Take Me for a Ride Part 39

Fundamental to my research on Rama were my discussions with former disciples, some of whom I tracked down, and some of whom I happened to meet at movie theatres, airports, and gatherings of Amnesty International. Talking and writing about my experiences helped me to work out much of the emotional pain.

Listening to what others had gone through also helped a great deal.

But as I listened, I realized that my darkest fear had come true.

Rama had been getting progressively worse.

In the fall of 1985, weeks after I left the Centre, Rama disbanded Lakshmi and encouraged roughly one hundred followers to move from Boston to Los Angeles. He directed these disciples to donate their time to his software company, Vishnu Systems.

In 1986, Rama moved from Boston to Seattle with about eight men and three inner circle women: Laura, Cindy, and Anne.

Once they arrived in Seattle, Rama informed the three women that he had asked them along specifically to satisfy his s.e.xual appet.i.te.

He told them that they were to be his "Geisha's." By then, he explained, he needed to sleep with two or three women at a time; an individual, he maintained, had too little "energy" to stimulate him.

He confessed to Anne that for most of his life something had been hurting him, keeping him down. He told her that during a recent trip to a family event, he saw that his aunt and uncle had been using their psychic powers all along to make him deathly ill and to try to kill him. He told her that I had been sending him a great deal of Negative Psychic Energy and that, in response, he had been sending me Ent.i.ties so my life would be "miserable on a daily basis."

Also in Seattle, Rama repeatedly administered LSD to the three women.

During their hallucinogenic trips he kept them up all night, shouted at them, told them that they were possessed, and tried to get them to confess that they had incarnated on earth to destroy his mission.

Then he threatened their lives.

During one such episode described by Anne as "nightmare weekend,"

Rama fed them acid--five or so hits each--and showed them his new puppy.

"This dog is possessed," he claimed, citing its frequent need to urinate, and its habit of whining when confined alone in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Rama then fed the dog seven hits of LSD. "Look--it's still standing!"

he said in an effort to substantiate his claim. Rama placed his hands around the puppy's neck and began to squeeze. Earlier he had claimed that the Evil Forces were trying to get to him through his pets.

All of his pets, he complained, became demonically possessed.

Now he continued to choke the puppy to the brink of death.

Then he scowled at the three women and boasted that he had just used his *willpower* to stop himself from eliminating this "enemy."

Through the sleepless night and following morning, Rama repeatedly told the women that the puppy's situation was remarkably similar to their own. He reminded them that they had better confess.

"Barbara confessed!" Rama finally snapped. "Barbara has come clean!

If you want to study with me in this or in any future lifetime, you had better come clean!"

After Rama left the room, memories screamed across horror-fried synapses of Anne's acid-drenched brain: the puppy...he's strangling the puppy...can't breath...it's possessed--EVIL...like us...-- EVIL... like us...five hits of acid...the room...the furniture...me...focus...

the Forces...the puppy...he's strangling the..."Anne, I will send you to h.e.l.l for thousands of lifetimes!"...can't breath..."What you will experience will make AIDS look like fun!"...he, he threatened to kill me..."Cindy, I have a special place for you in h.e.l.l!"...-- EVIL...li ke me..."Consider your future lives!"...the puppy..."Barbara confessed!"... like me..."Come clean!"...--EVIL..."Confess!"...

When Rama returned to the room, the three young women confessed.

Weeks later, when the women asked Rama about the health of the puppy, he replied that it had pa.s.sed on to another world.

"Do you know how I did it?" he whispered. "With my *will*."

Months later, Rama announced to hundreds of followers: "No, friends, I am not paranoid. In fact, three students recently confessed to me that they had incarnated on earth to destroy my mission."

Also in 1986, Rama wrote to followers: "A very close friend of mine, Jack Kukulan, died several weeks ago. I know Jack was a friend to many of you. We will miss him. Jack was the best part of all of us.

His tremendous help and economic support of the spread of meditation has benefited many. Jack died a warrior's death."

A squat man with dark, curly hair and a sardonic smile, Jack had applied to be a student shortly after Rama's 1982 Berkeley lecture series.

He had allowed the Bay Area postering crew to use his house as a base of operation, and seemed willing to help his new spiritual teacher in any way that he could. When Rama closed the San Francisco Centre, Jack sold his house and moved to southern California, where he continued to run an Oakland-based fruit distribution company.

Each week I stopped by Jack's Malibu apartment to pick up a crate of fruit for Rama, who lived down the block near Point Dume.

Before I left, Jack slipped me a small, brown, paper bag.

"That's for you," he said.

"Thanks," I replied and I pulled out a plum.

One time I asked him how he could run a company that was hundreds of miles away.

"By making a lot of phone calls."

Another time I invited him to see a movie.

"Can't make it," he told me. "I need to take a client out to dinner."

I nodded. "Big deal coming up?"

"Yeah."

Rama began spending time with Jack. In 1986, they went on a trip to j.a.pan where, Rama told him, they had spent past lives together.

Meanwhile, Jack had donated to Rama not only numerous crates of fruit, but well over one hundred thousand dollars. In fact, Rama announced at fund-raising dinners that the disciples were "off the hook"

because Jack had donated yet another hundred thousand.

On August 2nd, 1986, forty-year-old Jack Kukulan was found in his apartment, partially decomposed before the shrine. According to the police report, white powder was found on a nearby piece of paper and on the blade of a knife from the kitchen. According to the autopsy report, Jack died of "heroin/morphine intoxication."

In August, 1986, Rama left Seattle. Four months later, he returned to Boston, where he reunited dozens of former followers.

"You should forgive each other and start anew," he told them.

Four months after that, he instructed them to call and invite other former followers to a "very important" meeting in Boston.

Hundreds responded by flocking east from Los Angeles and from other areas of the country.

At the meeting, Rama divided the congregation into the "NO,"

"YES," and "MAYBE" groups as a way to determine who could come back into his new, nameless Centre. He put the women who had been with him the longest in the "MAYBE" group.

"They are the worst," Rama declared, explaining that they would be required to "pay off" their bad karma with checks ranging from $1200 to $2000 a month each. He then informed the "MAYBE" as well as the "YES" disciples that if they wanted to study with him in this or in any future lifetime, they should prepare to move to Silicon Valley.

Several hundred disciples made the move and attended Rama's first gathering in Palo Alto, California. Anne and Rachel, followers since the Stony Brook days, drove west together from Boston and arrived a month later, in time for the second meeting. Rama asked them and seventeen other inner circle women to work at the second meeting.

They would check attendance lists and sell his books and tapes, which they had done many times before.

During the meeting, Rama warned the disciples in the audience to make a mental note of the nineteen women working that night.

"*They* are witches," he explained. "*They* have been incarnating together since ancient Egypt. *They* have been trying to destroy my mission." He cited as evidence the times he had gotten sick, that some of his hair had fallen out, that past-life students had been kept from finding him, and that current students had been sapped of their energy.

Briefly flipping to a less abusive persona, Rama announced that the nineteen women also happened to be his best students.

"But," he said firmly, "they have been seduced by the dark side of the force...they seduce people...they band together in the demon world."

Rama knew the women had recently left their homes, quit their jobs, and traveled three thousand miles to be with him. He knew their devotion ran deep. He then kicked them out before the entire Centre.

"Rama?" started a woman disciple from the audience. "I recently dreamt that seven of the nineteen flew around me like witches."

Rama nodded. "Recently," he said, "they have networked and conspired to murder Jack Kukulan."