Ex-Premie Forum 7 Archive
From: Feb 07, 2002 To: Feb 14, 2002 Page: 3 of: 5


Joy -:- Did the Hare Krishna lawsuit settle? -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 01:11:08 (EST)
__ Dj -:- Re: Did the Hare Krishna lawsuit settle? -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 16:56:24 (EST)
__ __ Joy -:- Re: Did the Hare Krishna lawsuit settle? -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 17:41:04 (EST)
__ Cynthia -:- Re: Did the Hare Krishna lawsuit settle? -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 02:54:16 (EST)

Jim -:- Real people just don't quite cut it -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 01:03:25 (EST)
__ PatC -:- She's a nun -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 03:41:38 (EST)

Jim -:- Can someone help me out here? -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 00:22:46 (EST)
__ wpc girl -:- Re: Can someone help me out here? -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 18:54:40 (EST)
__ Vicki -:- Re: Can someone help me out here?? -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 09:50:00 (EST)
__ __ JHB -:- Could you give more details -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 14:54:26 (EST)
__ __ __ Vicki -:- Re: Could you give more details -:- Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 00:05:54 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Jean-Michem -:- Maybe I can help -:- Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 06:11:56 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Did the formula -:- inflate attendance figures? [nt] -:- Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 05:27:56 (EST)
__ There are still a few people -:- who think Nu Skin will make them rich [nt] -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 06:01:05 (EST)
__ JHB -:- Yoram helped yesterday -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 04:28:30 (EST)
__ __ Tonette -:- The big push for money -:- Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 02:57:03 (EST)
__ __ Occasional Poster -:- Re: Yoram helped yesterday -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 06:39:23 (EST)

teresa -:- social exclusion -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 19:45:36 (EST)
__ PatD -:- TB was in the God Squad at Oxford -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:34:09 (EST)
__ __ teresa -:- Re: TB was in the God Squad at Oxford -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 18:14:24 (EST)
__ JHB -:- Welcome, Teresa -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:01:58 (EST)
__ __ teresa -:- Re: Welcome, Teresa -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 18:36:31 (EST)

Barry -:- Jim! This is some of the..... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:12:18 (EST)
__ Dj -:- Re: Jim! This is some of the..... -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 16:46:52 (EST)

Janet -:- copyleft-we're doing it! -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:06:42 (EST)
__ janet -:- Re: copyleft-let me explain this -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:50:58 (EST)
__ __ Scott T. -:- The Tragedy of the Commons -:- Thurs, Feb 14, 2002 at 04:40:14 (EST)
__ __ JHB -:- Readability info and a suggestion -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 19:11:53 (EST)
__ __ __ janet -:- Re: Readability -yeah i know -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:13:34 (EST)
__ __ janet -:- Re: copyleft-let me explain this -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 19:03:52 (EST)

Barry -:- Called up 23 on M's website search! -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 17:58:42 (EST)
__ Barry -:- Oh well? -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:02:06 (EST)
__ __ Dermot -:- Which site Barry? -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:23:34 (EST)
__ __ __ Barry -:- Right here! -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:43:08 (EST)

Livia -:- They don't know what's going on -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:49:30 (EST)
__ DJ -:- Livia -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 17:05:25 (EST)
__ Bryn -:- The idea of going to hell -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:30:12 (EST)
__ __ Francesca :~) -:- When my sides split -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 00:55:51 (EST)
__ __ __ Cynthia -:- How about this one, Fran... -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 02:10:39 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Francesca -:- Drip it down into the golden earth -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 13:40:47 (EST)
__ Suedoula -:- It takes a drip or two -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 13:39:30 (EST)
__ __ You want drips? -:- This is the place -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:32:16 (EST)
__ __ __ janet -:- drips? I'm showering in em -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:25:19 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Cynthia -:- drips? I'm showering in em...Janet LOL... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 22:13:43 (EST)
__ __ __ Nigel -:- Seething troubles? -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:17:09 (EST)
__ __ Suedoula -:- Re: It takes a drip or two -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 13:41:08 (EST)
__ Francesca -:- **BEST OF FORUM*** Livia -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:45:14 (EST)
__ __ cq -:- and **BEST OF FORUM*** Suedola too! (nt) -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 13:51:26 (EST)
__ __ __ Francesca :) -:- And SUEDOLA too (nt) [nt] -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:15:50 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Cynthia -:- ***BEST OF to Livia,Suedoula, Janet*** [nt] -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 22:19:06 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Steve Mueller -:- Best of ... second that emotion, indeed -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 00:11:53 (EST)

Livia -:- -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:48:38 (EST)

cq -:- M: plain ignorant? or deliberate liar? -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:43:34 (EST)
__ DJ -:- Re: M: plain ignorant? or deliberate liar? -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 17:13:36 (EST)
__ Francesca :~) -:- Plain old BALD FACED LIE -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:22:49 (EST)
__ cq -:- Re: M: plain ignorant? or deliberate liar? repost -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:48:15 (EST)
__ __ ChrisP -:- Belated reply to cq -:- Wed, Feb 13, 2002 at 11:27:46 (EST)
__ __ wpc girl -:- Re: M: plain ignorant? or deliberate liar? repost -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 20:17:48 (EST)
__ __ Dave Punshon -:- What a load of Crock !!! -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 06:04:46 (EST)
__ __ Carl -:- We may as well pack up and go home -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:41:06 (EST)
__ __ __ cq -:- there's only one conclusion from this: -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 13:08:36 (EST)
__ __ cq -:- test (ignore) -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:02:12 (EST)

Occasional Poster -:- Hold the front page .... -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:31:58 (EST)
__ ChrisP -:- Target audience: CEO business mag readers?? -:- Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 12:39:23 (EST)
__ Patrick Wilson -:- Re: Hold the front page .... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:18:59 (EST)
__ __ Cynthia -:- Re: Hold the front page .... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 21:56:46 (EST)
__ __ Marshall -:- Re: Hold the front page .... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 16:26:55 (EST)
__ __ Marianne -:- Re: Hold the front page .... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:44:53 (EST)
__ __ __ PatrickW -:- Re: Hold the front page .... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 16:09:53 (EST)
__ Beverly -:- Re: Hold the front page .... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:46:41 (EST)
__ __ Occasional Poster -:- Immoral trappings .... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:28:58 (EST)
__ The Maharaji of Malibu -:- really leaves you scratching your head -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 03:08:00 (EST)
__ StevieJi -:- Re: ... will be SLIMED down ... -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 23:27:08 (EST)
__ Moley -:- Typo I'm sure Opie.... -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 21:20:04 (EST)
__ Brian Smith -:- No best seller here.... -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:32:26 (EST)
__ __ shri me -:- Re: No best seller here.... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:52:57 (EST)
__ Deborah -:- Hi OP, you did good [nt] -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:06:21 (EST)
__ __ me again -:- Re: Above, not [NT] -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:07:00 (EST)
__ Joe -:- Thanks OP, good summary... -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:59:03 (EST)
__ Joe -:- I listened too....REALLY!! -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:06:14 (EST)
__ __ cq -:- re. British charity laws -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:26:40 (EST)
__ __ __ cq -:- In case that jpg doesn't show up - -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 14:11:05 (EST)
__ __ Richard -:- The media exposure will be good for all -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:09:40 (EST)
__ __ PatD -:- tax rebates...that's spin -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:00:43 (EST)
__ __ __ Nottm Bunny -:- Not spin - UK tax rebates system -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 05:17:21 (EST)
__ __ __ __ PatD -:- Thanks Bunny [nt] -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:47:41 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Joe -:- Sounds like what Yoram was saying -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:24:49 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Occasional Poster -:- EV UK charity registration -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 07:48:24 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ JohnT -:- Obtaining Elan Vital accounts -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 04:37:16 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Occasional Poster -:- Re: Obtaining Elan Vital accounts -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 06:34:14 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ JHB -:- You've got it right -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 07:20:32 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Beverly -:- Re: EV UK charity registration -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:55:48 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ That doesn't sound -:- very legal, does it? (nt) -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:27:27 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Joe -:- The Amaroo 'donations' -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:41:47 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Loaf -:- Make Donations to charities, Schools etc do they ? -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:42:16 (EST)
__ JHB -:- Maharaji must think the media are stupid -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:52:56 (EST)
__ __ Vicki -:- Re: Maharaji must think the media are stupid -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 06:26:02 (EST)
__ __ Dermot -:- Eastenders?? -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 18:27:22 (EST)
__ __ __ Jethro -:- Brookside!!!!!!!!!! -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:12:21 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Re: Brookside!!!!!!!!!!....Lol -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:34:03 (EST)
__ __ Occasional Poster -:- Eastenders vs. Knowledge Hmmm a tough choice! -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 18:12:32 (EST)
__ __ jethro -:- will PHil kill Steve? nt -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:59:27 (EST)
__ __ __ PatC -:- Will PHil kill Steve? Hopefully:) [nt] -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:21:15 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Moley -:- No no, better the other way round ;) [nt] -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:47:09 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Is Steve the handsome blonde lad?? -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 23:18:45 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ PatC -:- Handsome blonde lad? -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 03:24:57 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Ddermot -:- Re: Handsome blonde lad?????? -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 08:59:07 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Loaf -:- Dot Cotton was also Nanny Slagg -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:48:25 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- I'll find out who he is -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:42:41 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joy -:- The handsome blond lad is Jamie -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 00:56:01 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Yep Joy, that's him [nt] -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 10:43:01 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Joy -:- Did you see the episode where he ... -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 11:15:43 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Re: Did you see the episode where he ... -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 12:10:20 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- BTW Joy -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 10:51:44 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Loaf -:- Soapsang is the way forward -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 07:07:59 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ PatC -:- Re: Soapsang is the way forward -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 13:04:40 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Dermot -:- Re: Soapsang is the way forward -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 14:29:56 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ PatC -:- Re: Soapsang is the way forward -:- Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 16:40:04 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ Loaf -:- CORRIE IS BEST.. Dont watch this miserable rubbish -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 05:25:08 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ cq -:- You heard it here first ... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 08:26:38 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Loaf -:- Gawd Blimey ! -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:43:53 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ cq -:- Roy Chubby Brown in Home and Away?! (nt) -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:07:03 (EST)
__ __ __ JHB -:- Probably, but I hope.... -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 18:09:33 (EST)
__ __ __ __ Voyeur -:- Only one pub... -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:01:12 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ Nigel -:- What about the Dagmar? -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 02:32:17 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ Ddermot -:- The Archers -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 09:08:37 (EST)
__ __ __ __ __ __ __ shri me -:- Re: The Archers -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:07:09 (EST)
__ PatC -:- Thanks Opie - EV to be ''slimed'' down? -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:50:57 (EST)
__ __ Moley -:- Oh - you got there B4 me :) [nt] -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 21:23:48 (EST)
__ __ __ PatC -:- I read the forum backwards anyway :C) [nt] -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 03:08:56 (EST)

Steve Mueller -:- Always fresh -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 16:26:53 (EST)
__ Dermot -:- and the PREMIE forum.... -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:54:21 (EST)
__ __ Jim -:- Excellent appraisal, Dermot! -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:56:50 (EST)
__ Brian Smith -:- Intelligent and stimulating too -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:04:15 (EST)
__ PatC -:- Re: Always fresh -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 16:40:03 (EST)
__ __ Marshall -:- Re: Always fresh -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:48:41 (EST)
__ __ __ Jim -:- But the evolution discussion continues! -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 00:52:41 (EST)
__ __ __ __ PatC -:- Re: But the evolution discussion continues! -:- Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 03:42:11 (EST)
__ __ __ p -:- I agree, Marshall -:- Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 18:56:27 (EST)


Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 01:11:08 (EST)
From: Joy
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Did the Hare Krishna lawsuit settle?
Message:
Saw the following small piece in the paper today:

HARE KRISHNA GROUPS WILL FILE FOR BANKRUPTCY

About a dozen of the nearly 50 Hare Krishna temples in the United States will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this month because of a $400 million lawsuit over child abuse at Hare Krishna boarding schools, a representative of the movement said Friday. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed in Texas, are 91 former students from around the world who allege that they were sexually, physically and emotionally abused at the boarding schools in Southern California, West Virginia and the state of Washington during the 1970s and 80s. All the schools have since shut down.
_________

I was wondering if anybody had any info on this. Did the plaintiffs win? Remember that documentary called Children of Fear that was shown on PBS in the US awhile back? I don't know how many saw it, but it was chilling and it looks like they achieved their objective in busting the whole cult (I hope). Sure wish we could do that to Maharaji--$400 million, that would sure put a crimp in his style!

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 16:56:24 (EST)
From: Dj
Email: None
To: Joy
Subject: Re: Did the Hare Krishna lawsuit settle?
Message:
Why do you mind?
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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 17:41:04 (EST)
From: Joy
Email: None
To: Dj
Subject: Re: Did the Hare Krishna lawsuit settle?
Message:
Let's see, why do I mind?

Well, personally I don't really mind all that much. But when I saw that documentary about the sexually abused children of that cult it touched me to the core. At the end of it, there was an interview with the director, who said that this lawsuit was being watched very carefully by a lot of other 'groups' (i.e. cults) because if it did go in the plaintiffs' favor it would not only bankrupt the organization but open the floodgates for other similar types of lawsuits.

I believe the possibility of this has been discussed here at length already so I don't have anything to add there. It's probably not likely that it'll happen, but because I gave so many years of my life in his so-called service, with not much to show for it in the end, and feel so many others' were similarly deprived of a normal existence in 'the world' for many years due to trying to comply with his wishes that we surrender our entire lives to him, I harbor a secret desire to see him sued into oblivion for the obnoxious and obscene lifestyle he lives at the expense of others.

Who are you, anyway? Care to introduce yourself?

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 02:54:16 (EST)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Joy
Subject: Re: Did the Hare Krishna lawsuit settle?
Message:
Hi Joy,

As of today I think that the news is that they filed for Chapter 11 to avoid the damages $$$. I think the status of the suit is on hold for the moment. I do remember that documentary, though. It was quite rough, what the victims went through.

Now they have to wait because of the bankruptcy filing.

Sucks.

