"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

TM Marketing Timeline

Guest contributor Michael H. Jackson has written this thought-provoking article for TM-Free Blog.  Thanks, Michael!
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TIMELINE:  Maharishi Sells the Soporific of TM and All Its Adjunct Programs


1950's:  Maharishi begins to sell TM; tells people they can live 200% of life and even get enlightened.

Beginning in 1961:  Maharishi begins to market his teacher training courses to train people to teach TM, in essence giving him as many salesmen and saleswomen as possible all over the world to sell him and his brand of meditation, and later all his other goods, products and services. He also begins offering and selling in-residence courses to give people longer experience in meditation.

1967:  After announcing he is retiring back to India, he meets the Beatles, and every reporter in the world shoves a camera and microphone in his face.

1967 on:  Capitalizing on his Beatles-fueled notoriety, Maharishi continues to sell TM as a means of spiritual rejuvenation. At some point Maharishi sells "advanced techniques" for the devoted to accelerate their race to enlightenment, including techniques to sleep better and quit smoking. Maharishi also, in response to questions about time, states that 3-5 years is how long it takes to get enlightened through the practice of TM. This time frame is later expanded to 10 years or more after many complain they have been meditating longer than 5 years and are still not enlightened.

Early 1970's:  Maharishi realizes that all the long-haired hippies who are coming to him asking all kinds of spiritual questions are not going to give him what he wants.  He realizes it's their parents who have the money, so he begins to market TM to "the responsible people of society" from the cradle of science - and dubious pseudo-science at that.

Merv Griffin learns TM and gives Maharishi a big boost by having him on Merv's talk show.  Lots of people get initiated into TM on the strength of their love for Merv.

Early to mid-1970's:  Maharishi continues to use celebrity endorsements from Clint Eastwood, Mary Tyler Moore and others to try to keep the Merv wave going. It doesn't last long.

1974:  With initiations and therefore revenues down, Maharishi secretly begins to experiment on TM teachers, charging them for the privilege of being human guinea pigs on expensive courses as Maharishi develops his own version of the sutra yoga of Patanjali. Very secret.

1976:  Ignoring the massive amounts of physical and emotional distress (called "unstressing" by Maharishi) that some initiators experience during the sutras courses, Maharishi directs all TM centers to reveal the TM-Sidhi Program for regular folks. TM loses much of its scientifically-backed credibility upon Maharishi's announcement that he can teach people to fly. Many people, including some TM teachers, distance themselves from TM at this time.

But Maharishi knows what he is doing, because those who are left in the TM fold, who can stomach his ridiculous and unfounded claims, could possibly (and hopefully, from his point of view,) be hooked for life. Maharishi claims that the TM-Sidhi practice is "10,000 times more powerful" than practicing TM alone.

The race to inner space is on, and those who have the money rush to become supermen or superwomen through the practice of the TM-Sidhis. Maharishi markets the new program at one point with exactly that blandishment: "Learn TM-Sidhis to become a superman."

Due to intense and ongoing physical and mental distress (still called "unstressing") on the part of MANY participants of the new program, Maharishi announces that from now on, one has to take OTHER courses, such as the TM-Sidhi Preparatory courses, to qualify for the TM-Sidhis themselves. Odd that an enlightened man couldn't have foreseen that happening. More money is taken in through the TM-Sidhi Prep courses.

Late 1970's to early 1980's:  Problems crop up with TM-Sidhi revenues.  People begin to question how a program that is 10,000 times more powerful than TM alone, which in itself is supposed to bring enlightenment within 10 years, has not yet produced any enlightened individuals. Also no one actually levitates, which brings up more questions.

Maharishi states that there are stages of levitation, hopping like frogs being the first.  He later amends that to shaking being the first and hopping being the second.  Since people are already at stage 2 (hopping like frogs on floors covered with thick foam), Maharishi claims that very soon people will be flying above the taxis, and that TM teachers will be running to the mountains to get away from all the people who want to learn TM.

Maharishi shifts the emphasis from getting enlightened more quickly through TM-Sidhi practice to the effect of the practice of TM-Sidhis in groups. Maharishi claims group practice will reduce negativity in the spiritual and psychic atmosphere, and eventually lead to world peace - another fine marketing ploy to redirect TM believers' attention away from what they are not getting to promises of future rewards. Maharishi emphasizes the importance of living and working in the same locale so as to be able to practice "program" together. This also has the effect of concentrating the people who are contributing regular revenue to Maharishi into a group that can help manage group point of view to keep the believers believing.

1986:  Revenues need a boost.  Maharishi reveals that he, with his amazing enlightened consciousness, has delved into and revealed the full value of natural law in the ancient Indian system of health care called ayurveda. Of all the rishis and holy men and women in India, only Maharishi was able to revive the real deal of ancient ayurveda that had fallen into corruption over the years. 

(A little research will reveal that Maharishi actually didn't cognize or know anything about ayurveda, and relied on ayurvedic practitioners like Dwivedi, Balraj Maharishi and Triguna, whom he flattered into working for him.)

"Maharishi Ayurveda" gives a plentiful opportunity to market goods and services to true believers who were once told that all they needed to lead a high-quality life was TM 20 minutes twice a day.

Ayurvedic consultations, herbal formulas, massages and various therapies are marketed and sold.

A month or two after ayurveda is rolled out, Maharishi reveals that another part of ayurveda is jyotish, a form of astrology practiced in India. This was after years of Maharishi warning TM meditators not to do or be involved with astrology.  Maharishi never gives any explanation on why astrology is suddenly acceptable, except to say that his "Maharishi Jyotish" is superior to Western astrology.

Now Maharishi and the TM Movement recommend that everyone get a yearly jotish chart done to improve the quality of one's life and be able to discern if one has any negative karma that one could then alleviate with jyotish remedies. These remedies include wearing very expensive gemstones, using certain kinds of mantras to curry favor with whatever planet is out of whack in your jyotish chart, and having Hindu sacrifices or prayers called "yagyas" done for you regularly.  Yagyas cost from $1,000 to $1,000,000 apiece.

