Pseudoscience, Religion Yogi In Politics: A Rationalist’s Thoughts On Baba Ramdev

by Narendra Nayak
April 22, 2010

The political space in India seems to be as large as the country itself. We have parties advocating everything from communism to capitalism, Hindutva to Islam, though not publicly, since the constitution prohibits it. We have the Manuvadi parties, the Dalit parties, parties of the OBCs, parties proposing an atheistic government and so on. Into this cacophony a new entrant has arrived, throwing his hat into the ring! All beware, the incorruptible, the squeaky clean, unmarried, physically fit superhero is here- step aside all, here is the man for whom the country has been waiting since independence- the messiah has finally arrived on the scene. Ram Kishen Yadav, aka Baba Ramdev who keeps churning his abdominal muscles on the stage, thumbing his nose at people and collecting millions in the name of yoga. If one watches his TV program one can see him jumping about, performing contortions, panting for breath, and as soon as he gets it back, uttering platitudes about everything under the sun,moon and stars!

He has simplistic solutions for all problems. Want to solve the poverty problem? Bring the money stashed in Swiss banks. Homosexuality is a disease and the cure for it is yoga. Its not one or two things that he talks about but, as previously said, he has an encyclopedic knowledge about all matters. He is a text book on medicine, surgery, nutrition, physical exercise, psychiatry and whatever one may need. Do you have a problem? Perform kapalbathi and pranayam. He talks about the good old days, lecturing about the skeleton of a 12 feet tall person discovered at an undisclosed location, and how the good food and clean air back in those days made them grow that big. To hell with medical evidence indicating that a 7 feet tall person can find it difficult to live a normal life because the human body has its logical and mechanical limitations.

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It has been a long climb to the top indeed for a contortionist to develop into a guru with solutions for all the problems facing us. He wants to start with India and make it the healthiest nation in the world. Then he wants to go out and do the same to the rest of the world! When he predicted several years ago that there would soon be a cure for AIDS, obtained from a combination of ayurveda and yoga, Ramdev got into trouble with a Health Minister from the central government who asked him to prove his claims or shut up because such talk could disrupt the campaign for the prevention of AIDS. Ramdev then gave a long-winded explanation for what he actually said, claiming he had been misquoted.

In his TV shows he has patients barging in with so-called ‘medical reports’ which he reads out in a halting manner, mispronouncing many of the medical terminologies. It runs like this: A middle aged lady goes to the stage with a report, which he reads out loud. Then he says- “Well, well what did the doctors say about this?” She answers- “Baba, they told me I would die in six months. Another dose of sarcasm- “Then you had to die”. She- “No Baba, I did not I started doing yoga and now I am fine”. He- “So, this is modern medicine for you, in the grip of the multinationals!” Then another round of contortions, heavy breathing, devotional songs etc. These are called as yog shibirs. On his stage are a few younger people doing the very same poses which he asks all people to do.

He has one more collaborator who goes to gardens, fields or anywhere that has greenery and brings back all sorts of leaves and plants. Ramdev holds lectures on these, listing their botanical names and dishing out advice on what they can heal and/or prevent. Of course, no sort of evidence or clinical trials are needed. You just have to take his word for it. The only proof that is offered is that our ancient texts say these things. When the swine flu epidemic hit the world he had a solution for it- boil a particular root in water and drink its extract to prevent the flu. The prices for that root went through the roof and no one was willing to listen to what we said- that it was like any other type of seasonal flu and would pass off. Now, the statistics has vindicated our stand. Of course, he can claim that it was his combination of yoga and ayurveda that saved India.

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What about his “medicines”? People have to sign an undertaking saying that they knew the “medicines” were not approved, to absolve him of any liability for any possible ill-effects arising from their use! He manufacures them at facilities which employ sweat shop labor. When they went on strike demanding fair wages, he set his goons upon them. When the trade unions of the left parties supported laborers and exposed the formulae of some of Ramdev’s concoctions, he made his usual allegation that they were tools of the multinationals. He was adding human bones to some of the “medicines” after powdering them; he defended this by saying that it was permitted in ayurveda. There are many such controversies about his panaceas, which are very, very expensive. The same allegation of exploitation that he makes against the multinationals is equally applicable to him, if not more! At least their products are based on evidence and clinical trials while his concoctions are marketed on his word alone and the claim that it is a truth found in ancient texts.

Ramdev’s hypocrisy needs to be pointed out here. On stage with a captive audience, he launches into tirades against the ‘corrupt’ politicians. But nothing prevents him from hob-nobbing with them, traveling with them on state helicopters and utilizing millions of rupees given as ‘grants for research’. He conveniently forgets that this money comes from the pocket of the tax payers, 300 million of them being malnourished, poverty stricken and with naturally flat stomachs caused by the years of malnutrition, and hence not impressed by his contortions on stage.

Well, who exactly is Ramdev?

If one looks at the audience at his sessions- for which one has to pay huge donations despite his talk of egalitarianism- the fat cats who pay heftier ‘donations’ are located close to the dais and are given more elbow room to carry out their maneuvering. The others have to lump it out far away from the stage, performing their contortions in cramped conditions. That is equality for you. As George Orwell said, all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. That is applicable to the disciples of Ramdev as well. But, for the over weight middle class with their sagging bellies, Ram Kishan Yadav is fitness personified. They want easy solutions to their problems; they would like to have toned bodies, full hair on their balding pates and, in short, quick and easy solutions for all their problems without having to work hard. His yoga classes look like the easy solution that these people seek. That is why we see the tension-ridden middle classes flocking there. Some exercise may work for some of them and these people shout it from the roof tops. Those for whom the exercises do not work, constituting the larger group, will be silent like they are expected to be – the silent majority! Again, he is very clever when offering advise to patients with serious problems; if they have diseases like cancer they will be told to continue with their therapy but also consume his concoctions and do things like pranayama etc. If they are cured he can take the credit- if not the money grabbing multinationals and the doctors can be blamed! In his much publicized ‘public’ debates with some of the branches of the Indian Medical Association, he cleverly wriggles out of tight situations by uttering cliches like you do your job and I will do mine. I recall a few similar instances, like when the Indian Medical Association branch of Goa ‘collaborated’ with him, having themselves photographed at his feet. When the national secretary of FIRA queried the office bearers as to why they were seen in such a position with a person who is opposed to them, the lame excuse was that they were just joining him for his anti tobacco campaign!

Why does this colorful personality wants to enter politics- or rather, why does he want to embrace the “dirty world of politics” as he says? It isramdev-baba the desire for power on one hand and for safe-guarding his empire on the other? Huge grants have been taken for establishing ‘research institutes’ but nothing useful has come out of them so far. Under the right to information act anyone can ask for the details of this funding and also ask for the results. Once these scandals come out there is going to be trouble. Not everyone in India is fat and middle-class- Ramdev’s constituency! He wants to get at other groups of people, for which he needs a larger net. Another factor is the large amount of black money that he must have amassed marketing his useless concoctions. Despite of all his claims to egalitarianism they are really expensive- more expensive than the concoctions of the multinationals whom he derides, but at least the latter are required to be scientifically tested to do what they claim to! Ramdev has forayed abroad and purchased his own island from where he hopes to market these concoctions without the need to satisfy regulatory bodies about their effectiveness.

Ramdev wants to be the ‘C team’ of the Hindutva gang. The A team- the right wing Bharathiya Janatha Party- has undergone a decline in growth, becoming stagnant. The rabid right wing groups like the Shiv Sena that form the B team are divided and losing their appeal. There is a need for one more team with more appeal to a different constituency, and that is what Ramdev is trying to create! While decrying all politicians as corrupt, he does not mind sharing the stage with the likes of Advani and co. While mocking the Congress party, he is not averse to taking grants from states run by that party. He feels that he has an appeal to his community- though he claims to be a ascetic with no caste, he is a Yadav, a dominant caste in many areas of the cow belt. Again, the saffron robes and the halo of being a renunciate may influence the electorate into voting for his candidates, and he hopes to win seats and worm his way into ruling combinations. No sir, he does not want power. He wants to reform the nation! He will not contest for elections but will put up honest, sincere, dedicated candidates who will do the task of nation building. In other words he wants to be a remote control and play the king maker!

Coming to the great personality himself one wonders why the cure-all yogic and the ayurvedic concoctions that he peddles are unable to cure his ever-present facial tic. What yogic quality makes him dye his hair and beard? The vanity of the renunciate?Is he the Hindu version of Benny Hinn? These questions will be answered soon when he enters electoral politics which has an audience that is not quite as captive and will need contortions of a different kind.

Professor Narendra Nayak is the president of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations

http://nirmukta.com/2010/04/22/yogi-in-politics-a-rationalists-thoughts-on-baba-ramdev/

India sex scandal guru arrested

BBC NEWS

April 21, 2010

Police in India say a controversial Hindu holy man facing charges of obscenity has been arrested.

Nithyananda Swami was detained in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh where he police say he had been hiding.

The guru stepped down last month as head of a religious organisation based in the southern city of Bangalore.

His announcement came after a video apparently showing him engaging in sexual acts with two women. He says he is innocent and the video is a fake.

Nithyananda Swami has a huge following in southern India and his mission has branches in several countries, including the US and Europe.

'Spiritual seclusion'

"Nithyananda Swami was arrested at Solan [in Himachal Pradesh] along with his associate Gopal Seelam Reddy and they would be brought to Bangalore soon," the city's director general of police, DV Guruprasaad, said.

