My good friend LA EX presented this excellent analysis as to why premies remain premies in the seeminly dead and boring post-satsang era.  Some excellent points to consider and I believe they are spot on:

[H]ere is what the payoff is these days for those church ladies who continue to endeavor to be good premies... It's not so much about what 'good stuff' you might get for being a premie, but what 'bad stuff' you might avoid by 'hanging in there', and not leaving the perfect master.

Remember two important things: 1) To most premies,m is still the 'perfect master',with whatever connotations that might bring up... 2) A double negative might equal a positive. In other words,if in staying, you can avoid something bad, that might be considered good.

A few of the reasons for staying:

1)It's still a comfortable thing to do, with some social connections that are nice to stay up with, either locally, or at large programs. For some people, it's easier to just let the whole thing gradully fade away,rather than rock the boat of their own carefully guarded concepts. Those concepts are the umbilical cord to the perfect master-why cut them by thinking, when you have been conditoned for 20-30 years to NOT think? As one premie told me about the Dettmers revelations: 'It's simple...if I don't think about it, I'm OK...besides, I won't believe it until m says it himself....who do I trust more?-M or Dettmers?......

2)Avoid guilt possibly felt by leaving the perfect master. Remember, you promised your life to him, and he's still around. Are YOU going to refuse GOD?

3)It's insurance, to stay around,'just in case'. As wacky as that seems, many religious people have told me the same thing about their religion. They don't necessarily believe it all, but it costs nothing,or very little, to BELIEVE. (Little do they know, how much it DOES cost to BELIEVE) And just suppose it IS true, won't you be glad that you stayed?

4)A chance to possibly be around the big guy, in the inner circle. This is an extremely powerful idea...most premies have never been around m, and they are very curious about what it would be like. Gurus love to create this vacuum around them, and premies are drawn to it, until they realize that like all vacuums, it is completely empty. The fascination is always there, and a good guru can milk it for all it's worth. This also creates a power over those in the 'inner circle' to obey in order to not get kicked out, when they know there are numerous others waiting in line to take their place.

5)Staying, even marginally, is SO much easier than leaving. If you leave, you have to do some serious soul searching. If you stay, even though you don't realy buy into it completely, you don't have to rock your concept boat. One friend of mine said this-- 'All I have to do is put in one hour a week at the hall, and nobody bugs me'....he never once noted how bizarre that sounded, which bings up the next point:

6)There is a deep,deep seated fear of leaving that most premies have been conditioned for 20-30 years to accept. They believe that their life would be worse if they left, rather than better. The believe that 'the mind' would swallow them up and destroy them. This is not talked about too much, but it is still a premie belief for many. Also, most premies I know don't come close to practicing for an hour per day, so they put in their 10-15 minutes, go to a video once every week or two, and are still 'on the team'.

7)Many premies are still waiting for m to 'manifest his work', or 'reveal himself'. They are still hoping that m will finally get it together, and do what he promised to do. Currently there are 2 major beliefs that EV is 'leaking' to the premies: a)Maybe m is human, after all. They don't say what that might be, but it serves to cushion the blow when rank and file premies begin to hear some of the stuff on EPO. b)EV is actually telling city contacts that the people around m, from DLM to EV, have always kept people in the dark, and manipulated things.

Of course, m is not to be implicated, and the blame is placed precisely where it should be-on the shoulders of the poor premie. This concept dovetails rather nicely with the current 'EV downsizing'--m can imply that the 'downsizing' is not because faith is eroding and donations are drying up, but because it is a necessary 'housecleaning' that will now FINALLY let him 'manifest' his 'unique vision'.

The dysfunction is hard to come to terms with. The poor premie who gave their life completely to m is blamed for m's inability to succeed. Many of them are way behind in life, with little savings, little career, little relationship experience,a cheap apartment, a beat up old car, and not much in the way of self-confidence or self-esteem. M tells them they have failed, and failed him. They have not experienced the happiness he promised them, and they believe it is still 'just around the corner' if only they would 'get off the fence', and really practice more.

If you really belive that M provides the key to happiness, it is SO easy for him to continue to guilt trip you into staying...after all, who can ever say they have enough happiness, or couldn't be just a bit happier? I think this is why EPO is so incredibly threatening to M. For the first time, the average premie who has been so easily manpulated, may finaly see through the facade, and see that M doesn't have the spiritual contenment or happiness he talks about, and that they are better off putting their sincerity elsewhere. I think that most of the reasons for staying these days, are not for positive reasons, but simply to avoid negative, or perceived negative consequences. EPO is brewing the coffee for premies to smell. When they do wake up and smell the coffee, they may just decide that M is not their 'cup of tea' (or coffee). Time for me to have mine. Have a great weekend.