What came to be known with typical hubris as "Maharishi Yagyas" becomes an important source of revenue for Maharishi and the TM Movement.

1970's or 1980's:  Maharishi solicits funds for constructing many different kinds of buildings called by various names that purport to have various purposes. Most of these are never built,  and no accounting is ever given as to the whereabouts of the funds that had been raised for them. Most of the ones that are built fall into disuse or are sold. This includes Maharishi Veda Land, a vedic-themed fantasy park that the TM movement heavily marketed, promoted and raised money for. It was never built.

1986 on:  The emphasis is on selling TM, TM-Sidhis, teacher training courses, various kinds of in-residence courses, ayurveda and all its herbal and massage and consultation products, jyotish charts and jyotish remedies, especially yagyas, for unpleasant karma. At one point a "vedic observatory" was offered, or rather a plastic model of an astronomical observatory that supposedly was used in ancient India. This was offered for several thousand dollars, and all one had to do was look at it a few minutes a day to get the good vibrations from it.

1990's:  Maharishi announces to his TM teachers that the emphasis is to be on selling TM and all its adjunct programs to the millionaires and billionaires of the world. From time to time Maharishi asks the wealthy people of the world and the governments of the world to give him huge amounts of money so that he can formulate courses to create world peace. The amounts he requests range from $20 million to $1 billion.

1990's(?):  Maharishi begins to offer various healing techniques from various Indian healers, using what sound like shamanic techniques - blowing the breath on the client, making various kinds of sounds directed toward certain parts of the client's body and so on. These cost from several hundred dollars to more than a thousand for each session.

1990's and 2000's:  Maharishi continually exhorts the world to give him money to create permanent groups of people practicing the TM-Sidhi program and Maharishi Yagya program. Much money is donated, few of the groups are ever created.

2000:  Maharishi creates the "Global Country of World Peace," a non-existent country that exists only in the minds of the true believers in Maharishi and everything he says. This is interesting because in...

2002:  Maharishi creates what he calls "the global development currency Raam Mudra." The Raam is a generally unrecognized and nearly unusable currency that Maharishi claims he created to alleviate poverty in the world. The only places the Raam is used are in TM facilities and communities. In these communities, one Raam is said to be worth ten US dollars. The TM organization attempts to sell the Raam to anyone who will buy it.

2004:  Maharishi and Dr. Benjamin Feldman, Minister of Finance and Planning of the Global Country of World Peace, announce that the Raam development currency is now backed by gold. No word is given on who owns the gold or where the gold is located.

Today the TM organization says, "Some might claim that since there is no gold or other material asset backing up the issue of the complementary currency, it will lead to inflation. This is not a valid argument, because the RAAM is backed by material assets—the new and more profitable crops that can be grown in the nation’s precious soil, and the underutilized energy and creativity of the people of the nation."  Source  http://www.globalcountry.org/wp/finance-and-planning/

No word from the TM movement as to what happened to the gold that once backed the Raam currency.

2005:  Maharishi creates the Raja training courses. Maharishi charges $1,000,000 per person for these courses.

He also tells all TM teachers (whom Maharishi has retitled "Governors of the Age of Enlightenment") that they will no longer be permitted to teach TM until they take a "Refresher and Recertification Course." The TM teachers are required to pay for this out of their own pockets at a cost of a couple thousand dollars per person.

2005-2006:  Maharishi rolls out yet another fabulous aspect of the vedas, this time called sthapatya veda, the "science" of vedic architecture, an Indian version of feng shui that promises all sorts of benefits for people who live in a home with a proper alignment and orientation.

Maharishi claims that he suddenly realized that the whole world needed to redesign all buildings in the world to conform not just to ancient Indian ideas of architecture, but to HIS version. 

Maharishi is very clear that not any kind of sthapatya veda or vastu veda would do, only his brand, appropriately called "Maharishi Sthapatya Veda." All others are off-base. Maharishi is also very adamant that if one lives or works in a building with a south-facing entrance, all sorts of problems would occur in that individual's life and family.

No word on why TM (which was once all one needed to improve life on all physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and relationship levels) and the TM-Sidhi program (which is 10,000 times more powerful than TM alone) would be ineffective if one were not living in a Maharishi Vastu Veda home.

2008:  Maharishi dies.  Since that time, the leaders of the TM movement are using David Lynch and his foundation to market TM as a scientifically-backed and proven program. They are attempting to sanitize the image of TM using the exact same marketing techniques and even the same language that was used by the TM movement in the early 1970's.

Using celebrity endorsements and TM practitioners who are placed in news media outlets such as Soledad Obrien, George Stephanopoulos and various writers for the Huffington Post, they are marketing pre-TM- Sidhis-program TM, ignoring or minimizing all the other programs and aspects of the TM movement. It is my understanding that when potential students visit Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa for their Visitors Weekend, the gold-crowned, silk-robed "rajas" who administer the TM movement are never seen nor mentioned, just to pick one example.

I may have missed some things, but that's a part of the TM timeline as it has unfolded.

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Michael H. Jackson is a former TM junkie who feels learning TM was one of the biggest mistakes he ever made. He lives in South Carolina running his own computer repair business and working part time as a freelance writer. 

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. 

Dozing for Dollars - Advanced Transcendental Meditation provides for the Eternally Dissociated

(This tongue-in-cheek advertisement describes a real fund for TM-Sidhas and TM-Governors to practice advanced TM Programs as their full time job, 8-hours daily, in the Golden Domes of the Age of Enlightenment on Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa).

At last - you can earn a living while contributing to the supernatural hypothetical Maharishi Effect for World Peace!

You too can receive up to $815 monthly to participate 8 hours daily in Fairfield's Invincible America Program, otherwise known as the "I.A. Course". To make it even easier, I.A. Course commitment was reduced to only one month at a time!

Howard and Alice Settle oil and gas moguls amongst Maharishi's wealthiest devotees, created Howard and Alice Settle Foundation  with an annual twelve-million-dollar grant for an Invincible America fund to support Maharishi's vision, and get TM's embarrassing dissociated space-cadettes off the streets of cozy Fairfield Iowa. Maharishi University awarded honorary Doctorates in World Peace to the Settles for their donations to this effort.

