Good riddance to Richard Alpert, aka Baba Ram Dass

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: Hebrews 9:27

Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, Revelation 9:21a

On December 22, 2019, New Age guru Baba Ram Dass, born Richard Alpert, died at the age of 88 after years of declining health. Dr. Alpert was born into a Jewish family and was bar mitzvahed, but considered himself an atheist in his younger years.

He earned a doctorate in psychology and became an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Harvard University in 1958. Dr. Alpert soon became associated with fellow Harvard psychology professor Dr. Timothy Leary, and the two began experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs, which Dr. Alpert regarded as his first "whiff of God." Drs. Leary and Alpert were both dismissed from Harvard University in 1963, and set up a commune with other advocates of mind-altering drugs. The word rendered "sorceries" in Revelation 9:21 is from the Greek pharmakeia--from which we get the English word "pharmacy"--referring to the use of drugs, "generally accompanied by incantations and appeals to occult powers...".

Dr. Alpert went to India in 1967, and was indoctrinated into Hinduism, becoming a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba, aka Maharaj-ji, who gave him the name "Ram Dass." Dr. Alpert's conversion to Hinduism was a predictable development; the supernatural experiences people reported while using hallucinogenic drugs were similar, if not identical, to those reported by Hindu gurus, thus indicating a common source for the experiences.

Baba Ram Dass went on to found educational and service foundations, such as the Hanuman Foundation and the Seva Foundation. He denounced Dr. Leary in 1974, but the two reconciled in 1983. Ram Dass co-founded the Living/Dying Project in 1986, based in Marin County, California (surprise!), in which people were instructed in "conscious dying." Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the pioneering scholar of near-death studies and authoress of On Death and Dying (1969), was one of Ram Dass' students. It's worth noting here that Hinduism teaches reincarnation rather than resurrection, and believes the lie "Ye shall not surely die" (Genesis 3:4), while denying the biblical truth that death is an enemy (I Corinthians 15:26).

At the age of 60, Baba Ram Dass began exploring Judaism, and established a long-standing friendship with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi of the Jewish Renewal movement, who tried, without apparent success, to draw him back into the Jewish fold. In the 1990s, Baba Ram Dass began publicly discussing his bisexuality, thereby providing more evidence that deviant spirituality is often manifested in deviant sexuality.