The major fault in the academic research into Prem Rawat's Divine Light Mission is the uncritical acceptance of most information supplied by the organisation's administrators and members without appropriate skepticism. Stephen A. Kent has never been guilty of this and in this paper he religiously documents all of his evidence. There must have been a certain number of political radicals who also became involved in "Mystical Religions" though the number and extent of their radicalisation is, imho, usually overstated. Nearly all young people had at least a modicum of sympathy for political and cultural change in the late 1960s - early 70s. That didn't make them radical politcal activists. Sweeping assertions about the so-called 60s "Woodstock generation" are also invariably overstated. I base this view on my life experience having been there and watching the Woodstock movie. This was not hundreds of thousands of long haired hippie counter-cultural dropouts or radical activists but young people out on the weekend trying to have some fun.

Other works by Kent relating to Prem Rawat and Divine Light Mission include:

Religion (1993) 23, 45-60

Radical Rhetoric and Mystical Religion in America's Late Vietnam War Era1

Stephen A. Kent

Using primary documents from various religious groups, interviews with former activists, and an array of alternative press literature, this paper analyzes the appropriation of radical rhetoric within the anti-activist ideologies of mystical religions that flourished during the late Vietnam War period in the United States. Examples from several Eastern-based religions (Divine Light Mission, Hare Krishna, and 3H0) and Western-based groups (including the Christian World Liberation Front and the Children of God) demonstrate the manner in which former activists converted to groups that utilized radical imagery to advocate patriarchalism along with individual rather than structural transformation. These ideological positions further subdivided an already fragmented New Left movement.

During America's late Vietnam War era of the early to mid 1970s, radical political rhetoric took on new meaning in the context of the religious groups that were adapting Movement phrases and concepts to their own doctrinal positions. These new or heretofore unsuccessful religions located themselves alongside political movements that had sought to restructure industrialized societies, and into them poured young people by the score. Accounts from the period (and subsequent interviews of people from the time) indicate that many of the converts had been political activists and radicals.

Because these changes in attitude and behaviour were so dramatic, considerable debate has raged over the relationship between the political counterculture2 and the religious upsurge in the early 1970s. A popular explanation for the transition is the 'successor movement' hypothesis, which in various forms3 argues that youth-based religions in the 1970s emerged out of the politically-oriented movements of the 1960s. Unorthodox religions drew large numbers of former activists and radicals4 into their ranks, as these spiritual groups became havens for young adults who were either fatigued by movement activity and life style or dispirited by seemingly few political successes from their political efforts.5 The limited successes but frequent failures of political activists to achieve structural change in society's power distribution6 led many of them in the early 1970s to establish new social institutions and new behaviors through which they attempted to achieve the social goal of 'revolution'.7 The Marxist-dominated, anti-capitalistic, somewhat anti-sexist political actions of the 1960s no longer seemed feasible to many Movement people by 1973,8 in the wake of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago,9 the campus national guard killings in 1970,10 Nixon's re-election in 1972,11 and America's troop withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973 (a feat accomplished without a major overhaul of the American political system). Driven by these and related political events, talented and skilled youth who converted to religious groups simply made lateral career moves from a stagnant or declining social movement into a growing one.12

In response to these and other frustrating events from the early 1970s, significant numbers of Movement people adopted religiously-dominated, pro-capitalistic, largely sexist apolitical actions as further attempts to achieve the illusive revolution that they so desperately desired. Despite their apolitical actions, the groups still used radical rhetorics of opposition that allowed religious converts to believe that their new efforts at

0048-721X/93/010045 + 16 $08.00/0 © 1993 Academic Press Limited

46 S. A. Kent

'changing the self' extended their previous efforts of directly challenging objectionable political and social structures.13 The words and phrases, however, that religions of the 1970s expropriated into their lingo had the three-fold effect of further diminishing direct social and political confrontation, sanctifying patriarchalism, and further fragmenting an already divided New Left movement. Strange gods came alive as the 1960s movement withered.

The first part of the article identifies a wide range of rhetorical images among early 1970s 'new' or alternative religions that contain messages involving politics, social restructuring, and the action needed to change society in a desired direction. The rhetoric of gender seems sufficiently important to warrant separate analysis, which I will provide in the second half of this study. In all cases, radical rhetoric in its religious context dissuaded direct political opposition by encouraging change on a personal, rather than a structural level. Gender rhetoric, in particular, allowed persons (especially men) to perpetuate an arbitrary system of social disempowerment among women. I base my analysis of rhetoric on primary documents from numerous 1970s' alternative religions in conjunction with alternative press articles,14 and interviews that I conducted with political-to-religious converts. The documents and interview-information comes from the Divine Light Mission, Hare Krishna, 3H0 (i.e. the Health, Happy, Holy Organization), the Children of God (COG), and the Christian World Liberation Front,15 and all of it demonstrates the introspective, fragmentary, and patriarchal consequences of radical rhetoric in the popular but unorthodox religions that flourished in America and elsewhere during the final years of the Vietnam War.16

Rhetorics of Politics and Mystical Religions: Overview

Religions imagery permeated much of the 1960s debates, even if political concepts took center stage. To a large degree Marx's adage about religion being 'the opium or opiate] of the people'17 received widespread movement circulation18 as major denominations actively supported America's efforts in the Vietnam War.19 Nevertheless, resisting the general pattern of support was an amalgam of clergy and laypersons from many denominations, including the Catholic Fathers Daniel and Philip Berrigan,20 liberals in the Clergy and Laymen concerned about Vietnam (CALCA V), Dr Martin Luther King, and various peace churches (such as the Quakers, Amish, and Mennonites).21 These persons and religious groups produced a rhetoric of governmental opposition and resistance that enhanced direct social action, making the significance of their words decidedly different from the rhetoric that emanated from the newer groups of the 1970s.

The politically-inspired rhetoric generated by the heterodox religions in the early 1970s contained the express hope that a major political restructuring would occur, and on this point it was little different from typical New Left 'Movement' slogans from the period. The new religious rhetoric differed dramatically, however, when discussing how that restructuring would come about. Summed up succinctly by the director of Long Beach, California's Ananda Center in 1970, 'the only revolution which will change the world is a revolution of consciousness in the individual through self-awareness'.22 The idea about 'working on the self' as the vehicle for political change captured the imagination of heterodox religious persons in the early 1970s, who fundamentally believed that a 'religious' foundation of pure individuals would provide the basis for a perfected and just government. Members of widely diverse non-traditional religions believed in the foundational necessity of individual purity underpinning the social state, even though they differed hotly and bitterly over what set of doctrines

Radical Rhetoric and Mystical Religion 47

provided the best (if not only) way to holiness. Disregarding for the moment dramatic doctrinal differences, any number of religious leaders would have agreed with Ananda Marga's North American head in 1974 when he stated that 'social institutions must be founded on spiritualism. With a lack of spiritualism, things fall apart. That is what is happening around the world today'.23

Some forms of spiritualism (or more accurately called, spirituality) played a role in the New Left almost from its inception.24 Even yoga played a role in some Marxist ideology, with Berkeley's Red Yogi Collective arguing that Ibiy the practice of hatha yoga (exercises), pranayama (breathing exercises) and meditative techniques we can greatly increase and intensify our ability to function creatively in a hostile environment. … Our approach to yoga is based on attuning, cleansing, and harmonizing ourselves to better struggle against the death-machine'.25 Religious or spiritual undertakings either contributed directly to political efforts,26 or was thought to be '… Another Road' altogether.27 In the 1970s, political and religious priorities reversed, as participants in spiritual or mystical groups believed that their new roads were leading to the same goals that previously they sought through direct political action.

