Barbara and Linda Fabe, Deprogrammees & Deprogrammers

Barbara FabeThe Cincinnati Enquirer did a story and 3 articles about the kidnapping and deprogramming of 2 sisters, Barbara and Linda Fabe, by their parents, residents of Cincinnati. This article was falsely titled "Cults Sophisticated In The Use Of Mind Control," an assertion for which they gave no evidence and which was disproved by the articles themselves. Like many of their age and class at the time, they had been "dabbling in various spiritual groups which made promises of peace, happiness and God." Divine Light Mission used the time-tested methods of persuasion and influence: repetition, zealotry, empathy, sincerity, excitement, mass hysteria, promises too good to be true, face to face contact, insistence on the doubt being caused by the evil Mind. Methods the Enquirer concedes are "as central to indoctrination in DLM as it is in any religion." The article says: "Barbara and Linda are typical of the bright, strong-willed, affluent, white undergraduates drawn to unconventional religions in the last decade (my bold). Successful cult recruitment did not outlast the 1970s.

The sisters were Divine Light Mission members - after 4 and 3 years' involvement, respectively. "White, bright, undergraduates, trying to find meaning in uncomfortable adulthood, they follow authoritarian leaders who answer every question and promise them a vision of truth, happiness and God." Linda Fabe remembered that at her first DLM meeting, she saw "so many people (who) looked happier than any group of people I'd ever seen" … That was the public face of DLM satsang meetings. Behind the scenes, the premies were little different to any group though usually more self obseessed with their "experience" i.e. how they were feeling. In daily meetings premies testified to how the guru and The Knowledge meditation had given them new happiness, peace, and Knowledge of God. As Linda was to discover in her years practicing the Knowledge, these claims were grossly overstated. At a major DLM festival in Orlando she joined the darshan line, bowing and kissing His feet: "(I) didn't feel anything. I was pretty miserable."

The "happy young people" surrounding her explained why: She Wasn't Ready! (ie its your fault) - She needed to receive Knowledge. She "Received the Knowledge" from an initiator in a three-day, intensive Rawat worship satsang session in Ann Arbor. "She was taught how to roll her tongue back to taste God's nectar, to press her closed eyes to see the divine light with her "third eye," to hold her ears to hear the divine music, and to concentrate on her breathing in order to hear the word of God. But I didn't experience anything in my knowledge session. Which is what you'd call disappointing."

The Fabes reported both the Ann Arbor and Sincininatti communities were unsatisfactory: "Ann Arbor was such an unstable premie community and didn't get together so much for satsang."" … "the Cincinnati ashram was loosely run. The commune no longer is granted full ashram status by DLM's national and international headquarters in Denver."

"I don't even know Guru Maharaj Ji. The closest I ever got to him was kissing his feet - And that's the highest thing in the cult." Miss Fabe said that twice daily she would drink "holy water" in which the guru had washed his feet. "I was told it would purify me."

Linda FabeIn 1977 DLM members were reoriented away from meditation towards devotion to and worship of the guru as the most important factor, Devotion not Meditation. Ms Fabe did not realise what had happened, she thought the change was coming from within herself. "About three years ago, she found her devotion shifting from knowledge to Guru Maharaj Ji." In fact, the guru and his minions were changing the emphasis of his teachings. While he had always been declared to be the "Lord of the Universe" and "Incarnation of God" this was supposedly able to be experienced through meditation using the 4 techniques of the Knowledge on the Light, Sound, Nectar and Word of God - the Knowledge of God. Devotion to the guru was now declared to be higher than enlightenment and merging with God. "Linda could retreat and admit to being fooled or recommit herself to the new religion. She opted for Guru Maharaj Ji and increasingly oriented her life around DLM, satsang, and those weekend junkets to see and hear Guru Maharaj Ji."

The sisters seemed to be typical premies of the late 1970s, they "travelled widely to see Guru Maharaj Ji, to hear him and to pay homage: "I kissed his feet at every program," Barbara said. "That was supposed to be the highest experience." At a major DLM festival in Orlando Linda joined the darshan line, bowing and kissing His feet: "(I) didn't feel anything. I was pretty miserable." Linda "was taught how to roll her tongue back to taste God's nectar, to press her closed eyes to see the divine light with her 'third eye,' to hold her ears to hear the divine music, and to concentrate on her breathing in order to hear the word of God. But I didn't experience anything in my knowledge session. Which is what you'd call disappointing." Despite these disappointments, they felt sure some of the premies were actually feeling that experience of peace, bliss and God that the guru promised, it was just they weren't.

