This topic for this article is the
Maharishi’s magical practices; any remaining material of particular interest
will be covered separately.
Levels of operation
I have described how I use a systematic,
multi-level approach when looking for causes and explanations, giving as
an example someone who had behaved unprofessionally and out of character.
This approach also works well when looking
for the reasons for the powerful effect that some people have on others. People with a very strong influence, cult
leaders for example, often operate on several levels.
Diana Wynne Jones’s fictional witch Aunt Maria used her powers and influence on several levels; the Maharishi Yogi
is another person of interest who seems to have done the same.
We need to look at the physical, the
psychological and the metaphysical levels to fully understand how the Maharishi
Yogi achieved what he did.
His exotic background and appearance, his
glamour and great charisma, his impressive characteristics and attributes -
Joyce Collin-Smith tells us that he had a deep, rich voice for example - are
enough to explain some of his power over people.
Another partial explanation for his
influence: she says that there is so great a hungry for spiritual teaching that
people will cling to and sit at the feet of almost anybody who appears to know
something that they don’t know.
In his introduction to Call No Man Master,
Colin Wilson says much the same thing:
“The 20th century has produced more gurus,
sages and messiahs than the previous five centuries put together. The reason is
plain enough: the collapse of organised religion has left behind a hunger for
moral certainties, a craving for ‘hidden knowledge.’”
Maharishi was an oriental master. He had great
knowledge of the Hindu tradition. He gave the impression of being ‘a man who knows’. He gave continual hints of esoteric knowledge in his private teachings, and his followers hoped to acquire some of this from him.
People also hoped to benefit from performing his
practices.
People will stick around and put up with a
lot if they think there is something good in it for them.
Joyce Collin-Smith also tells us that the Maharishi
Yogi knowingly and deliberately used his mental powers and directed energy to
influence and control people. Some examples of the Maharishi’s use of
hypnotism, telepathy and willpower appear in previous articles.
Can this be enough to explain the suspicious
and convenient deaths previously described and the powerful effect that he had
on so many people?
We now come to occult influences and magical
practices.
Occult practices
Joyce Collin-Smith mentions a few examples of
ritual magic that the Maharishi performed.
She came to realise that some of the Hindu
rituals and Sanskrit mantras he used in the initiation ceremonies were an
invocation of the elemental kingdom.
She describes how he involved his advanced
initiates in a procedure that was obviously an attempt to invoke the Hindu
goddess Lakshmi:
“The atmosphere in the room changed and
seemed to be charged with electricity, as though it were a séance. Power of
some sort flooded into us...”
She says that his advanced practices and
special techniques were a conscious attempt to enlist help from principalities
and powers outside, and she and some of the others sensed the danger.
She tells us about an odd phenomenon: at a
point when she had partially withdrawn from the Movement, wherever she went she
would attract people who were searching for help. She decided that she must be
an involuntary carrier of Maharishi’s influence. Perhaps this was deliberate on
his part; perhaps too he did it with supernatural aid.
Black magicians and their victims
The Maharishi may have used his own or
borrowed powers to attract and enslave people.
The horrible story of the women whom the Maharishi bewitched then cast off reminds me very much of what I have read in Robin
Jarvis’s Whitby Witches books about the women who were in thrall to the black
magician Nathaniel Crozier. The similarities are uncanny.
Joyce Collin-Smith actually says that these
women were possessed, under a spell and subjects of a magician’s sorcery.
The dull malevolence they exuded when their
attempts to see the Maharishi again were thwarted is very familiar. The
expression she uses, ‘a hopeless, fruitless love for their Master’, could have
come straight from Robin Jarvis’s books, as could her reference to the
Maharishi’s dark powers.
The Maharishi is yet another example of
someone who didn’t practise what he preached:
