Among the Intellectualoids / The Maharishi Effect
O'Sullivan, John
AMONG THE INTELLFXTUALOIDS THE MAHARISHI EFFECT by John O'Sullivan A few years ago I arrived at Chicago's airport late, harassed and groaning under too many suitcases. It was probably inevitable...
...At any rate, the evangelist pointed out that saving souls was a tricky business, often bungled by well-meaning amateurs...
...Yes," I replied briskly, hoping to avoid him...
...Would the place, I wondered, be packed with loonies smiling aggressively...
...But there had apparently been some hitch in my salvation...
...It returned to unsettle me a month or two ago as I motored through the English countryside to Mentmore Towers, the stately Victorian pile that belonged until recently to the Marquis of Roseberry, to attend a banquet given by English followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, its present owners and occupants...
...His blood, however, remained uncurdled...
...he produced a book containing this essential formula...
...Also I am in danger of not getting to San Francisco...
...My reaction was swift and, I hoped, terrible...
...On the other hand, the formal invitation card-black italic lettering on stiff white cardboard-bred considerable confidence in its recipient...
...In response to its instructions, I had donned, if not the full soup-and-fish, at least a rather stylish green velvet dinner jacket and butterfly bow...
...And what on earth, so to speak, was the World Government of the Age of Enlightenment, which we guests had been invited to celebrate...
...A strikingly pretty girl was by my side, (continued on page 22...
...That episode festered long in my memory, proving the shrewdness of Lincoln's remark: "Love your enemies-they'll hate it...
...It was probably inevitable under these circumstances that I should promptly be accosted by a lunatic, or, as I now suspect, by someone posing as a lunatic...
...He was wearing that fixed sweet smile of overwhelming charity that skeptics like myself call double-beatific vision, and he asked me whether or not I was saved...
...But I need not despair...
...I threatened that, if he did not get out of my way and the San Francisco plane left without me, then I would seek him out and put his theory of salvation to the ultimate test...
...Instead he smiled-a smile of such repellent sweetness that it could have cloyed a lemon at 60 paces...
...Would the evening include speeches of the length and dullness usually associated with the phrase "World Government" or of the obscurity suggested by the word "Enlightenment...
...Thank you for sharing your anger with me," he said...
...Kindly step aside...
...His own sect had fortunately perfected a foolproof method of avoiding hellfire which could be communicated to me for a modest sum...
...Then he cooed...
...And from his robes John O'Sullivan, formerly the parliamentary sketch writer for the London Daily Teltgfaph, is the editor 6f Policy Review...
Vol. 12 • December 1979 • No. 12
