Take Me for a Ride: Coming of Age in a Destructive CultLaxer, Mark E.
Religion
Take Me for a Ride: Coming of Age in a Destructive Cult
Laxer, Mark E.
Cults -- United States; Lenz, Frederick, 1950-
Memories about Atmananda that had been suppressed for months
continued to freely flow. "Do you see how my skin glows?"
he had recently asked me.
"That means you are healthy," I had replied.
"True, but if you look closely you will see that the light from
my body is emanating from a higher plane."
There were memories of eating breakfast with Atmananda and my
other housemates. At one point during the meal, Atmananda gazed
out the window and spoke as though in a trance. "The powers,"
he said repeatedly, "are coming back to me. I can now fill
an entire room with golden light. I am not who you think I am."
About fifteen minutes later, he stopped talking and went to his room.
"Is there something wrong with Atmananda?" Anne asked me as we
washed the breakfast dishes.
"Something is definitely not right," I replied. We glanced
at each other, but found it difficult to share our ideas
and doubts in much depth. We both felt indebted to Atmananda.
He had managed to convince us, separately, that had we not met him,
we would now be dead. He used this tactic on many disciples.
He had also been giving Anne and me special attention lately, and we
therefore felt particularly guilty that we had doubts about him.
Then there was the climate of distrust that he had been fostering
within the Centre. He occasionally warned me, for instance,
that Anne was in a low state of consciousness and that I should avoid
her whenever possible; he would then tell her the same about me,
and so on. Furthermore, Atmananda had worked to make communication among
disciples intimidating and taboo.
"If any of you break the Seven Seals of Silence," he had repeatedly
warned inner circle devotees, without explaining what the Seals were,
"I would not want to be in your shoes. You have to understand
that there would be absolutely nothing I could do to help you.
It would be awful--I don't even want to think about it."
Other surfacing memories of Atmananda revolted me. I recalled
his often-stated maxim that only through revenge could one of
life's greatest joys be attained. In WOOF! (Issue #3; January,
1981), he wrote: "Thousands died today in Pompeii when Mount
Vesuvius erupted without warning...It was seen that the people
of Pompeii had all been enemies of the Gwid in a recent incarnation
and that the explosion...was the Gwid's special way of showing
the populace that he is not a person to be trifled with..."
I recalled with disgust Atmananda's claim that he used to toss
his dog fifteen to twenty feet into the air.
I recalled with disgust his treatment of me during one of his
public lectures. "Can anyone see what is wrong with Mark?"
he had asked the audience, after calling me to the front of the room.
No response.
"Look at him now."
Silence.
"The energy around his head," he told them matter-of-factly, "is
not balanced. But don't worry. We are working on him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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