There was much I had to learn during my own exit and recovery from the inner circle of an exploitative Buddhist cult. In my months of untangling all the useful lessons from the poison, I probably acquired the equivalent of a Masters degree in Buddhism. Although I did not change my name.
This task was made all the more difficult by the near total lack of agreement and often opposing interpretations of scripture by different teachers. When met with such a wide range of views, one could easily latch on to whichever teachings they ‘like’ the most, or whichever teacher they ‘resonate’ with, and then continue to make the error of assuming that what they say must be ‘the truth.’
Whilst some teachers undeniably made more sense than others, none had a model of mind that made total sense in line with everything I had experienced. Everyone was right and everyone was wrong. All had elements of truth, all had ways to discover truth, many seemed to think they had ‘the’ truth, but none of them could really be said to have ‘the truth.’ The true Sages were the ones that recognised this.
But for all those operating in a religious context, there was really only one primary principle I could find that was common to them all – all believed they were drawing the only conclusions possible from their experience, when in truth they were doing the opposite – superimposing their conclusions onto experience. They were seeing themselves in the world.
Many believed that through the sheer devotion of their practice, they must be discerning the truth. Anyone who did not see what they saw must simply not be practicing correctly. Although many purported to be practicing honest enquiry into the mind, no such teacher would adequately reconcile with the fact there were countless others who were equally confident in their own, opposing conclusions. Such inconvenient facts were ignored. Who would have thought that spiritual growth was so contingent on denial.
As useful as I’d found many of the concepts in Buddhism, a lot of it just didn’t seem to stack up to theoretical scrutiny. Questions arose such as:
- What exactly is ‘craving,’ and how does it ostensibly cause suffering?
- How is (supposedly unwholesome) ‘craving’ any different from (supposedly wholesome) ’interest’ or ‘motivation’ in any qualitative sense?
- What ‘causes’ ignorance?
- Where do thoughts come from?
- If existence is ‘miserable,’ why does it exist?
- If the world is not the problem, why do you want to escape it?
- Everything is ‘impermanent,’ but why is everything impermanent? And what deeper truths could this lead us to?
- If a human existence is the most precious opportunity to escape samsara, wouldn’t the peak of generosity be to bring as many babies into the world as possible?
The truth of impermanence is as clear in the teachings of Buddhism as it is anywhere.
Any good Buddhist-inspired cult leader will encourage you to ask questions and practice honest enquiry into the mind, but ask any of these such questions and they won’t give you a cogent answer. They’ll most likely offer platitudinous buzzwords about “universal truths,” “the Buddha says,” and such like. Or simply tell you to stop being so intellectual. Whilst one could make the case that questions are not always useful, the thinking person knows that apparent usefulness does not equate to ‘truth.’ And when one is teaching something that is merely expedient, whilst passing it off as ‘truth,’ we have a useful line of enquiry leading to genuine spiritual growth.
No religious leader I’d ever met could adequately explain why certain practices worked, only what worked (according to them). Whatever useful guidance they gave was invariably tangled up with a mass of misleading guidance that either didn’t make sense or, worse, was deliberately intended to draw out a spiritual seeker’s personal sovereignty so that they could be exploited.
Discovering the Unconscious
My search eventually led me to the work of Carl Jung. Jung himself was very influenced by idealism, the ancient Indian vedas as well as Taoism. Aided by his ideas, I was able to find a place for all the loose pieces scattered by Buddhism, and build a new holistic model that made sense to me.
In particular Jung’s ideas around the unconscious mind, as well as the associated concepts of participation mystique, projection, archetypes, and the shadow, provided a conceptual wrapper for making sense of what I had experienced in the cult. Furthermore, I could now build a new model of what spiritual growth actually consisted of, and develop an understanding of why some spiritual practices worked to move a person in the direction of spiritual growth, whilst others were traps that merely looked like spirituality.
Interestingly it was the knowledge and practice of Eastern spirituality and its techniques that equipped me to investigate the modern notion of the unconscious and understand it to a useful degree. Naturally, one can’t ‘experience’ the unconscious mind, other than through the conscious mind, where it shows up in the language of symbols, such as in dreams and in our imagination. But it was only by being guided by this new conceptual understanding from Jung that I was able to realise a deeper understanding of my mind using spiritual techniques. I believe both sides of this equation are needed for anyone on a path of genuine spiritual growth in the world as it’s configured today:
- a sound understanding and appreciation of the unconscious mind, and;
- a robust set of techniques for engaging with and developing the unconscious mind.
