HOLY HELL
A documentary for yoga and wellness enthusiasts. A master manipulator deludes intelligent people through post-hypnotic suggestions, sexual repression, and social isolation.
Some people excessively identify with a group, religion, philosophy and their symbols. An “us versus them” mentality is established contradicting spiritual goals. This is a basis for violence between religions even if they preach love and peace.
In spiritual cults adoration and veneration is directed to the guru instead of abstract principles. The guru is seen as the vehicle to enlightenment. In Holy Hell post-hypnotic suggestions, sexual repression
and social isolation
were incorporated to control a following. They are implemented subtly to create a narrow-minded and malleable person.
Holy Hell trailer shows a guru placing his hands on students causing them to fall and experience visual and physical sensations. This is not a "Shakti energy transfer" as mentioned in the documentary. This man is a known licensed hypnotherapist. He is applying post-hypnotic suggestions carried out after the hypnotic trance is instilled. Hypnosis tactics used by false gurus are more common knowledge within Indian society than the West. Despite that people fall victim there too. A lack of this awareness within the West is why westerners are more vulnerable. According to John Mongiovi
Board Certified Hypnotist, "some subjects develop complete amnesia of the posthypnotic act, some are aware of the suggestion as they carry it out, and some remember the suggestion only after the act is completed." People observing others experience alleged Shakti energy transfers instills a mass group hypnosis causing individuals to be suggestible. Babaji
from my story “My Path Into Yoga"
administered post-hypnotic suggestions onto volunteers resulting in exactly the same effects as a demonstration of the trickery. He added further that there are many false Indian gurus and American Christian evangelists doing this.
Cult expert Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D.
added that a thought reform program is instilled. This program directs members to put old values to the side. Decisions eventually are made in the context of avoiding conflicts with or achieving rewards from the guru. This is most effectively accomplished by the soft sell, "Sugar Coating" techniques. Dr. Singer added that to hypnotize someone the stereotype of a pendulum is not required. It is done by controlling the voice, making it soothing while pacing with the breathing. Trans states and hypnosis are induced to close critical thoughts for malleability and suggestibility.
Holy Hell incorporated sexual repression. In "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" Wilhelm Reich explores how fascism comes into power as a symptom of sexual repression. Sexual repression acted as the grounds to authoritarianism. At a macro-national level, sexual repression being successful is applicable on a smaller scale cult group. Sexual repression is fertile grounds for individuals to accept authoritarian rule. In the case of Holy, Hell indoctrination instilled sexual repression followed by authoritarian rule in the form of a guru. The guru used this to create social isolation and in the end sex itself, which was repressed, became a tool ironically for induction.
Sigmund Freud, who coined the term sexual repression, feels it creates feelings of guilt or shame being associated with sexual impulses and thus creating inner and social turmoil.
“Yoga: meaning, values and practice” by Dr. Phulgenda Sinha made a strong stance against gurus demanding celibacy claiming that their approach is unnatural. Otherwise, according to him, there would not be so many ashram and guru scandals around the world. Many gurus create an unnatural environment of sexual repression for people to fail in and seek authoritarian rule.
Austerity is well exemplified as the path within the Bhagavad Ghita Chapter 6 Volume 2. Despite that the western practitioner must be open to all but never dogmatically follow a path without consideration of their socialization process. In the book, “Tantra Shastra an Introduction” by Swami Satyananda Saraswati clearly stated that being a celibate or recluse is not required for individual power and knowledge lying at the depth of human consciousness. Neither food, character, nor social relationships, marital or emotional life stand in the way of developing higher states of consciousness. The text further states that there is the other opposite as a “cult of renouncing.”
These leaders typically create a double set of ethics leading to social isolation. They instill the belief that knowledge gained is elevating members above peers. This acts as a first step to breaking relations with friends and family to become indoctrinated into believing nobody else understands except the leader and group. Social isolation and manipulation are realized through confessionals, disclosures, personal testimonial or sessions where information is volunteered. Such information is used to plant seeds and misguide victims. Victims lie or freeze when asked to discuss the nature of their relationship with the guru. A sense of a mission is instilled within victims for a higher purpose that is never achieved. The documentary showed destroyed meaningful purposeful relationships. It is hard to get out since a lot of the old relations are destroyed for returning. Fortunately, most had family and friends waiting for them.
Holy Hell is a cult based on achieving enlightenment. Techniques incorporated have a basis on authentic practices but fail since the underlying reasons are for serving the leader and organization. Personality types involved, according to cult expert Margaret T. Singer Ph.D., are intelligent people that are too trusting, open and usually in a transitory phase of life such as being in and out of relationships, jobs or life phases. There is an entire psycho-social aspect to consider. Westerners embarking on a yoga path must consider that fasting, celibacy, and meditation are harder to follow than most Indians from a less materialistic lifestyle. Giving up the family for God as shown in the Holy Hell documentary is a real practice in India where it is socially conditioned. Westerners generally are not conditioned to abandon family for God through Hindu traditions.
According to Dr. Singer, there are 5,000 cults in the United States and growing. Almost all never receive publicity or go down in flames as with David Koresh. Despite that the damage they cause is real. Indian men, passing themselves as enlightened, bait gullible westerners with sexually implicit teachings audaciously putting them on YouTube and Facebook. Such bait tactics, naive westerners walk into masked by kurtas, chants and soft accents, is commonly known in India but not the West. In the words of one Indian man after reviewing one of these teachers, "He is taking advantage on the grounds of nationality. Because westerns believe that Hindu culture is great and it's different." Sexually implicit teachings are a form of induction leading to control. Many spread according to Dr. Singer as benign meditation centers. Anything less than a supportive detachment
in student-teacher relations is playing with fire.
YOGA RETREATS
