ISKCON CULT UNVEILED

“All That is Necessary for Evil to Triumph is for Good Men to Do Nothing.” Attributed to Edmund Burke. Readers might be familiar with the argument that the abuse of children at the ISKCON gurukulas in the 1970’s and 1980’s was due to rogue elements that infiltrated the group and that it had nothing to do with its philosophy and practices. [1] This view is entirely mistaken . In fact, the cult's founder-guru, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, firmly and repeatedly stated his beliefs about the innate inferiority of women and the need for the parents marry their pre-pubescent daughters to much older men in order to contain the "lust" of the little girls. He also instituted the practice of arranging marriages between his disciples--often virtual strangers--for the purpose of opening new temples. If he believed that his preaching interests justified it, he would just as callously agree or encourage the husband to abandon his wife and children by entering into ...

The primary method the founder of the Hare Krishna (ISKCON) movement used to quickly gain disciples in his quest to disseminate Gaudiya (Bengali) Vaishnavism to the West relied on confusing the gullible with promises he could not possibly fulfill. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s arrival in New York in 1966 coincided with the hippie phenomenon and its participants’ experimentation with LSD and other psychotropic drugs and a general disillusionment with what they deemed an excessively restrictive social order.  Conditions were ripe for taking advantage of the hippies’ flirtation with Eastern mysticism. The guru, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, quickly attracted many such followers, as did numerous other Indian gurus. Disgust for materialism of all kinds remained a feature of his new disciples, but the agent of escape from it was shifted from mind-altering drugs to a mind-altering mantra. Specifically, the chanting of the “maha mantra” or Hare Krishna mantra was used as a means to...