It has been almost a year since I posted something about Miracle of love (MOL). My life has been filled with wonderful things, from the wedding to the trip to India, the walks in my mountains and the art of living in the wonderful, unpredictable and extremely alive city of Amsterdam.
In this last year though, my blog has been visited many times by people who were searching information about Miracle of Love or one of the leaders (Kalindi, Gourasana, the lady, Mata Mazzarati, Scotti etc). Whether some of these people are currently MOL members and checking what Milena is writing about them or not, I welcome everybody.
I know from the many private emails with requests for help that there are people who are truly concerned about the damaging effect that Miracle of Love participation can have on their loved one.
So here it is what I have to say to those of you who want to help others become aware of the treacherous path leading into mental slavery and cult structure lifestyle when involved in the Miracle of Love group.
For those who start doubting the “philosophy” of Kalindi, and are finding it very difficult to find the way out of this established mindset, it would be very helpful to have an approach of open mind and a willingness to risk everything they believe to be true about MOL, in order to find who they really are. And that is not MOL jargon, but simply the fact.
MOL doesn’t help you to find out who you really are - on the contrary, it creates more distance and more alienation from your identity. It’s called coercive persuasion, an elusive seduction to mold your individuality to the group belief system. It is coercive because you didn't ask for that. It is called persuasion because you don't realize, it is manipulative and it's a slimy road into brainwashing, yet more subtle.
There may be some hesitation to believe that an ex-Mol member, a dissenter like me, could write so openly about the “tricks behind the scene”. After all Mazzarati threatened me not to badmouth the MOL mission. By badmouthing, she meant revealing the inner workings of Miracle of love. I have no fear in voicing my experiences. It is a declaration of my true self.
But for them, it will be easier, and certainly less confronting, to accept the pseudo truths offered by Mol.
There is no easy or fast cure, from any sort of disease or abuse you may have been a victim of. Like with the body, you don’t need to know the extensive details of your medical diagnosis and certainly you don’t need to be a doctor to start the process of healing. But you do need to know what to do to help yourself to feel better and return to a healthy state again. So, it's the same with your illness regarding your mental slavery and lack of personal, mental, social, emotional freedom. In other words, where you have been thoroughly manipulated to believe others instead of yourself, your true identity self.
Likewise, you don’t need to know the philosophy of the group to understand and help the other. Instead you need to know how to relate to your loved one in a way that can help him to reconnect with his true identity.
“A group should not be considered a cult merely because of its unorthodox beliefs or practices. Instead destructive cults are distinguished by their use of deception and mind control techniques to undermine a persons’ free will and make him dependent on the group’s leader.”
--Stephen Hassan
There are some specific characteristics that define a destructive group. I have already written about my personal observation of those characteristics in MOL. As a framework, I used Robert J. Lifton’s eight criteria for thought reform and Margaret T. Singer’s six condition for thought reform. Once you identify those, you can be certain that you or your loved one is under the spell of manipulation to say the least.
Releasing the bond. Empowering people to think for themselves
When I was working in my way to get MOL out of my mind, I read a very significant book that helped me to see the direction I needed to take. It provided me with a new understanding of my past and the knowledge of a cult identity as something else then my real identity.
The book “Releasing the Bond” by Steven Hassan explains step by step how it is possible to undo the process of indoctrination by the cult, by first of all realizing that the person who is lost inside a cult, is not the actual true identity of that person. The family and friends of a cult member can do a lot, but when the level of involvement is so deep, the personality so molded with the group’s belief system, when there is very little doubt or no doubt at all, at least consciously, the help of a professional exit counselor or an organized intervention can make an essential difference.
I am not discussing here the powerful method of “strategic intervention” that Hassan describes thoroughly in his book. I would sincerely recommend reading it though, if you want to better understand the predicament you find yourself in and learn about a possible way out. Certainly it is a "must read" for those who want to help a friend, a loved one, a family members to come out of MOL.
I will only tell you what helped me. As "kicked out" member I had a brutal awakening of the madness I was in. I had to learn day by day how to find the sanity of my mind and heart again.
Working together with my exit councellor was coming at the end of my long ride out of MOL. The proverbial cherry on the cake.
Having been a member for eight years and one of the main recruiters in the European scene, I knew the entire belief system of MOL very well. I believed in it and was honestly going about my life wanting to pursue the MOL goal: to break-free from the bond of the illusion and return home to God. When I read "Releasing the bond", I could recognize all the methods of coercive persuasion and the mind control used by the miracle of love leaders very clearly. After Hassan’s book, I read many others on this subject.
This way, I educated myself in an area that was utterly taboo, and under a lot of judgments inside the group. When I was an “Mol true believer” I was subjected to the group “think”; there was no place for individual inquiry. Anything that could contradict the Mol path was an act of disobedience and therefore a sign of being in the illusion. My thoughts were not even mine anymore. It requires determination and discernment to reclaim and re-establish the freedom to think for yourself. When there is a will there is a way.
Through all my reading, I came to understand better my role in MOL.
