Cult leader "Maharishi" Mahesh Yogi died today.

[John Gauger]

I'm surprised there hasn't been any discussion of it so far. He was a sleazy guy by most accounts. Though cult leaders generally are, I guess. He sexually harassed a member of the Beatles' entourage (some say Prudence Farrow) while they were studying Transcendental Meditation (ugh) at his mansion. They left in a huff and the guru asked why the were so upset, and John Lennon said in one of the great lines of all time, "If you're so cosmic you'll know." He wrote the song "Sexy Sadie" about the leader, though he changed the original title from "Maharishi" because he thought the cult leader would find it defamatory, and that a court would agree. Well, we're one huckster fewer today. I guess that's good.

[uberllama42]

1. I've heard that in Britain, the burden of proof is on the defendent in a defamation suit

The courts actually assume that you are guilty if someone accuses you of damaging their reputation. That would certainly keep me from positively identify somebody in a song like "Sexy Sadie."

[John Gauger]

2. Yeah, that's true.

Also, the allegations needn't be false. In America, if you can prove the allegations are true they're not considered defamatory. Across the pond the veracity doesn't matter. You just have to have said those things in order to be found responsible.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. No, that's not quite right

If the defendant, in Britain, can prove what they wrote was true, that's sufficient defence. That's always been the case, but there's also a slight movement recently in Britain towards a 'public interest' defence:

One of the businesses mentioned, Abdul Latif Jameel Company Ltd., sued the newspaper, as did Muhammed Abdul Latif Jameel, its general manager and president. Under British libel law, newspapers being sued are required to prove the truth of the allegations they print — the opposite of the situation in the United States, where the burden of proof falls heavily on plaintiffs.

But that was a practical impossibility in this case, a member of the panel that ruled on Wednesday, Lord Hoffmann, wrote in his decision.

“In the nature of things, the existence of surveillance by the highly secretive Saudi authorities would have been impossible to prove by evidence in open court,” he said. The paper argued that the article was in the public interest — that is, important to the debate about terrorism and the authorities’ efforts to combat it.

A court ruling in a case several years ago involving The Times of London first seemed to open the door to such an argument. But that decision set out what some lawyers say was a prohibitively high set of standards for newspapers and other news media to meet, forcing them to defend their reporting practices to satisfy the subjective opinions of individual English judges.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/world/europe/12britain.html

[John Gauger]

10. "Not quite right."

From what you say it's absolutely false. It's okay to call bullshit on me if I'm wrong. :hi:

[jberryhill]

7. In effect it works that way here as a practical matter

Truth is an affirmative defense to defamation, and if the defendant is asserting truth as a defense, then the burden is on the defendant.
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[Warpy]

3. Still, he got a lot of people meditating who might never have

discovered it otherwise. I don't expect anybody to take my word that it's a good thing unless they've done it themselves, but I do see it as a good thing.

The way it was done was pure hucksterism, that "secret mantra" was the same for everybody in any very large groups and it cost quite a bit to get one, as I recall from those days. However, they likely would have remained under the radar and quite harmless had they not started to make ridiculous claims like levitation as they bunny hopped around a room. The old boy and his nearest and dearest died rich, but everything they did wasn't that bad, unlike most of the other cults we've seen.

On a 1-10 rating of cults, the 1 being your garden variety mainstream church that organizes charity for the poor and whose leader doesn't live any better than its members and 10 being Jim Jones, I'd give him about a 3, mostly because he could never keep his pecker in his pants and partly because he charged people for a practice that is freely taught by Buddhists. As cults go, TM was relatively harmless and will probably not long outlive its guru.

[drm604]

4. I'll admit that I was taken in by the group at the time.

What can I say, I was an impressionable adolescent. It cost IIRC $65, a flower, and a piece of fruit. They never pushed for more money, at least not hard, and there was no push to leave home and live in some compound or anything like that. In fact, as far as I know, there was no compound, church, temple, or whatever.

No brainwashing. No hard sell. You could purchase the training, which consisted of one lesson, and then that was it.

IIRC, you could later on spend money on more advanced techniques, and there were books you could purchase. I think I received a small number of flyers for those kinds of things in the mail, but that's it.

Of course I did receive mailed info from them on the levitation lessons. I think that was what caused me to lose what little respect I may have had for them.

As far as the technique, I did find that it seemed to help with my anxieties and I still use it occasionally. But it's very possible that simply sitting quietly with my eyes closed would have the same effect.

I'm certainly not defending Maharishi, and I'm not defending the promulgation of ignorance, but like Warpy says, as far as cults go this one was relatively harmless.

[Warpy]

8. My ex was taken in, too

and paid his whack. He managed a successful meditation exactly once and described it as the best high in his life, meaning he achieved one of the first few jhanas. It was a shame he didn't continue with it since he was clearly able to do it. Alas, he preferred the shortcut booze and drugs provided.

We had a friend who was hardcore, who eventually went to their university in Iowa as a meditation teacher. He was totally harmless, not a proselytizer, just a happy guy who did deep meditation twice a day.

As cults go, it was harmless as long as you weren't female and anywhere near its guru.

[drm604]

9. Now that you mention it

it was quite pleasurable at times. The problem is finding the time and place to do it twice a day.

[mr blur]

5. Largest collection of Rolls Royces in the world, I understand

Or am I thinking of some other manipulating whackjob?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. I think that's somebody else.

The Rajneeshees.

A case of sexual harassment is small potatoes compared to the Rajneeshees.