The qualifications are simple :

Are you unable to support yourself after years of dissociative "transcendental consciousness" as experienced during Maharishi's TM-Sidhi Program and living on Maharishi's promises of "Do Less Accomplish More", until you are unable to do anything?

Did you invest yourself in advanced TM training to become a Sidha - an enlightened being with mystical powers including levitation for promised rewards of health, wealth and enlightenment?

Are you unable to support yourself with your useless advanced degree in Vedic Science from Maharishi University of Management  for which your federally guaranteed student loans are now in default?

Did you spend your working years training and teaching TM or working on staff at Maharishi's facilities for a marginal livelihood without retirement funds?

Are you able to converse only with those who share a history in the TM Movement?

Do you feel emotionally safe only with other TM-Sidhas or TM-Governors?

Do your pre-TM family and contacts refuse to financially support you? 

Do you miss counting the myriad of triangles in the umbrella-curved geodesic dome ceiling?

Then the Settle Sponsorship for Invincible America is for you! 

Rather than publicly embarrassing the TM Movement by wandering in poverty, you'll have a warm place to go every day with others who are also qualified only to close their eyes in one of two large wooden domes, embraced in Maharishi's safety net inside the prairie's two man-made breasts on Maharishi campus.  

Listen to Howard Settle speak of the devotional cult value this advanced program. As you watch the video, note Howard Settle's enlightened clothing, the required tan or silk suit and gold tie, and his office with expensively approved Sthapatya Veda style architecture.

Thanks to Howard & Alice Settle's generosity, you too can receive between $700 - $815 monthly to attend the dome program with 3 - 4 rounds daily - each round consists of a cycle of asanas, pranayama, meditation and sidhis. Two rounds in the morning and one or two in the afternoon. This takes about 8 hours daily of your time, seven days a week. You will further your experiences of deep transcendence, err dissociation, and help assure the needed numbers for Maharishi's promised Super-Radiance Effect.

At last, “Program” will be your 56-hour-weekly job! 

You can claim to be one of the global elite with your full time commitment to enlightenment and world peace! 

You will have no excuse not to meditate yourself to greater enlightenment experiences, otherwise known as further dissociation! 

Your rising Kundalini towards your crown chakra will be assured by Settle Program monitors who remind you to remain sitting up during program, rather than snoring in drool on those rumpled white sheets over the high density rebound-foam. Unlike those who pay for their own Program participation, you will not be allowed to sleep horizontally throughout “Program time” (of course, you must lie down during regulated rest times). 

Video about TM & Kundalini : 

Settle monitors were instituted after homeless grant recipients used to access a warm group snooze to fulfill their daily commitment to the I.A. course, because they were bored with expensively learned mental recitations.  Then they partied all night after sleeping in the domes. 

If you are a long term meditator, the sitting requirement should not dissuade you from needed sleep, since most long-term meditators can readily sleep in a sitting position.

Today, some recipients of the Settle grant rotate nights on the sofas of other Fairfield friends as they live in support Maharishi's vision. Other grant recipients rent a cheap room nearby. A few recipients supplement a small Social Security check with their Settle grant for a reasonable Fairfield-based lifestyle.

If you are in good standing with the TM Movement, you can apply for the Settle monthly stipend with this Financial Support Request.

Two important caveats :  

1) Program attendance is mandatory to receive your stipend! You must attend at least 80% of the scheduled Programs to receive your stipend. If you miss more than 20% of Dome Program in a given month, your stipend will be forfeited.  

2) You must remain in good standing with the TM Movement by living an exemplary TM-Sidha lifestyle and never question nor speak negatively about Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Transcendental Meditation Movement.  

Fine print : There is no guarantee how long this fund will continue. When the Settle funds ends, you will be back on the streets begging for sponsorships in the old TM tradition.

TM Super-Radiance to direct Politics (!)

This post does not endorse, nor criticize any politician nor government policies.
This post highlights the TM Movement's emphasis on group Program to address public issues.
The following images are not copyrighted, so TMFree can display them in full.


Anyone from the TM Movement (past or present) can vouch for community pressure to attend group Program ~ 4-8 hours of gender-segregated daily ritual in an enclosed space lined with white padded foam, preferably inside designated large wooden gold-roofed domes.

Program consists of a few minutes of yoga, followed by hyperventilating breathing exercises, meditation and other mental techniques for mystical powers such as invincibility, strength, friendliness, compassion and levitation.

Program promises a path to enlightenment with an elite spiritual group. Program will supposedly save the world, create peace, ideal weather, economic stability, happiness and even guide elections to maximize "the support of nature."

On the above poster, "Ideal Community Group" thanks Dome Program participants for their work to sway the election. "The Ideal Community Group", founded by TM leaders Bevan Morris and John Hagelin, "is dedicated to inspiring Transcendental Meditation practitioners and Yogic Flyers to visit the town and its neighbor, Maharishi Vedic City - and to join the Invincible America Assembly."

The "Thank you message" above credits Program for America's recent smooth re-election of President Barack Obama. If group meditations do carry a national and global influence, one wonders why Hurricane / Storm Sandy occurred despite the regular practice of Program. Program failed to prevent Sandy's devastation to America's eastern seaboard and the Caribbean.  (Oops! My bad for seeking logic in non-logic.)


Fairfield's TM Community has been overwhelming pro-Obama since  Obama campaigned in Fairfield for the 2007 caucus, speaking publicly with his podium facing the cult-valued Eastern direction, his meeting with TM-mayor, Ed Malloy, and interview on Dennis Raimondi's radio show, "Speaking Freely with Dennis". Dennis' interview with Senator Obama can be watched on video link here. (By the way, Hilary Clinton refused to campaign in the guru-dictated fray of Jefferson County Iowa).

Before the recent election, the TM Movement flattered their devout's spiritual power by encouraging group Program before the national election. The poster below uses cult loaded language "to create coherence in the national consciousness", with a meditator flanked by the American flag and the flag for Maharishi's Global Country of World Peace, even promising attendance prizes. The lure of prizes confirms my knowledge that TM's faithful are straying. There is diminishing interest in Dome participation. Perhaps desperation has led to new methods, flattery rather than guilty obligation to encourage Program attendance?