I could acknowledge the passion and outrageousness that had me fight all the way, unable to bend my being to the lunatic dream of Mol’s mission of breaking free. The point is that along the line I was persuaded to think there was something wrong in me.
When I started to see that, I became very pissed off. And that, oh boy, really created enough fuel to let everything Mol has ever told me burn to ashes. Great recognition and humble acceptance that being a victim truly made me a survivor. My soul had survived, as my body did long ago. Scarred maybe, hurt surely, but at the end with the inner strength of a survivor.
Rebellious spirit
I let all the Miracle of Love philosophy crumble down like a castle in the sand.
I let it happen. I felt devastated and disappointed. I was relieved to breathe freely again, and at the same time I was very confused. I experienced anger, a healthy desire to take my life back as it was. I took time for silence, solitude and isolation. I created around and inside myself all the space I needed to connect with all that was important, valuable and cherished in my life prior to MOL, prior to the sannyas time with Osho
In order to do so I had to track myself back at a very young age.
Just recently my mother gave me some letters to read that I sent to my family during a summer study in Germany to learn the language. I read those letter and felt a rush of warmth at this 15 years old Milena that knew how to be alone, was passionate about walking in the mountain and was missing them, cared for her mountain friends, and was terribly in love with an 18 years old Italian sweetheart, Diego.
The first love, a happy one.
-I will always cherish those memories with him. He passed away at the age of 40 leaving his wife and daughter behind. God bless his soul and grants him eternal life with the angels above-.
The college she was living in was run by elderly nuns who also were the teachers. She couldn’t stand having to learn in such a structured and over scheduled way. She didn’t like the food and she didn’t like rules and authoritarian methods but foremost she took a lot of fun in disobeying it. A girl that, rather then compromise and settle for some apparent peace with her girlfriend who also shared the month and the room with her, would stick to herself even if it meant being often alone. A girl that loved to write and read, a girl that loved to dream for a better world.
A true rebellious spirit.
Starting a new life
When you start to feel critical about Miracle of Love, when doubts are entering your mind, when a sense of helpless disappointment about the constant push to improve yourself for god’s mission becomes unbearable and instead of feeling better you feel wronged all the time, know that these are good signs of hearing your true identity whispering a call for help to be freed up again from the group imprisonment.
To start a new life after being involved in a strictly regulated group, no matter for how long, can be overwhelming. But let me ask you, isn’t it overwhelming to have the Big Brother’s eye fixed on you for 24 hours a day? To always be kept in check by others? How can you truly be yourself when you are controlled, manipulated and persuaded - to do things you wouldn’t care a bit for otherwise, and not do the things you feel you would love to do that have a real meaning to you. Maybe you even forgot you had such dreams.
There are many issues to take care of, to find trust again is one of the biggest, hand in hand with healing the deep hurt in your being, the betrayal of your soul. This last one to me is one of the deepest pain.
In order to regain a sense of integrity and freedom of mind, you need time for introspection and revisiting yourself. You can’t do that when you’re inside Miracle of Love. The person who is coming out needs to learn how to think for himself outside of the Miracle of Love box of thoughts.
To snap out
I remember the favorite expression of Scotti when we did “illusion work”.
“Snap out!” “Snap out of your self absorption, snap out of the illusion!” he would scream at us, creating a sense of terror and immense powerlessness which always made me bite my tongue and clench my fists in anger. There was something so perverse about the kind of break free scene that he, Kalindi, Mazzarati used to do with us in order to help us breaking free. I recall once Racole, another MOL leader, was on the phone with me screaming to let go of my boyfriend, snap out of myself, cry harder and call her back when I felt I snapped out of myself and understood the “break free lesson”. An our later or so I called her back in rage as ever before but playing humble. I was "forgiven" and not kicked out of the house as threatened earlier. It lasted only few days, then I was moved to another household, literally imposed not to talk to my boyfriend, let him date other women and eventually to stop my fresh relationship with him.
In very ancient Zen tradition the Zen masters used to puzzle their disciples with questions that required in order to be answered a leap of consciousness and not the logical, “ordinary” mind. There are many of these Zen Koans, that leave you thinking till the point you give up thinking altogether and discover a moment of enlightenment for yourself, a moment of the “great mind”.
"The sound of one hand clapping" is my favorite.
I never felt that Scotti and the rest of the leaders troop had the deep knowledge or, more importantly, the great understanding of this ancient eastern tradition. On the contrary, there was in my opinion a lot of pretending, dishonesty and suppressed anger.
Scotti used to snap as a word that he invented, but it is as old as the English language.
One of the many definition of the word is:
to break, part, or be released suddenly, esp. with a sharp, cracking sound.
To recover pull through, get over, revive
To cheer up, perk up, take heart, keep one's spirits up
To move quickly back to one's normal condition from an undesirable condition, such as depression, grief, or self-pity.
He gave a new meaning to those words, that would reinforce the Mol belief system. You were expected to find the correct answers or the adequate behavior, or the perfect action or sudden jerk of your conscious mind as if awakening, which of course never occurred. Failing to accomplish the leader desired result was causing massive humiliation, public recrimination and often times strict guidance as punishment.
