Mishler's Maharaji tapes. Part 2

[David Stirling]

...See part 1 for the background and intro to this second installment of
Bob Mishler's last radio interview before his death in an air crash. Bob
was the founding president of Divine Light Mission in the US, a cult
surrounding Guru Maharaji which still attracts thousands of dedicated
followers.

Caller 1: It's really a relief to hear somebody who has left one of
these cult religions rather than being on the air to convert people.
What is your purpose now in speaking out against the Church? Are you
just simply stating your own case or are you involved in trying to win
other people away from the group, to get them to look at it more
objectively?

BM: I think that I have to agree with you in that I am trying to get
people to look at him more critically now, particularly people who are
in a position to influence current members. I don't expect that very
many current members are going to even really listen to what I have to
say, but maybe their families will, maybe some of their friends will.

In fact, since I made the statement after the incident in Guyana (mass
suicide of cult members), I've had phone calls continuously from parents
and concerned friends and family members from all over the country.
They have been asking if I could give information or they have just
wanted to talk to me about what they can do, how can they talk to their
loved ones who are still involved, because they are really at a loss to
know how to reach them. It's such an all-inclusive belief system.

C1: Is it a problem for you to get them to listen to you? Is it hard to
get them alone? Do they just hang around with each other for the most
part?

BM: Yes, they have their own world in a way.

C1: I tried to talk to them myself. I would characterise them basically
as being young, not street-wise or hip, in fear or confused, with very
little ability to cope with the world outside of a group. Another thing
I am thinking about is perhaps they are looking for the good parents
that they didn't have. Maybe they've come from basically unhappy family
situations, which isn't that unusual. It might even be typical, you
know, people in society.

BM: Yes, I think that certainly what you have said would apply to some
of the people involved. It's hard to capture everybody with a
generalisation.

C1: Oh, sure, I've met some people who are basically intelligent. I was
talking to some guy who had advanced degrees. I went to one of the
satsngs. The guy sounded pretty intelligent, and I said: 'What about
the Guru's behaviour? What about the fact that he's overweight? What
about the fact that he's had speeding tickets in his Maserati? He's a
young guy and he got married to a woman maybe ten years older than
himself and he's already got several kids. He seems to carry on a lot'.

This guy was saying: 'This doesn't concern me that much'. I guess
different people in the church have their own degrees of what they will
accept, just like in any other church

DJ: However, there are professional people, attorneys, certainly not
your wandering little lost souls. I don't know whether that is still
the case, but it was at the time that I was familiar with the Divine
Light Mission. There were also people who were very street-wise.

C1: Just because a person is a lawyer or something doesn't mean that
he's not an easy mark. I mean, look at the psychics, like Uri Geller.
They took in some scientists, as they knew how a person could be fooled
by optical illusions, etc. The only ones that could show up these guys
like Uri Geller were the magicians; the real sceptics. They knew the
various tricks - the hand is quicker than the eye, etc. They always
said: 'Well, let me be in the room when Uri Geller is performing one of
his tricks and I'll show you how I can do the same thing'

DJ: Well, they can do the same thing by trick. However, there were a
number of studies with Geller. I don't want to go into that.

BM: I think that what you are talking about is that there are a lot of
different reasons why people need to believe in something. One other
aspect that you must consider is when a person does believe that things
do happen for that person. That has happened to a lot of people who
have been involved in the Divine Light Mission. They have experiences
that are very satisfying and fulfilling to them.

The only thing that I object to is the way they are taught to attribute
whatever experience they have to the Guru himself. This is actually
where they are actually being taken advantage of.

C1: I believe that each person is God, and that God is in man. It is up
to all of us to find the God in ourselves and develop it to be best of
our ability. Do the best you can, and good will come to you'. I think
that's basically my own belief, and I was wondering if your guest has
come around to this point of view if he is still working for divinity
somewhere.

BM: Well, I don't think I was ever really looking for divinity except
within myself. Essentially, Maharaji was teaching that in the very
beginning himself. It's only over the course of time that it has
changed and become an idol worship cult.

C1: I remember in 1971 back in New York, from the very first, the
impression of the advertising was that the Guru was God, yet he didn't
say that himself, everyone else around him said that he was God.

BM: Well, again, that just shows the latitude that there was. You could
believe he was God if you wanted to. I didn't really want to believe
that he was God, and so I didn't.

DJ (to caller): OK, thank you. Bye bye.

Caller 2: Bob, I assume that you are out of the Divine Light Mission
altogether?

BM: Yes, that's correct.

C2: What are you doing now? Have you changed your spiritual beliefs
substantially since that point? In other words, what did you see or not
see in the Guru that caused you to get out of it?

BM: Well, I essentially saw that the Guru wasn't what he was being
purported to be. In fact, not only was he not God or divine in any way,
but he wasn't really even capable of guiding his followers. He didn't
know enough about the meditation himself really to be able to even
instruct the disciples that were teaching meditation on his behalf, when
critical questions came up.

Even though he was supposedly reviewing the means to perfect peace to
all of his following, he himself had tremendous problems of anxiety
which he combated with alcohol. It even developed into a high blood
pressure condition caused by essential hypertension, which is a form of
internalising anxiety.

So here was a man who was supposedly revealing perfect peace to everyone
else, and I figured he couldn't even guide his own life, let alone guide
others.

C2: How could people ever think that a 15 year old kid could be God in
the first place is beyond me. The accounts that we have of Jesus in the
New Testament are so vastly different.

DJ: Remember only that those accounts are long after the fact, and they
are as his followers saw him, and not necessarily as he really was.

BM: Also remember that Maharaji puts on a good show, and the theatrics
involved are very appealing to the kind of mass consciousness that you
get in the crowds he appears in. Most of the members have never really
seen him as he actually is. They have only seen him under very well-
staged and planned conditions.

C2: I think the bottom line about the whole thing is that the Scripture
says that in the latter days many false Christs will come out,
professing themselves to be Christ.

DJ: Except we've had those for the last 2,000 years, for the last 3,000
years.

Caller 3: Bob, may I compliment you on choosing the most gullible people
in this universe for the adventure of your mission.

DJ: I wonder what that meant.

BM: Well, if anything, I think they are self-selected. The call is put
out, and maybe it is gullible people who come. I think it is people who
are maybe have as their one great fault that they are naive and
innocently trusting.

