The thing is that no reference is made on the CEDA website about the event and in the press release it only says that Paul was the emcee. Then it goes on to say that he is the director of CEDA and does the pretentious hype number about the organisation.Actually it is sort of interesting to see how this kind of thing attempts to lend credibility to Rawat. He is supposed to be the keynote speaker, yet the press release is actually devoted to talking up the other speakers and their credentials. Helen Disney and David Purnell, apparently other speakers, are each quoted and given their own paragraph, where their credentials are laid out.
Then at the end Linda Pascotto is also quoted. But the keynote speaker himself? He is neither quoted nor are his qualifications mentioned, other to say that he has emerged as a leading voice for peace and that he founded the Prem Rawat Foundation.
What is really noticeably missing between all the name dropping is exactly what the special event was about, who were the "distinguished audience" and what purpose it served.
That the focus of the press release is around the secondary speakers and their credentials plus the fancy address where it was held, it is transparent that its only purpose is try and lend some legitimacy to Malibu Prem by associating these names with him. It is also interesting that he is ALWAYS the keynote speaker at these events. Whatever they attempt, they just come off looking like a cult again.
But what I think is really amazing is the amount of effort and money that must go into these things apparently for the sole purpose of putting out one single virtually ignored press release.
I mean I'm in this business so I know something about it. Creating a publicity stunt is one thing, a tried and true method of promotion. But that has nothing to do with this. Normally you would measure the efficacy of some publicity event based on the amount of circulation and perhaps readership it produced and then make a cost accounting evaluation of it to evaluate its success. In other words, you would add up the circulation of all the media where something was printed about it. You would then divide the cost of the event by this number. Using this criteria, the Prem Rawat publicity stunts are a dismal failure. The only outside media they are taken up by is this forum.
