Not only did they complain to ex-premie.org's hosts, but Elan Vital (via its lawyers) also complained to Google.
On April 24, 2003, Stroock, Stroock and Lavan also sent a letter to Google, very similar to the one sent to EPO's host.
In that letter, EV complains about Google caching those 65 infamous pages (see above) - allegedly violating EV's copyrights, and threatens Google with legal action if they didn't immediately remove the offending pages from their cache.
It looks like Google is familiar with these sort of threats, and wasn't impressed by EV's lawyers' letter. And something that Stroock, Stroock and Lavan (and Elan Vital) probably didn't expect happened: Google sent a copy of the letter to the "Chilling Effects" website.
Chilling Effects is a "joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and University of Maine law school clinics"
that's been set in order to illustrate how "some individuals and corporations are using
intellectual property and other laws to silence other online users. Chilling Effects encourages respect for intellectual property law, while frowning on its misuse to 'chill' legitimate activity".
And the case of EV's complaint to Google, it is used by Chilling Effects to illustrate how law can be used to try to silence critics !!
We didn't expect so much support !!
Journeys
A large part of the Ex-premie website, titled “Journeys”, contains the personal stories of individuals who became involved in the cult. Some of the writers have used pseudonyms; some have used their own names. Their testimonies speak for themselves. This is a selection of the stories available on the website. To read more, you’ll have to go online.
AJW (Anthony Ginn)
God is Great but...
In the summer of 1972 my wife and I stumbled through Heathrow Airport, sick, penniless and owning only the faded cotton pyjamas we were wearing. Three weeks earlier, we'd been dropped, semi-conscious, on the steps of the United Christian hospital in Lahore, Pakistan. My wife looked like a skeleton. She was dying from dehydration. I was so ill with hepatitis I couldn't stand up. We'd been traveling around India 'looking for Truth', run out of money and become ill.
The hospital put us to bed, stuck a tube into my wife's arm to restore her body fluid, fed me on glucose and water, and called the British Embassy. Three weeks later, an English civil servant arrived, paid our hospital bill and handed us a couple of air tickets home. I was in hospital in England for another month, but when I arrived back to our house in the country I was a happy hippy, a year older, but much wiser.
I'd been to India, found a guru, given up drugs, and become a full time, seriously spiritual person. I'd read Herman Hesse, Ramakrishna, Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Paul Brunton, 'M', and the Silver Surfer. From Zen Buddhism I understood that there was such a thing as
'Enlightenment', which would suddenly descend on me when the moment was right, and I was ready. From Ramakrishna I learned that the two great obstacles to enlightenment were 'women and gold'. From Timothy Leary I learned that I needed a guru, and from the Silver Surfer I learned that the inhabitants of Earth are not to be trusted. In India, I'd visited the ashram of Sai Baba, and decided he must be my guru.
Back in our terraced house in Staffordshire, I set about the serious business of realising God. I threw out all the books that weren't scriptures, quit 'worldly' activities, like watching TV, eating cake, playing music and having sex. I converted the downstairs front room into a temple, set up a massive shrine and meditated on my mantra every day.
I tried to spread the word, but my colleagues in the toilet factory were in darkness. My old hippy friends were deluded and ignorant, in love with their egos. Things weren't working out as I'd hoped. I was back from India, with a glowing aura, but it wasn't affecting people the way I'd hoped. It seemed to be acting more as a repellent. Realising God was a lonely path.
The initial excitement of having a new 'mission' in life soon wore off, and I felt more frustrated than enlightened. According to my understanding of the spiritual path, the lesser beings around me should become inspired in my presence, and bring me offerings so I didn't have to go to work. I organised a 'bhajan evening' in my temple, but only a couple of broke, lonely people showed up, and none of us could sing.
Maybe I wasn't surrendering enough. I needed to renounce more. Ramakrishna said worldly talk took you away from God. I'd start there. Next morning, sitting around the table, at tea break in the toilet factory, I told my work mates, that I no longer wished to discuss worldly topics. If they wanted to talk to me, I would only reply if the subject was spiritual.
