Judgment entered against David Lynch's foundation and Chicago school board in US Federal Court

One of the three civil cases brought against the David Lynch Foundation and the Board of Education of the City of Chicago has reached its conclusion, with judgments against both the DLF and the Board.

Quoting the court:

(1) Judgment is entered in favor of plaintiff Mariyah Green and against defendant Board of Education of the City of Chicago in the amount of $75,000. This is inclusive of any and all relief available to the plaintiff in this case against the Board including all types of damages; attorney’s fees; costs; interest; and litigation expenses. (2) Judgment is entered in favor of plaintiff Mariyah Green and against defendant David Lynch Foundation in the amount of $75,000. This is inclusive of any and all relief available to the plaintiff in this case against the Foundation including all types of damages; attorney’s fees; costs; interest; and litigation expenses.

While it appears that the attorney for Lynch's foundation and various TM organizations believed that such a lawsuit would likely immediately be dismissed by any court before which it was brought, the initial case against the DLF, the Board and initially, the University of Chicago, which spawned two others including this one, has dragged on since October 2020 and may be settled in the next few weeks. The other spawned case is still in progress.

This outcome should give responsible individuals in any government agency in the United States, or private entities funded by governments, second thoughts before teaming up with Lynch or any other TM promoting organization. The consequences may be rather expensive.

(For a summary of the claims at issue in these cases, see my earlier post at Reddit.)

The full text of an early version of Maharishi's "Introduction to the Holy Tradition"

I've been following along with the latest developments in the lawsuit against the David Lynch Foundation, and others, in the aftermath of the DLF's latest failed attempt to insinuate the TM program into public high schools. The legality of any entanglement of any government entity in the United States with Transcendental Meditation was successfully challenged by the opinions in Malnak v. Yogi  - which may be forty years old, but that still serves as persuasive authority in US courts - which resulted in an injunction against the TM program in public high schools in New Jersey, which still stands today.

One critical element of the current case - which in some ways mirrors Malnak over forty years later - is the translation of the puja, the ritual performed before instruction in the TM technique, which is spoken and sung in the Sanskrit language. In Malnak the religiosity of the puja in translation was one of two primary factors in the court's opinion finding that TM was of a "religious nature," and that element is also, I think, one of the facts which will determine the outcome of the case in Chicago.

Counsel for the David Lynch Foundation has been working tooth and nail to exclude the puja translation from the case, in the past few days acknowledging that the translation which appears in the district court opinion in Malnak is the same as that performed in Chicago schools, on school property. But the attorneys for the DLF are attempting to insert a "poison pill" that the translation which has been part of the published Malnak decision for over 40 years cannot be used as evidence in the current case.

So, to drive home what each and every Transcendental Meditation teacher knows by heart - and what they were taught during their training - this is the full text of the "Introduction to the Holy Tradition," which has existed in several versions. These are scans of a physical copy in my possession, which I obtained from a book and document seller in France. Its text is nearly identical (with an omission which I attribute to an editing error) to two other versions, one of which appears as an appendix in a book written by a former TM teacher (R. D. Scott in "Transcendental Misconceptions," published in 1978), and the other in the Amlan Dey thesis, submitted in 2017, which I refer to in part 2 of my previous series on the purpose and significance of the puja.

I can't accurately date this document, since there is nothing identifying where, when and by whom it was published, but given the style in which it was printed, and the quality of the paper, I think it likely that it dates to the late 1960's and was printed in the print shop at Maharishi's "Academy of Meditation" Rishikesh ashram. I believe it's possible that this booklet was distributed to participants in the same TM teacher training course that was visited by the Beatles, Mia and Prudence Farrow, and other prominent people in early 1968. Any information that might help identify this booklet's origin would be appreciated.

The portion of this booklet which matches the Sanskrit-to-English translation in the Malnak opinion starts in the eleventh image below, the "Invocation of the Holy Tradition."

This document is also available as a PDF file.

Breaking: US Department of Justice allegedly funded Transcendental Meditation "Quiet Time" program in Chicago

A filing today in the ongoing Federal court case against the Chicago Board of Education, the David Lynch Foundation, and the University of Chicago disclosed that, during the course of discovery, the Board of Education informed the plaintiffs that the Department of Justice, and not any of the other named defendants, financed the so-called "Quiet Time" program as part of a supposed research project involving Chicago public schools.

Northern District of Illinois courtroom.
(Library of Congress photo)

This means that, according to this filing by the plaintiffs, the teaching of TM was directly financed by the US government, a clear violation of the separation of church and state.

