Forum V: Archive
Compiled: Sat, Jun 16, 2001 at 06:12:05 (GMT)
From: Jun 07, 2001 To: Jun 14, 2001 Page: 2 Of: 5


Tim Matheson -:- EPO report to LORD MAHARAJI via Pia -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 08:56:15 (GMT)
__ Stonorji Wannabi ;) -:- EPO report to LORD MAHARAJI via Pia -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 14:02:27 (GMT)
__ toby -:- You just forgot to mention his footnails (NT) -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:46:43 (GMT)
__ __ Tim Matheson -:- Alright Toby, I'll share when I score -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 18:56:21 (GMT)
__ Sandy -:- If you have a subconscious need to communicate -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:25:16 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- You're SUCH a big crybaby! (nt) -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:49:41 (GMT)
__ __ Scot J -:- If it's any consolation, -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:14:45 (GMT)
__ __ __ Sandy -:- I'm given' 'er everythin' she's got, Cap'n! -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 18:01:03 (GMT)
__ __ Katie H -:- Sandy, I think he's teasing you... -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:08:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ Sandy -:- Duh, Katie! -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 18:03:43 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Katie H -:- I know I was pointing out the obvious! -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 03:49:03 (GMT)
__ Tim Matheson -:- Correction -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 09:18:56 (GMT)
__ __ Simon Satsang -:- Correction -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 09:42:04 (GMT)
__ __ __ cq -:- Correction? Wake me up Scotty! -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 20:03:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ Scot J -:- Laughed so hard my gut aches! NT -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:19:33 (GMT)
__ __ __ Bob -:- Ulcer-nukes?? -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 14:37:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ PatC -:- Ulcer from booze but still saved us from nukes -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 17:39:52 (GMT)

la-ex -:- anyone gone to one of the propagation trainings? -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 05:37:04 (GMT)
__ Gary Epton -:- Interesting how things work . . . -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 00:24:59 (GMT)
__ MK -:- Not quite, but nearly... -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 17:20:58 (GMT)
__ __ PatC -:- Marolyn, sounds like you and I are starting our -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 23:49:25 (GMT)
__ __ Jean-Michel -:- Marolyn ? Are you my ex-colleague ? -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:44:28 (GMT)
__ __ __ MK -:- no, we're still colleagues -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 06:06:22 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ PatC -:- Thanks, Marolyn, for that recipe -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 18:27:48 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ MK -:- Ok, happy chomping Pat... -:- Tues, Jun 12, 2001 at 15:31:06 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ PatC -:- Bhang lassi, Marolyn or tea -:- Tues, Jun 12, 2001 at 18:09:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- Oh my God! You eat eggs??? (nt) -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 16:03:17 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ MK -:- Yes, Free Range of course... -:- Tues, Jun 12, 2001 at 15:36:50 (GMT)

Nigel -:- Well it made me laugh... -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 00:25:00 (GMT)
__ Robyn -:- Well it made me laugh... -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 04:36:20 (GMT)
__ Connie -:- Well your last line made me laugh. -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:12:14 (GMT)
__ __ G -:- Same with Sai Baba's abuse. -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:58:11 (GMT)
__ __ __ Connie -:- abuses in all the 'other' cults -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 03:45:53 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Deborah -:- abuses in all the 'other' cults -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:57:34 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Connie -:- abuses in all the 'other' cults -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 23:59:47 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Carl -:- Ananda Marga group similar in some ways. -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 14:34:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ G -:- Baba ji -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 16:14:48 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Carl -:- That's it, I forgot! Yes, it was Baba ji, Thx./nt -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 21:34:52 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Connie -:- If you thought you rambled, oh boy, wait till -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:52:27 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Gary Epton -:- abuses in all the 'other' cults -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 02:01:36 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Scot J -:- abuses in all the 'other' cults -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:33:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Connie -:- yeah, not wanting to know the truth -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 00:18:00 (GMT)

Silvia -:- Kalamazoo, Michigan:KISSY, KISSY -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:56:26 (GMT)
__ Marianne -:- Kalamazoo - my old stomping grounds -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 00:33:23 (GMT)
__ Deborah -:- I'm not going away either---nt -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:03:24 (GMT)
__ __ Bin Liner -:- Me neither , I 've already done a life stretch.. -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 22:35:38 (GMT)

JHB -:- How Jonathan deals with stress -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 22:31:18 (GMT)
__ cq -:- if only we'd had the 'Knowledge' in 1939 ... -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 20:30:16 (GMT)
__ Jerry -:- How Jonathan deals with stress -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:25:48 (GMT)
__ Joy -:- I remember him from 1972 -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:17:45 (GMT)
__ __ Francesca -:- I remember him too -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:38:36 (GMT)
__ __ __ Bryn -:- Holy Name in public situations. -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:37:09 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Moldy Warp -:- Holy Name in public situations. -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:50:49 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Yer righto, Moldy and Bryn -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 18:56:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Nigeandmoldy -:- exactly right, f. -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:10:41 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Pitbulled, yes my own I think -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 05:11:31 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Bryn -:- I gave up public nectar -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:17:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Moldy Warp -:- nectar and dangerously lengthened reaction -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:59:47 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Bryn -:- On being detected 'doing the holy name' -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 10:43:05 (GMT)
__ __ Connie -:- After nearly thirty years with Knowledge -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 01:40:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ Francesca -:- Yeah, I hadn't thought of that -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:43:17 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Bryn -:- What if he discovered one day.... -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:04:45 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Connie -:- Yeah, I hadn't thought of that -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 04:15:29 (GMT)

Susan. From Cults: Faith, -:- Healing and Coercion By Marc Galanter -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:12:43 (GMT)
__ Deborah -:- Healing and Coercion By Marc Galanter -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 20:36:15 (GMT)
__ Susan more I hope someone -:- will copy for site ... -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 19:27:52 (GMT)
__ Helen -:- Healing and Coercion By Marc Galanter -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 19:06:52 (GMT)
__ Jim -:- A few sad predictions for Pia's site -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:34:42 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- A few happy predictions for Pia's site -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:51:24 (GMT)
__ Susan -:- my letter to Pia today -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:08:17 (GMT)
__ __ Jerry -:- Excellent point, Susan -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:52:29 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- But who are we to judge Pia's experience? -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:13:12 (GMT)
__ Jim -:- But who are we to judge Janice's experience? -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:21:28 (GMT)
__ __ Francesca -:- Irony pills, anyone! Daily dose needed on FV n/t -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:52:48 (GMT)

cq -:- NiceGuy makes serious allegations against EPO -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 15:07:14 (GMT)
__ Katie H -:- This guy is pretty naive! -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:37:03 (GMT)
__ __ JohnT -:- ... or daft -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:10:14 (GMT)
__ Forum Administrator -:- NiceGuy makes serious allegations against EPO -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:12:08 (GMT)
__ __ Gary Epton -:- Must have been that recent spammer dude/dudette(nt -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:22:32 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- And Stonor makes weird allegations there herself -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:34:57 (GMT)
__ __ __ janet -:- xenophobia==fear of Xena??? -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 09:35:12 (GMT)
__ __ __ JohnT -:- NiceGuy = Mili (?) -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 08:58:25 (GMT)

Kali -:- Anti-cult group in Australia -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:34:43 (GMT)
__ Francesca -:- Sir Dave, perhaps you could make a link -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:43:02 (GMT)
__ __ Sir Dave -:- Sir Dave, perhaps you could make a link -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 10:07:11 (GMT)
__ __ __ Francesca -:- Yer, great, SD===================n/t -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 19:01:05 (GMT)

Sandy -:- Ignorance is bliss...? -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:25:02 (GMT)
__ Deborah -:- Unfortunately, you're right---Ignorance is bliss? -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 20:56:24 (GMT)
__ Steve M -:- Sandy you forget.. -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:20:24 (GMT)
__ __ Sandy -:- Only to remember again... -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 21:52:48 (GMT)

janet -:- I sent to it aint so, defending Combat issue -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 13:13:47 (GMT)
__ Jean-Michel -:- Janet defending me -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 02:33:42 (GMT)
__ __ janet -:- Janet defending me--why i did it -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 10:07:15 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jean-Michel -:- I found your letter was great ! -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 17:18:56 (GMT)
__ Alan F. -:- Pattern behavior -Donner please read -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:37:04 (GMT)
__ __ donner -:- Pattern behavior -Donner please read -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 03:44:33 (GMT)
__ __ Bin Liner -:- Getting rich on the cheap is Rawat's pattern -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 01:26:54 (GMT)

nagual rain -:- some wise man said...(.it wasn't me) -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 11:41:56 (GMT)
__ Gary Epton -:- You're right you are not a wise man -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 01:22:16 (GMT)
__ __ Katie H -:- Great Post, Gary - ***BEST of FORUM*** -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:56:21 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- No he isn't, Gar, but you sure are (nt) -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:31:48 (GMT)
__ __ __ Gary Epton -:- 25 years, a bottle of Jim, and EPO (nt) -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 05:59:56 (GMT)
__ Helen -:- some wise man said...(.it wasn't me) -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 22:58:26 (GMT)
__ G -:- The definition of 'cult' -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 22:15:41 (GMT)
__ Deborah -:- Let us not forget the jerk who said. 'It IS me' -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 21:19:59 (GMT)
__ Francesca -:- nagual, the meaning -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:40:15 (GMT)
__ __ Gary Epton -:- nagual, the meaning -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:35:18 (GMT)
__ __ __ Stonor -:- nagual, the meaning -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 00:18:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Stonor -:- and even more broad ... -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 00:33:33 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Thanks for that Stonor -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:59:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Stonor -:- Thanks for that Francesca! -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:01:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Nice talking with you too -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 19:09:06 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Castenada was a TOTAL fraud (and asshole) -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 03:25:54 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Carl -:- Need info on 'Castenada was a TOTAL fraud' /OT -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 04:22:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- Tell your friend to read up on it, Carl... -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 01:43:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- The BEST forum archives search is -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 19:13:07 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Carl -:- Thank You !!! I was wondering when I'd have a -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:10:25 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- URL for debunking Castaneda, Naguals -ot- -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:10:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Carl -:- Thanks much! I'll forward it to my buddy.. /nt -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:24:23 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Carl, I did a long post on this once -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 06:32:34 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ PatC -:- but Castenada's stories sure were good on acid -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 08:08:05 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Some people read Lynn Andrews too BARF --n/t -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 19:14:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ PatC -:- Who's that?-----------------n/t -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 00:43:49 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- New agey female shaman books -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 05:22:35 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ PatC -:- New Age equivalent of valium and martinis -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 19:41:14 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Keeps Shirley McLaine in spare change LOL n/t -:- Tues, Jun 12, 2001 at 04:32:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ PatC -:- nagual pronounced, ''Nag you all?'' - NT -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:51:41 (GMT)
__ Susan -:- leave but be quiet about it like the others? -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:22:53 (GMT)
__ Jim -:- Revenge, understanding and public service -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:11:29 (GMT)
__ Francesca -:- SO what are you doing here, preachy teachy??? -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:03:33 (GMT)
__ __ Carl -:- BINGO! You said it, Frenchy! -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:35:06 (GMT)
__ Joy -:- EPO is not a cult and we are not hate-filled -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:25:23 (GMT)
__ Richard -:- I am going about my business -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 15:07:18 (GMT)
__ __ Nigel -:- '..and that is my business'.... -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 22:33:35 (GMT)
__ __ Francesca -:- BEST OF FORUM *** great post ;o) ---n/t -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:07:50 (GMT)
__ __ __ Katie H -:- I agree - Richard's post: BEST OF FORUM! -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:54:49 (GMT)
__ __ __ Richard -:- You are too kind, Francesca -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:41:18 (GMT)
__ tonal nagual -:- a yawn brings oxygen into the bloodstream -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:48:39 (GMT)
__ cq -:- you need to know the definition of the word 'cult' -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:15:28 (GMT)
__ Bob -:- stop rawat -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:05:42 (GMT)
__ Toby -:- some wise man said...(.it wasn't me) -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 13:07:26 (GMT)
__ JHB -:- You are wrong -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 12:30:51 (GMT)
__ __ Tony -:- You sure are wrong. -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 12:53:55 (GMT)
__ __ __ Tony -:- PS You show me a premie who has achieved -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 13:06:22 (GMT)

Mr. Mind -:- Why isn't our K session vow on EPO? -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 09:47:50 (GMT)
__ Mr. Mind -:- Here it is-(Warning-a MAJOR CRINGE) -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 10:01:32 (GMT)
__ __ Jean-Michel -:- K session and vows ALREADY onN EPO !! -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 09:43:08 (GMT)
__ __ __ Mr. Mind -:- Thanks, J-M -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 09:57:02 (GMT)
__ __ Katie H -:- The rules that went with the vow? -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:48:20 (GMT)
__ __ __ Richard -:- Plus one more impossible 'commandment' to follow -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:56:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Katie -:- The name 'Commandments' was evocative itself -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:59:38 (GMT)
__ __ Bryn -:- Above was a major factor in M getting rich nt -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:55:19 (GMT)
__ __ Deborah -:- No wonder Maharaji never wanted a divorce.... -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 21:43:59 (GMT)
__ __ PatC -:- PWKs ask why I break vow and show K -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:57:42 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Sorry, Pat -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:49:51 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ PatC -:- I divorced him once in 1978 -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 20:35:56 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- Good one! JM? You want this? DLM / EV Papers? -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:44:01 (GMT)

Tony -:- It's my knowledge birthday. -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 08:09:29 (GMT)
__ PatC -:- Yay, snatched with abandon! -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 08:32:46 (GMT)

G -:- What Carlos says -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 05:44:10 (GMT)
__ Mr. Mind -:- Mr. Mind refreshes Carlos' memory -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 09:24:58 (GMT)

Jim -:- My reply to WS (from Pia's site 'staff') -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 05:23:45 (GMT)
__ Jim -:- Just re-read my post -- really good one, Jim! -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:45:19 (GMT)
__ __ PatC -:- Yes, it is a really good one, Jim! -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 21:06:02 (GMT)
__ __ __ Gary -:- Yes, it is a really, really, good one, -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 07:34:31 (GMT)
__ A gardener -:- Wrt 'dead' seeds -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:24:22 (GMT)
__ Jean-Michel -:- And MY version of the Combat publication's history -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 07:35:43 (GMT)
__ __ Katie H -:- Thanks, J-M - should be BEST OF FORUM, or... -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:29:24 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jean-Michel -:- It's a bit more complicated -:- Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:32:32 (GMT)
__ __ Richard -:- And MY version of the Combat publication's history -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 15:21:30 (GMT)
__ janet -:- your analyses always draw me-but a few pointers -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 07:21:16 (GMT)
__ __ Jim -:- you talk your way, and I'll talk mine -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 08:37:24 (GMT)
__ __ __ janet -:- ya know, jim...i pointed this out in effort -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 11:28:56 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- Yes, thanks, but give me a fucking break -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:07:16 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ janet -:- you might be surprised to hear it, but -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 10:23:40 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- And furthermore ........... -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 16:06:03 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Fuck off, Janet -:- Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:33:59 (GMT)
__ __ __ Jim -:- Oops! Typo -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 08:40:29 (GMT)
__ __ __ __ Jerry -:- That still doesn't fix it -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:12:49 (GMT)
__ Steve M -:- Jim that's superb analysis - thanks nt -:- Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 06:27:17 (GMT)


Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 08:56:15 (GMT)
From: Tim Matheson
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: EPO report to LORD MAHARAJI via Pia
Message:
My Dearest LORD MAHARAJI(We will never be ashamed of you),

Let me start this report by thanking you for this AGYA via Darshan Dream. It is very exasperating at times dealing with these so-called ex-premies. However, like the song you taught us, I'm seeing that 'HIS GRACE is a never ending well'.

Anyway, the same old stuff is happening here at the so-called ex-premie forum. Janet revealed latent hostilities towards Jim, who responded in kind. Wow, LORD, they both can sling those words.

One report after another continues to appear about your worldly behavior. They just don't understand that no matter what YOU do we are not ashamed. For as you have taught us, so wisely, we are just not capable of understanding why you could accidentally run over someone, kill them and then let someone else take the blame. Who are we to judge OUR LORD? I mean, what about Ted Kennedy? He got away with it, so why shouldn't the LORD OF THE WHOLE UNIVERSE.

In closing, let me mention that Sandy needs your HOLY Discourse(I almost said intercourse)real bad.

Also I was reminded yesterday at the forum of my spiritual birthday and how in full Pranam to your picture you allowed me to say the following:

Oh my Guru Maharaj Ji,
I dedicate myself to You.
I am weak and ignorant and am filled with the impurities of this world..
Oh my Guru Maharaj Ji, through Knowledge please purify me of the impurities I possess.
Reveal to me the Knowledge of all Knowledges.
Strengthen me, uplift me and reveal the Truth within inside of me.
Bring me from hate to love, darkness to light, death to immortality.
I will follow Your direction and will never reveal this Knowledge to anybody for any reason.
I will keep in contact with You through my devotional love, satsang, meditation and service.
Thank You.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 14:02:27 (GMT)
From: Stonorji Wannabi ;)
Email: None
To: Tim Matheson
Subject: EPO report to LORD MAHARAJI via Pia
Message:
Dear Timji,

Although there is plenty of satsang and numerous opportunities to be propagated at CD's forum these days, I feel a powerful inner urge for more inspiring words of those who have been so fortunate to have received and experienced the myriad blessings of that highest high - Knowledge. EV and the Divine Mr. M's sites are far too watered down these days to satisfy my need for vicarious spiritual experience anymore. I think Jim and Janet are sadly beyond even the help of 'HIS DIVINE GRACE' but I must be in my mind, because that's impossible, isn't it. I remembered that you have a wonderfully flat-out devotional forum, and perhaps, as Sandy appears to have inexplicably lost his absolute faith in Divine Mr. M, it could be of help to him.

Also, I understand that the Divine M has a special place in his DIVINE HEART for blonds ... do you think that could speed up the aspirant process for me - I've heard it can be very long and boring, and I prefer to cut through the middlepeople and go straight to the source if by HIS DIVINE GRACE that might be possible!! :) My hair is always blond, so I'm ready when he is (I have been truly blessed)!!

A humble seeker who has lost her bookmark to the only truly and purely DIVINELY inspired worshipful forum on the World Wide Web.

Bless you Timji, for staying as pure as the day you received Knowledge. You are truly inspiring!

