Article 8205 of alt.buddha.short.fat.guy: Path: news1.digex.net!news.intercon.com!howland.reston.ans.net!usc!nic-nac.CSU.net!charnel.ecst.csuchico.edu!olivea!uunet!news.delphi.com!usenet From: Charlie Rubin Newsgroups: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy Subject: Rama book - complete text (very long, in 15 parts) Date: Mon, 25 Jul 94 20:23:38 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 43 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: bos1g.delphi.com Note: this posting is in 15 parts. Part 1 is this intro. Part 2 contains quotes from the 1988 Newsweek article regarding Rama (a repost, it was compiled by someone else.) Parts 3 thru 15 contain the full contents of the recently published book by Mark Laxer, _Take Me For A Ride_, in which he recounts his experiences as a student of Rama's for many years. Note that parts 3 thru 11 contain the body of the book, parts 12 thru 14 contain the Epilogue (which can be considered a sampler if you don't want to read the whole thing), and part 15 contains the Appendix, which has interesting samples of Rama's advertisements and writings. It's a 192 page book in paperback, but very interesting. The original postings did not have a clear subject header, which is why many people missed them. Also, the epilogue was not included in the original posting. The Newsweek article excerpts were posted separately by someone else, and I have just included them here for convenience. Copyright issues appear to have been resolved by the permision of the author, as mentioned in the note at the beginning of each part. I myself was a student of Rama for approximately 5 years, from 1986 until 1991. This was all after Mark Laxer left the group. I was by no means close to Rama, but I did attend many seminars he held. I do not know Mark Laxer at all, and I cannot attest to any of the experiences he describes. However, I think his book is interesting, and it points out many of the things which bother me about the group to this day. I was discontinued from the group for inability to come up with the $3700/month tuition at the time. Although initially heartbroken and very depressed, I am no longer sure that I would ever wish to return. I may make a longer statement in another post, but for the time being I just wanted to make the Laxer book available again because I am interested in people's responses to it. I can say for sure that it downplays some of the good stuff about Rama (like his ability to get people _really_ high), but it also highlights a lot of the real wierdness that goes on. Hope you take the time to read the whole thing! Please post your thoughts about the book to a new thread - this one is long enough. Thanks! Charlie Rubin (falconsys@delphi.com) P.S. Spot checks between these postings and my copy of the actual book indicate that it is an accurate reproduction (they were originally posted anonymously.)