The article considers a number of aspects concerned with the influence of psychocults on the personality of its adherers basing on the literature theoretical analysis on the case of the psycho-cult “Vedic feminity”. The authors have identified certain sect attributes peculiar to the psycho-cult “Vedic feminist”: focus on personal contact in the recruitment process; the commitment to turn the member into a successful person; a mentor personality cult; deprivation of conviction in one’s own beliefs and reassessment of the passed life; creating dependence on the organization and turning the member into an obedient doer. The authors examined the process of taking control over a personality and consciousness on the BITE Model, which includes the control over behavior, information, thinking, and emotions. The findings have revealed that affiliation with a psycho-cult changes self-esteem and self-acceptance of female members, leads to domination of the external motivation system over the internal one, violates the ability to asses one’s own competence.

The article examines the problem of influence of psycho-cult «Vedic femininity» on personal autonomy of women-participants. It states that the main audience of the psycho-cult are women who are seeking to solve their personal and financial problems through participation in this psycho-cult. It gives a generalized characteristic of the phenomenon «personal autonomy» and shows that it is exactly the object for the impact of the Vedic femininity psycho-cult. The article substantiates availability of the destructive mind control by the Vedic femininity psycho-cult within the BITE-model of Hassana S. It describes the results of an empirical study on a sample of women aged 25 to 38 years studying in «Vedic femininity» schools through direct participation (seminars, lectures, trainings) and reading specialized literature, being under the influence of psycho-cult from 1 to 3 years. Comparison of the results of studying the personal autonomy of the women influenced by and of those not coming under the influence of the «Vedic femininity» psycho-cult testifies a decrease of such personal autonomy indicators among the women of the first group, such as: the level of self-determination, self-acceptance and self-respect, the level of conscious competence, the level of accepting own aggression and internal consistency of the motives, decisions and actions.