1. Bicycle Ride—Walden After I left Rama's inner circle in 1985, I occasionally bicycled to Walden Pond, where I read about Thoreau's experiment with self-reliance. My seven years in the cult of Rama—Dr. Frederick Lenz, who was known early on as Atmananda—had deeply shaken my confidence. Atmananda often assured me that I was possessed by Negative Forces, that I was barely able to... more...

PREFACE Lord Gifford in founding his lectureship directed that the lectures should be public and popular, i.e. not restricted to members of a University. Accordingly in lecturing I endeavoured to make myself intelligible to a general audience by avoiding much technical discussion and controversial matter, and by keeping to the plan of describing in outline the development and decay of the religion of... more...