There will be more to come.
Home is Where the Heart Is (part one)
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Monday, April 27, 2009
More Info On McCartney's TM Academy
Received this recently in my email regarding the English Transcendental Meditation academy seeking funding from ex-Beatle Paul McCartney. (Edited for anonymity.)
As the article attached states it is situated in Ormskirk, Lancashire 15 miles away from Liverpool which happens to be where Paul McCartney was born and raised. The school happens to be part of the siddhaland situated in Skelmersedale, Lancashire which is next to Ormskirk. All the children from the siddhaland, known as the Ideal Village attend the Maharishi school in Ormskirk. It is rather like the set up in Fairfield - I heard there was a school there to.
"In this same siddhaland, some one became a drug addict and was immediately shunned by the Village. There were many broken marriages and Geoffrey Clements told his divorced wife (the 2nd and 3rd wife, I could never keep up) to leave the Village, and put all sorts of intimidating pressure on her to do so."
Saturday, April 25, 2009
McCartney to Support English TM Academy?
Already established Maharishi Academy to seek funds from Paul McCartney here.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Book Review. My Father's Guru: A Journey through Spirituality and Disillusion by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. 1992, 174 pages.
From time to time, commentors and contributors to TMFree have suggested books that they have found relevant. I have recently read a few of them, and thought you might enjoy a few book reviews. This is the third in the series.
In 1947, when Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson was 6 years old, his father brought home "Dr." Paul Brunton, a soft spoken, mild mannered sweet little Englishman. Brunton, a minor author of "spiritual" literature in the early 20th century, was to become Masson Sr.'s guru for the next 19 years. During those years, "Brunton" (the name he gave himself) lectured, philosophized, led, cajoled, encouraged celibacy (leading to mental health problems in the family), supported fasting, advised, taught a form of meditation which brought no results but which the family nevertheless practiced for over a decade, inspired, instructed, lived with and sponged off the Masson family.
He was modest and disarming, underwhelming in appearance. He never took sexual advantage of his disciples, and he didn't always accept the large sums of money Mason Sr. offered him. But what he did do was claim to have a Ph.D., be a Sanskrit scholar, foresee the future, talk with higher beings, have a grand mission to save the human race, remember his past lives, be a sage, be from another planet, and to know the answer to all questions.
He invented a quasi Hindu/ Buddhist/ Theosophical system. He never admitted ignorance on any topic, secular or spiritual. If he didn't have an an answer, he would give a mysterious smile that seemed to say that he had secret knowledge that he was not at liberty to share, or alternately he would invent an answer.
Here are a few of his teachings (paraphrased), to give you a taste of what he offered.
On his powers: "Should you ever feel a hostile force, immediately kneel, then say very firmly, 'I command you in the name, by the power and compassion of Paul Brunton, to come out of my body.' Then make a sign of the cross...No evil force can withstand this."
On reincarnation: "All my incarnations were not on this planet. Life on other planets are inhabited by higher beings. They never come to visit us because we are not worthy."
On evolution: "Man did not evolve from the monkey. The race of apes came from a sexual union between primitive man and female beasts."
On his mission: "Buddha himself foresaw that a new teacher would arise within a few thousand years after himself...with a higher spiritual status than himself, within this current century."
On the family's financial problems: "Either earn more or spend less." (This said in a solemn, sage voice.)
On his teachings: "Any negative thought my disciples may have about this path, their guru and his powers are at best tests and at worst the work of external mischief-makers."
Jeffrey lived a double life. His normal-looking outside life consisted of school, extracurricular activities, friends, etc. Then there was the secret life he, his family, the other disciples and Brunton shared. Jeffrey never told his friends that there was a guru living in his house on and off for 19 years, that his family was specially favored by God, that his parents sometimes fasted for 40 days until they were skeletal, and that the only topics discussed in the house was spirituality and esoterica, filtered through Brunton's philosophy.
After 19 years, the family fell out with Brunton after he inaccurately predicted the imminent arrival of World War III and had his disciples pull up stakes in the U.S. and move to South America to avoid the coming radioactive fallout. Jeffrey made his own escape when adolescent independent thinking kicked in. He studied Sanskrit and Pali, and discovered that Brunton had lied about being a Sanskrit scholar, and that Buddha had never made any predictions about a guru appearing in the 20th century. He broke the family's "gentleman's agreement" of not asking Brunton embarrassing personal questions, forcing Brunton to reveal his inconsistencies. And he caught Brunton in a parlor trick which Brunton was perpetrating in order to convince his disciples that he had psychic powers.
I felt both horror and fascination as I read this book. What, I wondered, would make perfectly intelligent people give their minds, their money, and 19 years of their life to a person and a system so obviously flawed and fraudulent? Here is some of what I theorize happened to the Masson family. Perhaps as Isaac Newton said, things in motion tend to remain in motion and things at rest tend to remain at rest. Objects continue on their paths until they are met with an immovable object. Continuing to believe in Brunton was the path of least resistance. Brunton combined the carrot and the stick - he appealed to his disciples' pride, desire to be special and to have esoteric wisdom, and to their fear of falling outside the loop of this charmed life. Also, Masson's family lived in a closed system - they socialized only with other disciples, who could reinforce each other's awe for Brunton. And maybe Jeffrey's family and Brunton got caught in a strange unconscious dance, where he craved to be admired and they craved a guru. He offered "proofs" of his specialness, which caused them to put him on a pedestal, and then to demand more extreme proofs of his specialness, which caused him to produce grander and more entrenched lies, until eventually Brunton himself may have come to believe his own lies. And, the longer the Masson family followed Brunton, the harder it became to admit that they had been hoodwinked.
Ever since I left the TM movement after 10 years in it, I have been asking myself how I could have totally believed a system so full of contradictions, and why I found it so hard to leave. An exit counselor once told me that a helpful tool in assisting a person to leave a cult is to educate them about a different cult. The objectivity that comes with distance makes it easy to see the craziness of the other group, and the cult member can then more easily spot the dysfunctional systems holding oneself hostage to ones own cult. As I ponder what held the Massons captive, I am struck by some of the parallels
with Maharishi and the TM movement. Maybe reading about this family will help others gain more insight into their own life journey and become a little more free.
