A theory to explain the tight demographic of the American Baba lovers

The following theory is not original. It was first proposed by Eruch Jessawala, and related to me by Mark Riney in the 1990s. I include some of Mark's embellishments.

If you read my last post, Musings on the Future, it may have occurred to you that there is a mystery why so many Baba lovers in America today were born between 1945 and 1949, probably 80% in this very narrow time window.

One might also wonder why so many are Jewish or half Jewish, born to upper middle class families, etc.

This demographic is called the 'hippie' generation demographic.

Upon seeing all these people come to India after Baba's death, not having met Baba, Eruch wondered what the cause could be, and why they were born during this narrow window of time.

The Nazi Holocaust occurred from mid-1942 to August 1945. As seen in the chart below from Wikipedia, about 40% of the Holocaust victims were Jews.

Approximation of Holocaust victims by criteria. Shades of blue are Jewish victims, orange represents Eastern European victims and red represents Soviet prisoners of war

This percentage corresponds closely to the percentage of Jewish or half-Jewish Baba lovers.

Eruch thought about this, and he thus speculated that of those who died in the Holocaust, many must have cried out to God very sincerely, and from among these many would have naturally returned as seekers, and of them many found Baba.

So this would explain the tight demographic and the many Jews among them, as families it seems have long-term karmic connections.

The fact that these souls would be reborn in affluent families in the freest and most affluent country of the time would also make sense, due to the destruction of so many bad sanskaras, giving these souls relatively 'good' karma. The karma of being born to cultured affluent families in the United States immediately after such a cleansing trauma.

Mark Riney, intrigued by Eruch's theory, in turn saw many synchronicities between the 'hippies' born after WWII, and the victims of the Holocaust.

I will list some of Mark Riney's colorful coincidences he uses to bolster Eruch's idea.

'Work will set you free'

1. The last thing that many victims saw before their death at Auschwitz was a sign that read "work will set you free" in German (‘Arbeit macht frei’). Of course the sign was a cynical joke, as work was meant to kill you.

Mark mused about the fact that hippies were so adverse, at least in youth, to work. Naturally there are other explanations, but Mark's is haunting.

2. The hippies were decidedly ant-fascist, and ever suspicious and untrusting of government.

Color became paramount

3. The life of the victims in ghettos and camps was colorless, both figuratively and literally. Mark wondered if this could be the cause of the attraction to vivid and even garish colors by the hippies.

4. Mark mused that Hitler himself apparently designed the Volkswagen Beetle on a piece of paper as the "people's car." He saw perhaps a purposive irony in taking the originally black 'bug' and painting it in flowers and peace signs and making it 'their car.' He even saw the use of the name by the rock group 'The Beetles' as telling of this lost 'memory.'

The German Volkswagen 'bug' as the adopted symbol of peace

5. Mark further felt that the hippy music was meant as a rebellion about the society, caused by a great trauma. A desire to spread love, even if they did not know how.

6. Naturally the victims of the Holocaust, Mark thought, would rebel against all that was western, and pivot to the East for answers, as the hippies did.

7. After dying in slavery in the camps, the souls that reincarnated as the hippies wanted 'freedom' of every kind: carnal, political, economic, and spiritual. Even the anger of the hippies would be understandable, as well as their wishing to break with their parents and all things past.

Now there have been many other theories of why the hippy generation was the way they were. Most are sociological, and not reincarnational. But both Eruch and Mark Riney may have a point.