MAHARISHI SAYS “SHOW ME THE MONEY!”
Maharishi, along with his family in India, created an astonishing array of profit-making businesses ranging from gemstones to solar energy to television stations. These businesses, along with TM’s massive real estate holdings throughout the world, made him a multi-billionaire. An article in India Today, published in June 2012, valued Maharishi's estate at his death at approximately $9 billion. Most of the value was in land across India. Maharishi lived in a 200-room palace in Holland and airplanes, helicopters, and fleets of cars were at his disposal.
WHERE IS THE MAHARISHI MONEY?
Maharishi, along with his family in India, created an astonishing array of profit-making businesses ranging from gemstones to solar energy to television stations. These businesses, along with TM’s massive real estate holdings throughout the world, made him a multi-billionaire.
An article in India Today, published in June 2012, valued Maharishi's estate at his death at approximately $9 billion. Most of the value was in land across India. Maharishi lived in a 200-room palace in Holland and airplanes, helicopters, and fleets of cars were at his disposal. TM claims to have spent $95mm on a Vedic chanting center known as a Brahmasthan located in rural India. By 2009, it was a ghost town. TM is reportedly raising $400mm to build a replacement. Maharishi’s designated successor, Tony Nader, recently purchased the most expensive lot for a house in the history of Palm Beach, Florida for over $4mm.
DAVID LYNCH USES AT-RISK GROUPS TO GET FUNDING FOR TM’S COFFERS
Why is the Lynch Foundation doing fundraiser after fundraiser when Maharishi had billions? When Maharishi was alive, nothing was for free. Had he wanted to, he could have made TM available to hundreds of thousands of people for free. So why is TM suddenly targeting at-risk populations? I think the answer, at least in part, is that the bulk of Maharishi's estate went to a niece, and two nephews in India. Also, fundraising in the United States has plummeted in recent years. In 2011, TM’s Global Country of World Peace raised $47 million. By 2013, fundraising had dropped to $5.5mm and further plummeted to only a little over $1mm in 2015. TM may hope that targeting at-risk populations, even without evidence of benefit, will allow it to attract public funding along with foundation and corporate grants.
TM AIN’T THE ONLY WAY TO GET THE MEDITATION BENEFITS. THE RELAXATION RESPONSE CAN BE ATTAINED FOR FREE (UNLESS YOU WANT TO PAY $1000 TO LYNCH, BOB ROTH & CO)
The TM organization promotes the idea that TM practice is the best way to realize the benefits of meditation. However, as Dr. Benson demonstrated, the health benefits of meditation come from triggering a “relaxation response." TM is not the only way to trigger the response, and for the reasons documented above, it may be the worst. I do not expect celebrities to understand TM's research issues. What is stunning, however, is the lack of due diligence on the part of respected health professionals, including cardiologists, and even a noted medical school. Like celebrities, they lend credibility to TM by their association with the organization.
TM does a disservice by promoting the idea that triggering a physiological relaxation response must cost a thousand dollars, and that a Hindu religious ceremony and mantra are required. That type of exclusivity, built on the back of deception, has no place in the future of wellness.
KEEP TM OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS & REPLACE WITH SECULAR MEDITATION!
We should all be committed to keeping TM out of public schools. Our children should be safe from deliberately hidden religious practices and agendas. Adults should also have a right to informed consent. One primary reason that TM's hyperbolic claims, for the most part, go unchallenged is the vast network of celebrities and health professionals who endorse it. Hopefully, some will reconsider their support once they understand that the relaxation derived from meditation—the main component of meditation that can help many people—is available elsewhere and virtually free.
Now is the time to explore serious non-religious, secular meditation alternatives to Transcendental Meditation and promote them within public schools. Meditation is a key tool for improving mental health, particularly during our times of stress, but TM is an illegal method because it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Join the cause to promote secular meditation alternatives! https://www.tmdeception.com/donate
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Blog 15
A HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE TO TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION - THE RELAXATION RESPONSE
There is an alternative to TM. The Relaxation Response was developed almost 50 years ago by Harvard University research physician, Dr Herbert Benson. In 1971, Dr. Benson, co-authored a paper that documented a set of unique physiological changes that TM produced in experienced meditators. Various measurements demonstrated that during meditation, study subjects (experienced TMers) were resting more deeply than if in a deep sleep while remaining mentally alert.
A HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE TO TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION
Fortunately, there is an alternative to TM. The Relaxation Response was developed almost 50 years ago by Harvard University research physician, Herbert Benson.
In 1971, Dr. Benson, co-authored a paper that documented a set of unique physiological changes that TM produced in experienced meditators. Various measurements demonstrated that during meditation, study subjects (experienced TMers) were resting more deeply than if in a deep sleep while remaining mentally alert. Benson described these physiological parameters as a "wakeful hypometabolic state." (1)
Benson, a pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine, immediately recognized the potential health benefits of the deep rest one could experience during TM. He hypothesized that the state was not specific to TM and studied different cultures and religions. He found that almost all of them had a tradition or practice that produced a state of relaxation.
A few years later, Benson developed a simple technique that produced an identical physiological profile to TM, which he named the Relaxation Response. Benson's technique had added benefits: One could learn it for free, and it was void of religious undertones. Unlike TM, which has many secretive elements, all aspects of Benson's technique are open to scientific investigation.
First, Benson demonstrated that the relaxation response could be elicited predictably and that its results were measurable and reproducible. He then began testing the relaxation response in the healing process of medical conditions caused or complicated by stress. Researchers at Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and other esteemed institutions have studied the relaxation response. Well over a hundred scientific papers on the relaxation response have been published in medical journals. (2)
TM has never agreed to a head-to-head study comparing its results to the relaxation response, yet it has maligned and misrepresented the relaxation response for over 40 years. The organization has denied that the physiological markers are the same.
The relaxation response so concerned the TM organization that someone associated with TM created a phony website which, to this day, appears near the top of a Google search for the relaxation response: http://www.relaxationresponse.org/steps. The site pretends to belong to Dr. Benson and includes fake research purportedly demonstrating TM's superiority over the relaxation response. In an email to Aryeh Siegel, Dr. Benson's associates confirmed their repeated requests that the website is taken down were ignored.
Dr Herbert Benson teaching the Relaxation Response
HOW TO ELICIT THE RELAXATION RESPONSE
In his best selling book, The Relaxation Response,3 Benson writes,
From the T.M. technique, we extracted four essential components that would elicit the Relaxation Response:
A quiet environment
A mental device—a sound, word, phrase, or prayer repeated silently or aloud, or a fixed gaze at an object
A passive attitude—not worrying about how well one is performing the technique and simply putting aside distracting thoughts to return to one’s focus.
A comfortable position evoking it could sit or stand.
Pick a focus word, short phrase, or prayer that you like or one that may be rooted in your belief system.
Sit quietly in a comfortable position.
Close your eyes.
Relax your muscles, progressing from your feet to your calves, thighs, abdomen, shoulders, head, and neck.
Breathe slowly and naturally, and as you do, say your focus word, sound, phrase, or prayer silently to yourself as you exhale.
Assume a passive attitude. Don’t worry about how well you’re doing. When other thoughts come to mind, simply say to yourself, “Oh well,” and gently return to your repetition.
Continue for ten to twenty minutes.
Do not stand immediately. Continue sitting quietly for a minute or so, allowing other thoughts to return. Then open your eyes and sit for another minute before rising
Practice the technique once or twice daily. Good times to do so are before breakfast and before dinner
A YouTube of Dr. Benson teaching the Relaxation Response is available here: https://youtu.be/nBCsFuoFRp8
NOTES
Wallace, Robert K. & Benson, Herbert & Wilson, Archie. (1971) A wakeful hypometabolic physiologic state [PDF file]. Retrieved from https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.1971.221.3.795
Benson-Henry Institute “Published Research” Retrieved from https://www.bensonhenryinstitute.org/ research-published-research/
Herbert Benson, The Relaxation Response (New York: HarperTorch, 2000), pp.10-19
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Blog 22
BEACON LIGHT OF THE HIMALAYAS: WHAT TM DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT THEIR MANTRAS
Beacon Light of the Himalayas is a booklet described as a “souvenir” of a meeting that took place in Kerala, India, in 1955. The book presents a straightforward transcription of talks given by Maharishi and others over several days to an Indian audience. In Maharishi’s words, the Hindu religious assembly was primarily organized to pay homage to Maharishi’s teacher, Guru Dev, or Divine Teacher. The event took place two years before Maharishi first traveled to the West, before he realized he would have to recalibrate his message to sell TM to a Western audience.
THE HIDDEN TRUTH BEHIND TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION MANTRAS
Beacon Light of the Himalayas is a booklet described as a “souvenir” of a meeting that took place in Kerala, India, in 1955. The book presents a straightforward transcription of talks given by Maharishi and others over several days to an Indian audience. In Maharishi’s words, the Hindu religious assembly was primarily organized to pay homage to Maharishi’s teacher, Guru Dev, or Divine Teacher. The event took place two years before Maharishi first traveled to the West, before he realized he would have to recalibrate his message to sell TM to a Western audience.
Maharishi spoke in English. No one, therefore, can claim that the intended meaning of his words was misinterpreted. The manuscript exposes several inconvenient truths about Maharishi and TM.
THE SECRET MEANING OF MANTRAS
Most people are familiar with the word “mantra.” Today, the term commonly refers to a popular word or slogan (e.g., “don’t worry, be happy”). The original Hindu-Buddhist meaning mainly describes a word or sound that helps quiet the mind. Along those lines, the fundamental process of meditating uses one of the senses to focus on something, such as a sound, one’s breath, or a candle flame that allows the mind to experience whatever that element is in ever more refined or subtle stages.
TM markets its mantras as particular sounds or vibrations stemming from a long tradition of knowledge that, according to Maharishi, are known to have life-supporting effects. TM teachers tell students that the mantras do not have any meaning and they are uniquely chosen for each student. But this is not the case.