The "religious nature" of TM was established in the late 1970's in Malnak v. Yogi, which was upheld on appeal in the Third Circuit. Technically this decision is binding only in New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania, but such opinions are often cited as being persuasive in other Federal courts; Malnak has been cited over sixty times in other cases involving church/state matters.

Apparently this disclosure will likely result in the US Department of Justice being added to the list of defendants in this case.

Demystifying the Puja, part 3: Misleading everyone for decades about this ritual’s true nature and purpose

The Transcendental Meditation instruction ritual, the puja, should be viewed in the context of a half-century long attempt to deliberately mislead the public, institutional and governmental authorities, and prospective meditators about the nature and purpose of the TM program. This misrepresentation is evident in the organization’s own descriptions of the nature of the puja, and the obvious conflict between its insistence that this ritual is somehow “secular” when its function in Indian spiritual culture, which is TM’s origin, is unambiguously a religious one.

The Transcendental Meditation puja table. The
framed image is a registered trademark/service
mark held by Maharishi Foundation Liechtenstein 
in the United States. Photo by the author.

Read this series from the beginning - Introduction.

Previously:

Part 1 of this series: Establishing authority and dominance over the meditator

Part 2 of this series: A religious transaction with the divine

Throughout more than 50 years of the teaching of TM in the United States, the TM organization has never provided a coherent and reasonable explanation for the presence of this ritual in each and every instance of TM instruction. The organization, and the allied David Lynch Foundation (DLF), have refused to set aside the puja when teaching TM in public schools. If the ritual were, as they claim, simply some method of honoring some past tradition, teachers could perform it at home, without the presence of the meditator they’re instructing, and without the meditator providing tangible offerings of fruit, flowers and handkerchief. But that option has never been accepted by the DLF or the organization, for reasons that have not yet been divulged.

Demystifying the Puja, part 2: A religious transaction with the divine

The Transcendental Meditation organization has consistently misrepresented the meaning and nature of the puja, TM's instruction ritual, for half a century. Recently, a new document has surfaced explaining, in detail, the puja's meaning in the context of the spiritual traditions of India. This ceremony is a religious transaction in which the prospective meditator is a co-participant, making offerings to the divine. These offerings are represented by the items set out on the puja table, for each of which, it’s alleged, the meditator will receive a blessing in the form of the advertised benefits of TM. These offerings include the fruit, flowers and handkerchief brought by the meditator.

Read this series from the beginning - Introduction.

Some of the TM puja offerings.
Photo by the author

Previously, part 1 of this series: Establishing authority and dominance over the meditator

The inclusion of this ritual, and the organization’s unwillingness to ever remove the ritual in certain settings where it has been problematic such as public schools, completely invalidate their claims that TM practice, including its teaching, is entirely secular and scientific in nature. The TM organization and its teachers have evidently always falsely insisted, to the point of absurdity, that the ritual is not religious because there is no explicit object or deity of worship. But that is not the only measure by which a practice may be considered religious. 

The puja ritual, according to the interpretation taught in TM movement schools in India, involves an exchange of value with a divine entity as a required means of gaining benefit from the method the meditator is about to learn. There is nothing secular nor scientific about this performance, and that is true even if the participant has no knowledge or understanding of what is taking place. The specious claim that the prospective meditator need only witness the performance of the ritual, or that it is only to “honor” an alleged tradition and its history of teachers, is negated by both the requirement that the meditator bring certain items to be used in the ritual, and the meaning of the ritual to the organization and its insiders, as is clear in this new document: that it is performed for the new meditator’s eventual benefit.

Demystifying the Puja, part 1: Establishing authority and dominance over the meditator

The Transcendental Meditation instruction ritual, the puja, is much more than just some “simple thank-you ceremony.” Its most important purpose is that it provides a certain unusual experience to the new meditator, of reverence and devotion, that they will remember. It’s intended to create an expectation for, and to reinforce the supposedly life-changing benefits of, the meditation itself. It is an expression of power, legitimacy and dominance of an inherently supremacist religious tradition over the new meditator, and also serves as a reminder of that dominance and authority to the TM teacher. 

The brass tray used in the Transcendental
Meditation puja. 
Photo by the author.

Read this series from the beginning - Introduction.

