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Laxer, Mark Eliot

"Take Me for a Ride: coming of age in a destructive cult"


Perhaps as a result of my new, street-wise sense of self, I grew
increasingly critical of Rama. Another entry for June reads,
"What really pisses me off is that Rama changes everything he says,
contradicts himself, turns a situation around completely--so you
never have a handle on him."
The following week, Rama invited me to a group LSD trip at his house.
On July 7th, 1985, I wrote, "...may be a picnic [LSD trip] tomorrow
at Rama's. my intent is: to change my view of reality completely,
with particular attention given toward: *becoming someone who has
a girlfriend, *becoming my own person, i.e., my happiness &
well-being is not hinged upon the absence (parents) or presence
(Rama)(girlfriend) of any person(s)...to regain my kinship with
the earth...to renew my excitement in life, to regain my integrity,
self-reliance and confidence..."
The next day Rama distributed drug-soaked stamps to ten or so
followers in his living room. He let us wander around the house.
Hours later, he called us to the living room and began to talk.
And talk. And talk. I tried to understand how his words
were affecting us. I thought in terms of computers. I decided
that he had rebooted us with LSD and now, as we were coming down,
he was downloading his wordy operating system to our unformatted,
receptive minds.


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