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 01:03:25 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Real people just don't quite cut it
Message:
This little Expression of loneliness is from ELK. This poor woman seems to hvae pushed the world away because no one measures up to her fantasy guru:

More time to focus within

When I read Denise Wilsons' recent contribution to Expressions I totally related. I have lived alone for the last seven years and look forward to the weekly satellite broadcasts. People with Knowledge in my community stay to themselves but I usually meet them at events that Maharaji attend. There is the usual fleeting encounter on the street or at an art show at the local university. I have always been a loner and have respect for every individual to find their own expression of what it means to be alive at this time. My usual enthusiasm for any particular individual's accomplishments or expertise have revealed, in more indepth interactions, the absence of the spark of clarity and appreciation that I have found to be the most finely tuned in my master. No matter how many times I listen to him or see him, his words ring true and his presence is impeccable and sweet scented. To me if I had everything that I've ever wanted, I would still feel empty if I did not practise Knowledge.

Magdeline Pereira
Eureka, CA, USA

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 03:41:38 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: She's a nun
Message:
When I looked at that pic of the Canadian premies the other day and saw Anne Johnson and remembered my encounters with her, I recalled what a nun she was. I've known (not in the biblical sense of course - do monks count?) quite a few nuns in my life and can spot one a mile away.

This sweet woman, Ms Pereira, sounds like a Catholic Portuguese nun (Oh! Is it okay to say that? Is it PC? Maybe - as long as I don't say she's hunch-backed) caught up in a real life encounter with the LOTU. If she read and understood EPO she'd be very disappointed.

Some people need devotion, solitude and piety. Being gregarious I don't move in their circles - oops, nuns don't have circles of friends. They're loners. Just them and Jesus or in this case a weekly satellite broadcast of the master whose purity should never be doubted, the highlight of a week spent waiting to see the living god in a bod on TV and writing out that sacred check for the propagation of peace to the world by the master without whom you cannot be saved.

Yes, there still are PWKs like that - the very modest church ladies of the table cloth straightening variety. These guys are at the bottom of the cult food-chain, the bottom feeders, the ones who actually buy the cult crap tchotchkes and send checks.

These are not the people who spend all their money buying guitars but end up as the ringers addressing M at by-invitation-only events. These are the ushers who had to take special training. (Yes, there is usher training too - believe me - you can't be an usher till you have attended a training session.)

I'm looking forward to the arrival of on the forum of one of these premie nuns of either sex (no, unfortunately not the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.) Hell hath no fury like a church lady scorned.
So far most of the recent arrivals have been a pretty down-to-earth bunch - many mavericks and Lone Rangers but no solitary nuns and don't say I didn't warn you about exhausting yourself arguing against New Agism.

If you recall I said that the next wave would be fringe premies who are often even too spiritual for the really hip cultists and to expect to be exhausted and overwhelmed by New Age folks (JohnT commented at the time: ''I didn't know you knew my wife.'') and to reserve your strength. Just as well you are currently not in a posting frenzy. And just as well that my prediction was not completely right. Yet.

I just hope that you don't give up. I for one have benefited enormously from your no-nonsense approach. Thanks, Jim.

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 00:22:46 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Can someone help me out here?
Message:
Over on LG, some premie named Lou and I are arguing about whether the cult's waxing or waning. The premie was gloating about how some new person they know is actually getting interested in receiving K, to which I said:

There will always be one or two people who somehow either don't get exposed to the truth about Maharaji first or who just aren't smart enough to put it altogether. But the reality is that people are indeed leaving the cult in droves. Attendance is down, contributions are down, sales are down and 'participation' is down. We all know that so what's the point pretending not?

To which the premie responded:

well, if it is such an obvious fact, prove it, name your witnesses, show your official statistics. If you can't, be a man and admit that you don't know this to be a fact. Come on, you can do this, mmmmmm?

I know of the cult's dwindling enrollment second-hand as I haven't been involved -- thank God -- for decades. But can any of you help me answer this question with substance and specifics?

Thanks,

Jim

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 18:54:40 (EST)
From: wpc girl
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Can someone help me out here?
Message:
I have the priviledge honour or misfortune to live within spitting distance of a place that showed m the the tele series twice weekly for a 'donation' I went a few times. There was seating for about thirty people it was never full. The same people wearing the same smiles sitting in the same chairs. alternate events covered those with k and aspirants. They looked to be the same lot at both. No conversation no tea and biscuits not even a jumble sale sadly as there is a lot of stuff gathering around my place. No interaction or jolly knees up planned no fun at all just the jolly little man with anecdotes about jetting around to make people happy and some jokes I didn't get but others laughed and we allneed to laugh sometimes. My taste is more for Victoria Wood if she's got a plane she's got the sense to shut up about it and talk about things us riff raff can n relate to.
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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 09:50:00 (EST)
From: Vicki
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: Can someone help me out here??
Message:
Part of my community coordinator service was to compile statistics for the local video events. When those ceased due to satellite broadcasts, M then wanted those statistics. When people got the dish network and started watching at home, the numbers plummetted. He wanted those numbers, as well. This was impossible to compile, and a complete invasion of privacy, but that didn't stop the crazed attitude because he wanted them. The way we were told to calculate the number of viewers was bizarre to say the least. It inflated the actual numbers.

The last series of events he did around the U.S., pwk's who had not attended local events or major events with M for years, were called and invited. Even so, the number of attendees were not that great, compared to years back.

M and Elan Vital cannot be depended upon to tell the truth where facts are concerned, hence the fanatisism and blind acceptance on the part of the premies. For Yorum to be begging for money, it can only mean one thing, contributions are down. So if the number of new PWK's were significant, they would have been taking up the slack. Obviously that isn't happening. It's a direct ratio, in my opinion.

If Elan Vital is scaling down, then why the need to set up this call for more monies?

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 14:54:26 (EST)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Vicki
Subject: Could you give more details
Message:
Vicki,

Maybe you've already posted this, but could you give more details on the dubious counting method for attendance at satellite broadcasts?

John.

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Date: Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 00:05:54 (EST)
From: Vicki
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Re: Could you give more details
Message:
I wish I could remember the 'formula'. Right now I'm exhausted and braindead, but it might come back to me. What made it so difficult is that is wasn't a simple matter of counting the number of people at a video/broadcast. It was so kooky I broached the subject in complete frustration with the national head of stats. As it turned out, he was completely frustrated as well, but it was out of his hands. He was told in no uncertain terms how to do the calculating by higher ups, probably M himself. There was an actual form that had to be filled in and sent in by a certain deadline each month.
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Date: Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 06:11:56 (EST)
From: Jean-Michem
Email: None
To: Vicki
Subject: Maybe I can help
Message:
A few years back, when I was still involved - and that counting technique has been the only one for over a decade - we would count the number of entrances for a community.

For instance:
You have one 'satsang'/video place in this town,
you have lets say 10 meetings in a month time, with about 7-9 attendees everytime,
that would maybe count for 80 people in that month came to watch videos, and maybe 1,000 in a year ! When there are actually 20 more or less active premies in the town, and each one of them comes about once a week.
These days, according to some documents I own, they even count 'aspirants' or anybody else coming to watch a video in these figures.

Talk of inflating figures !

I challenge EV to explain why this is not true.
As a matter of fact, I'll give you some real figures I have, and you'll see for yourself.

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Date: Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 05:27:56 (EST)
From: Did the formula
Email: None
To: Vicki
Subject: inflate attendance figures? [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 06:01:05 (EST)
From: There are still a few people
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: who think Nu Skin will make them rich [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 04:28:30 (EST)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Yoram helped yesterday
Message:
Didn't Yoram say donations for Amaroo were down by 50%? I doubt if all those premies moved their donations directly to Maharaji or Elan Vital so it's fair to assume all donations were down.

But it's an interesting question - how do we measure it? There are no regular satsangs to count attendance at, so all we have are attendance at international events with Maharaji and the level of donations. Normally the latter is secret but Yoram has spilled a few beans on that. We know that 4-5000 attended Miami this year, and that many more attended the international programs in the late 70s, but although that proves a decline in the last 20 years it doesn't prove a recent decline. All we have for that is the number of exes coming here which is a fraction, but it's difficult to say how big a fraction, of the numbers exiting. I think Yoram's evidence is the key here.

John.

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Date: Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 02:57:03 (EST)
From: Tonette
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: The big push for money
Message:
Well,I have no idea how to measure how many premies have, let's say, left in the past 6 months. Maharaji's need for an infusion of cash may very be he's hurting from the poor performance of the stock market, everyone knows that's how he got his money, what a shrewd invester he is! Could be Maharaji was relying on dividends from his portfolio to meet his monthly expenses. Could be Maharji was speculating that certain blocks of stocks would be ripe and ready to sell when certain notes or interest payments came due. Well, let's put it this way, I wouldn't want to be retiring myself at this point in time. Stocks have sucked for almost 2 years now. And Sept. 11 really threw the market in a tailspin. Could be he's over extended and any businesses he owns are doing poorly at the same time. Not to mention premies who are big donors may be feeling the pinch as well. This is all speculation but makes sense to me. Maharaji's ability to spend money is second to none. But he's new rich, and new rich is much more precariously positioned than old money.
He has assets but how many of them are actually paid for?

I hope he held lots of California energy stock. Maybe some of those dot com's and since he just fancies himself such an avaitor would it be too much to hope he had lots of airline shares?

I can't remember the last time Maharaji sent his minion begging for money. Can you?

Fondly,
Tonette

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 06:39:23 (EST)
From: Occasional Poster
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Re: Yoram helped yesterday
Message:
Surely Elan Vital (in whatever guise they operate under in various legal jurisdictions) needs to disclose this type of data? After all they operate under varous charitable status and, presumably, in order to retain their legal status they need to prove that they continue to further propogate Prem Pal Rawat's teachings. Perhaps it is only a subjective test they have to pass?

Any legal minds on board here?

OP

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 19:45:36 (EST)
From: teresa
Email: None
To: All
Subject: social exclusion
Message:
after being introduced to this site a week ago I've been wondering why it was so interesting to someone who last saw m about 6 years ago in Brighton and realised that if truth is the conciousness of mercedes then it was all too subtle for me and yet perhaps it was me perhaps truth did lurk beneath the smile of the Steptford wives
what I'd really like to know is does m act as consultant to our own home grown god tony blair for it is he who is bringing peace to all mankind now
now when I encounter that peculiar smug smile of the saved I wont feel quite so alone thank you all
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:34:09 (EST)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: teresa
Subject: TB was in the God Squad at Oxford
Message:
Apart from that I don't think there's a connection.

That Brighton event you mention . Was that the one where he took the piss out of the Indian premies,or the one where he took the piss out of the old lags who'd misinterpreted the nectar teck?

I was just a spiritual tourist by then,went along for old time's sake. That conditioning went deep though didn't it.

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 18:14:24 (EST)
From: teresa
Email: None
To: PatD
Subject: Re: TB was in the God Squad at Oxford
Message:
hi Pat D Maybe I was already looking for the door by the time he got to taking the piss out of anyone. I was at a low ebb at the time and was persuaded a visit to my old friend God was just the ticket. Had a pleasant drive there and sat on the beach for awhile with a friend.
Once inside the hall and seated the atmosphere of late night motorway caffs came to mind ( ex wpc not famous for remembering holy name ) Then a raddled looking mr rawat came into the room and sat down everyone clapped and I thought whats his next trick. He proceeded with an account of the journey from Reigate by Mercedes and what thrilling events occurred on route. My mind started to wander at that point thinking about that house a Swiss chalet thing and how we gathered as a multitude in the cellar to partake of dinner at trestle tables covered in sheets.
It was basic but it was fun, the programme was not
[ teresa ]
[ Graphic Link ]
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:01:58 (EST)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: teresa
Subject: Welcome, Teresa
Message:
Hi Teresa,

Welcome! This forum and www.ex-premie.org is interesting because we invested a lot in Maharaji, and need to understand what happened to our investment. Well, we are older and wiser, and Maharaji is older and richer. By the way, do we know each other?

John Brauns

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 18:36:31 (EST)
From: teresa
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Re: Welcome, Teresa
Message:
From what I've read on these pages I feel like most of you put a lot more in than I did. By 1972 drugsnsexnrocknroll was losing its allure working towards world peace and enlightenment looked like a promising avenue for exploration. I was an inmate for maybe three years you would know me by the dishmop and broom I used in service to the lord. It was'nt all glamour though we had to stop deranged premies from attacking m at the astrodome or were we stopping the astrodome from taking off as we all breathed in? For an answere to that send me a few million euros in used notes in a plain wrapperI don't recognise your name but I'm bad at remembering names
[ Graphic Link ]
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:12:18 (EST)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Jim! This is some of the.....
Message:
shit I have read here! I was crapping my pants on the floor! Thanks man. A little late but, man was that funny.
[ http://www.ex-premie.org/papers/claimscm.htm ]
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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 16:46:52 (EST)
From: Dj
Email: None
To: Barry
Subject: Re: Jim! This is some of the.....
Message:
Barry, you are a BIG IDIOT!!!
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:06:42 (EST)
From: Janet
Email: jai_choix@yahoo.com
To: All
Subject: copyleft-we're doing it!
Message:


New Scientist



























































document.write('');


































The Great Giveaway


Good ideas are worth money. So why are hard headed operators giving them away for free? Join our experiment to find out says Graham Lawton


IF YOU'VE BEEN to a computer show in recent months you might have seen it: a shiny silver drinks can with a ring-pull logo and the words 'opencola' on the side. Inside is a fizzy drink that tastes very much like Coca-Cola. Or is it Pepsi?


There's something else written on the can, though, which sets the drink apart. It says 'check out the source at opencola.com'. Go to that Web address and you'll see something that's not available on Coca-Cola's website, or Pepsi's--the recipe for cola. For the first time ever, you can make the real thing in your own home.



Formula for Open Cola

OpenCola is the world's first 'open source' consumer product. By calling it open source, its manufacturer is saying that instructions for making it are freely available. Anybody can make the drink, and anyone can modify and improve on the recipe as long as they, too, release their recipe into the public domain. As a way of doing business it's rather unusual--the Coca-Cola Company doesn't make a habit of giving away precious commercial secrets. But that's the point.


OpenCola is the most prominent sign yet that a long-running battle between rival philosophies in software development has spilt over into the rest of the world. What started as a technical debate over the best way to debug computer programs is developing into a political battle over the ownership of knowledge and how it is used, between those who put their faith in the free circulation of ideas and those who prefer to designate them 'intellectual property'. No one knows what the outcome will be. But in a world of growing opposition to corporate power, restrictive intellectual property rights and globalisation, open source is emerging as a possible alternative, a potentially potent means of fighting back. And you're helping to test its value right now.