Readers' Open Thread on Transcendental Meditation

Season's Greetings from TM-Free.Blog!

It's time for an open thread. You, the reader, get to choose the topic, whether serious or light-hearted. What's on your mind about TM?

I've got a few thoughts on my mind too, so I'll start the ball rolling.

1. Who designed those awful crowns? They look like Old King Cole crowns, nothing like the crowns real monarchs wear. Are they solid gold? Are the rajas embarrassed to wear them? Are they embarrassed to wear those funny gowns? Do they realize the outfits look absurd on everyone, and especially on overweight men? And what's with the white cloth in the interior of the crowns?

2. I finally understand that TM isn't a dessert topping, but - is it a religion, or is it actually a money-making scheme? (I mean, where does all that money for $2,500 initiations go, or the $4,000 for the yagyas? Where did the money from the "Million Dollar Course" go?) Or is it actually a political world order scheme? Or is it Mahesh's attempt to be very important? Or was it his attempt to make the whole world happy? or spiritual? Or what the heck???

3. Mahesh experimented on TMers in order to develop the TM-Sidhis program. He instituted the "Six Month Course" and the "Age of Enlightenment Course" where he tried out various meditation techniques until he came up with what he called the TM-Sidhis. My question is, as human guinea pigs, was anyone injured on those courses? And what became of them?

Those are my musings. What's on your mind?

Critiquing Transcendental Meditation's "scientific research"

Question: How valid is TM's scientific research?
Answer: Not very.

A Brief Overview of TM Research:
According to the Transcendental Meditation organization (TMO), "...More than 600 scientific studies have been conducted at more than 250 universities and research institutes in 33 countries. These studies have been published in over 100 leading scientific journals worldwide, and they objectively document the profound physiological, psychological, and sociological benefits of Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Programme in every area of life...." (1)

What the TM organization does not publicize, however, is:
(1) that a high percentage of these studies are suspect. The research is specifically designed so that TM will come out looking good. (See http://trancenet.net/research/index.shtml

In addition, the quote above from the TMO website does not mention that:

(2) a lot of the research is done by TMers or funded by TMers, and is therefore inherently biased; and
(3) when non-TM scientists do research, they compare various types of meditations, and the results have been that each meditation has its own strengths and weaknesses. TM does not stand out as best. These studies are ignored by the TMO. For information, google "Google -- Scholar" and type in something like "comparision meditation techniques research results." Also, see http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/expressnews_template/article.cfm?id=8572and
(4) Research has shown that TM can sometimes be harmful. These studies are never quoted by the TMO. (See http://minet.org/research.html.)

So where do we come in?
While most TMFree readers are not professional researchers, I think we can contribute something useful to the research, specifically to the bias problem mentioned in item (1) above. Critics of the research papers have done a good job in critiquing what has been published. But what if something questionable was done that was not reported in the final paper?

So that's where we come in.

Many of us have "insider" experiences with the TMO. During our time in the TMO, we may have accidentally stumbled upon a small piece of the research that was unscientific. So I invite readers to search their memories. Do you recall incidents which at the time seemed simply quirky or isolated, but in retrospect, were examples of a violation of the scientific method? You may have to think outside the box or reframe the incident to see how it is related to the scientific method. You may have to consider not what was done, but what was not done; not what you saw, but what you didn't see....

Our stories will only be anecdotes, and anecdotal evidence is not scientific proof. However, these anecdotes provide glimpses which may inspire researchers to dig deeper into questionable practices.

So, to get the ball rolling, I will share my own memories that relate to the biased quality of TM research. In addition, I will relate a few anecdotes from old TMFree posts and comments. Unfortunately I have neither the time nor the inclination to dig up all the original posts and comments, so I apologize in advance for any errors in my memory or interpretation.

So here goes. To reiterate, the question for the day is:

Did you ever personally see evidence of violation of the scientific method in TM studies?

1. The year was 1980, I think. I lived on the MIU campus in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. I did the TM and TM-Sidhis program in the meditation hall from 2 to 4 times a day with up to 700 other women. One day, after everyone was seated on the mattresses, the leader announced that we were all going to add something to our program. She had something like an electric meter in her hand. She spoke a phrase that went something like: "Turn back the meter." She instructed us to think this phrase in the same manner as we thought the "sutras" in our TM-Sidhis program (the technique in which the phrase we thought was supposed to manifest in the world.) We were to think the above phrase 2 or 4 times (I can't remember which), after we finished TM but before we started the TM-Sidhis. She didn't tell us who had ordered this change, or who had designed it, or why we were doing it. The only additional thing she said was, "Do not say a word about this to anybody!"

We did this practice for about a week, and then we were told to stop doing it. We weren't told why we were now stopping. We were reminded, "Do not mention this to anyone!" And we never heard another word about it.

What was this all about?

Today, I believe we were guinea pigs in an experiment to prove that the TM-Sidhis actually produced effects in the physical world. (An illegal experiment, I might add, since we had not volunteered, and we had not been warned about possible harmful effects.) If 700 sidhas had actually succeeded in causing the meter's hand to move even a millimeter, I think they would have published that. I think we failed to produce the result they wanted, so the experiment was scrapped, we were warned against spilling the secret, and the failure was never reported.

2. A few years ago, one of our TMFree regulars (possibly Sudarsha) wrote that he once saw Maharishi sit with someone and review a line graph illustrating the results of a study showing the benefits of TM. Maharishi asked, "Couldn't you draw the line 'this' way instead of 'that' way, in order to make the results look better?" The other person agreed to make the change.

3. About a year ago, one of our readers shared that she had chatted with a researcher at MIU who was studying the "Maharishi Effect." (The ME states that when a certain percentage of the population practices TM, quality of life improves, as shown by crime statistics, pollution, unemployment rate, etc.) The research compared cities that had comparable demographics but a different percentage of TMers. The researcher told her, "In some cases, the city with the higher percentage of TMers did not show an improved quality of life. So we deleted those groups of cities from our final study."