THE THREE MANTRA SECRETS OF TM
SECRET #1 (MAHARISHI ADMITTED HE LIED)
First, the mantras TM sells to people are not necessary to meditate. As documented in Beacon Light of the Himalayas, Maharishi holding a microphone said that one could even use the word “mike” as a mantra. A meditator did not require one of his unique mantras to quiet the mind. Maharishi, by his own words, admitted that they were unnecessary:
By reducing the sound of the word ‘mike’ to its subtler and still subtler stages and allowing the mind to go on experiencing all the stages one by one the mind can be trained to be so sharp as to enter into the subtlest stage of the sound mike, transcending which it will automatically get into the realm of Sat-Chidanandam [pure consciousness] and experience it. Thus, we find that any sound can serve our purpose of training the mind to become sharp. (1 )
SECRET #2 TM MANTRAS INVOKE HINDU GODS
While even a word like ‘mike’ would work, Maharishi proposed that repetition of his mantras offered something unique: they produced special vibrations. Hindu audiences learned that these vibrations attracted the “grace” of a personal Hindu god, “to make us happier in every walk of life.” As Beacon Light of the Himalayas documents, again in Maharishi’s own words:
But we do not select the sound at random. We do not select any sound like ‘mike’, flower, table, pen, wail, etc., because such ordinary sounds can do nothing more than merely sharpening the mind; whereas there are some special sounds which have the additional efficacy of producing vibrations whose effects are found to be congenial to our way of life. This is the scientific reason why we do not select any word at random. For our practice, we select only the suitable mantras of personal gods. Such mantras fetch to us the grace of personal gods and makes us happier in every walk of life. (Bold added.) (2)
So according to Maharishi, TM mantras are meant to create vibrations that arouse and attract those entities to the meditator. For some, this is not an issue, as they might not believe it or simply don’t care. Sound vibrations and their effects on consciousness are not unique to TM; they are referenced in many Hindu meditation practices. However, such concepts don’t fit neatly within the framework of Western teachings or philosophies, perhaps similar to the meridians in Chinese medicine. Some people, therefore, may dismiss them as nonsense or irrelevant, while others must confront the unpleasant possibility that silent repetition of whatever- it-is may have effects that are not anticipated, understood, or desired.
Consider the following posted anonymously by a TM teacher in the 1990s: (Substitute Hindu deities for “impulses of creative intelligence).
As TM teachers, we were officially told repeatedly ‘the mantras had no meaning for the meditators.’
Like a lot of the language in the TM movement, this was fairly weasel-like. You’ll notice that the statement doesn’t read, ‘the mantras have no meaning.’ Most of us as insiders understood this to mean that they had no meaning for the meditators because we didn’t tell them the meaning.
We saw tapes of Maharishi where he repeatedly explained that the sounds of the mantras, especially as one approaches transcendence, had the effect of summoning very refined ‘impulses of creative intelligence.’ In other tapes, he explained that the ‘impulses of creative intelligence’ or ‘laws of nature’ were devas such as Indra, Agni, and so forth. He also explicitly said that in the proper state of consciousness, that repeating the name of ‘impulses of creative intelligence’ in Sanskrit had the effect of creating or summoning the ‘form.’
SECRET #3 HOW ARE MANTRAS SELECTED
The third secret is that a TM student’s “personally-selected” mantra is not all that personal. Mantras are assigned by age (or age and sex, depending on the teacher training course attended). So, if you happen to have a teacher who was trained in 1975, that teacher would have sixteen mantras to choose from. If, instead, your teacher was trained in 1970, chances are you would receive a different mantra, because they would only have eight to choose from (four for men and four for women).
According to early teachers, in 1961, there was only one mantra for everyone. In 1969, Maharishi added eight mantras: four for men and four for women. In 1972, mantras, no longer divided by sex, numbered nine. When I became a teacher in 1975, I received sixteen mantras to assign based on age alone.
TALE OF TWO MEDITATIONS: EAST IS EAST & WEST IS WEST
Maharishi described meditation and the mantra differently when first presenting to an Eastern (Hindu Indian) audience versus a Western (predominately Judeo-Christian) audience. Eastern meditators learn from the start that the mantra is the vehicle to embark on a spiritual journey, which, in Hindu philosophy, is a path to “eternal life—a life of eternal bliss and absolute consciousness.” However, when Maharishi came West, Westerners weren’t interested in his spiritual message. They wanted relief from stress and Maharishi was more than willing to sell it to them. As recorded in Beacon Light, Maharishi spoke openly to his Hindu audience about the spiritual nature of TM. He began his speech on the second day of the gathering by relating that the purpose of chanting mantras and performing other Hindu rituals was to invite the Vedic (Hindu) gods to the conference.3
CONVENIENT SHORTCUT TO HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS
Maharishi told those gathered that they only needed to practice TM twice daily for about fifteen to twenty minutes for three to five years, and the result would be higher consciousness and eternal life. Hindus have always understood that gaining higher consciousness is an arduous path and that few ever achieve it. Maharishi’s promise was preposterous, especially given that his own teacher reportedly spent forty years immersed in the most rigorous of acetic practices from the age of nine attempting to achieve it. Maharishi also promised an end to personal suffering, plus the bonus of wealth, within a short time of starting TM. A true guru who followed traditional Hindu practices would never promise material riches, as they are considered a hindrance to spiritual pursuits.
****
NOTES
“Beacon Light of the Himalayas, 3 of 4: Theory of Spiritual Development,” TranceNet, last modified March 28, 1997; hereafter cited as “Beacon Light Theory.” http://minet.org/www. trancenet.net/secrets/beacon/beacon2.shtml
“Beacon Light Theory.”
“Beacon Light of the Himalayas, 2 of 4: Maharishi’s Discourse,”
TranceNet, last modified March 28, 1997. http://minet.org/
www.trancenet.net/secrets/beacon/beacon1.shtml
***
Blog 21
THE DIRTY TRUTH ABOUT MAHARISHI
Spirituality and higher consciousness were Maharishi's main messages until he realized he could make more money selling health than spirituality to Westerners. When he introduced TM in the United States, his entire focus was higher consciousness or enlightenment. In India, the formula was TM 10 minutes twice a day for 3 to 5 years. In the United States, it was 20 minutes twice a day for 5 to 7 years.
TM HIDES THE TRUTH ABOUT HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS
Spirituality and Higher Consciousness
Spirituality and higher consciousness were Maharishi's main messages until he realized he could make more money selling health than spirituality to Westerners. (38) When he introduced TM in the United States, his entire focus was higher consciousness or enlightenment. In India, the formula was TM 10 minutes twice a day for 3 to 5 years. In the United States, it was 20 minutes twice a day for 5 to 7 years. After instruction, TM promotes weekend, week-long, and month-long courses that feature more frequent meditations for more extended periods, along with exposure to Maharishi's take on Hinduism. For those wanting a "deeper" experience, there are the TM Sidhis program and even a five-month teacher training program that currently costs $19,000.
TM CREATED FAKE PHOTOS OF PEOPLE LEVITATING
The TM Sidhi Program and Other Enlightenment Accelerants: Maharishi sold the TM-Sidhi program as a superhighway to enlightenment. My course consisted of learning and repeating nineteen English words or short phrases that were referred to as sutras. This was followed by 10-15 minutes of reading Hindu scriptures, followed by a ten-minute rest. In addition to higher consciousness, a Sidha would develop superpowers, including the ability to levitate, become invisible, and have the strength of an elephant. He also promised omniscience and eternal life. In the late 1970s, TM held press conferences and distributed photographs purporting to show people levitating. The photos were fakes. Now, after four decades, not one person has ever demonstrated levitation, renamed yogic flying (or any of the other superpowers Maharishi promised).(39) TM still sells the Sidhi/yogic flying course. (40)
TM WANT YOUR BUSINESS BUYING THEIR PRODUCTS
Medicinals, Herbs, Astrology, Prayers, etc.: When the Sidhis didn't work, Maharishi pushed Ayurveda medicinal and herbal products, gemstones, Hindu prayer services known as yagyas that cost thousands of dollars, Hindu astrology, and a Hindu version of Feng Shui known as Sthapatya Veda. Each is a profit center with its own website; none are linked to TM.org. After 50 years and reportedly millions of people learning TM, not one person has been demonstrated to have reached enlightenment. However, the enlightenment accelerators, along with TM's myriad businesses and real estate holdings, made Maharishi a multi-billionaire.
This is not a psychiatric unit. It is a group of TM meditators preparing for ‘yogic flying’, a delusional activity which involves leaping about on mattresses whilst believing they are learning to levitate. But you would be easily forgiven for thinking it looks like a group of delusional psychiatric patients.
TM’S BIGGEST DONORS ARE PROMISED THEY RULE THE EARTH
Rajas: TM.org does not mention the Rajas, the highest-level administrators in Maharishi's fantasy world, a.k.a. The Global Country of World Peace. Rajas are wealthy older men who've attended a three-week "enlightenment course" at a cost one million dollars. They wear long white robes, necklaces with gold medallions, and little gold crowns. (41)
Maharishi referred to his Rajas as the representatives of Divine Intelligence, the shining stars who played a parental role for their people, setting all life in the evolutionary direction. Not only would Raja's rule "Heaven on Earth," they were the "practical channel of the Cosmic Government on Earth . . . the administrators of Heaven on Earth." (42)
THE RELAXATION RESPONSE IS SUPERIOR TO TM AS A TREATMENT FOR PTSD
Fortunately, there is an alternative to TM. The relaxation response developed almost 50 years ago by Harvard University research physician Herbert Benson, is superior to TM as a possible treatment option for PTSD. Easily learned, the relaxation response is nonreligious and costs a fraction of TM instruction. Individuals can learn it for free from Dr. Benson, who explains the technique on YouTube.
