The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, spiritual guru of the Beatles and business partner of the late Doug Henning, has entered immortality at 91. Stories
The CNN account blames his breakup with the Beatles on their drug use in his compound. I’ve read accounts (Peter Brown’s among others) that the Beatles became disillusioned with him because he made a pass at Mia Farrow’s sister and was just a bit too worldly in his knowledge of banking and tax shelters and the like. Anyone know the straight dope (which I’m guessing is a mixture of the two)?
Trivia: He and Doug Henning were planning a multibillion dollar TM theme park at one point but that seems to have ended when Henning refused conventional cancer treatments in favor of New Age alternative treatments. (Unfortunately the dolphins he swam with switched the coffee in his enemas with Folger’s Crystals or something and Henning died, whereupon the TM theme park plans evidently ended.)
Well, let me be the first to say that I’m glad The Beatles came to their senses: secondly, it is the passing of an icon, and thirdly I don’t particularly care one way or the other.
He may or may not have been a fraud, and even so he may have helped people chill out in spite of any bad intentions - but whatever he was, he helped inspire the White Album, which is an unmitigated positive.
And for whatever it’s worth, my girlfriend asked me to improvise an instrumental thing about him on guitar, and what I came up with sounded really good. So apparently, even if he wasn’t much of a holy man, he was a decent muse.
I wonder if the TM cult will survive. Cults that survive the death of the cult figure rarely do, Scientology being the main exception. Anyway, one down. Now if only Lyndon LaDouche will follow suit.