Linda recalled how she "knew" that the young guru was God. She went to a large hall with thousands of other premies: "The energy was high and the anticipation was high … it was the group buildup. And then Guru Maharaji came out. He walked out. Everybody was screaming, screaming. 'Bolie Shri Satguru Dev Maharaj Ki Jai' Tears came to my eyes, which is very significant because I rarely cry … To me, that was proof. Oh, I felt so much energy when Guru Maharaj Ji walked into the room. I have to recieve this meditation. He is the One. This is proof to me. I am positive. From that point on, I was hooked. I was completely and totally hooked. That was all the proof I needed."

Once hooked, you found yourself on a treadmill: "There also were commandments to be followed by a good premie, Barbara said, including regular attendance at satsang, constant meditation, remembering the holy word, and having faith in Guru Maharaj Ji. It's very guilt producing. You can't do any of them. And you're told these are the commandments and you're always striving, always striving and feeling guilty, 'Dammit, I'm not meditating enough, I'm not meditating enough …"

Neither the Fabe sisters nor the Cincinnati Enquirer gave any evidence for their theory that Divine Light Mission members used sophisticated methods of Mind Control. In fact, while the Fabe women may have been unusual in having continued contact wth their supportive family, it only took a few hours (literally) of conversation to make them realize their "experience" was nothing but hope and faith in others possibly having the "experience" Rawat promised. They had both joined DLM relatively late but Linda (3 years) was already Community Co-ordinator in Cincinnati. Both were certain they would not have joined competing cults like the Krishnas and the Moonies and did not understand the similarity with DLM. The bonds of brother and sisterhood with ther ashram premies proved to be negligible but having ex-premies who knew the DLM line in the deprogramming team was important.

The Fabe sisters were particularly lucky, they had loving parents and despite being ashram premies who realized they had been kidnapped to be deprogrammed said: "I knew that if my parents were there, nothing bad was going to happen." The parents were "convinced their daughters were caught in something which would sever them from their family" presumably forever but they were wrong. In another few years Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat) would close the ashrams, order the nightly satsang meetings ended and reduce his demands (except for financial ones) on the followers. Half of his Western followers abandoned him and the rest presumably had plenty of time on their hands to spend with family. Deprogramming the sisters was quite easy, it only took a few days away from other premies and long conversations with former premies who had already ssen the light.

Barbara realized "I have been very close with a lot of initiators who are the closest ones to Guru Maharaj Ji. "And they don't have it and I don't have it and I don't know anyone who has it," she said of the DLM goal of merger (sic) with God. The experience of meditation "had not been much." Other premies told her "I'm not open enough and for some people, it takes longer …" They realized that all they had was "faith that this is the truth, that this is God, because I know I haven't had that experience." This was not unusual in the DLM community, many premies openly admitted meditation was a bore, some, even those close to Maharaj Ji, didn't do it at all. While nearly all premies spoke in satsang about their "experience" this was usually about how they felt on a day-to-day basis. After 1973 I can't recall more than a handful of premies extolling meditation though tales of devotion and worship of Guru Maharaj Ji were common as were tales of the guru's intervention in their lives to teach them important lessons that were always the same, they should dedicate themselves to Him more than they had been doing. I can count the premies whom I heard satisfied with their practice of Knowledge, over a decade, on one hand. Even fewer who were blissfully content for more than 3 days in a row except for those who were at the start of a new love affair.

the Fabes

These newspaper articles refer to the Fabe sisters' deprogramming. It would be difficult to find headlines so wrong. By 1979 cults, and especially Divine Light Mission, were not gowing or growing slowly and finding to hard to keep up woth the attrition rate. Linda Fabe was not typical of people who join unconventional religion, she was kidnapped and deprogrammed, most leave of their own accord. Cults were not sophisticated in the use of mind control, they used standard techniques of persausion, sometimes a little heavy-handedly and usually with persistence and intensity. Richard Cooper, the "man cured of cult, escaped his kidnappers, returned to Divine Light Mission, and died a devoted, though misguided, follower of his Lord and Master though he did sue his filed deprogrammers. Ted Patrick undoubtedly claimed "cults destroy minds" but his claim was ridiculous which is why he was being successfully sued.