Annaji Wannabi

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:46:43 (GMT)
From: toby
Email: None
To: Tim Matheson
Subject: You just forgot to mention his footnails (NT)
Message:
NT
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 18:56:21 (GMT)
From: Tim Matheson
Email: None
To: toby
Subject: Alright Toby, I'll share when I score
Message:
better than feets kissing, better than his bath water, yes OUR LORD's Toenails!! Some good snackin', Eh
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:25:16 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Tim Matheson
Subject: If you have a subconscious need to communicate
Message:
with Maharaji, why must you cloak it in a joke and involve me? Not getting enough attention where you live lately, Timmy?

Sandy, whose getting everything he needs without your help

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:49:41 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: You're SUCH a big crybaby! (nt)
Message:
dddddd
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:14:45 (GMT)
From: Scot J
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: If it's any consolation,
Message:
you aren't the only target around here. Your aiplane does have quite the few strafe marks from some of the site gunners down its sides, but hey, keep flyin'.
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 18:01:03 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Scot J
Subject: I'm given' 'er everythin' she's got, Cap'n!
Message:
Beam me up, Scotty!
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:08:59 (GMT)
From: Katie H
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Sandy, I think he's teasing you...
Message:
And I didn't read it as malicious.

How ARE you doing anyway? You sound like an ex-premie to me - how do you feel about things?

Take care,
Katie

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 18:03:43 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Katie H
Subject: Duh, Katie!
Message:
I'm doin' OK. Don't want to put it into words right now. But I'm hangin' in there.

Sandy

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 03:49:03 (GMT)
From: Katie H
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: I know I was pointing out the obvious!
Message:
But pointing out the obvious is one of my specialties - and you wouldn't believe how much it's helped me at work :).

Glad you're doin' OK -

Love,
Katie

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 09:18:56 (GMT)
From: Tim Matheson
Email: None
To: Tim Matheson
Subject: Correction
Message:
It should be stated that Senator Kennedy's was investigated by the authorities and after due dilligence an agreement between the Senator and the authorities was reached. The Senator did admit he was at the scene.
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 09:42:04 (GMT)
From: Simon Satsang
Email: None
To: Tim Matheson
Subject: Correction
Message:
Since Lord Maharaji is omnipresent, he'd be at every scene of every accident in the world. And like the time when our Lord saved the world from nuclear disaster through suffering an ulcer (HIS words, not mine), I'm sure the benefits to mankind of Maharaji killing a cyclist must be enormous.

The reason why he didn't own up to having been the driver is because he's too modest and the people of the world wouldn't understand.

Thank God for Maharaji - saving the world from a new ice age by polluting the air with his jet exhaust fumes.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 20:03:05 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Simon Satsang
Subject: Correction? Wake me up Scotty!
Message:
'...when our Lord saved the world from nuclear disaster through suffering an ulcer (HIS words, not mine)'

oh ... how I'd LOVE to know his exact words when he implied that one, Tim.

Care to dig 'em out for us all? (and don't forget the where and when of it too).

Puleeeez?

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:19:33 (GMT)
From: Scot J
Email: None
To: Simon Satsang
Subject: Laughed so hard my gut aches! NT
Message:
NT
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 14:37:40 (GMT)
From: Bob
Email: None
To: Simon Satsang
Subject: Ulcer-nukes??
Message:
Please elaborate. rawat had an ulcer in 74 or so. What did he say? What happened to the ulcers since then? I cannot picture rawat going on a diet....
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 17:39:52 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Bob
Subject: Ulcer from booze but still saved us from nukes
Message:
The only way that he could take on the karma of the big bad Russian Bear pointing their nuke thingies at us was to drink lots of cognac and suffer the consequences of a bleeding ulcer.

The antacids he had to take to protect the ulcer from stomach acids created so much gas that the power of the nukes was dispelled when he let go a huge fart at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. And the cold war was ratchetted down a notch or two.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 05:37:04 (GMT)
From: la-ex
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: anyone gone to one of the propagation trainings?
Message:
According to a friend of mine, the propagation trainings are in full swing, in different communities around the country.

A number of pwk's are needed(at first I think the number was about 60, but now about 40) in order to get the ev honchos to come to your town.

Cost is around $100 for a full 2 day workshop.

I think there is some role playing, written handouts, and the 'unedited' version of the atlanta training session.

My friend rolled his eyes when I asked him what they could possibly due for two whole days....he coudn't imagine it doing anything but further 'gumming up the works', but is going ahead with it nonetheless, as it seems to be lord's agya...

Quite a few others have signed up as well.

Has anyone attended one of these debacles?

If anyone wants to, I think they are welcoming people in....

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 00:24:59 (GMT)
From: Gary Epton
Email: None
To: la-ex
Subject: Interesting how things work . . .
Message:
Lets see, followers pay $100 for the privelege of being trained in the mechanics of presenting k to people who will in turn become dues paying members to mahooey. Imagine asking a salesman to pay for a training that only the manufacturer will profit by . . .
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 17:20:58 (GMT)
From: MK
Email: None
To: la-ex
Subject: Not quite, but nearly...
Message:
I was asked to go to one in March. I said 'if they come here to our town yes, I'll do it'. I'm used to doing group activity type things in classrooms, gangs, clubs, cliques, bands, cults, teams, whatever (it all started at boarding school, you join whatever's the most happening thing to do at the time, even the hockey squad.) No big deal then, just another chance to gather and lark about.

They didn't come to train us. Last week when asked again if I wanted to to do the 'KIT' I said 'NO way, not the way these things are running and not with the results I see from the trained'. After Amaroo and the big EV shakeup I decided I didn't want to be trained to do that right now. I was never trained to turn people on to hash... but I was bloody good at doing it. And I could sell Pink Floyd to a Deaf Leopard in Nova Scotia! They were real feelings naturally expressed, easy stuff and a pleasure to do.

I mention M to people sometimes, not much at all. I do the K thing whether I'm getting on with him or not. I only suck up to the pwk's I want to work with. This is my journey, not his and not anyone else's. Ah, the dope cookie has kicked in - fantastic. I knew I'd never give up dope, the asthma put's paid to the smoking part that's all. One just has to get used to the slow take off, long flight and slow dopey descent of a hash stone (who needs heaven when you can grow your own?!) Ingested THC via food or drink is interesting and surely a lot more healthy. As I was leafing through the cookbook I wondered what we'd all be like in the West if hash was an integral part of our diet? If we failed in the propagation of anything in the 70's 80's 90's, dope was the first casualty. Marijuana powder should be immediately made mandatory with every curry ever eaten.

Sorry Pat if I'm not quite as 'old ladyish' as you imagined. We may be starting to look old, but our generation are going to set new records in old age delinquency. I cannot and will not grow old, Sorry world.

Marolyn Kyntyre - trying to sound like a dope addict when she barely touches the stuff.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 23:49:25 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: MK
Subject: Marolyn, sounds like you and I are starting our
Message:
Second childhoods early. My first was heavy with fighting apartheid in South Africa so I missed out on it. I figure 54 is not too soon to start.

Well, I'll just light up a doobie as I don't have time to bake any magic brownies. We don't get hash over here. What's your recipe?

Mine's pretty simple a pound of pot, some sugar and flour, lots of chocolate and then bake it for as long as it takes me to knit a sock for my chihuahua.

As for those training sessions - yuk - I'd rather have a root canal done. At least I get high on nitrous oxide and the percocets are nice too.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:44:28 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: MK
Subject: Marolyn ? Are you my ex-colleague ?
Message:
Have you been one of the part-time instructors end of the 80s and early 90s ?

If this is you, I do remember you !!

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 06:06:22 (GMT)
From: MK
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: no, we're still colleagues
Message:
Yes JM, you could be right. I generally find the past too confusing to discuss. Though, if I recall correctly, you fancied chicks a bit overtly and I judged you to be very 'unholy' because of that, this despite eyeing off your lunchbox on more than a few occasions. It's just as Loaf says in his post above....
'I was thinking about how my own sexual frustration led me to become 'spiritual and uptight' '.

Spot on Loaf, that was me in the crusades too, projecting this virginal public image while fantasizing like a snivelling born again Christian on the inside. Strangely enough, It was finding out some interesting inside info on M that freed me from such utter stupidity. Weird how it affects us all eh?
M

Patrick, you're right, it's all about retaining childhood thinking. Here's the recipe you enquired about...to help matters.

50 grams of dried heads (I don't use hash)
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs
2 teaspoons of baking powder

I was totally zonked for hours - and hours - and hours
Do Not Operate Heavy machinery, or computers! Had to pour myself into bed laughing hyterically between fits of 'Help I'm Dying' paranoia.
stay well in any event Pat.
M

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 18:27:48 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: pdconlon@yahoo.com
To: MK
Subject: Thanks, Marolyn, for that recipe
Message:
It so nice to have you here at our tatting bee and coffee klatsch. I'm going to need your sense of humor to deal with my two close instructor friends when/if they get over their shock at my defection and start asking questions.
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Date: Tues, Jun 12, 2001 at 15:31:06 (GMT)
From: MK
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: Ok, happy chomping Pat...
Message:
Trouble is, those damn cookies take a day and a half to wear off, I kept falling asleep at work. Anyone know of ANY other way apart from smoking that can give a nice little buz that goes away after a couple of hours? I realy don't enjoy a marathon stonedethon.

Your instructor friends are upset? I would have thought they'd understand your defection, being that of an intelligent, sensitive gentleman no longer wishing to be treated like a klutz by zealot conformists attempting to spread the word of their teacher. If they were/are instructors for the 'right' reasons, they'd have to be wondering about the ship's direction (or at least the crew) by now surely?

keep em cooking,
M

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Date: Tues, Jun 12, 2001 at 18:09:23 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: MK
Subject: Bhang lassi, Marolyn or tea
Message:
The trouble with magic brownies is that the cannabis is trapped in fat which acts almost like a slow release capsule. Bhang lassi is best made with hash and plain tea is an aquired taste. Have you ever just tried nibbling a bud? It really is not much worse than chomping a sprig of thyme.

As for my instructor friends: No, they don't want to hear that Guru Strangelove is only an incompetent Indian businessman running a bhakti-juju circus known as Rawat Inc.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 16:03:17 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: MK
Subject: Oh my God! You eat eggs??? (nt)
Message:
fffffff
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Date: Tues, Jun 12, 2001 at 15:36:50 (GMT)
From: MK
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Yes, Free Range of course...
Message:
I would have thought a practicing lawyer in California would also eat eggs?!

I think it's best to say only a little on this forum - there was I saying I thought Cat was really funny and I've just read through his awful debacle with Deborah and it's given me a headache. I didn't think he'd involve himself in such inanity. Shows how much I know.
M

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 00:25:00 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Everyone
Subject: Well it made me laugh...
Message:
A hollow laugh maybe, but gotta share it...

There is a thread on CD's site: 'things are getting interesting'. They have discovered Pia's site and are getting all hot and excited. Even discussing things a bit... well a tiny bit.

Like 'gerry' here (not our Gerry, I hope and assume).

>>>

I hope you guys get an avenue of public expression to tell your side of the story OTHER than having to do so at the ex forum. It only seems fair.

I'm reading Muktananda's book Where are You Going? I'm having a problem rectifying his alleged sex abuse of teenage girls with his obvious attainment in experential mystical experiences.

Life is rarely crystal clear, in my experience...

>>>

Too true, gerry. People can get quite confused by it all.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 04:36:20 (GMT)
From: Robyn
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Well it made me laugh...
Message:
Hey Nig, Hope your doing well. I don't think people here know how to take me when I talk about some of my unexplainable experiences, (I started typing the experience I'm thinking of but thought, why put people off), Ibut I had one that was far from spiritual. I think these experiences are things that anyone can do if they have the wiring. Like some people are good at/have a natural affinity for math or music. That it has nothing to do with the kind of person you are. Maybe many people who experience metaphysical things are better because of them but maybe some aren't. Somes like no one thing is a ticket to being a great human being. Striving for it takes a lot of work, raw honesty and attention in all areas of your personality.
Love ya,
Robyn
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:12:14 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: Well your last line made me laugh.
Message:
Know what you mean about it maybe being a hollow laugh, oh well......

Yesterday I was reading about some of the behaviour that went on in Muktananda's sidya yoga cult. It was by David Shaw. He used to be in the 'inner circle' in the ashram with the current guru, a women. There were so many striking similarities between them and pwk and m.

He talked about Muktananda's forced secret sexual liaison's with follwers (often teenagers), and how when it first surfaced no one gave it any credit. The belief was that people were spreading viscious lies against their beloved guru. It was only when a few came forward, all saying the same thing that it was accepted. Once accepted, these acts were then elevated to a 'higher' level, mere human beings not able to comprehend the reason for such things. Guru being higher, devotee lower. Shaw stated that even today, with knolwdege of these offenses Muktananda, now dead, is diefied and revered.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:58:11 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: Same with Sai Baba's abuse.
Message:
I've read basically the same excuse for Sai Baba's sexual abuse of boys, that there is some mumbo jumbo spiritual reason for it, that the boys actually benefitted from being abused. This was on a Sai Baba forum.

It's not really different than the excuses made for Rawat's behaviour, like 'he is cleansing us of our evil minds by yelling at us.' and 'It sounds like he doesn't make sense, but that is only because I don't understand.'

Deny, then make excuses when denial is no longer possible.

Yuck.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 03:45:53 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: G
Subject: abuses in all the 'other' cults
Message:
I was talking to someone I work with who is into Sai Baba (previously in a siddya yoga ashram) about cults.

I mentioned to him that I had recently had the realization that I had been in one for a very long time. I talked to him about all the abuses, secrecy and double standards.

When he mentioned he was into Sai Baba I asked him how he could be with someone who had been sexually abusing young boys that had been sent to his college in good faith, two of them being murdered (in SB's bedroom?). He replied that he didn't know if these stories were correct, and the press have it in for people like Sai Baba.

I asked did he feel no obligation to find out if this was true, to which he responded 'No, I'm having a nice experience'.

One of the big steps for me was allowing that followers of other cults and religions did have an experience, perhaps not disimilar to mine. They were just as convinced they were on the one true path. All the time I had knowledge, I never allowed for that, being supremely confident (& smug) that this was IT and there was only ONE guru/master/whatever.

Another thing I was reading about was 'fringe Christian churches'. That was an eye-opener. The people who had left their church or been expelled reported things that also had striking similariities with pwk & k!

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:57:34 (GMT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: abuses in all the 'other' cults
Message:
Hi Connie

I met a woman also named Deborah last summer at UVIC who is a follower of that guy with the mole on his face w/the turban.
Somehow the topic of meditation came up and soon we were discussing Satsang, Service and Meditation.

It was really eerie to me because she had the same pre-amble about how Gurus show similar techniques but only SatGuru reveals the True Knowledge. I went to a (vegetatarian) dinner at a friend's (brother)place and they were politely shocked that I knew what they were talking about and reportedly received Knowledge myself. They had all the same rhetorical arguments that We use to have if someone claimed similar experience w/M. Only diff is they were in a relative time-warp as they reminded me of the 70's and early 80's scene. But everything else was exactly the same. It made we wonder about my K-trip.

Weird, huh!

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 23:59:47 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: abuses in all the 'other' cults
Message:
Hi Deborah

Wierd alright.

All these only 'Satgurus' running around showing the 'True Knowledge' doesn't make sense to me. 'Only' implies one, not many.

It had become so convuluted with maharaji though, one reason being that these type of words were no longer used. Since I left I have had to really look at what I believed about him, who I believed he was and what I believed knowledge was. Another was looking at what it was in me that was attracted to him, what was the need in me, this seems to be a very long process. It's hard to confront what was thought of as a sincere wanting to know God, truth whatever as a motivation driven by emotional/physcological needs.

Speaking to other people from different cults and seeing the similarities helped me place it in perspective. Reading also helped.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 14:34:50 (GMT)
From: Carl
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: Ananda Marga group similar in some ways.
Message:
Thought-provoking post, Connie. Thank you.

Re other cults -- In this small town where I live I have several friends who were part of the Ananda Marga organization/group/cult/whatever. Their structure was similiar to early DLM, having orange-robed 'dadas' and 'didis' (like the mahatmas and bais) and a whole routine surrounding their 'Maharaj' (I don't recall his name).

Their concept revolved around a form of meditation/trantra yoga practice, and also involved reciting Sanskrit prayers, singing-chanting-dancing, and a formal sit-down, silent mantra-based meditation, and a 'sharing' not unlike satsang as was once allowed in our early days. They also had a scripturally studious intellectual bent, and would sit around the dinner table discussing philosophical points or spiritual issues.

I enjoyed their company, and would from time to time attend their informal meetings in the fixed-up garage of my friend, and sit and meditate with them, then join in the pot-luck Sunday dinners immediately following.

What was nice was the mutual respect, no one was trying to convert me; we were just hanging out in the informal and tolerant 'spiritual-community' structure and grooving. But they were very happy with their practice, and seemed to feel they had connected with the long-proven, ancient Vedic and authentic path. But they weren't smug about it.

The worldwide Ananda Marga group apparently had its share of controversies, scandals and rumors of abuse. Yet somehow the larger sense of ancient tradition, and the earnest integrity of the small immediate community, kept those concerns quite remote, acknowledged but dismissed. The emphasis was more on the personal practice intstead of the 'Personality' of the main dude. But then again I was not an actual initiate of their group...they may have been more concerned than I would have known.

Their organizational structure seemed more improvisitory, ad-hoc, seat-of-the-pants. As an outsider looking at it, at the time I thought it was all sort of charming, retro, idealistic, innocent.

Now that I think of it, all of the 'Dadas' I met were young men from other countries (i.e., from Europe or Asia), sincere and always on the move. (I believe they followed one of the ancient rules for saddhus to never stay in one place more than three days, something like that.)

It seems that 'wanting to know God' (or, 'purpose of life' questions, or even patriotic fervor) surface as conscious genuine urges for many people at late adolescence or early adulthood. Every cult or government does all they can to channel and capitalize upon those altruistic energies toward their own, sometimes nefarious, ends.

We were ripe for the plucking into DLM and M's world. But the emotional/psychological need to ask those 'God' questions is no less important or any less valid as one gets older, imo. Rather, the necesary balance of experience and intellect/logic and discrimination become part of the equation also, and help frame the asking of those questions into urgent and practical terms.

That's why the posters and lurkers on this site are truly fascinated by the unfolding of the main debate about M/EV etc. 'God' gave us the tools of logic and discrimination also, to be used, valued, and not blithely dismissed as the M/EV types would prefer. My opinion, anyway.

Rambled enough here, please forgive!
Best wishes,
C.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 16:14:48 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Carl
Subject: Baba ji
Message:
I think Ananda Marga's guru was/is called 'Baba Ji' or just 'Baba', he was convicted and later acquited of murder. I was at a AM 'retreat' many years ago where I saw them bow down to his picture. I thought 'Huh?'
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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 21:34:52 (GMT)
From: Carl
Email: None
To: G
Subject: That's it, I forgot! Yes, it was Baba ji, Thx./nt
Message:
yowza
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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:52:27 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Carl
Subject: If you thought you rambled, oh boy, wait till
Message:
you see the thread I just started. It's really long.

