Gurus and disciples are inevitably products of a particular historical moment. They represent a specific time and place, even as they draw upon ancient psychological and theological themes. As our contemporaries, they are, like the rest of us, psychologically unmoored, adrift from and often confused about older value systems and traditions. That unmoored state has great importance. Here I would stress only that a guru’s complete structural and psychological separateness from a traditional cultural institution—in Asahara’s case an established religion—permits him to improvise wildly in both his theology and his personal behavior, to become a “floating guru.” Disciples in turn are open to any strange direction he may lead them and contribute their own unmoored fantasies without the restraining force that a religious or institutional hierarchy might provide.