4. A few months ago, contributor Gina wrote that when TM researchers in Fairfield were studying TMers to prove TM's benefits, they first eliminated "heavy unstressers" from their sample.

5. An old TMFree post is a reprint of a public letter from Earl Kaplan, a TMer who together with his brother David had donated over $100 million dollars (U.S.) to the TMO. He writes that "Mahesh for years had been raising hundreds of millions of dollars for his world peace groups...." (World peace groups were the gatherings of thousands of pundits to one location to chant together, thus assuring world peace forever.) According to Earl's letter, Earl said to Maharishi, "Maharishi, since you have the money and supposedly you have enough pundits, why don't you create a 10,000 group in India and the world will experience peace?..." (Several years previously, his brother David had obtained U.S. governmental approval to bring one or two thousand pundits to the USA. before this could happen, he got word that Maharishi had changed his mind and felt it was not a good time to send them.) Mahesh looked at Earl like he was crazy and said, "Earl, if we created the group then we don't know if it would create world peace or not. We would have to have the group and then see what the effect it has." Earl and David have since left the TMO.

Aside from the contempt and deceit Maharishi exhibited, I believe Maharishi was also saying that he did not want an experiment to be performed if the results would not make TM look good, i.e. if the results disproved the "Maharishi Effect."

OK, those are my offerings. Anyone else have memories about TMO's corruption of the scientific method in TM studies?

Footnotes:
(1) www.globalgoodnews.com/research.html

Transcendental Meditation and the TM-Sidhis

I am reminded of an old joke.

Tom: Hey, Bob, about that bucket I lent you last week. Well, when you returned it to me yesterday, it was broken!

Bob: Tom, first of all, it was broken when you lent it to me; second of all, I returned it to you in perfect condition; and third of all, I never borrowed it from you!

About 1965, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi promised that "TM, 15-20 minutes twice a day, will make you enlightened in 5 to 8 years." Yet, around 1975, he introduced the TM-Sidhis program, whose purpose was to speed us on the road to enlightenment. Well, it's now been over 30 years since people started practicing the TM-Sidhis, but I still haven't heard of many people getting enlightened.

Why did Maharishi even introduce the TM-Sidhis program? As the joke above suggests, when a person makes too many explanations for something, it can make all of the explanations suspect.

Therefore, I would like to invite TM-Free Blog readers on another one of my trips down memory lane. I will share with you my memories of Maharishi's many explanations of why he started teaching the TM-Sidhis program. These memories are over 30 years old, so I do plead guilty to the possibility of misremembering. If you remember these quotes more accurately, please share them below.

And also, if you'd like, share with us your own memories on his excuses for why TM 20 minutes twice a day was no longer enough. Also, your opinions on said explanations. Also share with us, if you'd like, your conjectures on why you think he REALLY started teaching the TM-Sidhis. Or share any other related thoughts!

Here, (paraphrased) are four different answers that I remember Maharishi giving, as to why he was now adding a technique to his already flawless and complete technique:

1. "My initiators kept asking me, 'What more can I do to help the movement? What more can I do?' So I finally said, 'I am very tempted to give you something....' "

2. "The reason initiations are now dropping is because, due to all the TMers in the world, the consciousness of the average person has gone up. Non-meditators used to start because they were attracted to the glow of evolution on the initiators' faces. But now that the average person is more evolved, the contrast is no longer so great. So the initiators must rise up to a higher level of evolution so that the non-meditators will be attracted to us and thereby want to learn TM."

3. "Because of all the TMers meditating over all these years, the atmosphere has become more refined, softer, so that we can now teach more advanced techniques which would not have brought results in the past."

4. Maharishi: We have been teaching TM for many years, people have been dipping into the Absolute for many years. Yet they are not living all the values of the Absolute! We must ask, "Why not?" What are the values of the Absolute?

Initiator #1: Omniscient.

Maharishi: Yes.

Initiator #2: Omnipresent.

Maharishi: Yes.

Initiator #3: Immovable.

Maharishi: (chuckling) That one not so fascinating!

Initiator #4: Love.

Maharishi: (Annoyed) No, no, no....Almighty. The Absolute is Almighty. We should all be almighty. All-powerful. And yet we are not exhibiting this quality. Why not? Something must be done. We dip into the Absolute, but we are not pulling these qualities up into the Relative. Something must be done to pull these qualities out into the individual's life.
(Hence, the TM-Sidhis).

By the way, just like he promised us that TM twice a day would bring us enlightenment in 5 to 8 years, he continued his tradition of promised completion dates with the TM-Sidhis. When speaking about the "Six-Month Courses," where he first started teaching versions of the TM-Sidhis, Maharishi said, "One six-month course is enough to enlighten some people, two six-month courses are enough to enlighten most people, and three six-month courses are enough to enlighten a horse! (laughter)."

By the way, did you believe him in 1965? Why? Did you believe him in 1975? Why? I believed him both times.

Now it's your turn.

Transcendental Meditation "Flyers" to Support UN Climate Conference

The Danish Raja Bjarne is planning to place a ship in Copenhagen harbour with 300 "flying" TM-Sidhas/ Governors to ease the climate conference.

Can anyone imagine how the ship will always face due east, for deemed maximum benefit to the conference?

One of the basic tenants of devotees' practice of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and the TM-Sidhi Program (TMSP) is that "group practice of these programs will influence the environment (all surroundings) to function in accordance with natural law" -- e.g. bring rains on time, prosperity to all, dissolve hunger, support world peace, bring happiness to individuals & communities, decrease crime rate, help government figures to make good decisions, and now also influence global environmental policy.

In the effort to provide maximum transcendental support to the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference, taking place in Copehagen, December 7-18 2009, TM's Raja Bjarne of Cophenhagen is encouraging TM-Sidhas and TM Governors to come aboard a charted cruise ship for group practice of TMSP.

The TM belief is that group practice of the TMSP in the vicinity of this conference will create a "harmonious effect throughout the environment" to benefit the conference attendees and influence positive outcomes to this conference.

