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!
There was a court case in the US in 1987 in
which three former devotees of the Maharishi demanded £64 million for damages,
saying that they had paid thousands of dollars to the Maharishi and his university
to be turned into ‘masters of creation’. They had been led step by step to pay
more and more for further techniques to ‘gain power over natural laws’. They had given
their own services free.
After years of study, they had ended up not
in Nirvana but ‘beset with anxiety, rage, guilt and loss of memory’.
They had ‘lost a crucial period of life when
they would otherwise have been obtaining university degrees, developing a
career and establishing family and social relationships.’
All they had got from the levitation
exercise...was 'a rude return to earth and chronic arthritis.’
From Lords and Ladies
Terry Pratchett puts it much more concisely
when Granny Weatherwax warns a young witch about the Elf Queen:
“She offered you lots of power I expect. All you wanted. For free... She gives you
power for a while… And then there is less power and more price. And then no
power, and you’re payin’ every day. They always take more than they give, And
what they give has less than no value. And they end up taking everything.”
A warning from two authors
Both Joyce Collin-Smith and Terry Pratchett tell
it how it is. They give a warning of what can happen to unwary people. They
show us how some people can end up,
Their
words remind us that people who join cults often get a very low rate of return on
their investment. The more they give the
less they get.
When it comes to the people who paid a
fortune to learn how to master the secrets of the universe, the expression “A
fool and his money are soon parted” comes to mind.
Greed for power and knowledge may cause
people to lose all judgement, and there may also be unscrupulous suppliers in
the case. Let the buyer beware. Don’t throw good money after bad.
Cut your losses and get out while the going
is good and before you end up in a terrible state.
