Yogi Buried

Mystical guru and founder of transcendental meditation Mahesh Srivastava (better known as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) is dead at 91. Credited both with introducing the Beatles to the sitar and the rest of the world to utter bullshit, Srivastava declared himself a "great seer" and turned his new age nonsense into a global business worth millions. Followers of TM may trumpet its powers to unleash the psyche and open up the mind, but it was also a cash cow for Srivatava, who refused to eat actual cow. Aside from introducing the kind of misunderstood scientific jargon mixed with mystical mumbo-jumbo that people like Deepak Chopra (a Yogi-phile himself) have used to make their fortunes, Srivastava also generously used his riches solely to spread the word of his own personality-based merchandising. He famously fell out of favor with John Lennon over his lecherous advances toward Hollywood hottie Mia Farrow, he lied about being able to teach people to fly using TM, and he stupidly led an initiative to end world peace by eating vegetables and thinking happy thoughts. My sympathies extend to his blah blah and so on and so forth. More details here.