Over the last year or so, people have pulled back from service, all over the West. There are many factors behind this - including ex-premie.org, people getting older and wiser, and
continuing disillusionment with EV's apparently permanent state of dysfunction. Poorly chosen and unpopular leaders have played their role.
But interestingly, Maharaji's 'trainings' have also caused many people to revise their commitment to M. Revise it downward, that is.
'Trainees' haven't generally analysed why this is. They express vague discomfort with the trainings, but are unable to say what this stems from. This is hardly surprising. To examine the trainings honestly, and come to one's own conclusions about them, would lead one to the largest 'Do Not Enter' sign in the premie catalogue: the one which involves an objective ethical
examination of Maharaji's activities.
Thus the vague, unsettling feelings persist - but (with the exception of the minority whom the trainings propelled out of Knowledge) nothing goes further than that.
Yet the fact remains: now the trainings are finished, people have withdrawn from service en masse. Why?
Firstly, just about all premies have a bad attitude to EV thesedays. Given that EV is just a bunch of volunteers - people like you and me - this is curious. It's not exactly a monolith, and it has virtually no paid staff. Indeed the latest reports suggest that it is fast sinking beneath the waves.
I believe - and it's only a belief - that EV plays a role in displacing premies' anger at Maharaji.
EV is a 'safe' way of resenting M. It is a safe place to direct blame for the pain, stunting, inconvenience, cost, fear, guilt and anger which often lie below the surface of the premie's much-vaunted satchitanand.
It's interesting to note that the instructors played a similar role in the 1970s and early 1980s: in satsang after satsang, Maharaji himself set them up as targets for anger and abuse, which of course drew such emotions away from himself.
But this time around, tho antipathy to EV is nearly universal, it has been impossible to contain all the anger in this single vessel. For the first time, considerable anger is being directed at Maharaji himself. Some premies have gone the whole hog and left K; others quietly mutter but stay in the fold; and others do not divulge their mutinous thoughts to other premies, but think them nonetheless, divulging them only to outsiders.
IMO, more than any other factor, the trainings of the last few years are responsible for this change. For large numbers of premies, the trainings brought the EV cult psycho-dynamics - basically the techniques of thought reform which are the basis of Maharaji's influence - into the daylight for the first time.
The trainings also revealed something like the real Maharaji, to people who had never previously been exposed to him - and those people have been troubled ever since.
Maharaji's trainings were EV's central institutional methodology of the 1990s. They were to the 1990s what ashrams and satsang were to the 1970s. Their importance in deepening and
entrenching the Maharaji psychological 'spell' should not be underestimated. Their chief psychological weapon was the mixed message (which I've discussed below).
Just as ashrams created a top layer of heavy-metal devotees with a 'single idea' in the 1970s, so did the trainings select and create the same cohort in the 1990s. In both cases the aim was to bring about a 'core' of 'clear' devotees - clear as to who was Boss, clear as to organizational methods - around whom a global mission could be built.
Among its other functions - many of which were highly enjoyable - satsang in the 1970s was the vehicle wherein these clear devotees could deliver the message (the 'truth') to the rest of the community, and bring everyone into line with the general philosophy. Teams - which mixed core premies who tended to lead with community premies who tended to follow, just as satsang did - were meant to become this ideological delivery vehicle in the present era. And the team thing was one of the main messages of the training.
So the trainings not only entrenched the message (Maharaji is always right, et al), they also created the means for its further dissemination (teams).
Why did the trainings arise? Let's look at the timing.
Significantly, the trainings arose after the Amaroo Mutiny - the first blip on the radar which alerted M that there was trouble brewing in Paradise: that people were challenging the authority of his small group of appointees, and therefore his authority. Amaroo was and is the jewel in M's crown. A challenge to his authority there was probably very difficult for him.
There have been several mutinies in Maharaji's world over the last decade - some of them attracting emergency interventions by M's envoys. There has been an Indian mutiny, the PR Team mutiny, and various mutinies at local level throughout the US and Australia. But perhaps the most famous mutiny was the Amaroo Mutiny (as Maharaji himself named it) of December 97-January 98.