In 1947, when Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson was 6 years old, his father brought home "Dr." Paul Brunton, a soft spoken, mild mannered sweet little Englishman. Brunton, a minor author of "spiritual" literature in the early 20th century, was to become Masson Sr.'s guru for the next 19 years. During those years, "Brunton" (the name he gave himself) lectured, philosophized, led, cajoled, encouraged celibacy (leading to mental health problems in the family), supported fasting, advised, taught a form of meditation which brought no results but which the family nevertheless practiced for over a decade, inspired, instructed, lived with and sponged off the Masson family.
He was modest and disarming, underwhelming in appearance. He never took sexual advantage of his disciples, and he didn't always accept the large sums of money Mason Sr. offered him. But what he did do was claim to have a Ph.D., be a Sanskrit scholar, foresee the future, talk with higher beings, have a grand mission to save the human race, remember his past lives, be a sage, be from another planet, and to know the answer to all questions.
He invented a quasi Hindu/ Buddhist/ Theosophical system. He never admitted ignorance on any topic, secular or spiritual. If he didn't have an an answer, he would give a mysterious smile that seemed to say that he had secret knowledge that he was not at liberty to share, or alternately he would invent an answer.
Here are a few of his teachings (paraphrased), to give you a taste of what he offered.
On his powers: "Should you ever feel a hostile force, immediately kneel, then say very firmly, 'I command you in the name, by the power and compassion of Paul Brunton, to come out of my body.' Then make a sign of the cross...No evil force can withstand this."
On reincarnation: "All my incarnations were not on this planet. Life on other planets are inhabited by higher beings. They never come to visit us because we are not worthy."
On evolution: "Man did not evolve from the monkey. The race of apes came from a sexual union between primitive man and female beasts."
On his mission: "Buddha himself foresaw that a new teacher would arise within a few thousand years after himself...with a higher spiritual status than himself, within this current century."
On the family's financial problems: "Either earn more or spend less." (This said in a solemn, sage voice.)
On his teachings: "Any negative thought my disciples may have about this path, their guru and his powers are at best tests and at worst the work of external mischief-makers."
Jeffrey lived a double life. His normal-looking outside life consisted of school, extracurricular activities, friends, etc. Then there was the secret life he, his family, the other disciples and Brunton shared. Jeffrey never told his friends that there was a guru living in his house on and off for 19 years, that his family was specially favored by God, that his parents sometimes fasted for 40 days until they were skeletal, and that the only topics discussed in the house was spirituality and esoterica, filtered through Brunton's philosophy.
After 19 years, the family fell out with Brunton after he inaccurately predicted the imminent arrival of World War III and had his disciples pull up stakes in the U.S. and move to South America to avoid the coming radioactive fallout. Jeffrey made his own escape when adolescent independent thinking kicked in. He studied Sanskrit and Pali, and discovered that Brunton had lied about being a Sanskrit scholar, and that Buddha had never made any predictions about a guru appearing in the 20th century. He broke the family's "gentleman's agreement" of not asking Brunton embarrassing personal questions, forcing Brunton to reveal his inconsistencies. And he caught Brunton in a parlor trick which Brunton was perpetrating in order to convince his disciples that he had psychic powers.
I felt both horror and fascination as I read this book. What, I wondered, would make perfectly intelligent people give their minds, their money, and 19 years of their life to a person and a system so obviously flawed and fraudulent? Here is some of what I theorize happened to the Masson family. Perhaps as Isaac Newton said, things in motion tend to remain in motion and things at rest tend to remain at rest. Objects continue on their paths until they are met with an immovable object. Continuing to believe in Brunton was the path of least resistance. Brunton combined the carrot and the stick - he appealed to his disciples' pride, desire to be special and to have esoteric wisdom, and to their fear of falling outside the loop of this charmed life. Also, Masson's family lived in a closed system - they socialized only with other disciples, who could reinforce each other's awe for Brunton. And maybe Jeffrey's family and Brunton got caught in a strange unconscious dance, where he craved to be admired and they craved a guru. He offered "proofs" of his specialness, which caused them to put him on a pedestal, and then to demand more extreme proofs of his specialness, which caused him to produce grander and more entrenched lies, until eventually Brunton himself may have come to believe his own lies. And, the longer the Masson family followed Brunton, the harder it became to admit that they had been hoodwinked.
Ever since I left the TM movement after 10 years in it, I have been asking myself how I could have totally believed a system so full of contradictions, and why I found it so hard to leave. An exit counselor once told me that a helpful tool in assisting a person to leave a cult is to educate them about a different cult. The objectivity that comes with distance makes it easy to see the craziness of the other group, and the cult member can then more easily spot the dysfunctional systems holding oneself hostage to ones own cult. As I ponder what held the Massons captive, I am struck by some of the parallels
with Maharishi and the TM movement. Maybe reading about this family will help others gain more insight into their own life journey and become a little more free.
Monday, July 28, 2008
"Larry King Live!" July 31st interviews Juliana Buhring of 'Children of God'/ 'The Family'
Keep your eyes peeled for "Larry King Live" on July 31st! (I hope Larry King doesn't change the program's date)
Juliana is young, beautiful, intelligent and a dynamic speaker! This interview undoubtedly will be wrenching and enlightening for American viewers!
Her memoir with her sisters "Not Without My Sister" was a 2007 & 2008 bestseller in UK and Australia; their publisher, Harper Collins, did not promote the book well in the USA.
Juliana and her siblings were raised around the world in the cult 'Children of God'/'The Family', the ultimate Bible-based free love group, which included ample 'sharing love' with everyone including children, i.e. pedophilia as religious practice.
The 'Children of God' organization now officially denies these teachings. Their leadership remains in hiding.
Juliana unrelentingly publicizes damage wrought to children raised within destructive groups, and works to create international codes for child protection, including removal of statutes of limitations which protect perpetrators.
Juliana is driven by concern for her younger siblings still within the group, and for others who live with crippling psychosis or who've needlessly died.
You won't want to miss this one!
Juliana's engaging, heartfelt stories, matter of fact humor, and poise are a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.
Juliana is young, beautiful, intelligent and a dynamic speaker! This interview undoubtedly will be wrenching and enlightening for American viewers!
Her memoir with her sisters "Not Without My Sister" was a 2007 & 2008 bestseller in UK and Australia; their publisher, Harper Collins, did not promote the book well in the USA.
Juliana and her siblings were raised around the world in the cult 'Children of God'/'The Family', the ultimate Bible-based free love group, which included ample 'sharing love' with everyone including children, i.e. pedophilia as religious practice.
