From what I recall hardly anybody received knowledge in the West after about 1975, but during the dark, devotional period it was very hard to leave, because FEAR became a huge element in the cult, much more so than it had been.  Malibu Prem was basically saying you would go to hell if you left.

The ashram premies even got it worse, not only would you go to hell if you left Rawat, if you left the ashram it was almost as bad.  After the Reinaissance of 1976, Maharaji really laid on the guilt trip for anybody who had left the ashram (which was probably the majority, although at least in the States a number of ashrams remained open), and then there was a huge campaign to get everyone possible to move into the ashrams as well.

To me, that's why the closing of the ashrams was such a strange event.  After all the fire and brimstone Rawat put us through, all the fear inculcated about moving out of the ashram, and the big campaign to get everyone to move in, the closure, with no explanation was just really weird. 

In my experience, and from what I saw, devoted cult members did not dare leave during the dark devotional period.  It was when things lightened up some, and people were less afraid, that a lot of people left.  There was a pretty huge exodus from the cult in 1976 and another huge one around 1982-1983.  Both those periods were times of a kind of less fear, or at least less organization, and at least some idea that it was okay to be an individual and perhaps have a life. Most of my ex-premie friends left in that 1983 period, as did I.

But I recall the 1977-1983 period as being pretty dark.  That's the way it felt to me anyway.  Very suffocating.  Nothing outside the cult, no propagation, just projects for Maharji like the plane, constant fundraising, and a screaming Maharaji at festivals telling us to surrender or die and what ingrates we were for not having done it yet.  It was pretty awful and a very difficult period for me, because I never actually liked Rawat very much personally, and the devotional love crap was all it was about around then.  It sucked, and it all came from Maharaji, personally.  There is no way he can blame it on anybody else, not that he won't try, being that he never accepts responsibilty for anything.

I left before satsang ended, but I'm sure that was pretty weird as well, considering that it was a commandment for a decade before that.