"Fred once asked me what I thought of his idea for a book called The Thirteen Mystics," Nelson told me. "I joked that he would already have a built in market for the sequel, The Return Of The Thirteen Mystics." But Nelson had not taken lightly the way young Frederick had been affecting undergraduates during his free lectures on meditation. In 1975, Nelson recommended that Fred read about Ken Kesey and about Charles Manson. The lesson was that while both charismatic leaders had experimented with drugs and with young peoples' lives, Kesey learned to check his power over others. Manson did not. "Yet it was difficult for me to guide Fred," Nelson explained. "Though he was my student, he was Chinmoy's disciple." Professor Nelson was a tall man with a strong, kind voice. I wondered if Fred had been drawn to him in his search for a caring father figure. I asked Nelson if he had read the newspaper accounts of Fred's recent schemes. He nodded sadly. "This is the sort of thing you would expect from an intelligent, sensitive, abused child from a well-to-do family. Fred quite obviously needs help, but is probably too far-gone to realize or admit it." In the mid-eighties, Rama sent Nelson self-promotional brochures, tapes, and books; in 1986, Rama wrote in a brochure that Nelson had been one of the three most influential people in his life; in 1988, Rama confessed to Nelson that he only wanted to make some money, that he no longer maintained a following, and that he had finally learned his lesson about Ken Kesey and about Charles Manson. Yet the more I learned about Rama through my continuing research, the less I was heartened by Rama's confession to his former mentor. In 1988, Rama persuaded many of the roughly three hundred disciples to move to Reston, Virginia, and then to Westchester, New York. He founded two for-profit organizations: National Professional and Personal Development Seminars (NPDS) and Advanced Systems Inc. (ASI) During regular meetings of NPDS and ASI he continued to teach his disciples about spirituality. He continued to experiment with mind control. He also experimented with new ways to make money. Rama had been strongly encouraging disciples to study software at the Computer Learning Center (CLC), a six-month technical school which typically prepared people for entry-level programming jobs.