Cults, Sects and the New Age

My personal explorations into alternative spiritual belief and practice.

In this section I describe a period of my life where I quite systematically set about learning about the unconventional aspects of religion and spirituality. I did this by spending time visiting and learning about the land of cults, sects and the new age. I would read up about them, and visit their centres of worship and activity; thereby getting to know what they believed and what they thought. This experience I gained learning about new religions and fringe sects would later help to give me a better understanding of the meaning of religion. A list of the different organizations I researched would be quite long and includes cults such as the Brahma Kumaris, Scientology, Soka Gakkai, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Sahaja Yoga, the Alpha course, ISKCON and Osho; among many other such organizations that I briefly passed through or else spent a significant amount of time exploring. What follows is an account of what I learned about a selection of some of the sects and cults that I spent time studying.

ISKCON
the international society for Krishna consciousness

My first exposure to the world of cults was probably when I was a student studying in London. I used to like to visit the London headquarters of the Hare Krishna cult or ISKCON, the international society for Krishna consciousness, as it is more formally known. On a Sunday afternoon if I was in the vicinity I would go down occasionally to the Soho temple which is located just off Oxford st and near to Centre point in London's West end. At this point in my life I did this not because I had much of an interest in any religion. I was around 20 years old at around this point and my mind was quite firmly fixed on temporal and earthly pursuits. I did find some amusement in the act of observing strict religious people, but the main reason I went to the temple was that they served free Indian food which I quite liked. As a student I never managed my finances very well so this free input into my diet served to supplement my resources. I remember listening to the talks which were always a feature before the food was served and thinking what a load of nonsense it all was.

Later on in my life I became intensely interested in religion and I found myself once again visiting the Hare Krishna Soho temple. It was around the year 2000 and I had since developed quite a love for the Indian holy text called the Bhagavad Gita. So it was great to hang out in a place where passages from this book would be read out and also chanted in sanskrit. Also I found more meaning in the talks than I had done a decade earlier as a hungry student. The talks were either about passages from the Bhagavad Gita or else they were about the adventures of Godman Krishna and also the life of the Chiatanya Mahaprahbu who is like a saint of ISKCON. Other than the talks and food I really enjoyed the singing and dancing. I recall how the pace of the music would gradually speed up which starting slowly at first would ultimately reach a crescendo of quite an exciting pace. This had the effect of lifting the spirits and generating a feeling of alertness and also well being. This was a time in my life when I felt lonely and isolated. I had few friends and my sense of alienation was compounded by my intense obsession with religion. So being with seemingly like minded people was reassuring and comforting.

However my feeling of connection was shattered one day when during a questions and answers session with one of the more senior Krishna devotees, I discovered that the Hare Krishna cult rejected the idea that everyone was God. I was completely shocked. I thought how could an organization which had the Bhagavad Gita as its premiere source of truth not accept the essential unity between Brahman(God) and atman(self). I found myself getting into debates with the cult members over this matter but of course if my intention was to change opinion then this was futile. However it was not a total waste of time because as the exchanging of views can often sharpen the mind and help to better define our own beliefs. I recall one heated debate that I had with two of the devotees in the downstairs kitchen which was part of the restaurant immediately below the temple. It got really silly, with one of the devotees grabbing my Sony walkman music player and saying 'Ok, if you're God then I can have your walkman can't I?'. It was much harder and less rewarding to communicate the truth to people who thought that they already knew the truth but knew only a fallacy, than it was to relate the truth to an agnostic or atheist say, who didn't really know one way or the other.

Later I would learn how certain key passages of the Bhagavad Gita concerning the relationship between a person and God, had been mistranslated and it's meaning therefore altered. Furthermore, through studying the history of the sect and learning more about the evolution of religion in India; I discovered that the Hare Krishna sect are themselves an offshoot of a wider revisionist reform movement that emerged in medieval India called 'bhakti'. Essentially bhakti is hindu fundamentalism and it rejected the classical hindu notion that the self(atman) and God(Brahman) are one and the same. The ideas of bhakti were later brought over to the West during the sixties by the founder of ISKCON, one Bhaktivendanta Prabhupada. This was the time of the hippy counter culture when the use of psychedelic drugs opened up a lot of people to the quest for the transcendent. Initially the organization grew quite quickly and soon the sight of orange clad shaving Hare Krishna devotees, chanting in the streets and selling books on street corners, became a common sight in most cities of the developed world. It seems that these days the cult is in a state of decline. They still do a lot of good work such as feeding the homeless and the odd hungry student too, but the food is really a hook to try to get people to join the cult. Looking back on things now all I can really say about the Hare Krishna movement is nice food, lovely chanting but shame about the metaphysics.

