Hi Mr. Prembio®,

Sorry for the delayed response. In the meantime 13 and Susan have done a better job that I could have, but I think you deserve a direct response from me.

You have done such a mammoth job of documenting the cult and you have my absolute respect for doing that. Many others I am sure feel the same. So let me ask you this. What is your goal in your efforts? As I am sure you know, I get paid to help organisations communicate more effectively. One of the first things I ask is, “Who you do you want to reach and what to you want to achieve?”

Now you being you, you might answer, “I am doing it for myself or something along those lines.” But I am going to go out on a limb here and presume you would like to expose Rawat for the fraud that he is to the general public. That might include people who have started to get sucked in, friends or family of theirs, journalists doing research, perhaps others working in a professional capacity.

For all of those people, the facts stand on their own. They don’t need editorialising. The more you add your own interpretation, the more you diminish the efficacy of exposing Rawat. Put yourself on the other side of the equation. When you read some kind of article about something, which has more impact? A neutral article that relays the facts or when the author is trying to tell you how you should think about the topic?

I know you love to get creative in your writing and I do appreciate it. For example I loved this sentence: “Unfortunately Daya is no Kim O'Leary and can't manage the ascending high notes on "love, love love" in the chorus and she has to go back down and so it loses that inpiring upbeat ending and settles like a collapsed soufflé, just as Prem Rawat's Mission to bring love and peace to the world has crashed like a hot air balloon stuffed with millions of dollars of the crowd's donations.” 

Well it is very long. You could try breaking it up a bit. But in this case the way you add some personal understanding is helpful. You are not really insulting Daya. Just saying her voice doesn’t have the range of Kim and as a result the song loses impact. The implied point is that the only reason Daya is singing this song in front of the multitudes and they lap it up is because of her semi-divine status. Otherwise it is just gross for her to sing to her father like that.

That being said, this level of detail is only understandable for someone who is or has been on the inside of the cult. I personally would be more economical so that you don’t lose people. Later on when you compare Rawat to Krishnamurti, you even lost me. It was too much of a tangent and I don’t know anything about that other guy.

But I know that is what you like to do and I think it is even fun for you. So let’s get to the sentence that started this whole discussion: “… Rawat was short, dumpy and ugly.” Why? What does this add? How does this help expose Rawat? It is just a cheap shot.

To say that you come from an older generation and can’t relate to all these modern sensitivities seems like an excuse. Yes, when we grew up it was common to make fun of overweight kids and often the teachers just turned the other way and ignored it. Some of those kids grew up very traumatised. Is it a bad thing that at least in this area modern society is trying to be more compassionate? It isn’t censorship to avoid doing that. It is just not being a mean and bullying school kid.

In the title of your post you write: “Fraud, Liar, Cheat, Abuser, Psychopath but not Fat?” Do you honestly not see the difference there? Is being fat to you equally condemnable as being an abuser?