Jonathon Cainer, Premie and Astrologer

Jonathon Cainer was the most famous, successful and richest public Astrologer in the world. He attained this zenith by predicting the results of 10 USA Presidential elections, all the Nobel Prize winners in Economics and the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster years before they happened. Of course that is nonsense, he did the same as every other astologer. In his own words:

"Wherever possible, astrologers avoid making specific predictions about particular events. We find it a lot safer to be vague. This allows us to claim credit when it suits us - and it gets us off the hook if we have misread a horoscope … Out of respect to tradition, I always make a point of speaking in riddles or of burying my very best prophecies in a set of casual, seemingly off-hand remarks." - Jonathon Cainer, the Guardian.

But he did it with a style that appealed to masses of astrologees who read the tabloid press and rang his telephone hot line.

Cainer was a 15 year old school dropout and like everyone else in 1970s Divine Light Mission, a "hippie." A hippie with a certain drive, he tried playing bass in a band, going to rock concerts and hanging around alternative circles looking for something. Eventually, he found his calling, astrology. I recall 1970s Divine Light Mission was full of astrology, homeopathy, naturopathy, reflexology, osteopathy, hydropathy, colonicopathy, every possible therapy and just everyday pathology. Nearly everybody was young and healthy and were mostly just recovering from bhang lassi induced lassitude and obsessed with themselves. There was always a new healer or practitioner or method that was in vogue even though they publicly claimed that Guru Maharaj Ji's Knowledge had saved their lives. In the Elan Vital days many wealthier premies had their 'toxic' amalgam dental fillings replaced to regain "health." I guess they didn't feel happy and healthy enough.

Lying, deceiving, prevaricating, fabricating, equivocating, dissembling, misleading, misrepresenting and perjuring were common when discussing Maharaji and Knowledge to outsiders. Cainer was the archetypal premie who didn't meditate, whose life was crazy cocaine induced chaos but it was okay, he worshipped Maharaji and donated lots and lots of money to him. He was a devotee, a premie so naturally he lied.

"I'm a keen aficionado of Maharaji's work and his message," Cainer explains, in a "very personal statement" posted on the website last week. "But I really have to reject that devotion notion. It implies some kind of religious faith and if this is a religion or faith, that's the first I have heard of it in my 20-odd years of involvement."

In 1997 Cainer wrote a month-long account of his visit to the Far East in the Mail. He consulted 'the distant guardian of an ancient prophecy' about the significance of the Hale-Bopp Comet. 'I wanted to find out how closely it ties in with what I know about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, and how this in turn links up with the end of the Mayan calendar.' he reported. 'I can now inform you that these three ancient prophecies agree with each other to an amazing extent … Hale-Bopp is a truly global herald.

In 2016 Cainer died of a cocaine induced heart attack. It was not a good career move.

Jonathan's daughter Jemima Cainer said: "Considering the state of my father's health, any use of cocaine no matter how 'small' would be excessive. Ms Cainer went on to write about her childhood and especially the effect of her father's involvement with Prem Rawat.

Information sourced from Wikipedia, the Guardian, the Mail.