New PTSD studies: TM as a "black box" - what's inside?

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.

Another research study, this time on using TM as a method of treating PTSD, has just been published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress. The study, “A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation as Treatment for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Veterans,” purports to show that “Veterans with PTSD who practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique showed significant reductions in PTSD symptom severity.” A widely circulated press release issued by Maharishi International University announced this study, headlined with the “Transcendental Meditation effective in reducing PTSD, sleep problems, depression symptoms” claim. It includes the same sort of ubiquitous bar chart that’s been seen in TM promotional efforts since at least the mid-1970’s.

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. 

The dubious research claims of Transcendental Meditation, part 5: The bottom of the barrel of published TM research articles

Read this series from the beginning.

Read the previous installment of this series (Part 4).

David W. Orme-Johnson. From "Inaugurating the
Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment," 1975

We here at the TM-Free Blog have received a comment from David W. Orme-Johnson. He’s a former Maharishi University of Management psychology department chairman and a frequent defender and promoter of TM research studies. I’ve mentioned him and his website a number of times in previous parts of this series, “The dubious research claims of Transcendental Meditation.” He submitted his comment in response to the second part posted here at the TM-Free Blog on September 22, 2019, subtitled ‘"Peer review" doesn't always mean "quality" or "accuracy.”’ In 2015, he claimed to have no formal affiliation with the TM movement on his website, but a published comment that same year indicated that he was then associated with the “Research Desk, Maharishi Foundation USA.”

As a matter of editorial policy, the contributors to the TM-Free Blog don’t particularly care to reprint the TM movement’s marketing materials. There are thousands of TM movement operated or affiliated websites worldwide that serve that purpose. There is also, of course,  Orme-Johnson’s own website, “Truth About TM,” that contains plenty of defenses of TM research and a few rebuttals of critics from his point of view, that’s evidently very similar to that of the TM organization. Parts of his submitted comment are of a promotional nature, therefore I won’t be running his comment in the comments, or as a post, verbatim.

The "evidence-based" claim, as it appears on the
tm.org website at the time of this writing.

I may write up a full response to Orme-Johnson’s comment at some later date. Since this is a series about the usual claims made by the TM movement, particularly with respect to research findings and how they are represented, particularly with respect to being published in “peer-reviewed” journals, I will respond here to two elements of his comment. The first part of his comment further illustrates the problems with TM research that contradict the TM movement’s claims that, among other things, Transcendental Meditation should be considered “evidence-based” because of this body of research studies. He wrote:

The second paper the blog uses to criticize TM research is a preliminary study by the late Sarina Grosswald and co-authors on ADHD. In children with ADHD, the study showed statistically significant reductions in stress, anxiety, and improvements in ADHD symptoms and executive function. The authors were obviously not naïve about experimental design, as the blog portrays them, because they said in the title that this was “An exploratory study”. 

This passage in Orme-Johnson’s comment leaves me chuckling to myself. The idea that calling their work “an exploratory study” excuses blatant problems and errors in their methods is, in my view, ridiculous. If the experimenters really wanted to draw serious attention to their work, which makes a rather novel if not controversial claim, why wouldn’t they take particular care to ensure that what they were doing wasn’t obviously problematic? Relying on self-reporting and self-controls, ensuring that the schools’ most prominent authority figure was an enthusiastic TM meditator, and coaching the student subjects to expect positive results - and recording that coaching on video! - are not excusable because the study was “exploratory.” If anything, these faults show that the claimed results were most likely the result of the kind of wishful thinking and confirmation bias common among TM meditators, and aren’t really worth considering for further study. But a paper like this, published in a third- or fourth-rate journal, provides the kind of story that’s commonly circulated among TM insiders, that reinforces, for them, that what they’re doing, spending time and money on, is a valid and worthwhile cause. It also provides fodder for press releases that are sent to reporters who aren’t in a position to approach these matters with the skepticism, resources or time to do anything other than to publish these claims verbatim without the most basic examination of how these conclusions were reached.

The dubious research claims of Transcendental Meditation, part 4: When "peer review" becomes "meditator review"

Read this series from the beginning.

Read the previous installment of this series (Part 3).

Cover of the final volume of the
Journal of Social Behavior and Personality.
Does this look like a legitimate, independent scientific journal to you?

As I’ve discussed in earlier parts of this series, the organizations that offer Transcendental Meditation (TM), including the David Lynch Foundation (DLF), have long claimed scientific legitimacy and validity for all the claims they regularly make for TM on the basis of scientific research. They imply that the fact that this research has “appeared in many leading, peer-reviewed journals” is as good as a formal stamp of approval, for the accuracy and legitimacy of everything they say in support of TM.

But what do they really mean when they use the phrase, “peer-review?” Earlier, I quoted David Orme-Johnson, the retired psychology department chairman at the TM movement’s university, Maharishi University of Management (MUM), who is currently a promoter of TM by way of his “Truth About TM” website:

Moreover, one purpose of the peer-reviewed process is to screen out studies that may have been biased by the orientation of the investigators. The numerous published studies on the Transcendental Meditation program have met the high standards of peer-review.

