by Roahn Wynar

One thing we don’t want to worry about when discussing cults on the campus of the University of Texas is the question of definition. Since many group members are bound to be deeply insulted by inclusion of their organization on the “List of Cults” we cannot take the definitions lightly. The definition we shall use is rather simple: any organization promoting falsifiable notions that directly conflict with physical law shall be identified as a cult.
Notice that this definition never mentions mind control, money, charismatic leadership, or isolated living compounds. Although these things are often coincident with pseudoscientific or supernatural claims made by cult organizations, we do not want to get bogged down in details of group structure or history.
Also this definition serves to exclude groups like the Marine Corps. The Marines exercise isolation and restriction of its members, mind control, has charismatic leaders, and makes its members shave their heads and wear funny clothes. Since the Marine Corps makes no paranormal or pseudoscientific claims, it is not a cult.
The Russian Orthodox Church, however, makes the claim that many “icons” are miraculously weeping tears. This is a falsifiable claim which runs counter to scientific principles and they refuse rigorous investigation in order to hide their obvious lie. Thus the Russian Orthodox Church is a cult although not one we will discuss here.
Catholics? The Vatican currently makes no falsifiable claims known to this author that run counter to basic scientific principles. Even in the miracles involved in beatification and canonization of Saints are so wishy washy that no meaningful test can designed to falsify the claims. Although many small Catholic cults exist, the central church does not make the cultic cut. Okay. So how about cults at U.T.? There are many, but we will discuss only our four favorites. In our list below we first discuss the central pseudoscientific or supernatural claim the organization makes and then will we comment on the group itself.

The Church of Scientology (CoS) - Of all the campus pseudoscientific cults this one has no equal. Space prohibits us from listing all the pseudoscientific howlers CoS panders as fact, so we can only sample their nutty universe here. They believe that all personal problems are the result of an “implant” that evil aliens forced upon us over a trillion years ago. They believe that the MEST (Matter, Energy, Space and Time) was created by bored, immortal all-powerful beings called “thetans.” The implant will not allow you to recognize your true nature as a “thetan.” We are all thetans.
They believe that an electronic device called an “E-meter” can detect the presence of repressed memories from pre-birth or past lives. These repressed memories, called “engrams,” cause all the “aberrations” that keep us from realizing our full potential. Luckily we can be systematically “cleared” of these engrams by undergoing the process of “auditing.” After becoming clear the Scientologist will have a perfect memory, superior mathematical skills and perhaps even a few supernatural powers. In the early days of Dianetics the claim was made that clears could grow new teeth.
Scientology uses the classic “bait and switch” technique. CoS promises remarkable things, gets suckers to pay for courses that don’t quite actually give them the things they were expecting, and then CoS promises that all the cool stuff is in the next course. As far as we know the ultimate series of “rundowns” that most Scientologists assume will give them the super abilities they are seeking are called the “L-rundowns.” They cost $1,000 an hour to audit. If you would like to look at them go to Scientology’s Secret Library at www.xenu.net. Be prepared to laugh. In fact if it were not for the stories of limitless exploitation, mysterious deaths and destroyed families, reading about the nature of Scientology is an amusing pastime.
Over the years some very big guns from the CoS have defected and we now know almost everything worth knowing about the highly secretive CoS. Jesse Prince was the number two man in the Religious Technology Center, the core of CoS, and has revealed shocking stories of illegal activity, intimidation and just downright dumbness that occur within the highest levels of power of CoS. His story can be also found at www.xenu.net. Xenu, by the way, is the name of the horrible alien warlord who gave us the implant.
Some Scientologists get to sign a trillion year contract to join the elite Sea Organization. Sea Org’s mission is to “clear” this planet and then to go on to clear other planets who presumably are stricken with the same implant. A wonderful sample of CoS pseudoscience can be found in its “axioms.” Axiom Six, for example, is, “Time is basically the postulate that space and particles will exist.” Notice the scientific feel of the axiom, yet the utter lack of usefulness or clarity. Scientologists do not question, or even seem to notice. Lest readers think this is a fluke, we present Axiom Three: “Space, energy, objects, form and time are the result of considerations made and/or agreed upon or not by the Static, and are perceived solely because the Static considers that it can perceive them.” All of Scientology is riddled with nonsensical drivel of this nature.
In Texas at least, CoS is in retreat. The missions in Garland, Casa Linda, San Antonio and Woodlands are dead, leaving only El Paso and Houston. Austin has a full fledged “church,” which is bigger than a mission.. There is much more to say about this indefensible brain tumor of a religious group, but other cults await.