The puja, in my opinion, serves two purposes that are not clearly disclosed to new meditators beforehand. The first purpose, in my view, is that it’s intended to establish a certain kind of imbalanced power dynamic between the TM hierarchy and the new meditator, who I will call the “initiate” as that, and calling the instruction process “initiation,” were the historical terms used by TM teachers during the height of TM’s popularity in the 1970’s. I believe that “initiation” is actually a more accurate term for the process of TM instruction, as aspects of the closed-door, supposedly private process in which a “secret” mantra is imparted to the meditator, are analogous to the kind of induction ritual common among fraternities or secret societies.

The puja is performed after the prospective meditator arrives to be instructed in this form of meditation, but just before they are given an allegedly personally selected mantra, that’s simplistically chosen by the teacher on simple criteria of gender and age.  It’s at this point in the 6 day long TM instruction process that a subtle bait-and-switch becomes evident. TM is sold as if it were any other skill that involved an instructor: the initiate simply pays to learn something they would otherwise not know. But there are other elements inherent to TM instruction, geared toward making the “initiate” - not simply a student - into a devotee of an allegedly centuries-old “tradition” that was exemplified by a deceased, divine “Guru Dev,” whose image is a central element of the puja setting. The ritual and the rhetoric surrounding it places the initiate as something other than a customer or trainee. The initiate’s position is that of submitting to some higher authority, which is cast as being the present representative of some ancient tradition.

Introduction: Demystifying the Puja, a 3 part series

The Transcendental Meditation instruction ritual, the puja, establishes for new meditators the dominance and authority of TM’s founding tradition and organization, and satisfies a traditional religious belief that the benefits of TM will only come by way of a tangible offering made to the primary, supreme divine beings of Hinduism. In an effort to maintain an illusory image of TM in which it’s a scientific, evidence-based practice having no religious foundation, TM teachers always misrepresent the purpose and nature of this aspect of TM. They deny this ritual’s religious origin and nature, it is in fact central to the teaching and practice of TM, and it is much more than what they call it, “a simple thank-you ceremony.”

Camphor flame, part of the puja.
Photo by the author.

Instruction in the practice of Transcendental Meditation always involves the performance of a ritual, an expression of devotion that’s clearly of a religious nature. This puja is rooted in Hindu or Vedic spiritual practice, of the religious culture of India which is the source of everything associated with TM and its founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The presence of this puja as well as other religious aspects of TM, a religiosity that’s consistently denied by TM teachers and the organization, once resulted in an injunction prohibiting TM instruction in public schools in one region of the United States. A case currently active in Chicago seeks a similar outcome in the aftermath of a program that attempted to offer TM in public schools there.

Given the controversial nature of this ritual, TM teachers and promoters of Transcendental Meditation have always avoided describing it in any detail when discussing the process of teaching TM. They insist that TM is “not a religion” while the culture that surrounds TM and its teaching are saturated with a sanitized, irreligious at first glance, Hindu, or Vedic, doctrine. In a futile attempt to squelch free and public discussion of these aspects of TM instruction, TM teachers tell meditators not to discuss any aspects of personal instruction, including this ritual, with friends and family, while many of these details have been available online for almost three decades. A nondisclosure agreement has also been a part of TM instruction for many years.

You can't spell TM without SCI

A formal reckoning with attempts by the David Lynch Foundation (DLF) to place Transcendental Meditation programs in public schools, defying the fact that a Federal court injunction prohibited TM instruction within them on Constitutional grounds, is long overdue. The flaws in the Malnak v. Yogi opinions, leaving unaddressed the possibility that TM could be completely separated from a formal course in the so-called “Science of Creative Intelligence,” have been deliberately misunderstood and exploited by the DLF and the TM organization for years. The suggestion that TM promotion and instruction in public schools would be permissible if the words “Science of Creative Intelligence” were never mentioned is simply ridiculous; TM is the practical element of SCI and doctrinal tenets of SCI of a religious nature are present throughout TM promotion, preparation and instruction. 

Northern District of Illinois courtroom.
(Library of Congress photo)

Since the puja, the ceremony which is always performed before individual TM instruction, occurred on Chicago school premises (as the DLF has insisted that it must), in some fundamental way the DLF was organizing its own prayer services on school property; whether they were understood to be religious by students is irrelevant. The organization mandated a puja performance to satisfy its own priorities, based in its own SCI doctrine, with respect to TM instruction. 

The religiosity of what the David Lynch Foundation and its allies have attempted to do, rooted in the doctrine of SCI, is obvious, and the District Court’s phrasing in its Malnak opinion over forty years ago is still very appropriate here:  “the proposition needs no further demonstration.”

