them perched patiently in the center of their intricate webs. Their legs are incredibly sensitive, able to detect the tiniest vibration from a struggling insect.” [2]  High control groups, too, know how to patiently wait for prey to come near enough for the encounter to begin.

When sensing a new victim on the web, an orb spider actually rushes over and paralyzes the prey with venom. It may wrap the insect in silk too, to hold it in place. The predatory nature of the relationship is immediately evident. [3]
 
Cult leaders and their disciples may similarly sense the vibrations made by new prospects, and take their next steps accordingly. However, cults have to take a more measured approach in order to capture their targets. They don’t tell you that you are lunch for the leader’s glorification or grist for the group’s insatiable mill.
 
Instead, they tell you they are here to help you.

Because they cannot openly display their predatory nature, an abuser or high demand group must “kill” you softly. They lure people into the heart of the trap under false pretenses. They persuade you that you want to go there, one small step at a time.
 
Though it doesn’t happen right away, as it does for insects in a spider’s web, people can get paralyzed by a culty group. It can come about through enthrallment, dissociation-inducing practices like meditation, dietary changes that weaken people physically and mentally, thought-stopping clichés, and disorganized attachment. But embracing all of this and more will need to appear to be your choice.

Whether the predator is a common yellow garden spider, a charismatic teacher — or the cultic community that outlived him, as was the case for me in my old group — the trap will be designed with great care and skill.
 
“Every strand in an orb-weaver’s web is carefully calculated,” Macoubrie explains. “The radial lines act like scaffolding, the spirals are sticky trap lines, and even the spacing of the silk can influence which types of prey are most likely caught.” [6]

​In a high control group, conversion happens gradually, systematically, along a path the group lays out. I depict it here as a golden pathway, as if marked by droplets of dew lit up by the morning sun. Like the yellow brick road in The Wizard of Oz, this golden path of great promise is ultimately a path to illusion and manipulation. But it’s so shiny and inviting!
 
From the aerial view, we can see where the path leads — to a predator by way of surrender. But someone first encountering a cult’s “web” will not be able to see all that. Instead, thanks to deception, information control, and careful pacing, a person who steps onto the golden pathway will have a line of sight more like that inside a hedge maze — seeing only as far as the next bend.
 
In the series of articles to follow, I will explore what each turn on the path looked like to me, from the time I first got involved with my old meditation group, until the trap of surrender — which was built in from the beginning — was fully sprung.

A timeline that follows illustrates how this happened in my own experience, from my first exposure to the teacher’s works and meditation method in late 2000, until I moved cross-country to work for his organization in summer 2005. I have color-coded different pieces of the process. Notice that the nonviolence-related activities that first drew me in are more concentrated at the front end, while the acceleration toward surrender began with an intensive program several years in.
 
Threaded throughout were exposure to the inspiration and propaganda of the group through publications (books, articles, videos, etc.), the process of establishing and expanding a meditation practice, retreats which offered instruction in the practices and “sacred science” of the group, as well as community experiences, and volunteer and professional involvement with the meditation center.

The timeline gives a broad sense of how my involvement grew and morphed over a period of five years. But these facts cannot convey the *experience* of conversion — the cognitive, emotional, relational, and aspirational developments that brought me inexorably closer to the spider at the center.
 
That slide to surrender is what I’ll delve into in the remainder of this series, illustrating from my experience in that meditation group.
 
Next up: What was the initial hook for me? How and why did I first set foot on the web that would eventually entrap me — and what kept me “in” through the first few turns along the path of surrender?

Endnotes
[1] A Little Bit Culty: Navigating Cults, Control and Coercion by Sarah Edmondson and Nippy Ames (The Self Publishing Agency, 2026), 68.
[2] “Orb Weaver Spider Webs” by Monica Macoubrie, Outdoor Nebraska, 2025
[3] Ibid.
[4] Edmondson & Ames, 30.
[5] Edmondson & Ames, 29.
[6] Macoubrie.
[7] Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich (Third Edition, Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion, 2023), 45.