Most of us got involved when we were young. I was a teenager. I've thought about this alot for myself and have some ideas. Partly it was an intense sense of idealism and openness. The fatal line of thinking for me was, "well what if it is true, I certainly don't want to miss out." New people were typically love-bombed, which had a powerful effect on many, though for me it was actually somewhat off-putting. I can't really say at what point I actually bought the myth, but once I did, it was all over for me. I took the idea to what for me was its only logical conclusion: If he is God, then there is nothing else worth doing with my life and I dedicated my complete self to him. Some years later I thankfully managed to weave my way out of it when I was still relatively young. Many people here have been involved for 30 years and for them it isn't funny. They wasted their life on that jerk.

Other posters have said that they were interested in gaining personal power and/or finding meaning in their lives. These aspects applied to me as well. The world often seems cruel and meaningless and when we are in that state of mind we are naturally susceptible to con men promising a way out. It has sometimes been said that under the right circumstances anyone can fall for a cult. I don't know if that is completely true, but certainly our involvement is partly a result of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Some of the other posters here, not me, have done alot of research on other gurus and cult leaders and really the similarities are often startling. Actually I think it is easier to generalize about the psychological make-up of a cult leader than it is to do that with a cult follower. Narcissistic Personality Disorder has been discussed here before for example.

As you rightly pointed out, there is something atypical about our "jiji" in that he was trained to the role as a child. This makes it all the more surprising how similar he is to the self-made gods. Maybe he inherited these traits from his father.

Another thing is that in the early days, when jiji was still young (I like your name, I also like to call him "malibu prem") he had a cadre of front men who could be very convincing and charismatic. They were his mahatmas, intense Indians with shaved heads and orange robes. And of course in those days anything Indian was automatically cool.

I also have my own theory about this (don't we all). I think that part of the cult phenomena is just an anomalie of a wider basic human trait. I think that we humans in our make-up have a kind of instinct to follow a charismatic leader. Like wild horses follow a sexy stallion. I think there was and still is a survival advantage in that. So the notion of following a charismatic leader isn't in itself a problem necessarilly. Only that this tendency gets perverted by unscrupulous people with narcissistic personalities and a talent for persuasion. I think there have always been people who were convincing the people around them to do and believe weird things, like if we throw young girls in the volcano our crops will grow better.