On the other hand I suppose if you grow up in a Christian home all you know is the orthodoxy of the denomination you belong to and depending on the denomination a lot of the Bible explained by the church perspective. I’m sure Catholics aren’t taught about the Albigensian crusade, the Inquisition, the pogroms etc, etc in Sunday school or Presbyterians about the shameful number of witches they burnt so maybe in this regard Rawatism is normal.

D is smart enough to see the circular reasoning in much of Rawat’s satsang but thinks Rawat is “subtly but surely” pinning the experience on himself when it’s about as subtle as a cream pie to the face or a hammer blow to the head. So here are a few reflections on d’s comments:

“And it does sound wonderful, often, and he really is a total charisma machine” This shows that all those years of parental indoctrination has had a greater effect than he realized. Rawat has only been able to captivate and guide a very small part of the audiences he’s spoken to. He is rejected by nearly everybody he comes into contact with despite the fact that nearly everyone first hears about him in very positive terms from dedicated premies like d’s parents. Imagine what his reaction would be if he was walking down the street and he knew nothing of Rawat and Rawat came up to him and started giving his standard spiel. There’s no point in imagining it because Rawat never even goes out amongst groups of his own followers let alone cold calling. Ever seen him in a video wandering through the crowd, shaking hands, hugging or chatting? Ever wondered why he’s never dropped in for a personal visit with your family?

“so even when it doesn't you get so carried away watching his public speaking process that you just don't care.“ (sic) Sounds like he’s going into the same hypnotic trance his parents have been cultivating these past 23 years. They’re trying to create it by doing 3rd technique but then group trance states can be quite empathic as I remember only too well and maybe he was being affected by the parents.

“I grew up being told constantly that there was this incredible experience inside me, and that that was what people meant when they said 'heaven' or 'love' or 'beauty' or whatever, and more importantly, that that was all I needed to be fulfilled, just breath.” He may well be a level headed person, many people are, but he didn’t become that way because of that lie that was repeated to him constantly. The “experience inside” is not incredible and “all you need to be fulfilled is just breath” is completely false as his parents’ lives and the lives of all the premies and the lives of all the people who have ever lived have shown if he only had the eyes to see. I wonder if he thought he’d be the first person to experience complete fulfilment based upon his breath.

“Why are ex-premies so hung up on Rawat being so fat?” Firstly they’re not hung up about it but it’s the simplest and most obvious evidence that Rawat is not telling the truth. If he was having this incredible, heavenly, loving experience he wouldn’t be stuffing himself with too much food. Simple and straightforward. It certainly appears d’s parents never mentioned sohung, also spelled soham in the house?

He challenged Jim to show where the TPRF website legal details were and voila. Where did he get the idea that Rawat has said anything that can be construed as “the only standards you need to measure your life by yours” (sic) because that is certainly not part of his message that I’ve ever heard.

Rawat didn’t invent his religion, he’s not a genius and he’s not the only person talking about life. D appears to know nothing about his history; the evolution of doctrine through Divine Light Mission and Elan Vital; his father or his mother and eldest brother who continues to reveal Knowledge to the Indian masses. He seemed to accept his father’s assertion that Rawat was the only person in the 70’s who didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was saying he was God just because he sounded like he was saying he was God

In connection with the success of Elan Vital’s efforts in attracting members he said “Ok, so I'm being asked to take both party's views on faith.” As if there was no method of determining which “side” was likely to be more accurate. Don’t they teach the concept of critical thinking in philosophy studies in the USA? If there is an organisation that is publishing publicity material stating that membership is reaching new heights then they obviously consider large membership and rapid growth to be an important validating factor. However if their statistical information is so limited as to be worthless in determining membership and growth in different countries and societies over the decades of its existence and this information is never published annually in a full and meaningful manner then you can nearly certainly decide that they are providing baseless propaganda rather than information grounded in reality.

“It's the only religion that allows you to stay atheist. The only way it gets away with this is by defining itself as beyond the simple dichotomy of religion vs non-religion.” D hasn’t learned to discriminate, to tell the difference between things that are said and things that are true. It’s a religion that claims it allows you to remain atheist, not a religion that allows you to remain atheist. Not the only one, there are scores of other cults that claim to be practical experiences of the divine that require no prior belief. It “gets away with it” in the sense that it’s so small and unimportant that the government and media just don’t care about it. It can define itself as whatever it likes but it is the greater society that defines groups like Elan Vital and one of the ways it is known to be a cult is it tries to define itself as being something it’s not while meeting the criteria for being a cult.

It can’t be a cult because “only dumb people join cults”. Actually only dumb or ignorant people believe that only dumb people join cults. D made plenty of other immature assertions that you might expect a young person to make but these had nothing to do with his upbringing in Elan Vital.