In the early 90s I wrote to every single one of the crazed loners and weirdo organizations listed in Rev. Ivan Stang’s wonderful book, High Weirdness by Mail
. I mean to say that I wrote to every single address in that book. I wonder how many of his readers did that? I did, using a form letter. Some were returned as undeliverable, but most made their mark. I got some kind of goofy letter or package in the post nearly every single day for a year. The best were from these total hillbilly crackpot UFO freaks asking for donations to build out a “UFO watching porch” addition on to their mobile home They would also send me insane cassette tapes of channeling sessions where the aliens would speak through them and say racist and anti-Democrat shit!
I also got stuff from various televangelists, the best being a ‘prayer mat’ from Peter Popoff that instructed the user to kneel within the dotted circle, take out their wallet, place that in the circle, too and pray for money. The reader was told that Popoff and his father would also pray for monetary bounty to rain on their new friend. It was so fucking blatant—almost a joke—that only an absolute moron would believe it in. That was the point obviously. Someone with even a tiny portion of a brain would take one look at something like that and toss it, instantly. That person in the .00009 lowest percentile of idiots in this country WAS the target. I’m not so sure that the people sending in their donations got much out of Popoff’s and pere’s prayers for the gelt, but the reverse is certainly not true, I’d wager.
Some were more professional and upscale than most. Like an organization called Share International, started in the 1950s by a Scot named Benjamin Creme, now 87, a guest from time to time on the George Noory radio show. Share International’s mission is to herald the arrival of the world messiah Maitreya, variously described as a reincarnation of Christ, the Messiah, the fifth Buddha, Krishna, or the Imam Mahdi.
At one point Creme said that Maitreya was the representative of a group of beings from Venus called the Space Brothers.
Their letters and books were fairly well-designed and printed. They’d send me short books and newsletters about Maitreya’s imminent arrival on the world stage. From what I could tell, that seems to have been the message for nearly 30 years: HE is coming. Eventually, I guess Creme thought he had to shit or get off the pot, because in 1988 Maitreya was spotted and was supposed to be this guy, a supposed miracle worker seen in Kenya, (see picture above) but his arrival on the, um, world stage fizzled out apparently.
Here’s where it gets good: British Raj Patel, well-known economist and author of The Value of Nothing
, was on The Colbert Report in January. Soon afterwards he began to receive emails from members of Share International, He was also paid a visit by two members of the group. Their mission? To meet the Maitreya… That’s right: Raj Patel.
Patel’s response: “I’m not the messiah… I’m just an economics expert!” The Sun got it right: This is The Life of Brian redux:
The confusion began after Raj, from Golders Green, North London, appeared on TV in January to plug his book on the global financial crisis, The Value Of Nothing. Two days later, Share International founder Benjamin Creme, 87, announced the chosen one his cult calls “Maitreya” had arrived, telling followers: “Maitreya recently gave his first interview in America. “The master of all the masters for the first time in human history himself came on a well-known television programme on a major network. But undeclared as Maitreya, just as one of us.”
Raj was mis-identified soon after as he shares many of the prophesied characteristics of Maitreya.
Both are dark-skinned, were born in 1972 and grew up in London;
Maitreya took a flight from India to the UK in 1977, which matches the date Raj flew back from a holiday there;
Maitreya would appear on TV and speak with a slight stutter - which Raj did on The Colbert Report show;
Frustratingly for Raj, it also states the Maitreya will immediately DENY his identity.
Raj, who was raised a Hindu, said: “I started getting emails saying ‘Are you the world teacher?’ Then it wasn’t just random internet folk, but also friends saying, ‘Have you seen this?’ It’s absurd to be put in this position when I’m just some bloke.”
Although Raj swiftly rejected his holy credentials, two devotees from Detroit flew 2,400 miles to meet him at a book signing in his current US home town, San Francisco.
Raj said: “They were really nice, straightforward people. They said they thought I was the Maitreya. They also said I had appeared in their dreams.
“I said, ‘I’m really flattered you came all the way here, but it breaks my heart you spent all this money to meet someone who isn’t who you think he is.’”
The cult was founded by Scotsman Creme in the 1950s. It believes that the 18 million-year-old Maitreya - who combines elements of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam - has been hiding in the Himalayas for 2,000 years. His arrival will unite humanity and improve life for everyone on Earth. Share International has its HQ in Amsterdam with offices in London, the US, Japan, France and Germany. Creme has refused to confirm or deny whether he believes Raj is his saviour.
Meanwhile Raj has had to remove contact details from his website and refuses to talk further about the Maitreya.
He said: “It frustrates me it might disappoint those looking for Maitreya that, in fact, I’m just an ordinary bloke.”
Patel reappeared on The Colbert Report, but refused to play along as if he really was the Maitreya.
But that’s what the real Maitreya would say, as Colbert adroitly pointed out.
Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.25.2010
08:22 pm
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. Be careful though, this will stick in your head for days.