I witnessed and was the victim of many of these break free scenes. It always felt like I was never giving the right answer. Let me tell you, those prolonged session of illusion work, a technique known in psychology as hot seats, were in fact indoctrinating us with fear and a sense of submission and unconditional obedience.
Now, in the process of regaining your true identity, you need to snap out of those Miracle of love beliefs and start to learn to use your own mind again.
However deep your involvement may be, however identified with the group and its own purpose, however enmeshed with the personality of Kalindi or the lady you are, your true self is like your skin, you can’t completely get rid of it and replace it with another identity like the cult Mol identity. It will surface again and again and pull at your skirt to make you listen.
Would you turn around and give yourself credit for who you truly are, even though you may have forgotten or were persuaded to forget, deny or ignore your true essence in the name of the higher cause of Miracle of Love?
To find my song
So let me repeat. First step in recovery is to realize you have been a victim.
To be able to recognize yourself as a victim or your loved one as a victim of a cult you need to learn few basics about thought control, coercive persuasion, studying tactics of manipulation and understanding the principles of a destructive mind control.
You haven't really left if you haven't come to the realization that you lost yourself in a mind controlled group. Having lost yourself here means exactly what it says. You lost your true identity and you can find it back, if you want it. Therefore it is not helping you defending either the cult leaders or the cult belief system.
Equally, it is not important to know the entire Mol belief system when helping someone out of Mol.
Don’t even waste your energy in attacking them either. There will be anger for sure, use it as a propellant to regain yourself.
Whatever experience that was positive and has contributed to your life will remain and you can always go back to it. But the first step, that so often has been missed, is to question everything.
One of the exercises that my exit counselor asked me to do was to identify the Mol loaded language ( jargon) and look up the real meaning of each word in a dictionary. Taking away the load of Mol cultic interpretation and usage of that word helps to bring back the real meaning and therefore looses its MOL connotation and its triggering power. There is so much more to say about triggers that will need another article.
There is one thing though I want to add here. Music has been always a great tool for the MOL indoctrinating session, called the 'Gourasana Meditation Practice', usually shortened to GMP.
Music in its purity can transport you into places unknown and deep within that can expand your consciousness. It can gently touch the musical chord of your soul and resonate a moment of perfection. But when music is used to persuade and force you into a sea of feeling, raw emotions, and a state of perennial havoc it is an instrument of manipulation - and one of the most powerful and effective. Music was a terrible trigger that I needed to regain control of.
Part of my recovery was not to listen to any music used in the GMP - therefore I stopped meditating the MOL way altogether. Finally after eight years I stopped crying and rolling on the floor in agonizing longing, the ultimate induced altered state, perfect to trap you in the vulnerable emotional condition of the mind necessary to be indoctrinated.
Instead I listened to music that reminded me of my younger age and music that was not contaminated by MOL and didn’t trigger the time I spent there. I had time also finally to sing myself. So I joined a gospel choir together with Driek the real talented singer in the house.
Writing
Writing down all I could remember was a very important tool. It already had an impact on me during my time in MOL.
Writing to me is a form of healing. You can analyze yourself and consequently you may understand yourself better. You can finally own the meaning of each word and use it to express yourself in the many possible creative forms. I contributed for a couple of years with my writing to the online support group for MOL survivors, and now I write in my blog.
Someone said if your life is worth living then is also worth writing it.
Reading and writing - and then at the end speaking.
I believe one can make a difference in telling one’s story, overcoming the pervasive ignorance surrounding mind control cults, shedding light over the shadowy dark consequences of manipulation, totalitarianism and thought control.
Reading
I just finished reading a book from a friend of mine I met at the ICSA conference last year. In I can’t hear God anymore, Wendy Duncan tells the story of her involvement in a bible cult in Dallas. Although the group was very different in its belief system, it is astoundingly amazing how the tactics that defines a social restrictive and abusive group are the same as I experienced in Miracle of Love.
Already in 1948, George Orwell published his classic “Nineteen Eighty-four”. It may be defined as a pessimistic book, as he wrote himself, but you can take it as a word for alertness, and as a powerful warning against the evil of totalitarianism, brainwashing, thought reform, thought control.
A wonderful read if you want to know how the mind can be so thoroughly manipulated that you completely loose yourself, burying so deep your true essence. From questioning the strict regime of the Big Brother, Winston, the character of the book, transforms himself so radically to believe the Abuser is in fact the Savior. From criticizing in the privacy of his mind and profoundly disliking the alienating regime and its dictator he is “changed” into loving his enemy, the Big Brother.
Orwell wrote it as a tale to address values that were dear to him. He had a deep understanding of the human mind and was sensitive to social pressures and totalitarian regimes. He was a fighter for human rights.
It was not just a tale. It is the experience of so many intelligent, sensitive, learned people who were caught in a vulnerable moment of their lives, in thought control environment without releasing it.
We come to know about it because people have been leaving those destructive groups and voiced their experience.
There are more and more people leaving cults. More and more people are leaving Mol as well.
This to me is a testimonial of the strength of the true identity and of human spirit.
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