Eastern-based Religious Groups

Nowhere was the new prioritizing of religion or spirituality-over-politics more dramatic than among followers of the adolescent Guru Maharaj Ji. Rennie Davis's conversion to the 'Perfect Master' (as the guru's followers called him) sparked bewilderment and anger within the New Left, and during Davis's speaking tours on behalf of the Divine Light Mission, activists and radicals in various audiences alternately ridiculed him and sat in dazed wonderment as he propounded a message about the new path to peace.28 Recounted by a former Free Speech Movement (FSM) activist (Michael Rossman) who was in the audience, Davis told a Berkeley crowd comprised of many old and current activists29 that:

[t]he Perfect Master teaches perfection, and will bring perfection on Earth - not after the millennium, but right now, in three years. A revolutionary perfection, realizing all our ideals of peace and justice, brought about not by struggle and conflict but by the perfect working of a perfect organization.30

In essence, Davis offered his former 'comrades in struggle' a 'career move' into the ideal organization, from which they finally would achieve the heretofore illusive goals of the 1960s. After people were to receive 'the knowledge' that Maharaj Ji imparted to his followers, Davis insisted that '"[t]hen we can do what the street people sought in the sixties - abolish capitalism and other systems that oppress"'.31

The primary political rhetorical phrase that Maharaj Ji and his organization used to attract disaffected activists and radicals was 'peace'. As it stated in various ways, the DLM offered converts the road to achieving peace in a manner as universal and grand as they ever had dreamt of accomplishing in the 1960s. In typical fashion, the guru's posters that advertised his 9 September 1972 appearance at the Oakland City Auditorium boldly proclaimed, 'IMAGINE WHAT IS PEACE[.] COME AND REALIZE THE PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE'.32 On application forms for DLM's major media event of the early 1970s, called 'Millennium '73', the immodest fifteen-year-old guru said, 'I declare I will establish peace in this world'.33 During the event itself at the Houston Astrodome, a giant video screen behind the main stage showed a barrage of shots from the tumultuous 1960s - assassinations, riots, peace protests, and Vietnam

48 S. A. Kent

War footage.34 When DLM reflected back upon the Houston event a few months after it was over, it again did so in the context of an article discussing the civil rights movement, VISTA [Volunteers in Service to America], the October 1969 Vietnam Moratorium, draft-dodging, and Vietnam. Amidst these painful reminiscences, once again the guru announced, 'Give me your love, I will give you peace. Come to me, I will relieve you of your suffering. I am the source of peace in this world'.35

Various accounts from the period suggest that many former political protestors accepted the guru's promise for peace,36 since they appeared throughout the organization. In addition to Rennie Davis,37 one of three prominent examples is Michael Donner, who had his DLM vice-presidential term interrupted by a fourteen-month imprisonment for activities in 1969 as a 'Beaver 55' member who destroyed draft board files and erased Dow Chemical's computer tapes.38 Sandy Meadows, who was DLM's managing editor of its publication, And It is Divine, had been a member of the Denver Weatherman Collective.39 Finally, DLM's director of public relations in 1973, Richard Profumo, had served a seven-month prison sentence for draft evasion.40

Rossman captured the logic of attraction that Maharaj Ji held for former activists and radicals when he observed that, '[h]ere Rennie was, proclaiming the perfect means to our various ends, the ideal, impossible Organization, working in perfect inner harmony, and outer accomplishment. Lay down your arms, your suffering, and the Master will give you bliss. And yet to work in the Left, to be of the Left, has meant to bear these arms, this suffering; we have known no other way'.41 For Davis and many other political activists and radicals, the rhetoric of the DLM provided hope that an illusive and ill-defined 'peace' still could be achieved, even as the organization's staunchest workers submitted themselves to the whimsical, absolutist authority42 of a guru who retreated from confronting institutions that fostered war. As one of many DLM ironies, the tents and water tanks for its 1974 New England rummage sale and festival were provided by the National Guard.43

Of all the Eastern-based religions that flourished in the early 1970s, DLM was the most Westernized, with the guru often pictured in a business suit (which was the accepted garb of his male devotees of 'premies')44 and rarely in Indian traditional garb. The opposite was true, however, for the leader of another prominent Hindu-based group that attracted former activists, the Hare Krishnas.45 Their Indian leader, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada, always dressed in a dhoti, with the Western converts to his group following his lead and adopting traditional Indian attire. That traditional attire was part of the group's appeal, as a former activist-turned-Krishna-devotee, Subhanananda das, explained to me in 1986:

[A] strong part of the attraction of devotees for me was their sheer defiant otherworldliness. Because … my ideology basically was just [that] the world as it is is just in such bad shape it's not worth saving. … Destroy it and start: over again; things are really hopeless. And here are these people who clearly were making a statement that they had really … entered another realm of consciousness and being. And even though I knew very little about it ideologically, philosophically, just that itself was enough to cause me to have great interest.46

Subhanananda das represents one of many people whom religion specialist J. Stillson Judah had in mind when he observed that [i]n their extreme dissent. they exchanged our Western culture and its value system for an Eastern civilization and one of its popular religions'.47

In a survey that he conducted in 1969 and 1970 of Hare Krishna temple residents

Radical Rhetoric and Mystical Religion 49

along the Pacific Coast,48 Judah discovered that 'before becoming members a large number had been involved in protests against the Vietnam War, the government, the educational system, the growing secularism, and even the American way of life because of its alleged involvement in materiality'.49 Similarly, E. Burke Rochford, Jr, found from a sample that he took of devotees that [o]ver half of the early converts to Krishna [between 1967 and 1971] had taken part in the antiwar movemene.50 Subhanananda das exemplified both Judah's and Rochford's characterization, even though his contacts with ISKCON began in St Louis, Missouri and extended to Washington, D.C. and Boulder, Colorado. His account of encountering Krishna devotees at a major antiwar march in Washington, D.C. in late 1969 or early 1970 is especially revealing:

