Mad After Krishna: My Life in a Destructive Cult by Paul Ford, The author was one of my deprogrammers Options

[Bhakta Jim 1979]

When I published The Life And Times Of Bhakta Jim on the Kindle Store I ran across a memoir by Paul Ford, one of the three deprogrammers my parents hired to get me out. You can check it out here:

http://www.amazon.com/Mad-After-Krishna-De...5819&sr=1-1

The book cover design is mine. He had had a homemade cover which was just letters on a yellow background. Mine is homemade too, but it looks like a plausible book cover IMHO.

I bought the book and read it. One of the reviews is mine.

One of my other deprogrammers wrote a book entitled Dark Side Of The Moonies, which came out as a paperback. There was a used copy on Amazon the last time I looked.

[darwin]

Here is the book online.

I don't think my parents would ever deprogram me. They were upper middle class like the guy in the book says about his parents. I never really got anything from them really. No money for college or anything. Not much food as a teenager. I have not seen my father for about 18 years. He has never met his grandchildren. My mother is in a nursing home just an hour away but I never visit her. Up until my brother put her in there a couple years ago I would visit her regularly and clean her house and stuff. Now I don't even think about her really. Its like she died when I was 12. She stopped loving me. I had a Siamese cat so I understand this kind of relationship can be good too. My mother was more of a clean break than my father. Its like whatever part of her brain that was used to love me had a tumor or something. Actually the mother of a kid I know had a brain tumor. She always did not like me. But after she had the tumor remove she told me she always liked me.

The guy who wrote this book totally turned his back on everything in his ISKCON life. His whole attitude and style of thinking seems to be coming from having no loyalty to them. Maybe the devotees could see how he was all along. And so they were just using him. Isn't someone you can just catch and deprogram going to be someone who is always being manipulated by the people around him?

The guy seems to have a willful unawareness that there are devotees like me with entirely different experiences. I went into the cult like parts of ISKCON fully aware and with purpose. I needed to brainwash myself as an antidote to the poison that was programmed into me by my father and the public schools. I was for the first time able to feel ok with myself around other people. After a couple of months I moved in with a devotee girl and we are still together 22 years later.

[Bhakta Jim 1979]

I was deprogrammed too. I participated in the deprogramming of a women I had become fond of. Until the day I was deprogrammed I would have told you that HK was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I did not turn my back on everything HK represented, and neither did the woman I got out. My parents were not happy that I was involved with HK, but they did their best to understand. It was only when they saw me doing things that I clearly did not want to do but had convinced myself otherwise that they considered deprogramming.

In the end deprogramming was just talking to people like Paul who shared their experiences. In addition to him there was an ex-Moonie and an ex-Divine Light Mission. What those groups believe couldn't be more different, but our experiences in those groups was practically identical.

The fact that you were able to move in with a devotee girl after two months tells me you joined a very different movement than I did. The woman I liked was one I would have happily married after two months, but what I would have had to go through to be allowed to do that and all the rules we would have had to follow afterwards is not worth thinking about.

[kalki]

The guy seems to have a willful unawareness that there are devotees like me with entirely different experiences. I went into the cult like parts of ISKCON fully aware and with purpose. I needed to brainwash myself as an antidote to the poison that was programmed into me by my father and the public schools. I was for the first time able to feel ok with myself around other people. After a couple of months I moved in with a devotee girl and we are still together 22 years later.

Hmmm, this rings a bell. I felt the same way. Prabhupada put it as "brain cleaning" when people mentioned it was "brain washing." I also used to respond to people that I "like washing my brain" from all the crap I learned as a child.

[kalki]

In the end deprogramming was just talking to people like Paul who shared their experiences. In addition to him there was an ex-Moonie and an ex-Divine Light Mission. What those groups believe couldn't be more different, but our experiences in those groups was practically identical.

The fact that you were able to move in with a devotee girl after two months tells me you joined a very different movement than I did. The woman I liked was one I would have happily married after two months, but what I would have had to go through to be allowed to do that and all the rules we would have had to follow afterwards is not worth thinking about.

