Ex-Premie Forum 7 Archive
From: Oct 21, 2001 To: Oct 29, 2001 Page: 4 of: 5


Jim -:- No wonder Erika started her own web site -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 12:04:15 (EDT)
__ TED Farkelspeaks out -:- Erika,who sez you and I are so different? -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 00:29:17 (EDT)
__ salam -:- Re: No wonder Erika started her own web site -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:16:23 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- Salam, she says she's been thinking about you -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:47:00 (EDT)
__ __ __ salam -:- Re: Salam, she says she's been thinking about you -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 19:41:20 (EDT)
__ suchabanana -:- she blew her mind out in a cult... -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:54:14 (EDT)
__ Suzanne -:- God, what narcissitic exhibitionism -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:58:21 (EDT)
__ __ Deborah -:- Scary, isn't it? -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:49:50 (EDT)
__ __ Dermot -:- Lol Suzanne [nt] -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:04:47 (EDT)
__ __ Barbara -:- Well put, Suzanne -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:21:40 (EDT)
__ __ __ Suzanne -:- Unreality Show is right -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:27:58 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Barbara -:- There's no Cipro for that sickness -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:42:22 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Suzanne -:- The Erika Diaries -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:54:16 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ red butler -:- The Erica Diaries Continued -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 12:39:28 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Deborah -:- Stop it! You're killing me }) [nt] -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:57:03 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Jim -:- Please, please, stop the abuse!! -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:44:48 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Lol Red [nt] -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:15:27 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Barbara -:- Re: The Erika Diaries -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:16:21 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Suzanne -:- Re: The Erika Diaries -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:23:44 (EDT)
__ Vicki -:- Re: No wonder Erika started her own web site -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:47:13 (EDT)
__ __ Deborah -:- GERRY--this post needs its own page -:- Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 20:31:23 (EDT)
__ __ Francesca -:- Erika was around before video -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 17:56:29 (EDT)
__ __ __ Vicki -:- Re: Erika was around before video -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 10:06:05 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- Know thyself, Vicki! -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 13:40:05 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Vicki -:- Jim LOL!!! (nt) -:- Sat, Oct 27, 2001 at 05:38:13 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Oh my gosh! This only makes their lying ... -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 12:33:30 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Joe -:- Vickie, Copy you post and submit it -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 12:07:41 (EDT)
__ __ __ Dermot -:- Kinda true Francesca -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:24:56 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Yeah, putting themselves on display -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 00:45:13 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Jim -:- Satire? Maybe, but sarcasm? Oh my god, NO!! [nt] -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:49:46 (EDT)
__ __ __ Barbara -:- Re: Erika was around before video -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:17:48 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Yes, I don't like to criticize premies either -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:15:45 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Barbara -:- Re: Yes, I don't like to criticize premies either -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:40:01 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- And the parody goes both ways -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:49:30 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Cynthia -:- Re: And the parody goes both ways -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:35:36 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Barbara -:- Re: And the parody goes both ways -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:17:36 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Passive agression - you hit the nail -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 00:54:55 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Great Analysis, Barbara -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 23:27:02 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Okay, Joe and Barabara -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:40:38 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- Don't be easily impressed -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 23:28:37 (EDT)
__ __ P.S. -:- Should we....... -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:03:36 (EDT)
__ __ __ Cynthia -:- Erika Andersen...et al... -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:10:50 (EDT)
__ Ben Lurking -:- Re: No wonder Erika started her own web site -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:19:24 (EDT)

Rick -:- OT Scientology puts up a CAC-type site -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 12:03:37 (EDT)
__ Stonor -:- Scientology tactics -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:18:42 (EDT)
__ Deborah -:- Re: OT Scientology puts up a CAC-type site -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:16:13 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- I LOVED my personality test -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:59:48 (EDT)
__ __ __ Deborah -:- So! Are you are sarcastic or abusive :p -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:29:53 (EDT)
__ __ Stonor -:- Re: cults on uprise ... -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:30:35 (EDT)
__ __ __ Deborah -:- Re: cults on uprise ... -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:24:42 (EDT)
__ Joe -:- Wow, did the premies copy that site?????? -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:42:15 (EDT)
__ __ Francesca -:- But this may be recent, or retooled -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:05:52 (EDT)
__ Gregg -:- Wow. They sure went all out. (nt) -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:05:02 (EDT)

Jim -:- Anyone see Nova last night? -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 11:47:28 (EDT)
__ G -:- the binding problem -:- Sun, Oct 28, 2001 at 22:05:31 (EST)
__ __ Jim -:- Yes, you're perfectly right -:- Mon, Oct 29, 2001 at 01:00:17 (EST)
__ such -:- 'us premies'? premie brands/tattoos -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:37:06 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- I AM STILL A PREMIE!!!!!!! -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:03:18 (EDT)
__ __ __ such -:- 100 ml more cipro! LOL [nt] -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:51:52 (EDT)
__ __ Pat:C) -:- premie tattoos -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:22:02 (EDT)
__ __ __ such -:- dontcha feel like dat phoenix, now [nt] -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:54:19 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- I've risen from flames many times... [nt] -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 02:24:03 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ cq -:- those piles can be a bitch, cant' they ....(nt) -:- Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 12:13:12 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Pat:C) -:- I'm glad Yanks don't what piles are ;) [nt] -:- Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 13:47:38 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- Re: Anyone see Nova last night? -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:03:13 (EDT)
__ __ Jerry -:- Re: Anyone see Nova last night? -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 01:02:14 (EDT)
__ __ __ JohnT -:- Connections -:- Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 08:37:28 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Scott T. -:- It's not what they tell us. -:- Sat, Oct 27, 2001 at 00:39:06 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- Re: Anyone see Nova last night? -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 11:58:49 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- Funny -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:44:48 (EDT)
__ __ __ Scott T. -:- I'm dragging this thread upstairs -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 01:05:15 (EDT)
__ __ Cynthia -:- I Missed It! -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:59:24 (EDT)

Salam -:- Freedom of conscience in France -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 11:35:02 (EDT)
__ such -:- r.e. noms des saints -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:13:59 (EDT)
__ __ salam -:- Re: r.e. noms des saints -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:12:18 (EDT)
__ __ __ suchabanana -:- monsieur inspecteur, mon nom -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:25:45 (EDT)
__ such -:- r.e. noms des cults -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:13:57 (EDT)

Bryn -:- The slow business of clearing up -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 10:21:06 (EDT)
__ Loaf -:- But which is the REAL post ? [nt] -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 10:53:38 (EDT)

Bryn -:- The slow business of clearing up -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 10:16:00 (EDT)
__ Bryn -:- This ones better oh Loafus.nt -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 07:55:03 (EDT)

Abi -:- Leave me alone Bjorn -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 03:44:52 (EDT)
__ Abi -:- Re: Leave me alone Bjorn -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:26:07 (EDT)
__ __ Francesca -:- They are evidence of harassment -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 17:11:31 (EDT)
__ __ FYI -:- Emails posted at LG -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:47:46 (EDT)
__ abi -:- Re: Leave me alone Bjorn -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 07:40:10 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- I gave him your email -- thought you wouldn't mind -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:06:08 (EDT)
__ __ Cynthia -:- EV!! Who is Stalking Who? -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:03:52 (EDT)
__ __ Loaf -:- post them here intact Abs (nt) [nt] -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 10:18:57 (EDT)
__ __ __ Bjørn E -:- Re: post them here intact Abs (nt) -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 12:37:13 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Cynthia -:- Why is Bjorn Still Allowed Here? -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:18:37 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ AJW -:- Bjorn. -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 06:46:38 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ Deborah -:- That's what I want to Know -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:57:59 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ FYI -:- Oh YEAH, READ ABOUT IT AT LG -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 13:47:20 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Deborah -:- Send a messenger -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 17:55:24 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Messenger Boy -:- Info requested by Deb -:- Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 06:50:12 (EDT)

Jerry -:- Maharaji: Student of Machiavelli? -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 19:12:54 (EDT)
__ Vicki -:- Re: Maharaji: Student of Machiavelli? -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 02:37:01 (EDT)
__ such -:- prince 'o thieves: maharajiavelli! [nt] -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 21:14:15 (EDT)
__ __ janet -:- maharajiavelli! a new moniker for him -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 06:49:37 (EDT)
__ __ __ suchabanana -:- Re: maharajiavelli! a new moniker for him -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:55:25 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Bjørn E -:- Testing -:- Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 16:29:02 (EDT)

Joe -:- Email from Erika, Mitch, David and Rob -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 16:13:55 (EDT)
__ Deborah -:- All truth goes through three stages -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 23:48:27 (EDT)
__ Cynthia -:- Joe, Unbeeleevable! -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 17:52:59 (EDT)
__ __ Joe -:- Amazing, isn't it? (nt) -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 23:04:55 (EDT)
__ Francesca :C) -:- She's wrong about 'the taxing authorities' -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 16:48:19 (EDT)
__ __ Joe -:- Yeah, she is wrong -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 19:01:04 (EDT)
__ __ __ Francesca -:- Joe, not sure -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 11:55:08 (EDT)
__ Joe -:- My Response -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 16:16:58 (EDT)
__ __ Joe -:- Here's My Personal Wealth Email Erika Mentions -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:32:15 (EDT)
__ __ Jim -:- Great all round (one quibble) -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 20:48:07 (EDT)
__ __ __ Francesca -:- But Joe's point, I think is .. -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 12:02:41 (EDT)
__ __ Tim G -:- Congratulations Joe. nt -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 18:36:57 (EDT)
__ __ Mr. Observation -:- Re: Joe's Response -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 17:26:07 (EDT)

Jean-Michel -:- New article on EPO -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 06:06:46 (EDT)
__ Jim -:- I had a real hard time with that article -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 23:26:12 (EDT)
__ Pat:C) -:- Thank you, J-M, for the history -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 15:16:49 (EDT)
__ Cynthia -:- M Sitting On A Buck... -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 10:38:51 (EDT)

such -:- bio-chem warfare, dengue fever links [ot -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 17:16:35 (EDT)
__ such -:- dengue fever link [ot -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 17:17:42 (EDT)

cq -:- Isn't this is both ON Topic and topical -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 15:44:32 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- Response to the ON Topic bits. -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:30:36 (EDT)
__ __ cq -:- I can't make a 'reasoned and balanced' decision? -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:15:48 (EDT)
__ Scott T. -:- I responded to this on AG2 -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:22:08 (EDT)
__ __ cq -:- so did I -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:20:24 (EDT)
__ Joe -:- Why They Hate Us/Anti-American -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 19:21:53 (EDT)
__ __ Scott T. -:- Thankyou sir, I'll have another. -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:10:54 (EDT)
__ __ __ JohnT -:- Bravo Scott! -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 06:11:30 (EDT)
__ berni -:- You are gonna be in BIG trouble -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 17:25:53 (EDT)
__ cq -:- Ooops. Hit the 'post reply' button too soon -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 16:08:39 (EDT)

Marianne -:- Bjorn -don't ever email me again -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 14:07:26 (EDT)
__ Marianne -:- I'm serious, Bjorn-NO MORE EMAIL -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 16:13:45 (EDT)
__ __ Francesca ~) -:- Save a collection of his trash -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 00:29:50 (EDT)
__ __ __ salam -:- Re: Save a collection of his trash -:- Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 08:29:40 (EDT)

Jim -:- No, it's not a cult (*sarcasm*) part 523 -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 12:17:49 (EDT)
__ Jim -:- The problem with living like Janice -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:32:51 (EDT)
__ Jim -:- You think THAT's bad poetry -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:17:39 (EDT)
__ __ Deborah -:- A 'triggering ocean of love'?? :p -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 21:02:28 (EDT)
__ __ __ Francesca -:- Man the lifeboats! C)) [nt] -:- Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 01:10:33 (EDT)
__ __ __ Pat:C) -:- Did you read Janet's wobble-dance spoof? -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 21:28:52 (EDT)
__ __ __ __ Deborah -:- Yoohoo Janet :0 Wobble Dance Spoof -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 22:03:04 (EDT)
__ Deborah -:- Yeecch-bad poetry }( [nt] -:- Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 18:50:13 (EDT)


Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 12:04:15 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: All
Subject: No wonder Erika started her own web site
Message:
Here's Erika's latest round of shadow-boxing:

A Day in the Life

One of the things I find puzzling about Maharaji's critics is their insistence that students of Maharaji are members of a cult. When asked for evidence (Group weddings in Central Park? Pre-dawn chanting? Weird taboos?) or at least a rationale, these folks rely on circular logic: Maharaji is the leader of a cult and you are his follower, therefore you are a cult member.

How funny! Like I say, no wonder she doesn't want to talk with us. The proof that EV's an unhealthy and exploitative cult goes far beyond this straw man argument.

Attaching derogatory labels to a group of people is usually intended either to discredit those people, or to express strong negative feelings about them. When conservative politicians call women's rights advocates 'femi-nazis,' they aren't saying something reasonable or even definable, they're simply expressing their fear and hatred of a particular point of view, and trying to discount the credibility of the people who hold that point of view.

For the most part, women's rights advocates don't involve themselves in trying to get their critics to define or explain the 'femi-nazi' label; they realize, I imagine, that such debate would not have any useful outcome. They simply continue to explain who they are and what they stand for, and let the chips of public opinion fall where they may.

So, having been labeled a 'cult member,' I thought it would be useful to pull the curtain back on my own life, and let you, dear reader, make up your own mind as to the validity of the label.

October 16, 2001

6:30am: I wake up, let the dogs out and make sure the kids are up and moving. Since they're teenagers, they're fairly self-sufficient, but there are often missing shoes to be found or after-school logistics to arrange. Ian's sleepy, Rachel's focused we kiss each other goodbye and they walk up the driveway to catch the bus. Lovely human beings. When Rachel gets her driver's license next month, they'll be able to get up a bit later, but then I'm sure I'll worry about them driving to school on their own....

7:30am: After showering and getting dressed, I sit down in the armchair in our bedroom to practice Knowledge. I look out the window for a few minutes first, appreciating the astonishing beauty of this fall day. It's very quiet. I look at the picture of Maharaji I keep on my dressing table, one I really like, where he's relaxed and smiling. I feel a wave of affection for him. I close my eyes and start to enjoy the feeling of practicing, settling into something beautiful and simple within me.

Yes, that's exactly it, Erika. The guy's not there with you, you see? You're imagining he is but he isn't. Care to talk about it?

8:30am: Scott wakes up and goes in to take a shower he slept in a bit today while I got up with the kids. I'm concerned about Mornaugh, one of our Australian shepherds. She got in a fight with something maybe a coyote and has three gashes on her side that had to be shaved and stitched up. I sit on the floor and pet her for a few moments, asking Scott if he's given her the antibiotic the vet prescribed. We roll it up in a piece of cheese and she takes it without protest.

9:30am: Scott and I go out for coffee and to talk about our day. We're in business together, and there's always a lot to sort out, between business, kids, the house, etc. and staying in touch as lovers and friends as well. Scott's really thinking a lot about the current political situation, and we talk about anthrax, war, and the responsibility of the US in all this. Scott has Knowledge also, and I mention a negative email I've gotten about this website and how it affected me. He just listens, which is exactly what I need. Scott has his quirks, but he's a wonderful human being, and I feel grateful to be spending my life with him.

10:30am: The office is a bit crazy today. Our office manager is getting us connected to a new internet service, and is having a hard time with various technical impediments. I offer encouragement, greet everybody and settle into my office for a day of back-to-back phone calls and preparation for client meetings in New York over the next few days. I really enjoy my work, and though I feel a bit rushed today, it's still mostly fun and engaging. The high point is a phone call with Scott and two other colleagues, an initial conversation about the re-creation of our company website.

1:30pm: One of my co-workers and I take a quick lunch together. We talk about her husband's job search, how (and whether) to strip wallpaper, and my son's nascent acting career. She's been a dear friend for many years, and I love that we now get to work together. She has Knowledge, too (the only other student of Maharaji who works for our company), but Knowledge and Maharaji don't happen to come up as topics today.

4:00pm: I leave the office to catch my train, wondering if I have everything I need for my trip. I check in with my office manager on the way out just to see how the internet setup is going, and thank her for putting so much time into it. In my car on the way to the train, I listen to the Beatles on the local oldies station.