On Tuesday, the authorities raided the swami's sprawling centre near Bangalore.

Nithyananda Swami, 32, stepped down as leader of the global Dhyanapeetam (Knowledge Centre) organisation soon after the police inquiry was launched.

"I have decided to live a life of spiritual seclusion for some indefinite time," the guru said in a statement.

"If required, I will return and talk about all that had happened as an independent witness to my conduct with a clean heart and pure soul and in a less prejudiced atmosphere."

The video shocked his devotees and angered locals - his ashram near Bangalore was vandalised after TV channels broadcast the video.

The guru's followers allege the video was created and distributed by a jealous inmate of the ashram in a bid to defame him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8634696.stm

My (very) weird weekend with the naked woodland warriors who travel to remote England to 'reclaim their masculinity'

Tom Mitchelson

The Daily Mail, UK

March 12, 2010

How our man found himself with 65 naked men chanting, drumming - and screaming their rage against women to 'reclaim' their lost masculinity...

The temperature has plunged to freezing. I am deep in a remote English woodland outside Exeter.

I have been blindfolded and I am standing, holding hands, with a long line of men - who, until about 24 hours ago, I'd never met before.

Together, we are stumbling through the scrub as beating tribal drums guide our way. Oh yes, and we are naked. Totally naked.

Abruptly, my blindfold is ripped off and I see we have been led to a shadowy candle-lit room. There are about 65 of us in a double horseshoe formation.

This is a ceremony where we are to become 'new warriors'. And then the dancing begins.

I wish I were somewhere else. Anywhere else. So why on earth am I here?

I have signed up to the ManKind Project, an all-male group boasting 1,700 UK members that aims to release men's 'inner warrior' and reclaim their masculinity. I am about to graduate from their New Warrior training course.


It was launched in 1985 in the U.S. by a former marine, Rich Tosi, a therapist, Bill Kauth, and a university professor, Ron Hering, under the guise of providing 'educational services'.


They claim to be a not-for-profit company and nearly 40,000 men have attended their courses worldwide.

But things haven't been going well. Five years ago one of their recruits, Michael Scinto, made a complaint to the Madison County Sheriff in Texas that he'd been abused during a traumatic weekend with the project.


He subsequently committed suicide and his relatives filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the ManKind Project, which eventually settled out of court and claimed it would change certain of its practices.




I had also been tipped off by a number of concerned wives - who'd noticed disturbing changes in their husbands' behaviour since attending one of ManKind's UK weekends away.




My aim is to go undercover to find out just how serious these allegations against them are - or whether they're just a bunch of misguided men who need a break from their women.




My first experience of the organisation is not pleasant. After signing up online to attend their initiation weekend, I am sent an intimidating amount of paperwork - including a confidentiality agreement. Of course, they have no idea I'm a journalist, and it's costing me £500 for the privilege.




Everything I read from them is baffling non-speak. They claim the weekend is a 'process of initiation and self-examination that is crucial to the development of a healthy and mature male self'.




They claim they help move men away from the 'comforting embrace' of their mother - something, on the face of it, some wives might even encourage. Then I am told I will 'confront' my 'dependence on women', to help me move into the 'masculine kingdom'.




To be honest, it all sounds absolutely ludicrous. But nothing as ludicrous as what I discover when I arrive at the training centre in the West Country.




As I enter, I am asked to line up with my fellow recruits and we are ordered to 'observe the sacred silence'.




This is all before we've been shown to where we're staying. It's all rather bizarre, as they begin a strange game where I am asked to walk up to a man who stares at me, with black camouflage paint on his face. The process is repeated again, and again.




Then I am ordered into a Dutch barn, where yet another confidentiality agreement is thrust in front of me, forbidding me to mention anything that happens over the weekend.




They seem to have a paranoid fear of anything getting out. This, I suppose, should have set even more alarm bells ringing.




Next, I am shouted at to hand over all the food I've been ordered to bring - any food, but enough for three men. I feel as if I'm on a military boot camp, although I suspect most of the participants are really just accountants from Slough.




We are all told that we are on a 'journey' and we 'will never be the same again'. Then we are led into a darkened room, where more people shout random words at us.




I seem to have wondered into a Marx Brothers film, but without the laughs.




The unnamed men, dressed in black with their black face paint, want me to hand over my mobile phone, watch, books and food. I do, but I am subjected to a complete search of my bag and my body.




They discover half a bottle of rum, notebook and pen. The faux commando is livid. He shrieks: 'Do you have problems following orders?' I nod guiltily, stunning him into silence.




We are directed to another dark room, where all the new recruits and I sit for more than an hour. In silence. At this point, I'm just wondering what on earth is going to happen next.




Suddenly, three men burst in, give me a bandana for a blindfold and take me to a place where drums are beating. I remove the blindfold to see I am surrounded by what I can only describe as the Men In Black.




A leader holding a wooden staff decorated with feathers rambles on about the mission of the weekend, using the pompous jargon that would later become very familiar: words like 'shadow', 'warriors', 'masculine', 'commitment' and 'responsibility'.




He tells us how to be a man. It's hard to take from a man wearing face paint, carrying a feathered stick.




Having finished his speech, he calls upon men at random to stand up and explain why they were there. Hard to say why, but people are starting to open their hearts.




One man cries as he answers questions about his unhappy marriage. The guards stand in a threatening circle around us, staring aggressively in silence.




I am starting to feel very uncomfortable. When I signed up for the course, they told me I couldn't drive there because there was a shortage of car-parking spaces.




Instead, I was told I should join the others on their minibus to travel several miles from the station, so it is with a sinking feeling that I realise I am stranded.




Many of the men talk about their relationships, work and feelings of anger and regret. 'Sharing', they call it. They all appeared sincere and open. Not buttoned up and repressed, but here-it-is, take-it-all, heart-on-my-sleeve types.




It is here that I learn a piece of warrior etiquette. When a brother 'shares', the correct response is to raise both hands as if surrendering and waggle your hands. At the same time, you say ' Ahho'. At first, I mishear and say 'Ahoy'.




Until the early hours of the morning, we engage in a series of exercises. I have to tell one man what makes me a man, and then wait while he tells me what makes him one, too. We are asked to describe how we fail to stand up to women.




They're always getting at you to put the seat down on the loo,' one of the staff men explains by way of example. For a supposed female reign of terror, this seems a weirdly banal example.




We are told to explain to each other what type of man we are. One of my 'brothers' tells me he is a liar and cheat. I suspect he means he has had affairs.




Another tells how he feels worthless, a third man explains he doesn't know how to control his anger, and another tells me his wife won't let him ride his bike.




It's not long before the blindfold is back on and we are asked to imagine we're in an African village. To assist this illusion, the Men In Black rattle pots, flick water at us and make vocal noises to represent a bustling settlement.




It's not entirely convincing. We are asked to imagine capturing a wild man who terrorises villagers and cage him. We then have to set him free.




We have been asked to visualise meeting an animal along the way. This becomes our 'warrior' name. And I spend the rest of the time with Mighty Condor, Courageous Wolf and Intrepid Panther.




It is odd that no one opts for a sheep, wombat or guinea pig. I, however, become Relaxed Penguin. Oh Lord. Now I've written that, they can identify their Judas.




It's very late. I am tired and hungry and even my sleeping bag in a freezing yurt with strangers seems attractive. It's not. I don't sleep because, a couple of hours later, the rhythmic banging of drums begins.




A man appears at the door: 'Men, we have work to do.' We are ordered to strip and line up for a cold shower. While each man steps under the water, the others watch and count to 60.




I manage to get a few words with some of the participants and they are mostly between the ages of 35 and 45.




They are not all - as I'd supposed - saddos. They work in careers such as banking, IT, education and business and all strike me as intelligent, articulate and enthusiastic about their participation in the project. The majority seem to feel that their lives are not going as they wish.




After breakfast (a handful of nuts and a spoonful of porridge) we spend the morning sharing how we feel. We roar like lions. We talk to our childhood selves and watch the staff men act out scenes such as where one man says yes and the other says no.




Over and over. It was like watching a section of a Pinter play performed by nine-year-olds.




Then it is time for what I found one of the most disturbing parts of the weekend - where we are effectively 'broken free' of our emotional past.




We are divided into three groups, each of which has a so-called 'sacred carpet', and for about an hour each man is subjected to emotionally manipulative questioning, on the carpet, that probes into his past.




Some of the staff are very skilled at reading visual signs of hidden emotion. At times, three inquisitors demand the answers to questions that eventually leave a man weeping and apparently broken.




This is happening simultaneously on all three mats. At times, it is impossible to hear what was happening on my own mat because of the wails and screams from the other groups.




The majority of the men who participate in this spectacle positively welcome this treatment. Others appear less keen. The objective seems to be to provoke a violent reaction from the person in the circle.




One man of about 40 has an issue with his mother. He felt she had treated him badly when he was younger.




A staff man is chosen to represent the mother and, while other men stand in front of him, he is goaded to confront her by pushing through a human barrier.




Instead, he flies into an uncontrolled rage. Staff become panicked and shout 'safety' as they try to immobilise him. If these staff men have any professional training, I am unaware of it.




The qualification they seem to share is that they are graduates of the course I am now on. ManKind deny that any therapy takes place. They call it training.




Another man sobs as he is told to act out beating his stepfather and mother to death. Again, he feels that they ignored him as a child and treated him with disdain.




A third man is pinned to the floor by six men and has to wrestle his way out from under a blanket, cheered on by the watching men. It is extremely disturbing to watch.




