Deepak Chopra attacks free speech on Web
Naeem Mohaiemen
Article: 53671
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
The End of History and the Last Guru
by Matt Labash
(C)1996 The Weekly Standard, July 1, 1996, pps. 18-24,
excerpts reprinted with permission
[Deepak Chopra is at the top of the heap: publishing 15
{ghost-written} books, audiotapes, working TV series or
movie deals, hobnobbing with celebs -- and raking in
$11 million in the last two years alone.] "Just as his
former boss, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, had his George
Harrisons and Mia Farrows, Chopra counts Naomi Judd,
Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Lunden, Michael Milken, Diane
Von Furstenburg, and other glitterati-in-the-know among
his followers. He writes lyrics and yogic hops with
Michael Jackson (yogic hopping is the Maharishi's first
stage of levitation...). Olivia Newton-John, renowned
physicist and star of Xanadu, extols his scientific
bona fides. And he even has Demi .. spouting, "He's my
guru now. Through his teachings I hope to live to a
great age, even 130 years isn't impossible....."
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"But Chopra is still treated as a quasi-religious
figure by his followers, in whom he inspires a kind of
reverence. The Demis and Donnas either don't notice,
don't acknowledge, or don't care to learn about
Chopra's shortcomings."
"And there are the shortcomings that he goes to great
lengths to keep secret. Last year, he was charged with
plagiarizing a passage in Ageless Body, Timeless Mind.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD has discovered another apparent act
of plagiarism in the very same book, as well as strong
evidence that the new guru to the stars has hired a
prostitute on numerous occasions."
[His background: 8 years with the Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi, educated in a Christian mission school in New
Delhi, licensed endocrinologist, chief of staff at New
England Memorial Hospital by 35.]
"Presently, Chopra cased out of his lucrative practice,
joining the even more lucrative field of New Age
guruism -- a $2-billion-a-year industry. He headed an
exorbitantly priced Lancaster, Mass., retreat and was
cofounder and president of Maharishi Ayur-Veda Products
International (MAPI), which peddled his books and the
Maharishi's line of herbal remedies. Among them: an
herb and fruit paste called Maharishi Amrit Kalash that
TM researchers represented as effective in combating
cancer."
"Chopra left the TM organization in 1993, claiming the
movement was 'too dogmatic....' Until recently, Chopra
was associated with Sharp HealthCare.... Chopra plans
on setting up shop again in La Jolla, Calif., later
this summer...."
"One geriatric gentleman who told me his wife had
dragged him there insisted: 'This is not quack
medicine, there's a lot of truth to it -- it's
science....' Or at least that's the idea that's
supposed to come across. Actually, everybody from the
National Council Against Health Fraud to the Journal of
the American Medical Association (which Chopra and
cohorts sued for nearly $200 million, though the suit
was dismissed) has taken great pains to show just how
unscientific it all really is."
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"However ancient, the Ayurveda of yesteryear is
basically different from today's sanitized
Maharishi-Chopra version. Most diseases were originally
attributed to demons; often they were cured with the
wearing of gems and the use of fragrances.... Poor
digestion was treated with goat feces prepared by
washing with urine. Got constipation? Drink milk --
with urine. Male potency was supposedly enhanced by 216
different kinds of enemas, including the testicles of
peacocks, swans, and turtles. If that didn't work, one
was supposed to follow up with an enema of urine.
Hemorrhaging was a nice break from the regimen, since
it was treated with an enema of the fresh blood of a
rabbit, deer, cock, or any one of numerous other
beasts. Epilepsy was treated with ass urine."
"Dr. John Renner reported in the Kansas City Star in
1991 that Chopra had encouraged conference attendees to
'wash the eyes out with saliva' as 'an effective
treatment for even well-established cataracts'...."
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"John Knapp, a former TM "governor" who know heads
TranceNet, an online TM tracking group, says he used to
be a volunteer at Ayurveda Health and Education
Resources of San Francisco, an AIDS clinic. According
to Knapp and other employees, Chopra was chief
consultant, flying in three or four times a year to
instruct the staff.
"Knapp says he saw staffers give patients the idea that
Ayurvedic treatment would "help their immune system."
"The idea was that AIDS was a ... disease of the skin
and blood," said Knapp.... "We reported to Chopra. His
role was that these guys were authorized by him to sell
his products.
"The clinic folded amid financial problems after losing
three key administrators to AIDS. Numerous patients
also died...."
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"In 1987, during a triumphant Donahue appearance,
Chopra spoke about studies demonstrating that 'when
people undergo these techniques, their immune system
builds up, so it's easier for them to fight the
disease, the cancer.' A woman named Marian Thompson was
brought out to prove it..... Three years later, the
immediate cause of death listed on her death
certificate was breast cancer."