In 1971, Dr. Herbert Benson, along with Robert Wallace and Archie Wilson, documented a set of unique physiological changes that TM produced in experienced meditators. Various measurements demonstrated that during meditation, study subjects (experienced TMers) were resting more deeply than if in a deep sleep while remaining mentally alert. Benson described these physiological parameters as a "wakeful hypometabolic state." (43)
Benson, a pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine, immediately recognized the potential health benefits of the deep rest one could experience during TM. He hypothesized that the state was not specific to TM and studied different cultures and religions. He found that almost all of them had a tradition or practice that produced a state of relaxation.
A few years later, Benson developed a simple technique that produced an identical physiological profile to TM, which he named the Relaxation Response. Benson's technique had added benefits: One could learn it for free, and it was void of religious undertones. Unlike TM, which has many secretive elements, all aspects of Benson's technique are open to scientific investigation.
First, Benson demonstrated that the relaxation response could be elicited predictably and that its results were measurable and reproducible. He then began testing the relaxation response in the healing process of medical conditions caused or complicated by stress. Researchers at Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital, and other esteemed institutions have studied the relaxation response. Well over a hundred scientific papers on the relaxation response have been published in medical journals. (44)
TM has never agreed to a head-to-head study comparing its results to the relaxation response, yet it has maligned and misrepresented the relaxation response for over 40 years. The organization has denied that the physiological markers are the same.
The relaxation response so concerned the TM organization that someone associated with TM created a phony website which, to this day, appears near the top of a Google search for the relaxation response: http://www.relaxationresponse.org/steps. The site pretends to belong to Dr. Benson and includes fake research purportedly demonstrating TM's superiority over the relaxation response. In an email to Aryeh Siegel, Dr. Benson's associates confirmed their repeated requests that the website is taken down were ignored.
***
Aryeh Siegel, MSSA, MPH, taught TM and Directed of TM’s Institute for Social Rehabilitation for five years in the mid-1970s. He did TM four hours a day for ten years and stopped in 1981. Having moved on with his life, Aryeh forgot about TM. Then, four years ago, he noticed several A-list celebrities promoting the benefits of TM. His curiosity aroused, he took a fresh look at TM and the TM organization and first learned about the David Lynch Foundation. He felt compelled to investigate what he knew to be exaggerated claims about TM's benefits. The information he uncovered—abysmal scientific research, public court rulings, published news reports, first-hand accounts, and other public and private information—prompted Aryeh to write the book Transcendental Deception: Behind the TM curtain-bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion, published in 2018. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
NOTES
[38] Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Science of Being and Art of Living: Transcendental Meditation (New York, NY: Plume; 2001).
[39] “The TM and TM-Sidhi Techniques,” Meditation Information Network; accessed September 27, 2017, at http://minet.org/mantras.html
[40] See http://www.yogicflying.org/how-to-learn.html
[41] As depicted in the David Sieveking documentary (David Wants to Fly, 2010; Berlin: Neue Visionen) The documentary depicts the rajas in costume and one raja confirms on-screen the million-dollar cost of raja training. The documentary may be streamed at www.tmdeception.com
[42] Governor Recertification Course: Overview of Policies & Procedures, Wikileaks. See https://file.wikileaks.org/file/tm-governor-course-2005.pdf
[43] Wallace, Robert K. & Benson, Herbert & Wilson, Archie. (1971) A wakeful hypometabolic physiologic state [PDF file]. Retrieved from https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.1971.221.3.795
[44] Benson-Henry Institute “Published Research” Retrieved from https://www.bensonhenryinstitute.org/ research-published-research/
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Blog 20
Why does TM hide its Hinduism?
The TM organization deliberately obfuscates two main components of the practice, the mantra and puja. And yet… in Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation, Bob Roth, perhaps the best-known TM teacher in the world, describes the TM mantra as a word or sound that has no meaning associated with it. “I have been asked, “Aren’t mantras the names of Buddhist Deities or Hindu gods or whatever?” And the answer is a flat-out no. There is no meaning associated with the sound. . . They are not the names of some deity. They are not the names of anything. They are just a sound.”
The TM organization deliberately obfuscates two main components of the practice, the mantra and puja.
THE MANTRA
In Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation, Bob Roth, perhaps the best-known TM teacher in the world, describes the TM mantra as a word or sound that has no meaning associated with it. (30)
Roth offers a more detailed explanation in a TM.org video:
I have been asked, “Aren’t mantras the names of Buddhist Deities or Hindu gods or whatever?” And the answer is a flat-out no. There is no meaning associated with the sound. . . They are not the names of some deity. They are not the names of anything. They are just a sound. [Emphasis A. Siegel.] (31)
WHAT DID MAHARISHI SAY?
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Founder of TM, speaking at a Hindu religious gathering in Kerala, India in 1955 (documented in a booklet titled The Beacon Light of the Himalayas), admitted that any word or sound could be used to meditate. Holding a microphone, he said that even the word mike could serve as a mantra:
By reducing the sound of the word ‘mike’ to its subtler and still subtler stages and allowing the mind to go on experiencing all the stages one by one, the mind can be trained to be so sharp as to enter into the subtlest stage of the sound ‘mike.’ (32)
ANY WORD WORKS AS A MANTRA!
So, if any word can be used to transcend, why would anyone need to a $1,000 for a TM mantra? The answer, according to Maharishi, is that TM mantras have an important additional benefit: They invoke the influence of Hindu gods. In Maharishi’s own words:
But we do not select the sound at random. We do not select any sound like ‘mike,’ flower, table, pen, wail, etc. because such ordinary sounds can do nothing more than merely sharpening the mind . . . For our practice, we select only the suitable mantras of personal gods. Such mantras fetch to us the grace of personal gods. [Emphasis A. Siegel.] (33)
The (HINDU) Puja THAT THEY PRETEND IS NOT RELIGIOUS
As with the mantras, Roth is no doubt familiar with the puja, the Hindu religious ceremony that precedes TM initiation, yet his latest book on TM doesn’t mention of the word puja. Instead, he describes it as "a simple thank-you ceremony . . . a lovely cultural tradition, and not religious in any way." He also states that students are not asked to participate in the ceremony.
In a casual, conversational manner, Roth mentions that the ceremony includes a few flowers, some fresh fruit, a candle, a stick of incense, and a picture of Maharishi’s teacher, Guru Dev. He doesn’t disclose that the puja is chanted in Sanskrit, or that, even if requested, the student will not receive a translation of the ceremony.34
Before instruction, the student is not told that the picture of Maharishi's guru (Guru Dev) occupies the center of an altar, surrounded by brass cups filled with camphor, rice, incense, and other items that are used by the TM instructor to make 17 offerings to Guru Dev during the ceremony. The student is required to bring fresh flowers, fruit, and a white handkerchief to the ceremony, all of which are used in the offerings made by the instructor to Guru Dev. Further, Roth does not mention that the puja concludes with a string of divine epithets applied to Guru Dev. Nor does he say that, at the end of the ceremony, although not mandatory, the student is invited to join the teacher in bowing down before the image of Guru Dev. (35)
TM SAYS “PRAY TO HINDU GODS”
Maharishi believed the puja, along with TM mantras, inserted the influence of Hindu deities into the lives of TM initiates. He also believed that the puja created a mystical connection to the guru, as well as deities created during the puja. The mystical power of the puja in enlivening Hindu gods is a highly guarded secret; it was revealed in the minutes of a meeting on February 6, 2007, conducted by Raja Badgett. Speaking to the local TM directors, Badgett begins with a story about Arjuna, a central figure in Hindu scripture:
The great general was teaching Arjuna about all the celestial weapons and how to use them. After the training, Arjuna tried to use them. They wouldn’t work. The great general told him, “There has to be dakshina for them to work.”
HIDE THE TRUTH FROM THE PUBLIC…
Then Badgett continued, Dakshina is a gift, like the fruit, flowers and course fee to learn TM. For our own understanding, the technique isn’t going to work until there is dakshina. We don’t tell the general public this. [Emphasis A. Siegel] (36)
Contrast Roth's description of the puja with Maharishi’s, which he offered in his “Vedic Day of Awakening of All the Laws of Nature” address on November 20, 2007:
For this, again and again, we offer Puja to Guru Dev … We perform the Puja, and all silence at our disposal. This will be the fruit of our Puja. It happened to be a day well marked in the Indian Calendar—the day of awakening of all the gods [Pravo-dhani Ekad-shi], the day of awakening of all the silent level of administration of the Constitution of the Universe, the Will of G-d, the Veda … With this understanding, that we are so blessed, with this great fulfillment, we are offering ourself (sic) to Guru Dev, our Puja to Guru Dev. (37)
At TM Deception we are in favour of freedom of speech, freedom of religion and truthful communication. The problem is not Hindu practice but that Transcendental Meditation lie about the Hindu-basis of TM, the David Lynch foundation lies about it, Bob Roth lies about it, and it is being taught in US Public Schools which is a direct violation of the First Amendment Assembly Clause separating church and state. Sign up for updates at www.tmdeception.com!
NOTES
[31] What Is the Transcendental Meditation Mantra? YouTube video (1:41). Posted by Transcendental Meditation online at https://youtu.be/_0rbfSaRwCU
[32] Maharishi Mahesh Yoga, “Beacon Light of the Himalayas, 3 of 4.” Available online at http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/secrets/beacon/beacon1.shtml
[33] Maharishi Mahesh Yoga, “Beacon Light of the Himalayas, 3 of 4.” Available online at http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/secrets/beacon/beacon1.shtml
[34] Bob Roth, Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018), p. 52.
[35] Malnak v. Yogi, 440 F. Supp. 1284 (D.N.J. 1977). Retrieved from https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/440/1284/1817490/
[36] See Transcendental Meditation Domain of Atlanta Directors Meeting Notes, 2005-2007. Available online at https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation_Domain_of_Atlanta_Directors_Meeting_Notes,_2005-2007
[37] Jamie Benares. 2019, November 19 Status update text [Facebook update]. Retrieved from https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2283037871933004&id=100006804402661
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(Blog 19)
TM’S RIDICULOUS WAR AGAINST WESTERN MEDICINE
A student of TM known as ‘DG’ committed suicide, not long after the Maharishi promoted the idea that people should not rely on traditional western medicine. This advice was incredibly dangerous and helped contribute to tragic results.