The 'Children of God' organization now officially denies these teachings. Their leadership remains in hiding.
Juliana unrelentingly publicizes damage wrought to children raised within destructive groups, and works to create international codes for child protection, including removal of statutes of limitations which protect perpetrators.
Juliana is driven by concern for her younger siblings still within the group, and for others who live with crippling psychosis or who've needlessly died.
You won't want to miss this one!
Juliana's engaging, heartfelt stories, matter of fact humor, and poise are a testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Thirty Years Later - the next generation's satire
A generational cohort of "kids" raised in TM and Fairfield are now in their thirties and younger.
They continue to support one another with friendships forged through shared confusion.
An insightful myspace site unites them after leaving childhood "utopia" to enter the "world of ignorance."
Myspace profile for "Children of the Golden Spaceships"
Read comments, view videos of Lynch w/ Raja while listening to Mother Divine voices - for shared memories, frustration, and looney loved ones still captured in group-think.
Be sure to scroll down their site for enlightening videos and comments!
Some "kids"continue familial devotion to Maharishi, blaming Movement dysfunction upon TM's administrative space-cadettes.
Others are angry about MVED's slick scam which governed their lives.
By and large, their lifelong friendships support one another across the belief spectrum.
While I am not of this cohort (I preceded them & babysat during their preschool years), all can appreciate enlightened satire!
Enjoy! Enlightenment at its finest!
Myspace profile for "Children of the Golden Spaceships"
AND.. more tongue-in-cheek! Myspace profile for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - while Donovan sings "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and links to our long-lost "family"!
g :)
They continue to support one another with friendships forged through shared confusion.
An insightful myspace site unites them after leaving childhood "utopia" to enter the "world of ignorance."
Myspace profile for "Children of the Golden Spaceships"
Read comments, view videos of Lynch w/ Raja while listening to Mother Divine voices - for shared memories, frustration, and looney loved ones still captured in group-think.
Be sure to scroll down their site for enlightening videos and comments!
Some "kids"continue familial devotion to Maharishi, blaming Movement dysfunction upon TM's administrative space-cadettes.
Others are angry about MVED's slick scam which governed their lives.
By and large, their lifelong friendships support one another across the belief spectrum.
While I am not of this cohort (I preceded them & babysat during their preschool years), all can appreciate enlightened satire!
Enjoy! Enlightenment at its finest!
Myspace profile for "Children of the Golden Spaceships"
AND.. more tongue-in-cheek! Myspace profile for Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - while Donovan sings "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and links to our long-lost "family"!
g :)
Monday, March 03, 2008
Research Project on Second-Generation Adults - raised in cults
Below is an open letter from Janja Lalich to all who were raised in cults.
As you know (if you were raised in a closed group), therapists are clueless about our lack of cultural competency upon leaving the TM Movement.
Janja is respected in the psychology/sociology academic field of undue influence, cultic influence and coercive persuasion.
She is gentle and compassionate in the interview process. She requested that I pass the word along to others raised in the TM Organizations. She is aware that many raised in the TM group now follow other gurus; some are heavily involved in substance abuse.
However, many of you quietly conduct your young-adult lives and are capable of interviewing on this subject. She will respect your anonymity, so you do not risk losing your family nor social relationships. I encourage you to allow others to benefit from your life stories. Janja's contact information is in the following letter.
-Gina
From Janja:
Janja Lalich's New Research Project
Seeking People to Interview
I have embarked on a new research project, which I have entitled "On Our Own: How Children of Cults Manage to Survive in the Outside World." This project has been approved by the Human Subjects in Research Committee at California State University, Chico, where I am on the faculty in the Sociology Department.
The purpose of the project is to explore the attitudes, experiences, coping mechanisms, and issues related to societal integration of young people leaving a cultic group to enter mainstream society. I will be doing in-depth interviews, focus groups, and handing out a brief questionnaire to gather basic data.
I am particularly interested in individuals who were born and/or raised in a group and who left the group during adolescence or young adulthood on their own that is, without their parents.
I am looking for individuals who would be willing to be interviewed either in person or on the telephone. I prefer in-person interviews, but depending on the location, I may not have the funds to travel. In such cases, I would do a phone interview. Each interview would take approximately 1 to 2 hours. There is also a brief questionnaire to fill out providing me with basic demographic data (age, education, etc.) Participation is voluntary. Interviews will be confidential, and the identity of interviewees will be protected in any writing or presentations based on research material. My ultimate goal is to write a book on this topic.
If you are interested in being interviewed or discussing this project with me, please contact me at jlalich@csuchico.edu or call my office at 530-898-5542. This is a private phone line and no one else would hear any message left at that number. If sending an e-mail, please put "Research Project" in the subject line so that your e-mail message will stand out.
Thanks for your interest, and I hope to hear from you,
Janja Lalich, Ph.D.
See my Web site at http://www.janjalalich.com or http://www.cultresearch.com.
Janja Lalich is author of the following books:
Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (with Madeleine Tobias) (Bay Tree, 2006)
Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults (University of California Press, 2004)
Crazy Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work? (with Margaret Singer) (Jossey-Bass, 1996)
Cults in Our Midst (with Margaret Singer) (Jossey-Bass, 1995)
Captive Hearts, Captive Minds (with Madeleine Tobias) (Hunter House, 1994, now out of print)
And editor of Women Under the Influence: A Study of Women's Lives in Totalist Groups (a special issue of the Cultic Studies Journal, 1997)
As you know (if you were raised in a closed group), therapists are clueless about our lack of cultural competency upon leaving the TM Movement.
Janja is respected in the psychology/sociology academic field of undue influence, cultic influence and coercive persuasion.
She is gentle and compassionate in the interview process. She requested that I pass the word along to others raised in the TM Organizations. She is aware that many raised in the TM group now follow other gurus; some are heavily involved in substance abuse.
However, many of you quietly conduct your young-adult lives and are capable of interviewing on this subject. She will respect your anonymity, so you do not risk losing your family nor social relationships. I encourage you to allow others to benefit from your life stories. Janja's contact information is in the following letter.
-Gina
From Janja:
Janja Lalich's New Research Project
Seeking People to Interview
I have embarked on a new research project, which I have entitled "On Our Own: How Children of Cults Manage to Survive in the Outside World." This project has been approved by the Human Subjects in Research Committee at California State University, Chico, where I am on the faculty in the Sociology Department.
