Report on the "Rama" Computer Cult

(Revision #4, February 1991)

This is a report on the cult led by Frederick Lenz, III, who styles himself as "Zen Master Rama". This is a destructive cult. Lenz has not claimed tax exemption as a religious organization as many other destructive cults have. However, he does conduct the cult under a veneer of Buddhism. This enables him to counter any comment or criticism or his activities by accusing the critic of commentator of regligious bigotry and interfering with the 1st Amendment rights of his followers. The cult, started by Lenz, commenced as a group dedicated to increasing the human potential of the student-members through study of Hinduism. Over the course of time it has evolved into an extremely effective and profitable scheme for extorting large sums of money from the "student-members". Using the techniques of mind control, alternatively called mind abuse or thought reform, and acting under the guise of their spiritual teacher, Lenz has established a strong hold over a group of some 250 people. In this fashion, and using both psychic and physical threats, Lenz is extorting sums estimated to range from $4,000,000 to $10,000,000 per year from the group as donations or payment for his instruction.

This report has been prepared to correlate and consolidate as much as possible of the currently available information on Lenz and his activities to serve as the basis for further investigation and action by appropriate public and private agencies. An attempt has been made to include enough detail to make this an effective source for further investigation, and, at the same time, make it a readable narrative.

The existence and activities of this cult and its leader should be of serious concern to -

• Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies because of the potential for fraud, particularly tax fraud, currency offenses and civil rights violations posed by the methods used.
• Computer and telecommunication business and facilities due to the security risks imposed by the concentration of members of this group in computer and telecommunication fields.
• Family members and public health officials, due to the serious and long lasting damage to the mental health of the people caught up in this cult.

The group has no name, as the Moonies and other cults do. This is because Lenz purports to be a spiritual teacher, not a group or cult leader. Lenz represents himself as simply a person who teaches seminars one or two evenings a month. The followers are deluded into looking upon themselves as students. They vociferously deny they are members of a cult.

The most spectacular and frightening example of mind control in recent years was when Jim Jones convinced more than nine hundred members of the Peoples' Temple commune in Guyana to commit suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool Aid. It is difficult for most Americans, accustomed as they are to the idea of independent thought, to believe that one man, using the techniques of mind control, can establish overpowering domination of the thoughts and actions of others. To many people, the Jonestown case was an exception, something that could only happen to a group of people who may have been deficient in some respect.

Today more and more Americans have come to realize that the Jonestown tragedy was not an isolated incident but only one manifestation of an ever-growing problem. There are some 3,000 cults in the United States today. Some of the more well known are the Moonies, the Hare Krishnas and the Church of Scientology. Some of them are relatively benign and harmless, but there are many more that are as vicious and destructive as the Peoples' Temple.