Maharishi's many euphemisms for "God"

The TM organization has for almost a half-century now denied the religious nature of its methods and doctrine, almost to the point of absurdity. The fact of the matter is that almost all of the TM promotional material - books, websites, the content of introductory lectures - is littered with various synonyms for, what people in much of the world call “God.” More specifically, the underlying system is that of a Vedic, or Hindu, cosmology, and there’s a central concept of supreme divinity or ultimate reality in the TM subculture that they repeat under many alternate names. 

From a TM organization, in India, video. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva
behind Maharishi and his guru, Brahmananda Saraswati.

That supreme being in Hinduism is a triad of deities known as the Trimūrti: Brahma the creator, Vishnu the maintainer, and Shiva the destroyer. Direct references to the Trimūrti are not common in TM culture, but they can be found, as in the video image above, and as in this excerpt of an address given by Maharishi in 2007 referencing a phrase that’s contained in the puja that’s the central ritual of TM instruction, in which the Trimūrti are mentioned in Sanskrit. I’ve emphasized the relevant parts here:

We are fortunate to perform Puja to Guru Dev because in Guru Dev we have the reality of Krishna—reality of Total Knowledge is embodiment of Total Knowledge. "Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnur, Guru Devo Maheshvarah, Guruh Sakshat Param Brahma, Tasmai Sri Gurave Namah." Guru Brahma—Guru is the creator. Guru Vishnu—Guru is the maintainer. Guru Devo Maheshvarah—Guru is eternal Shiva, absolute silence. And Guru Sakshat Param Brahma, and Guru is the summation of the three, diversity, and unity. Tasmai Sri Guruve Namah. That is why we bow down to Guru Dev. Bowing down to Guru Dev is in essence, in reality, subjecting ourself to that eternal unified state which is the be-all and end-all of existence.

Update: Chicago lawsuit against TM public schools program expanded into class action

Plaintiffs bringing legal action against the David Lynch Foundation (the DLF), a Chicago Public Schools district, and the University of Chicago, seeking redress as a result of the so-called "Quiet Time" program to introduce TM into public schools, have amended their complaint, making it a class action lawsuit.

Puja table set up for TM instruction.
The framed image is a registered trademark/service mark
held by Maharishi Foundation Liechtenstein in the United States.
Photo by the author.

Previously, from August 2020:

Lawsuit in progress: David Lynch Foundation abandons TM "Quiet Time" program in Chicago

Here's the relevant part of the amendment which was filed yesterday.

A. Class Definition(s)

94. The (b)(2) Injunctive and Declaratory Relief Class consists of:

All persons who are CPS students, CPS teachers, parents or legal guardians of CPS students directly associated with any CPS school facilitating the “Quiet Time” program, or any other program involving the practice of “Transcendental Meditation.”

95. The Three (b)(3) Sub-Classes consist of:

All students who attended a CPS school during a period when the school facilitated the “Quiet Time” program.

All teachers at CPS schools who were required to accommodate, endorse, facilitate, or enable the “Quiet Time” program at a CPS school where they were employed at the time.

All parents and legal guardians of students who attended a CPS school during a period when the school facilitated the “Quiet Time” program.

This is apparently the second class action lawsuit brought against organizations attempting to offer TM in public schools. In 1975 a California school district was the target of a class action for offering TM as an English elective, for credit, and as part of a physical education program. The suit was dismissed as moot after the school district declared that they would never again offer or recommend such courses.

The three defendants have not yet replied to the complaint, except to successfully challenge a demand for an immediate temporary restraining order.

The amended complaint may be viewed and downloaded, here.

Lawsuit in progress: David Lynch Foundation abandons TM "Quiet Time" program in Chicago

A lawsuit has recently been filed against the David Lynch Foundation (the DLF), a Chicago Public Schools district, and the University of Chicago as a result of the Transcendental Meditation organization’s effort to orchestrate what it called a “research study,” to demonstrate what they have claimed are the benefits of TM for high school students. The plaintiffs bringing this action include the student, parent and substitute teacher who testified at a Chicago Board of Education hearing one year ago. They alleged that, to participate in the program, students were required to participate in the TM initiation “puja” ritual, which had already been found to be religious in nature in a previous Federal court case. They also alleged that students were coerced in various ways to participate in the program and that class time was wasted on meditation. All of these activities were running under the “Quiet Time” moniker, the somewhat generic, obfuscating title that the DLF has given to its advocacy of TM in both public and private schools.

