Given the structure of this game, it is little wonder that many people have been harmed by their relationships to spiritual teachers—or that many teachers, given so much power over the lives of others, have abused it. This ethical terrain is all the more confusing because there is no cult leader so deranged or sadistic, or whose fall from grace was so hideous, that one can’t find students who will insist that he or she is the Messiah.
