Another case study is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. His lineage claims are debatable (go to trancenet.org for more info)
MMY marketed his material and marketed it to Western seekers who were already hungry for esoteric eastern wisdom. His first point of recruitment were persons in societies dedicated to the study of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. And in the late 50s early 60s, nobody knew how to fact check these characters. You can read this in chapters 9 to 14 of an online book by Joyce Collins-Smith entitled Call No Man Master
which can now be purchased on amazon.com
The book, The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Tahir Shah, describes the methods used by Indian magicians and some gurus to create bogus miracles. Be careful with Shah, because you cant be sure whether he has inflated his narrative or invented characters. However, his descriptions of the methods used to work the tricks appear to be reliable and match material offered by Premanand, an Indian rationalist, trying to free his nation from the grip of superstition.
Satya Sai Baba, yet another controversiall guru supposedly materializes objects. Images of SSB supposedly generate holy ash. Once you read Tahir Shah, you will see that all this is accomplished through slight of hand (SSB wears long sleeved robes!) and the self generating ash from the pictures (described in Mick Brown's book, Spiritual Tourist) is a matter of simple chemistry.
There is an extensive series of articles by Brian Steele describing the story telling, re-invention, mythmaking that have sculpted Satya Sai Baba's public image. [
bdsteel.tripod.com]
Mr Steele is a university trained linguist, and his material is likely to meet the standards needed in your research. Steele wrote some publicity material for SSB and when he realized the guru was a faker, has sought to make amends by exposing his lies.
Getting back to your main question, how people are recruited-that is highly complex. By the time you start writing your thesis or dissertation, you may need to phrase that question with somewhat greater precision--eg 'Use of cognitive dissonance in cult recruitment' or 'The role of social support networks in cult recruitment'
Also gurus are likely to use different types of recruitment than entities like Large Group Awareness Training Other cults disguise themselves as Christian churches.
Yet another method is for a cult or guru to rent rooms from a facility such as a Unity Church. That means they can post fliers about their upcoming lectures/events on a Unity bulletin board and gain access to a group of people who have loosely defined 'metaphysical' interests and are trustful that anything or anyone on Unity property is therefore OK. Thats like a computer virus (cult) being able to spread through a program like MS Outlook Express (Unity)
In Call No Man Master, Joyce Collins-Smith describes how Maharishi initially exploited a group that was studying the works of Ouspensky, a follower of Gurdjieff. Ouspensky was dead and the members were adrift, yearning to find someone who could teach them the esoteric wisdom they'd developed an appetite for in the earlier studies. Gurdjieff/Fourth Way groups tend to be good points of recruitment, because IMO Gurdjieff himself fostered gullibility. His sources were untraceable and unverifiable and his followers have a pattern of constantly falling victim to crooks who claim they know the sources of the material Gurdjieff and Ouspensky used.
So by conning the leader and members of this Ouspensky group, Maharishi gained access to a pool of gullible people, their good name, and their resources. The group leader eventually figured out that Maharishi was a fraud but by that time, a momentum had been established. Maharishi hit the jackpot when he recruited the Beatles. Thats yet another method--get a celebrity.