I have some comments with regards to your academic article Divine Light Mission to Elan Vital and Beyond: An Exploration of Change and Adaptation that appeared in Nova Religio; March 2004; 7, 3; pg. 45 I.

Let me first tell you that I did not agree with the aggressive tone of website criticizing you for not revealing your affiliation to Prem Rawat on Geocities created by “Emile” that by the way has now disappeared.

But I do think that you should have told the readers of Nova Religio that you are a student of Prem Rawat and I consider not telling this a bit misleading. You did not write an article about physics or mathematics but about religion and in that subject bias creeps in very easily and has crept in, in your case. For example, in the academic article you mention media attention but forget to mention that most of the attention was negative and critical. Another example, as Jim Heller already wrote you "[..] the history of Prem Rawat is significant in understanding contemporary Western spirituality." Only a student of Prem Rawat would agree with this. Yet another example of your bias. You dismiss the assertion by Daniel Foss and Ralph Larkin that the Divine Light Mission had no substance as biased without giving a detailed rebuttal, instead only pointing to the DLM’s popularity. You may be unaware of another study in Dutch language by Wim Haan in 1981 that said more or less the same, “the DLM hardly has a philosophical background.”

I deeply regret and find it very unscholarly that you call ex-premies a hate group. It may be difficult to believe for you but Prem Rawat has harmed them and they feel betrayed by him. Hence, they are over-sensitive to what they perceive as whitewashing Prem Rawat. Some of them think that you used your academic credentials for doing this. Because you did not mention your religious background to some of the parties involved and because unintentional bias crept in your academic article, I think this suspicion is understandable.

By the way, I have read David V. Barrett's book that I found quite balanced but I wrote him that my own "cult" experience with the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba was worse than he had described in the examples of his book.

You write implicitly that you welcome critical debate and then I can refer you to discussion to a discussion group where people know a lot about Prem Rawat i.e. http://www.forum8.org/forum8/index.html The aforementioned Wim Haan discussed there Prem Rawat too. Other religious scholars like professor David C. Lane also extensively engage in critical debate on the internet.

Sincerely yours,