Deprogrammers, Where are they now? Did you fear them? Options

[Tapati]

I'd say the ideal spiritual path is one that encourages us to really think and be fully present, not just regurgitating past answers for present situations or ruminating on the future fears or desires.

That is beautiful Tapati!!!!!!!!!

Thank you.

I admit to a bit of Buddhist mindfulness influence in that post.

With a dose of midwestern pragmatism.

[Emma]

Yeah my parents are poor too...i wish i could have been deprogrammed.

[metamorphosis]

Yeah my parents are poor too...i wish i could have been deprogrammed.

From what i have heard from those who experienced this "deprogramming" you should not wish this on yourself. See here.

I was deprogrammed. It was the most horrific thing I have ever lived through. ...............................................It has taken years of therapy to rid me of the mess it left me in.

[0violeta0]

Yeah my parents are poor too...i wish i could have been deprogrammed.

I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. You only say that because you don't know.

If you hadn't been a devotee you wouldn't have your husband or your adorable little babies.

[0Kula-pavana0]

One of the former temple presidents of Amsterdam was kidnapped and deprogrammed, too. He was kidnapped in drive-by style, drugged and brought to the US on the order of his mother, who lived in CA. It cost her $30,000.

I wasn't a temple pres. and my parents were poor so I had to deprogram myself.

I have read details of a few of such "deprogramming" cases, and the most common link was that on some level these devotees actually wanted to be out of the "cult".

the artificiality of one's current life makes "deprogramming" possible. you cant deprogram a cat to be a tiger. once you actually become the person you are trying to imitate, no amount of psychological manipulation can take it away from you.

[angrezi]

many deprogram groups were bornagain Christian freaks that targeted kids of other Christians who strayed from the flock.

[Preyobrazhenya]

Yeah my parents are poor too...i wish i could have been deprogrammed.

I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. You only say that because you don't know.

If you hadn't been a devotee you wouldn't have your husband or your adorable little babies.

I agree. What deprogrammers do is more mind controlling than any cult. It is hell. Deprogrammers belong in jail (that's gaol for all you Brits).

[rhapsodieff]

I agree. What deprogrammers do is more mind controlling than any cult. It is hell. Deprogrammers belong in jail (that's gaol for all you Brits).

Goal, isn't that what footballers (soccer) score? Here in England we have prisons and jails - all now full - and we are using police stations to keep convicted criminals in...

To my way of thinking deprogramming is simply a euphemistic term for brainwashing, it seems to compare very closely to what happened to prisoners in the Korean and Vietnam wars and prisoners in the Soviet Gulag.....

As we know people who have been brainwashed tend to suffer problems afterwards. I much prefer to call a thing what it is rather than some nuetral sounding term that sanitises it and attempts to make it respectable.

Some words have higher negative correlations than others, by using words with a high positive correlation you can make something damnable sound reasonable and even respectable. Deprogramming is such a term, as are collateral damage (killing civilians), ethnic cleansing (genocide), resettlement (extermination) and so on...

[Emma]

Sorry my post was made in jest...hope i didnt offend. Although when i consider the psychological torture i went thru inside ISKCON maybe deprogramming would have been a better option...who knows!

[0violeta0]

To my way of thinking deprogramming is simply a euphemistic term for brainwashing, it seems to compare very closely to what happened to prisoners in the Korean and Vietnam wars and prisoners in the Soviet Gulag.....

As we know people who have been brainwashed tend to suffer problems afterwards. I much prefer to call a thing what it is rather than some nuetral sounding term that sanitises it and attempts to make it respectable.

Thank you, and thanks also to Preyo. You are both 100% correct.

[Tapati]

I have an account by Krsna devi dasi (on the flip side of some recipes from Back to Godhead magazine) where she talks about her attempted deprogramming, instigated by her mother and stepfather, taking her right off the street in Baltimore.

...a van pulled up to the curb in front of me. Two large, rough-looking men burst out of the doors and ran toward me...They grabbed me and pulled me back to the van, scraping my ankles and bruising my ribs. They threw me in the van, lay on top of me, and gagged me. From the back of the van my mother and stepfather came forward and said, "It's all right, Kim, you've been brainwashed by the Hare Krsnas, and these men are going to help you return to normal life."

...We drove straight to Ohio--about a ten-hour drive. They wouldn't even let me stop to go to the bathroom. They made me use a bucket in the van...I was locked in a room so small that the bed practically filled it, and all the windows were boarded up. They kept me in that cabin more than two weeks--in 90-degree weather with no ventilation.