The purpose of the project is to explore the attitudes, experiences, coping mechanisms, and issues related to societal integration of young people leaving a cultic group to enter mainstream society. I will be doing in-depth interviews, focus groups, and handing out a brief questionnaire to gather basic data.
I am particularly interested in individuals who were born and/or raised in a group and who left the group during adolescence or young adulthood on their own that is, without their parents.
I am looking for individuals who would be willing to be interviewed either in person or on the telephone. I prefer in-person interviews, but depending on the location, I may not have the funds to travel. In such cases, I would do a phone interview. Each interview would take approximately 1 to 2 hours. There is also a brief questionnaire to fill out providing me with basic demographic data (age, education, etc.) Participation is voluntary. Interviews will be confidential, and the identity of interviewees will be protected in any writing or presentations based on research material. My ultimate goal is to write a book on this topic.
If you are interested in being interviewed or discussing this project with me, please contact me at jlalich@csuchico.edu or call my office at 530-898-5542. This is a private phone line and no one else would hear any message left at that number. If sending an e-mail, please put "Research Project" in the subject line so that your e-mail message will stand out.
Thanks for your interest, and I hope to hear from you,
Janja Lalich, Ph.D.
See my Web site at http://www.janjalalich.com or http://www.cultresearch.com.
Janja Lalich is author of the following books:
Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships (with Madeleine Tobias) (Bay Tree, 2006)
Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults (University of California Press, 2004)
Crazy Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work? (with Margaret Singer) (Jossey-Bass, 1996)
Cults in Our Midst (with Margaret Singer) (Jossey-Bass, 1995)
Captive Hearts, Captive Minds (with Madeleine Tobias) (Hunter House, 1994, now out of print)
And editor of Women Under the Influence: A Study of Women's Lives in Totalist Groups (a special issue of the Cultic Studies Journal, 1997)
Monday, October 29, 2007
ADULT CHILDREN OF CULT MEMBERS
The therapeutic needs of adult children of cult members (ACOCMs) are quite different from those of cult members who joined as adults. The primary task of an adult cult member in recovery is to reconnect with his or her persona as it existed before joining the cult. An ACOCM, who was exposed to a cult from birth or before 14 years old, has no pre-cult identity to fall back on. Their plight has received much less attention from cult scholars until recently.
In my work with therapy clients who are adult children of cult members (ACOCMs), I have been struck by the similarities of their characteristics and those of adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs). I was drawn to explore this connection because I observed that many adult children appeared to protect their parents from any blame for what my clients endured as children — and continue to suffer as adults. This tendency is very prevalent among ACOAs and has been noted in the literature for years. The more I researched ACOAs, the more parallels I found.
The items below are adapted freely from similar characteristic lists publicly available for ACOAs. I also wish to gratefully acknowledge Gina Catena, MS, herself an ACOCM, for her patience, generosity, and persistence in offering her insights and suggestions, as well as allowing me the privilege of reviewing an unpublished manuscript on ACOCMs. It was Ms. Catena that pointed out the central similarity between addiction psychology and cultic abuse psychology: In time, an addiction comes to determine one's total life direction; in time, a cultic obsession/compulsion can similarly restrict a cultic relationship. I must also thank my clients who have all been a source of inspiration for me in so many ways.
It is also important to note that the International Cultic Studies Association asserts that addiction psychology does not reflect the themes of cultic abuse psychology. (Also, they use the term "Second-Generation Adults" to refer to adult children. I do not use this term because it is not easily understood by readers outside of an academic audience.) While I respect and admire the research and history of ICSA, my observations have led me to different conclusions, and I hope to write more on this topic in the near future.
Below I outline the challenges facing adult children that I've observed — along with corresponding strengths they appear to exhibit. I also include tasks I believe they must accomplish to recover from their cultic relationships.
I caution readers from treating the items below as a laundry list of symptoms — and, at that, drawn from a fairly small and narrow group of individuals. Many of my clients have left Transcendental Meditation, because of my background with TM, but others have left other, similar groups. I observe similarities in the challenges veterans of all these groups face. I, however, am not aware of any research on this topic, so please treat this material as a starting point for discussion and research only. Please also note that no clients exhibit all these characteristics.
Characteristics of Adult Children of Cult Members
Loosely adapted from Characteristics of the Problems of ALANONs and ACOAs, with gratefully acknowledged additions and corrections from Gina Catena, MS and my clients.
John M. Knapp, LMSW
KnappFamilyCounseling.com
In my work with therapy clients who are adult children of cult members (ACOCMs), I have been struck by the similarities of their characteristics and those of adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs). I was drawn to explore this connection because I observed that many adult children appeared to protect their parents from any blame for what my clients endured as children — and continue to suffer as adults. This tendency is very prevalent among ACOAs and has been noted in the literature for years. The more I researched ACOAs, the more parallels I found.
The items below are adapted freely from similar characteristic lists publicly available for ACOAs. I also wish to gratefully acknowledge Gina Catena, MS, herself an ACOCM, for her patience, generosity, and persistence in offering her insights and suggestions, as well as allowing me the privilege of reviewing an unpublished manuscript on ACOCMs. It was Ms. Catena that pointed out the central similarity between addiction psychology and cultic abuse psychology: In time, an addiction comes to determine one's total life direction; in time, a cultic obsession/compulsion can similarly restrict a cultic relationship. I must also thank my clients who have all been a source of inspiration for me in so many ways.
It is also important to note that the International Cultic Studies Association asserts that addiction psychology does not reflect the themes of cultic abuse psychology. (Also, they use the term "Second-Generation Adults" to refer to adult children. I do not use this term because it is not easily understood by readers outside of an academic audience.) While I respect and admire the research and history of ICSA, my observations have led me to different conclusions, and I hope to write more on this topic in the near future.
Below I outline the challenges facing adult children that I've observed — along with corresponding strengths they appear to exhibit. I also include tasks I believe they must accomplish to recover from their cultic relationships.
I caution readers from treating the items below as a laundry list of symptoms — and, at that, drawn from a fairly small and narrow group of individuals. Many of my clients have left Transcendental Meditation, because of my background with TM, but others have left other, similar groups. I observe similarities in the challenges veterans of all these groups face. I, however, am not aware of any research on this topic, so please treat this material as a starting point for discussion and research only. Please also note that no clients exhibit all these characteristics.