Thanks for the response.

At this point I don't have much trust for any eastern stuff.

When I see an Indian walking down the street, I go grrrrrrr!

Best wishes to you too.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 02:01:36 (GMT)
From: Gary Epton
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: abuses in all the 'other' cults
Message:
It's hard to confront what was thought of as a sincere wanting to know God, truth whatever as a motivation driven by emotional/physcological needs.
Interesting point Connie. I think this one needs to be fleshed out in a thread of it's own. Good observations.
Gary
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:33:57 (GMT)
From: Scot J
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: abuses in all the 'other' cults
Message:
Your words:

I asked did he feel no obligation to find out if this was true, to which he responded, 'No, I'm having a nice experience.'

will stay with me a long time. Chilling. Because I've heard the equivalent, 'No, I'm having a nice experience' from people currently following M, and even scarier, I've heard that little, little voice in my own head, saying, 'No, I'm having a nice experience. I don't want to know the truth.'

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 00:18:00 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Scot J
Subject: yeah, not wanting to know the truth
Message:
Hi Scot

That was what I saw in myself too. That part that didn't want to know, but hey, it did want to know eventually, so kudos to us I say. All who have been there know what that takes.

I have been reading all your posts. Reading your journey, I understood and shared to some extent your disillusionment and pain as the days went by. Expressing yourself and the process of disentaglement in such an honest open way was touching. I certainly related to it, having been through same. Thanks.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:56:26 (GMT)
From: Silvia
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Kalamazoo, Michigan:KISSY, KISSY
Message:
Premies of the Lord of the lost Universe met yesterday in another attempt to learn how to hook people in the cult lies.

Yes, my wonderful (NOT)ex-husband went...the longing, you know...
Yeah, is true, premies long for something and is not maharaji,but themeselves! Premies got lost in the promises of the disgraced liar master, Prempal Rawat, A.K.A. the SATGURU (true guru) and who knows how many more ridiculous name.

Hey, I can invent a title for myself too...

No, we ex-premies are not a hate group, we are not even a group. I just hope they never use my name because I will sue their asses off.

I see you in court maharaji: Is going to be fun to see your face again. No, no pies, my eyes on you will be enough because darling, you made a big mistake lying to me. I am not going away.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 00:33:23 (GMT)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: Kalamazoo - my old stomping grounds
Message:
Hi Silvia. How are you? So there was a meeting in Kazoo? That's where I lived when I received k. Do you know who is running things there these days? Do you know any of the premies there?

Fondly, Marianne

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:03:24 (GMT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Silvia
Subject: I'm not going away either---nt
Message:
zzzz
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 22:35:38 (GMT)
From: Bin Liner
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Me neither , I 've already done a life stretch..
Message:
..a little bit longer on the dark side of the moon won't hurt.

Keep on swearing at the bastard . I'm losing my touch in that regard , must've been here too long .

Gone native : Pat Dorrity

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 22:31:18 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: How Jonathan deals with stress
Message:
From ELK:-

When life gets tough.

Whenever I get really stressed out, when people seem more than normally stupid and uncooperative, when I feel I'm reaching breaking point and I can't stand to be in the room, the crowded bus or the shop queue I finally finally remember.

''No probs mate... I have Knowledge.''

And that immediately releases the tension .I can face the crowds. I can sit and wait in ante-rooms. I can tap into a source that makes me feel OK about life.

Wow!

Jonathan Minton
London, UK

Notice how people normally appear stupid and uncooperative, and he deals with them appearing excessively do by telling himself he has something that makes him superior to them.

Jonathan, I feel OK about life without having to be in a cult.

John.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 20:30:16 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: if only we'd had the 'Knowledge' in 1939 ...
Message:
... bet it would've made Hitler think twice, eh?
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:25:48 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: How Jonathan deals with stress
Message:
C'mon, John, we all get like that where everybody seems just incredibly stupid and beyond redemption. It's human nature. I just can't see how Jonathan would ever feel that way himself seeing as he's got this 'wow' thing going for him called Knowledge. If Knowledge were really all that, where all you had to do was 'tap into that source', how could we ever be bothered by anything? Now, that would be VERY stupid, if all the happiness you could ask for is just waiting for you to serve you at a moment's notice, and here you are getting all stressed instead, why that's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

If only it was that simple.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:17:45 (GMT)
From: Joy
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: I remember him from 1972
Message:
Hey, I remember Jonathan Minton from when I used to do service at the Head Office in London, circa 1972. He was the PR person for the organization (then Divine Light Mission) or something along that line.

Glad to hear he's alive and stressed out like everybody else, sorry to hear he's still in the cult.

Hi Jonathan, if you're reading, but you probably don't remember me.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:38:36 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Joy
Subject: I remember him too
Message:
He was around the LA community, at least while I was there, about 1976-80. Of course, with M in Malibu, a lot of people congegrated in LA. When the foreigners moved into the ashram, they shipped most of them all back home (immigrations probs. that holy name could not cut through, mate). I'm sure it happened to a lot of the premies in the community as well, and they went back on their own.

He was a nice guy. I'm sad to hear that he's still feeding at the trough of the Master and posting about it. Yuckers. His post isn't atrocious though. He's not gushing with gooshy love. It won't solve all problems, but holy name type of stuff can help a person calm down, especially in a public situation.

But seeing other people as stupid, well, the Buddhists have taught me to get off that trip. After all, maybe it's ME that's being stupid. What a thought!!! Missy herself!!! The queen of her world!!!! Her subjects just will not obey!!! Call out the guards of holy name. Vanquished.

Hi Jonathan.

Francesca Reitano

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:37:09 (GMT)
From: Bryn
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Holy Name in public situations.
Message:
You are right about this, but it is a terrible trap! These days there are people around, especially the young, who can SEE what your doing. It's so embarrasing to be caught at it.

Also HN (assuming you can remain undiscovered) only gives others the IMPRESSION of you having your wits about you under pressure.
When the heat is off, you are none the wiser concerning the elements that constituted the crisis/situation-and other people are! These other people then start asking YOU questions about the situation, you being so cool and self-posseses and everything. So the bluffing starts, and with it the megalomania-'At last! I can keep my head while all about me are losing theres etc etc. I must be a Man my son' (Kipling reference)

I would rather be percieved as an idiot in my own right than as someone elses wise monkey.

Holy Name is a showbiz accessory-great for the cool-calm image.

Love Bryn

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:50:49 (GMT)
From: Moldy Warp
Email: moldy_warp@hotmail.com
To: Bryn
Subject: Holy Name in public situations.
Message:
Not to mention nectar.... Ah - those were the days trying to remember holey name and shove your tongue up your nose whilst simultaneously giving the impression that you were capable of carrying on a coherent conversation with the neighbours (those poor folk who hadn't seen the light yet... but soon would if you could manage to be that one premie in your hemishpere that had realised knowledgie). Where did it all go wrong.?
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 18:56:35 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Moldy Warp and Bryn
Subject: Yer righto, Moldy and Bryn
Message:
One of my dear friends used to look like a BULLFROG doing that necatar thing. And remember driving, walking or talking with someone who had pitbulled onto holy name so that they were breathing REALLY LOUD, kinda articulating it thought their nostrils? Being as annoying as hell, basically saying, I'm trying to tune you out and be one with GOD?? Or talking to a premie and realizing that they were doing HN and trying their best NOT to hear you. It's all a dream. Yeah, but we're still IN the dream.

It's one thing to be mindful and IN the present moment. It's another to lean on a HN crutch, to divert your consciousness there, rather than BE IN and DEAL WITH the present moment. Yeah, what a trap.

love yas, f

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:10:41 (GMT)
From: Nigeandmoldy
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: exactly right, f.
Message:
Tapes on their way. email too. Loved the 'pitbulled' - truly inspired new verb. Is that your own?
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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 05:11:31 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Nigeandmoldy
Subject: Pitbulled, yes my own I think
Message:
I'm always talking sh*t, but it's so much fun!

I was trying to describe it as best I knew how. My friend actually did look like a bullfrog, too. What a hoot!

love, f

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:17:20 (GMT)
From: Bryn
Email: None
To: Moldy Warp
Subject: I gave up public nectar
Message:
Dear Moldy
Doing nectar amongst the people slowed down the responses. It dangerously lengthened my reaction time in fast-moving verbal situations. Its hard to be the fastest wiseman in the West when you have to keep hauling your tongue into talk position before firing.
Love Bryn
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:59:47 (GMT)
From: Moldy Warp
Email: None
To: Bryn
Subject: nectar and dangerously lengthened reaction
Message:
times. yeh - As I was exiting (but still partly enamoured with) the cult a good friend said to me... 'Sometimes I feel as if you are not sincere... you don't sound as if you mean what you say' ...
I reckon this was due to the lack of spontaneity I wss exibiting... I DID mean what I said.... but I was still stuck behind what a premie friend of mine has called 'the glass screen'.... ('only reality' is knowledgie... 'world is maya' stuff)... still trying to speak from
THAT PLACE !

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 10:43:05 (GMT)
From: Bryn
Email: None
To: Moldy Warp
Subject: On being detected 'doing the holy name'
Message:
My niece (aged nine years) suddenly shouted at me -loud, while we were together chatting casually and I was -yer know-'doing it'.

'STOP DOING THAT!' I bluffed it out, but I was shaken.

The young sense when they are not on your radar. So do dogs too.

love Bryn

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 01:40:56 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Joy
Subject: After nearly thirty years with Knowledge
Message:
Joy, if it is the same Johnathon, it's very sobering to know that after nearly 30 years knowledge has given him the ability to face crowds and sit in ante-rooms.

He said:

'When life gets tough.

Whenever I get really stressed out, when people seem more than normally stupid and uncooperative, when I feel I'm reaching breaking point and I can't stand to be in the room, the crowded bus or the shop queue I finally finally remember.

''No probs mate... I have Knowledge.''

And that immediately releases the tension .I can face the crowds. I can sit and wait in ante-rooms. I can tap into a source that makes me feel OK about life.

Wow!

Jonathan Minton
London, UK'

Why would something like this be approved?

This person sounds as if he is indeed reaching breaking point.

The heavy desperation of the first paragraph, offset by the lighthearted, almost flippant answer of 'No problems mate....I have knowledge' sent a shiver through me.

I think ELK needs to employ professionals who can really read what some of these people are saying.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:43:17 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Connie
Subject: Yeah, I hadn't thought of that
Message:
Hopefully he is just being silly and over dramatic, and doesn't have claustraphobia or agoraphobia. I opt for the former. Premies write dramatic stuff to get it posted.

Which only sounds even more unrealistic. They are all on the bubble I'm afraid. They are outing themselves big time. More, more websites. Tell all you guys!!!

Think of M's histrionic, over dramatic, breathy and whispery then yelly screechy delivery. Once I walked away from it, all those new agers and M sounded like used spiritual car salesmen or something. Hope he never buys a parrot. He's in for a surprise!!!

love, Francesca

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:04:45 (GMT)
From: Bryn
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: What if he discovered one day....
Message:
..that what he had wasn't Knowlege?

Ouch.

love Bryn

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 04:15:29 (GMT)
From: Connie
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Yeah, I hadn't thought of that
Message:
Yes perhaps he was just being over dramatic.

As Johnathon so astutely said about knowledge:

'Wow'

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:12:43 (GMT)
From: Susan. From Cults: Faith,
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Healing and Coercion By Marc Galanter
Message:
pages 7 and 8...

These traits of charismatic groups are often best illustrated by the way they bring about changes in the thinking and behaviors of individual members in single episodes. One example comes from my own research experience with the Divine Light Mission, a Hindu-oriented new religious movement. Janice, an eighteen-year-old American-born high-school senior, had described her problems to a counselor from this group at one of the group’s religious festivals. I was studying the group while visiting the festival site, and was able to interview members at the counseling center.

The atmosphere at the center was highly cohesive; strong feelings of camaraderie and a sense of shared belief were evident as members arrived to discuss a variety of psychological problems. Janice came to the unit looking quite distressed. The counselor she encountered was not a health professional, but was contributing her time for Service, as religiously motivated good deeds were called. She allowed me to sit in as she spoke to the girl.

As the counselor approached her, Janice immediately burst into tears, explaining her misery and feelings of helplessness. She concentrated on her difficulty in meditating properly, saying of their Guru, “Maharaj Ji has given me Knowledge but I cannot see his light.” This was very important to her, she said, because she could not be a premie, or a member of the sect, without this transcendental experience, achieved through proper meditation. She was further troubled because she felt obliged to do more Service for the Guru to compensate for her inability to meditate properly. This was best done by engaging new converts, but, she reported tearfully, she was too frightened to approach potential members.

The counselor listened to these expressions of distress, implicitly conveying support by her presence and demeanor. Her actions were in keeping with the atmosphere of the counseling center; she was empathetic, even affectionate, and alluded to similar problems with meditation other members might experience from time to time. She expressed her perspective from the vantagepoint of the group’s transcendent beliefs, and did not minimize the need for proper meditation or Service. She did, however, give Janice some examples of how problems like hers may be overcome in time with full devotion to the Guru, and reassured her that it was not necessary to perform an undue amount of service at present. She said the resolution of this distress might come through a ritual called darshan, meeting with the Guru in person, where such difficulties are often remitted. The following exchange ensued.

Counselor: Now tell me how you feel toward the premies you meditate with.

Janice: Of course, I am very close to them. They mean so much to me, like brothers and sisters.

Counselor: So you know now that when you are with them you confirm Maharaj Ji’s Knowledge. You attend satsang(religious sermons) with them, and you will be going to darshan, too. You know that Maharaj Ji will see that you are faithful, and this will soon lead to your relief.

Janice: Yes I do, you are right.

By now the girl, like many others healed by faith, was composed and reassured, even serene. I asked her counselor how she understood the girl’s distress. She tried to explain, searching for a simple response, as a professional would speak to a layperson. “She has somehow lost the Knowledge. This happens often. She did not know how to rejoin Maharaj Ji’s path.” This was stated more as literal fact than as metaphor, an expression of the charismatic role of their leader.

I was then able to speak with Janice. She had been having an affair with an older married man at the time she had become affiliated with the group. When he ended their relationship two months before her arrival for counseling, she became acutely depressed, withdrew from social relations, and was unable to concentrate on her schoolwork. At this point she also began having difficulties mediating, clearly due to the anxiety associated with her depressed state. This only compounded her sense of guilt and probably prolonged the depressive reaction that might otherwise have abated. She began to feel the need to do more Service for the group, in part to atone for her sexual liaison and also because she saw herself as an inadequate sect member. She had not discussed these matters with anyone. She felt her conduct had run contrary to the group’s principles and she was ashamed.

The genesis of Janice’s difficulties in mediating seemed fairly simple to me, but she had not really put the pieces together herself. Significantly this issue of her disrupted affair did not have to be broached with her Divine Light counselor because the cohesiveness of the group and the explanatory nature of it’s dogma ( Maharaj Ji’s Knowledge) were implicitly available without fuller exploration. These group forces were mobilized to relieve her feelings of guilt.

I spoke with Janice the next day after a protracted KNOWLEDGE session, a religious experience conducted for a large group of members by a principle of the Guru, and asked her how she was feeling. She said that the counselor was right to say that Maharaj ji could offer me other ways to serve him. I could tell that when I was with all the premies today, Maharaj Ji’s wisdom was touching me and that what I was doing was right…. It’s clear that everything will work out; I have the Knowledge in me again.

This young woman had been wrenched from anguish compounded by her feelings of distance from the group, and apparently relieved and then healed through a renewed closeness. The norms for behavior set by the group were used to construct her “treatment,” and the resolution of her problem was sealed by her commitment to the group’s charismatic goal of “Knowledge” or divine enlightenment.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 20:36:15 (GMT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Susan. From Cults: Faith,
Subject: Healing and Coercion By Marc Galanter
Message:
Susan, thank you so much for this...I responded to an insulting comment from a premie yesterday that my boohooing was due to an erronious subjective misinterpertation of who and what Maharaji was and if I was as hip to him then I wouldn't be blaming him for what he's done. That of course, is ludicrous thinking. There is not a soul around who entertained Maharaji who didn't agree on the collective Truth. How we dealth with our personal subjective experiences is the only thing that individualized our experiences. That's why the counsellor was able to sedate the premie's anxiety. We all shared a very cherished belief...every darshan story, every premie experience, every word out of the Bastard's mouth, every nuance confirmed this delusion.

Do you notice that the Blame is directly proportional to the Praise...yucckkkkkkkkkkkkk

p.s. I think this story would make a wonderful article

Cheers!

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 19:27:52 (GMT)
From: Susan more I hope someone
Email: None
To: Susan. From Cults: Faith,
Subject: will copy for site ...
Message:
A Charismatic Religious Sect: The Divine Light Mission

A friendship led to my first encounter with contemporary Religious sects or new religious Movements ad served to highlight the influential role of group cohesiveness in shaping the behavior of charismatic groups. I had known Beth for 10 years, and we had kept in touch while living in different cities. Her personal life had been disrupted by a divorce and a move to a new university teaching job. Soon after she gave up a promising academic career to devote herself to the philosophy of a teenage guru who had arrived in the United States the year before; eventually the moved into a commune of the guru’s followers. How could she have adopted such a deviant lifestyle after spending her adult years at liberal universities?

The group she joined, the Divine Light Mission, was introduced to the United States in 1971 by a thirteen-year-old boy from India, scion of a family of Hindu holy men; members believed in the lad’s messianic role. Divine Light was not unlike a number of Eastern-oriented sects that emerged in the West around this time. Along with others having a neo-Christian orientation, these groups consisted of the bulk of the emerging cult phenomenon, or, depending on one’s view, new religious movements. The introduction Beth gave me to the Divine Light Mission led to a series of studies of these movements.

A History of the Sect

Like many groups of Hindu orientation, the Divine Light Mission originated as a religious practice in India. It was founded in 1960 by Sri Hans Ji Maharaj, father of Guru Maharaj Ji and a former member of the Radhasoami Satsang Beas, one of several Sikh religious movements in Northern India. Each of those movements operated independently and was headed by a leader regarded by his members as a satguru, or perfect master, whose task was to lead his followers along a path to God.

Maharaj Ji was the youngest of four sons of Sri Hans Ji, and even as a young child participated with his family in their public religious programs. Given this status, he was accorded a great deal of attention from his father’s devotees and lived in luxury. When his father died, eight-year-old Maharaj Ji was selected to lead the sect instead of his older brothers because of his unusual talent at delivering religious homilies.