During that time I couldn't wear my religious clothes or pray (they took everything from me the first night and burned it: clothes, neck beads, prayer beads, etc.). They made me change all my personal habits--how I ate, how I went to the bathroom, how I spoke, even how I sat and walked--in an effort to destroy the person I'd been before they kidnapped me. They constantly blasphemed my religious doctrines twelve to fourteen hours a day, reducing me to tears and depression. They even threatened to commit me to a mental institution. They deprived me of sleep and repeatedly threatened to keep me locked up. They verbally abused me, calling me things such as "slave," "selfish arrogant bitch," and "whore." They even tried sexual aggression to dehumanize me and destroy my religious beliefs and lifestyle.

I was forced to eat non-vegetarian foods, gamble and drink wine, all of which are against my religious principles. One of my captors tried several times to seduce me. That was "an important part of the rehabilitation," he said.

They made me write letters, sign papers, and confess to things I had never done. When they forced me to read a book on brainwashing, I found that the methods I was reading about were the things they were doing to me!

The thugs said they wouldn't release me until they were satisfied I had completely severed my involvement with Krsna consciousness. They said they would keep me locked up until I made a "free" decision to leave Krsna. Although I refused to give up struggling for my rights and beliefs, I decided the only way out would be to play along with them until I could get away.

After about seventeen days they began to trust me (actually, another case came in and they needed the "deprogramming cabin" for her). So they moved me to another cabin, with chains on the windows, where I was either closely guarded or locked in. All together I spent one month in captivity before I was able to escape.

I have never been treated in such a demeaning way in my entire life....law enforcement officials have been incredibly slow to respond to my complaints. Indeed, they've advised me to just forget about the whole episode. A city police officer and even an FBI agent said if they had a child like me they would also kidnap and deprogram him. But they have no idea what a horrible experience it was, and still is. I still wake up crying from nightmares brought on by that hellish month. I'm filled with fear that what happened then might happen again. It will take a long time before the mental scars are healed.

My parents were exploited and misinformed by these men, who induced them to pay more than $15,000 for my kidnapping and abortive "deprogramming." I have asked my parents for their cooperation in bringing these criminals to justice, but they have refused. I don't want to prosecute my parents, but I have to in order to get to these deprogrammers.

I appeal to the parents of Hare Krsna devotees all over the world: Don't ruin a cherished relationship with your son or daughter by putting them through an experience like mine. And I also appeal to law agencies to act decisively to bring these criminals to justice.

[Sita]

Not long after I arrived in L.A. Kulapriya was kidnapped after she told her parents she was going to be married in the faith. That must have blown their "this is just a phase" bubble. I remember picketing outside her parent's home, I remember picketing at the courhouse where her parents were taking the fifth, and watching them through the window in the courtroom door as they did so.

I shared a flat with Kulapriya when this happened. She had been "circumambulating" the temple block one morning, when they whisked her into a car. It was all pretty traumatic. They took her up to Lake Tahoe I think, but she ran away and called the BBT from someone's house. I answered that phone call and then got the police to go get her. I was also in the court when she was testifying against her parents -- that was quite something as well. I don't know what happened to her since, but her account of the deprogramming attempts seemed quite lame to me.

I can't remember how she got away but she ended up having her wedding and I don't know whether they are still together or what became of her in the end. I never got to know her. But her kidnapping really frightened me and I watched my surroundings carefully whenever I was out in public for a good long while after that.

I was also quite paranoid about my parents, especially since I made quite a subtrefuge to my parents when I got married, not telling them that I was in Argentina (although they found out and were spastic as it was during a violent political period of Peron, and they had no way of contacting me). They finally got hold of me in Mexico, but I was very cautious of communicating with them. And when my father sent me some spending money for a trip to India, (where I was supposed to stop by visiting them on my way back), but where I perceived the letter accompanying the check to be blasphemous, I sent them a weird postcard from India saying simply "husband taking sannyasa; I'm staying in India". I wasn't staying in India, but returned to the BBT in LA. I was returning all their mail unopened and had the receptionists at the BBT saying that I hadn't returned from India. However, after a couple of months of this, my father called the main temple one day and someone (I think Puru) said, "Oh Sita. She's at the BBT." My father then called Radha-Vallabah and accused him of holding me somewhere there against my will, threatening to call the police on him. So I had to make contact again. When, after about six months of this, I agreed to visit them, Mukunda arranged for me to first have a psychological test done "in case" I was captured by deprogrammers. The idea was that the temple could then use this to "prove" that I was there of my own volition and in sound mind.

But the closest I got was being brought to a German restaurant in Stowe, Vermont (where my parents lived) out of ski season (and so the restaurant was very empty, save for my family and the local priest ). Being a German food restaurant, there was nothing on the menu I could really eat, and jokingly my brother said, "We're going to force-feed you sausage. Look, there's the priest. This is a deprogramming!" I very nearly wet myself.

