Article 81: Confessions of a Cultist

Sechen Kongtrul, my teacher’s teacher, around 1940’s

Article 81: Confessions of a Cultist

Preamble: the intent behind these ‘confessions’ pieces is not to indulge in autobiographical reveals rather to contemplate various aspects of contemporary life that may be of interest to readers, albeit somewhat through the lens of the author’s personal experience. This Article is about the mentality and social dynamic involved in what are called Cults. As with all such pieces, it will not try to provide exhaustive coverage, merely touch on a few aspects.

Personal Background: As a young man, I became interested in meditation, first of the Hindu-Indian type and then of the Tibetan Buddhist type. I ended up training for over ten years with a well-known Tibetan Buddhist master, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. A decade or so after his death at age 47 in 1987, which some say was due to excessive drinking of alcohol, I found myself drifting away from the community and although my teacher’s son – whom I knew well and liked – took over, one day I found myself thinking of my community as ‘them’ at which point I realized that for me it was over. So I was involved for about twenty five years and left about that long ago as well. My time as a student was deeply informative and meaningful, a period which has defined much of the rest of my life. Many of the later developments have been painful, but since I never personally witnessed high crimes or misdemeanours, the horror stories occasionally popping up in the press or community chat boards were not why I gradually left nor much affect my memory of the times when I was involved now many decades ago.

That said, the community has thrown up disturbing stories over the years and is now fractured. I gather there is a core, ‘loyalist’ rump remaining but well more than half the old membership has drifted away over the years for a wide variety of reasons. Those who wish to learn more can simply search for Shambhala Buddhism and lots will come up, most of it bad. My experience does not match those narratives. Basically there are stories of the founder Trungpa being a lascivious drunk who fleeced his students and groomed underage children; about his Italian American lineage holder indulging in homosexual encounters some of which may have transmitted AIDS (though now we know that this almost certainly didn’t happen because HIV virus did not carry AIDS as believed at the time); and about his lineage successor son who abused his role as leader mistreating various lovers and going a overboard with financial remuneration. There is some truth to all the stories, but also many exaggerations and I believe false deductions. But evaluating all that is not the subject matter of this piece. The account above was just to establish that I have some familiarity with the topic.

Naturally, have often asked myself whether or not I was involved in a cult and the answer is both ‘Yes and No.’ But to examine that, first let us consider the term ‘cult’. I believe that all cults involve group dynamics, essentially the same as in all larger groups such as conventional societies. As such, they are of interest to all whether or not one is personally involved in one.

Second, a disclaimer: there are quite a few groups and authors out there which specialize in Cults. I have never invested much time with any of them so the following remarks are observations based almost entirely on my own personal experience and contemplation.

Actually, I may have already expressed the main insight of this piece: the core issue with cults is that they involve group dynamics. But let’s start at the beginning. What does the word ‘cult’ mean? Unsurprisingly, it has a range of meanings. Here is a synopsis from the Mirriam Webster dictionary:

The Overlap of Cults and Culture

Cult, which shares an origin with culture and cultivate, comes from the Latin cultus, a noun with meanings ranging from "tilling, cultivation" to "training or education" to "adoration". In English, cult has evolved a number of meanings following a fairly logical path. The earliest known uses of the word, recorded in the 17th century, broadly denoted "worship". From here cult came to refer to a specific branch of a religion or the rites and practices of that branch, as in "the cult of Dionysus". By the early 18th century, cult could refer to a non-religious admiration or devotion, such as to a person, idea, or fad ("the cult of success"). Finally, by the 19th century, the word came to be used of "a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious".

From another Etymological Dictionary: An organized group of people, religious or not, with whom you disagree. [Hugh Rawson, "Wicked Words," 1993]

It seems the word’s gradual change in meaning parallels the rise of materialist secularism; once religious ‘worship’ was valued, now it is generally looked down upon.

(Note: no mention of group dynamics!)

In Chinese medicine the term ‘Dzong Chi’, meaning ‘Group Chi;, refers to the energy for example in a sports arena manifested by the crowd chanting, cheering, stomping, fighting, ooh-ing and aah-ing, waves of speech level energy fluctuating, pulsing, exploding, subsiding. We have all experienced this whether or not we thought to name it, or simply calling it ‘the crowd’. Orators skillfully manipulate this energy, using it to create and lead national political movements.