Sri Chinmoy - The fun part about this cult is that it not only fools lost puppy students who can reasonably claim to be searching for a spiritual foundation, but it also seems to have fooled our University Administration. With great fanfare UT brought Sri Chinmoy to campus this summer for a Peace Concert.
The bottom line on Sri Chinmoy is that he lies. In fact he lies so shamelessly and blatantly that it’s mind boggling anyone ever takes the man seriously. Scientology, for example, feeds it victims little bits of nonsense at a time, each one growing on the other until ten years and thousands of dollars later they believe that there really was a great alien warlord named Xenu. Sri Chinmoy actually starts his pitch with the double lie - “I have lifted 7,000 lb. with one arm,” and, “I am an organ of the United Nations.”
The first one needs no refutation, but UT professor of kinesiology Terry Todd debunked Chinmoy in Iron Man magazine: “. . . to say he is performing supernatural or phenomenal feats or to suggest he’s one of the strongest men in the world is absurd,” wrote Todd. Les Kurtz, UT professor of sociology, was the prime mover in Sri Chinmoy’s visit. We should introduce him to Terry.
Sri Chinmoy is not an organ of the United Nations. The truth is that he started a staff organization of UN employees who happened to be cult members. He uses that fact to claim that he somehow represents the UN. This is a lie. This is equivalent to the University Juggling Club claiming to represent the University of Texas. They simply don’t. At one point Chinmoy was told to stop inappropriately using the UN logo.
Chinmoy runs a meditation cult who’s gimmick is to promote world peace by getting everyone to be a member of the cult. It demands celibacy, vegetarianism and incessant meditation. For more info see http://www.rickross.com/groups/srichinmoy.html
One deeply ironic note about Sri Chinmoy’s star pupil, Rama Das, a.k.a. Friederick Lenz. During the eighties Lenz broke out on his own, claiming to be one of the “11 completely enlightened people on the planet,” and explained that Chinmoy had been polluted by “negative forces.” Lenz wrote a book: Surfing the Himalayas: a Spiritual Adventure and built up his own cult modeled after Chinmoy. Although we are unable to confirm that Chinmoy is plagued by negative forces, Lenz certainly was.
Earlier this year Lenz was pulled out of a New York river fully clothed with a suit and tie and a dog collar with a rabies tag around his neck. He had a stomach load of Valium. A woman who was with Lenz the night he jumped into the river explained that they were attempting suicide. To top it off, Lenz fed his two dogs Valium. Only one survived.

Yan Xin QiGong - There may be many meditation techniques and spiritual paths to good health and super powers but according to the Yan Xin Qigong society none of them are as effective as Yan Xin QiGong. What is nice about the Yan Xin QiGong society is that they make their pseudoscientific claims explicitly, so it is easy to identify them as a cult. They claim that their leader, Yan Xin, is something akin to a superman. He can heal the sick by his magic, he can alter the physical properties of matter and even, according to University of Texas professor of electrical engineering and QiGong practitioner, San-qi Li, make cameras fail when they try to take his picture.
Yan Xin’s favorite gimmick is to fill an auditorium with followers and “emit QiGong.” The people will start to swing and sway and dance about as this special energy flows out of Yan Xin and into the audience.. How does he do this? External QiGong artists plant stooges in the crowd who are the first to start gyrating. Soon the credulous audience begins to join in like a big Pentecostal free-for-all.
Like Sri Chinmoy, Yan Xin has used a thin connection with a respectable institution, in this case the Academia Sinica’s Institute of High Energy Physics in Beijing, and a celebrity to promote himself. A team of researchers, hand picked by Yan Xin, conducted an experiment which claimed to prove Yan Xin could reduce the half life of radioactive material. They brought in a famous Chinese scientist to support the claim, never mentioning to hapless Americans (who are unfamiliar with famous Chinese scientists) that this scientist is an expert on missiles, not nuclear physics. The Institute has been struggling to disconnect its name from the fraudulent work which was, in fact, done on their property.
The most hilarious thing about The Yan Xin QiGong club is that they make attendees at their meetings sign a disclaimer statement that says, to paraphrase, “Although we are going to claim that Yan Xin QiGong is miraculous, it is no substitute for good medical care.” Amen brother.