Many of the men seem to feel they suffered mental or physical abuse from their parents. They all appear to be functioning in day-to-day life, but these horrors appear easily released under the persistent and intimate questioning of their inquisitors.




I make up a story about feeling guilty for hurting a former girlfriend. I give no specific examples, but feign deep upset. They suggest my behaviour had started in childhood. I tell them it hadn't.




They talk of regressing me. I don't know if these amateur psychiatrists could achieve that or not, but they opt for getting me to wrench the guilt from my stomach by wrestling a rope up through my legs being held by four men.




Most of the men I speak to afterwards seem delighted by this experience. In fact, this is a point at which some men seem to embrace the Warrior Brotherhood.




To me it seems like a way of initiating people into a kind of cult. This session is clearly designed to be the pivotal moment in the weekend.




Now comes the time when we are awarded our warrior's insignia.




Deprived of food and sleep and subjected to the raging emotions of people around me, I am instructed to strip, put my blindfold back on and hold the hand of the man next to me.




It is now we begin the walk in the woods that leads to that candle-lit ceremony where we become New Warriors.




As I am led, blindfolded, naked and freezing, I am strangely resigned to this new, weird way of life. The other men in the group are all relaxed about such a journey.




In the candle-lit room, we are led by hand around the circle of men. Our animal names are called and all the men cheer.




With horribly vivid images playing in my mind of pot-bellies, male genitalia and saggy bums, I return to my yurt and sleep for a couple of hours.




Morning arrives and, after standing in a field 'reclaiming my paternal name', we begin 'sharing' again.




At this point, we're sprayed with burning sage and instructed - naked again - to get in the sweat lodge. This is a tent heated by burning coals.




It is pitch black inside and we are told to shout blessings, make noise, howl, quote poems and sing songs. We are finally given a meal consisting of the food we brought, and then we say our goodbyes by silently staring at each staff man.




The participants hug one another and proclaim their love to their fellow brothers. They give blessings and thank each other for the 'strength' and 'joy' they have received.




I get home and close the door behind me. I have never felt so relieved to be back in the real world. It takes me two full days to get the strange mantras and patterns of speech out of my head.




The overriding message of the course seemed confused: That we were suppressed warriors and had become emasculated; that we had to reconnect with the wild man; and to get in touch with our feelings. It was 21st-century New Age meets Neanderthal man.




The cult-like intensity with which some of my fellow warriors converted to the brotherhood astonished me.




I had been given a chilling lesson in how easily - and how fast - the kind of men I rub shoulders with every day can alter: can become aggressive and subservient by turns; and gripped by something strange.




And something else shocked me. This was an organisation that aimed to tell me how to be a man.




Yet not once during that weird and frightening weekend did I ever hear it acknowledged that we men share a world. With women.

Stampede: All three accused granted bail

Express News Service 
Allahabad
March 12, 2010 

Within 24 hours, all the three men, who were arrested in connection with the stampede at an ashram in Pratapgarh in which 63 people had died,walked free on Thursday after a local court granted them bail.

The manager of the Bhakti Dham Ashram, Hiranyamay Chatterji, contractor Shiv Kumar and Kripalu Maharaj’s secretary Amit Kumar were arrested from Mangarh and were booked under various sections of the IPC,including 304A (causing death due to negligence), 337 IPC (causing hurt to anyone by acting negligently) and 188 (violation of section 144 which deals against the gathering of people or organising any event without permission of the district magistrate).

Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Kunda Arvind Kumar Upadhaya granted them bail on securities of Rs 20,000 each and two guarantors. The prosecution lawyer opposed the bail but in the absence of any valid ground to detain the accused under judicial custody,the court granted them bail, said A K Shukla,the counsel of the accused.

61 families receive compensation The Pratapgarh district administration on Thusrday distributed the compensation cheques of Rs 2.5 lakh announced by the state government to the kin of the victims who died in the stampede.
“Cheques of Rs 2.50 lakh each were distributed among kin of the 61 people killed in the stampede at Kripaluji Maharaj ashram on March 4,” said Additional District Magistrate Vansh Kumar Verma. Cheques were not given to two victim families due to a dispute over the heir,and would be distributed after legal help,he said.

“Financial assistance of Rs 75,000 each was provided to grievously injured,” Verma said. Nine persons who were grievously injured in the stampede were handed over cheques at Rani Medical Hospital in Allahabad where they were undergoing treatment,a district administration official said.

Editorial: Cast a wary eye on this swami scandal

The Province
March 10, 2010

One of the key qualities our public education system should help develop in children is a critical mind. No, we don't want our schools to raise a crop of cynics who mistrust everything they read or hear and wind up unable to support anything.

But we do want citizens who question things in a healthy manner so they don't fall prey to con artists who prey on the gullible — or exploit the basic human need to find spiritual enlightenment.

We may have progressed as a society in many ways. However, false prophets of every religious stripe remain. And it is often difficult to distinguish between them and the genuine article.

Certainly, the recent sex scandal involving Indian "godman" Swami Nithyananda, who has many followers in Greater Vancouver, and a Tamil actress has given one pause for thought. A video of the pair was reportedly shot by a disgruntled disciple out to expose the 32-year-old as a fraud.

Nithyananda, 32, has countered by assuring his devotees that he is not involved in anything illegal and is simply victim of a "false campaign" to discredit him.

Only time will tell, though, who the real victims are in this sordid affair. In the meantime, we should treat both him, and the allegations about him, with a healthy degree of skepticism.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Editorial+Cast+wary+this+swami+scandal/2665150/story.html

Ashram stampede: Pratapgarh SP admits lapse on part of cops at outpost

Indian Express

Written by Vijay Pratap Singh

March 06, 2010 

While the district administration had tried to distance itself from the tragedy in which 63 women and children were killed in a stampede at the Bhakti Dham Ashram on Thursday,the fact is that there is a police post near the ashram which did nothing to control the crowds.

The police post,which is actually known as Bhakti Dham outpost and is under Kunda police station,has four policemen,including a sub-inspector. They watched the crowds swell,but did not do anything on their own,nor informed the higher authorities,it is learnt.

On Friday,Pratapgarh SP M P Mishra admitted that there had been negligence on the part of the policemen at the outpost and that action would be taken against them.

On Thursday,officiating District Magistrate Ashok Kumar Upadhyaya had said the administration had no advance information about the event organised by the ashram,otherwise they would have taken measures to regulate the crowds.

Allahabad Commissioner A K Upadhaya,who was asked to conduct an inquiry into the incident,and IG Chandra Prakash questioned Ram Kripal Tripathi alias Kripalu Maharaj at the ashram. Upadhyaya also recorded the statements of some victims and eyewitnesses,including men from the ashram.

Although the content of his interim report to the government could not be known,it is learnt that he has blamed the organisers and also the local police for the tragedy.

Meanwhile,in a statement,Kripalu Maharaj claimed that neither he nor any of his staff had invited the people who had gathered at the ashram on the occasion of his wife’s death anniversary.

On Thursday evening,ashram’s spokesperson Radhika Saran had told The Indian Express that keeping in mind the large number of gathering anticipated,the ashram had informed Kunda police and district administration on February 25.

The crowds from nearby villages had gathered to collect the ‘prasad’ of Rs 20,one utensil,one laddoo and one handkerchief that the ashram was to give to every visitor.

SP leader Ahikesh Yadav,Congress MP from Pratapgarh Ratna Singh,and Congress Legislature Party leader Pramod Tiwari visited the spot where the incident took place and met the injured in the hospital.

Who is Kripaluji Maharaj? Ram Kripal Tripathi (86),also known as Jagatguru Kripaluji Maharaj,was born into a poor farmer’s family in Mangarh. He participated in a religious competition in Allahabad and earned the title of ‘Jagatguru’ in 1957. * Tripathi holds a master’s degree in Sanskrit and was a purohit for some time. He has three daughters and two sons.

His Ashram * With help from his foreign disciples,Tripathi set up the Mangarh ashram 20 years ago. It is spread over 200 acres. He also has ashrams in Mathura,Nagpur and Trinidad. * He heads the Radha Madhav Society in Trinidad,which has around 300 centres worldwide. His followers believe him to be the fifth Jagatguru and the first in the last 700 years. * He owns a fleet of BMW and Mercedes cars. The Mangarh ashram has a helipad.

Under a cloud * Tripathi was charged with kidnapping two girls,and in 1991,cases of kidnapping and rape were registered against him in Nagpur. Another case of raping a minor was also lodged in Nagpur the same year. He was acquitted after the witnesses turned hostile * A 22-year-old Guyanese woman in South Trinidad filed a rape case against him in May 2007,which led to his arrest. He was in jail for over a month. ENS

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Rs 60,000 crore fortune faces battle between two groups of followers

Mahesh Yogi (left) with the Beatles in 1967.

Shantanu Guha Ray

India Today
July 2, 2012

November 30, 2009Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's vast fortune in India, mostly land, estimated to be worth Rs 60,000 crore, has sparked a bitter conflict between his heirs and followers. There are allegations of illegal land deals and formation of fake trusts to take over the properties.

The godman, famous for introducing the legendary Beatles to India, died in February 2008, leaving behind more than 12,000 acres of land across India. This includes prime locations in Delhi, Noida, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Goa, all vested with the Spiritual Regeneration Movement (SRM) Foundation, set up by the guru in 1959. The guru established several societies with the SRM Foundation and Maharishi Global University based in Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh at the top of the list. The other four educational institutions are Maharishi Shiksha Sansthan, Maharishi Ved Vigyan Vidyapeeth, Maharishi Gandharva Ved Vidyapeeth and Mahila Dhyan Vidyapeeth that run 148 schools in 16 states across India.

