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From Wondering, I'm Lindsey Graham and this is American Scandal.

Over the past six episodes, we've followed the story of an elderly Swami from India who captured the zeitgeist of America's 1960s counterculture with his message of peace and love.

It's also the story of his Western disciples who took to the faith but also had a hunger for power.

Devotees like Keith Ham or Kirtana Nanda who decided to build a commune of his own in West Virginia and how it all started to unravel into petty crime than felonies and the eventual murders of Steve Bryant and Chuck St. Dennis.

Join us on today's show is Henry Dock Torsky. He was a Harry Krishna devotee and lived at New Vrendauban from 1978 to 1994. His book, Killing for Krishna, The Danger of Dhrange Devotion, covers the history of the Harry Krishna in the United States and the murders within their ranks.

Henry was a consultant on our series and we've invited him on the show to talk more about what led him to join the Harry Krishna's, what day-to-day life on the coming of his life, why he finally laughed, why he thinks this story must be told.

I'm Dr. Curran and this is a referral. A podcast where I tackle misinformation, quackery and clowns peddling garbage online and replace it with good science and bad jokes.

Well done. You've sorted through the embarrassment of riches that is the modern podcast landscape and found me Rob Briden, who was a great writer and a great writer.

In this series of Briden and I talk to among others Harry Hill, Ben Elton, Charlotte Church, Steve Cougan and Dame Harriet Walter and that's just a few.

We tend to chat for about 45 minutes to an hour never longer. It's terrific conversation, reminiscent where appropriate and exchange of anecdotes.

So do join me Rob Briden wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes of Briden and are available early and ad free on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app.

Henry Docktorsky, thanks for joining us on today's show. Pleasure's mine Lindsey. So you are a Harry Krishna and a resident of New Vrendauban for 14, 15 years.

Right, right. Actually 15, 16 years. 15, 16 years. Okay. Let's let's discuss the circumstances that around your joining the movement. As I understand it, it was just right after your graduation from college and you are in Parkville, Missouri. How did you find the Krishna's and then move to West Virginia?

Well, it's I suppose you might say it's a long story, but I'll try to make as speak as briefly as I can in college, my sophomore year, somehow I saw an advertisement for the Transcendental Meditation people. That's Marishimashiyogi. And I thought and it was about meditation. And I said, oh, this is pretty cool. You know, I had a affinity toward that. And I joined and paid my $35 fee.

And I would do their mantra like for 20 minutes silently twice a day. And I enjoyed that. And then maybe a year later, my junior year, I heard that the Baba Ramdas, he was formally known as Richard Albert at Harvard, who experimented with LSD and then met this guru in India and became Baba Ramdas and began preaching that Hindu philosophy.

He was going to give a lecture at the University of Kansas and Lawrence, which is not terribly far from Parkville where I was attending college.

So I went to hear him and I bought his book, be here now. And that was the first time I heard about reincarnation. And I said, well, that's, you know, pretty interesting. I think it seems to make a lot more sense than then the Catholicism that I grew up in basically saying, you know, that I was going to do the same.

I was just simply saying, you know, that, you know, good, if you obey the laws of God, you go to heaven. If you disobey them, you go to hell or a purgatory or this or that for the rest of eternity.

And I thought reincarnation was pretty cool because you always get a second chance. You know, it's not like you're damned for eternity. And I also found out that these yogis were vegetarian.

And I said, well, that makes sense to me too. So I started actually looking for, I was interested in that. I was looking for a spiritual commune where I could learn more about these spiritual topics.

And after I graduated with a degree in piano performance, I began driving back home to West, excuse me, to New Jersey, began driving home to New Jersey where I grew up.

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