New York Newsday's William Falk ("The Yuppie Guru",
7/30/91), "It's the most amazing career that I know of. You can start
in the mid-30s, and in a year or two you can make $100,000 to $150,000
a year."

From 1988 to 1991, Rama's individual tuition rose from roughly one
thousand to three thousand dollars per month. He told followers that
since NPDS and ASI were actually furthering their careers, they should
deduct the increasing payments from their taxes. This enabled Rama to
dramatically increase his "surprise" gift reservoir--while bilking the
IRS of millions, in a way that would be difficult to expose.

In 1989, Rama justified to the disciples his rising tuition. "I nearly
killed myself by accepting your Negative Occult Energy," he said, "and
now you are going to have to pay for it."

In January, 1990, Rama announced that disciples had until March 21,
1991, to donate additional money--from $50,000 to $1,000,000 per
person, depending on his or her "capacity." They didn't have to
participate, he told them. But it would be their last year in the
Centre if they did not. He gave them each "charmed" marbles. The
marbles, he said, would enable them to accomplish any task he
suggested. The charm, he added, would fade for those who left the
Centre--who had not already lost their marbles.

At one meeting in 1990, Rama claimed that his students were treating
him with disrespect by being late with their tuition payments. "Better
to owe your creditors than to owe me," he told them. He suggested that
they move in together, sleep on apartment floors, and not pay their
other bills for awhile.

Rama increasingly used fear tactics to control the financially
hard-pressed, sleep deprived followers, many of whom worked more than
one job. He told them that if he stopped protecting someone who left
the Centre, they would suffer forever in the "seventh level of hell."
He told them that he wielded the power to create and demolish the
universes. He told them that he was no longer the "Last Incarnation of
Vishnu The Cosmic Preserver," but of "Siva The Cosmic Destroyer." He
emphasized that those criticizing him would invariably get hit by a car
or contract cancer.

Rama, who had not held public lectures since early 1988, required most
students to bring at least three new potential initiates per year. He
spent hours during the NPDS and ASI "computer" meetings coaching
disciples about what kind of people they should recruit an