Recent studies claiming that Transcendental Meditation is effective in treating PTSD, and that it provides other benefits, treat TM as a “black box.” As with many similar past studies, researchers fail to consider that this method of meditation instruction contains several hours of other information, which creates a context of expectation of life improvement, a structure or habit which will improve life, and an authority who provides the assurance that TM will unfailingly produce those changes. These inadequacies in the design of these studies would be obvious, if all aspects of instruction in the TM program that have never been opened for examination by the TM teaching organization were properly studied and controlled for by independent researchers.
It should be noted that while the data analysis performed in this study showed significant positive changes with respect to PTSD, insomnia, depression and anxiety, there were no significant changes on the measures of anger and quality of life, the last being one of TM’s traditional selling points. More notable is the way in which this study, as with many others performed with the participation of the Maharishi International University (MIU) research faculty, relies on a vague if not inappropriately inaccurate description of Transcendental Meditation, as if it were solely a method practiced inside the mind and contained no other significant aspects, doctrine or belief that might in some way affect behavior which would then produce these results, among some people, for some limited period of time.
It's that time again. Every few years, another book selling Transcendental Meditation, written by a nearly life-long TM teacher or satisfied customer, lands on the store shelves, with the backing of a major publisher. The latest is "Strength in Stillness," written by David Lynch Foundation executive director Bob Roth as part of the Foundation's efforts to eventually recruit government and major institutions to promote and pay for the teaching of its particular version of meditation - a product of what's actually, by any measure, a fundamentalist religious sect originating in India - to vulnerable people, including public school students.
As has been true throughout the many reruns of this routine for the past fifty years, Roth and his movement actively recruit celebrities and wealthy people to publicly testify to their view of the personal value of TM. Since we can't read their minds, it's impossible to tell if we're just looking at people who are eager to further promote themselves by following the herd and latching onto what they think will be, yet again, a superficially popular cause, or if they're just a few of the still small minority of people who learn TM and stick with it for more than just a few months. It seems likely to me that some combination of both may be true, and that given the nature of celebrity and media, those who dissent, are indifferent, or think the whole thing to be ridiculous are very rarely, if ever, heard from. In popular culture and media, we almost always only hear from those with a positive, endorsing story to tell about such celebrity-endorsed causes and charities, because the nature of the process of image-making, publicity and stardom usually filters out any other message.
Once again, we have a book with a whole pile of endorsing celebrity quotes attached, that appear in every description of the book online, in promotional press releases and on the back cover. These are the words of satisfied customers who probably never took the time (or had their assistants take the time) to do a little research on what they're getting involved in. The David Lynch Foundation is founded on the premise that Transcendental Meditation is absolutely perfect in every way and is a panacea for almost anything that ails you, anyone, or society as a whole, because the anti-science, unchallengeable, absolutist, fundamentalist Vedic religious tradition from which it springs dictates that that is so. Prospective buyers of Transcendental Meditation must look elsewhere for even slightly critical or skeptical evaluation of the practice, the rest of the products they'll eventually be offered, or the history and purpose of the organizations that ultimately benefit, over the long term, from the promotion and practice of TM in the Western world.
Obviously some of these endorsing celebrities have no idea about even the basics of what they're now practicing, and that seems to be the case for one of the endorsers of Roth's book.
“The beauty of TM is that it’s so forgiving. You can’t do it wrong.” —Robin Roberts
As a matter of fact, according to TM teachers or virtually anyone in authority associated with TM, you can do it wrong. In fact, there's a minor obsession with "correct" TM practice that's supposed to be ensured by a procedure they call "checking."
Anyone who's actually gone through the whole process of learning TM, and who didn't completely ignore most of the propagandizing and existential/philosophical material offered over the course of five daily sessions, would remember that they had their meditation "checked" after they learned it, because that's what happens at the beginning of the three follow-up sessions after learning TM. "Checking," in fact, is frequently offered, perpetually, to meditators for the rest of their lives. The stated intent is to ensure no deviation from the allegedly pure and always beneficial method that supposedly is the unmodified product of some ancient Vedic tradition from India. But if you look at the actual "checking" procedure itself, you might notice that it's really an endless loop with no exit; it reinforces the absolute necessity of regular TM practice over every other individual concern, even when the meditator is experiencing negative consequences of the practice.
But TM teachers, when "checking," are to avoid anything that might cause the meditator to stop, or to view meditation in anything other than the most positive light. It says so in the "General Notes" that are part of the checking procedure instructions dictated to every TM teacher in training: "Checkers should be careful to mention negative aspects as little as possible." "World peace" and other claimed collective benefits of TM, that they call the "Maharishi Effect," are to them completely dependent upon maximizing the total number of meditators on the planet, thus the constant insistence upon "correct" and regular practice.