Things were happening again. I'd taken a step closer to the Godhead. Enlightenment was
imminent. Ramakrishna said, 'He who renounces women and gold is near to God realisation'. I'd
not only given up women and gold, but a long list of other things too. In fact I'd given up everything I could think of. All that remained was to walk out the door, and God would take care of me forever. I'd never have to work, cook, pay rent, or participate in worldly activities again. My time in the world was over. I would return to India and gather disciples at my feet.
We lived in a Victorian terraced mining cottage, in Staffordshire, England. The door from the lane outside, opened directly into our temple. I meditated there, every morning, for half an hour.
My mantra was based on the name of my guru, Sai Baba. My wife and I went to some of his conjuring shows, at an Ashram (monastery) near Bangalore, in South India.
One of my mantra's many magical effects was that it could change itself into the name of the England football manager, Alf Ramsey. It went, 'Sai Ram Sai Ram Say Ramsay, Ramsey.
Ramsey.' One Saturday morning, shortly after my tea break declaration in 'Toiletworld', I finished meditating, put on a shoe, and the Universe turned on its axis. As predicted in 'The Way of Zen' by Alan Watts, the moment of Enlightenment was upon me. The world fell away like, a spent cocoon. Wings of devotion and renunciation would carry me to the Creator. Yeah, I would step out of my worldly prison and become a wandering monk.
The front door was open. It was raining. I looked down. I hadn't finished dressing. I was wearing one shoe. The second shoe was behind me. Raindrops splattered on the road. I wondered how far I'd get with only a sock on my left foot. Already I was doubting my divine destiny, and I hadn't even moved. I had renounced the world and was about to walk out of my home forever.
But I was only wearing one shoe. The left shoe, which was behind me, was part of the world I'd just renounced. To retrieve it would be to walk back to the chains of materialism and delusion.
I leaned forward, but my feet wouldn't move. I leaned back. Nothing. I was trapped in the void between God consciousness and a wet sock. My wife walked into the room, stared at me for a couple of minutes, decided eventually I'd get hungry, and went back into the kitchen. Half an hour later I scrambled back from the brink of insanity by frantically stuffing my mouth with a cheese and pickle sandwich. Premies call this state of mind, 'Ready for Knowledge'.
The 60s had faded away. It was the morning after the Revolution and we'd lost, (except in Holland). We had scrambled brains for breakfast. Hippies were detoxing and finding other interests in life: the environment, whole foods, feminism, gay rights, drug trafficking, philately and God. Lots of folk who saw God on acid got into alternative religions, like the Hare
Krishnas, Subud and Transcendental Meditation.
Several close friends had joined 'Divine Light Mission' and become followers of the fifteen year old, 'living Perfect Master', Guru Maharaj Ji. I'd seen Maharaji speak, a couple of years earlier at the 1971 Glastonbury festival. A group of us had moved down there for a month, to help build the stage for the first festival on Michael Eaves' farm. Maharaji, aged 13, had recently arrived in England, and appeared briefly at the festival.
We began to get wild letters and phone calls from friends who had become premies, telling us that the Lord of the Universe had incarnated into a human body, and was 'revealing God'.
Although there was no charge for 'Knowledge', some were handing over their possessions, moving into 'Ashrams', getting jobs and giving up meat, drink and drugs.
We held a party. Walking through the house was a journey down the chakras. There were Bhajans in the front room, dope smokers in the middle room and a drunken woman, with her bare arse stuck in a plastic bucket, laying on kitchen floor.
Then the premies arrived. The brothers wore second-hand suits with large 3D badges of Maharaji, with flashing rainbows around his head. The sisters wore dresses and skirts down to the floor, cardigans and the same rainbow badges. Everyone carried a bundle of leaflets. They marched through the temple, where I was delivering a holy discourse to a drunken kiln-fireman from the toilet factory.
