, Anne, and a few others were in the room. They looked somber.
Rama had us stand in a circle and hold hands. He told us we were a
tribe. It felt odd, holding hands. It wasn't the sort of thing he'd
normally have us do. After a brief meditation, he took me to another
room and gave me a long hug. I drove away feeling sad.

For the next few days I rode east, driven by childhood memories of New
England, and by the notion that I had *seen* Boston as the target city.
In Nebraska and Iowa, I felt good about my decision to leave. But I
had developed no system with which to support my new interpretation of
the world, and the decision seemed more distant with each passing
state. I had devised no language of rebellion, forged no icons of
discontent, and, on a more practical level, had no sense of what I
wanted to do or whom I wanted to be. I had met Rama when I was
seventeen. Now I was twenty-four. I had never experienced successes or
failures from following a path of my own design. I had been deprived
of this ritual of passage into adulthood. I had come of age in a
destructive cult.

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was packed away somewhere in the back.
I arrived in Massachusetts feeling frightened and confused. I felt
drawn to southern New Hampshire where, eight years before, I had worked
one summer on a farm. I found Rico, a younger friend from the farm
days who was now a senior in high school. I had not seen him in years.
I wanted to tell him about Rama and the organization but did not know
where to start. "There are bad people out there, Rico," I told him.
"You have to be careful. Whatever happens, always follow your heart."
I drove away, Rico later recalled, with a frightened look on my face.

I called my parents in New York and asked them if they wanted to see
me. They flew to Boston, and we went to a restaurant near Gloucester,
Massachusetts. I felt happy to see them but could not share the burden
of my new found freedom.

Days later I sat in traffic in the suburbs of Boston. I felt
completely alone. I missed the disciples. It was true that we had
fallen for Rama's line about stealing one another's power. It was true
that we had allowed Rama to foster, through ongoing whispering
campaigns, a climate of fear and competition. But I didn't care. The
disciples spoke the same language as I. They were my friends.

I missed Robert, a UCLA graduate who, in 1982, was drawn to a lecture
on the works of