Those of us who've stepped back and critically examined TM and the teaching of it often notice that, when something bad happens to a meditator, others will likely reach for a few standard excuses for the fact that meditators often don't experience the benefits that are claimed to come with the practice. Very high on that list, if not the top two excuses, are "unstressing" and a blame-the-victim gambit that can be summarized, among other ways, as "improper technique" that should be corrected through "checking." (Even we critics are sometimes told that we're "unstressing" and "need a checking.")
For an example of how these habits play out among meditators, you can read the undisputed facts in a Federal court decision in the lawsuit that followed the 2004 murder of Levi Butler in the TM Movement's own Maharishi University of Management cafeteria. To my critical eye, long-term involvement with TM and the organizations that teach it, and this particular preoccupation with how meditation is practiced, contributed to the inability of school administrators to get help for a student experiencing a psychotic episode. In the middle of that kind of crisis, an administrator was questioning the correctness of the student's TM practice and effectively blaming the student for his psychotic state. Avoidance of anti-psychotic medication, possibly encouraged by the well-known anti-medical views of the school's authorities preoccupied with medicine's "side effects," may also have been a contributing factor.
On March 1, 2004, suddenly and without apparent provocation, [Shuvender] Sem stabbed fellow student John Killian (Killian) in the face and throat with a pen. Two fellow students were restraining Sem when Dr. Samuel Boothby (Dr. Boothby), a MUM administrator, approached the group. Dr. Boothby led Sem into an adjoining conference room and discussed the attack. Dr. Boothby questioned Sem about any relationship Sem might have had with John Killian and what Sem had done earlier that day, including Sem's TM technique. Dr. Boothby informed Sem he was using an improper technique when completing his TM exercises. MUM administration did not summon law enforcement or campus security; instead, Sem was placed into the custody of MUM's dean of men, Joel Wynsong (Wynsong). Killian went unassisted to the hospital, where he received several stitches.
Wynsong took Sem to Wynsong's on-campus apartment. Once at his apartment, Wynsong began his own meditation exercises, and, after completing his meditation, Wynsong discovered Sem had left the apartment. Wynsong located Sem in the campus dining hall and decided to allow Sem to mingle with the students. Sem began another abrupt and unprovoked attack on fellow student Levi Butler, stabbing Levi multiple times with a knife. Levi died from multiple stab wounds to the chest.3
Sem was taken into custody, and on March 3, 2004, Dr. James Brooks (Dr. Brooks) performed a psychiatric examination. Dr. Brooks noted Sem had a history of chronic paranoid schizophrenia and had been treated with anti-psychotic medication but ceased taking the medication several weeks before coming to MUM in January 2004. Dr. Brooks also noted Sem had been to the MUM health clinic in January but had not been treated for psychosis at that time.
Greetings from Utopia Park; Surviving a Transcendent Childhood
by Claire Hoffman
(2016) HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 265 pages
Claire Hoffman offers a tender and honest memoir about her childhood in Transcendental Meditation’s mecca in Fairfield, Iowa. Born in 1977 to parents practicing Transcendental Meditation (TM), Claire lived in TM’s Iowa community from age 5-16. For those seeking a full exposé about TM's lifestyles, this would not be the story for you.
The preface opens with the author in present time, in her mid-thirties. As a successful journalist, she is a happily married young mother living away from cult origins. She returns to her former community to resolve what she labels as youthful cynicism. She wants to believe and thus registers for an advanced TM program to learn to fly. Belief versus cynicism is the thread winding through her narrative.
Clare then weaves a beautifully written story from the 1970’s seduction of her hippy parents by the Beatles’ guru during TM’s heyday. The young adults find Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s promise of inner tranquility, world peace, and eventually a community with other meditators to be a welcome respite from their own abusive childhoods. Claire is their second child. When her father stops practicing TM, succumbs to alcoholism, and abandons his young family in New York City, her mother lacks the means to support her children. Initially they relocate from New York to the Florida home of Claire’s grandmother, then resettle in Fairfield, Iowa with Maharishi’s so-called “Ideal Society” outside his university.
Young Claire eagerly anticipates enrolling in her third kindergarten that year to join classmates who share a lifestyle and also practice TM’s childhood mantra meditation, or “Word of Wisdom” - she quickly learns she will not attend Maharishi’s private school because the private tuition is prohibitive. Instead, she and her brother attend a local public school where classmates taunt them as “Ru’s”, short for “Guroos”. An anonymous sponsor eventually enables Claire and her brother to attend Maharishi’s school. She happily dons the requisite blue jumper and bow tie to blend with other children who together sing Maharishi songs, learn their guru’s teachings interwoven with the three R’s, and receive grades for meditation.
