I think this is important. I agree, of course, he was a child himself and if you read on prem-rawat-bio he spoke about his father as being scary to the point of child Prem Rawat trembling in fear. I don't have a good impression of Mata Ji either, she seemed to function as a stage mother. Not only this, as a 16 year old he married a 24 year old premie, which reportedly was a relationship that had been kept secret for some time before. 

I think of this more as mitigating in how to look at him. If he had stepped down as a child. It would have been to hold him responsible for being what he was taught to be.

In an above thread, the 1976, which I think is the year he turned 18, push to come down off the throne happened. He's a young adult, but what Mishler describes, is a decision, motivated primarily by financial self interest, to not just continue to be Satguru, but in the years 1976-1982/3 or so... he was ramping up the demands to devote your all to him, join the ashram, surrender... as it has been coined... "the heavy devotional era".  There has been a little discussion too, about his very disturbing behind the scenes behavior during those 6-7 years. He had an enormous impact on his followers lives, many of whom took his "when you sing Arti mean it!" "when you say Bhole Shri Maharaj Ki Jai" mean it. Surrender. "guru maharaj ji is that supreme power, is and always will be" "when you have a perfect master you can't do anything but worship him". I agree, here, he is an adult, and he has already had one reported crisis of conscience, where he made a choice, to not step back, but ramp it up.

Then, Dettmers described the San Ysidro Ranch intervention. From what I understand, before that, Prem had already begun hiding from the public what the beliefs really were about him. But what premies believed sounds unchanged. When confronted, he again, became angry and balked. So he's had, at least two, adult opportunities to change it.

I have found many many pictures of Indians who currently have altars to him in their homes, and they not rarely post photos of their small children being taught to worship at these altars. There is a lot of evidence, that things, while not spoken of openly, are not really so different, about the importance of the Master in the scheme of the belief system. All one has to do is look at social media comment when he is criticized to see the cult is still a cult. Or look at the fawning praise when he published the Sara Sidner interview. Or the fawning praise in the South Africa coffee with potential PR girl with Marolyn and Paul Bloomfield. I'd point to the comments as demonstrating it's still a personality cult.

While nearly all abusers were abused themselves it isn't true that abused children usually become abusers themselves.  I want to understand it too and explore it in a way that is fair and open. But I agree, it doesn't absolve him of his responsibility for exploiting others as an adult.  What nature nurture combo resulted in this cult leader? A fair question.

As for forgiving ourselves. I would point to more, we need to do the work to learn about cults and cult members. We remain vulnerable if we do not. We may remain vulnerable, as all humans are, anyway, but less so if we understand it. We are social animals who desire meaning and belonging and to make sense of our world. Generally cult experts say cults members are not stupid nor are they defective in some way. They generally agree on two qualities of cult members, they are idealistic, and they fall prey at a vulnerable time of some sort in their lives.  

I think our cult, like many others, idealized to nearly fetishizing childhood. The boy guru, the guiless heart of a child, the children being on stage and in all the magazines, schools.  In the cult now, they prominently focus on images of children, Prem writing a children's book promoting it with images of Japanese children. Prem proudly leading a group of child scouts in Malaysia. Prem feeding children in South Africa and visiting a school waving to toddlers as he departs. Images of him giving kids candy. They are so proud the Peace Education program is in schools all over the world. They show a group of US teens watching a TV monitor of Prem speaking.  They show one teen boy talking about what "Prem's" words mean to him. 

Fairy tale is right. They are always scary. Who's the hero in this fairy tale?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNs_5M0eG-k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGgeiyslyOo