http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prem_RawatAmerica 1973
Rawat returned to England and the United States in June and in August he spoke in Boston to a crowd of 9,000. <51><52> A reporter there described Rawat as "...a real human being. He spoke humbly, conversationally, and without any apparent notion that he was God. In fact he seemed to consciously undercut the divine stage show and the passionate words said in his honor. Devotees and mahatmas speak of him as the guy who will out-Christ Christ, yet the guru himself claims, not that he is divine, but that his Knowledge is".<53> Sociologist James Downton observed that from his early beginnings Rawat appealed to his followers to give up the concepts and beliefs that might impede them from fully experiencing the "Knowledge" or life force, but this did not prevent them from adopting a fairly rigid set of ideas about his divinity, and to project millennial preconceptions onto him and the movement.<54>
The next day, August 7, 1973, Rawat attended a Detroit Common Council gathering to hear a testimonial resolution praising his work. There he was hit with a shaving cream pie thrown by Pat Halley, a reporter from an underground Detroit newspaper.<55><56><57> Rawat said that he did not want his attacker arrested or harmed, but a week later Halley was attacked and his skull fractured. Local members notified Rawat, who was in Los Angeles. Rawat expressed his shock and regret at the incident, and local and national officials of DLM said they were appalled by the brutal act.<60><61> Rawat expressed concern for Halley's welfare and extended his regrets to Halley's family. He instructed the DLM to look into the incident.<62> A DLM member identified the assailants who were held in "protective custody" at an ashram in Chicago and the local police were notified.<59> The Detroit Police did not initiate interstate extradition proceedings, saying either that they were unable to locate the assailants, or that the cost of extraditing the assailants from Chicago to Detroit made it impractical.<63> This lack of action by the Detroit police was attributed by some to Halley's radical politics.<64><18><65>
Followers emphasized the effectiveness of Knowledge in obtaining "love, peace and happiness" in their lives, but public attitudes were often unsympathetic, and many were hostile.<66> Rawat, who frequently acted like the teenager that he was in public, was seen as immature and hence unfit to be a religious leader. Unfavorable media reports said that Rawat "lived more like a king than a Messiah".<28><67> A tour of U.S. cities was cut short in early September 1973, when Rawat was hospitalized with an "intestinal ulcer". The doctor said that Rawat's body showed the stresses of a middle-aged executive weakened by the pace of continual travel.<68> He went straight from hospital to Europe where he gave talks in Paris and Bonn.<69>
Pat never really recovered from his attack. The Divine Light Mission exec had contacted Pat and asked to meet him. He said he wanted to show him that the Guru's methods are real. They went to Pat's room. The exec asked Pat to sit, close his eyes. When he did the exec picked up a hammer and bashed his brains out.
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