Ananda Marga - The most interesting campus cult we have investigated goes by the name University Yoga Club, which is really a front for an India-based group called Ananda Marga. It is not much of a front. The primary yoga instructor is the Central Texas point man for Ananda Marga (according to the Ananda Marga Ozark mountain meditation center) The UT club distributes Ananda Marga promotional material. The Yoga Club has posted “Alternative Spring Break” invitations to the Ozark center on campus kiosks. Arranging for long, off-campus events with institutions not formally associated with the University is a cultic red flag.
The Yoga club also hosted an Ananda Marga symposium last year. The keynote speaker of this symposium, Dr. Ravi Batra, was promoting his latest book and claimed that the United States would suffer a devastating and complete economic collapse early in 1998 after which it would be taken over by a military officer.
Whoops.
Ananda Marga was founded by Indian God-Man P. R. Sarkar. Sarkar’s pseudoscientific claims are legion but our favorite is his notion of “microvitae.” According to him, microvitae exist somewhere between an “electron and ectoplasm” and are the source of all life and consciousness. How does he know this? A Yoga Club officer explained to us that Sarkar does not need to do experiments and form rigorous theories because through meditation some people can directly access certain forms of knowledge. Last year Ananda Marga promised to “immediately and without further delay” begin research on microvitae. We could find no update on Ananda Marga’s current state of knowledge on this subject. We take this to mean that there has been some form of further delay.
Ananda Marga as an organization has given us many fascinating research twists and turns. The Indian government published a book called, Ananda Marga: Soling the Safron Robe, which depicts Sarkar as a murderous but charismatic sociopath. It was written by a former official of Ananda Marga who was close to Sarkar and heavily cites Sarkar’s ex-wife who left Sarkar because she was utterly disgusted with his behavior. Sarkar was imprisoned for several years for conspiring to have several followers of his murdered, but then he was released under tremendous public pressure and exonerated. Ananda Marga has been implicated in bombings in the Philippines and Australia. In Australia, however, some serious charges against the police were made regarding the use of informants.
Ananda Marga is heavily anti-Communist and it is possible that a communist propaganda machine has had some role in public perception of the cult. For example, an Ananda Marga member once burned himself in the street of New Delhi. The accusation is that this person was drugged and set on fire by some of Sarkar’s cronies. Ananda Marga claimed it was just a pious act. Either way it counts against Ananda Marga although admittedly we would like to know if they are homicidal or merely suicidal. Also we encountered news reports of Ananda Marga dealing arms. But we have found no follow up. Currently we are trying to clear this up by contacting some cult watch groups in India.

Avatar - We have no way of knowing how many people are connected to Avatar, which we like to call “Scientology Lite.” It is promoted by the Texas Union Informal Class Program as “Living Deliberately” and “Transitioning Old Paradigms.” It is the creation of Harry Palmer, an ex-Scientologist mission leader from Elmira, New York. After ripping off as many New Yorkers as he could with Scientology, Palmer got sick of sending all the money upstream to higher levels of the CoS and decided to branch out on his own. Apparently this happens often to CoS and they even have a word for it. Avatar is a “squirrel” organization.
Avatar makes its money by sell-ing various books, tapes and courses that explain all kinds of nutty ideas about the true nature of consciousness. It is this claim to a special understanding of consciousness that firmly puts them in the cult category. Unlike most cults, Avatar seems to have a participation limit. Palmer realized that sucking all the blood out of a few egregiously stupid people is more trouble than it’s worth. Sometimes they sue (Palmer was sued by former Scientologists). Palmer decided a good living can still be made by just sucking a little blood out of many slightly stupid people. Thus he created the more palatable New Age product called Avatar.
Much of the CoS structure still remains. Avatar has a hierarchy of training that promises to deliver more the higher one goes. Each step of Avatar is made by executing “Rundowns,” just like its mother, CoS. Avatar’s self assurance that they have discovered a systematically engineered method to optimize your mind is deeply reminiscent of Hubbard’s similar claim in Dianetics. The first level promises “a better understanding of the nature of personal reality,” and the last course promises, “The ability to understand and manage creation.” Total cost: $20,000 after which you are permitted to call yourself an Avatar “Wizard.” Yes, even if you’re a girl. In fact, especially if you are a girl. All the avatar Wizards we know in Austin are women. Avatar is a deal compared to Scientology, which charges well over $100,000 to cross its “Bridge to Total Freedom.” Once you are a “Wizard” you are licensed the right to teach Avatar courses. For money.

