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Charismatic movements can slowly transform followers into regulators of a leader’s self-esteem.

Spiritual grandiosity often masks fragile self-worth and a deep need for admiration.

Criticism becomes threatening when a movement depends emotionally on idealized authority.

Many guru scandals reveal recurring patterns of narcissism, dependency, and reality distortion.

Sometime in the autumn of 1989, I attended a free concert by a famous Indian “guru” at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Posters had been hanging all over the city: free admission, and a guru — indeed, a self-proclaimed avatar — performing live. He would play many instruments, Eastern and Western alike. A considerable audience had gathered, as audiences tend to do when admission is free.

Then the guru began to play.

It is difficult to say this without sounding unkind. But he played so extraordinarily badly that, here and there in the audience, one could hear scattered laughs. Not loudly, not rudely, but with that involuntary, unbelieving laughter that escapes when something is simply too odd to process all at once.

From time to time one caught the eye of a stranger a few seats away and exchanged that unmistakable look of mild alarm: Is this really happening? (Many years later, I came across a post on an Indian sitar forum announcing his death under the headline: “History’s worst sitarist has died.”)

Soon enough people began to leave. Some were too polite to do so before the intermission. Others walked out during the performance, shaking their heads or trying unsuccessfully not to laugh aloud. I was eighteen, and in defiance........

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