Halfway between the summer of love and the Tet offensive, the Beatles and other 60s icons went to India to study with the Maharishi. It is still considered a significant, early encounter between Western pop culture and the mystical East. What went on inside the compound has long been the subject of wild speculation and rampant rumour. The Beatles said they wrote some of their greatest songs there and yet they also came away bitterly disillusioned. Lewis Lapham was the only journalist allowed inside. He finally tells the whole story.