A student of TM known as ‘DG’ committed suicide, not long after the Maharishi promoted the idea that people should not rely on traditional western medicine. This advice was incredibly dangerous and helped contribute to tragic results.
AN EVEN DEEPER PROBLEM WITH TM
In a Resolution dated February 11, 1997, the Maharishi Vedic Medical Council resolved to “Ban allopathic medicine and replace it with Maharishi’s Vedic health care system.” Various points in the Resolution condemn the whole of allopathic medicine and its component parts. The resolution called for India’s national health-care budget to be transferred to Maharishi and that Maharishi Vedic University retrain all allopathic health care providers and that all allopathic medicine curriculums be eliminated. The resolution also calls for the destruction and rebuilding of all medical colleges and hospitals according to Maharishi’s version of feng shui known as “Maharishi Sthapatya Veda.” (26)
Guidelines (never made public) to TM administrators known as Governors and Rajas state:
We are not going to take help from medical Drs. as medical professionals give poison. So, don’t engage any medical Drs. for anything—absolutely whatever it is—even if they are in our Movement family…Hold onto the fact that we are the supreme authorities on health—we know how to create perfect health... (27)
TRAGIC RESULTS
The above statements are much more than bizarre; they are dangerous. TM teachers are taught to believe that Western medicine is poison and that TM is a standalone cure for just about everything. What happens when that teacher, who likely has no medical training, interacts with someone who has a severe medical issue?
MAHARISHI BANNED WESTERN MEDICINE, AND TM STUDENT “DG” COMMITTED SUICIDE
DG was a poster boy for the Maharishi University of Management (MUM). He served with 101st Airborne division “Screaming Eagles” in Iraq during 2003-04. DG had PTSD and began TM in 2009. Six months later he moved to MUM and completed the TM-Sidhi program. He became a spokesperson for the Lynch Foundation’s Operation Warrior Wellness program that is supposed to help veterans overcome PTSD. (28)
A video of DG and his mother talking about how TM helped with his PTSD was on the Lynch Foundation website. DG most likely believed that TM was the only treatment he needed for PTSD because he believed TM was a cure. On January 22, 2017, DG committed suicide.
TM WAS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SUICIDE BUT..
I’m not saying TM was responsible for DG’s suicide. I am saying is that as anyone reading this paper understands, PTSD is brutal; therapists know first-hand that harrowing, horrendously painful memories are often repressed. Should they surface during meditation, they require processing, usually in a therapeutic context. Many, if not most, veterans with PTSD are on medication to help control their symptoms. Maharishi's views on allopathic medicine weigh in against both therapy and medication. Sometimes the result is tragic.
Contrast TM’s stand-alone approach with Home Base described above. Home Base treats the whole person. The relaxation response is only one treatment modality. A Home Base treatment plan incorporates clinical care, wellness, education and research. All treatments are on the table. (29)
[27] Governor Recertification Course: Overview of Policies & Procedures, Wikileaks. See https://file.wikileaks.org/file/tm-governor-course-2005.pdf
[28] Achivements, The Latest Developments from Maharishi University of Management, July 29. 1911, Issue 131
[29] See: http://homebase.org
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain—bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
Blog 18
TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION IS BAD NEWS FOR PTSD
The David Lynch Foundation, the driving force behind the TM movement, misrepresents scientific evidence to promote TM. In his recent book, Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation, Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, writes that he wants “to talk in some detail about some of the truly breakthrough research documenting the unique and profound benefits TM has on health and stress.” [Emphasis A. Siegel.(1).]
WHY WE SHOULD BE VERY CONCERNED ABOUT USING TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION (TM) AS A TREATMENT FOR PTSD
The David Lynch Foundation, the driving force behind the TM movement, misrepresents scientific evidence to promote TM. In his recent book, Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation, Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, writes that he wants “to talk in some detail about some of the truly breakthrough research documenting the unique and profound benefits TM has on health and stress.” [Emphasis A. Siegel.(1).]
Roth’s “breakthrough” refers to a study led by Dr. Robert Schneider, Dean of the College of Maharishi Consciousness-Based Health Care at Maharishi University of Management: “Stress reduction in the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease: randomized, controlled trial of transcendental meditation and health education in blacks.” (2)
THE DAVID LYNCH FOUNDATION MISREPRESENTING SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE TO PROMOTE TM
Regarding the study, Schneider said “These findings are the strongest documented effects yet produced by a mind-body intervention on cardiovascular disease. The effect is as large as, or larger than major categories of drug treatment for cardiovascular disease” (3).
Why then, on June 27, 2011, only 12 minutes before Dr. Schneider’s article was to publish in the Archives of Internal Medicine, did the editor pull it?
Larry Husten, PhD, a frequent writer for Forbes, the editor of cardiology news for CardioExchange (published by the New England Journal of Medicine), and the editorial director of WebMD, looked into the matter and said that those promoting the research were clearly guilty of gross scientific exaggeration and misstatement. Further referencing an independent analysis of Schneider’s study by Sanjay Kaul, MD, a cardiologist and expert in clinical trials, Husten concluded:
NOT A REAL MEDICAL TRIAL
A trial with barely 200 patients cannot be expected to provide broad answers about the health benefits of a novel intervention. As Kaul and others have stated on many other occasions, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and it is quite clear that the evidence in this trial is not extraordinary, at least in any positive sense.” (4)
Moreover, even though no studies had compared the effects of meditation to that of statins, the most widely used pharmacological treatment for elevated cholesterol, Schneider told WebMD, “What this is saying is that mind-body interventions can have an effect as big as conventional medications, such as statins.” (5)
And, although the study was limited to an exclusively African-American population with heart disease, Schneider generalized his study, stating, “This study builds on previous research findings showing that the Transcendental Meditation program reduces high blood pressure, high cholesterol, insulin resistance, psychological stress, and atherosclerosis, and takes it to the next
step — lower rates of death, heart attack, and stroke.” (6B)
BOGUS SCIENCE & HYPED CLAIMS ON A TM WEBSITE
The following statement appeared on another TM website (tmhome.com):
To see the long-term effects of TM’s ability to lower blood pressure, we studied a group of patients with heart disease . Half of them learned TM and half of them served as the control group. We followed them for five years. Those doing TM had a 48% lower rate of heart attack, stroke and death than men and women with similar physical conditions. [Emphasis A. Siegel. (7)]
If that statement were valid, other medical researchers would have eagerly lined up to replicate the study. Husten offered why that was not the case:
“[T]he results are at best hypothesis generating and tell us nothing about the actual value of TM. Only about 200 people were randomized in the study — most studies with hard clinical endpoints require thousands of patients. And a cursory examination of the actual paper raises all sorts of red flags… (8)
But my biggest concern is with the analysis of the primary endpoint, which was the composite of all-cause mortality, MI [myocardial infarction] heart attack, or stroke. This occurred in 20 patients in the TM group compared with 31 patients in the control group, a difference that the authors claim achieved significance (p=0.03) after adjusting for differences in the age, sex, and use of lipid- lowering drugs between the groups. However, there was no significant difference between the groups in any of these factors. Even worse, there were very significant differences in the amount of education (11.3 years in the TM group versus 9.9 years in the control group, p=0.003) and the CES-D clinical depression scale (13.8 versus 17.7) [for which the authors did not make an adjustment, although in both cases the imbalance would appear to favor the TM group]. When these baseline differences were included in a secondary analysis, the result was no longer significant (p=0.06)”.
In other words, to use the old cliché, they tortured the data until they made it talk. (9)
BOB ROTH MISQUOTES THE AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION (AHA)
David Lynch Foundation’s CEO, Bob Roth, also misquoted a study by the American Heart
Association (AHA): In 2013, the American Heart Association looked at years of research on TM and concluded in its journal Hypertension that TM is the only meditation technique shown to lower blood pressure. [Emphasis A. Siegel.] (10)
The truth came from Robert D. Brook, MD, of the University of Michigan, who chaired the panel of 12 scientists who wrote the study. They concluded:
Numerous alternative approaches for lowering BP have been evaluated during the past few decades. The strongest evidence supports the effectiveness of using aerobic and/or dynamic resistance exercise for the adjuvant treatment of high BP. Biofeedback techniques, isometric handgrip, and device-guided breathing methods are also likely effective treatments. (11)
Meditation isn’t mentioned as having a positive effect on hypertension. The authors concluded that more (and better) studies were needed to determine what, if any, impact TM had on hypertension. The overall evidence supports that TM modestly lowers BP, although it is not clear whether it is truly superior to other meditation techniques in terms of BP lowering because there are few head-to-head studies. [Emphasis A. Siegel] (13)
The AHA study gave TM a mediocre classification — Level B, Class 2B — a rating reserved for the treatment modalities whose usefulness and efficacy was not well established. Another assessment of Dr. Schneider’s study appears in a US News article in which Gregg Fonarow, MD, the Director of the Ahmanson-UCLA Cardiomyopathy Center in Los Angeles, said that even though the findings were statistically significant, the study was too small to be conclusive. In addition, since this study was conducted at a single center and the primary [change in heart attack, stroke, and death] was not statistically significant without adjustment for other factors, more studies and replication of these findings are needed.” (13)
TM LIKES ITS BOGUS SCIENTISTS
FIGHTING HEART DISEASE TO PROMOTE TM PROMOTING TM IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN FUNDRAISING FOR HEART DISEASE TREATMENTS
In a Health Day News article, Schneider revealed, “One of the reasons we did the study is because insurance and Medicare call for citing evidence for what’s to be reimbursed. (14) For true believers like Schneider, Husten surmised, fighting heart disease is important only insofar as it can be employed to further the interests of TM. Scientific standards and medical progress are unimportant in the larger scheme of promoting TM.” (15)
When the TM organization exaggerates the findings from their internal research and mischaracterizes research by other scientists, they pose a real danger to the public.