Characteristics of Adult Children of Cult Members
- Challenge: Some adult children of cult members (ACOCMs) may tend to feel sorry for their parents, feeling they were not to blame for their cult involvement. In fact, the adult child may see parents as victims that he or she needs to protect. The ACOCM may have been parentified at an early age, becoming responsible for adult tasks because the cult member parents were not capable of performing them.
Strengths: Adult children may tend to "take charge" of their lives.
Recovery Tasks:- To reclaim the appropriate emotions, desires, and experiences that they may have missed as children.
- To allow significant others to care for them when appropriate.
- To learn to see parents as flawed human beings who have made both healthy and unhealthy choices in their lives — and who must take responsibility for changing any dysfunctional behaviors.
- Challenge: Some adult children may be isolated from friends, family, and community.
Strength: These individuals may form independent, self-reliant lives at an early age.
Recovery Tasks:- To avoid unnecessary emotional cutoffs of family and friends.
- To see family and friends as complete human beings — with both strengths and weaknesses — and to love them for who they are and what they can give us.
- Challenge: Some adult children may fear taking part in groups, no matter how benign, such as churches or self-help groups.
Strength: Society needs its independent thinkers. Intelligent, sensitive outsiders have had unique viewpoints to offer others throughout history — think Buckminster Fuller, Nikola Tesla.
Recovery Task:- To distinguish between coercive groups, which threaten one's self-knowledge and identity, and benign, supportive groups, which can be valuable emotional supports.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may fear authority figures. This may lead to difficulties in keeping and holding jobs, completing education, and so forth.
Strength: The ability to question authority appropriately and by conscious choice can lead to strong personal beliefs — especially having survived lifelong coercive techniques.
Recovery Task:- To learn when challenging authority can lead to productive outcomes — and when it will not.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may seek the approval of others more than adults who did not grow up in a cult.
Strength: ACOCMs may use appropriate recognition for their efforts as a spur to ambition and achievement in their lives.
Recovery Task:- To learn to "check in" with oneself and recognize when seeking the approval of others conflicts with meeting one's own needs and desires.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may be unsure of their identity, core values, likes and dislikes having had dysfunctional cult beliefs forced on them from childhood.
Strength: Adult children may be more likely to consciously examine their core values — leading to a thoughtful approach to life.
Recovery Task:- To explore, as an adult, values and beliefs that will form a strong, functional core identity — a task usually completed during childhood and adolescence.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may be frightened by angry people, strong emotions, or those who express themselves forcefully.
Strengths: Adult children may be sensitive to imposing conflict on others — a strength in interpersonal relations.
Recovery Tasks:- To learn to assert one's needs and desires productively when appropriate.
- To learn to be comfortable when others assert themselves.
- To know when conflict crosses the line into aggression, which is healthy to avoid.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may be especially sensitive to even slight personal criticism due to harsh judgments thrust on them growing up in a totalist cult. Adult children may have a tendency toward crippling perfectionism.
Strength: A quest for excellence can spur one to achieving great things.
Recovery Task:- Develop a clear-eyed appraisal of one's abilities that allows one to excel — without hindering one with unachievable expectations or self-defeating behaviors.
- Challenge: Adult children may judge themselves harshly. They may suffer from low self-esteem.
Strength: Such individuals can learn to have a balanced appraisal of their strengths and weaknesses.
Recovery Tasks:- To learn not to "disqualify the positive," in Aaron T. Beck's phrase.
- To learn to value themselves.
- Challenge: Cult leaders do not recognize boundaries and tend to create environments in which everything exists to serve them. As a result, ACOCMs may be raised by parents who have trouble drawing appropriate boundaries. This may carry on to the next generation: ACOCMs may have trouble recognizing boundaries. Some ACOCM's were raised with loose or highly rigid sexual rules, which can interfere with adult intimacy and healthy boundaries.
Strength: Once channeled, the ability to be flexible with boundaries is an important skill for family and intimate relationships.
Recovery Task:- To successfully develop intimacy, without becoming enmeshed inappropriately with others.
- Challenge: Because we learn what we live growing up, ACOCMs may become emotionally attached to other cult members, alcoholics, or other compulsive personalities, such as workaholics, to fill needs created when their parents abandoned them.
Strength: Adult children may be especially successful at "healing relationships" — relationships in which both members bear significant wounds, but who work to heal each other through compassion and commitment.
Recovery Task:- To learn to value relationships free from compulsions.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may view themselves as a victims — and be attracted to similar weaknesses in their friendships and love relationships. They may feel a need to "rescue" others. They may be attracted to helping and healing professions.
Strengths: Society holds helpers and healers in special esteem.
Recovery Tasks:- To learn to meet one's own needs first, before inappropriately trying to rescue others.
- Also see item "k."
- Challenge: ACOCMs may tend to confuse love and pity.
Strength: This tendency can be the basis for developing a mature sense of empathy.
Recovery Tasks:- To avoid pity, which can trap one into a feeling of superiority.
- To develop relationships founded on mutual respect.
- Challenge: Totalist cults tend to indoctrinate their members with inappropriate, unachievable missions to save the world. ACOCMs may feel a restless need to "make a difference in society" — to "save the world."
Strength: Blessed are the peacemakers, the visionaries, the dreamers.
Recovery Tasks:- To channel these high aspirations into achievable goals — possibly working with established organizations.
- To reframe goals to apply within manageable limits, such as working with family, friends, and neighbors, or otherwise size one's aspirations to match one's abilities.
- Challenge: Adult children may have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. It may be easier for one to help others than it is to help oneself. This enables some ACOCMs to avoid looking closely at their own faults and needs.
Strength: Matured and modified, the impulse to caretake can form a solid basis for work in the helping and healing fields.
Recovery Task:- To acknowledge those things one is truly responsible for, that is events and actions that one can realistically change, while learning to let go of things that are the responsibilities of others.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may feel guilty when they stand up for themselves, instead of giving in to others.
Strength & Recovery Task:- See discussion on assertiveness in item "g."
- Challenge: Because they grew up surrounded by the chaos of constantly changing and capricious demands in a cult, ACOCMs may become addicted to excitement. They may be prone to addictive behaviors, such as spending sprees, gambling, drugs, promiscuity, alcohol, and other compulsions.
Strength: Many people who achieve greatness are driven by a desire to explore new places, ideas, people.
Recovery Task:- To channel the need for excitement into a creative, not destructive, force in one's life.
- Challenge: Some adult children have strong needs for order and control in their lives because these were lacking in their childhoods.