And there was a stage set up, and all the big … Movement people were speaking. And at one point Allen Ginsberg was onstage, chanting mantras for peace. And Allen Ginsberg at that time was my role model/hero. I was very into Allen Ginsberg, mainly because he symbolized for me utter rebellion against society. … So I was walking around the Ellipse there, hanging out, and he was onstage chanting something or other… But at the same time as I was moving towards the stage to get closer to hear him, I hear on the left side the Hare Krishnas, who were - there were about thirty of them, under a tree, chanting. Chanting up a storm. And they had a big crowd around them. And I remember being almost physically pulled between the two. On the one hand, Ginsberg was like … God to me. On the other hand, I had heard of the Hare Krishnas . but knew virtually nothing about them, and was very intrigued to get a little up-close look at the Hare Krishnas doing their thing. And I remember thinking, 'well, … should I go see Ginsberg or them?' And I really was torn, and I sort of pulled myself off to see the devotees. … And so I watched for a little while, and then I joined the chanting line …, with my gas mask and helmet hanging from my belt, my … leather jacket, which I had bought used at a thrift store … I just got swept up in it. I just really thought the chanting was great and joined in the line.51

Several years after Subhanananda das joined the Krishnas in the summer of 1970, he became a campaign manager for Balavanta das (William Ogle) - a devotee who ran for the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia in 1973 as a candidate in the Krishna's religiously-based political party.52

The Krishnas' political party, which eventually (and briefly) became the 'In God We Trust' party on a national level, plays a small but neglected part of the Krishna's story in the United States. Nevertheless, the content of its political message embodied the very patterns of 'self-transformation before world-transformation' that characterized the goals of numerous religious groups in the early 1970s. Surprisingly, only one academic seems to have paid attention to the party, but her comments were insightful. Writing in 1974, Francine Daner argued that '[t]he swami began by promoting his movement as a political alternative to the doctrines of contemporary leaders such as [Eldrige] Cleaver, Mao, [SDS's Tom] Hayden, [wealthy Republican Nelson] Rockefeller, [right-wing Democrat George] Wallace and [American President Richard] Nixon by claiming that 'they can't help you', and offering chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra as the 'highest form of social work'. … With the 'In God We Trust' party ISKCON points a finger at the current moral state of American. government and presents ISKCON's philosophy, while realistically understanding that the election of its candidates is improbable'.53

On 22 January 1972, former-campus activist-turned-devotee, Amarendra (David Leiberman) wrote Prabhupada concerning his plans to run for election as city commis-

50 S. A. Kent

sioner.54 Prabhupada responded (in his somewhat choppy English) on 4 March 1972, indicating that 'especially I am glad that you are entering politics. … This will be a good opportunity to preach widely and sell our literatures, so take advantage'. He was very critical of politicians, calling them 'pick-pocket[s]' and 'rascal leaders'. Consequently, Prabhupada told his politically aspiring disciple that 'I am very serious that you all boys and girls should expose these Nixons and remove them, there is ample scope for protest in this Sankirtan [devotional] Movement, and you yourselves be president, that is my hope for saving the misled mankind from total chaos'.55

Despite the harsh words against current politicians and the hope that Prabhupada expressed for the political success of idealistic devotees, the guru's political platform was a far cry from the confrontational and structurally challenging efforts of the 1960s. In instructions that remained consistent throughout the Krishnas' various attempts to gain political office, he informed Amerendra that:

our platform must be very simple, that there is no other sacrifices necessary for the well-being of the citizens save and except this Sankirtan yagna [ceremonial sacrifice by chanting Krishna's names]. Regularly the town citizens can everyone congregate and chant Hare Krishna and hold festivals of celebrations continually, with wide distribution of tasty foodstuffs - who will not be attracted by such programme? This is our simple method, nothing more.56

In essence, Prabhapuda's entire political platform revolved around attempts to convince people to orient their lives and life styles around devotion to Krishna, and as a result of that devotion national and international problems would diminish and then disappear.57

Just as Krishna devotees were distinctive in their orange robes and (for men) shaved heads, so too were the followers of the immigrant Sikh guru, Yogi Bhajan, who dressed in resplendent, all-white outfits, complete with turbans. As with their contemporaries in both DLM and the Krishnas, some 3H0 members had histories of political activism prior to their conversions58 and these former protesters saw their new religious involvement as a means of keeping alive their 1960s dreams of socio-political reform and cultural revolution. The programs, however, in which they participated as religious figures eschewed challenges to political or structural systems, and instead involved techniques ostensibly designed to purify the bodies, minds, and (as 3H0 members would say) the souls of practitioners.

By attempting to make themselves models of virtue that others in society were to have wanted to emulate, 3H0 replicated the pattern found in other heterodox religions of the period by focusing on self-perfection as the means of transforming political and social inequality and injustice. One former activist convert to 3H0 (Gurutej Singh/Ted Steiner) told me that part of his new message was saying to people:

'O.K., the time for drugs is over, folks. You can get high without drugs'. But we weren't born again people, we were not fanatic. We could still speak the [counterculture] language, [and] we kept our hair. We had a Sikh teacher who never cut his hair. So we were very able to translate the street values into a yogic value without missing a beat, not one beat.59

Steiner, and others who made the transition from radical politics to mystical religion, kept much of counterculture parlance in their speech, and, from their perspective, simply had moved on to the next or 'higher' stage of the socio-cultural revolution.

Radical Rhetoric and Mystical Religion 51

3H0 members strived to become both spiritual counsellors for a deeply troubled society and cultural models of inspiration, who would mold the future in large part by their wise advice and solid example of devotion, purity, and hard work. Direct political efforts became far less important than purifying one's own consciousness, because, as Yogi Bhajan exclaimed, '"[t]he politicians will soon be coming to us for advice"'.60 While still believing that they were a part of the movement for fundamental societal change, former radicals who joined 3140 became part of an 'apolitical' organization.61

Christian-based Religious Groups

In several Western, Christian groups, the Movement image about 'revolution' got attached to a generationally-relevant model of Jesus.62 Jesus became the exemplary revolutionary, the 'antihero' of the modern, chaotic American world. Edward F. Heenan's discussion of the 'Jesus as antihero' motif in popular youth culture of the early-1970s helps to explain the attraction that some former radicals felt toward him and the groups who claimed to present his teachings:

The antihero tends to be a figure who (1) is opposed to the law, which is seen as a the corrupt tool of those who wish to protect vested interests, (2) is a friend to the poor and gives generously to them out of a sense of justice, (3) is inclined to subscribe to orthodox religion, (4) adopts the role of a 'trickster' vis-a-vis the authorities, and (5) tends to be subject to betrayal by friends.63

No Christian group was more skillful at utilizing movement rhetoric in portraying 'Jesus and the countercultural antihero' then the Berkeley-based Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF).