[Tapati]

I shared a flat with Kulapriya when this happened. She had been "circumambulating" the temple block one morning, when they whisked her into a car. It was all pretty traumatic. They took her up to Lake Tahoe I think, but she ran away and called the BBT from someone's house. I answered that phone call and then got the police to go get her. I was also in the court when she was testifying against her parents -- that was quite something as well. I don't know what happened to her since, but her account of the deprogramming attempts seemed quite lame to me.

We had to have run into each other at the court house!

The story I heard is that her family invited her and whats-his-name (her prospective husband) over for dinner or something of that nature, acting as if they were accepting it. But after Kulapriya went inside they slammed the door in his face and whisked her through the house and out to a waiting vehicle in back.

I remember hearing also that when asked by the deprogrammers, she didn't know who was running for president or who the current one was!

I was thinking this morning that most of these deprogramming families were Christians. So basically what they were saying was: "This Krishna guy, this blue god with all those girls, lifting a hill and defeating demons--that's irrational. You should return to our belief in the talking snake, walking on water, turning water into wine, raising people from the dead, and resurrection. Oh yeah, and the book of revelations! That's what sensible people believe."

(My apologies to any Christians reading this!)

[metamorphosis]

I was thinking this morning that most of these deprogramming families were Christians. So basically what they were saying was: "This Krishna guy, this blue god with all those girls, lifting a hill and defeating demons--that's irrational. You should return to our belief in the talking snake, walking on water, turning water into wine, raising people from the dead, and resurrection. Oh yeah, and the book of revelations! That's what sensible people believe."

(My apologies to any Christians reading this!)

None taken

[Homer]

That's what sensible people believe."
(My apologies to any Christians reading this!)

Sometimes I wish I could be 'sensible.' I guess I lack the god gene. It would be so much easier to be accepting of what is normal and not to question everything around me.

Maybe it is easier to be emotionally involved in Football and Jesus and Beer.

[PandaPaws]

I was thinking this morning that most of these deprogramming families were Christians. So basically what they were saying was: "This Krishna guy, this blue god with all those girls, lifting a hill and defeating demons--that's irrational. You should return to our belief in the talking snake, walking on water, turning water into wine, raising people from the dead, and resurrection. Oh yeah, and the book of revelations! That's what sensible people believe."

(My apologies to any Christians reading this!)

I don't believe this is 100% accurate. Of course I can only speak from my own experience but the deprogrammers seemed to think all religion was a bunch of bullocks. Most Americans identify as Christian so I think that may be a coincidence.

[Apres Laulyam]

I was thinking this morning that most of these deprogramming families were Christians. So basically what they were saying was: "This Krishna guy, this blue god with all those girls, lifting a hill and defeating demons--that's irrational. You should return to our belief in the talking snake, walking on water, turning water into wine, raising people from the dead, and resurrection. Oh yeah, and the book of revelations! That's what sensible people believe."

(My apologies to any Christians reading this!)

I don't believe this is 100% accurate. Of course I can only speak from my own experience but the deprogrammers seemed to think all religion was a bunch of bullocks. Most Americans identify as Christian so I think that may be a coincidence.

I think what you meant was 'bollocks'. It means balls. It's a slang for nonsense, or another slang, 'bullshit'. Bullocks are, like, you know, real bullocks...'A bullock is either an immature or a castrated bull, also known as a steer or ox.' It's easy enough to make this mistake. Funny one, though.

[PandaPaws]

I spelled it wrong, but you get my point.

[Gaudeamus]

Then I ran into this:

http://www.reptilianagenda.com/research/r121504a.shtml

It says: "The oldest and most primitive is the R-complex, or reptilian brain. The four basic drives—feeding, fleeing, fighting, and sex—are based in the reptilian brain. It is the site of instinctive as opposed to learned behavior. Sagan suggests that ritualized behavior has its basis in the R-complex. Although in animals, much ritualized behavior is instinctive, learned rituals may also be located in the R-complex. They may be created in the neocortex, but once behaviors become ritualized, conscious thought is suspended. Chanting, for example, shuts off the conscious mind. Perhaps the reptilian brain takes over."

It is the last sentences I want to emphasize.

I don't know about that chanting. It really could depend on *what* you are chanting. Music can have widely diverging effects on human beings, going from transcendental, spiritual experiences to savage, murderously destructive impulses, sex included. Those latter ones are without doubt prompted and used by the reptilian brain.

Even meditation, done incorrectly, can have bad effects. Kundalini practices can have very bad effects. Meditation, done correctly, however can have liberating spiritual effects, raising your awareness and your sense of spiritual realities. So it is not the reptilian brain which is at work here, yet does meditation differ so much from chanting religious names or mantras ?