One scene stands out in my mind. A young Prem Rawat, who still regards himself as a living God and now directs both the current cult Elan Vital and its sham, non-profit offspring "The Prem Rawat Foundation," lands at Houston International Airport. Guru Maharaji gives a short speech to his devotees near the runway, on a platform stage. He wears garlands of flowers during his brief lecture, and, standing up to leave, he heaves the hefty amount of garlands to one of his security officers, who remains onstage, and exits.

Moments after "The Lord of the Universe" has departed, the remaining security man breaks apart the garlands, handing bits and pieces to clamoring devotees. The camera zooms in on the pleading, outstretched hands begging for small bits of flower. When lucky devotees receive some manna, the bearers run to the back of the crowd, laughing ecstatically, holding the flower afixed directly below their noses. The fact that, seconds earlier, these flowers were touched by the living body of God, induces the flower-snarfers to be transported into a crazed state of bliss. All this is deftly captured in the documentary.

In one short sequence, the screen reveals how two girls, presumably friends, joyously laugh and giggle, nearly falling to the ground, due to their happiness in receiving a flower worn by Maharaji. As the laughing girls buckle, gleefully inebriated with their fortune, a lone, teenaged boy lurking in the background, who also received a god-touched flower, walks closer, holding the flower afixed to his nose. Keeping himself at a safe distance from the girls while clutching his own bounty, he glances and smiles approvingly toward the girls, indicating he shares and understands their mutual, newfound advantage. Meanwhile, throngs of other devotees have not received flowers, and their wails of desperation and misery are overheard on the soundtrack.

Among other successes, this documentary successfully juxtaposes the duality of the flower sniffers' religious rapture amid the flowerless followers' wails of suffering. The scene shows how, in the context of a cult, some lucky followers become privileged with a deserved or undeserved honor, while their equals unexplainably do not. The disadvantaged are then ostracized precisely because of their misfortune. Oddly, there was no evidence exemplifying the notion of sharing the god-touched flowers equally amongst the cult members attending this event. Granted, had the devotees offered to share their god-touched flowers with the have-nots, it would still not have appeared as anything less than eccentric cult behavior. All the same, privileged followers in no way shared their bounty with the less fortunate, preferring, instead, to ecstatically commune with their precious flower amongst other advantaged premies, in plain view of the painfully disadvantaged.

In a similar vein, the video addresses this duality in the context of receiving Knowledge. The videographers interview ex-premies, who convey that some individuals are selected for initiation, some are not. By weeding out the crowds before and during the Knowledge session, ex-cult members contend that Maharaji's organization artificially increases the aspirants' desire to become initiated. As Mahatmas purposely pluck the rejects from the room, the remaining inductees' need for belonging becomes bolstered, and their intensive belief in Maharaji becomes rigidified.

By privileging some and not others, the cult creates its own artificial mystique. While some followers reach levels of ecstasy heretofore unknown, others are cast into an ocean of misery and despair. Indeed, the documentary depicts how the cult was planting the seeds of its own demise, even in the early years, by invoking the tools of deception, fraud, and unfair advantage, for the sole aim of self-propagation.

This documentary exemplifies excellent journalistic skills while exposing the high crimes of an unholy family.