The open source movement originated in 1984 when computer scientist Richard Stallman quit his job at MIT and set up the Free Software Foundation. His aim was to create high-quality software that was freely available to everybody. Stallman's beef was with commercial companies that smother their software with patents and copyrights and keep the source code--the original program, written in a computer language such as C++--a closely guarded secret. Stallman saw this as damaging. It generated poor-quality, bug-ridden software. And worse, it choked off the free flow of ideas. Stallman fretted that if computer scientists could no longer learn from one another's code, the art of programming would stagnate (New Scientist, 12 December 1998, p 42).


Stallman's move resonated round the computer science community and now there are thousands of similar projects. The star of the movement is Linux, an operating system created by Finnish student Linus Torvalds in the early 1990s and installed on around 18 million computers worldwide.


What sets open source software apart from commercial software is the fact that it's free, in both the political and the economic sense. If you want to use a commercial product such as Windows XP or Mac OS X you have to pay a fee and agree to abide by a licence that stops you from modifying or sharing the software. But if you want to run Linux or another open source package, you can do so without paying a penny--although several companies will sell you the software bundled with support services. You can also modify the software in any way you choose, copy it and share it without restrictions. This freedom acts as an open invitation--some say challenge--to its users to make improvements. As a result, thousands of volunteers are constantly working on Linux, adding new features and winkling out bugs. Their contributions are reviewed by a panel and the best ones are added to Linux. For programmers, the kudos of a successful contribution is its own reward. The result is a stable, powerful system that adapts rapidly to technological change. Linux is so successful that even IBM installs it on the computers it sells.


To maintain this benign state of affairs, open source software is covered by a special legal instrument called the General Public License. Instead of restricting how the software can be used, as a standard software license does, the GPL--often known as a 'copyleft'--grants as much freedom as possible (see http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html). Software released under the GPL (or a similar copyleft licence) can be copied, modified and distributed by anyone, as long as they, too, release it under a copyleft. That restriction is crucial, because it prevents the material from being co-opted into later proprietary products. It also makes open source software different from programs that are merely distributed free of charge. In FSF's words, the GPL 'makes it free and guarantees it remains free'.


Open source has proved a very successful way of writing software. But it has also come to embody a political stand--one that values freedom of expression, mistrusts corporate power, and is uncomfortable with private ownership of knowledge. It's 'a broadly libertarian view of the proper relationship between individuals and institutions', according to open source guru Eric Raymond.


But it's not just software companies that lock knowledge away and release it only to those prepared to pay. Every time you buy a CD, a book, a copy of New Scientist, even a can of Coca-Cola, you're forking out for access to someone else's intellectual property. Your money buys you the right to listen to, read or consume the contents, but not to rework them, or make copies and redistribute them. No surprise, then, that people within the open source movement have asked whether their methods would work on other products. As yet no one's sure--but plenty of people are trying it.


Take OpenCola. Although originally intended as a promotional tool to explain open source software, the drink has taken on a life of its own. The Toronto-based OpenCola company has become better known for the drink than the software it was supposed to promote. Laird Brown, the company's senior strategist, attributes its success to a widespread mistrust of big corporations and the 'proprietary nature of almost everything'. A website selling the stuff has shifted 150,000 cans. Politically minded students in the US have started mixing up the recipe for parties.


OpenCola is a happy accident and poses no real threat to Coke or Pepsi, but elsewhere people are deliberately using the open source model to challenge entrenched interests. One popular target is the music industry. At the forefront of the attack is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco group set up to defend civil liberties in the digital society. In April of last year, the EFF published a model copyleft called the Open Audio License (OAL). The idea is to let musicians take advantage of digital music's properties--ease of copying and distribution--rather than fighting against them. Musicians who release music under an OAL consent to their work being freely copied, performed, reworked and reissued, as long as these new products are released under the same licence. They can then rely on 'viral distribution' to get heard. 'If the people like the music, they will support the artist to ensure the artist can continue to make music,' says Robin Gross of the EFF.


It's a little early to judge whether the OAL will capture imaginations in the same way as OpenCola. But it's already clear that some of the strengths of open source software simply don't apply to music. In computing, the open source method lets users improve software by eliminating errors and inefficient bits of code, but it's not obvious how that might happen with music. In fact, the music is not really 'open source' at all. The files posted on the OAL music website http://www.openmusicregistry.org so far are all MP3s and Ogg Vorbises--formats which allow you to listen but not to modify.


It's also not clear why any mainstream artists would ever choose to release music under an OAL. Many bands objected to the way Napster members circulated their music behind their backs, so why would they now allow unrestricted distribution, or consent to strangers fiddling round with their music? Sure enough, you're unlikely to have heard of any of the 20 bands that have posted music on the registry. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Open Audio amounts to little more than an opportunity for obscure artists to put themselves in the shop window.


The problems with open music, however, haven't put people off trying open source methods elsewhere. Encyclopedias, for example, look like fertile ground. Like software, they're collaborative and modular, need regular upgrading, and improve with peer review. But the first attempt, a free online reference called Nupedia, hasn't exactly taken off. Two years on, only 25 of its target 60,000 articles have been completed. 'At the current rate it will never be a large encyclopedia,' says editor-in-chief Larry Sanger. The main problem is that the experts Sanger wants to recruit to write articles have little incentive to participate. They don't score academic brownie points in the same way software engineers do for upgrading Linux, and Nupedia can't pay them.


It's a problem that's inherent to most open source products: how do you get people to chip in? Sanger says he's exploring ways to make money out of Nupedia while preserving the freedom of its content. Banner adverts are a possibility. But his best hope is that academics start citing Nupedia articles so authors can earn academic credit.


There's another possibility: trust the collective goodwill of the open source community. A year ago, frustrated by the treacle-like progress of Nupedia, Sanger started another encyclopedia named Wikipedia (the name is taken from open source Web software called WikiWiki that allows pages to be edited by anyone on the Web). It's a lot less formal than Nupedia: anyone can write or edit an article on any topic, which probably explains the entries on beer and Star Trek. But it also explains its success. Wikipedia already contains 19,000 articles and is acquiring several thousand more each month. 'People like the idea that knowledge can and should be freely distributed and developed,' says Sanger. Over time, he reckons, thousands of dabblers should gradually fix any errors and fill in any gaps in the articles until Wikipedia evolves into an authoritative encyclopedia with hundreds of thousands of entries.


Another experiment that's proved its worth is the OpenLaw project at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Berkman lawyers specialise in cyberlaw--hacking, copyright, encryption and so on--and the centre has strong ties with the EFF and the open source software community. In 1998 faculty member Lawrence Lessig, now at Stanford Law School, was asked by online publisher Eldritch Press to mount a legal challenge to US copyright law. Eldritch takes books whose copyright has expired and publishes them on the Web, but new legislation to extend copyright from 50 to 70 years after the author's death was cutting off its supply of new material. Lessig invited law students at Harvard and elsewhere to help craft legal arguments challenging the new law on an online forum, which evolved into OpenLaw.


Normal law firms write arguments the way commercial software companies write code. Lawyers discuss a case behind closed doors, and although their final product is released in court, the discussions or 'source code' that produced it remain secret. In contrast, OpenLaw crafts its arguments in public and releases them under a copyleft. 'We deliberately used free software as a model,' says Wendy Selzer, who took over OpenLaw when Lessig moved to Stanford. Around 50 legal scholars now work on Eldritch's case, and OpenLaw has taken other cases, too.


'The gains are much the same as for software,' Selzer says. 'Hundreds of people scrutinise the 'code' for bugs, and make suggestions how to fix it. And people will take underdeveloped parts of the argument, work on them, then patch them in.' Armed with arguments crafted in this way, OpenLaw has taken Eldritch's case--deemed unwinnable at the outset--right through the system and is now seeking a hearing in the Supreme Court.


There are drawbacks, though. The arguments are in the public domain right from the start, so OpenLaw can't spring a surprise in court. For the same reason, it can't take on cases where confidentiality is important. But where there's a strong public interest element, open sourcing has big advantages. Citizens' rights groups, for example, have taken parts of OpenLaw's legal arguments and used them elsewhere. 'People use them on letters to Congress, or put them on flyers,' Selzer says.


The open content movement is still at an early stage and it's hard to predict how far it will spread. 'I'm not sure there are other areas where open source would work,' says Sanger. 'If there were, we might have started it ourselves.' Eric Raymond has also expressed doubts. In his much-quoted 1997 essay, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, he warned against applying open source methods to other products. 'Music and most books are not like software, because they don't generally need to be debugged or maintained,' he wrote. Without that need, the products gain little from others' scrutiny and reworking, so there's little benefit in open sourcing. 'I do not want to weaken the winning argument for open sourcing software by tying it to a potential loser,' he wrote.


But Raymond's views have now shifted subtly. 'I'm more willing to admit that I might talk about areas other than software someday,' he told New Scientist. 'But not now.' The right time will be once open source software has won the battle of ideas, he says. He expects that to happen around 2005.


And so the experiment goes on. As a contribution to it, New Scientist has agreed to issue this article under a copyleft. That means you can copy it, redistribute it, reprint it in whole or in part, and generally play around with it as long as you, too, release your version under a copyleft and abide by the other terms and conditions in the licence. We also ask that you inform us of any use you make of the article, by e-mailing copyleft@newscientist.com.


One reason for doing so is that by releasing it under a copyleft, we can print the recipe for OpenCola without violating its copyleft. If nothing else, that demonstrates the power of the copyleft to spread itself. But there's another reason, too: to see what happens. To my knowledge this is the first magazine article published under a copyleft. Who knows what the outcome will be? Perhaps the article will disappear without a trace. Perhaps it will be photocopied, redistributed, re-edited, rewritten, cut and pasted onto websites, handbills and articles all over the world. I don't know--but that's the point. It's not up to me any more. The decision belongs to all of us.


Further reading:

For a selection of copylefts, see http://www.eff.org/IP/Open_licenses/open_alternatives.html

The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond is available at http://tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/


Editor's comment



THE INFORMATION IN THIS ARTICLE IS FREE. It may be copied, distributed and/or modified under the conditions set down in the Design Science License published by Michael Stutz at http://dsl.org/copyleft/dsl.txt


 
 
 










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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:50:58 (EST)
From: janet
Email: None
To: Janet
Subject: Re: copyleft-let me explain this
Message:
I wanted to bring this here as part of a great experiment, being opened on the web. bear with the wasted space that my copying the html code verbatim caused. when I lifted this, I really did not know how it would come out on the post, and i don't have the 'edit' capability that most of you do when posting. so forgive me for the moment. I don't expect this to happen again.

that said--to the central reason.
as you read the article, you may come to understand that this is about taking the jealous possessive guards away from the pernicious notion that corporations and people 'own' information and KNOWLEDGE , and thus can legally force you to pay them in order to have what they know. or in cases like the tobacco complanies, coca cola, microsoft, etc, you can't get your hands on the recipe, you can only buy the product, and would be attacked viciously if you ever did get ahold of the information and make it public, because they get stinking rich by keeping it a secret.
the copyleft movement is in direction opposite to this, and as I read this, I realized that we, here at EPO are doing exactly this, in our freewheeling public deconstruction of Mharaji and Knowledge and all that he does.
He has made his fortune by jealously keeping secret as much as he possibly can, and we here have been undoing that secrecy and power by making it open source, up to and including the fabled Four Techniques, which are on EPO for anyone to obtain.

I had hoped to insert my own contribution to the article, in the process of posting it, which i could have accomplished, by adding my own ideas in the text, but as I didn't know if my taking the page to my favorite code revealer site and then copying it was even going to work--at the authors' invitation, as you can see in the article- I had to try just putting it up here first, before contributing to it.

Jim and Marianne ought to get interested in the Open Law project, for the rich resource it affords them in their respective practices, since law is such an ongoing arena of hairsplitting debate and fine tuning arguments.

The rest of us, I wanted you all to know, that we are already a part of this move, and that we might well consider actually making it official on our masthead, as a direct defense to all that bs of 'copyright violation' that maharaji's lawyers have tried to use in the past, to silence us, to prevent us from publishing his historic satsangs [which he so badly wants to deny he ever uttered], and all the other angles that they have attempted to employ in getting us to just shut up and go away.

I realize that open sourcing can lead to being quoted out of context, distorted, and otherwise staining a reputation, but that happens now, anyway. We already have good ways of restablishing the correct original when the error is circulating. Think urban legends. Think snopes.

the notion of having as many minds possible working on a thing, finding its weaknesses, improving it voluntarily, refining its characteristics, passing it on freely, and having it be an ongoing phenomenon is ripe for the time. Its a logical outgrowth of the internet, --the connecting, applying, multiplying and depositing all our collective intelligence where we can all tap into it, as needed or inspired, is an unstoppable characteristic of our inborn need to know.

this is not Off topic to our central reason for meeting here. If anything, it's the very soul of why we meet here, and I just wanted to make it an overt benchmark, so you all could congratulate yourselves for being in it!!
we are doing it, people. the times are with us, and not with him.
there is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come.

and as the article encourages, feel free to lift it, in part, in full, rework it to your perfection, pass it on, pass it back, and just generally join the movement.
I have written to the original , letting them know I put this here, so they can come see what I did with it.

BTW--the 'copyleft' symbol is the © symbol, stood on its head or in a mirror image.
it was supposed to be in the square above the text, but the image didn't follow me over here. neither did the recipe for opencola--but I can bring that over as a provision of the open source agreement. It'll be under this post.

We could put the copyleft symbol on our pages, big and impossible to miss, to make it clear to anyone that what's here is for anyone to use and take elsewhere, for the purpose and the cause.
I have always been a big believer in the 'Sunshine Laws'--the belief that all transactions should be conducted openly in the public eye, that if a thing has to be done hidden in secret, then it has no business taking place at all, that if a thing can't stand the light of day, then it is'nt fit to exist anyway, and the more a thing is opened, the more we can see it and improve it. that goes for people as well as corporations and organizations.
so on we go!

'!¡ let's tear the roof off the sucker, unh! unh!'

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Date: Thurs, Feb 14, 2002 at 04:40:14 (EST)
From: Scott T.
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: The Tragedy of the Commons
Message:
Janet:

There's a considerable body of literature on 'public goods' and 'common pool resources' that seems relevant to this open source idea. Essentially it's creating a common pool resource based on knowledge or information. A public good is a common pool resource with 'exclusion' which is meant to handle situations involving crowding, and overuse. A public road, for instance, is a common pool resource up to the point that traffic congestion starts to constrain it's use, at which point it becomes a public good. One way to manage this public good in order to ensure that the road doesn't become a parking lot, is to charge a fee for entry... to turn it into a toll road.