In the course of sorting through many of the research papers often cited on lists of TM research that appear on the tm.org website and elsewhere, I came upon an important detail, in a paper written by David Orme-Johnson and two other Maharishi University of Management staffers. This is in the context of a critique of two National Research Council (NRC) reviews of the research on meditation published in 1991 and 1994. Their critique is largely centered on their opinion that the NRC’s reviews did not include certain studies that would have supported their position that TM produces beneficial physical and mental effects that do not occur with other forms of meditation, and that TM provides greater relaxation, greater improvements in human performance, and other benefits compared to other methods, that went unreported in the NRC review.

Near the end of their critique is this statement, which I think is a rather extraordinary demonstration of a basic ignorance or outright avoidance of the scientific method, that I also think contradicts his earlier comments on the bias of investigators, with emphasis added by me:

How can we insure objectivity in future reviews of technologies from non-Western cultures or from radically new scientific paradigms that may be outside the knowledge and experience of the reviewers? We suggest that half of the membership of review committees for new or controversial research be comprised of researchers from different universities or research institutions who are practitioners of the technology in question, who have published research in the field, and who are well conversant with the theoretical frame that informs the research.

So there you have it in their own words. They are suggesting that half of the people who review research on Transcendental Meditation should be meditators themselves; that is what they mean by “practitioners of the technology,” because another name for Transcendental Meditation is the “Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field.” I suppose the phrase means very little if, as is true of most people, including scientists, you aren’t familiar with the background on Transcendental Meditation to recognize that reference. The “Unified Field” pseudonym for TM was frequently used during the early 1990’s in various TM related publications, and it’s defined that way on page 26 of the first, 1987 edition of Bob Roth’s book on TM. (It doesn’t appear in later editions of that book, but it’s mentioned in numerous other publications around that time.)

The dubious research claims of Transcendental Meditation, part 3: Journals are the product of editors and reviewers

Read this series from the beginning.

Read the previous installment of this series (Part 2).

Recent issue of International 
Journal of Neuroscience, 
November 2019

Many people are easily impressed by what look like big numbers, and the organizations that offer Transcendental Meditation (TM), including the David Lynch Foundation (DLF), often use numbers in a bid to establish scientific legitimacy among non-scientists and the general public. Here’s a particular paragraph that is part of the preface to one bibliography of research on TM, produced by a TM affiliated doctor in the UK:

Scientific research on the Transcendental Meditation technique comprises more than 600 studies conducted at over 250 independent universities and research institutions in 33 countries...  These studies have demonstrated a wide range of benefits for mind, body, behavior, and society... and have appeared in many leading, peer-reviewed journals.

As I explained earlier, this frequently mentioned number of “600 studies” gets significantly reduced in practice, and that’s because, in my opinion, it includes a few hundred studies performed at TM institutions, including Maharishi University of Management, that were never published anywhere other than their own, seven-and-soon-to-be-eight volume, “Collected Papers” series. It’s also interesting to note, that at the inauguration of the so-called “Age of Enlightenment” in 1975, forty-four years ago, it was already claimed that 300 studies were performed at 200 universities.

Today, the list of studies on the tm.org website only includes studies that were published in books, journals or other scientific publications. When that list is pared down to include only original research and not other articles, only 123 studies remain, and they say they were “published in peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals.” Only 21 of those studies were authored entirely by people with no connection to TM movement institutions.

When the list of publications in which those 123 studies appear is analyzed, a pattern emerges: ten of those studies appeared in a single journal, eight of them over a ten year period. Another seven of those studies appeared in a single issue of another journal. Four journals each published four of these articles, and one of those journals published four articles in a single issue.

Given that there are so many journals in which researchers could publish their findings, the question arises: why is it that there are these clusters of TM research papers in a few journals? 

The dubious research claims of Transcendental Meditation, part 2: "peer review" doesn't always mean "quality" or "accuracy"

David Lynch, Sarina Grosswald,
and John Hagelin at a David Lynch
Foundation press conference,
December 2011.

Read this series from the beginning.

This series continues with Part 3, here.

The organizations that have promoted Transcendental Meditation (TM), including the David Lynch Foundation (DLF), have for decades repeated the insistence of TM’s founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, that extensive scientific research supports their claims of TM’s validity. As I discussed previously, when their claim that “hundreds of published studies” is examined, it’s clear that an enormous proportion of those studies - 82% of the studies listed from the front page of the tm.org website - have been authored, or co-authored, by researchers with a documentable, institutional tie to a TM organization. That’s just the first of the issues that arise, when their various claims of independence, volume and quality are contrasted with an analysis of this set of studies. I think we can safely assume that a list on the primary TM website would contain the best studies they can come up with and that support their frequent claims of scientific validation of TM. The response of, “is that really all you’ve got to offer after fifty years of trying?” comes to mind when the contents of that list are carefully examined.  The methodology of many of these studies, versus the conclusions made, are the points at which the movement’s assertions don’t hold up under scrutiny.

There’s also the implied insistence among those offering TM, that when a study is published in a “peer-reviewed journal,” that that study has some magical stamp of approval and that everything in any such study, particularly conclusions favoring TM, are always absolutely and perpetually true. This is, unfortunately, often the way that scientific research is reported in the media, leaving a misimpression with the public that published studies in prestigious journals are some fixed statement of scientific reality. This is seldom true. Science is an ongoing process of discovery, and often the findings of studies, even those published in highly regarded, peer-reviewed journals, will conflict with one another, are found to be not all they were initially thought to be, and in a few rare cases, the researchers were found to have committed fraud in the course of producing a study which supported their predetermined conclusion.