Immediately after the Maharishi's death in Vlodrop, Netherlands, tensions started between members of the societies and followers for control of the assets. Two groups, each claiming to be his real inheritors, accuse each other of 'impersonation' to gain control of the land-rich societies. On one side are the guru's nephews Anand Prakash Srivastava, 51, chairman of SRM Foundation India and Ajay Prakash Srivastava, 43, secretary, SRM Foundation India, and Brahmachari Girish Chandra Verma, 55, chairman of the educational trusts. They are pitted against G. Ram Chandramohan, 61, a member of the 12-member SRM Foundation. He is supported by Vijay Dhavale, 51, a Chhattisgarh-based real estate agent and disciple of the guru as well as Opender Kalsi, 55, who heads International Human Rights Organisation, a Jalandhar-based NGO.

The maharishi's global headquarters in Vlodrop, Netherlands.

In January, the Srivastava brothers petitioned the Delhi High Court to win a stay on sales of land owned by various societies formed by the Maharishi Group. They accused Chandramohan and his associates of trying to illegally acquire society land through forged documents. Chandramohan claims instead that the Srivastavas were selling the guru's land without the sanction of all SRM Foundation board members.

In a complaint to the it Department in March, Chandramohan blamed Ajay Srivastava of taking into his possession books for accounts and details of all land from the offices of the srm Foundation for "personal gains". Chandramohan submitted what he claimed was proof of some land deals executed by the Srivastava brothers without informing the srm Foundation board. He said it was illegal because land owned by the foundation was meant only for religious, educational and philanthropy purposes.

Chandramohan submitted as evidence to the Ministry of Home Affairs and the it Department in March that Ambati Krishnamurthy, president of Ajay Bharat Trust, a wing of the srm Foundation, and Ajay Srivastava had formed a fake srm Foundation of India in Hyderabad. The duo opened an account (09540100014312) with Bank of Baroda in Hyderabad in 2010 to encash two demand drafts for Rs 22 lakh from the sale of foundation land in Chhattisgarh. Once the cash was withdrawn, the account was closed in July 2011. Ajay insists it was Chandramohan who forged papers to acquire land. "They got 30 acres of the 175-acre plot in Chhattisgarh by forging papers. We filed a counter in December 2011 in court and got a stay.? india today has a copy of the fir Ajay filed on December 16 at Bilaspur police station, which he later submitted to court, accusing Chandramohan of forging documents for the sale.

In his counter in March 2012, Chandramohan has offered it officials evidence of other "illegal" land deals by the Srivastavas:

A residential property in Golf Links, Delhi, was sold by Ajay without a valid resolution passed by SRM board members, some of whom then lodged a criminal complaint against Ajay with the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police, alleging the Rs 50-crore sale was at one-third of the market price for 2,000 sq ft. "We had an agreement-vetted by the court-signed more than 11 years ago to sell it for less than the current amount. I got the best deal possible," says Ajay.

Chandramohan claims 50 acres close to the Greater Noida Expressway was sold by Ajay three months ago for an undisclosed amount without authorisation by the SRM Managing Committee. Ajay claims he has the power of attorney to sell the land.

Chandramohan says Ajay sold four acres of land in Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh in 2011. The sale was cancelled after it was proved that board members of SRM Foundation were not consulted. Ajay says the charges are false. He claims Chandramohan and his men sold without permission of srm board 56 acres of land in Takhatpur tehsil of Bilaspur district for over Rs 25 crore. "A case is pending in the district court of Takhatpur against the sale deed," says Ajay.

In April, it Department and the Ministry of Home Affairs initiated investigations into such "illegal" sale of land and also into the functioning of the SRM Foundation following complaints from Harshvardhan, MP from Maharajgunj, Uttar Pradesh. A Maharishi devotee, he wants the Government to seize control of assets owned by all Maharishi societies pending the investigations into "illegal" sale of land and donations to the societies. The MP claims he has evidence that the Maharishi Vidya Mandirs are in a mess; barely 20 per cent of the schools have students and lack even basic amenities. "Someone needs to take notice," says Harshvardhan. "Just four years after his death, the group is in total disarray," he told India Today.

Harshvardhan has shared with it officials details of the SRM Foundation's financial transactions for the last two years that he claims show almost 90 per cent of society revenues from donations were used to acquire properties. The MP said the Maharishi Nagar Colony in Sector 39 of Noida, which the guru's followers built in the late 1970s, is in a state of neglect. "Those who live there lack basic civic amenities. On inquiry, those working there told us they are being underpaid for years," said Harshvardhan. Ajay says a religious trust cannot give "corporate salaries" to its people. He says the group only has an annual turnover of Rs 25-30 crore. "We have huge tracts of land but do not have loads of cash," he said.

The colony, spread over more than 900 acres, currently houses four buildings, each with more than 800 rooms. Most rooms lie in total neglect. A helipad once used by the guru is now dedicated to grazing cattle. Local real estate agents peg the worth of the land at Rs 15,000 crore. "The global university no longer operates from here. The Transcendental Meditation yoga classes are rare because there are very few students," says Ashok, a resident. He says 500-odd devotees of the guru stay in the colony, doing odd jobs to run the ashram. Ajay argues that if portions of the building are in a dilapidated condition, there is little he can do because "you need huge donations for the upkeep of the complex".

Large donations have dried up, so have the hordes of people who once filled the compound to hear the "giggling guru". A mere four years after his death, the Maharishi's legacy in India is in tatters.

https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/nation/story/20120702-maharishi-mahesh-yogi-rs-60000-crore-fortune-758851-1999-11-30

Police Investigate Sweat Lodge Deaths

Washington Post, Nation Digest, 

October 11, 2009

Sedona, AZ (AP) - A sauna-like sweat lodge at an Arizona resort meant to provide spiritual cleansing has become the focus of a police investigation after two people died during a retreat hosted by a self-help expert.

James Shore of Wisconsin and Kirby Brown of New York died Thursday night after being overcome during a two-hour session in the sweat lodge. Nineteen others were taken to area hospitals. One remained in critical condition on Saturday.

Yavapai County Sheriff Steve Waugh said Saturday his detectives are focusing on James Arthur Ray, a self-help expert and author, and his staff as they try to determine if criminal negligence played a role in the deaths. No charges have been filed.

Ray's spokesman expressed condolences Friday but would not talk specifically about the deaths.

Authorities have not determined the cause of the deaths and illnesses but have ruled out carbon monoxide poisoning. The incident happened at the Angel Valley Retreat Center, just outside Sedona.

Ray rented the facility as part of a five-day retreat that promised to "absolutely change your life."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/10/AR2009101002307.html

Guru Dev Shankaracharya Brahmananda Saraswati जय गुरुदेव Jai Guru Deva

Movie footage of Guru Dev, Shankaracharya Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, believed to have been filmed in Lucknow, India, circa April 1952. Visible in certain frames is a young man later to become world famous for introducing millions to the practice of transcendental meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The Beatles practiced this meditation and staying with Maharishi at his ashram near Rishikesh in 1968.

42 Hours, $500, 65 Breakdowns: My lost weekend with the trademark happy, bathroom-break hating, slightly spooky inheritors of est

Laura McClure
Mother Jones
Volume 34/August 2009

After nearly 40 hours inside the basement of Landmark Education's world headquarters, I have not Transformed. Nor have I "popped" like microwave popcorn, as the Forum Leader striding back and forth at the front of the windowless gray room has promised. In fact, by the time he starts yelling and stabbing the board with a piece of chalk around hour 36, it's become clear that I'll be the hard kernel left at the bottom of this three-and-a-half-day Landmark Forum. I have, however, Invented the Possibility of a Future in which I get a big, fat raise, a Future I'll Choose to Powerfully Enroll my bosses in, now that I am open to Miracles Around Money.

My reluctance to achieve Breakthrough Results is clearly not shared by many of my fellow Forum attendees. Even on day one, most seem positively elated to have plunked down 500 bucks for a more efficient, passionate, powerful life. "Hey, it's cheaper than therapy," a therapist-turned-real estate agent tells me. He ponders how to persuade one of his employees to pony up for the Forum. She's going through a rough patch, he explains - the recession, her marriage.

Not that being broke or brokenhearted would make her a minority in this room; several attendees talk about being between jobs, and one woman says she's on welfare. In the scribbled shorthand of my furtive notes, PW stands for "incidents of public weeping." I lose track after the PW count hits 65. Landmark Education, a for-profit "employee-owned" private company, took in $89 million last year offering leadership and development seminars (and cruises, and dating services, and courses for kids and teens). It claims that more than 1 million seekers have sat through its basic training, which is offered in seven languages in 20 countries. Its consulting firm, the Vanto Group, has coached employees from Apple, ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase, and the Pentagon.

Though it's hardly a secret, Landmark does not advertise that it is the buttoned-down reincarnation of the ultimate '70's self-actualization philosophy, est. Erhard Seminars Training was founded by Werner Erhard, a former used car salesman who'd changed his name from Jack Rosenberg, moved to Northern California, and dabbled in Dale Carnegie, Zen, and Scientology before seizing upon the idea that you, and only you, are responsible for your own happiness or unhappiness, success or failure. Est's marathon Transformation sessions were legendary for their confrontational tactics (Erhard calling his students "assholes"), inscrutable platitudes ("What is, is, and what ain't, aint"), and the pressure put on participants to bring in new recruits for the next cycle of events.