Issues addressed by the CWLF were ones that dominated the political Movement of the Period, but a CWLF pamphlet distributed in 1968 suggest that the Christian group's approach to these issues was fundamentally different. Posing the question, '… AND AFTER THIS WAR?', the pamphlet asks:

Why have violent conflicts continued to plague mankind throughout history, despite numerous and varied system changes?

Will a utopian economy and political system eradicate the seemingly inescapable

stigma of social and psychological struggle? In fact, as history insists, no kind of environment guarantees that we will finally realize the beautiful society we so desperately want. It should be obvious - something is wrong with us! The great cop-out today is to blame some impersonal institution or system.

Jesus proclaimed a spiritual revolution to bring about a fundamental change within, to deal with the faulty components of every system - the human components. Accept Him as your Liberator and Leader; then join others of his Forever Family here to change this world. RADICALIZE THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT!64

CWLF's emphasis on 'a fundamental change within' as the means of enacting massive social change is a similar message to ones propounded by various Eastern religious groups in the early 1970s, except that Jesus the antihero, not a guru or mythological figure (such as Krishna), was to be the center of emotional and intellectual attention.

If any Christian-based group rivaled the skill with which the CWLF utilized radical political rhetoric for its own apolitical positions, then surely in was the controversial Children of God (COG) under the leadership of David Berg. Some of the recruits were

52 S. A. Kent

wayward hippies; some already were involved in Christian missionary activities;65 but a few of the converts had been anti-war activists and radicals. The secrecy of this group makes research on its members exceedingly difficult, yet some former activists are identifiable by either their names or the stories told about them. One of the Weathermen convicted of minor charges involving the burning of a Bank of America branch in Isla Vista, California met and joined COG after his conviction but before his sentencing, and for the next ten years he remained on-the-run from the FBI while in the group.66 Perhaps five members of a Californian COG team in late 1969 had been political radicals (and skilled in explosives), since (as one of the team leaders told me) '[w]e were on our way to blow up the Mormon Temple' when they got arrested and imprisoned for disrupting a church service in Sacramento.67 Berg himself mentioned the problems regarding public relations in California caused by having in the group 'FRESH RADICALS WITHOUT MUCH EXPERIENCE AND DIPLOMACY AND TACT IN HANDLING THE PUBLIC'.68

COG's rabid anti-American rhetoric equaled if not surpassed the diatribes of the Movement, with special venom spat at President Richard Nixon - 'the little Hitler' or 'Nitler' as Berg called him.' Much of this rhetoric directly borrowed images and themes from the counterculture and antiwar efforts, which made it easy for former protestors who converted to feel continuity with their previous attitudes and activities. In Berg's eyes, Nixon had crushed the political movement that had persistently opposed an array of governmental policies. Hope for revolution, however, still existed through the Jesus Revolution.

Images of Women: Sexism East and West

Among the casualties who suffered by the retreat from social structural confrontation were women. Almost without exception, the heterodox religious groups in the early 1970s were dramatically sexist.70 If involvement by former activists and radicals in various exotic religions partially served to dissipate the Movement's political energies, then it also served to diminish the growing acceptance of gender equality that was at the heart of the women's movement.

Eastern religious groups incorporated traditional patriarchal assumptions about women into their American social structures, so that all of the Indian-based religions had clearly defined, power-differentiated gender roles. ISKCON, for example, held attitudes toward women that directly reflected the traditionalist, non-Western background of its leader. One female Krishna devotee informed an unimpressed Atlanta alternative press reported that, "We like it! Women are less intelligent than men. So the Spiritual Master teaches the men and they teach us" '. The reporter dismissed the groups as another example of 'convinced male supremacists'.71

3HO's appeal for some women lay in its 'gender-based ideology', which provided them with a special (if unequal) status that had parallels to aspects of contemporary feminist secular ideology. Its internal group that was specifically for women, the Grace of God Movement, targeted the secular women's movement as one of women's oppressors, arguing that motherhood and family roles (both of which the secular movement diminished in importance) were vital areas in which women manifested their power. In essence, confrontation of political and social institutions that perpetuate gender inequalities was of little importance when seen against the presumed value gained by improving the self to the point that it realizes 'inner, timeless truth'.72 The large, cultural pattern of the early 1970s, involving a retreat from political confron-

Radical Rhetoric and Mystical Religion 53

tation and an increased attention on self-transformation, had been adopted as a value among the women of 3H0.73

By far the most manipulative use of feminist rhetoric against women occurred in the Children of God, where its leader, David Berg, specifically appropriated the language and images of women's liberation in a manner that subjected women to numerous pregnancies, traditionalistic family roles, subservience to men, prostitution, physical violence, and general sexual exploitation.74 The sexual exploitation of COG women resulted from Berg's gradual imposition of antinomian doctrines within the group, which involved increasing emphasis on the value and importance of endogamous and exogomous sexuality without benefit of birth control. Berg himself seemed fixated on women's breasts (even writing a poem about them that ran to almost three hundred lines),75 and his letter to followers entitled, 'Revolutionary Women', concentrated almost exclusively on how women should make themselves sexually attractive to men.76 In essence, Berg took the secular image of 'revolutionary women' who were involved in political and social struggles and transformed it into an image of women struggling to enhance their sexual allure. When, therefore, Berg '[t]hank[ed] God for the sexual liberation movement [because i]t is beginning to relieve us from [sic] some of our former taboos and inhibitions and abnormal guilt complexes and frustrations of the past',77 little doubt exists concerning which sex 'benefitted' most.

Conclusion: Rhetoric and Mystical Antagonism

Leftist hostility against religious sexism is one of many examples of deeply felt tension that existed between protestors and mystics during the late Vietnam War era. For activists and radicals who continued to believe in the importance of confrontation with influential political and social institutions, the inward orientation of the religious groups was misguided and misdirected. In addition to the opposition that many Movement people felt toward the Jesus People's position on women, they felt a visceral uneasiness with the implications of the new Christian message. Protestors believed that, 'in the Christian attempts to be apolitical, [there] is a subconscious aversion to the New Left/counter-cultural movement'.78 These Jesus People critics, therefore, would not been surprised by the red-sackclothed COG members who picketed Movement events (including anti-war rallies, a talk by Jerry Rubin, and the Chicago Seven trial), simply to 'denounce the unrepentent'.79 Nor were these critics probably surprised when clashes broke out in April 1970 between Christian World Liberation Front members and Maoists on Berkeley's campus, which led to the torching of the nearby ROTC building and the worse riots the school had seen up until that time.80

High upon the Movement's list of 'spiritual con men' (or in this case, 'boys') was Guru Maharaj Ji,81 whom alternative press publications also portrayed as a fascist or nazi.82 As these examples suggest, antagonism between activists or radicals and their former 'comrades-turned-converts' was, at times, intense and bitter. The Berkeley Barb, for example, berated these converts, and then added a word of caution about them:

In the leftwing [sic] quest for spiritual rebirth, as in left politics, we repeatedly find brothers who are driven to imitate the enemy, to become hard and tight, crewcut lifedeniers [sic], weatherpriests, young authoritarians for freedom - ostensibly in the name of love and liberty.

