Yogic Flying and Post Hypnotic Suggestion

Following Maharishi’s tradition of brainwashing ridiculousness, and the power of post-hypnotic suggestion, you are invited to attend tomorrow’s “Yogic Flying Competition”. True Believers who paid thousands of dollars to learn the phrase “relationship of body and akasha - lightness of cotton fiber” will squeeze their gluteus maximus muscles with enough force to bounce upon high density rebound foam in the name of spiritual awakening and manipulating natural law to defy gravity.

Cookies will be served as gastronomic reinforcement of juvenile psychology.  Per the flyer below, you may also see an EEG brainwave demonstration - we assume to show, once again, how Transcendental Meditation creates coherent brainwaves.  TM teachers fail to mention that no one knows the significance of synchronous brainwaves.  It is known that comatose states and death also create synchronous brainwaves.

        If readers of TM-Free Blog attend tomorrow’s demonstration, we will be happy to share your photos and reviews of the session. 

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: 
-------------------------------------------------------------------

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Your Brain on East-Facing Buildings, and open thread

Here are a few images found on the web. These are from an online presentation, "Intro To Maharishi Sthapatya Veda," which is the TM movement's architecture and construction product, promoted by the very same people who attempt to sell Transcendental Meditation as some kind of "scientifically validated" practice.

Despite the reference to "neuro-scientific research" in the second slide, there is zero scientific evidence that indicates that physical orientation has any direct effect on the human brain. Of course, that doesn't stop the promoters of TM from making these sorts of outrageous claims, that aren't even clearly supported by the religious traditions of India. In other words, it appears "Maharishi" and his entourage may have made this stuff up. It's a uniquely megalomaniacal stance, this claim that almost all buildings across the planet should be bulldozed and rebuilt according to their rigid strictures.

The first slide is very similar to a poster I once found taped to the doors of a since-demolished building at the Maharishi University of Management, announcing that certain doors were not to be used. Here's my previous article with a picture of that poster, and more about the 70 million dollar office building that was built near Washington, DC, to comfort those few people who've developed this kind of peculiar phobia about the orientation and design of buildings. Or as a peculiar gimmick to sell the building to renters - funny, that trick doesn't seem to have worked, at last glance the building still sits mostly empty.

The TM-Free News Brief is on hiatus this week.


If you don't see an "add your comment" link below, click on the article title to see the comments. Disqus seems to have broken something this morning. It's fixed.

Students Speak, Transcendental Meditation U Blinks!

Received the following email from TMFB reader Andrew. It appears that Maharishi University of Management is making changes brought about by student protest and activism.

There are many more changes necessary to bring MUM to the standards held by most other universities. But any change in a positive direction -- particularly in response the requests of students or other members -- is a cause for celebration in my book.

So today there was an all school assembly where they spoke about many new developments happening.... one in particular involved abolishing the Research in Consciousness program (required meditation w/consequences for not obeying)! Hooray!.... and creating the Development of Consciousness Program...... this new program consists of the following (from a handout):

---

Graduation Requirements - Development of Consciousness Program
All of the components of the Development of Consciousness Program are offered on an ongoing basis to support your maximum growth. Each semester after your first one, you need to earn at least 1 unit of academic credit in Development of Consciousness. Credit can be earned in a variety of ways as the chart below shows. You only need to earn 60 points per semester. Earn 60 points and you have your unit of academic credit for the semester.

1 unit of academic credit=60 points
----------------------------
-Personal Checking=10 points each(meet up to 3x w/TM teacher per semester=30pts)
-TM experience meetings=10 points each(attend up to 3X per semester = 30pts)
-Group meditation=1 point per each attendance in halls or domes
-Residence Courses= 30 points each
-Brain integration progress report= 10 points per semester
-Experience log= 5 points per block (daily journal of experiences approved by certified teacher)

Bonus:
If you do extra and earn more points you can gain credit... again following 60 points = 1 academic credit.

You can also gain 4 units of academic credit by completing the TM-Sidhi course

---

Andrew continues:

Basically this opens up the meditation policy enormously. Before we were required to attend a meditation session AT LEAST once a day, every day of the month in order to pass....these were held at a few pockets of time before and after class everyday in either the dorms or golden domes. If you failed 3 blocks in a row then you were put on "RC ALERT" which meant you had to start going almost every day, twice a day, to make up for missing meditations and to keep up with the current month/block.

With this new Development of Consciousness program we, the students, will NOT be required to attend EVERY SINGLE DAY. This leaves it open for students who want to do their own thing on a day to day basis and the hard core student meditators who enjoy going everyday can still do so. Though there are still some "requirements" for us students, they seem FAR MORE RELAXED than anything I've heard since being here and even from long before.

