Is when I got stuck being "door guy" at Maharishi's door the night before the second Merv taping. Charlie arrived, I went inside and told one of the guys inside that he was there, watched him walk up to Maharishi and tell him that Charlie was there, and then come back to me and say, "Maharishi said to have him wait."
Charlie waited, fuming. He stood there for a while, among all the dozen or so other people waiting outside the door, and then he started to pace. Finally, after about half an hour, he announced in a large voice, "It's been over an hour! I wouldn't wait an hour to see Jesus Christ. I'm leaving." And he did. *That* is Charlie Lutes. He wanted what he had at the very beginning of the TM movement, to be "special." He was kept out of the room because some important network people were in there and Maharishi was afraid he'd embarrass him. And, rather than wait outside with all the other peons, Charlie stalked off in a snit, and then made up a grand paranoid tale about "Jerry's minions" keeping him out of the room. *Maharishi* kept him out of the room, and kept him waiting in the hallway with all the other peons. And Charlie was too "special" to wait with all the others. Half an hour among the Great Unwashed was as far as his "devotion" went. Yeah, Charlie was "special" all right. In the same place that *his* minions were -- and seemingly are still -- "special." In their minds.
