Toward the end of the meeting, he told the nineteen that if they wanted to return to the Centre in this life, they must first hand in an essay—typed, double-spaced—in which they were to confess to and apologize for their hurtful, wicked deeds.
After the meeting, Rama returned to his latest project: staging a national, six-month, six hundred and fifty thousand dollar "Zen" seminar promotional campaign. The effort included the placement of a two-page spread in the Sunday New York Times. One page was a photo of himself; the other advertised his free talk on Zen and success at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center (see Appendix D). The full-page spreads also appeared in the L.A. Times, L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Magazine, Vanity Fair, and in more than a dozen college campus newspapers across the country, including MIT, Harvard, Columbia, UCLA, UC San Diego, San Diego State, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara.
Rama's aura of allegations came to light in the press in the midst of his national speaking tour: Newsweek, "Who Is This Rama?—The master of Zen and the Art of Publicity is now having some very serious problems", 2/1/88; The L.A. Weekly, "The Cosmic Seducer: How Frederick Lenz Got Rich, Built A Clientele And Seduced Women", 1/28/88, and "Rama Redux", 9/1/88; The San Francisco Chronicle, "Zen and now: The gospel according to guru 'Rama'", 11/8/87, and "Sex, Fear Broke Guru's Spell", 11/27/87; The San Diego Union, "YUPPIE GURU: Ex-Disciples Turn On 'Master'", 1/10/88; and New Age Journal, "The Rama Drama", 6/1/88.
When articles began to appear, Rama cancelled several talks. When more appeared, he stopped giving public lectures altogether.
In the spring of 1988, Rama had Karen call and instruct the nineteen to attend a middle-of-the-night meeting in the Mohave Desert, scheduled for the end of April.
Rachel and Anne individually expressed doubts about whether they would attend.
In the past, Rama had used the fear of Entities and of bad karma to discipline his disciples. Typically, he had explained that he would try to protect those who strayed from his path. But by now his role had dramatically changed. No longer the protector, he told disciples that if they disobeyed him, *he* would see to it that they had a car accident or that they came down with cancer. He had Karen warn Rachel and Anne that if they did not attend the meeting, they would come to "serious harm."
They showed.
At the Mohave Desert meeting, Rama announced that the nineteen could return to the Centre, move to Boston, teach yoga, and bring him new students.
"Who does *not* want to come back?" he asked.