In this way, TMSP practitioners make a deemed altruistic sacrifice by volunteering, paying for their own time, or by sponsoring others' participation in this deemed noble endeavor. Participation in such programs validates the participants' ongoing sense of group exclusivity and elitism for their belief in "power to move the forces of nature" at will.

The Danish email and attached invitation follow below. If any readers here desire to participate, contact information should be in the text of message below.

****************************

From: Raja Bjarne
To: undisclosed-recipients
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:37 PM
Subject: Klimatopmøde i december!

Kære Alle

Se venligst vedhæftede dokument om vores 'FREDSPROJEKT' under klimakonferencen i december.

En nogenlunde tilsvarende annoncering er sendt ud til alle internationale ledere med opfordring om at respondere med deres mening om projektet. Efterfølgende vil det blive annonceret i alle lande.

Jai Guru Dev

Bjarne

Attached Document:

COP 15
UNITED NATIONS CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
DEC 7 – DEC 18, 2009

Kære alle

FN’s klima topmøde i København er blevet beskrevet, som det vigtigste møde nogensinde i verdenshistorien.

Jeg mener vi har en yderst vigtig rolle mht. at sikre de bedst mulige resultater fra dette møde. Med en kohærens skabende gruppe midt i København kan vi skabe en meget kraftfuld indflydelse af fred og harmoni, altså skabe en atmosfære som er mest befordrende for at alle verdens politiske ledere kan tage de bedste beslutninger til støtte for eksistensen af liv på jorden i fremtiden. Beslutninger der kan hjælpe med at skabe balance og harmoni i naturens funktion.

Vi arbejder på at organisere en sådan kohærens skabende gruppe i Københavns havn.

Transcendental Meditation's Attitude on Mental Health

This essay is yet another of my trips down memory lane - this time, my memories of the TM organization's (i.e. Maharishi's) attitudes about mental health.

Back in 1970, before I ever learned TM, I had meditating friends who liked to tell me anecdotes about how rapidly TM improved mental health: "One man walked into the TM initiation room looking stressed and miserable; he walked out one hour later looking radiant," or, "This woman showed up at her therapist's office one week after learning TM, and the therapist said, 'My goodness! You seem so much better! What's happened to you?!' " I was 19 years old at the time, and I was very impressed. Now, with 40 years more experience under my belt, I would be less impressed. I would ask, "Did those benefits continue? Were there any harmful side effects?"

Back in 1970, the TM introductory lecture consisted of four speakers, each one speaking on a different topic: TM for mental potential, TM for health, TM for social behavior and TM for world peace. TM was presented as the solution to psychological problems.

After I was initiated, there were three days of follow up. We filled out forms that asked if we saw benefits in our lives yet. Almost all the people in my class had. The implication - which no one questioned - was that these changes were permanent, these benefits were from TM, and more benefits would be forthcoming soon.
The implication was that TM was both faster and more effective than psychotherapy.

My initiator had a condescending attitude towards psychotherapy. I think the rule back then was that if you were seeing a counselor more than once a week, you couldn't learn TM. My initiator said, "Either decide that the therapy's done what you wanted it to do, so you don't need it anymore and stop; or decide that the therapy isn't working, and stop. Either way, you can learn TM after you stop therapy."

Psychotherapy seemed to be a step down from TM. TM research was coming out showing that practicing TM produced mental health, and it produced it faster, less expensively and more holistically than psychotherapy.

This condescending attitude towards psychotherapy was explicit at the 1972 Humboldt College, Arcata, California, USA one-month course which I attended. Someone asked Maharishi about the value of psychotherapy. He replied that in the old days, people would go to their grandparents for advice, but nowadays, since families didn't live near each other, if you had problems you paid someone to listen to you. "Psychotherapy," he explained, "just stirs up the mud." It just made people worse. "Carl Jung's brother said that Carl was such an unhappy, miserable person. So how good could psychotherapy be?" Maharishi posited. (Someone in the audience pointed out, "Maharishi, Carl Jung was an only child." "Oh," Maharishi replied.)

If you were seeing a psychotherapist, you wouldn't be accepted for a TM teacher training course, or for an advanced teacher's course, (ATR), or for the TM-Sidhis course.

I had an initiator friend who was seriously depressed. I advised her to get professional help. She refused, saying, "But then I won't be accepted for an advanced course!"

What was the reason for this policy? Was it to keep meditators away from psychotherapists? Was it to keep meditators coming back to TM courses? Was it to keep meditators ignorant of the benefits of other methods? Was it to prevent unstable people from flipping out during rounding? Was it to keep knowledge of TM out of the hands of psychotherapists? I don't know, but it kept many meditators away from the help they dearly needed.

It also turned some meditators into liars. "Have you seen a psychotherapist?" asked the TM-Sidhis application form. "Well, I did see someone for career counseling," responded a friend of mine who received psychotherapy from a career counselor/psychotherapist. "Was he a therapist?" asked her TM interviewer. "Well, he did have a master's degree in English," she replied honestly. (And a doctorate in counseling, she omitted.) She was accepted for the course. "Filling out TM applications is an...'art form'," an initiator friend of mine wryly advised me.

Meanwhile, more scientific research continued to come out of the TM movement, showing that TM improved all areas of a person's life, including their mental health. These "independent scientific studies" have been criticized for inaccuracy and bias. For a critical analysis of TM research, click here:

http://trancenet.net/reserach/index.shtml
http://spacecityskeptics.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/how-to-design-a-positive-study-meditation-for-childhood-adhd/#comment-170

By 1975, Maharishi's "World Plan" was in full swing, promising that once a certain percentage of people around the world practiced TM, seven goals would be achieved, two of which were "to develop the full potential of the individual" and "to solve the problems of crime, drug-abuse and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the family of man." In other words, TM led inexorably to mental health.

Meanwhile, some people were attending TM Teacher Training courses and meditating for over 6 hours a day. Rumors were coming out that all that meditating was harmful for some people. Despite Maharishi's assurance that all manner of discomfort was "unstressing" and that "something good was happening," there were rumors of suicides, of people who became mute, of mental hospitalizations....