The mutiny at Amaroo - Australia's cult-within-a-cult - brought the place to a halt, saw its management team implode, scrambled the international team to red alert - and nearly saw Amaroo sold off by an infuriated Lord of the Universe. ('This is a mutiny! How dare they!' he said when told about it.)
Basically, the Amaroo Mutiny was an attempt to democratise Amaroo - to spread and diffuse the power to make decisions. The Mutiny began when the management team imploded on
December 21, 1997; it was led by several former management team members.
The Mutiny was put down when Valerio Pascotto was sent to Amaroo (first by the three-man facilitators' team, then, when M heard about the Mutiny, with M's blessing). From memory, Valerio arrived in late January, 1998.
After his arrival, Valerio sat the perpetrators down and instituted workshops which included self-criticism sessions - written and oral. These lasted several days, and in time broke down all resistance. On Day One, all participants were sat in a large horseshoe - with Valerio and his note-taker at one end - and one by one asked to confess what role s/he had played in causing the
trouble. (The question was handed to participants the night before on paper, so they could spend the night contemplating it.)
One attendee stated out loud that these sessions were 'medieval', and refused to take part.
However everyone else joined in.
For me, the most surreal aspect was that maybe a dozen people who'd had nothing to do with the mutiny - who hadn't even heard of it in some cases - took the blame for enough sins to fill a Catholic textbook. The word 'hysteria' barely does the atmosphere of these sessions justice.
Some people were so distraught they could not speak, when their turn came to confess. Others seemed utterly destroyed at the thought that they had offended the Master.
Before the sessions even began, Valerio had made it extremely clear that Maharaji was very angry at us.
The Angry Daddy gambit is one of Maharaji's crudest yet most effective psychological
techniques. The Rawat psychology does not need to be subtle. Because of our sincerity, we were extremely easy to manipulate: for Valerio it was like taking candy from a baby. Some of the techniques may have already been in place, from the 1996 international organisers' conference, where these workshop-style settings began - specifically:
Childhood parental models were invoked to terrify potential dissenters; philosophical closed-loops were reinforced, in which the master could never be wrong; the 'group dynamic' was strengthened to dissolve individualism.
In the end, after some spirited resistance, we all caved.
Valerio told me I should be feeling 'grief' at what I had done to displease M - and by the end of these sessions I believed he was right. I mention Valerio's name here because it is simply unavoidable: he was central to the Mutiny, and central to the trainings. Personally I always got on extremely well with him, and we parted cordially. What I write here should not be construed as an attack on him, but on the crazy psychology which possessed us all. I don't use the word 'possessed' lightly. Like myself, Valerio was in the grip of a powerful daemon, and under its influence we were as mad and inhuman as each other. I participated in the sessions as fully as he did.
Anyway, Maharaji should perhaps be grateful to the Amaroo mutineers: the Mutiny provided not only the impetus for a global re-education program, but many of the techniques employed in it.
In early 1999, the first prototype training was held at Amaroo. The model's bugs were ironed out.
At this training M yelled at participants that they - the Amaroo premies - were 'insane' and 'lunatics'. He used frequent war analogies, swore violently, and was extremely angry much of the time. This is what convinced many attendees that the Mutiny was on his mind.
He was so angry on one occasion that his hands shook, and he dropped his whiteboard marker.
After he'd done one of his 'storming out of the room' routines (I think he trialled the technique at this first training), a PAM came into the hall in tears: 'Maharaji's going to leave Amaroo unless
we get it together,' he sobbed. 'Unless we do what he wants.' Significantly, what he wanted was never made clear.
One brave participant told Maharaji he thought that training's techniques were reminiscent of the Nazi Party. He has not been singled out for promotion!
After this trial run in early 1999, the trainings began in earnest in various major centres.
The trainings were for premiedom's top 'resources' - mostly managers and those with money. A seldom-appreciated refinement of this is that the trainings were directed at 'resources' who were, with advancing maturity, displaying symptoms of independent thought.
