Walking this morning along a picturesque lake in Holland, I found myself remembering similar walks along a similar lake in Pound Ridge, NY. I lived on this lake for a couple of years, in the guest house of a $million+ house. There were, in fact, only five such houses around the lake, all of them worth well over a million bucks each.
What I found myself remembering was walking along that lake with one of my neighbors, a multi-millionaire. One day I asked -- possibly insensitively, as is my wont -- how he *made* these millions of dollars. He laughed, not the least bit offended, and then said, "Economic psychology." Then he explained. He had made most of his money in the stock market. But he had never made a penny by investing in stocks, expecting them to go up in price. Instead, he had noticed that he had a kind of "disasterdar" or, as he put it "a brain that had a kind of built-in chaos theory math engine" that allowed him to see when a stock was about to undergo a drastic downturn, with its stock price dropping drastically. He made his money by "short selling" these stocks. Naturally, being...uh...not rich myself, I asked him how he figured this out. He said that it was simple: "I make my money from investors' egos, and the reluctance of those egos to admit they've made a mistake. Something happens and is reported in the papers about a certain stock, and that something seems likely to undermine the investors' confidence in that stock. But then a funny thing happens. They don't sell immediately, the way you'd expect. Instead, they *hold on* to their stock, hoping that it will go up or remain at the same price instead of tanking. What I'm good at is figuring out how *long* it will take these investors to realize that their investment is a bad one and sell it off." I really liked this, because it provides an interesting metaphor for examining the same phenomenon in spiritual groups, and people's ego-investment in a particular teacher or organization. Something hits the papers (or the Internet or movie theaters) that most people would think would undermine the confidence that these people have "invested" in that teacher, or that organization, and bystanders who *haven't* invested in them to that degree would expect them to start to bail out, to distance themselves from something that appears to be on a slippery slide in a downwards direction. But interestingly that doesn't happen, and I think it's because of the same thing my neighbor made his millions noticing -- their *egos* are totally involved in never admitting that they could possibly have been wrong, or have made a bad choice, or that things they thought were somehow eternal and unshakable were, in fact, starting to shake their foundations. These egos simply cannot *admit* that the teacher or organization they believed in and invested in for so long could possibly "take a market downturn" and go bust. So they cling to their fantasies for as long as possible, refusing to notice what most others around them noticed long ago. Take the TMO. Analyze it economically. Its main product is by most economic standards now unsellable. The TMO no longer announces figures for "the number of people starting TM each month," and we all know why. That figure would be in the low two-figure range, if that. They *can't* sell TM to individual people any more. The only way that they *can* sell it is by using the DLF to persuade other people to pay for it for "disadvantaged" people, as a kind of charity gesture. They market what TM can do for "kids at risk," or veterans suffering from PTSD, or some other heart-tugger "at risk" group. And, other than selling off distress properties they own, these "charity gestures" are essentially their *only* income. A Wall Street banker or trader, looking at this economic model, would not expect such an organization or company to last more than a couple of years. But the TBs don't see this. They see the TMO lasting for as close to eternity as they can imagine. They literally *can't let go* of their investment in it. And many of them *know* intuitively that this is stupid. That, in my opinion, is why so many of these TBs trying to cling to the TMO are so ANGRY. On some level, they are *aware* that their continued support of and defense of an organization that is clearly on its way out is... uh...embarrassing. It makes them look like fools. But they continue *to* look like fools because that is better in their minds than admitting to *themselves* that they really were fools. Spokesliars like Bobby Roth continue to cheerlead for the dying org, trying to come across as "authoritative" because of their age, hoping that will get doubters or critics to STFU. And they expect this and hope this because that's what THEY did when an aging "authority" gave THEM glib pat answers and expected THEM to STFU. They were good little devotees, and STFU. As Curtis pointed out so hilariously, does anyone here believe that the MUM students Bobby was trying to be "author- itative" with really considered him an authority? Does anyone think that his attempts to assuage their doubts and get them to STFU really *worked*? I don't. "Economic psychology" predicts all of this. And the sad part is that when the last groups of TBs finally realize that their investment was a bad one and bail out, many of them are going to be very, very ANGRY as they go. They're going to think that they're ANGRY at the "Rajas," or at Bevan, or at Maharishi talking up celibacy but walking up chasing tail, but they're really going to be ANGRY at *themselves*, for not being able to react to a "confidence down- turn" sooner. I'm not like my neighbor in Pound Ridge; I can't predict when this is going to happen, only that it's going to happen. Which is a pity in a way, because if the TMO's stock were traded publicly, there is a shitload of money to be made in short-selling it.