… [S]uch people bear watching. As defectors from our scene to The Other Side, they have inside understanding of us which allows them to cause trouble if they wish to do so.83

54 S. A. Kent

Already plagued by ideological divisions, the Movement now had religious factions tearing it apart. Sectarian religion, perhaps even more than politics, isolated followers in ideologically constricted doctrinal camps, so that even though members may have shared broadly similar visions about a transformed society, they nonetheless hotly disagreed over whose godly inspiration was to provide the divine plans. Turning their backs on political confrontation while still using Movement rhetoric to explain their inner quests, activists-turned-mystics marched out of the 'protest decade' and into the 'me decade',' with women trailing behind their men.

Notes

1 My appreciation extends to the Graduate Theological Union (Berkeley, California) and the Bancroft Library's Social Protest Collection 1960-1982 of the University of California, Berkeley for providing me with access to their material. Much of the funding for the research came from grants provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the University of Alberta. Many of the primary documents that I refer to throughout the text soon will be available for microfiche viewing as part of the Stephen A. Kent Collection on Non-traditional Religions at the University of Alberta Library. I presented an earlier version of this paper at the Vietnam Antiwar Movement Conference: The Charles DeBenedetti Memorial Conference (4-5 May 1990) which was sponsored by the University of Toledo - Department of History and The Council on Peace Research in History.

2 While I am mindful of the distinctions between the Movement (with its political orientation) and the counterculture (with its life style orientations), people moved so easily between the two during the early 1970s that it is appropriate to mention them together in the same phrase. On these distinctions, see Kenneth Westhues, 'Inter-generational conflict in the sixties', in Samuel D. Clark, J. Paul Grayson and Linda M. Grayson (eds), Prophecy and Protest: Social Movements in Twentieth Century Canada, Toronto, Gage Educational Publishing, Ltd 1975, pp. 387-408.

3 See, for example, Daniel A. Foss and Ralph W. Larking, 'From "The Gates of Eden" to "Day of the Locust": an analysis of the dissident youth movement of the 1960s and its heirs of the early 1970s - the post-movement groups', Theory and Society 3 (1976), pp. 45-64; Foss and Larkin, 'The roar of the lemming: youth, postmovement groups, and the life construction crisis', in Harry M. Johnson (ed.), Religious Change and Continuity, Washington, D.C., Jossey-Bass Publishers 1979; Stephen A. Kent, 'Slogan chanters to mantra chanters: a Mertonian deviance analysis of conversion to religiously ideological organizations in the early 1970s', Sociological Analysis 49:2 (1988), pp. 104-18; Steven M. Tipton, Getting Saved From the Sixties; Moral Meaning in Conversion and Cultural Change, Berkeley, CA, University of California Press 1982.

4 While no distinct line exists between activists and radicals, I identify the former as persons who participated in legal protests of various kinds, while the latter also engaged in illegal actions that they believed had oppositional if not revolutionary value.

5 Many commentators from the early 1970s observed the large numbers of former activists who swelled the new ranks of religions. See, for example, Louise Billotte, 'Can the left find room for spirituality?', Alternative Media 9:6 (Winter 1978), p. 5; 'On Being an Atheist in a Spiritual Age', Communities (March-April 1975), p. 28; Todd Gitlin, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, Toronto, Bantam Books 1987; 'From politics to yoga', Great Speckled Bird (7 August 1975), p. 3; Leslye Russell, 'New mystics: the great guru rip-off', Workers' Power (1-13 September 1973), p. 14; David Snell, 'Goom Rodgie's razzle-dazzle soul rush', Saturday Review/World (9 February 1974), pp. 18-21, 51; Hari Jean Zandler, 'Awakening', Green Revolution 12:2 (December-January 1973-1974), pp. 10-2; plus the references in Kent, 'Slogan chanters to mantra chanters', p. 104 and note 2. For additional references to political converts to Divine Light Mission, see Steven Haines, 'Pavlov's divine dog; or I saw the light', Ann Arbor Sun (14 December-4 January 1973-1974) p. 8; and Eleanor Blau, 'Guru's followers cheer "millennium" in festivities at astrodome', New York Times (12 November 1973) p. 38. For political converts to the Children of God, see: Virginia Turner, 'Children of God leave homes to spread gospel', El Paso Herald-Post (11 November 1971); Children of God Trust, New Nation News 5:6 (26 March 1973), p. 4 for a reference to

Radical Rhetoric and Mystical Religion 55

former 'militant blacks from the U.S.' who joined in Brixton, London). For general references about former activists converting to both Hare Krishna and the Unification Church, see J. Stinson Judah, 'From political activism to religious participation', Update: A Quarterly Journal on New Religious Movements 6:1 (March 1982), pp. 13, 15, 17-8. References to converts who joined a variety of groups include: Tom Hayden, Reunion: A Memoir. Toronto, Random House 1989, pp. 463-4; and Andrew Kopkind, 'Mystic politics: refugees from the new left', Ramparts ( July 1973), pp. 47-8.

6 See Kent, 'Slogan chanters to mantra chanters', pp. 106-7.

7 Perhaps the first person to make an argument along these lines was the former SDSer, Andrew Kopkind, who used cognitive dissonance theory to explain the 'politics-to-religion' transformation that he was witnessing at the time. See Kopkind, 'Mystic Politics', p. 49 [original emphasis].

8 While I am limiting my argument to the United States, I have conducted interviews with Canadians who also followed the same pattern. Likewise, I note with interest an Australian article that identified a similar shift from politics to religion in the early 1970s in that country. See Norman W. W. Blaikie and G. Paul Kelsen, 'Locating self and giving meaning to existence: a typology of paths to spiritual well-being based on new religious movements in Australia', in David 0. Moberg (ed.) Spiritual Well-being: Sociological Perspectives, Lanham, MD, University Press of America 1979, p. 136.

9 See Judson Jerome, 'Love, Justice, Spirit and Politics', Green Revolution 34:2 (March 1977), P. 5.

10 Michael Rossman, New Age Blues. On the Politics of Consciousness, New York, Dutton 1979, pp. xi, 20, 48, 84; Peter Marin, 'Children of yearning: meditations on the Jesus movement', Saturday Review [SR] (6 May 1972), p. 58.

11 Jon Nordheimer, 'Brown bets on California in thrust for nomination', New York Times (22 March 1976), p. 16; K. Craig Jenkins, 'Interpreting the stormy 1960s: three theories in search of a political age', in Research in Political Sociology vol. 3, Greenwich, CT, JAI Press 1987, pp. 269-303.

