I have to agree that it was the premies who attracted me as well.  They were very enthusiastic about knowledge, and at the same time seemed to accepting of me and they seemed to honestly care about whether I had the same nice experience they had.  I had never seen anything like that, having been raised in the stayed, boring Catholic religion. 

So, even though the premies were deluded, they seemed very accepting of people, said they were having a nice experience and they seemed to believe it, and that came accross to me.  It was open, and there were no rules about what people were supposed to say.  This had its ups and downs, but the honesty and enthusiasim was what came accross.

I remember around 1982 or so, the cult in my community was trying to do intro events with videos, and I remember thinking that maybe in 5 years or so it might not seem so uptight and I might actually ask someone I knew to attend one.  The ones I went to were just awful, and I dropped out of the "propagation" effort entirely.  That was kind of the first thing to go.  Next was deference for initiators or cult honchos.  That went around the same time.