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NOTES
[1] Bob Roth, Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018), p. 81.
[2] Bob Roth, Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018), pp. 82–84.
[3] Husten, Larry. “New Concerns Raised About Withdrawn Archives Meditation Paper.” Cardio Brief, June 28, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.cardiobrief.org/2011/06/28/new-concerns-raised-about-withdrawn-archives-meditation-paper /
[4] Husten, Larry. “Yet Another Look At The Transcendental Meditation Paper,” Cardio Brief, November 25, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.cardiobrief.org/2012/11/25/yet-another-look-at-the-transcendental-meditation-paper
[5] Husten, Larry, “Yet Another Look At The Transcendental Meditation Paper.” Cardio Brief, November 25, 2012. Retrieved from http://www.cardiobrief.org/2012/11/25/yet-another-look-at-the-transcendental-meditation-paper
[6] Husten, Larry. “New Concerns Raised About Withdrawn Archives Meditation Paper.” Cardio Brief, June 28, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.cardiobrief.org/2011/06/28/new-concerns-raised-about-withdrawn-archives-meditation-paper/
[7] “Dr. Robert Schneider explains the new approach to tackling heart disease.” Transcendental Meditation News & More, 14 June 2017, https://tmhome.com/benefits/dr-robert-schneider-md-heart-health-transcendental-meditation/
[8] Husten, Larry. “New Concerns Raised About Withdrawn Archives Meditation Paper.” Cardio Brief, June 28, 2011. Retrieved from http://www.cardiobrief.org/2011/06/28/new-concerns-raised-about-withdrawn-archives-meditation-paper
[9] Husten, Larry. “New Concerns Raised About Withdrawn Archives Meditation Paper,” Cardio Brief, June 28, 2011. Retrieved from http://cardiobrief.org/2011/06/28/new-concerns-raised-about- withdrawn-archives-meditation-paper/
[10] Bob Roth, Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2018), p. 84.
[11] Robert D. Brook et al., “Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure,” Hypertension, 61 (May 2013), pp. 1360–1383. See http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/61/6/1360
[12] Robert D. Brook et al., “Beyond Medications and Diet: Alternative Approaches to Lowering Blood Pressure,” Hypertension, 61 (May 2013), pp. 1360–1383. See http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/61/6/1360
[13] “Meditation Might Cut Risk of Heart Attack, Stoke in Blacks,” Received from https://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/11/13/meditation-might-cut risk-of-heart-attack-stroke-in-blacks
[14] Husten, Larry. “Yet Another Look At The Transcendental Meditation Paper,” Cardio Brief, November 25, 2012. Retrieved from http://cardiobrief.org/2012/11/25/yet-another-look-at-the-Transcendental-Meditation Paper
[15] Husten, Larry. “Yet Another Look At The Transcendental Meditation Paper,” Cardio Brief, November 25, 2012. Retrieved from http://cardiobrief.org/2012/11/25/yet-another-look-at-the-Transcendental-Meditation Paper
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
Blog 16
THE RELAXATION RESPONSE — SUPERIOR TO TM FOR TREATING PTSD
Home Base, a program that provides comprehensive care to veterans and their families, is a joint venture between the Boston Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital. Home Base’s Resilient Warrior and Resilient Family programs incorporate mind-body activities developed by the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine (BHI). Clinical treatment priorities of the program include PTSD and traumatic brain injury.
Home Base, a program that provides comprehensive care to veterans and their families, is a joint venture between the Boston Red Sox Foundation and Massachusetts General Hospital. Home Base’s Resilient Warrior and Resilient Family programs incorporate mind-body activities developed by the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine (BHI). Clinical treatment priorities of the program include PTSD and traumatic brain injury.
In working to help individuals manage their response to stress and, in turn, improve their ability to adapt more effectively (i.e., build resilience), Home Base uses the relaxation response as one of their treatment modalities, which usually incorporates physical and recreational activities, and medication, and surgery, if indicated.
In June 2018, in recognition of the extremely high success rate of these programs, Home Base and Massachusetts General Hospital received a $67 million grant from the Wounded Warrior Project, the second largest gift in the hospital’s history. Recently, Home Base and BHI have collaborated to develop a certification program to train instructors to deliver relaxation response training and other program services to veterans and their families.
Since its inception, Home Base, according to the program’s website, has provided support to over 21,000 veterans and their family members, and has trained more than 73,000 clinicians, educators, first responders and community members — all at no cost.
Also, learning the relaxation response is far less expensive than TM instruction. As of September 2014, the number of veterans in the US with a diagnosis of PTSD was estimated at 750,000, making the cost of service delivery a critical factor in choosing any treatment. (1)
TM AND PTSD
In a pilot study, TM is not proven worse, but it is also not proven better than one of the standard treatment options for PTSD.
The Lancet Psychiatry reported on a $2.4 million, three-month-long pilot study funded by the US Department of Defense that concluded Transcendental Meditation (TM) is not inferior to the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Prolonged-Exposure (CBT-PE) approach, one of the Veterans Administration’s treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).(2)
Based on the findings of the pilot study, which did not include a provision for follow-up, the TM organization and the David Lynch Foundation began promoting TM as a viable option for the treatment of PTSD and are seeking government and private funding to teach TM to veterans with PTSD. In an Enjoy TM News article, Bob Roth states:
“This new study. . . will help to open doors for many thousands of veterans to learn TM.” (3)
Notably, the study was categorized as a “non-inferiority” design, meaning that its purpose was to determine whether TM worked “as well as” CBT-PE, one of the standard behavioral therapies used by the VA to treat PTSD. Both TM and CBT-PE produced significantly better results compared to health-education classes which served as a control group. (4)
Nevertheless, in an Agence France-Presse story, the study’s lead author, Sanford Nidich, EdD, Director of the Center for Social-Emotional Health at TM’s Maharishi University of Management, states:
“Due to the increasing need to address the PTSD public health care problem in the US, UK and worldwide, there is a compelling need to implement government policy to include alternative therapies such as transcendental meditation as an option for treating veterans with PTSD.” (5)
In another quote for an article in Enjoy TM News, Nidich states, “This trial provides evidence that Transcendental Meditation®, a non-trauma-focused therapy, is a viable option for decreasing PTSD symptoms in veterans.” (6)
The Pilot Study
67 veterans received TM training, but only 50 were still available when the three-month treatment phase of the study concluded. The study lacked a provision for follow-up beyond the active treatment period, which means there is no information on how many veterans continued TM post study. There were not enough women to include in the analysis, so nothing can be said with certainty about the effects of TM training on women with PTSD.
The Cost of TM to the VA
Dr. Thomas Rutledge, one of the study’s on-site researchers, stated in a phone conversation (and confirmed via email) with Aryeh Siegel that TM charged the VA $1,450 for each veteran who received TM training, which amounts to nearly $100,000 for the 67 veterans instructed. Rutledge also noted that some potential study candidates selected for the TM intervention refused instruction because of TM’s “religious overtones.”
TM’s flagship website, TM.org, has a category headed “More evidence-based benefits,” which presents four studies that all, according to the TM organization, demonstrate TM’s effectiveness in treating PTSD. The following summarizes the “evidence”:
The first study attempts to determine whether three soldiers with PTSD can learn TM. (7)
The second study reports the effect of TM on PTSD in Congolese refugees. In addition to questions about the relevance of this population to US military personnel or veterans, the investigation was compromised. Of 102 study participants (refugees in Kampala, Uganda) who were randomly assigned either to the TM group or a non-matched, wait-list control group, 30 of the 51 participants (59%) assigned to the TM group were not available at the end of the study. Therefore, they were dropped from the study, and only 21 participants remained in the TM group. (8)
The third study, funded by the David Lynch Foundation, is of 11 remaining Congolese refugees who reportedly were still doing TM at follow up. About 80% of the study participants had either stopped TM or could not be located at follow up. (9)
The fourth study is an uncontrolled pilot study in which researchers taught TM to five veterans with PTSD. Again, the study arrives at no valid conclusions on TM as a useful treatment option for PTSD. (10)
NOTES
[1] 2015, September 20. Veterans statistics: PTSD, Depression, TBI, Suicide. Retrieved from http://veteransandptsd.com/PTSD-statistics.html
[2] 2018, December 1. Non-trauma-focused meditation versus exposure therapy in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder: a randomized controlled trial. Retrieved from https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(18)30384-5/fulltext
[3] Hodder, Harbour Fraser. 2018, December 18. Retrieved from https://enjoytmnews.org/new-study-department-of-defense-funded-study-shows-tm-technique-significantly-reduces-ptsd-symptoms-in-veterans/#.XI3p1RNKi1s
[4] 2018, December 1. Non-trauma-focused meditation versus exposure therapy in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder: a randomised controlled trial. Retrieved from https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(18)30384-5/fulltext
[5] Galey, Patrick. 2018, November 16. Retrieved from https://www.yahoo.com/news/meditation-helps-conflict-veterans-ptsd-study-104425200.html
[6] Hodder, Harbour Fraser. 2018, December 18. Retrieved from https://enjoytmnews.org/new-study-department-of-defense-funded-study-shows-tm-technique-significantly-reduces-ptsd-symptoms-in-veterans/#.XI3p1RNKi1s
[7] Vernon A. Barnes, PhD; John L. Rigg, MD & Jennifer J. Williams, LCSW. “Clinical Case Series: Treatment of PTSD With Transcendental Meditation in Active Duty Military Personnel,” Military Medicine (2013), 178(7), pp. e836–840. Retrieved from https://academic.oup.com/milmed/article/178/7/3836/4243566
[8] Brian Rees, Fred Travis, David Shapiro, & Ruth Chant. “Reduction in Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Congolese Refugees Practicing Transcendental Meditation,” Journal of Traumatic Stress (2013), 26(2), pp. 295–298. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/51b1/608a58fd545e9b45b49c547a96e71c77d945.pdf
[9] Brian Rees, Fred Travis, David Shapiro, & Ruth Chant, “Significant Reductions in Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms in Congolese Refugees Within 10 days of Transcendental Meditation Practice,” Journal of Traumatic Stress (February 2014), 27(1), pp. 112–115. Retrieved from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jts.21883
[10] See Joshua Z. Rosenthal, MD, Sarina Grosswald, EdD, Richard Ross, MD, PhD, & Norman Rosenthal, MD. “Effects of Transcendental Meditation in Veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Pilot Study,” Military Medicine (2011), 176(6), pp. 626–630. Available at https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3906/cef2ca4270ffb755a55164d1aa392a113dad.pdf
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family.
