Why do people stay in cults after they have joined?
Last Updated: 01.07.2025 19:31
I still remember watching the news in the TV and my family exclaimed ‘Sai Ram! Sai Ram!’
The Prabhus have lived in Prashanti Nilayam for 13 years since their marriage, their three children study in the ashram school and Suresh Prabhu came for frequent visits taking time off from his sailing job.
At 9 p.m. on June 6, Suresh had routinely left for the mandir taking his mattress. In the early hours of the morning, his mother Savitri was woken up by the commotion and discovered to her horror that her son was dead.
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A more detailed account of the killings was published as a book
I asked my mother on what she feels about the killings.
Sai Ram was just 22 and perhaps he was indoctrinated from birth just like me.
In essence, ‘they didn’t allow them to live’
He was formerly a well known member and a contributor to Sanathana Sarathi - the mouthpiece of the cult. He was also associated with the cult for two decades.
He now runs a blog in which he exposes the deep cover ups about the murders and other crimes that took place in the Ashram.
From India Today report from 1993:
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Inspector Reddy recalls: "I saw their bloodstained clothes and my first thought was that the Swami is dead." Reddy says he immediately shouted to his two armed sub-inspectors to shoot.
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But he cannot explain why there was a big time gap between the four assailants locking themselves up in the living room and their deaths at the hands of the police. There is widespread suspicion that influential persons in the ashram ordered their deaths.
And the more I started reading on Sai Baba, it was clear that the sexual abuse allegations against him were true.
Another person who left the cult is - Robert Priddy.
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He also wrote a Pro-Sai book by the title, “Source of the dream”
I didn’t get read about the killings, until my early twenties and that’s when I started having access to internet and I was away from my family. I started doing my own research and stumbled upon various sources and learnt that, Eileen Weed aka Divya, left the cult after being associated with it for nearly two decades.
These four people weren’t random strangers to the Cult.
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Leaving the cult as a child is near impossible, if the family had made it a way of life.
There are several reasons why,
She left after the killings, after she learnt that the four men were caught and encountered by the police later. The police had claimed that the men locked themselves inside the living room of Sai Baba and were killed when the police broke open the room. (Police alleged that the men tried to attack the police)
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Sai Ram
The most common reason is - Indoctrination. It is the reason why most people stay in cults. My grandfather joined the Sathya Sai Baba cult and remained a cult member till his death. He remained indoctrinated till his death. My mother still remains indoctrinated.
People Indoctrinated into a cult or religion will immediately go into denial mode when they encounter evidence contrary to their belief.
Four men who were Sai devotees (self attested name for cult members) attempted to kill Sathya Narayana(Sai Baba) and were in turn killed in 1993. The assailants killed two of Sai Baba’s assistants and injured another person.
The very idea that the entire belief system that they were part of - is a sham, can at times be too much for them to bear.
I started reading articles from 1993 about the murder and found a lot of inconsistencies in the police version.
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Note how even one of them is named :
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He had come to Puttaparthi on long leave last year to nurse his ailing mother. When she died, he had stayed back because he could not get Sai Baba's permission to return to his ship. On the fateful evening, he had been called by his brother Vijay (now the prime accused and on the run) for security duty.
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Being skeptic or leaving the cult, when your family is part of the cult is very difficult. Whenever I posed a difficult question or unpleasant question about the cult, I was simply silenced. Questioning the beliefs of the cult is severely frowned upon.
The men must have been witness to something so terrible, that enraged them to kill their own Godman or they were framed as a cover up to a more sinister crime.
The family of E.K. Suresh, also extremely devoted to Sai Baba, feels he has been framed. The whole family has lived in the ashram for 15 years and Suresh, a close friend of Suresh Prabhu, had been drafted for security jobs. For several months, the unemployed Suresh had been sleeping in the mandir along with several dozens of students and volunteers.
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As further detailed unfolded, I was troubled hearing that four young men were killed, but my family were in ecstasy not because four young men were killed, but because the God man survived the attempt.
Her answer was on expected lines, ‘the four men tried to kill swami, so police killed them’
The picture that emerges of the dead men is of four extremely devoted and pious persons. Says Vineeta Prabhu, wife of Suresh Prabhu, a marine engineer from Bombay: "My husband was a man who never did anything without first seeking Swami's blessings, Padanamaskaram (touching the feet) and getting vibhuti (holy ash)."
Note the words,
I was disgusted. I didn’t want to be in any way associated with the cult. I sat my mother down a few years ago and talked about my skepticism and these incidents which shaped my views about the cult. I didn’t even talk about all the gimmicks he did in the name of miracles.
For example, my family, ran a Sai Samithi at home and conducted Bhajans every Thursday. I was often assigned the job of preparing for the Thursday Bhajans. I was expected to join the Bhajans and sing along with my mother. I was the Jalra girl. I literally mean that.
She didn’t understand the head and tail of the entire narrative and didn’t want to know. Indoctrination is so strong that she is still a believer.
But, justifying the police action, Janakiram, Sai Baba's brother, told India Today: "If we allowed them (the assailants) to live, some Ram Jethmalani-like lawyer would have come and rescued them."
She is in denial. The symptoms of denial is - refusal to listen to things that they don’t want to hear. She doesn’t want to even listen to the entire story.
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He was the founder member/national leader of the Norwegian Sathya Sai Organisation, he resigned in 2000 after discovering deep cover-up of murders and sex abuses.
I started having doubts about the cult after the controversial Prashanthi nilayam killings.
They would ask me to play the Jalra. My mom would sing and play Harmonium. Grandfather decided the list of songs that would be played. It was a family affair. Every Thursday, we had people thronging for Bhajans.Grandma prepared Sundal, Pori and Kadalai as prasadam.
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“Allowed them to live”
More from the article,
What infuriated these people to even make an attempt at his life ?
Vineeta suspects that there was a plot to kill her husband. "There is jealousy everywhere in the ashram, money speaks," she says and asks, "Why would my husband want to kill his own god?"
I was curious to know what made the so called devotees turn against the so called God man.
The four men - Suresh Shantharam Prabhu, 42, E.K. Suresh, 32, N. Jagannath, 29 and K. Sairam, 22 - were long-time devotees of Sai Baba and all of them had been inmates of Prashanti Nilayam for varying periods of time.
Most people who are part of any cult, don’t even realize that they are part of a cult.I was indoctrinated into the Sathya Sai Baba cult by my family, right from birth. I didn’t even know that it was a cult. It took a hell lot of time to come out of indoctrination (even though I was a skeptic since age 10).