Editing Meher Baba (section)

===1930–1939 – First contact with the West===
Beginning in 1931, Meher Baba made the first of many visits to the West. Throughout that decade, Meher Baba began a period of world travel and took several trips to Europe and the United States. It was during this period that he established contact with his first close group of Western disciples.<ref name="Kalchuri 1986 p. 1405ff"/> He traveled on a Persian passport, as he had given up writing, as well as speaking, and would not sign the forms required by the British government of India.<ref>Kalchuri (1986) p. 1249</ref> Here, he attracted more followers.<ref name="Kalchuri 1986 p. 1405ff">Kalchuri (1986) p. 1405ff</ref>

[[File:Baba dictating.jpg|thumb|left|Meher Baba dictating a message to a disciple in 1936 using his alphabet board]]

On his first trip to England in 1931, he traveled on the ''[[SS Rajputana]]'', at the same time as [[Mahatma Gandhi]], who was sailing to the second [[Round Table Conferences (India)|Round Table Conference]] in [[London]]. Baba and Gandhi met three times on board. One of these exchanges lasted for three hours.<ref>Purdom (1964) p. 95.</ref> The British press publicized these meetings,<ref>See articles from the Daily Herald, 4 April 1932 (quoted in Kalchuri (1986), p. 1573) and from Sunday Express, April 1932 (quoted in Purdom (1964), p. 99)</ref> but an aide to Gandhi said, "You may say emphatically that Gandhi never asked Meher Baba for help or for spiritual or other advice."<ref>Landau, Rom: ''God Is My Adventure: A Book on Modern Mystics, Masters, and Teachers'', ''Faber & Faber'', London, 1936. p. 111.</ref><ref>''Indian Mystic in New York'', [[Associated Press]], 20 May 1932, The Lowell Sun</ref><ref>{{cite news |agency=[[Associated Press]] |title=Meher Baba Hopes to Elevate People Here to "Infinite State" He Enjoys. He Will Establish Spiritual Retreat at Harmon, N.Y., and Seek to Break Religious Barriers |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0CE0DD163EE633A25755C2A9659C946394D6CF&legacy=true |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=26 March 1932 |access-date=10 September 2017 |archive-date=8 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170808075549/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A0CE0DD163EE633A25755C2A9659C946394D6CF&legacy=true |url-status=live }}</ref>

In the West, Meher Baba met with a number of celebrities and artists, including [[Gary Cooper]], [[Charles Laughton]], [[Tallulah Bankhead]], [[Boris Karloff]], [[Tom Mix]], [[Maurice Chevalier]], and [[Ernst Lubitsch]].<ref>Landau, Rom: ''God Is My Adventure: A Book on Modern Mystics, Masters, and Teachers'', ''Faber & Faber'', London, 1936. p. 108 Available as a [https://books.google.com/books?id=_9DxiBTKdJsC Google book]</ref> On 1 June 1932, [[Mary Pickford]] and [[Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.]] held a reception for Baba at [[Pickfair]] at which he delivered a message to [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]].<ref>Purdom (1964) pp. 103–105</ref> As a result, says [[Robert S. Ellwood]], Meher Baba emerged as "one of the enthusiasms of the '30s".<ref>Ellwood 1973 p. 281</ref>

In 1934, after announcing that he would break his self-imposed silence in the [[Hollywood Bowl]], Baba changed his plans abruptly, boarded the [[RMS Empress of Canada (1920)|RMS ''Empress of Canada'']], and sailed to Hong Kong without explanation. The [[Associated Press]] reported that "Baba had decided to postpone the word-fast-breaking until next February because 'conditions are not yet ripe'."<ref>Associated Press, 13 July 1932, as cited Kalchuri (1986), p. 1670</ref> He returned to England in 1936<ref>Kalchuri (1986) p. 2040ff</ref> but did not return to the United States again until the early 1950s.<ref>Kalchuri (1986) pp. 1661–1668</ref>

In the late 1930s, Meher Baba invited a group of Western women to join him in India, where he arranged a series of trips throughout India and [[British Ceylon]] that became known as the Blue Bus Tours. When the tour returned home, many newspapers treated their journey as an occasion for scandal.<ref>Kalchuri (1986) pp. 2338–2421</ref> ''Time'' magazine's 1936 review of ''God Is My Adventure'' describes the US's fascination with the "long-haired, silky-mustached Parsee named Shri Sadgaru [sic] Meher Baba" four years earlier.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,848514-4,00.html |title=Men, Masters & Messiahs |date=20 April 1936 |access-date=26 June 2008 |magazine=Time Magazine |archive-date=2 June 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130602032109/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,848514-4,00.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>