This reliance on peer review as some absolute stamp of accuracy and legitimacy is actively exploited by TM apologists. David Orme-Johnson, longtime psychology department chairman at the TM movement’s university, Maharishi University of Management (MUM), writes about peer review on his “Truth About TM” website as if it would, in every case, notice and intercept every instance of shoddy science performed by a researcher, who’s also a meditator, working on a subsequently published study favoring TM:

Moreover, one purpose of the peer-reviewed process is to screen out studies that may have been biased by the orientation of the investigators. The numerous published studies on the Transcendental Meditation program have met the high standards of peer-review.

This is not quite how academic publishing works in the real world, where faults in research, missed by reviewers, are noted by other scientists after they’re appeared in those peer-reviewed journals, and those faults are later discussed. Those critiques, rebuttals and counter-rebuttals of TM research can sometimes be found in the pages of the same journals in which the original studies of TM have been published.

The dubious research claims of Transcendental Meditation, part 1: Truly independent research on TM is rare

TM original research listed on the tm.org website, evaluated over
five-year periods. Meditating individuals and affiliated MIU/MUM
faculty have authored the majority of it since 1981.

For over a half century now, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the movement and the organizations that he spawned, and now the David Lynch Foundation, have insisted that their claims supporting Transcendental Meditation have been scientifically validated, and are supported by some consensus among many scientists. The prominence of TM, and the reputations of public figures who are constantly named in the media as having learned this mental technique, have rested on the assumption that these claims are completely valid. They regularly make reference to a large pile of scientific studies - the actual number of those studies varies a great deal from moment to moment, but it’s usually in the hundreds - that confirm, for them, that these assertions are always true.

But what happens when all those supportive scientific studies that they constantly mention in support of TM, are actually obtained, analyzed, sorted and evaluated? How many of them reflect the work of people who have no connection to TM at all, financial, emotional or otherwise - not as meditators, TM teachers, or faculty at the movement’s own university? Is it at all accurate for them to imply that because they can name-drop many universities, research institutions, and the titles of prominent medical and scientific journals, that some positive scientific consensus exists to support the claims they constantly make for the safety, efficacy and validity of Transcendental Meditation?

The short answer is, as you might expect, no.  This series on TM's research claims continues with Part 2, here.

PDF files containing copies of spreadsheets with all the supporting data for this article are available at the bottom of this page.

National Institutes of Health Researches TM - Poorly

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "...is the nation’s medical research agency — making important discoveries that improve health and save lives….”(1)

The David Lynch Foundation, a proponent of TM, states,

“...The National Institutes of Health have granted more than $26 million over the past 18 years to study the effects of the Transcendental Meditation program on cardiovascular disease….”(2)

The TM movement likes to point out that there are over 600 published research projects showing the benefits of TM.  However, critics have pointed out that most TM research is of poor quality.  Inadequate controls, small samples, cherry picking of results, biased design, self-reporting, conflict of interest - the flaws are astonishing.(3)  Whether these flaws are due to poor researcher skills, researcher prejudice in favor of TM, or some other reasons, I don't know.

The NIH doesn't want researchers with conflicts of interest doing their research.  This led me to ask, who exactly is doing the NIH-funded TM research?  Are there any conflicts of interest?  

I have researched the names of most of the researchers studying TM with NIH money.  I’ve discovered that for virtually every study, many of the researchers are affiliated with TM.(4)  They are  Maharishi University of Management (MUM) professors, MUM researchers, MUM graduates, TM teachers.  People with these credentials have gone through months or years of TM indoctrination consisting of one-sided education and meditation retreats, which put people into suggestible states.  Further, many of these researchers work for TM for very little pay, as volunteers, or on work-exchange.  I consider these credentials indicative of bias towards TM.  In fact, I feel it would be appropriate to say that some people with such a background could be considered to have a “missionary” approach towards TM.

A few years ago, I attempted to contact NIH to alert them to the bias of many of their researcher. Unfortunately, what I learned is that the only "conflict of interest" they acknowledge is financial.  They do not consider belief/missionary zeal/faith to be conflicts of interest.  But that still leaves the question of if the NIH considers TM teachers, MUM professors, MUM researchers, etc., to lack financial conflict of interest.  After all, if an MUM professor publishes “positive” results, then more people might learn TM, and then more people might attend MUM, and then the professor might get a raise, or tenure.  Alas, the NIH website stated that concerns about conflicts of interest would only be considered before research has begun.  Also, they stated that the only strategy the NIH employs on conflicts of interest is to ask the researchers what steps they propose to take in order to eliminate the bias.

So, if you ever read that NIH research on TM has proven that TM is a unique, marvelous, beneficial technique for the human race, please consider the points above.  The research is probably seriously biased.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(1) nih.gov

(2) davidlynchfoundation.org:  “...The David Lynch Foundation helps to prevent and eradicate the all-pervasive epidemic of trauma and toxic stress among at-risk populations through promoting widespread implementation of the evidence-based Transcendental Meditation (TM) program in order to improve their health, cognitive capabilities and performance in life…."