Without an openness to the notion of an unconscious, one has no way to realise that what they are experiencing is actually part of themselves, leaving themselves open to harm from projection and attachment. But without living a spiritual a way of life, its understanding will remain purely intellectual and serve as little more than a rationalisation for otherwise egoic behaviour.
It is really only in the last 150 years that the idea of the unconscious mind in psychology has become popularised, by the likes of Freud and Jung. The primary doctrines of all major religions date prior to that.
There is no major religion whose doctrine adequately incorporates an understanding of the unconscious mind.
Genuine Spiritual Growth
But the unconscious mind has always been there, and connecting with its deepest aspects has always been vital for our sanity and growth. Religions have all helped to serve this role of allowing people to connect with the deeper parts of themselves. But without knowledge of the unconscious mind, identification with and attachment to religious symbols is inevitable. The mind has no way to know that the symbols it encounters aren’t the ‘real thing,’ but are merely a representation of it.
This brings problems not least in the conflict already discussed, between religious people arguing over symbols, but in the inability of the external world objects to reliably facilitate a person’s experience of wholeness and their journey of coming to wholeness. The same can be said for all forms of attachment, from religious symbols to food, to lovers (to the extent your cult permits them) to peak experiences. They are all impermanent, but all also derive from you. So when we make this conscious, letting them go can simply happen.
This realisation certainly cleared up a lot of the needless complexities and ‘exceptions to the rule’ found in Buddhism. It is not so much that ‘craving causes suffering’ per se, but that the reliance on external world symbols and mistaking them for what is real leads to suffering. Suffering is a necessary guardrail that keeps us on track, compelling us to make the unconscious conscious and move towards wholeness in ourselves. Hence we also see how freedom from suffering and the experience of ‘no self’ are inextricably linked, and why elimination of cravings leads to a sense of oneness.
But genuine spiritual growth beyond an absolutist mentality is not best navigated by ‘eliminating craving,’ as a Buddhist teacher might advise – this is merely a proxy for the real work which is to ‘make the unconscious conscious.’
When we are suffering, we might be advised to ‘let it go.’ But it is not possible to ‘let go’ when you don’t know what it is you’re letting go of, nor to find sustainable relief unless you realise that what you crave is something already within you. This is one reason I prefer the words ‘make it conscious.’
In mistaking the unreal for the real, religious thought has left itself open to scrutiny by modern science. The advent of science and the reliance on rational thought has done its part to disprove the reality of such symbols, but in doing so has also hubristically thrown out the realness they represented. The chaos this has caused is principally what led to our modern discovery of the unconscious. New problems call for new solutions that transcend both ways of operating.
As damaging as the abandonment of religion and our dissociation from ourselves has been, it brings with it a commensurate, profound opportunity for spiritual growth based on our new and evolving understanding of the workings of the unconscious mind.
Genuine spiritual growth has a place for both rational thought and engagement with the deepest parts of ourselves.
Participation Mystique
In much the same way that the unconscious leads us to understand the principles of spiritual growth, it can also help us to understand the principles of spiritual traps.
The dynamics at play here are neatly captured by the Jungian concept of ‘participation mystique.’ This idea can help us understand the difference between genuine spiritual growth vs. getting stuck in a spiritual trap.
Jung discussed this idea in many places, building on earlier ideas by Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. However there isn’t a lot of agreement on exactly what ‘participation mystique’ is and how it relates to other concepts. So I will do my best to offer a concise definition here as a useful concept for navigating our spiritual growth.
I think of participation mystique as:
“A temporary experience of ‘wholeness,’ produced through the engagement with worldly objects, people and symbols onto which numinous, personal unconscious content has been projected.”
If ever you have had a numinous spiritual experience, become trapped in a cult or abusive relationship, fallen in love, or experienced joy at your sports team winning, then you can relate to this experience of participation mystique.
The experience may be temporary, but that does not mean it is ‘bad,’ ‘wrong,’ ’undesirable,’ or necessarily something to be avoided. This is another common fallacy purported by some (although not all) Buddhist teachers, who in judging anything as undesirable have failed to realise their own partiality as the ‘problem.’ Even in Jungian circles, participation mystique is sometimes thought of negatively, whilst also recognised as an essential component of religious experience. Once again, bringing on board an understanding of the unconscious mind can help us discern the nuances and uncover the underlying principles at play.