Blog 17
HINDUISM - SLICED, DICED & LOOKING NICE
Maharishi sliced and diced the Hindu religion in part by selling anything he thought could make a profit. For example, TM's version of Ayurveda medicine (expensive, untested and unproven medicinal and herbal products) along with gemstones to speed up enlightenment and prevent illness. TM also sells Hindu prayer services known as 'yagyas' (that cost thousands of dollars), Hindu astrology, and a Hindu version of Feng Shui known as Sthapatya Veda.
HINDUISM - SLICED, DICED & LOOKING NICE
Maharishi sliced and diced the Hindu religion in part by selling anything he thought could make a profit. For example, TM's version of Ayurveda medicine (expensive, untested and unproven medicinal and herbal products) along with gemstones to speed up enlightenment and prevent illness. TM also sells Hindu prayer services known as 'yagyas' (that cost thousands of dollars), Hindu astrology, and a Hindu version of Feng Shui known as Sthapatya Veda.
TM also sells Vedic organic vegetables; Vedic tunes are chanted to the veggies for an hour a day over loudspeakers as they grow. Except for gemstones, each of these profit centers has a separate website. None of them are linked to TM.org. That site is scrubbed of anything Hindu, perhaps because TM wants public funding to pay for TM in public schools and as a treatment for PTSD.
TM BENEFITS ARE UNIQUE (EXCEPT WHEN THEY AREN’T IN ANY WAY UNQUE, WHICH IS ALL OF THE TIME)
TM claims it produces unique benefits; it doesn’t. The Relaxation Response developed over forty years ago by Harvard Professor, Herbert Benson, produces an identical set of physiological changes as TM. Benson should know; he did the original research on TM.
By the year 2000, Dr. Benson’s book, The Relaxation Response, had sold four million copies, topped the New York Times bestseller list, and was translated into thirteen languages. Dr. Benson is regarded as a pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine and founded the Benson Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital. The Institute works closely with the Boston Red Sox’s Home Base Foundation.
FREE SUPPORT FOR HOMEBASE
The relaxation response is a critical component of the services Homebase provides, free of charge, to over 23,000 veterans suffering from PTSD and/or traumatic brain injury. Dr. Benson and his collogues have published over a hundred studies on the relaxation response in top medical journals. Last year, to support this work, the Wounded Warrior’s Foundation gave Massachusetts’s General a $67mm grant, the second largest in the hospital’s history.
YOUR SECRET TM MANTRAS – IF AT FIRST. YOU CAN’T DECEIVE, OBFUSCATE!
TM claims its mantras are sounds without meaning. However, during a speech to a Hindu audience in India in 1955, Maharishi admitted that any sound could be used to transcend. Pointing to the microphone he was holding, he said even the word “mike” would work. Then, he continued:
For our practice, we select only the suitable mantras of personal gods. Such mantras fetch to us the grace of personal gods... (Emphasis mine.)
My first advanced TM mantra added the Sanskrit word 'nemah' to my then existing mantra. The translation of nemah is, “I bow down.”
THE PUJA. TM CLAIMS IT ISN’T HINDU.
TM claims the puja is simply a “ceremony of thanksgiving” performed by the teacher that the student only witnesses. For over 50 years Maharishi engaged in a calculated, deliberate coverup of the puja that continues unabated to this day.
Bob Roth is the Executive Director of your Foundation. He is also the foremost TM teacher in the world today. How is it that Roth’s recent book on TM doesn't mention the word "puja." He describes (what is actually) the puja as "a simple thank-you ceremony...a lovely cultural tradition, and not religious in any way." Roth's definition is at odds with the online Oxford Dictionary that defines puja as "the act of worship." Roth fails to mention that a picture of Maharishi’s guru occupies the center of an altar surrounded by brass cups filled with camphor, rice, and other items. They are all used by the instructor to make 17 worship offerings to the guru during the ceremony.
At the time of instruction, students are required to bring flowers, fruit, and a handkerchief; they are part of the offerings made by the instructor. In the Hindu religion, bringing items used in the puja is known as Dakshina and, by definition, makes the student an active participant, not a “passive witness” as Roth claims. TM hides this from the public. Roth also leaves out that after the ceremony, the student is invited to join the teacher in bowing down before the guru’s picture.
WHEN THE NEW JERSEY US DISTRICT COURT COURT RULED TM IS ILLEGAL IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
As mentioned earlier, the New Jersey US District Court ruled that teaching TM in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Although the case is forty years old, it remains illegal to teach TM in public schools. The puja was one of the main reasons the Court gave for the decision.
Although defendants have submitted well over 1500 pages of briefs, affidavits and deposition testimony in opposing plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, defendants have failed to raise the slightest doubt as to the facts or religious nature of the teachings of the Science of Creative Intelligence [TM’s Hindu underpinnings] and the puja.
The level of calculated deception should be an embarrassment to anyone associated with TM, especially for school administrators who are responsible for the education of our children.
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain—bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
Blog 14
HOW TO RAISE MILLIONS THROUGH SELLING MEDITATION
Was Maharishi better at meditating or making money? We suspect the latter. He claimed that if 8,000 advanced meditators, roughly the square root of 1% of the world’s population meditated together, there would be world peace. The TM organization raised hundreds, of millions of dollars to fund the project.
MAHARISHI’S MILLIONS — MEDITATE YOUR WAY TO A ROLLS ROYCE
Was Maharishi better at meditating or making money? We suspect the latter. He claimed that if 8,000 advanced meditators, roughly the square root of 1% of the world’s population meditated together, there would be world peace. The TM organization raised hundreds, of millions of dollars to fund the project.
BRING WORLD PEACE BY JUMPING UP & DOWN ON A MATTRESS
According to the US Census Bureau, the population of Fairfield, Iowa, as of July 2016, was 10,206. Applying the square-root-of-one-percent formula, the coherence produced by just ten of TM’s advanced coherence producers should have resulted in a reduced crime rate in Fairfield. For well over two decades, not ten, but hundreds of yogic flyers (TM’s most advanced meditators) have conducted their coherence-generating practices in the two (male and female) Golden Dome flying centers located on the MUM campus. (For reference, check out this video https://youtu.be/R2SxDsOEoq4 and this one https://youtu.be/t2hPvb-81mg. “Yogic flying” is a technique where you sit in a lotus position, leap around on a mattress and gradually wear down the cartilage in your knees until you need a knee replacement. It is fantastic for the US healthcare system since the average knee replacement costs $49,500, according to Healthline — https://www.healthline.com/health/total-knee-replacement-surgery/understanding-costs).
In addition, for several years, 1200 of Maharishi’s Vedic chanters known as “pundits” live in barracks surrounded by barbed wire fences just up the road from the Fairfield campus.
THE MYTH THAT TM’S NEIGHBORS IN FAIRFIELD WERE CRIME-FREE. ACTUALLY IT GOT WORSE WHEN TM MOVED IN…
Based on the massive level of coherence generated, one might reasonably expect Fairfield to be crime-free. In fact, the entire Midwestern US should be crime-free. However, FBI crime statistics tell a different story. Neighborhood Scout is a real estate platform that analyzes crime rates in communities in the US based on raw data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Using FBI crime statistics released in September 2016, Neighborhood Scout reported: The crime rate in Fairfield is considerably higher than the national average across all communities. Relative to Iowa, Fairfield has a crime rate that is higher than 94% of the state’s cities and towns of all sizes. Also, when comparing Fairfield to other communities of similarly sized populations, Neighborhood Scout found that the Fairfield crime rate (violent and property crimes combined) per thousand residents stood out as higher than most.
READ TM RESEARCH IF YOU ENJOY FICTION! THEY TELL A LOVELY STORY THAT THEY MADE UP IN THEIR HEADS.
Psychologist David Orme-Johnson is the most prolific TM researcher. Orme-Johnson created a website, TruthAboutTM.org, that rebuts negative TM studies, at times personally attacking TM critics as psychologically damaged or as religious fanatics.
The site’s heading “Societal Effects” claims 50 empirical studies demonstrate the Maharishi Effect. The site also claims this research is of the highest quality. A cursory examination of these studies reveals that TM University faculty and students have written almost all of them, and the vast majority have found a home in TM owned publications. One doesn’t need a complicated analysis to figure out these studies are worthless; one only needs to look at Fairfield crime statistics above.
Dirty truths about TM are revealed in David Sieveking’s excellent documentary David Wants to Fly
PAYING FOR ENLIGHTENMENT — SNAKE OIL SALESMEN WEARING GOLDEN TM RAJA CROWNS
In 2004, after 40 years had passed, and not a single superpower demonstrated, Maharishi introduced the Enlightenment Course. This three-week course didn’t just guarantee enlightenment; it “absolutely” guaranteed enlightenment. Attendees would become the leaders of Maharishi’s fantasy world that he called The Global Country of World Peace. Henceforth, they would be known as Rajas and wear long white robes with gemstone necklaces and little golden crowns. They also got a title. They are referred to as rajas (or one who rules) and are addressed as His Excellency, His Highness or His Majesty by other TMers.