12 See Kent, 'Slogan chanters to mantra chanters', p. 114; John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald, 'Resource mobilization and social movements: a partial theory', American Journal of Sociology 82:6 (1977), p. 1235. On this page they cite Rennie Davis as moving from antiwar activities to the transcendental meditation movement, mistakenly confusing that eastern-based meditative group with Divine Light Mission.

13 See Kent, 'Slogan chanters to mantra chanters'.

14 As far as I can determine, the alternative press's coverage of various youth-oriented religions in the late 1960s and early 1970s has never been examined. Abe Peck (Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press, New York, NY, Pantheon Books 1985), for example, does not seem to discuss the religious groups that concern me in this study. Roger Lewis merely mentions a few groups in his Outlaws of America: The Underground Press and its Context. Notes on a Cultural Revolution, Baltimore, MD, Penguin Books 1972, pp. 52-5.

15 Space prohibits me from discussing former activists and radicals who converted to the politically conservative Unification Church (i.e, the Moonies), but 1 have interviewed two women who had been members of SDS at the University of Michigan, plus three men who had been active in antiwar protests. An additional Moonie had been a vocal antiwar agitator while in the military, while still another had been a political conservative who got arrested for his draft resistance efforts.

16 For discussions of the relatively apolitical but religiously enthusiastic trends that emerged in Christian pentecostal-charismatic and evangelical churches during the early 1970s, see, for example. Martin E. Marty, A Nation of Behavers, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago 1976, pp. 111-3; and Robert Booth Fowler, A New Engagement. Evangelical Political Thought, 1966-1976, Grand Rapids, MI, Eeardmans 1982, pp. 34-7.

17 Karl Marx, 'Contribution to the critique of Hegel's philosophy of right. 'Introduction', in Marx and Engels: On Religion, 1844, pp. 41-58. Reprint of the 1957 Edition of the Foreign Languages Publishing House, Introduction by Reinhold Niebuhr, New York, Schocken Books 1964.

18 See, for example, 'On Being an Atheist', Communities, p. 27; and FPS, 'Jesus Communes - sexism revisited', (September 1973), p. 16.

56 S. A. Kent

19 Joel Connelly, "Praise the Lord, and Sabotage the Ammunition" ', Northwest Passage (21 February-5 March 1972), p. 22.

20 Francine du Plessix Gray, Divine Disobedience: Profiles in Catholic Radicalism, reprinted 1970, 1971, New York, Vintage Books 1969, pp. 43-228.

21 Connelly, Praise the Lord', pp. 22-3; Stephen A. Kent, 'The "other" civil religion and the tradition of radical Quaker politics', Paper Presented at the Association for the Sociology of Religion (August 1989).

22 'What is Ananda?', Long Beach Free Press 2:2 (16 April-5 May 1970), p. 8.

23 Acarya Yatishvarananda [Dada], quoted in 'Ananda Marga: a struggle within and without', Northwest Passage (8-22 April 1974), p. 18. Because both the Black Panther Party and Ananda Marga experienced what to their members were forms of oppression, the two groups were able to carry off at least one co-operative undertaking (involving a free clothing program for Washington D.C.'s poor). Furthermore, on its own, Ananda Marga apparently sponsored 'a benefit for a Halfway House for women ex-convicts' in 1975 'Ananda Marga Yoga society: banned in Bombay', (Take Over [1 August 1975], p. 13). It would be inaccurate, therefore, to portray disinterested indirect social action, but note that the actions it took were charitable, not structurally confrontational. While space prohibits me from examining the charitable programs of the various groups that I discuss, suffice it to say that almost all of them were structurally non-confrontational like Ananda Marga's.

24 One thinks immediately, for example, of the ubiquitious Allen Ginsberg. See, among others, Deborah Freeman, 'Ginsberg', Green Revolution 12:3 (February-March 1974), pp. 11-4; 'Allen Ginsberg', Ann Arbor Sun (17 May-31 May 1974), pp. 14-5.

25 'People's Yoga', The Fifth Estate 5:16 (10 December-23 December 1970), p. 5; also in Berkeley Tribe, 'Revolutionary Yoga', (14-30 January 1970), p. 17.

26 Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion, New York, NY, Grove Press 1985, pp. 126-38.

27 Ed Monk, 'Thots [sic] from, another road', Northwest Passage (3-16 April 1972), p. 20; see 'Letter to the Editor [from 'Everymanl,' Madison Kaleidoscope 1:6 (October 1969), p. 3. By 'religious' or 'spiritual', I mean 'collectively held beliefs concerning a supposedly supernatural realm, and behaviours related to them'. By 'political' 1 mean 'beliefs and behaviours concerning power that actors consider to be of worldly origin'.

28 See 'Rennie Davis on tour', Divine Times 11:8, U.S. Edition (1 May 1973), p. 2; Rossman, New Age Blues, p. 17.

29 The Berkeley talk took place at Pauley Ballroom, University of California, Berkeley, on Wednesday, 18 April 1973. A poster announcing this event is on file in the Bancroft Library Social Protest Collection.

30 Rossman, New Age Blues, p. 16 (original in italics).

31 Gordon R. Lewis and Cal Thomas, 'The millennium: a bad beginning', Christianity Today (7 December 1973), p. 51.

32 On file in the Bancroft Library Social Protest Collection.

33 On file in the 'Kent Collection/Divine Light Mission/Radical Politics to Mystical Religion/ Publications'; see also John Wood, 'An interview with Guru Maharaj Ji', And It is Divine 11:2 (December 1973), p. 48.

34 Francine du Plessix Gray, 'Blissing Out in Houston', in The New York Review of Books (13 December 1973), p. 39; Richard Levine, 'When the Lord of all the universe played Houston: many are called but few show up', Rolling Stone (14 March 1974), p. 48; see Stephen A. Kent, 'Puritan radicalism and the new religious organizations: seventeenth-century England and contemporary America', in Comparative Social Research 10, Greenwich, CT, JAI Press 1987, pp. 22-3.

35 'Story of a Generation', Divine Times (25 December 1973) p. 9.

36 James V. Downton, Jr, Sacred Journeys: The Conversion of Young Americans to Divine Light Mission, New York, NY, Columbia University Press 1979, pp. 31-2; Kent, 'Slogan chanters to mantra chanters', pp. 104-5, note 2; Rossman, New Age Blues, p. 22; Snell, 'Goom Rodgie's razzle-dazzle soul rush', p. 21.

