Study questions long term benefits of meditation

Lindsay Gellman reviews an analysis of science behind meditation in the January 6 Wall Street Journal, linked here : Meditation has limited benefits, study finds. 

As TMFree readers would expect, meditation is not the save-all panacea for which it's marketed. 

The majority of studies on Transcendental Meditation (TM) are NOT controlled studies, thus are weak. For example, TM studies do not compare TM with mindfulness meditation, prayer, buddhist chanting, nor with daily napping or exercise.

IF TM were compared with another contemplative practice, it would be impossible to know if the TM control group practices TM correctly because it's impossible to know what a person recites inside their mind. There is also no way to determine if a participant uses his or her correct mystical mantra, since the grid of reported TM mantras is not uniform. In another words, there is nothing scientific about the practice of trademarked Transcendental MeditationTM.

According to Dr. Herbert Benson, any word works as well as a TM mantra. Herbert Benson was co-researcher with Keith Wallace for the original TM studies in Scientific American. Benson then found identical results with other meditations and prayers that do not require secretive indoctrination. Benson called this The Relaxation Response.  

Lo! mediterranean siestas provide some benefit!

As Gellman summarizes in the Wall Street Journal :

"Although uncontrolled studies have usually found a benefit of meditation, very few controlled studies have found a similar benefit for the effects of meditation programs on health-related behaviors affected by stress," the JAMA report said.

The report's findings show that meditation is perhaps less effective in alleviating stress-related symptoms than is widely believed, said Allan H. Goroll, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School-Massachusetts General Hospital, in invited commentary also published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. "The studies overall failed to show much benefit from meditation with regard to relief of suffering or improvement in overall health, with the important exception that mindfulness meditation provided a small but possibly meaningful degree of relief from psychological distress," he wrote."

TM Leader Hagelin Perverts Science to Sell Expensive TM Products

John Hagelin is the national director of the Transcendental Meditation(R) Program in the United States.  (His official title is "Raja of Invincible America").  He has a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University.

A reader of TM-Free Blog who is on a TM email list was kind enough to send the TM-Free co-editors an email which he received from the TM organization in early September 2012.  It included a letter from Dr. Hagelin.  Highlights from Hagelin's letter are as follows.  (All quoted material is in red).

"Dear Friends,

As a direct result of the generosity and vision of our donors, the Maharishi National Yagya(SM) program has grown into a powerful force for America.  ["Maharishi Yagyas" are, briefly, large groups of people chanting Sanskrit for many hours or days in a manner taught by the TM Organization -ed.].  

We are beginning to see a correlation between the specific appeals of these massive Yagyas and positive developments for the Nation.

Last month our National Yagya included an appeal for rain where needed[.]

- Since the start of that Yagya we have been receiving many beautiful reports from supporters all around the country of welcome and refreshing rain. 

- In Fairfield, Iowa, where the largest number of National Yagya supporters reside, it started to rain when the Yagya began in India....

Previous National Yagyas included an appeal to increase the number of Pandits [TM org. chanters - ed.] in the U.S. campus[.]

- 556 Pandits now have passports....

- The first phase of the kitchen expansion to accommodate the new Pandits has been completed....

...In this time of great opportunity we hope that you will be inspired to give and-if at all possible-to commit to regular monthly sponsorship.  [Emphasis in original.]

Our next 11-day National Yagya will begin on September 19.  Please click now [emphasis in original] to offer your support....

With a donation of $1,250 or more, you-or anyone you designate-will be named in the Sankalpa [intention - ed.] of a National Yagya(SM) performance.

For smaller donations, a new feature on our web site allows you to make a gift in honor or memory of someone...."

As to the scientific sophistication of this national leader with a Ph.D., I quote from a Wikipedia article entitled "Correlation does not imply causation."  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation):

"Correlation does not imply causation" is a phrase used in science and statistics to emphasize that a correlation between two variables does not necessarily imply that one causes the other....

Example 
     With a decrease in the wearing of hats, there has been an increase in global warming over the same period.  
     Therefore global warming is caused by people abandoning the practice of wearing hats.

The website Sceptic School (http://scepticschool.com/2012/05/07more-logical-fallacies/) offers an excellent introduction to logical fallacies.  The author of the website teaches logic to 12-14 year olds, so one would think a Ph.D. would be familiar with this stuff.  From the website:  

"Post-hoc ergo propter hoc - saying that because A happened before B, A must have caused B....[C]laiming that because a rooster crows before the sunrise, a rooster's crow causes the sunrise."

So let's look again at Hagelin's comment:  "We are beginning to see a correlation between the specific appeals of these massive Yagyas and positive developments for the Nation."  i.e. the yagyas caused rain, and caused more chanters to head to the U.S.

Whatever is Hagelin thinking?  Why does he write messages like this?  Does he get a commission?  Is he so cynical that he thinks gullible people will believe him?  Is his mind so damaged by the cult-think of Maheshism that he can no longer think scientifically?  

And what about the people who buy the yagyas?  Have they lost the capacity to think logically?  Lots of people must be convinced, because the IRS tax form for non-profits (yes, you can get a tax deduction for buying Maharishi yagyas) for the Brahmananda Saraswati Foundation (http://www.vedicpandits.org/pdf/BSF-2011-Form-990.pdf) shows that in 2010, total donations received for purchase of yagyas were $2,027,650, and in 2011 total donations were $3,714,902. 

If you want to read more hard sell, guilt-induction, begging and flattering to obtain money; and pseudo-science, you can google "Maharishi yagyas."

