stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

SPIRITUAL CHOICES 423
“baseline” of conformity, and of the commitment (and ensuing difficulty
in leaving) involved in “pledging enlightenment.” And those
baselines, arising from simple and unavoidable human psychology,
are already enough to create environments which, were only a little
theology to be thrown into the mix, one could hardly avoid calling
religious “cults.”
“Cult members,” at least prior to joining their respective organizations,
do not differ significantly in terms of their psychologies
and associated mental stability as compared to their counterparts
on the “outside,” any more than Zimbardo’s “Nazi” guards
and docile prisoners differed prior to their incarceration. (Again,
explicit and recognized psychological tests given prior to that imprisonment
documented exactly that homogeneity.) Even more unsettling,
however, the closed societies which are composed of those
same members differ from our “safe, daily life” only in degree, not
in kind.
Indeed, the fact that “problematic” groups partake of exactly
the same psychological dynamics and social structures as does our
“normal” world, just at a higher level of intensity, is precisely why
previously healthy groups of people can degenerate into sadistic
“cults” in less than a long weekend, even without a guru to push
that devolution along.
Of course, “authentic gurus are enlightened” (and thus ostensibly
guided by intuition to always do the right thing), but superintendents
and guards aren’t. And “true sanghas always allow for
critical appraisal of their own teachings”—so that, unlike in the
simulated prison, no one there would ever be ostracized, much less
sadistically punished, for disobediently or disrespectfully “rocking
the boat.” And “you can just walk out of an ashram whenever you
want—it’s not a prison with “iron bars and a lock.” What relation
could there possibly be, then, between Zimbardo’s study and authentic
spirituality?
Well, a lot, it turns out.
So, as far as “spiritual choices” go, the safest thing, really, is to
“Just say, ‘No.’” Or, failing that, to ignore, as much as you possibly
can, the advice of “experts” who search too ardently for reasons to
“not worry” and “be happy” about our world’s spiritual organizations.
For example:
When questioned in 1988 [i.e., a full ten years after the
Jonestown mass suicides] about the Jim Jones group,