When they move into one of two hundred dilapidated trailer homes in “Utopia Park”, Claire and her brother merge with a close-knit subculture of unsupervised children who create excitement while parents daily attend hours of group “Program” meditation. A few unusual childhood deaths provide a shadowy backdrop to other childhood mishaps. She has a close brush with a man who befriends children and targets Claire alone for physical exploration; she runs from his apartment while he showers with the bathroom door open. She mentions others’ stories of wild teenage explorations, fathers who have affairs with teenage babysitters, and easy access to recreational drugs. She describes her world as “binary”, divided between those who follow Maharishi’s teachings versus those who are not to be trusted. Their mother struggles financially through a series of jobs with meditator companies and a series of heartbreaks with sequential boyfriends. In contrast to her family’s struggles, Claire provides a brief overview of TM’s history and mentions Maharishi’s multibillion dollar global empire.
Their father becomes sober and reenters the lives of his now adolescent children to explain that they live in a cult. Her father is a writer who encourages his children to express themselves. As Claire prepares to enter high school, her anonymous sponsorship for Maharishi school evaporates. She enrolls in Fairfield’s public high school along with other TM kids who are stigmatized because their families cannot afford Maharishi School. She finds her way with “townie” teens. After a drug laden party at an abandoned rock quarry, sixteen year old Claire can no longer tolerate the confusing lifestyle. She apologizes to her mother and joins her father in California to finish school and pursue mainstream education and lifestyle.
The story jumps forward fifteen years to find Claire, an accomplished professional, flipping perspective on her early years. She holds a faculty position with the University of California and has published articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Rolling Stone. With a supportive husband and crying baby, Claire has a crisis of meaning in her seemingly mundane life. She misses her community and connection to a higher purpose. In an ironic twist, she writes she misses the “safety” of her childhood community.
TM luminaries David Lynch and Bobby Roth invite Claire to meetings in Los Angeles with Hollywood celebrities recently recruited to Transcendental Meditation, causing her to question her youthful cynicism. She feels that her negativity from a TM childhood should not interfere with celebrities’ benefitting from TM. Lynch and Roth meet individually with Claire, tempting her back to her roots. The memoir concludes as it began. Claire attends advanced meditation retreats and returns to her childhood home to learn TM’s advanced meditation to fly, bouncing on high density foam. She experiences the inner bliss that initially captivated her mother. However, she fails to mention the $5,000 price tag for TM’s advanced flying program; she does not disclose her mystical meditation mantra nor advanced techniques. When Claire's daughter learns her “Word her Wisdom”, she reveals her meditation mantra is “wisdom” which Bobby Roth verifies. Claire is surprised that it’s not a meaningless sound, but fails to mention TM’s touted meaningless sounds are derived from Hindu deities.
In the Epilogue she reflects that utopia didn’t exist, but the quest for bliss, satisfaction and inner peace were hard to relinquish. She states the TM Movement was not a failure, and that her community was not fooled. She acknowledges their sincere desire to build utopia and pursuit of a shared dream… “what mattered was the believing. The willingness to believe is everything.” She admits that today “. . . one of the hardest things to see are the staff members who have worked there for decades, giving their time and their lives to a cause that is no longer there. Their guru is dead and the fortune he amassed from his followers is being fought over in Indian probate court.”
The author tenderly describes both idealism and frank details of destructive neglect in her childhood community. However, when summarizing TM’s scientific benefits, she does not question research methodology, nor mention alternatives.
In the acknowledgements section Claire thanks lifelong friends, alluding to other experiences, “I know you all have different lenses with which you view our shared past but I hope you recognize the one you read here.” She thanks Bobby Roth for “his openhearted invitation to me to keep Transcendental Meditation in my life, despite my cynical and questioning heart. It is in many ways thanks to him that I still practice - and enjoy - meditation today.” She is grateful for her mother’s love and hard work to raise her children, stating that this memoir “is really just a bumbling, inept love letter to her and to the religious experience, even though it may not always feel like it.”
Claire’s humble and honest memoir is a quick read. I recommend “Greetings from Utopia Park” for one perspective on making sense of a confusing cult childhood.
As reviewer, I must state my inherent bias. I was also raised in TM. My conclusions differ from those expressed by Claire Hoffman in “Greetings from Utopia Park”. Claire and I share many personal connections, much as would distant cousins in a small community. Some TM kids, now adults, tell me Claire’s story mirrors their own. Others share more gruesome tales. Unlike Claire Hoffman who concludes with an upbeat note about TM, my own cynicism remains unabated even as I love people from my past. I suspect that Bobby Roth and David Lynch lured Claire back to the dissociative high of TM’s prolonged meditations because her journalistic skill risked exposing their organization. In this memoir, Claire does not reveal TM’s mystical mantras nor the price tag of TM’s advanced programs, thus sheltering key first steps to cult indoctrination. She glosses over mention of TM’s many costly add-ons and monastic programs. When reading that Claire’s daughter’s mantra is “wisdom”, I wondered - did the TM Movement change mantras from Sanskrit to English after Maharishi's death? Or only for Claire’s daughter? In either case, there is no magic.
