When The Beatles were introduced to Meditation and the Maharishi, Lennon, along with the rest of the band, was an eager participant. Their first introduction to the Maharishi was at the London Hilton Hotel on 24 August, 1967 where John and Cynthia Lennon, George and Pattie Harrison and Paul McCartney and Jane Asher attended a lecture. The following day, they all hurriedly departed for a weekend of meditation in Bangor, North Wales, during which they learnt of the death of Brian Epstein. A few days later, in the aftermath of the shock of Epstein's death, Lennon told biographer Ray Coleman that the band were all about to go to India for two months to study transcendental meditation ...we want to learn the meditation thing properly so we can propogate it and sell the whole idea to everyone...we want to set up an Academy in London...it's no gospel, Bible-thumping, singalong thing and it needn't be religion if people don't want to connect it with religion...This is the biggest thing in my life now... From the enthusiastic tone of the letter, it seems likely that Lennon wrote this letter in the intervening period between the date of this document, October, 1967 and the trip to Rishikesh, Spring, 1968. Lennon flew to India with George and Pattie Harrison in February, 1968 to spend two months at the Maharishi's academy in Rishikesh. Lennon reportedly spent many hours at the academy in deep meditation and in consultation with the Maharishi but he grew disaffected with the Maharishi's behaviour and decided to leave Rishikesh two weeks ahead of schedule. During the final days of his stay in India, Lennon penned Sexy Sadie, a direct and explicit insult to the guru, making reference to the reasons behind Lennon's dissastisfaction: apparently, the Maharishi had been giving special tuition to some of the female members of the entourage. Later, in May, 1968, Lennon publicly denounced the Maharishi when he appeared with McCartney on the Tonight Show on U.S. television.