DJ: Isn't that true of really almost any totally devoted religious
follower?

BM: I would say so. In that sense, I don't really feel that they are
that much different than anybody else. I think that some of the people
that I met are some of the finest people I have ever known. It's a
shame, in a way, that they are being deceived, but nevertheless, as I
tried to explain to one of the other callers, they get a lot of benefits
from their association with each other and certainly they have their own
experience.

The problem is when you see people taking such a toll upon themselves,
because the nature of their belief is such that when anything goes right
in their lives, well, that's the grace of Guru Maharaji. When anything
goes wrong, well, that's themselves. That's their minds. So they are
kind of in a bind, where anything that's beneficial they have to credit
to the Guru, and anything that's bad, well, they know that they're just
not trying hard enough. So a lot of them have a great deal of
difficulty. They are very hard put-upon.

A lot of the professional people that you were mentioning before had to
give up their professions, simply because part of their calling now is
that they must attend these festivals that the Guru has all the time.
In fact, he's having one here in Denver in about two weeks' time.

They have to travel all over the country and to other parts of the world
to attend these on average of every three or four months. Consequently,
they can't hold a job. They can't maintain a profession. They get very
impoverished as a result of this. They have to not only pay to get into
these festivals, but they are also expected to make a cash contribution
to the Guru, when they go through the ritual of kissing his feet.

So these kinds of beliefs do take a toll on the people, even though they
may feel that they are getting something from it. It's very
captivating, and there is a sinister element to it that is hidden from
people.

Caller 4: Everything is within yourself, within your body and mind. I
agree with that, as far as he was preaching. But how do explain his
character? Do you explain him as a magician, or somebody who has
extraordinary power? Of course, I've never seen his performance.

BM: If you ever knew anything about him, you would know that he
inherited a following from his father. It was his father who really
started the Divine Light Mission. When he was eight years old, his
father died and he was put upon the throne of his father. So he had a
tremendous following in India, and he had played this role for that
following for five years before he ever showed up in this country.

So he had had a lot of practice, and it's a kind of a mass consciousness
phenomenon that takes place. In a crowd, people are receptive to images
that they might not really be receptive to in a conversation one-on-one;
at least, they are impacted in a way by those images. He used to tell
his story to a receptive crowd of eager seekers who wanted more insight
into their own spiritual practice.

He was saying the kind of things that you could relate to, and there was
a kind of reaction that took place between the crowd and him. He was
portrayed in such a way that he was the master. He was the one who was
sitting on the throne up on the stage.

C4: So what you are saying is that every thirteen year old boy who
would have that type of training and background could be able to perform
that way.

BM: I'm not saying that everyone would be able to. Obviously, you would
have to have certain aptitude for it.

C4: And charisma.

BM: Yes. Charisma is the concept we are talking about. In fact, it's
not only the capacity on the part of the individual to speak with
absolute authority, but it must also be reciprocated by the crowd. The
crowd must be receptive to it.

For example, I have been with this same person in lots of situations
where he would not seem significant. You wouldn't notice him. In fact,
for the most part, he had a very difficult time with just getting
people's attention or handling normal day-to-day interaction with
people. When he was out on the stage on that throne, speaking into the
microphone and being amplified, he had the charisma.

DJ: There have been many young people who have been religious leaders in
the past. There is a young kid now who preaches.

BM: Krishnamurti was another example of someone who was picked out at an
early age to play that role. Of course, when he got older, he realised
that wasn't correct. He bowed out. I sort of hold that out for
Maharaji too. Maybe someday, he'll let these people go and he'll quit
squeezing them for their money. It would probably be in everybody's best
interests if he would do that. He hasn't reached that point yet.

C4: I sure appreciate your effort in sharing all your experiences and
thoughts with the public. I hope more people listen to you and don't
fall into something that you did.

BM: Thank you.

Caller 5: Hello. I am a Christian calling from Albuquerque. I assume
you are Jewish, is that correct? (to DJ).

DJ: Yes. My statement, though, would apply to any religion.

C5: Well, I am a Christian, and it kind of bothered me because I know
that as a Jew, you don't accept Jesus as your Messiah. I'd say that the
differences between Jesus and Maharaji are substantial.

DJ: Well, let me preface what I am going to say by saying that I don't
want to change anybody's religious belief into anything or away from
anything. One of the responsibilities that we have as individuals is to
recognise our freedom of choice, and to recognise also the similarities
in all religious movements.

That same thing is true in Christianity, or the Divine Light Mission, or
in various times in Jewish history when there have been Jewish Messiahs
that have popped up. They developed a tremendous following; there were
numbers of them. The same thing is true in Islam and Hinduism. You
have to recognise that aspect of all religious philosophy.

C5: I am glad that you have brought that point out. It's not that I'm
afraid that Jesus can't stand up with Budda, Mohammed, Maharaji or any
of these individuals. I believe that the Bible stands on its own merit.
The scepticism of myself or anyone else cannot reduce the fact that
Jesus, I believe, was who he said he was.

DJ: The important thing here is that you believe. As long as you
believe, that is fine. But it is a system of belief, because in any
religion, there ain't no proof!

C5: Well, as they say, the proof is in the pudding.

DJ: Well, that isn't necessarily true. I think that ultimately
whatever you believe in, if you believe in it strongly enough and feel
that it changes your life, then it provides satisfaction for you.
Really, that's all a religion can do.

C5: I think that it's possible to be sincere, but it's also possible to
be sincerely wrong, as he is proving very well this morning.

BM: I don't think that it's as simple as being sincerely wrong. One
thing you don't have the capacity to do, except through your own faith,
is to put Jesus to the test. In your faith, you can do that. With the
Premis, the members of the Divine Light Mission, they can in fact put
Maharaji to the test because he is here.

They tend to rationalise everything that he does. I lived with him and
I saw him as he actually is, not as he is staged to be. In doing that,
I saw that he isn't what he purports himself to be. To that extent, I
don't even think that he is sincerely wrong, I think that he is
deliberately deceiving people.

DJ: You see, we don't have people around from the early foundations of
Judaism that we can put on the grill and who are willing to come
forward, because they are dead! The same thing is true of Christianity,
or Hinduism, or Islam, or anything else. We don't have those people
around. So all we have are the books about them.