In 1985, Erhard changed est's name to the innocuous-sounding The Forum. Amid controversy over his convoluted tax records, he left the country in 1991 and slid into obscurity. But before he did, he sold the company's "technology" to his former employees, who used it to create The Landmark Forum. Erhard's brother, Harry Rosenberg, is Landmark's CEO.

Like a successful grad of its own program, Landmark has shed its past hang-ups and realized Breakthrough Results. "We are on the list of offerings in the human-resources departments in hundreds of companies around the world," boasts PR director Deborah Beroset. The company's language of personal productivity, confidence, and communication (much of it trademarked) has become white noise in corporate America - and possibly in your personal circle, too. "Authentic life," anyone? Landmark's corporate clients bring not just respectability but more warm bodies bearing checks. (Landmark relies entirely on word-of-mouth advertising.) The yoga apparel chain Lululemon pays for its employees to enroll in Landmark. Other firms have been sued by employees claiming they were pressured to attend the Forum: In 2007, a Virginia man accused his former employer of firing him for his "refusal to embrace Landmark religious beliefs." Not that Landmark itself condones such arm twisting. At the start of my session, we were asked to affirm that we were attending of our own free will. A couple of people who confessed otherwise were asked to leave. Still, I talked with several who'd been sent by their employers.

The profitable field Landmark helped pioneer is now crowded with life coaches, time-management gurus, and productivity bloggers. Like David Allen's Getting Things Done or Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Landmark is just one of dozes of quasi-philosophies that promise to empty your inbox and fulfill your personal goals. And maybe survive the recession. Since the Great Depression, when Dale Carnegie's seminars on how to win friends and influence people became popular, the personal development industry has bloomed under darkening economic skies. Forget work/ life balance; that's so 2008. How to do more in less time is today's hot productivity trend. (Landmark's website touts a survey in which one-third of Forum grads reported that their incomes rose at lest 25 percent after participating; 954 percent of those attributed it to the program.) Yet if Landmark is just another outpost in lifehacking country, why does it seem so insidious?

Part of it is the in-your-face, hard-sell ethos embedded in the corporate DNA it inherited from est. Forum grads are urged to stay involved and "invite" friends and family. After finishing the Forum, I received calls asking me to volunteer at the Landmark call center and come in for one-on-one coaching. The company also vigorously guards its reputation from critics. After I told Beroset I'd be writing an article on my mixed feelings about the Forum, she called several times and sent me an email that might be described as threatening - but in the most benign, centered kind of way.

I first heard about Landmark while working as a Peace Corps recruiter. Every now and again I'd see it listed at the end of someone's resume, occupying the same spot as, say, a Kiwanis leadership award, or a pastime like water polo. Applicants described it as a professional development seminar - most had been signed up by employers - and gave glowing reports. "You should try it," they invariably added. I forgot about the whole thing until a generally sane, well-meaning friend called me one weekend with a frog in his throat. He was at some time-management seminar, he'd really gotten a lot out of this thing, and would I want to come by and learn more next Tuesday night? It was hard to say no. But then I googled Landmark.

Eventually, as part of an ongoing attempt to hack my own overscheduled life, I did sign up for the Landmark Forum. I vowed to go in with an open mind and to follow the rules, no matter how restrictive. That meant taking just one meal break per 13-hour session, no Advil or other over-the-counter drugs, no speaking out unless called to the microphone by the Leader, and wearing my name tag at all times. I signed a six-page disclaimer in which I declared that I understood that after attending the Forum, people with no history of mental or emotional problems had experienced "brief, temporary episodes of emotional upset ranging from heightened activity ... to mild psychotic-like behavior."

At 9 a.m. on a Friday I find myself sardined into a basement room with 129 other people, listening to David Cunningham,j a boomer in a dark suit and bright purple shirt, whose first language seems to be Tent-Revival Baptist Preacher. (I later learn that he was raised a fundamentalist in Florida.) He informs us that he has personally led more than 50,000 people to Transformation. He's here to tell us that "anything you want for yourself and your life is available from being here this weekend." He starts by taking a few questions from the floor. A querulous man observes that the phrases carefully ruler-lined on the chalkboard seem like poor English. ("In the Landmark Forum you will bring forth the presence of a New Realm of Possibility for yourself and your life.") David agrees. "It's very poor English. You know why? Because the usual confines of language would not allow your Transformation this weekend."

Another man is called to the mic. He wants to know how Landmark is different from est. David sighs. "If I had to sum it up, here's what I'd say: They're both about Transformation, but est was very experiential. It was the '70s, okay? Your access was an experience. Your access this weekend is going to be just through conversation. We realized we could do it just through conversation." And that's the last we hear of that.

A slight, blond woman sitting next to me confides that she's here only because her boyfriend paid her way - with the subtext that this was an offer she couldn't refuse. She shows me a packet of notes tied with a bow. They're from a friend who attended a Forum and thought it was brainwashing. In the corner of the top sheet is written, "To be opened on 'breaks.'" Why "breaks" in quotes, I wonder?

I soon find out. "Break" is a misleading term at an all-day workshop that offers no snacks, no drinks other than Dixie cups of water, a single mealtime, and only loosely scheduled pauses to use the bathroom. Also, every break has a corresponding assignment. The first one: Call someone who'd like to hear from you and tell them where you are. I call my brother. "So, it's like the Hare Krishnas of time management," he says slowly. On the next break, I hid in a bathroom stall and read a Landmark flyer seemingly translated from Martian: "What would it be like if the San Francisco center was your center of being, and reflected in this, you were being your center? ... What if your way of being in the center gives the center its being and you are given your being from the space created in the center?"

By ten o'clock Friday night, 13 hours in, David is curing headaches with visualization techniques (an old Erhard trick) and redefining basic math. "How many items am I holding up?" he asks, holding up a Kleenex box and a chalkboard eraser. "Two," we say in unison. He puts the eraser down. "Now how many am I holding up?" he asks. One? "Two," he says. "The box and everything else." We repeat this until it makes sense - kind of. David promises that tomorrow, people will start to pop.

Indeed, some attendees have popped even before they return to the basement at nine the next morning. Others pop while tearfully offering "shares" about being molested or abandoned, about illnesses and divorces, their suicidal parents. There is applause for stories of calling loved ones and offering forgiveness, and David gently prods the storytellers to invite their family members to attend a Forum - or even pay for them to attend. A woman re-creates a beautiful conversation she had with her mother this morning and ends by singing "Wind Beneath My Wings."

Next, David calls up a woman - I'll call her Rose - who is estranged from her siblings. She reports that when she called her sister this morning, it did not go well. "I'm going to get a little intense now," David warns us with a smile, which he drops as soon as he turns to Rose. "You know the mod of celebration after the last share?" She nods. "What's the room in now?" David shakes his head ruefully. "You were 'screamed at' by your sister? There's no such thing as screaming." People start fidgeting and making for the door; there hasn't been a bathroom break in three hours. "You see, people are leaving," David says. "This is why people don't want to be around you, why your siblings don't want to be around you. You're too dead to feel," he says.

By now, tears are streaming down Rose's face. She asks to sit down; he says nothing. Finally, she thanks David, and he gives her a long hug before she takes a seat. Later, I walk over to tell her that I didn't like how David treated her. To my surprise, she disagrees. After being publicly humiliated, she phoned her sister again, and this time her sister listened. "I guess this is what I needed to hear," Rose tells me, smiling.

By Sunday, I'm in open rebellion. I come bearing contraband- a newspaper, coffee, snacks, and Advil. "How are you?" I ask the minder at the door as I slap on my name tag. "I'm truthful," he says, giving me the stink-eye. I Invent the Possibility of staying far away from Landmark seminars in the future. We get Monday off. When I take a hard seat in the basement for Tuesday's final Special Evening, I'm surprised to find I almost - almost - start crying. It's like seeing a room of beloved camp friends after a year apart. The air is festive and buzzing with chatter about our day and a half away from each other. I think, This is great! No wonder people have brought along dozens of friends to sign up.

David quiets the crowd and sends the friends away with a group of minders. Turning to the rest of us, he says, "You know how I wished you big Problems on Sunday? Well, now I wish you big Breakdowns. Because a Breakdown is nothing more than the gap between your life now and the life you're committed to living. Your job is to step into that gap." He smiles. "When you came in here Friday morning, you were so certain about who you were, weren't you? You walked in certain, and tonight you're walking out uncertain. It could take years to become certain about who you are again. That's what the rest of the Landmark Curriculum for Living is for: to help you resolve that uncertainty."

Suddenly, I want him to love me as his student, to make him smile, to hear him tell me I'm doing a good job in my life. There are more "shares"; David tears up for the third time in two hours. "I love you forever," he tells us. "If you ever wonder if someone loves you, the answer is yes. David loves you."

And then, without warning, he launches into the hard, hard sell. "I am committed to having every one of you register for the Advanced Course tonight," he says. He's no longer smiling. We can demonstrate our commitment to ourselves, to David, to Landmark - all for $650, a $200 discount - but only if we act now.

Before I get up and leave for good, I spot Rose. She's sitting in the front row, gazing expectantly at David, ready to take the next step toward Transformation, Possibility, and EnrollmentTM.

