John Roger and MSIA
Postscript
This article was originally written in 1983 after I was approached by several highly placed members of M.S.I.A. who felt betrayed by John-Roger Hinkins. Since I was somewhat friendly with J.R. (we had met on several occasions at his home about my research on Paul Twitchell, shabd yoga, and Radhasoami), I called him on the telephone to get his response to the three main allegations made against him (plagiarism, sexual manipulation, and charlatanism). J.R. did not take kindly to my questions and did not want me to do any further research on him. Indeed, after that phone conversation in the Fall of 1983 I was subjected to a series of threats, including several made against my life and the lives of my friends/informants.
The situation reached a peak the following year on October 5, 1984, when my home was ransacked and a number of my research files were purloined. Documentary evidence (outlined in a special issue of UCSM entitled "The Criminal Activities of John-Roger Hinkins") implicates John-Roger with the Del Mar robbery, as well as engineering a smear campaign replete with death threats against his critics. Subsequently major news organizations began to investigate J.R. A number of provocative articles were published which exposed John-Roger in a negative light, including an extensive two part critique in The Los Angeles Times.
It should be noted, however, that when The J.R. Controversy first appeared I had to go to press without using the names of my informants, each of whom declined to go public because they feared for their safety. Thus, even though my critique was the first of its kind ever done on J.R. and the Movement, I was more or less a sitting duck for his retaliatory efforts. J.R. waged a systematic campaign against me by setting up a phony front organization entitled the "Coalition for Civil and Spiritual Rights." In order to mail out his threatening letters, J.R. rented a mail box in West Los Angeles under three pseudonyms: Peter Davidson, Ph.D., Michael Hunt, and Kip Ferguson. J.R. made one devastating mistake, though, in creating his front: he personally paid and signed for the mail box, betraying in one stroke of the pen his claim that he was not aware of C.C.S.R.
After discovering J.R.'s plot (and after receiving some of the stolen materials back which contained John-Roger's handwriting in the margins), I wrote another article which detailed his criminal activities. I also went on a couple of television programs, including the nationally syndicated Now It Can Be Told, and mentioned on air how J.R. was involved in a number of illegal dealings. Since all of my allegations were based upon extensive documentation, J.R. has never taken any legal action.
The ironic twist in all of this, however, is that J.R. is now more popular than ever. This is primarily due to his co-authoring a number of best selling books, with such catchy titles as Life 101 and Wealth 101. Despite a flurry of negative publicity around the world (the U.K. press has been especially hard on John-Roger and his Movement), J.R. has shown a remarkable resilience to rebound from adversity.