Lucy Dupertuis
Lucy Dupertuis was an ashram premie and writer for Divine Light Mission in the 1970s. In the late 1970s she wrote a Sociology Thesis, Company of Truth: Meditation and Sacralized Interaction Among Western Followers Of An Indian Guru, based on her time in the cult which contains some historical information and much convoluted academic jargon.
She describes her own final disillusionment after an involvement of 8 to 10 years:
During the period when these doubts were creeping into my mind, the DLM was turning further and further away from the style of life I had now chosen. The "charismatic renewal" of 1977-78, with its renewed emphasis on the person of GMJ and its frequent festivals which wrenched premies once again away from careers, school, stable jobs and family lives, was pulling the Mission once again inward toward itself, resurrecting the ashrams, again championing what looked to me like puritanism, isolationism, conformity of opinion, a return to testimonials and GMJ's speeches in propaganda publications and inhibition of the individuality and creativity which had flourished during the 1975-76 era. Feeling I had already been through all this and that once was enough, I felt less and less comfortable with the Bay Area premies.
But theological doubts and disenchantment with fellow premies were not sufficient to break an elemental devotion to the Guru; many other premies have managed to harbor questions and avoid premie communities and yet still follow GMJ "in their hearts." My final disillusionment followed specific actions by GMJ himself which I suddenly could not rationalize in a holy light, which suddenly looked to me manipulative, deceitful and greedy. From one day to the next the attitude of guilty, grudging sarcasm which my doubts had fostered turned to intense repudiation. From then on I could not meditate in the old way, for the meditation was inextricably bound up with the Guru, and eventually I came to regard the meditation as misused and the interpretation misleading and possibly harmful.
According to her thesis, she and like-minded DLM writers "wanted the Mission to appear as an intellectual avant-garde." This was typical of DLM attitudes. To appear to be an intellectual avant-garde to the avant-garde you actually must be part of the avant-garde not followers of a tinpot guru with an intellectually barren row to hoe. It does explain the supercilious tone of many of the articles in And It Is Divine.
She did write articles for And It Is Divine about its fantasy lineage of Perfect Masters including one on Shankara and Deganawida.
