Joyce Collin-Smith: leaving the cult of the Maharishi Yogi

The final stage of Joyce Collin-Smith’s relationship with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Meditation movement as described in her autobiographical work Call No Man Master is of particular interest to me.

There was a time when she felt far from being ready to abandon the Maharishi. She eventually reached the stage where she felt a deep disquiet whenever she came close to him and met his eyes, and finally there were some last straw incidents that pushed her into completely giving up her involvement with him and his movement.

There are some familiar elements and a few coincidences in what she tells us, and some of the material is useful for adding to the store of information about how and why people leave cults and what happens to them afterwards.

The course in Italy

Everything came to a head when the Maharishi hand picked some people to go on a course of advanced teachings that was to be held in Italy, in the Dolomites. By then, he was charging selected followers hefty amounts for the privilege of learning special techniques.

Joyce Collin-Smith was one of the followers he ordered to go on the course. She felt hijacked, forced into attending.

This was the last course she ever went on. There was a last straw moment or two; the Maharishi went too far and she just couldn’t take any more.

For starters, she realised that he was teaching and presiding over magical practices; not only that, the rituals were very unsafe and undesirable for westerners.

Joyce Collin-Smith: inside the cult of the Maharishi Yogi

Joyce Collin-Smith said that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was both godlike and demonic.

To me, her autobiographical work Call No Man Master has a similar duality: it is both very interesting and very boring. Some of the content fascinates me and resonates very strongly while some of it means very little so I skip over it.

Some of the material has generated commentaries and inspired the making of some original connections while some of it is just more of the same or irrelevant so I have no inclination to say anything about it.

Cults, cult leaders, cult members and cult leavers have been covered in several articles, mainly in general terms. I found Joyce Collin-Smith’s account of her involvement with the cult of the Maharishi Yogi particularly interesting. It is a goldmine; it is independent confirmation of much of what has already been described.

This article covers my ideas about her stated reasons for joining Maharishi and for staying with him for several years despite some reservations and much disillusionment.  Another article will describe how she eventually brought herself to leave him and his organisation for good.

The Maharishi Yogi’s backfiring meditation methods

While I can’t get interested in the many descriptions of spiritual practices associated with India and Tibet in Joyce Collin-Smith’s Call No Man Master, I am very interested in her account of the negative and unwelcome side effects that the Maharishi Yogi’s Hindu meditation practices had on his followers and devotees.

These effects greatly reduced the efficiency of his disciples and prevented them from carrying out his instructions effectively.

How could this have happened to someone so knowledgeable about spiritual exercises?

I am also interested in what she tells us about the big difference between the sort of people the Maharishi wanted to attract and many of the people he actually attracted - at least in the early days of his movement.

What was going on here?

It all seems to have backfired on him; he got the exact opposite of what he wanted.

The effects on the meditation practitioners 

There are many references to the unwanted behavioural characteristics of the people around the Maharishi Yogi. These were not innate; it seems it was the meditation that changed these people for the worse.

More minor misfortunes and an unexpected ending

Accounts of bad days, bad decisions and strings of minor misfortunes appear in several previous articles.

There is a little more of the same to report, including a very recent nightmare journey that had an unexpected but very welcome ending.

More electrical malfunctions

Tills have recently behaved strangely when it was my turn to pay. Although they worked for the customer immediately in front of me, one went crazy and had to be reset and the other refused to function at all so the girl on it had to move to another station.

It is interesting that Joyce Collin-Smith says that her friend, the one who could make events turn out to good advantage for herself and her circle, caused problems with electrical apparatus.

Some minor disappointments

It is quite a while since I have had what I think of as a good day. Most of the misfortunes are too petty to report, but a long string of tiny setbacks makes me feel that I am living under a cloud.

On several occasions I have made special a trip to a particular shop I remembered only to find that it had closed down.  I took some unwanted items to my favourite charity shop only to find that they were not accepting donations on that day.

These things have their funny side: I remembered seeing a stall in an indoor shopping centre where they repair watches, so took mine there to have a new battery put in. The watch repair man said he wouldn't do it because it would involve taking the back off and unscrewing things!

These are all very trivial problems; things could be and have been much worse. Not only that: a bad day had a good ending.

Cult members: giving more and more in return for less and less

Something I read  in Joyce Collin-Smith's Call No Man Master  about the Maharishi Yogi reminds me of something I read in Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies about the Elf Queen. 

We start with an amusing anecdote from a serious book; the second extract is a serious statement from a very amusing book.  

From Call No Man Master

Joyce Collin-Smith tells us that the Maharishi Yogi started out by initiating people in return for fruit and flowers, but he went on to demand larger and larger sums of money in return for his teachings. Even the basic courses were very costly, and the lessons in special techniques became steadily more and more expensive. Some people deprived both themselves and their families to pay his exorbitant fees.

These special techniques were supposed to teach people to become clairvoyant, to manipulate the forces of nature and to levitate!

The Maharishi Yogi and some fictional characters

This article will highlight a few special connections I noticed while reading Joyce Collin-Smith’s account of the time she spent with the Maharishi Yogi in the 1960s.

Some of the information she gives us about the Maharishi in Call No Man Master reminds me of what I have written about various fictional characters, including St. John Rivers from Jane Eyre.

Some of it may be small stuff, but the devil is in the details.

The red, white and black connection

These colours of interest have been mentioned in various articles about witches, including one about Emma Cobley from Linnets and Valerians, who was wearing these colours and knitting a red scarf when the children first saw her.

By coincidence, when Joyce Collin-Smith first saw the Maharishi, he was wearing white silk robes and carrying a sheaf of red gladioli. He had long black curling hair.

He had exchanged the gladioli for a red rose when she went to meet him personally.

Joyce Collin-Smith and the special powers of the Maharishi Yogi

There is still more to say about Joyce Collin-Smith and her dealings with the Maharishi Yogi.

This article will mainly cover the Maharishi’s special powers.

In her autobiographical book Call No Man Master, she suggests that he remotely caused two deaths. In one case the motive was to remove an obstacle from his path while in the other it was revenge.

As described in the previous article, she believes that Beatles’ agent Brian Epstein was removed because he stood in the way of the Maharishi’s plans and Beatle John Lennon was murdered as a punishment for speaking out openly against the Maharishi.

What did she see and experience during the time she spent with the guru that could have given her this idea? Why did she believe that he had the power to destroy people? Why did she believe that he would use his power so ruthlessly?

Some more extracts from her book provide answers to these key questions. The incidents described may seem trivial to some people, but for me they are very significant and provide independent confirmation of many of my ideas.

The Maharishi Yogi, the Beatles and Joyce Collin-Smith

In her book Call No Man Master, Joyce Collin-Smith suggests that the Maharishi Yogi used his occult powers to cause the deaths of two men. One was the Beatle John Lennon and the other was the Beatles’ agent Brian Epstein.

She believed that the Maharishi had the ability to influence events remotely. This belief was based on her own experiences of seeing him and other people in action. I have both read about and experienced many metaphysical phenomena, some of which have been mentioned on here as have some suspicious and/or convenient deaths, so I too believe that a few people have special powers, powers that are often used to harm others. 

Joyce Collin-Smith’s account of these deaths will be followed by some supporting material from various sources.