08/09/98-1986

Harikesa Took "Vibhuti" for 10 Years

Germany (VNN) - by Ravindra Svarupa dasa, for the GBC Executive Committee - 8 August, 1998

The Executive Committee learned yesterday that Harikesa Swami has, without his knowledge, been regularly taking powerful psychotropic medications for the last ten years.

In 1988, Chitesvara dasa, a well-known tantric healer from Orissa, prescribed daily doses of a therapeutic powder that he provided to Harikesa Swami.

Harikesa Swami took it daily until February 1998, when he abruptly stopped taking the medicine. Chitesvara said the blue-colored powder, which he called "vibhuti," was the ash left from his fire yajna.

However, a state criminal forensic laboratory in Sweden reported on August 5th that the power contained two commercially manufactured psychotropic drugs. They are Trifluoperazine (brand name, Stelazine), which is an antianxiety and antipsychotic drug. The other drug, Trihexyphenidyl (brand name, Artaine) is an anti-parkinsonian medication. Its purpose seems to be to counteract the side effects of Stelazine, which sometimes produces symptoms characteristic of Parkinson's disease.

Devotees who had become suspicious of the "vibhuti" submitted it for forensic analysis.

A psychiatrist consulted about the drugs and their possible effect on Harikesa Swami said that Harikesa's recent extreme behavior was typical of the effect of a sudden withdrawal from the medication contained in the "vibhuti." Physicians are careful to reduce the dosage of these drugs gradually, he said. Otherwise, there is a great danger of an induced psychosis He described Harikesa Swami's recent behavior as "episodic paranoid schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations." This, he said, is a the kind of reaction produced by abrupt withdrawal from the drugs found in the "vibhuti."

The Executive Committee arranged yesterday for Harikesa Swami's current therapist to be informed of these facts.