Within a few years, the sect began to send mahatmas, or apostles, overseas to preach the young guru’s inspired mission, and by the time he was eleven, Mahraj Ji himself had traveled to London. Two years later he came to the United States at the invitation of several American premies (followers) who had received Knowledge (enlightenment) in India. The young guru visited several cities and was accorded a favorable reception by many young people who were experiencing the uprooting of the late counterculture era with its rebellions against established authority. As he traveled, he began to attract a following.

Maharaj Ji returned to India to tend to the members of the Mission there, but came back to the United States a year later and established a national headquarters in Denver. Within months, hundreds of American youths accepted the guru’s invitation to receive Knowledge and flew with him to India in several chartered jumbo jets for a festival called Hans Jayanti. On their arrival, his followers were taken to the family’s ashram, or religious commune, for several weeks.

By this time, about a thousand members had moved into a dozen Divine Light communes in Denver, and soon there were several thousand members nationwide. Commune residents devoted their full time to the group, and took an active role in developing a national organization for the guru. The study I carried out then provided a profile of sect members, revealing that they were typically single (82%) whites (97%) in their twenties (73%). The distribution of Catholics (32%) and Protestants (44%) was not very different than the general population (38% and 57% respectively), but there was a greater proportion of Jews (21% vs. 2%). The members’ middle class background was reflected by the large majority that had attended college (76%), as had one or both parents (71%). Typical group members were middle class young adults, many of whom had interrupted higher education to join the sect.

What were some of the trapping of religious practice in this emerging movement? Potential initiates were usually introduced to the Divine Light Mission at a session of religious discourse called a satsang, where experienced members presented the philosophy of the sect to the assembled group. The satsang could be delivered to active members or to those with only a casual interest. It was something of a polemic interspersed with parables, and because members were bright and sophisticated, these discourses tended to be engaging, making use of both Hindu mythology and Western philosophy.

After a period of acquaintance with the group, a potential member might approach a mahatma from the sect. These were long time Indian devotees designated by the guru to initiate new members. Although their pronouncements were often obscure, they lent an aura of transcendence to the initiation. In the initiation ceremony the mahatma rubbed the eyes of the newly initiated members, producing a series of flashes that were perceived as divine light. Initiatees were thereafter called premies, or follower of the guru.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 19:06:52 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: Susan. From Cults: Faith,
Subject: Healing and Coercion By Marc Galanter
Message:
Susan,
What a gem you have posted here! That excerpt brought back alot of memories for me. I was so much like the young woman written about. Remember that sense of peace that would dissolve all doubts and fears after talking with another premie like that counselor? And remember the anguished feelings of cognitive dissonance when not in tune with the knowledge feeling? There was nothing in between.

No wonder it felt like a magical balm to be relieved of all doubt and fear. The trick was to stay in that teeny weeny fragile shelter of M's world. That meant little contact with people outside that little womb, and constant affirming from the group that we had the high of highs within our reach.

The tidbit about the young woman having recently had an affair was really interesting. She never had to consciously face that or deal with it in any intellectual, moral sense. Maharaji's darshan and the affirmation of the group apparently dissolved it all away. It's one way to deal with suffering but I wonder how responsible we were back then to other people (especially non-premies). As long as we made our peace with Maharaji that made everything ok.

Sometimes I miss living in that womb-like state (especially when life is difficult) but most of the time I am glad to deal more assertively and directly with the people and events in my life.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:34:42 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Susan. From Cults: Faith,
Subject: A few sad predictions for Pia's site
Message:
1) She'll never post any of our emails or submissions (of course). She won't even respond to them. In that respect, CD must have the magic touch because, for some reason, he actually did get a reply. Hm, wonder what the difference is .....

2) She'll fill her 'Reader's Comments' page up to a certain point and then just leave it. I mean, there's only so much non-dialoguing text you can jam up against an issue, especially when it's disjointed and carefully vague, tepid 'arguments' like we've seen there. It's wallpaper and, as we all know, you only need to cover the walls once and that's that.

3) She won't link to here or in any other way facilitate communication. Indeed, she's playing this bizarre game wherein she's combining Maharaji's basic advice about how to deal with critics ('ignore them') with her own instinctual urge to take a stand for what she believes in. Awkward, isn't it?

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:51:24 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: A few happy predictions for Pia's site
Message:
1) She will have forever changed the landscape in terms of Maharaji and his cult stonewalling ex-followers. The fight's in the open now. No turning back.

2) Sooner or later, one or more of Pia's own 'staff' will defect. They just have to. The argument's we're making are so much better than theirs. Eventually the mind just starts betting on the faster horse if you stay at the track long enough.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:08:17 (GMT)
From: Susan
Email: None
To: Pia
Subject: my letter to Pia today
Message:
Dear Pia,

I hope you are not summarily deciding not to read what I send because it comes from an 'ex'. I feel that a site such as yours, dealing with critics, should carefully examine what the critics are saying.

In that light I would like to point out that on your site there is a page 'what the critics say and where to they say it?' A link to ex.premie.org is conspicously absent. I congratulate you for having the courage to link to the French articles, but I feel that by not linking to ex.premie.org you appear to be hiding from the reality of the most vocal critics of of Elan Vital and Maharaj Ji. If you posted a link to ex.premie.org you would allow anyone visiting your site to decide for themselves if they agree with the critics or not, and also you would allow them to know what the more specific criticisms are. Clearly, they go beyond 'it's a cult' and 'Maharaji is wealthy'.

In terms of the wealth, let me say this, I am not so disturbed by Mr. Rawat's wealth as by how he has attained it. I have a good friend who gave his trust fund to Rawat when he joined the ashram. People in DLM made Mr. Rawat wealthy by giving EVERYTHING they owned, and EVERYTHING they earned, in the ashrams. Of course anyone who has been around knows this happened. Your revisionism is insulting to anyone with an intact memory. If Mr. Rawat had not attained his wealth from gifts from people who believed he was the 'Lord of the Universe' and other expressions of 'gratitude' I doubt there would be such debate. My perception of the current PWK take on this is 'they were fools enough to give it, stop whining and take responsibility'. My God Pia, doesn't Mr. Rawat have any responsibilty for TAKING the gifts? If someone believed I was God and sang the words to Arti believing them to me, and then wanted to give me his every earthly possession, wouldn't I be despicable if I accepted such a gift, knowing I was a mere mortal? Isn't it sort of disgusting to accept a gift of a person's every material possession? Mr. Rawat encouraged this for many years. Why do you think everyone should accept responsibilty for the past but Mr. Rawat? Especially in light of the fact that no one in the organization had more influence than the man whose feet were on the Darhsan line pillow.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:52:29 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Susan
Subject: Excellent point, Susan
Message:
In that light I would like to point out that on your site there is a page 'what the critics say and where to they say it?' A link to ex.premie.org is conspicously absent.

Bam! Very observant of you, Susan. I never thought of that. How about it, Pia? You want to enlighten your audience to what the critics are saying about Maharaji. Where's the link to our site so they can see for themselves?

To add to Jim's list of sad predictions, I bet we'll never see one.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:13:12 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Susan
Subject: But who are we to judge Pia's experience?
Message:
Good one agian, Susan. That thing about linking to EPO .... of course!
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:21:28 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Susan. From Cults: Faith,
Subject: But who are we to judge Janice's experience?
Message:
Just kidding. Great find, Susan.
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:52:48 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Irony pills, anyone! Daily dose needed on FV n/t
Message:
n/t
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 15:07:14 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: NiceGuy makes serious allegations against EPO
Message:
this posted yesterday on CD's 'Life's Great' premie site by someone called 'NiceGuy':

quote:

Wanna see a good example of a cult? Go to the EX premie website. It's a cult of hate. Try talking with them sometime and you will learn that they secretly record your computer's IP address, and then threaten you with calling your employer and hassling you if you don't come around to their way of thinking. happened to me. Now THAT'S a cult!!! (or awfully close!)

endquote.

.
.
.

That's quite some accusation!

(wonder if there's any truth in it?)

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:37:03 (GMT)
From: Katie H
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: This guy is pretty naive!
Message:
Especially if he doesn't think that most on-line sites trap for your IP address, not to mention other information. How does he think Pia's site knows how many 'unique users' there are? Maharaji's site even puts a cookie on your computer. (Ex-premie.org does not, in case anyone is worried about this!).

Reminds me of the time some guy accused Brian of sending out 'hate cookies' - snicker!

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:10:14 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Katie H
Subject: ... or daft
Message:
Every web server 'traps' IP addresses. It needs to know where to send the requested page...

The machine need not retain the IP addresses, but most will write a log file of what the web server has done, if only for maintenance and diagnostic purposes.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:12:08 (GMT)
From: Forum Administrator
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: NiceGuy makes serious allegations against EPO
Message:
As with all premie accusations, this one is completely without substance and unlikely to be further supported by the accuser with hard evidence or even debate.

FA

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:22:32 (GMT)
From: Gary Epton
Email: None
To: Forum Administrator
Subject: Must have been that recent spammer dude/dudette(nt
Message:
shnorfle
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:34:57 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Forum Administrator
Subject: And Stonor makes weird allegations there herself
Message:
Thanks for the link, Chris. I checked out the thread only to find Stonor offer the following opinion:

Related to this is the fact that SOME of the posters there don't think I should be posting as a non-anything at any premie-related forum at all, and have tried to get me blocked. I came to the conclusion that this is a hangover from the insular 'xenophobic' cult days, and yes, I think there are varying degrees of 'encultification' - bell-curve again.

Stonor,

'Xenophobia' is a bit much. How about the fact that you were incessantly lecturing me and others about 'bullying' and the like and even tried to rally a bit of a crusade in that respect? If accepting Stonor was a litmus test of cult detoxification, I guess I failed. Oh well. That fucking bell-curve again.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 09:35:12 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: xenophobia==fear of Xena???
Message:
j/k
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 08:58:25 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: NiceGuy = Mili (?)
Message:
Could he be referring to this?

Mili is a documented fraudster living a life of lies. He does not want those who rely on his honesty to know that.

My post was intended as a humourous and short-hand way of making the point that his words here are worthless until he explains his past fraud.

JohnT
- never a premie

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:34:43 (GMT)
From: Kali
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Anti-cult group in Australia
Message:
Dear All,

I've just come across an Australian anti-cult group. http://www.cultcounselling.org. They have the support of a former Governor General of Australia, the Archbishop of Melbourne and a prominent Professor.

Australian ex-premies might find them useful not only for counselling but also as fellow activists. You can e-mail them at liberty@planet.net.au.

Kali

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:43:02 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Kali and Sir Dave
Subject: Sir Dave, perhaps you could make a link
Message:
Good job finding and posting that, Kali. Sir Dave, could you check it out and if it sounds good, add a link where you have information for Donner's and other's voluntary exit counseling services?

Hope you are well,

F

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 10:07:11 (GMT)
From: Sir Dave
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Sir Dave, perhaps you could make a link
Message:
That page on my site isn't for exit counselling specifically so the link wouldn't be appropriate there. For the time being, I've put it on The ANYTHING GOES links page and will put it elsewhere too.
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 19:01:05 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Yer, great, SD===================n/t
Message:
n/t
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:25:02 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Ignorance is bliss...?
Message:
To be ignorant can imply two different things:

1) to be unaware of, to lack knowledge (this is the dictionary definition)

or

2) To ignore something already known (which is more from the word 'ignorance'

****

Common decency, common sense, common courtesy would MAKE someone want to find out what is behind all of these allegations and accusations, incidents and accidents, 8 X 10 color glossies with the circles and arrows on the back. To ignore them may provide a sense of 'bliss', but I don't think that's the real bliss. I think that someone can be in bliss AND search out the meaning of all this information at the same time. If the ultimate bliss can't endure and survive intense scrutiny and being poked at by sincere but upset people to see if it's real or not, then it's not the ultimate bliss, is it?

Sandy

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 20:56:24 (GMT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Unfortunately, you're right---Ignorance is bliss?
Message:
Hey Sandy, you hit the nail on the head with this one and I respect your rationalizing, that's what you should be doing. It's really a twisted knot...so don't be hard on yourself or let anyone be hard on you for trying to untie it.

My encouragement to you. And if you can't untie the knot, you may just want to cut the laces. Heck, they're worth less than a buck. The bitch is, we paid a fortune for them.
Good Luck...
Don't feel bad for feeling bad, you have my support.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:20:24 (GMT)
From: Steve M
Email: None
To: Sandy
Subject: Sandy you forget..
Message:
It's ALL about that experience, that love , that glow around HIM.

All this confusion you are having is because you have allowed the monster mind to get a hold of you.

Meditate and pray , that's the answer brother.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 21:52:48 (GMT)
From: Sandy
Email: None
To: Steve M
Subject: Only to remember again...
Message:
yeah, kick 'em in the balls and tell 'em to meditate and the pain will go away...it's only an illusion, oh yeah.

And may I suggest a cool summer drink that I am enjoying courtesy of my brother and his friends who went to the Islands recently and brought me back some banana rum...I am enjoying some of that with a dash of lemon and some orange juice over ice. Very nize.

Sandy

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 13:13:47 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: I sent to it aint so, defending Combat issue
Message:

>>>Combat was begun as a magazine concerned with AIDS and the spread of public illness resulting from drug usage. It was begun by parties whose lives had been directly affected by such experiences. In time, it enlarged its editorial focus to include all issues affecting public health, and the endangerment thereof.
In usual political parlance, 'left wing' is taken to mean the factions calling for the tearing down of the present governement. Right wing is taken to indicate those who feel the established government must be preserved, even advocating a return to the past.
There is nothing politically left wing about a magazine dedicated to issues affecting the public health! They very well could sue you for characterizing them as such.
You present their special issue as if they were a sensationalist collective or a hate based cell. They are neither. AIDS is a serious business. Drug abuse is a serious business. Public health is serious business. Their interest in ELan Vital was/is connected to their concern for anything that affects the health of the general public, and under their editorial mission, cults, brainwashing and mental manipulation qualify as valid material for them to investigate. The political beliefs of the members of the public are irrelevant to their stated purpose: what they are fighting for is the safety and health of everyone, regardless of political stance. You cannot damn them for such a purpose.

At present, the national assembly of France is in he process of hammering out a new law, making it possible for the government to dissolve and ban any cult/sect/ group, if sufficient legal judgements are pronounced against them in the courts of law. In 1995, this same assembly decided, after numerous tragedies resulting inside various cults, that every such group had to register itself on a list, kept by the government. Elan Vital put their name willingly on that list. They were not singled out for persecution; there are 195 other cults on that list, at present.

Combat became interested in Elan Vital as a result of information brought to them by several former completely sincere members of EV, who had found out troubling, distressing, improper information about Maharaji and the workings of the organization, that they felt was sufficient grounds on which to leave, and to go public with.

Combat examined their evidence, and consulted with the appropriate police authorities in France, before committing to go ahead with their decision, to create a special issue of the magazine, devoted entirely to what they found out about Elan Vital. They studiously avoided yellow journalism, sensationalism, and what you term 'left wing' political posturing.

I am acting as a translator for the magazine, helping to render the issue into english, for the english reading world. Everything that is published in the issue is backed by documentation, that can be produced in a court of law, for evidence, and has already been turned over to the appropriate authorites in france for action.

If everything with Maharaji is open and honest and aboveboard, then why is Elan Vital afraid of this development? What is there to fear? Why did he produce his Indian passport, and not his American citizenship one, when the aeronautic authorities confronted him, landing the G5, hours later than he stipulated, and at a remote airport, other than the one he filed his flight plan for landing at? He wasn't flying in from India. He gave up his indian citizenship 25 years ago! What was that maneuver all about? It sounds extremely dishonest, on the face of it--just to illustrate his most recent tactics, since the issue appeared on the newsstands.

Your characterization of Combat as a left wing political magazine is untrue. Your characterization of its informants as a hate group is untrue. You are printing and publishing, worldwide, characterizations that are not true. You are duty bound, by journalistic integrity, to publish the retractions and the corrections of your serious errors, at once.

We will be expecting them to appear on your site immediately.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 02:33:42 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: Janet defending me
Message:
Thank you Janet !

But be careful, don't get trapped. EV and M will always attack anybody and everybody, including premies when something goes wrong. And it's easy to start again feeling guilty, like when we were in the cult.

Their problems are ridiculous, and don't go beyond their little group.

Don't forget: Rawat is a lord of nothing, there is nothing in his imaginary kingdom, and he's walking naked. He and premies are making fool of themselves.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 10:07:15 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Janet defending me--why i did it
Message:
actually I was sincerely defending Combat. I didn't mention you anywhere in the letter.

When I first started translating the magazine, I sent a letter to Combat [laboriously composed in my long-unused french] telling them what I was doing and asking for permission to go on with it, in light of copyright laws and the net. I got a letter back from one of their staff in english [much to my relief and delight] telling me to hold off for the moment until some problems were resolved with regards to a legal threat, pending the distribution of the issue to the general public. I wrote back and cynically guessed to the writer what he had not said outright: that EV france had called in their lawyers to intimidate the magazine from going public. I shared some of my more caustic suggestions with the fellow,musing that the magazine ought to go right on being good dispassionate journalists, and dutifully report every little thing that ensued, on each side, thus making EV plain to the public, exactly as they were. The more they did, the more grist for the mill of the presses it would be. They would dig their own grave and fall into it by their own willfulness.

I did not hear any more details from this fellow, but at some point, down the road, he wrote me with the go-ahead to begin my work. I surmised that the legal obstacle had probably been cleared, though I did not know and was told nothing about the outcome of the situation.

When I read Jim Heller's demand to Pia for a retraction on her site, correcting her inaccurate characterization of him in her 'gang of four', it set me to pondering. She felt very free to complain about how the internet is ungoverned and anybody can say anything they want, for the whole world to read, and here she is ostensibly putting up a site to refute what she claims are falsehoods about Maharaji--but she obviously can't hold herself to her own declared standard, as she goes right ahead and commits the same offense towards Combat that she purports is being done to her leader!

Here she is, the new kid on the block, only days into publishing and webpage authoring, taking aim at a publication in france that has been in business for years, knows the laws, knows the journalistic rules, files all the correct paperwork with the government, knows what the stakes are for printing libel, slander, false information and malicious content--

and I thought, why not play hardball, and let her and her ghost backers know that such naivete and ill informed reporting do not go unnoticed and un challenged?

What i told her, I took directly from the translating work I have already done in rendering the magazine issue into english for readers here. It's on their masthead, explaining their purpose, their editorial direction and dedication. Nothng inflammatory, just the facts. Like good journalism is meant to be.

