God, the Devil and Me: The Chronicles of a Seeker of God

By Valerie Georgeson

A chronicle of lived experience, this astonishing book is a biographical exposé, its ultimate theme the great battle of the last days, the final war between God and the Devil. Drawing on her journals, Valerie tells how, at the height of a successful career as writer and actress, she suddenly disappeared. An innocent seeker of God, unaware of the pitfalls, or the unrelenting opposition of the devil, Valerie had strayed into an Indian sect where its female guru, learning of her vocation to ‘write a book for God’, feared her as a potential whistleblower. Vowing to 'stop Valerie writing', she attacks her with magic and occult powers. Now, the writing of the book itself becomes the battlefield. Converted to Catholicism and escaped to France, Valerie is helped by an exorcist. And God, giving her the added vocation to pray for souls lost in sects, comes to her in the Eucharist, fighting alongside, granting moments lifted into bliss and finally breaking the bondage. Thirty years on, the past erased, experience with Valerie the inside story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
• Release date: Feb 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781789048254

Valerie Georgeson

Valerie Georgeson was born in South Shields in the north east of England in 1945. After taking a degree in Drama & Theatre Arts, and English Lit at Birmingham University, she became an actress and later a novelist. She has in the course of her career been a member of British Actor's Equity, the Samaritans, the International Dance Teachers Association, The Writers' Guild, BAFTA, the Society of Authors and the British Association of Iconographers. She now lives in France with her husband, a European Geordie expat.

Book preview

Part One

The Fall

God and the Devil

Chapter One

1945-1984

In the vast emptiness of the cathedral, a lone woman listened to the voices floating up from the lamplit choir stalls. Her heart soared with the singing ever higher into the dark, vaulting arches, as if desire alone could pierce stone and reach into the heart of God. Her expression told of the anguish of her seeking. Could it, would it ever be fulfilled? That woman was me at twenty-five years old, an actress, playing in Alfie at Canterbury’s repertory theatre. I had slipped into the cathedral between the matinee and evening shows, looking for peace. My marriage was in crisis. My husband didn’t love me. He said his vows had been nothing more than lip service. He had never intended to keep them. And he hadn’t. Strangely, like the cathedral, the church where we were married was also a Christchurch. And two years later I could only ask, ‘What’s it all about, Alfie?’ But evensong brought more questions than answers. What was it all about? What was the point of my life? I felt hollow, all promise, never to be fulfilled. Then a voice, soaring higher than the rest took my breaking heart through stone and into silence. And another voice, loud and clear resounded in the emptiness:

‘One day, you will write a book for God.’

Between the tick and tock of the clock, there is silence. And if you listen, really listen, you can hold on to it, even when the clock keeps on ticking, because the silence lives on underneath. I had taught myself to listen to it, listen for the voice of God. And now the silence had become word, a word that reverberated through my body like a resounding bell. Silence followed. There were no more words. ‘One day, you will write a book for God’? I was an actress. I had just begun writing. What did it mean? I stored the words at the back of my mind. One day I would know. It was 1971.

I was born on 8th November 1945 in a small seaside town in the north-east of England. Baptised an Anglican, the simplistic catechism given to children confused me and at six years old I rejected the Church. Not that it stopped me seeking God. I kept on in play, trying life as an anchoress with the coal cellar as my hovel, or living out the sentimental piety of Little Women with my bemused classmates. But at ten, on holiday with my family in Belgium, I had my first brush with the Catholic Church and fell in love with Our Lady. Back home, I set up an altar in the attic with the crucifix and the statuette of the Virgin that I had chosen as souvenirs. But, alarmed by my piety, my mother did her best to discourage me and in the end I had to abandon my altar, which left me a wanderer, with no clear path to tread.

Childhood was a dark, painful time. There was something in my father that drove him. He would work himself up, till his face took on a livid pallor and all hell broke out. My elder brother was his preferred target, suffering acts of violence, verbal, physical and psychological. But his rage could just as easily turn against my mother. And though, as family peacemaker I escaped the worst, I too felt my father’s hands around my throat. But he was not all bad. He had his qualities. And he too had suffered as a child. I had heard how his mother fell into rages and banged his head against the leaded kitchen grate. And who knows what she suffered in her turn. Evidently, whatever drove them had its roots far back in family history and with no spiritual tools, my father was at its mercy. Like my brother, I adored my mother. I danced and sang for her, winning competitions for her, and she, who had never had the opportunity to live out her own dreams lived through me, escaping the fear and tension at home. But there was no escape for me. At school I was bullied by a jealous girl. My health suffered. Mysterious pains travelled unpredictably round my body, striking here and there and nobody could get to the bottom of it. Blood tests revealed nothing and in the end the pains were labelled, ‘rheumatism’.

Then one day, without warning a crushing pain struck my chest, squeezing me till I could hardly breathe. My frightened mother watched as I lay, gasping for air. But my father had a strange look on his face that was almost a smile. He had taken to going to ‘spiritualist’ meetings and was so taken with the couple that ran them, that I asked if I might go too. But he had turned on me furiously. We were none of us to go! Not ever! Clearly he was hiding something. Then the couple invited me to go gliding with them. Luckily I got tonsillitis and couldn’t go. I was bitterly disappointed. But as it happened, the plane crashed. Tonsillitis saved my life.

At grammar school, I developed a liking for Plato, whose absolute seemed to echo Buddhism’s Nirvana; an abyss of nothingness which had its attraction to an unhappy child. And I was unhappy. It seemed to me I had always lived in deepest darkness at the bottom of a deep pit. Only I argued to myself, by recognising darkness, I was admitting the existence of light. So, light did exist somewhere and one day I would find it. To help my search, I taught myself to meditate. And at eighteen, when I left home and went to university, someone threw a ladder down into the pit.

