I read about a friend of Kaka Mahajani who was skeptical about visiting Shirdi. What were his beliefs and what conditions did he set before agreeing to go?

According to Chapter 35, Kaka Mahajani's friend was a great devotee of the formless and was averse to idol worship. He agreed to visit Shirdi with his friend Kaka Mahajani, but purely out of what the text calls "a clinical curiosity." He set two very specific conditions for his visit: first, that he would only take the Darshan of the saint and would never bow his head, and second, that he would not provide any Dakshina, or offering. As described in Chapter 35, he made it clear to his friend that he would only come if these two conditions were agreed upon.