Mike, I also would like to continue the thread about academics' opinions here. The story of Maharaji, the DLM, and Elan Vital is not only about facts (being a eye witness) but also about interpretation of facts i.e. opinions. And from an outsiders' point of view the interpretations of facts by followers are worth as much as those of ex-followers. That is why those academics' opinions are important.
I disagree with you when you say that outsiders generally give as much weight to followers' opinions as they do to ex-followers. In fact, I think that's far, far from true. I believe that people generally think that followers' opinions are worthless and that exes share their own accurate opnions, namely that this is a cult. Period.
Another reason why the academics are important is that they have developed concepts and ideas that help to understand your own experience. For example, you assert that you would not have said that Maharaji had power when you were a follower. In sociology charismatic authority, trust and power are strongly related. I read somewhere of a follower's site that Maharaji's does not have power, only influence. Strong, non-reciprocal influence is power, according to sociologists.
You're assuming that, for example, because we didn't see that Maharaji abused power when we were in his cult and because sociologists state that truth about him that somehow sociologists are helpful or important to us. In other words, you make it sound as if they contribute to our eventual learning or acceptance of the truth. But that's a false assumption. We didn't see certain obvious things about him because we were tricked. It didn't take sociologists to untrick us and when we did eventually see through the trick, sociologists, like anyone, stating the obvious truth about the cult would be superfluous. They're only saying what everyone else in the world knew all along.
On the other hand, I have to agree with Jim Heller that in accessibility it is still quite a different subject than engineering and partial differential equations (I only know Maxwell's). And you really do not need to study the subject of the sociology of cults and NRMs to see that Maharaji is incompetent at best.
I'd go a step further and say that even if you did study the subject of sociology and cults, you won't learn a single thing you can't learn from simply talking to honest, well-informed former followers.
While writing this I am watching National Geographic TV that seems to feature charismatic leaders, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, General Patton.
There, there really is room for the expertise of historians to inform us. Likewise, I'd say that a historian, who could tell us something we never knew about the historical context of the cult would have something to contribute to our understanding. I've yet to see anything from the NRM-studying guys that qualifies.
