Yeah, so I started a new novel last night. I should also note that I haven't even begun editing novel #1 -- there's just so much to do and so little time! And school starts up again tomorrow, so even the new novel may take a back seat.
But I was intrigued by a book we had left over in our slush pile (many of the books Mason and I buy to sell on Amazon end up being nigh-worthless, so we gather them up and donate them to a thrift store) and I decided to do some digging.
The book was a mass market paperback from the early 1970s called Who is Guru Maharaj Ji?. I was fascinated on several levels. Here was a guru I'd never heard of, who'd at one time commanded millions of followers. What had happened to him? Not only that, this book had been published by a mainstream publisher (Bantam, to be exact). Mainstream publishers don't usually go in for those sorts of things.
So I thought I'd do some Web searching. I happened upon a Web site created by his ex-followers. I dug around the site, read more about the man, visited his official sites ... the works.
Here was a man (well, a boy when he started) who seemed to have fallen into all the traps life lays for a cult leader. Rather than being felled in quite the same way as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, he seems to have managed to cling on, reinvent himself and deny that anything controversial from the past 30 years ever actually happened. (Despite being quoted as having declared himself "Lord of the Universe," he reportedly later claimed that it was his mahatmas, his lieutenants, who spread such claims without his involvement.
He now goes by Prem Rawat (or Maharaji) and has a couple of Web sites and an organization that more or less paint him as a spiritually-oriented motivational speaker.
I found my mind wandering, wondering at the lives of people like Maharaji, Rajneesh, L. Ron Hubbard, and other actual or reputed cult leaders.
It seemed like an interesting mix of humanity and fallibility, the trap of fame, the excesses of wealth, power and powerlessness and, underlying it all, a desperate search for meaning.
And so it begins. I have some fantastic ideas. And while it isn't about Maharaji by any stretch, certain aspects of his life or reported life are an irresistable taking-off point.
I am excited.
But I was intrigued by a book we had left over in our slush pile (many of the books Mason and I buy to sell on Amazon end up being nigh-worthless, so we gather them up and donate them to a thrift store) and I decided to do some digging.
The book was a mass market paperback from the early 1970s called Who is Guru Maharaj Ji?. I was fascinated on several levels. Here was a guru I'd never heard of, who'd at one time commanded millions of followers. What had happened to him? Not only that, this book had been published by a mainstream publisher (Bantam, to be exact). Mainstream publishers don't usually go in for those sorts of things.
So I thought I'd do some Web searching. I happened upon a Web site created by his ex-followers. I dug around the site, read more about the man, visited his official sites ... the works.
Here was a man (well, a boy when he started) who seemed to have fallen into all the traps life lays for a cult leader. Rather than being felled in quite the same way as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, he seems to have managed to cling on, reinvent himself and deny that anything controversial from the past 30 years ever actually happened. (Despite being quoted as having declared himself "Lord of the Universe," he reportedly later claimed that it was his mahatmas, his lieutenants, who spread such claims without his involvement.
He now goes by Prem Rawat (or Maharaji) and has a couple of Web sites and an organization that more or less paint him as a spiritually-oriented motivational speaker.
I found my mind wandering, wondering at the lives of people like Maharaji, Rajneesh, L. Ron Hubbard, and other actual or reputed cult leaders.
It seemed like an interesting mix of humanity and fallibility, the trap of fame, the excesses of wealth, power and powerlessness and, underlying it all, a desperate search for meaning.
And so it begins. I have some fantastic ideas. And while it isn't about Maharaji by any stretch, certain aspects of his life or reported life are an irresistable taking-off point.
I am excited.
posted by Chris | 4:50 PM
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