Since I am doing translation of the magazine, and I am in communication with the office, i felt that that kind of makes me an unofficial adjunct to the magazine now, and I felt it was within my purview to defend them in a place where they were being misrepresented for sensationalist intents, admittedly by a pia-brain, but meritorious of a clear correction nonetheless.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 17:18:56 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: I found your letter was great !
Message:
maybe I was a bit ironic, but I appreciated your letter.

I don't want to tease them more, except if they write more lies about me and Combat on their website. Trying to argue with them is a total waste of time IMO.

They can think and write what they want, their website tells a lot ... They're the only one who can't see their website is a total nonsense - typical of a cult trying to say they're not a cult !

What a laugh.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:37:04 (GMT)
From: Alan F.
Email: benlurken@aol.com
To: janet
Subject: Pattern behavior -Donner please read
Message:
Janet,

I never really paid any attention to the passport issue before. It is exactly the same technique that Ron Colletta who was an 'X -rated' premie used only he had multiple drvers licenses for different states. He explained how easy it was to do ( before computers were tied toghether). His intent at the time was to get tickets in Colorado with an license from another state so he could always drive M or his cars, and it kept his insurance rates down. In the mid 70's he was arrested in Nebraska for driving well over 100 mph with M's maserati (moving it across country). They discovered all his id's then and maybe Donner can chime in here but I think the bail was rather high and someone had to go to Nebraska from Denver to bail him out. The last time I posted this info Donner or Dettmers weren't coming around and I was slammed by premies for assumming that M would know what soemone was doing with his $250,000 car. It seems he may be using the same technique. It would be interesting to know waht the FAA regulations say about this type of behavior.

A-

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 03:44:33 (GMT)
From: donner
Email: None
To: Alan F.
Subject: Pattern behavior -Donner please read
Message:
i was/am not aware of the colletta situation, driving records, different licenses etc...not surprised however but just not aware. certainly m was aways careful to keep as many options open as possible when considering his future travelling needs/desires visa vi his choice of nationality etc. dettmers would know more then i do about such...perhaps he will comment...but m and those around him that were part of his 'personal life/movements/money etc were quite good at arrangements, alternatives, strategies, etc. after all, we all did the 'best' we could while 'serving our beloved master'...right? and helping him to be free to operate in the world as best possible was part of our mandate so that the world could be saved from the clutches of mind by the power of his love. all else was viewed within the context of that mandate. certainly many of us believed m was 'above all worldly laws' as he was above all else...but we tried to work within the law because we realized that bad publicity was not cool....that having to deal with the legal system was dealing with a system that did not understand the world as we did. Lila and all, remember?? all the jesus, buhdua, lord parrells, how the world never understood the lord, always persecuted the poor master...victims that they are.

when a mindest that puts one outside and above the normal is in play...almost anything becomes possible to rationalise.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 01:26:54 (GMT)
From: Bin Liner
Email: None
To: Alan F.
Subject: Getting rich on the cheap is Rawat's pattern
Message:
I don't know what you call them in America , but London 'wide boys ' certainly had a guiding hand in the young guru's affairs ;
don't forget that his original constituency was from the ranks of the disaffected , or more probably with the benefit of hindsight those who thought they were .

Some who were on the margins & knew how to manipulate systems to their own advantage fell for the superior conman in person & put their talents to use in his service .

You bring up an interesting point in the search for the real man . Maybe after a lifetime of being kept up & running by serfs who know all the wide boy angles to satisfy the divine whim , he thinks he can pull it off for himself .

BIG MISTAKE : 1st rule of being a wide boy....never get noticed by the plods .

I'd say that his foray into the 'dunno what you're talking about got this id sez m mouse & wotcha gonna do about it motherf..' world was a serious error of judgement.

He's got himself noticed : that's expensive : fuck him .

Pat Dorrity


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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 11:41:56 (GMT)
From: nagual rain
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: some wise man said...(.it wasn't me)
Message:
there is a group of people who have been following a spiritual
master but despite the fact that they been doing service nite and day they have not achieved the ultimate goal of freedom
and liberation..so they left and now form a group of people of
their own.. they have gone back into society but not to
normality..they are like a ship without a rudder................
............and form a new cult of anti cultists ( these last
words are mine ).....why can't you just quit and just go about
your business like so many premies who somehow just leave the
'practising premie' scene...you are no different from prempal
who has a mission in his life, to spread k...your mission is
to frustrate his aims...2 sides of the same medal..locked up
in your head , in duality...to me the main cracks on this site are a bunch of very disappointed, desolute , hate-ridden fanatics
..there are others as well...but haven't you got something
better to do with your life than preaching anti-maharajiism?
you may think you are doing a great job...but really no one out-
side the premiefold is interested..you are not preventing any
new aspirant from receiving k...i mean you are obviously enjoying
your own company and are extremely happy when some elan vital
big wig changes sides..oh yeah, maybe some premie who is frustrated and isn't sure may get psychological help.(all you sisters of mercy you are not departed or gone...)
this reminds me of the christian sects,their inner circle battle:
the adventists had specialists who were out to convert the bap-
tists, and jehovas witnesses had special cracks who were out to
convert the adventists....take it as a fact epo is no more and
no less a cult than elan vital is, you may think differently,
but how can you judge as long as you are IN the cult....
but anyway, i enjoy reading all that stuff and now i go out and
enjoy the nagual rain's about to fall......
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 01:22:16 (GMT)
From: Gary Epton
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: You're right you are not a wise man
Message:
A wise man having investigated this site in it's entirety, not just the forum, can arrive at only one conclusion. Mahooey is a master only in his own mind, and even that is debatable. People who hung out with him virtually day in and day out for years got a chance to see behind the curtain of the wizard of oz and what did they see? Read the Bob Mishler interview, read the Michael Dettmers expose, and Michael Donner's revelations for starters. Read about the guru lineage and the Radsoami Beas tradition of revealing these techniques.

If you have been a follower for over ten years consider the revisionism regarding m and the cult posted on the EV site. Ponder the flip-flops from Lord of the Universe, to Guru (who is greater than God), to Perfect Master, to Master, to Humanitarian Leader, to Regular Guy, to Speaker, to You Know Who and ultimately (for aspirants) the secret that you find out and must accept about Maharaji if you want to receive knowledge.

Consider that many errors in judgement and advice have been made by m regarding ashrams, the need for people to give up everything to work for years refurbishing an obsolete aircraft, regarding people ignoring family, friends, relationships, career etc. In fact, the turning point for me personally was realizing that mahooey never accepted personal responsibility for plans gone awry and the fallibility of his advice. I perceived that when major things didn't pan out the way m said they would he would blame others and embark on an obvious PR campaign to smooth the ruffled feathers of the party faithful.

For instance after the plane and ashram debacles he held many programs, some in a question and answer format, at least one (Miami) which included a casual sit-down dinner with m's family at the head table, and others with m showing up to actually meet and greet premies at reception-like events. The purpose of this PR campaign was to 'de-mystify' (M's and EV's word not mine) mahooey, get him off his throne and bring him down to street level like one of us. This was a blatant attempt to mollify the masses after so many gargantuan errors in judgement - look, he's just a regular guy, he means well, he's not really God in a Bod. But then, slowly but surely the whole machinery started up again and here we are back with never doubting the purity of the master, darshan and arti for the true believers.

Whoever you are, you must understand that the overwhelming majority of people who post here on FV are not hate-filled, semi-human serpents (naga as is in naga rain) with nothing better to do. Everyone has been a premie just like you but we have decided to face the incongruities, deceit and revisionism head on. To not have the wool pulled over our eyes anymore. To fully understand the whole picture. To stand on our own two feet without fear or coersion. To help others see what's going down and to help ourselves in the process. I also still find fulfillment within but do not credit or need m for this purpose. I truly hope that you take the time to consider and govern yourself accordingly.

Regards, Gary

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:56:21 (GMT)
From: Katie H
Email: None
To: Gary Epton
Subject: Great Post, Gary - ***BEST of FORUM***
Message:
Mr/Ms Nagual's post has gotten some great replies.

Thanks!
Katie

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:31:48 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Gary Epton
Subject: No he isn't, Gar, but you sure are (nt)
Message:
ffffff
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 05:59:56 (GMT)
From: Gary Epton
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: 25 years, a bottle of Jim, and EPO (nt)
Message:
shnarfle
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 22:58:26 (GMT)
From: Helen
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: some wise man said...(.it wasn't me)
Message:
NG--
we get these kinds of posts here all the time. We all have our issues with cultic thinking to work out, but I don't think the individuals on forum 5 constitute a cult.

One of the myths that comes up here again and again is that we're an angry bunch whose sole mission in life is to bring M down. I barely think about M in my life and I'm not an angry type person. I'm pretty much a person who likes to feel good, actually.

But I think M is a bad person and I hate to see him hurt more people. This place is available to help people and to disseminate information. Do you think that living beyond duality means closing one's eyes to the reality of cults like Maharaji's that are out there today? Your post suggests that having a passion for something or a point of view means being trapped in dualism--*that* sounds like cultic thinking to me.'It's all an illusion, nothing matters except God/guru/bliss'--THAT'S CULTIC THINKING!

I notice you haven't responded to anyone's posts on this thread...Don't want to stick around and discuss? Just want to dis????

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 22:15:41 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: The definition of 'cult'
Message:
For dictionary (not made up) definitions of 'cult', see
cult

For your edification, below is part of what I posted at the 'Life's Great' forum, it is a comparison of the definitions of 'cult' with Elan Vital to see if the word fits. Try doing the same comparison with this forum and post your comparison. Just try backing up your claim.

From the definitions:

'A religion or religious sect'
Elan Vital is registered with the IRS as a church.

'followers often living in an unconventional manner'
Can you say 'ashram'?
Ok, not all premies live in ashrams, but some do, and how about travelling half way around the world to listen to 'Maharaji'. This is rather unconventional.

'under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.'
Can you spell 'agya'?
And what about the vow to obey his command?

'A system or community of religious worship and ritual'
Can you sing 'Arti'?
Did you sing 'Arti' at Amaroo?

'Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing'
Can you feel 'adulation'?
This word is actually used at www.elanvital.org to describe premies' feelings about a person who goes by the title 'Maharaji'. Premies have started smoking just because Rawat smokes, they have copied his manner of speaking, etc. Obsessive and faddish? I'd say so.

'An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or intellectual interest.'
'you know who' says to not show these techniques to anyone for any reason. Esoteric means:
. Intended for or understood by only a particular group: as in 'an esoteric cult'. See Synonyms at mysterious.
. Of or relating to that which is known by a restricted number of people.
. Confined to a small group: esoteric interests.
. Not publicly disclosed; confidential.

Elan Vital fits the definition of 'cult' to a T.

Now how does this forum?

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 21:19:59 (GMT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: Let us not forget the jerk who said. 'It IS me'
Message:
Whoever drops by to read postings will learn about the truth of the matter. Not the Truth...cuz tha's Subjective, ask CW. If it wasn't for this site--I wouldn't of discovered the truth of the matter. Admittingly, it's not easy to digest.

Hint: Good to puke first, then swallow truth whole. It's like opium, puking, interestingly enough, becomes part of the experience.

p.s. I hope to see you direct your sentiments at the accused one day, methinks me detects another good writer.

Talented and intelligent group these hate mongers are, don't you agree? Hopefully,we have some redeeming qualities.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:40:15 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: nagual, the meaning
Message:
What kind of juju are you putting down? A nagual is a sorcerer, ala Carlos Castaneda. So what the heck do you mean by nagual rain? Are we supposed to be afraid of Maharaji's Master Juju curse for speaking out against him? According to several religions I may be going to hell, but I figure their hells are members-only, so they are probably the only ones going, if they think they are. Members-only heaven, members only hell. Kinda yin-yang, right????

Sounds like the veiled threats of another unbalanced poster. Hope you are taking care of your mental health, you nasty nagual thing.

peace, f

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:35:18 (GMT)
From: Gary Epton
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: nagual, the meaning
Message:
naga (hindu myth) one of a race of semi-human serpents, genii (one of two-opposed spirits or angels supposed to attend each person, person who powerfully influences one for good or evil) of rain, rivers, etc.

So Castenada aside, perhaps our interloper means nagal rain. However he/she does seem to fit the definition of a nag: find fault or scold persistently, annoy, irritate, provoke.

The Garyman (boo)

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 00:18:40 (GMT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: Gary Epton
Subject: nagual, the meaning
Message:
It rang a bell, so I pulled out my Churchward (James) - According to Churchward you might both be right somehow and I might explore further (not that it's particularly relevant to 'Nagual's' post!):

'All the ancient nations copied the Motherland's [Mu] diagram - the Mayas of Yucatan, the Naga - Mayas of India, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians and the Pueblo Indians of southwestern North America.'

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 00:33:33 (GMT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: Gary, Francesca and ...
Subject: and even more broad ...
Message:
I found this interesting discussion of 'Naga' here: The Naga It says first that it's root is Sanskrit, then that 'Naga is one of a handful of rare words surviving the loss of the first universal language,' and I doubt the Hindus brought it Central/South America. ;-) Excerpt below:

'The word Naga is rooted in Sanskrit and means 'Serpent'. In the East Indian pantheon it is connected with the Serpent Spirit and the Dragon Spirit. It has an quivalency to the Burmese Nats, or god-serpents. In the Esoteric Tradition it is synonymous for Adepts, or Initiates. In India and Egypt, and even in Central and South America, the Naga stands for one who is wise.

'Nagarjuna of India, for example, is shown with an aura, or halo, of seven serpents which is an indication of a very high degree of Initiation. The symbolism of the seven serpents, usually cobras, are also on Masonic aprons of certain systems in the Buddhistic ruins of Cambodia (Ankhor) and Ceylon. The great temple-builders of the famous Ankhor Wat were considered to be the semi-divine Khmers. The avenue leading to the Temple is lined with the seven-headed Naga. And even in Mexico, we find the 'Naga' which becomes 'Nagal.' In China, the Naga is given the form of the Dragon and has a direct association with the Emperor and is known as the 'Son of Heaven'...while in Egypt the same association is termed 'King-Initiate'. The Chinese are even said to have originated with the Serpent demi-gods and even to speak their language, Naga-Krita. For a place that has no serpents, Tibet, they are still known in a symbolic sense and are called 'Lu!' (Naga). Nagarjuna called in Tibetan, Lu-trub.

'In the Western traditions we find the sae ubiquity for the Naga, or Serpent. One simple example is the Ancient Greek Goddess, Athena. She is known as a warrior Goddess as well as the Goddess of Wisdom; her symbol being the Serpent as displayed on her personal shield. Of course, in Genesis the Serpent is a Naga who instructs the new infant (humanity) in what is called the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Christian church has, unfortunately transformed the Initiate-Teacher into a tempting and negative demon-character. An apocryphal tradition says that Apollonius of Tyana, while on a visit to India, was taught by the 'Nagas' of Kashmir. (See The Life of Apollonius, by Philostratos.) It is felt by many scholars of the Western Tradition that the life of Apollonius was taken from the New Testament, or that the narratives of the New Testament have been taken from the life of Apollonius. This is felt because of the undisputed and clear similarities of construction fo that particular narrative.

'Naga is one of a handful of rare words surviving the loss of the first universal language. In Buddhism, Wisdom has always been ties, symbollically, to the figure of the Serpent. In the Western Tradition it can be found as used by the Christ in the Gospel of Saint Matthew (x.16), 'Be ye therefore as serpents, and harmless as doves.'

'In all mythological language the snake is also an emblem of immortality. Its endless representation with its tail in its mouth (Ouroboros), and the constant renewal of its skin and vigor, enliven teh symbols of continued youth and eternity.'

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 02:59:29 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Stonor
Subject: Thanks for that Stonor
Message:
I've always been interested in nagas.

I'm not sure which one he or she means, but I'm printing out your research. The reason I got the Don Juan sorcer connection is because of sites like the following:

interview with Castaneda

The Nagual Network

Maya Quest

Books on Nagualism

Of course these folks could all be new agers that don't know squat, but it seems there is some Central or South American connection here.

Of course, who knows what he or she means? Another hit and run artist. Poke a few times, and then when people start to ask 'what are you on about?' they go away because they have no answers. Hope that's not the case here, but thanks for the stuff on nagas.

--f

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 12:01:02 (GMT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Thanks for that Francesca!
Message:
Hi Francesca,

Yes, a lot Casteneda stuff came up first, so I changed the search to 'naga' and it broadened, but still include the Central and South American element. I've read Castaneda's first book, but couldn't relate to it - wasn't the kind of thing that interested me. I want to go back today and read the second one more slowly. Finding out what I called 'original' truth has been a lifelong interest of mine, so I appreciate this question coming up ... brought me a bit more information on the topic. When I was living in Lima in the mid-eighties, I read some fascinating Incan mythology in a book someone lent me - their creation myth had a brother and sister rising from Lake Titicaca a bit like the birth of Venus, and bizarrely enough, the girl had blond hair like in Botticelli's rendition of it. Their Viracocha myth is just as fascinating - claims that a male teacher called Viracocha, with red hair and beard, came to them from across the ocean. When he left he promised to return. The Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) member and University prof who lent the book to me told me that when the Spaniards came they welcomed him with open arms thinking that it was Viracocha returning as promised, but that wasn't the case - the native population was, as they put it dequartizadoed (sp!!) or dismembered. The Sendero 'myth' goes that each 50 years, another part of their body is re-attached, and he said that in this 50 years their head (their leaders and wisemen who were all slaughtered right away by the Spaniards) is being joined. I have been following the news of the election (finally!) of Peru's first native president with great interest. Although they seem to be very Catholic, the reverence felt by them towards Viracocha amazed me. I asked a native woman one day about Viracocha and she seemed quite emotional as she replied that he was God.

Sorry about the off-topic ramble on the off-topic, but that's what came to my mind, so I thought I'd share it with you.

As far a Nagual Rain goes, I think that new posters aren't too sure how to enter into dialogue right away, so yes, maybe they poke a few times and then go away. But maybe they come back later and try it from a different angle. I think it's important to engage them in dialogue of some sort, as people here usually try to do, and be patient for a while. I had never posted at a forum before I came to this one, and I was quite confused and intimidated at first by the technology alone! ;-) That might be a factor as well.

Nice talking with you Francesca.

