Followers

It's not every day that a guru with millions of followers comes to this suburban township of a few thousand residents. But that's what happened yesterday on Conestoga Road when Bangaru Adigalaar, a Hindu-inspired spiritual leader from India, greeted hundreds of followers who waited barefoot in line to pray with him. Adigalaar, whose silvery, spiked hair reached toward the sky, sat on a throne as men, women and children hunched over his...

It's not every day that a guru with millions of followers comes to this suburban township of a few thousand residents. But that's what happened yesterday on Conestoga Road when Bangaru Adigalaar, a Hindu-inspired spiritual leader from India, greeted hundreds of followers who waited barefoot in line to pray with him. Adigalaar, whose silvery, spiked hair reached toward the sky, sat on a throne as men, women and children hunched over his...

Jaleel King is quite the inspiration. Folks who know him still marvel at the way the Art Institute of Philadelphia graduate invented himself as a respected, in-demand, and completely self-sufficient commercial photographer. Let's face it, achieving success isn't easy, even for the hale and hearty. So you can imagine how difficult it's been for someone who suffered the kind of life-changing injury King did. In 1984, when King was 8 and living in the Tasker Homes in South Philly, pellets from a sawed-off shotgun ripped through his kidney, lung, and liver and left him paralyzed from the waist down.

A joke making the rounds in cyberspace last May said President Jiang Zemin had found a way to deal with the charismatic leader of the Falun Gong spiritual movement: He'd made Li Hongzhi a communist. Today, the brouhaha over Falun Gong is no joke and no one even dares mention Li's name in Internet chat rooms and bulletin boards. Communist Party elders have launched an old-fashioned political campaign against Li and his followers. "Work units" at state-run enterprises force workers to sit through political sessions denouncing Falun Gong.

The spiritual leader of 5 million of the world's Hindus visited South Jersey last weekend to urge followers to purify themselves and rejuvenate their faith. Pramukh Swami Maharaj, leader of the Swaminarayan branch of Hinduism, spoke to 1,100 followers at Eastern High School in Voorhees Township on Saturday evening. The speech was part of a traditional two-hour cultural and religious ceremony in the high school auditorium. It included musical performances by Hindu children from the region, religious rituals and speeches.

GAPYEONG, SOUTH KOREA - The Rev. Sun Myung Moon, best known for conducting mass weddings involving thousands of couples, was a self-proclaimed messiah, but he was at least as good at attracting dollars as he was at drawing converts. His Unification Church claims 3 million followers, though ex-members and critics put the number at no more than 100,000. There is no questioning the vastness of the business empire Moon created through his church: ventures in several countries from hospitals and newspapers to cars and sushi, and even professional sports teams and a ballet troupe.

California is not the only place to spawn Doomsday cults; Philadelphia has had its share of grim prophets all the way back to the city's birth. Two years after William Penn founded the city, 40 robe-wearing mystics from Germany arrived to meditate and to await the end of the world, which their leader predicted would come in 1694. In the 1780s, prophetess Jimima Wilkinson stirred Philadelphia with predictions of doom and established an all-female sect. Then there were the "Millerites," who in 1844 sold all their earthly possessions, put on "ascension robes" and waited for the end of the world in a soggy field in West Philadelphia.

Tony Goldman, the New York developer who is redeveloping parts of Center City, has shelved plans to restore the historic Divine Lorraine Hotel on North Broad Street. But the 10-story building, one of the city's best-preserved 19th-century apartment houses, may soon see new life anyway. Goldman said he was negotiating with a buyer, "a terrific young man who would do a good job with the building. " This prospective buyer has asked to remain anonymous until he completes a study of several development scenarios over the next 45 days, Goldman said.

A self-described guru says he cannot stop his followers from harassing the family of a 13-year-old girl with whom he was convicted of having sex, an assistant district attorney said yesterday. Stephen Haasz, 50, a Hungarian immigrant who operated the Temple Beautiful on 63rd Street near Haverford Avenue, West Philadelphia, told a judge he warned his followers not to make calls to the victim's family, but they wouldn't listen to him, Assistant District Attorney William Fisher said.

Shamara, the midday DJ at WUSL-FM (98.9), Power 99, is on a roll. It's 11 a.m., and she's playing "Unthinkable" by Alicia Keys and Drake. As she plays hits for her listeners, she's also tweeting - sending Twitter messages to fans and friends on her BlackBerry. "On air @Power99Philly come get a musical orgasm," she writes, with a link to a website where her show can be heard. "hope u gotta :) on ur face," she tweets. "Hold up I believe my friends on facebook gonna start cussing me out - ain't been there in a minute . . . brb yo. " Music, tweet music.