Sidebar Articles

The Hunger Artist

In 1977, est guru Werner Erhard had a vision: He was going to end world hunger by 1997. To that end, he started the Hunger Project, a nonprofit that quickly picked up celebrity sponsors including John Denver, Valerie Harper, and Jimmy Carter's son Chip. But, as Mother Jones reported in December 1978, the group had no intention of actually feeding the starving, just raising "awareness" of hunger - and est. The article also exposed Erhard's complicated web of offshore tax shelters. In response, est threatened to sue. It didn't, but participants in one seminar were instructed to "focus all your negative energy on the people responsible for this terrible slander." Twelve years after it was supposed to become obsolete, the Hunger Project now has only one former Erhard associate on its board and notes it has "no ties to Mr. Erhard or his interests."

Landmark Moments

1971 - Werner Erhard has breakthrough while driving across Golden Gate Bridge; founds est (Erhard Seminars Training)

1973 - Erhard drives a black Mercedes with the vanity plate "SO WUT."

1975 - Est claims to have trained 65,000 people; Erhard dreams of training 40 million.

1975 - John Denver releases "Looking for Space," about his est enlightenment. Later, he asks other est grads to stop sneaking backstage.

1976 - Ex-Yippie Jerry Rubin recounts Erhard's spiel: "He listened to people's miseries ... laughed in their faces and screamed, 'YOU ASSHOLE, YOU CAUSED IT!'"

1977 - Woody Allen encounters a defensive est acolyte in Annie Hall.

1979 - Mork & Mindy features David Letterman playing a guru name Ellsworth, founder of ERK (Ellsworth Revitalization Konditioning).

1985 - Est changes its name to the Forum.

1988 - Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk attends the Forum; later credits it with his "big epiphany moment."

1989 - Nicolas Cage buys Erhard's palatial San Francisco pad, which one boasted a soundproof room, an elaborate security system, and a bedroom painted black.

1991 - Erhard goes into exile. Landmark buys est's "technology" and reportedly promises to pay Erhard a licensing fee for 18 years.

1993 - While in Moscow, Erhard appears on Larry King Liive; claims Scientologists are out to get him.

2002 - Six Feet Under's Ruth Fisher tries the Plan, "One of those '70's self-discovery clubs that yell at you and don't let you go to the bathroom for 12 hours."

2006 - Erhard breaks media silence in Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard, a film co-produced by his lawyer.

2007 - Erhard unveils new management philosophy coauthored with a Harvard Business School professor and the CEO of Landmark's consulting arm. Message: "integrity is the pathway to trust."

2009 - Landmark claims to have trained more than 1 million people. 

Father Divine

May 19, 2009

KESQ-TV in Palm Springs, CA interviews a La Quinta man, the adopted son of International Peace Movement founder Father Divine. He's making a bid for the leadership of this controversial church.

Trance 101

Mel Bezalel
The Jerusalem Post
April 30, 2009

"It's a little bit like when milk is boiling over, you can take a drop of cold water and dip it in, and it all settles down. When stress begins to build up, it erupts into violence."

Perhaps it isn't surprising that when international director and raja ("administrator") of Transcendental Meditation in Israel, Kingsley Brooks, talks about the practice in which he's been involved for 35 years, he speaks using elusive terms and near-constant metaphor. After all, the specifics of the practice are only revealed to those who train in it - which requires three preliminary steps and four sessions spread over four consecutive days, taught only by qualified Transcendental Meditation teachers.

Benefits of the practice, based on the constantly quoted "600 research studies," are commonly noted to include a feeling of relaxation and respite from stress and anxiety, memory improvement and enhancing the brain's creativity. The organization's Web site also purports that TM improves the attention span, immune system, academic and job performance, tolerance levels and slows the aging process, reduces blood pressure and mortality rates. On a global level, it's also claimed that TM practiced en masse reduces societal stress and crime rates.

At the most basic level of TM, when members spend 20 minutes meditating twice a day - morning and evening - the practice involves a set of Hindu-inspired meditation techniques which are said to bring practitioners to a higher level of consciousness through reciting a mantra which is secret and unique to each meditator. While members practice it with their eyes closed, their bodies move into a deep rest called "restful alertness." It's described as a unique feeling not experienced during other levels of consciousness - such as being awake, sleeping or dreaming.

During his visit to Israel last month with his wife, Lesley - a "partner" in his work - Brooks dedicated much of his time to promoting TM in schools or "consciousness-based education." One test case is already under way at an Arab school in the North, that cannot currently be named due to the early stages of the program's development. The TM program has been running for 10 months and already the school (comprising 300 pupils) has reported a marked shift in its students' behavior. One teacher who previously worked as the principal reported: "You can say that largely the school had two periods - before the introduction of TM and after it. Before the project, the school was on the verge of a total collapse. We had many problems, a lot of violence, both verbal and physical. Today, the school's climate is better, the atmosphere is more relaxed. There is also improvement in the students' desire for achievements, which is expressed in better grades. There is more optimism... so much so that we received the education award as second in the country for reduction of violence."

Students in the school are not obligated to study TM, says Brooks. Although most do, those who don't wish to have "quiet time" instead - which is simply the observance of silence in the classroom while the other students meditate. One 17-year-old student from the Arab school said the program has made a real difference: "My behavior has changed for the better after learning TM. I am more relaxed and I am feeling that even in moments when I feel down there is an inner happiness that emanates from my body and dominates my behavior. I take things quietly, just the opposite than before when I was very nervous. I feel inner joy that controls my behavior all the time. TM is the best thing that happened to me in my life."

Alex Kutai, National Director of the International Meditation Society of Israel, says he has been approached by three other schools interested in adopting the program - one of which comprises 2,000 students.

The schools program is important to the movement, says Brooks. "We feel that the potential for everyone is great, but particularly for young people. If they have this technology to develop their full potential when they're young," he says, "then when they get older they're already ahead in being as ideal citizens as they can be."

The TM school project began in America and is now also notably popular in South America. Currently, 60,000 high-school students practice TM worldwide. TM views schools as "peace generators" that can be particularly effective in Israel, says Kutai, because of the immense amount of stress caused by the [Israeli-Arab] conflict. "People are feeling they need something to strengthen and relax them - to lose the stress accumulated every day."

Eighteen months ago, renowned film director David Lynch, who established The David Lynch Foundation to raise money for "consciousness-based education and world peace," met with Shimon Peres about the possibility of implementing TM in Israeli schools. "[Lynch] told Peres the only way we can improve the quality of life here [in Israel] is to create more groups in schools," recalls Brooks. "Mr. Peres was very impressed with the idea and said his only request was that it work for both Arab and Israeli kids."

One recent example of academic research that supports the movement's claims is a pilot study carried out by George Washington University in December last year on children with ADHD. Though the sample only included 10 children aged 11-14, findings revealed that after three months, twice-daily meditations produced improvements in attention, working memory, organization and behavior regulation. Co-author of the study, Sarina J. Grosswald, said: "Teachers reported they were able to teach more and students were able to learn more because they were less stressed and anxious."

However, despite the number of research studies conducted on TM, the introduction of the technique in schools is not always welcomed. Just two years ago, parents at the Terra Linda High School in San Rafael, California, protested vehemently upon discovering that the David Lynch Foundation was offering the school a $175,000 grant for teaching TM. One objector, Gina Catina, who grew up in the TM movement and was responsible for bringing the technique to two California schools in the 1970s, wrote a letter to the school board to voice her dismay. She accused the movement of being a cult, describing side-effects suffered by TM practitioners she knew and disputing the movement's identity as "non-religious." The funding was subsequently withdrawn by the foundation. Also on the theme of religion, in 1979, a federal court ruled that a course titled Science of Creative Intelligence/Transcendental Meditation could not be taught in New Jersey public schools because it "had a primary effect of advancing religion and religious concepts" and violated the First Amendment.

Many critics of TM take issue with the movement's supposedly "non-religious" standpoint, taking issue specifically with the allusions to Hindu gods that appear in the TM puja - initiation ceremony. Hindu gods such as Shakti, Krishna and Vishnu are all mentioned in the private ceremony, in Sanskrit, and some say their personal mantras include them, too. Bob Roth, spokesperson for the international TM movement and national director of expansion, states that the Hindu connection is purely "cultural" however: "The culture goes back thousands of years, and it's nonsense to say that mantras are names of gods - 100 percent absolute nonsense. It just creates fear and there is no basis to it whatsoever."

One TM critic is Mitch Kapor, who founded Lotus Software and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the international non-profit advocacy organization. Kapor was involved with TM for seven years until 1976 and trained as a TM teacher. "TM is heavily promoted as a scientifically-validated, secular method of stress reduction," says Kapor, "whereas in fact the TM technique is inextricably bound up in a religious Hindu tradition, as is obvious to anyone who considers the mandatory TM initiation ceremony and the supposedly secret mantras. Proponents of TM twist themselves into pretzels to deny or explain away these inconvenient facts, but the real reason they do such things is as part of a drive to recruit as many people as possible into the TM movement." Kapor has strong objections to the program being taught in schools, despite initially experiencing some relaxation benefits from TM himself. Kapor believes that the twice-daily sessions being introduced in schools are designed to recruit members to the movement, who will then become much more involved.

Those who do immerse themselves in the movement often go on to become TM teachers and many practice an advanced technique known as "rounding" - intensive meditation that can last for several hours at a time. It is with rounding that more issues reportedly surface with regard to physical and mental side-effects, though the movement officially states there are none, pointing again to its store of 600 studies.

