What George Harrison’s Catholic Mother Thought of His Spiritual Journey
George Harrison‘s mother, Louise, grew up Catholic and raised her children in the church. So, it must’ve been a bit of a shock when her famous son started his spiritual journey in the mid-1960s.
George Harrison’s mother heard about his spiritual journey in letters
The Beatle became spiritual after LSD opened his mind and Ravi Shankar taught him that “God is sound.” After learning about gurus, meditation, and how to be God-conscious, George didn’t look back.
He told his mother about his journey in letters, including The Beatles’ experience with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
In Martin Scorsese’s documentary, George Harrison: Living in the Material World, one of George’s letters to Louise was read: “Dear Mum, Thanks for your letter last week and if it’s any comfort to you, don’t worry about me, or don’t think anything negative about Maharishi.
“Because he’s not phony, it’s only the bulls*** that’s written about him that’s phony. He’s not taking any of our money, all he’s doing is teaching us how to contact God and as God isn’t divided into different sex as the religious leaders here make out by their prejudices.
“And it doesn’t affect my dedication to Sacred Heart in any way. It only strengthens it. But we will help to spread this teaching so that everybody can attain this and new generations will grow up and have this right from the start instead of going through the ignorance that seems to dominate everything and everyone at the moment causing them to feel that it’s mysticism or something strange or black magic.
“Don’t think that I’ve gone off my rocker because I haven’t. But I now love you and everybody else much more than ever.”
George’s mother on his spiritual journey
Louise had no issues with her son’s conversion to Hinduism. In fact, like most of what George did, she was proud of her son.
In Here Comes The Sun: The Spiritual And Musical Journey Of George Harrison, Joshua M. Greene wrote, “Even George’s journey into Hindu practices hadn’t thrown her. His talk about spirit being inside each of us rang true for Louise, who found Krishna beliefs a perfectly acceptable way to be spiritual.
“‘As long as no one is hurt’ was her measuring stick.”
The mother and son disagreed on one thing
George’s mother was OK with her son’s spiritual explorations, and they agreed on religion. However, there was something that Louise and George disagreed on; her answering fan mail. When George became famous, Louise needed to look after her son’s fans.
Greene wrote, “Each week she traveled to Beatles Fan Club headquarters in Liverpool to pick up batches of promotional photos. Then she returned home and stayed up late answering fan mail longhand, often writing two thousand letters per month. Shelves along one wall of their new home displayed gifts sent from around the world.
Still, George wasn’t impressed with his mother and her fan mail. “Like all mothers and sons, they had had their occasional differences. Fan mail, for instance. Why she had insisted on always answering fan letters was beyond him. It was naive.
“To her way of thinking, a letter from a stranger halfway around the world deserved a personalized response and maybe even a snippet of lining from one of her son’s old coats. It never seemed to occur to her that the letter might have been sent by a stalker, or that someone had found their home address and chose to invade their privacy.
“Then again, this was the woman who had taken on extra jobs at Christmas when George was a boy so that he and his siblings would have holiday gifts. It was Louise who had bought him his first guitar and who had urged his father to let him go to Germany despite their concerns for his safety. He wanted to play music, and that had been enough reason for her. Her love was unstinting.”
George’s mother supported her son no matter what.