A resident lecturer at the university who had been a pupil of Matthias Alexander took me under her wing. Alexander’s simple technique of freeing body and psyche from the blocks that limit development untied some of the knots. But I was still very young and vulnerable and within two years of leaving university, I had married an actor called, ‘Brian Simpson’. Stocky, with thick blonde hair, Brian gave a feeling of solidity, but was actually even more immature than I was. A pair of penniless actors, we lived in a tenement flat in Islington, taking it in turn to go out to work. When it was Brian’s turn, I stayed home, spending hours each day practising Alexander technique and when it was mine, I took a job as a clerk at St George’s Hospital on Hyde Park Corner. It was there that I met ‘James Home’. Impressive with his white hair and resonating voice, James was a retired business executive, working as a volunteer. With the equable temperament of a philosopher, he understood the spiritual quest and quickly became my spiritual godfather. It was during a stay at his house that I had my first experience of God.

I was in bed, reading a book James had lent me when I sensed a presence. There were shadows, like the shadows of wings, like an invisible bird was flying slowly round the room and over my head. And after a moment, reading on, I fell on the name of Jesus. Warily, I read on and just as suddenly incense filled the room before, once again I came on His name. I never spoke of this to James. His interest was the occult and this, I knew was of a different order. So I stored the experience away for a future time. Only, when I heard the voice in the Cathedral, I failed to make the connection.

So, we come back to 1971. We are still in Canterbury. But now I’m sitting on a swing in the garden of my lodgings –

The leaves were rustling in the breeze. It was soothing. What was I going to do about Brian? He was unfaithful. He was unkind.

‘Leave him now.’ I stopped swinging. For a moment I stopped breathing, though my body continued to sway and the leaves to rustle. A bird was singing in the distance of a vast, empty unreality. But I knew it was right. I had to do it. So, packing my bags, I left Brian in Canterbury and went back to our flat in Islington. And when, after a few days Brian had still not turned up, I thought the marriage had ended. With grief came relief. I picked myself up and set about reorganising my life. But a few days later, late in the evening, I heard his heavy step on the stair. My heart lurched. I was afraid. But when I saw him, I was sorry for him. He was crying so that he could hardly speak. He said he had just walked and walked. I hesitated. This was my husband. True, he didn’t love me. And if I took him back I could expect nothing from him. But love does not ask for anything in return. Love is about giving, and I had vowed to love him for the rest of our lives. So I couldn’t just give up on him. Perhaps, in a way he needed me. I would forgive him and take him back. And suddenly, my heart melted in a wave of tenderness.

Reflecting that Brian was uncomfortable in the marriage, I wondered whether a home of our own would help him settle. To my surprise, he agreed. But, unable able to afford anything in London, we moved to the wilds of Lancashire, where limited funds bought a derelict house. Once there, I stepped back from the theatre, restricting my work to radio and TV, so leaving the field clear for Brian. And during the long periods when I was out of work and Brian was away, I busied myself volunteering for the Samaritans, campaigning for a journalist imprisoned without trial in Argentina, visiting the elderly and growing vegetables. It was then I began writing radio plays. And with more time to myself, I was meditating two or three hours a day, holding on to the silence for longer and longer. Then one day, something extraordinary happened. My body started moving all on its own. It took me out of my chair and lowered me to the floor, arranging itself in a double lotus while my arms rose into the air, hands prayerfully above my head. Normally I could no more do a double lotus than fly. But I was not doing it. I was just the observer of an extraordinary event. I had become a single flame. Blissfully at peace, time stood still. Eventually, I slipped back into time, my body unfolded and stood me on my feet. And I found that eternity had passed in the space of an hour.

But I was lonely, as lonely as if I were not married at all. Brian was often away, but even when he was with me, he seemed distant. In my dreams it was winter. Looking at my desolate garden, everything seemed dead. But when the scene changed and I looked again, a single rose was blooming; the ‘Peace’ rose. This gave me hope, when soon afterwards, the marriage reached a crisis from which it never recovered. Brian was having an affair, not the first, but this time it was different. This time I was being pushed out of the frame. And yet, he did not want to split up. What should I do? My writing career had taken off. A radio producer called Alfred Bradley had recommended me to BBC TV and thanks to him I had been commissioned to write a series for children. He even found me an agent, who got me on to the writing team of the TV series, Angels. I liked writing. I found I was good at it. And for the first time in my life, I felt respected. Only, the situation with Brian was starting to make both work and meditation impossible.

So, I took to dropping into a local church: another Christchurch. I was in turmoil. Silence and eternity were all very well, but on the earth plane the clock was ticking. I was now more than thirty-one years old and I wanted a baby. Every day I went to the church to sit in God’s presence, Brian with me in spirit, a couple under God’s consideration. Until one day, I realised Brian was no longer with me. I was alone. I prayed God not to part us. But there was no answer. So, I walked up to the altar, pleading with Him, begging Him. But there wasn’t a word, only silence, inexorable silence. I left the church that day a single woman. The priest who had married us reluctantly recognised the validity of my experience. Married in a Christchurch, I had been divorced in one. And now, all that remained was to be divorced in the eyes of the world. So, putting the house up for sale, I moved to Manchester and found a solicitor.

