Religious views of the Beatles
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The religious views of the English rock band the Beatles evolved over time and differed among members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
Although all four Beatles were associated with either Protestantism or Roman Catholicism in their childhood, they had all abandoned their religious upbringings by 1964. In 1965, while filming for Help! in the Bahamas, a Hindu gave each of them a copy of a book on reincarnation. This encounter is widely regarded as having sparked the band's interest in Indian culture.
In March 1966, Lennon remarked to a journalist from the Evening Standard that the Beatles had become "more popular than Jesus". The comment went unnoticed until, in August of the same year, the American magazine Datebook republished it, inciting protests against the Beatles. The band was threatened, their records were publicly burned, and some radio stations refused to play their songs.
After the Beatles' 1966 US tour, Harrison broadened his interest of Indian culture to include Hinduism. He and his wife Pattie Boyd went on a pilgrimage to Mumbai to meet gurus. In 1968, all four Beatles went to Rishikesh in northern India to study meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Although the Beatles did not continue their relationship with the Maharishi, Harrison became involved in the Hare Krishna tradition until his death in 2001.
After the break-up of the Beatles in 1970, Lennon continued to reject religion. His 1971 single "Imagine" is regarded as an "atheist anthem". In 2010, Starr said he had recently returned to monotheism, while McCartney, in 2012, said he has a "personal faith in something good, but it doesn't really go much further than that".