5 April 2012 Update: Today I received a legal letter from the W1 London firm of solicitors — Simons Muirhead & Burton (www.smab.co.uk) — concerning this blog entry which was originally a response to a Youtube video which has since been removed. The video showed cult leader and convicted rapist Michael Lyons (spiritual name Mohan Singh) coming out of his home and being taken to court by two individuals, a man and a woman. Lyons is desperately trying to hide in the back seat and the woman gets out of the vehicle and tries to physically stop the filming, despite it lawfully being done on a public street.

Seeing that video made me question why, even during a rape trial and accusations of multiple rapes and attacks on women, a woman, who I am assuming is one of the members of his group, would still take it upon herself to defend him. I used this video as an illustration of how brainwashed people can potentially become in a cult, and included three screen shots from the publically available (at the time) video of this woman to illustrate my point.

See the following links for background information:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7911698/Michael-Lyons-may-have-raped-dozens-more-women.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1264731/Cult-leader-Michael-Lyons-rapist-claimed-Dalai-Lama-disciple.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1297818/Rapist-guru-Michael-Lyons-cast-spell-hundreds-terrified-young-women.html

In my mind, it is extremely unlikely that other members of Michael Lyons' cult would not have had some inkling that something was amiss. Indeed, if police reports are to be believed, cult members did indeed turn a blind eye to the abuse that was going on. As was reported in the Daily Telegraph article:

"Police said her friend and other members of the group were sitting on the other side of a curtain during the attack but did not intervene."

"Other cult members did not intervene, despite her pleas for help, and told her to 'stop being silly, it is for your own good', police said."

So from this perspective, my comments that there seemed to be complicity by Lyons' followers regarding what he was up to are indeed fair to make.

So I was a little surprised to hear, nearly two years on, that the woman in the video had hired W1 London lawyers (probably not cheap) to get me to take this blog entry down. Here is the letter that was sent to me (I did seek legal advice before posting this online):

These are serious accusations made by Jeff Smele (who I assume has written it), accusations that have caused me a great deal of stress and anxiety because they are founded on a selective and distorted reading of my balanced article.

He fails to mention or take into account the fact that the picture of his client was a screen shot from a publicly available video lawfully filmed on a London public street.

He fails to mention or take into account that I clearly stated in my original article that I would be writing hypothetically about his client (who at the time was on a Youtube clip physically defending her guru):

Obviously I don't know anything about this woman and will only be writing about her hypothetically to illustrate some important points. All I know about her is that she is defending a serial rapist just before his conviction and sentencing.

He fails to mention or take into account that I also stated that:

Presuming she is a good person, so if she is aware of any of his activities over the last decade, she most likely genuinely believes…

and then made my inferences. So the assertions are explicitly hypothetical, based on the stated proviso of her being aware of Lyons' activities.

And he fails to mention or to take into account my positive description of his client, one that clearly shows a very balance perspective on someone who is physically defending a man accused of multiple rapes:

My guess is that this woman is probably open-hearted and very spiritual, and may even consider herself already enlightened; she is probably vegetarian, meditates every day, and is a predominantly peaceful and loving woman; she has broken no laws, and she is just following his orders (you can hear him giving them in the clip) and defending the man she loves.

As for my assertion that his client "may have to admit that she herself was abused by Lyons" — that is an entirely reasonable one to make considering the number of accusations made against Lyons. Maybe he has behaved this way to many of his close followers? Who knows? From the evidence given by his alleged victims outlined in the newspaper links above, his followers seem to have taken his behaviour as a matter of course. And even if the abuse is not sexual, it can still be psychological. Indeed, some cult experts would argue that just being a member of a cult indicates some level of psychological abuse has taken place. So it may be "unpleasant" for his client to face this sort of conjecture (I did use the term "may have…"), but it is certainly not an unreasonable one to make considering all the evidence, victim statements and police statements. (Although Smele claims above that this conjecture is unfounded in regard to his client, it still applies generically to the women associated with Lyons' organisation due to the fact that a frightening number of them seem to have made claims of abuse.)

So Smele knows that he is not entirely on firm ground with regards to the falsity of the "accusations" that I have made as I have been very explicit on the evidence and assumptions from which I have made the inferences, and the fact that they are inferences and not facts. This is probably why his defense of his client centers around breach of privacy, which is much easier to threaten and enforce legally, especially in the EU. (That said, even the privacy issue is not entirely cut-and-dried because the image of his client was a publically available one lawfully taken in a public street of her trying to physically stop lawful filming of her guru on his way to his rape trial.)