Puja table set up for TM instruction.
Fruit, flowers and handkerchief are generally provided by the prospective meditator.
Photo by the author.

Read the original story here at the TM-Free Blog, from August 2019:
Chicago Tribune reports on allegations made by high school students, that they were coerced to practice TM  

Updates to this story, Williams v. Board of Education

The plaintiffs, who also include an advocacy group and an association of local churches, asserted that they were deprived of their rights by the DLF, the public school system and the University of Chicago, by violating the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The suit seeks redress in the form of an immediate restraining order against these three institutions, and various injunctions against the teaching of TM in Chicago public schools. The broadest of these requests is for “a declaratory judgment that facilitating, establishing, implementing, or reimplementing the “Quiet Time” program, or any other program involving the practice of “Transcendental Meditation,” within or through any CPS school violates the United States Constitution.” Finally, the suit seeks to obtain “compensatory damages for the mental anguish and emotional distress suffered in connection with the constitutional deprivations suffered at the hands of the named Defendants.”

From the archives: "TM and Cult Mania" on meditators' responses to criticism

I think a lot of people, who are new to the whole field of raising criticism and objections to Transcendental Meditation, may be a bit unprepared for the kinds of reactions that I've long been on the receiving end of. Hostile reactions from meditators, TM teachers and others who are almost reflexively supportive of any effort to spread the practice of meditation far and wide are common, and they usually take the form of avoidance, distraction or personal attacks on the person raising the objection to TM, along with the usual repetition of the "main points" of belief and doctrine that they constantly say are absolutely, positively not a part of learning TM. (You can even see some fifteen to twenty year old e-mail I've received containing much the same, here.)

Now that a few allegations of what the David Lynch Foundation's program of introducing TM into public schools might actually be doing there, have made it into a major newspaper, these sorts of responses are now likely to again be seen in any forum where these issues may be raised.

As evidenced by my experience on Facebook over the past few days, you will even see "haha" laughter reactions when serious issues of US constitutional guarantees of separation of church and state, or students' allegations they are being forced to meditate without their or their parents' fully informed consent, are brought out for discussion and comment. But these are the old habits of people who some might think should be loving, peaceful souls, because they'll sometimes also brag to you that they've been meditating for 40 years or more in the first few moments that you encounter them. They're acting from their insistence that their personal, mental experience is exactly what they say it is, and because they still unquestioningly believe what they were told long ago, the agenda that doesn't exist: that the world will magically transform itself to "Heaven on Earth" if as many people as possible will do exactly what they do.

The second two-thirds of the name of the David Lynch Foundation is, "for consciousness-based education and world peace." Get told enough times that you're working toward "world peace" while sitting with your eyes closed, and obviously strange things eventually begin to happen.

So here's an excerpt from the book, "TM and Cult Mania," which was published way back in 1980. Obviously the authors had some experience in dealing firsthand with meditators and TM promoters, because the descriptions in the book are very similar to what I saw, as far back as the early 1990's when first encountering the TM cheering section in online Usenet newsgroups, and to what I've again seen over the last few days.  This excerpt clearly comes from an academic perspective laced with sarcasm and perhaps the kind of fatigue that comes from having seen the same bad behaviors of meditators over and over again, a fatigue with which I'm quite familiar.

More on TM in Chicago schools: Allegations of coercion, inducements and "bribe rewards"

As reported on here at the TM-Free Blog a few days ago, on July 26 (2019) the Chicago Tribune reported on the appearance of a Chicago high school student and teacher at a Board of Education meeting, objecting to an ongoing program by the David Lynch Foundation (DLF) and the University of Chicago that introduced Transcendental Meditation (TM) into Bogan High School.  Shortly after their appearance before the Board of Education, that student, along with another recent graduate of the school, and a parent spoke of even more disturbing experiences with school teachers, personnel, and meditation teachers who were part of the TM program in their high school, in two Facebook videos.

Read the original story here at the TM-Free Blog:
Chicago Tribune reports on allegations made by high school students, that they were coerced to practice TM  

The Chicago Board of Education hearing was recorded, and the testimony of the student and teacher, which were described in the Tribune article, can be viewed directly on YouTube. They raised objections before the Board, to the obvious religious content of the “puja” ritual, which is central to the instruction of Transcendental Meditation - which, according to a 40 year old Federal appeals court ruling, disqualifies such programs from being offered in public schools. Dasia Skinner, the teacher and school employee, told the Board that 60 students that she spoke with all had similar accounts of having gone through the “secret” puja ritual. “All of this was done without parents’ knowledge or the students’ understanding,” she said, and that students were told, “whatever happens in this room, stays in this room.” They both alleged that students were coerced to join and continue with the program, and were disciplined if they did not comply. 

