Caution cult – part 1

Originally posted in German on 5th September 2025

A personal introduction

For this year, I predicted the most vehement accusations of cultism, on a scale never seen before. Ninety-five-page letters are actually being sent around anthroposophical circles by Uwe Burka and Anneke Schamann that name me personally as a cult leader and all the work that I carry out as highly reprehensible, cult-like and even criminal.

Those that were accused of witchcraft had to undergo a ‘water test’: If they survived the procedure, they were guilty, if they didn’t, they drowned.

Justifying these accusations does not appear to make sense to me, in order to describe the caricatural and nonsensical nature of the dialogue, the positions have to be taken into account. If someone says another person is a cult, the other has no way of defending themselves because they are incapacitated by this term and condemned forever without any way out. Just as in the past women could not defend themselves against accusations of witchcraft, but had to either die or to confess to being a witch, so the accusation of being a cult is basically from the start something that is not worth defending and contains an aggressive intention that destroys and demeans people. In everyday use of language, people who belong to a cult are no longer socially acceptable, are considered incompetent, and therefore any discussion with them is superfluous.

Every attempt to explain to Uwe Burka and Anneke Schamann therefore fails. Those who want to bring in a counter argument are told that they are dependents, deluded and lacking perspective. Even psychiatrists, university professors and leading management consultants who came forward and strongly refuted the accusations were told they were unable to assess the situation because they were sympathetic towards me and are therefore already practising black magic.

A factual discussion of how and why accusations of being a cult arise, what significance they have, how they can be dealt with, and which deep spiritual structures they cause will follow in the next steps of this work. The topic of sects nearly always involves patterns of dependency or allegations of dependency and, on the other side, fundamentalist principles, two dual complementary circumstances, which clash destructively in endless disputes, even leading to the worst kind of personal denunciations. In its core, the topic has a very legitimate logic and if considered sufficiently, can be understood from a psychological and spiritual perspective.

Elementary clarification of terms

The word ‘cult’ always has negative connotations in general colloquial usage. It stems from cultus = adoration. If people enter a religious community, they can realise their individuality in terms of a more moral perfection in the sense of the spiritual teachings represented in that establishment, or they can falsely sacrifice themselves following the principles of the community and give up their individual existence. A certain cult like behaviour can certainly become apparent when individuals do not really develop their own ability to judge, but instead completely conform to the opinions of the religious community. For this reason, cult-like phenomena can be spoken of in a religious community when they take the form of unpleasant images of self-sacrifice, which can extend to asociality. The other side is fundamentalist, totalitarian coercion, which justifies a kind of cult structure through exercising power, false use of charisma or economic paternalism. However, it is always individuals that expose themselves to the one-sided and false forms of religious practice and thus make evident a cult-like form of behaviour. The cultivation of proper debate, the development of the ability to judge, objective courses of study and clear regulations of individual rights lead to order and individual lives become more independent within a community. A good yoga school or a spiritual school can never exist and be successful when it tolerates cult-like or totalitarian structures within itself.

However, to accuse a human being of being a member of a cult and to personally stigmatise them in this way with a knockout argument, without relating to any concrete or philosophical fact, as it were to totally annihilate their individuality, constitutes an act of violence that is already known to have marked history and can degenerate into religious wars. So, to repeat, there are cult-like behaviours that arise, for example, in false giving up of the self, de-individualisation, servitude, blind submission or, conversely, in religious power games, totalitarian dogmas, elitist claims to truth, suggestive manipulation and oppression of others. However, cult-like behaviour is not only present within religious circles, it can also be found in organisations, parties, village communities, youth and adult groups, feminist associations, with the only difference being that they are not referred to as a cult.

From a legal perspective, the term ‘cult’ can only be used if it can be proven that the group is a community with registered members and that there are demonstrable signs of socially unfriendly characteristics. Beliefs alone are not sufficient to label someone as being part of a cult. In the article about the Guru, for example, the Süddeutsche Zeitung (a German newspaper) did not use the word ‘cult’ to describe the yoga and the other further activities that has been founded by me but spoke of an ‘environment’ because they already knew that in my entire way of working there is no fixed community¹⁾For the Süddeutschen Zeitung article also see the article: Die Kunst der freien Spiritualität – wie erkennt man Lüge.

 (The art of free Spirituality – how to recognise lies. – not yet translated into English).. Therefore, legally the term cult and this designation are open to challenge if there are no basic features of a group or community. The documents written by Uwe Burka, Anneke Schamann and also the medium, who is presumably directed by them, seek to establish that there is a community, because if they cannot suggest this, their argument fails. They say that it is because they are being persecuted by a cult that they need police protection. The fact is, however, that the police had to seek out for their address because they have a series of civil proceedings and claims for damages awaiting them and they presumably went into hiding for this reason.

The suggestive power of the word ’cult’ is sinister and very great, and there is hardly anyone affected who can rationally defend themselves against this accusation. However, those who hear that someone belongs to a cult or embodies a cult almost always become fearful.

A term that nearly always occurs in conjunction with the accusation of a cult is that of dependency. A person who joins a religious community is considered dependent on religious creeds, masters and gurus. This dependency may be financial or economic, or purely psychological. A closer look at patterns of dependency on a psychological level, however, nearly always reveals a different picture from that which is generally accepted by society.

Basically, meaningful spiritual training can only take place when patterns of dependency, whatever their nature, are overcome and, furthermore, cult-like behaviours that express themselves in false dominance or subservience are also analysed in a strict and disciplined manner. The development of human beings to maturity, awareness, to a path of super sensory perception and, in general, to a greater self-potential is hardly compatible with cult-like behaviour, suggestion, manipulation, self-subservience or false assertions of power. For this reason, proper spiritual training can only take place when these various dependencies are completely eliminated. Furthermore, it is not consistent for one faith to attack another form of belief, to try to harm or denounce it or to appropriate a special, elite position that ultimately promises power and advantage in the world. The accusations levelled by Anthroposophists against yoga, my person and the whole spirituality that I have founded, bind the aggressors back to their physical body and demolish any spiritual development. Those who denounce others out of apparent spiritual superiority and insult them as a cult, sever the bond between their astral body and the stars and imprison their consciousness within their physical interior.

Part 2 will deal with the causes of cult accusations.

Public Domain

Drawing: Angelika Gigauri