In my last letter to you I mentioned that their old system had me en route to be kicked out. But with this new system it seems like I will be able to do everything I had already been doing without a problem now. It's as if the school adapted to OUR schedule and expectations. Funny. It also seems that at least half of the student body just stopped caring about required meditation (included in this group were those with stellar grades) because everyone recognized how much B.S. was behind what we were being told to do. That coupled with the fact that MUM can't afford students leaving were probably the two biggest factors in this policy change.

Earlier in the year the administration put a band-aid over the whole RC issue by just renaming things....BUT... many of us grew up bullshitting our parents and we recognized what the administration did (or didn't do haha). There is the saying that "You can't bullshit a bullshitter." I find this to be evident with much of the current student body. So with some organization, economic motivation, and genuine passion for what this place could be, us students have managed to drastically change a policy and mindset which was foundational to the school.

The work is far from over but this is a big leap forward in thinking for the administration of the school.

Thanks,
Andrew

P.S.
Our next step will be to pay our teachers more, they live like slaves.... us students pay 30k a year...where does all that money go to?

A Wind of Freedom at Transcendental Meditation U

I received an email last night that has given me such hope!

Although I've worked with thousands of former TMers, I've only worked with a few adults who were born or raised in TM. It's easy, unfortunately, for me to forget about the very different needs and experiences of Maharishi's Children. (My heartfelt thanks to Gina Catena for her help in my understanding this community.)

The note below gives me a glimpse into a very different world: The next generation of Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, IA.

There is a bracing wind of freedom blowing in the halls of MUM (the old MIU) where some students are not afraid to state changes they want to see -- as well as an articulate statement of those things they want to keep and improve.

I urge readers to click on the linked article below. The essay is an eloquent call to arms from the next generation of the TM Movement.

Speaking only for myself, and not any other contributor to TMFB, if I can be of any help to these brave students, this is one aging hippie-wannabe I hope they will not hesitate to ask. (I can be reached on my cell at 518.651.6490 or by email at jmknapp53@gmail.com.)

For starters, I would be very interested in proposing a representative of these students to my fellow contributors as a columnist here at TMFB. (Gabriel Renfrew, are you listening?) Theirs is a perspective I believe readers here would be inspired by!

Hi John,

So this article is circulating around student Facebook profiles... I thought this may be of interest to you or possibly even to post. Much of what he says about the student body is true. Many of us this year have just begun to do what we wish without fear of repercussion. Well, the fear is still somewhat there, but we care far less about the motives of the TM organization. In fact, recently the "RC Dept." brought the hammer down on quite a few students telling them they had to leave at the end of the year because of low meditation attendance. I myself am one of these students. Word soon spread to the V.P. and he was dumbfounded that the RC department (in cooperation with an "Academic Committee") was assuming the authority to kick students out. Almost all of these students, including me, also have above a 3.0 GPA. So the V.P. told them to stop kicking people out, but for the most part it was too late because quite a few of the students told to leave had
already made plans.

We still have respect for what the founders intended with the university, but we are not those same people. Much of what Gabriel Renfrow's letter embodies is the spirit of a majority within the students. We know what is going on. We laugh at the answers we get from our "rounding" instructors. We think John Hagelin's burger king crown is ridiculous. TM works for some people, though we are highly curious about new and different practices. But most importantly, we believe in what this university could be and we think the movement/TM organization is ruining it.

Here is the link to the blog post my friend and student recently made:

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=91000722430&h=Bwd3D&u=_U11O&ref=nf

Feel free to post whatever you'd like :-)

All the Best,
Andrew
RandEm Hero arcatec23@yahoo.com

Cash Deficit at MUM

From a recent M.U.M.mailing signed by Morris and Haglin:

"Dear Alumni and friends,

Along with colleges, universities, and businesses around the country, we are facing a financial challenge as a result of the economic recession.

We want to tell you what we are doing in response--and invite your help as our partner in this urgent situation.

The challenge

The downturn in the job market has slowed the hiring of our Computer Science co-op students. These students bring a major revenue stream to the University--but the lion's share comes when they are hired by a US company, enabling them to take out a bank loan and pay their full tuition, room, and board fees. The slower pace of hiring means a cash flow deficit of about $2 million this fiscal year.

The letter goes on to say that certain steps have been taken to address the issue:



"-- Salary reductions--We have implemented across-the board salary reductions (10-15%) for faculty and staff.