But we also see Dzong Chi in small, domestic mandalas. Families develop a nuclear, contained group energy of their own; each household has a particular combination of physical, psychological, cultural and emotional atmospheres, all part of the family’s overall group dynamic. Some families may be tight-knit and mutually supportive whilst others are always at odds and psychologically disturbed. The group dynamic, though produced by and affecting each individual therein, takes on a life and character of its own. Although we may not have entertained this subject matter as an object of enquiry, we spend our entire lives in some sort of group energetic context, aka mandala - (see THIS article on Mandala).

But there is more to Cults than group energy, so what makes one exactly, especially in the contemporary and derogatory context? Perhaps one common thread is a shared belief, even a ‘group think’ quality. The ordinary shared group dynamic observed above in sports stadiums, churches, public squares and even around the family dinner table manifests in Cults as people adopting certain beliefs and practices and pursuing them together as a unified group, be it spiritual community, congregation or political movement.

This basic group connection principle is neither bad nor good for we are indeed social animals feeling some sort of connection with each other, be it friendly, hostile or indifferent. So the connection principle in a group dynamic which evolves into being that of a cult has to do with feeling a part of a group dynamic which is markedly different from – and often felt as superior to - any other group such as friends, family or wider society. It’s a group dynamic which feels exclusive to that group; outsiders cannot know how the insiders feel; as such it is a contained mandala, quite possibly even a closed or ‘secret’ society.

The cult dynamic happens when the energy mutually experienced in the group becomes the dominant referent in the personal lives of those members. At that point, conventional reality recedes into the background, possibly beginning to feel a little surreal. Not only religions, but families and political groups can manifest as cults in this way.

This initial dynamic is normal; if you are in a weekly book club for example, that group will share things together and develop a particular group atmosphere and history which non-members can never experience but this isn’t necessarily a Cult. A Cult happens when an ordinary book club group dynamic expands from being a shared experience for a few hours once a week to being the dominant experience in one’s life providing most of its meaning and purpose and in many cases determining the nature and content of most of one’s daily activities. The group dynamic pervades one’s personal life.

Maybe at first it is something one looks forward to whilst juggling job and family which increasingly begin to recede into the background. Then maybe one marries a fellow group member making one’s personal life more part of the group mandala. Then maybe you take on a job in the community as teacher, administrator, part-time volunteer or janitor of the large Church Building. Now your job, family and spiritual companionship are approaching a 24/7 experience within the context of that spiritual group. You only are ‘out’ of it when you go to a public supermarket, but even there you usually meet some of your fellow ‘sangha members’ where glances can be exchanged, a little chit-chat or whatever, maintaining that special group mandala. And even if no-one from your group is there, that very sense of being somewhere different, even a little alien, continues the experience of being involved in something special and different.

In family life, it is intuitively understood that outside the walls of the house in public any tight-knit family group energy holds less sway; it might still provide a strong bond or reference point, especially when members of the family go out in public together, but it is diluted somehow in wider society. The religious cult dynamic per se happens when its own group dynamic becomes an over-arching, 24/7 experience with one’s spiritual belief and practice in play throughout one’s life, perhaps with reciting mantras or a rosary at work or whilst shopping to maintain continuity of that special awareness and spiritual identity. (Though of course there can be valid reasons for practicing a spiritual discipline that way.)

The cult dynamic is when the energy mutually experienced in the group becomes the dominant referent in the personal lives of its individual members. At that point, conventional reality recedes into the background, possibly feeling surreal. Not only religions, but families and political groups can be cultish this way. So how does it work in the religious, or spiritual, context?

Most spiritual communities work with some sort of spiritual leader, be it a God, minister or Guru. The members live in society and come together as a congregation to commune with the leader during Sunday services, say; that’s all fine. But around the leader – and especially a Guru type leader – inevitably develop a body of closer-in disciples some of whom become staff in his household or the organization or intimates or even lovers. One way or another, gradually their personal lives become intertwined with that of the teacher whose life in turn is intertwined with theirs. In this way the Teacher becomes possibly the first manifestation of the Cult dynamic because a 24/7 ‘alternate reality bubble’ is created around him by continuous interaction with devoted students who individually may may come and go throughout the week but meanwhile the teacher ends up spending all day, and often all night, with one or more members after another, at which point his private and public life have merged such that his personal mandala, the spiritual lineage and the lives of his students have become One. And the first person in the group for which it has become a 24/7 experience is the Guru him or her self.