There will be a time in the future when the Guru will no longer be
around, and when the Bob Mishlers will no longer be around. At that
point, what will the followers of the Guru believe, and how big will it
become?

C5: I believe that there is more to life than just this one world. I
believe that, based on the Bible, each and every one of us will give
account to God someday. I believe in the person of Jesus Christ. This
of course would relate to Maharaji, in that what our faith is placed in
will determine our eternal destiny. We all have to believe, but we all
have to have the proper belief and have it channelled in the right area.

DJ: Thank you. Do you have any comment, Bob?

BM: Well, you said it. Our belief is a personal matter.

Caller 6: I am just really confused right now about Maharaji. I didn't
actually receive the knowledge, but I went to a couple of those
seminars. I've just been really confused about what to think about the
whole thing. Since I dropped out of it, I feel like I may have been
sort of brainwashed into it, and yet maybe not. I was halfway believing
that stuff for a while. Now I'm just at a point where I'm confused
about what to think of the whole thing.

BM: Well, the people who are trying to convince you that he is God
probably really believe that. The thing is, they don't know who he is.
There are very few people who do, because he keeps who he is very well
hidden from people. He plays that role and he wants you to believe that
he is God.

If you believe that he is your Lord, then you become his willing slave.
You completely dedicate your life to him. In the course of serving
him, of dedicating your life to him, you provide his means of support
and income. That's really what's at the core of it. It's sad, because
there's no provision being made for these people.

There are so many of them in his ashrams. That word is roughly
equivalent to the English word 'monastery'. He has a number of people
living in them in a state of poverty, chastity and obedience. These
people give all of their fruit of their labour to him.

Some of them are probably under the impression that he is using it to
spread his knowledge, to spread the practice of meditation and the means
of inner peace to the people of the world. In fact, that's really not
what happens. Most of the money just goes to support him in his
lifestyle.

As far as the brainwashing aspect, well, it is similar to brainwashing
in the sense that you have a great deal of social pressure. Usually,
people that do get involved, and I would guess that this was the same
for you, get involved because of other people.

You're always in a situation where there are a lot more people around
who believe then there are people who don't. Just the sheer number of
people around you who believe, all talking about how they thought the
same things that you thought, they had all the same doubts, etc, etc,
and continuing to testify that now they know, now they have the truth...

It's all set up that you really must go along with it if you want to
continue to have that sort of social interaction with that group of
people. As far as being an aspirant; even that condition makes
you vulnerable to the pressures to conform, because you're in a
situation where you're seeking social approval.

The biggest approval of all is being selected as being ready to be
initiated into the 'perfect knowledge'. Of course, nowadays, I guess
that's probably why you had to leave. You have to accept him as God
before they initiate you. You have to essentially take the whole
religion and accept it before you have even got any inkling of what the
experience that they are talking about is.

That's just the reverse of the way is started. In the beginning days,
he used to say: 'You'd be a fool if you accepted anything that anybody
says about me before you experience this knowledge'. Of course, now,
they won't even initiate you until you accept this.

C6: Did you actually experience the knowledge while you were involved in
this and living with him? Did you really have good experiences from
that? Did you really feel happier in you life? Or did it just get you
more confused until you finally decided that it wasn't for you?

BM: I think meditation is something that could be of value to anyone who
could learn these relatively simple practices to be able to focus their
concentration inward and enhance their own consciousness in that manner.
I still feel there is a value in that.

But the way that it is being taught in the Divine Light Mission now,
this whole way of life... it's a whole religious dogma that goes along
with it. I think that's very detrimental. In fact, meditation - even
the way they encourage people to practice it - can be detrimental. They
encourage people to use meditation to suppress their minds, their
questioning, their doubting.

This to me is something that is not necessary to attain peace. There is
a certain amount of uncertainty that exists in the world, and you don't
have to eliminate that in order to have peace. To me, this a distortion
of the Yogic practices that were essentially at the core of what was
being taught originally.

It's being done deliberately now, because what they want people to do is
find fulfilment in the belief that they are saved by accepting Guru
Maharaji as their Lord. Then, the only purpose in their life is to
serve him. That means just working at your job for two or three months
at a time, and then going to his festivals.

C6: Another thing I'm really confused about is all those kind people
giving him all this money. Was it really just a big financial racket
for him to get rich? Does he really want people to find peace?

BM: Well, the kind of peace he's offering is not real peace. It's
called annihilation of your individuality. If you can call that
peace... well, I guess a frontal lobotomy would do the same thing. It
would be a lot quicker, and would probably have very sure results.

He wants people to continue working because it's by them coming to the
festivals, paying their admissions and giving their donations when
they're kissing his feet that he makes his money. He doesn't have any
other income. He lives a very, very extravagant lifestyle.

Caller 7: There are just a couple of things bothering me. Firstly, you
have a man here (Bob Mishler) who says that because he sees wrong in the
Divine Light Mission, that makes it wrong for everybody. Therefore, it
is wrong for everybody because it is just objectively wrong.

BM: Well, I didn't really say that; you're attributing that, but go on.

C7: Well, it just seemed to me that because you were saying that it
couldn't possibly be right, it was evil and bad for anybody to be in it,
because they were going to lose their individuality, their personality,
all kinds of things. It seems to me that you are starting on a road
towards anti-religion in general, because all religions do this to some
extent or another. They ask that you believe in something that cannot
be proved. If examined closely, it may even be unlikely.

DJ: Well, yes, but understand something. Firstly, Bob was President of
the Divine Light Mission from 1971 to 1977. His differences with the
Divine Light Mission are not over practices of meditation, but over the
financial aspects of the mission itself, and over the motivation of the
Guru.

C7: What motivates the Guru? Possibly only the Guru could answer that.

DJ: Well, he had an opportunity (and I don't know whether you heard it
earlier in the show) to find out because he lived with the Guru.

C7: I didn't hear that part. But the thing that bothered me was that
the financial aspects. He's obviously getting donations from everybody.
So does any church.

DJ: But does any church then use those donations to have Maseratis and
Mercedes? Do the ministers of the churches lead an opulent lifestyle?
Do they want to continue with it only so that they can? You didn't hear
the beginning of the show. Those were some of the inside things that
were discussed in meetings that Bob had with the Guru.

