Blair Glaser’s journey to inner peace nearly ended before it began—literally holding the pills that would end her life before a sudden moment of clarity pivoted her toward a world of spiritual discovery and, eventually, the complex grip of a high-demand ashram. For years, Glaser was an ultimate insider in the Siddha Yoga lifestyle (the same spiritual home featured in Eat Pray Love), but when dark allegations of misconduct surfaced, she found herself facing the ultimate challenge: untangling her identity from the group that had become her entire world.
Today, she is a celebrated writer and empowerment coach who has collaborated with icons like Jane Fonda—a transformation that began, of all places, with the secret premiere of the Friends pilot. Ahead of the release of her powerful memoir, This Incredible Longing: Finding My Self in a Near-Cult Experience, we sat down with Blair to discuss the thin line between devotion and delusion, and how she finally reclaimed her voice. —Noa Nichol
You’ve described a moment where a simple mantra interrupted a life-ending decision. Looking back now, what do you think actually shifted inside you in that moment—and how do you understand that intervention today?
Yeah, sitting there with the pills, about to get the vodka to chase them down, I thought I’d give this mantra I had once learned at a Siddha Yoga event a shot at helping me find inner peace. And the sweet feeling of calm that dawned after only a few minutes of chanting was so palpable.
Back then I attributed it to the mantra being “charged” by the guru’s spiritual energy. What happened is a mystery, but there are a couple of possibilities. Neurologically speaking, I did something new, and that jolted my neural pathways, which were in a hardcore cycle of doom and gloom thinking. The simple act of doing something different disrupted the circuitry from despair to possibility.
According to psychologist Milton Erikson (1902-80), I went into a trance state, which can happen when attention moves from external stimuli to internal experiences, as it does when you chant and meditate.
Physically speaking, as a student and practitioner of the ancient Chinese practice Qigong (pronounced Chee Gong) which is akin to yoga, chanting that mantra helped me slow down and experience my own life force, known in Chinese medicine as Qi (chee). When you place your attention on your energy instead of your thoughts, you can tap into the subtle pulse of your own Qi. Making contact with yourself in this way is restorative.
Many people imagine spiritual groups as inherently safe or healing. What were the early signs that drew you so deeply into the Siddha Yoga ashram—and what emotional needs do you now recognize were being met there?
It’s funny you say that, because after watching a million cult documentaries since the pandemic, with dark horrors taking place in all kinds of faiths, religions, and made-up paths to ascension, I can’t imagine anyone thinking spiritual groups are safe!
People who get into spiritual groups and cults are driven by one or more of three things: they are in a difficult time or transition; they are lonely and craving an experience of belonging, and they want a transformative experience to help them be better versions of themselves. When I first moved to LA I was experiencing a fierce combo of them all: I was new in town, going through a break-up, struggling to make friends with fellow actors, and weighed down by insecurity and shame.
At the Siddha Yoga Center, people welcomed me with warm smiles. Conversations and connections were easy. One woman, who sat at the head of the center and was a lead chanter, marched right up to me and asked if I was a singer, which I was, and I had no idea how she knew. In time, I became a lead chanter at the center and started doing chores to help out (which was actually a spiritual practice called seva). I felt appreciated, and that felt really good. I found community there.
But I also had a real need to understand who I was. I had been studying theater and performing since I was eight. After so many years, at twenty-two it was hard to admit that it might not be the right career path for me. People at the ashram mysteriously seemed to see who I was before I did. For example, one time, there was an actress visiting who was so upset she couldn’t stop crying. People searched the ashram looking for me. Out of hundreds of people who lived and worked there, somehow, someone knew that I — only in my early 20s at the time — could help her calm down, which somehow, I did. That blew my mind. It showed me I had a talent for helping people sort through difficult emotions, and that I enjoyed using that talent.
Lastly, I was still looking for mothering, hence the female guru. A lot of big sisters will relate to having grown up too fast and having a little girl inside who still wants her mommy. I had no language for that feeling then: in the book I simply refer to it as the nameless ache, which eventually my guru labeled as longing, and that made sense.
You’ve spoken candidly about becoming consumed with pleasing the group’s leader. How does devotion quietly turn into self-erasure, and why is that transition often so hard to recognize while you’re inside it?
I love that: devotion quietly turning into self-erasure.
Gurumayi was a strong, composed, and charming presence. She had spiritual authority, and I found it irresistible. Authority is so seductive. If you don’t feel connected to your own authority and someone else projects authority in a way that resonates with you, it is like a magnet. And when the person in authority seems to get who you are, it can feel truly magical.
Devotion is very heart-opening. Right now, if you get quiet and think of someone or something beloved like a pet, place, or even a piece of art, you will feel happy. But culty organizations want you to believe that all that dopamine is created by the person, not your own heart. And in this confusion, you start doing things to get closer to “the source,” and give your power away in actions such as following orders that deep down don’t feel right, or putting the leader’s needs above your own. It’s always hard to recognize that things that feel good may not be good for you, and sadly, the way we learn is often at great expense.
Even after learning about allegations of abuse and misconduct, leaving wasn’t immediate. What kept you tethered—and what does that reveal about how cult dynamics operate beyond belief alone?
When I first got involved, meditating and chanting made me feel so alive, I wanted to devote my life to it. Spiritual awakening is a kind of romance. I think there’s a useful metaphor here.