Anna

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 19:09:06 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Stonor
Subject: Nice talking with you too
Message:
Some of this stuff can seen slightly OT, but if this Forum isn't about out continual unfolding and studying, we'd be proving to people like nagual rain that we are truly stuck and hadn't/aren't moving on. This is not the case. Many of the people on this Forum fascinate me no end.

love, f

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 03:25:54 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Castenada was a TOTAL fraud (and asshole)
Message:
I know something about this. A friend of mine published a book by an anthropologist who's an expert in the Huichol culture debunking Castenda floor to ceiling. There's nothing there. He absolutely ripped off Huichol stuff for his fake Yaqui sorcerer, Don Juan. Big long story but that's the point I wanted to make.
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 04:22:07 (GMT)
From: Carl
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Need info on 'Castenada was a TOTAL fraud' /OT
Message:
Hi Jim,

A very close friend of mine has recently gotten quite swept up with shamanistic concepts and the Casteneda stuff in particular. If you have any more details about the book your friend published, I'd sure like to forward that info on to my friend.

Many years ago, BM (Before M.), my imagination was captured by all that Don Juan stuff also. A few mescaline trips, 'Tales of Power', and I felt I was there. Carlos did write convincingly, that is, he told a story that painted vivid pictures in my mind.

Anyway, info on that book would be greatly appreciated, if it is readily available. But no sweat if it's hassle.

Many thanks,
Carl

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 01:43:40 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: None
To: Carl
Subject: Tell your friend to read up on it, Carl...
Message:
Casteneda, an on-the-make, ex-pat Peruvian post-grad student never even went to Mexico. That's how fake we're talking. Did his sorceror's journey in the University of California library in lieu of proper anthropological fieldwork. To their susequent shame and embarrassment he fooled the 'experts' and got the doctorate, a trilogy of best-sellers and a cult following...

Tell your pal that following a demonstrably bogus and dead fake is even worse for his mental health than following a live one who has yet to string together a logically coherent paragraph.

Or maybe not. Ultimately, it all smells pretty much the same.


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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 19:13:07 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Carl
Subject: The BEST forum archives search is
Message:
drumroll, please -- Sir Dave's search engine

Wish they had a link to it on EPO. It's absolutely brilliant. I got it from Jim.

love, f

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:10:25 (GMT)
From: Carl
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Thank You !!! I was wondering when I'd have a
Message:
spare month to seach all that material. Once I would start reading I'd need to read it all . . . !

Thanks for the SirDave search engine: it's in my 'Favorites: list now.

Love,
C.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:10:35 (GMT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Carl
Subject: URL for debunking Castaneda, Naguals -ot-
Message:
Date: Mon, Oct 23, 2000 at 04:58:16 (GMT)
From: And On Anand Ji
Email: and_on_anand@yahoo.com
To: Eric
Subject: URL for debunking Castaneda, Naguals
Message:


http://www.sustainedaction.org/
He was a big-time fraud.
Spend some time reading the above site - it gives a false appearance of being other than a vendetta site against Carlos Casteneda. It's pretty cool. :)

reposted by JohnT

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:24:23 (GMT)
From: Carl
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Thanks much! I'll forward it to my buddy.. /nt
Message:
yowza
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 06:32:34 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Carl
Subject: Carl, I did a long post on this once
Message:
Tell you what. Check the archives. If you can't find it, let me know and I'll tell you all I know. But, believe me, Castenada was a clear, blatant liar. Mind you, it's not that big a secret. It all goes back to his days at UCLA where he was a renown bullshitter. Only they ended up giving him a PHD for it!

So check it out, let me know and we'll take it from there. 'kay?

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 08:08:05 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: but Castenada's stories sure were good on acid
Message:
............turning into eagles and all that other stuff like Mescalito. He had a wonderful imagination. I've read several articles showing that he made it all up (duh!) which just goes to show that you can usually make more money out of fiction than fact. The human imagination - what a mystery it is for kids and primitives and a source of income for writers and gurus.
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 19:14:16 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: Some people read Lynn Andrews too BARF --n/t
Message:
n/t
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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 00:43:49 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Who's that?-----------------n/t
Message:
j
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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 05:22:35 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: New agey female shaman books
Message:
Medicine Woman; Jaguar Woman; Love & Power, Awaken to Mastery; Windhorse Woman, a Marriage of Spirit and on and on.

I do read a little stuff on shamanism, but Lynn Andrews is over the top. Though my mind would rot if I read that stuff. Gotta stay 'old age' and watch out for that 'new age' stuff.

Here's what Amazon says about Lynn Andrews:

Lynn V. Andrews is the author of sixteen books, including the New York Times bestsellers Medicine Woman and Jaguar Woman. She is a preeminent teacher in the field of personal development and spirituality, and is the founder of The Lynn Andrews Center for Sacred Arts & Training.

No shortage of people out there waiting to be led!

love, f

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 19:41:14 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: New Age equivalent of valium and martinis
Message:
I guess I am prejudiced. Too much of that kind of stuff in SF and I just have to smile politely. I'm really out of the New Age loop.

I tend to think of it as being the equivalent of stuff for bored housewives who are nowadays more educated than they were in the sixties when two valiums, a martini and a bodice-ripper from Barbara Cartland relieved the suburban boredom.

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Date: Tues, Jun 12, 2001 at 04:32:16 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: Keeps Shirley McLaine in spare change LOL n/t
Message:
n/t
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 23:51:41 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Gary Epton
Subject: nagual pronounced, ''Nag you all?'' - NT
Message:
h
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:22:53 (GMT)
From: Susan
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: leave but be quiet about it like the others?
Message:
So you respect people more who leave and feel no obligation to speak out about why they left?

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:11:29 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: Revenge, understanding and public service
Message:
Oh yeah, fun and entertainment.

I post here because I always care about other people I once worshipped as God. In fact, I care a lot about them. They're part of my internal landscape, someone I'll never forget. In this case, that's Maharaji. And because I think he's a fraud I want to fuck him up a bit. This site and all the stuff ex's have done has most certainly accomplished that. Like us or not, agree with our efforts or not, that fact is now beyond dispute.

I also post to better understand myself and the person I was back in my late teens and twenties. A lot of pieces have fallen into place because of all this. Try it. Try talking about yourself here. Reflect a bit. You'll see.

I also post for the Gary Epton's and Scot Jameson's of the world. Sorry, but once I realized what a trick this Maharaji cult was I wanted to tell all the people I knew who were still into it a bit. Why? Human nature, obviously. More specifically, maybe just because I'm a nice guy. What's your excuse, NR? Why do YOU post here?

By the way, have you posted anything on Pia's site yet? Why not? She's waiting for your contribution when you find the time. Of course the anonymity's got to go but, well, it's for a good cause, huh?

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:03:33 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: SO what are you doing here, preachy teachy???
Message:
This is a tired saw.

If you read each of these posts, they are not all 'hate-filled' so that old windbag goes down. Yes some people vent, and we don't like M, so we joke about him.

People ARE leaving M's cult because of this site, and aspirants HAVE decided not to get any deeper into Maharajism because of this site.

Look up cult in a dictionary. We have no common beliefs, and even some premies and people like you posts here. There is no membership. In fact, due to aliases like YOUR OWN, no one even knows who you ARE. There are athiests, agnostics, Buddhists, Christians and people of all sorts of personal beliefs that post here. Where's the cult? This is a friggin internet bulletin board. So that old windbag goes down also.

So you don't like what we are doing? What are you afraid of? Why are you here then, and what are you trying to accomplish with your preachy, more-knowing-than-thou rants? Think about it.
Namaste, f

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:35:06 (GMT)
From: Carl
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: BINGO! You said it, Frenchy!
Message:
I tell you, watching that EV, and now IAS (ItAintSo), spin and spin and SPIN, whew, it's making me dizzy.

You gotta laugh though, the poor suckers: Fuzzy thinking, wishful, magical, nostalgic, in-denial, uncritical, mythologizing, infantile, co-dependant, goo-goo la-la-land of a thousand rationalizations.

So MUCH wasted human effort to shore up, spin for, or conceal an 'emperor without any clothes'.

EPO is merely the voice of the little boy who wasn't afraid to say out loud, 'Hey, he's not wearing anything at all!' And to produce a big full-length MIRROR to prove it!

(Mirror = M's own words, recorded history, actions and results).

Warm regards Fran, I wish I could have gone to the recent party.

All best,
Carl

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:25:23 (GMT)
From: Joy
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: EPO is not a cult and we are not hate-filled
Message:
Dear Naugal Rain,

I take exception to your characterization of the people who populate this website as not normal, hate-filled and like ships without rudders. Premies certainly love to say that these days; since they can't think about or respond properly to what we say, DIVERT the topic to making a personal attack on the say-ers.

I would just like to tell you that no way are the people who post here hate-filled. Some have a certain degree of righteous anger at Maharaji and his con-game, but that is certainly a different thing from hate. I personally know seven of the main posters here and they are the most wonderful, funny, creative and loving folks I have ever met. They run restaurants, drive sports and electric cars, produce art exhibits and CDs, build houses, run seminars, have spouses and kids, rescue unwanted dogs -- if that's not having a life, can you please tell us your description of what is?

No, in no way are the people here hate-filled towards premies or even towards Maharaji personally. We are ANGRY at the way he promotes himself as God in Person at the expense (literally) of his followers, enriching himself obscenely while they struggle to make ends meet. We are ANGRY that he lies about this and pretends to be only a meditation teacher. We are ANGRY that he promises to bring peace to the world and show people an experience of God when all he really has on offer are some common meditation techniques. And lots are ANGRY that he, for many many years, guilt-tripped us into living in his ashrams and devoting our lives to him, and then he turned around and just dumped everyone out of them, after drilling into people that it was a lifetime commitment.

Nope, we don't buy the spiritual con-game that is Maharaji and his Knowledge, and are dedicated to helping people still struggling with it to get OUT, and helping people considering joining it not to. That's all. No hate-mongering here, just people who have seen through the nonsense and are trying to warn and help others (and have a good time hanging out and making friends with each other in the process). See cq's definition of a cult, that's what M's organization is, not this bunch of raggle-taggle ex-premies.

I hope that one day you can see that, too.
Yours,
Joy
(20 years an ex, has a life, and enjoys it too)

P.S. What does Naugal mean anyhow?

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 15:07:18 (GMT)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: I am going about my business
Message:
... why can't you just quit and just go about your business...

I almost never respond to drive-by premies who want to set me straight, but you seem to be sincere. I did quit practicing K in 1987 after practicing consistantly for 14 years, including 3 years in an ashram and doing full time service for 6 years. I did not meditate or see M for 7 years and 'put it behind me' - I 'moved on' and more acurately - I matured in my view of M & K. It was a fun trip for an idealist and I quite enjoyed myself. Others here were not as lucky, but I have good memories of life then. What changed for me was gaining a sense of self direction and getting in touch with my inner authority (my rudder if you will). By contrast, M then seemed to be an impeccably presented but arogant and misinformed tyrant. He will be the first to tell you you need his direction, and if you still believe that, then you probably still do need an authoritarian leader. Religion begins where your imagination ends, so have at it and 'enjoy your life'.

I reconnected with the M scene in the mid-90's and went to 3 Long Beach events. I thoroughly enjoyed reconnecting with my old friends and the nostalgia buzz felt familiar. But, the slo-mo poetry videos, the Divine Mall and moste especially M's condescending attitude eventually made it impossible for me to justify further participation.

Why do I post here? I was drawn to this forum because, once in awhile, a thread would touch on the reasons I (we) were attracted to M & K, and what that was all about. Today I want to rediscover the person I was when I first encountered M & K and, hopefully, continue nurturing the healthy attributes of that person. I don't hate M or regret my time in the ashram - that was perfect for who I was then but I have grown. Today I do think M & K are misrepresented, M is totally out of touch with his followers and even himself, and EV is made up of essentially devoted and well meaning folk who are unwittingly enabling M to avoid personal responsibility.

And that is my business.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 22:33:35 (GMT)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Richard
Subject: '..and that is my business'....
Message:
If you weren't such a gent you might have added '..and not yours.'

Great post, Richard.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:07:50 (GMT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: BEST OF FORUM *** great post ;o) ---n/t
Message:
great
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:54:49 (GMT)
From: Katie H
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: I agree - Richard's post: BEST OF FORUM!
Message:
I used to try and write an answer to most of these 'get a life; you all are a cult; everyone here is a looser (sic)' posts. Richard's post says what I would have said far more eloquently, and I'd like to see it preserved so we can re-post it! (and so it can be read again.)

Thanks Richard!
Katie

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:41:18 (GMT)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: You are too kind, Francesca
Message:
I was just following inner agya from Subcommander Jean-Michel. ;>)
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:48:39 (GMT)
From: tonal nagual
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: a yawn brings oxygen into the bloodstream
Message:
And I will clarify things for you, N.R., since you apparently haven't been here too long.

1. We have lives! Families, jobs, intellectual pursuits and even spiritual paths! (In fact, almost without exception, our lives have flourished like explosions of colorful tropical vegetation since we stopped Rotting with Rawat.)

2. Some of us want to bring down M; some of us just wast to keep the truth about M online for aspirants and openminded premies; some just like the dialogue. (Like you?) We believe that one man should not be able to control all the information about his activities. That sort of megaspin reminds us too much of Joe Stalin and Nick Ceausecu.

3. EPO a cult? Please.

- Gregg

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:15:28 (GMT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: you need to know the definition of the word 'cult'
Message:
Premies DO revere Maharaji, you wouldn't deny that would you?

However EPO doesn't revere anyone.

Therfore EPO cannot (by definition) be a cult.

.
.
.
The Oxford English Dictionary (the big 20-volume one) has the following definition of the word:

cult, n.
[ad. L. cultus worship (f. colere to attend to, cultivate, respect, etc.), and its F. adaptation culte (1611 Cotgr.). Used in 17th c. (? from Latin), and then rarely till the middle of the 19th, when often spelt culte as in French.]

1. Worship; reverential homage rendered to a divine being or beings.

2. a. A particular form or system of religious worship; esp. in reference to its external rites and ceremonies.

b. Now freq. used attrib. by writers on cultic ritual and the archæology of primitive cults.

3. transf. Devotion or homage to a particular person or thing, now esp. as paid by a body of professed adherents or admirers.


I think definition #3 fits premies to a T. Don't you?

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 14:05:42 (GMT)
From: Bob
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: stop rawat
Message:
fortunately this site does oppose m.s work quite effective. we believe that is a good service to humanity. Also, because a vital part of our life has been spent in DLM/EV, that does create a bond, a recognition. A lot of us go through the same patterns when finding ourselves back. Episodes of anger and grief are a part of this, fortunately that is not the end of the story. most of my time on this site I smile and feel very positive. But I do get passionate about wanting to stop the false guru, the world being a better place when he would just retire.
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 13:07:26 (GMT)
From: Toby
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: some wise man said...(.it wasn't me)
Message:
yeah, yeah keep on talking maharaji mate.

I think the main goal for most of the posters is to bring down the bastard.
When that is established, this all might disappear.
If you are really bothered by the existence of EPO,
HELP US !!!
So we are just taking responsability to help others , if we
succeed the work is done.
No new believe, no cult, that simple.
Your examples are all about other sects who all claim to be valid
forever(like maharaji). I think constant practicing has diminished your ability for accurate thinking.

Toby


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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 12:30:51 (GMT)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: nagual rain
Subject: You are wrong
Message:
Nagual Rain said:-

you are not preventing any new aspirant from receiving k..

This is wrong. Ex-aspirants have posted here their thanks for the site and the forum. It is impossible to say how many potential aspirants have avoided the cult by reading here (but never posting) when they were considering accepting Maharaji as a teacher.

As far as the rest of your post is concerned, countering Maharaji's and EV's lies is a worthwhile thing to do with some of our spare time. And that's the point, we do have lives outside being ex-premies. Reading and posting here is only a small, but enjoyable, part of my life.

John.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 12:53:55 (GMT)
From: Tony
Email: None
To: Nagual rain
Subject: You sure are wrong.
Message:
I personally know of 4 aspirants that have been put off by this site.They were full on aspirants and then came across EPO.They read the info on the site and read some of the posts and then decided that M and K was not for them and left.I think this site is having a big effect on premies and aspirants.I don't see it as a cult at all.I see most of the people on here as doing premies,aspirants and recent exes a huge favour.This site and the forum helped me in my exing and I am extremely gratful to all and sundry.Ok,so there may be some very angry folk around here,but i think there anger is quite warranted in view of what some of them have endured.
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 13:06:22 (GMT)
From: Tony
Email: None
To: Nagual rain
Subject: PS You show me a premie who has achieved
Message:
freedom and liberation and I will show you someone who THINKS they have achieved these things.Is it the bible that says 'judge him by his fruits'?well, I never saw it in premies.They talk about it like it is reality and that they are experiencing these things but I don't think premies really do at all.I think it is just part of the whole brainwashing mindset that goes with the cult.
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 09:47:50 (GMT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: Why isn't our K session vow on EPO?
Message:
Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see it there. I would think it to be a very valuable piece of historical information. I have the actual vow I took in 1973 if no one else has it.
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 10:01:32 (GMT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: Here it is-(Warning-a MAJOR CRINGE)
Message:
Oh my Guru Maharaj Ji,
I dedicate myself to You.
I am weak and ignorant and am filled with the impurities of this world..
Oh my Guru Maharaj Ji, through Knowledge please purify me of the impurities I possess.
Reveal to me the Knowledge of all Knowledges.
Strengthen me, uplift me and reveal the Truth within inside of me.
Bring me from hate to love, darkness to light, death to immortality.
I will follow Your direction and will never reveal this Knowledge to anybody for any reason.
I will keep in contact with You through my devotional love, satsang, meditation and service.
Thank You.
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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 09:43:08 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: K session and vows ALREADY onN EPO !!
Message:
Check here :

Knowledge Session

Next will come the DVD / Auto-K session.

And here

The meditation techniques

Working on the DVD ...

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 09:57:02 (GMT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Thanks, J-M
Message:
I'm not surprised. This site is just so comprehensive, it's hard to know where everything is. I appreciate all your efforts.
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:48:20 (GMT)
From: Katie H
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: The rules that went with the vow?
Message:
I can't remember saying this (although I am sure I did - can't remember all that much of 1972 for some reason :)!) What I do remember is the other things we had to say - can anyone refresh my memory on this one?

Never leave room for doubt in your mind
Never delay in attending satsang
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today (My elementary school teachers always told me this one too - snicker!)

Weren't there four or five of these? And what were they called?

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:56:40 (GMT)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Katie H
Subject: Plus one more impossible 'commandment' to follow
Message:
'Constantly meditate and remember Holy Name.'

Hmmm.... doesn't M make a big deal about how K is NOT meditation? Another page for the revisionists manual.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 15:59:38 (GMT)
From: Katie
Email: None
To: Richard
Subject: The name 'Commandments' was evocative itself
Message:
Even back then, I thought it was kind of weird that M was calling them 'commandments'.