Now I was on my own, I felt the need to be with other seekers of God. The silence of Quaker meetings attracted me, but I felt there was something missing. So I continued my own meditation. Slipping into contemplation, I would sit for hours, ‘waiting on God’. My career was going from strength to strength. I had written a children’s TV play and another Angels series, then for Juliet Bravo, and my screenplay of Penelope Lively’s book, Astercote was in production. Then I started writing novels, beginning with two spin offs from the Angels series and going on to develop my radio play, The Mermaid’s Tale into the novel, The Turning Tides. But my private life was a different story. In my mid-thirties and longing for a baby, I was unlucky with men. And the emotional stress of the divorce had left me exhausted. Something had to go. So, when my Argentinian prisoner was finally freed, I took time out to rest. But tired, alone and totally ignorant of the tricks of the devil, I was vulnerable. And the enemy began trying to prise me away from God.

Inspired by James, I began dowsing with a pendulum. You could ask a question and the pendulum would swing clockwise or anticlockwise, signifying, ‘yes’, or ‘no’. I soon became dependent on it, looking to it for answers to my problems. Then I got hooked on Tarot, another occult practice. Realising these were crutches, I gave them up. But my meditation was stagnating and thinking I needed some sort of spiritual director, I began to pray for one. And, lo and behold, on a bus to London, I met an Indian ‘yogi’ who told me he ran a school of meditation in India.

It was the seventies, a time of great optimism in the West, a time of hope and idealism. A man had stood on the moon. There was a passionate faith in the innate goodness of man, and a belief in a future of peaceful coexistence, based on universal love. ‘All you need is love’ was the mantra of the day. Vatican II was born of this time; so was Greenpeace, the CND, the European Union and the World Wide Fund for Nature. The young and the not so young were ready to give themselves whole heartedly for their ideals, while a renewed passion in the search for truth and the meaning of life produced a burgeoning interest in the religions and philosophies of the wider world. The London exhibition, Mind Body and Spirit energised a wave of new spiritual movements. And no one questioned whether they were good or bad. Evil was an outmoded, alien concept. Everything was good. But the Red Brigade was also born of this time and today, living the legacy, we know differently. We may have lost our naivety, but with it, much of our idealism. We have become cynical. But then, in those passionate days, we were ready to believe. And so I set out on the yellow brick road of my generation.

At Victoria, I parted company from the Indian ‘yogi’ and went to stay with my friend, ‘June Barber’. June and I had shared a dressing room in Canterbury where her husband, ‘Jim’ was directing, and ever since their house in London had been my home from home. I was in town for a script conference, but I had promised to visit the Indian man while I was there. My overpowering longing for a child called for desperate measures. And now, looking into his crystal ball, he said I would marry again, but that the marriage would only last four years. Then he hesitated. He had seen something else. And after a moment, in a strange voice he added that there would be a crisis, but if we got through it, the relationship would be happy and last a long time. Whatever he had seen, he did not tell me. But it changed his attitude towards me. He became too free. I had already given him my address in Manchester, and he wanted to stay with me on his return. I did not like it. But he was so insistent that in the end, I agreed. Only I took the precaution of having a girlfriend stay as chaperone.

The ‘yogi’ told me my meditation was deep, but that he could take me further. He touched my forehead and seemed to expect something to happen. And when it didn’t, he told me to meditate at a specific time, so that wherever he was in the world, he could ‘tune in’ and help me. He gave me his photograph and a chain with something on it and told me to hang it round my neck. Then, to my astonishment, he made a pass at me. My friend helped me get rid of him and together we saw him off on the bus to London. But the encounter left me feeling dirty, like someone had thrown a bucket of sewage over me. James told me to throw out anything the man had given me, to burn the photograph and meditate at any time but the one agreed. It was a week before I felt clean again. But the ‘yogi’ knew I was not respecting his meditation time, that I was shutting him out. And when I was wakened one night by a brilliant light flashing through my head, I knew at once it was him. He was trying to get into my mind while I slept. What I did not know was that the flash was a sign of demonic activity. Once again, I turned to James, who advised me to write to the man, now back in India, telling him in no uncertain terms to leave me alone. Thankfully it worked. His attempts to ‘tune in’ ended and I never heard from him again. I had had a narrow escape. But I had not recognised that the devil was behind the attack, and I had no idea that he would try again.

Some two or three months later, a producer friend at the BBC told me about an actress called ‘Diane Keys’. A once glamorous forty-year-old, with long blonde hair, Diane’s life had been ruined by a guru she had followed for several years. And now, having finally got rid of him she had straightway become involved with another; the guru of a movement called Sahaja Yoga. Aware of my interest in the spiritual, my friend asked if I would investigate. I agreed. But I had no spiritual discernment, nor any clear concept of evil. And when Diane came to the house, it was obvious she did not see herself as a victim. In fact, she was there to convert me. She began by explaining that the guru of the new movement was a woman known by her followers as ‘Mataji’, or ‘Mother’ as Diane liked to call her.