A fellow named Tim Hardin wrote a now-famous article in which he spelled all of this out, and how it relates to the use of food and energy resources. It was called 'The Tragedy of the Commons.' Many of you know his argument, so I won't spell it out. It wasn't exactly uplifting.

I'm not sure how all of this relates to the open source movement. After Hardin's article people converged on the idea that a common pool resource could be managed successfully only if the number of users remained small, at less than 200, because they each needed to know the details of the resource and the manner in which use depleted it. Then Elinor Ostrum pointed out that some cultures evolved around the idea of preserving these resources, and had developed 'nested' structures that were capable of managing very large enterprises. Some farming communities in Indonesia are organized this way to manage land use, as are the Spanish Huertas to manage water resources. But it's clear that culture plays a very important role on how these nested structures develop.

One relevant question might be: How effective is the policing of the copyleft restriction, and do the courts recognize it? If someone drew the veil over a piece of intellectual development how would you know for sure that the core of it was once under copyleft? Ultimately, what prevents it from being exploited by someone who makes a significant value-added contribution, and then decides to personalize it? Ultimately isn't Marx arguing that that's precisely what happened with *all* resources, through 'primitive appropriation?' It sounds like this debate won't go away.

My apartment complex has free satellite TV, but it only works about 60% of the time.

--Scott

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 19:11:53 (EST)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: Readability info and a suggestion
Message:
Janet,

I found the first post in this thread unreadable using Netscape 4.72 (Netscape tries to load a non-existant page in Hotboards), and very unfriendly but readable using IE, which is a pity as the subject matter is interesting.

May I suggest that instead of trying to copy a webpage into a post, that you simply give the link?

Anyway, to the subject. I'm not sure we're really engaging in Copyleft. Of course we want the info posted here and on EPO to be freely distributed - that's the purpose of the site, distributing the information. As the article says, the problem of getting participation in a copyleft project is incentive. If people aren't being paid for their efforts, then they need some other incentive. The author cites the kudos that software people get from contributing to Linux, but it's not so clear for other projects. In ex-premie land the reward is the new ex-premies thanks.

John.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:13:34 (EST)
From: janet
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Re: Readability -yeah i know
Message:
I thought about it [just linking], but then i decided the challenge of trying it and the invitation to take something wholesale without copyright was just too intriguing.
if i had it to do over again, I'd edit out a lot of the unneccessary code and trim it down--but i couldn't play with it in preview and edit, like you guys can. WEBTV doesn't register with the site's software for that, right.
but i had fun.
i promise--I won't be doing it again.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 19:03:52 (EST)
From: janet
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: Re: copyleft-let me explain this
Message:








as per the open source agreement, here are the copy left logo, and the recipe for OpenCola, which were in the original article, and were supposed to translate over here with it, to carry out my part of the bargain.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 17:58:42 (EST)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Called up 23 on M's website search!
Message:

[ http://www.picosearch.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl ]
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:02:06 (EST)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Barry
Subject: Oh well?
Message:
No shit! I was at M's site and I used his special little site search botton. I put in the wards cult, fraud, phony, scam, and got 23 documents containing these words I guess. I read a couple and they apeared to be some pretty unsatisfied costomers.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:23:34 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Barry
Subject: Which site Barry?
Message:
maharaji.org ? or Elanvital?

If maharaji.org.....where's the search button? Couldn't see it.

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:43:08 (EST)
From: Barry
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Right here!
Message:
just mess the search. If you put in ex-premie.org-then some words like culthead, fraud, scam etc...you'll see a certain number of files come up. weird though, when I just went back there, and I clicked on the numbers-a bunch of premie shit comes up?

Also, have you seen maharaji.net (not org!) kooky man! later
[ http://www.primeacademy.com.my/index2.htm ]

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:49:30 (EST)
From: Livia
Email: None
To: All
Subject: They don't know what's going on
Message:
It is becoming more and more apparent to me just how little premies know about what is going on.

In the last week I have told two people about the Jagdeo revelations and IT WAS THE FIRST TIME EITHER OF THEM HAD HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT IT. One of them is now becoming an ex (WPC girl). The other I just spoke to this morning. I told her about Jagdeo, Fakiranand and the yacht. She knew nothing about any of it. I wasn't worried about destabilising her too abruptly because she has been drifting off for a while now. She listened and at first said she didn't care about all that stuff, but gradually as she took it all in, she began to use her discrimination and said she'd have to seriously think about it all. And knowing her as I do, she will.

I couldn't have had that converation with a premie who was going to videos all the time - they are just too brainwashed, almost scarily so.

This is all becoming clearer and clearer to me. My second friend is going to read EPO when she gets back from holiday; she's distanced enough not to worry about any command from on high not to look at it.

The seriously brainwashed ones DAREN'T look at it in case Maharaji somehow knows, and PUNISHES them! I know this to be true, because (embarrassingly) it's what I felt when I first had a look a couple of years ago. I felt sort of guilty, and thought that everyone there was seriously 'in their minds'. I even remember having a conversation with a premie about it, and we both agreed that the people on EPO and the forums are still 'obsessed' by M and K. We thought: if they've had enough, why don't they just walk away?

M seems to be so oblivious to how the Jagdeo issue and his refusal to face it, has caused and will continue to cause people to leave in droves. It makes him look so BAD.

In order to remain in the cult while knowing about the Jagdeo issue, a premie has to engage in serious disassociation of the type spoken about in a thread below. They have to enter an extremely dubious moral universe, and seem unable to see that the morals there are a million miles from the spiritual values that probably drew them to and kept them with M and K in the first place.

It's all so weird, and it's probably morally damaging to them as well.

Another thing: I was talking on the phone on Thursday night to a premie about the forthcoming phone thing with Yorum Weiss. She knew what it was all going to be about - the dismantling of EV etc. I asked her what she thought about it all and she said: 'Oh, it's really beautiful!' And I knew immediately that if M was about to quadruple the size and activities of EV, and I had asked her the same question, she would have said: 'Oh, it's really beautiful!'

In other words, it all comes down to them thinking that whatever he does is perfect because he is perfect. (They don't really let themselves think he's 'The Lord' any more, but they have this new catch-phrase: the purity of the master.) But here is some double-think: they also now allow themselves to believe he is imperfect in some ways, he gets things wrong occasionally like he can be chauvinistic, or he likes dirty jokes, smokes, drinks (a little), eats red meat. Maybe doesn't even meditate! And somehow that's all fine. And if you challenge them on the logical front, they sneer at the concept of 'logic'. God, it would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

I suppose soon the only people left will be the seriously deluded, morally and ethically vacuous shadows of the people they once were.

Phew.

With love, Livia

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 17:05:25 (EST)
From: DJ
Email: None
To: Livia
Subject: Livia
Message:
With love, ****.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:30:12 (EST)
From: Bryn
Email: None
To: Livia
Subject: The idea of going to hell
Message:
I have heard and felt a lot of this notion in recent weeks. It's much more common than I had realised, and it surfaces in all sorts of areas, not just in the religious department. I noticed it recently in someone's relationship issue. They had demonised their ex, imputing to them supernatural powers of action in the world.

A teacher I know would not let me use a certain room, because the regular occupant, then long absent would not approve of what I was going to use it for (music and dance). When I said there was no need to tell them, the teacher looked restless and said no ' he'd know'. The situation was a closed one and there was no way, unless told, they would have found out.

I had it myself, recently when after 'gossiping' about someone,I left with the feeling that there would be dire consequences. When I checked out in my memory what I had actually said, I discovered that my words were all perfectly true, and I'd been speaking out of a sincere need for expression to a genuinely receptive and discriminating person.

I spent time with some very 'religious' people. Their 'nice' demeanour was all very civilised, but at times it looked like hyper- vigiance, based on the assumption that their cute behaviour would pre-empt some ever-observant and malicious presence from moving against them in some way.

The list goes on. Maharaji is great panacea. When the self splits, and the left half becomes afraid of the right, he steps in and subdues both. Great! At least then they both know who they are scared of. Rejoice in the Lord. Bollocks.

Love Bryn

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 00:55:51 (EST)
From: Francesca :~)
Email: None
To: Bryn
Subject: When my sides split
Message:
The whole thing was great, but esp. loved this:
The list goes on. Maharaji is great panacea. When the self splits, and the left half becomes afraid of the right, he steps in and subdues both. Great! At least then they both know who they are scared of. Rejoice in the Lord. Bollocks.

Remember that Kim (Fields) O'Leary song from One Foundation, 'You are always there'?

When all my thoughts
like enemies surround me
You are always there
within me.'

All I need is my thoughts AND him. Now THAT is scary. That is a dire consequence, that one! I, for one, am glad that he is not inside my heart, inside my mind, is NOT the very essence of whatever the heck I am. Becoming an ex is a form of exorcism. Out, out damned Rawat!!!

Bryn, thanks for the thought provoking post.

Bests,

--f

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 02:10:39 (EST)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Francesca :~)
Subject: How about this one, Fran...
Message:
Francesca,

I remember that song very well. It was one song I always thought to be so dark I would skip over it.

Here's another one that I had a cat fight (we didn't actually scratch eachother, but she was housemother) with another singer in Hartford because I was asked to sing it by the cc in our band, and she wanted to sing it, so neither of us sang it. Thank God.

Maharaji I am bound to you
by love and devotion
you have saved, me freed me
from the deepest darkest ocean

Maharji I am lost without you
afraid to doubt you
too in love to turn away

Maharaji all the world will
bow before you
blaa blaa blaa, can't remember the
rest of the verse because Kim was mumbling.

I love the very air you breathe
Each ray of sun that warms your body
You reside within an infinite ocean
Of love and devotion
Of love and devotion
Of love and devotion

ad infinitum, ad nauseam

Now this song I loved because it made me feel MORE longing for darshan. Interestingly, in 1998, I saw a video can't remember which one, but it was a sort of ''retrospective of maharaji.'' It actually showed scenes of him in the apple cart, the one in Kissimmee, but only his back--now this is 1998 when this song was played. Just the first two bars.

I have an old bootleg tape, many times recorded, of most of the music of that festival, with excerpts of m giving satsang. 'One word of maharaji's satsang! What is the price of that word!' The heavy afternoon one that everyone left feeling like shit. That would be interesting to hear again, but the tape is very old.

It also has Marolyn singing to m:

'I can't stop falling in love with you' and
'Black is the color of my Lord's (supposed to be love's hair)'

Why did I just remember all that?

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 13:40:47 (EST)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Cynthia
Subject: Drip it down into the golden earth
Message:
... to be eaten by the black hala, who loves to eat nasty stuff that does no good staying in our minds and bodies!

Poof!

I was asked to sing the you are everything song at someone's wedding. I wouldn't do it.

'You are the sun above
that shines upon the earth with love
You are the earth below
that ___ itself so we can grow

blah blah

Chorus:
Your eyes are like the stars
your smile the sun
and in your arms you hold me
when to your feet I run

You are a spreading tree
whose branches spread wide over me
blah blah

the simple love that grows and grows
and makes me whole

Even in 1977 I thought it was too devo and sappy. It probably would have been more honest for me to sing this crap and realize what a fool I was.

Ha ha.

Love,

Francesca

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 13:39:30 (EST)
From: Suedoula
Email: None
To: Livia
Subject: It takes a drip or two
Message:
Livia,

You wrote:
<>

Very scary stuff. Methinks things haven't changed all that much since I was a premie from 1975 to the early 80s. I can remember thinking that all of M's 'vices' were probably just a test for me. I needed to see past the things that he did in the physical plane and see only the 'purity of the Master.' If I focused on those things and felt that they were incongrous or wrong then I was focusing on the maya and I was 'in my mind.' And of course, how can you apply logic to 'lila?'

I couldn't apply the standards that I was living with as an Ashram premie to M because he was perfect and I was only striving for a mere experience of that perfection. So who was I to say that his having a wife and a family and a penchant for expensive things was wrong -- he was my Perfect Master and who was I to question or even understand his choices for this manifestation. (Man, I was in deep!)I didn't know then what I know now.

I often wonder how I would have felt if I had know the truth about M's excesses and his lifestyle when I was a premie. When I was in deep I probably would have reacted in the manner you say most PWKs react now. Most of this stuff is enough to cause a serious brain melt down for those who believe that the mere act of contemplating it in their own minds is an act of treason. If I had heard it as I was on my way out, it would have probably been the major drip to get me out the door even faster.

As it was, I kind of oozed out of premiedom. Part of my exiting process hinged on the fact that my new boyfriend couldn't stand socializing with premies. It was kind of like having a cocktail party with friends from work and having Peter Pan and the Lost Boys show up and want to play. Another part was that I felt I was ready to leave Neverland and return to the real world, ready to take on the challenges of a grown-up in a grown-up world -- something that my life as a PWK hadn't prepared me to do. Then there was my growing relationship with my now husband. Meeting him made me realize that there were other ways to deal with things I didn't like about life and the world around me that didn't involve retreating into K and the fantasy world created around it.

Bravo and best of luck to your friends, if they are anything like me, they probably have to experience a drip or two or three before they can let in the truth.

Warmly,
Susan

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:32:16 (EST)
From: You want drips?
Email: None
To: Suedoula
Subject: This is the place
Message:
nt
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:25:19 (EST)
From: janet
Email: None
To: You want drips?
Subject: drips? I'm showering in em
Message:
it's a lovely shower of drips, thank you. a downpour of the wholly game. I get cleaner with every passing storm.
ahhhh. precipitation is wonderful, innit?
leave no room for drought in your mind.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 22:13:43 (EST)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: janet
Subject: drips? I'm showering in em...Janet LOL...
Message:
Janet:

it's a lovely shower of drips, thank you. a downpour of the wholly game. I get cleaner with every passing storm.
ahhhh. precipitation is wonderful, innit?
leave no room for drought in your mind.

You amaze me, Janet. That's a Hall Of Famer in my book. I'm keeping a copy to put on by bulletin board. Copyright to you of course.

I envy you because your mind is like a steel trap. Once you learn something it's there at your disposal. Have you always been this way? I have such difficulty with short term memory retention. I was reading this thread and feeling some comfort.

I'm not alone in the rainstorm. I read so much but then it feels as if it's there in my brain, but I can't access it.

I don't know how to change it. I've tried everything I know.

