Paper: Charlotte Observer, The (NC)
SURVIVORS FROM THE `60`S LAVA LAMP DIDN`T MAKE IT, BUT THE WATER BED
DID
Date: July 27, 1986
Flower power. Power to the people. Peace, love and Woodstock. Right on. But
right on to what? And where did all the hippies, their gear and their gurus go?
It seems like a faint memory now, a paisley print washed too many times. Kent
State is just another school in Ohio. The Vietnam War is long lost.
Volkswagen doesn`t even make bugs anymore. And most of the gurus have been
booted out for back taxes or vanished into obscurity.What`s left of the `60s?
What tokens of The Revolution have made it to the `80s? And which are as dead as
the lava lamp?
Here`s the view, 20 years later:
NO GO`S
*Guru Maharaj Ji. Remember when the Cosmic Kid, age 15, declared himself "The
Lord of the Universe", "The Perfect Master" and owner/operator of the Divine
Light Mission in Denver? The group claimed a following of 6 million worldwide
(150 of them in Charlotte) during its early `70s peak. Ji preached celibacy and
an end to materialism.
By 1975, his mother renounced the pudgy fellow`s guru status, saying he was a
playboy (at age 17, he married his 24-year-old secretary) and lived the good
life - including a $400,000 estate in Malibu. In 1979, the group moved its
national headquarters to Miami, Fla. and into obscurity.