37 See 'The serendipity of peace: an exclusive interview with Rennie Davis', Divine Times (1 April 1973), pp. 3-4.

38 Charles Cameron (ed.) 'Who is Guru Maharaj Ji?, Toronto, Bantam 1973, pp. 146-53; Sophia Collier, Soul Rush: The Odyssey of a Young Woman of the '70s, New York, NY,

Radical Rhetoric and Mystical Religion 57

William Morrow and Company 1978, p. 179; 'Michael Donner', Divine Times, 5:3 (April 1976), p. 1; Ken Kelley, 'Blissed out with the perfect master', Ramparts ( July 1973), p. 54; see Nancy Zaroulis and Gerald Sullivan, Who Spoke Up? American Protest Against the War in Vietnam, New York, NY, Doubleday 1984, p. 288.

39 Steve Haines, 'Pavlov's divine dog; or I saw the light', Ann Arbor Sun (14 December-4 January 1973-1974), p. 8.

40 Levine, 'When the Lord of all the universe played Houston', p. 42.

41 Rossman, New Age Blues, p. 22 (emphasis in original).

42 See John Massoglia (Sunshine), 'Reality, a guru, and dead flowers', Eugene Augur (12 April 1974), p. 7.

43 Betty Boulanger, 'New England peace sale', Divine Times 3:3 (4 July 1974).

44 Ted Morgan, 'Oz in the astrodome', New York Times Magazine (9 December 1973), p. 94.

45 Space prohibits me from reiterating in detail the story of the former advocate of violence and member of both the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee and the Black Panther Party, John Favors, who became a Krishna convert in the early-to-mid 1970s. Suffice it to say that le]ventually Favors became disenchanted with political activism, feeling that it was bringing little or no progress'. After traveling overseas, Favors "'saw racism and class struggles and started to realize that it's not just one political paradigm versus another that's going to bring man equanimity, peace of mind, and a more just order… What we really need is for man to have a change of consciousness" ' (Favors quoted in Melvin R. McCray, 'The Two Lives ofJohn Favors '72', Princeton Alumni Weekly (9 February 1983), p. 35. For a printed account of a devotee who had been active in anti-Vietnam War groups, see Larry D. Shinn, The Dark Lord: Cult Images and the Hare Krishnas in America, Philadelphia, PA, The Westminister Press 1987, p. 98.

46 Stephen A. Kent, (Interviewer), Interview With Subhanananda das (Steven J. Gelberg), New York, New York (29 August 1986), p. 39.

47 Judah, 'From political activism to religious participation', p. 14. Another very prominent Krishna leader who spoke to me about his activist past was Jagadisha Goswami. As a 'pacifist - anarchist' student at the University of Buffalo in 1966, he protested against 'the illegitimate activities of the government' regarding the Vietnam War. After only a year, however, he 'came to the conclusion that the real problem was spiritual, not political. And if the spiritual problem could be solved, then the political problem could be solved' Stephen A. Kent (Interviewer), Interview with Jagadisah Goswami, (10 October 1987), pp. 1-4.

48 Presumably this survey extends beyond the sixty-three questionnaires that Judah received back from Berkeley and Los Angeles disciples and to which he refers in his 1974 publication. See J. Stillson Judah, Hare Krishna and the Counterculture, Toronto, John Wiley 1974, p. 1.

49 Judah, 'From political activism to religious participation', p. 13; Hare Krishna and the Counterculture, pp. 115-6.

50 The chart in which this figure appears, however, does not tell us how many people Rochford sampled, so this percentage is difficult to interpret (see E. Burke Rochford, Jr, Hare Krishna in America, New Brunswick, New Jersey, Rutgers University Press p. 65).

51 Kent Interview with Subhanananda das, pp. 36-8.

52 Kent Interview with Subhanananda das, p. 28.

53 Francine Daner, 'The philosophy of the Hare Krishna movement', The Humanist (September/October 1974), pp. 11-2. An undated handout, for example, from the San Francisco Hare Krishna center (on file in the Bancroft Library's Social Protest Collection) is entitled, 'The santification of the peace movement', in which 'Swami Bhaktivedanta Gives You the Peace Formula'. The formula turns out to be 'the simple process of chanting the holy names of God', which are, 'Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare'.

54 From my interview with Amarendra, it appears that he actually ran for mayor. See Stephen A. Kent (Interviewer), Interview with Amarendra, (5 August 1988), pp. 46-7, 53.

55 Srila Prabhupada, Letters From Srila Prabhupada vol. III, Culver City, CA, Bhaktivedanta Book Trust 1987, p. 1935 (Letter No. 72-3-1).

58 S. A. Kent

56 Prabhupada, Letters, III, p. 1935 (Letter No. 72-3-1).

57 The life style changes involved the avoidance of what the Krishnas called 'illicit sex', gambling, intoxicants, and meat-eating. Also worth mentioning is that Prabhupada's emphasis on distributing 'tasty foodstuffs' allowed Balavanta to distribute food in some of Atlanta's black communities during his 1973 mayoral campaign. See: Stephen A. Kent (Interviewer), Interview With Balavanta/William Ogle (15 December 1987), p. 49.

58 In addition to the 3H0 interviews that I conducted, I heard several more stories of former activists among 3H0 members. I was, however, either unable to reach these people (such as the high-ranking official who allegedly had been part of a Marxist collective in Buffalo) or I could not link-up with people who agreed to speak with me (such as the woman who had been active in the tenant-rights movement). I did interview, however, Harinam Singh Khalsa of Toronto, whose early commitment of working toward 'a peaceful world' led him through community organizing activities, prisoner radicalizing efforts, kung fu, and a Maoist film distribution group called Newsreel. See: Stephen A. Kent (Interviewer), Interview with Harinam Singh Khalsa (16 September 1987).

59 Stephen A. Kent (Interviewer), Interview with Gurutej Singh Khalsa (20 February 1987), p. 19.

60 Personal communication cited in Verne Andrew Dusenbery, 'Straight-freak-yogi-sikh: a "search for meaning" in contemporary America culture', M.A. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago 1975, p. 17. In a political context, Dusenbery expressed surprise in 'the number of 3H0 members who in 1972 were supporting Richard Nixon in an election where the youth vote was supposed to go [to] George McGovern' (note 17).

61 Raleigh Eugene Bailey, An Ethnographic Approach Toward the Study of a Spiritually Oriented Communal Group in the U.S.A.: The Healthy Happy Holy Organization, Ph.D. Dissertation, The Hartford Seminary Foundation 1973, p. 220, see 193.