‘A woman makes a change after all those men,’ she said. ‘At least you can trust a woman. And she hates all these horrible gurus who do so much damage to people.’ This was disarming. Then Diane told me the tale of her own ‘romantic’ disasters. Men had treated her badly. I could relate to that. So she sat me in front of a photograph of Mataji and started ‘working’⁴ on me, trying to raise my kundalini. She explained that kundalini was a spiritual energy that sleeps in the sacrum till wakened by an ‘authorised person’ such as ‘Mother’. I looked at the photograph. A plump Indian woman in her fifties, Mataji was wearing a sari. Her long, lank hair framed her impassive face, and her right hand was raised in blessing or defence, depending on how you saw it, while the left was held palm outwards, offering or receiving. I was instructed to sit in front of the photograph, hands open to receive, because just through that black and white image, Mataji would waken my kundalini. Then I would ‘fall into balance’ and become silent. And as my autonomic nervous system took over, my kundalini would rise and I would feel vibrations,¹ the sign that I had become a ‘realised’ soul. It is well documented in Indian literature that lifetimes of ascetic practice are required to purify the soul before the kundalini will act on the nervous system, wakening the sensitive awareness that comes with ‘realisation’. The novelty Mataji offered was ‘sahaja’ or spontaneous realisation. The necessary purification, so it was claimed is reversed, coming after realisation with the help of the kundalini. The fact that this new ‘religion’ of spontaneous yoga was based on ancient Hindu tradition, gave it credence. But there was more. There was the appeal of universality. Mataji had incorporated all existing major religions into her teaching of the spiritual body as suited the new age, heralding the Kingdom of God on earth. Diane gave me a drawing, describing the chakras or spiritual centres and the deities that controlled them.² ‘Sahaja Yoga’ was the final stage in the spiritual evolution of man, she announced, and the chakra chart a map of that evolution. Among the mostly Hindu gods, the names of Fatima and Hazrat Ali could be found at the halfway stage and Jesus at the second last. He ruled over the agnya chakra at the centre of the forehead, the place where Hindus paint the red dot known as the tikka. Diane explained that when the kundalini rose, it flowed into the chakras, awakening them and raising general sensitivity. And eventually, it rose through the gate of heaven (Jesus in the agnya chakra) reaching the top of the head and opening the Sahasrara chakra, the thousand petalled lotus, ruled by Mataji. When this happened, you achieved yoga i.e. union with God. Mataji had placed herself above Jesus Himself. She had taken the place of God.

In fact the photo was a trap. It was an iconic image, a gateway to the follower’s psyche. Entering through the eyes, it established Mataji’s presence in the brain. God promised freedom. But by supplanting God in the Sahasrara chakra at the top, Mataji was taking away the liberty of the seeker, hijacking the spiritual energy which leads to union with God and diverting it to herself. Or so we saw it later. And we saw that Mataji was not a mediator between man and God, she was a diversion. She said her spontaneous way of yoga avoided a lifetime of ascetic practices to reach the same goal. Only it was not the same goal. At the end of it, there was only her. Diane ‘worked’ on my kundalini to little effect. I was not open to the experience and, disappointed, she left me the photograph, encouraging me to persevere. I should look at it often, she said, hands open to ‘receive vibrations’. But I was not enthusiastic.

Then came a day when I wakened overwhelmed by sorrow. It was only later that I realised it was the anniversary of my divorce. Seeking relief, I stretched out my hands to the photograph and opened out to Mataji as I opened out to God. And suddenly the icon worked. Motherly love radiated from the image, and soothed, I fell asleep. I had no idea what I had done. I thought I had invited in healing. I thought that like love, healing came free. But I was wrong. I had opened the door and let Mataji in. And now, her presence established in my psyche, I was hers.

On my next trip to London, I went to one of Mataji’s public meetings at the Caxton Hall. Shunted to the front, I sat, shoeless and listened. It was as if she was speaking directly to me. There was a lot of sense in what she was saying about opening your heart and giving without expecting anything in return. I had done exactly that throughout my marriage. But I had reservations, and as Mataji talked, I silently challenged her:

‘It isn’t always good to open your heart and give indiscriminately, because people take advantage.’ To my surprise Mataji stopped speaking, glanced at me and said:

‘Of course, there are always people who take advantage.’ Then I knew that not only could Mataji hear everything I was thinking, but she could hear the thought of everyone in the room and probably beyond. I was impressed. I had failed to recognise that Mataji had invaded my psyche and knew my thoughts. All I knew was that the lady had spoken of love and given it through her photograph and that she was, therefore, worthy of further investigation. So, on my next visit to London, instead of staying with June, I stayed with Diane, who would take me to another Sahaja Yoga meeting, in Hampstead.

This time, there was no Mataji, only her photograph and a cassette of her speaking. But I met more of her followers, among them the UK leader, ‘Alec Russel’. A man of about fifty, with a balding head, Alec was revered as a great yogi, and having been in SY from the beginning he was close to Mataji. But he was also rather aloof, so I kept out of his way. But travelling back on the tube, I found myself in the same carriage and saw his little daughter, ‘Camilla’. An enchanting girl with bubbly blonde hair, she was reaching out from her mother’s arms to everyone around. Diane spoke of her adoringly, but was tight-lipped about her mother:

‘We only put up with her because she’s Camilla’s mother,’ she said. Apparently ‘Karen’ was ‘horrible’ and made Alec suffer so much that ‘Mother’ wanted to end their marriage. Camilla, however, was a great saint, she said, the first of many to be born in SY, first of a new race of ‘realised’ people, destined to lead the world into a new spiritual age. Lowering her voice, Diane confided that there was a photo of Camilla sitting on Mataji’s knee, just like the Madonna and child. Yes, Alec’s little daughter was a very important person indeed. I kept a wary distance from her too.

Regular script conferences for the TV series, Angels meant that I was in town when there was another SY meeting at the Chelsham Road ashram in Clapham. But, sitting on the floor with the devotees, I felt out of place. Most of the women were wearing saris and the men had scarves to protect the chakra in the throat. However, nobody seemed to mind me and when Mataji finished her talk, I joined the queue with all the rest, offering their problems to her feet. The woman in front of me got a telling off. Mataji accused her of having made a play for another Sahaja Yogini’s husband, telling her that the deities who ruled the chakras would be so angered by her immoral behaviour that she would ‘lose her vibrations’. Looking at her hands, she added:

‘You’ve lost them already, haven’t you?’ The culprit did not seem too sure, but muttering agreement, she was sent off with a flea in her ear. Then it was my turn. It was embarrassing. Standing beside Mataji, looking down on the kneeling petitioners, Alec could hear every word. But I was desperate to have a baby and this might be my chance. So, I went ahead, telling Mataji that I wanted to remarry, but that recurring bouts of cystitis and other mysterious ailments were spoiling my relationships. But Mataji did not understand, so Alec had to explain, covering his embarrassment with a veneer of amusement. And after all, there were no words of wisdom. Instead of hope, there was only humiliation.