PAY TM AND YOU CAN RUN A SMALL COUNTRY (AT LEAST IN YOUR HEAD)
Each raja has bought the right to run a small country — or a few states in a larger country — within Maharishi’s fantasy world. They were responsible for creating heaven on earth. The Rajas are so bizarre that it’s hard to capture in words. Fortunately, documentary filmmaker, David Sieveking, does an excellent job in his film, David Wants to Fly. I believe anyone who views the film will do everything in their power to disassociate from the TM movement. The film can be streamed here: https://archive.org/details/DavidWantsToFly)
THE MILLIONAIRE MAHARISHI
Tuition was one million dollars (not a misprint). With 150 Rajas, Maharishi raked in $150 million.
David Lynch reportedly paid the million and took the course I believe in 2004. Lynch says he is still not enlightened. We wish him luck.
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family.
Blog 13
MAHARISHI FRAUD & VOODOO SCIENCE: AN OPEN LETTER TO DAVID LYNCH, PART 2
Dear Mr. Lynch, Are you aware that Maharishi was a fraud from the very beginning? Even his name was a fraud. Following Guru Dev’s death under mysterious circumstances, Maharishi began calling himself, Maharishi Bala Brahmachari Mahesh Yogi Maharaj. Yogi isn’t a title at all, but rather a description of someone who claims to be enlightened. If not bestowed by a worthy Hindu teacher or religious body, calling oneself a ‘yogi’ is considered boastful. Brahmachari refers to a celibate. Although Maharishi claimed he was; we both know he wasn’t. Maharaj or Great King (of the yogis) is a title added to great saints’ names. Thus, Maharishi Bala Brahmachari Mahesh Yogi Maharaj translates as The Great Seer, The Enlightened One and Great King. Maharishi served as a clerk-secretary in his guru’s ashram. His caste prevented his acceptance as a monk in his guru’s monastic order, or to dispense mantras. His self-appointed titles would be regarded as blasphemous and ludicrous by anyone familiar with Hinduism.
An Open Letter to David Lynch, David Lynch Foundation.
December 2, 2019
MAHARISHI: A FRAUD FROM THE VERY BEGINNING
Dear Mr. Lynch,
Are you aware that Maharishi was a fraud from the very beginning? Even his name was a fraud. Following Guru Dev’s death under mysterious circumstances, Maharishi began calling himself, Maharishi Bala Brahmachari Mahesh Yogi Maharaj. Yogi isn’t a title at all, but rather a description of someone who claims to be enlightened. If not bestowed by a worthy Hindu teacher or religious body, calling oneself a ‘yogi’ is considered boastful. Brahmachari refers to a celibate. Although Maharishi claimed he was; we both know he wasn’t. Maharaj or Great King (of the yogis) is a title added to great saints’ names. Thus, Maharishi Bala Brahmachari Mahesh Yogi Maharaj translates as The Great Seer, The Enlightened One and Great King. Maharishi served as a clerk-secretary in his guru’s ashram. His caste prevented his acceptance as a monk in his guru’s monastic order, or to dispense mantras. His self-appointed titles would be regarded as blasphemous and ludicrous by anyone familiar with Hinduism.
Wanna get enlightened? It’s a bargain at just $12,000 (not accounting for inflation, depending on when you read this)
THE ENLIGHTENMENT SCAM
In the 1960s and 70s, TM was about enlightenment. The enlightenment formula in India was 10 minutes of TM twice a day for three to five years. In the West, it became 20 minutes of TM twice a day for five to seven years. Enlightenment seekers were offered ever more frequent and expensive courses to speed things along, including weekend, week-long and month-long programs. Teacher training became the next step for the serious seeker. When I became a teacher, the course was six months long, and it cost thousands of dollars. Teacher training consisted of eight to ten hour-long meditations a day, with a bit of yoga and breathing exercises thrown in. Evenings were spent watching videos of Maharishi’s take on Hinduism. We also memorized the Hindu religious ceremony known as the ‘puja’ in Sanskrit and how to perform offerings to the Hindu gods whom we learned are present during the puja.
Maharishi knew enlightenment was a scam from the very beginning. According to Maharishi, his Guru Dev spent 45 years, from the age of nine, practicing the most arduous spiritual pursuits to achieve whatever level he attained. How could anyone ever get enlightened through TM? The answer then, as now, 60 years later, is no one.
THE $12k SIDHI PROGRAM
By the mid-1970s, when no one reached enlightenment, Maharishi introduced the Sidhis. He promoted them as the superhighway to enlightenment. The course cost between three and five thousand dollars ($12–20,000 today). Not only was enlightenment guaranteed, but every Sidha would have superpowers, including the ability to levitate. It took a minimum of four hours a day to practice the Sidhis, and every session concluded with reading Hindu religious texts for fifteen minutes and rest. (Current TM teachers, who are known as governors, have meditation programs that take six hours a day.)
Sidha courses were mostly held in TM-owned facilities and staffed by young TMers working for room and board, and credits to attend the course. Within the first six months, an estimated 2500 people, mostly TM teachers, were instructed. Maharishi likely netted over $25 million in 2019 dollars.
LEVITATION INSANITY (i.e. JUMPING ON A MATTRESS. WHY NOT JUST HAVE A PILLOWFIGHT?!)
The biggest draw of the Sidhis was levitation. In the late 1970s, at press conferences throughout the US, TM produced fake photographs of young men appearing to hover in mid-air. In reality, thin young men with strong thigh muscles were hopping around on their bottoms on dense foam. I was among them. When, after several years, not one person was levitating, Maharishi blamed atmospheric stress, and he offered a solution. The brain wave coherence generated by groups of Sidhas meditating together would eliminate atmospheric stress. Once the atmosphere was purified, Sidhas would fly through the air like birds and in the process, reduce crime and usher in an age of world peace.
TM COMPLETELY REDUCED CRIME (EXCEPT IT DIDN’T…AND CRIME INCREASED!!)
The centerpiece of TM’s claims to reduce crime and bring world peace, is a fatally flawed crime reduction study conducted in 1995, in Washington D. C. Proof would come from an experiment to reduce crime in the City by 20 percent. The reduction would result from the coherence created when thousands of advanced TM practitioners would meditate together over fourteen weeks. TM described this as “The Maharishi Effect.”
In his book Voodoo Science, Robert Park described a press conference held before the experiment began in which lead researcher, John Hagelin explained how the crime reduction project would be a scientific demonstration that provided proof of a unified superstring field — an abstract and highly speculative physical theory that attempts to connect all the forces in nature. According to Hagelin, large numbers of advanced TM practitioners meditating together in the same location would access this force, which he referred to as “collective consciousness.”
THE HIGHEST MURDER RATE IN THE CITY’S HISTORY.
Over the period, the highest murder rate occurred in the city’s history. At a press conference held when the study concluded, Hagelin acknowledged that the murder rate had increased, but emphasized that “brutal crime” was down. Park pondered the benefit: “Murderers shot their victims with a clean shot between the eyes rather than bludgeoning them the old-fashioned way!”
The following year, Hagelin returned with a 55-page report on the experiment. At a press conference, he claimed violent crime had dropped 18 percent. One reporter from the Washington Post queried, “An 18% reduction compared to what?” Hagelin said the actual crime rate compared to the crime that would have occurred without the meditators meditating. How did he know what the rate would have been? Hagelin answered that by using a “scientifically rigorous time-series analysis that included not only crime data but such factors as weather and fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field.”
According to Peter Woit, a theoretical physicist and senior lecturer in the Mathematics Department at Columbia University, Hagelin’s study has since been rejected by “virtually every theoretical physicist in the world” who evaluated it. Andrew Skolnick, a noted medical writer, wrote, “Indeed, it took Hagelin six years to find a journal willing to publish his much-ridiculed Washington, DC, crime study. It’s not impossible to get flawed and bogus science published in a research journal; it just takes longer.”
POPPING TM’S BOGUS SCIENCE BALLOON
In 1986, Heinz Pagels, then executive director of the New York Academy of Sciences, wrote,
There is no known connection between meditation states and states of matter in physics. Individuals not trained professionally in modern physics could easily come to believe, based on the presentations in the Maharishi literature, that a large number of qualified scientists agree with the purported connection between modern physics and meditation methods. Nothing could be further from the truth. The notion that what physicists call ‘the vacuum state’ has anything to do with consciousness is nonsense. The claim that large numbers of people meditating help reduce crime and war by creating a unified field of consciousness is foolishness of a high order. The presentation of the ideas of modern physics side by side, and apparently supportive of, the ideas of the Maharishi about pure consciousness can only be intended to deceive those who might not know any better.
Sincerely,
Aryeh Siegel
Author, Transcendental Deception
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family.
Blog 12
LIES & TRANSCENDENTAL SUICIDES: AN OPEN LETTER TO DAVID LYNCH, PART 1
Dear Mr. Lynch, As you are likely aware, I recently wrote a book about the deceptions that permeate the Transcendental Meditation (TM) organization and your Foundation. My original motivation was to block TM from public schools. As I learned more about the Lynch Foundation, I realized that TM’s incursion into public schools is only the tip of the iceberg. TM is currently targeting military and veterans’ groups by promoting TM as a proven treatment for PTSD.
An Open Letter to David Lynch, December 2, 2019
Dear Mr. Lynch,
As you are likely aware, I recently wrote a book about the deceptions that permeate the Transcendental Meditation (TM) organization and your Foundation. My original motivation was to block TM from public schools. As I learned more about the Lynch Foundation, I realized that TM’s incursion into public schools is only the tip of the iceberg. TM is currently targeting military and veterans’ groups by promoting TM as a proven treatment for PTSD.