C7: One of the reasons my father left the Presbyterian church was
because ministers were kept in large mansions in the best part of town.

DJ: Did you hear what I just now said?

C7: Yes...

DJ: It had to do with the motivation of the Guru. His motivation. The
Guru's reasons why.

C7: OK. The other thing that bothered me: a couple of people have come
on and said that the Guru is nowhere like Christ. At the risk of
sounding pedantic, I must say that Christ was supposed to be (at least,
when I was taught) 100 percent man as well as 100 percent God. Also, he
was famed for going to parties, keeping company with moneylenders, and
changing water into wine.

DJ: Are you a member of the Divine Light Mission?

C7: No.

DJ: OK, I'm just curious. There are similarities, you're right. I
wouldn't argue with that.

C7: It's just that so many people are saying that Christ wasn't human.
That seems an atrocity to me. That's about all I have to say.

DJ: OK, thank you. Bye bye.

Caller 8: Bob, I wonder if you'd go along (and I think you will) with
the thought I have that we wouldn't have any cult without a leader with
exceptional charisma. Would you go along with that?

BM: Well as I explained before, charisma is a by-product of the
individual in the crowd.

C8: Well, assuming it's a by-product, an exceptional leader then, say.

BM: Well, to follow what you are saying to its logical conclusions, then
presumably if you got rid of the leader, the flock would disband, and
there would be no cult.

C8: I'm not talking about getting rid of them, I'm talking about their
existence in the first place.

BM: I'm trying to bring it back to that. There may be certain dynamics
of different groups that necessitate a leader.

C8: We don't have a group of any size without a leader of some kind,
do we? Even the Republican Party and the Democratic Party does!

BM: I think that what I'm trying to address was your original
question that you've got to have some kind of exceptional person with
charisma.

C8: If you have a cult, the leader is likely to have exceptional
charisma.

BM: That would certainly be a by-product of that interaction between
the leader and the group.

C8: With your experience with the Guru and a cult, do you see any
similarity between that group, the group that Jim Jones had,
Scientology, or, in the present instance, what is happening in Iran with
Khomeini?

BM: I see a lot of similarities with Jim Jones. In fact, the aspects of
his own personal psychological degeneration that were publicised after
the incident in Guyana were very strikingly similar to a similar sort of
psychological decaying process I saw Maharaji going through myself when
I was living with him.

As far as the phenomenon taking place with Khomeini and certainly in our
social movement, I don't even think you have to limit it to religious
figures. It can also happen with political figures, or any
case where an ideology becomes a major component in assembling a mass
of people who then look to one person to take their lead from. It
certainly happened with Hitler. I'd say there were a lot of
similarities.

C8: Some of us see a considerable difference between an ideology and a
religion.

BM: I agree with you, there are differences. But I think that the
similarities are in terms of the behaviour of the crowds of people who
follow.

Caller 9: Mr Mishler, I've been listening to you speaking about
the Guru Maharaji. I'd like to compliment you on your courage to walk
away from such a situation. I assume that it was rather difficult for
you.

BM: It was a pretty difficult thing to do.

C9: And quite painful?

BM: Yes, I would say it was very painful as well.

C9: Assuming you were looking for something just like millions of
others, some kind of truth...

BM: It's a hard thing to give up your dreams, when you realise that
they didn't turn out the way you had expected.

C9: A lot of that happens with different religions to other people, the
same for myself. I have this feeling that you are being marauded with
phone calls from people that don't seem to quite understand. In other
words, they are saying that they wouldn't make the same mistake, which
we are all capable of doing. I just wanted to say that I think you are
very brave and a very strong person to be able to have that sort of
insight.

BM:Thank you.

Caller 10: I've been listening to your programme. What you are saying
about the Guru is really interesting. I've attended a few of the satsang
meetings. To me it always seems ridiculous how the Premis all seem to
be cut out of the same mould. Why is that?

BM: It's not so much that they have been cut out of the same mould.
It's that they have been re-moulded into the same mould. You'll find
that there is a tremendous amount of diversity in the backgrounds of the
members in the Divine Light Mission. Over a period of time, they are
really re-programmed into a whole new way of looking at things.

I think one way to look at it is to view the Divine Light Mission as a
sub-culture. It has its own perspective on reality. People are in fact
finally assimilated into that sub-cultural group. That accounts for the
similarity you see in them.

C10: Another thing is that somewhere along the line I heard that there
is basically a conflict throughout his own family. I take it that after
his father died, he supposedly was the one that became the new Guru.
Somewhere someone told me that his brother believed that he was. Is
there any truth
to that?

BM: Well, that's a very interesting story. I don't know if we have
time to go into it. Gary's nodding so I'll try and explain it very
quickly. The story as it is told to the Divine Light Mission members is
that when Guru was going to go into his Maha Somadi - he doesn't just
die, you see, he transcends into some other dimension - he had to pass
on the mantle of spiritual authority that he bore.

He indicated that it was to be his younger son who was going to succeed
him and become the Guru Maharaji. What actually happened was that when
the Guru died, there were some very dubious circumstances surrounding
his death, but that's another story as well.

His mother, the former Guru's wife, who was known as Mataji and was
part of the so-called Holy Family before they split apart, wanted to
ascend the throne herself. At the father's funeral, at which time the
new Guru was supposed to be proclaimed, she was in a meeting with the
governing body and some of the very influential devotees - the Mahatmas
- arguing this point view.

She had one Mahatma who was very influential arguing on her behalf.
Most of the governing body was resisting this, because they were
saying that it flaunted the Hindu tradition that the 'perfect master'
must in fact be a man. They couldn't go over to a 'holy mother' kind
of belief structure when all along they had been operating in this
'perfect master' one.

While this was going on, some other younger and not quite so influential
but nonetheless aggressive Mahatmas had a much closer relationship with
the younger son. The one who was most instrumental was a Mahatma known
as Mahatma Supranon. They seized upon the opportunity of absence while
this argument was going on behind closed doors in another part of the
Ashram.

They put the youngest child who was eight years old at the time - the
Guru Maharaji that we're talking about tonight - on the throne and
crowned him. He was already accepted as the Guru by the devotees by the
time that they had finally come to an agreement in this other meeting
that was taking place.