6:00pm: On the train, having prepared for tomorrow's meetings, I decide to write this article. Before starting, I spend a few moments focusing inside, on the experience of Knowledge. As I begin to write, I enjoy the feeling of being conscious of the present moment.

Is taht what you're conscious of or is it an imagined communion with your imaginary Lord inside? Did you see Nova last night, Erika? Too bad. I'll send you the transcript when it's online. Real food for thought, that one.

8:00pm: Having arrived in New York, I debate whether to go and get something to eat, or send out for Chinese food. Convenience and inertia win. I check my email while I eat cashew chicken, answering business and personal emails first, then spend some time responding to emails from the guys working with me on this site, David, Mitch and Bob. I send them the draft of this article for their review, and ask whether we're planning on getting together by phone later this week.

9:30pm: I call Scott and the kids just to check in before the kids go to bed. Scott tells me how Mornaugh's doing and his plans for taking one of our cars to get fixed; we laugh about a movie we saw last weekend. Rachel tells me about her voice lesson, and Ian regales me with a blow-by-blow of the fight some kids got into after school. He also tells me he finished his Dylan Thomas report, which is a relief. Then, feeling virtuous, I do some exercise while watching TV, and get drawn into a Star Trek: Next Generation re-run. I love that show.

11:00pm: I set the alarm and curl up in bed with a book.

Midnight: I force myself to put my book down, even though it's tough, and drift off to sleep. I feel content.

And so....

That's it. It's true that there are some other things I do relative to Maharaji and Knowledge that aren't included in this particular day. First, I travel to hear Maharaji speak a couple of times a year, alone or with Scott. And I generally build in a few days before or after these events, to help prepare for them, or to take advantage of the chance to work on projects with other students of his. Still no strange rites and rituals, I'm afraid. The entire process of sitting before him, he who you actually believe is divine whether or not you'll admit it, is a ritual. Darshan or arti when they occur are just icing on the cake. I also donate money to Elan Vital, the organization that supports Maharaji's work in the US.And you also think doing so somehow contributes to your imaginary relationsihp with your imaginary friend. Don't deny that either. Going to see Maharaji, spending time supporting his work and donating money to Elan Vital are totally voluntary. I do them only because I want to: there is no demand from anyone to do these things, no negative consequence imposed if don't, and no peer pressure, overt or covert.Yeah, but again, you think of them as totems, powerful means to facilitate your imaginary relationship with your cult leader.

There are, of course, lots of other aspects of my life that aren't included in this day, as well: I take a three-week vacation with my husband and kids every summer; I go to visit my mom in Omaha; I spend time with my friends. I take weekends away with Scott; I hang out with my kids; I shop and go to movies and surf the net.

But wait, you might be saying Where are the weird rituals? Where's the obsessive focus on Maharaji as the 'cult leader'? Where's the scary mind control, or complex dietary or lifestyle prohibitions? Too narrow a set of criteria. No wonder you're talking only to yourself on this one.

Well, exactly. Maybe I'm missing something, but this is my life, and it doesn't seem cultish to me. And unless there's some new definition of cult member that reads: 'someone who lives an independent, happy, challenging and interesting life, enriched by a simple, personal practice of four techniques and the help of an honored teacher,' I'd say I'm not a member of a cult. I'm not a femi-nazi, either, but that's a whole different article....

Precious.

Erika Andersen
October 20, 2001

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 00:29:17 (EDT)
From: TED Farkelspeaks out
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Erika,who sez you and I are so different?
Message:
Thank you there, Mr. Heller, for posting that mighty fine post from our dear sister, Erika.

Now Erika, you and ole TED go back a ways....I remember real clearly you and I discussing our lifestyles, which actually aint so different after all...

Life's a bit slow down here at the TRAC Center these days, but I promise you I will respond to your diary as soon as I can....

It never ceases to amaze ole country boy TED Farkel how much alike you and I are...

I'll get back to ya....got to go now, it's wet t-shirt night at the satsang hall down at the repair shop...foamies are half price, free for the women-folk aspirants....wish you and Scott were here....why not take your next vacation down here with me and Mr. eDrek at the TRAC Center?

Precious, and warmly too,
TED Farkel

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:16:23 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: No wonder Erika started her own web site
Message:
I can't read all this, but does she say anything about sex.
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:47:00 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: salam
Subject: Salam, she says she's been thinking about you
Message:
It's in there somewhere. Mind you, I didn't actually read the thing. I was running off to court to make a closing argument to the jury. But I felt it alright. She's burning for you, bud. And think of it: you, Erika, front row seats ....
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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 19:41:20 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Salam, she says she's been thinking about you
Message:
you mean we will be move movie stars shmoozing right in front of the cameras. Da lord may want to dish in.
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:54:14 (EDT)
From: suchabanana
Email: banana@sgtpepper.org
To: Jim
Subject: she blew her mind out in a cult...
Message:
she didn't notice that the light had changed...

a day in da life! sheesh!

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:58:21 (EDT)
From: Suzanne
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: God, what narcissitic exhibitionism
Message:
Does Erika think people are interested in reading her daily journal? Who does she think she is?

I'm surprised she didn't include references to her menstral cycle and the kind of bowel movement she had that morning. What is next, a site with a photo cam in her bedroom and another in her kids' bedroom? Who IS this person?

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:49:50 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Suzanne
Subject: Scary, isn't it?
Message:
Yeah! I can't imagine someone thinking that journal proves anything. This is a grown woman for gods' sake.

Erika doesn't realize that this exmplum argues for a case against Cult membership.

Amazing, truly amazing..

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:04:47 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Suzanne
Subject: Lol Suzanne [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:21:40 (EDT)
From: Barbara
Email: None
To: Suzanne
Subject: Well put, Suzanne
Message:
Not a leaf moves without Maharaji's will and Erika's imprimatur.

There's an (un)reality show in there somewhere. Maybe counter-programming to The Weakest Link...

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:27:58 (EDT)
From: Suzanne
Email: None
To: Barbara
Subject: Unreality Show is right
Message:
I get the impression that there is no boundary between Erika and Maharaji. As a result, she is willing to parade around her personal affairs (sanitized and spinned of course) and even put up pictures of her kids on a public website to defend Maharaji. Isn't there something really weird about that? Isn't it kind of sick?
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:42:22 (EDT)
From: Barbara
Email: None
To: Suzanne
Subject: There's no Cipro for that sickness
Message:
It IS weird, and your call of 'narcissistic exhibitionism' is totally on point in this case. Just because her life is glorious it's supposed to imply that all life under Maharaji's aegis is as pristine as hers, a sympton, albeit subtle, of cult-think extraordinaire. So, while trying to underscore that she's not a culthead, she's actually proving it in spades. The old 'me-thinks-you-doth-brayeth...' kind of proof.

Wasn't there some mention by one of the underlords to the Uber-Lord that spiritual ego was worse than the garden variety experienced by the great unwashed and unenlightened?

I think Erika's journal needs a postmodern, neo-colonial analysis by those twin peaks of erudition--Artie and Camilla. (See below under Jossie Fresco thread.)

Do you think she's got a moon lodge? Maybe we'll find out in the next installment of the Erika Diaries.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:54:16 (EDT)
From: Suzanne
Email: None
To: Barbara
Subject: The Erika Diaries
Message:
I can't wait to see the next installment of Erika's Diary, showing how her life is oh so wonderful, and yet oh so normal at the same time, even though she follows infamous Maharaji. The continuing demonstration of how she and her loving children, because they do not engage in mass suicide and sacrifice rituals, could not possibly be in a cult, is a marvel to read.

How could someone suitable for People Magazine possibly be in a cult? I know for a fact that people who aren't in a cult spend lots of time trying to demonstrate that they aren't, just like Erika, by revealing all the normal (but also highly upper middle class) things they do everyday.

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 12:39:28 (EDT)
From: red butler
Email: None
To: red butler
Subject: The Erica Diaries Continued
Message:
Erica awoke with the suddenness of last night's somnolence feeling weird and disoriented. She was in her own bed but, my god! what was that blob next to her? Sure, Dave had put on a few pounds in the last few years but christ! he couldn't be that bulgy.

And what was that boozy, cheesy smell, stale and garlicky seeping out of the "blob" with every labored breath? Erica whipped back the covers and laughed out loud at the pathetic little Indian man beside her. "Well at least he couldn't have gotten in more than a couple of inches," she thought to herself, "not with that peashooter."

She began piecing together the events of the days and the night before: the cleaning and scrubbing, all the new things they bought, all the food they prepared just to receive "The Boss." "Funny how things so quickly degenerated," she thought, remembering the hurt look on David's face when the "Golden Boy" dropped his trousers. It was all a laughing, screaming blur from then on and she wondered if he had put something in her drink.

Erica got up quietly and dressed in her blue jeans and favorite holey sweater. Looking back on the rumple in the bed, she shook her head. Nothing to hide now. "It's about time I got my own apartment," she said out loud, "one where I don't have to entertain Dave's 'friends.'"

She backed the SUV out of the driveway with a growing sense of freedom and exhilaration she hadn't felt in decades. "So this is what it feels like to pull your hand out of the monkey jar," she thought, "if only I had known sooner..."

to be continued

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:57:03 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Ex-Premie
Subject: Stop it! You're killing me }) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:44:48 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Please, please, stop the abuse!!
Message:
You guys!
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:15:27 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Erika Diaries
Subject: Lol Red [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:16:21 (EDT)
From: Barbara
Email: None
To: Suzanne
Subject: Re: The Erika Diaries
Message:
I think Erika forgets that we've been in the belly of the beast, just as she is now. What may look like surrender is really the soul being digested by an omniverous parasite. God knows, her ego surely hasn't been eroded.
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:23:44 (EDT)
From: Suzanne
Email: None
To: Barbara
Subject: Re: The Erika Diaries
Message:
Yes, humility is not one of Erika's obvious qualities. It doesn't appear that fear of embarrassment and looking ridiculous, for herself or her kids, are either.
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:47:13 (EDT)
From: Vicki
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: No wonder Erika started her own web site
Message:
Well, that's great for Erika, isn't it? Nice tidy little life, all wrapped in the cozy downe comforter of knowledge. She left out a few details, however, that might give us a bit more 'insight' into her non-cultish lifestyle. For instance, when exactly did she receive k, was she ever in the ashram, was she ever involved in hardcore fundraising, or since she obviously enjoys a nice lifestyle, is she a big donor so ev keeps their hands off and treats her with the reserved VIP treatment?

Does she realize how she came to receive knowledge, what calculated process was used in the sequencing of videos? Did she receive all the factual information concerning Maharaji, Elan Vital including its church status and a peek into the accounting books, including Seva's and the kids company ala Valerio or just EV's public relations version? Did she get a good and honest look into the legal dealings with Abi via Valerio on his 'volunteered' behalf of Elan Vital courtesy of Gallway's gold card? Has she talked to people who were thrown out of ashrams by David Smith's strong armed tactics? NO? Oh well, then I guess, she's the successful poster child of the current flavor of knowledge lite.

I should know, she could have been writing my story, except my life isn't so cushy after going through war with corporate America, and having my uppity yuppity lifestyle destroyed, so they could keep their secrets and the $50 million dollars a year my husband made for them. Actually, it was more than $50 million, but no one's counting except their accountants and no one's listening except their legal department who slapped a gag order on him and every other employee who ever had legal dealing with them.....Oh, and the CEO of that company, was thought of in the same terms as Maharaji; a real 'people' company,a real mentoring company guy, only come to find, as in most huge non-union corporations, it's precisely to keep contract binding unions out. But that's a whole other cover-up story. So how does a non-profit organization like EV operate on the cutthroat tactics of corporate America?

By having people buy into the slick product of k that M offers and EV delivers. Just like nicotene and the tobacco companies. Adverstising is a powerful thing. No there are no billboards, or commercials and M said 'You are my adverstisement.' Propogation equals advertising, no matter which way it is sliced and diced.

Yes, Erika is living the good life. I remember the fairytale quite well, until the facts on EPO dispelled the myths that M and Ev calculatingly perpetuate. It's the myth that creates the problems that create the cult. A cult doesn't have to have 'weird' practices to qualify. Secrets, lies, duplicity, cover ups, child sexual abuse, the abdicating to group think and control; these are what are in question. Not Erika's 'normal' mainstream lifestyle. She doesn't even know how the techniques she enjoys were handed to her. She thinks she does, because M and EV and Visions tell her, repeatedly.
But she doesn't have the first clue what she is really involved in, and that would be an image created to provide money to M and EV. Yes, the techniques are nice, but they aren't cultfree. They aren't free at all.

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Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 20:31:23 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Vicki
Subject: GERRY--this post needs its own page
Message:
Hi Vicki,

I actually read this post the other day and was floored. This type of post can jar people's memory or tell them something they didn't know.

It's amazing that people subconsciously suppress the signals that this type of shit is going on. But, understandbly, it smacks of contradiction that M and K are the best rides in town and that it is totally lila where you sit. Nobody is pulling strings, NOT

Please keep a copy in case it goes to archives.

Take care, glad you're sticking around. You have lots of good 'old' and 'recent' stuff to share. The last personal contact I had was late '80s so I appreciate having that missing time fleshed out.

Deborah

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 17:56:29 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Vicki
Subject: Erika was around before video
Message:
Vicki,

Some of what you say is points well taken, and I hear you. I just want to point out that I used to know Erika, and she wasn't 'schnookered' into anything via video, ala Knowledge Lite, and neither was her brother David. They were around when it was 'Lord of the Universe' and all that, and I first met them at Millenium.

Of course, some of the premies that I am in contact with currently seem to have been propagandized by the series of EV vids that have been shown over the years, including the DVD with M and Michael Nouri that I've heard about. They are spouting the party line about who M says he was, and whatever else EV and M want the premies to tell the public about M's past. It is as if the portion of their brain was removed that would remember the years 1971 to 1985 or so, including M's fire-and-brimstone Kissimmee satsangs. But of course they will say that I'm 'stuck back there' because I left. WHATEVER. It did happen, and that was the deal, and they cannot revise what happened and what was said by M himself. His family (except Raja Ji) was out of the picture in 1974 when he defied them and married Marolyn. There was certainly a lot of 'Lordship' and arti and foot-kissy and darshan lines going on in the ensuing years after his family was given the boot. If they would just be honest about M's leadership role with his own followers and his own organization in this regard, they could be done with it and move on. But the funny thing is that I hear there is still arti and darshan lines for a 'lucky' few. So who are they kidding???

I just hate to pick on Erika in particular, or any individual involved, although arguably she is setting herself up for it with that website, which is mostly what just the four of them have to say about everything. At least it was the last time I looked. I cringed at the Erika bashing, however, because I did know her and she is a good person. Just on the other side of the trenches in this one.

Bests,

Francesca

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 10:06:05 (EDT)
From: Vicki
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Re: Erika was around before video
Message:
Well, that will teach me to respond before I get all the pertinent facts! For me, personally, it makes it worse to know her history.

I also visited her site. It is amazing really. Like seeing and listening to sleep walkers. I can honestly understand where she is coming from, remember I haven't been here that long.

It's just so pious, this posting. And worst of all, it is edited by group consensus. It is a sanitized, sterilized, saran wrapped version of life with m and knowledge. It's fairly accurate for a lot of pwk's. But what I particularly found annoying was the reference to donate without pressure.

At the Santa Monica program, my 'service' was in the area where pwk's (as it was a pwk only event)picked up seat cards (not tickets, it's donation based so there can legally be no tickets). The last tables before exiting were the 'donation' tables, especially for those who had not made 'donations' when reserving their seat cards. In addition, it was encouraged for attendees to donate above and beyond the set 'suggested donation'.

Not very many pwk's were forking over more cash and worse, not paying the suggested amount at all, and these honcho's from next door came screaming into my face that we were obviously at fault, not reading the script word for word which encouraged additional donations. These guys were like crazed Nazi's. And one of them is a current head of ev finance. I suggested they might like to put down the expenses incurred for the program and the amount currently raised to cover it, instead of the ridiculous pie chart they had displayed. Oh, my that was met with less than enthusiasm, since I was a mere volunteer with no clout, but hey that's what they eventually did. Unfortunately, the real expenses are never itemized, just a mass figure that involves who knows what. That's why I particularly liked the Thousand Oaks investigative work that went on here!

