Cult News

Deepak Chopra

Dr. Deepak Chopra recently has done “a guest editor stint for the Times of India” reports Starpulse and he has supposedly “exploded the myth” about the Beatles breakup with their 1960s guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

According to the good doctor Maharishi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation, “simply grew tired of the Fab Four’s drug use.”

The guru also didn’t really fool around with Mia Farrow as repeatedly rumored.

How does Chopra know?

Well, he bumped into the actress at an airport and she allegedly said, “she still loved” Maharishi.

Wow, isn’t that explosive?

Then there is yet another story about how George Harrison actually apologized to his former guru who then “forgave” him.

Touching isn’t it?

Again and again, readers just have to take the doctor’s word for it, since Harrison and John Lennon are gone and Paul McCartney appears disinterested.

But the consistent pattern to Chopra’s stories is that Maharishi is always right.

At no point does he in any way criticize his mentor or relate anything that the guru may have done wrong.

Doctor Deepak’s anecdotes were published by the Times of India, which afforded no less than two complete articles allowing him to essentially trash the Beatles and praise his guru.

One of these puff pieces is titled “Beatles are angels on earth, said Maharishi” and the other “When Maharishi threw Beatles out.”

Why were the Beatles “angels”?

Well, because Maharishi said so.

But they were bad little cherubs that had to be cast out of the guru’s heavenly kingdom.

At least that’s what Chopra wants readers to believe.

John Lennon told Johnny Carson a different story on the Tonight Show. He said that the supposed “holy man” was actually more like a “dirty old man.” And the revered rocker even wrote a satirical song mocking Maharishi called “Sexy Sadie.”

During the 1960s the guru that would one day go global used his association with the Beatles to launch a career that would eventually make him richer than all of them put together. The supposedly enlightened CEO rules over a religious empire estimated to be worth billions.

Chopra remains his steadfast and loyal disciple, despite all the bad press. And it appears that the medical doctor has also become Maharishi’s very own “spin doctor.”

Given the way Chopra has marketed himself, maybe he is after all just a “chip off the old block.”

And perhaps that chip wants a “piece of the rock” when the old guru passes away, after all Maharishi is now 89.

Who better than Deepak Chopra to take up or take over his substantial legacy?

Maybe there is a deal in the works?

Despite Maharishi’s advanced age the old guru remains a tireless self-promoter who comes up with one project after another, which almost always require copious amounts of cash for his corporate coffers to be fulfilled.

CutNews recently reported about his rather expensive “peace plans” and the Associated Press titled an article about him “All you need is love…and some cash,” an allusion to the Beatles hit somewhat modified to fit Maharishi’s style.

And the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported about the millions he says must be raised to build a new school.

In the end one thing is certain, Maharishi is no “Fool On The Hill.”

Things haven’t been very peaceful in Maharishi, Iowa lately.

One devoted follower attending Maharishi University (MU), named for the 1960s guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, apparently stabbed to death a fellow student reported the Iowa Channel.com.

And it appears that simultaneously elsewhere on campus a MU employee was busy growing marijuana reports Golden Triangle News Service.

Days after the police moved pot-growing equipment from a frat room on campus MU student and accused murderer Shuvender Sem pleaded “not guilty” in court reported the Fairfield Daily Ledger.

Perhaps it was just a bad week for Maharishi, the 92-year-old guru who once taught the Beatles TM (Transcendental Meditation).

So much for the ballyhoo about “yogic flyers” that supposedly can reduce stress and crime by bringing greater peace through meditation.

Maybe they were grounded in Iowa?

Or should the indoor marijuana grower have supplied them with leafy fuel for yogic flight?

Whatever, it’s unlikely that these recent setbacks will stop the aged guru from further fund raising for his so-called “Peace Palaces.”

A murder and marijuana bust will likely just become a minor media glitch for the tireless self-promoter and certainly won’t stop his ever-growing Maharishi/TM multi-billion dollar spiritual empire.

People often think that old gurus fade away like old soldiers, but some just get really rich.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation (TM) at 92 is one of the oldest gurus around and also it seems possibly the richest.

He was the guru that handed out mantras to the Beatles in the 1960s. Old fans of the “Fab Four” may think after that he just toddled off into obscurity, without the cache of the British rockers.

However, over the following decades Maharishi methodically built a literal spiritual empire, which is now worth more than all the former Beatles fortunes combined.

Paul McCartney is reportedly worth more than one billion dollars, but his old guru has more than triple the wealth of the knighted Beatle known now as Sir Paul.

Maharishi controls combined real estate and business holdings of at least $3.6 billion dollars reports the Hartford Advocate. Though some estimate his vast financial empire is really worth closer to $5 billion.

This may make Maharishi the richest purported “cult” leader in the world.

The TM founder’s closest rivals for that title would likely be:

Rev. Moon 82, who controls the Unification Church and somewhere around $3 billion.

And then there is David Miscavige, the current head of Scientology, a global organization with its own hefty holdings, which some say might easily be worth more than $1 billion.

All this goes to prove that there may be “no business like show business,” but “cults” can really pay off big time.

