From the chapter “Gurus & Sexual Manipulation” in Part One of The Guru Papers by Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad
Cross-fertilization between East and West has produced a strange
hybrid—a new breed of guru who combines hedonism with detachment. The
rationale takes this form: Detachment from desire is still presented as
the key to spiritual progress, but the quickest path to this is said to
be not through asceticism, but rather by experiencing all desires. These
particular gurus depict what they are doing as modernizing ancient
esoteric methodologies (sometimes referred to as “tantric”) that
attempted to bring self-realization through ritualistically breaking
taboos. In the name of freeing people from their limitations and
“hang-ups,” this path is presented as the fastest track for contemporary
Westerners to achieve spiritual goals, without undo austerity. The
intoxicating message is that “You can have it all”—live out hidden
desires and fantasies, experience any pleasure, break taboos around sex
and even violence—and be spiritual besides.
The assumption is that if
one has or cultivates the right attitude (detachment), then “Anything
goes.” This seductive, seemingly liberating stance of the
you-can-have-it-all gurus has attracted many highly intelligent,
experimental people.
Most people’s deepest inhibitions revolve around sexuality,
aggression, and violence because it is here that the deepest taboos lie.
One guru utilized “workshops” where various expressions of sex, rage,
and intimidation were used to break through people’s boundaries. Bones
were broken and group, impersonal, and even forced sex occurred. This is
indeed a fast track to breaking down personality. By telling people
this was a path to liberation, deep taboos could be broken without
initial guilt. This brings not only powerful feelings as energy is
released, but also the experience of a particular kind of
freedom—freedom from repression. Dramatic shifts of identity coupled
with intense emotions are easy to interpret as profound breakthroughs.
Although breaking down personality in this fashion can seem like a
breakthrough, it contains an inherent hidden trap: It is the authority
of the guru that gives permission to “act out.” Thus only through
accepting the guru’s values and worldview can the hurtful aspects of
such actions be ignored and condoned.
Having been stripped of their values, these newly “liberated” people
are in a fragile state until new values and a new sense of identity can
be integrated. Having “emptied” them, it’s easy for the guru to step in
at this crucial moment and put his personal values and ideology at their
center. So the followers’ new identity forms around surrender to him, a
father figure, the one they now trust above all others—even
themselves—because he supposedly liberated them in bestowing this great
sense of freedom. This kind of freedom is the real illusion. Here
direction and permission from an authority, combined with group
pressure, moved many to act out in ways they were not capable of
integrating without accepting the guru as the ultimate source of truth.
What did not change is the underlying authoritarian personality
structure, which was, if anything, reinforced.
Most often those who became involved in such groups could not
conceive of themselves as subject to authoritarian manipulation. They
saw themselves rather as true spiritual adventurers, unafraid to push
against the boundaries of convention. For them, the very fact that they
were capable of going beyond social constraints was a sign of
liberation. (They were also told this by the guru.) That many
discontented and innovative people were unwittingly seduced into
submission and conformity (visible only to others) indicates the depth
of people’s susceptibility to authoritarian control.
To rebel against one authority (society) by accepting another (a
leader who gives permission to rebel) merely shifts allegiance, while
giving the illusion of liberation. There are different ways of
unleashing the repressed in oneself. Surrendering to a guru who
facilitates this is one of them. However, this is very risky. Here these
repressed aspects are highly manipulable because their allowability is
dependent permission from an authority. The authority then ultimately
defines what is permissible. This is how people can come to lie, steal,
and even kill for the glory of God, or the guru.
Bringing up repressed desires can be useful in a context that fosters
integration. The guru /disciple relationship is not such a context
because it does not allow people to integrate their own experiences.
Rather a new identity, that of disciple, is given as the means for
integration. An identity that is dependent on the authority of another
is not only fragile, but it is not a truly deep inner restructuring. The
content may look different, which includes taking on a different
worldview and values (the guru’s). However, the deepest structures of
personality, especially how the person integrates experience and looks
for validation, remain not only unchanged, but are often strengthened by
this essentially authoritarian relationship.
The contents of a personality (beliefs, values, a worldview), though
resistant, change far more easily than the underlying form or context,
which in many is unconsciously authoritarian. This is not surprising
given that so much of culture is transmitted as a given, not to be
questioned, meaning that our heritage, too, is unconsciously
authoritarian.
Seemingly dramatic shifts that involve switching quickly from one
authoritarian system to another are not that difficult. (Many
disillusioned Marxists shifted their utopian hopes to the spiritual
world.) Utilizing sex (or violence) to push limits is indeed a quick way
to undermine people’s identity and move them, but to where? We consider
this truly unethical, not only because it fails to take into account
how it hurts others, but because the very quickness of it leaves people
awash and subject to easy manipulation. This is but another example of
the great myth that an external authority can be the source of inner
freedom.
Extremes in emotionally disconnected sex also disconnect the desire
for closeness with another, especially when intimacy is pejoratively
labeled “attachment.” This makes it easy for the guru to be the central
emotional bond. As a result, many disciples gradually give less
importance to sex, some even drifting into celibacy. They take this as a
sign of their spiritual progress. For after all, they had tried sex to
their heart’s content and seemed to have outgrown it, evolving into a
supposedly more spiritual detachment— precisely as predicted and
promised.
Not coincidentally, this also increased their faith in the
guru’s wisdom and made them more available to work harder on whatever
agenda the guru prescribed. This answers the riddle of how promoting
detached promiscuity eventually turns dedicated hedonists into dedicated
workers.
Fostering promiscuity, impersonal sex, and interchangeable sexual
partners accomplishes the same agenda as celibacy. It trivializes sexual
attraction and undermines coupling. Casual, disconnected, modular sex
eventually leaves people satiated, jaded, and often hurt. They become
fearful of forming deep relationships, which fits neatly into the guru’s
need to have disciples detached from everything but him.
Throughout all this sexual manipulation, the underlying
authoritarian personality structure not only remains intact and
unconscious, but is greatly buttressed. For now it’s not just messages
implanted in one’s mind long ago that impose “shoulds” and internal
control; it’s a living authority figure who wields the absolute power of
active mind control. This includes the power to make people who are
being callously manipulated believe they are freer than everyone else.