(3) TMFree.blogspot.com:  How to Design a Positive Study: Meditation for Childhood ADHD, Abstracts of Independent Research on Transcendental Meditation, Problems with TM Research by Barry Markovsky, Evaluating Heterodox Theories, including "Maharishi Effect" (Markovsky and Fales)

(4) I have highlighted in red those researchers for whom I found TM affiliations.  (Note: Variations in footnote style is due to copying directly from research papers).

1. Stress Reduction Programs in Patients with Elevated Blood Pressure: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. 
Maxwell V. Rainforth, PhD, Robert H. Schneider, MD, Sanford I. Nidich, EdD, Carolyn Gaylord-King, PhD, John W. Salerno, PhD, and James W. Anderson, MD

2. Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Health Promotion with the Transcendental Meditation Program and Maharishi Consciousness-Based Health Care. 
Robert H. Schneider, MD, Kenneth G. Walton, PhD, John W. Salerno, PhD, and Sanford I. Nidich, EdD.
Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa.

3. Effects of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation on Components of the Metabolic Syndrome in Subjects With Coronary Heart Disease.
Maura Paul-Labrador, MPH; Donna Polk, MD, MPH; James H. Dwyer, PhD; Ivan Velasquez, MD; Maxwell Rainforth, PhD, Robert Schneider, MD, and C. Noel Bairey Merz, MD

4. Long-Term Effects of Stress Reduction on Mortality in Persons ≥55 Years of Age With Systemic Hypertension. 
Robert H. Schneider*, MD, Charles N. Alexander, PhD*, Frank Staggers, MD*,  Maxwell Rainforth, PhD*, John W. Salerno, PhD*, Arthur Hartz, MD, Stephen Arndt, PhD, Vernon A. Barnes, PhD+, and Sanford I. Nidich, EdD*
*From the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa; the West Oakland Health Center, Oakland, California; the Departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, Iowa; and the Georgia Prevention Institute, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia. +Vernon A. Barnes, PhD from Maharishi University of Management

5. Reduced Blood Pressure and Use of Hypertensive Medication (American Journal of Hypertension, January 2005).
Robert H. Schneider#, Charles N. Alexander#, Frank Staggers, David W. Orme-Johnson#, Maxwell Rainforth#, John W. Salerno#, William Sheppard, Amparo Castillo-Richmond", Vernon A. Barnes", and Sanford I. Nidich#
# From the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, Maharishi University of Management (RHS, CHN, DWO-J, MR, JWS, SIN)
“ Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa graduates (VAB, AC-R)

6. Effectiveness of Transcendental Meditation on Functional Capacity and Quality of Life of African Americans with Congestive Heart Failure: A Randomized Control Study. 
Ravishankar Jayadevappa, PhD, Jerry C. Johnson, MD, Bernard S. Bloom, PhD, Sanford Nidich, EdD, Shashank Desai, MD, Sumedha Chhatre, PhD, Donna B. Raziano, MD, and Robert H. Schneider, MD
From the Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania (RJ, JCJ, BSB, SD, SC); Elder Health Pennsylvania (DBR), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention, Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa (SN, RS). 

7. Effects of a Randomized Controlled Trial of Transcendental Meditation on Components of the Metabolic Syndrome in Subjects With Coronary Heart Disease.
Maura Paul-Labrador, MPH; Donna Polk, MD, MPH; James H. Dwyer, PhD; Ivan Velasquez, MD; Sanford Nidich, PhD., Maxwell Rainforth, PhD; Robert Schneider, MD;  C. Noel Barry

8. Neuroimaging of meditation’s effect on brain reactivity to pain. 
David W. Orme-Johnson(a), Robert H. Schneider(a), Young D. Son(b), Sanford Nidich(a), and Zang- Hee Cho(b)
a Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention, Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, USA 
b Departments of Radiological Sciences & Psychiatry and Human Behavior, MED SCI I, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, California, USA

9. Effects of Stress Reduction on Carotid Atherosclerosis in Hypertensive African Americans. 
Amparo Castillo-Richmond, MD; Robert H. Schneider, MD; Charles N. Alexander, PhD†; Robert Cook, MD; Hector Myers, PhD; Sanford Nidich, PhD; Chinelo Haney, MBA; Maxwell Rainforth, PhD; John Salerno, PhD 
From the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention (A.C.-R., R.H.S., C.N.A., S.N., M.R., J.S.), Maharishi University of Management, College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine, Fairfield, Iowa; the Department of Radiology (R.C.) and Biobehavioral Research Center (H.M., C.H.  [C.H. is a TM teacher]), Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, Calif; and the Department of Psychology (H.M.), University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif.  
†Deceased. 
Correspondence to Amparo Castillo-Richmond, MD, Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention, Maharishi University of Management, College of Maharishi Vedic Medicine, 1000 North 4th St, FB 1134, Fairfield, IA 52557. E-mail amparo@mum.edu 

Emotional Problems Post-TM; Relating to Fairfield Relatives, Part II

[This is Part II of the previous article "Emotional Problems Post-TM; Relating to Fairfield Relatives, Part I" - ed.]