They stopped in the middle room, where they formed a circle, held hands, raised their eyes to heaven, and sang, 'Amazing Grace.' Before they reached, '...how sweet the sound,' the room was empty. Stoned hippies and incapacitated drunks from the factory, returned to consciousness, rose miraculously to their feet, and fled in terror, in every direction. The drunken bucket woman in the kitchen, who had finally managed to stand up, fell over again in the excitement. The audience to my discourse was chased into the street, by a premie clutching a leaflet.
My friend Tom, recently converted, explained everything. It went something like, 'There is always a Master on the Earth. Once it was Jesus, once it was Krishna, once it was Buddha, now its Guru Maharaj Ji. It's passed on, like the family silver. Maharaj Ji can show you God, face to face. When you meditate, you'll see this light, brighter than a thousand suns, better than acid.
And you'll hear music, better than Pink Floyd. You'll taste the nectar of Heaven. And you'll know the unspeakable Word of God. Guru Maharaj Ji shows you all this. It's called Knowledge.
He's fourteen years old and driving around in a Rolls Royce.'
It sounded exactly what I was looking for. So, after calling in sick at the toilet factory, and chasing a Mahatma (God realised soul, imported from India) around the country for a couple of weeks, in March 1973, I ended up in a room where Mahatma Umeshfee decided I was ready to be shown, what were then called, 'the four techniques of meditation ' and 'receive Knowledge'.
'Being ready' meant understanding that there was only one Master and only one method of attaining salvation, which was to 'practice Knowledge and dedicate your life to Maharaji.' I was shown the four meditation techniques. I didn't see light brighter than a thousand suns. Neither did I hear Ummagumma, but something was buzzing.
I was meeting loads of new friends, and we all had a mission in life. 'Bhajan evening' eat your heart out. No more ranting at drunken sanitary workers. Every night there was an eager audience for words of 'satsang' flowing from my mouth. 'Satsang' meant, literally, 'company of truth.
There were 'satsang meetings' which took place every evening, in a hall, or 'satsang room' in a house or ashram. We'd sit around an altar of Maharaji, take it in turns to 'give satsang', or tell each other how fantastic knowledge, Maharaji and life were.
We'd also sing devotional songs, 'I love you Maharaji, your grace is overflowing. I love you my Lord. You are all knowing. You have given me life, out of your mercy and compassion. I am so grateful..etc'.
My wife and I were qualified, but inexperienced schoolteachers. At the 1973 Guru Puja festival, we went to a meeting of premie teachers, and were invited to sell our house, put the money towards a 'Divine School' for premies' children, and join an 'Education Ashram' in London.
Amazing things were afoot. The Lord of the Universe had incarnated, along with a Holy Family.
Milky Cole, close companion of the Lord, informed us that Maharaji's three elder brothers were, respectively, the Creator, Preserver and Destroyer of the Universe. I kept getting them muddled up. Was Bhole Ji the Creator or the Preserver? No matter. There was the Holy Mother Mataji.
We sang, '...and when the seasons change for you the last time, say thank you for your life to Holy Mother Mata Ji'.
Just as the Christian Church of the Middle Ages, explained the pyramidical hierarchy of Heaven, God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Angels, Apostles, Saints (all, over 'the other side') followed, down here on Earth by, Pope, Archbishops etc, down to the punters who funded it with 10% of their labour, so we had our own divine hierarchy. At the top was Balyogeshwar Shri Sant Ji Maharaj.
Then there was God and the Holy family.
It may seem strange in these enlightened times, but the Mahatmas really did explain to us how Maharaji was 'greater than God'. The reasoning was summarised on a Divine Light Mission poster, which said, in English and Hindi, 'God is great, but greater is Guru, because Guru reveals God'. It was a difficult concept to deal with, so we usually settled for him being God.
Back on Earth, Maharaji's mother and three brothers, Bhal Bhagwan Ji, Bhole Ji and Raja Ji, were all divine beings, but not as divine as Maharaji. At the end of satsang, we all used to yell in unison, 'Bhole Shri Satgurudev Maharaj Ki Jai. Anandakanda Bhal Bhagwan Ki Jai. Jagat Janani Shri Mata Ki Jai. Satchitavar Ki Jai.' and a final, louder, 'Bhole Shri Satgurudev Maharaj Ki Jai'. We'd throw both hands in the air, in a kind of two armed 'Sieg Heil', on every 'Ki Jai'.
