Although they have toned down some of the really insane stuff, Elan Vital's main website still refers to critics of Maharaji as a "hate group." Note the following from the "faq" section of www.elanvital.org :
First, they start out with this, with the usual, loaded, dishonest, biased, self-serving "FAQ." Not only do former premies criticize Maharaji, they are out to "negate" his work and are "dedicated"
to that:
Is it true there is a group of former students who dedicate their time and energies to negating Maharaji’s work?
Then the answer, again biased and dishonest, because there are many more than a "handful" and many of us, including me, are not anonymous:
Yes, it is true. For a few years, a handful of disgruntled former students operating under the cloak of anonymity have hidden behind the Internet’s cloak of anonymity to disparage Maharaji, his students and Elan Vital.
Then, the cult immediately switches to calling us a "hate group" with no support or evidence, in the next sentence:
One of the hate groups’ favorite dirty tricks is creating multiple web pages with the same hate speech, unsupported allegations and hearsay under different domain names to create the impression that more people support their views than in reality.
Isn't that special?
Then, in a later paragraph, EV uses pseudo-psychology to diagnose our problems (we are not only hateful, we are obsessed), and EV then turns Maharaji into a victim "voice for peace" who is persecuted like "Ghandi" and "Martin Luther King," who I dare say would roll over in their graves at being compared to the self-centered, obscenely materialistic, aging, boy-Lord:
Why do people become part of a hate group?
Sociologists and mental health experts have speculated about the reasons for Internet-based hate. Understanding the motives that lead to obsessive hate-mongering is difficult. Historically, most voices for peace have been targets of violent reactions. Gandhi and Rev. Martin Luther King were assassinated...
I note that the US EV website no longer includes a list of all the other psychological problems, and the mental and moral defects we all have that make us not "normal." In fact, not only are we not "normal," we are not "ordinary," "functional?!" nor are we "law abiding citizens."
Golly. [One wonders how they could have known any of that (to the extent there is a word of truth in any of it) if we are indeed all anonymous, but as we can see even internal consistency is not a problem for Maharaji and his cult.]
However, in keeping with the generally more fanatic cult membership down under, the Australian website still has that crap at
http://www.elanvital.com.au/faq/article.php?id=084 There, you can read the following:
Are the people in this hate group credible?
Of the 15-20 people posting as various anonymous personae on the hate site, it has been documented that:
One has been hospitalised for hallucinatory paranoia.
One has acknowledged suffering from multiple personality disorder.
One became a member of the hate group after surgery to remove a brain tumour that affected his cognitive abilities.
One receives a pension for permanent mental disability.
One runs a pornographic film production business.
One, a lawyer, acknowledged in writing having embezzled $18,000 from an organisation supporting Maharaji's work.
Another, also a lawyer, has acknowledged having been arrested three times. Although this same person insists that Maharaji "must" be guilty of some tax fraud, she herself has been levied by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for tax arrears of more than
US$200,000.
One NA from Australia, is in prison after being convicted for illegal weapons possession as well as possession of 150 lbs. of marijuana.
One, a notorious cyber-hacker, was subjected to a restraining order after being investigated for domestic violence.
Journalist JM from Byron Bay was recently held liable by the Supreme Court of Queensland for theft of private financial and credit data and convicted for contempt of court.
This is not exactly a cross-section of normal, ordinary, functional, law-abiding citizens.
From what I can tell, this "information" is almost completely made up and some of it has been specifically addressed and shown to be false, and most of it appears to have come from the
"Citizens Against Cyberstalking" website that followers of Rawat set up to attack and blackmail ex-premise from posting on the internet. The cult also has no problem being associated with that, nor do they have any problem with continuing to exploit, harass, libel, and abuse, John Macgregor for the cult's own ends.
Anyhow, I think the front page of EPO should have a general response to the Elan Vital websites that label critics as a "hate group." I'll suggest a response that other people can comment on and edit, in the following post.
Elan Vital tries to shut down Ex-premie.org
At the end of April 2003, Elan Vital tried to silence its critics on the Internet in a concerted action against the hosts of Ex-Premie.org and its mirror sites, and against Google (Google caches EPO's pages in order to index them in its search engine). Had these attempts be successful, it would have been difficult to find any reference to Ex-Premie.org on the most popular search engine of the Internet, and this website would have lost a fundamental part of its documentation on the origin of Prem Rawat's so-called teachings.
Elan Vital also tried to intimidate the website hosts, Verio. Details of the action, and subsequent response of Verio and Google, are contained on the next couple of pages.