So before Ericka announces the non-pressurized environment, she should sit on the other side of the fence. Heaven only knows where she was 'helping out' at that event, if she was there. Probably in the room pwk's had to go through like cattle to get 'identified' by a panel of people through face recognition. No one was warned what would happen. It was the weirdest experience. Having to move on to the next face staring down until someone recongized the pwk. If there was no recogition, then an instructor had to verify that the person knew the techniques. Just a bit of history for those who didn't hear about that particular event. Hence the push for SmartCards. But really, I was told, by a particularly nasty honcho via the phone, that it was really because M wanted to know who was attending events, and that she would deny it if ever asked. Such upfront integrety in that organization. So it's not about ridiculing a premie, but the fairytale myth she is so publicly dedicated to perpetuating.

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 13:40:05 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Vicki
Subject: Know thyself, Vicki!
Message:
I suggested they might like to put down the expenses incurred for the program and the amount currently raised to cover it, instead of the ridiculous pie chart they had displayed. Oh, my that was met with less than enthusiasm, since I was a mere volunteer with no clout...

Oh this is great! Here we go, another bitter wannabe PAM. Never really understood that Knowledge is an internal experience, did you, Vicki? It's not about pie charts and smart cards. Were you participating from your heart, you might have understood that. It's about gratitude, sister ('female fellow volunteer'?). God, Vicki, it's about clarity for God's sake. Too bad you can't appreciate that.

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Date: Sat, Oct 27, 2001 at 05:38:13 (EDT)
From: Vicki
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Jim LOL!!! (nt)
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 12:33:30 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Vicki
Subject: Oh my gosh! This only makes their lying ...
Message:
... more egregious. The triumvirate who have that website certainly know what you've told us and more. How demeaning. I am hoping that more people wake up.

I can't imagine the friends that I have that are way on the fringes still thinking nice thoughts about M putting up with this sort of thing at programs. I would think some of the would freak!

Francesca

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 12:07:41 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Vicki
Subject: Vickie, Copy you post and submit it
Message:
To the Please Consider This Site. I think feedback is helpful, and who knows, you might get a response. Great post.
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:24:56 (EDT)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Kinda true Francesca
Message:
I don't think mean-minded malicious spite is the road to go down but, heck, some of the premie posters, as you say, put themselves up for it. Crying out for a satirical response as far as I can see.

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 00:45:13 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Yeah, putting themselves on display
Message:
Yeah, they're saying: Here's my life, I'm normal, I'm not in a cult.

Putting themselves on display to prove that following a master is 'normal.' I'm afraid they are setting themselves up to be critiqued. On the balance, no one is trying to prove anything here -- we're just calling it like we see it. We're not saying, 'look at me, I've got it together, and I'm a normie. It's really OK, this Margie thing.'

Yikes.

Francesca

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:49:46 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Satire? Maybe, but sarcasm? Oh my god, NO!! [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:17:48 (EDT)
From: Barbara
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: Re: Erika was around before video
Message:
Hi Francesca:

It's less 'Erika bashing' than it is taking shots at the revisionist history, denial and spin about Maharaji etc. Even Joe's level email is considered 'negative' by her, and since she was there at the *beginning,* she should know better than to take us to task for remembering and criticizing events at which even she was present. Perhaps it's just memory loss on her part, but her memory loss is her memory loss, not ours, and it's presumptuous of her to assume that because her life is peachy keen, that it's an indication of Maharaji's grace, or whatever point she's trying to make. It's a bit inbred, myopic and heliocentric IMO.

I'm not a big fan of ridiculing other people (altho I obviously did), but as you say, Erika did provide us the opportunity to criticize that which she is valiantly, if not misguidedly, defending.

Take care
B

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:15:45 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Barbara
Subject: Yes, I don't like to criticize premies either
Message:
When Erika posted here for a week or so I found that she was a very nice person and definitely I don't want to criticize her. I'm sure she's a good mom, polite neighbor and responsible citizen.

Of course I'll criticize her concepts just as people do in real life all the time but I couldn't get past the first page of the website because it was so boring. I don't have the patience to do other peoples' critical thinking for them. I hope they learn that by themselves. Now about that cult amnesia....

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:40:01 (EDT)
From: Barbara
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Re: Yes, I don't like to criticize premies either
Message:
Hi Pat:

I think a part of me was offended by the heliocentricity and latent braggadocio of it all because when I was a premie, I was poor. Her non-cult chronicle seemed a bit too self-congratulatory and bloated with privilege, and it made me think about the people still ensconced in the cult who are not so well off, or who live paycheck to paycheck, which is easy to do nowadays without even having to support the Master on the Mount. What about some of the premies/pwks who've given so much, and to their detriment, who have minimal to no health care etc.?

Reading about what Erika does in a 24 hour period proves nothing other than what Erika does in a 24 hour period. It neither proves nor disproves anything, never mind proving not being in a cult. Plenty of cult members have lunch with their friends and coffee with their spouses. I did.

I remember her posting here also, and Erika was indeed civil, intelligent and answered many of the question posed to her, although she did disappear when she hit the wall, and since I know how that wall feels, I can't say I blame her. I would probably like her in real life, but nonetheless, I think it would behoove Erika to peer beyond the perimeters of her personal boundaries, something which is beneficial to everyone, myself included.

Take care
B

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:49:30 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Barbara
Subject: And the parody goes both ways
Message:
Erika and the other people on that site are characterizing what we are saying as if we are inane and stupid. For example, that our comments about Maharaji's wealth come from jealousy.

So Erika can really dish it out, too. Plus, I agree that the day in the life stuff is ripe for comment. In fact, I think it MUST be commented on, both the content and the apparent motivation.

Plus, like you say, it's just so irrelevent to the actual discussion. It's a diversion, really.

I don't think just "being nice" is an answer. I don't think Erika IS "being nice." I would think that's obvious.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:35:36 (EDT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: And the parody goes both ways
Message:
Joe,

Why do I have to be nice to Erika? She and her website partners certainly weren't nice to you in their email. Fact is, they were sarcastic and rude. I feel no obligation to be nice to people who protect a cult leader.

I don't single out only Erika when speaking of the website ''Please Consider This'' (which sounds so much like ''All Things Considered,'' on NPR). All of them who created the site give me the shivers because they have been betrayed by Maharaji and won't, can't admit or see it.

These are all premies who lived in ashrams. Premies who have been close to Maharaji for whatever reason, and have an early history with him. I have no problem if she lives a nice upper-middle class life, but what about all the premies who don't? That cult has become elitist and classist as Maharaji's wealth has grown, IMO. It was obvious when I went back in the late '90s and quite a few of the premies were not living high on the hog--quite the opposite.

I don't think that any of those four premies have any lapse of memory, either. They know what happened in the past. What they are now doing is trying to cover it all up, again and again, by treating the ex-premies who post here like were a bunch of nuts. This behavior is too typically cultist to ignore. Protect the leader at all costs. Don't betray or doubt or else! Never leave Maharaji! That's the primer coat that never leaves a cult member, unless the cult member wakes up and leaves the cult.

These sites will always erupt in defense of Maharaji because it is a cult.

Erika Andersen? I don't know her, don't care about her except she's placed her life on a website that defends a megalomanical personality cult leader. That's why I criticize--not to get personal.

Cynthia

P.S. One other thing I don't like about that site is that the ''Maharaji'' link isn't identified as a link to Maharaji's site. When I clicked it I thought I'd see a photo, but nooooo....it took me right into the toilet~!

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:17:36 (EDT)
From: Barbara
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: And the parody goes both ways
Message:
Hi Joe:

Yes, the parody does cut both ways. I have a nice life, so I'm not jealous, but I don't think that my life, and what transpires in any given 24 hour period is a function of being an ex-premie, any more than her life reflects being a premie. Much of my quotidien life does not particulary reflect on my belief systems per se, any more than what Erika tells us about her life reflects on her not being in a cult. What's unspoken in that 24 hour period most likely says more than anything written. Her journaling is diversionary, and ironically, she's her own straw (wo)man in this case.

To be honest, I don't read their site because it's such pabulum, so I just read what gets put on the forum. This is the second time Erika's waxed eloquent about her wonderful life, so I felt I had to step up and say something about its irrelevancy to any real discussion.

I think the passive aggression that seeps from PleaseConsiderThis.com is a function of Erika et al. facing the wall which we provide and represent, and possessing the inability to remove it either within themselves or without (us), they catapult their verbal bunker busters over here, all the while reaffirming among themselves that they're good people because they're protecting Maharaji.

Hey, I wouldn't mind having Maharaji's millions, but I would mind getting it in the manner he did. I wonder what will flash before his eyes when he's passing over? That's a video I'd watch.

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 00:54:55 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Barbara
Subject: Passive agression - you hit the nail
Message:
... on the head there.

I couldn't put my finger on what has bothered me in 'the reasonable premies'' tone. There's a lot of backhanded slaps, actually mean things said in a smiley or mildly preachy tone. The e-mail to Joe was an insult.

I can't read the site either. It's kind of like grey sludge that needs to be shaped and put in the kiln and fired before it will hold any water.

And the yuppie thing and elitism, yeah. That's why I left in the mid-80s. I decided it was a yuppie cult, at least here in the US.

Bests,

Francesca

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 23:27:02 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Barbara
Subject: Great Analysis, Barbara
Message:
Barbara,

Very well-said. I have been wondering what the Andersen twins, Mitch and that ringer Rob (the lone premie they dug up who isn't a relic from the 70s), intend to do by that website. I guess it's supposed to be some kind of filler fluff, to divert attention from the actual problems Maharaji and his cult have, while pretending to answer the actual allegations, without ever doing so.

But what they don't realize is that they just come accross as passive aggressive narcissists, while being 'civil' and 'nice.' I think it's defend Maharaji at all cost, even if you have to expose your family and your kids to do so. I never thought it would go quite that far.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:40:38 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Barbara
Subject: Okay, Joe and Barabara
Message:
To be frank, when Erika posted here, I did eventually find her self-congratulatory stuff pretty childish.

And yes, Joe, I also think she is probably not really very nice. It really is superficial niceness - an underlying uncaring coldness resulting from cult-think solipsism.

It's not that I don't like criticizing premies because I sympathize with them but rather that I feel so sorry for them. They really are trapped in infantilism.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 23:28:37 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Don't be easily impressed
Message:
You also have to not be blown over because somebody is 'civil.' Erika is 'civil' for an effect, not because she really wants to treat you civilly. There is a big difference between being 'civil' and being 'nice.'

It's all part of the PR plan they have engaged in. Admittedly, they aren't doing it very well, but considering what they have to work with for subject matter, they are doing pretty well, but it's no wonder they have to resort to telling us what they had for lunch.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:03:36 (EDT)
From: P.S.
Email: None
To: Vicki
Subject: Should we.......
Message:
take a meeting and have you all 'go over and edit' my posting, like Erika, or would that somehow take the heartfelt spontaniety out of it? Feel free to correct my spelling, too!
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:10:50 (EDT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: P.S.
Subject: Erika Andersen...et al...
Message:
Is quite the cult revisionist, isn't she?

I haven't read much of that ''Please Consider This'' website until yesterday and all of them are so, well, 'cheerful.'

Erika states she chose to live in an ashram and glosses over the horrible things that happened to premies while living the monastic lifestyle, stating she moved out to get married. Hmmmm....

That website is nothing but pablum. Ya can't write anything there without giving all your private information. It's a closed environment carefully censored, as evidenced by letters written by ex-premies which have been rejected.

Seems like the only folks who can write anything have to be having that experience, you know, like that within inside experience, induced by lovely things such as 'favorite photos of Maharaji' who is their teacher! (This is sarcasm!!):D

They are students of Maharaji now, unlike when they lived in the ashram, when they were devotees, singing arti every morning, kissing his toes at programs, and probably X-Rated, too (my speculation). History is so easily changed when the mind is rendered useless by living the Maharajism cult life. Loads of crap there, IMO.

Cynthia

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:19:24 (EDT)
From: Ben Lurking
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: No wonder Erika started her own web site
Message:
Jim,
For a lawyer you missed a critical piece of evidence /fact.
She failed to disclose how she came out of that place that practice took her after exactly one hour. Is she a clock watching meditater? Does she use an alarm to let her know that she is full of bliss? This 1 hour exit strategy - method intrigues me.
What do you think? Is it the 6th technique - the you are now done technique?
What if she needs more cooking time for the bliss to take?
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 12:03:37 (EDT)
From: Rick
Email: None
To: All
Subject: OT Scientology puts up a CAC-type site
Message:
http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.com/extremists/
[ Scientology CAC ]
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:18:42 (EDT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Scientology tactics
Message:
Some interesting details here of how far a cult will go to discredit anyone who speaks against it.

(to my knowledge, unlike most articles, this one was not available in the week following, nor the weekS following its publication. No comment from the author, nor change in access. He emailed me this link.)
[ "Destroy him utterly" ]

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:16:13 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Re: OT Scientology puts up a CAC-type site
Message:
WOW! Isn't that amazing. This should be reported to some authorities. I think that this site could have been the inspiration to the Maha CAC site.

As an aside, I was walking down Douglas St. (main street downtown Victoria) a couple of days ago and I noticed a new Scientology storefront outlet. Jim, this is between Yates & Johnson Street on the same side of the street as the Banks.

The first thought I had was, I wonder if they are going to hussle the public and use the Sept 11th attack to their advantage. Just as I was thinking that cults were on the uprise, this smiling youth (male) greets me with a premie-like smile on his face and an intimidating clipboard in his right hand asking me if I want a FREE personality test.

'Nope!', I retorted. 'Already been in a cult type,' I mused to myself as I walked briskly by the dutiful recruiter.

How many of you think that Cults will be on the uprise?

Do you think more people are susceptable to the promise of outside comfort?

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:59:48 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: I LOVED my personality test
Message:
Maybe it's time for another. I think I'll drop in there over the next few days.

Where you been, Deb?

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:29:53 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: So! Are you are sarcastic or abusive :p
Message:
Hi Jim,

I'd love to be a fly on the wall if you were to go over there and have a personality test done. Probably put you on their CAC site.

Where you been, Deb?

I'm around.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:30:35 (EDT)
From: Stonor
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Re: cults on uprise ...
Message:
Hi Deb,

I agree that this is happening. For the first time in 25 years of teaching adult immigrants, this issue has come up. A young single mother (Irina) from Bellarusse (sp?) has had a 'Christian' cult's booklet on her desk everyday. She has been asking (as well as she can) rather strange 'religious' questions. Today she was working with an older woman (Shada) from Azerbaijian, who called me over to ask if I had heard of Sai Baba. I said yes, but that I had heard that there were some problems with him. She asked me to explain, which I did as simply as I could. When I asked her, Shada told me that her mother was Jewish, and her father Muslim, but that she had chosen to become Christian Orthodox, because of its values. I then asked the woman near her, Bala, a Tamil from Sri Lanka, what her religion was. She replied that she is Hindi, and also follows 'Baba'. Yes, Sai Baba. She hadn't heard of any 'problems' with him. Shada then called across to Kamaladevi, an older Sri Lanken (my age) who laughed when asked about Sai Baba and said that yes, there were LOTS of problems with him. So there is 'good' and 'bad' happening. Cults seem to be trying to make hay while the sun shines, but they are fighting the new and increasing sharing of information.

Is this at all OT? ;) I don't know, but again, I've been thinking about this for a while now.

I am reminded of the ancient Chinese curse: 'May you live in interesting times.' Aren't we! ;)

Anna

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 21:24:42 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Stonor
Subject: Re: cults on uprise ...
Message:
No, your point wasn't OT at all. Interesting how being in a cult has a built-in mechanism for outside information.

Sounds like the discussion was pretty civil, considering the range of religious/spiritual views assembled. What a interesting postion to be in, to see the worldview in a classroom. Interesting.

Yes, the Chinese curse is timely. Nice to see you visiting the Ex-Premie Haunts. AG, Too is full of lively and diverse conversation these days. I'm enjoying the visits. See you there as well.

Hope you make it to Victoria some day, would love to do lunch.

Deborah

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:42:15 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Wow, did the premies copy that site??????
Message:
Boy, Scientology and premies. Let us count the ways they differ in attacking those who criticize or comment on their respective cults on the Internet. Let's see...could be ZERO?