This is not offered as some sort of excuse for genuinely bad conduct which does arise in cults centered around charismatic figures, be they out-and-out charlatans or those who were well intentioned but over time became corrupted in part by the non-stop attention and adulation - enough to drive anyone over the edge. That said, it is worth keeping in mind that any toxicity on the part of the Guru is in no small part a reflection of the students themselves. It takes two to tango.

In any case, most likely any problematic Cult dynamic evolves from an initial nucleus around the individual Guru’s personal mandala becoming one with his Mission and Group. Although it might start as a Cult of One it will soon grow into a Cult of Many in which the Many think and feel as One because they are all simultaneously absorbed in the same rapt attention to the Guru, who is not only an individual but now also the mutual shared common point of focused attention embodying some spiritual experience, principle or creed, as such a living God as it were.

This brings up another aspect of the group dynamic, namely that it is considerably heightened – if indeed not actually engendered - when all members are paying attention to the same thing at the same time, a sort of collective attunement. In a sports arena, seventy thousand eyes are fixed together on a ball moving from one place to another and on the particular dynamics involved - tackles, goals, fouls, surprises, disappointments - all of which become heightened shared experience. Similarly, at church or a political rally, thousands can be listening to the same words and watching the same movements of mouth and hand gestures. Even with a national television broadcast during a time of crisis, like an unexpected disaster or declaration of war, though the audience is not physically together meanwhile on the level of mind, or consciousness, they are all paying attention to the same words and gestures at the same time, so again all together as one. Sharing the same object of focus at the same time, even over distance, engenders a collective group dynamic and thus also, potentially, a cult dynamic.

Traditionally, students ‘sit at the feet of’ a teacher. They do so naturally out of respect but also so that everyone in the audience can see him which is also why teachers often sit on raised daises or thrones. And this brings in yet another group dynamic, that of leader and follower, inevitable in any group mandala.

Maybe that should be the subject of another Article. For now let us just consider how all cults are manifestations of group dynamics and perhaps what makes a normal group dynamic evolve into that of a Cult is the collective attention paid to a Guru figure who is the original Cult of One which naturally grows into a Cult of Many bound together by their attention and devotion to the One Guru and their shared Cause or Belief. They then are all bound together in service and devotion to that teacher and tradition, at which point they often – though not always - become fanatics sincerely believing that their notion of Utopia is best for the rest of the world which is generally ignorant and backwards in comparison to their own superior ideology and way of being.

Now let us briefly touch on another aspect of the words Cult and Culture. Again from the Mirriam Webster description:

Cult, which shares an origin with culture and cultivate, comes from the Latin cultus, a noun with meanings ranging from "tilling, cultivation" to "training or education" to "adoration".

Tilling involves ploughing, working the soil, usually in lines; this takes focus, dedication and stamina along with ignoring outside distractions to heed the work at hand under the plough which in turn relates to ‘training’ which requires similar sustained attention and effort. But then that comes to ‘adoration’, a somewhat curious development. Knowing one’s purpose and identity brings joy; the work, the training, becomes a Do, a Dao, a Way, something which all spiritual traditions offer, but most group activities as well, including families, businesses and political movements; moreover something to be valued and cherished, even ‘adored’. Japanese civilization is based around this Dao, or Way, principle, no doubt why they excel in so many different areas – they put their whole attention into whatever they do along with their heart and soul, indeed so much so that many criticize them for being overly fanatic in all their endeavours. Those Japanese know how to plough! But when one’s body and mind are synchronized into one activity and motivation, the fact is that most of us feel a combination of relief, pride and delight. Uncertainty and fear are banished. We know who we are and what we are about. Or as my teacher wrote in a text: ‘even dogs and cats have confidence; why should not Man as well?’ Confidence is our natural state as long as we leave double-thinking doubts behind and concentrate on the task at hand with heart - genuine feeling - and commitment.

Interestingly, this brings another aspect: this combination of attention with meaningfulness, especially meaningfulness regarding one’s personal identity and life journey, easily overflows into obsessive compulsive behaviors both at the individual and group levels. Various perversions can become fascinating objects of attention in the group, at first maybe a slightly unorthodox meditation technique to improve focus, but later group rituals, or sexual permissiveness amongst the members or with the Master, or developing ambitious, multi-generational campaigns to save the world whilst accumulating money and influence to succeed in so doing. This is all fueled by the pleasure one derives not only from focusing attention and becoming more present as a result, but also, as mentioned above, of knowing who one is and what one is doing, of living with purpose. Which for some can be quite addicting, especially those who felt lacking in some way before encountering the teacher, teaching and group.

