It's so interesting reading that old Boston Globe interview with Rawat.  He just runs in circlesaround the issues and questions.  One moment he's either Christ or a fellow in the exact same predicament as Christ but then, when simply asked to confirm that for clarity's sake, he backs off and says he's nothing of the sort.  But then, within the very same breath, he's back to talking about his followers realizing who he is "that's come into the world" .... blah, blah, blah. 

This clearly puts the lie to all the EV FAQs which suggest that we ever projected anything on this outrageous con artist.  The fact is, we didn't know what to think, really.  We were just doing our level best to figure it out and, with all his mixed messages and wink, wink, winks, assuming he wasn't a liar, the only reasonable conclusion was that he was God.  Pure and simple.

But what it also shows is how completely accomodating the press was to weird, stupid stuff back then.  Here's this spoiled, bratty teenager just playing games, mocking the world even as he threatens it, not giving a single straight answer to anything and the interviewer doesn't call him on it. 

But I guess this "grace" period didn't last forever.  The press gave Rawat enough rope to hang himself and you could see that they were ready to pull it tight at Millenium.  That's when he lied about investigating Fakiranand and started whining like a baby when the press told him, frankly, that he wasn't levelling with them.  Of course he never exposed himself to another real reporter again.