But the premies who did CAC, actually published our home and work addresses, home and work telephone numbers and email addresses, as well as those of our employers and professional associations and licensing bureaus, and asked the premies, or anyone, to contact them and complain about us as being criminals. They also published the picture and address of the child of one ex-premie, and they listed us with child molestors and murderers. The devotees of Maharaji did that, but even Scientology didn't stoop so low.

But does Maharaji have anything to say about that? Apparently not. Is it because he approved of it? Is it because he couldn't care less? What?

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:05:52 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: But this may be recent, or retooled
Message:
Joe,

If you look at the hompage of that site, the centerpiece is the September 11 tragedy, with a picture of Manhattan with the twin towers. This may be post-CAC, or at least a retooled Scientology website where they -- twilight Zone music here -- had the same idea the CAC folks did. It's a page out of the same book.

Even if it wasn't this particular website, I'll bet the Scientologists wrote the book though, just as you suspect.

Can you believe they have the unmitigated sleaze to capatalize on Sept. 11 on their religious freedom issues and then whine about their Church of Scientology? Ugh.

Francesca

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:05:02 (EDT)
From: Gregg
Email: None
To: Rick
Subject: Wow. They sure went all out. (nt)
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 11:47:28 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Anyone see Nova last night?
Message:
Last night there was an incredible episode of Nova called 'Secrets of the Mind'. The transcript will apparently be available soon at the site for the program linked above.

The last segment of the show was all about a young guy who suffers from grand mal epilepsy and who, as a result, thinks he sees God everywhere and attributes 'cosmic' significance to most everything. After one of his siezures, he's prone to excited philosophical monologues about the beatific profundity of it all. Sometimes he thinks he's God. Often he's overcome with a sense of love and compassion for everything.

Could we have been doing nothing more than over-stimulating our temporal lobes?

Really, you have to see this. The implications for us premies are quite possibly overwhelming.
[ Secrets of the Mind ]

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Date: Sun, Oct 28, 2001 at 22:05:31 (EST)
From: G
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: the binding problem
Message:
From The Electric Brain:

Llinás: Imagine I have a little bird on my hand. I can see the bird. I can see its color. I can see its shape. I can hear it sing. I can feel its weight on my hand. It might peck me. All of these things occur simultaneously, so we say that the bird has those properties. But all those properties are put together in different parts of the brain. So one wonders how the brain makes a collage of all these sensory inputs to generate one single precept -- the bird -- out of all the different sensory systems activated. This is called the binding property. Since we don't know for sure how it works, we call it the binding problem.

Our experience of a bird is made up of many different sensory inputs, including color, sound, smell, and touch. How does the brain put all this information together simultaneously?

We are not sure exactly how it happens, but there are good ideas about how it may happen. One of the ways we can attempt to understand how it happens is by studying people who have mental or neurological problems. ...

You need rhythm to put everything together. It is like dancing. Rhythm tells you when to move and at what speed to move, whether you are dancing a waltz or doing the cha-cha. Likewise the brain has a rhythm. In order to bind things many parts of the brain must fire and be active together, and they must have a rhythmicity. By having this rhythmicity -- the thalamo-cortical rhythm -- they make one function into an event.

NOVA: Is the binding, this rhythm, where consciousness comes from?

Llinás: Yes. Binding allows the different parts to be transformed into one cognitive experience.

---

Llinás says 'we don't know for sure how it works, we call it the binding problem. ... We are not sure exactly how it happens,'
That is quite an understatement, actually, we know very little about how it works, yet he tries to make it seem that he pretty much has it figured out. He does not. He arrogantly states a few personal beliefs about consciousness as if they are facts. They are not.
Llinás says 'many parts of the brain must fire and be active together'. No kidding, it doesn't take a brain scientist to figure that out. That is a necessary condition for the binding property, but not at all an explanation. Ok, you've got the rhythm (neurons firing together), then what happens? Nobody knows and there are big problems with some proposed speculations (which don't go very deep anyway). That's the real binding problem, and he sidesteps the issue, perhaps because it casts doubt on his materialistic assumption that consciousness 'comes from' the rhythm, What's that supposed to mean and what evidence does he have? He blindly assumes that the rhythm, all by itself, brings it all together, but doesn't say how. I wonder if he shares Dennett's stupid idea that what we normally think of as consciousness doesn't exist, that we are zombies.
There is a difference between triggering and creating. For example, if you turn on a light switch and a light bulb lights up, you can say that flipping the switch triggers the light, but it doesn't produce it. So triggering doesn't necessarily imply creation.
There is no mention of qualia (qualitative experiences like the experience of red, or middle c, or the taste of asparagus). What not? It seems like he's overstating what he knows.
Always have room for doubt in your mind.

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Date: Mon, Oct 29, 2001 at 01:00:17 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: G
Subject: Yes, you're perfectly right
Message:
Good point, G. I think you're onto something. God's hidden in the qualia.
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:37:06 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: 'us premies'? premie brands/tattoos
Message:
"us premies"?! oh no, wuz we branded, too? [or wuz it dat bwain implant? hmmmmmm] oy...
[hey, maybe salam's right: yer a forum [im]plant. hehehe. (after all, i'm jest a buncha fruit.)]

btw, yer not backslidin, now? ohoh, where's dat rev larkin? quick, we gotta minister to dis un.... ok, now, back in da fold [like lil sheep who have lost dere way, baa baa baaa] hohoho

you better start laf, you betta not cwy,
you betta not pout, i'm tellin ya why,
SWAmi claus is comin to town... hehehe

PS speaking of brand names, I wonder how many people got premie or New Age tattoos. To: ANYBODY HERE -- ever get a tattoo related to premiedom, etc.?! swans, marji, peace, om da, etc. c'mon, enquiring minds wanna know! fess up...

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:03:18 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: such
Subject: I AM STILL A PREMIE!!!!!!!
Message:
Did I say that?

Sorry, Such, it's just coming out of me. Maharaji Tourette's Syndrome.

Jai Sat Chit Anand,

Jim

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:51:52 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: 100 ml more cipro! LOL [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 20:22:02 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: such
Subject: premie tattoos
Message:
In Jan 1980 I was in Baltimore for a Rawat revivalist show and decided to explore the city. I got so cold after a while I went into a tatoo shop in the gay ghetto to warm up.

I was going to have a swan tat done but, when I told the two nice queers who ran the shop why, they talked me out of it and we compromised with a phoenix rising from the flames.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:54:19 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: dontcha feel like dat phoenix, now [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 02:24:03 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: such
Subject: I've risen from flames many times... [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 12:13:12 (EDT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: those piles can be a bitch, cant' they ....(nt)
Message:
those piles can be a bitch, cant' they ....(nt)
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Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 13:47:38 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: I'm glad Yanks don't what piles are ;) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:03:13 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Anyone see Nova last night?
Message:
Jim:

Saw an excellent documentary on Stonehenge last night on TLC. Basically the purpose had to do with inducing a trance experience that involved seeing vortices of light, etc. Lots of this stuff is depicted in cave carvings and paintings, and virtually permeates stone age 'religion' from all over the world. Agnostic as to the implications, but suggest it'll be difficult to prove that all these experiences are just the result of zapping certain neurons... or that even if it were possible to establish such a connection it would necessarily disallow the experience itself. Apparently we have this trigger inside us. How it got there is anyone's game. Obviously doesn't require 'perfect masters' though. 'Imperfect imposters' seem to be good enough...

--Scott

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 01:02:14 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Re: Anyone see Nova last night?
Message:
...even if it were possible to establish such a connection it would necessarily disallow the experience itself.

Why do you say that, Scott? There's a plethora of evidence that proves there is a correlation between brain activity and spiritual experience. What it all means, just yet, is still anybody's guess, but in light of recent studies (there's even a new branch called 'neurotheology' studying the phenomena), the verdict has to remain open as to whether mystics really see a God who is objective or a God who is simply a subjective personification of brain chemistry. But I don't see how knowing there's brain chemistry involved would disallow the experience. How do you figure?

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Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 08:37:28 (EDT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Connections
Message:
For the sake of argument, let us suppose it becomes possible to correlate the experience of seeing a dog with a particular type of brain activity (I am *not* suggesting the brain works in such a way as to make that possible at the moment or even ever, but let's suppose).

Then, clearly, the fact that we see from their brain activity that a person is experienceing dog has no bearing on whether the perception it *true* or not. We just can't tell, except by looking to see if there is a dog where the person is looking, or we might have some way of seeing whether *dogginess* is taking place on the subject's retina. If there is, we would be inclined to say a real dog had caused the brain activity and so the perception. But if there is no such evidence, then we will likely say the person is hallucinating or dreaming or maybe just powerfully imagining *dog*.

Similarly, the fact that there is a correlation between various types of brain activity and mystical experience in itself tells us nothing about the reality of those experiences. We need an independent way of seeing if there is anything there, if we are to tell whether the brain activity is endogenous or whether it is in response to something real.

This independent confirmation is missing, and could be argued to be unobtainable in principle in the case of experiences of the so-called supernatural.

I think we have to accept that logically speaking no amount of gazing at an experience's co-related brain-activity can tell us whether or not the experience is of something real. Real means it can be seen by other means, and there are no known other means. That suggests (but does not prove) the phemomena are imaginary.

These experiments seem to tell us only what was already evident.

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Date: Sat, Oct 27, 2001 at 00:39:06 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: It's not what they tell us.
Message:
It's what they suggest we might have missed, or might be missing.

Similarly, the fact that there is a correlation between various types of brain activity and mystical experience in itself tells us nothing about the reality of those experiences.

It provides a more complete explanation for the experience, provided it could be demonstrated that the brain activity were sufficient to produce all the salient characteristics of 'dogginess' and not just some. It would help us deal with the testemony of those we don't consider nuts. But as you say it's a sufficient argument for a doggy agnostic, not for a doggy atheist.

But there is an inviting symmetry between the suggestion that we're justified in believing there may not be a dog, even though sensory 'witness' suggests there is, and that we are justified in believing that God is not there even when the sensory evidence suggests that 'Goddishness' is, for some people sometimes. We know that dogs come and go, unlike Gods. That is, if there were always a dog around we might be inclined to ignore it, and perhaps even lose track of dogginess so as to avoid the mental distraction of constant panting, tail wagging, slobbering, licking and barking. Just a little peace and quiet please! We might begin with a disconnect between the sensory perception of the dog and the proper emotional response... leading to the conclusion that we sometimes suffer from a 'doggy illusion,' until the capacity to completely suppress the sensory image itself finally evolves to free us. (Indeed, this may have been the origin of the Wolf, as dogs had to learn to fend for themselves?) Oh wait... I wandered too far... Here kitty kitty...

--Scott

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 11:58:49 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Re: Anyone see Nova last night?
Message:
Jerry:

Read the entire statement:

...but suggest it'll be difficult to prove that all these experiences are just the result of zapping certain neurons... or that even if it were possible to establish such a connection it would necessarily disallow the experience itself.

--Scott

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:44:48 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Funny
Message:
Funny you watched that one, Scott. We went back and forth but ultimately went with the brain. Thanks for letting me know what that was all about though.

P.S. don't you think they should make remote controls that had more than two channels on their 'return' button, so you could, say, go back and forth between three or foour channels at once? That would make me sooo happy.

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 01:05:15 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: I'm dragging this thread upstairs
Message:
I just have something to say after having seen that Nova special.
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:59:24 (EDT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: I Missed It!
Message:
I knew that was going to be on and I completely forgot to watch.

Thanks for the link, though...sounds very interesting...

Cynth

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 11:35:02 (EDT)
From: Salam
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Freedom of conscience in France
Message:
I wonder how many guruites signed this?

To: French MPs and Senators
Petition Update, 2001.07.27
The Coordination of Associations and People for Freedom of Conscience (CAP) is an association that was formed after the first hearing of victims of religious discrimination in France. It is open to people of all religions who have in common a deep attachment to freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. - Evelyne Kral.

Coordination of Associations and Persons for freedom of conscience
Version française à la fin.
Coordination des Associations et Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience.
e-mail: coordiap@libertysurf.fr
http://perso.libertysurf.fr/coordiap

On May 30th, 2001, the French parliament voted a new law against cults proposed by Senator Nicolas About and Parliament Member Catherine Picard.

The bill:

- gives for the first time the legal definition of a cult, in contradiction with the French law of separation between religions and State and the French Constitution which guarantee religious neutrality from the State.

- creates a crime of mental manipulation, punished by a 3 year jail indictment and a fine of 300 000 FRF. The law punishes the fraudulent abuse of a person in a state of psychological or physical subjection resulting from the exercise of serious or repeated pressures or techniques meant to alter one's judgement. As there are no objective criteria in this definition, it will open the door to all kinds of abusive interpretations. The same act, a spiritual guidance or the practice of a confession will be considered as normal if done within a mainstream religion or considered as criminal if done within a group labelled as cult. It is the first time that a democracy creates such a crime. Its formulation is very close to the crime of plagio (creating a sate of suggestion) created in fascist Italy by Mussolini to repress communist propaganda. The crime of plagio had been later removed from the penal code by the Italian constitutional court after it had been applied to catholic priests and homosexuals.

- modifies the French penal code by authorising the judges to punish legal entities such as associations for a wide variety of minor offences, whereas this possibility was formerly reserved to serious offences; for instance, forgetting to put a fire extinguisher in a precinct that belongs to an association will give a judge the possibility to condemn the association itself.

- creates a new accelerated procedure to facilitate the dissolution of groups labelled as cults which does not guarantee enough the rights of the defence, whereas dissolution is an extreme punishment, the equivalent of the death penalty for physical persons.

- gives, in order to facilitate the dissolution of groups labelled as 'cults', a new definition of a group considered as a legal entity, in contradiction with the judicial principle that only those who commit an illegal act should be punished ; thus, associations which are legally separate could be dissolved in the same procedure as long as they pursue similar objectives. Two minor offences will be enough to make the dissolution possible, a fact that greatly endangers freedom of association.

- limits the promotional activities of groups labelled as 'cults' and gives mayors the possibility to refuse a building permit to those groups as long as they have been condemned twice, even for minor offences.

With that law, the new religions, minority religions, groups promoting personal development, easily labelled as 'cults' in France, a very arbitrary label as everyone knows, are condemned to barely survive with a permanent menace over their heads. It will suffice that one of their leaders or the group itself be condemned twice for a minor offence after a quick trial for the group to be disbanded with an interdiction to form itself back. If such a law was applied to members of the French parliament, the parliament would be immediately dissolved as many of its members have been condemned by justice ! There is indeed a real danger that the law be applied to mainstream religions or to any non conformist spiritual group.

The About/Picard bill having been voted as a law, France will is ranked among the worst dictatorships, THOSE WHICH ENDEAVOR, FOR THE SAKE OF THE STATE OR OF GENERAL INTEREST, TO PERVADE INDIVIDUAL CONSCIENCE.

I think that the French penal code is sufficient to repress offences and crimes committed within a group, whatever the label given to that group, for law must be the same for everyone, and I demand that this law be rejected, considering the fundamental liberties that it threatens.
[ cults shiting themselves petition ]

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:13:59 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: r.e. noms des saints
Message:
when i was in france, the law mandated that every baby have the name of a Christian saint. and the Catholic church was legally recognized and somewhat empowered. wassa 'cult', anyway? like pweeple who worship money? people who like to pull wings off flies? da cult of domesticity? da Blue Oyster Cult? hey, i'm occult hehehe

salaam and chole,

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 18:12:18 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: such
Subject: Re: r.e. noms des saints
Message:
fat chance I got, ha?
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:25:45 (EDT)
From: suchabanana
Email: banana@cathedrale_St.Fruitella.fr
To: salam
Subject: monsieur inspecteur, mon nom
Message:
s'il vous plait, je vous en prie!

Ce nom est en honore de St. Sale Lame. C'est vrai, mais tres obscur. lui-meme, oui! St. Sale Lame.

carte d'identite? [cherchant] voila!

l'adresse? C'est Mer d'Ici... oui, c'est au nord de Biarritz.

Je suis libre maintenant, non? sava bien. merci, monsieur inspecteur. Au revoir... [ekwhan - allahu akbar!]. hehehehe

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:13:57 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Salam
Subject: r.e. noms des cults
Message:
when i was in france, the law mandated that every baby have the name of a Christian saint. and the Catholic church was legally recognized and somewhat empowered. wassa 'cult', anyway? like pweeple who worship money? people who like to pull wings off flies? da cult of domesticity? da Blue Oyster Cult? hey, i'm occult hehehe

salaam and chole,

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 10:21:06 (EDT)
From: Bryn
Email: None
To: All
Subject: The slow business of clearing up
Message:
How an individual settles into a new opinion
William James

From PRAGMATISM
The process is always the same.

