Peter Macdonald Blachly takes us on an amazing adventure, documenting the 17 years he spent in a spiritual cult, while providing candid insights into the circumstances and conditions that made him vulnerable to manipulation by a charismatic sociopath. His understanding of psychology and human weaknesses, and the lessons he draws from his own experiences are universal, making his memoir highly relevant today. 

The book provides a riveting account of Blachly’s introduction to yoga, his arranged marriage, and a thrilling and entertaining view of India during the 1970s and 1980s, when he undertook multiple extended tours, studying and performing the sacred music of the Sikhs, teaching yoga to young people in New Delhi, and learning to read, write, and speak Punjabi. 

Back in the United States, Blachly takes us on another adventure, leading the Khalsa String Band, which he founded in 1974, on a multi-city performance tour throughout North America, shortly after opening the “Golden Temple Conscious Cookery”, the first full-service vegetarian restaurant in Washington, DC. The stories are told with self-deprecating humor, and with compassion for those who were traumatized by the abuse meted out by their spiritual teacher, Yogi Bhajan, a self-styled messiah of the Sikhs. 

Blachly manages to weave together these world-traveling adventures with his own spiritual journey as one of the first people to don a turban in the early days of the Yogi Bhajan cult, which he joined in 1970. Although he pulls no punches about his gradual disillusionment with the moral failings of his teacher, the book does not come off as an exposé. Rather, it is his self-awareness and clear-eyed examination of his own vulnerable sense of identity—which made him susceptible to Yogi Bhajan’s manipulations—that sets the book apart from other memoirs. 

In the words of cult expert Stephen Hassan, "Whether practicing one of the world’s religions, following a spiritual teacher, participating in an authoritarian cult, or in the thralls of a charismatic political leader, The Inner Circle provides valuable and entertaining lessons."