I might have been put off, except that now I had begun to feel vibrations coming from the photograph. I had felt vibrations before, independently of SY, when I was at Avebury for the filming of my screenplay, Astercote. Only I had failed to recognise it for what it was. So, whether Mataji was the source of the phenomenon was open to question. I also reserved judgement on SY’s claim that she was a goddess. However, the lady was definitely something, so, reminding myself that humility is a requirement of spiritual growth, I accepted the experience of vibrations on its own terms and continued to meditate as I always had, i.e. plugging directly into the mains, God, rather than via Mataji, the adaptor. But then Diane invited me to my first puja.³ It would be a powerful experience, she said, which would accelerate my progress.

It was Diwali and the puja room at Chelsham Road was full. Everyone was sitting on the floor, hands open to receive, listening intently as Mataji’s talk came to an end. Then there was movement. Someone pressed a flower into my hand and pushed me into the interminable queue to offer it at her feet. One by one the followers prostrated and holding them down with her foot, Mataji surveyed the state of their kundalini. Her comments were loud and frank, but everyone seemed to find them amusing. And then, at last it was my turn. Kneeling, I presented my flower. Mataji made me bend over and held my head to the ground with her foot. Then, suddenly she started shouting, saying my kundalini was very big and bright. Confused, I got up and turned to go. Mataji shouted after me:

‘Who are you?’ But I had not heard. So, she asked the people around her: ‘Who is she? Who brought her along?’ I heard later that Mataji was so pleased with me that she rewarded Diane with a string of garnet beads. Surprised and rather alarmed, suddenly I found myself under pressure to start SY meetings in Manchester. I was dismayed.

Luckily two Sheffield yogis, ‘Greg Carrick’ and his sister, took me under their wing. Not overly pious, they enjoyed a good laugh and I liked them. They said, not to worry; all I had to do was book a room and ask a few shops to put up postcards. They themselves would set up the chakra chart and bring a cassette player with one of Mataji’s talks.

The first meeting was well supported. All the Sheffield people came, and ‘Tricia’ and ‘Simon Rose’ came from Derby. He was a hospital doctor and she had studied law. Eyes shining, they declared the Manchester meeting a big step forward and that Jerusalem would surely be built in England after all. A couple of Indian boys came too with several new people drawn by the postcards. Afterwards, everyone came back to my place to meditate. And as my cat, Boubles sat staring up at the top of their heads, one of them cried:

‘She can see our kundalinis!’ It was all a bit much. But there was more. Tricia told me that having the little group of S-Yogis at my house would definitely affect the surrounding area, clearing out negative vibrations and ‘bhoots’ (Sanskrit – demons). Quite often, she said, as a result of such cleansing, major fires broke out near a S-Yogi’s home. Alarmed, I glanced at Greg. He was looking at his feet. But Tricia assured me, it would be a good fire, a cleansing fire and that I would be quite safe. I might now be ‘one of the elect’, but I was not too sure about the cleansing fire and thought some of the elect were getting a bit carried away with themselves. So it came as a shock when, soon afterwards, the house of my immediate neighbour exploded in flames. They were throwing the baby from the upstairs window even as I called the fire brigade. Worse still, next morning as I queued at the local newsagents, I overheard two youths talking in low voices about ‘frying darkies’. My neighbours were Caribbean. Was it really kundalini at work, or was it racism?

Script writing for the Angels series involved a lot of research and left me little time to prepare for the weekly SY meetings. Besides, I was unhappy at being pushed into such an active role. Apparently I was expected to make Sahaja Yoga ‘take off’ in Manchester and I was not at all sure I wanted it to take off, not if it resulted in burning down people’s houses. I did not like it that I was expected to attend meetings in Sheffield either. There was a lot I didn’t like. But I did like the relaxed atmosphere of the Sheffield meetings; that is till one night, Tricia and Simon Rose turned up. And at the end of the meeting, the moment when established S-Yogis ‘worked on’⁴ new people, as soon as Tricia started working on me, I saw stars. They were swarming in from all sides and soon I was losing consciousness. The S-Yogis explained this away as a violent reaction to my ‘badha’ coming out, (‘badha’ – Sanskrit for badness) or of course it could have been due to the negativity of the new, ‘funny’ people in the front row. ‘Funny’ was the SY term for people who were ‘caught up’, i.e. infested by bhoots like those who had been in dangerous sects such as Transcendental Meditation – TM. But the problem did not emanate from the front row. It had come from Tricia. The minute she touched me, my system went haywire. It was as if I was allergic to her.

Then I discovered I really was allergic. After being constantly ill for so long, this was a turning point. It all began when I heard an allergy specialist talking on the radio. And recognising myself in what he was saying about allergy sufferers, I determined to go and see him. The drive down to his practice in Somerset was lined by rainbows, single, double, even triple. And when I turned out to be allergic to many everyday foods, I began to hope. I would feel better once the allergens were eliminated from my system. But the diet was socially restricting and caused me embarrassment at my first SY weekend in Derby. I was staying with a young couple called ‘Derek and Naomi Dewer’. If Derek was quiet, Naomi was the opposite, a good-looking red head, generous, outgoing and rather ‘bolshy’. And as she and I sparked one another off, I decided to keep out of her way. Then suddenly, as everyone was leaving for the puja, I was told to wait behind and come on later with Naomi. Mataji’s ploys for dealing with problems in the collective were legendary and realising we had been thrown together for a reason, I gracefully accepted to help change Naomi’s baby before we left for the puja together.