The individual has a stock of old opinions already.

The individual meets a new experience that puts some of these old opinions to a strain.

Somebody contradicts them.
In a reflective moment, the individual discovers that they contradict each other.
The individual hears of facts with which they are incompatible.
Desires arise in the individual which the old opinions fail to satisfy.
The result is inward trouble, to which the individual's mind till then had been a stranger.

The individual seeks to escape from this inward trouble by modifying the old opinions.

The individual saves as many of the old opinions as is possible (for in this matter we are all extreme conservatives).
Old opinions resist change very variously.
The individual tries to change this and then that.
Finally, some new opinion comes up which the individual can graft upon the ancient stock of old opinions with a minimum of disturbance to the others.

The new opinion mediates between the stock and the new experience.
The new opinion runs the stock and the new experience into one another most felicitously and expediently.
The new opinion is then adapted as the true one.

The new opinion preserves the older stock of truths with a minimum of modification, stretching them just enough to make them admit the novelty, but conceiving that in ways as familiar as the case leaves possible.
An outreé explanation, violating all our preconceptions, would never pass for a true account of a novelty.
The most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of his old order standing.

New truth is always a go-between, a smoother-over of transitions.

The point I now urge you to observe particularly is the part played by the older truths . . . their influence is absolutely controlling. Loyalty to them is the first principle; for by far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.

Back to William James

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 10:53:38 (EDT)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: Bryn
Subject: But which is the REAL post ? [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 10:16:00 (EDT)
From: Bryn
Email: None
To: All
Subject: The slow business of clearing up
Message:
How an individual settles into a new opinion
William James

From PRAGMATISM
The process is always the same.

The individual has a stock of old opinions already.

The individual meets a new experience that puts some of these old opinions to a strain.

Somebody contradicts them.
In a reflective moment, the individual discovers that they contradict each other.
The individual hears of facts with which they are incompatible.
Desires arise in the individual which the old opinions fail to satisfy.
The result is inward trouble, to which the individual's mind till then had been a stranger.

The individual seeks to escape from this inward trouble by modifying the old opinions.

The individual saves as many of the old opinions as is possible (for in this matter we are all extreme conservatives).
Old opinions resist change very variously.
The individual tries to change this and then that.
Finally, some new opinion comes up which the individual can graft upon the ancient stock of old opinions with a minimum of disturbance to the others.

The new opinion mediates between the stock and the new experience.
The new opinion runs the stock and the new experience into one another most felicitously and expediently.
The new opinion is then adapted as the true one.

The new opinion preserves the older stock of truths with a minimum of modification, stretching them just enough to make them admit the novelty, but conceiving that in ways as familiar as the case leaves possible.
An outreé explanation, violating all our preconceptions, would never pass for a true account of a novelty.
The most violent revolutions in an individual's beliefs leave most of his old order standing.

New truth is always a go-between, a smoother-over of transitions.

The point I now urge you to observe particularly is the part played by the older truths . . . their influence is absolutely controlling. Loyalty to them is the first principle; for by far the most usual way of handling phenomena so novel that they would make for a serious rearrangement of our preconceptions is to ignore them altogether, or to abuse those who bear witness for them.

Back to William James

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 07:55:03 (EDT)
From: Bryn
Email: None
To: Bryn
Subject: This ones better oh Loafus.nt
Message:
dfg
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 03:44:52 (EDT)
From: Abi
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Leave me alone Bjorn
Message:
Do not send me anymore creepy e-mails. I think you are disturbed. Leave me alone. Get over your sick obsession. I don't want to know anything about you. You do not interest me.

GO AWAY

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:26:07 (EDT)
From: Abi
Email: None
To: Abi
Subject: Re: Leave me alone Bjorn
Message:
I deleted then. I don't want to enter into any sort of dialogue with the creep. Enough of the creepy premies.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 17:11:31 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Abi
Subject: They are evidence of harassment
Message:
Abi,

My advice is to save them in a special folder as evidence. Save EACH and every e-mail you get from a premie that was unsolicited. Who's cyberstalking here, eh???

Between you, Jim, Marianne, Pat Conlon, and J-M, I'll bet we'd have enough to have folks laughing their butts off at what fools some of these people are.

Francesca

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 13:47:46 (EDT)
From: FYI
Email: None
To: Abi
Subject: Emails posted at LG
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 07:40:10 (EDT)
From: abi
Email: None
To: Abi
Subject: Re: Leave me alone Bjorn
Message:
stop sending me e-mails. I have never given you my e-mail address or invited you to write to me. please go away, you are giving me the creps
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 22:06:08 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: abi
Subject: I gave him your email -- thought you wouldn't mind
Message:
God, Abi,

Quit being so touchy for Chris' sake! Bjorn means well. International Human Rights and all that. He was talking to someone in government about something too, don't forget.

Naw, just kidding of course.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:03:52 (EDT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: abi
Subject: EV!! Who is Stalking Who?
Message:
Hi Abi,

Bjorn is emailing you now? The creep! If you don't want to read them, at least save them--ya never know when you might need evidence of harrassment from cult members.

Block him, (I'm sure you have done this)!

Hope you're okay,
Love,
Cynthia

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 10:18:57 (EDT)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: abi
Subject: post them here intact Abs (nt) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 12:37:13 (EDT)
From: Bjørn E
Email: None
To: Loaf
Subject: Re: post them here intact Abs (nt)
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:18:37 (EDT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Bjørn E
Subject: Why is Bjorn Still Allowed Here?
Message:
Just wondering...if he has begun an email harrassment campaign, first to Marianne, and not to Abi, of all people, shouldn't he be blocked here?

I'm trying very hard to be polite about this character.

Cynthia

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 06:46:38 (EDT)
From: AJW
Email: None
To: Cynthia
Subject: Bjorn.
Message:
Bjorn has a history of disturbing behaviour on the forum.

When allowed to post here, he invariably upsets people, and gets upset himself.

He has problems that need dealing with elsewhere, not here on the forum.

I strongly request he is barred from posting, like he has been on previous occasions.

Anth not bjorn again for fucks sake.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 19:57:59 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Cynthia
Subject: That's what I want to Know
Message:
To everyone:

It is very disturbing for me to read the shit in some of the posts and to hear that Marianne is being abused by disturbing emails and NOW Abi.

Can you imagine what it is like for Abi?

It is also about abuse against women. I have noticed my whole life that men like to attack and abuse women in a vacuum. They do it out of the scope of other men. When men scrutinize the behaviour of abusive men, they shamefully recoil. When women attack male abusers, they don't recoil, but simply get off on it.. That is part of their sick and twisted satisfaction. They shoot their arrows and the arrows sting.

So I am asking all you, especially the men, to step in and Shame him. Do not leave this up to Abi. The very fact that the abuse is conducted is damaging. Hurting a woman puts her at a disadvantage, so we are already wounded when we try and retaliate.

Question: Can Abi forward unwanted emails to one of the other posters who will look at it and hold it for legal evidence. This is very disturbing to me to allow fuckin freaks like Bjorn to come here like a welcomed guest while he conducts this assault on women, bothe publically and privately.

Please do not respond to his posts. Vicki pointed out the response to Bjorn's disturbing posts and astutely acknowledged how delightful it must be to get that attention.

Imagine how powerful and effective he must feel when he cand manipulate someone personally. Imagine how he must feel being able to manipulate Ab's emotions, keep her in constant awareness of him and what that sick fuck thinks.

Horrible thought, isn't it?

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Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 13:47:20 (EDT)
From: FYI
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Oh YEAH, READ ABOUT IT AT LG
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 17:55:24 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: FYI
Subject: Send a messenger
Message:
Don't have access, or don't you know that?
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Fri, Oct 26, 2001 at 06:50:12 (EDT)
From: Messenger Boy
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Info requested by Deb
Message:
START OF FIRST EMAIL

Date: Wed, Nov 17, 1999 at 20:22:38 (EST)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Sir Dave, my hero!
Message:

Hi Sir Dave! Thanks for that post. It warmed my heart!
Marianne

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Once you Marianne wrote the above. This was a response when Sir Dave gave a link to child abuse of Jagdeo. Being a victim of sexual abuse at the age of 10, I guess you might say, I was disgusted by this statement.
I once sent an email to Jim when I was blocked from posting at the exes Forum, and explained to Jim why I engaged myself in the discussion. Without my permission, Jim posted my letter at the forum. and to that post you Marianne posted this:

Date: Sat, Jul 15, 2000 at 02:00:35 (GMT)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Bjorn's a twisted liar
Message:

Well this takes the cake. Anyone who knows me here knows what Bjorn has said about me is totally false. Just goes to show he's a demented freak.
Marianne

Being a lawyer? I think you should know better than this.

Then you Marianne posted this, which I found when I returned from a trip to the mountains:

Posted: Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 01:33:14 (EDT)
Original: Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 01:12:35 (EDT)
Posted by: Marianne Recipient: Francesca
Email Address: MarianneDB@aol.com
Browser Type: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; AOL 6.0; Windows 9

Subject: Only female CAC victim
Message:

CAC should be an extreme source of concern. I am the only woman named on the CAC site. Most of the people named on the CAC site engaged premies in debate. I did this rarely. The only people I really fought with were Catweasel when s/he first arrived and Bjorn, because he cyberstalks Abi. I was also very critical of Valerio Pascotto and his role in dealing with Abi. I also continue to believe that Elan Vital and Maharaji are just as dangerous as Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. Perhaps those scary ideas have earned me a place on the CAC site.

The CAC site was designed to intimidate and silence the critics of Maharaji and Elan Vital. I am not afraid of the CAC authors, and their identities will not remain secret for long. My career is devoted to unmasking the identities of those who abused my clients decades ago. It has been very easy to unmask you.

I spend each day fighting to save lives. Your actions against me are quite the opposite. You will be exposed and I will defend my professional reputation, at all your expense. You really don't want to tussle with a death penalty lawyer, but unfortunately you did. I have friends and litigation assets in places you never anticipated. Ask Morgan Chu.

Marianne
(edit this message) (Printer Friendly Version) (Send To Friend)

I also found Abis post, (one of many, I would call cyberstalking or abusing me)

Posted: Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 12:04:52 (EDT)
Original: Fri, Oct 19, 2001 at 14:51:10 (EDT)
Posted by: Abi Recipient: Vicki
Email Address: Not Provided
Browser Type: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.5; Mac_PowerPC)

Subject: agree
Message:

my irritation got the better of me. He has to be one of the biggest creeps I've come across. Skin crawling.
(edit this message) (Printer Friendly Version) (Send To Friend)

So what to do about this? First of all, I have IMO never Cyberstalked or said something 'bad' to Abi.

I know there have been someone who have accused me to say 'bad' things to Abi, but I never did that.Only once addressed Abi without her addressing me, and then I asked a question about her father actually some ex later asked Abi. I used at that time a alias and also expressed her my sincere feelings about her case.

I also have been called liar several times by Marianne. So I challenge you to give me examples of such posts or posts where I supposedly have abused or cyberstalked Abi. (BTW I have several proofs that the oposite is the case..)

BTW I am not sure if this kind of behaviour is according to the ethics of the bar assosiation?

Since I am not reading the forums anymore, I hope you can respect my request not to post this (or anything about me) at a Billboard Forum, but email me the response.

Sincerely Bjørn Edwardsen
END

START OF 2. EMAIL
Posted: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 14:07:26 (EDT)
Original: NA
Posted by: Marianne Recipient: All
Email Address: Not Provided
Browser Type: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; AOL 6.0; Windows 9

Subject: Bjorn -don't ever email me again
Message:

Bjorn, I have absolutely nothing to say to you. You are one twisted puppy. Go see your therapist and work your problems out with him or her.

Marianne
(edit this message) (Printer Friendly Version) (Send To Friend)

Being curious, I just wnated to check if you had any decensy? So I checked the F7

So what I am wondering about, is this a treat? Or may I take this further?

If you have nothing to say to me, why say it at a billboard. For all you knew I would not get your message:

But I am not surprised. And I honestly dont think any thereaphist can solve one problem, that you are lying about me

Or may be you want me to contact your employer?

Bjørn Edwardsen

END

START OF 3. EMAIL

I am also cronically ill. And I am fed up being lied about. I am also fed up being harrassed and that people mention me as a cyberstalker. That is why.

Having said that I wish you well.

Bjørn Edwardsen

---
-- Original Message
---
--
From: Abigail Bray
To: Bjørn Edwardsen
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2001 3:36 AM
Subject: Re: Accusations

marianne, is there a purpose to sending me this stuff?

I am chroncially ill. I have a lung disease and I am slowly going blind. I really don't need any more stress.

Abi
--


---

---

---
-
From: Bjørn Edwardsen
To:
Subject: Accusations
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 9:41 PM

Date: Wed, Nov 17, 1999 at 20:22:38 (EST)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Sir Dave
Subject: Sir Dave, my hero!
Message:

Hi Sir Dave! Thanks for that post. It warmed my heart!
Marianne

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Once you Marianne wrote the above. This was a response when Sir Dave gave a link to child abuse of Jagdeo. Being a victim of sexual abuse at the age of 10, I guess you might say, I was disgusted by this statement.
I once sent an email to Jim when I was blocked from posting at the exes Forum, and explained to Jim why I engaged myself in the discussion. Without my permission, Jim posted my letter at the forum. and to that post you Marianne posted this:

Date: Sat, Jul 15, 2000 at 02:00:35 (GMT)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Bjorn's a twisted liar
Message:

Well this takes the cake. Anyone who knows me here knows what Bjorn has said about me is totally false. Just goes to show he's a demented freak.
Marianne

Being a lawyer? I think you should know better than this.

Then you Marianne posted this, which I found when I returned from a trip to the mountains:

Posted: Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 01:33:14 (EDT)
Original: Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 01:12:35 (EDT)
Posted by: Marianne Recipient: Francesca
Email Address: MarianneDB@aol.com
Browser Type: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; AOL 6.0; Windows 9

Subject: Only female CAC victim
Message:

CAC should be an extreme source of concern. I am the only woman named on the CAC site. Most of the people named on the CAC site engaged premies in debate. I did this rarely. The only people I really fought with were Catweasel when s/he first arrived and Bjorn, because he cyberstalks Abi. I was also very critical of Valerio Pascotto and his role in dealing with Abi. I also continue to believe that Elan Vital and Maharaji are just as dangerous as Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. Perhaps those scary ideas have earned me a place on the CAC site.

The CAC site was designed to intimidate and silence the critics of Maharaji and Elan Vital. I am not afraid of the CAC authors, and their identities will not remain secret for long. My career is devoted to unmasking the identities of those who abused my clients decades ago. It has been very easy to unmask you.

I spend each day fighting to save lives. Your actions against me are quite the opposite. You will be exposed and I will defend my professional reputation, at all your expense. You really don't want to tussle with a death penalty lawyer, but unfortunately you did. I have friends and litigation assets in places you never anticipated. Ask Morgan Chu.

Marianne
(edit this message) (Printer Friendly Version) (Send To Friend)

END

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 19:12:54 (EDT)
From: Jerry
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Maharaji: Student of Machiavelli?
Message:
I'm reading this very interesting book by Howard Zinn titled 'Declarations Of Independence' about American ideology and the re-examination of it. I'm reading the chapter on the similarities between American foreign policy and Machiavellian politics (realpolitik), although Machiavelli was much more honest and blunt about his goals - power for the prince.

What brought Maharaji to mind was the seeming similarities between how Machiavelli recomended that the prince distance himself from any policies of state the citizens found objectionable. Find a scapegoat. In this case, Cesare Borgia, then prince of Rome was complaining that the people had become disorderly, so what he did was employ a certain Remirro de Orca, a 'cruel and able man', to restore order. He succeeded magnificently, but his tactics were so cruel that the people were on the verge of rebelling against the prince, so the prince, in his infinite wisdom had de Orca executed to win the hearts of the people.

