'Anyhow, at the moment, being reminded of the torture Rawat put John through, I feel like crap as well, and not too good about humanity in general and a little depressed that a filthy rich cult leader could get away with it, and continue to be worshipped, by, well hundreds.'

Hi, Joe,

I think myself you are off-beam here. If anyone is to blame for John's problems, it is probably John himself, though I don't enjoy saying so.

I agree with Nik, John and Jim's comments below.

John behaved very unwisely in the way he handled the situation. He took no prior precautions, as Nik says, and just went ahead and published material that would inevitably be tracked back to source.

IMO he was flying from having reached 3 million people through his magazine article, which really disturbed the cult and had them seriously back-footed. He had also had some success over the cult with which his daughter had become entangled.

Given the circumstances, he didn't need to do much at all to set the cult onto his case, which they did in spades.

Yes, the way he was handled, with the Anton Pillar clause was abominable, but he also screwed up further appeals through incredibly poor advice, with bells on.

The whole situation was pretty lamentable, and gave them scope to jump all over his head.

'And if Rawat gets away with this, and is able to restore his soiled PR image by lying about speaking at the United Nations, fraudulently claiming to be  an "expert on peace" and live a rich, worshipped life, well, that is proof positive that there is no God.'

God doesn't come into it, IMO, just the realities of how to challenge powerful interests, which John fucked up big time.

I don't know if John's premie friends will stick by him, but the initial indications seem to be that they are doing so. How long that will last, who knows.

From my limited connections in that domain, the word is that John is in the East (maybe Thailand?) and is back to writing some journalism about local politics, and is making a slow recovery.

I sympathise with those people who helped him out either emotionally or financially, and find it deplorable if he didn't contact them individually or collectively to explain his situation, and thank them for their support, even if he wasn't in any position to repay them. That seems to me quite unconscionable.

However, from my own knowledge of him, I still wish John well. I think he made quite an amazing contribution to EPO through his long posts, which I argued strenuously here must be kept on EPO under all circumstances.

I have a personal indebtedness to John because of the 18 months in which we emailed together, in which he guided me through many issues, with a patience, kindness and friendship which is quite rare.

Whatever happens, he will remain my friend, and I wish him all the best for the future.