The ceremony was to be held in the Roses’ garden and Tricia, who was responsible for all the catering was scuttling about in a state of near panic. I watched her from a wary distance. But she was far too busy to bother about me, especially with Diane at my side, showing off her new husband. Gushing with joy, she said:

‘Kenneth and I met in the temple – so auspicious!’ ‘Ken’ was about Diane’s age and looked like a businessman, but said he was in politics. He was star struck by his actress wife and after so much disappointment, Diane bathed in the adulation. But having satisfied her own romantic dreams, now she could hardly wait to do the same for me. She insisted I go up to wash ‘Mother’s’ feet. This was a ritual normally reserved for the unmarried, i.e. virgins (a detail more honoured in its omission than its observance). Eager to secure me a good S-Yogi husband, Diane pushed me forward. She even tried to get Alec in on the matchmaking, talking me up, telling him about the Manchester meetings. But, true to his reputation as a great yogi and father of a saint, he was suitably inscrutable. In the afternoon everyone drove out to the country for a shared picnic, where another leader, an Australian called ‘Miles’ noticed me eating my special diet. Being different was a crime in Sahaja Yoga, and Miles was known to throw his weight about. So, when he came over to speak to me, I expected the worst – to be labelled, ‘uncollective’. But, to my relief, Miles realised I was not being uncollective by choice. I had a problem and it had to be dealt with. He would speak to Mataji.

That word, ‘collective’ troubled me. If being collective was a primary virtue, then what did it mean? Obviously it had something to do with solidarity; being with your ‘brothers and sisters’. But if I had understood correctly, it also meant going to every possible SY meeting, and that was never going to be easy for me. For one thing, a writer needs solitude; for another, I had neither the time nor the money to be always hopping off to London and heaven knew where else. And quite honestly, I did not want to be with my brothers and sisters all the time. It was a strain being with some of them for a few minutes. So, I took the question into my next prayer time. And the answer came in a vision. I saw a blue deity, who pointed to my heart, giving me to understand that true collectivity is in the heart. So, it was all about love! It was about loving your neighbour, just as Jesus taught! Then the deity put his hand on my head, blessed me and disappeared. It was some time before I realised I had seen Krishna, deity of the visshudhi chakra in the throat. Since collectivity is the quality of that chakra, what I had seen made perfect sense in SY terms, while, at the same time relating to the Christian teaching of love. So, reassured, I meditated with more conviction, but as I always had meditated, without the photograph, plugging directly into God. After years of meditation, I had no need of a mediator. It was what saved me from Mataji’s control.

Mataji had a bee in her bonnet about ‘sects’ and how dangerous they all were. She said Rajneesh, Scientology and TM were the worst, which as a past student of Rajneesh herself was rich. But she also had something against Theosophy and a lot of other things, including and especially the Catholic Church. But for her, everything was bad apart from Sahaja Yoga. So, she drew in victims from other sects, pronouncing their gurus ‘false gurus’, and herself the one true guru and saviour. This anti sect stance gave her credibility. For those, who like me had never been in a sect, it was reassuring. But Mataji was not interested in saving anyone. She was just seeing off the opposition. Then, she discovered I was a writer, though she got it into her head that I was a journalist. And announcing she wanted somebody to write a TV series about the dangers of sects, she invited me to her house to talk it through. I promised that the next time I had a business meeting in London, I would send her word.

I arrived at the house in Brompton Road, tired after a script conference and with a train to catch. And I was kept waiting. Mataji was having her afternoon rest. I was about to leave when, finally, I was summoned to her room. To my surprise, I found Alec there, lurking like a shadow in the corner. Had Mataji really been resting? I had the impression he was ill at ease, but, as I really could not be any more embarrassed than I already was, when Mataji asked about my background, I spoke frankly. I told her about my father and said that allergy was behind my health problems and finished by telling her that I wanted a baby. Mataji murmured:

‘You’ve left it a bit late.’ Then, she turned to Alec: ‘It’s alright,’ she said and waited as he left without a word. So, he had been there to throw me out if I caused trouble, a sort of spiritual bouncer. And now I was alone with Mataji, sitting next to her on the bed. It was then I told her:

‘I love Jesus.’

It came out of my mouth like a rabbit out of a hat. I was astonished. I had no idea that I loved Jesus. But the minute I said it, I knew it was true. Mataji had drawn the information out from some secret place, deep inside of me. She was looking at the centre of my forehead, murmuring that, yes, she could see I loved Jesus, that it was written there. But when she passed her hand across my brow, I became uncomfortable. I was not familiar with the passage in the Apocalypse where God seals his own on their foreheads.⁵ Mataji herself had said no one should ever touch the forehead and especially not fake gurus, because they closed the gate opened by Jesus in the agnya chakra, blocking spiritual ascent. Mataji, of course was a ‘real guru’, so it was alright. But it did not feel right. Then she started talking about the dangers of sects, saying that as a journalist I should report on it. I explained that I was not a journalist, that I wrote fiction and had no contacts in the field of TV documentary. But I could try to get a radio series off the ground. It was then I remembered the voice in the cathedral: ‘One day you will write a book for God.’ Unsure of my ground, I muttered hesitantly about writing something for God. There was a barely perceptible pulling back. Then Mataji started telling me which sects to focus on and who to contact for information. She said that Tricia Rose and Ken Shapiro had been teachers of TM and would help with my research. The interview was coming to an end. But before I left, Mataji wanted to give me something. She went into her wardrobe and looked among her saris. I was wearing beige, so she took out a sari of embroidered beige silk and gave it to me. And at last I could escape. Taking a taxi, I caught the last train home.

