Pat Halley, The Shaving Cream Pie And The Heavenly Hammer
Pat Halley, The Shaving Cream Pie And The Heavenly Hammer
It made the front pages of the Detroit Free Press and the News. It received prime attention from the local TV news shows. It even
warranted a full five minute feature on Walter Cronkite's national news: God had been hit in the face with a shaving-cream pie!
On Tuesday, August 7th, 4pm on the 13th floor of the Detroit City-County building in a small auditorium which functions as the formal meeting place for the Detroit Common Council public sessions. Followers of Prem Rawat (Guru Maharaj Ji) had convinced emarassingly naive councilwoman Erma Henderson to draft a key-to-the city resolution for their Perfect Master who they claimed was an emissary of peace, love and other humanitarian activities. These keys-to-the-city resolutions are rarely opposed but in this case Councilman David Eberhard, a Lutheran minister, voted against the resolution saying "I can't be part of supporting a fake." Meanwhile, a tongue-in-cheek "Demonstration Against God" sponsored by the Council for the Eruptive Anticipation of the Marvelous (CREAM) continued outside the building.
Rawat arrived in powder blue Lincoln Continental with four men all dressed in expensive business suits and went up to the 13th floor where they waited while Councilman Mel Ravitz was delivering the day's first testimonial to someone who had designed a clever anti-gun media campaign. The press had been alerted that something would happen and were ready when an unkempt, bearded young man approached the Guru and his bodyguards carrying a bouquet of flowers behind which was a shaving cream-pie that he ceremoniously splatted in the face of the Guru Maharaj Ji, the 15-year-old "messiah" as a protest to puncture the pomposity and pretension of this self-proclaimed Lord of the Universe. The perpetrator was Pat Halley, an anarchist and reporter for the antiestablishment Fifth Estate magazine
The iconoclastic Halley slipped out the building during the confusion and escaped into the rush-hour pedestrian traffic.
"The guru is just a slick businessman," Halley said.
"I always wanted to throw a pie in God's face, he said. "God represents the ultimate in authority and I represent the ultimate in disrespect for authority."
The guru, Halley said, "was radiating dollar signs of peace and love."
The guru immediately retreated to an inner hallway where quietly panicked aides wiped off the cream and tried to think what to say. The aides tried to bar reporters, but the guru held an impromptu press conference where he said: "This is nothing compared to the nails driven into the hands of Jesus." Later, the guru said: "I just want to apologise to that person who did that to me. I don't want him arrested or hurt. If someone doesn't understand something, he cannot be held responsible for what he does." While this explanation strained credulity the affair would have been forgotten as a joke if there had been no repercussions.
Unfortunately 55 year old Juteswar Misra, from India, and 25 year old Richard Fletcher from the USA decided, alone or in a consipracy with other members of DLM, that this was a crime that required a capital punishment. Misra was better known as Mahatma Fakiranand, he was proclaimed a Great Soul, and he had initiated thousands of people in the USA into Rawat's "Knowledge." His accomplice was no ordinary premie either. At that time Divine Light Mission honchos considered themselves the reincarnations of famous saints. Fletcher and his twin brother John were considered the reincarnation of St. Peter. "They have the most incredible experiences on meditation - they meditate four and five days nonstop, just twenty-four hours a day," Rennie Davis told the press. "The whole house they're in just feels their vibration. Guru Maharaj Ji says they could really realize The Knowledge." Forty years later, nobody has realized The Knowledge.
They flew to Detroit and contacted Halley pretending to be disaffected apostates and on the promise of a scoop revelation of the guru's meditation techniques went with him to his
home and smashed him six times on the head with a heavy metal blackjack. Though dazed and bleeding, Halley managed to scream and fight unsettling the premie perpetrators who fled.
Halley was taken to hospital where doctors stitched him up with 55 sutures and inserted a permanent plastic plate in his skull. The Divine Light Mission issued press releases giving
false information about the perpetrators and Detroit police issued a felony warrant against the two men, charging them with "assault with intent to do great bodily harm" but they
were loath to expend resources on an assault on an anti-establishment crypto-anarchist so the truth may have remained hidden
if Rennie Davis could ever keep his mouth shut. Davis admitted to journalist Ken Kelley that both were back in the guru's good graces and that Misra/Fakirnanad was "shipped off to Germany,
where he's still giving Knowledge."
One of Fakiranand's satsangs is posted here, he certainly seems "blissed out" in the photo and in his speech:
"I am seeing that self-effulgent Light twenty-four hours a day. Guru Maharaj has opened my eye and has given everything to me. I am remembering that Word at all times. There is nothing more precious than Guru, nothing more lovely than Guru Maharaj in this whole universe for a human being."
In a final irony Fakiranand who was an important mahatma of Shri Hans, Prem Rawat's father, and remained an extremely important mahatma under Satpal Maharaj after Prem Rawat was deposed by his Indian followers and nearly every other Indian mahatma of Divine Light Mission repudiated Prem Rawat as the Satguru and he continued as a mahatma until at least the 2008 preaching for Satpal Maharaj, Rawat's eldest brother and replacement Perfect Master.
While this attack is probably the most heinous crime perpetrated by devotees of Prem Rawat for Prem Rawat it is indicative of the dark heart of Rawat's religion. Because his followers were taught that he was the greatest incarnation of God that ever trod the face of this planet anything done for him was automatically ethical no matter how wrong it seemed by ordinary standards. Because Rawat also taught that any and every luxury should be showered upon him most of the crimes committed by his followers were similar to the first smuggling incident publicised in 1972. Money smuggling and avoidance of taxes and the hiding of the extent of Rawat's wealth were considered standard procedures in Divine Light Mission.
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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.