Strength: The ability to organize and prioritize can be important assets for success in life.
Recovery Task:- In the words of Reinhold Niebuhr's famous "Serenity Prayer," to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may not have developed social skills appropriate to living in mainstream culture, having only been exposed to nontraditional social mores within their cult.
Strength: Like all visitors to a foreign land, adult children may, in time, develop a unique understanding of and sensitivity to social customs that others merely take for granted.
Recovery Task:- To consciously develop manners, attitudes, habits of their newly adopted culture: mainstream society.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may have stuffed their feelings, particularly anger and abandonment, from their traumatic childhoods. Strong emotions that are ignored and unexpressed can lead to a host of psychological and physical ills in later life.
Strength: The ability to compartmentalize, when under conscious control, can be an important survival technique in career, education, and family life.
Recovery Task:- To learn to express feelings appropriately, productively, gracefully in or near the moment that they occur.
- Challenge: Adult children may have lost — or never developed — the ability to feel or express their feelings because it hurts so much. They may live in denial or have nearly delusional beliefs about their lives, their abilities, or their place in society.
Strength & Recovery Task:- See item "t."
- Challenge: ACOCMs may tend to be dependent on others and be unusually fearful of abandonment. They may suffer from a series of unstable love and friendship relationships. Their abandonment may spring from what it felt like to live in an unhealthy family with people who were never there for them emotionally.
Strength: Adult children may feel extraordinary compassion for the emotional needs of others because of the extremes they experienced.
Recovery Task:- To learn emotional management strategies that allow adult children to fulfill more of their own needs.
- Challenge: ACOCMs may tend to be reactors rather than actors in their own life. This may be due to the need to anticipate the chaotic emotions of parents and cult leaders to emotionally survive childhood.
Strength: Adult children may be strongly intuitive about the needs and feelings of others.
Recovery Tasks:- To learn to be Self-centered rather than other-centered.
- To learn to recognize and express one's own needs, feelings, and values while also truly valuing others'.
- Challenge: Just as children of alcoholics experience alcoholism as a family disease, ACOCMs may continue to express the characteristics of cult members — even long after they have left their family's cult.
Strength & Recovery Task:- Adult children may be in a unique position to consciously decide which cult-based values and beliefs they want to honor — and which they wish to discard.
Loosely adapted from Characteristics of the Problems of ALANONs and ACOAs, with gratefully acknowledged additions and corrections from Gina Catena, MS and my clients.
John M. Knapp, LMSW
KnappFamilyCounseling.com
Thursday, August 09, 2007
"Not the Business of Schools to Lead Kids to Inner Peace"
California Catholic Daily objects to allowing meditation into public schools, when prayer is prohibited.
"Not the Business of Schools to Lead Kids to Inner Peace"
"Not the Business of Schools to Lead Kids to Inner Peace"
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Enlightened Education
Truth is stranger than fiction.
A comparison of Hogwart's School to Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment.
Education should help one use critical thinking to distinguish from flights of fantasy.
A comparison of Hogwart's School to Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment.
Education should help one use critical thinking to distinguish from flights of fantasy.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Transcendental Paranoia
by Gina Catena, M.S.
Coercive Persuasion, “thought reform,” or “brainwashing” includes taboos against speaking truth. While under the influence, we felt secure and safe in our paradigm. We knew privileged secrets, advanced techniques, mantras and higher level “knowledge” as provided on special courses. We believed, and told outsiders, the scripted benefits of TM and memorized Hinduesque teachings.
Amongst ourselves we chuckled about the Movement’s financial shenanigans, Nazi-like environmental and social control on courses. Still we feared speaking forth to detail others’ psychosis, suicides, wild antics, hidden sexual and drug abuse –in the interest of protecting our teachings and the Movement’s reputation.
We believed in our higher purpose - to uphold the Movement’s integrity and not allow negative press to befall upon our beloved Maharishi, while MMY’s Shrivastara family lived in comfort from our families’ contributions.
Secrets began with instruction of our mantra, never to be repeated aloud, “for our own benefit.” Little by little, we acclimated to organized scrutiny for deemed worthiness, and increasing levels of security “for our own benefit,” as we advanced.
Transcendental Paranoia was instilled from the beginning. We navigated through detailed interviews and applications for advanced courses, letters of recommendation from Initiators or Governors of the Age of Enlightenment (we were denied copies of our files or applications). We proved our allegiance to the “purity of the teachings.” We carried validated photo identification badges to enter meetings, group meditations, and even for some functions at satellite TM centers around the world. We accepted when the “Capital of the Age of Enlightenment” staff told us that our identity cards were the Capital’s property, not ours, to be relinquished if we left.
If we explored other venues, we were afraid of being identified as unfaithful to Maharishi. Many lied on TM program applications, denying exploration of other spiritual teachers, meditation practices or psychotherapy to assure their continued group acceptance (demonstrating a lack of true help!).
We kept secrets to maintain our “spiritual evolution” and allegiance to the Movement, our beloved and dysfunctional “TM-family.” Fear of the truth was deeply ingrained.
We ignored negative press from outside of the Movement, and blamed our communities’ tragedies upon “unstressing,” “purification,” or individual “bad karma.” We attributed all problems to individual shortcomings, all good was attributed gratefully to TM and Maharishi. “Jai Guru Dev” (Exaltations to Guru Dev). More Secrets.
After leaving the Movement, many do not disclose TM-histories with outsiders, lest we betray loved ones, or become stigmatized from the outside world. Likewise, I remained silent for nearly 20 years, while living a double life.
An innate anxiety often arises when disclosing details of our TM Movement/cult with outsiders. Common themes are: “My TM-based loved ones will reject me. They were well intentioned. They are not bad people. What will I have left if they reject me?”
Revealing our TM background knowledge can provoke anxiety precisely because, in speaking forth, we run counter to deeply ingrained patterns. The famed TM “bubble diagram” of transcending to the source of thought, applies to the depth of our brainwashing when in a trance state. The blend of group belonging, fear of ignorant outsiders, and reverence for our “sacred tradition’ were planted deep in our primal brain. Many fear legal retribution, verbal assaults, and rejection from loved ones if they speak of their TM past.
Fear of group rejection is a protective biological mechanism. A primitive lifestyle requires group effort for human survival. In the wild, tribal rejection equals certain death. That is why we want to maintain our group membership.
For silent former TM-ers, your anxiety is real, psychologically and biologically understandable – but not necessary. We won’t die if we reveal our past to the world. What a liberating thought!