Earlier this month, a question-and-answer session with TM movement and David Lynch Foundation spokesperson Bob Roth was held on the campus of Maharishi University of Management. Video of that session has now been posted to YouTube.
The main subject of the session was David Sieveking's film, "David Wants to Fly," which has been making the rounds of various film festivals here in the U.S. and has been released to theaters in Europe. Some in the audience had seen the film, but it's unclear to what degree the film is available for viewing in Fairfield.
In any case, this question-and-answer session provides an interesting window into how critics of the Transcendental Meditation program are viewed from the view of one person whose full-time job is the promotion of Transcendental Meditation, primarily to the press and prominent individuals.
I might write up a more lengthy commentary on Bob Roth's statements at some later time, but in the meantime here are a few observations.
Roth said, "His [David Lynch's} comment on the film was that David [Sieveking] has made the film that he and his producers, which was the German government's national television, wanted to make." A person in the audience then laughs. This is not true, as an experienced filmmaker like Lynch should already know. As is obvious from the credits which can be seen at IMDB, it was produced by a German independent film production company. Co-producers listed on the credits include a number of other independent production companies in Austria, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland, a Franco-German TV channel, and the public broadcasting stations of Bavaria and Austria. Financial assistance to the arts, including film, from European government agencies is standard practice for European film productions and does not suggest that those governments had any say in the content of the film. This would be similar to claiming that because a program appeared on a PBS station here that it must be government propaganda, which is the impression that Roth appears to be trying to make here. The TM movement has long held a special grudge against the German government, for among other things, a 1986 court ruling stating that the TM organization should be considered a "cult."
"that the movement has anywhere between 3 billion and 9 billion dollars"
"all of the research on Transcendental Meditation, because it's done by meditating scientists, is bogus"
"research shows that Transcendental Meditation has an adverse affect, that for some people it's good but for a lot of people it causes a lot of problems, and this isn't just anecdotal, this is research"
Roth then goes on to liken criticism of Transcendental Meditation to the assertion that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya - something that's repeated often, widely believed, but is not true.
Understandably it is difficult to briefly summarize what prominent critics of Transcendental Meditation are writing, or have written over the past few decades. However, if you search on "billion dollars" against this blog on Google, you'll see that that specific accusation about the movement's current net worth does not appear here except in a comment that wasn't made by a blog contributor.
As for the research that's touted to promote TM and who does it, there is no question that many (and clearly not all) of the studies cited today by the promoters of TM are done by people associated with the TM movement, and much of it is of embarrasingly low quality. One such recent and prominent example widely offered by Roth and other TM promoters to the press is featured in the article, "How to Design a Positive Study: Meditation for Childhood ADHD." The magnitude of the claims made for TM, that it is something revolutionary, uniformly effective for all people over the long-term, and that it should be adopted immediately by governments and institutions, is simply not supported by the very few studies of any quality that are offered by the movement after having had four decades to both create their own preliminary studies, and to have had other researchers who aren't meditators replicate those studies on their own, eventually publishing high-quality research on the technique and many other claims the movement makes for its multitude of products, independent of movement organizations.
It's interesting how Roth reframes the question of adverse affects from Transcendental Meditation from the movement's view of "we have the research and you don't" as if that is the only thing that matters. TM critics do not have the support of a global organization that could organize and fund studies seeking more than validation of the a priori conclusions of a Vedic sect. But the movement has always relied on word-of-mouth to promote itself, and there is another side to that word-of-mouth, which finds its way online both at this blog and elsewhere. I've long said that the most obvious "adverse effect" is a lighter wallet and a practice that's discarded after a few months, and it's certainly not hard to find people who used to meditate, who were initiated during the early-mid 1970's. There are many reasons why the "Merv wave" of TM initiations ended after a few short years, and negative impressions of TM stemming from a rapid loss of efficacy and interest for most people after a few months may have been the simplest explanation for the decline in TM's popularity.
Later in the question and answer session, Roth is confronted about what "appears to be a theme of censorship from the movement in the film." The questioner points out the part in the film where Roth looks at the camera and asks that it be turned off. In response to the question, Roth asks, "Me?" and then answers as if he's talking about something else involving "special guests" that has nothing to do with what happens in the film, or as if the fact that David had interviewed him for over a hundred hours is somehow relevant to his behavior.
This player will automatically show the introduction and 14 parts of the Q&A session.
(explanatory disclaimer: my name appears in the YouTube player but that's just because I created a playlist to present all the segments in sequence here, the videos themselves are served up through the MUM Student Activities account at YouTube.)