SGI, Soka Gakkai International

I first came across the Soka Gakkai cult when I chatted with a lady called Luna, who was the friend of a neighbour of mine, she happened to be visiting at the time. It was in the Spring of 2000 and the conversation quite quickly turned to religion, because it was always on my mind back then. Anyway it turned out that she belonged to a Japanese Buddhist sect called Soka Gakkai. She was extremely friendly and was really eager that I should check out her religion. She gave me a Soka Gakkai prayer book and gave me the details of a local meeting.

And so I found myself visiting a flat in Camden where a small SGI meeting of about a dozen people or so was taking place. On arriving there the people at the meeting were already chanting. It was loud, fast and in Japanese. There followed some personal introductions, a short talk and then the group went into the main chanting session. It went on for a while and it was powerful, quite hypnotic. I watched the faces of the people while they were doing the chanting and some of their facial expressions seemed quite intense. I joined in and discovered what an immersive and arousing experience it was to do this sort of chanting. Afterwards there was a bit of group discussion and socializing. Here people would describe how they would do the signature chant of the Soka Gakkai sect which was 'Nam myo ho renge kyo', in order to gain material advantage. For instance people said things like how they chanted for a promotion at work and one lady even described how she chanted for a lift when her car broke down. The group leader even went as far to say that when a large group of SGI members got together for a mass chant, in doing this the organization helped to bring about the Northern Ireland peace agreement. I thought that this was all just a bit nutty. However everyone was very nice and friendly . In fact what struck me was how eager everyone was that I should get involved. I took down some contacts and decided to investigate further.

A few weeks later I found myself at a larger presentation held in a school hall in Fulham, South West London. It was part of a series of weekly talks which presented some of the philosophy and ideas behind the Soka Gakkai sect. I found the lectures quite interesting and attended several but again what struck me was firstly the friendliness of the crowd and secondly how eagerly they wanted me to join them. I also noticed how a totally disproportionate number of the SGI members that I talked to were involved in the creative arts, it seemed I was meeting a lot of musicians, dancers, actors and artists. Anyway it was hard ignore the friendly overtures I was receiving, it seemed so warm and genuine. I remember doing the chanting at these meetings and again feeling the power and intensity of it. It was quite exhilarating. However I could never get myself to do it alone at home and I was put off by the time it would take to learn by heart the more complex chants which were word for word recitals of a Buddhist holy text called the Lotus sutra. This would have been an effort to learn verbatim in the english language but a requirement of the sect was learning this long chant in japanese! I wasn't really prepared to put in the time so there was a limit to how deep my involvement with SGI could get. But everyone was so very friendly. I would get greeting cards through the post from members that I had exchanged details with wishing me well and also invites to come over for dinner and to socialize.

Subsequently I went to the house of the person who was the coordinator of the presentations held in Fulham. He was a nice guy called Neville who was an ex-musician who used to play a lot of bass guitar in the London band circuit. The meeting in his house was really an opportunity for people to join the sect and ask any questions outstanding. There was to be some big gathering at the sects UK headquarters in Taplow court and everyone was encouraged to go. It would cost a load of money for transport and lodgings and this was money that I didn't really have to spare at the time. In order to remedy this situation I was told by one of the sect members there to chant 'Nam myoho renge kyo' in order to manifest the cash. I couldn't relate to this idea at all.

My last contact with the Soka Gakkai sect was at a 'youth' rally held in a large conference room in a hotel near Marble Arch in London. In this context the word 'youth' meant SGI members who were aged between 18 and 35 so there were quite a few mature youths about. There were hundreds of people there all sat on chairs facing a main stage area. There was an invited speaker from Japan who was an early devotee of the cult and who had known the founder. He talked about his experiences, his troubled early life and how joining the sect had transformed his life. Then there was an intense chatting session led by the guest speaker from Japan who was chanting into a microphone and his voice much amplified by the PA system. I recall how intense this was and how zealously everyone was chanting. It was a powerful display of herd behaviour and to have been in the middle of it was an experience, quite mesmerizing. Afterwards some of the audience got up on stage and pledged how they were going to help to expand the membership of the organization. Everyone was strongly encouraged to bring new members into the sect and people there were given the target of converting at least one person in the coming year. In fact one quite attractive young lady said quite literally that she was going to do anything she could to introduce at least two people into Soka Gakkai before the next youth rally a year hence. I thought to myself I bet you would. After leaving the meeting I reflected on the afternoon's events. I seemed to have learned something about cult dynamics and now understood better the behaviour of the SGI members that I had met. I knew now that the warmth and friendliness I had experienced was not directed at me as a person but rather as a potential recruit. I'll have to admit I was quite taken in but at the same time it was an important lesson for me to learn concerning the process by which cults grow.