Do you have any experience with the TM organization's yagyas?  With the pandits?  With the TMO's begging for money?  With the TMO's guilt-tripping?  With their poor science?

levitation

Obviously there's nothing new about the whimsy of levitation. It's been around since Aladdin and the Flying Carpet! That Mahesh should shoot himself in the foot with such nonsense only speaks to the extremely low opinion he had of our intelligence (and high opinion of his ability to fool others).

Mahesh was not delusional but simply knew he could get away with just about anything having, as he obviously felt he had in the palm of his hand, huge numbers of delusional and highly gullible true-believers. Convincing true-believers to give you their money is easier than taking candy from a baby.

Here's a fun film. At around 38 minutes or so into the film, the magician, whose abilities are quite remarkable, purports to interview a monk who can levitate. The scene is quite interesting and well set. Believable, too, except for all the candles and the cameraman who could have but somehow clearly did not film between the "monk" (actor?) and the wall behind him.

Had Mahesh got Doug Henning to build him some setup like this, he'd have had millions upon millions of followers within a week. There would have been huge waiting lists to not only learn TM, but Mahesh could have asked any price for his ersatz "spiritual development" or whatever he was getting away with pretending his TM and 'sidhi' concoction was all about. 

Obviously, Mahesh didn't trust Henning; trust, in Maheshism, seems to be money-based: you pay a million $ and you get to become a "rājah" - 'course, we have no idea what the so-called rājahs know and anyone can waft about in flowing garments. If you look on the right hand column of our Blog, you'll see: Essential Documents and Articles - this may be all there is to know plus a few things the TMO would rather none of us knew!

The YouTube film is very useful. It illustrates how simple it is to WOW! people. Magicians are as old to humanity as the concept of entertainment. - TM as entertainment? No, not really. Benson and Wallace demonstrated that there really is something to TM, although I think Wallace's conclusion that there is alertness co-emergent with restfulness might be a strain on credulity. Way too often we have heard people either on the day of initiation or in follow-up say that they had no idea what was happening when they were meditating. But when cued, they would answer positively that they experienced what they had been suggested to have experienced. But at least the restfulness was measurable, TM really was a non-prescription tranquillizer (for many, for a while). 

Dr. Benson, of course, demonstrated with real science that his "relaxation response" had not only some validity but actually accomplished something.

On a purely observational scale, TM allowed not only rest, but when increased beyond 20 minutes twice a day, it engendered a susceptibility to suggestion that any hypnotist would envy - and/or a decreased interest in critical thinking. Many people, blindly following Mahesh, became those delusional, highly gullible true-believers only too willing to finance Mahesh's belief in himself and spend hours every day doing something that gave the same old results. There have been no new results since "rest" - which is something to think about.

-

Now, randomly, we come to one of Mahesh's fiddled-with bits of pseudo-science, ADHD. This is also in the right hand column under Essential Documents and Articles. In the early days of TM there is definitely an experience of rest (how much/how little is indeterminate). I do not think that that is in any question by anybody. Beyond those early days, however, there is insufficient evidence to form any conclusion as the TM drop-out rate was consistently very high. Perhaps today, since TM teachers charge so much, dropping out becomes more problematic, amounting to acknowledging that one has throwing away a great deal of money for something of questionable utility. TM, for so many, has become an exercise in doing something over and over expecting different results, an expensive exercise in futility and, it would appear, pleasant hopelessness.

BUT it might well be this drop-out rate that Mahesh was most focused on when, recognizing that TM was only an exercise in rest for most, he began concocting more and more make-believe "solutions" to the world's problems to sell to more and more gullible people - making more and more money for himself and his family in India. He said "we'll use science to prove it" - meaning, we thought, that we'd use the scientific method to validate that what he claimed about TM was indeed true, because we believed that TM was what he claimed ... after all, we did TM, we experienced rest, we hadn't dropped out because we didn't experience rest! YET even more crucially, we believed in Mahesh ... just like some of the people in the crowd scenes in the YouTube film might have believed they were witnessing real magic. After all, many of those tricks are very difficult to explain.

What did Mahesh really mean about "using" science to prove "it" ... prove what, exactly? Who knows. Mahesh didn't chat. But it appears, especially from Mahesh's behaviour and craving for money, that he surely must have been spot-on aware that he couldn't possibly prove that TM did something it very clearly didn't do. Mahesh was cunning, not stupid.

So, all that faux-science? It endeavours to speak volumes of "proof" that Mahesh was what we thought he was; if TM looked legitimate, then it was obvious Mahesh was legitimate! The fiddled "studies" endeavour to validate Mahesh! All that junk science is simply manipulated to prove Mahesh was right, not that TM did anything other than generate or allow deep rest for some, but not all. His claims for TM, both before and after the Beatles, had come to nothing and after the Beatles dumped him he desperately needed proof about his legitimacy - because even those of us who were sincere believers were beginning to doubt! - I seriously question very, very much that anyone devoted to the idea that Mahesh was the real deal will give a toss about anything I have to say here - but for the rest of us, while we may want to enjoy the entertaining magic tricks, the prestidigitation and appearance of impossible things, we don't need to believe nonsense simply to validate one another's misconceptions and delusions about Mahesh and his clever tricks that swallowed our money.

Like magic tricks and entertainment, stories around the camp fire and the beginnings of theatre, TM is one thing, but it is not "spiritual development" in my opinion; nor is the relaxation response. It might be something to do instead of spiritual development, but it isn't spiritual development.

Of course, Dr. Benson has had the integrity to only focus on what his method actually does, what it can be demonstrated to actually accomplish; he has not needed to make false claims or pretentious accusations about the negativity in the atmosphere or CIA operatives trying to disrupt his empire (!). He has been up-front about what his method of relaxation accomplishes and has set an example for healers and compassionate people everywhere.