"TM-Kids" Open Up Publicly

Willy Blackmore's essay about a young father's childhood hometown was published online October 24, 2014 : Growing Up in Utopia .

He describes the contrast between growing up as a non-Iowan in Iowa.  How do you tell your current friends that you learned to fly when you were 17?  Why do local Iowans think "you're not from around here" when you really did grow up in their backyard? He eloquently describes coming of age surrounded by cornfields, idealistic ex-hippies who believe they bring world peace by holing up to bounce on padded foam for hours daily, shmoozing with visiting celebrities, and his peers' angst.

Click here to read Willy's : Growing Up in Utopia

After years of declining invitations to make a formal presentation at San Francisco's reputable intellectual forum The Commonwealth Club of California, On October 20, 2014 I presented  Cult or Benign Cure-all? Life in Transcendental Meditation's Hidden Society

With an illustrated Power Point presentation and screen shots of TMO's active websites, I described the lives of my loved ones and myself in the TM Movement from 1966-2014.  By coincidence fifty years of my family life were defined by the TM Movement, even though I physically left in the late 1980s with my own three TM-born children. Without throwing slanderous stones, I shared stories of loved ones as TM's focus changed from mysticism to mystical science, of child neglect, psychosis, suicides, thousands of dollars spent for promises, fortunes lost and the next generation's struggles for self definition.  Such stories lay doubt on the David Lynch Foundation's promise of one-shot panacea for Transcendental Meditation in public schools, the Veterans Administration and elsewhere.  Listeners might appreciate post-talk objections that were raised by TM true believers.

You may listen to the 45 minutes audio track by clicking here : Cult of Benign Cure-all? Life in Transcendental Meditation's Hidden Society

Recovering TM Cult Children --

Given that most posts here generate stimulating conversation about the TMO, Maharishi and cult (and recovery) dynamics, I couldn't help but note the lack of comments (both here and on TM-Free's FB page) to a recent insightful post Maharishi Mahesh Demeans Children. which quoted Helena Olson's "Maharishi at 433" about the guru's attitude toward children. This post was shared anonymously by one our readers who was raised in the TM Movement and included a number of revelatory remarks about adult TM-children's view of the Movement.

The lack of commentators' response to the words of a TM-kid who is finding their voice to publicly speak the unspeakable (criticism of the guru) reminds me when I was the only born-and-raised person in a cult recovery therapy group. Someone else in that group (a former cult member) looked at me askew and said, "That's really interesting. I never thought about the children in our cult."

I laughed and shook my head, "That's the point." I responded, "Children were left largely to their own devices. The leaders did not think about children.  Parents followed leaders' dictates, leadership bent upon narcissistic and financial goals. Cult members with follower-mentality lacked guidance on how to parent. There was some variation, and mostly a lot of neglect."

Sadly, little attention is placed, even in cult recovery, upon the larger issues of those born-and-raised in TM and other cults. The programming from birth can be hard to overcome. Some have lifelong effects that interfere with professional, social and family development. Into adulthood, many remain dependent primarily upon their cult-based childhood friendships because they are unable to create bonds with outsiders.

When leaving the group, "kids" lack any history of a non-cult life from which to navigate the outside world.

Just noticing... still little-to-no recognition for those whose parents and community had 'more-noble' priorities.

Fortunately, an informal network of TM-kids helps one another, in cities around the world. They (we) have our own stories. Most TM-kids share their stories quietly between trusted friends. They do not speak out publicly to avoid rejection from family and lifelong friends, many of whom remain in degrees of TM mentality.

For TM'ers who may respond saying "Maharishi said that your children are your program."
I guarantee that Maharishi NEVER said that. In 1979,  I was a 21 year old single mother, with a 2 year old child from a relationship that had begun as statutory rape when I was 15 years old.

My parents had left me at MIU Santa Barbara to attend the local high school, without a legal custodian when I was 15 years old. They thought it was a pure, safe environment (variation of a common experience for subsequent decades of TM kids). MIU Prep was a joke at that time - a babysitting service based around a few dirty donated fisher-price toys and volunteer babysitters (including me).

I told Bevan Morris, "Our children are our Program" at the first World Peace Assembly in Amherst Massachusetts, summer 1979.

Bevan Morris had called me to a private audience to threaten banning me if I didn't participate in full Program. He said I would be responsible for World War III and global economic collapse because I continued my self-modified version of Program to allow me to also care for my daughter.

In 1979-mid 1980s I then told other parents, as I had told Bevan, "Our children are our Program. Maharishi doesn't know about children because he doesn't have any." I also said the same when I taught childbirth and early parenting classes to TMers in Fairfield, Iowa through the mid 1980s. It seems that some community remembered the message, although attributing it to their guru.

The stance of Maharishi and his Movement (led primarily by single men) toward children and parenting was "Do your program to support spontaneous right action and glean the support of nature". Meanwhile parents were told to meditate for hours daily and donate ample $ums to Maharishi's vision.

MIU Prep and MSAE (Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment) were established by motivated parents, not because of Maharishi's interest in children. When TM leadership learned they could glean publicity through MSAE, there was a smidgen of interest to exploit enlightened children to attract followers. That's the same motivation behind David Lynch Foundation's efforts toward school children.

For the most part, TM children hindered the quest for enlightenment, to be seen and largely ignored. Other than teaching children to meditate and parrot the guru's teachings, the Movement did not support nurturing, protecting nor inspiring children's individuality. Fortunately, a few parents had strong parental / maternal instincts; those homes often became a haven for other kids.

Seems that's still the case. To the TM-kids out there - remember, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

Guest Post: "An Alumni's Response to Oprah's Visit to Maharishi School"

Previously: Triumph of the Incurious: Oprah Visits Fairfield's Pandits

Previously: Oprah Winfrey's Transcendental Meditation episode airs Sunday, and open thread

Today's guest post was contributed by an alumnus of the Maharishi School in Fairfield, Iowa; this school is one of the Transcendental Meditation movement institutions that was featured in the recent episode of Oprah's television program. - Mike

An Alumni's Response to Oprah's Visit to Maharishi School

Oprah visited my home town; she visited my high school. This would be a big deal for any alumni of any school but the reason she chose mine is unique. At my school we meditated together every day. Oprah is a new inductee in to the celebrity Transcendental Meditation club and she is going all-in by having her staff learn TM and dedicating an entire 1 hour show to her visit to Fairfield, Iowa.

I wasn’t angered by her visit or even her endorsement of TM; live and let live. I grew up in Fairfield and I was used to wealthy and famous people being toured around our school. Musicians, politicians, movie stars, magicians etc. The celebrity TM club is large. What did disturb me was how she kept parroting the movement line that TM is not a religion. She keeps saying this while they show students reading Sanskrit texts from Hindu holy books. She says this while standing around with chanting Hindu monks from India. I suppose I should have expected this but then Oprah said something to the teenage girls wrapping up their afternoon meditation session that stopped me cold.

She told them they were changing the world.

This is when I sighed. It was a moment in the show where I almost cried; Oprah is good at that.

There were clips in the show with people I know; people, who helped raise me, cared about me and truly believed they were giving me the best education possible. I love my teachers at Maharishi School; they were mostly good people with good intentions. I had a counsellor who recognized that my mother had mental issues and could be abusive which takes a keen eye and real bravery in a secretive town full of eccentrics, to put it mildly. That counsellor reached out to me and saved my already bombarded psyche. I do not hold a grudge against these teachers. However there is a price to pay for everything in the movement. For a Maharishi School student that price is earning glory; glory for the school, glory for the movement, glory for the choices their former hippie, baby-boomer parents made.