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Best
of the Press
Articles
In spite of
Elan Vital/DLM & Prem Rawat's attempts to avoid the
press and silence critics, dozens of articles have appeared
since the early days of the 'mission'. Contrast this list
with the list of articles on Prem Rawat's Foundations's
website, [http://www.tprf.org/media_press_room.htm].
It's odd that none of the articles on this list are included
on Prem Rawat's press page.
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Is
Maharaji Really The Best Medicine?
by
Charlotte Hofton - April 2005
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Peace
at a price
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The
Courier-Mail - April 24, 2004
by Hedley Thomas
Thousands
of devotees mill about the tent sites pitched
for an international love-in with the
Maharaji. But, as Hedley Thomas tells, there
are unhappy campers trying to bring the
affluent peace guru down a peg or two
JIM Barrow lowers his voice and suggests a
table out of earshot of a group munching
McMuffins in the shadows of the golden arches
on the outskirts of Ipswich.
He and his wife, Maureen, don't readily trust
strangers in these parts any more. Too many
bizarre things going down, he reckons
....
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Court
lets 'cult' gag journalist
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The
Australian - March 11, 2004
by Sally Jackson
LAST
week scores of journalists received an email
with the enticing subject line: "Cult moves
to silence journalist". The bulk mail-out was
done by freelance reporter John Macgregor,
who in 2001 won the George Munster Award for
Independent Journalism, to draw attention to
his legal battle with Ivory's Rock Conference
Centre Pty Ltd in Ipswich in south-east
Queensland.
"I have been silenced for four months by a
Supreme Court gag order gained by a religious
cult I exposed," Macgregor wrote. "The only
arrow I have left in my quiver is public
scrutiny of this. I believe it is in the
interest of all journalists that the story is
covered."
Immediately, the story got complicated
....
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Bristol
Evening Post articles
Several
articles appeared in the local press before
and after
Prem Rawat's events in Bristol (June 14-15,
2003)
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CONTROVERSY
OVER COLSTON HALL DATES BY EX-GURU;
A LOT OF CASH FOR "EXPENSES" :
Letter to the editor;
MANY THINGS ARE KEPT SECRET :
Cynthia Gracie's letter to the Bristol Evening
Post;
Church leader's warning over movement's
promises :
Don't Waste Your Lives.
(Read
the articles)
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Glen
Whitaker replies :
For those unaware of this, Glen complained to
the Guardian about an article on Jonathan
Cainer's devotion to Rawat, and said that Elan
Vital had no connection to Divine Light Mission.
When the Guardian was provided with proof that
even in the UK, the people running EV had full
control of all DLM's information, Glen dropped
his complaint;
POTENT PROMISE OF INNER PEACE :
A journalist's view on Rawat's address at
Colston Hall;
FORMER FOLLOWERS HAVE NEW MESSAGE :
ex-followers' interviews;
SPIRITUAL BODY FACES INQUIRY :
The Charity Commission is investigating Elan
Vital;
WE ARE HONOURED TO HEAR PREM SPEAK :
Someone in Bristol still cares for Rawat ...
(Read
the articles)
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Blinded
by the Light
, by John Macgregor
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Good
Weekend magazine, Melbourne & Sydney -
August 2002
Back
in 1972, John Macgregor fell under the spell
of Guru Maharaji, a plump 14-year-old who
promised - and for a while delivered - divine
peace of mind. The former follower recalls,
on the eve of Maharaji's latest Australian
visit, his 28-year journey to disillusionment
...
(Read
the article)
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Perfect
Master and unholy
squabbles
, by Mick Brown
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Street
Life Magazine Article -
1976
The
Guru comes of age: ON DECEMBER 10, 1975
Balyogeshwar Param Hans Satgurudev Shri Sant Ji
Maharaj, the Guru Maharaj Ji, Satguru, Perfect
Master, Dispeller of Darkness, came of age.
Followers of the Guru throughout India, America,
and Europe celebrated in the customary manner -
with a party. The Guru himself celebrated by
appointing a new board of trustees to the
English branch of his Divine Light Mission,
thereby foiling attempts by his mother and elder
brother, Shri Bal Bhagwan Ji, to gain control of
the Mission and its resources in this country
... (Read
the article)
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DEATH
OF THE SALESMAN
, by Robert Scheer
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Playboy
magazine - June
1974
So
we'll have an organization like
SDS, only God will be the Commander
in Chief.
