Friday, April 11, 2014

"The Sopranos" illuminates Maharishi Mahesh Yogi


I recently read the book "The Psychology of The Sopranos:  Love, Death, Desire, and Betrayal in America's Favorite Gangster Family" by Glen O. Gabbard, M.D. © 2002.   I found these paragraphs:

"…In his study of how Nazi doctors could work at Auschwitz, [psychiatrist and thought reform expert Dr.] Robert Jay Lifton coined the term 'doubling' to characterize how the self was divided into two functioning wholes….They could spend their days committing genocide and their evenings listening to Mozart and helping their children with their homework.

…Lifton later studied fanatical religious cults and found similar mechanisms at work….Cult leaders often have the same form of division within the self.  Charismatic gurus may have the capacity for loving attachment and altruism in one corner of the psyche while promoting violence and mayhem from another sector.  Because the disparate aspects of the self remain unintegrated, they are less prone to come into conflict with one another and therefore less likely to cause guilt.  Hence the cult leader…may present an absolute certainty and conviction that is enormously appealing...."

Perhaps this explains the founder of the TM movement.  I have never understood what made him tick.  Unlike some former TMers, who feel Mahesh was always a con artist, I felt that he was sometimes very sincere in his beliefs.  Lifton's theory could explain Mahesh's personality dichotomy.


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