Integral Abuse - Andrew Cohen and the Culture of Evolutionary Enlightenment

Luna Tarlo spent over three years living with her guru Andrew Cohen (founder of What is Enlightenment? magazine now called EnlightenNext) in India and the United States. After she experienced extreme forms of public condemnation and humiliation she broke from him and wrote a book depicting Cohen as an “arrogant, power-hungry, dangerous figure who practices mind control over adherents.” She is, however, different than the hundreds of other disciples who followed him. Luna Tarlo is Andrew Cohen’s mother. In an interview with the Boston Globe in 1998 she stated, Cohen “requires total surrender to him. You have to obey everything he says and trust him 100 percent, and anybody who disagrees is subject to derision and verbal abuse.” In tragic fashion she ended what had previously been a healthy and loving relationship, “I know my life with him is over, and it’s very sad. I love him a lot.”

Twelve years after Tarlo’s “The Mother of God” (1997) was published, William Yenner a follower of Cohen’s for over 13 years and insider of his Foxhollow ashram has released a scathing book which chronicles the abuse that Cohen’s mother spoke of. “American Guru: A Story of Love, Betrayal and Healing – former students of Andrew Cohen speak out” (2009) is an insider’s look at how this self-proclaimed “rude boy” manipulated, abused, pressured and controlled his followers. The accounts given (an excerpt from the book is below) are very disturbing. After reading them I feel saddened, shocked and angry. And as I note below Cohen’s contemporaries have an ethical responsibility to speak out. Yenner was certainly in a position to know about these abuses as he was a central player in Cohen’s operation. He explains his role, “I was a member of the “inner circle” of Cohen’s students; in fact, I lived in his personal residence for several years, was a member of the EnlightenNext Board of Directors, and was the real estate scout who located and helped arrange the purchase of the 220 acre, nearly three-million-dollar, EnlightenNext “World Headquarters” at Foxhollow, as well as the EnlightenNext Centre in London.” And like many others in the group Yenner had “donated” a very large amount of money ($80,000) to Cohen. These large sums of money were part of Cohen’s plan. Yenner writes,

Andrew let it be understood that his good favor could also be had for a price, establishing a practice that was morally reprehensible, legally questionable and indicative of a degree of corruption that had warped his ideals and would eventually stain the fabric of his entire organization. It is a testament to the faith that so many of us had in Andrew that, despite the questionable nature of these new financial arrangements, we complied – some of us taking on enormous and ill-advised debt. Though it may be difficult for outsiders to comprehend, our desire to please our guru was so great that we were prepared to mortgage our futures in order to do so.

Survivors of Jonestown speak similarly about how once they gave their money, assets and signed over their homes to Jim Jones and the “church” it was the final step in the loss of their identities. I don't mean to suggest that Cohen is comparable to Jim Jones or that his followers are about to commit mass suicide. But rather I am merely highlighting the similarity in these actions to illustrate how the giving over of yourself includes money, property and belongings. And furthermore this loss of property is directly linked to the increasing loss of the ability to remain an autonomous agent within the group.

For years after his departure in 2001 Yenner remained silent. Like the others he was pressured under “extreme psychological distress and in an emotionally crushed state of mind” into giving his $80,000 and a few years after he finally broke with Cohen he wanted it back. Cohen agreed but made Yenner sign a five-year non-judicial but binding gag order to not speak about his experiences at Foxhollow or with Cohen. This enforced silence was, Yenner states, but yet another reminder to him that Cohen wasn’t ready to let him go. But the gag order expired in 2008 and now Yenner’s book is published.

Luna Tarlo and William Yenner’s books are not the only criticisms of Cohen to surface. Prior to the release of Yenner’s book some of Cohen’s former followers had set up a website, What Enlightenment?, in 2004 that chronicled his abusive and controlling methods with advice on cult recovery. Yenner’s book also contains the passages from other former Foxhollow members. In 2003 former What Is Enlightenment? editor Andre van der Braak published “Enlightenment Blues: My Years with an American Guru”. An eleven year disciple of Cohen’s, van der Braak chronicled the abuse and manipulation he witnessed and experienced as part of the Foxhollow community. He reports that one of the more mild but still disturbing elements of daily life in the community consisted of 600 daily prostrations while repeating the required mantra, “To know nothing, to have nothing, to be no one.” And Geoffry Falk in his Stripping the Guru’s: Sex, Violence, Abuse and Enlightenment dedicates an entire chapter ‘Sometimes I feel Like God’ to Cohen. It places Cohen in context of his guru Poonjaji and provides a short history of his life. (This is an excellent and important book with startling revelations about everyone from Krishnamurti and Osho to Trungpa, Sai Baba and Yogi Amrit Desai just to name a few. My endorsement of this book is not about its level of scholarship as I must humbly admit I am in no position to evaluate this. Rather I appreciate the book because it draws attention to the phenomenon of cults, gurus and spiritual abuse. The whole book is available free online. Here is a link to the chapter on Cohen).

What did Cohen do? This is an excerpt from American Guru.