In this meeting, they had decided to put the eldest son on the throne,
because that was in line with Hindu tradition that the eldest son always
inherits from the father. This eldest son would then be under the
control of the mother anyway, as he was about thirteen or fourteen at
the time. The mother finally agreed to that.

When they came out, they were really shocked to find that the youngest
son was already sitting on the throne, wearing the crown and already
accepted by the devotees. So they accepted this, but nonetheless there
was the enmity that existed between the eldest son, who felt that his
inheritance was robbed, and the younger son.

That dynamic eventually exploded in 1974. The mother then, at that
point, when the youngest son was really defying her authority, said
she'd back the eldest son now. But it was a bit late by that point.

DJ: I think the same thing happened with Esau and Jacob.

Caller 10: When you did try and leave the group, did you have to go
through de-programming? What happened there?

BM: Actually, I had pretty much been de-programmed in a sense, if you
care to call it that, as a natural result of the experiences I had
dealing with the Guru myself. When I left, the main difficulty for me
was leaving behind all those years of my life and all the work that I
had put into it.

Losing the relationships that I had with all the people that were
involved was difficult, as my life revolved around that group of people.
When I left, I was an outcast. I had to start all over again
materially, because I had given everything I owned and I left with
nothing. I also had to start all over again in terms of building new
relationships and so on.

C 10: I'm a member of the US ski team now and I'm also a former Moonie.
I gave up my position in the US ski team many years ago to follow
Reverend Moon. There is a great deal of similarity there.

BM: No doubt there would be.

C10: I didn't go through a de-programme. Even afterwards, there were
repercussions of meeting different people with the groups. It seemed
that even if you did leave the group, there would still be someone
knocking at your door trying to make sure that you got back in with it.

BM: They didn't really do that with me. I had a different kind of
situation, given that I was the President. I was in such a high
position. I knew so much more, and they never pursued me. In fact,
it was to the contrary; I was an outcast and they deliberately avoided
me.

To be continued...
--
David

[David Stirling]

This is the concluding part of Bob Mishler's 1979 radio phone-in in
which he explains why he decided to resign as President of Divine Light
Mission in the US and Personal Secretary to Guru Maharaji.

(I haven't a clue what the PTL Club is. Is it a far-right Christian
group?)

................

Caller 11: Regarding the PTL Club, and several other similar clubs that
are devouring the nation right now, do you feel they are a threat? In
the overall view of this nation, do you think they might be too
powerful, too influential? For instance, the PTL Club now has its own
network. I understand they are going to start doing their own news
show. Do you think they might be able to influence everybody up to a
point where it might really hurt this country?

BM: I'm really not qualified to speak in terms of the capacity of the
PTL to influence people. Regarding what can hurt this country, I don't
feel that we have that much to fear from any group organising itself in
such a way that they are capable of having a voice in a mass society.

We have a diversity of opinion in this country; that's one of the
principles that we cherish the most. It is through the competition of
all these different ideas that the choice exists for each individual to
make his decision.

On the other hand, there are practices of certain groups where once they
have a person in their sway, they then systematically rob that person of
any capacity to be able to leave the group. In fact, they try to
deliberately hold that person and exploit them for economic gain.

DJ: How do they try to rob them of an ability to leave? What kind of
methods are you talking about?

BM: First of all, they strip them of their financial independence. The
way that this is done is to have them live in some kind of communal
situation. Ultimately, if possible, they try to get them into one of
their monastic type living situations where they are actually under vows
of poverty.

Anything that they produce doesn't really belong to them, it belongs to
the organisation. Therefore they really haven't got any financial
capacity on their own. All of their possessions have been turned over
to the organisation.

In addition to this, they also have the individual systematically sever
their ties with anyone who doesn't believe as they believe. This
includes family members, former friends and associates. An effort will
be made to convert family members and former friends. After a certain
point, they are just supposed to leave contact with these people
altogether.

Over a period of time, what happens is that everything on a physical,
emotional and psychological level is really being controlled by the
group. That gives a tremendous kind of ability to manipulate the
individual.

DJ: What about spiritual blackmail, in terms of salvation?

BM: Well, that's part of it as well. When you have a person in this
position, you condition them with fear. The fear is that if they leave,
they will suffer some horrible fate. I think that, whether you're
talking about the Hare Krishnas, the Moonies or the Divine Light Mission
members, they believe that their belief is the truth. If they leave
that, they are subject to all kinds of eternal damnation.

I know that the Maharaji threatens his devotees at certain levels, once
he gets them to the point where they've sacrificed everything. At this
point they will have become initiators, which is the final degree of
surrender. He threatens them with eternal damnation if they ever leave.

Caller 12: What did you turn to? (after you left the Divine Light
Mission) What religion are you now?

BM: I think I've had enough of religion for a while. I didn't really
turn to anything.

C12: OK, but you don't believe in anything now, any person or whatever?

BM: No, I don't.

C12: OK, so you don't believe in Jesus Christ?

BM: I'm not a practising anything.

DJ: OK, we're going to talk about the whole religious phenomenon of the
believer. I'm a believer, there are other believers of various
religions... that whole thing is rather interesting.

Caller 13: I have a question for your guest. I recently read an
interview in 'Playboy' with Ted Patrick (He abducted and attempted to
de-program cult members on behalf of concerned parents. I think he was
successfully sued for kidnapping). I'm curious about these methods he
describes. Does your guest agree that there is a certain kind of mind
control involved in recruitment for the Divine Light Mission?

BM: I didn't read that article, and I'm not exactly sure what you mean
by 'mind control' in the recruitment. I definitely think that there is
a systematic process of thought reform that goes on. The ultimate
outcome of that thought reform process is that there is definitely a
mind control that exists with the members.

C13: In his interview, Mr Patrick seems to be of the opinion that the
Krishnas, the Divine Light Mission, the Scientologists and others like
them are using a great deal of mind control in order not only to
recruit, but after recruitment to place these people in a sort of
controlled state. This is so that they will not only turn over their
earnings, but will also continue to serve as robots. I was just curious
whether you felt that was happening.

BM: Oh yes, I definitely do.

C13: So doesn't that make this sort of a subversive activity?

BM: If you mean subverting the individual, yes. I don't think that
with the Divine Light Mission there are any larger goals other than to
subvert whatever individuals they can, and then hold them in this state
of servitude for the perpetuation of the group. As far as the
subversive nature of it is concerned, yes, it does subvert the
individual's ego. The individuals will say, yes, I appreciate that, I
like that; in fact I'm in bliss because of that.

