Bob: No, we came to a final confrontation prior to when I left the Divine Light Mission. He knew how I felt. We'd talked about it. At the beginning of 1976, we had agreed that we would in fact change his image.
I had persuaded him to see that he was going to lose his popularity and ability to do any good at all in this country, if he became a cult leader. If he continued to allow his devotees to believe that he was God, that was inevitable. He agreed, and we started de-programming our own membership and telling them to see Maharaji as only a human being who had a great concern for humanity.
In fact, he went along with this image change for about half a year. Then, when he saw that he wouldn't have the same kind of ascribed status that he had as the guru being God, he suddenly realised he wouldn't have the same kind of control over people. He started worrying about what was going to happen to him in terms of his finances.
Caller #17: He started having self-doubt?
Bob: I think the self-doubt was there all along. At that point, he got out the picture of his father and put it up on the wall. He started worshipping it the way his devotees worshipped the pictures of him. That really made me feel sorry for him.
Caller #18: I'd also like to congratulate you on your ability to break away and seek some sanity and rationality in life. I'd also like to congratulate you on your moral rectitude in wanting to let
others know the truth about the situation. I think it's extremely important that people of all beliefs hear this sort of thing from the inside, as you're telling it.
Somebody brought up the name of Ted Patrick earlier, and I wanted to ask if you have had any contact with him?
Bob: I haven't had any first hand-dealings with Ted Patrick, although when I was President of the Mission, I remember that I had to deal with situations in which members of the Ashrams were abducted and deprogramed by Ted Patrick.
In the early years, he didn't have a very good success rate with Divine Light Mission people. In fact, he couldn't de-program them. He didn't really know enough about the group at that time to be able to do it. Recently, however, that has changed, and he has a few former premies working with him. He is having a very good success rate with the Divine Light Mission premies.
Recently, three individuals who were de-programed by Ted Patrick within the last three months, called me. All three of those people told me that they felt he was not at all like the images that exist of him in the Press. They felt that he was a very sensitive person who treated them with a great deal of respect.
During the whole period, what he did was keep them questioning and talking and talking, until they were finally able to use their own reasoning to recognise what had happened to them. This would enable them to recognise what had happened to them, and to work their way out of the belief structure that they were trapped in.
Caller #18: They started to listen to what they were actually saying, in other words.
Bob: Right. By talking it out, they began to listen to what they were saying. It helped having some former members there to point out the things that they didn't really know, things that they had just learned to accept by rote.
Caller #18: That's fascinating. I was really interested in hearing whether or not his methods were as bad as people had been portraying them.
Bob: Evidently not. I guess you hear about that when he fails. When he fails, obviously when somebody escapes or something like that, they are going to portray it as a terrible thing, because they say they are being physically kidnapped.
In all the cases I am familiar with, the person is usually being detained in their family's home.
Some family member has arranged to get the person there, and then they do detain them. They have to keep at it until the person has managed to go through the whole thing and gets to the point when they can start reasoning again.
Caller #18: That's very interesting. In that case, I hope he has more success. In the same vein, there is a recent book out by a man and woman who have researched a variety of cults. It's called 'Snapping'. I was wondering if you were familiar with that.
Bob: A number of people have recommended it to me, but I haven't seen it.
Caller #18: Apparently they were on the Carson show the other night. From what I gather from
their conversation, they refer to the mental process that goes on when a person is subjected to high pressure indoctrination or propaganda that some groups give out to new members. They say that something actually 'snaps', that they actually do 'turn' and become mentally different.
Bob: I think that this is something that social philosophers and social psychologists have talked about for a long time. In a crowd, the person loses his individuality. In fact, their intellectual capacity is debilitated in that situation.
If there is a systematic attempt to transform that person's thinking, you could hypothetically say that there could be a point at which they would 'snap' and start seeing things differently.
Caller #18: It's good to know that the situation can at least in some cases be reversed, as shown by the experiences of Ted Patrick.
Bob: Human beings are such complex creatures. We have all kinds of possibilities in our lives.
I'm not willing to write anybody off.
Caller #18: I was wondering if you'd mind stating your age.
Bob: I'm 34. I was 26 when I got into it.
Caller #18: That's interesting. I feel that some of these groups are appealing to a specific kind of immaturity in people.
Bob: I don't think it's just necessarily an immaturity. A lot of grown people are immature at times. I think that everyone is susceptible at certain times under certain circumstances. I know there are a lot of people getting involved after the death of a loved one or maybe a divorce.
There are all kinds of circumstances that can even affect mature individuals, rendering them psychologically vulnerable.
Host: Most people who will suddenly embrace religion at any point do it because of some deep need.
Bob: Maybe it's some disillusionment with what they find going on around them. Let's face it, during the early 1970s there were a lot of people who were disillusioned with what was going on in the predominant culture here in the United States, as a result of the Vietnam War, Watergate and so on. So you look for something better, and somebody offers you something that's
supposedly perfect. It's a good ploy.
Caller #18: It's powerful. It seems like there is a tendency to revert to something simpler. That happened to the young people in the Sixties. I thought it was fascinating to hear your comment about the Maharaji putting up the picture of his father and worshipping it.
Bob: When he had doubts, he looked to the way it had been taught to him for strength.
Caller #18: He looked to the situation he was in when he was young, when he had guidance from someone stronger.
The tape ends abruptly here!