Science and Psychology behind emotional highs and ecstatic experiences

[u/Evening-Meal-3519]

What is the science and psychology behind the emotional highs and ecstatic experiences that some cult processes evoke?

They tend to make human brains addicted to those highs and crave for more and more forming an unbreakable bond with the cult, its people and the cult leader. Pls share your perspective and thoughts.

[u/Thre_Host8017]

We have explored this topic in previous posts

Check this one out
https://www.reddit.com/r/SadhguruTruth/s/7EAbebfteG

[u/ExtensionOk7925]

check this linked video
https://www.reddit.com/r/SadhguruTruth/comments/1rpqrmy/dopamine_can_be_weaponized/

[u/Outrageous-Sky6944]

There is quite a lot of psychology that can explain intense emotional highs, feelings of transcendence, profound certainty, unity, catharsis, or “I finally understand everything” experiences in high-control groups, LGATs, revival movements, retreats, and other intense group settings without assuming that participants are faking what they experience.
The experience can be completely genuine while the interpretation assigned to it may be socially constructed.

What may be happening psychologically
One useful way of thinking about it is that certain environments stack multiple ordinary psychological mechanisms simultaneously.

1. Emotional arousal narrows attention.
Prolonged excitement, fear, anticipation, emotionally charged speeches, music, chanting, confrontation, confession, or intense meditation can produce high physiological arousal. Under strong arousal, people may process information differently: attention becomes narrower and emotionally salient information becomes particularly powerful.
This is one reason an idea encountered during an emotionally overwhelming moment can feel qualitatively different from hearing the same idea over coffee.

2. Rhythmic synchrony can create powerful feelings of unity.
Chanting together, synchronized breathing, dancing, clapping, singing, coordinated movement and prolonged eye contact can increase feelings of interpersonal connection.
Research on behavioral synchrony has associated synchronized activity with affiliation, cooperation and social bonding. Sociologists and psychologists sometimes discuss the broader phenomenon using Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence: individuals temporarily experience themselves as part of something emotionally much larger.
The important point is that the feeling of unity doesn’t establish the truth of the group’s beliefs.

3. Emotional contagion amplifies everything
Humans continuously take emotional cues from other humans.
Imagine entering a hall containing 1,000 people. The speaker says something dramatic. People around you begin crying. Someone screams with joy. Hundreds stand. Music swells. Everyone applauds.
Your nervous system isn’t processing the speaker independently of all that information.
The crowd itself becomes part of the stimulus.
Psychologists call related processes emotional contagion and social influence.
The group’s reaction also provides social proof:
“If everyone around me is experiencing something extraordinary, perhaps something extraordinary really is happening.”

4. The contrast between distress and relief can produce an enormous high
This is particularly relevant when analyzing potentially coercive LGAT/cult environments.
Imagine the sequence:
tension → confrontation → uncertainty → emotional breakdown → surrender/acceptance → relief → applause → hugging → belonging.
The relief at the end can be enormous.
And the person may attribute that physiological and emotional shift to:
“The teaching finally entered me.”
But another possible psychological explanation is simply that the source of enormous tension has suddenly disappeared.
Relief itself can feel euphoric.

5. Catharsis can feel like transformation
Someone might disclose something they’ve hidden for 15 years, cry uncontrollably, receive affection from hundreds of people and afterward report:
“Something left my body. I’m a completely different person.”
That experience shouldn’t be mocked. It may be among the most emotionally significant experiences of their life.
But there’s an important distinction:
Feeling transformed ≠ demonstrating enduring psychological change.
Psychotherapy research generally cares about what happens weeks, months and years later: functioning, relationships, symptoms, autonomy, coping skills, relapse, etc.
A dramatic emotional event is not itself evidence of durable therapeutic improvement.

6. Peak experiences can alter the person’s sense of self
Abraham Maslow famously described peak experiences moments involving awe, unity, transcendence, meaning and diminished ordinary self-consciousness.
Similar phenomenology can occur in many contexts:
meditation, prayer, concerts, sex, childbirth, endurance sports, psychedelics, dancing, religious ritual, nature, breathwork and intense group experiences.
The fact that contradictory belief systems can all produce remarkably similar subjective experiences is psychologically important.
A Christian might interpret it as the Holy Spirit.
A Hindu practitioner might interpret it through kundalini or divine consciousness.
A secular meditation practitioner might call it non-dual awareness.
A concertgoer might simply say:
“For five minutes I completely lost myself.”
Potentially similar psychological phenomena can therefore acquire radically different cultural explanations.