Now, maybe this is a stretch, but doesn't Maharaji practice this technique with Elan Vital? Isn't EV his fallguy for whatever goes wrong? (Don't blame me, I can't help it if I've got imbeciles working for me). And doesn't this work exceedingly well? Doesn't every premie buy into it?

Just thought I'd share these thoughts. Maharaji, you're a real 'prince'.

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 02:37:01 (EDT)
From: Vicki
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: Re: Maharaji: Student of Machiavelli?
Message:
Ya, 'cept one nasty scapegoat gets replaced with an even nastier one.
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 21:14:15 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: Jerry
Subject: prince 'o thieves: maharajiavelli! [nt]
Message:
[nt]
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 06:49:37 (EDT)
From: janet
Email: None
To: such
Subject: maharajiavelli! a new moniker for him
Message:
that fits! use it!
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 15:55:25 (EDT)
From: suchabanana
Email: dante@divinecomedy.org/y
To: janet
Subject: Re: maharajiavelli! a new moniker for him
Message:
hi Janet,

for instance, dat sly baba, dontcha think he's kinda maharajiavellian?! or, in point of fact, da adi bubba fwee john comes fwom dat old Maharajiavelli school of spiritual megalomaniacs, sideshow barkers, and monopolist robber barons. According to da maharajiavellian theory of survival of da fittest, it was postulated dat a sucker was born every half-minute. etc.

see, dat is da beauuty of language. i'm going to make up a lil bananas dictionary manana ... [oh i 4got, manana never comes.]

you got any chai? den I could gwab a guitar and we could do ourtea! hohoho

peas and lentils,

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Thurs, Oct 25, 2001 at 16:29:02 (EDT)
From: Bjørn E
Email: None
To: suchabanana
Subject: Testing
Message:
Testing
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 16:13:55 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Email from Erika, Mitch, David and Rob
Message:
I sent an email to the premies runing the 'Please Consider This' website, and included a copy of the statement signed by the victims of the CAC. I asked that they comment on CAC on their website. Here is the response I got:

Joe,

Thanks for your email. All four of us thought the CAC website was horrible, and are glad it's been taken down. Even though some people on EPO say
truly dreadful and insulting things about individuals with Knowledge (and even though the things said on EPO about Maharaji make the things said on CAC about ex-premies read like love notes), we thought it was petty, immature, mean-spirited, and just wrong to respond in kind.

We don't quite understand, though, why you think this is something we should address on our website -- we've made it clear what the purpose of our site is: to present an alternative point of view to the negative allegations being made about Maharaji, his students and Knowledge.

You may see students of Maharaji as all representing each other and having some agreed-upon party line and world-view, but that's not our experience -- we don't feel personally responsible for the actions or words of other
individuals who have Knowledge: they don't represent us nor we them, and we therefore don't feel any need to publicly repudiate them. We find that we often disagree with other students of Maharaji (the four of us regularly disagree with each other).

In our submission letter, we state that we won't 'bash' those insulting Maharaji and us, nor will we accept such 'bashing' in any writing
on the site. We have held to that standard in everything on the site. We think that makes our point of view sufficiently clear on this subject. We also feel that the submission letter clarifies why your suggestion (about including the statement from the people attacked on the CAC) really has no connection to what we're trying to do here. Of course, since we don't believe in censorship (which the dictionary defines as 'to forbid the public distribution of something, as in newspapers or television') we cordially
invite you to publish it in any forum you like.

Since your emails to us seem to show a consistent misunderstanding about the purpose and focus of our site, we suggest you read the welcome and
submission letters on the site.

Finally, Joe, our personal perspective is that the finances of Elan Vital are not 'kept secret;' they are kept private, just as are the finances of most other privately-held and non-profit (that is, not publicly traded) organizations. I've seen the balance sheets, as have people who work with
Elan Vital's finances and therefore have a reason to see them (financial managers, budget holders of various projects, people working on the resource teams in various countries, major donors, etc.) -- and more importantly, as
have the taxing authorities in every country in which an EV-type organization exists. Working as I do with large public corporations, I can
also say that your characterization of the expense relating to Maharaji's travel and lodging as 'astronomical' seems almost funny to me -- EV really operates on a shoestring compared to the budget of most other organizations with comparable reach and numbers of people involved.

Regards,
Erika, David, Mitch and Bob

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 23:48:27 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: All truth goes through three stages
Message:
The following is a quote atop an article that Stonor linked us to over at AG,Too. It immediately hit me as a litmis test of a current or drifted cult membership as well as the success of EPO and it's evolving fora as a whole.

'All truth goes through three stages.
First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident. ' (Schoepenhouer)

|D STAGE 1: First it is ridiculed

Since the launching of EPO and Forum I, this site and its participants have been ridiculed. We are/were basically laughed at and made fun of, albeit through the strained teeth of other premies especially EV personnel and the HeadCheese himself.

Stage 2 starts off with just opposition which escalates, so I'm breaking it into two phses.

:| STAGE 2a: Then it is (violently) opposed

After new person arrives tries to shoot down the opponents with an unloaded water pistol, the still apologetic cult member gets angry, than gets progressively aggressive and finally just insults the integrity and any or all possible aspects of the 'truth sayers' here. However, the reults are relatively dull and for ALL their individual hard-earned efforts, they only increase the popularity and population of Cult defectors

~) STAGE 2b: This phase includes the spammers. There is no communication. The intent is to aggressively hurt and disable the truth sayers to deter others from hearing it. Worse are ugly apologists, you know, like the ones that came here a couple of months with the intent to attack Abi's integrity, siphon her strength of will and basically intimidate her into EV's blameful submission. Although being able to cause wounds, it was enevitable that their mission to deflect the criticisms, exaust and suppress the group's 'truths' failed miserably. Enter the THE CAC attack. The big undeniable blow of the truth suppressers. But we survived and appear to be back just as strong as ever.

;) Stage Three: The self-evident acceptance. This is where every active or undenounced cult member comes by the time they leave their first 'I'm OUT of the Cult' post.

Think of the stages that we all went through. Sure, their is overlap, but the stages are there nevertheless.

Look even current premies, for instance, the ones that made the propaganda site by the Anderson droids along with Mitch and Rob.

They came to ridicule, didn't work. Then they fought a little on the forum, they only looked silly. So now they are fighting the only way they know how. With a talk-out-both-sides-of-the-mouth infomercial on how to think for yourself [well actually, think like David and Erika, David & Rob] to assist premies who find thinking about all this well, you know, a bit too much for them.

Everyone here knows what it's like when we read a post in Stage Three. We all feel a little more hope for the cult members stuck in the cult mud and glad for the time we have invested.

Wouldn't it be nice to see Stage 3 happen soon for the whole CULT?

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 17:52:59 (EDT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Joe, Unbeeleevable!
Message:
Hi Joe,

The first paragraph of this email says so much:

Thanks for your email. All four of us thought the CAC website was horrible, and are glad it's been taken down. Even though some people on EPO say truly dreadful and insulting things about individuals with Knowledge (and even though the things said on EPO about Maharaji make the things said on CAC about ex-premies read like love notes), we thought it was petty, immature, mean-spirited, and just wrong to respond in kind. My emphasis.

This is the most sarcastic remark I have heard in ages! The nerve of them. That website is called ''Please Consider This.'' They don't seem too interested in considering anything except their own myopic view as Maharaji's devotees/advocates. True believers, PAMs, whoever, they are quite defensive about the financial end of things.

I also went over there to read Erika's ''perspective'' of ashrams. Pretty bland writing, IMO. And the editing leaves a lot to be desired--they must have a pole up their ass.

Anyway, I didn't want to digress to cussin' but Jeezum Crow! CAC was like a love letter to ex-premies compared to the Forum? A love letter from whom? Maharaji? I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Great response, though...

Cynthia

Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 23:04:55 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Cynthia
Subject: Amazing, isn't it? (nt)
Message:
nt
Return to Index -:- Top of Index

Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 16:48:19 (EDT)
From: Francesca :C)
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: She's wrong about 'the taxing authorities'
Message:
The triumvirate said:
. I've seen the balance sheets, as have people who work with
Elan Vital's finances and therefore have a reason to see them (financial managers, budget holders of various projects, people working on the resource teams in various countries, major donors, etc.) -- and more importantly, as
have the taxing authorities in every country in which an EV-type organization exists
.

According to Guidestar re EV: 'This organization is not required to file an annual return with the IRS because it is a church.'

This exemption has been in place since 1971. So practically since their master's feet touched US soil the 'taxing authorities' haven't seen a thing, except maybe the Franchise Tax Boards of states where they sell their videos and tschotches, where they at least have to account for their sales revenues. But the rest of the money they take in is sacrosanct. But it's not a religion, uh uh!

For people who purport to be knowledgeable, they are blowing smoke here. If one of them really is in the business of working with nonprofits, why would they risk their professional reputation signing such blatant misinformation???

They know what they are doing with that hide-the-ball church exemption. The California Attorney General's division of Charitable Trusts, that has some oversight functions with regard to nonprofits, doesn't take complaints regarding churches. What a bunch of double talk. I feel sorry for them that they think they have to clean up after this corrupt teacher and his organization. Non-disclosure is the game here.

Francesca
[ Guidestar ]

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 19:01:04 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Francesca :C)
Subject: Yeah, she is wrong
Message:
Thanks, Francesca. Is this information on the EPO website?

I think the IRS did a couple of investigations of Elan Vital/DLM for possible tax violations, using their 'church' status to funnel money to an individual. But I think that, at least has been cleaned up, I believe, by just inflating the money given to Maharaji as 'expenses' and inflating them to ridiculous, yes astronomical, levels.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 11:55:08 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Joe, not sure
Message:
Joe,

J-M has some excellent pages on the church status on EPO, and I was going to try to go over them and add some new stuff if there's anything new to add, but I haven't gotten around to it. The information may essentially already be there though, sans the Guidestar link.

There's a lot to read here.

Francesca
[ EV's Church status -- on EPO ]

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 16:16:58 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: My Response
Message:
Here is my response to the email.

Dear Erika, David, Mitch and Rob:

Thanks for your response to my email. I'm glad you think the CAC website was horrible, which it was. Perhaps if you were one of the people attacked, like me, you might feel even more strongly about that, and about how important it is to take a stand about that kind of thing. Plus, the internet crimes investigators I have talked to say it's likely the website will return, in the same or another format, which is very troubling both for the victims, as well as how it reflects on Maharaji.

But if you really do think it was horrible, why don't you mention that on your website? Both the fact that devotees of Maharaji put up that site, and also that Maharaji has yet to make any kind of a statement whatsoever that he disapproved of it, are about as negative as you can possibly get about Maharaji. Indeed, they are very much both 'negative allegations' about Maharaji, that I would think you would address, since your website has as its purpose:

'to respond to the negative allegations being made about Maharaji and Knowledge in an intelligent, reasoned and honest way - not simply to wax poetic about our love and appreciation for Maharaji. (There are other sites where you can do that).'

I don't know how you can carry out that purpose when this current allegation is sitting there in everyones' minds, premie, ex-premie, non-premie, and potential aspirant alike, and out of a sense of defense, I don't think the victims can let that incident fade. For our own protection, we need to continue to publicize that it happened, and it might happen again.

Note that, despite your comments about the terrible things ex-premies have said about Maharaji (really, comparing EPO with CAC and your 'love notes' comment is about as low as you can get. No one has accused Maharaji of child sexual abuse, kidnapping or domestic violence, so that really sucks that you should say that, especially because the perpetrators were anonymous and provided no means whatsoever to respond), ex-premies have not done anything like CAC, and the majority of ex-premies who post on the internet do so, like me, using our own names and standing behind what we say. And of course, if you or any premie disagrees with anything we say, the Forum is open to anyone to make corrections, as is the EPO website, by the way. I'm quite willing to stand behind any comments I have made and I also resent the implication that I have made unsubstantiated allegations about Maharaji. If you think I have, I would be interested in hearing specifically what those statements were that are false.

Obviously, being out there with our own names, opens us up for that kind of attack, but surely it isn't lost on you that if the current position is that all Maharaji is about is an internal experience and gratitude therefor, and all the fanatical devotion of the past has gone, CAC flies directly against that and is quite glaring. You can address whatever you like, but I suggest that the credibility of your website is greatly diminished by the failure to do so, as it is by not accepting any contrary views, something that not one of the websites put up by Maharaji, his organization, or premies, allow.

I also think that CAC and Maharji's failure to address it, has done more damage to him than anything any ex-premie has ever said about him. We are not talking about something that happened in 1973; it happened in 2001, and that reflects on how Maharaji and his followers operate, now, today. This is probably at least as damaging as the Jagdeo situation, which is also particularly damaging because Maharaji has failed to address that publicly as well, and because of the atrocious way Elan Vital has treated the victims of Jagdeo's sexual abuse of children. These events alone have caused many premies to stop following Maharaji.

A public statement might also go a long way in dissuading the same or other premies from doing something similar to CAC, and would provide an opportunity for the 'reasonable premie viewpoint' which you claim to represent, to make a stand on this. Although I disagree with a lot of it, I think your website is a good development because it encourages more discussion and communication, which is a good thing for everyone. I would also think you would feel a moral obligation to state your opposition to CAC, in addition to distancing yourselves from such a thing. I wouldn't expect that the actual statement by the victims would be put on your website, but perhaps your opinion of and reaction to CAC could be.

On the subject of Elan Vital finances, you are wrong about the finances of other non-profits. In fact, if Elan Vital weren't registered as a 'church' (which is in itself ironic in light of Elan Vital's 'non-religious' claims) it would be required by law to disclose its financials to the public because it seeks donations from them. I work with a number of charitable and educational non-profits and know for a fact that there are severe penalties for failure to make those financials public.

This is very different from being in compliance with the tax laws. I have no doubt Elan Vital is in compliance with those, due to the good work of Michael Dettmers and Robert Jacobs, Esq. Even most reputable churches report their finances publicly although not legally required to do so. If Elan Vital had nothing to hide, it could do so as well.

And as for Maharaji's 'astronomical' expenses, I have been informed by PAMs who have recently left the organization that it costs $250,000 just to get M to do an 'introductory program' in some city, because of what he requires. That's astronomical to me, partly a reason why so few of them happen, and why Elan Vital keeps it secret, even from the premies, while it continues the drumbeat of fundraising. Plus, I would imagine that a balance sheet would tell you precious little about where the money is actually spent.

Why do you think it has to be kept 'private', Erika? I also think your distinction between 'private' and 'secret' would make Richard Nixon proud. ::))

On another subject, Erika, I read your 'article' on the ashram and I simply can't understand why you let Maharaji off the hook for absolutely everything. And it does make me angry because I recall the things Maharaji said and did in connection with the ashrams, and you make it sound like it just sort of 'happened' without his involvement. Are you even capable of criticizing him? It would be really helpful if we saw some objectivity on your website when it comes to Maharaji. I will keep looking for that.

Thanks,

Joe Whalen

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 14:32:15 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Here's My Personal Wealth Email Erika Mentions
Message:
October 11, 2001

Dear Please Consider This:

I've read a few of the 'articles' on your website so far, and I have to say that Mitch Ditkoff at least comes accross as honest. I actually enjoy his articles and he appears at least to be open to talk about what really went on in the cult. He isn't as dishonest and manipulative, and dripping with transparent hedging and spin as the Andersen twins.

Anyhow, on the subject of Maharaji's personal wealth, we get the following from Erika Andersen:

Personal Wealth

Money is a tricky topic. Very few of us seem neutral about it we hate it, we want it, we obsess about it, we're afraid of it. Some of our feelings are even more complicated: we don't want to want it but we're envious of people who have it; we'd like to feel comfortable with it, but instead it makes us feel overwhelmed and incompetent; we enjoy having it, but feel guilty spending it.

Given all this, I guess it's no wonder that some people get really uncomfortable about the fact that Maharaji is personally wealthy.

Just like her brother David does in his “Catalyst” article, Erika begins by preaching about how we 'all' are with a kind of religious, new-age tilt, that any premie or ex-premie will find familiar because it's a manipulation technique that has been used in satsang for years, and Maharaji uses it just about every time he speaks.

These averments are made obviously for the purpose of setting the tone she wishes to set, that talking about Maharaji's wealth, were he got it, and what he does with it in light of his professed 'mission' and stated priorities, is only due to that fact that we're 'all' a bit neurotic about money, so how could we possibily judge Maharaji and his $7 million yacht? Like I said, it's manipulative, and reflects the unwillingness to address these issues head on. But then, that isn't Erika's intent. She knows well what the criticisms of Maharaji really are, and she has no intention of actually addressing them, because she can't.