I sent the following email response to Smele:

Without Prejudice

Hi Jeff

Thanks for your letter.

That blog was basically a comment on the Youtube video showing a woman defending Michael Lyons by trying to physically stop the lawful filming of Michael Lyons in a public place during his trial. Now that the Youtube video has been taken down, the article needs to be modified and the screen shot from the video (which happened to be of Gomez) removed. This will happen ASAP.

My statement that Lyon's close followers must have known some of what was going on is actually fair comment based on public police testimony. To quote from the Daily Telegraph: "Police said her friend and other members of the group were sitting on the other side of a curtain during the attack but did not intervene," and "Other cult members did not intervene, despite her pleas for help, and told her to ''stop being silly, it is for your own good'', police said."

I understand that "Not for Publication" has no legal basis and so I will be quoting some of your letter online, making sure that your client is not named.

Yours sincerely

Andrew
andrew@zeropoint.org

I then, as a matter of urgency on same day I received the legal letter, removed the offending screen capture from the now deleted Youtube video that identified his client, removing all possible means of identification and therefore breach of privacy, and modified this blog to reflect the changes and to explain to my readers why the article has been modified.

My original article makes salient points and, even though it has less impact as I no longer have a photo of one of his actual supporters, I feel that the interests of free speech should be upheld now that privacy is no longer an issue. I have added a few words in square brackets to underline its speculative nature, something that I thought I had been clear about from the article quotes taken above.

According to Smele, even quoting the judge was "apparently… a means [for me] to publish a lengthy article focusing on attaching our client." This could be construed as libellous as I was clearly using his client's public behaviour (lawfully filmed) as evidence for the blind loyalty of Lyons' followers, most of which are women. Indeed, questioning that blind loyalty is central to practically all the newspaper and other media coverage of the Michael Lyons rape case, and was central in the judge's summing up. I do not know his client and have no interest in defaming her, but was clearly and explicitly using her example as a means to question blind loyalty to gurus and cult leaders.

So here is the original article with a few (now unnecessary) modifications:

 

*            *            *

 

I WROTE ABOUT MICHAEL LYONS in last month, the guru who went under the name Mohan Singh was was convicted of multiple rape (some say that his worldwide victims may number more than a hundred, although he was convicted for just two of his many alleged sexual abuses).

I had met this man a number of times at Mind Body Spirit shows in the later 90s and actually liked his personality, which was always bright and cheerful. Although I have to say that we all found it rather strange how he would have so many young female followers. He seemed quite the lady's man and used to pursue one of my female friends.

Yesterday, I found by chance this video on YouTube which was apparently taken of him getting into the car on his way to the final trial verdict, for which he would be given a ten-year prison sentence.

[video since removed]

I found it interesting that in this clip Lyons, who was about to be convicted of serial rape, is being protected [and defended] by a woman. Judge Nicolas Browne, QC, criticized Lyons' followers (nearly all female) for their "blind loyalty" and went on to say that they knew perfectly well "what was likely to happen to both victims before their sexual abuse." The Judge then stated to Lyons on sentencing that, "Women's groups everywhere will be shocked and appalled in the complicity in these two crimes of women close to you. It was complete betrayal of women to woman."

This same "blind loyalty" is probably behind the way the woman in the above video clip is lashing out at the photographer. She has probably witnessed the whole trial and seen the evidence with her own eyes, but is sticking by Lyons because… well… he is her guru, and with gurus nothing is as it seems. Rape is probably regarded as Tantric initiation, a loosening up of the ego. As Michael Lyons told one of his victims, Skye Enyeart, as he was raping her, after drugging her, that she had to be crucified to find enlightenment. [source]

So here is the lady in the above clip. [Obviously I don't know anything about this woman and will only be writing about her hypothetically to illustrate some important points. All I know about her is that she is defending a serial rapist just before his conviction and sentencing.]

[screen capture from video since removed]

My guess is that this woman is probably open-hearted and very spiritual, and may even consider herself already enlightened; she is probably vegetarian, meditates every day, and is a predominantly peaceful and loving woman; she has broken no laws, and she is just following his orders (you can hear him giving them in the clip) and defending the man she loves. What loyalty and dedication! How can anyone fault her for that?

And yet, some part of her [probably knows] what Lyons has been doing all these years if she has been a long-term trusted follower (which she probably is [being]… by his side at his darkest hour — only the most loyal and long-standing disciples would be chosen for that role by a guru and would stick by their master during a rape trial).