TM in Chicago schools: Letter to the Chicago Tribune editor

This is a letter, thus far unpublished, that I submitted to the editor of the Chicago Tribune as a followup to their story reporting the allegations that have been addressed to the Chicago Board of Education about the so-called "Quiet Time" program - actually, the Transcendental Meditation program - implemented in Chicago public high schools by the David Lynch Foundation and the University of Chicago.

(More: "Chicago Tribune reports on allegations of high school students coerced to practice TM," August 10, 2019, here at the TM-Free Blog)

The point of this letter is to make it clear, that the aim of the David Lynch Foundation in introducing TM into schools is not merely some innocuous effort, allegedly directed at some of this country's most disadvantaged schools and students,  to improve young people's lives. It is instead, part of a means to implement a baldly religious agenda, of a group that at its core is obviously a religious sect, to remake the world into what they call, "Heaven on Earth." They seek to achieve this outcome by getting as many people as possible to practice a very specific form of meditation that will, as if by magic, transform the planet from a state of relative chaos to their concept of an orderly "peace." 

This agenda is even part of the full name of the David Lynch Foundation, the rest of its name being, "for consciousness-based education and world peace." Both those aspects, explanations of which were purged some years ago from the Foundation's website, are religious concepts that are drawn from the Vedic scriptures of India and sanitized of explicitly religious content for a receptive Western audience, that has often been deliberately misled by the implied falsehood that there's some broad consensus in the scientific community in support of this practice.  The religiosity of the "puja" ritual integral to the teaching of TM, and the mantras having associations with Vedic/Hindu deities, are details that are simply the tip of the iceberg, when the grandiose "let's take over the world" aspects of the TM movement - that are not well known or obvious to outsiders - are considered.

Chicago Tribune reports on allegations made by high school students, that they were coerced to practice TM

See also, here at the TM-Free Blog: 

• TM in Chicago schools: Letter to the Chicago Tribune editor, August 12, 2019

• More on TM in Chicago schools: Allegations of coercion, inducements and "bribe rewards," August 15, 2019

Recently, the Chicago Board of Education heard rather disturbing testimony from a substitute teacher and a student at one of the schools in which the so-called “Quiet Time” program was active during the past school year. “Quiet Time” is a euphemistic name that the David Lynch Foundation (DLF) uses to describe their Transcendental Meditation (TM) program that they have sought to establish in secondary schools in a number of countries, including public high schools in the United States. The DLF offers what it calls scientific evidence that such a program is beneficial to students, despite reviews and other research that indicate that, for many if not most people, such benefits are elusive to nonexistent, and that meditation may be detrimental for some individuals.

In this instance, the program was implemented by TM teachers and others working for the DLF in several Chicago high schools, including the school that was the source of these objections, Bogan Computer Technical High School. According to a 2015 University press release and web page, the David Lynch Foundation was paid $300,000 by the University of Chicago’s Urban Labs department to initiate this program in several Chicago public high schools, as part of what is claimed to be a scientific research study. The program is being supervised under the direction of several University of Chicago Urban Labs personnel. Students in the program are to meditate twice daily at the beginning and end of the school day, devoting at least part of two class periods that would otherwise be spent receiving instruction or doing other academic work, to meditation.

Along with the same allegation that was raised over forty years ago in US Federal courts - that students were required to participate in a religious ritual, in a public school, if they were to learn TM, and that once resulted in a permanent injunction against the teaching of TM in public schools - the Board heard that students were pressured into joining the program, and were subject to disciplinary action, including the dropping of grades, if they did not comply. Of course, all such tactics involving discipline or coercion of meditators in what has been promoted as a research study, would completely invalidate any claim to scientific legitimacy of any attempted published research on the benefits of meditation that may later result.

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

Is it a religion, or a dessert topping?

One of the more stupefying features of TM is its vague claim of not being a religion: "The Transcendental Meditation technique is not a religion or philosophy." But an overview of everything connected with TM practice - the organization and the people who teach TM - suggests something completely different. Religious aspects are woven throughout this entire enterprise that claims to be "scientific" in nature. In fact, the core doctrine of the organization which teaches TM is that of a religion. This religious organization holds that Transcendental Meditation and other practices in the program have an effect on the individual and society through means that can only be described as religious. The TM organization's stated goals of global transformation have many similarities to those of other religious faiths.