Then you come along with that poem? And I got a belly laugh.

Thank you.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:17:09 (EST)
From: Nigel
Email: nigel@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: You want drips?
Subject: Seething troubles?
Message:
Articulate, heartfelt, pursuasive. Your impotent jibe typifies the average premie's inability to cope with what they read here, still less deal with it.

Thanks for the reminder.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 13:41:08 (EST)
From: Suedoula
Email: None
To: Suedoula
Subject: Re: It takes a drip or two
Message:
Sorry, the piece I quoted didn't show up -- here it is:
In other words, it all comes down to them thinking that whatever he does is perfect because he is perfect. (They don't really let themselves think he's 'The Lord' any more, but they have this new catch-phrase: the purity of the master.) But here is some double-think: they also now allow themselves to believe he is imperfect in some ways, he gets things wrong occasionally like he can be chauvinistic, or he likes dirty jokes, smokes, drinks (a little), eats red meat. Maybe doesn't even meditate! And somehow that's all fine. And if you challenge them on the logical front, they sneer at the concept of 'logic'. God, it would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

Sorry about that!
Susan

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:45:14 (EST)
From: Francesca
Email: None
To: Livia
Subject: **BEST OF FORUM*** Livia
Message:
The fear of going to some sort of hell has been spoken of by recent exiters on and off this board. I'm glad to know that some folks that are drifting in the shadows of the cult are having an easier time breaking free than the gopis.

Thanks for taking the time to get this all out!

peace and love,

Francesca

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 13:51:26 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Francesca
Subject: and **BEST OF FORUM*** Suedola too! (nt)
Message:
and **BEST OF FORUM*** Suedola too!
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:15:50 (EST)
From: Francesca :)
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: And SUEDOLA too (nt) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 22:19:06 (EST)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Francesca :)
Subject: ***BEST OF to Livia,Suedoula, Janet*** [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 00:11:53 (EST)
From: Steve Mueller
Email: mistyqm@mn.mediaone.net
To: Cynthia
Subject: Best of ... second that emotion, indeed
Message:
A cornerstone of the brainwashing that keeps Catholics in a permanent state of fear and emotional subjugation to the pope and his clergy is: GUILT. GUILT paralyzes, imprisons and emotionally cripples a person. It is the number one thing that prevents a person from enjoying real personal freedom.

Even though technically M is on record (I heard him say this at least a couple times in the late 90's) as admonishing premies to NOT feel GUILT (no surprise there - he needed to say that to forgive himself for his own outrageous immoral behaviors), the fact remains that everything about the perfect master / student(er, slave) relationship, especially the insidious, diabolical, sick and evil way that M conducts himself induces in premies a sense of inferiority, of subservience to him as a supreme being, of a need to not only please their Godfather but especially to not displease him.

I have previously posted that due to astounding meditation experiences I have had, I HAVE realized how unbelievably compassionate, totally self-satisfied, and completely unconcerned with anything like GUILT is the infinite energy that supports and sustains me. Because of this for several years now I have not been plagued by the kinds of GUILT feelings that I have seen torturing serious orthodox Catholics and active premies.

I mentioned previously that I was very close, very tight with a dear premie lady for nearly eight years. One of the main things that I observed dragging her down was her constantly being plagued with feelings of guilt. (She oftentimes would say: 'M was not happy with me. He knew what I was doing.') Much of the supportive 'satsang' I gave her over the years was trying to convince her that there was no such thing as GUILT, that the infinite energy sustaining her was so perfectly content that it had no reason to feel or capacity for feeling sadness over the supposed 'shortcomings' of humans. It didn't care. It was content just to be itself. Unfortunately, she was one of those really hardcore premies whose brainwashing was so thorough that there was just no way I could get through to her to accept this.

That's all I could tell her at the time because I had not yet exed and had not yet fully understood myself how, even though M denied it, I think that, devious and sneaky power tripper that he is, he fully understood (having attended Catholic grade school himself) that premies feeling guilt over whatever ('sins of omission': ie, not practicing K or 'sins of commission': drugs, alcohol, masturbation, etc) served the purpose of keeping them in a permanent state of subjugation (submission) to him. He knew what he was doing, the bastard, I'm sure of it. It was essential in order to keep their bucks rolling in.

Yes, GUILT is a mind control as well as a political control device used not only by the Catholic church but also by M. If only all of them could open their eyes and see the evil that those religions are inflicting on them. And make no mistake about it: Maharajism has definitely deteriorated and crystalized into a world religion. Again, they just don't realize it yet.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:48:38 (EST)
From: Livia
Email: None
To: All
Subject:
Message:
It is becoming more and more apparent to me just how little premies know about what is going on.

In the last week I have told two people about the Jagdeo revelations and IT WAS THE FIRST TIME EITHER OF THEM HAD HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT IT. One of them is now becoming an ex (WPC girl). The other I just spoke to this morning. I told her about Jagdeo, Fakiranand and the yacht. She knew nothing about any of it. I wasn't worried about destabilising her too abruptly because she has been drifting off for a while now. She listened and at first said she didn't care about all that stuff, but gradually as she took it all in, she began to use her discrimination and said she'd have to seriously think about it all. And knowing her as I do, she will.

I couldn't have had that converation with a premie who was going to videos all the time - they are just too brainwashed, almost scarily so.

This is all becoming clearer and clearer to me. My second friend is going to read EPO when she gets back from holiday; she's distanced enough not to worry about any command from on high not to look at it.

The seriously brainwashed ones DAREN'T look at it in case Maharaji somehow knows, and PUNISHES them! I know this to be true, because (embarrassingly) it's what I felt when I first had a look a couple of years ago. I felt sort of guilty, and thought that everyone there was seriously 'in their minds'. I even remember having a conversation with a premie about it, and we both agreed that the people on EPO and the forums are still 'obsessed' by M and K. We thought: if they've had enough, why don't they just walk away?

M seems to be so oblivious to how the Jagdeo issue and his refusal to face it, has caused and will continue to cause people to leave in droves. It makes him look so BAD.

In order to remain in the cult while knowing about the Jagdeo issue, a premie has to engage in serious disassociation of the type spoken about in a thread below. They have to enter an extremely dubious moral universe, and seem unable to see that the morals there are a million miles from the spiritual values that probably drew them to and kept them with M and K in the first place.

It's all so weird, and it's probably morally damaging to them as well.

Another thing: I was talking on the phone on Thursday night to a premie about the forthcoming phone thing with Yorum Weiss. She knew what it was all going to be about - the dismantling of EV etc. I asked her what she thought about it all and she said: 'Oh, it's really beautiful!' And I knew immediately that if M was about to quadruple the size and activities of EV, and I had asked her the same question, she would have said: 'Oh, it's really beautiful!'

In other words, it all comes down to them thinking that whatever he does is perfect because he is perfect. (They don't really let themselves think he's 'The Lord' any more, but they have this new catch-phrase: the purity of the master.) But here is some double-think: they also now allow themselves to believe he is imperfect in some ways, he gets things wrong occasionally like he can be chauvinistic, or he likes dirty jokes, smokes, drinks (a little), eats red meat. Maybe doesn't even meditate! And somehow that's all fine. And if you challenge them on the logical front, they sneer at the concept of 'logic'. God, it would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

I suppose soon the only people left will be the seriously deluded, morally and ethically vacuous shadows of the people they once were.

Phew.

With love, Livia

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:43:34 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: All
Subject: M: plain ignorant? or deliberate liar?
Message:


Untitled Document






Verbatim
quote , Maharaji, from the Nottingham 30th anniversary event:



&quot;I tell you
this because ... you also know this is real. There is nothing in this
life that will go with you 'til the very end. The only thing is: your
breath - that will be there, 'til the very end. That's it.

No science,
no technicality, no technical publications, no ... (yells) ...
NOTHING!
... will put you in touch with that breath except the
gift of &quot;knowledge&quot;. It's the only thing that addresses
that breath.
It is the only thing that acknowledges your existence
as you are - UNJUDGEMENTAL!


If you want
to be accepted without judgement, then there is only one person
who can do that. To accept without judgement.


And in turn
give you a gift which would free you from waiting.


To receive that
gift in your life is the greatest honour. It is the greatest reward.
It is the greatest medal. To accept that knowledge and to practise
that knowledge in your life is the greatest achievement that
a human being can ever have
.


And you can
quote me on that. (applause).


Nothing more.&quot;


(click here for
audio extract)


&nbsp;









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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 17:13:36 (EST)
From: DJ
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Re: M: plain ignorant? or deliberate liar?
Message:
That`s nice.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:22:49 (EST)
From: Francesca :~)
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Plain old BALD FACED LIE
Message:
There's no excuse for this from a man who quotes Kabir and every other ding dang teacher:
No science,
no technicality, no technical publications, no ... (yells) ...
NOTHING! ... will put you in touch with that breath except the
gift of 'knowledge'. It's the only thing that addresses
that breath. It is the only thing that acknowledges your existence
as you are - UNJUDGEMENTAL!

That's just plain and simple not true. And it's a double bind. If he claims ignorance, if he claims he doesn't know it's a lie, then he's claiming that he doesn't know very much about meditation OR spirituality.

The only way he can get away with this is for premies to have the blinders on, and not to dare even learn enough about other forms of sprituality and meditation to know that this is a lie. But I think it can't possibly be true that even most premies don't realize it's a lie. I mean, they'd have to really be living in a barrel. So assuming that most premies KNOW it's a lie, they are really twisting their brains around to accept this sort of thing as the truth.

I really do think that the yelling is part of the brain lock for premies. He yells at them and it reinforces that never doubt the Master, put this in a box and don't think about it, mentality.

Still yelling after all these years. What a fool!

--f

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:48:15 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Re: M: plain ignorant? or deliberate liar? repost
Message:
Verbatim quote , Maharaji, from the Nottingham 30th anniversary event:

'I tell you this because ... you also know this is real. There is nothing in this life that will go with you 'til the very end. The only thing is: your breath - that will be there, 'til the very end. That's it.

No science, no technicality, no technical publications, no ... (yells) ... NOTHING! ... will put you in touch with that breath except the gift of knowledge. It's the only thing that addresses that breath. It is the only thing that acknowledges your existence as you are - UNJUDGEMENTAL!

If you want to be accepted without judgement, then there is only one person who can do that. To accept without judgement.

And in turn give you a gift which would free you from waiting.

To receive that gift in your life is the greatest honour. It is the greatest reward. It is the greatest medal. To accept that knowledge and to practise that knowledge in your life is the greatest achievement that a human being can ever have.

And you can quote me on that. (applause).

Nothing more.'
[ let's hope this one works ]

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Date: Wed, Feb 13, 2002 at 11:27:46 (EST)
From: ChrisP
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Belated reply to cq
Message:
Hey cq, don't know if you can still read this after 5 days, but yes, I've also noticed an increasingly arrogant tone to his talks over the past several years. But in retrospect, he's always had a rather arrogant outlook that everyone just dismissed as 'okay for him'.

But it's obvious he's quite the arrogant ignoramus who's never grown up or learned a thing or two about REAL life. (Man with big head also have loose tongue, as they say.)

But what's really scary is how it can affect his followers' judgement also. In Amaroo last spring, there was some inconsistent sound connection to his mike, to which he said 'there's typical Aussie inefficency for you', after which the whole crowd started booing. An Aussie girl next to me gasped that premies can be so insensitive and started crying for a good 10 minutes. Then on the last evening, (I guess someone like Marolyn must have reminded him a little graciousness would suit him better), he then said he had to hand it to the Aussies for all their hard work in putting it together, after which this time the crowd cheered.

Even in all his Q&A sessions, you see it. Not only are the questions 'selected' and prepared beforehand (for ex. I've never heard the question 'What do you do with all your money?') but he always gives an evasive answer as well as make them feel stupid for asking such questions in the first place.

So I'm another who at least thinks he's quite the arrogant ignoramus. Whether he's deliberately lying/deceiving or not, I may never know.

So there, just had to add those two lentils, thank you.

Cheers,

ChrisP

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 20:17:48 (EST)
From: wpc girl
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Re: M: plain ignorant? or deliberate liar? repost
Message:
I almost wish I'd heard that.
When he was satguru he quoted lots of other past masters including the founder of the sikh faith guru nanak. By happy chance members of this faith often turn up on radio 4 thought for the day and over recent years I've found them quite inspiring very open and sharing in tone. One of ms favourite themes was how all religions are the same it's true they all seem to begin with some inspired gesture to lift humanity from the slough of despair and then get lost in the process and turn into a stagnant institution with varying musical accompanyment.
A while ago I came across the works of a writer named Bessie Head who in a few words which I can't remember verbatim encapsulated the concept. She was a mixed race South African and drifted through various communities she wrote to the effect that religion was something that people do, if it works we have faith it will work always. So things done in one situation are carried over to wholly unrelated situations, the activity turns into ritual done for the reason that we have always done it this way. They are nothing to do with God which in most religions is presented as other than part of us m. became a religion religions are institutionalised worship. Where there is no openness or spontinaety then there is no love or creativity
But did he mention the mercedes which I've come to regard as part of k if not the very essence of it?
Love etc
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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 06:04:46 (EST)
From: Dave Punshon
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: What a load of Crock !!!
Message:
man, this guy M speaks absolute bollocks!!!!
What a conman indeed !!
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:41:06 (EST)
From: Carl
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: We may as well pack up and go home
Message:
There is nothing more to do in this life.

As M points out: 'NOTHING! ... will put you in touch with that breath except the gift of knowledge. It's the only thing that addresses that breath. . . . To accept that knowledge and to practise that knowledge in your life is the greatest achievement that a human being can ever have.'

Yeah, I know what he means.

Michelangelo? a hack dauber.
Lao Tsu? poor fool.
Socrates, Plato? ignorami.
Einstein? a moron.
Mother Theresa? a conniver for glory.
J.S. Bach? a tune-a-day scribbler.
Jonas Salk? a wastrel.

The billions of breathing people trying to raise their families with some sense of decency, love and prosperity? Such a sad waste of effort -- they may as well just drop everything and rush to join M in his crusade.

It's the only thing that addresses that breath, yes? No one else has a clue. No one. It is the private and exclusively particular expertise of M.

It's the greatest achievement, after all.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 13:08:36 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Carl
Subject: there's only one conclusion from this:
Message:
there's only one conclusion from this - and if it ain't ironic, I don't know what is:

- Rawat likes to keep his premies in ignorance, all the while calling it 'knowledge'.