She goes on:

Add that to the fact that there was little or no separation, in the early '70s, between the money given to Maharaji personally and money given to the organizations that supported his work, providing lots of interesting historical murk and you have a pretty volatile brew.

Here Erika is just historically innacurate. While I was still an employee of Elan Vital, until at least 1983, their remained little separation between the organization's finances and Maharaji's finances, although by the 80s, a decade after Maharaji arrived in the West, the separation did exist on paper at least. Elan Vital personnel (initiators, coordinators, etc.) were instructed to encourage donations, indeed fundraise among the devotees, directly for Maharaji personally; the ashrams were instructed to send money directly to Maharaji (to write out checks in his name and send them to Malibu); Elan Vital fundraised,in secret as much as possible, for Maharaji's planes which he oversaw with compulsive attention and which he personally selected; Elan Vital held 'festivals' now called 'events,' at which participants were instructed to give cash in the feet-kissing darshan line which went directly for Maharaji's personal use, (and on and on and on).

To suggest that there wasn't all kinds of overlap between donations to Elan Vital and Maharaji personally, at least until the mid-80s, is ludicrous, and I know it's ludicrous because I saw it myself.

Even now, long after that separation has been very clearly made, critics of Maharaji still focus on his personal wealth: where does he get it, why does he have it and why don't I?

So now we get the dumb idea that all criticisms about Maharaji's wealth and where he got it and what he does with it, just arise out of jealousy or envy. This is so ridiculous as to warrant no response.

Instead of addressing the obvious legitimate questions about Maharaji's personal wealth, Erika just again implies that to even question the issue means there is something wrong with the questioner, in this case, it's due to our petty jealousy. Once again, I think these are skills honed in satsang by people who desperately wanted to be high priests in the Maharaji cult, and would do just about anything to demonstrate to him their loyalty and support. That apparently continues and many of us did the same thing during our cult years.

Where does he get it?

This, I think, is the big one. Critics often allege that Maharaji 's personal wealth comes from his followers, poor schnooks hoodwinked into believing 1) that their money is going for something else, and/or 2) that something bad will happen to them if they don't give him money. Kind of like a crooked televangelist.

In regard to 'giving to something else' issue, it depends on the period you are talking about. During the decade of more when Maharaji was claiming to be the incarnation of God on earth, I think even Erika can figure out that a lot of donations were probably made under false pretenses.

Second, there was tremendous pressure to give money to both Maharaji and Elan Vital at least for the period I was involved, since Maharaji gave us a COMMANDMENT to do 'service' the major form of which was giving money. Moreover, ashram residents turned over all of their money they earned to the ashram and much of that money went to Maharaji personally and they had no personal choice about this at all.

Finally, Maharaji got all kinds of free, slave labor for things like his plane, servants at his numerous 'residences' around the world, also under false pretenses, as he was demanding devotion and surrender at the time to himself as the living god.

True, nobody held a gun to anyone's head, but that melieu, and pressure to donate and dedicate permeated the organization, and was repeated in the tirades Maharaji layed on us almost every time he spoke to us.

When Maharaji said that if we didn't dedicate to him we would go to hell, like he said on Christmas Day, 1979, with me sitting in the room, that had a big impact on whether and how much money people donated, don't think it didn't. The fact that to this day Maharaji has never clearly admitted those errors he made and corrected the false propaganda he espoused, makes it even worse.

These days, I am informed that pressure is still put on people to donate both to Maharaji and Elan Vital. It seems there is now a carrot and stick approach. In addition to Maharaji's directive to do 'participation' (give money), large donators get perks, like close seats at programs, special access to the person they believe to be the living Perfect Master, parties on his $7 million yacht and the like. Sure, the methods have changed, but the relentless fundraising, without any sort of proof of were the money actually goes, appears to continue to this day.

I may be fuzzy on many things, but I am absolutely clear on this: none of Maharaji 's personal support comes from donations that I, or anyone else, make to the various organizations around the world that help to support his work. It goes to make Maharaji 's message available to people who are interested in hearing it, through satellite broadcasts, videos and other materials, and at public events where Maharaji speaks. My donations also help cover the costs of the sessions where people are shown the techniques of Knowledge, so that these sessions can be offered free of charge.

Erika doesn't bother to tell us how she knows this, since the finances of Maharaji, Elan Vital, and the various other cult organizations are kept highly-guarded secrets. Isn't it interesting that Erika is so sure about this, and yet, like I said below, unlike any other charitable organization, and most legitimate churches, Elan Vital and Maharaji never tell anyone how much money is collected from donations and how much is spent on the various things they claim to spend it on. All we get from Elan Vital are bar charts with percentages with no amounts and no explanation of what any of it actually means. It's so self-serving as to be laughable. I think it also makes premies feel like idiots because neither Elan Vital, nor Maharaji, appear to think Maharaji's followers are competent enough to even have the information. This, while 'fundraising' continues unabated. [This secrecy within Maharaji's organization is one of the reasons so many premies come to EPO to find out what is really going on.]

As an example of the EV misinformation, like I said below, Elan Vital says is covers Maharaji's 'expenses' for 'events.' From what I understand these are astronomically high, including paying rent to a company Maharaji controls for a Gulfstream jet, covering Maharaji's expenses to fly the plane, for his personal servants, for residences, and all best of everything that Maharaji requires, but we don't know for sure, because none of this is disclosed. And given that Maharaji has never had a job in his life, and has a ninth grade education, it's pretty easy to see where his money didn't come from.

But, of course, we are supposed to take Erika's word for it that it's all legit. Especially given the financial improprieties of the past that even Erika acknowledges, one would think that Maharaji and Elan Vital would be keen to demonstrate their stellar financial procedures and controls, at least to the people they are asking to donate to them. The fact that it's all a secret speaks for itself.

So, why isn't this information disclosed to the public, and why does Elan Vital hide behind the 'church' exemption and avoid all legal obligations to do that? And why doesn't Erika even address that? [This is especially ironic, since Maharaji claims that what he is about isn't a religion.} Well, when it is financially convenient, Maharaji seems to be willing to overlook that and be a 'church.'

Erika is free to donate to whomever she likes, but it is cearly legitimate that people ask the questions about these things, both what is going on now, and what went on in the past, and by even the most basic standards, no answers are given by Maharaji or Erika, and I think it's unlikely we will ever get them. Erika or anyone else can give money under those circumstances, but it doesn't make one defective if you raise those questions.

Why does he have it?

Shouldn't Maharaji be skinny and ascetic, living a humble life and wearing scratchy clothes? Shouldn't he give away all his worldly goods and wander from place to place, preaching...no, wait, that's Saint Francis of Assisi. Sometimes I think we've all watched Gandhi too many times.

This is more red-herring, manipulative crap from Erika. Like in her 'myths' article, the suggestion that anyone has said that Maharaji should live an ascetic life is a absurd. The question actually is, where did he get his money, and even more, if his true mission, as he has claimed, is to 'spread knowledge' to the world because he cares so much for the world and loves them just so much, why does he have a $7 million yacht instead of using those resources for his avowed mission? This, while at the same time his organizations are out fundraising for that purpose. It makes one wonder what his priorities actually are, and the fact that he has a declining number of followers in the west and only a handful of people receive knowledge in the west every year, while at the same time he has become fabulously rich, are additional indications of what Maharaji's priorities really are, and always have been, when it comes to money.

In the rest of her article Erika just reiterates that Maharaji shouldn't have to live like a monk and she apparently likes that he has gold plumbing fixtures. Well, that's her choice.

But her ending jab at Maharaji's critics that they are just driven by envy is total bullshit and I have a hard time seeing how an intelligent person would stoop to even make that argument with a straight face. But then maybe Erika is really laughing.

Joe Whalen

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 20:48:07 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Great all round (one quibble)
Message:
Great as usual, Joe. Only thing I think might be a little inaccurante is this:

No one has accused Maharaji of child sexual abuse, kidnapping or domestic violence,

Maybe not those things in particular but being an accessory after the fact to Pat Halley's attempted murder and also the vehicular homicide in India are indeed serious allegations, every bit as bad.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 12:02:41 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: But Joe's point, I think is ..
Message:
... that it's one thing to say M was an accessory after the fact, and another to say that he actually was the perpetrator. CAC stated that some of the exes, themselves, were the perps. You are right about the vehicular homicide though. However, no one has accused M, himself, of child sexual abuse, kidnapping or domestic violence.

Another thing I'd add though, is that on top of all that, M is a public figure and has placed himself in the world as such. The CAC victims were private individuals that have a legal right to privacy. Public figures have some rights also, of course, but there is way more lattitude to criticize them, otherwise all those tabloids wouldn't be on the racks at the supermarket.

Francesca

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 18:36:57 (EDT)
From: Tim G
Email: timgitti@indigo.ie
To: Joe
Subject: Congratulations Joe. nt
Message:
yipeee
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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 17:26:07 (EDT)
From: Mr. Observation
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Re: Joe's Response
Message:
An accurate and concise response Joe. Especially:

'On the subject of Elan Vital finances, you are wrong about the finances of other non-profits. In fact, if Elan Vital weren't registered as a 'church' (which is in itself ironic in light of Elan Vital's 'non-religious' claims) it would be required by law to disclose its financials to the public because it seeks donations from them. I work with a number of charitable and educational non-profits and know for a fact that there are severe penalties for failure to make those financials public.'

Apart from the substantial tax saving benefits for registering as a 'religion' (which, as you say, maharaji has clearly publicly stated he and knowledge are not), it is clear that maharaji certainly wants to ensure that none of his donators know exactly how much money has been raised and how much has actually been spent on targetted projects. From day one this kind of information has been kept a secret, but I don't think it's really much of a secret why. Profligate personal spending and denial of responsibility has surely been twin hallmarks of maharaji's career.

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 06:06:46 (EDT)
From: Jean-Michel
Email: None
To: All
Subject: New article on EPO
Message:
is he saying all these terrible things about God?

by Dean Latimer.
[ Who is Guru Maharaj Ji and why ]

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 23:26:12 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: I had a real hard time with that article
Message:
The worst part of this article is that I noticed it one sunny afternoon stopping into Safeway on the way back to the ashram with all the 'brothers' laundry. How, I don't know. I have no idea what I was doing spacing out like that and even glancing at the magazine rack, let alone Penthouse.

Wait, now I remember! No shit, I was honestly looking for some new 'positive' article about Maharaji. I'm not kidding.

Anyway, somehow my eyes grazed over the cover of Penthouse and I saw that there was something there. Don't forget, I atually believed that Maharaji was monitoring my every move, my every thought. He was everywhere, inescapable. Not that I ever wanted to escape him (take THAT, Mr. Mind!) but I couldn't if I tried. After all, great saints like Mahatma Tejeshwaranand were living proof the fantastic spiritual rewards awaiting me if only I could truly surrender myself to my Lord.

But then here I was, for the first time in two years, looking at gorgeous, voluptuous women! And I was what? 20?

And then the article!

For one brief, valiant moment my mind cried out: This is all a hoax and these (i.e. the girls, the world, life) are what you really want!

Silly me, I put the magazine down, picked up the garbage bags of laundry and walked back home to the ashram.

Sigh!

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 15:16:49 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: Thank you, J-M, for the history
Message:
Also thanks to Penthouse. While the article is not perfectly accurate history at least it is better than the revisionist cult drivel. Rawat would like to forget all of this stuff and rewrite history.
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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 10:38:51 (EDT)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Jean-Michel
Subject: M Sitting On A Buck...
Message:
Hi Jean-Michel,

That is a great article. I love the cartoon on the cover with him sitting on a dollar bill.LOLOL!

Great work, J-M, thanks.

Love,
Cynthia

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 17:16:35 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: All
Subject: bio-chem warfare, dengue fever links [ot
Message:
http://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1488.html

http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic124.htm
[ http://www.heritage.org/library/backgrounder/bg1488.html ]

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 17:17:42 (EDT)
From: such
Email: None
To: such
Subject: dengue fever link [ot
Message:
http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic124.htm
[ http://www.emedicine.com/emerg/topic124.htm ]
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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 15:44:32 (EDT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Isn't this is both ON Topic and topical
Message:
Hi Scott,

If your post makes one thing clear, it's that the phrase 'anti-American'
needs to be carefully defined and even more carefully used, if it's to
have any consensus of meaning at all.  I appreciate your attempt to
set the goalposts on that one Scott, though when you say 'There is a
good deal that is American about 'anti-Americanism' in the US'
I begin
to wonder if this discussion has the requisite number of them (- goalposts,
that is!).


I don't pretend to know a hell of a lot about the Founding Fathers of
the American Constitution, (their influence and place in history wasn't
terribly well represented on the curriculum when I studied History at school),
likewise de Tocqueville and his definition of 'Americanism', but I did
at least take the time to look up a little about him.  At first I
wondered if I'd got the wrong guy, with quotes like these:

'In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty
of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases,
but woe to him if he goes beyond them.'

'Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be
equal in slavery than unequal in freedom'

'As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans,
one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only
in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?'

'Here and there in the midst of American society you meet with men full of a fanatical and almost wild spirtualism, which hardly exists in Europe. From time to time strange sects arise which endeavor to strike out extraordinary
paths to eternal happiness. Religious insanity is very common in the United States.'

I can only hope these quotes I found are not representative of the national
traits which go to make up his definition of 'Americanism'.

Anyway, I take your point that 'un-American' clearly cannot be applied
to those who are not citizens of the Americas.  As for the term 'un-British',
- well, for many decades there certainly has been a concept of what
'un-British' behaviour/attitudes mean.  (I don't know about the French,
Germans or Israelis, but I would guess that they too have a phrase which
implies being unpatriotic).  Unfortunately the concept of 'un-British'
behaviour is still tied up in the mire of stereotype, and is often further
muddied with jingoistic echoes of Empire, national dominance and a sense
of racial superiority.  A lack of respect for the monarch would be
part and parcel of the term too (which means that the majority of Brits
today are 'un-British', so it evidently needs re-defining).

Your attempt to re-define the term 'politically correct' to imply that
it's another phrase for 'freedom of thought and speech, diversity and
dissent'
is a bit of a long shot, IMO.  Don't quite see where
you were going with that idea.

As for Monbiot's claim that the founding fathers' themselves would today
be classified as 'anti-American' - well, it's not quite as groundless and
ill-considered as you make out.   You think that it's 'patently
silly'
that the founders would agree with current dissenters about
US involvement abroad, and that includes, I guess, the coalition that George
('if you ain't with us, you're against us') W Bush has hastily cobbled
together.

Well, Scott, if he was able to, I think Thomas Jefferson would probably
take issue with you there, judging by these quotes of his:

'I sincerely join... in abjuring all political connection with every
foreign power; and though I cordially wish well to the progress of liberty
in all nations, and would forever give it the weight of our countenance,
yet they are not to be touched without contamination from their other bad
principles. Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should
be our motto.'


--Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Lomax, 1799. ME 10:124

'On the subject of treaties, our system is to have none with any
nation, as far as can be avoided... It is against our system to embarrass
ourselves with treaties, or to entangle ourselves at all with the affairs
of Europe.'


 --Thomas Jefferson to Philip Mazzei, 1804. ME
11:38

'Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations--entangling
alliances with none, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government,
and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.'


--Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME
3:321

'We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country,
nor with the general affairs of Europe. Peace with all nations, and the
right which that gives us with respect to all nations, are our object.'


--Thomas Jefferson to C. W. F. Dumas, 1793. ME 9:56

I am for free commerce with all nations, political connection with
none, and little or no diplomatic establishment. And I am not for linking
ourselves by new treaties with the quarrels of Europe, entering that field
of slaughter to preserve their balance, or joining in the confederacy of
Kings to war against the principles of liberty.'


--Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:77

 

He even went so far as to say:

'Our attachment to no nation on earth should supplant our attachment
to liberty.'


--Thomas Jefferson: Declaration on Taking Up Arms,
1775. Papers 1:201

'They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.'

and

'What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned
from time to time, that this people preserve the right of resistance? Let
them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time,
with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.'