--Other expense reduction--We have reduced the food service budget by 10% and are deferring spending wherever possible.

The reductions in salaries and food service spending should save around $750,000 annually.

--Lines of credit--We have increased our lines of credit by $1 million and are seeking more.

--Energy conservation--We have launched a campus-wide program to reduce energy usage, including presentations in every classroom. -

--Administrative streamlining--We have identified areas where we can reduce cost and increase efficiency by consolidating functions.

--Revenue enhancement--We have launched a campaign to boost contributions to the Golden Dome Support Fund, among other measures."





The remainder of the letter is a solicitation for funds. Even though there currently are no dome fees all sidhas who are doing program in the dome are now being asked to contribute a minimum of $30 a month. I assume this includes those on the $700 Settle grant. Money is tight for the folks on the grant programs and will be getting tighter. Money is tight for faculty and staff and these cuts will really hurt.

MUM Student Reads Protest Statement to Dean of Students

I received this email from a Maharishi University of Management senior. He reports that there is an active "underground" at the Transcendental Meditation Movement's university in Fairfield, IA.

Way to go, Gabriel! I can't imagine the courage it took to make your concerns known, in what you describe as an "incredibly oppressive" environment

Forgive us all
by Gabriel Renfrow
adapted form V for Vendetta

Good evening, M.U.M. friends. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption of your regularly scheduled entertainment... I, like many of you, have come to appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the placidity of the repetition and the drilling of information that has become the main-stay of our everyday lives. I enjoy them as much as any one can. But in the spirit of revolution, whereby important past events have come to shape our lives for the better, for the greater good of world-kind, though always in the face of great idealism and the adversary associated to change, I am here to implore you to fight. This is not a fight that will win us any wordly reward any greater than the satisfraciotn of the rest that comes after the change. It is not with your fists that I ask you to take pose against, but with your will, you hearts and to let it be known that you will not become victim anymore to the tyranny of monotony. you will fight with your every non-violent actions, your spirits and your deeds.

I thought, first, we could mark this time as a time that is sadly no longer embraced for what it really is: Free! By taking some time out of our lives to sit down and have a little heart-to-heart. You may use your eyes and ears but I will use something far greater. I will use the power of intension to share with you the keys to the internal liberated world that I posses. Together we shall kick-start a change of such great proportion that will have such great impact that you will look back upon your days before now and whimper that you could have ever been so foolishly enslaved before now.

There are of course those who do not want us to speak or to feel or to make our own way for a life well lived outside of the structure they have so generously provided for us. These are our so-called superiors of whom I speak. I suspect even now some of them can feel the reverberation of my words ringing in their disapproving ears as it threatens their disposition of illusory power and promises to redeem within us all our God given rights of being human; the right to happiness, the right to freedom. They may feel the change in the world that you have begun to shake and recreate with just your attention listening to me now as I speak.

for too long your words have been meant in the name of freedom, but your deeds have been under the umbrella of fear and conformity. I am offering, now, some truth to you. Simple, unadulterated truth. The truth that is spoken, written or scientifically observed only lends itself to the means of the meanings for which you must decide or yourself. But at the very core the words of truth shall set you on the path to freedom. For those who will listen, the enunciation of what I am about to say shall come as no surprise. Perhaps, though, it shall come with a slight sting to that part of you that has cowered and knelt at their alters, eaten of their poisoned foods and drank their temporarily intoxicating drinks in rations so miniscule that you have only the guilty feelings of reciprocally mandatory dedication, blind faithfulness on the tip of your tongues to show for it all, and you feel ever so shamefully fortunate to be barely alive enough and possess what little you do- minus your dignity.- And, the part of your that is so genuinely thankful to the security of structure they have insisted only they can provide you with you have abandoned ship and given up, covered up, perhaps only to at least save face.

The truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this place, isn't there? We have been tolerating cruelty, injustice, oppression, censorship, dehumanization through overspecialization, Mood-making, humanness deconstruction that leaves us so barren, naked and confused that we must cling on to the only thing we can. Whatever they have to offer us. And we know they need us but cannot let go.

We have turned the other cheek and have been force-fed their ideological principles so much that we have found ourselves regurgitating the same lies to our friend, our parents and loved ones.

Mutability has always been your only means to survival, hasn’t it? Where once you had the freedom to contrast, to think and speak for yourself, to design your life as you saw best, you now have censors and systems of supervision and surveillance coercing your conformity and incessantly soliciting your submission through the powers of repeated suggestion and subtle to blatant propaganda.