Or maybe I'm being unfair, and he really ISN'T aware of the multitude of meditation techniques which 'address the breath'.

There's more to pranayama than just the 'so-hum' mantra. But what would premies know of that? They're tied to a guru who likes to keep them ignorant.

Sad really. But if that's how they like it ...

PS. thanks for including Jonas Salk. As a practitioner of self-education, I looked him up, since I'd never heard of him before.

Elucidating!

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:02:12 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: test (ignore)
Message:

[ click ]
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:31:58 (EST)
From: Occasional Poster
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Hold the front page ....
Message:
Yoram Weiss just tonight completed a telephone broadcast to the UK and Eire PWK community. The following are the main points and new projects that were mentioned.

EV UK (and other EV vehicles worldwide) has been and will be slimed down and will no longer be the main vehicles for organizing activities and so forth. The primary purpose (and that of Visions) will be that of financial vehicles to support M and his 'vision' as he sees it. 'Projects within Maharaji's vision'.

Apparently EV UK provides for a consistent and stable cash flow and donates to the 'International Fund' which, as I heard Yoran say, is typically used for plane expenses. (No mention was made as to how Serenity the 104-foot super luxury boat was supported). One reason that EV UK is so supportive is that it gains considerable UK government tax rebates which, according to Yoram, amounted to $400k last year.

Anyway the new 'projects' were listed as:

1. A documentary series on M which will broadcast on a 'main TV channel like Discovery' and broadcasts are planned early 2003. The series will be 3-4 parts.

2. An article will appear in a 'leading business magazine' and which will come out early April 2002. M has already given the relevant interview which, apparently, is first he has given in over 27 years.

3. M new website (which Yoram praised no end) will be enhanced so that interested people will be able to download various PDF files that are themed - 'Thirst', 'The possibility' and other such nonsense. Dwnloaders will be able to make up a book or somesuch. Similarly MP3 files will be incorporated giving excerpts of His Holiness' speeches and people will then be able to collect these files and make CDs, Tapes etc. Wow! (Actually M his copying his big brother here as Satpal has had audio files for a long time - but who gives a damm anyway).

4. Although still being researched it is planned that M (or whatever vehicle he uses) will release 'Books on Tapes' incorporating such riveting subjects such as 'The Possibility', 'Being Alive' etc. These books will be sold via 'major bookstores worldwide.

Yoram expressed the feeling that 'this is all exciting!'

He went on further to say:

- The current broadcasts will continue although the content may change. M wishes for the broadcasts not to be a substitute for live events. He wishes to have the 'uniqueness of events to be restored'. On the broadcasts once again major themes will be stressed (see above for example of themes).

In summing up Yoram said that EV and Visions will be primarily financing vehicles to support 'anchor' activities, which are as follows:

a. The essential assets - the plane, events, Amaroo
b. M capacity to communicate via 'materials'
c. Financial support essential
d. Giving K via existing materials (I assume DVD)

Yoram stressed the need to 'change what needs to be changed whilst preserving the essential things'

John McClean (the UK and Eire co-ordinator) rounded off the show with expressions of wonderment saying that we should let things evolve naturally, as M wants change. We should be ready assist M as he develops his vision. I did not bother remembering what John had to say as it was obvious he really had nothing worthwhile to say beyond his feelings of how wonderful things are.
===========================

All in all a sorry state of affairs. M is obviously targeting the 'corporate' market and mainstream people. (I guess this is what Bonthouse and Associates have come up with for all those $$$ sent their way).

Naturally all these endeavours are doomed to failure - as soon as M comes out from the PWK world he opens himself to public scrutiny and discovery of all those points so well listed on the front page of EPO (the 14 points).

As usual Yoram spent ages describing the need for finance and that 'we' have a new and fresh opportunity of helping M in his endeavours.

I could say much much more but thought I would get this out pronto.

OP

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Date: Mon, Feb 11, 2002 at 12:39:23 (EST)
From: ChrisP
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Target audience: CEO business mag readers??
Message:
= good Maha family business marketing strategy
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:18:59 (EST)
From: Patrick Wilson
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Re: Hold the front page ....
Message:
1. A documentary series on M which will broadcast on a 'main TV channel like Discovery' and broadcasts are planned early 2003. The series will be 3-4 parts.

I am an avid Discovery Channel watcher and have even contributed to the production of some programmes thereon. It seems to me absolutely impossible to imagine that Maharaji, with all his patriarchal aspirations, secret initiations / supposed unique powers, highly contentious past and of course, his personal extravagant excesses, would ever be considered as material for anything other than as fodder for an objective documentary about the phenomenon of new religions, Gurus, or cults.

There was a programme recently which examined various (usually deceased) oddball people, like Ron Hubbard, Margaret Fonteyn, which was called 'Secret Lives' - The programme showed through interviews and old film, that these people indeed had a private side which belied their public front. That would be more the sort of programme that would get made.

If M thinks he has earned a stage on a scientific channel such as Discovery then he is totally deluded. Money can buy you publicity up to a certain point but, as Maharaji seems to be poised to discover, there is a limit.

Does their arrogance have no bounds???

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 21:56:46 (EST)
From: Cynthia
Email: None
To: Patrick Wilson
Subject: Re: Hold the front page ....
Message:
Hi Patrick,

I also watch Discovery for its documentaries. I cannot imagine them producing a fluff piece about a has-been, washed up, user of a conman guru.

They have much more class than that at Discovery or any exciting 'Discovery type' channel.

Desperation masked by arrogance.

Best,
Cynthia

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 16:26:55 (EST)
From: Marshall
Email: None
To: Patrick Wilson
Subject: Re: Hold the front page ....
Message:
Good points, Patrick,
Personally I can't decide whether GMJ and his minions are
A - Sincere, deluded, and pathetic.
B - Shrewd, calculating, and ingenious.
Or,
C - Confused, unimformed, and incompetent.
Somehow GMJ/Elan Vital, etc. seem to manage to combine all of these contradictory elements into their operations.
Hard to figure out.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:44:53 (EST)
From: Marianne
Email: None
To: Patrick Wilson
Subject: Re: Hold the front page ....
Message:
Hi Patrick. How are you? You expressed my sentiments exactly.

Marianne

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 16:09:53 (EST)
From: PatrickW
Email: None
To: Marianne
Subject: Re: Hold the front page ....
Message:
Hi Patrick. How are you? You expressed my sentiments exactly.

Marianne


---

I'm fine -watching 'Pop Idols' final on TV like most of the British Isles tonight. One of the two would-be pop stars (Will) is a relative of mine so I am rooting for hm to win!

I just tuned in to that post about M's plans to broadcast on the likes of Discovery Channel and it got my goat. Seriously if Maharaji's videos got airtime on British TV I would have to contact the Advertising Rights Commission as I believe thousands of others would rightly feel the need to do. Thank goodness we have rights as citizens to be protected against such insidious cult propoganda. I've got kids for heavens' sake.

Anyway, hope you are well. Hope to meet you again one day - maybe at another Latian evening in the not-too-distant future.

All the best

P

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:46:41 (EST)
From: Beverly
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Re: Hold the front page ....
Message:
I came home last night and saw my premie partner on the couch. At first I didn't even realize he was on the phone, and when I did, I just had that sick feeling it was the Yorum-give-it-to-'m' phone call. I had seen the email last week and trashed it before showing him, feeling sheepish and sneaky. Obviously they 'called' to make sure all their donors were listening in. I am sure he was blissed out hearing 'exciting' news. Oh give me a break. It just bothers me how much money my partner supports this cult with. There is nothing I can do to make him see the light, he is convinced he is seeing it and I am the unfortunate one who was misled by that nasty website. Again I am reminded what a relief a forum like this is. Thanks to all of you for continuing to break the veil.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:28:58 (EST)
From: Occasional Poster
Email: None
To: Beverly
Subject: Immoral trappings ....
Message:
Beverly

Thank you!

Your post meant more to me than you can imagine. I was that premie who for so many years knew so much more than my partner, who although she 'took' knowledge many years ago, was never realy taken in with all the 'trappings'. Oh how I should have listened to her many years ago.

Now I have continued 'my journey' I can see more clearly and can finally release myself from the immoral structures that M bind us to him. All under the guise of 'propogation' and 'spreading his message' but in reality simply a funnel to scoop up as much cash as possible and concentrate it around himself.

The trick of course was, and is, to package simple proven meditation techniques under a belief system that eventually falls apart - bit by bit, one by one.

I for one continue to meditate, love life and 'experience' my own essence but am released from his 'maya'. No regrets realy but just wish I had awakened earlier. Each to their own I guess.

Much love and I look forward to reading you again.

OP

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 03:08:00 (EST)
From: The Maharaji of Malibu
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: really leaves you scratching your head
Message:
Thank God, I never joined this ludicrous cult of his or did I? Did I really put in 25 years trying to believe this absurd shit. Once again, he is allowing his prisoners to believe that happy days are here again. I know I used to buy it. Damn the bureaucracy, M's taking over and where's my check book.

Actually this is very much like psychological prison tactics. Let the prisoners have a little hope and they will behave better. Let the POW's think they are about to be released and then let them slowly realize it's not going to happen.

My God, what could I have possibly been thinking?

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 23:27:08 (EST)
From: StevieJi
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Re: ... will be SLIMED down ...
Message:
EV UK ... will be SLIMED down ... (boy, ya just gotta love that misspelling, dontcha? Gee, a fate right out of Ghostbusters. Very nice. Me like.)
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 21:20:04 (EST)
From: Moley
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Typo I'm sure Opie....
Message:
EV UK (and other EV vehicles worldwide) has been and will be slimed down

But so much better than slimmed !

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:32:26 (EST)
From: Brian Smith
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: No best seller here....
Message:
'Books on Tapes' incorporating such riveting subjects such as 'The Possibility', 'Being Alive' etc. These books will be sold via 'major bookstores worldwide.

Yoram expressed the feeling that 'this is all exciting!

What a laughable title, Being alive, does anyone really think they have to read up on breathing in and out.

And the possibility, how mysterious, what is M going to do here expand more on the possibility of being alive and breathing in and out.

More of the same banal useless drivel, M had better get a ghost writer on staff so he can blame someone else for the miserable failures of these two bombs in the bookstore.

I really can't see anyone buying these already well hashed over self awareness subjects other than present cult members.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:52:57 (EST)
From: shri me
Email: None
To: Brian Smith
Subject: Re: No best seller here....
Message:
Don't knock it self help may be a waning market but it's not dead yet this might be the publication to finish it off. Didn't a book come out in the seventies telling of the great ones acomplishments.
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:06:21 (EST)
From: Deborah
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Hi OP, you did good [nt]
Message:
Thanks for the dope on Maha. I know Maha is stupid enough to believe his 'thought reformation' will work on the media. But it won't. Only premies can hear the revisions and banal brain drippings slurring out of the LARD's mouth, and think, 'Wow! Thanks for the gift.'

But the public is more sophisticated than Maha. And when they hear the other side of the story, watch out!

However, I know it won't get that far.

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:07:00 (EST)
From: me again
Email: None
To: Deborah
Subject: Re: Above, not [NT]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:59:03 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Thanks OP, good summary...
Message:
I agree with your conclusions.
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:06:14 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: I listened too....REALLY!!
Message:
And boy, was that weird. Talk about Deja Vu. Somebody sent me the number and the password, and voila! An ex-premie was once again plugged into the bizzaro world of Yoram Weiss, John McClean (sad person), and Maharaji. I sat and ate my lunch and listened with feelings ranging from total boredom, to amazement that this crap is still going on.

Just to add to the above, between the lines, it's clear they are running out of money, and putting a good spin on it, saying they are slimming things down, so Maharaji can tell his message directly to premies and 'the public at large.'

Can some Brit explain about British charitable laws? In the US people can get 'tax deductions' for donations to Elan Vital US. How come EV can get tax 'rebates' totalling $400,000, directly from the British government? Yoram said that although most of the other EV entities were going bye bye, they would keep that one around in the UK (Elan Vital UK) because of the money they get from the government dole in the UK. What a racket. How does that work?

BTW -- Yoram implied that things were a lot more together in the UK than in the USA in premieland. Seems the British cult shows a lot more videos than the USA does, and maybe donates more money, too, but that wasn't quite clear. Also, according to McClean, there are 450 - 500 "interested people" in UK and Ireland and that was just so fantastic. [{I'm sure it was "interested" and not "interesting." In Los Angeles that might be an accurate number for interesting people, but not the UK. :))

Regarding the 4 projects:

1. A documentary series on M which will broadcast on a 'main TV channel like Discovery' and broadcasts are planned early 2003. The series will be 3-4 parts.

I heard something like this too, but what I also heard (I wrote this part down) was that it would be 'a documentary series on Maharaji' done by a 'fairly well-known producer' (unamed, probably not even located yet who will be willing, for money, to do exactly what the cult wants), on the subject of 'Maharaji On Self Knowledge,' and once they got somebody to do this and it's together, they would try to go peddle it to 'something like the Discovery channel' with '2 or 3 sessions on Maharaji' and all this was going to 'take some time to complete' but was 'planned to go out in the middle of next year.' [All a bit tenuous, it sounds, but something to try to get the premies to think there is actually something happening, and no one should hold their very important breaths.] Can't wait to see it. Be sure to get your cable installed!

I wonder. How many ex-premies, or victims of Jagdeo, will they interview for this "documentary" and how much historical "footage" (no pun intended) will they use, how many Krishna outfits and crowns will be included, and what reputable TV channel would run such a thing as a "documentary" if they don't include such things?

We must keep our eyes on this one.

2. An article will appear in a 'leading business magazine' and which will come out early April 2002. M has already given the relevant interview which, apparently, is first he has given in over 27 years.

Yes, first time he has opened himself to an interview since 1974! Isn't he just so kind? Imagine. Yoram said 'they' were 'invited' to put this 'article in a prestigious business magazine that goes out to different CEOs of large corporations,'[Can't tell is this means it has a large distribution or a tiny one. "CEO TODAY?"].

M gave an interview, and he will be included with 'people in other areas of business and activity of life.' It sounded like this article was on a series of people, only one of which was Maharaji, and that he was to be presented as 'an authority on self-knowledge.' There might also be some premie-corporate types in it, but it wasn't clear. It makes me wonder if people like Don Delaski, Tim Gallwey and some others got this thing together. Coming out in April. [Can't wait to see it, and I'm sure the magazine will have a letters to the editor section that ex-premies might want to comment on, giving the address to EPO, just so people can get more information, and a fuller picture on this 'authority on self-knowledge.']