I was also starting to hear stories of people who after learning TM became more and more withdrawn and unsociable, and just sat in their houses all day and did TM.

In 1975 I visited my sister who was working at the Academy for the Science of Creative Intelligence in Livingston Manor, New York, USA. To thank the facility for letting me stay a few days, I offered to put their free lending library in order. The director at Livingston Manor instructed me to remove all books about psychology and self-help (and about other spiritual paths, too).

In 1977, I applied for the TM-Sidhis course. At that time, I had just been laid off from my job, my boyfriend had just broken up with me and had kept the apartment, leaving me homeless, and an accident had left me on crutches. I told my TM interviewer that I was a stressed out due to these pressures, and she replied that "TM should have strengthened you enough so that you would handle these challenges with calm and equanimity; therefore I have to conclude that you aren't emotionally stable enough for the course." (In retrospect, I wonder if she meant that this demonstrated that TM didn't work, or that I was somehow deficient.) The official cure for "emotional instability" and/or "unstressing" was to get your meditation checked, do more pranayama (yogic breathing exercises) and do more yoga asanas. That would set things right.

Another initiator friend of mine - I believe he got his Ph.D. in physics from an Ivy League college - gave me this thoughtful analysis of the genesis of mental illness: "People talk themselves into mental illness. I knew this woman who decided she had problems, and she just talked it into herself and talked it into herself, til finally she did become mentally ill."

In 1978 I got some counseling, and I became sufficiently "emotionally stable" that I was accepted for the TM-Sidhis course. In addition to learning the TM-Sidhis, the instructors used to read the English translation of the Ninth Mandala of the Rig Veda (a Hindu holy book) aloud to us for 15 minutes at a time. Jerry Jarvis (the former director of the Students International Meditation Society, U.S.) informed us that "the Ninth Mandala dissolves emotional hang-ups." Maharishi also helpfully explained that most mental illness was caused by not bathing frequently enough.

On the last day of the TM-Sidhis course, Maharishi begged us all to immediately move to Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. He explained that our "flying" together on this recent course had prevented the outbreak of war, but the end of the course would create a sort of vacuum where there was even more chance than ever for war. I - and hundreds of others - moved to Fairfield that month.

I was depressed and anxious in Fairfield, doing my TM-Sidhis program two to four times a day. Was I unstressing? Was I simply too emotionally unstable? I felt that I needed counseling, but unfortunately there was no counseling department on campus. I had heard a rumor that such a department had once existed, but that Maharishi had told them to shut it down, as it just led to increased "negativity". I believe the counselors were transferred to the "academic counseling" office. So I contacted the academic counseling dept. and asked for an appointment. When I told the academic counselor of my emotional state, he encouragingly replied, "The only thing wrong with you is that you need a buddy!" (The buddy system was a TM tradition whereby you went everywhere with your buddy, and let them know if you were "unstressing.") One of the women in my dorm agreed to be my buddy, but since she continued to spend all her time with her friends from home, I never did find out if the only thing wrong with me was the lack of a "buddy." I did cheer up, however, when I moved to a dorm where I knew the people, and got a job I liked.

Several months later, an MIU friend confided to me that she was miserable, near tears, anxious, depressed, "unstressing." She went to a higher up and "confessed" that she had lied on her TM-Sidhis application form, and maybe she wasn't really evolved enough or stable enough to be worthy of living at MIU. The supervisor consoled her with, "No, if you're here, you were meant to be here."

A year and a half later, I started having anxiety attacks when I did the sidhis. These attacks were spilling over into my daily life. I left Fairfield about this time. Back home, I phoned the TM-Sidhis Administrators to ask them how to deal with the anxiety during my program. They never called me back. Eventually I stopped doing the TM-Sidhis.

A few years later, I read that several MIU students had ended up in the county mental hospital. How could that be, since TM improves mental health? An MIU professor explained, "Going to college is very stressful."

Others in Fairfield were also being hit with bouts of anxiety and depression, which was called "roughness" or "unstressing." When they complained about their condition, they were chided, "You're purifying the whole earth of its impurities, and you complain about unstressing!"

Slowly, counseling slipped into the Fairfield TM community. People kept it a secret if they were receiving counseling - after all, they could be thrown off courses, and their friends might look down on them for "stirring up the mud" and for not following Maharishi's wishes. But as one Fairfield TMer apologetically explained, "Of course we don't want to go to counselors. But if there's a n\crisis - you know, like your husband's having an affair, or your kid's on drugs - well, then, you do it if you have to." She never did explain how a husband could be having an affair or a child could be on drugs if they were all practicing that mental health-producing technique, Transcendental Meditation.

Well, those are my memories of the TM attitude towards mental health. Anyone have any memories that they would like to share? (Anonymously is fine.) Or any other comments?

Revisiting the TM-Sidhis. Part 1: The Early Years

When I became a TM Teacher in May of 1973, the highest status one could obtain in the TM movement was "TM Teacher." But starting around 1974, Maharishi invented the "Six Month Course." TM Teachers attended this course to learn Maharishi's newly revealed meditation technique, the "TM-Sidhis," and they came home with a new title, "sidha," and top status in the TM hierarchy. Sidhas, we were told, had special powers. We were never told outright that they could perform "miracles," but that's what the TM-Sidhis program was all about. They could make themselves invisible, we were told. They could walk through walls. They could fly.

I first heard Maharishi talking about the TM-Sidhis program in 1975 on an audiotape. He was recounting a conversation he had had with his staff members. "They asked me, 'What more can we do, Maharishi, to help spread the World Plan?' I told them, 'More lectures, rounding, meeting with government officials, newspaper articles.' 'But, Maharishi, what more can we do?' they kept insisting. And finally I said, 'You know, I am very tempted to give you something.' And that was how the TM-Sidhis program came to be."

I did hear an alternate story, also from Maharishi, about why he had started teaching the TM-Sidhis program. He said that the average person's consciousness was rising, due to the influence of TMers on the atmosphere. Therefore, when people attended a TM lecture, they were no longer impressed by the TM teachers, because the teachers were no longer that much more spiritually advanced than the audience. Therefore, to attract people to TM now, the teachers had to rise up to a significantly more advanced level.

