On another forum, I've been watching a mini-drama play itself out that gives me some insight into the science of fashioning cult beliefs, so strongly that they last for decades. A woman on the forum felt moved recently to "confess to the sangha" about how she had murdered her dog. At least that's what her spiritual teacher told her, when she told him that the dog had become sick; he told her that the illness (diagnosed by a vet as liver cancer) was "really" caused by her being angry at the dog. *Her* anger had made the dog sick. The dog died, and she's been feeling guilty about it ever since.
A few on the forum tried to point out to her the enormous guilt trip that this whole thing was, and obviously still is for her. A veterinarian checked in to tell her that the dog's illness and death was more than natural at the dog's age, and that she had nothing to do with it, other than caring for him and doing everything she possibly could to make his last days as pleasant as possible. Many people chimed in, both about the nature of these guilt trips that spiritual teachers lay on their students, and about her own guiltlessness. All were trying to help the woman feel better and give her some way to look at the situation in some way other than carrying around this enormous weight of guilt, over a decade after the dog had died. And you know what? She rejected all of these more pragmatic and sensible versions of the story out of hand, became angry that people were even suggesting them, and clung even more fiercely to the story that her anger had killed her dog, just as she'd been told by her spiritual teacher. Why? IMO, self importance. She is more attached to the notion that she is so "powerful" that her unconscious anger -- even though she admits that she never consciously felt any anger at all -- was able to kill another sentient being than she is in the idea of being free from guilt. The "payoff" for her, all these years later, is in still believing that's she's some kind of occult wizard whose mind is so powerful that it can KILL. She's more than willing to live with the guilt as long as she gets to continue living with the self importance. This has helped me to understand why so many still believe in the Maharishi Effect. Over the years there were any number of similar guilt trips laid on TMers by Maharishi. First he'd pander directly to their self importance by telling them that *they* were so powerful that only *they* could save the world, by bouncing twice a day on *their* butts. Then, when the influence of the self importance "carrot" had begun to wane, he'd trot out the self importance "stick" and blame them for the state of the world, and tell them that unless they <insert latest demand here> immediately, *they* would be responsible for the world ending. Looked at rationally, one wonders how anyone could fall for such an obvious ploy. But fanatics who believe in a spiritual teacher are far from rational. First, they *want* to believe in any made-up story he might tell them because doing so is preferable to dealing with the possibility that they might just have been following a megalomaniac for all these years. Second, believing in the made-up story is great because it appeals to the inner megalomaniac in each of us. The more a cult story makes it seem as if the cultists it's told to are powerful, unique and oh-so-important, the more likely they are to believe it, and to continue believing it for decades. To *stop* believing in the story, after all, one has to stop believing in one's own self importance. And that's just not gonna happen...