3. Yeah, a new website from which you can download stuff and give it out to people, like, according to Yoram, the discourses on the very exciting subjects, or 'themes' of, 'the possibility', 'thirst' and 'being alive' (Who knew?) [I'm sure this will be a raving sucess, just like his previous websites.]

4. Although still being researched it is planned that M (or whatever vehicle he uses) will release 'Books on Tapes' (excepts of his 'discouses' incorporating such riveting subjects such as 'The Possibility', 'Being Alive' etc. These books will be 'sold' via 'major bookstores worldwide. (not to make money, but just to 'expand' his exposure.)

Who came up with this brilliant idea? Do you think people will BUY that crap? Again, it will include discourses on "thirst" and "being alive." Really meaty stuff.

They want to save Amaroo, and the plane is sacrosinct. Other than some new 'materials' for propagation and those 4 'emerging projects' there isn't anything happening.

John McClean sounded like the typical coordinator. He was 'just seeing more and more' and 'feeling so strongly the importance of what Maharaji is doing,' and 'feeling so grateful for the opportunity to speak of the possibility of being alive to the experience of.....blahblahblahlabh! This is all seen as a period of 'quieting down' and ending 'unnecessary activity' and Maharaji 'breaking free from things WE created,' etc. Some things never change! Jesus Christ, people SIT and listen to this?

In the meantime, John suggested that to do propagation, people should make copies off the satellite and give videos out to interestd people. Golly.

All this, the fact that the organizations are shutting down, and these are these few, pitiful, 'new endeavors' happening, is just to keep the money coming in and to pretend that something is actually happening. Amazing people fall for this.

BTW, anybody who wanted to listen had to either go to a hall, or get the phone number and password. You had to call Southern California to be in on the call.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:26:40 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: re. British charity laws
Message:
hope this is of some use, Joe.
[ Graphic Link ]
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 14:11:05 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: In case that jpg doesn't show up -
Message:
If that pic link isn't working for you, Joe, here's the text of the letter from the UK Charity Commission that I received in Nov. 2000:

ELAN VITAL TRUST (1016818)

Thank you for your letter dated 9 September addressed to Mr David Rich who has asked me to reply on his behalf.

The accounts for the financial year end 31 March 1999 for Elan Vital Trust, show that the charity holds restricted funds for the purpose of making donations to Elan Vital International, Elan Vital Inc and Elan Vital Australia. You may be aware that a charity is entitled to make donations to other charities with similar objects. The objects of the UK charity are to advance public education in the understanding and realisation of human potential through self-knowledge based upon the teachings of Prem Pal Singh Rawat k/a Maharaji, and therefore any money being sent to another organisation should be for this purpose. As the internaltional organisation would appear to have similar objects to the (sic) of the UK charity, there would be no objections to donations being made to the international charity. It is then a matter for the trustees of the receiving charity to decide how they advance public education into the teachings of Prem Pal Singh Rawat.

Yours sincerely

Halcylon Meldrum (Mrs)

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:09:40 (EST)
From: Richard
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: The media exposure will be good for all
Message:
All the new public exposure, that EV&M seem to be so excited about, can only be a good thing for all concerned. For once, M&K will be brought into the public eye where every conceivable question can be fairly raised. At that point, the various media will do what they do best and raise the very same topics we discuss here.

This will be good because premies and aspirants will be able to decide for themselves, in light of what the media reveal, if this is the path they want to follow. It will be good for M because, for once in his life, he will be held accountable and responsible for the words he says. That will, hopefully, make him a better human being. And it will be good for us because we'll have to get a life finally, stop being 'loosers' and 'move on'. :)

Richard the eternal optimist, or maybe the infernal optimystic

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:00:43 (EST)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: Joe
Subject: tax rebates...that's spin
Message:
I'm talking off the top of my head. As I understand it,Charities here are tax exempt. So what Weiss is saying is that income from the UK brings in whatever, plus $400,000 that in a non-charitable business would have been taken by the tax man.

Seems like a significant amount comes from these parts. All donations? I doubt it ,but you never know.

What about WB Stores (the name of the legal entity that became Elan Vital UK)

cq knows about this stuff more than I.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 05:17:21 (EST)
From: Nottm Bunny
Email: None
To: PatD
Subject: Not spin - UK tax rebates system
Message:
Hi Pat

No, it's true. The system in the UK is very different to the US. The tax rebates are from the covenants/donations from premies who give their support. Any tax-payers income is taxed at 22% up to approx £30,000 and 40% over this. My understanding is that, for example, someone who earns £40,000 gives £600 to a registered charity and this gets topped up to £1000 by the Inland Revenue with the £400 tax they had taken.

What a generous government we have.

Bunny

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 20:47:41 (EST)
From: PatD
Email: None
To: Nottm Bunny
Subject: Thanks Bunny [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:24:49 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Nottm Bunny
Subject: Sounds like what Yoram was saying
Message:
Bunny,

That's essentially what Yoram Weiss was saying. Apparently British premies make donations to Elan Vital UK and then there is some kind of 'matching' from the British government, which then sends additional money right to Elan Vital (Yoram said $400,000 last year). According to OP, it's also perfectly okay for Elan Vital UK to send that money to Elan Vital, Inc. the International Elan Vital headquartered in the USA.

In the States, you can make a donation to Elan Vital, and then deduct that from the the income on which you pay income taxes. Depending on your tax bracket, it doesn't amount to that much of a reduction, and income taxes are a lot lower in the USA than they are in the UK anyway. So, maybe they feel they can dump the US Elan Vital. Also, the US Elan Vital has the embarrassing component of just being Divine Light Mission with a name change and they might want to get rid of it for that reason as well. Thanks for the information, it helps explain why Yoram is so keen to keep the money flowing from the UK.

Joe

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 07:48:24 (EST)
From: Occasional Poster
Email: None
To: Nottm Bunny
Subject: EV UK charity registration
Message:
Here is the brief details of EV UK registration at the UK Charity Commission website.

EV UK have recently filed their annual accounts for the period ending March 01 - these are on order via mail. That should make interesting reading.

Unfortunately the Charity Commission does not have, as yet, online viewing access.

Note for period ending March 2000 total EV UK income was just short of £1.4 million.

OP
[ EV UK deatils ]

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 04:37:16 (EST)
From: JohnT
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Obtaining Elan Vital accounts
Message:
Go to the UK Companies House website (http://www.companies-house.gov.uk/info/)search on Company/Branch Name of 'Elan Vital Limited', then order the reports you want, for a small fee.

The latest accounts filed for Elan Vital (Company No. 02289543) are for the year to 31/03/2001

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 06:34:14 (EST)
From: Occasional Poster
Email: None
To: JohnT
Subject: Re: Obtaining Elan Vital accounts
Message:
Hi JohnT

There is a seperate legal entity called Elan Vital Limited (as you mention) which is a non-charity. Elan Vital (the charity) does not file accounts at Companies House. It is the charity accounts that I have ordered.

I think you have already posted the accounts for Elan Vital Limited.

Or am I still confused?

OP

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 07:20:32 (EST)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: You've got it right
Message:
Elan Vital Limited is a U.K. company that donates its profits to Elan Vital, the U.K. charity. The charity receives most of its donations directly from individuals so these do not show in Elan Vital Limited's accounts.

John.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:55:48 (EST)
From: Beverly
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Re: EV UK charity registration
Message:
Now it is coming to light why we had to register for last years' Amaroo event throught the EV-UK organization. All those $400 registration fees from us premies into the UK 'donation' category for a future rebate.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 18:27:27 (EST)
From: That doesn't sound
Email: None
To: Beverly
Subject: very legal, does it? (nt)
Message:
=)
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:41:47 (EST)
From: Joe
Email: None
To: Beverly
Subject: The Amaroo 'donations'
Message:
Beverly, that makes sense. Also, I remember people had to make a 'donation' of $800 so they could pay more money and sleep in a tent on the site. Now, a 'required' donation sounds a bit contradictory, but it does make sense for the tax scam in the UK, and maybe in Australia as well.
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:42:16 (EST)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Make Donations to charities, Schools etc do they ?
Message:
I dont believe it... excpet possibly the charity the Elan vital foundation, the School of Money laundering in Delhi and the Charity whose sole beneficiary is Mr Rawat.
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:52:56 (EST)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Maharaji must think the media are stupid
Message:
If Maharaji really has done an interview for a business magazine, does he really believe they will not do any research on him? Within a few moments surfing, EPO will be found. What sort of article if any will be written then?

OP, well done in getting this published so quickly. I would have listened to the broadcast myself through the US telephone link, but I wanted to watch Eastenders.

John.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 06:26:02 (EST)
From: Vicki
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Re: Maharaji must think the media are stupid
Message:
Unless the time EPO was offline. Perhaps it was very calculated timing, indeed.
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 18:27:22 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Eastenders??
Message:
Hahaha.....I think it's the most miserable programme ever made!! 'Spot the smile' I call it......moaning, whinging London gits:)

Then again, I only follow 'Brookside' soap wise, so I guess I'm not one to speak !!

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:12:21 (EST)
From: Jethro
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Brookside!!!!!!!!!!
Message:
That's the most miserable lot of people I've ever seen.
There is not one character I like.

Eastenders forever!!!!!!!

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:34:03 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Jethro
Subject: Re: Brookside!!!!!!!!!!....Lol
Message:
I'm not an avid viewer ( backtrack....backtrack....) :)
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 18:12:32 (EST)
From: Occasional Poster
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Eastenders vs. Knowledge Hmmm a tough choice!
Message:
Hi JHB

I think you chose well in opting for Eastenders. I cringed all the way through the slimy EV broadcast - but hey journalism is a tough life!

Even when I can't spell properly.

take care
Opie (thanks PatC)

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:59:27 (EST)
From: jethro
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: will PHil kill Steve? nt
Message:
nt
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:21:15 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: jethro
Subject: Will PHil kill Steve? Hopefully:) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:47:09 (EST)
From: Moley
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: No no, better the other way round ;) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 23:18:45 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Moley
Subject: Is Steve the handsome blonde lad??
Message:
Hi Moley

He'd be a good reason for watching and enduring all the traumas, fights, bickering and tears:)

You an addict of the show?

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 03:24:57 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Handsome blonde lad?
Message:
I hadn't watched it in almost five years and stumbled across it recently. I never could tell which was Steve and which Phil.

Wasn't the cute little butch one naughty and the chubbier plain one the serious nice guy well as nice and you can be in the East End and they both once loved the same woman who had a fatal kidney disease and the boy who had HIV had a mother acted by the woman from Are You Being Served and the old biddy with the lantern jaw and the laundrette played Livia in I, Claudius? Unrelenting drama and misery like only the Brits can do it.:C)

It was living in a squat in Hackney 70-72 that drove me into the arms of the very Rev Rawat. It was almost as depressing as the Eastenders. Seven out of the original commune of 16 became premies - partially I think out of despair that the revolution had failed.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 08:59:07 (EST)
From: Ddermot
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: Re: Handsome blonde lad??????
Message:
'Unrelenting drama and misery like only the Brits can do it.:C) '

Yeah that's it...goes under the name of 'Eastenders' :)

Not sure who you were describing, Pat, but I think they were of episodes long gone....maybe in America you are a few years behind story wise. Your general description was funny though. Sorry to hear you had to live in Hackney:) In a squat too !!Are British soaps exportable? Surely they'd be incomprehensible, or maybe they're dubbed? :)

Pat / Loaf...the blonde lad (well..blondish), he's like a sort of surrogate son of Phil(?) and Phil has recently rejected him over some recent melodrama. Not actually sure the 'characters' name though.

Cheers

Dermot

PS I really did like I Claudius though:)

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:48:25 (EST)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: Ddermot
Subject: Dot Cotton was also Nanny Slagg
Message:
Nanny Slagg in the enormous and badly acted Gormenghast.

Do you guys mean Paul Nicholls ? (is that his name ? Sounds too close to a horrible curly haired Pete Framption lookalike sit-com actor)

Anyway.. i agree blonde and cute is wonderful.

'More BBC, More !' as Terry Wogan puts itin the mornings... bless 'im.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:42:41 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Loaf
Subject: I'll find out who he is
Message:
real life/character life at some point or other just to put the matter to rest:)

He's very handsome, at any rate. Yeah, she was in that weird Gormenghast thingy hahaha

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 00:56:01 (EST)
From: Joy
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: The handsome blond lad is Jamie
Message:
That's his character in EastEnders. Don't know his real-life name, though, the credits roll too fast. There's an official web site you can search on if you're really keen on him. I've watched just about every episode of that show from the very beginning and think it's kind of gone downhill recently. Prefer Emmerdale myself, though that's silly lately, too.

Oh well, an evening of soaps is still better than an evening of satsang, and god knows I spent more than enough of those in my lifetime.

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 10:43:01 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Joy
Subject: Yep Joy, that's him [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 11:15:43 (EST)
From: Joy
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Did you see the episode where he ...
Message:
... appeared without his shirt on recently? I'm sure every gay guy and teenage girl in the country went bananas. I think he may have been just clad in a towel waist-down, also, but being neither teenaged nor a gay man, I didn't pay too much attention.

We actually tried to give up watching EastEnders recently as it had gotten so boring, but were unsuccessful, got roped back in during the Zoe streetwalking thing. The Slaters are the only ones who keep it interesting now.

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 12:10:20 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Joy
Subject: Re: Did you see the episode where he ...
Message:
No I missed that Joy. Actually, I very, very rarely watch it.I did watch a little bit of it today though (near the end)and it seems misery guts Phil just can't survive without some enemy to get rid of or some vendetta to keep him busy :)

How old do you reckon Jamie is? 18/19?

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 10:51:44 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: BTW Joy
Message:
I have a friend in Cornwall and, like you ,she's watched EVERY episode of Eastenders too!! Have to be careful when to phone her so that soaps aren't interrupted but it's even more difficult actually because she has her own video recording system too,for whenever certain programmes clash :)

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 07:07:59 (EST)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: Joy
Subject: Soapsang is the way forward
Message:
the company of Soap

Jai Soap Chit Anand
x
Loaf

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 13:04:40 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Loaf
Subject: Re: Soapsang is the way forward
Message:
Loaf and Dermot have you seen the US version of Queer as Folk yet? The original series is out on video now and I'm totally addicted. Joe was right - there's a lot more sex and nudity than the Brit version.
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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 14:29:56 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: Re: Soapsang is the way forward
Message:
No,Pat,not seen it. Maybe it'll be shown over here at some point.