So how would a woman like this cope with any awareness she might have of his sexual abuses? Presuming she is a good person, so if she is aware of any of his activities over the last decade, she [may well believe] that Lyons was energetically freeing up his rape victims (though she obviously wouldn't call them that), preparing them for some sort of kundalini rise and awakening. Lyons [might] have brainwashed her into seeing rape from a non-rape perspective (although she would have had some complicity in this brainwashing too), just as he convinced the friend of one of the women he raped that the victim was exaggerating and that she was an "evil vampire". (This "friend" probably had a psychological propensity to turn against the victim because the "friend" had been the one to introduce the victim to Lyons in the first place, and so Lyon's lies would have assuaged her guilt.)

Detective Sergeant Nick Giles from the Metropolitan Police said about Lyons: "His victims tend to be highly intelligent with an interest in spirituality, but at a point in their life where they are searching for answers."

And that is the key: when we want something that deeply (and most on the spiritual path do have a yeaning that is difficult to define) it is easy for a guru (conman or woman) to come along and hijack that yearning for their own predatory ends. This open and questioning state of being, when we are not being destracted by answers, is the spiritual state, but we are so used to answers, to damping down the fire, that we forget that this open state of being is destroyed by thinking we have the answer.

So the role of any spiritual teacher is to tell those with this spiritual "open-and-questioning" state of yearning that what blocks them from spiritual realization is that they are trying to "do something" with this state of being, they are trying to find answers because "not-knowing" is too powerful for them. The only real answer is to stop looking for answers and fully accept the "open-and-questioning" state of being. That leads to the "peace that passes all understanding". That is the only legitimate role for an authentic spiritual teacher. Everything else — concepts, philosophy, dogma, meditation techniques, dress style, diets, mantras — is all just a red herring that leads us away from the golden presence of "openness without answers".

Going back to Michael Lyons' [female defender] above… I don't believe that her blind loyalty is exceptional. It is all to easy to try to vilify her and call her brainwashed, but the truth is that 99% of us are brainwashed in many different ways and from any different perspectives.

For example, Imagine a romantic meal for two in a high-class restarant. Soft piano music is playing in the background as our handsome lovers, eating their juicy steaks and salad stare longingly into each other's eyes, feeling the buzz of the physical intimacy shortly to follow. A beautiful scene… from that perspective. But there are another perspectives: central to this meal are the steaks which are in fact slices of a dead cow which died such a horrific and agnoizing death that her body pieces are still filled with the fear hormones she generated from her abitoir experience (just as our bodies would be had we gone through her nightmare). Perhaps she was even slaughtered according to barbaric and primative religious practices such as Halal and Kosher. That is a reality too, a part of the complex whole. And there is another probably seen by the low-wage waiters and kitchen helpers who watch their guests pay more for a single meal than they make in an entire week.

So we have different perspectives, all of which could potentially be seen by any guest at that restaurant with open awareness. But when we go to a restaurant like that, we are paying for a fantasy as well as a meal, so that almost nobody thinks about less-than-desirable perspectives.

Take another example: most of us love our country. We wave flags and support anyone of our nationality at international sporting events. In fact, as a society we are even prepared to sacrifice our sons and daughters in the armed forces to fight for the country we love so much. What blind loyalty! — especially when we see, from a historical perspective, that our governments and rulers have consistently hijacked this patriotism for their own political ends, using human beings as cannon-fodder as they play out their international political games. If people knew what governments really are up to, patriotism would become a tradition of the past, a tradition that belongs only to primative and tribal people.

So Michael Lyons grommed young women for sex just as our government groom young men and women for war, and groom society as a whole to financially support those wars. Unless we are conscious, we are all, by default, groommed from something or other.

In a way, we are all like the lady [in the video], defending the indefensible because we refuse to let go of our fantasy, a fantasy that bestows "specialness" on those hold it. The lady in the video [probably] feels special because she defends this "holy" man. The lovers in the restaurant feel special because they are the only man or woman in the world for each other in that moment. And the football hooligan feels special because, well, he is from the best country in the world.

We believe in fantasies because they support our ego, and we come to a point whereby we cannot let go of the fantasy because we now have too much invested in it. If the lady in [the video] were to admit that Lyons is a rapist, she would also have to admit that she has wasted perhaps years of her life following him and giving him donations, she may have to admit that she herself was abused by him [psychologically not sexually], and, worse of all, she would have to admit that she may not be as spiritual as he has persuaded her she is following and supporting him for so many years.

We all have a lot invested in fantasy because fantasy supports our ego; it supports the lie of who and what we think we are. And this is how we become trapped in doing ridiculous things like… defending rapists and giving ourselves heart and soul to abusive spiritual teachers.