Past practitioners of TM have publicly spoken out about the alleged side-effects, including American social worker John Knapp, who joined the TM movement in 1972. Although Knapp speaks with 23 years of his own experience in TM, his role as a social worker specializing in recovery from toxic groups, abusive churches and cults and his website about the alleged problems of TM, mean that he is in frequent contact with those suffering with problems related to their experience with the technique. After signing up for TM to boost his grades at the age of 18, Knapp recalls that he had "a cultic relationship with the organization." Soon, Knapp became more involved with TM and began practicing rounding. "I was spending so much time and money on TM that other very important areas of my life were being completely neglected," he says. "During the time I was most involved, for about 20 years I only saw my family a handful of times." Although he is clear to state that it wasn't a directive from the organization, he says it was "a non-stated judgment."

Knapp says he suffered several side-effects from his intensive meditation practice, such as head-shaking (which he occasionally still experiences), disassociation or "spacing out," problems with his memory and a movement where his head would rapidly flip left and he'd feel an energy surge in his spine. On visiting the doctor, it was suggested that he'd developed a kind of Tourette 's syndrome. Knapp says that past TM practitioners contacting him have also reported involuntary twitching, grimacing, shouting and other tick-like behavior.

Mentioning difficulties with the meditation was difficult in the movement, explains Knapp, because "to bring up any, what they called 'negativity,' meant that you were likely to be ostracized from the group. If you had any problems with the meditation, and people did, it was the kind of thing you did behind closed doors."

In Knapp's experience, many of the problems experienced by meditators were explained away by teachers with a concept known as 'stressing,' 'stress release' or 'body purification,' where the body experiences temporary ticks as part of the body's healing process.

TM spokesperson Roth acknowledges that this process can occur, but stresses that its occurrence is rare. "Just like if a person has a weak heart, they have to modify their exercise program. It has happened from rounding and that is why we are careful about who gets the additional practice." However, he denies that TM has any sustained adverse effects and responded, in reference to Knapp's experience, that complainants practicing TM in the 1970s are an exceptional case because of the popular use of drugs at that time: "People who have trouble with rounding are those who in the 1970s... many of whom had a history of taking hallucinogenic drugs. Since then, there have been thousands of people who have gone on to teach TM with no problems whatsoever. Now, to go on a teacher training course, one has to be shown to be healthy with no drugs in their past." However, Knapp asserts he's been in contact with those experiencing problems who learned the meditation after that period.

Despite the anecdotal discussion, Roth maintains that there is no scientific evidence to give any cause for concern: "There has never, ever, ever been a published study with a control group published in a [peer-reviewed] journal in America that has ever shown any negative side effects of TM. And that is unequivocally the case."

Part of the problem with determining the legitimate benefits and problems of TM is the conflicts within the scientific community. As with many areas of research, some of the studies offer contradictions. Although the movement quotes the "600 studies" in its favor, some have been criticized for bias and a lack of scientific evidence. For example, a research paper published in June 2007 by the University of Alberta Evidence-based Practice Center for the US Department of Health and Human Services, stated about meditation research (TM included): "We found the methodological quality of meditation research to be poor, with significant threats to validity in every major category of quality measured, regardless of study design."

Therefore, either Roth's statement regarding the lack of scientific evidence for TM side-effects is not straightforward, or he is simply uninformed. Such studies do exist, such as Stanford University's Leon Otis's 1984 study which revealed that although 52-64 percent of the subjects who practiced TM in the study did not list a single adverse effect, "adverse effects do occur in a sizeable percentage of those who take up the practice," and "the number and severity of complaints were positively related to duration of meditation. Of considerable interest," states the research, "is the finding that the specific adverse effects reported were remarkably consistent between groups and formed a pattern of people who had become anxious, confused, frustrated, depressed and/or withdrawn since starting TM."

There are additional studies that follow similar veins; however, it seems that for every study published, a counter study is produced to dispute the scientific claims. It is important to highlight that much of the criticism launched at TM is, on the whole, focused on the more intensive practicing of the technique.

If Kapor's suspicions are correct about the TM movement attempting to enlist pupils to the movement so they'll become devout members, should there be some concern about the meditation's introduction in schools, or is it pure conjecture?

Hana Shadmi, director of psychology and counseling services at the Education Ministry, says she is encouraged by the research on TM. "I think overall, based on my familiarity with it [TM], it can help give people tools for focus, calmness and healing, which are positive in a school. I know of work that has been done in schools that people said resulted in calmness and a decrease in violence. People have reported good results in schools."

Speaking about the possible side-effects, Shadmi added: "I cannot say anything bad about this... I am not familiar with enough literature that says it is addictive, but it is possible... anything that you overuse in any excessive way can take something that can be good and make it bad. I believe in Israel there are kids who will find it hard enough to do 20-minute sessions, [let alone] doing it excessively. Who [will take part] and how they will be trained, will it be supervised, who will supervise - all these questions, which I have no answer to, puts hesitation in my responses. There is a lot of uncertainty and lack of knowledge. The question is whether it is appropriate for school."

Aharale Rotshtein, principal of regional high school Shar Ha'Negev, near Sderot, has been practicing TM for around six years. He visited the Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment in Iowa, the original TM school, eight years ago to see how the practice is applied in schools. Together with his staff, Rotshtein is currently thinking about introducing the technique into his school. "It's a wonderful way of having a little rest," he says. "During the busy, noisy day, it's 40 minutes you can be with yourself, clearing your head. It makes me think more effectively and physically be more effective."

However, despite practicing TM himself, Rotshtein emphasizes that there are points about the method that he finds problematic: "It becomes religious if you follow it to the end. As a free person I don't like this way; I like to use it as a technical way and not more. It's not ideology, it's only a way to give you rest. If you continue with it and it becomes religious, it becomes very dangerous in my point of view."

Other schools less familiar with TM, such as the Hebrew Reali High School in Haifa, remain open-minded about the technique despite claims from critics. School spokeswoman Galit Diamant commented: "Many educational initiatives were born in our school, later to be adopted by the Education Ministry. Our school has always been open to new and innovative educational concepts and will continue to do so, provided that they are congruent with our fundamental values: love of mankind, love for our country and contribution to society and tolerance."

Despite the issues that exist, the TM movement maintains that intensive "rounding" could hold the solution for wider societal betterment. "Having a group practice meditation in an advanced program of meditation," says Brooks, "creates a peaceful influence that spreads to the whole world. Just like individuals have stress, a country has stress."

According to TM research, when just one percent of the population is practicing TM, it's as if the whole country is practicing it - and crime rates and other social problems spontaneously drop. With the advanced meditation program, known as the TM-Sidhi program, just the square root of one percent of the population is needed in order to effect societal change - known as the "Maharishi Effect." In 1983, a group of Sidhi experts travelled to Israel, which resulted, according to one TM study, in decreases in war deaths, war intensity, crime rates, traffic accidents and fires, as well as increases in measures of well-being such as the stock market.

There are of course papers questioning the validity of the study, such as Barry Markovsky and Evan Fale's 1997 piece, which discusses the occurrence of Jewish holidays, for example, as a significant influencing factor on statistics that was excluded from the study. However, it is with the global effect of TM in mind that the Israeli TM movement hopes to establish, in addition to school programs, a new Center for Israel Peace and Invincibility - "a place where large groups of peace-creating experts can learn and practice the Invincible Defense Technology [in essence, Maharishi Effect]," according to its publicity pamphlet. This new facility will house 500 meditators and cost NIS 100 million. Funding is currently being sought from a single, unnamed donor.

Alamo judge delays two girls’ abuse hearings

Andy Davis
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

October 15, 2008

Hearings on abuse allegations involving two girls taken from Tony Alamo’s religious compound in southwest Arkansas will be postponed to give attorneys for the Arkansas Department of Human Services time to take sworn depositions from out-of-state witnesses, a judge ruled Tuesday.

The girls are among six, ages 10 to 17, who were removed from the compound in Fouke during a raid on Sept. 20. All the girls are now in foster homes.

Alamo, the 74-year-old head of a ministry that also has operations in Fort Smith, California and New Jersey, was arrested in Arizona on Sept. 25 on a federal charge of transporting minors across state lines to engage in sexual activity. Authorities have not elaborated on what Alamo is accused of doing or whether the charges relate to the girls now in foster care.

Miller County Circuit Judge Jim Hudson is presiding over the protective services cases of two of the girls, and Judge Joe Griffin is handling the two cases involving the other four girls, who are two pairs of sisters.

Hudson’s cases had been set for adjudication hearings, in which he will make a final ruling on whether the girls were abused, on Oct. 20, with hearings in Griffin’s cases to follow the next day.

But the Human Services Department asked for the hearings to be delayed, saying it needs more time to take sworn depositions from witnesses. Those witnesses include three to eight minors who live outside the state or more than 100 miles from Texarkana, Hudson said.

At a hearing Tuesday, Hudson granted delays in his cases, moving the hearings to the week of Nov. 17. He said Griffin will likely make a similar ruling.

“Some part or all of my two, and some part or all of his two, will start on the 17th,” Hudson said late Tuesday afternoon after the hearing, which was closed to the public. “We will try to schedule the four of them in some sane fashion that week.” At a hearing Sept. 26, Hudson found probable cause to believe the girls in his cases had been abused, and he ordered them to remain in foster care until the adjudication hearings. The parents in Griffin’s cases waived their rights to probable-cause hearings.

