Emotional abuse and manipulation

The narcissitic guru and emotional manipulation

Every narcissitic guru loves the charismatic power that enables them to manipulate their followers. Most do so without even being aware that they are doing it; indeed their sensitive side would be horrified at the suggestion. Others however freely admit that they do it, but genuinely believe that it is for the purpose of breaking down the devotees ego. The gurus who fall into that category are the most deluded of all, because they are consciousnly deluding themselves, as well as their devotees, but justifying their emotional parasitism and sado-masochistic "guru"-disciple relationship in superficially spiritual terms.

Emotional abuse does not seem to occur on its own, but rather as a part and parcel of a larger pattern of cultic abuse. Emotional manipulation may be used to enable sexual or financial abuse, or to cover up questioning or doubts.

Emotional Control - extremely cases of cultic abuse

The following, from the ex-cult resource center webpage Mind Control - The BITE Model. I would categorise this under extremely abusive in the above scale. This material is from chapter two of Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves © 2000 by Steven Hassan - published by Freedom of Mind Press, Somerville MA

1. Manipulate and narrow the range of a person’s feelings.

2. Make the person feel like if there are ever any problems it is always their fault, never the leader’s or the group’s.

3. Excessive use of guilt

a. Identity guilt

1. Who you are (not living up to your potential)
2. Your family
3. Your past
4. Your affiliations
5. Your thoughts, feelings, actions

b. Social guilt
c. Historical guilt

4. Excessive use of fear

a. Fear of thinking independently
b. Fear of the "outside" world
c. Fear of enemies
d. Fear of losing one's "salvation"
e. Fear of leaving the group or being shunned by group
f. Fear of disapproval

5. Extremes of emotional highs and lows.

6. Ritual and often public confession of "sins".

7. Phobia indoctrination : programming of irrational fears of ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader's authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.

a. No happiness or fulfillment "outside"of the group
b. Terrible consequences will take place if you leave: "hell"; "demon possession"; "incurable diseases"; "accidents"; "suicide"; "insanity"; "10,000 reincarnations"; etc.
c. Shunning of leave takers. Fear of being rejected by friends, peers, and family.
d. Never a legitimate reason to leave. From the group's perspective, people who leave are: "weak"; "undisciplined"; "unspiritual"; "worldly"; "brainwashed by family, counselors"; seduced by money, sex, rock and roll.

It would be worth comparing this list with the experiences of those who have suffered under Adi Da or Andrew Cohen. It may be that some will report exactly all of those experiences; others only some of them, others again none of them. In this respect, the intermediate zone ambigious guru is quite distinct from the totally false guru. This is because with an ambigious guru some do genuinely benefit (that's the way Intermediate zone works). With the psychotic guru, such as David Koresh or Shoko Asahara, no-one benefits. There isn't even any intermediate or mixed light, it is totally false.

Emotional abuse by false gurus

The following is a possible tentative rating scheme in this area, from authentic spiritual teacher to extremely abusive false guru, as regards to emotional manipulation:

• authentic spirituality - totally giving, totally loving, no sense of selfishness at all. The sign of a fully enlightened being
• non-abusive - just responding like an ordinary person
• mildly abusive - occasional incidents, but little permanent harm done; the guru him or herself may be totally sincere and unaware that they are doing anything wrong; it was never their intention to abuse anyone's trust. But enough to be disquieting; and this can only be glossed over by authoritarian or mindfuck techniques like the "Three Cards" Trick; - examples: Chogyam Trungpa?, Ken Wilber, probably a great many of the milder Intermediate Zone gurus would go here.
• moderately abusive - Some incidents, use of guilt, persuasion, fear, or other tactics to cover up guru's shortcomings and sexual or other serious abuses, make it seem like it wasall alright, some people may be adversely affected, certainly a real abuse of trust. See Emotional Control - some of these mildly or moderately. - examples: Sathya Sai Baba (here the emotional abuse is mild but the sexual abuse is extreme); Eli Jaxon-Bear and Gangaji (here the sexual abuse is much midler, but there seems to be more effort going into smoothing things over ref)
• strongly abusive - . Many incidents of deliberate emotional manipulation and abusive so-called "crazy wisdom" excuses, emotional parasitism, exploitation, or wanting to take take take, sado-masochistic relationship with devotees, playing with the devotees feelings, manipulating them to protect the so-called Guru's hypersensitive ego and prevent questioning of leadership style, justified by the guru and supported by or ignored by the organisation. See Emotional Control, some of these strongly, or all of them at the very least mildly. examples: Adi Da, Andrew Cohen
• extremely abusive - See Emotional Control - most or all of these strongly. LIke the previous category but even more so and more frequently, extreme cultic emotional manipulation, resulting in brainwashing and serious psychological harm - examples: Scientology?; extreme cults. Few if any ambigious gurus belong here, however psychotic or murderous ones do. - examples: Elizabeth Clare Prophet in later years (when the Summit Lighthouse movement was imploding), David Koresh, etc

Do you have reports of, or have you been the victim of, an emotionally abusive guru? If so, please contact me and I will add your accounts to those listed here. Alternatively, do you feel that my assessment of your guru on this or other pages has been harsh, unfair, biased, or bigoted? If so, contact me also, so that I might correct any errors or, if the guru is ambigiious, presnet both sides of the argument.

Kheper Home | Gurus Home | Topics Index | New or updated | Search

Unless otherwise attributed or quoted, all material on this page authored by myself is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license version 1.0, 2.0, and 2.5.
This license does not cover images or quoted material by others

images not loading? | error messages? | broken links? | suggestions? | criticism?
contact me