But then comes the price, the trap: the initial thrust from the focused attention on the Mission, the Guru, the Meditation, the Group can easily develop into obsession; one has devotedly ploughed oneself into too deep a furrow to climb out of, part of the depth being the profound pleasure and meaningfulness encountered in the spiritual community mandala around the Guru. However, this sense of not being able to get out even if one wants to is perhaps the first clear sign that one is in an unhealthy Cult.

There are many such situations not in ostensibly spiritual communities: once you are in the CIA, they say, you can never leave; so also for most criminal organizations or prison gangs. Same with many families, some of whom are extremely demanding. Even at the national level, for example when your country declares war, you are bound to go fight for it or make other sacrifices.

And that brings up the last point on this rapid peripatetic tour of Cults: that sense of being bound. The word ‘religion’ comes from ‘ligare’ which means ‘to bind’. Ideally, a religious faith and tradition binds a group of people together creating shared values and culture. This can be a good thing, of course, indeed without that sort of collective binding there can be no civilization of any worth. That sort of binding can keep a man by the side of his brother when facing an enemy’s murderous hail of bullets; and of course without individual commitment to a path or discipline one cannot progress. But being bound to a path, though absolutely necessary to make any worthwhile progress in any genuine endeavour, can fast become unhealthy if one’s motivation or connection to the principles and practices of that path are no longer there or the situation has substantively changed. Often this happens due to indulgence, lack of faith or other personal failings which ideally should be overcome, but sometimes it happens because the group itself has gone astray or one can clearly see that the original Mission was not well considered or the circumstances have changed such that it now no longer makes sense.

This can unfold in no end of different ways: change in leadership, change in society or change in the individual who for example may no longer be young and single but is now married with children and a demanding law practice. So there are times when things to which one was bound are now things to be relinquished; needless to say, spiritual groups which prohibit or demonize such choice on the part of individual members can become toxic. That said, the pressure rarely comes from others within the group or the teacher but rather from one’s own commitment being so deeply held that even though different situations require substantive change, letting go of or significantly altering the connection can be heart-wrenching, like a divorce, often involving long periods of painful personal impasse.

In my case what happened is that after our Teacher’s death that which had been clearly structured with steady forward momentum soon became unstructured and caught up in disagreements following breaking scandals. After a few years of this I found it hard to reconcile the group that we had become with the group I had always imagined us being. It felt like being loyal to a Cause that was no longer there at which point my heart was no longer in it. I could have persevered, perhaps becoming a mountain yogi or some such, but that was never my main ambition – though I did spend several months off and on in meditation huts high in the mountains. Rather I thought I was helping make the world better by providing a better configured social and spiritual model via our community; so when that community degraded into bitter factions with no solid, uplifted core and no seeming path forward, at some point, without intention or conscious decision on my part, I found myself on the outside looking in.

This simple description, though accurate, does not explain the length of time and surprisingly painful process involved in ultimately letting go and moving on. Having dedicated myself so much I became extremely disappointed – the primary source of the pain – when things didn’t turn out as desired. This commitment, and the dream behind it, was not caused by any Teacher or fellow Sangha members, though many disaffected may feel that is the case. No, the conviction, including any related attachment or obsession, comes entirely from the head, gut and heart of the individual now experiencing the deep disappointment, which many then choose to translate as betrayal.

This sort of razor blade journey through passion, inspiration, commitment, obsession, perseverance, loyalty, betrayal, disappointment, bargaining, anger, despair, cynicism, renewal and so forth is one that most human beings encounter along the way, whether or not they become a part of a Cult. Because what makes a Cult are deeply seated impulses and tendencies in human beings which group situations bring out in all sorts of positive and negative ways. Perhaps it is fair to say that a life lived with a certain level of intense commitment always involves a corresponding level of intense pain. There's a law somewhere about it somewhere .... ah yes, Lord Buddha's First Fundamental Truth:

Suffering is Unavoidable

There is much more that could be said about this topic, including about how obsession is a passionate off-ramp to facing the inevitability of the final destination known as death, but this Article has now officially run out of road!

And so it goes...