When you fall in love and invest time and energy in a relationship, and then realize the relationship is not right for you, or you discover something sketchy about the person you’re with, few people have the strength to break up immediately. First, they talk about it with friends, maybe see a therapist to make sure they’re seeing straight, double-check the source who said the nasty things, go back and forth between the pros and cons. It’s the same with spiritual groups and cults: it can take a while to get sucked in, and a while to detangle yourself from the belief system, community, and structures you’re steeped in.
The detail about sneaking away to watch the premiere of Friends is striking. Why do you think something so ordinary—so “normal”—became a turning point in reclaiming yourself?
Watching friends was a mirror. After performing spiritual tasks like waking up at 2:30 a.m., putting on a sari and shuffling down the ashram halls with a bowl of incense to purify the space, Friends revealed a picture of “normal” twentysomethings doing “normal” twentysomething things. I realized I wanted to hang out in coffee shops, wear different shoes styles, and flirt with the possibility of it leading to something.
“Friends” wouldn’t have made such an impact if I had seen it when I first arrived. But 14 months in, I had already been debating within myself about leaving. Watching the show in that ashram basement, with its perpetual incense odor, I realized that I had gotten the healing I needed from my time at the ashram and was finally strong enough to go back out into the world and be a secular person again.
There is another particularly personal reason why Friends made such an impact. But I’ll leave that for curious readers to discover.
Leaving a near-cult experience is often framed as liberation, but it can also be disorienting. What was the hardest part of rebuilding your identity once you were out?
After I left, I found an amazing New York City apartment and a great job at the then new Playbill Online. But I had trouble finding new friends. It was tricky because I was still a very spiritually-minded person, so I wanted to befriend people who were also into growth and transformation, and that took some time. I didn’t really find my tribe until I was in graduate school to become a drama therapist three years later.
Your upcoming book, This Incredible Longing, explores both spiritual hunger and personal loss. How do you now distinguish between healthy longing and longing that can be exploited?
I think there is a difference between longing and desire. Desire is not all-consuming: you may want a family someday, a promotion at work, tickets to see Taylor Swift. But longing … that’s a whole other thing. It’s deep pain looking for healing and connection.
Longing is human and can be exploited. There’s no way around it. Everything you long for: love, spiritual connection, success, makes you vulnerable. Getting what you long for requires risk. The best you can do is keep your eyes open.
Most people’s longing leads them into some “trouble,” and that’s all part of healing it. Living in an ashram made my parents sick with worry, and caused so much familial stress that we ended up in therapy, where some real healing took place. But I was so lucky to not be abused at the ashram, like many were.
You’ve gone on to work with powerful women like Jane Fonda and V (formerly Eve Ensler). How did finding your voice again after the ashram shape the way you show up creatively and professionally today?
Here’s the crazy thing: most cults suppress your voice, and I believe Sidda Yoga ashram life did that to a number of people. But for me, even though I was influenced by groupthink, I felt safe enough to start to find my voice there. Hence the subtitle to This Incredible Longing — Finding My Self in a Near-Cult Experience. Because that’s what happened. I thought I was going there to live a pure and simple life, chopping vegetables all day in the kitchen with a shmata on my head— basically hide — but immediately I was given a high-profile job and eventually ended up being trained as a meditation teacher, travelling to US cities to teach. I was asked to write speeches for a swami. One night I was really confused by something I thought the guru had said, and even though she had clearly instructed me to only kneel before her once each time she gave darshan (the time for blessings), I approached a second time to get clarity. I was afraid she’d be mad, but she gave me a bracelet.
I took those experiences with me into the next phase of life, in which I became a workshop leader and psychotherapist working mostly with women. After living celibate in the ashram, when I saw V’s The Vagina Monologues, I realized my relationship to my sexuality needed healing. V and I became close through the theater community, and I did some work for her activist organization V-Day, and then, based on my own experience, I created and ran The Vagina Monologues Workshop in the US, of which V was very supportive. She introduced me to Jane for whom I created and co-ran an empowerment workshop for girls.
Many women fear speaking out because they worry they’ll be judged for “falling for it.” What would you say to someone who’s questioning a spiritual group but feels ashamed or confused?
I would say, there is no shame in having pursued answers and comfort. Pursuing healing and choosing faith can lead you astray, but it is never wrong to do so.
For those who are still involved, you HAVE to question. For those who are just starting to search and are drawn to a particular practice, allow yourself a testing period. While you attend events, keep an eye out to see if there is harm being done.
At any point in your seeking, if you see something askew such as teachers coming on to students, or people in power raising voices or shaming people for not getting in line (aka sitting up straight enough for meditation or some such), or people becoming exhausted from volunteer work — those are bright red flashing danger signs. Ask the teacher(s) about things that don’t sit right. Bring your confusion to the authority figures. If those in authority get defensive, or brush off your concerns with simple dogma, it’s game over.
It helps to have a supportive buddy, therapist, or someone outside the organization to confer with.
If there’s one truth you hope readers carry with them after finishing your book, what do you hope they understand—not just about cults, but about themselves?
I want people to know that if they, too, have a nameless ache, they’re not flawed. It’s a normal part of being human. As Leonard Cohen says, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
In these times of great uncertainty, I hope people who feel called to will search for stability within. And if they are drawn to do so in a spiritual community, they keep their eyes as open as possible.
Lastly, in a time when there is so much pressure to think in black and white, I believe in the power of nuance. One of my favorite authors, Ann Patchett, recently spoke on NPR with such elegance about being a Catholic. She admitted there are things about the religion that she finds deeply appalling, but there are parts of it that she loves and that make her proud. She does her best and celebrates nuance. Bad things can be “good.” “Good” things can be damaging. Listen to what is true for you. That is the message at the heart of my story.
share:
Be the first to comment