- RENNIE DAVIS
History
repeats itself . . . the first time
as tragedy and the second time as farce.
- KARL MARX
(Read
the article)
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I See
the Light
, by Ken Kelley
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Penthouse
magazine Article - July
1974
In
which a young journalist pushes a cream pie into
the face of His Divine Fatness and gets his
skull cracked open by two disciples ... Tuesday,
August 7, 1973, was a good day for Pat Halley.
He and his comrades on Detroit's stalwart
underground newspaper, the Fifth Estate, were
going down to the City-County Building on a very
important mission-a divine mission, you could
say. Guru Maharaj Ji, the corpulent teenage
avatar, had asked to be presented with the key
to the city, a propaganda stunt he'd pulled off
in several other towns, and a liberal do-gooder
on the council had agreed to sponsor him ...
(Read
the article)
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Who
Was Maharaj Ji?
, by Marjoe Gortner
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OUI
Magazine Article - May
1974
The
world's most overweight midget. Forget him.
Just think of him as a spare tire.
"In the trunk you have a spare wheel in case one
of your wheels goes flat. Just think of me as
your spare wheel when you go flat." Everyone
goes crazy at that.
GURU MAHARAJ JI ...
(Read
the article)
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Godhead
Hi-Jinx
, by Richard Elman
Creem
magazine article, March 1974
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Salvation
Slapstick with the Guru Maharaj
Ji
"Blissed
out." In the corners of the eyes a squinch. The
placid glossy smiling faces I saw at the
Astrodome in Houston for Millenium 73 were the
lovers of God, or premies of the soi disant 15
year old Perfect Master, Guru Maharaj Ji.
"A thousand years of peace for people who want
peace." A certain high, and away look, lacking
very much immediate sensual imprint, as if they
had all risen briefly upward from some page of
newsprint for a moment to be frozen above a very
dull matte finish ....
(Read
the article)
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The
Little Guru Without
A Prayer
- by Richard Levine
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Rolling
Stone Article - March 1974
When
The Lord of All The Universe Played Houston.
Many are called but few show up
!
In
the damp late autumn of 1973 it did not take a
religious fanatic in a tattered overcoat to
sense that the real Kingdom lay within, things
being as rotten as they were without. There was
an unmistakable apocalyptic chill in the air.
Corruption in Washington. Mass murders in Texas
and California. UFO sightings across the South.
An energy crisis that threatened to turn off the
Christmas lights and slow Americans down to 55
miles per hour. Reports that the brightest comet
ever recorded would soon trail orange clouds of
cosmic dust over the whole land. One imagines
looking through cracks in the wall at glaciers
clinking outside like ice cubes in a tray
...
(Read
the article)
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Why
is Guru Maharaj Ji
- saying all these terrible things about
God?
Penthouse
74 - By Dean Latimer
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With
winter at full tilt, it shouldn't hurt to take a
look through the secondhand peacoats and parkas
at your local Divine Sales outlet. They're bound
to be absurdly cheap, marked up only minimally,
if at all, from the price they were going for
last summer, when their owners sacrificed them
to the Guru Maharaj Ji to accumulate pradash in
their quest for Divine Peace.
Pradash, you ask? Well, expressed in profane and
dualistic Western terms, pradash is sort of the
upward mobility the pilgrim soul acquires in its
search for the Divine Light, by cutting itself
loose of those material attachments that keep
the poor mortal sinner chained to this
unendurable life. This is very profound: by
giving up your peacoat to the local Divine Sales
outlet, you attain a trace of pradash to grease
your chute to Eternal Tranquility, and
moreover-and most marvelous!-the Divine Light
Mission, Inc., likewise gains a pittance from
the garment's resale to further its work in
converting the heathen and establishing the
Millennium of Divine Peace on this planet earth
... (Read
the article)
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Over
the Hill at 16
- by Ken Kelley
Ramparts
Magazine Article - 1974
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"Either
Guru Maharaj Ji is for real,
or he's the biggest fraud of all time."
- Rennie Davis
Walking down the plane ramp, it suddenly hits me
that this is Houston, capital of 20th Century
Texas, nerve center of space exploration, and
home of the Astrodome. Its builders designed
this Eighth Wonder of the World as a temple for
football, baseball and conventions. But its true
purpose, as Rennie Davis and the others in the
Divine Light Mission have proclaimed, is to be
the launching pad for the 16-year-old Messiah
from India. For three days it will contain the
first God-in-the-Flesh in 1,973 years: Millenium
'73... (Read
the article)
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God
Goes to the Astrodome
- by Thorne Dreyer
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Texas
Monthly - January
1974
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A
fat 15-year-old inaugurated 1000 years of peace
in Houston this fall.