Second topic:  How to Relate to Fairfield TM Relatives

Reader's comment:

"I’d like to get back to some previous comment threads on how to relate to family in TM if you are not in it....

'...I don’t expect my [relatives] to give up TM, and I don’t even try to convince them much or argue with them. But I do want to be able to visit them and find things to do (even if by myself or with other family) that are not completely connected to TM or MUM.  I don't mind spending some time at MUM....

'There is certainly a lot of sensitivity to criticism of Maharishi by most I talk to. 

'I’m curious if others have found ways to visit Fairfield and their TM friends and family comfortably, or if it is always uncomfortable for those who are not part of TM any more (or never were).

'...Finally, I’d add that I’m continuing in my reading and effort to see TM as a new religious movement rather than destructive cult, even if some on this site think this misguided or impossible."

My response:

I don't have friends or family in Fairfield, so I won't respond to the first question.  I hope others have some pointers for this reader.  But I will respond to his/her final comment.

My take on it is that the reader is confusing him/herself by trying to compare apples and oranges.  Religions, whether old or new, are in my opinion defined by beliefs and practices.  Destructive cults, on the other hand, are not defined by beliefs and practices, (no matter how unusual the beliefs and practices.)  Rather, destructive cults are defined by the manner in which a person is drawn into and kept in the group.

There are several models to describe this process.  One of my favorites is this simple model:  A groups is a destructive cult if outsiders are: (1) drawn in my deception, and (2) kept in by mind control.

For example, when a person is given an introductory lecture on TM, is s/he told that if they learn TM, in a few years, they might be celibate, meditate  6 hours a day, spend thousands of dollars on astrology and Vedic rituals, wear beige or scarlet, eat a lacto-vegetarian diet, buy an expensive new house, and be convinced that if they don't do their daily TM program, will be personally responsible for World War III?  

Are they told that on relaxing residential retreats, the extra meditations will put them in a state of reduced critical thinking, where they will absorb quasi-Hindu doctrine?  And that in this state of cognitive vulnerability, they will be told that (sub-standard) research "proves" that TM is the solution to all human problems?         

My suggestion to the reader is to learn more about new religions and also more about destructive cults, and then decide for him/herself what they think TM is.  (It could be both!)  There are other models on what constitutes a destructive cult beside the 2-point one I've reviewed here.  I recommend googling Margaret Singer Ph.D., and Robert J. Lifton, M.D, and Steve Hassan, M.Ed's website as noted above, for other useful models.  Also you could look at websites listed on the right hand side of the TM-Free homepage for a start.

Thank you to all commenters for your many, many intelligent and insightful comments.  Also thanks to all who read TM-Free but do not send comments.  

If any other reader would like their comments placed in this position of prominence as a TM-Free Blog "post," please let us know, and we will try to oblige!

Emotional Problems Post-TM; Relating to Fairfield Relatives, Part I

Recently I saw two readers' comments on TM-Free Blog that caught my attention in that I thought they lent themselves to serious discussion.  

The first one mentioned psychological problems the reader has had since leaving the TM movement.  

The second one asked how others manage the tricky terrain of visiting true-believer TM relatives and friends who live in Fairfield and Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa.

I was surprised that no one responded to these two comments.  Since some TM-Free readers read only the essays, but not the reader comments, I suspect this may have been what happened, and these two topics slipped through the cracks.      

So I hope I have not overstepped these two readers' privacy by reprinting portions of their comments below:

First Topic:  Emotional Problems Post-TM?

 Reader's comment:   

"...My commitment to TM lasted about 8 years....I did not have any acute psychological trauma as a result of the rounding and the indoctrination, and the recovery, although a bit slow, was not traumatic either. But I sometimes wonder if some of my psychological/ emotional difficulties are related to my years with TMO [TM organization - ed]."

My response:  

It is not uncommon for people who have left high-demand groups and have re-integrated themselves into the non-cult world to find that they have emotional problems.  The problems may not seem connected to the group; therefore it may not occur to them that these problems are a result of their time in the group.  If they see a psychotherapist, the psychotherapist may also agree that the problems are due to pre-existing issues.  (Psychotherapists are only slowly being educated on this new field of post-cult syndrome.)  For example, long ago I told my psychotherapist that I walked around in constant terror that the world was about to blow up.  He interpreted it in the standard psychodynamic way.  That is, he theorized that I must be angry about something from my childhood, and that I was experiencing that anger in a disguised form, as fear of the world exploding.  

Then, I met with Steve Hassan, an exit counselor.  Steve asked me, "What did they tell you would happen if you left TM?"  I replied, "Why...they said that if I left Fairfield, I would be 'personally responsible' for World War Three!"  And as soon as I made the connection, the terror went away!

That's an obvious example, but it illustrates my point.  I recommend Steve Hassan's website freeminds.org, and his books.  I hope these help.        

Second topic:  How to Relate to Fairfield TM Relatives

Reader's comment:

"I’d like to get back to some previous comment threads on how to relate to family in TM if you are not in it....

'...I don’t expect my [relatives] to give up TM, and I don’t even try to convince them much or argue with them. But I do....