John Gray’s bizarre claims about his education make him look more like a Martian than a reputable “doctor.”

The New York Post picked up the story first reported at CultNews about the relationship guru who faked an accredited college education.

Gray calls himself a “doctor,” but has no accredited college degree, even though he belongs to professional organizations that require them.

How did this ruse go on for so long?

It is startling that Gray was able to fool so many professionals, national publications, and network television news programs for more than a decade.

Even Oprah and Larry King were taken in, not to mention Harper Collins Gray’s publisher.

CultNews is still trying to verify that John Gray has an accredited high school diploma.

It seems he hooked up with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi the founder of Transcendental Meditation (TM) while still attending high school in Houston.

Gray spent nearly a decade as a celibate devotee of Maharishi before launching his own career as a relationship guru.

Did the teenage TMer drop out so he could meditate full-time with his mentor Maharishi?

One thing is certain. Any degree Gray claims beyond high school is not accredited and essentially worthless.

Hopefully, the so-called relationship “expert” at least managed to pick up his high school diploma before hitting the road with Maharishi.

It seems that well-known relationship gurus “Dr.” John Gray and “Dr.” Barbara De Angelis have bogus credentials reports Men News Daily.

Apparently the two both obtained their touted “doctorates” from a “diploma mill” shut down two years ago by the California state attorney general’s office.

Gray and De Angelis received doctorates from Columbia Pacific University, which California officials described as a “diploma mill” that issued “totally worthless degrees.”

Nevertheless these lauded experts have been a hot ticket on the lecture circuit (Gray is $30,000-$50,000 and De Angelis starts at $15,000) and they hold forth on such popular TV shows as Oprah, Good Morning America, and Larry King Live.

Gray and De Angelis routinely pass themselves off with the attached title of “Ph.D.”

Gray’s bestseller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus has sold 15 million copies worldwide and developed quite a cult following for the author.

De Angelis has written more than a dozen books, produced a video series, infomercial and was featured on CNN as a “relationship expert.”

Some might think that John Gray is trained in psychology and/or counseling, but instead he has degrees in Eastern Philosophy and they are hardly Ivy League. Gray reportedly picked up both his Bachelor’s and Master’s from the Maharishi European Research University in Switzerland.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is the founder of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement. And Gray was once one of his celibate monks, before becoming a guru of sorts himself.

Well, maybe it takes a guru to make a guru.

De Angelis has more in common with Gray than a “worthless” Ph.D., the two were once married.

De Angelis was Gray’s first wife, though he was her third husband. Barbara then went on to marry twice more, while John is still on his second marriage.

Another TM devotee magician Doug Henning was Barbara’s second hubby. Maybe she met Gray while attending a seminar at Maharishi U? Wouldn’t that be guru-romantic?

De Angelis did double duty as Henning’s assistant in his magic act. Perhaps she is now playing the role of a “doctor” for her second act.

“Secrets for Making Love Work,” is the title of a De Angelis produced video series. But will Barbara learn the secret herself the fifth time around?

And do these two “doctors” really posses the personal histories and/or credentials to commend them as “relationship experts”?

The popular radio “Sex Doctor” and perhaps the gold standard for a relationship guru might be Dr. Ruth Westheimer.

At least “Dr. Ruth” really is a doctor (Ph.D.) and though twice divorced, her third marriage has held together for more than four decades.

In fact both of Westheimer’s children have an accredited Ph.D., which is more than you can say for either “doctors” John Gray or Barbara DeAngelis.

In these days of deficits it’s nice to know the federal government helping to grow something besides debt.

In “Vedic City,” Iowa, the creation of purported “cult leader” Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay one fourth of the cost to install wind turbines to generate electrical power for the guru’s new greenhouse.

That’s right, $23,215 has been granted to the guru to help him grow vegetables, courtesy of the American taxpayer reports the Des Moines Register.

The bulk of the money for the overall vegetable venture will come from bonds sold by Vedic City; more than $3 million dollars is budgeted.

But the mayor of what increasingly appears to be Maharishi Midwest Inc. wants you to know that this is really all part of a program to promote world peace.

Huh?

“Studies have shown that if 8,000 people use transcendental meditation in the same place, they can create a source of energy for positive change in the world that can lead to world peace,” the mayor claims.

Will Maharishi’s followers meditate while they work in their guru’s greenhouse?

So far only 200 or so workers are scheduled for the project.

But don’t be surprised if the Maharishi and his devotees come up with other projects for government grants and to justify further bond sales.

This guru has made meditation a very lucrative business.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder and leader of Transcendental Meditation (TM), is attempting to make inroads within America’s public schools reports the Fairfield Ledger.

In press conferences carried by satellite uplink across the United States and in Canada the guru’s devotees touted TM as “consciousness-based education.”

Perennial presidential candidate John Hagelin, Maharishi’s pick for the White House, was busy spinning for his mentor.

“Conventional education has failed in its purpose of developing full human ability,” Hagelin told a crowd. “Maharishi’s consciousness-based education focuses on the development of the knower,” he claimed.

Right.

Is that the same educational process that has apparently transformed Hagelin from a Harvard Ph.D. to little more than a stooge for Maharishi?

