Share International - Raj Patel's Identification As Maitreya

Raj Patel's Identification As Maitreya

Creme has been reported to have made several pronouncements since 1982 identifying the coming "Messiah/Maitreya (or future Buddha)" as having been born in 1972, traveled to London from India in 1977, been dark-skinned, and having a stutter. Shortly after the economist Raj Patel appeared on the TV show The Colbert Report, to promote his recent book, The Value of Nothing, Creme stated the Messiah had appeared on a popular television program in the United States.Raj Patel was identified as this messiah by Creme's followers as he fulfilled Creme's previous predictions. During the March 15, 2010 show, Colbert claimed this was product of a Colbert Bump, mocked people who were worshiping Patel, and called him personally on the telephone to humorously confirm his status as the deity, which Patel denied. Benjamin Creme had also predicted that the Messiah would deny his status, reinforcing his followers' belief in Patel's divine status. Patel's family reportedly jokingly brought him clothes from London bearing the slogan from Monty Python's Life of Brian: "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"

Creme protested to the New York Times journalist Scott James over what Creme stated were inaccuracies in James's article about Patel (James was first to write about the subject). Creme said to James that the article did not present a full account of Creme's activities while traveling around the world last 35 years and later through the internet. James replied that he only wrote about people who already declared Patel as Maitreya. Creme responded that Maitreya created his own body in 1977, so Patel being born in 1972 could not be the same person. He said that he had never stated in his lectures that Maitreya had been born in 1972, was dark-skinned, or had a stutter.

In an article for the Guardian, Patel wrote that, even when Benjamin Creme, while interviewed by the journalist Mick Brown, suggested that he was not the messiah, this "has not stopped the internet from churning out its particular brand of speculation, and for the media to amplify the frenzy." In response to Patel's article, Benjamin Creme wrote, that "he and those involved with him in Share International has nothing to do with this mistaken identity, which was the result of coincidences and circumstances beyond the control any of them and that they regret the incovenience caused." Creme said, in his magazine Share International, that he never pointed to a person and called him Maitreya. As he already told journalist Scott James he never heard of Raj Patel, never met him and know only what others are saying about him. And as he said to Mr. James, it is not his work to say that anyone is or is not Maitreya, nor will he do so until Maitreya acknowledges His true identity on the Day of Declaration.