It's called the Tall Poppy Syndrome but with all due respect to John, he doesn't qualify. That's more to do with people who become famous internationally (well in England at any rate) like Germaine Greer or Robert Hughes the US art critic. I was surprised at the level of anger towards John and I don't even know the nutty premies. In a sense it had nothing to do with John personally but with the fact that he could give Rawat bad publicity and did.Hundreds of Australian premies moved close to Ipswich to be near Amaroo or have spent large amounts of time there and Ipswich is the butt of all Qld jokes. Nobody would live there if they didn't have to so Amaroo meant a lot to them and even before John's articles with them all being fired or no longer having service to do there was unhappiness that may have been retroactively blamed on John. Last week a premie told me John had always seemed a smart and amusing person to him and so it's not as if they all demonise him.
I have made those exact same comments about Dettmers but he never put himself in a position where EV could take legal action that could damage him with minimum publicity.
I don't think it matters to premies where Rawat lives but 'darshan' is still the great buzz in the premie community. Still puts a shine in their eyes and excitement in their hearts. How often does a premie in the US get to see Rawat a year? Locally?
Byron Bay is a combination of some old time farmers, some 70's hippies and their grown up children, younger pseudo-hippies called 'ferals' and lots of new residents come for the rural beauty and tourism excitement. All part of a trend in Australia to the sun belt from the two major cities. Good surf in the area as well. Many of the premies there are the 70's Australian premie honchos and there are lots of doper premies. It's more like Santa Cruz than Venice Beach as it's still very rural but come holiday times there are hour long traffic jams as the revellers pour into town. It doesn't take many people to create a one-reality.
