My experience in 1972 to 1975 when Rawat's age was in, any objective, still an issue, was that the general sense among premies was the he was 'ageless.
In retrospect I think that this 'ageless' conception was a convienient denial of a very real problem - that being that thousands of adults were giving up personal responsibility on the basis that a poorly educated and ill prepared adolescent was somehow going to 'fill the responsibility gap'.
I also think that, at the level of a group psychology, the young Rawat did fulfil the 'child god' symbol for western premies brought up in a Christian culture. How much any of us accepted that at a concious level is a moot point, but I wouldn't disagree with an approach that invoked an 'unconcious' acceptance of the child go symbolism.
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