Diamond Way Buddhists - Diamond Way Buddhism is the western version of the Black Hat Tibetan Buddhist tradition and yet another meditation cult. Tibetan Buddhism in general has many serious pseudoscientific gimmicks that make the religion very exciting to Americans. If you talk with this group they will steadfastly claim that they are not a cult, they are a part of a “major world religion.” They will also tell you that during meditation that they can see themselves from above, predict incoming telephone calls and in one wonderful case, become invisible. As always, we are willing to test any one of these claims under circumstances where lying and cheating are not possible.
The premiere Western promoter of Diamond Way is Lama Ole Nydahl. Lama Nydahl is from Denmark and tours Europe and America giving interesting lectures on the nature of Tibetan Buddhism and the difference between dogmatic and experiential religion. He also claims that he was, in a past life, a soldier. Nydahl is the point man for making Tibetan Buddhism palatable to western minds.
Diamond Way is run by the 17th Karmpa Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, who is a “lineage holder.” This means he is the reincarnation of a specific known individual, usually a great spiritual teacher. In Rangjung’s case he is the reincarnation of another man who’s title begins with the number “16.” When number 16 was on his deathbed, he used his “yogic power” to absorb diseases from those within his “powerfield.” This powerfield made various electronic devices used for life support turn on and off. Yes, number 17 has a powerfield that can suck up a nearby disease and manipulate the functionality of electrical equipment, too. It took centuries of Tibetan Buddhism Number 17’s specific claim of being the reincarnated soul of number 16 is highly questionable and qualifies as pseudoscientific. In fact, many Buddhist lineage holders have two people claiming to be the reincarnated soul of somebody. The general excuse is that there are the “exiled” Buddhists and the “collaborators” who are cronies of the communists. While this may be true, Diamond Way gives us no way of distinguishing the legitimacy of their particular claimant. How do we know that the great teacher did not decide to return back in his homeland and help the people suffering under communism? Sounds like a good idea to us. We met Nydahl and were impressed by his charm and presence. This is the most important element of creating a cult - deep personal charisma.
It is interesting how inconsistent Americans can be. While searching for philosophies that are not as dogmatic and ritualistic as Western religion, they look East. But then, of all the eastern religions they choose the one that has no fewer than 362 scriptural books containing well over 84,000 separate teachings. Buried somewhere deep in these texts are the notions of the siddis. Siddis are superpowers that will come to you during your relentless practice of meditation. These powers include levitation and astral projection. Not one person alive in the world today can demonstrate the siddis. We suggest that not one person in the history of the world has ever demonstrated the siddis under conditions where lying and cheating are not possible.
Incidentally, Diamond Way Buddhism promotes the most annoying of all meditative practices, chanting mantras. Many meditation cults have mantras and they all claim that meditation delivers great benefit to the body and mind. Some, like Sri Chinmoy, claim that practicing mediation will be the key to world peace. There is no meaningful scientific evidence to support this.

Now for a few general notes. Celebrities are a major part of cult promotion. The Church of Scientology actually maintains a celebrity center in Los Angeles. Most people know that John Travolta, Kirstie Alley and Pricilla Presley are Scientologists. Sri Chinmoy uses Carl Lewis, and Carlos Santana. Tibetan Buddhism has become a Hollywood darling child by selling the notion that everything was bliss and perfection in Tibet before the communists. Actually life for the average person in Tibet was wretched before the communists and is still wretched now. Chinese politics and history have as much war, famine, massacres, and pestilence as Europe’s. Just because we are shallow does not mean that they are deep. Richard Gere is the big spokesperson for Tibetan Buddhism.
Lastly, we want to point out that most critics of cults in the United States are Christian organizations that provide long-winded and boring explanations of why certain groups are Biblically heretical. They basically create endless and dubious lists of reasons why Jesus Christ is so much better than Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong. Our criticisms, we claim, are more fundamental. In the case of Sri Chinmoy and Yan Xin we are accusing them of outright and fully conscious lying. In the case of Scientology and Avatar we accuse them of being so stupid that even Bevo is laughing. In the case of Diamond Way and the Yoga Club we can say that some nice people have not really thought through the implications of what they have been lead to believe. All are simply pseudoscientific cults.
Also, our definition provides a built in plan for a group to elevate itself from cult status to a legitimate religion. Simply retract all obviously ridiculous falsifiable claims that contradict basic scientific principles and make no new absurd claims. Or, demonstrate your fantastic claims under conditions where lying and cheating are not possible.

Roahn Wynar is a graduate student in physics.