So, I had learnt that Ken and Tricia had both been in TM. But Tricia’s touch had made me black out. My brain was in a whirl. Was it possible there was some link between TM and me? Looking for a sign, I went to my bible and let it fall open. And I read an Old Testament story of a warrior riding into the city to do battle with a sorcerer. Assuming the sorcerer represented the false gurus I took the series as the book I was to write for God. It never occurred to me that Mataji herself was the sorcerer. But then, Mataji’s eagerness to expose the false gurus covered up the truth. It was a double bluff. And the fact that she saw me as a journalist meant that she thought me dangerous too. One day I might write the truth about SY. So she was taking steps to neutralise me, ordering me to write for her, a false trail to divert me from my vocation.

Having secured a commission from the BBC, I got down to work. But researching sects was like bathing in poison. It made me physically sick. Then I got a letter from Diane. I had looked on her as a friend, sharing my hopes and fears. But now she reprimanded me, saying I was ‘the lowest of the low’ for ‘sharing my negativity with others’. And I should ‘watch it, or I would be thrown out of Sahaja Yoga’. Hurt and confused, I showed her letter to my Sheffield friends. Greg said it was probably inspired by Ken. Like Tricia, he too had been damaged by TM and was persecuted by demon voices. He advised me to be careful. But, I reasoned, if TM was dangerous, all the more reason to expose it. Surely Mataji would protect me. Only, Ken Shapiro was supposed to be helping with my research. How was that going to work?

Early in 1983 I moved to Wimbledon. My little cottage felt like a present from God and I loved it dearly. Now I was on the spot for my work, and with the first TV series of Jonny Briggs under my belt, my career took a leap forward. Life was good. I had plenty of friends and I was happy – except that the biological clock was ticking. If only my health was better. Did SY have the answer? But Mataji was keeping me on a string. Soon after the move to London, she had summoned me for another interview at Brompton Road. But at the appointed hour, two men arrived. One was a high-born Indian, a professor of psychiatry, the other his colleague, ‘Charles Ashe’. Charles was about my age, white, stocky, brown hair and rather full of himself. And so, with an important new male playing court to her, Mataji thrust me aside. I was still an outsider in SY, even at Greg’s wedding. He had been given permission to marry the girl of his choice, a French girl called ‘Isabelle’, and he was over the moon. So, taking a bouquet of fragrant roses from my garden, I offered them to the bride.

Then, in July 1983, I attended my first international event, the Guru puja. Tapping into the spirituality of thousands of years, the puja was a Hindu form of worship, with incense and offerings to the deity, accompanied by Sanskrit litanies. Except that in SY, it was Mataji herself who was worshipped as guru of all the gurus and goddess over and above all other gods. Central to the ritual was the foot washing, when chosen girls washed Mataji’s feet, letting first the water fall into a bowl, then the milk and honey, the resulting mix called ‘Amrit’, or ‘ambrosia of life’ passed round for everyone to drink.

That year the puja was held in the grounds of a house near Brighton. Arriving late and missing my turn on the washing up rota, I immediately felt out of step. Everyone seemed to know everyone except me. At least it gave me the opportunity to be still. And in the late afternoon, walking alone through the trees, I was at peace. In the distance I could see groups of people enjoying a barbecue, Greg and his new bride among them. For a moment I felt left out. But when night fell and I retreated to my solitary tent, looking at the starry sky, I was glad to be alone. Next morning, I went to the house where someone showed me how to put on my new sari. Then, properly dressed, I started out for the puja site in the garden. But on the way I came across Alec with his wife, Karen. She was telling him off, and he was just standing there, head bowed, looking thin in his white Indian tunic. I walked on past. It was none of my business. It was the second time I had seen Alec’s wife. And it would be the last. Within months, Karen would be quietly sent away.

Puja over, the havan began. A hearth had been laid in the grass and everyone was given a quantity of dried herbs, bark and seed to throw on to the fire along with their problems and the problems of the world. On the periphery, I watched Miles, the Australian, name the false gurus before giving them to the fire. It was powerful, and months later, when my menstrual cycle was upset, Diane told me that the puja had cleared out my ‘void’ (abdomen). But it wasn’t that. I was ill.

In the autumn, my father visited. Seriously ill from advanced heart disease, he wanted to see where I lived before he died. In the two or three days he stayed with me, I finally came to realise he loved me. And one evening, as we sat together, he told me something he had never spoken of before; that my great, great grandparents were brother and sister. Coming from my dying father, I took this seriously. I knew that my grandmother had been hyperactive and given to sudden bouts of melancholia and rage. My father used to work himself up into rages too, his colour turning livid green as he struck out. There was a thread of misery running through my family, bringing with it illness, heart disease, breast cancer and allergy. Were ‘the sins of the fathers’ visiting themselves on the children? It could explain a great deal, including a recent dream: I was in the audience of a vast stadium, when a thoroughbred horse cantered into the arena. It was white and very beautiful. And as it danced, everyone applauded. But out of the darkness a monster appeared and came up behind. The horse bucked and pranced and tried to get away. But it couldn’t, because the monster was attached to it by a thread, a thread so fine you couldn’t see it. So, wherever the horse went, the monster followed. And the monster was eating the horse. I was the horse. This dream sparked a radio play called, The Labyrinth, one of the best things I ever wrote. I had not read Jung, yet I had tapped into the collective unconscious. This was a play about everybody. But as Easter of 1984 approached, I was still in the dark. If the monster was something from my father’s family, then what was it, and what could I do about it?