Caller 14: I have a question for Bob. Earlier in the programme, you
said that you had received a lot of calls recently from people who have
had loved ones they were concerned about who were Premis. I just
wondered what you told them when they called.

BM: Well, it depended. A lot of the conversations were very
individually oriented around what they could do in their particular
situation. If I can generalise a bit about it, a lot of these parents
just really needed someone to talk to to help them understand what was
going on with their child or family member. In fact, in one case it was
a daughter worried about her father.

What I would usually try and tell them was to try and keep some respect
for the individual's experience and for their faith in their beliefs.
If the family member suddenly challenges that, and says: 'How could you
believe such a stupid thing?', it reflects on the individual as if to
deny their experience altogether.

These people really do have an experience. They may be mistaken in
attributing whatever inner spiritual peace they find within themselves
to the Guru. In fact, he really doesn't have anything to do with it,
but they are sincere in placing their faith in him.

We must try to help them see that the Guru really isn't responsible for
whatever positive benefits they are deriving from their belief, and that
therefore they shouldn't continue to allow their lives to be dominated
by subservience to the Guru.

Friends and relatives are going to have to try to understand the
experience enough to be able to really relate to the people by not
regarding them as mental defectives. A lot of the conversations have
centred around just how to make a much stronger contact. I know that a
lot of the people involved are getting a lot of psychological strokes
from the individuals that they associate with.

If the parents just treat them as naughty children and take a
disapproving attitude, they tend to take that personally as though the
parents were disapproving of them as a person. This not only further
alienates them, but actually severs those ties altogether. In that
sense, it actually aids and abets the cult.

C14: The person I have in mind happens to be an ex-wife. She is a very
intelligent person. I wonder if you thought a tape-recording of this
programme might help open her eyes.

BM: Well, it could possibly, particularly if she is not aware of some
of the hypocrisies that I have pointed out, maybe not completely in this
programme, but certainly in other statements I have given to the news
media. I think it helps, given that so many of the people that are
involved are very sincere. If they begin to see that what they are
being told and what is actually taking place are two different things,
then they begin to see that possibly they could have had the same
experiences without having had to attribute it to the Guru.

Look at all these hypocritical practices that the Guru engages in. There
was never any response from him. Of course, he couldn't really respond;
to respond, he would either have to admit it, and he is not likely to do
that, or he would have to deny it. If he denied it, we could get into a
whole protracted court battle.

I haven't said anything about him that I'm not capable of proving. So
consequently they tend to just try and ignore it, hoping that they
control the communication within the Premis' world strongly enough to be
able to weather it out.

To that extent, I think it is up to relatives and friends to actually
use that relationship to get the person to listen to the truth as it
gets exposed, and not to just let it get shoved aside as though I were
some crackpot.

I mean, I was the President of the Mission for five and a half years.
Somebody who was essentially responsible for organising the Mission
throughout the United States, and was the personal secretary to the
Guru, is not just any crackpot who comes along! The things that I'm
saying are true. If they can't deal with that truth, if they tend to
just ignore it, well, I think that their need to believe is so strong
that there's really not a whole lot we can do.

Persistence on the part of people like yourself who have a relationship
with members is probably the most important thing.

Caller 14: Let me ask one more question. Approximately how many
members are there in the Mission at the present time?

BM: Well, it would be hard for me to say for sure, but from what I
understand, they get 10 or 15,000 people showing up at these meetings
where they invite essentially all of the Premis in the United States and
Canada, and even Europe as well. Maybe there's as many as 10 to 15,000
in the United States. That's down considerably from the amount that
there once was. Nonetheless, it's been holding pretty much steady for
the last couple of years.

Caller 15: I have some friends who are devotees of the Guru, and they've
been telling me to come to their meetings. I can't find out who the
Guru really is to them. Do you view him as a Christ or what? It's
really hard to get inside their heads.

BM: Well, I think a lot of that comes from a confusion that has served
them well in terms of an ambiguity about who he really is. If, in fact,
they say that he is their Lord, what do they mean by that? I know it's
hard to pin people down, particularly if they don't want to be pinned
down by somebody who they are trying to attract, because they might put
you off.

C15: Yes, but who do they think he is?

BM: Well, I can't speak for all of them, but I think at this point,
given the way that he has been running things since I left, they pretty
much have to believe that he is God. They think he is the incarnation
of whatever that power we call God is. They believe him to be the
living Lord of the Universe.

C15: OK. These people I know are super-nice people. I really like
them. But I'm not into their ideas at all; it doesn't tie up with
anything I was brought up to believe in. I have now become an agnostic,
and I find it hard to believe that he's going to be the Messiah
incarnate or anything like that. They've been urging me to go to these
meetings, and I just wandered what would I be getting into?

BM: You'd be getting into an idol-worship cult.

C15: I want to get in there and find out what is going on.

BM: It's really set up that way. Members are obtained through
association with other members. I know that so many of the Premis are
really nice people. I've often even thought that they are better than
most, because a lot of them seem to be really concerned about other
people.

You'll find, as I did when I no longer believed as they believed, that
it is a completely different story. All of that love and brotherhood
that we had shared was suddenly gone. It's because the belief that they
have is all-encompassing.

Part of the way that this technique of thought reform works is to get
you to come to the meetings. When you come to the meetings, you are
subject to the influence of the group. I'm talking about the
psychological influence that takes place just when you're in a group of
people who all believe in a certain way, and you don't necessarily.

Nonetheless, just because they are your friends, and because they are
all looking to you, thinking: 'Isn't this wonderful, and now you're
going to get into it too', you're under a great deal of pressure to
conform, just out of your own social nature.

If you go to enough meetings, you'll probably then begin to get
interested in what they call 'knowledge' and that's the whole idea.
Once you get interested in receiving knowledge, they've got you on the
way to having this whole process take place.

In order to receive knowledge, you've got to be an aspirant. As an
aspirant, you're already subjected to so much social pressure. You are
under this incredible pressure to succeed. The way that you succeed is
to be selected to receive knowledge. When somebody says: 'You are
finally ready to receive knowledge' you just go along with it.