Yeah, I should have remembered that one! You're correct that it was impossible.

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 13:55:19 (GMT)
From: Bryn
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: Above was a major factor in M getting rich nt
Message:
gh
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 21:43:59 (GMT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: No wonder Maharaji never wanted a divorce....
Message:
I was thinking about why Maharaji was so adamant about not wanting a divorce (although he was carrying-on w/premie babes) and it donned on me that we had all made vows.

My take on the matter:

If the BigHead was to admit to not fulfilling vows w/ Marolyn then deep deep down on a subconscious level we would of started questioning the importance of Vows. Vows are a very intrinsic part of humanity, early and modern. People give up their lives for Vows, people give up other peoples's lives for Vows.

If he and Marolyn would have legally divorced, that VOW door would have flung open for investigation or even conscious speculation, well, it would have opened a can of well-preserved worms.

Remember when RajaJi (Prince Savoire Faire)was having marital problems with Claudia, and speculation about them getting a divorce was public. Well, at a program (could choice of words, isn't it), the BigHead made a heart-filled comment about how we should honour our vows and how he was pleading with his bro to not Divorce. And of course, I reflected on how important it was to honour and never question my vows to himmmmm. Shit!

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:57:42 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: PWKs ask why I break vow and show K
Message:
When I got divorced I broke an even more solemn vow, IMO.

According to the Koran, in order to divorce a troublesome spouse, one need only say: ''I divorce thee'' three times.

Rev Pimple Rawat, I divorce thee three times.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:49:51 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: Sorry, Pat
Message:
I don't think it works unless you say 'I divorce thee' three times, not 'I divorce thee three times'.
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 20:35:56 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: I divorced him once in 1978
Message:
after the first Kissimmee Krishna fest when it became obvious that it was a cult.

Like a fool I got suckered again but then divorced him for the second time in 1981 when I wrote him a letter and told him he was a conman.

Again I got suckered by his promise of glasnost in 1999 and returned but this past New Year's Eve I did it again and this time I got the final decree.

Yep, I divorced him three times. Third time lucky.

Finally broke the spell of those silly voodoo vows.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:44:01 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Mr. Mind
Subject: Good one! JM? You want this? DLM / EV Papers?
Message:
This oath is so important because we uttered it so solemnly. I know I did. By the time I got kicked-in to the cult, I really did think that it was only the 'impurities of the world' that stood between me and some eternal, cosmic vision. Maharaji assured me that he was free of any such impurities and could ferry me across 'death to immortality' just like it says.

But of course.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 08:09:29 (GMT)
From: Tony
Email: parisw@ozemail.com.au
To: Everyone
Subject: It's my knowledge birthday.
Message:
G'day all,
This used to be the most important day in my calender year,even more important than my birth birthday.
Funny how things change.Now it is a significant day for other reasons.It was on the 9th of June 1974 and I was on my way with a good mate to receive the gift of a life time,the knowledge of all knowledges.It is a day I will always remember.I was so full of enthusiasm that I had found the thing that sages had been writing about for centuries and some devotees had waited a lifetime to receive.How blessed was I to be on my way in a broken down old car,to receive this precious gift.
After receiving the gift,I gave it my best shot for nearly 27 years( that is a big chunk out of my life)and I now wonder whether it has been beneficial or not.Who knows?
Now that I am an ex premie I feel good about myself and am quite a happy chappy with my lot.I look at life with a positive outlook and feel good in the mornings when I awake.I have chalenges in my life and feel good about taking them on.Yes, I suppose you could say it all sounds rather boring,but no it is not.I prefer it to having a feeling of striving for an UNATTAINABLE destination which I believe is the realm of Maharaji.I am certain if I had given 27 years to anything else I probably would've mastered it in all that time.Premies will probably read this and say that I did'nt give it my best shot or that I did'nt understand it.I think I did on both counts.

Cheers Tony(formerly Aussi Ji)

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 08:32:46 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Tony
Subject: Yay, snatched with abandon!
Message:
You sound awfully wise to me, grandpa.
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 05:44:10 (GMT)
From: G
Email: None
To: Carlos
Subject: What Carlos says
Message:
From it-aint-so.org [bold emphasis mine]:

'By Carlos Harden, USA

Former treasurer talks about money
In 1973 I had the great good fortune to help found the Puerto Rican branch of the non-profit entity that supported Maharaji's work back then. I was the treasurer. Concerns for the 2 instructor tours that occurred while I was there and the event with Maharaji we wanted to have but never got together, were never about generating extra funds to send on to him but about funding effective propagation. Later (1975-1978) I was involved with registration/ticketing for events with Maharaji. With my having been in the role I was in Puerto Rico I was naturally interested in how the financial side of things worked. I learned that they were done on a '0-budget' basis; that is, that the requested donations were aimed to achieve exactly what the costs were expected to be. During this period and later I got to know some of the people involved in national and international co-ordination of various parts of propagation. While they, quite properly, never gave me any of the confidential details, which I had no need to know, they did understand my interest and let me know some things, where not inappropriate, in a general way. One of the things I learned was that great care had always been taken to keep separate donations to support his work and gifts to him personally. One reason for this was that he could and would help out funding for his work, if needed, but funds offered for his work were never allowed to help or support him or his family. So my experience, allied with common sense, tells me that those who fear Maharaji has or would misappropriately take money are way off the mark.'

'never about generating extra funds to send on to him'

Rawat doesn't have to get money from 'extra funds', he can get money from the regular funds.

'what the costs were expected to be'

And what were those costs Carlos? You don't know, do you, because they never told you.

'While they, quite properly, never gave me any of the confidential details, which I had no need to know.'

No Carlos, that was quite inproper, you had a right and a need to know. Your time and money is valuable isn't it? Do you want to waste your time supporting a fraud? Why were the details labeled 'confidential'? What are they hiding?

'support his work'

Someone gets the money, it doesn't just vanish. Who gets the money?

'he could and would help out funding for his work, if needed'

Oh, he also said that he 'could' show me God face to face (whatever that means). But did he? No, he can't. But in the are of funding he could help out, but he WON'T. His escape clause is 'if needed'. Who determines what 'if needed' means? He does. Guess what? It's never needed. Go figure.

'funds offered for his work were never allowed to help or support him or his family'

How would you know Carlos? You were never let in on the 'confidential' details.

'my experience, allied with common sense, tells me that those who fear Maharaji has or would misappropriately take money are way off the mark.'

Really it is your blind trust in your 'Master' that 'tells' you that, you are just labeling it 'experience'. Common sense certainly did not tell you that.

Aside from donations to Elan Vital/Divine Light Mission, let's consider the money given to Rawat at darshan lines and Elan Vital personnel having meetings with premies in which they requested that premies give money to Rawat directly. Non-profit charitable organizations are not supposed to improperly fatten the wallet of individuals who are not the intended beneficiaries of the charity. For example, a charity that is supposed to feed the hungry poor is not supposed to make someone rich. Now putting on these darshan line events and these meetings were activities performed by Elan Vital. This is in clear violation of the rules governing charities. Rawat HAS misappropriately taken money at least in this way. This is not something I fear, it is something I know for a fact. I always figured that he got money from EV donations, but I rationalized it, thinking Oh, he's just getting around those stupid laws. To think that he doesn't get any money from donations is stupid. There is evidence that he does, there are shell companies left and right, some details about them have been posted at this site. For the Amaroo event, premies sent money to an Elan Vital, Ltd,, a company privately owned by 'trustees of the Elan Vital trust'. Why? I challenge Elan Vital Inc. officials to open their books, to detail who got the money sent to Elan Vital Ltd., and to disclose who owns Elan Vital Ltd. I'm not holding my breath.


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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 09:24:58 (GMT)
From: Mr. Mind
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Mr. Mind refreshes Carlos' memory
Message:
''In 1973 I had the great good fortune to help found the Puerto Rican branch of the non-profit entity that supported Maharaji's work back then''

Carlos, you must have forgotten the name of that non-profit entity. It was Divine Light Mission (DLM). I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here since you have no reason to be ashamed of Rawat's past.

...and remember ... Don't lick those envelopes

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 05:23:45 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Everyone
Subject: My reply to WS (from Pia's site 'staff')
Message:

Current Focus

Of praise and criticism of Maharaji, and the purpose of this site

Maharaji has been both publicly praised and publicly criticized since he was very young. Even before he was proclaimed a living Master at the age of eight, thousands in India would listen with amazement while he spoke with profound understanding about human life and its possibility.

I used to think his satsangs from back then were profound and amazingly precocious as well. I don't any longer. Indeed, far from being filled with any kind of understanding about anything, they're simply run-of-the-mill spiritual slogans, cliches and hoary old stories parroting his guru father. When he actually ventured out of the mold to try to comment on the real world, he revealed how young and immature he really was. Here, for example, is Maharaji at 14 on diet:

The root is the consciousness, but where does the consciousness actually lie ? Because root, if you take root itself, it's in a seed. You see, there is a little explanation to that. If you are eating meat, you are eating out of a being, right ? Like supposedly, some people eat cow, right? Cow comes from life, a mother. Right ? And that also come from a life, and it's a life to a life to a life circle. But a plant does not come from a life. It comes from dead, from a seed which is dead. It doesn't need any nutrition. It's a dead seed. When you plant it, and that's when it becomes (alive), for it to grow, and to give you fruits.

or this disposition on life and 'karma':

A man did some sins and he dies. His ego flies with the sins. His soul flies with the things which are good. Right? Now these two things fly and this ego jet tries to follow where the soul goes. Now this soul goes and lands in that little boy - right? - And these bad actions that were being carried by ego also go into that little boy. As soon as he is taught 'I', you know, and he understands 'I', right from there he has done a mistake. And 'I' means ego. Because he understood 'I' he has done a mistake. He does not know it then, but after some time he does know it. And then all these other things start, because he has accepted that ego. And by now that ego has completely landed. First it had not landed, it was just flying around. Soul had landed. It took a birth. But as soon as he said 'I', ego said O.K, land now. And at that moment it has landed.

Pure balderdash, both. Or do you think otherwise?

He spoke with an ease and conviction that defied rational explanation and attracted the highest of praise, even reverence, on the one hand and skepticism or even harsh criticism on the other.

The 'ease and conviction' made perfect sense given the fact that he grew up in such bizarre circumstances where his father was reverred as God incarnate. Maharaji merely siezed the mike and played at daddy's game. The skepticism and harsh criticism came from outside the cult. Those inside were wrapped up in a fairly-tale existance wherein Shri Hans' whole family was divine. Hardly objective.

After one of his presentations given before an audience of tens of thousands of people in New Delhi, a news article was published claiming that 'the boy guru' was a fraud and was not speaking the words being heard at all, but simply mouthing them while a tape recorder was playing through the loudspeakers.

I'm sure that theory wasn't true. Rather, Maharaji was just adept at performing daddy's vaudeville routine. Any transcripts of Maharaji's early talks prove the point handily. There's nary an original thought. It's all hindu boilerplate. Impressive? No.

The explanation was offered that the charismatic boy was being used as a mere circus attraction for his parents and to promote a particular brand of Hinduism. Such was an early attempt to explain a phenomenon that did not lend itself easily to rational explanation. After a few years, the young Maharaji, while still attending grammar school and speaking only on weekends and holidays, was earning a growing reputation. It was not unusual for hundreds of thousands of people to travel long distances to hear him deliver a timeless, yet confronting message.

It's no defense at all to say that Shri Hans' own cult followers started worshipping Maharaji on cue. Really, what's that? Indian's love their religion, that's a fact, and they love their gurus. It matters little to say that Maharaji was so reverred. So were his brothers. So was his mother. What about them?

Reduced to its simplest form, his message was extremely simple, 'What you are truly looking for can be found within.' It was at least obvious to most who listened to him that his speaking was his own and not a trick. He was neither lip-synching his discourses nor even memorizing prepared statements, but was speaking his own words spontaneously.

Again, what is the big deal about this? The kid's father trained them to give these sermons and they did. Big fucking deal, already!

Many began referring to him as Perfect Master, Satguru, or true guru of the times.

This only occurred after Maharaji was annointed accordingly by his mother and the cult leadership. Why do you lie like this? Who do you think you're fooling?

Others said that some who were praising him were more interested in proclaiming Maharaji's identity in terms of the Hindu cosmology than they were in taking his message to heart.

How about Maharaji's own interest in doing so? Why else would he say things like:

'Who is Guru? The highest manifestation of God is Guru. So when Guru is here, God is here, to whom will you give your devotion? Guru Maharaj Ji knows all. Guru Maharaji is Brahma (creator). Guru Maharaji is Vishnu (Operator). Guru Maharjai is Shiva (Destroyer of illusion and ego). And above all, Guru Mahraji is the Supremest Lord in person before us.

Again, who do you think you're fooling? New people? Only so long as they don't find EPO. I'm sure you'll one day regret the fact that you posted all these lies under your own name, Mr. Strait. Most premies who do so lie anonymously, either with psuedonyms, first names only or, in the case of the EV Frequently Asked Questions, unmaned entirely. You, however, have put your own name and integrity on the line here. Too bad for.

While Maharaji was being praised with the highest of accolades offered by Indian tradition, new criticisms began to be leveled against him in the press. An article designed to discredit the young boy in the eyes of Hindus appeared in the Times of India under the sensationalist banner headline, 'I am not a Hindu!' The quote had been taken out of context from a press conference in which Maharaji had been asked by a reporter, 'Do you follow the Hindu religion?' Maharaji had responded to the question by saying that he was not a Hindu, nor was he a Muslim, nor a Christian, and that while he respected all faiths, he was not here to proclaim any particular religion or to start a new one. He simply wanted to offer people an inner experience he called Knowledge.

Your point, if I read you right, seems to be that Maharaji was once slightly misunderstood by the media. Sorry, but if that's your example of sensationalistic lies and distortions, it isn't much. It is, in fact, an arguably accurate inference from Maharaji's own words. Beside that, though, even assuming for argument's sake that this was a terrible misrepresentation, so what? All public figures, especially, I'd imagine, those who claim, as in the quote above, to be 'the highest infestation of God' (joke!), get a little flack from time to time. Deal with the Combat article allegation by allegation if you really want to meet your cult leader's criticisms face-on. That's my advice.

A few years later, by the time Maharaji declared his intention to take his message to the West, his reputation had grown beyond the boundaries of India and began attracting the interest of many from Europe and America. But his detractors were also growing in vigor. He became the target of slander and sometimes violent demonstration by an organization that believed all gurus were unnecessary frauds. Now, over thirty years later, Maharaji has traveled to most countries of the world offering the same message.

Why are you so maddeningly vague about everything? Are you referring to the Aryan Samaj or whatever that Indian political group was called? But that was an Indian organization and that challenge arose during Maharaji's father's days, not after. Unless there's another, similar 'organization' I'm unaware of, that sentence is extremely misleading. You make it sound as if Maharaji met this opposition after he began spreading his 'teaching' outside India. That's simply untrue.

Moreover, you're forgetting to mention that Maharaji breathlessly courted the media when he first came to the west. Remember 'Who Is Guru Maharaj Ji?' He wanted all the media attention he could get. What happened? The truth is, you don't really know. Well, guess what, Mr. Strait. The answer's readily apparent in the comic documentary, 'Lord of the Universe', a video clip of which can be found on EPO. Maharaji's last press conference was at Millenium and, if you watched the clip, you'd know why. Even a 'hate-filled ex-lover' like myself had to feel a little pity for the poor, little boy stuck in such an awkward moment. There he was, confronted by the world and for al intents and purposes lost and frightened. You can tell he was almost ready to cry. Why? Because he couldn't handle the press' extremely fair and respectful questions.

His programs have attracted audiences large and small from the widest range of cultural backgrounds and interests. His message still evokes the highest forms of genuine praise in some, while it is dismissed as unimportant or even dangerous by others.

Fine. So let's forget about the popularity contest and get into the substance. We all know that cult members like their cult leader. What does that add to the analysis? The real question is, 'what exactly is he saying and what should we make of that?' But, no, we don't expect you guys to actually examine Maharaji's words that way. He's your cult leader and such a venture is strictly taboo. You can only talk around these matters. Don't forget, only last month Maharaji ordered you to 'NEVER QUESTION THE PURITY OF THE MASTER!' Harsh, eh?

Typical criticisms are both varied and contradictory: 'He is a fraud, claiming to be something better than the rest of us.'

Nothing contradictory about that. I stand by it. Want to discuss it? When? Where?

'He should not be rich.'

The point, Mr. Strait, is that he should not be rich on account of exploiting the trust of his cult members and dipping deeply into their pockets. I understand that Maharaji has become a millionaire many times over since the early seventies. Do you have any idea how much money he has? Do you have any idea how he's gotten whatever wealth he possesses? If not, how can you even comment on this?

'He should not fly his own plane around the world.' Whatever.

'He should make the message more intelligible to the intellect.'

No, not at all. Rather, he should answer the questions and criticisms that suggest that his message is empty.

'He should have a better organization.'

None of the critics I know, including ex-premies and informed outsiders, looks at his organization as anything but an extension of the cult leader himself. We're well aware of the pathetic and cowardly attempt Maharaji's making to scapegoat his followers but that's your trick, not ours. If the organization's flawed, it's only because Maharaji's made it so.

'He should have more followers by now.'

That's merely a reasonable take on the fact that he did, after all, promise to bring peace to the world:

Therefore, dear premies, the time has come. See how peace will be established in the world. There will be peace on earth. That peace which disappeared shall prevail again. It will come, and once again the world will understand. So listen to me and act accordingly. Bow down before Guru Maharaj Ji!

What happened?

'He shouldn't have followers at all.'

Correct!

'He is not a spiritual master.'

Bingo again.

'He should live the life style of a spiritual master.'

No, he should resign.

'He shouldn't live in a large house.'

The wealth issue, as I said, is all about how much he's got and how he got it. Being that we were all pressed countless times in countless ways to give him, personally, money (e.g. envelope guantlets at darshan lines), we're 'stakeholders' in his fortune. Especially, if he's NOT the Lord of the Universe as he lead us to believe. Is he?

'He shouldn't have started ashrams in the West in the '70s.'

Right.

'He shouldn't have closed those ashrams in the '80s.'

No, he should most certainly have closed them. But he should have closed them with more respect and support for the residents. Moreover, he should have spoken openly and honestly with them about why he'd earlier threatened them with eternal damnation should they ever leave, only to close them himself a few years later.

'He shouldn't have gotten married and had children.'

Whatever. Perhaps more interesting is the criticism about his longtime mistress, Monica Lewis, his other affairs and numerous attempts to fuck premie women. I mean, if you're going to spell out the criticisms, you might as well get them on the table. Similarly, I notice nothing here about Maharaji's alcoholism or drug use. Nothing about his real involvement in the Fakiranand incident, nor anything about his killing the bicyclist in India and letting someone else take the rap for it. Why not? Too hot to even mention?