Some years later I met another lady Soka Gakkai Buddhist who was very charming and friendly. I told her about my past experience with SGI. I learned from her that the long chant in japanese, that members were required to learn, had been much shortened. She gave me a new pray book that contained a copy of the new abbreviated chant and went on to give me the hard sell of what a great thing it was to become a member of SGI and chant 'Nam myoho renge kyo'. I politely told her that I had learned as much as I needed from the sect and wouldn't be investigating any further. So she asked for her prayer book back.

The Alpha Course

Alternatives at St James Church Piccadilly. The New Age in London.

Alternatives is a New Age organization based in st James Church, Piccadilly, London where they have their office and also is the main venue used for regular Monday evening talks held through out most of the year. Also they organize a quite extensive programme of New Age workshops which take place at various locations in the Central London area. Just about any and every Writer, Thinker, Personality or Spokes person with any sort of connection to the International New Age scene has spoken at St James church at an evening organized by Alternatives. This would include people such as Deepak Chopra, James Redfield, Donald Neale Walsch, Ram Dass and Fritjof Capra, to name but a few of the many hundreds of speakers who have appeared at Alternatives over the 20 years or so since its founding. As such the Alternatives organization and the people involved provides a comprehensive window into the contemporary phenomenon collectively referred to as the New Age.

Over the years quite by chance or rather through a series of uncanny synchronicities, I would find myself involved with the Alternatives organization in various ways. Initially back in the early 90s I first became aware of Alternatives because I happened to be friends with the Son of one of its founders William Bloom, himself a well know New Age figure at least in the UK. At this stage I would come to the talks on a semi-regular basis for a couple of years or so. After which I would have nothing to do with Alternatives for about 6 years or so. This would change.

In early 2002 as I was starting to do public speaking, in order to communicate my ideas, I happened to be a close associate of one of the volunteer team members of Alternatives involved in helping at the talks and workshops. So figuring it would a good idea to see as much of other people doing public speaking as I can, I decided to also become a volunteer. This involved turning up most Monday nights to hear the different speakers and giving a hand at the work shops now and then. I did this for about a year and a half, after which I left because I started to see a rather dark side to the New Age as represented by the Alternatives Organization. But funnily almost exactly a year after leaving Alternatives to the day, I would once again find myself in close contact with them again almost on a daily basis.

I happened to have an associate who worked for St James church, where Alternatives are based. My friend was someone quite unconnected with Alternatives and only worked for the church. He was also somebody that I had met completely randomly at a party several years previously. It was April 2004. He telephoned me one day telling me there was a vacancy going at the church for the position of one of the church Vergers. At first I hesitated because of negative feelings that I had for the Alternatives organization but at the same there a feeling that this was what the Universe wanted me to do. When I got the phone call I was sitting in a public library wondering what to do next in life, so the timing was spooky. Anyway the work seemed diverse and interesting, also the pay wasn't bad, so I decided to apply for the job and got it. This put me in direct contact with Alternatives on a pretty much daily basis. It was in this position that I was really able to learn and assess the true nature of the Alternatives organization. Also in general I was able to discover the meaning of the New Age or New Spirituality in the wider context.

Looking back on things, I can see what a perfect set up it has all been. It is as if the Universe needed me to be put into close contact with the New Age as represented by the Alternatives Organization, in order that I should learn and form impressions. It is uncanny how 3 totally random meetings at various random parties and gatherings should introduce me to 3 different friends, who were perfectly and stategically placed to guide me into the land of New Age at well specified and appropriate times in my life. I see in this the hand of providence at work, guiding my destiny through the mysterious process of synchronicity.

My involvement with Alternatives and the New Age has been quite extensive and I've ended up writing so much that it deserves a section and web page of its own. To follow my journey into the land of New Age and learn about my discoveries & conclusions, follow this link Alternatives and the New Age

The international psychedelic trance scene