This topic of deprogramming is quite interesting yet very scary to me at the same time. I mean that if a deprogrammer were to rip apart the things that I love and benefitted from as a devotee, then I wouldn't like it. But if he just tried to wean me off of my dependency to things that just aren't really there and got into the psychology of it all to show the reasons that we may have these beliefs, then i would be all for it.

Frankly, by now, I have more or less deprogrammed myself. Would I qualify to get a job as a deprogrammer? Is there a course i could take and get paid to deprogram people from various cults? If there was a way, I would do it because i really need a new job now. One that pays more.

[Bhakta Jim 1979]

In the end deprogramming was just talking to people like Paul who shared their experiences. In addition to him there was an ex-Moonie and an ex-Divine Light Mission. What those groups believe couldn't be more different, but our experiences in those groups was practically identical.

The fact that you were able to move in with a devotee girl after two months tells me you joined a very different movement than I did. The woman I liked was one I would have happily married after two months, but what I would have had to go through to be allowed to do that and all the rules we would have had to follow afterwards is not worth thinking about.

This topic of deprogramming is quite interesting yet very scary to me at the same time. I mean that if a deprogrammer were to rip apart the things that I love and benefitted from as a devotee, then I wouldn't like it. But if he just tried to wean me off of my dependency to things that just aren't really there and got into the psychology of it all to show the reasons that we may have these beliefs, then i would be all for it.

Frankly, by now, I have more or less deprogrammed myself. Would I qualify to get a job as a deprogrammer? Is there a course i could take and get paid to deprogram people from various cults? If there was a way, I would do it because i really need a new job now. One that pays more.

I don't know if anyone even does deprogrammings anymore. When I got out deprogrammers were all ex-cult members. You might have security people who had never been in a cult, but the people who talked to you had all been there themselves. Some got out on their own. Deprogrammers don't get paid all that much, but it was expensive for the parents because of transportation costs, etc.

The main thrust of deprogramming is not getting people to change religious beliefs (which would be impossible to do anyway) but to recognize that there are objectionable cult-like things going on in HK, the Moonies, Scientology, and all the rest. Beliefs may be very different but the followers experience was much the same.

I understand there were people that did things they called deprogramming that were not like this, but this was what Paul experienced and what I experienced from him.

I was a vegetarian all through my deprogramming and for weeks afterwards. They didn't let me chant, but other than that I was not forced to do anything against my beliefs.

[kalki]

I understand there were people that did things they called deprogramming that were not like this, but this was what Paul experienced and what I experienced from him.

I was a vegetarian all through my deprogramming and for weeks afterwards. They didn't let me chant, but other than that I was not forced to do anything against my beliefs.

I heard of a famous deprogrammer that worked on some gurukulis from Iskcon that did things like make the kid stamp on a photo of his guru and eat meat and other nasty things. He was a famous black guy, I mean he was famous and he was black. That is all I remember but a few people know about him.

[Bhakta Jim 1979]

I understand there were people that did things they called deprogramming that were not like this, but this was what Paul experienced and what I experienced from him.

I was a vegetarian all through my deprogramming and for weeks afterwards. They didn't let me chant, but other than that I was not forced to do anything against my beliefs.

I heard of a famous deprogrammer that worked on some gurukulis from Iskcon that did things like make the kid stamp on a photo of his guru and eat meat and other nasty things. He was a famous black guy, I mean he was famous and he was black. That is all I remember but a few people know about him.

You're thinking about Ted Patrick:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Patrick

Ted was not involved in my deprogramming or any others I know of personally. According to the article he is the "father of deprogramming" but he did things which gave it a bad name. I don't defend anything he did.

[kalki]

Ted was not involved in my deprogramming or any others I know of personally. According to the article he is the "father of deprogramming" but he did things which gave it a bad name. I don't defend anything he did.

Oh, well I thought his work was the standard model that everyone follows. At least that is the rap that deprogrammers have in some Iskcon temples. Good to know there are some other methods.

I would still be interested in a job. I am sure people are still trying to leave Iskcon and don't know how. I could help!