Prem Rawat (Prem Pal Singh Rawat) whose devotees call him Maharaji (meaning Ultimate Ruler) first came to attention in the West as Guru Maharaj Ji - the self-proclaimed Perfect Master and Lord of the Universe ridiculed in the media as a fat, squeaky-voiced God boy. He had inherited his titles and position as the Satguru, The True Revealer of Light and Spiritual Master of the Divine Light Mission, India (Divya Sandesh Parishad) when his father died in 1966. His father, Hans Rawat, was a successful Indian guru, self titled HRH (His Royal Highness) Yogiraj Param Sant Satgurudev Shri Hans Ji Maharaj. As a child the youngest Rawat son was informally called Sant Ji, more formally Balyogeshwar ("Born King of the Yogis") and even more formally Param Sant Satgurudev Shri Sant Ji Maharaj. In the West Rawat dropped these more verbose titles in the early 1980's and instructed his followers to call him Maharaji. He has also changed the names of his organisations many times: Divine Light Mission (DLM), World Welfare Association (WWA), World Peace Corps (WPC) and Divine United Organisation (DUO) became Elan Vital in the early 1980's and in 2001 The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) was created and from 2010 his major orgs are Words Of Peace Global (WOPG) registered in Holland, Words of Peace International (WOPI) in the USA, HDSK (Human Development through Self Knowledge) in Great Britain and Raj Vidya Kender (Royal Knowledge Society) in India. He no longer claims to be an Incarnation of God but an internationally famous humanitarian leader and teacher of peace. He's neither.
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Paper: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) Title:
Date: April 10, 1988
Fran Jason's 29-year-old epileptic daughter, Nancy, a follower of the Divine Light Mission group, has been missing since 1977.
Rudy Arkin says the Hare Krishnas "deceptively captured" the mind of his son Glenn. A college senior at American University then, Glenn has been missing for 27 months.Four years ago, Nancy Lauble snatched back her 24-year-old son, Joe. He was ''no more than a little slave" who wore saffron robes and shaved his head and whose daily tasks consisted of bringing in money and recruiting new members, Lauble says. "Now, he is just coming back into the mainstream of life again."
These three parents are volunteers for the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), a nonprofit, grass-roots organization with affiliates in 32 states that aims to educate the public about the harmful effects of mind control used by cults.
The group, which met here late last month, is lobbying Congress to support a resolution declaring the week of Nov. 13 as National Cult Awareness Week. That week was selected partly to mark the 10th anniversary of the tragedy in Jonestown, Guyana, where 913 followers of Jim Jones' People's Temple died by suicide and murder on Nov. 18, 1978, after drinking cyanide-laced punch that Jones apparently had ordered them to take.
Patricia Ryan - the daughter of Rep. Leo Ryan (D., Calif.), who was shot to death that day as he led a fact-finding tour to Jonestown - is a member of the CAN advisory board.
"Our visits to congressmen (to lobby for the resolution) helped tremendously. The cult groups have thought of everything in their power to keep us from expressing our views to Congress, but not one of our members backed down," says Ryan, a member of CAN for five years.
"If the resolution passes, it will allow us to organize (educational) activities on local and state levels," she says.
When the public hears about cults, "they think it's somebody else's crazy kids. They don't want to know about it," says Lauble, vice president of the local affiliate here. "But when it's your kid, it hits home."
CAN estimates that up to five million people are involved with the 2,500 groups in the United States it considers to be cults. CAN focuses its attention on "destructive cults" that it says recruit members deceptively and keep them by using manipulative thought-reform or mind-control techniques.
CAN says these groups alter the personality and behavior of recruits. In the "destructive cults," CAN asserts, the leaders become all-powerful and establish a value system with little regard for society's laws, ethics or morals.
Often, leaders disguise the groups as churches, Bible study groups, self- improvement seminars or self-realization retreats, CAN maintains. Their goal is for the recruit to become increasingly active until he believes in the cult's goals so strongly that he sacrifices his freedom, personality, money, career, family and health to fulfill the cult's goals.
Groups that CAN has received complaints about include: the Unification Church, Hare Krishnas, The Way International, Scientology, Transcendental Meditation, Black Hebrews, The Forum, Divine Light Mission, Body of Christ, Family of Love, ECK, Faith Assembly, Ramtha, Alive Polarity and the Satanism/ Ritualistic cults.
Most of those who attended the three-day conference were middle-to-older- age parents of past and present cult members. In addition to lobbying, the conferees participated in panel discussions on such topics as legal tools for stopping cult activities, cults' increasing influence in politics and updates on shepherding, satanism and behavioral training programs that CAN says many corporations are subscribing to.
Jason describes her daughter Nancy as a bright child, "always scoring in the 98 percentile" on standardized tests. A freshman art major at a Maryland junior college, she moved out of her home and joined the Divine Light Mission in Maryland. "She became a recorded message, always talking about love and peace. It was perfect nonsense. No logic," Jason says.
"I respected her right to choose," she says. "I didn't know what (the group) was. Who knew? You respect your children and allow them to explore things for themselves."
"We just want to provide educational materials to people so they can begin to understand what this is all about," Jason says, "and let people make up their own minds."
"Cults are powerful now, they have so much money," Lauble says. "But we intend to fight them with the Xerox machine and postage meter."
Arkin, president of the local affiliate here, says, "It's like David battling Goliath. If we keep practicing with our slingshot, maybe we'll hit them with a pebble between the eyes."
Prem Rawat's "Knowledge" has three parts: regularly listening to his speeches, doing voluntary work for organisations serving him or donating money and daily meditation correctly practicing the four techniques he recommends. The techniques are so simple it's hard to see how they could be practiced incorrectly. First technique ("Divine Light") involves sticking your thumb and middle finger on your eyeballs (NB: with eyes closed) and your index finger between your eyebrows. Second technique: ("Heavenly Music") poking your thumbs into your ears and listening. Third technique: ("Holy Name") thinking about your breathing (NB: continue to breathe). Fourth technique: ("Nectar") curling your tongue backwards and tasting. Rawat's father taught slightly different techniques but either way it's difficult to see how these could produce the benefits claimed for them especially as Rawat claims His Knowledge is the only method of attaining real happiness and love in this life.