Thanks.

I used the phrase cult template as Susan used it. I was thinking perhaps, for what I meant, the phrase cult framing might be a better description. But I thought what Susan was saying was pretty close to what I was thinking so I kept her phrase.

I meant that you could lose the belief system from your cult, but still retain some of the ways of seeing and responding as if those beliefs were still there. 

It wasn't a big step to conclude that Prem Rawat isn't a Satguru, and not much of a step to add that there is no such thing as a Satguru. You could dump all the obvious big fat stupid concepts of the cult and still harbour uncritical beliefs in say the inherent good in each of us that just needs uncovering, ideas that were probably in us culturally before the cult but were reinforced in our time there. 

In the cult I learned to suppress my own confidence in some things, as if being confident was actually hiding away our true nature which was vulnerability. It is possible after all, to acknowledge the tiny small speckiness of our little selves and still be really, really good at maths. I hid the maths for a long time, long enough to become not so great at it any more. I looked for the best in people and I put my trust in some that I shouldn't have gone near. Naivety perhaps, but I think cultivated by the cult (don't trust your mind) and even when you try to exercise some judgement, it goes against the grain. A mind suppressed by years of cultivated naivety and wishful thinking doesn't become suddenly razor sharp as soon as you dump the guru.

Hence the great appreciation of Mr Kahneman's forensic analysis. Sapolsky looks interesting too. If I read them both, that might be my final act of imagined free will. Thanks for the recommendation. It would be very nice to "discuss" one day.