 

 

As for the delicate religious sub-plot (if indeed it is only a sub-plot)
of this war, it was Thomas Paine who said:

“All natural institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian,
or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify
and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

then there's Adams:

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded
on the Christian religion.”


Article 11, Treaty of Tripoli (June 7, 1797)

 and

“The Doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover
for absurdity.”

Jefferson again:

“In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to
liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses
in return for protection to his own.”

“Christianity...[has become] the most perverted system that ever
shone on man....'

(Sorry to go on at such length there, but each quote I came across just
seemed to cry out for inclusion).

 

But to put all this in context of the original question, which still
needs a lot more work before the Great American Psyche comes even close
to really getting to grips with the problem of  'Why do they hate
us?'

Personally, I think it's a very good sign that more and more people
in America are finding the courage to at least ask that question. 
The national psyche has taken a hefty blow, and maybe it'll take quite
a bit more time to be even willing to face the less palatable facts
surrounding her own responsibility in contributing to the climate that
has allowed her current misfortunes to come about.

In that old cycle of anger, denial, bargaining, resentment and acceptance,
(if that's the right order they come in) it's pretty clear that, for many,
the denial has only just started to be expressed.  You yourself make
that very evident when you say: '… the notion that we ought to apologize
for something just pisses me off'
.   Then again, isn't that
very attitude a part of what 'Americanism' is all about?

A whole generation throughout the Arab world has grown up thinking very
ill of the USA..  That's a dangerous situation which the various American
administrations have unfortunately got away with ignoring for far too long,
and I can only hope that Bush's way of dealing with it doesn't spiral into
yet more hatred and reprisals.

You know, this reminds me of the impasse between premies and exes. 
One side is almost totally incapable of seeing the Maha in anything but
a favourable light.  The other is almost totally incapable of seeing
anything good in him.  The two just can't share the same image of
him - or of each other.  To M, the idea that he should apologise for
anything he's done is as alien to him as an apology for the U.S administration's
influence in the Middle East would be to you, Scott.  Yet it seems
so obvious to those of us who don't feel the need to bolster anyone's
self-image that at least an element of responsibility HAS to exist
- for the Maha in his little world as much as for the U.S. in her bigger
one.

If love is never having to say you're sorry, I guess that's one reason
why the Maha surrounds himself only with people who profess to love him
- so he can avoid having to deal with the fact that there's plenty
he might apologise for - IF he had the insight and courage
to realise that, for decades, his actions have had SERIOUS consequences
for so many people.

And maybe that's got 'a little' to do with the way the Arab world sees
the West too.

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:30:36 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Response to the ON Topic bits.
Message:
You know, this reminds me of the impasse between premies and exes.
One side is almost totally incapable of seeing the Maha in anything but
a favourable light. The other is almost totally incapable of seeing
anything good in him.

Nah, I don't buy that. I think this is *your* delusion. I have no problem seeing the blemishes in the American character, or the outright injustices perpetrated by some of its administrations. Like Pat C., I don't expect perfection. You, apparently, do. Therefore you can't make a *reasoned and balanced* decision, and reason and balance are the chief things missing from Monbiot's analysis, because he can't see when his post-modernist interpretation of the founder's intentions is entirely out in left field.

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:15:48 (EDT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: I can't make a 'reasoned and balanced' decision?
Message:
You say I can't make a 'reasoned and balanced' decision ...?

How odd. Consider this (from a former President of the US):

'No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected.'
Harry Truman, Special Address to Congress requesting aid for Greece and Turkey. March 12, 1947

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:22:08 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: I responded to this on AG2
Message:
And it's too off topic even for me on this forum.
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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 16:20:24 (EDT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: so did I
Message:
click here if you're still interested
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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 19:21:53 (EDT)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Why They Hate Us/Anti-American
Message:
Hi cq,

I think for a few weeks after the WTC disaster, it did feel that by even asking the question of why people hate the US and the connection to terrorism, and really to state any other reason for the growth of terrorism, other than the ridiculously simplistic, inane, stuff that Bush has been saying in sentences shorter than five words (They hate our freedom, or they're just jealous and have envy, etc.), was seen as unpatriotic and somehow giving justification for those horrific attacks.

And I think if you aren't an American it was considered 'anti-American' to say those things. But I think that's changing, and as things bog down in Afghanistan, and when it sinks in that there isn't any immediate, violent (most immediate attempts to solve things ARE violent) solution to the problem, I think it will change even more.

Part of the problem is that there is a logical disconnect between the bad things the US has done in the world, arguably resulting in discontent and suffering among people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and the motives of the terrorists.

I think it's completely true that the motives of those who planned the September 11 attack could not possibly have been to better the lot of suffering people. For one thing, such terrorism obviously worsens prospects horrendously for the poor and weak, particularly in the Mideast. For another thing, bin Laden’s self-stated motives revolve around toppling Middle Eastern governments and installing, instead, Taliban-like creations, not reducing injustice, of course.

The attack was presumably to draw the U.S. into a massive retaliation, throwing the Middle East into turmoil to help in getting those kinds of governments in power, just like the turmoil in Afghanistan resulted in the Taliban. [It appears this process may have begun, and we shall see.]

But to rightly assert that bin Laden’s own mindset and motives or those of Taliban leaders aren’t hatched from the pain and suffering inflicted by oppressive U.S. policies, doesn’t tell us that the networks of support for terrorism and even the harsh mindsets of enlistees in terror aren’t nourished by that broader context. It shouldn’t be necessary to say, that of course there is no ratification or rationalization of terrorism in saying that.

For example, someone says that huge stress in a postal workplace contributed to the mindset of a worker who came in and shot his workmates. Would that correspond to saying the killer was justified in shooting his workmates? Of course not. Would it be an important thing to notice? Of course it would, assuming, that is, that one cares about diminishing the likelihood of people “going postal” in the future.

The analogy of terrorists to over-stressed workers going postal is far from perfect, but it is instructive. To point out that injustice creates a context propelling some people toward supporting and even signing up to engage in terrorism is no more to justify terrorism than noting that stress creates a context leading to workplace violence is to justify workplace violence.

There is nothing unpatriotic or un-American in bringing forward information bearing upon the likely implications of US policies including evidence that, rhetoric aside, our forays into militarism and even political punishment (as in embargoes) rarely if ever seriously concern themselves with matters of justice, including the plight of civilians-- either. But they have resulted in extreme 'stress' around the world and in the fact that many people hate us. It seems to me that this is the very time to begin being critical of a proposed horrific policy that likely will produce stress, and hence the conditions for more terrorism, not less. It's not unpatriotic and it's not un-American to say that.

In 1967, as a 9th grader, I said I 'supported our President' in regard to Vietnam, just like so many people, even those on the left, are saying we have to do right now. Back then, gradually, I started reading, (mostly stuff from the left coast) listening and talking about it, and I began to oppose 'our President'on Vietnam. 33 years later most Americans who know anything about the war agree, although it would have helped if they felt that way at the time, and talked about it.

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:10:54 (EDT)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: Thankyou sir, I'll have another.
Message:
Joe:

Part of the problem is that there is a logical disconnect between the bad things the US has done in the world, arguably resulting in discontent and suffering among people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and the motives of the terrorists.

Agree completely. In fact, I think I made that point during the first week, and possibly even on Sept. 11.

But to rightly assert that bin Laden’s own mindset and motives or those of Taliban leaders aren’t hatched from the pain and suffering inflicted by oppressive U.S. policies, doesn’t tell us that the networks of support for terrorism and even the harsh mindsets of enlistees in terror aren’t nourished by that broader context. It shouldn’t be necessary to say, that of course there is no ratification or rationalization of terrorism in saying that.

I think I said that too. You might have missed it since you weren't reading my posts.

There is nothing unpatriotic or un-American in bringing forward information bearing upon the likely implications of US policies including evidence that, rhetoric aside, our forays into militarism and even political punishment (as in embargoes) rarely if ever seriously concern themselves with matters of justice, including the plight of civilians-- either.

Well, what alternatives are there? I agree these are poor instruments. I mean, I think I know the [world government] alternative and am pretty sure [world government] most people would think it worse [world government]. (I hope I'm not talking out loud.)

For example, someone says that huge stress in a postal workplace contributed to the mindset of a worker who came in and shot his workmates. Would that correspond to saying the killer was justified in shooting his workmates?

Now, I have a problem with this analogy because it makes the leap from individual accountability (where stress is a mitigating factor) to the proposition that certain factors in a society predispose it to the likes of Bin Laden. I mean, even if it's true (and it may be) it leaves us with a conundrum, or at least it's a problem for those of us who consider society and government imperfectable. And how do we make choices between various policies, when there are tradeoffs involved? Doesn't violence inherently distort those tradeoffs? With limited funds would you favor reduction of stress for postal workers, or additional aids research? I know we shouldn't *have* to make those kinds of choices, but the fact is that's a lot of what policy analysts do. So along comes the terrorist and suddenly the priorities get radically shifted. Seems a little like burning the barn down to get roast pig to me.

And there's also a real dilemma in precisely what message to send the terrorists, and public dissent in the US *does* send them a message. Perhaps what we need is a private password protected forum for this sort of thing, so that we can remove any incentives we might inadvertently give to the terrorists through the natural processes of democracy (which they do not understand, and in general regard as weakness).

On a quite unrelated note, I'm about fed up with Ariel Sharon. Were I the Pres I'd make a call to him and say something like 'Ariel, if you want us to put the Israeli death squads on our list of terrorist organizations, and by implication Israel on our list of terrorist supporting states, just keep doing what you're doing. I suspect it'd be a BIG HIT on the Arab street, don't you?' That would be my little service for the day.

--Scott

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 06:11:30 (EDT)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Scott T.
Subject: Bravo Scott!
Message:
I'm about fed up with Ariel Sharon. Were I the Pres I'd make a call to him and say something like 'Ariel, if you want us to put the Israeli death squads on our list of terrorist organizations, and by implication Israel on our list of terrorist supporting states, just keep doing what you're doing. I suspect it'd be a BIG HIT on the Arab street, don't you?' That would be my little service for the day.

Thank you.

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 17:25:53 (EDT)
From: berni
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: You are gonna be in BIG trouble
Message:
when Gerry reads this.
I thought I'd get in with a quick post to cause a bit more trouble before the lock appears.
I enjoyed reading the post as it seems to be saying that jingoism is silly nonsense. I know I am not proud of being British.
I remember in my school days phrases like 'play the white man' being used by teachers in my middle class school without irony or satire. The whole empire thing is disgracefull and don't get me started on football fanatics - the scourge of Europe.
As a weak attempt to mention something on-topic. Bush's statement 'if you ain't with us, you're against us' is reminiscent of M's (although copied from elsewhere I'm sure ) 'if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem'
And what's more, haven't we learnt that we are all the same under the skin if you prick me, do I not bleed as the famous Jew once said.
So let's forget these barriers we put up between us and enjoy the borderless internet community - whilst hoping that it will eventually make the real world a smaller place.
IMHO The only real division is between the good guys and the bad guys - a division that is not geographical/national.
berni
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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 16:08:39 (EDT)
From: cq
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Ooops. Hit the 'post reply' button too soon
Message:
Sorry folks, the 'on-topic' bit is definitely the last 2 or 3 paragraphs. The preceding is in reply to a post of Scott's on Anyting Goes (what, anyting? - begorrah)

Gerry, sorry for imposing the whole text on this M-oriented forum, but I haven't got access to edit my post here at the Uni.

Still, I hope Scott can read, and reply to the on-topic bits here, cant' he?

Hope so.

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 14:07:26 (EDT)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Bjorn -don't ever email me again
Message:
Bjorn, I have absolutely nothing to say to you. You are one twisted puppy. Go see your therapist and work your problems out with him or her.

Marianne

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 16:13:45 (EDT)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Marianne
Subject: I'm serious, Bjorn-NO MORE EMAIL
Message:
I see you sent me another email. I have deleted it without reading it. You are now blocked from sending me email. You are the one who's doing the harrassing here sweetie pie, not me. Leave me alone.

Marianne

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 00:29:50 (EDT)
From: Francesca ~)
Email: None
To: Marianne
Subject: Save a collection of his trash
Message:
Who is the cyberstalker, heh? Save this stuff. It's all evidence for the premie troll collection.

Francesca

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Date: Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 08:29:40 (EDT)
From: salam
Email: None
To: Francesca ~)
Subject: Re: Save a collection of his trash
Message:
agreed. See who is harrassing who.
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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 12:17:49 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: All
Subject: No, it's not a cult (*sarcasm*) part 523
Message:
Stojan posted these memoires de subjugation on ELK:

Answer of all answers

Within the breath
of all breaths,
within the heart
of all hearts,
lies the secret answer
to all my questions:
'Gratitude to my dear master.'

and:

Colourful petals

Janice, Jim, Ivete and Daryl...
and of course so many others...
I feel we are all like colorful petals
of this precious heartfelt flower.
Like you, I have been allowed to admire
its inner graceful beauty.
Like you, I have been invited to smell
the divine fragrance of its nectar.
Like you, I have been invited to express
in words of truth
my gratitude to our teacher.

Stojan Svet
Postojna, Slovenia

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:32:51 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: The problem with living like Janice
Message:
Here's another expression of Appreciation and Gratitude from Janice, who, I might say, is most definitely not in a cult:

Janice Wilson

Privilege
From Baldwinsville, New York

What a privilege to know you, master.
Because of this I am able to know me!
So one needs to know Maharaji in order
to know onesself? Oh Janice! Poor, poor
Janice!

What a gift to be able to know myself
I feel so happy , so grateful
So in love with my true self
Talk about bizarre new age abberations!
Does Janice ask herself out on dates? What if
she says no to herself? No, I know, it's just
new age word play. How foolish of me to think
she means what she says. Not to worry.

Me, my heart, my giver of joy.
What a privilege
to be alive, know it, and feel it.
What a privilege to have this infinite gift,
the Knowledge of life.
Maybe it's the sinister, sarcastic, bully in me but I'd
LOVE to be hired for a lot of money to be part of a deprogramming
team for this girl. Nothing illegal, of course. I'm just saying
if there was such a thing as legal deprogramming, God, she's
such a plum!

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 20:17:39 (EDT)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: You think THAT's bad poetry
Message:
This is worse. Stojan needs a bigger English / Slovak dictionary, I think:

Stojan Svet:

Triggering ocean of breaths

From Postojna, Slovenia

Many have tried
to describe this eternal peace within.
Yet no description even touched
my eternal ocean of inner peace,
until the magic strength
of that sweetest touching breath
triggered these ocean waves.
Now whenever I dive in,
they touch even my uncomprehending mind.
So there is really nothing wiser than
to know this ocean of breath,
this triggering ocean of love,
of all tranquilities and all peace.

A 'triggering ocean of love'??

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 21:02:28 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: A 'triggering ocean of love'?? :p
Message:
Triggering ocean of breaths

Many have tried
to describe this eternal peace within.
Yet no description even touched
my eternal ocean of inner peace,
until the magic strength
of that sweetest touching breath
triggered these ocean waves.
Now whenever I dive in,
they touch even my uncomprehending mind.
So there is really nothing wiser than
to know this ocean of breath,
this triggering ocean of love,
of all tranquilities and all peace.

Really? What d'ya know.

So there is really nothing wiser than to know this ocean of breath, this triggering ocean of love,

It appears: SS's poem is drowning with word 'ocean'.

Poet overboard. Somebody throw him a thesaurus.

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Date: Tues, Oct 23, 2001 at 01:10:33 (EDT)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Man the lifeboats! C)) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 21:28:52 (EDT)
From: Pat:C)
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Did you read Janet's wobble-dance spoof?
Message:
Of course, since I've got a dirty mind, I thought of another kind of ocean being triggered. Did you ever read Janet's spoof of the famous semi-nude wobble-dance with the mala?

If you haven't, ask her for a copy. It's hilarious and it's compared with one of those ''LIVE NUDE GIRLS'' joints where the ladies dance behind plexiglass windows.

Yoohoo, Janet, please repost it. I need a good guffaw. Perhaps you could submit it to ELK too.

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 22:03:04 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Pat:C)
Subject: Yoohoo Janet :0 Wobble Dance Spoof
Message:
Pat:C) says it is really good.

Can you repost it? Should we find it on our own?

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Date: Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 18:50:13 (EDT)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Yeecch-bad poetry }( [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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