"Curtis Mailloux, former head of the Washington TM
Center and now a mortgage banker, thinks otherwise:
'Chopra's a charming kind of guy. He really projects
warmth and happiness, but he's got a heart of ice,
because he's willing to give sick people false hope.'"
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"Last summer, the Washington Post reported that Dan
Georgakas accused Chopra of plagiarizing his book The
Methuselah Factors.... 'sometimes directly, sometimes
with modified phrasing, sometimes in unattributed
quotations'...."
"THE WEEKLY STANDARD discovered .... Chopra appears to
have plagiarized a second time.... Seven passages over
seven pages ... appear to track exactly or
approximately with material from a three-page spread
(without any attribution...) in the textbook Behavioral
Endocrinology, by Robert M. Sapolsky, published by MIT
a year earlier. ...Some of the anecdotes, word
emphasis, and conclusions are straight out of a
chapter...."
"Sapolsky declined comment, as he is strongly
considering litigation."
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"Indeed, if one were picking a Billy Graham of the New
Age movement, Chopra would be a candidate.... In
Creating Affluence, a book of alphabetical aphorisms,
'"V" stands for Values: Truth, Integrity, honesty,
love, faith, devotion.... Without values, there is
confusion and chaos.'"
"...According to Judy Bangert, a former San Francisco
call girl who says she's now a college student....
Chopra paid her for sex on three different occasions in
the summer of 1991 -- two times by credit card and once
with cash....
"Then in 1995, she saw him on PBS. 'It seemed like very
time I turned on the TV, they were promoting him,' she
says. 'I thought it was disturbing because I know how
he treated me.' She describes him variously as 'an
arrogant man,' 'supercilious,' 'argumentative, abrasive
in conversation, dismissive and insulting.'...
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"...His lawyer, Michael Flynn, vehemently denied the
charges. 'Total horse--,' he called them. But it is
hardly Bangert's word against Chopra's lawyer's. She
has produced Chopra's American Express credit-card
vouchers with the imprint of her escort service.... The
credit card reads, 'Dr. Deepak Chopra Pres. MAPI Inc.'
Chopra was the former president and a consultant to
MAPI [Maharishi Ayurveda Products International] at the
time."
"Bangert volunteered to take a lie-detector test, which
we took her up on -- and which she passed, even after
our examiner asked her the same questions four times.
When I inquired whether Chopra would be willing to take
a lie-detector test, his lawyer said, 'You think
Chopra's gonna spend five minutes on this stupid
thing?'"
"Maybe not, but Flynn, whose in-your-face tactics a
former New York magazine fact-checker described as 'one
of the most unpleasant things I've ever endured,' spent
nearly 30 highly combative minutes on the phone with
me, bandying countercharges, offering a host of
defenses, and providing no documentation for
either...."
"Overall, I asked Flynn to corroborate his assertions
or offer evidence to discredit Judy Bangert 26 times in
the course of our interview.... Flynn threatened
repeatedly to sue for libel. 'If [Chopra] wants me to
tell you to go jump in the f--ing lake -- print
whatever you want, and then we'll bring a lawsuit to
expose the truth,' was one of his gentler admonitions."
{In a startling coincidence, Mr. Flynn is associated
with well-known cult-fighting lawyer, Ford Greene. Ford
Greene, known for his cases against the Moonies and
others, declined to represent Jonie Flint in her case
against Chopra because of a conflict of interest
through his working relationship with Flynn.}
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"... For all Chopra's hifalutin TM-talk ..., his
message at its core is no different from any
red-blooded American huckster's. It's a formula easy to
distill, as Wendy Kaminer did in her book I'm
Dysfunctional, You're Dysfunctional: 'Promote the
prevailing preoccupation of the time -- the acquisition
of either health or wealth -- as the primary moral
imperative. Package platitudes about positive thinking,
prayer or affirmation therapy as sure-fire, scientific
techniques.'"
"Norman Vincent Peale had his '10 rules for getting
effective results from prayer.' Chopra offers The Seven
Spiritual Laws of Sucess. {Napoleon} Hill had his
'autosuggestion.' Chopra has his 'mantras.' And while
Maslow had his 'peak experiences,' Chopra has his
'bliss.'"
"Chopra recently told Publisher's Weekly upon
publication of his first novel, "I'm going to write
fiction from now on.' With his first 14 books, he's had
plenty of practice."
--
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Naeem Mohaiemen
Mercer Management Consulting
1166 6th Ave, NY 10036
na...@ix.netcom.com
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