I Was In a Cult

Today I was finally able to admit to my dad in an email that I was in a cult. It sounds crazy, and as it has been said elsewhere, "No one signs up to be in a cult." It's embarrassing. Humiliating to realize, let alone admit to others. But, I feel a sense of freedom finally being able to say it without shame.

All of my recent posts and the dialogue in the replies have been extremely helpful. I feel I've dissected as much as I can for now. After learning some big new words and phrases like narcissistic supply, love bombing, and disorganized attachment, and finding words I already knew to really describe in detail what happened, I am able to finally say the hardest word of all: I was in a cult.

My non-religious parents had always been supportive of my pursuit of buddhism and studying with Reggie Ray. They believed what I believed, that this was a good thing for me. After sending an email to my dad last night, and reading his kind response today, I was overcome. He simply wished for me to experience a great release from Reggie Ray soon, and that he loved me, and he feels for me. I am struck that by this simple gesture my dad showed me more genuine kindness than Reggie Ray ever had.

There was always some weird twist to Reggie's gestures of "kindness". Always some weird angle you could sense, some string attached, some hidden code you thought you had to decipher. You tell yourself all kinds of things in order to justify that funny little feeling you always had, that lack of trust you feel towards him. One time though, I did blurt out the truth, during one of Reggie's famous microphone interactions. I was on the mic. During the dialogue, he posited the question... "Do you believe that I love you?" I said no. I think people were impressed by my honesty, but they didn't take it as a negative comment about Reggie (and neither did I, really). They took it as me being honest in revealing that I couldn't accept Reggie's love.

There was no other permissible interpretation, you see. It could not possibly have been that Reggie actually didn't love his students. That would be preposterous. It was literally unthinkable. No, of course Reggie loved us, and if we couldn't accept it, the best stance you could take was one of honestly admitting your inability to trust this wonderful, loving man.

But there was always that weird feeling. With the benefit of time and distance, and without the constant manipulations from Reggie required to distract me from that feeling, I can see that I knew all along. This is part of the reason he requires his students to continually come to programs to receive the latest "teaching". The cult needs constant maintenance.

I do feel a release from Reggie. I believe it comes in part from the willingness to plainly state what it was. There were so many fancy words used in Dharma Ocean, we had our own language really. I'm sure there's a word for this: what happens when a group of people uses coded language to separate themselves and reinforce their specialness, a way to signal to each other that we are in. What's the password, traveler? Yes, this is a checkpoint. Do you pass? Are you one of us?

The password is cult. And the checkpoint is a border crossing on the way out of Reggieland. I was in a cult, but now I'm free.