But before people learned the much-longed-for TM-Sidhis per se, there was a gray area. That was the Six-Month Course, the quasi-TM-Sidhis course/not-TM-Sidhis course where you were sort of promised the Sidhis but sort of not. I don't know exactly what the course participants were told that made them want to attend, but whole batches of them returned home without the Sidhis. However, they did come home with a several-hours-long "program" that they had to do twice a day. They were sworn to secrecy as to what this program consisted of, and they did it behind closed doors. "One Six Month Course will enlighten some people, two Six Month Courses will enlighten most people, and three Six Month Courses will enlighten a horse!" Maharishi told us, laughing mirthfully.

The people who took the first Six Month Courses were real pioneers. I met one such pioneer in the spring of 1975. His life revolved around staying on his "program." He spent hours a day alone in his room, and had to be in bed by 10 o'clock. He was unhealthily skinny, his skin glowed white, and he ate mostly oranges, almonds, yogurt and honey, which Maharishi had said were the most "sattvic" (pure/spiritual) foods, and which would apparently assure quickest spiritual growth, and support his no-longer-quite-human body. I feared for his health. His high spiritual vibration did not preclude him from walking into my bedroom one night, however, wearing only his underwear. Years later I realized that he had been offering to have sex with me. At the time, though, I had naively assumed that sex, like alcohol, was off limits for him.

I had a second friend who had also taken a Six Month Course. They had been told that they would be taught the Sidhis. That didn't exactly happen, but her course was promised that if they showed up for a second Six Monther, they would be taught for sure. So she saved her money and took a subsequent course. They weren't taught the TM-Sidhis on the second course, either. "Why didn't they teach you?" I asked, horrified by this breach of promise. "Because we were bad," she replied. "We were supposed to send Maharishi a monthly report saying how we were doing with the long program he had given us, and some of us didn't send it in every month."

The first "real" sidhas I met were the two women who ran the Advanced Training and Rest (ATR) course I attended in late 1975, at South Fallsburg, New York, U.S.A. Their skin seemed to glow. They appeared to float, rather than walk, through the air, with a special grace. They were both very pretty, and very dignified, and they wore graceful, feminine silk dresses which were modestly cut. I thought they could read my mind. I was in awe of them, and I was scared of them, too.

Years later, when I started reading TM-Free, I learned that those early Six Month Course participants were not just pioneers, but guinea pigs. Maharishi was experimenting on them, trying to figure out how one does "the TM-Sidhis."

Are there are any readers out there who attended one of those early Six Month Courses? Or do you know anyone who did? If so, please break the code of silence. Please tell us in the "Comments" section below what they promised you, what they taught you, what you did there, what the results were, what the side effects were, what program you had to follow when you returned home, how you felt about all of it, or anything else that you would like to share from those days.

So these are my memories of the early days of the TM-Sidhis. Since I am writing from memory, I'm sure there are errors in this article, and I'd be glad for any corrections you'd like to make.

I'm sure many of us were told different stories. There was so much secrecy and rumor going around at that time. For instance, were you told the same stories I was told about how the TM-Sidhis came to be?

If you'd like, share with us your own memories, thoughts and feelings about those early days of the TM-Sidhis.

Thirty Years Later: What was all that about? (Part 2 of a series)

(To read this series from the beginning, start here.)

I first attended an after school TM introductory lecture, at my public high school, in 1974. Posters advertising the TM program had been hung in school corridors. I never learned the details of how the lecture was arranged, but in those days - before Malnak v. Yogi - it wasn't something that seemed all that unusual. Perhaps ten students and teachers showed up for it. I found the program rather interesting if not a little peculiar, but my interest didn't extend as far as taking up the program, primarily because of both the cost and the time commitment.

Some years later, during my second year of college, a then-girlfriend was a meditator with a few years' experience with the program. After a few months of dating, having heard the program being personally endorsed by someone I then cared for, and now in the position of being able to afford both the time and the money, I took the plunge. The introductory lecture was unusual - we watched the broadcast of Maharishi on the Merv Griffin Show during the last week of 1977, and if I recall correctly, it was the show where the "sidhi" program was announced. This was the point at which I became involved with TM: the moment when the glory days of mass numbers of initiations, of TM centers scattered across the country, and a reasonably priced program accessible to the average middle-class person were about to come to an end.

I paid one hundred eighty dollars at the end of 1977 to be initiated at the student rate. To measure that in todays dollars, multiply that by three or four. I ended up sticking with the 2x20 program for the next ten years. There were a few residence courses along the way - one weekend and one week-long. On the week-long course, held in the movement's building in downtown Washington, DC, I received the so-called "advanced technique," which substituted the single word "mantra" with one of two words. How much I paid for this, in 1982, I don't quite remember, but it was some hundreds of dollars.

By some circumstance I never took up the "TM-Sidhi" program that allegedly offered what they called "supernormal" abilities, including the promise of eventually flying through the air. Again, I avoided involvement largely because of the time and expense involved - the course at the time (the early 1980's) involved a minimum of two weeks in residence and a series of weekend sessions at a cost of at least two thousand dollars. Again, double or triple that number to get a feel for that price in today's dollars.

After taking a hiatus from college that turned out to be permanent, I considered volunteering at MIU, the movement's university in Fairfield, Iowa as a possible means of eventually obtaining the "sidhi" techniques. As luck would have it my entry into a career in the broadcasting industry preempted that plan, and I never again considered working full-time for the TM movement.

But during that time in the early 1980's I was involved with a few small projects at the Washington DC center. Having been involved with another meditator who was familiar with the local TM community I came to participate in a few efforts to popularize TM in the local media, and an attempt to acquire a low-power TV broadcasting license. Not much came of those efforts, but I was given two "Maharishi Awards" anyway. Like many of the posters produced by the movement, there's lots of vapid fine print saying how great the subject is (the recipient, in this case), golden colors, formal script, and a big gold seal and a blue ribbon. Atta boy, Mike!

(Continue to Part 3)