In the knowledge session, you come out afterwards and everybody says:
'Isn't it wonderful, it's your spiritual birthday. You're a new person.
Quite likely, by that point you are, because your ego has been reformed.
It has been reformed around a whole new belief system. You asked what
you were getting into; well, it's an idol-worship cult. The idol is
Guru Maharaji and the role of the Premi is to worship him.

C15: Are you familiar with a book on the career of the Guru Maharaji?

BM: Sure. I was President of the Divine Light Mission; it was my idea
to have that book published. Charles Cameron, a Premi originally from
England but now living here in Denver, was the one who edited it and put
it together.

C15: So you had quite a bit to do with it?

BM: Yes, it was part of a whole campaign. In 1973, we were still
trying to attract people out of curiosity. Maharaji was saying: 'I've
got something to reveal to you. It's free; there's no continuing
obligation. All you have to do is sincerely want to know the truth and
I'll have it shown to you. It's the truth within you; how can you pass
it up?'.

So we tried to get people to question themselves. Who is this Guru
Maharaji? What kind of a person can make these claims? The idea was
that he really was somebody special and he really was going to unfold a
plan for world peace. That's what he told us he was going to do, and we
were going along with him.

We set up a programme in the Houston Astrodome in the same year that the
book was published. That was in 1973. We had media from all over the
world there.

C15: Can you tell me some of the fallacies in the book?

BM: Try reading the whole chapter on the Holy Family. Then get the
Premis that you know to explain that to you. In that book, it talks
about his Holy Family. They have a story about how every one of his
brothers and his mother are divine incarnations. If they are, where are
they now?

C15: I don't know. Where are they?

BM: Well, they had a fight over who was going to control the Mission,
and they split up. The mother and the two eldest brothers are now
running their own Divine Light Mission in India. They don't have
anything to do with each other. There was a big fight; lots of court
battles and so on. My point is that this book isn't a Gospel of any
sort, believe me!

Caller 16: I'd like to ask your guest: What would you say is the
current average age of the followers of the Guru?

BM: The people in their teens and early twenties are now getting on,
because it's been seven or eight years now. They don't necessarily
drift away. Most do; most of the people who have been initiated have
left. But there is a real 'hard core' of people who have been involved
for a long time.

There have always been a number of older people. There has always been
a spread in the membership from the really young, I mean teenagers, to
elderly people. At one point, even children were being initiated in the
very early years, but that changed after the first couple of years.

It's not just that it appeals to young people, although young people,
especially those in their late teens or early twenties, are prime
targets. This is because they are going through a natural kind of ego
reformation at that point in their lives anyway. So they are very
susceptible.

C16: I just wondered if, with the particular insight that you have, you
have considered writing some kind of book.

BM: A number of people have suggested that to me. About a year and a
half ago, I worked up a proposal and circulated it to a number of book
publishers. I just received rejections; nobody was really interested in
publishing a story about a Guru cult.

C16: The reason that I brought this up was that I think there should be
a publisher somewhere who might have more interest in it. They might
urge you to consider re-drafting your proposal and circulating it again.
I think there are a lot of people who would like to have something like
this. I think it would be a great service to a lot of people.

I don't look upon what you have to say as necessarily just insight into
the DLM, as much as it is insight into any religion, whether it be
called 'cult' or 'mainstream religion'. To me, it's a real problem when
people just get so blind that common sense just wanders astray.

I'd like to add one more thing: I certainly would like to offer my
empathy to you. When you say that you are not a practising believer in
anything, I can very easily understand that. You had a few callers
enquiring about what your present belief is. After going through this,
I am sure that if you want to place your faith in something else again,
it is going to have to be earned. You've been 'burned'; anyone who
doesn't understand that is a little out of touch with how the human
being works.

DJ: Well, it would be something akin to Paul suddenly saying: 'I made
the whole thing up because I wanted to get a bunch of disciples or Moses
saying: 'Look, I'm really an Egyptian, and I was trying to get you to
follow the same guy that Akhnaten was talking about'. It would cause
some waves!

C16: Right. I thank myself that I have been as well educated as I have.
I continue to reach for knowledge and hope I always will. But we're
always, always in need of more information about this kind of thing. In
my particular area, I deal with a lot of people. I just really feel
that nobody should ever get into a thing where any human being becomes
so almighty and important. It just seems counter-productive to me.
Thank you very much.

Caller 17: Bob, how old is the Maharaji now?

BM: Let's see...He'll be 22 this year (1979).

C17: And he started when he was 8?

BM: He became the Guru Maharaji aged 8.

DJ: He didn't really come over to this country until he was 13.

BM: That's right.

C17: As he was so young, do you believe that he was somewhat brainwashed
into this thing too?

BM: Oh yes. I feel that he is as much a victim as he is a victimiser.
I've tried to make this clear in other interviews that I have given. He
was set up for this. He certainly didn't have a very normal childhood,
having to play God on weekends!

C17: I can imagine that! Did you discuss this with him?

BM: Oh yes, we talked about this. I had to be very diplomatic with him.
I was a devotee after all, but I probably had as frank a relationship
with him as anyone.

C17: In other words you were his confidante.

BM: Yes. He literally used to cry on my shoulder.

C17: Did he ever let go of this facade at any point in time?

BM: His own doubts? Oh yes, on a number of occasions. He is a pathetic
person in this respect. Earlier in the show, I made reference to his
own psychological degeneration. The anxiety that is caused to him by
the role that he is in is tremendous.

Unlike what he advocates, he is not capable of dealing with it by means
of meditation. He ends up drinking excessively in order to cope with
the stress. It was very sad to see him drinking himself into a stupor
day after day.

DJ: It's really interesting that some of his followers can handle their
problems through meditation, through what they received from him. But
he is unable to do it himself.

BM: I don't think he ever really meditated. He talks about how, when he
was 8 years old, he meditated for a few minutes and realised the
knowledge. Presumably, that was all he needed. But he doesn't really
use it.

C17: That's really sad. I can't imagine being in that type of situation
myself. Would you communicate this to him now?

BM: No, we came to a final confrontation prior to when I left the
Divine Light Mission. He knew how I felt. We'd talked about it. At
the beginning of 1976, we had agreed that we would in fact change his
image.