Don't look now, but the people you went to
college with may be following him.
The Maharaj Ji has fused the New Left and the
flower children, galvanized serious
college-educated young people, and promised a
new era of peace. And it was all supposed to
begin in Houston ...
(Read
the article)
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Guru
Blisses Out on Synthetic
Grass
- by Paul Goldsmith, with Artie Traum
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Crawdaddy
Article - February 1974
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This
premie with washed-out eyes is offering a
handful of rose petals to me. He's insisting I
touch them, even though I'm hauling 60 pounds of
equipment on my back. He's giggling constantly
and pushing them under my nose. "Do you know who
touched these? The Lord of the Universe." He
giggles some more and wanders off slowly.
There were about three thousand people at the
airport at this point. The Guru had swept
through, given a quick speech and left in a
flower-bedecked Rolls Royce. It was all over so
fast that I was reduced to taking a photograph
of his empty throne being carted off the stage
surrounded by premies reaching out to kiss
it...
(Read
the article)
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Blissing
Out in Houston
- New York Review of Books Article -
1973
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What's
Behind the 15-Year-Old Guru Maharaj
Ji?
- The Realist - December 1973
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Guru
Goons Loose
- 2nd Article by the Fifth Estate Magazine - December
1973
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THE TWO FOLLOWERS OF MAHARAJ
JI WHO TRIED TO KILL A FIFTH ESTATE
REPORTER ARE STILL ACTIVE AT THE
TOP LEVELS OF THE MISSION.
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Guru
- by Frank Rose
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Fusion
Magazine Article - 1973
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It's not really unusual for individuals to
declare themselves to be God. The mental
hospitals are filled with such cases, along with
assorted Joan of Arcs, Napoleons and Jesuses.
What is unusual is for them to have six million
followers.
I first heard of the 15-year-old guru when he
was 13. A friend of mine was on his way to
Washington Square Park to punch the kid in the
nose, but it rained and nobody showed up. It was
the first time I'd ever heard of God getting
rained out, but I didn't worry about it.
(Read
the article)
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The
Guru Game
- Peace which passeth all understanding.
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Ramparts
Magazine - July
1973
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The
First Word - The
Editors
Mystic
Politics: Refugees from the New Left. Analysis
by Andrew Kopkind
Many
former political activists have recently turned
to spiritualism, and they are now active in a
variety of mystical sects. Andrew Kopkind
examines this
phenomenon.
A
Reader's Guide to the New Mysticism, by
Joshu
Blissed
Out With The Perfect Master, An
investigative report by Ken
Kelly
(Read
the serie of
articles)
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Pat
Halley's in Good Shape
- and Exotic Religious Techniques Exposed
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Fifth
Estate Magazine Article -
1973
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Guru's
Secret
Pat
Halley, the Fifth Estate reporter who was
savagely beaten and almost killed by two
devotees of the 15-year old Guru Maharaj Ji, was
released from Detroit General Hospital Aug. 21
in good condition after undergoing surgery to
repair a caved-in portion of his skull.
The two assailants, 25 year old Richard
Fletcher, from the United States, and 55 year
old Juteswar Misra, from India, have reportedly
confessed to the attack and warrants have been
issued by the Detroit police. However, the two
are not in police custody, even though the
Divine Light Mission (the Guru's organization)
issued a release to the press indicating that
the two would surrender to authorities ...
(Read
the article)
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God
Comes to Detroit
- Fifth Estate Magazine, August 1973
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The
CREAM
conspiracy
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Divine
Knowledge: Big Profit
The
evening sun itself seems full of bliss, shining
down on the tidy brick house on Boston Street.
The curious and the devoted enter slowly and
quietly in small groups of two or three. They
stop at the door and remove their shoes and then
they step onto the soft, thick carpet and into
the, living room where an altar has been set
up.
Shoes
fill the hall closet and spill out onto the
front porch. A devotee lines them up into neat
little rows. So many people are here tonight.
The word is spreading like the Guru said it
would. And in a few weeks, He will be here too
... (Read
the article)
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