I assume, because Raja Ji and Bhole Ji didn't get a yell, they were a bit lower in the hierarchy.
(This proved to be the case some years later, when Bhal Bhagwan Ji also became a 'Perfect Master, God himself walking around on Earth for our benefit', type of person. But that's another story.)
Below the Holy Family were special Mahatmas, like Gurucharanand, and premies who lived and perhaps travelled, with Maharaji. Below them were the ordinary Mahatmas. Then came the Ashram premies. Then the premies who were waiting to go into the ashram, followed by the 'community premies', (burdened by children, or ignorance), followed by the rest of the human race. They too had their levels in the divine hierarchy. At the top were the aspirants, people waiting to be initiated. Below them were people who had heard about Knowledge, and the more you heard, the higher you went. Even reading a leaflet would help.
In the ashram, you lived a life of satsang, service and meditation. We got up at six, sang a long hymn of praise to Maharaji, 'Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, bow their heads and pray to you...', meditated, ate a magnificent breakfast, then went to work. At lunchtime I sold copies of 'Divine Times' on the street. In the evenings we went to satsang at the 'Palace of Peace' in London, where we organised childcare.
At weekends we planned our school and studied education. We discovered a 'spiritual' education system, devised by Rudolph Steiner and enthusiastically studied it. My wife and I were told to start satsang meetings for children. We opened a school in the ashram basement, in South London, and had a class of ten.
The population of the ashram increased and, as Unity School was going to take boarders, several children moved in. It became so crowded, we built a platform in the children's bedroom, and put
children on top, and underneath. I moved into the garden and slept under an old table covered with polythene. Nine children and forty three adults lived in the house.
A government inspector came around to look at the school. We told him there were nine
children and twelve adults in the house. His only comment was he thought it was overcrowded.
He should have seen it at bedtime.
I remember when I visited friends and relatives, looking around their living rooms, thinking, 'What a waste of space. Ten people could sleep in here.' We raised about 360.000 and bought an old manor house in Cornwall. As well as the Waldorf (Steiner) curriculum, the children would work on the farm. Their education would include growing crops, grinding corn, milking cows, making butter and so on. My wife and I would look after the boarding children, out of classroom hours. This meant getting them up in the morning, putting them to bed at night and looking after them in the evening and at weekends.
In the Education Ashram we had a 'special mission', with agya (a direct instruction from the Lord) to start a school. Nobody argues with 'agya'. We were allowed to read books, paint, play music, discuss intellectual topics, activities forbidden in other ashrams. We went on courses at the Steiner college, made plans and knew we were part of something magnificent. Soon there would be so many premies in every town, Unity Schools would be needed all over the country.
Why, by 1980, the ashram secretary will probably be the Minister of Education.
There was an understanding, that if you were serious about 'practising knowledge' you should live in an ashram. 'Non-ashram premies' were treated as second class citizens. Ashram premies went to special meetings with Maharaji, had special privileges at events and got free Herb tea and sugar free snacks at the Palace of Peace 'Sohungry Cafe'. On the other hand, they had no official sex, drugs or rock and roll, and had to hand over their wage packet to the ashram secretary every week.
If you were married and had children, you were stuck between a rock and a hard stone. You'd have to wait until your children grew up and left home before you could truly surrender to your Master. Unless of course you could dump them somewhere. And where better than Unity School, where they would be looked after by 'disciples of the Living Lord', who were ashram premies, in pure consciousness.
My wife and I went through the application forms. Sixty five children were expected to board.
We checked their ages. Over forty were under seven, and most were four or five. You didn't need a third eye to see we were heading for disaster. It would have been insane to take children
We checked their ages. Over forty were under seven, and most were four or five. You didn't need a third eye to see we were heading for disaster. It would have been insane to take children