The trap is not in participation mystique itself. The trap is in mistaking the objects we are engaging with, whether it be a cult leader, our partner or our favourite sports team, for the realness within us which they represent. They are not the ‘real thing,’ and hence are impermanent and can never match the ideal.
In the absence of this understanding, participation mystique can be a deadly process of giving up our self-sovereignty, opening ourselves up to manipulation from the outside, and suffering when the object fails to gratify the real need within us. Fall in love with the symbol and you’ll cheat on the real thing. This is where cults and cult leaders can do serious harm.
But in the presence of this understanding, participation mystique can be a profound and valuable process of engaging with deeper aspects of ourselves through the world, and appreciating the depth of our life experience without becoming attached to it or it leading to our suffering. When approached with this understanding, participation mystique leads to the withdrawal of projection into ourselves and the reclamation of our spiritual self-sovereignty.
Again we see how genuine spiritual growth is found neither in deadening our motivations and willingness to engage with all aspects of life, nor in pursuing any of it for its own sake, as though *it* was the point, but in a middle way that transcends both.
Cults as a Spiritual Trap
One sure mark of a cult is that they abuse the process of participation mystique to facilitate the projection of personal, numinous, unconscious psychological content onto the leader, their doctrine and the group. Participation mystique, in the absence of an understanding of the unconscious mind, is always a feature of cult and exploitative dynamics.
Cult leaders build their cults around them as a means to regulate their own unresolved trauma. They rely on a fantasy about themselves and their role in the world as a way to suppress their feelings and keep them perpetually below the bounds of consciousness. To this end they want you to partake in the fantasy by projecting the deepest parts of yourself onto them.
As 13th century Islamic spiritual teacher Shams Tabriz said:
“There are more fake guides, teachers in the world than stars. The real guide is the one who makes you see your inner beauty, not the one who wants to be admired and followed.”
Whilst this wisdom is age-old, a thorough understanding of the workings of the unconscious is relatively new.
We all have an inner Christ, Sage, Mother, Father and Hero. These archetypes do not exist as singular objects ‘out there’ in the world. They exist within you, as an ideal. Genuine spiritual growth can only come from making these archetypes conscious in ourselves, not merely from projecting them onto the outside world.
This is one way to understand that, no matter what perceived value you are gaining in the cult, it cannot be a vehicle that can take you all the way to spiritual self-sovereignty. A cult might teach extensively about the virtues of renunciation, eliminating attachments and so on, and the cult member will experience some genuine benefit from this practice. However such virtuous ideas are at best misdirection when taught in the context of a cult, made possible only by absolutism and a lack of nuance in cultic thinking. The promised bait of liberation is cunningly switched with a new dependance on the group, its doctrine and its leader. For this reason, cults are always a spiritual trap.
For someone in the depths of cult manipulation, knowing of the existence of other exploitative cults is often not enough to resolve the inner conflicts about their own. A common apology made is – ‘what if my cult is the ‘right’ cult?’
‘Sure,’ they might think, ‘there are other cults out there that are clearly exploitative, and their leaders clearly charlatans, but what if my cult leader really is the prophesied ‘saviour?’
God knows these thoughts circled my head repeatedly as my own conflicts compounded during my time in a cult.
This knowledge of the unconscious, and the process of participation mystique, allows us to understand how being in the ‘right’ cult isn’t possible. It runs counter to what we now understand about the mind. If a group did not actively facilitate the projection of your unconscious content onto the leader, the doctrine or the group, they wouldn’t be a cult.
It is not enough for a cult to merely explain away all the other ‘false prophets’ and messiah claimants. If there are any exalted claims made, any attempt to destabilise you from your centre, or to draw out your unconscious material, then you are most likely engaging with a narcissist and are in an exploitative cult.
Just as exploitative cults and narcissistic abuse can only exist where there is absence in the understanding of the unconscious, the narcissism of cult leaders can only exist in a state of arrested development and alongside disinterest in the genuine exploration of the unconscious mind. The cult leader has set out their stall to remain where they are spiritually. But to give up so flagrantly wouldn’t be convincing. Instead, they opt for something that looks like spiritual growth – a symbol of it, in the form of a cult and their exalted spiritual status within it. They produce the most convoluted form of spiritual pantomime, going to whatever lengths necessary to perpetually fool the ego it is genuinely evolved, and thus allaying their existential angst. It is a rare event that a cult leader goes on to recognise themselves as such, and yet all are able to point out the shortcomings of others.
