a few more points:

1)When someone speaks as much as prem does, and is NEVER publicly challenged or confronted (and if he is, the mike is cut off, as in England recently), it tends to reinforce in the cult mindset the fact that he is Unbeatable, Unchallengable, because if he was saying anything wrong, it would have been caught by now....of course, this presupposes that someone Could challenge him, which they can't...it sort of takes normal thinking (if he was wrong, or could be proven wrong, he would have by now, with all of his speaking engagements) and applies it to the controlled world that he lives in....if you don't factor in the fact that no one can challenge him, you assume that he never has, because what he is talking about is so wise...

2)I think EPO bugs prem so much, because for the first time he IS challenged publicly and exposed, and he has never had to defend himself before, especially intellectually, and he is quite deficient in that area with an 8th grade formal education (I do acknowledge that he is a great pilot, and has learned a lot about life from life experiences, although most of them are with sycophants and devotees..)

3)Like rush, he is a substance abuser who lives in a vacuum, and while projecting assurance and happiness in their public medium and appearances, are unhappy loners privately, with very little normal human interaction.....it's a trap that's very hard to imagine getting out f, because there is a great "payoff" in what they get publicly, and I believe they have both developed an incredible addiction to it....a "normal" life could be freeing, but would probabaly be boring for them.....

4)If prem had only dealt with EPO years ago in a real manner (ie, admitted his failings, met with his critics, cleared up the past, and then tried to re-invent himself, EPO would probably be quite irreelevant today)....however, in the doing of that, he would have lost almost all of his followers, which are his only source of revenue and support to go on with today....damned if he does, damned if he doesn't....and all the time we thought we were building our houses on stone, not sand.....I think that's what so hard for premies to confront--they have a world view that is built on prem's teachings as the only rock to build on, and if this rock turns out to be sand, they are in deep trouble--for many of them, this late in life, that could be devastating, even if it was freeing...