The TM movement's denial of its own obvious religiosity is absurd. As my title suggests, it brings to mind this great Saturday Night Live sketch. "New Shimmer's a floor wax and a dessert topping!"

"Shimmer Floor Wax", Saturday Night Live, January 10, 1976

"Tastes terrific... and just look at that shine!" But, as with Chevy Chase's rendition of the somewhat sleazy pitchman selling a surrealistic, self-contradictory product, something doesn't add up when it comes to the TM teacher's standard pitch concerning the relationship between TM and religious belief.

Critics over the years have pointed out that the religious nature of TM was proven by the decision in a Federal court case, Malnak v. Yogi, decades ago (1977). Yet promoters continue to insist that Transcendental Meditation is not a religious activity and may be implemented in public schools.

The following essay analyzes how the words and behaviors of the people and organizations promoting Transcendental Meditation mark it as a religious program. This is clearly demonstrated by current websites and online videos produced by the TM movement.

TM-Free News Brief, 23 February 2011

"Pulse Diagnosis" quackery, coming to a hospital near you? Almost twenty years ago, Andrew Skolnick's expose' of Maharishi Ayur-Veda appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association. An article co-authored by Deepak Chopra, praising the alleged benefits of these products, had previously appeared in the journal, and the authors had failed to disclose their financial association with the movement's commercial enterprises. This led to Skolnick's investigation of the movement, which included this key section:

An investigation of the movement's marketing practices reveals what appears to be a widespread pattern of misinformation, deception, and manipulation of lay and scientific news media. This campaign appears to be aimed at earning at least the look of scientific respectability for the TM movement, as well as at making profits from sales of the many products and services that carry the Maharishi's name.

It appears that after twenty years of the TM movement's hammering of the medical establishment, the coming-of-middle-age of longtime TM devotees, and the apparent acceptance of outright quackery across-the-board by the healthcare industry, the promoters of Maharishi Ayur-Veda may now be gaining unimpeded and unquestioning entry to the nation's top medical institutions.

The "Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine" - another example of the growing and inexplicable trend of medical schools and healthcare providers throwing science-based medicine overboard in favor of, presumably more profitable, quackery and pseudoscience - will be sponsoring a "training program for health professionals" in "Clinical Ayurveda™," which appears to be yet another of the TM movement's trademarked names for its products. The program is hosted by three medical doctors who are also employees of the TM movement, in its "Maharishi Ayur-Veda Association of America" (MAAA). One of the three doctors, Kulreet Chaudhary, who's prominently featured on the website of this TM front group, is also on the staff of Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, California. For some reason, John Hagelin is also affilated with these so-called "medical education programs," a man whose main talents these days seem to be wearing a gold crown and spouting gibberish.

Featured in this so-called "training program for health professionals" is "pulse diagnosis," which has been described by various critics as "a variation of palm reading" or "no more plausible than analysis of toenail clippings." It involves taking the pulse of a patient and rendering, just from that, a diagnosis of disease. Unlike much pseudoscience, this program appears to be interfering with the decision-making ability of doctors, seemingly suggesting that they may ignore scientifically-valid methods of diagnosis in favor of what they think they learn by taking the pulse.

Ironically, considering the AMA's original role in helping debunk Maharishi Ayur-Veda and its proponents twenty years ago, this "training program" now offers "AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™" for participation.

Update, 24 February: A further search of the web indicates that this program of offering AMA-approved CME credit for courses in Maharishi Ayur-Veda under the auspices of Scripps is not new; this website, operated by MAAA, announced a previous course, which began in November, 2009 and ran through May, 2010.

• Clinical Ayurveda™ - A Practical Training Program for Health Professionals - Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine
• Maharishi Ayur-Veda: guru's marketing scheme promises the world eternal 'perfect health', Andrew A. Skolnick, JAMA, Medical News & Perspectives, Oct. 2, 1991
• Course Faculty and Curriculum Development Committee, Maharishi Ayur-Veda Association of America
• Quackademic medicine in the U.S.: The view from the U.K., Orac, Respectful Insolence, Scienceblogs, February 18, 2008
  
• "Heaven on Earth." Any second now. Mike Doughney, TM-Free Blog, January 25, 2011

Another report on Transcendental Meditation in San Francisco public schools surfaces: San Francisco public radio station KALW recently produced a story on the David Lynch Foundation (DLF) program to introduce TM in three San Francisco public schools. In this report, the only hint of any evidence that the TM program in these schools is effective is a reference to the usual unscientific marketing surveys and anecdotes TM promoters regularly spew, made midway through the report: "Most of the evidence of the program is anecdotal. Students and teachers participate willingly and say it’s helpful for them, and surveys that school has done return positive feedback."

