GURU BUSTERS

India is a subcontinent hobbled by religious fanaticism and political corruption, a country where gurus are rich and influential members of the ruling elite. So say the Rationalists, a seldom-met but vocal group of Indian eccentrics who expose the fakirs and faith-healers who prey upon the poor, the sick and the ignorant.
B. Premanand, 73, India's most celebrated living rationalist, can eat glass, stop his heartbeat, and bury himself alive--all to prove that such feats are not "miracles", as fraudulent gurus claim, but tricks any mortal can perform. The rationalists also support blood-donation programs, which in the past have been crippled by caste and religious considerations, boycott universities offering courses such as "Vedic Mathematics," and demand the scientific proof behind daft treatments such as pranic healing, yogic chemotherapy, and urinology. They are not just fighting cash-fat gurus and millennia of accumulated superstition. They are fighting for the very soul of modern India.

Text by Andrew Marshall.