I had persuaded him to see that he was going to lose his popularity and
ability to do any good at all in this country, if he became a cult
leader. If he continued to allow his devotees to believe that he was
God, that was inevitable. He agreed, and we started de-programming our
own membership and telling them to see Maharaji as only a human being
who had a great concern for humanity.

In fact, he went along with this image change for about half a year.
Then, when he saw that he wouldn't have the same kind of ascribed status
that he had as the Guru being God, he suddenly realised he wouldn't have
the same kind of control over people. He started worrying about what
was going to happen to him in terms of his finances.

C17: He started having self-doubt?

BM: I think the self-doubt was there all along. At that point, he got
out the picture of his father and put it up on the wall. He started
worshipping it the way his devotees worshipped the pictures of him. That
really made me feel sorry for him.

Caller 18: I'd also like to congratulate you on your ability to break
away and seek some sanity and rationality in life. I'd also like to
congratulate you on your moral rectitude in wanting to let others know
the truth about the situation. I think it's extremely important that
people of all beliefs hear this sort of thing from the inside, as you're
telling it.

Somebody brought up the name of Ted Patrick earlier, and I wanted to ask
if you have had any contact with him?

BM: I haven't had any first hand dealings with Ted Patrick, although
when I was President of the Mission, I remember that I had to deal with
situations in which members of the Ashrams were abducted and
deprogrammed by Ted Patrick.

In the early years, he didn't have a very good success rate with Divine
Light Mission people. In fact, he couldn't de-programme them. He
didn't really know enough about the group at that time to be able to do
it. Recently, however, that has changed, and he has a few former Premis
working with him. He is having a very good success rate with the Divine
Light Mission Premis.

Recently, three individuals who were de-programmed by Ted Patrick within
the last three months, called me. All three of those people told me
that they felt he was not at all like the images that exist of him in
the Press. They felt that he was a very sensitive person who treated
them with a great deal of respect.

During the whole period, what he did was keep them questioning and
talking and talking, until they were finally able to use their own
reasoning to recognise what had happened to them. This would enable
them to recognise what had happened to them, and to work their way out
of the belief structure that they were trapped in.

C18: They started to listen to what they were actually saying, in other
words.

BM: Right. By talking it out, they began to listen to what they were
saying. It helped having some former members there to point out the
things that they didn't really know, things that they had just learned
to accept by rote.

C18: That's fascinating. I was really interested in hearing whether or
not his methods were as bad as people had been portraying them.

BM: Evidently not. I guess you hear about that when he fails. When he
fails, obviously when somebody escapes or something like that, they are
going to portray it as a terrible thing, because they say they are being
physically kidnapped.

In all the cases I am familiar with, the person is usually being
detained in their family's home. Some family member has arranged to get
the person there, and then they do detain them. They have to keep at it
until the person has managed to go through the whole thing and gets to
the point when they can start reasoning again.

C18: That's very interesting. In that case, I hope he has more success.
In the same vein, there is a recent book out by a man and woman who have
researched a variety of cults. It's called 'Snapping'. I was wondering
if you were familiar with that.

BM: A number of people have recommended it to me, but I haven't seen
it.

C18: Apparently they were on the Carson show the other night. From what
I gather from their conversation, they refer to the mental process that
goes on when a person is subjected to high pressure indoctrination or
propaganda that some groups give out to new members. They say that
something actually 'snaps', that they actually do 'turn' and become
mentally different.

BM: I think that this is something that social philosophers and social
psychologists have talked about for a long time. In a crowd, the person
loses his individuality. In fact, their intellectual capacity is
debilitated in that situation.

If there is a systematic attempt to transform that person's thinking,
you could hypothetically say that there could be a point at which they
would 'snap' and start seeing things differently.

C18: It's good to know that the situation can at least in some cases be
reversed, as shown by the experiences of Ted Patrick.

BM: Human beings are such complex creatures. We have all kinds of
possibilities in our lives. I'm not willing to write anybody off.

C18: I was wondering if you'd mind stating your age.

BM: I'm 34. I was 26 when I got into it.

C18: That's interesting. I feel that some of these groups are appealing
to a specific kind of immaturity in people.

BM: I don't think it's just necessarily an immaturity. A lot of
grown people are immature at times. I think that everyone is
susceptible at certain times under certain circumstances. I know there
are a lot of people getting involved after the death of a loved one or
maybe a divorce.

There are all kinds of circumstances that can even affect mature
individuals, rendering them psychologically vulnerable.

DJ: Most people who will suddenly embrace religion at any point do it
because of some deep need.

BM: Maybe it's some disillusionment with what they find going on around
them. Let's face it, during the early 1970s there were a lot of people
who were disillusioned with what was going on in the predominant culture
here in the United States, as a result of the Vietnam War, Watergate and
so on. So you look for something better, and somebody offers you
something that's supposedly perfect. It's a good ploy.

C18: It's powerful. It seems like there is a tendency to revert to
something simpler. That happened to the young people in the Sixties. I
thought it was fascinating to hear your comment about the Maharaji
putting up the picture of his father and worshipping it.

BM: When he had doubts, he looked to the way it had been taught to him
for strength.

C18: He looked to the situation he was in when he was young, when he had
guidance from someone stronger.

............

The tape ends somewhat abruptly here. I don't know whether there's
anything else after this point (Rick?).

What a great pity Mishler never got to write his book! Although this
interview is now nearly 20 years old, it provides a unique insight into
how a cult is created and its members indoctrinated. Has anyone got
anything more recent which casts further light on the personalities
behind the saintly masks?

And what's the current situation? Are his children being groomed to take
over the golden throne, just like Maharaji did following his father's
death? And what of his mother and three brothers?

Any information would be gratefully received.
--
David

[David Stirling]

I posted the final part of the Mishler transcript on Friday but this is
Sunday and it's not yet appeared. If this post shows up and the
transcript still hasn't, I'll assume it's yet another one that's gone
missing and send it again.
David

[Jim Heller]

Good, because still nothing.

David Stirling <da...@cpsds.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<XBM4JCAl...@cpsds.demon.co.uk>...

[Jim Heller]

No, sorry, just found it.

Jim Heller <hel...@islandnet.com> wrote in article
<01bbf135$6b3f6ca0$a1ac...@nada.islandnet.com>...

[Unlimited]

WOW - this is great. MORE PLEASE