In the past, we've noted various reports about two of the San Francisco schools mentioned, Visitacion Valley Middle School and Everett Middle School, from various sources including the DLF. In 2009 TM-Free received this unconfirmed report of "a crew of 20 bullying, clueless T.M. fanatics working for the David Lynch Foundation" at Everett. This is the first mention I've been able to find of this program having been introduced at a third school, John O’Connell High.

A web page from the Everett Middle School website reads much like the same promotional materials TM salespeople have used for decades, emphasizing "a simple, scientifically proven, nonreligious technique," all points which are regularly disputed by former meditators and critics. As with many of the David Lynch programs in public schools, TM is renamed "quiet time;" the artifice of a "quiet time" of as short as 60 seconds has been known to be used by some as a vehicle to introduce, or legitimize, prayer in public schools. The Everett website also prominently features a TM/DLF front group, the "US Committee for Stress-Free Schools," which from its description is the actual corporate entity attempting to introduce the TM program into public schools.

James Dierke, mentioned in the report as the principal at Visitacion Valley, has been named as an adviser to one of the many TM organization front groups pushing to establish the TM program in public schools; the people identifed on such websites are often if not almost always longtime meditators, having started TM during its height of popularity in the mid-1970's.

• From time-out to quiet time: meditation comes to SF schools, Natalie Jones, KALW News, February 10, 2011
• Report on TM in San Francisco Schools, TM-Free Blog, April 7, 2009
• Quiet Time - About the Program, Everett Middle School
• Center for Wellness and Achievement in Education - Management
• TM in public schools - TM-Free Blog label
• Know Your Rights: Religion in Public Schools A Guide for Administrators and Teachers - ACLU of Tennessee - see "Moment of Silence" section
• Map: Lynchian Education

David still wants to fly, really, really badly: The Sunday Times magazine (London) published a lengthy feature article on David Lynch, his foundation, and TM at the end of December, and it just found its way to my desk. Alex Hannaford wrote up a wonderful lede, quietly indicating from the start that maybe the rest of the world should assume David Lynch isn't the least bit sane, particularly when he starts talking about interfering with the education of children by teaching them TM:

David Lynch is sitting at a huge desk in his studio --a mess of boxes, bits of wood and electric cable -- telling me how he believes he will one day be able to fly. As in levitate. Take off. Vooom. For him, a champion of Transcendental Meditation, Yogic Flying would be the ultimate life-enhancing experience. The technique involves bouncing along the floor in the yoga lotus position, and practitioners are convinced that eventually the "collective cosmic consciousness" generated will be so powerful that they will be able to raise themselves into the air and soar. "Yeah, right now it's hopping, not flying," Lynch says, looking very serious. "It's intense bliss. They don't get tired. On the contrary, just more and more energy and bliss propels them up in the air." He is no doubt that, as world negativity dissolves, meditators will have lift-off. And he would like British schoolchildren to learn how to do it, too.

This silly notion that people are about to fly any second now if only "negativity dissolves" is the same kind of crap I heard over thirty years ago. Some people simply refuse to grow up, don't they? All the more reason to keep Lynch and his minions away from schools of any kind. Let's be clear, that one of Maharishi's last directives, echoed by Lynch here, was to make sure that middle and secondary school students were taught, not just how to meditate, but also "Yogic Flying" and the rest of the anti-scientific quackery - some would say "religion" - that the "Global Country" sells.

• Mantra with a mission, Alex Hannaford, Sunday Times Magazine, December 26, 2010

Briefly: More news from David Sieveking; his documentary/expose film on today's TM movement, "David Wants To Fly," has received three award pre-nominations, and continues to be shown in the U.S. at various film festivals... David Lynch's "online charity music label" kicks off; despite all the press and hype, only a handful of paying downloads in the first few days of the campaign... The transfer of a UK Maharishi School to state control (story in the 9 February News Brief) has come under more criticism.


The TM-Free Blog is now on Facebook, where you'll see both pointers to new postings here at the Blog and news articles and other items as we receive them.

There's also a TM-Free Twitter stream.

TM-Free News Brief, 23 February 2011. Published irregularly here on Wednesdays by Mike Doughney, who's solely responsible for its content unless otherwise noted.