Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
'Dark?'
'Power is negative, as well as positive, no? You are vamiliar wizz
electricity? Zo . . . derr power go either vay. Problem iss, a person is
not always knowing that derr light iss now darkness.'
'Evil?'
'Come, come!' He slapped my shoulders with brutal ebullience.
'We are not medievals.
Ignorance
- that is what we now call eefill, my
vriend. Derr Nazis were not eefill. Dracula iss eefill, and very smart,
too - but Nazis were ignorant barbarians, no? Only savages do
eefill things - ergo diss iss mere ignorance.'
Nietzsche was wrong.
Satan
is dead - and semantics did the deed.
Which brought us to Rajneesh.
Otis clasped his forehead, groaning, 'Ahyayayaya-yah! Derr man
iss sick - physically sick,
and
mentally sick.'
The bhagwan's aura, apparently, was like a tattered version of
Joseph's many-coloured coat: an astral rag upon a stick. The aura,
Otis claimed, was cracked, a symptom he'd witnessed before, both
in people who had damaged themselves with dangerous yogic
practices and in chronic paranoid schizophrenics. The two
seemingly had much in common.
'Schizophrenia comes vrom derr Greek,' he explained. 'It means
broken heart or soul. Both derr creatiff genius and derr religious
fanatic are often borderline schizophrenics.'
In his opinion, the bhagwan either had schizophrenia or had
performed exercises usually forbidden to all but a few. These latter
generate energy so powerful that it wreaks havoc on the mental
body and physical nervous system of those not properly prepared to
handle it. The result is indistinguishable from forms of insanity
that also include delusions of grandeur and the conviction that a
person is God, Christ, or someone equally influential. An obsession
with sex, he added, is also common in many such cases.
To the Icelandic professor, whatever was going on in the ashram
provided fascinating material. Such borderline personalities, he
continued, frequently exerted tremendous influence over those
around them. Those drawn near were pulled into a mutual
psychosis, transforming into little clones of their idol, and frequently