[NOTE:  Something's gone wrong with this computer program, so I will continue this article as Emotional Problems Post-TM; Relating to Fairfield Relatives, Part II. - ed.]

TM-Free Does The Scientific Research that TM Avoids

I am undertaking a research project about Transcendental Meditation here on TM-Free Blog.  The purpose of this project is to fill in the missing gaps in the "more than 350 scientific studies verifying the wide-ranging benefits of the Transcendental Meditation technique [that] have been conducted at 250 independent universities and medical schools in 33 countries during the past 40 years."(1)  

The tone of this article may be snarky, but my goal is dead serious.  Various TM-connected organizations are currently pushing to get TM into schools, health centers, etc., throughout the world.  The 350+ studies they quote have unfortunately been designed to skew results in favor of TM.  They avoid assessment of possible risks.  If TM is going to be spread to large populations, isn't it responsible to make sure that negative as well as positive results are uncovered?  To the best of my knowledge, the questions I ask here have never been asked in the "[s]even volumes of Collected Papers of Scientific Research on Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation"(2).  

I am not a scientist; I am not a trained researcher.  The quality of my research is undeniably open to question.  But at least I am honest in admitting my design weaknesses and my biases.  I think I compare favorably with the TM-approved research in that regard.

Here are some of the flaws in my research:

1.  Subjects should be randomly chosen.  Since my subjects are readers of TM-Free Blog, they can hardly be considered random.  At minimum, they are people who are interested in reading about "independent, skeptical and critical views of TM claims and research."(3)  Some of them may be downright critical of some aspect of TM.  

Oh well.  My non-random sample probably doesn't matter, because lots of TM research didn't use random samples either.  For example, TMers have sometimes been "pre-screened" to make sure only TMers with specific brain waves patterns were allowed to be research subjects.(4)  

2.  My research design is composed of subjects who self-report subjective experiences on a questionnaire.  You could barely have a poorer scientific design.  I mean, self-reporting of subjective experiences is a gateway to reporting expectation, placebo, belief, desire to slant the results, desire to please researcher, etc., etc.

I hope this minor flaw in my design is balanced by the fact that some TM research also uses self-reporting.  My favorite example of this is the brilliant and witty critique, "How to Design a Positive Study: Meditation for Childhood ADHD...."(5).  

3.  This researcher is not neutral.  I'm a writer for TM-Free; how objective could I possibly be in my research design, my interpretation of the results, etc.?  A basis for objective research is that the researcher or funder should not have an ax to grind.

But please don't be too discouraged by this flaw.  After all, many TM research studies have been funded or conducted by TM college students, TM professors, pro-TM foundations.  (The foundations often have names that obfuscate their origin - "Quiet Time, " "Consciousness-Based Education," etc.  Some of these objective-sounding research facilities are located on Maharishi University campus!)  Open the TM "Collected Papers" at random and see for yourself how many non-neutral researchers and organizations sponsor TM research (1, 5, 6).

Many of the research papers done by TMers claim to have been produced by "independent researchers."  I looked up the definition of "independent researcher," and it turns out that an independent researcher can mean a grad student who is independent of his/her teacher, or a researcher who works without co-workers, etc.  It is a title chosen, I believe, to mislead the reader as to the objectivity of the research. 

4.  Where's my control group?  My placebo group?  My "correlation does not prove cause and effect" group?  Nowhere, that's where.  Oops.

But not to worry.  So much of the research in the "Collected Papers" has this flaw that I'm sure it will all even out.(2)  At random, I bring to your attention the scientific chart, "Increased EEG Coherence," which is given a place of honor on the home page of the TM organization's main website.(1)  Notice how in this chart there is no non-TM control group, and how correlation has been equated with cause and effect.  See also my TM-Free article, "TM Leader Hagelin Perverts Science to Sell Expensive TM Products."(7)     

5.  And finally, my questionnaire asks for ONLY deleterious results from TM!  So if you have anything good to say about TM, please don't even bother to fill out the questionnaire, because we will not post or tally your comments!  

Before you are too incensed by my insultingly obvious bias, please read the Roark Letter (8).  "...Confirmed to me by investigators at MIU was the suppression of negative evidence that these investigators had collected.  Strong bias was present in selecting only data favorable to a conclusion that was made prior to the data collection...."    

So without further ado, here is my: 
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SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE

Question 1:  Have you had any negative results from practicing the TM technique for 20 minutes twice a day?  If "yes," please describe.

Question 2:  Have you had any negative results from any other aspect of the TM organization's offerings?  (Advanced techniques, TM-Sidhis program, rounding, Maharishi Ayurveda, Maharishi yagyas, etc.)  If "yes," please describe.

Question 3:  Have you stopped doing TM for 20 minutes twice a day?  If "yes," please describe, and explain why.

Question 4:  Over time, did you find that "TM just stopped working"?  If "yes," please describe.

Question 5:  Do you know of someone who might answer the above questions negatively?  If so, please ask them to fill in this questionnaire.  If they are dead, hospitalized, etc., please fill it in for them to the best of your ability.

END OF RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE

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Dear readers, please help us do the research the TM organization has avoided for over 40 years in over 600 studies.  These questions, consistently omitted from the official body of TM research, may begin to offer an important window into the dangers as well as the benefits of TM.