Some years ago at Foxhollow, a student named Jeff, a very good writer, was having a great deal of trouble with a writing project he had been assigned to do. He was supposed to write an introduction to a book Andrew was publishing, but he was having no success. Feeling terrible guilt about this, he wrote in a desperate letter to Andrew, “If I don’t come through, I will cut my finger off.” Andrew seemed to like this idea. When Jeff still did not succeed at his writing, Andrew called for Mikaela, [who was a] physician, to come see him…. Andrew told Mikaela to go to see Jeff, and to bring her medical kit. She was instructed to tell Jeff that Andrew was taking him up on his offer to sacrifice a finger. She should take out her scalpel, her mask, her gloves, a sponge – everything she would need for such an operation – and lay them all out. She was told to carry through the charade up to the very last minute, and then stop. When Mikaela visited Jeff, he had barely slept in about a week. He was in a desperate state…. Mikaela [later] confirmed…that she had followed Andrew’s instructions precisely. Jeff was severely and obviously shaken by the incident. He left Andrew and Foxhollow a few weeks later.
   
Face slapping and name-calling, while they were uncalled for and may have been damaging, were mild in comparison to other questionable manifestations of “crazy wisdom” that occurred at Foxhollow. One such incident involved a student (Mikaela) who was responsible for the marketing of Andrew’s publications and who had fallen out of favor by reminding him that something he had criticized her for doing had been his idea in the first place. He decried her as evil and ordered that the walls, floor and ceiling of her office (which had been relocated to an unfinished basement room) be painted red to signify the spilled blood of her guru. She was ordered to spend hours there contemplating the implications of her transgression, with the additional aid of a large cartoon on the wall depicting her as a vampire and the word “traitor” written in large letters next to it.

Andrew often employed red paint in this fashion to create environments designed to induce shame and guilt in students that he felt had questioned his judgment or disobeyed him. Another female student who had displeased Andrew and, after leaving the community, had returned to help out on a weekend painting project, was summoned to another basement room. There she was met by four female students who, having guided her onto a plastic sheet on the floor, each poured a bucket of paint over her head as a “message of gratitude” from Andrew. She left the property traumatized and fell ill in subsequent days (during which she was harassed by phone calls from another student who, at Cohen’s instigation, repeatedly called her a “coward”) and never again returned to Foxhollow. “Crazy wisdom” is the most charitable possible explanation for these often traumatic and disturbing incidents, many of which have already been related on the whatenlightenment.net blog.

My Experience in a 'Christian' Cult

I am a normal young guy, or so I thought. This past year, I, like many other young adults, attended college and was focused on my future. And as a young adult, like Diane Benscoter, I was, and still am at times, naive to my surroundings.

I would soon be involved with something that would change my life and the way I think. Some would say my brain was rewired.

I have always been an activist. I love using creative and effective ways to change policies and culture to better the world. As a result of being a whistle blower of my college allocating tax payer money to fund a conference that was bullying conservatives and Christians I gained media attention, both locally and nationally.

In April of this year I was on an Iowa state-wide radio show. Before my segment, Bradlee Dean, a controversial preacher was on the same show; his sidekick heard me after and gave me a call. This led to me becoming employed on a street evangelism team with Minnesota-based You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International.

There are many reasons why I agreed to employment. I observed and believed the ministry to be family-oriented. After all, everyone who was married had their wife as a part of the ministry as well as their children. I believed the ministry to be Christian and authentic. I was beyond mistaken.

As soon as I moved to Minnesota I began traveled with the street team nationwide for evangelism.
Over the course of the next seven weeks that I worked for the ministry they began to control every aspect of my life. These are just some examples of things I was told or taught: It is normal for your family to stop talking to you as you develop a deeper relationship with Christ. I have nothing left back at home. Do not watch television as we are not to pay attention to media.
Because I worked on the street evangelism team I often worked long days, over twelve hours on average. They made us work long hours to keep us busy enough that we would not have time to think about how we were being brainwashed.

One day my mother called to check in; she realized I was no longer myself. She sent me a text that day, "You are being brainwashed, and you need to leave." I remember being inflamed and thought, "How dare she tell me such." I was told by my co-workers that she did not love me and Satan was using her to distract me from my purpose of being a Christian evangelist that God called me to be.

On June 29, 2013, I traveled with the street evangelism team through Tennessee. At 3 a.m. we made a gas stop in Pulawski, Tenn. Supposedly, it was my turn to pay for gas. I made the team leader aware that I did not have money for gas as I had bills to pay. I was then given an ultimatum, pay for gas or get out of the vehicle.

I had only money to pay my bills, grabbed my bags and got out of the vehicle. They then drove off to who knows where. I was stranded in a foreign place that had no airport, car rental place, taxi service, or any form of transportation.

Though it took some time, I began to realize I was a part of a cult. I sent out an email to my friends and political contacts to make them aware of the situation and to ask them to not socialize themselves with what I now realized to be a cult. Someone leaked the email, the cult then sent out an email to my contacts. They made accusations about me. This resulted in me losing what I believed to be friends overnight.

As a result of my relationship with the cult, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, I now have a hard time trusting other people and ministries who say they are Christian. I can tell it's not me. I have always had a deep connection with Christ to what I would call a love story. Today, when looking at a Bible, hearing someone say the name "Jesus, Christ, God," etc. my mind will go back to the thoughts of control and manipulation I received from my associations with the cult.

My hope is that anyone who finds themselves being told to cease their normal, nondestructive lives are able to seek help. We all have dreams and aspirations, and we often will do anything to achieve those dreams. Because I was not willing to listen to those with more wisdom I fell into a trap that has changed my life forever.