So - throughout the trainings - once again childhood models of authority and obedience were 're-booted' within the greying skulls of Maharaji's flock. Wealthy businessmen were reduced to obeisant, trembling children who sometimes went dry-mouthed with fear; normally balanced, competent women were driven, in several cases, to hysterical breakdowns. (NB: I don't want to be sexist about it: there was ample hysteria on the male side as well.)
My training cost each of the 80 participants $A1000 to attend. (Tho I think some full-time staff probably got freebies.)
Each training was different, and there were specialist trainings for (for example) propagation and the residence/personal area staff. But the overarching purpose of the trainings was what the Chinese call 're-education' - the Chinese approach and Maharaji's having considerable common ground. These were the main elements, as I saw them:
- Insufficient loyalty to the master/government is profoundly stigmatized.
- Individuality is stomped on. The Chinese call it 'degenerate individualism', Maharaji the 'Lone Ranger syndrome'. In both cases self-criticism plays a central role in eliminating it.
- Mutual monitoring is stepped up and refined.
- Certain more trusted group members are secretly recruited by the trainers to work against the interests of those who are to be made an example of.
- Blatant untruths are stated and restated, and eventually accepted, despite evidence which contradicts them staring participants in the face. (E.g. M's stating how hard he works to 'keep my body fit so I can carry out
this work'.)
- Disabling of logic, and destruction of will and volition, by organized 'mindfuck' games which nobody can win. (In some trainings, not a single exercise was completed successfully, and not a single game was won. I guess
the subliminal message was: 'You cannot win.')
- Creation of confusion and thus compliance, by recurring mixed messages. For example: M makes mistakes/M can't be challenged; claim your territory/obey the master; if the food is no good, don't hesitate to tell the kitchen/don't criticise others, or be 'political'.
- The inhibition of independent action by the ratcheting up of fear and of paranoia. (Every participant could become the object of severe criticism, could be expelled from the group, or could even be responsible for the cancellation of the entire training, at any time.)
- Revival of the old 1970s fears in 1990s form: exclusion from the perfect world of Knowledge, from the group's approval, and from the Master's blessing. ('Cult members are systematically programmed with phobias so they
will be in terrible fear of leaving the cult. They are enslaved by this mind control technique in thinking that there is no other way for them to grow.' Ilona Cuddy, mental health degree masters project.)
- Recurrent use of what cult psychologists call 'the cult of confession' to undermine the credibility of individuals acting outside of the master's command. (The trainings began with a round of confessions, accompanied by hysterical crying, a dramatic collapse or two, and claims of absolute, total unworthiness. Interestingly, confession had not been called for by M at this stage: premies had merely been asked to say what they expected and hoped to learn from the training, and what they thought would be the most difficult aspect of it. Yet out came the confessions of unworthiness and shame. This undoubtedly says something about the psychological climate within the wonderful world of Knowledge! In another session,
participants had to confess what their 'buckets' contained. People interpreted this to mean, 'What are my faults?' The hyper-critical self-descriptions came tumbling out: anger, fear, haste, hate, judgement, envy - and so on. More tears, more wailing.)
- Closed circuits of logic were dusted off and re-presented for the group's approval. (To put it at its crudest: 'We know Maharaji/the Communist Party is the unchallengeable source of truth, because they most purely represents that truth. We know they most purely represent that truth because they have often told us this. We know that they are speaking the truth on this matter because they are the unchallengeable source of truth.')
- Premies' sense of powerlessness and dependence was entrenched, partly - and bewilderingly - via a set of complex and demanding training rules which participants were led to believe that they created, but which were actually insinuated into the process by the trainers.
- Fear and praise were alternated to implement the above and other dynamics. (E.g. two trainers would play good cop/bad cop.)
- People's time was 100% occupied with pointless tasks - long, circular meetings; unwinnable games - to obviate thinking and analysis, especially about the high levels of mind control in evidence.