In Hudson’s cases, both parents of one girl and the father of the other girl are members of Alamo’s church. They were represented at Tuesday’s hearing by attorney Marshall Moore of Texarkana, who didn’t return calls late Tuesday.

Attorney Pamela Fisk of Texarkana, Texas, has been appointed to represent the mother who does not belong to the church. There was no answer at Fisk’s office late Tuesday.

The girls did not attend Tuesday’s hearing, but they were represented by court-appointed attorneys Amy Freeman and Carla Reyes, Hudson said.

At the adjudication hearings, the judges will decide whether the abuse allegations are supported by a preponderance of the evidence. They could order the children to return home, possibly with conditions, keep them in foster care or place them with relatives. Documents in the cases are confidential, and the hearings are closed to the public.

It is common for the Human Services Department to request that an adjudication hearing be postponed, especially in case involving out of state witnesses, department spokesman Julie Munsell said.

“There’s a lot of time and effort involved in locating people and then getting to depose them or gather some statements from them,” Munsell said.

Authorities have said they are investigating allegations that children were physically and sexually abused at the compound and that child pornography was produced there.

In his sermons and in interviews, Alamo has said the Bible teaches that girls are old enough to be married when they begin menstruating, but he has said that he does not allow underage marriages in his church. He has also denied that any children have been abused at the compound or that pornography was produced there.

On Tuesday, Alamo was still “en-route” to Arkansas from the Coconino County jail in Flagstaff, where he left more than a week ago, said Richard O’Connell, the U. S. marshal for the western district of Arkansas. He said Alamo should arrive in Arkansas this week.

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/240310/

Kabbalah Centre sues spin-off Universal Kabbalah Communities

Kabbalah changed Shaul Youdkevitch's life.
Brad A. Greenberg

Jewish Journal
October 2, 2008

The native Israeli had never been religious, then as a college student he discovered the esoteric teachings of Jewish mysticism and felt like a missing piece of his life had been put back in place. Soon after finishing school, Youdkevitch joined the faculty of the Kabbalah Centre, first as a teacher in Israel and later landing in Los Angeles, raising his family in the ministry and living in staff housing for almost three decades.

In February, Youdkevitch, who created and oversaw the center's teaching materials, and his wife, Osnat, left the center because of frustrations with the higher-ups, and decided to start their own kabbalah community in Los Angeles, calling it October 2, 2008. Shaul Youdkevitch said his goal was to become a kabbalah evangelist, to develop curriculum and programs that could be adopted by synagogues and communities unaffiliated with any organized kabbalah community, even his own.

"It was my life; I didn't want to give it up," Youdkevitch said in an interview. "And more than that, I wanted to share it with people all around the world."

But their efforts quickly attracted the attention of the Kabbalah Centre's leadership, and on July 14, Shaul and Osnat Youdkevitch were sued by their former employer of 28 years.

The lawsuit, which seeks damages in excess of $100,000 as well as any profits, accuses Universal Kabbalah Communities of unfairly competing, of stealing "trade secrets," of setting up a Web site and using an acronym (UKC) that people could confuse with the Kabbalah Centre (TKC), of trying to steal the center's members and of claiming to be intellectual successors to the teachings of Rabbi Philip Berg and his predecessors.

The 23-page suit cites numerous cases in which their activities allegedly violated California law. Among them, that their Web site, www.livekabbalah.org, is too similar to the center's, www.kabbalah.com, and that Universal Kabbalah Communities invited members of the Kabbalah Centre to a celebration on the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Yehuda Brandwein, who led the center before he handed the reins to Berg in 1969.

Aviv Tuchman, an attorney for the Youdkevitches, called the lawsuit "groundless."

"The word kabbalah is not trademarked; the observance of the rabbi's yahrzeit is certainly not some proprietary right, the observance of Jewish holidays is not some proprietary right," Tuchman said. "The sole purpose of their lawsuit is to harm Shaul and Osnat -- it is to intimidate them and deter them from freely practicing Judaism and kabbalah."

Youdkevitch and his wife are not the first people to start an alternative to the Kabbalah Centre; they just might be the highest-profile former employees to do so. Because of that, their activities have drawn the attention of many active members and employees of the center.

Across the United States and, particularly, in Israel, countless individuals and organizations teach various forms of kabbalah, said Jody Myers, chair of Jewish studies at Cal State Northridge and author of "Kabbalah and the Spiritual Quest: The Kabbalah Centre in America" (Praeger, 2007). The most significant of these, she said, is Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education & Research Institute, which started in Israel in 1991.

That someone who left the Kabbalah Centre would start their own kabbalah community should be no surprise, Myers said. But that the center would file suit is.

"I find it problematic," Myers said. "We have First Amendment rights here. People are going to keep teaching kabbalah."

Calls to the Kabbalah Centre's media office were not returned. Janet Grumer, an attorney for the center, declined to comment.

The lawsuit is presented not as a religious matter but a business dispute. Repeatedly referenced is how the Universal Kabbalah Communities are cutting into the profits and economic advantage of the center. (Although the Kabbalah Centre is a nonprofit religious organization, its revenues fluctuate like those of a for-profit business.)

Youdkevitch's attorneys claim the suit is a vain attempt to skirt constitutional protections of freedom of expression and religious exercise.

"Couching its allegations under the guise of a business dispute cannot dodge the First Amendment dagger and review the corpse that is plaintiff's complaint," they wrote in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

A hearing will be held Oct. 27 in U.S. District Court to decide how the case will move forward. Legal experts said the Kabbalah Centre's claim would hinge on its ability to demonstrate that Universal Kabbalah Communities infringed on trademarked material.

"The touchstone is you can't be so similar that a significant portion of the population is likely to be confused. There is no hard and fast rule," said Daniel Klerman, a trademark expert at USC Gould School of Law. "The question is: Are people likely to be confused by what this new group is doing?"

"If they called themselves the Kabbalah Centres, just adding an 's,' that would be confusing. If they called themselves the Kabbalah Spirituality Centre, that would be confusing," Klerman continued. "But what are they calling themselves? The Universal Kabbalah Communities -- yeah, that sounds sufficiently different to me that people would think it was another kabbalah group different from the other one."

Sara Flatow, who for 11 years has been a member of the Kabbalah Centre, hopes the suit is settled without any harm to Universal Kabbalah Communities. She's recently gotten involved there, attending their Shabbat services and becoming a part of the growing fabric of about 100 regulars. What captured her imagination most, she said, was Shaul Youdkevitch's desire to share the teachings of kabbalah with anyone who would listen.

"He has so much to teach, not just from his wisdom and his understanding and his learning but also from his experience," Flatow said. "He and Osnat were the heads of the center in Tel Aviv and reached out to the Arab communities and made great strides in relations in that department. Really reaching out, showing the unification, that we are all people, that we are all mothers and fathers and children, we are one unified soul -- that is sort of the message of kabbalah."

http://jewishjournal.com/uncategorized/66334/

Need 450 acres near Disney? Get ready to fork over $150M

Orlando Sentinel
September 8, 2008
Mark Pino

One of Osceola County's grandest tourism visions remains an illusion.

A 450-acre tract planned for a theme park mixing magic and Transcendental Meditation remains vacant in the tourism corridor. Almost two decades later, the two men behind the project are dead, and the land has a $150 million price tag.

"It's a great piece of property," said Hector Lizasuain, who oversees a tax district created to beautify West U.S. Highway 192. "It's funny -- over the years, they'll put [for sale] signs up and take them down again. People call it one of the prettiest sections, maybe because there are no buildings. But it is prime real estate."

The former plant farm has remained a swatch of green foliage and wetlands that runs for nearly three-quarters of a mile among U.S. 192's glitz and kitsch, flanked by Old Town and a Cracker Barrel.

Vedaland, which means land of knowledge, was announced with much fanfare in 1989 by magician Doug Henning and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru to The Beatles who introduced the West to Transcendental Meditation. Henning died of cancer in 2000, and the Maharishi died at his home in the Dutch town of Vlodrop this year.

A Maharishi subsidiary closed on the property in 1990 for $20 million in cash. In 1996, it was on the market for $60 million after the group shifted efforts to a site in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

The park plan originally included a building seemingly suspended above water without supports, a "magic flying chariot" that took riders inside the molecular structure of a rose, and robots that would fly through the air, performing magic tricks.

The development was projected to cost $1 billion.

The backers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars planning the project and getting government approvals, which expired years ago.

It is hard to analyze the current asking price by the Maharishi Global Development Fund, said Linda Goodwin-Nichols, a Realtor who is not involved with the listing but is a member of the West U.S. 192 Redevelopment Advisory Board.

"That property has been for sale for 25 years," she said. "In today's marketplace, you don't know if it is a good price because no commercial property has sold in a long time."

The listing averages about $330,000 an acre, which Goodwin-Nichols said is "not bad for usable property," but the tract includes wetlands that would not be worth as much.

While the property is listed on tax rolls as agricultural land because of a tree-farming operation, an Internet sales listing cites a study that "suggests potential development scenarios up to 800,000 square feet of commercial space and as many as 4,300 multifamily residential units."

While the tract is zoned for a planned development, the original approvals expired in 2005. A new owner would have to start the process from the beginning, county officials said.

Goodwin-Nichols said the property might appeal to a buyer with a plan for a resort with a hotel, condos and a golf course who could acquire it for the right price and time the process so the project was ready when the economy improves.

"Now would be the perfect time," she said. "But you don't see a lot of people doing that. The stuff that is coming out of the ground now has been on the drawing table and in the process for a long time."