'Having a family, he shouldn't travel so much.'

Big fucking deal.

'He should talk more about God.'

Now come on! Who in the world says this? Maybe you do, can't think of anyone else I know. Most people I know think he should just shut up.

'He shouldn't talk so much about God.'

See above.

'He should be more humanitarian.'

Yes.

'He should teach values.' 'He shouldn't teach values.'

I'll deal with these together. The real criticism is even more fundamental; it's that he shouldn't teach anything. He's obviously a very weak, flawed personality and not in any position to offer any leadership or wisdom in any realm.

'He should be a leader, responsible for the actions of those who listen to him.' 'He shouldn't be a leader at all.'

No, it's not either. It's more like, if he's going to be a leader anyways, which he is, he should be an honest one. That he's not. He scapegoats his followers mercilessly. YOU'll know what I'm talking about first-hand if you fuck up, won't you?

'He should state his message so it can be more easily understood.'

No, he should openly dialogue with people so that his 'message', such as it is, can be better understood and evaluated by anyone interested.

In short, he and his message should be something we can label, fit into a definite category, and get our minds around. As someone put it succinctly, 'He should walk our talk.'

Try this: he should talk in such a way that people understand him. If that means dialoguing openly, he should do it. Of course, the moment he does that, it's game over. Let me dialogue with Maharaji in public for half an hour and you'll see what I mean. Same with any informed ex-premie. Maharaji's a paper lion and you know it.

There is a new factor in the old equation of criticism - one being faced by almost all public figures - and that is a new means of delivery. The technology of the Internet makes possible the widespread distribution of false rumors and allegations by anyone who feels so inclined with a minimum standard of responsibility.

Why the bias? The internet makes possible the widespread distribution of all sorts of stuff, true or false or mixed up this way or that. As for responsiblity, hey, WS, SUE ME if you like. Can't imagine taking any more responsibility than that. But really, if I'm wrong, talk with me. Set me straight. Other than that, fuck off with this 'responsibility' shit. You're projecting.

Such critics can malign individuals and groups they hate without having to make their statements to anyone's face, or even use their real names. They can be as irresponsible as they like with minimum accountability.

The name's Jim Heller. You can call me at (250) 360-1040. You can sue me at 7-547 Herald Street, Victoria, B.C. Canada V8W 1S5. Email me at heller@bc1.com. You guys, on the other hand, who are you? What are all your names? Where can we find you? When will you talk with us?

Coupled with the principle of free speech, the Internet makes possible the spread of damaging misinformation just as it makes possible the wide dissemination of useful information. It is easy to take something that has a kernel or semblance of truth and under the guise of 'information' put it forth as 'the whole story.' In this new environment, those of us who have initiated this site feel that a response is called for. Yet, at the core of what Maharaji teaches is the premise neither that the truth of his message about the possibility of Knowledge nor the authenticity of its messenger need be a matter of conceptual belief or rational persuasion. They can be discovered only by means of direct experience and personal recognition. In short, people make up their own minds and hearts, not based on what others say for better or for worse, but on the basis of personal experience and all the powers of human understanding that give a valid basis for arriving at one's own conclusions.

If that's all true what the hell you doing with this website? Transcend, friend, before it's too late!

So if this site succeeds in the uncovering of misconceptions and misinformation whether in the name of praise or criticism, it serves a valid purpose. In fact, it may be true that much false criticism arose out of false praise. The error of each is the same - to attempt to explain or label what cannot be explained or labeled. Often, in reaction to the discomfort of 'not knowing' or not understanding, people take a fragment of truth and create from it a belief system (negative or positive) and then defend it as the whole truth.

Your consistent vagueness is tiring. Is this almost over yet? All your site is succeeding in doing is placing us ex-premies front and centre in the cult membership's minds. Thanks for that and William, I really mean that. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

We are also aware that there is nothing that gives us a special grasp of what is true nor immunity from error but our effort to be conscious and our commitment to clarity of thought. And as with all other things, those who choose to read our words will be the judge.

You want to defend Maharaji but your'e afraid to interview your 'client' to get the real facts. Cute.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 18:45:19 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Just re-read my post -- really good one, Jim!
Message:
Not a word out of place, except for some of them. Too bad thse jokers don't reply to all the good feedback they're getting.
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 21:06:02 (GMT)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Yes, it is a really good one, Jim!
Message:
Meant to say so when I read it in the wee hours of the morning but forgot. But I can't just keep congratulating you on your writing. How about I just reply when it stinks? And you can take my silence as applause.
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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 07:34:31 (GMT)
From: Gary
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Yes, it is a really, really, good one,
Message:
but it smells a little funny, what did you eat for dinner?
A ripe and well-reasoned candidate for ***BEST OF***
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:24:22 (GMT)
From: A gardener
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Wrt 'dead' seeds
Message:
From an m quote above ...

'But a plant does not come from a life. It comes from dead, from a seed which is dead. It doesn't need any nutrition. It's a dead seed. When you plant it, and that's when it becomes (alive), for it to grow, and to give you fruits.'

He doesn't even know the basics here ... only some seeds are 'dead' or slowly die over time - they're the ones that won't sprout.

There is a more accurate description of a liar that I've come across - it's when you state something as true when you don't really know about it. m seems to be highly guilty of that, especially considering his role as a'teacher'. He'd be a joke, but it's not at all funny.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 07:35:43 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: And MY version of the Combat publication's history
Message:
and the following EV PR's disaster (thanks to Janet for the translation!).

+++++++++++++++++

A lot of rumors are circulating with regards to the origins of this publication. It appears pertinent that I give my version of the facts, now:

I received an email in my mailbox from Gilles Alfonsi on the 24th of October, 2000. I'd never heard of Gilles before - I didn't know anything about him and I didn't know anything about the magazine he was
working for either. I vaguely knew the name, but didn't know anything about the magazine. I did not know his political stance, nor the subjects on which he worked. This is a broad excerpt of his email, which
said, in essence, the following :

'Greetings,

I am closely interested in Elan Vital- its history, its actual directions, its attempt to 'normalize' itself as some ordinary, regular, association , its economic connections, etc...

I have, little by little, assembled a lot of information, and documentation.
All of this is going to constitute the matter of a special publication.
I will be contacting you about this in the future.

I don't know if there will be a place in this publication for certain aspects, more damning than those presented right now on the Ex-premie website, which interests me also...(I am omitting this part which
mentions facts and people whose names I don't want to make public here).

Do you understand what I am talking about?

At any rate, I am interested in discussing this by email, ( mine is *******@voila.fr) and later, in meeting you, if that's alright with you.
Till next time, at your convenience--
Gilles.'

We had some exchanging of emails for several weeks. I was very careful with the information that I gave him, not knowing Gilles, nor his motivations, or the tenor of the sort of publication he was preparing.
In doing some research on the internet, I discovered that he worked for the Combat review, which centers on the problems caused by AIDS and drug usage.

I was not opposed to the idea of participating in the publication, but I was hoping for something intelligent, that didn't demonize Elan Vital,
or the premies or their guru; which contained pertinent information, and not scandal and clichés, and the sort of articles one encounters in
the sensationalist magazines. I did not want my name to be mixed up with a polemic I did not agree with.

After having read several samples from Combat, I was reassured by the quality and the contents of their publication. We finally met each other on friday, the 1st of December, 2000, in a café. He was accompanied by a person I dimly recalled having crossed paths with, a couple of times, at reunions of Elan Vital -- a longtime premie, who was now deeply questioning, who had distanced himself from Maharaji and Elan
Vital, some months ago, as I then learned.

I felt a little bit more confident, and we all decided to go eat dinner together, at a little Lebanese restaurant in the neighbourhood, after we had made acquaintences well enough. We talked about one thing and another with regards to the subject we were all interested in. I did not know anything very exact at that time, as to what the contents of this future special issue would be, save that Gilles and certain of his friends had already done a deep and profound
investigation; that they already had a tremendous amount of information; that they were in contact with other longtime disciples; and that they had no dearth of documents and original information, certain of which I discovered with astonishment.

We continued our correspondence by email, in the course of which Gilles asked me for different details and specifics, pertaining to the articles
on which he was working. Over the month of December, he asked me to respond to a series of questions, after doing an interview on my past involvement that would constitute an article in the special issue.

During that time frame, it was more or less projected that the magazine would be published in February 2001, as a special issue. For various technical reasons, the publishing was delayed until the end of April. It was not until the 19th of April that I got to glance over a
part of the project, at which time some articles were still missing, because they were still being written, and were not finished. I made several suggestions, and proposed several corrections. Certain details didn't match what I knew of Elan Vital, and it was
important that these be corrected, lest they detract from the quality and the credibility of the overall publication.

Then I participated in a general meeting to proofread and check the whole magazine's content, the last check before going to press, which was held during the 15 days preceding the issue's hitting the stands. We
found out the magazine was coming out in June of 2001, 15 days before Maharaji was coming to France.

Of course the Staff of Combat worked hard to make sure to make his day, making sure the issue would be noticed. We recalled that on that date, the OTS trial of the 'Solar Temple' would be in full session, and the National Assemblies would be convened, working on the new Picard Law project about cults. The subject was
regularly making page One news, and by pure chance, it just so happened that the media didn't have much to chew on, that weekend, when Mr Rawat had his bright idea to come to Versailles.

You know this assured media coverage, without us having to influence or persuade the media to do it!
I hope I haven't left out any important details. If there's anything else about it that comes back to me, after saying this, I'll be sure to follow up, and add it here, immediately.

-------------

Anything beyond this is 100% fantasy.
This is how the whole thing happened, and I can give more details if needed....


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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 16:29:24 (GMT)
From: Katie H
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Thanks, J-M - should be BEST OF FORUM, or...
Message:
...on the site somewhere, with introduction.

Hey, hasn't 'Combat' been around since the 1930's? Or is it a new magazine with the same name?

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Date: Sun, Jun 10, 2001 at 21:32:32 (GMT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: Katie H
Subject: It's a bit more complicated
Message:
Combat's been around for a very long time. It used to be a daily newspaper sometimes, then weekly, then occasionla, like for elections, and also quarterly magazine.

The staff changed many times, it used to be independent, now it's funded by the government. I don't know the details. Maybe you should ask Vincent at Combat to come here and give his version. He's been living in the US and is a professional translator.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 15:21:30 (GMT)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: And MY version of the Combat publication's history
Message:
Very interesting, indeed J-M. Thanks for pointing out how this article and subsequent media flurry unfolded organically. Your version is certainly much less glamorous and conspiracy-ridden than EV / Pia's version. So does this mean you really are NOT our beloved EPO Subcommander Kahn but, in fact, just Jean-Michel? Just in case your story is just EPO spin, we will begin referring to our clandestine meetings with press as 'Lebanese Nights'.
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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 07:21:16 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: your analyses always draw me-but a few pointers
Message:
on the whole when you do one of these, i am drawn in by your willingness to address the other pwerson's oversights, point by point. however, you must be conscious that you yourself often slip and resort to personal defamation when you grow irritated and fed up with the other person's density. You've got to work on that, Jim. It detracts from an otherwise erudite and eminently intelligent invitation to sanity and clarity.
i would remind you, in all good faith, to take a moment out, at those times, and air out, cool down and come back with fresh clarity before you continue. it is far stronger to keep your discussion trained on the immediate and material facts, and useful examination of them, than to degenerate into profanity and irrelevant personal accusations or schoolyard namecalling. take the time with yourself to practice Not Indulging in that impulse when you recognize it rising in you. You'll be a better lawyer and a better debater for it.

generally, individuals reading your presentation can focus on your arguments with respect to the facts in an impersonal and clear way, and can follow and agree with the sense of them, but as soon as you give way to the temptation to belittle the person opposite you , rather than address the subject, you lose the respect and the endorsement of your audience. people can change their stances and their beliefs, but not who they are.
arguments stand on their own merits, irrespective of who supports them. they stand apart from any individual proposing them or opposing them. the people can change sides, but the argument remains in the center.

if you change your focus, from the argument, to attacking the essence of the person you are taking issue with, you are therefore asking your audience to make that change with you, and many will not do that, for it is not relevant to the discussion, and you forfeit whatever progress you were making with convincing your audience to see the issue as you see it.

i point this out to you in genuine desire to help you improve your ability, and in genuine admiration for what you do well at the present. for the most part, you have the makings of great talent. but like the singer who loses their breath, halfway through the song, you need more practice at your techniques before you will display the full potential you are capable of reaching.
I have full faith that it's in you.

i guess this is why they call it 'practicing' law.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 08:37:24 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: you talk your way, and I'll talk mine
Message:
Forget it, Janet.

I'll say what I want to say how I want to say it and that's that. I really only responded to what's-his-name for the hell of it. I like doing it, it just feels kind of natural to talk back to that bullshit, bullshit that somehow's landed right in the center of my field of vision. Well, of course, I put it there. But, anyway, I talk back to that stuff, to the people that say that stuff, just the way I want. I might feel serious one phrase and then something gets me and it's all a big joke the next. Or something makes me a little more angry, or this or that. Yeah, sometimes it's like that.

So, sorry, it's not that your points might not make sense in some abstract sense or something, it's just that I'm not interested.

In fact, Janet, I wish you'd keep doing this altogether. Stop giving me advice. I mean, give me your opinions. Tell me what you think about things, whatever. But, please, none of these big, unsolicited advisory things. I'm sure you mean well and all that but I'm not interested. I'm not trying to do anything in particular, at least not anything I'm looking to 'refine'. You're not my coach and, well, thanks anyway.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 11:28:56 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: ya know, jim...i pointed this out in effort
Message:
to help you be more effective, both in your work at law, and in your role here, as one of the more aggressive dismantlers of the prison we see these people caught in. I would think that you would see the value of it, for itself, and take it up as a genuine goal to aim for, in improving your method.

You used to feel quite free about pointing out my weaknesses in communication here, not so long back, as I remember. Between the numerous complaints to me to paragraph, to punctuate, to capitalize, you had a field day with correcting my style here at will.
And I have witnessed you, forever wading into it with Sandy, and others, about their specious arguing style, their inability to answer straight questions, their using illogic and various bankrupt references in their hopeless responses to your spotlight.

This would have to come out of your own innate sense of what makes for a sound argument and a sane discussion of the issues, no?

In light of your own history of returning to this issue with so many posters, I find it peculiar that you would attempt to beggar off the point when addressed about it in your own approach.
Don't you think it holds true when applied to you also?

You're welcome not to heed it, but if so, don't be surprised when your own lack of ability to direct yourself to the salient discussion you opened, results in everyone else whose attention you commanded, abandoning respect and willingness to listen to you, much less to honor or support your position. If you drop your own focus first, others have no choice but to follow, in turn.
If you can keep their attention on it, you can win the point, the argument, the day, their respect, and your own satisfaction.

Or, you can shit all over yourself.
Its up to you.

but since you felt so free to criticize me, I thought the right was available to me as well.

And it's so white of you, to encourage me to use my own style. How generous of you, to do that, Jim. I'm so relieved that you've decided I'm acceptable in your sight, now.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 16:07:16 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: Yes, thanks, but give me a fucking break
Message:
Janet,

I know you mean well but please, how in the world can you compare my telling you that your text is impossible to read easily unless you broke it up into reasonable paragraphs and threw some punctuation in (which you've since done -- I know, I know, you had your problems with WebTV), with telling someone what to say? And how dare you assume how effective I am or am not in my profesional life? Did I tell you I had some difficulty communicating effectively in court? Did I ask for your help? Never.

Even when I confront Sandy or some other premie or premie-type kind of person about something, it's about the substance (or lack thereof) of their words. I just finished a long, long post to this Strait guy. Did you have anything meaningful to add or comment on reagrding any of it? No? Then fine, leave it. I guess the point is simply that I'm comfortable expresing myself my way and I don't need you assuming I need or want your help anymore than you would if I did the same to you.

And Janet, don't think I couldn't. Don't think I couldn't pick apart any of your long, florid posts, 'help' you whittle down the purple prose, streamline the hyperbole, strip away some of your particular style of melodrama, avoid redundancy. But I don't do that, Janet. Instead, I comment on the substance of what you write. I take issue with you when I don't agree or find your logic wanting. Otherwise, I'll tell you I agree or say nothing. One thing I don't do is assume that you're my writing or communication student. What makes you any different?

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 10:23:40 (GMT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: you might be surprised to hear it, but
Message:
if you wanted to give me lessons in doing all those things you cited, I would pay attention and try to absorb your pointers.

I hope you dont do in court what you do when you lose it, here, because if you do, you are blowing it bigtime.

What was offered was not done so in a mean spirit. I didn't mean to come off sounding high and mighty. I genuinely enjoy clear arguments with points well presented. They nourish me like good food. The degenerations are much like coming across sand or shit in the midst of a mouthfull. Let's get those out of there. You could be right up there with Jim Sanders and Gary Epton and Chuck Sprague, if it werent for your side trips into the schoolyard bullying. You don't need it. Resist the urge to succumb to it. We need your brains here.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 16:06:03 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: And furthermore ...........
Message:
I hope you dont do in court what you do when you lose it, here, because if you do, you are blowing it bigtime.

I dare you to go through my post and point out all the places I 'lost it'. Come on, Janet. Let's see what you got.

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Date: Mon, Jun 11, 2001 at 15:33:59 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: Fuck off, Janet
Message:
'You could be right up there.....'

What an entirely stupid thing to say! What do you think this is? A creative writing class or something? For what it's worth, I'm pretty proud of many of the things I've thought, said, written and done about this shit over the last six years. In terms of being effective, I think I've been most effective in a number of ways always bearing in mind the simple truth that you can't please everyone. Perhaps I sould search through the years for some of what I think are my most 'brilliant' comments and put them in a portfolio for your review? Fuck you!

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 08:40:29 (GMT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Oops! Typo
Message:
In fact, Janet, I wish you [wouldn't] keep doing this altogether.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 17:12:49 (GMT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: That still doesn't fix it
Message:
What does putting brackets around a word do to clarify what you meant? As far as I'm concerned that only highlights and emphasizes your mistake, as if you're glorifying it. It's sort of like, here, check out this word [wouldn't], what a great word, eh? Otherwise, an erudite (I learned that word from Janet) if not rather long and borish [what's a good word, here, Janet, I can't think of one].

Seriously, Jim, you're the one who should write the book. Another excellent post.

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Date: Sat, Jun 09, 2001 at 06:27:17 (GMT)
From: Steve M
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Jim that's superb analysis - thanks nt
Message:
nt
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