Real Life Is Horror: Nancy Lynn Jason and the Divine Light Mission

This was originally just going to be a write up on Nancy Lynn Jason but I just couldn't help dropping in some more information (for context/background sake) on the Divine light mission.

This site has so much info if you want to read more about it- I was on there for an hour, actually.

Also, the doctor you'll see mentioned near the end of the post is pretty sketchy.

I do hope Nancy just took off and lived safely and happily off the radar or something.

Here we go.

Then eighteen year old Nancy Lynn Jason was last seen on the 20^th of July 1977 in Bethesda, Maryland.

Nancy was a “Premie”, a member of a religious group called “Divine Light Mission” which was founded in India in the sixties by leader Shri Hans Ji Maharaj.

The Western sect of the group is classed by many as a cult.

Maharaja’s youngest son, Guru Maharaj Ji (later Prem Rawat) brought the Divine light mission to the west against his families wishes, spreading branches of the DLM across the US, England and other countries in Europe. Eventually the family split in anger and took control of the Indian branch, leaving the entitled and self proclaimed "perfect master" and teenage, Guru Maharaj Ji, with his own faction in the west.

(Source: Wikipedia)

As a result of the feud, he began to erase the Indian origins of the religion from his western version of the DLM, and shut down the centers and churches he had built with his family.

His marriage to a 24 year old western airline hostess who he dubbed a real Goddess (apparently he previously preached celibacy) and his shift in belief and image (from traditional clothing to business suits) caused an unfixable grudge between himself and his family.

The turmoil and controversy inspired a massive drop in the number of members; almost 80% of American Premies were lost by the late seventies.

Previous members spoke of being harassed into donating cash- sometimes large sums of savings (much to the protest of their families) and other times a dollar to be paid on a daily basis. Many working Premies donated large chunks of their monthly salary to the centers.

Meditation was a big part of being a member, there was to be no smoking, no alcohol, no sex, no violence and no eating meat.

It's believed that Nancy lived at one of the premie houses; it was a house specifically intended to one day becomes a "divine medical school".

Nancy was epileptic, and the onsite premie doctor, a man named Robert Hallowitz, was allegedly treating her condition.

According to some sources Hallowitz believed that meditation was the key to controlling one’s mind (via the Pineal gland) and believed that, Prem Rawat, his young teenage leader, was some kind of omnipotent Supreme Being.

(source: prem-rawat-bio.org)

He was not the only doctor to worship at the feet of Maharaj Ji- his partner at the " medical house” Dr. John Horton was also a true believer in his leader.

You can read one of his papers here [X]

So brainwashed they were that even when the “perfect master” was hospitalized with an ulcer and deemed overweight and unhealthy, his devotees concocted theories and reasons as to why. “His physical body is just like ours, but his soul is perfect” being one example.

Despite Rawat’s teachings that meditation was a cure all no matter what a person was suffering, his own health issues contradicted his teachings. The perfect leader was hospitalized for his ill health and his body was described as damaged by stress and obesity. So much for his healthy diet.

Nancy was planning to go to a DLM meeting in Florida at the time she went missing.

Apparently she was last seen collecting medication at her place. As with a lot of young people in the seventies she was known to get around by hitchhiking- However she neglected to take the clothes she had laid out, a camera and cash that she had packed for the trip.

According to thiswordpress blog (great post, check it out) which links to a Baltimor news report

Hallowitz had his license taken from him in the nineties. He had been proclaiming to patients that he too was a supreme being, curing his female patients through the power of impregnation.

(source : w3.health.state.ny.us)

"The investigation began March 15 when a woman called the board alleging that she'd had sex with Dr. Hallowitz for four years as part of her treatment for chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome. They met up to three times a week for lunchtime sex and to smoke marijuana or hashish, she said. The woman, Patient A, said Dr. Hallowitz warned her that "those that 'turned from him' would not regain their health," according to the board's report. She allegedly ended the relationship in October, 1990. Since then, the report says, she has attempted suicide twice."

"Patient E, according to the doctor's medical records, consulted him for symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome for a month in 1987. The woman said Dr. Hallowitz talked about a group he'd like her to join, saying he had a secret mission "bigger than the CIA," the report says. Dr. Hallowitz also reportedly "told her stories about people who had displeased him meeting untimely deaths."

This is a age progression picture of what Nancy could look like now.