On Hopping
Of course. If you put a bunch of people on a mat and make them bounce around on their behinds, all you have is a poor comedy routine. But add in the movement commentary and what do you get?
"Ancient texts describe first stage levitation." "It's hopping, but it's different hopping." "Maximum brain wave coherence during flight means acting from field of all possibilities." "It only looks like hopping because levitators are unable to maintain pure awareness for more than a split second." "If it's only muscle power, how come we don't get tired?" "There is sometimes a brief feeling of weightlessness at the top of a hop." "Extraordinary feeling associated with hopping."
Religion
As a former TM teacher/governor, etc. and present day debunker, there would be no sounds from my corner if TM would present itself as a religion and/or belief system. That way prospective initiates could rightly decide if TM was for them. Too many were told, "It is not a religion," and then found they were bowing, and "namah"ing and Mother Divine courseing etc.
Coercion
I see. Being kicked off courses for not following the TM org's rules is in no way coercion, right? When a person who has spent his or her life in an organization, which now contains most of his or her friends and associates, is basically given the choice between following rules he or she does not believe in (and which run contrary to established law) or being "excommunicated," you see no ethical or moral dilemma? Just checking...
Shunning
Calling a TM critic names is a form of "shunning," albeit a fairly minor one, as practiced in some cults. If a person disagrees, no matter how slightly, with the dogma, the true believer insists that the dissenter is deficient -- overly emotional, lying or distorting the truth toward nefarious ends, psychologically damaged, "unstressing," or whatever.
True Believer
The true believer's position is: "I have the ultimate truth. You disagree with me. We cannot both be right. Therefore you must be a) unstressing/purifying too rapidly, b) ignorant of the truth, c) evil, d) a poor pathetic psychologically damaged individual, e) a raving lunatic, or f) a mixture of all of the above. And the solution is to (1) meditate less, (2) meditate more, (3) meditate for decades, (4) attend more courses, (5) take these funny little pills that are not monitored for purity or contents, (6) take lots of castor oil enemas, and most importantly of all (7) pay us much more money."
And the true believer's favorite weapons are i) ridicule, ii) sarcasm, iii) shame, iv) intimidation, v) distortion, and when finally pressed to the wall, vi) flat denial.
Puja
The main TM movement argument seems to go: "The puja is not religious because we say its not religious. And if you disagree with us you must be a fanatic -- so your opinion doesn't count."
TM Arguments
This seems to be TM's standard M.O.: Issue a vague statement that you know will almost certainly be interpreted in a particular, but fraudulent, way. Unless and until you're called on it, don't do anything whatever to discourage that interpretation. When called on your fraud, point out that the original statement was ambiguous and claim that it's been misinterpreted. It seems to work when they're dealing with sycophants.
It would appear that one of the major benefits of TM is a permanent inability to speak English clearly.
SQRT of 1% EFFECT
A 1984 publication describing the results of the Taste of Utopia Assembly notes:
"The need now is to establish one permanent group of 7000 [Sidhas] in one place on earth. This will ensure that the RISING TREND of positivity experienced during the three weeks of the Assembly never has a chance to relapse into negativity and problems [emphasis added].
"In order to intensify the effect of coherence and ensure that no pocket of negativity remains, similar groups should be established on each continent and every country. The number of [Sidhas] required for each continent is very modest [list of numbers representing the SQRT of 1% of the population of each continent]."
Note the use of the word ensure (twice). Also note: "The number of [Sidhas] required for each continent is very modest" not "may be very modest" or "is theorised to be very modest".
If the "SQRT of 1% rule" is not a rule why is it used as such?
No comments:
Post a Comment