62 Perhaps the most famous convert of a radical to fundamentalist Christianity was Eldridge Cleaver, who became a born-again Christian (Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Fire, Waco, TX, World Books 1978, pp. 211-33) and did some work for Reverend Moon's Unification Church. Bob Dylan's born-again experience also attracted widespread attention (Donald M. Mackenzie, Sr, 'The conversion of Bob Dylan', Theology Today [October 1980], pp. 357-9; Alberto Gonzales and John J. Makay, 'Rhetorical ascription and the gospel according to Dylan', Quarterly Journal of Speech 69:1 [February 1983] pp. 1-14), and he in turn influenced the conversion of another activist singer, Noel Stookey, who was better known as 'Peter' of the folk trio, 'Peter, Paul, and Mary' (see Derek Richardson, 'Carry It On', Mother Jones ( January 1986), p. 42; Edward E. Plowman, The Underground Church: Accounts of Christian Revolutionaries in Action, Elgin, IL, David C. Cook Publishing Co. 1971, pp. 20-1). Dennis Peacocke, who had participated in Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, subsequently joined the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party, but afterwards became a devout Christian (see Sara Diamond, 'Shepherding', Covert Action 27 [Spring 1987] p. 21). So too did Bill Garaway become a Christian, prior to which he was a draft resister who was twice-prosecuted by federal authorities ( Joseph Lelyveld, 'The enduring legacy', The New York Times Magazine Section 6 [31 March 1985], p. 36). Former SDSer Mike Kennedy, who had helped establish that group at the University of Houston, converted to the charismatic Episcopal church called the Church of the Redeemer (Plowman, The Underground Church, p. 20). Interviews carried out in 1971 with eighty-eight members of Siloh House, a Christian commune near Eugene, Oregon revealed that forty-two people reported themselves to have been politically radical (twenty-three people) or liberal (nineteen people) before joining the religious group, although only two people had led political demonstrations (Mary White Harder, James T. Richardson and Robert B. Simmonds, 'Jesus People', Psychology Today [December 1972], p. 110; FPS, 'Jesus Communes - Sexism Revisited', [September 1973], p. 16).

63 Edward F. Heenan, 'The Jesus generation', Edward F. Heenan {ed.), in Mystery, Magic, and Miracle: Religion in a Post-Aquarian Age, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall 1973, pp. 14454; based upon Kent L. Steckmesser, 'Robin Hood and the American outlaw', Journal of American Folklore 79:312 (April-June 1966), pp. 348-55; see Furio Colombo, God in America, New York, NY, Columbia University Press 1984, pp. 138-9.

64 CWLF Pamphlet, 1968; on file in the Bancroft Library Social Protest Collection.

Radical Rhetoric and Mystical Religion 59

65 Deborah Davis with Bill Davis, The Children of God: The Inside Story, Grand Rapids, MI Zondervan Books 1984, p. 106.

66 1 deliberately do not mention the person's name on request of an acquaintance of his who told me his story (Stephen A. Kent (Interviewer), Interview with Gail Thompson, [Pseudonym] (7 August 1988), p. 21; see pp. 21-6). Newspaper clippings about the bombing and trial include: John Kifner, Jury convicts 4 in bank burning', New York Times (8 November 1970), p. 40; '2 Berkeley banks hit by bombs; damage is slight, no one hurt', New York Times (20 June 1970).

67 Stephen A. Kent and Karyn Mytrash (Interviewers), Interview with Lynn Whitt (Pseudonym), (21 August 1989), p. 9.

68 David Berg, 'A Good Sample', Mo Letter 50 (22 February 1971), p. 377' see Berg, 'How to Close Up a Colony', Mo Letter No. 125A (1 November 1971), p. 993.

69 David Berg, Nitler', Mo Letter No. 108 (August 1971); pp. 874-83 in Berg, The Mo Letters, vol. I.

70 Emily Culpepper, 'The spiritual movement of radical feminist consciousness'; pp. 220-1 in Jacob Needleman and George Baker (eds), Understanding the New Religions, New York, NY, Seabury Press 1978; see Morris Isserman, 'I like the Christian life', Portland Scribe (2-8 May 1972) p. 15; Janet Jacobs, 'The economy of love in religious commitment: the deconversion of women from non traditional religious movements', Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 23:2 (1984), pp. 155-71. Despite the sexism a leading figure in the women's movement, Sally Kempton, became a follower of Swami Muktananda. See Sally Kempton, 'Hanging out with the Guru', New York Magazine (12 April 1976); Kempton, 'Cutting loose', Esquire ( July 1970), pp. 53-7; also Kopkind, 'Mystic politics', p. 47.

71 Barbara Joye, 'Back to godhead', Great speckled Bird (9 August 1971), p. 6.

72 Guru Shamsher Singh Khalsa, 'Winning the game of life', Beads of Truth 11:16 (Winter 1986), p. 9.

73 See Constance Waeber Elsberg, Graceful women: an ethnographic account of women's experience in the Healthy-Happy-Holy Organization, and of the interplay of socio-cultural tensions, organization-building and selfhood in one of the new religions, Ph.D. Dissertation, American Studies Department, University of Maryland 1988, pp. 436-7.

74 Stephen A. Kent and Douglas Schmidt, 'Lustful god: a psychohistorical study of the Children of God's leader, David Berg', Paper Delivered at the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion, Victoria, British Columbia 1990.

75 David Berg, 'Mountin' Maid!', Mo Letter No. 240 (27 December 1970); pp. 1363-6 in Berg, The Basic Mo Letters.

76 David Berg, 'Revolutionary Women,' Mo Letter No. 250 (20 June 1973).

77 David Berg,' Revolutionary sex', Mo Letter No. 258 (27 March 1973); reprinted in Berg, The Basic Mo Letters, p. 1335.

78 'The Politics of Christianity', Augur 1:17 (July 1970), p. 1.

79 Ronald M. Enroth, Edward E. Ericson Jr. and C. Brekinridge Peters, The Story of the Jesus People: A Factual Survey, Exeter, U.K., The Paternoster Press 1972, p. 34.

80 Edward E. Plowman, 'Battle for Berkeley', Christianity Today (8 May 1970), p. 40 [752].

81 Free For Alf, 'Guru Maha ripoff', (28 April 1973), p. 18; 'Illusions; illusions of the spirit', Green Revolution 12:3 (February-March 1974), p. 14.

82 Haines, 'Pavlov's divine dog', p. 9.

83 J. Fuck [sic] Poland, 'Scientology Sucks!!!', Berkeley Barb (1-7 May 1970), p. 12.

84 Tom Wolfe, 'The "Me" Decade and the Third Great Awakening', New York Magazine (23 August 1976), pp. 26ff.

STEPHEN A. KENT is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology,

University of Alberta. He received a B.A. in sociology from the University of Maryland (College Park) in 1973; an M.A. in the History of Religions from the American

University (Washington, D.C.), in 1978, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Religious Studies from McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) in 1983. He has published articles in

Philosophy East and West, Journal of Religious History, British Journal of Sociology,

60 S. A. Kent

Sociological Inquiry, Sociological Analysis, Canadian Journal of Sociology, Quaker History, Comparative Social Research, and Religion. His current research concentrates on nontraditional religions.

Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada MG 2H4.