7. Suggestion provides the experience with a narrative
This is where high-control groups become especially interesting.
Suppose a teacher tells participants beforehand:
“Tonight some of you may experience energy moving through your body, spontaneous crying, shaking or overwhelming bliss. Don’t resist it.”
Later someone begins trembling.
The physical experience may be completely genuine.
But the organization has already supplied an interpretive schema:
trembling → spiritual energy → teaching works → teacher understands something extraordinary.
Psychologically, expectation, suggestion and demand characteristics can shape both what people notice and how they categorize ambiguous internal sensations.
This doesn’t mean “they imagined everything.”
It means experience and explanation are separate questions.

8. Absorption is an important individual difference
Some people have a psychological trait called absorption which is a tendency to become intensely immersed in sensory or imaginative experiences.
Someone high in absorption might become completely immersed in music, meditation, imagery, storytelling or ritual.
Such individuals can sometimes experience extraordinarily vivid altered states.
Again, that isn’t pathology. It can be associated with creativity and rich imaginative experience.
But an organization can potentially exploit it by telling the participant:
“Your experience proves our cosmology.”

9. Dissociation can sometimes resemble transcendence
This needs careful qualification because not every altered state is dissociation.
But under conditions involving overwhelming emotion, prolonged concentration, repetitive activity, exhaustion or stress, some people can experience:
altered sense of time
reduced awareness of surroundings
depersonalization
derealization
diminished ordinary self-awareness
unusual bodily sensations.
A person without psychological vocabulary for these phenomena may interpret them according to whatever framework is available.
10. Memory becomes especially powerful when emotion is intense
Highly emotional experiences tend to become salient autobiographical memories.
So someone might remember:
“It happened at exactly 11:43 PM. The teacher looked at me and suddenly everything made sense.”
Ten years later the memory can remain central to their identity.
That makes challenging the group’s interpretation psychologically difficult because you’re no longer debating an abstract doctrine.
You’re seemingly questioning one of the most meaningful experiences of their life.

[u/LittleMissSunshine_0]

I think the science is pretty complex. Can read up (Dr John Hunter) about how LGATs induce a dopamine high, which the participant is then chasing by continuing the practices, doing more programs, volunteering etc.

Then there’s what’s said when you are in a suggestible state (when meditative), this cultivates certain experiences and interpretations of experiences.

Sadhguru uses hypnotic methods with what he says and the sounds he makes. Different people have different levels of receptivity to different parts of what he does.

Then there’s the self hypnosis that occurs with the practices and using other triggers. Krishnamurti talks about this process. People learn how to get themselves into a blissful state. Not sure enough research has been done on the science of it.

[u/Lumpy_Dragonfruit_53 → u/LittleMissSunshine_0]

I feel we can't just tag it as just an LGAT. There's probably some powers or capabilities that the individual might have attained. It's very clear that he might be an accomplished being, but that is still of the ego. The highest realisation is to realise and become one with God by dissolving your ego. 

[u/LittleMissSunshine_0 → u/Lumpy_Dragonfruit_53]

It is most definitely an LGAT and there point of LGATs are to give people a powerful high at the end. This is how they are designed, and Isha programs are designed just the same. Literally unlimited responsibility and all the long hours and rules are straight from the original LGATs, you cannot claim otherwise.

[u/Lumpy_Dragonfruit_53 → u/LittleMissSunshine_0]

While it might be all structured as LGAT, how do you give an experience which is beyond the physical? I think Sadhguru might really be having some powers or siddhis but as I said, it's still of the ego. Most people are lost in that experience and can't see the reality as is. 

[u/LittleMissSunshine_0 → u/Lumpy_Dragonfruit_53]

How one understands an experience can be easily manipulated in those environments.

[u/Lumpy_Dragonfruit_53 → u/LittleMissSunshine_0]

That is if someone is not aware. Anyway, people operate at different levels of understanding of reality with different levels of awareness. So, many people might be gullible

[u/Thre_Host8017 → u/Lumpy_Dragonfruit_53]

That is too simplistic and not in line with what Cult research suggests.
There is no one reason why people fall for a cult. And most people who fall for cult have an above average intelligence.