- In some trainings, long hours were employed to break down resistance to thought reform. In others, participants were blindfolded for long periods, to sow confusion and emphasise powerlessness.
- Acceptance of the amorality and immorality of M's world were further entrenched. E.g. in one training, M said: 'If the team decides it's dark outside, and you look out and see that it's light, IT IS DARK OUTSIDE!'
- Diminishing of individual discernment - and of individuality - by giving exaggerated value to
the 'team'. One whole exercise was directed to getting individuals to 'merge with the team'. If that was the individual's goal, what was the team's? It was, of course, to realise Maharaji's desires. Thus the team dynamic was a kind of front for implanting Maharaji's control.
- Entrenching of top-down hierarchical structure, and unquestioning obedience. E.g. M said, 'If a manager tells you to dig a hole immediately above a buried electrical cable, the only thing you are to say is, 'How deep?!'
- Demands for devotion were escalated. (E.g. one premie was quizzed on why he spent his days in his high-profile job and ONLY his evenings, when he was tired, doing service for M.)
- A system of rewards and punishments was instituted in ways that undermined trust among members, but increased emotional dependence on Maharaji. And in which no-one ever wins.
(There is a broader, analogous pattern of competition between PAMs for M's approval - a pattern M has profitably maintained for 30 years - in which no-one ever 'wins'. No-one ever gets to be Arjuna - he makes sure of it. The trainings utilize the same 'rewards and punishments' model - though it's an intensified version of it. In essence, the trainings aimed to take cult psychological manipulation to the highest level that people will tolerate, and not begin to smell rats.)
The trainings more than fulfilled cult author Steve Hassan's 'four criteria for cult mind control':
(1) They had strict rules of behaviour. (Indeed one whole session was on 'What are you going to do to follow the rules?' M stated 'the whole purpose of the training is to follow the rules'.)
(2) They employed thought control. (Thoughts expressing individuality or challenging M were violently criticised; others such as 'Are we being manipulated?' or 'Is M wrong?' were off the agenda altogether.)
(3) They employed emotional control. (Provoking M's anger - which happened almost daily - threw participants back into childhood emotional states; guilt and shame were employed repeatedly; and the group was frequently divided against individuals or sub-groups.)
(4) Finally, the trainings restricted the flow of information to members. (E.g. participants were led to believe that they themselves invented the training rules, whereas in fact they were predetermined by M, and insinuated into proceedings via an apparently 'democratic' process.
Also many of the group votes, and some of M's temper outbursts, were pre-scripted. Those secretly approached to catalyse events such as the expulsion of the scapegoat were told not to tell others about this.)
The trainings were run by psychologists, and other professionals.
The 'team' dynamic which dominated the trainings was not about democracy, as the word 'team' might suggest, but was actually a mechanism for reinforcing Maharaji's authority. I would not characterize this as another deception, though, because it was made pretty clear from the beginning that M alone stood outside the team - not only its membership but its ethics - and the take-home, whole-of-life, bottom-line message that was driven home on the last day - the rule of all rules - was simply 'Maharaji'.
It was a powerful bit of final programming that left no-one in any doubt as to the focus of the
training, and the expected future orientation of its participants.
As I said above, the chief psychological weapon of the trainings was the mixed message - of which Maharaji is a master:
If you don't like Knowledge, walk!
If you stop practising this Knowledge, you 'll go rotten inside.
I make mistakes.
How dare you criticise me!
Claim your territory.
Follow the master.
Trust yourself.
Trust the master.
Speak your mind when you see problems.
Don't criticise, and don't be political.
Are the tapes running? I am not God!
I have come to the world with full powers.
Everything is within you.
Everything is within Guru Maharaji.
The mixed message is (IMO) a double-barrelled shotgun which has blown away even some of the cleverest of minds, because it is installed at a level where intellect does not operate. Whether
The mixed message is (IMO) a double-barrelled shotgun which has blown away even some of the cleverest of minds, because it is installed at a level where intellect does not operate. Whether