Former TMers may also experience anxiety speaking of their history, wondering how this will influence their integration to a new community, “How will outsiders understand? “They will think I’m insane of they know my history.” “How will this stymie me professionally?” “None can understand how I participated in such ridiculousness.” They won’t understand why I continue to love those who remain in the cult.” Or “They won’t understand why I did not leave sooner.”
From sheer embarrassment, many MIU/ MUM graduates struggle with their alma mater on their professional resume. They try “MI University” or “M International University” or other derivatives. Job interviews may focus upon justifying their education rather than upon employment qualifications, while explaining that Maharishi International University really is an accredited private university (meeting minimum standards of academic literacy). Oftentimes, the desired job is not offered because the interviewer was distracted by the story of Maharishi’s exotic university.
Shakespeare’s wisdom, “To be or not to be, that is the question” is appropriate here. To be true to one self includes choosing whether to speak forth or maintain privacy about a cult past. Speaking forth is a highly personal choice. There is not a right nor wrong.
Cult experts (some are now personal friends), often state, “True recovery requires cutting all ties to the cult.”
I disagree with them on this point, and I tell them so. For those raised in a cult, sharing our history may result in rejection from our loved ones of origin. Then where do we turn?
At the 2006 trial for Warren Jeffs, president of the polygamist cult of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (not TM related), a young teenage bride refused to speak when called to testify in court. She was arrested for contempt of court. This reveals lack of understanding of the great emotional and psychological risk to which the court system placed this young girl, by asking her to publicly describe her confusing family and community. If she spoke of her knowledge, she would have lost all that she knew and had nowhere to turn. Of course she kept the ugly secrets, because her identity, life and loved ones are with the controversial community.
The young woman in Jeffs' trial, above, experienced an acute crises of any cult-raised person's inner conflict. Maintaining connections to family of origin, requires continuing to live with shrouds of secrecy. Speaking truth as a whole person, removing the shrouds, risks rejection from family and community of origin accompanied by possible social or professional stigmas elsewhere. It may be a painful choice.
One friend was raised in a different highly publicized cult outside of North America. She attends graduate school in the USA, is married to an American: they are raising their family. She keeps her history private, even to the instructors in her graduate psychotherapy studies. Media publicity about her cult-family is scathing. She chooses silence to protect her children from social repercussions if her history were public knowledge.
She states, “Even experienced therapists and most psychology professors don’t understand about children raised in cults. Many therapists assume we are psychotic, have split personalities or other severe disorders. There were some terrible situations and tragedies. But many of us survived and are functional after several years of painful personal soul searching. We became well after years of wrenching inner work. Therapists will label us too quickly.”
Through her silence, my friend protects her children from social stigma, and from rejection by cult-grandparents. I had chosen the same until my children were grown.
In coming forth, I sadly accept that loved ones from my TM past will reject me as being “of the dark side.” One dear old TM-friend recently glared at me saying I was “flirting with the enemy.” After my well-circulated letter to the San Rafael School Board, a revered TM leader, with whom I'd had a decades long relationship, told me, "May God have mercy on your soul. Do not contact me ever again." I was prepared for rejection from those of my history. Others might not be willing to risk such loss.
Speaking forth is a highly individual decision. Some choose anonymity; some prefer silence about their TM histories. Coming forth brings rewards at a price.
If you read this and are anxious about speaking, please do not berate yourself. There is deeply ingrained programming against coming forth. It takes awhile to untangle. It is important to have others who will emotionally support your honesty and courage, rather than ostracize you for your honesty.
If you choose to come forth, your voice will become stronger with practice. However, It is equally valid to silently hold your history, memories, and loved ones near and dear to your heart.
Vaya con Dios
Coercive Persuasion, “thought reform,” or “brainwashing” includes taboos against speaking truth. While under the influence, we felt secure and safe in our paradigm. We knew privileged secrets, advanced techniques, mantras and higher level “knowledge” as provided on special courses. We believed, and told outsiders, the scripted benefits of TM and memorized Hinduesque teachings.
Amongst ourselves we chuckled about the Movement’s financial shenanigans, Nazi-like environmental and social control on courses. Still we feared speaking forth to detail others’ psychosis, suicides, wild antics, hidden sexual and drug abuse –in the interest of protecting our teachings and the Movement’s reputation.
We believed in our higher purpose - to uphold the Movement’s integrity and not allow negative press to befall upon our beloved Maharishi, while MMY’s Shrivastara family lived in comfort from our families’ contributions.
Secrets began with instruction of our mantra, never to be repeated aloud, “for our own benefit.” Little by little, we acclimated to organized scrutiny for deemed worthiness, and increasing levels of security “for our own benefit,” as we advanced.
Transcendental Paranoia was instilled from the beginning. We navigated through detailed interviews and applications for advanced courses, letters of recommendation from Initiators or Governors of the Age of Enlightenment (we were denied copies of our files or applications). We proved our allegiance to the “purity of the teachings.” We carried validated photo identification badges to enter meetings, group meditations, and even for some functions at satellite TM centers around the world. We accepted when the “Capital of the Age of Enlightenment” staff told us that our identity cards were the Capital’s property, not ours, to be relinquished if we left.
If we explored other venues, we were afraid of being identified as unfaithful to Maharishi. Many lied on TM program applications, denying exploration of other spiritual teachers, meditation practices or psychotherapy to assure their continued group acceptance (demonstrating a lack of true help!).
We kept secrets to maintain our “spiritual evolution” and allegiance to the Movement, our beloved and dysfunctional “TM-family.” Fear of the truth was deeply ingrained.
We ignored negative press from outside of the Movement, and blamed our communities’ tragedies upon “unstressing,” “purification,” or individual “bad karma.” We attributed all problems to individual shortcomings, all good was attributed gratefully to TM and Maharishi. “Jai Guru Dev” (Exaltations to Guru Dev). More Secrets.
After leaving the Movement, many do not disclose TM-histories with outsiders, lest we betray loved ones, or become stigmatized from the outside world. Likewise, I remained silent for nearly 20 years, while living a double life.
An innate anxiety often arises when disclosing details of our TM Movement/cult with outsiders. Common themes are: “My TM-based loved ones will reject me. They were well intentioned. They are not bad people. What will I have left if they reject me?”
