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stripping the gurus - Brahma Kumaris Info

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AFTER THE ORDEAL 477<br />

him letters with skeletons on <strong>the</strong>m, broken into his apartment,<br />

threatened lawsuits, and generally harassed him....<br />

“They sent letters about me claiming I was <strong>the</strong> negative<br />

force, that I was predicted from <strong>the</strong> beginning of mankind”<br />

[says Lane] (Bellamy, 1995).<br />

It was easy for Theosophists to conclude that anyone who<br />

disagreed with <strong>the</strong>m, however well intentioned, was working<br />

in <strong>the</strong> service of <strong>the</strong> Dark Forces (Washington, 1995).<br />

(For <strong>the</strong> disillusioning story of <strong>the</strong> Sufi “master” Idries Shah—<br />

“<strong>the</strong> West’s leading exponent of Sufism” [Hall, 1975]—see <strong>the</strong><br />

“Conclusion” chapter of <strong>the</strong> same excellent and wide-ranging<br />

[1995] book by Peter Washington: Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon.<br />

Gurdjieff, daftly described by <strong>the</strong> architect Frank Lloyd Wright as<br />

being “<strong>the</strong> greatest man in <strong>the</strong> world,” appears throughout, as well<br />

as in Evans’ witty [1973] Cults of Unreason. Washington’s Chapter<br />

21 fur<strong>the</strong>r covers <strong>the</strong> epileptic Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her<br />

apocalyptic Church Universal ‘n’ Triumphant—which, contrary to<br />

<strong>the</strong> juicy spirit of its near-acronym, reportedly limits sex to “not<br />

more than thirty minutes, twice a week” for its members. Ross<br />

[2004c] has materials online regarding <strong>the</strong> same channel-happy<br />

group.)<br />

As has been noted previously, it would be inconsistent for SRF<br />

to not view <strong>the</strong> present author as being, like <strong>the</strong> above “Dark<br />

Forces,” quite literally a deluded tool of Maya—<strong>the</strong> satanic cosmic<br />

delusive force, or devil.<br />

I’m baaad.<br />

Chapter 9 of Singer’s above-mentioned (2003) book contains<br />

many examples of <strong>the</strong> reported litigious, legal and illegal tactics<br />

utilized by our world’s “truth-seeking” spiritual organizations to<br />

prevent <strong>the</strong> (alleged) uncomplimentary aspects of <strong>the</strong>ir activities<br />

from being publicized.<br />

Singer herself unfortunately downplayed <strong>the</strong> real and legitimate<br />

search for Truth in her list of reasons why people join and<br />

remain in spiritual communities. Instead, she focused on those<br />

joiners simply being vulnerable to proselytizing in “looking for<br />

meaning” after a personal loss, depression, loneliness or insecurity,<br />

etc. For my own part, however, I have lived that “seeker myth,”<br />

with no proselytizing whatsoever on <strong>the</strong> part of any of Yogananda’s<br />

followers. I <strong>the</strong>refore cannot take Singer’s broad debunking of that<br />

principle seriously. Nor does one encounter anything in <strong>the</strong> first-

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