For these reasons it would be impossible to build a cult around an honest study of Carl Jung’s ideas, a comprehensive understanding of the unconscious mind and the journey of individuation. A spiritual growth community of free-thinking, self-sovereign individuals who support each other in their growth is certainly possible – the likes of which the world is calling out for – but an exploitative cult? That would not be possible.
Growing Beyond the Cult
It is likely you have obtained some genuine value through your experiences in the cult. Nonetheless, cults by their nature intend to keep you trapped. They cannot carry you to spiritual self-sovereignty, and will ultimately leave you deeply harmed and exploited.
Anyone who has been a member of exploitative cult might fear that leaving the cult would mean turning their back on spirituality. There is often a fear that leaving the cult would, at least, be a spiritual backstep, which is precisely what the cult and its leader would want you to think.
But in much the same way that leaving a narcissist romantic partner need not mean turning your back on love, leaving a religious or spiritual cult need not mean turning your back on spirituality.
As Carl Jung said:
“Where your fear is, there is your task.”
The ego is going to want to find the easiest, most expedient solution for the fear, and typically that means to avoid it. The ego is what is keeping us in the cult. There’s an irony.
The real spiritual task is to make the unconscious conscious, and that means facing what we fear.
For those leaving exploitative cults, a full recovery requires more than simply leaving, and perhaps basic therapy. It requires that they:
- come to see what there is to see about their own mind, that attracted them to the cult and its leader;
- gain insight into the mind of the cult leader, and;
- continue with an authentic spiritual practice that comprises of understanding, daily conduct and mental discipline components.
I would go so far as to say that lasting recovery from cultic and narcissistic abuse is only possible where one comes to both understand the role of the unconscious mind, and continues a spiritual way of life.
A lot of the content online today about narcissism tends to portray the narcissist as evil and to be avoided and, although not entirely inaccurate, by itself does little to make the unconscious conscious in ourselves. It therefore offers some relief from the symptoms of abuse, but does not cure it.
This is why for my coaching clients I generally recommend and structure a programme according to three key components:
- Exit – formulating an exit plan that is safe, effective, and considers the various complexities
- Recovery – gain precious insight into one’s own mind, the situation and the other people involved
- Growth – transcend the experience, turn it into a spiritual step forward and ground yourself in a higher model of understanding.
The Seven Habits of Individuation
Spirituality is a way of life. Invariably members of exploitative cults have internalised the group’s doctrine to various degrees, and some of it will be based in sound teachings about the mind that, outside of an exploitative context, are otherwise healthy practices.
Practices such as meditation, kindness, generosity, skilful speech, contributing value through ones livelihood and so on, all have value in our spiritual growth. And just because a certain spiritual leader teaches these things, does not automatically mean they are not a cult leader. To claim as such would be spurious indeed.
This internalisation of group doctrine is one of the hardest obstacles to exiting and making a healthy recovery from cult indoctrination. Exiting the cult is one thing, but what do I do after? How can I navigate? Does going back to the ‘old me’ really cut it? Isn’t there a reason the ‘old me’ was attracted to this group in the first place?
People affected by the cult’s corrupt doctrine benefit from a new model that incorporates an understanding of the unconscious mind, and therefore a way of sorting what is useful from what was erroneous and exploitative.
The Seven Habits of Individuation are my offering to help with exactly that. They are a culmination of principles I have learned from the many Sages I have been fortunate to know, as well as from my own spiritual practice and learning. By combining spiritual practice with an understanding of the unconscious, they help you to understand not only what works for spiritual growth, but why it works.
You can think of them as ‘principles of coming to consciousness,’ which can be applied regardless of your faith, tradition or lack thereof. In learning about them you will notice many parallels with what you have learned in religious practice and spirituality, whilst also bringing on board an understanding of the unconscious mind.
You can use the habits exactly as you need to, adopting them whole as a new model of spiritual practice, adapting them to your own existing practice, or simply as a guide to help you sort what is useful for you from what isn’t. If you enter into coaching with me, we might use them as a modality to help guide your exit and recovery, and pinpoint any areas that are currently holding back your spiritual growth.
The Seven Habits comprise of three underlying cornerstones of practice, which are to do with understanding, daily conduct and mental discipline.
To learn more about the Seven Habits click HERE.
If you have found this article useful and would like to explore more of your own unconscious mind or enquire about cult recovery coaching, you are welcome to book a free 30 minute Perspectives Call with me HERE.
