Thursday, March 04, 2010

Ned Wynn: Why I Left the Transcendental Meditation Movement

I remember being an initiator.

I didn't initiate that many people. I did teach a lot of people to become teachers. I ran part of the teachers' training courses in different places, especially Mallorca where I lived for 2½ years (with side trips all over the place in Europe—especially, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Austria, England).

I had had my time in the TM movement.

I was noticing things, hearing things. Suddenly there were more bosses where once there was Jerry Jarvis. I love Jerry and I loved having him be the boss. But when these other people started showing up and the system of teaching became more and more like a pyramid scheme, I balked.

I remember E. telling me once—in all seriousness—when we were in Fiuggi Fonte near Rome, "If you leave TM and the master and fail to do what the master bids you, your life will disintegrate, you will be lost."

It was like a hellfire and damnation speech from the Baptist or Catholic pulpits.

I just looked at E. for a moment to see if he was kidding me. He was not. I shook my head and smiled. This guy was a doctor for God's sake! I think it was then that I realized that the whole deal was a dangerous sham, which I had been ignoring for some time.

I didn't want to acknowledge this toboggan slide into culthood that TM was accomplishing. Not only were most of the people I knew on board for it, they were waxing the runners on the sled that was taking them straight to hell!

If an educated guy, a physician like E., was that heavily indoctrinated with this spiritualistic mumbo-jumbo, then what was that telling me about all the rest of it?

It was definitely time to move on.

— Ned Wynn, Former TM Teacher Training Course Leader, Mallorca, Spain and Europe

© 2010 Ned Wynn, all rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any media without prior written consent of the author.


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