Peace... Or Profit Palaces?

File under: Gurus Clockin' Dollars

A Connecticut couple is searching the Danbury, CT area for a location for the "next" Maharishi "peace palace." Terry and Bernie Nevas are members of the Global Country of World Peace, the Maharishi's latest scheme to acquire more name, fame and political power. They are attempting to assist the TM™ leader with his Field of Dreamsesque vision to "to build 2,400 Peace Palaces in the United States and 3,000 palaces worldwide."

The idea is to have powerful, positive, peaceful vibes flow out of the Peace Palaces and into the surrounding communities, therefore making the world a more peaceful place.

"What we're offering is all kinds of peace-creating technologies. That means peace for the individual and peace for the environment. Transcendental meditation is the primary technique that we teach," Terry Nevas said.

"Peace-creating technologies." Sure, if you consider their tired and simplistic rehashing of a very old and extremely common Hindu meditation technique as "technology."

But does the 90-something year-old Maharishi, estimated to be worth between $3 billion upwards to $9 billion, have something else in mind? He does according to Rick Ross:

Rick Ross, a cult expert who runs the Rick Ross Institute in New Jersey and its associated website, said the Peace Palace effort is nothing more than a way for the Maharishi to make money on real estate.

"Many of these proposed Peace Palaces never come to fruition. Much of Maharishi's vast fortune is in real estate investments," Ross said.

"Frequently what he does is buy and hold properties. Eventually he'll dump it and make some money that way."

Ah so.

While we sympathize with the Nevas' sentiments, they're looking more like a couple of patsies than enlightened revolutionaries for peace. But we've got to give the Maharishi some props for all this. He's turned an old and worn-out new age-ism, the 100th monkey phenomenon, into a real estate profiteering scheme. He may be trashing whole countries in fits of psychotic grandiosity, but he's still got enough marbles rolling around in his head to keep clockin' those dollars.