Maybe that’s the point of “Maharishi…ED,” to persuade people and draw them into orbit around the old guru. This certainly seems to be the case with Hagelin and many other TM enthusiasts.

Another of the guru’s groupies proclaimed that through Maharishi’s teachings “a new world of angelic individuals” might be created.

But public schools are a place for education, not indoctrination according to some spiritual master’s special philosophy.

It appears that Maharishi and his cult following, are hoping to indoctrinate school children.

The cover of Time Magazine’s current August issue features the subject of “Meditation.” This includes substantial space about the practice of Transcendental Meditation (TM), the creation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

In its “Shoppers Guide to Meditation” Time even offers its readers a direct link to the TM guru’s website.

However, there is no mention that Maharishi and his meditation have a dark side.

Time mentions Maharishi University in Iowa and his “school of enlightenment.” There is even a blurb about the guru’s old Himalayan ashram. But nothing about why he has often been called a “cult leader.”

Former followers of Maharishi have sued him for personal injuries allegedly sustained through TM. And he eventually paid some of them off in out of court settlements.

Time also didn’t note Maharishi’s predilection for bizarre building projects, like expensive “peace palaces,” where his acolytes claim they meditate to change the world.

It seems that the guru may have realized a certain sort of cash consciousness that seemingly knows no bounds.

Maharishi even claims he can teach his students to fly.

Time didn’t mention these facts, but instead pointed out that celebrities like film director David Lynch of Twin Peaks fame and actress Heather Graham practice TM.

Graham once played Judy in the movie Lost in Space, perhaps she is now a bit spaced out.

Time also didn’t mention that a number of studies have offered less than glowing reports about TM.

One three-year study done by the National Research Council on improving human performance concluded that “TM is ineffectual in improving human performance” and that pro-TM researchers were “deeply flawed in their methodology.”

An article published by the International Journal of Psychotherapy reviewed 75 scientific articles about meditation and concluded that 62% of the practitioners encountered negative side effects.

A German study found that “76% of long-term TM practitioners experience psychological disorders, including 26% nervous breakdowns.”

Some groups called “cults” use “meditation” as a simple form of trance induction to induce a state of suggestibility. They can then influence members more easily and download their own agenda.

Maharishi has a deeply troubled history. His compound in India was the focus of allegations regarding “child molestation, death from abuse and neglect.”

Maybe that’s why the Beatles ultimately dumped Maharishi?

Some say the Beatle’s song “Fool on the Hill” was composed to commemorate their brief time with the guru. Others claim that “Sexie Sadie” was the actual tune they used as a vehicle to mock Maharishi. One thing is certain, neither song is much of a tribute.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) ran a commentary titled “TM’s Deceptions.” In it a former follower of Maharishi is quoted saying; “We were told it was often necessary to deceive the unenlightened to advance our guru’s plan to save the world.”

What’s Time’s excuse for plugging this controversial guru’s plan?

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s condo project in Chicago is stalled, while a proposal for a California “peace palace” hit an apparent impasse.

The founder of so-called “Transcendental Meditation” seems to be chanting a mantra for development, but this one is not for spiritual enlightenment. It’s more about real estate development in downtown Chicago.

However, Maharishi’s plan to convert a historic hotel into 39 luxury condominiums beginning at $3.4 million is stalled. And now it may take another mantra focused on financing to jumpstart the project, reports the Columbia Chronicle.

Another of the guru’s schemes also recently hit a snag.

In the posh area of Marin on the San Francisco Bay, Maharishi wants to build a $1.2 million dollar “peace palace,” reports The Marin Independent Journal.

“Peace palaces” are where Maharishi’s followers do what they call “yogic flying” to produce “positive energy.”

Objective observers have said it looks more like hopping around cross-legged in an apparent trance.

Despite his flyers, it looks like the guru’s palace may be grounded, due to zoning and construction costs.

Whatever scheme Maharishi puts together, he always seems to have some spin to get it aloft.

The “peace” the guru seemingly covets, is a piece of the profits.

At 92 Maharishi is still good at making his schemes fly, but the clever guru often takes the precaution of fueling them with other people’s money.

Guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi just opened a $4 million dollar so-called “peace palace” in Kentucky, paid for by a multi-millionaire devotee.

Americans seem ready to buy whatever Maharishi is selling.

The old guru wants to build another one in Atlanta, reports the Atlanta Journal.

What do these “peace palaces” accomplish?

Well, according to Maharishi and his publicity machine they supposedly can affect almost any ill in the world.

How?

By the practice of the guru’s so-called “Transcendental Meditation” (TM) of course, or so says Maharishi and his disciples.

Gaggles of the guru’s faithful gather in such “peace palaces” to meditate and thus they say, change the world.

But don’t expect such claims to be verified through any credible peer-reviewed scientific study.

Maharishi needs more rich folks willing to step up to the plate and pay for future palaces. And he has a history of finding such well-off gullible types globally.

The guru teaches that TM can enable its practitioners to become “yogic flyers,” they then fly for world peace.

Well, at least they think they’re flying after a good dose of meditation to “quiet the mind.”