Already working on the new BBC TV series, EastEnders, and with another serial of Jonny Briggs and a novel to write, I was overloaded. But I kept doggedly on with the research into sects. S-Yogis previously in sects came forward on Mataji’s orders with accounts of their experiences. Tricia gave me a written testimony of TM. But Ken prevaricated. And when I reminded him, he threatened me. He said that people who spoke out against TM were usually attacked and if I went ahead with ‘this sect series’, they might set fire to my house and threaten my life. There was no way he was going to give evidence against TM. Then Tricia backed out. So, now I had to start over, with new contacts. My heart sank. Then, after a long wait for a coronary bypass, my father died on the operating table, his heart muscle too weak to sew together. My mother told me to finish my work and come up later for the funeral. So, I was sitting at my computer, when I felt my father watching me from behind. He’d been keen on computers and was learning a new system before he died, and he was thrilled by my word processing. I heard him several times, saying:

‘Eeh! My little girl! Look at my little girl!’ And when I went up for the funeral, he was there, chivvying George who was driving me to the funeral directors. George heard him too, shouting, ‘Get a move on! You’re late!’ But his body was just an empty shell. It was astonishing to think my father had ever been in it.

The sect series had got me into a mess. I wished I had never started it. But after the funeral I had to face up to it. And now there was a silly fuss about a tape. I had been told there was a recording of Mataji speaking against sects. Assuming she would be only too pleased to air her views, I arranged to pick it up at Alec’s offices in London. (Alec and Karen had a business whose offices gave work to several S-Yogis, including my informant.) Accepting the tape from under his nose, I assumed the transaction had Alec’s blessing. But I got into hot water for it. He was furious. Mataji would be in danger if I spoke out. Did I want to see her attacked? Her precious work of saving the world was far too important to take risks. She had to keep her head down, while her followers took the assaults for her. Summoned to Brompton Road for a dressing down, I found Alec there before me. And when he vehemently denied all knowledge of the tape, I was astonished. And once again, the series was blocked. I began to doubt. Did Mataji, or did she not want a series about sects? And why on earth was she, the all-powerful not prepared to stick out her own neck, but needed me to do it for her? If she was what she said she was, ‘shakti’ of God, incarnation of the Holy Spirit, surely she could deal with it herself! Then Mataji made a big show of saving the situation. There was a journalist in Switzerland, she said, who had done a lot of work on sects. He would give me all the evidence I needed. And I would meet him the following weekend at the Sahasrara puja. I prevaricated. The puja was to be held in France and I was not accustomed to flying round the world at the drop of a hat. Nor was I well enough for the long coach trip planned by the UK group. But Mataji insisted. She would cure me. She would look after me. I could fly with her to Paris! What could I say in the face of such generosity? I booked a seat on Mataji’s flight. And then, of course, she changed her booking.

Making my solitary way through the Paris suburbs on public transport, I was exhausted by the time I reached the ashram. And I knew absolutely no one. But I was invited to help prepare the flower swastika (symbol of Ganesha) on the threshold of Mataji’s room. And next day, I got a lift to the puja location. After dumping my things on a bed in the dormitory, I went to eat. And at last I was among friends; Greg and a few others I had come to know through him. After Mataji’s talk, we all walked in the grounds, taking in the strangeness of our surroundings; a baroque chateau turned boarding school, vacated for the holidays. Only the peacocks paraded noisily in the Spartan atmosphere.

But early next morning, I was wakened by an Italian girl, clomping about like a whole classroom of boys. I gave her an angry look, which only made her more noisy, which made me more angry. But anyway, it was almost time to dress for the puja. This was to be held in the chateau’s Roman Catholic chapel. And with everyone sitting in pews, it felt oddly like a normal church service. Was it still consecrated? And if so, did SY have permission to use it? Mataji hated Catholicism and people were speaking darkly of all the ‘work’ that had to be done to ‘clear the place out’ (purify the place of Catholic bhoots and badha) before she could hold her puja there. I was sitting next to an Englishwoman called ‘Madeleine’. A friend of Diane, Madeleine and her husband were also actors, and they had two children. Reassuringly plump and with an honest face, Madeleine was nervous, as if expecting something to happen. And she became more nervous as time went on. At the end of the puja, Mataji started giving out presents. And as usual, she made a game of it. She called up one person, gave them a gift, then called somebody else and told the first person to give the gift to the other. I was called, not to receive but to give a present to the noisy Italian girl. But, my name was called again later, this time to receive a new silk sari ‘in recognition of my work on the sect series’. It was typical of the way Mataji manipulated us. Her present trapped me into completing the work. My heart sank. Then, finally, she called up Madeleine’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Deirdre, and under her mother’s uneasy gaze, declared her ‘betrothed’ to a young Austrian man.

Afterwards, at Mataji’s command, I was taken back to the Paris ashram. And in the evening, sitting at the back of the room, part of the crowd watching Mataji watching TV, I too felt uneasy. The gift of the sari made things difficult. I wanted to get out of writing the series, not to be held up as a heroine for doing it. But then, I remembered how at the very beginning Mataji had picked up my thought. And I had the idea of sending her a telepathic message, asking her to release me. So, I projected my thought towards her and, apparently watching TV, Mataji snorted. I pleaded. I told her the work had upset and confused me and I needed space to reforge my relationship with God, before doing something so dangerous. Mataji brooded and soon afterwards went up to her room to hold court. She was summoning people one after the other. And then it was my turn.