Revealing our TM background knowledge can provoke anxiety precisely because, in speaking forth, we run counter to deeply ingrained patterns. The famed TM “bubble diagram” of transcending to the source of thought, applies to the depth of our brainwashing when in a trance state. The blend of group belonging, fear of ignorant outsiders, and reverence for our “sacred tradition’ were planted deep in our primal brain. Many fear legal retribution, verbal assaults, and rejection from loved ones if they speak of their TM past.
Fear of group rejection is a protective biological mechanism. A primitive lifestyle requires group effort for human survival. In the wild, tribal rejection equals certain death. That is why we want to maintain our group membership.
For silent former TM-ers, your anxiety is real, psychologically and biologically understandable – but not necessary. We won’t die if we reveal our past to the world. What a liberating thought!
Former TMers may also experience anxiety speaking of their history, wondering how this will influence their integration to a new community, “How will outsiders understand? “They will think I’m insane of they know my history.” “How will this stymie me professionally?” “None can understand how I participated in such ridiculousness.” They won’t understand why I continue to love those who remain in the cult.” Or “They won’t understand why I did not leave sooner.”
From sheer embarrassment, many MIU/ MUM graduates struggle with their alma mater on their professional resume. They try “MI University” or “M International University” or other derivatives. Job interviews may focus upon justifying their education rather than upon employment qualifications, while explaining that Maharishi International University really is an accredited private university (meeting minimum standards of academic literacy). Oftentimes, the desired job is not offered because the interviewer was distracted by the story of Maharishi’s exotic university.
Shakespeare’s wisdom, “To be or not to be, that is the question” is appropriate here. To be true to one self includes choosing whether to speak forth or maintain privacy about a cult past. Speaking forth is a highly personal choice. There is not a right nor wrong.
Cult experts (some are now personal friends), often state, “True recovery requires cutting all ties to the cult.”
I disagree with them on this point, and I tell them so. For those raised in a cult, sharing our history may result in rejection from our loved ones of origin. Then where do we turn?
At the 2006 trial for Warren Jeffs, president of the polygamist cult of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (not TM related), a young teenage bride refused to speak when called to testify in court. She was arrested for contempt of court. This reveals lack of understanding of the great emotional and psychological risk to which the court system placed this young girl, by asking her to publicly describe her confusing family and community. If she spoke of her knowledge, she would have lost all that she knew and had nowhere to turn. Of course she kept the ugly secrets, because her identity, life and loved ones are with the controversial community.
The young woman in Jeffs' trial, above, experienced an acute crises of any cult-raised person's inner conflict. Maintaining connections to family of origin, requires continuing to live with shrouds of secrecy. Speaking truth as a whole person, removing the shrouds, risks rejection from family and community of origin accompanied by possible social or professional stigmas elsewhere. It may be a painful choice.
One friend was raised in a different highly publicized cult outside of North America. She attends graduate school in the USA, is married to an American: they are raising their family. She keeps her history private, even to the instructors in her graduate psychotherapy studies. Media publicity about her cult-family is scathing. She chooses silence to protect her children from social repercussions if her history were public knowledge.
She states, “Even experienced therapists and most psychology professors don’t understand about children raised in cults. Many therapists assume we are psychotic, have split personalities or other severe disorders. There were some terrible situations and tragedies. But many of us survived and are functional after several years of painful personal soul searching. We became well after years of wrenching inner work. Therapists will label us too quickly.”
Through her silence, my friend protects her children from social stigma, and from rejection by cult-grandparents. I had chosen the same until my children were grown.
In coming forth, I sadly accept that loved ones from my TM past will reject me as being “of the dark side.” One dear old TM-friend recently glared at me saying I was “flirting with the enemy.” After my well-circulated letter to the San Rafael School Board, a revered TM leader, with whom I'd had a decades long relationship, told me, "May God have mercy on your soul. Do not contact me ever again." I was prepared for rejection from those of my history. Others might not be willing to risk such loss.
Speaking forth is a highly individual decision. Some choose anonymity; some prefer silence about their TM histories. Coming forth brings rewards at a price.
If you read this and are anxious about speaking, please do not berate yourself. There is deeply ingrained programming against coming forth. It takes awhile to untangle. It is important to have others who will emotionally support your honesty and courage, rather than ostracize you for your honesty.
If you choose to come forth, your voice will become stronger with practice. However, It is equally valid to silently hold your history, memories, and loved ones near and dear to your heart.
Vaya con Dios
Friday, February 16, 2007
THINK FREE: 02/16/07
THINK FREE is a regular feature of TM-Free Blog. It features a summary of news about TM and other orgs labeled "cults" by critics.
Have a hot tip? See something we missed? Email jmknapp53@gmail.com.
- Magazine Editor Hoffman Working on Book on Growing Up in TM LA Observed [Second-Generation 'Ru and How She Grew]
- Carrey Rules Out Scientology [What a Relief Says Mrs. Carrey!]
Have a hot tip? See something we missed? Email jmknapp53@gmail.com.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
At Least 20 Years of Alleged Child Molestation in TM
The recent reports here of Program Pedophilia in Fairfield and resurrection of Annie's Story of sexual abuse raise the question of whether these are isolated events.
I'd like to direct readers to allegations going back at least 20 years of charges of child molestation, death from abuse and neglect, corruption and more at Maharishi's compound in NOIDA, India, from the cover story in The Illustrated Weekly of India, January 17, 1988.
It's not my intention to indicate that Transcendental Meditation practice creates pedophiles, any more than Catholicism does. Rather, it's my feeling that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the TM Org must take responsibility for the practices and policies within the organizations that put children at risk. Or at the very least, speak out against these and other horrible transgressions.
What I would like to see arise is an organization, similar to Voice of the Faithful in the Catholic world, that explored these allegations and pushed for changes within the TM Org that addressed them.
And protected the children.
I'd like to direct readers to allegations going back at least 20 years of charges of child molestation, death from abuse and neglect, corruption and more at Maharishi's compound in NOIDA, India, from the cover story in The Illustrated Weekly of India, January 17, 1988.
It's not my intention to indicate that Transcendental Meditation practice creates pedophiles, any more than Catholicism does. Rather, it's my feeling that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the TM Org must take responsibility for the practices and policies within the organizations that put children at risk. Or at the very least, speak out against these and other horrible transgressions.
What I would like to see arise is an organization, similar to Voice of the Faithful in the Catholic world, that explored these allegations and pushed for changes within the TM Org that addressed them.
And protected the children.
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