Please provide your answers in the "comments" section.  If you need anonymity, please feel free to use a pseudonym.  Thank you very much for your help, and for the help you may provide to people around the world who may be harmed by TM.


(1) www.tm.org/research-on-meditation
(2)  www.t-m.org.uk/SCI_Glance.shtml   
(3)  TM-Free Blog homepage, introduction
(4)  TM-Free Blog, reported in various comments.  Unfortunately I haven't had the time to dig up the quotes.  If anyone wants to take that on, I commend you.  Or, alternately, maybe someone will be kind enough to write up their experiences a second time in the comments section.  
(5) spacecityskeptics.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/how-to-design-a-positive-study-meditation-for-childhood-adhd/ 

(6) TM-Free Blog, "Who Are These People?  The Background of David Lynch's 'Researchers' " by Mike Doughney   tmfree.blogspot.com/2010/12/who-are-these-people-backgrounds-of.html
(7) http://tmfree.blogspot.com/2012/11/tm-leader-hagelin-perverts-science-to.html
(8) TM-Ex Newsletter, Spring 1992

Who Are These People? The Backgrounds of David Lynch's "Operation Warrior Wellness" participants

(This is a rewrite/update of last years' "Who Are These People" feature, on the "researchers" and other figures associated with the David Lynch Foundation's campaign to promote Transcendental Meditation to vulnerable populations including schoolchildren and military veterans.)

This weekend's events sponsored by the David Lynch Foundation begin at 11 am Pacific time today, with a "press conference" that's been announced on the Foundation's web site, but strangely, as far as what shows up online this morning, no press releases have been sent to the media through the usual websites to encourage attendance by members of the press.

(Update, 9:30 am ET: Obviously the Associated Press has rewritten a press release into a news story for an event that hasn't even happened yet. It's 6:30 am in Los Angeles and Lynch and company are probably still asleep.)

At the DLF web site, there's a copy of an invitation that was sent to people who practice the Transcendental Meditation technique describing the event. As usual, this sort of "press conference" that isn't - a non-event that's staged periodically by the organization that teaches TM for the last few decades - will be a sales pitch offering the Transcendental Meditation program as yet another form of panacea, this time, as a treatment for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress.

As is standard practice for promoters of Maharishi-branded products, full disclosure of the backgrounds, and prior associations with the TM program, of the people who'll be present and/or presenting at this event seldom occurs. While it may appear that the medical doctors and other individuals on the panel may be independently employed, many have long been closely associated with the TM organization.

As I've written before, the promoters of TM today generally tend to come from a rather narrow demographic, recruited while relatively young, and during a particular period, the late '60's and early-mid 70's, when recruitment into TM was supported by the influence of American popular culture. Likewise, there's a striking sameness among the ten individuals involved with this conference. Only two of them are clearly younger than 50 years old, and they're students at the TM movement's university. Among those whose date of initiation into the TM program can be identified, other than those students, only one learned TM after the mid-1970's.

My added details about the conference panel participants appear in italic below. Names and initial descriptions are from various David Lynch Foundation sources including press releases and bios on the Foundation and Operation Warrior Welness websites.

Who Are These People? The Backgrounds of David Lynch's "Researchers"

Today's events sponsored by the David Lynch Foundation, which I've dubbed "Billionaires for TM," begin at 11 am today, Eastern time, with a conference that was announced in this press release. A sales pitch offering the Transcendental Meditation program as yet another form of panacea, this time, as a treatment for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress, can be expected.


As is standard practice for promoters of Maharishi-branded products, full disclosure of the backgrounds, and prior associations with the TM program, of the people who'll be present and/or presenting at this conference seldom occurs. While it may appear that the medical doctors and other individuals may be independently employed, many have long been closely associated with the TM organization.


You can't keep track of them all without a scorecard, so I've done a bit of digging and made one, of sorts.  If you happen to be a reporter unlucky enough to have to cover this thing, you can download a printable copy of the list below, from here.


As I wrote in my last posting here, the promoters of TM today generally tend to come from a rather narrow demographic, recruited while relatively young, and during a particular period, the late '60's and early-mid 70's, when recruitment into TM was supported by the influence of American popular culture. Likewise, there's a striking sameness among the fourteen individuals involved with this conference. Only two of them are clearly younger than 50 years old. Among those whose date of initiation into the TM program can be identified, they were all initiated between the years 1970 and 1975, except for one younger person initiated last year.


My added details about the conference participants appear in italic below. Names and initial descriptions that are not highlighted are from the original David Lynch Foundation press release announcing today's conference.

• Clint Eastwood

Film actor, director, producer. 80 years old. Initiated into the Transcendental Meditation program about 1970. No demonstrated qualifications to evaluate a treatment for PTSD.

• David Lynch

American filmmaker, aged 64. Initiated into the Transcendental Meditation program on July 1, 1973. No demonstrated qualifications to evaluate a treatment for PTSD.

• Martin Scorsese

American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actor. 68 years old. TM initiation date unknown (presumably mid-70’s or earlier). No demonstrated qualifications to evaluate a treatment for PTSD.

• Russell Brand

English comedian, actor. 35 years old. Initiated into the Transcendental Meditation program in 2009. No demonstrated qualifications to evaluate a treatment for PTSD.

