I agree with Godzilla (cute), that premies were by and large NOT former hippies.  There were some, but I think the generalization about that has moved into the world of accepted fact, when it really isn't.

(I also disagree with the characterization that there were a lot of people who became premies who had been into politics, the anti-war movement, etc.  That also is mostly not true, Rennie Davis not withstanding.)

At least in the USA, and espeically among the ashram premies, I can recall very few who were really hippie drop-outs.  I certainly wasn't and most of the people I knew weren't either.  Many were college students, some were older, most came from upper-middle-class families, almost entirely white with high proportions from Jewish and Catholic backgrounds (way higher than the percentages in the general population).   But if you really looked at what people did before they became premies, they were pretty conventional for the time -- most did not come from communes, the Haight Ashbury, or living on the street.

I think many of these people had tried drugs, but that would have been true of the general college-aged population at the time.  I didn't know anyone who had been heavily into drugs -- it was mostly marijuana with some experimentation with psychadelics.

I read Downton's book a while back, and I thought it did capture a time.  It was the late 70s, and the cult was moving into the super-devotional-surrender period, after having come through the "save the world," and "humanintarian leader" period. I thought the interviews reflected that.  But I think his sample was mostly from Boulder , wasn't it?  That would lead to a scewed sample just because of the nature of Boulder.

Of course, had I been interviewed, I would have said I was delirously happy, because even in my premie-misery, which occured a large percentage of the time, I truly believed I was happy, because I truly believed whatever was happening was what was supposed to be happening, given that Maharaji was now running my life, and had a plan for each of us, and all experiences were necessary for us to grow to, variously, enlightenment, realizing knowledge, surrendering to Maharaji, total devotion, Nirvanna, dust at the lotus feet.

So, no matter how unhappy I was, there was no other answer except that I was so happy, and it was all "so beautiful." 

There did come a point when I couldn't say that anymore, at which point I just shut up about it, and tried to muddle through.  At one point, I couldn't even do that anymore.