Muktananda was introduced to America by Ram Dass in 1970. Franklin Jones (Adi Da) had earlier made several trips to Muktananda's ashram in the late '60s.
The classic exposés of Muktananda and SYDA were done by William Rodarmor in 1983 ( [
www.ex-cult.org] , scroll down), and later by Lis Harris (now teaching at the Columbia University School of Fine Arts) in the [i:6b97a739ff]New Yorker[/i:6b97a739ff] magazine in 1994 ( [
www.culteducation.com] ).
For a concise overview of the homophobic Muktananda and his (literally) shit-eating guru, Nityananda, I have an essay posted online: [
www.strippingthegurus.com] .
In 2002, former journalist and long-time Muktananda/Gurumayi devotee Sally Kempton (Durgananda) returned to "the world" to teach, "with Gurumayi's blessing." She has been a recent interviewee of "the Einstein of consciousness studies," Ken Wilber, on his Integral Naked forum: [
www.integralnaked.org] .