• Colonel Brian M. Rees, M.D., M.P.H., command surgeon, 63d Regional Support Command, with 34 years of commissioned military service, who recently completed his fourth deployment in Afghanistan. Col. Rees serves as co-chair of Operation Warrior Wellness.

Rees is a teacher of TM and has been closely associated with the Transcendental Meditation organization for over twenty years. He wrote a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association supporting Maharishi Ayur-Veda products in 1989, and was later identified as the director of the Maharishi Ayur-Veda Medical Center in Pacific Palisades, California. He was a candidate for U.S. Senator from California in 1998 and 2000 under the banner of the TM organization’s “Natural Law Party.”

Rees is the author of a rather peculiar, 2007 US Army War College masters degree research paper, “The Application of Strategic Stress Management in Winning the Peace.” While the title suggests the subject is “stress management,” much of the paper assumes the validity of the so-called “Maharishi Effect” - the unsubstantiated, and frankly, silly assertion that groups of people practicing certain parts of the Transcendental Meditation program that generally involve bouncing on foam rubber will bring peace and “invincibility” to countries that establish and pay for such groups. In 1997, Evan Fales and Barry Markovsky at the University of Iowa concluded that this “theory does not pass minimal criteria of meaningfulness and logical integrity.”

Rees is named as one of the directors of the “Center for Advanced Military Science (CAMS)” at “The Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy at Maharishi University of Management,” one part of the organization that teaches TM. The main function of CAMS appears to be the promotion of the “Maharishi Effect” non-theory, renamed “Invincible Defense Technology,” as valid military doctrine of some sort.

• Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D., senior researcher in psychiatry and psychobiology for 20 years at the National Institute of Mental Health; clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University Medical School, who conducted research on TM and Iraq veterans with PTSD.

Evidence of Rosenthal’s direct participation in the TM program, if any, remains undisclosed. He has been involved with at least one previous David Lynch Foundation sponsored conference, promoting TM as an aid for students with ADHD. He’s better known for coining the term, “seasonal affective disorder.” His research on Iraq veterans with PTSD is “under review” and hasn’t yet been published.

• John Hagelin, Ph.D., Harvard-trained quantum physicist who has led an international scientific investigation over the past 25 years into the applications of Transcendental Meditation for health and education; president of the David Lynch Foundation.

While Hagelin is indeed a physicist, his qualifications to evaluate any treatment or therapy for PTSD have not been demonstrated. Hagelin has been involved with the TM organization for decades, and has run for the United States Presidency multiple times as the Natural Law Party candidate. He’s currently known, inside the organization, as the “Raja of America,” coronated on November 20, 2007.

• James Krag, M.D., recent president of the Psychiatric Society of Virginia and currently clinic psychiatrist with the Veterans Administration.

Krag is a former member of the Board of Advisors of the David Lynch Foundation, and an advisor to the Committee for Stress-Free Schools, a TM program affiliated group established with the DLF. He was a candidate for Presidential elector in Virginia, associated with the Natural Law Party, in 2000. He also participated in the 2003 inauguration of a TM organization called “The US Peace Government,“ headed by John Hagelin, a successor organization to the Natural Law Party. Krag issued a statement at the time which included this: “The US Peace Government will help guide human evolution by aligning with Nature’s Intelligence. We will use the collective creative intelligence of thoughtful Americans to guide the conscious growth of this country.”

• Sarina Grosswald, Ed.D., George Washington University-trained cognitive learning specialist and published researcher on the effects of TM on PTSD and ADHD.

Grosswald is a research faculty member at the TM movement’s Maharishi University of Management. She was a candidate for U.S. Congress from Virginia in 1996 and 1998, and was treasurer of the Natural Law Party of Virginia at its closing in 2004. Grosswald also participated in the 2003 inauguration of “The US Peace Government.” Grosswald has received a “Doctorate in World Peace Studies” from Maharishi European Research University, which reportedly, as much as it ever physically existed, once consisted of a desk in a TM movement owned hotel in Switzerland. According to a self-described long-term meditator, the MERU “DWP” degree was “an award from Maharishi to those who studied with him for over forty years.”

• Jerry Yellin, A P-51 pilot in WWII who flew 19 missions over Japan, and was victimized by PTSD for 25 years before learning to meditate in 1975. Mr. Yellin is a member of the Military Writers Society of America; author of three award-winning books, and honorary board member of the Iwo Jima Association of America. Jerry serves as co-chair of Operation Warrior Wellness.

Yellin’s personal story and endorsement of the TM program appear at the Transcendental Meditation Blog. That is, however, no substitute for independent scientific research on the effectiveness of the technique, particularly with respect to PTSD.

• Ed Schloeman, Vietnam vet

• Dan Burks, Vietnam vet

Burks, aged 63, is Instructor of Exercise and Sport Science at the TM movement’s Maharishi University of Management, and resides in Fairfield, Iowa.

• Lt. Col. Brenda Marlinbanks, Iraq vet

Marlinbanks, aged 54, was associated with the Army Suicide Prevention Task Force (ASPTF) in 2009.

• David George, Iraq vet

George is a 26-year-old student at the TM organization’s Maharishi University of Management.