Does it keep pretty much to the UK storyline?

Of course it's not just sex and nudity I look for in drama :) :)

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 16:40:04 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Re: Soapsang is the way forward
Message:
Yes, it has the same characters and story line and actually the softcore porn is a distraction. I prefer my soaps to concentrate on the story and my porn to have no story at all. Mixing them is not my cup of tea but it has also shown me just what an old fuddy-duddy I am. Some of it even shocked me. :C)
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 05:25:08 (EST)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: CORRIE IS BEST.. Dont watch this miserable rubbish
Message:
eastenders is full of threats and misery, brookside is a total embarrassment of whining... and emmerdale is big business on a small scale -- ONLY Coronation Street remains true to the ethos of Big characters (and occaisionally Big hair)in a comedia of Arts !

Corry is wonderful... Norris in the Post office is a national treasure... and bet lynch is returning :)

That will be fun.

Ken barlow as a sex symbol only proves that Corries sense of irony is alive and well.

Squat ? hackney ? me too.. but 10 years later. cazenove Road.

As regards Good Looking Blonde lads Dermott - do you mean Joe who went mad ?

I liked him and Ricky best. Good hair both of em. The Bollock bald Mitchell twins are no fun at all :) Misery on legs.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 08:26:38 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Loaf
Subject: You heard it here first ...
Message:
Hi Loaf,

I'm not a Corrie addict myself, but I've got a little bit of news that might interest you - guess who's joining the cast in the Spring?

None other than that fine comedian, Roy Hudd.

(and he'll be playing the part of an undertaker!)

Believe.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 10:43:53 (EST)
From: Loaf
Email: None
To: cq
Subject: Gawd Blimey !
Message:
Roy Hudd in Corrie.... Babs in east Enders.. whats next ? Ken Dodd behind the bar of the Woolpack ??
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 12:07:03 (EST)
From: cq
Email: None
To: Loaf
Subject: Roy Chubby Brown in Home and Away?! (nt)
Message:
Roy Chubby Brown in Home and Away?! (nt)
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 18:09:33 (EST)
From: JHB
Email: None
To: jethro
Subject: Probably, but I hope....
Message:
... that the good set of scriptwriters will be on the story, as there has been some dubious scripts recently.

Some people think I'm badly off here in Latvia having no pubs but even in the east end there's only one pub to go to and everyone hates each other there.

John the very naive

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 19:01:12 (EST)
From: Voyeur
Email: None
To: JHB
Subject: Only one pub...
Message:
Yea, having been brought up in the East End of London, I KNOW that they wouldn't all go to the same pub....how can you carry on a good feud if you all go to the same pub?
Now watch from the US - just a week behind (instead of 4 years!) thanks to BBC America - but no thanks to the awful ads that run every 10 minutes
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 02:32:17 (EST)
From: Nigel
Email: nige@redcrow.demon.co.uk
To: Voyeur
Subject: What about the Dagmar?
Message:
You'd think they'd have rebuilt it by now after that fire of - what was it? - 12 years ago, or something. Wilmott-Brown the posh rapist and blues guitarist would certainly be out of jail, so he could he could come back in to run it - then you could have some proper feuding...

Actually, what always puzzled me in the days I used to squander hours per week watching soaps (mostly beause my then wife was into them) was the conspicuous absence of Irish characters. Very odd for the East End, don't you think?

Did Blossom and that Jewish barber guy ever come back from Israel?

How's Nick Cotton doing? - Has he poisoned his old mum yet..?

Nige (nowadays strictly just the Archers and no telly at all..)

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 09:08:37 (EST)
From: Ddermot
Email: None
To: Nigel
Subject: The Archers
Message:
Yeah the Archers .....I think Billy Connoly said the theme tune should be the National Anthem:)

Yeah, I listen to a fair amount of Rad 4 but don't really follow the Archers....eee arr lad, must go now and milk them cows....:)

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:07:09 (EST)
From: shri me
Email: None
To: Ddermot
Subject: Re: The Archers
Message:
that Siobhan and Brian have brought the programme to a new low, none of the cast seem to do any real farming any more.
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:50:57 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Occasional Poster
Subject: Thanks Opie - EV to be ''slimed'' down?
Message:
How much slimier can they get? :)
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 21:23:48 (EST)
From: Moley
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: Oh - you got there B4 me :) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 03:08:56 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Moley
Subject: I read the forum backwards anyway :C) [nt]
Message:
[nt]
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 16:26:53 (EST)
From: Steve Mueller
Email: None
To: All
Subject: Always fresh
Message:
Sent this little outburst to PatC and he asked me to pass this along to the rest of the F7 family.

Funny how the love and communication flows so freely and openly among us exes WITHOUT THE FRIGGIN GRACE OF THAT B
---
--D M! (Sorry, but that little outburst did shed a few thousand residual M devotion cells.)

God, you know, F7 is so great.
You know how M used to always say:
'I always say the same thing to you but it always sounds so new' ?
WRONG! Stale, very stale.
Any seemingly newness was due to our brainwashed minds telling us that we were SUPPOSED to be getting high off him cuz he was the LARD! The ALMIGHTY Friggin LARD!
With F7, you never know what folks will come out with. It is always fresh and infinitely more scintillating, liberating, and closer to the truth than M's tired old retread buttsangs.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 11:54:21 (EST)
From: Dermot
Email: None
To: Steve Mueller
Subject: and the PREMIE forum....
Message:
The level of debate (online, at least) amongst those who've discarded the shackles of a 'personality cult' is akin to senior level whereas the premie 'forum' (if that really is the right word) is kindergarten level.

Very little is ever exchanged, discussed (and yes even heatedly argued over) between themselves. Of course their excuse is that they have 'lives' in the real world, whereas all exes are stuck in a virtual world.Also, the whole point of being a premie( online, at least) is not to take anything (except the never ending 'fresh beginnings' of Prem Pal Rawat and his band of Merry corporate sycophants') too seriously, so what's the point of thinking about anything anyway? What's the point of weighing up the pros and cons of moral and ethical issues?What’s the point of ever voicing any hint of something above and beyond the party line?

I recently posted there (pretty much tongue in cheek) saying how I felt it was my forum as much as,say, Mili's or whoever (my reasoning being I, too,considered life to be great) and until barred, would continue to do so. Realisticlly, though, why would anyone, who enjoys intelligent writing, discussion and debate ever want to hang out there long term? When exes aren't there it's dead.The odd link is posted about 'video sales' or whatever or the odd little 'feelgood' new age one liner.

Fair enough, they don't have to get to know each and engage in stimulating intercourse but then , why bother having a forum anyway, if that's the case? They could as well use an email ring and just mail the latest'visions' price offers or something to each other once in a blue moon.

They are always in such a defensive mode, they find it hard to engage in any other way except for short, sharp nasty sniping or short banal new-ageisms.This is understandable to an extent because the ex stance does challenge theirs.I'm convinced a lot of the premies who pop in and out of there are, in most respects, decent, intelligent people.A few, I think, are nasty pieces of work( these are usually anonymous ) but I just can't believe they are truly reflecting their full, whole selves. I think this is where the slavish adherence to Maharaji comes into play.Mixed in there with their 'love and devotion' is an ingrained fear of something or other. It inhibits and stifles.It's very odd.

Earlier,I was careful to classify these as 'online' premies.I'm sure they aren't so stifled in real life, around family and friends or whatever. Surely not? I remember, often, having wide-ranging discussions with fellow premies (not all premies mind you, a minority), expressions of doubt,questions about the whole structure surrounding Maharji, questions about the nature of Maharaji himself.Admittedley, after a strong video or something and around the fragile 'official' environnent of EV, some would go into weird mode.A sort of state of being that conveyed a message of 'oh, hello you, yes we did talk about this and that but actually you're not really real, neither am I...isn't it wierd? Or is this bliss?'

Recently Isabella posted on LG and something she said really caught my eye.She said, in her opinion, all the accusations concerning Maharaji (apart from, perhaps, the Jagdeo issue) were “unimpressive” or just ”gossip fodder”. I responded to this and cited the “Fakiranand issue”. I remember how I felt/ thought about it when I was a premie.I didn’t know the full facts and certainly didn’t know he was sent to Europe immediatley after the crime but even so I managed to “shelve” it and not really give it much thought. I definitely didn’t attribute any blame or wrongdoing to Maharaji. Not just the actual incident but the way Maharaji handled it. Anyway, we ended up exchanging quite a few posts and credit to her, she was at least prepared to participate in some sort of dialogue. I found her responses wholly unconvincing and actually thought she was skirting around the issue and unable or unwilling to really face it head on. That was her perogative though and I had no desire to force her or cajole her one way or the other.It was frustrating, though, because I genuinely felt she was deliberately avoiding the issue and trying to pan it out so that I would cease from pinpointing the role of Maharji in the whole sordid affair. Other exes also joined the discussion. When the thread fizzled out (mainly because Isabella had a “life” and had to cook dinner or something) other premies wiped up the mess by nasty swipes at whoever,along with the usual “we don’t want you here” hahaha. Well fair enough, but it must have been obvious to the majority of observers that I was picking up on something Isabella had said and then having a civil, for the most part polite, discussion. The fact that this was viewed as so threatening, challenging and insulting is incredible. Had I gone to the forum using IDZap and posted little nasty one liners such as “ You’re all a bunch of cult tossers” up and down the forum then I’d understand their concerns and AGREE with them that I deserved to be thrown out. However, One self-designated forum Janitor (using ID zap for anonymity because even on “home” turf just couldn’t pluck up the courage to be real) did, indeed, then proceed to sweep the forum clean of “discourse”. Mili also was his usual sociable self, full of the joys and experience of “Knowledge”(not).
All in all, it’s quite sad I think. Contrast this main ex forum (and the mainly ex OT forum) with LG. Yes, sometimes we have a go at each other throats (so to speak ! ) and at times vehemently disagree. The recent “racism” sub-thread of OTS’s post is a good example of intelligent disagreement.Healthy in my opinion. The way some voiced their opinions/concerns about Deb posting a pic (and Debs angry rebuttal!)….it’s all healthy in my opinion. Why? Simply because we are adults who fundamentally appreciate the forum and, despite real disagreements at times ,are prepared, on the whole, to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and get on with intelligent discourse.

To conclude, the real forum Janitor over on LG (CD,bless him) said , yes, I could continue there if I say something nice or inspiring once in a while!! Well, they can rest easy, I won’t be moving in and taking over the joint actually!! However, if and when I do post there it will be because I have something honest and intelligent to say. Something, based on my life experience, that carries conviction. Maybe in response to something that someone has said and I consider mistaken or something I think is worth thinking about and pondering over. It won’t be posted to insult premies or to “pick on “ premies but if that’s how some premies read it then frankly that’s their problem, not mine.

Cheers

Dermot

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 15:56:50 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Dermot
Subject: Excellent appraisal, Dermot!
Message:
Indeed, I responded on LG by saying:

You're so right. This place is usually as stark, empty and absurd as the set for Waiting for Godot. Premies have it so tough in a way. There are indeed a million 'wrong' things they can say to each other. They're constantly changing how they think and talk about M and K. So long as they don't have to say much they can smile at each other and talk about the weather but that's about it.

Talk about lonely!

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 20:04:15 (EST)
From: Brian Smith
Email: None
To: Steve Mueller
Subject: Intelligent and stimulating too
Message:
probably one of the most intelligent and stimulating site's on the whole world wide web.

Ever check into some of the other chat rooms out there, people sound like a bunch of truckers talking to one another on CB's,

Hey, how ya doin today cyberbuddie, its's raining here, took the cat to the Vet, just got back and had to check in to see what's happening out here in the land of organ transplant survivors, hows your new liver working, yada yada yada. Now I admit that if one has had an organ transplant (and this is just for example only, the chat room topics are endless) any conversation at all is a worthwhile one, I just don't find this sort of folksie hi yall stuff to be very interesting, no matter where it comes from.

We definately are an eclectic group of individuals with many varied styles and backgrounds. Mostly I find the company here to be highly intelligent, and stimulating.

Other chat rooms are filled with reports about the weather, or the personal daily trivia which fills the agenda of many of the other web sites.

The creme de la creme of the internet communicators gather here

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 16:40:03 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Steve Mueller
Subject: Re: Always fresh
Message:
The bit I liked best was: ''Sorry, but that little outburst did shed a few thousand residual M devotion cells.'' :)
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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 17:48:41 (EST)
From: Marshall
Email: None
To: PatC
Subject: Re: Always fresh
Message:
I am always entertained here at forum 7, what a great bunch of people, no really I mean it. It sounds a little corny, but this really is a fun cyberspot to visit.
I have learned some very interesting facts off topic, and on, here, over the years(4-5 already?)
I liked it when Jim and Nigel used to talk about evolution, genetics, and brain chemistry, etc. Those were some interesting discussions, are they in the archives?
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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 00:52:41 (EST)
From: Jim
Email: None
To: Marshall
Subject: But the evolution discussion continues!
Message:
Marshall,

If you're still interested in the evolution discussion, it continues on Sat Chit Anand. Well, actually it's more like G talking to himself but I'm sure, if you joined him, he'd be happy to explain to you how things work. Kinda.

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Date: Sat, Feb 09, 2002 at 03:42:11 (EST)
From: PatC
Email: None
To: Jim
Subject: Re: But the evolution discussion continues!
Message:
I think G is publishing his notes for his Apologia Pro Creationism and doesn't mind much talking to himself. Most of it is way over my head and, not being a creationist, I'm not motivated to read it.

Evolutionism, especially the role of the ''survival of the fittest,'' while still not thoroughly explored or documented, is a bit like the capitalism or I should say the market-place. Neither are theories or ideologies. They are simply facts of life.

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Date: Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 18:56:27 (EST)
From: p
Email: None
To: Marshall
Subject: I agree, Marshall
Message:
You said: ''I have learned some very interesting facts off topic....I liked it when Jim and Nigel used to talk about evolution, genetics, and brain chemistry, etc. Those were some interesting discussions, are they in the archives?''

Me too. The off-topic stuff also helped me to understand the posters in more depth. The only OT stuff which I hope is never re-introduced is politics. It tends to dominate discussion as it has in the Chit Chatroom; is too contentious and most of us are too old and set in our ways to change our political spots at this stage - well, except for chickens like you.

PatC:C)

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