human being. He spoke humbly, conversationally, and without any apparent notion that he was God. In fact he seemed to consciously undercut the divine stage show and the passionate words said in his honor. Devotees and mahatmas speak of him as the guy who will out-Christ Christ, yet the guru himself claims, not that he is divine, but that his Knowledge is". Sociologist James Downton observed that from his early beginnings Rawat appealed to his followers to give up the concepts and beliefs that might impede them from fully experiencing the "Knowledge" or life force, but this did not prevent them from adopting a fairly rigid set of ideas about his divinity, and to project millennial preconceptions onto him and the movement. Stephen A. Kent, in the preface of his book From Slogans to Mantras, described his disappointment at hearing what he considered to be a poorly delivered and banal message by Rawat in 1974, and was surprised that his companions spoke glowingly about the same message. Prem Rawat has never asked for payment for teaching Knowledge but it was reported that in the 1970s, some Indian mahatmas asked would-be initiates to empty their pockets and give what they had prior to receiving Knowledge. In 1974, Rawat began using Western initiators to teach the techniques of Knowledge and continued to transform his teachings in order to appeal to a Western context. By the early 1980s Prem Rawat had dropped the title "Guru" and eliminated the last of the Indian aspects. Rawat does not see himself as bound by conventional beliefs or practices of any institutionalized religion or tradition-honored world view. He is essentially an iconoclast who plots his route by pragmatic decisions to meet the demands and challenges that occur in his public career as a teacher striving to convince people of the value of self-knowledge. Rawat claims that practicing Knowledge will allow the practitioner to experience joy, self-understanding, calmness, peace and contentment. Practitioners describe Knowledge as internal and highly individual, with no associated social structure, liturgy, ethical practices or articles of faith. According to Ron Geaves, Rawat speaks spontaneously, with an emphasis on an individual's subjective experience rather than on a body of theoretical knowledge, and he draws upon real life experiences, including his own, rather than on interpretations of the scriptures. He is uncluttered by tradition in the manner of a contemporary Kabir or Nanak. Rawat advises students