How did this come about? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others; of course there are. But who is pressing them accountable? Again, and I do apologize if it comes as a painful shock, but the matter must be told, and the veil over your eyes you have not minded or even noticed for so long, must be unwrapped if you wish to be free. If you're looking for the ultimately guilty, you need only look into a reflective surface.

I know why you did it and you do as well! You have been afraid. Who wouldn't be terrified? The threats of expulsion, discipline, the banishment from utopia, war, terror, disease, failure, separation, being labeled a heretic and an outcasted martyr. There are a myriad of issues which have schemed directly or indirectly against your precious mind to demoralize, dehumanize and disempower your reason, self-reliance and self-trust. It aimed to hold you at fear-point and rob you directly out of of your common sense. It has done it’s job.

Fear has got the best of you, and in your anxiety you turned form your neighbors and more importantly form yourself. You looked up to the forces of authority and the institutions and their administrators- who are themselves enslaved and leading you narrowly, sometimes even blindly with idealistic, ungrounded beliefs and mere portions of the wholeness of the potential of this and the internal world. It is the blind leading the blind and they are just as medicated if not worse.

They are teaching you to react according to their losses, and to accept things because that is ‘just the way they are.’ Those with money have determined and defined you and it has been accepted and exchanged that we help them spread their diseases if only we be taken care of by them. It is the disease of fear of non-self and non-power in so many directions around you that you have become so drunk by it’s overwhelming implications that it has gone relatively unchallenged. Every time you began to sober you that sobriety was treated as instability, and not to be treated as real. What would life be without those intoxicants?

You put their word above yours. Up too those who boasted themselves louder than you felt you could, louder than your parents could. The shrouds of illusion existed before your grandparents and before theirs and so on. And in their volumes of whaling through lifetimes they have taken you hostage and taken advantage of your basic trusts, assumptions, beliefs and experiences and filled them with the darkest of poisons; falsity, non-truth. Most others are as trusting and as well-wishing as yourself and most have given up control of will.

You accepted their titles: Gurus, Saint, boss-man or woman and accepted their provisions with little to no question. In defense of your autonomy you may have complained a few times about it and fooled yourself into thinking that you are not hopelessly enslaved, but you are. Let them, if they wish, take your lives, take your money, your clothes, everything you hold dear in this world... but they cannot, unless you give it to them; your soul, your spirit, your integrity and your attention. They promised you order and even peace, and all they have demanded in return is your silent, obedient consent.

Right now I seek to end that silence. Right now! Right now I seek to destroy only perspectives. The perspective that you are not amazing and free, that you are not empowered, that you do not know better, that you do not hold sway in your reality. I seek to destroy the illusion that you need anything at all. I am destroying the illusion that you are what they say you are!
If you've seen nothing and the crimes all around remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow yourself to be unmarked by my perspective. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside Right now!!! Right Now! and give them a world they will not embrace at first glance. Give them a world where you are free from them and their systems of oppression. Their only power is your fear.

They have tried to sell you enlightenment, peace, tranquility and what you got was inequity, rules and disregard for your humanity and abilities. They are dwelling in the dreas-state, the realm of mysticism which only leads to more delusion. They knowingly or unknowingly prey on your trust and innocence and they do not embrace truth. They are not the figures of supreme faculty, and neither are you until you act upon truth with unwavering intent. Stand with me this night and look at each other, look at yourselves and charge forward in the name of freedom, in the name of truth and, God damn it, explode.

Vlodrop Calling, er.. listening

We have a silent reader following this blog from Maharishi University of Management in Vlodrop.

Maharishi always told us to ignore negative publicity about him and the Movement, saying "never entertain negativity" and "all news is good news."

Long ago, as a TM-good girl I ignored media 'negativity,' law suits and other such, focusing upon my beloved community and our goodness. We/I followed the bliss. Then loved ones started dropping like flies.

Seems someone on-high is following our conversations. Our deemed-negativity is not ignored!

Our combined histories and information are valuable.
Seems His Holiness' minions agree.

Just an FYI.

g (smiles)

THINK FREE: 02/16/07

THINK FREE is a regular feature of TM-Free Blog. It features a summary of news about TM and other orgs labeled "cults" by critics.

• Magazine Editor Hoffman Working on Book on Growing Up in TM LA Observed [Second-Generation 'Ru and How She Grew]
  
• Carrey Rules Out Scientology [What a Relief Says Mrs. Carrey!]
  

Have a hot tip? See something we missed? Email jmknapp53@gmail.com.

Sad News: Possible MUM Suicide

We have received a report this morning that a Maharishi University of Management recently committed suicide by a shot to the head. We hope to confirm this report this morning. We express condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.