So Crazy It's Cute

File under: Wackadoo Gurus and The Siddhi of PR

Today the New York Times explores the delusions of grandeur of that wacky old coot, the Madharishi Mahesh Yogi. He's now close to 90 years old and still believing he's going to remake the entire planet, physically and culturally, into his idea of a Vedic paradise. The scale of the grandiosity astounds us:

Another element of his vision is to rebuild the world according to Vedic principles. He has called for the demolition of “improperly oriented” buildings, believing them to be toxic, and includes among them the United Nations and the White House. There are proposals for New York and Paris to be cleared to make way for 3,000 marble peace palaces. (His organization operates such palaces in Bethesda, Md., Lexington, Ky., Houston and Fairfield.) Maharishi is also convinced that every country’s capital is wrongly located. In India and America, his organization has bought land near what it calls each country’s “brahmastan” — or the geographical and energy center. The future capital of the United States would be Smith Center, Kan., population 1,931.

And the folks who live there are all POed about it. They do not want some long-haired Hindu false prophet and a bunch of crystal-gripping, ass-bouncing nincompoops taking over their God-fearing, Christian community.

But what was most intriguing about the article was this statement:

His first 50 years, he says, were merely a “warm-up” for his goal of creating world peace by, among other things, rebuilding national capitals according to his harmony-producing precepts.

Did he just tell us he's going to live 50 more years to see his plan implemented? It wouldn't surprise us. Someone crazy enough to believe they are single-handedly bringing about the Golden Age could just as easily be convinced they were going to live forever. Out of all his castle-in-the-sky global redevelopment schemes, that's the one project that will most definitely not see a completion.