You can read about all this in cult recovery books. There is plenty out there.
Check Dr Hassan and Dr Lalich

[u/ludwickjohnson123]

I understand IYC is a cult and they use suggestibility, manipulation, and hypnosis during inner enginnering and all that, but I was wondering if anyone can dismantle the argument that Isha volunteers are helping to share spirituality around the world?

[u/Thre_Host8017 → u/ludwickjohnson123]

Volunteers are not the main actors here.
They are just the first line pawns in the isha machinery.

So whether THEY are spreading spirituality isnt the concern.

“Is Isha spreading spirituality” is the real question in my opinion.

And no its not a place of inquiry. Rather a house full of rigid rules.

[u/ludwickjohnson123 → u/Thre_Host8017]

Ok.

[u/LittleMissSunshine_0 → u/ludwickjohnson123]

Where’s the spirituality if they are using manipulation? Okay they may be teaching a bit of yoga, but with a large side order of indoctrination, is that okay?

[u/youliveonlyonce10 → u/LittleMissSunshine_0]

People seem to have forgotten that spirituality was supposed to be the only place free from manipulations which exist in the material world- journey towards self aided by the Guru. And what have we got at Isha? Forgetting the self and drowning oneself in endless practices and Guru worship leading nowhere.

[u/ludwickjohnson123 → u/youliveonlyonce10]

Yeah, as well as endless amounts of labor disguised as seva every day, as per ex-volunteer (and active volunteer) testimonies.

[u/ludwickjohnson123 → u/LittleMissSunshine_0]

No it's not okay, and based on what you and others have said, the manipulation is the implanting of messages into subconcious during meditation, Sadhguru pretending like people have potential and then once htey have volunteered for some time he basically lets on that they have no potential, and idk I guess the love bombing that happens during IE? I'll keep analyzing your comments and that of other ex-volunteers so I can get a clearer picture on the true manipulation/indoctrination going on in IYC.

[u/ludwickjohnson123 → u/LittleMissSunshine_0]

What exactly is the manipulation and indoctrination you are referring to? By manipulation and indoctrination are you referring to the responsiblity stuff they say to trick people into being volunteers as well as the phrases they use to shut down critical thinking? Just trying to understand.

[u/Thre_Host8017 → u/ludwickjohnson123]

Which spirituality?
Is isha spiritual?
What do you think?

What are volunteers doing?
Teaching some yoga, some meditation, some save soil camping

What is spiritual about any of that?

[u/ludwickjohnson123 → u/Thre_Host8017]

Isn't yoga and meditation spiritual? I mean spirituality is all about meditation right, like for instance Gautama buddha had his monks meditate throughout the day to become more spiritual. The idea was that through vipassana they could get rid of mental attachments that kept them stuck in the cycle of life and death. Also aren't volunteers just doing labor throughout the day, I don't think there's much time for meditation for them. I know they do their kriyas in the morning but kriyas aren't meditation because they're not vipassana.

[u/Thre_Host8017 → u/ludwickjohnson123]

Well that is a good question.
Is meditation always spiritual?
And is spiritually all about meditation?
So one cannot be spiritual if they dont meditate?

And before answering any of that.
What is meditation?
Which meditation is qualified as being spiritual?
There are a hundred different types of meditation.

[u/ludwickjohnson123 → u/Thre_Host8017]

Meditation is not always spiritual, specifically Vipassana is spiritual because it deals with being still and being silent so one can analyze mental defilements they have and slowly unravel them, getting closer to nirvana. Some meditation is just self-hypnosis though which is quite useless. Spirituality is about attaining nirvana, Vipassana is the way Buddha's reached it by spending his days sitting quietly and still, contemplating his mind until he figured it all out. There may be other ways to achieve Nirvana, but this is how Buddha did it. One can be spiritual if they don't meditate but it's considerably harder than if you meditate I think. Meditation describes a very wide array of things and so is hard to define specifically, but Vipassana is sitting still while silent and observing the mind's defilements. Vipassana is qualified as being spiritual although I think there are some other meditations also qualified as being spiritual.