Monica Vecchio said: "I've known Mr MacLaren for many years," referring to SES leader Leon MacLaren. "I met him when I was a very young woman in my 20s. For anybody to call anything Mr MacLaren started a cult is just ridiculous. I've never met a man who was more a man in the greatest sense of the word than Mr MacLaren was." In 2012 David Boddy, former SES spokesman and Thatcher press secretary, describes MacLaren as "my first mentor" and "my first real teacher", "He knew things others didn’t appear to know, and he was totally fearless when it came to proclaiming them. He couldn’t abide ‘experts’ or religion but he did believe that humankind could be lifted out of its torpor and misery by the power of philosophy, or love of wisdom.". He said "the London Evening Standard sought to brand MacLaren a 'cult leader' because of his Indian connections.", the book led to "severe misunderstanding, and in some cases libel and slander". He points out that "the School of Economic Science, which has never had a political or religious agenda; it is, in fact, a rather interesting, if somewhat pedantic, philosophical school in the classical Platonic tradition." According to the SES's 2013 website, its critics "greatly misrepresent the aims and activities of the School, but they have alerted it to the need to provide more information about the way its courses and associated activities progress." SES representative Ian Mason responded to criticism in Jules Evans’ 2013 book. He said: "The idea is not to break down the ego for the sake of it, but rather to put you in touch with yourself, to help you distinguish what's real or not, and to nourish and strengthen the mind. But perhaps there was too unquestioning an attitude to the leader in those earlier years. People took things that MacLaren said and applied them without intelligence." About the parties reported by Evans, Mason said, "The balls were a response to requests from young women for opportunities to meet some eligible young men in the SES and were pretty innocent occasions. I should emphasise that there was no coercion involved." In a 2013 interview with Voice of America Mason stated that life is a voyage of discovery and deepening understanding and the courses are designed to support this. The participants are the judges as to the successes of the programs, no