FORMER TM TEACHER
I learned TM in 1970 while I was in graduate school at Berkeley and became a TM teacher in 1974. I spent time with Maharishi in Italy, Switzerland, France, and the US. I ran TM’s International Institute for Social Rehabilitation from 1975–79. I practiced TM for ten years, six of them as a Sidha meditating a minimum of four hours a day. I didn’t experience any of the promised Sidha benefits, nor did the dozens of Sidhas I knew. I quit TM in 1981 and was so out of the loop that I didn’t realize Maharishi had died until seven years after the fact. A few years ago, when TM fandom hit a fever pitch among celebrities, I became curious and went to TM’s website. All I saw were health claims (that I knew were wildly exaggerated) and celebrity endorsements.
This is what I learned. The David Lynch Foundation has 60 full-time employees, and last year had $16 million budget. The Foundation is lobbying for the government to pay for veterans with PTSD to learn TM. This is troubling for the reasons I have documented in an accompanying paper. TM also continues to pursue funding to teach TM in public schools. This is a violation of the 1978 court ruling (Malnak v. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, U.S.D.C. of N.J. 76–341, esp. pp.36–50, 78) that tossed TM from New Jersey public schools. As you must know, the Court ruled that teaching TM in public schools is a violation the separation of church and state.
TM’S UNCHALLENGED CLAIMS
TM’s claims go mostly unchallenged, in part because TM pretends to offer a secular relaxation practice while concealing the Hinduism that lies at its core. Also, TM has groomed a vast network of celebrities who endorse it. Perhaps some will reconsider their support once they understand that the relaxation derived from meditation, the main component of meditation that can help many people, is available elsewhere and virtually free.
TM promotes the endorsements of famous physicians like Dr. Oz, but Maharishi had no use for allopathic medicine. In a Resolution dated February 11, 1997, the Maharishi Vedic Medical Council resolved to ban allopathic medicine and replace it with Maharishi’s Vedic health care system.
Various points in the Resolution condemn the whole of allopathic medicine and its component parts. The resolution called for India’s national health-care budget to be transferred to Maharishi and that Maharishi Vedic University retrain all allopathic health care providers and that all allopathic medicine curriculums be eliminated. The resolution also calls for the destruction and rebuilding of all medical colleges and hospitals and rebuilt according to Maharishi’s version of feng shui known as “Maharishi Sthapatya Veda.”
Internally, TM has never softened this outrageous position. Guidelines (never made public) for TM administrators could not be more explicit:
We are not going to take help from medical Drs. as medical professionals give poison. So, don’t engage any medical Drs. for anything — absolutely whatever it is — even if they are in our Movement family.
And, as Maharishi instructed his TM governors,
Hold onto the fact that we are the supreme authorities on health — we know how to create perfect health…
TRANSCENDENTAL TRAGEDIES
The above statements are dangerous. TM teachers are trained to believe Western medicine is poison, and TM is a standalone cure for just about everything.
TM.org has a live chat feature. I wrote that I was a veteran with several tours in Afghanistan and that I had severe PTSD for which I was taking quite a bit of medication to control. I asked if I was required to inform my VA doctor that I was starting TM. The answer was: “No no, it’s not required to talk to your VA doctor before starting TM :)” Then I wrote that I sometimes feel suicidal and had read that with TM, I wouldn’t feel suicidal. The response: “Yes, it absolutely helped me with similar challenges with mental health.”
DG was a poster boy for your Foundation. DG had PTSD, and after starting TM, he moved to TM’s University in Fairfield, Iowa, to get more involved with TM. A video of DG and his mother talking about how TM helped with his PTSD was on your website. TM was the only treatment DG needed, that is, until he committed suicide some months later.
TM IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SUICIDE. BUT…
I’m not saying TM was responsible for DG’s suicide. I am saying that PTSD is brutal; therapists who work with sufferers understand that horrendous, harrowing memories are frequently repressed. Should they surface during meditation, they require processing in a therapeutic context. They may require medication. Maharishi’s views on allopathic medicine would weigh against both.
Sincerely,
Aryeh Siegel
Author, Transcendental Deception
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family.
Blog 11
PUJA: THE HINDU PRAYERS OF TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION
Transcendental Meditation is presented as a secular practice that has no religious affiliation. As a former teacher of TM, I can attest that the truth is the complete opposite, writes Aryeh Siegel.
Transcendental Meditation is presented as a secular practice that has no religious affiliation. As a former teacher of TM, I can attest that the truth is the complete opposite, writes Aryeh Siegel.
THE PUJA — AN ANCIENT HINDU RITUAL
A puja is an ancient Hindu ritual or ceremonial worship service, one purpose of which is to create a channel of transmission from a Hindu god to the one performing or participating in the puja ceremony. Objects of worship can be various Hindu deities or gurus who are believed to embody the divine. While Maharishi seems to have made his up, there are many variations of pujas, but they all essentially have the same function.
In the puja, offerings are made to the object of devotion, often represented by a painting or an idol, to earn his love and blessings. The offerings — usually fruit, candles, incense, flowers — symbolize surrendering one’s mind, body, thoughts, desires, actions, and possessions to divine beings or gurus and enjoying whatever may come back as a gift from them. The deity or guru whose image is worshipped in the puja is considered a living incarnation of the deity. They are treated as if the deity has descended from above and actually inhabits the image.
This is the setup for a Transcendental Meditation puja ceremony which is obligatory for everyone as they begin meditating with TM. The organization says that TM is secular, but this is a straight-up Hindu ceremony. TM Deception…
PUJA IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS?
At this point, a fair question might be, “What can this possibly have to do with Transcendental Meditation which is a scientific, completely secular relaxation technique?”
Surely, no public school would allow its students to participate in a Hindu religious practice, just as they wouldn’t allow them to participate in a Christian, Jewish, or Muslim religious practice. Certainly, those responsible would not encourage students to participate in a religious practice that likely conflicts with the students’ own religion, especially when doing so in a public school violates the United States Constitution.
Certainly, they would have thoroughly vetted TM before using public funds to pay for TM instruction or even accepting donations from outside organizations such as the David Lynch Foundation that raises money to pay for TM instruction in various settings, including public schools.
SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
One would expect school administrators who allowed TM in their schools to have thoroughly vetted TM, but apparently, they didn’t. Full-time TM instructors oversee the TM program in schools. Many classroom teachers along with the school principal and other school staff may practice TM because they are offered free instruction
TM teachers tell them that TM is not a religion because you don’t have to believe in anything to do TM. It is a testament to TM’s marketing ability that so many people go along with TM’s “not a religion” hype after experiencing the puja, which looks and feels religious, because it is. Those entrusted with the care of our children must be held to a higher standard. When they experienced the puja, they should have immediately known that TM didn’t belong in public schools.
MAHARISHI AND THE PESKY PUJA
Maharishi was, without doubt, one of the wealthiest gurus in history. His estate was reportedly in the billions when he died. As fixated on money as he was, I have no doubt that he would have dumped the puja if he could have, because more people would have learned TM and, more importantly, the door to large-scale government funding would have been more open. But Maharishi couldn’t get rid of the puja because it is the very heart of TM. In fact, nothing about the puja can be changed because it is all considered holy and sacred. This includes the name “puja,” all aspects of the ritual offerings, and the precision of their performance along with the Sanskrit chanting — all are absolute.
CHANNELING HINDU DEITIES INTO US SCHOOLS?
Maharishi believed the puja, along with his mantras, invited the influence of Hindu deities into the lives of those doing TM. Maharishi also believed that his mantras were powered by a mystical connection to the guru and deities created during the puja. This highly guarded secret is evidenced by minutes of a meeting dated February 6, 2007, conducted by TM’s “Raja of Atlanta,” or head administrator at the time, Rogers Badgett. Speaking to the local directors, Badgett begins with a story about Arjuna, a central figure in The Bhagavad Gita, a Hindu scripture, and considered the greatest archer and warrior of his time:
The great general was teaching Arjuna about all the celestial weapons and how to use them. After the training, Arjuna tried to use them. They wouldn’t work. The great general told him, “There has to be dakshina for them to work.” Dakshina is a gift, like the fruit, flowers and course fee to learn TM. For our own understanding, the technique isn’t going to work until there is dakshina. We don’t tell the general public this. [Transcendental Meditation Domain of Atlanta Directors Meeting Notes, 2005–2007 https://wikileaks.org/wiki/ Transcendental_Meditation_Domain_of_Atlanta_ Directors_ Meeting_Notes,_2005–2007]
THE PUJA — EVERYONE HAS TO DO IT
So, no matter if you are a private person, a ten-year-old public-school student, a captain of industry, or a celebrity, when you learn TM, the puja is non-negotiable.
There is a booklet known in TM as “The Holy Tradition” that pays homage to the gods and gurus who Maharishi claimed preserved the teaching of TM over the millennia. When TM became “scientific,” “The Holy Tradition” was problematic for TM’s new scientific image, and hard copies are difficult to come by. However, “The Holy Tradition” is available online, and following are some direct quotes describing the desired mental state of the TM teacher during the puja taken from “The Holy Tradition.” http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/secrets/ puja/tradt.shtml
“Having recited this and having filled our minds and hearts with the meaning of what we say, we complete the invocation to the long tradition of the great masters and feel the inspiration of their glory. With heart thus secure in deep devotion, and mind upheld in the meaning of the recitation, our hands and eyes engage in the act of offering.”
“The invocation through the offering is symbolic of our universal behavior towards invited and honored guests. Naturally we offer them the best we have in the house flowers, fruit, light, bath, shower, towels, good food. We greet them with loving reverence and sweet words. The ceremony of offerings has similar significance in that it expresses gratitude on a physical level, and everything is done in a very natural, innocent and spontaneous manner.”
“It may be that someone, seeing us making offerings before a picture, might argue that we are a sect and label us as such, and thereby try to depreciate the universality of the Spiritual Regeneration Movement [The first TM corporation in the US]. Nevertheless, these formalities, this style of offering, are ways of bowing to GURU DEV or expressing our reverence to the Holy Tradition.”
TEACHING THE TEACHERS TO DECEIVE
When Maharishi understood early on that the puja would turn many Westerners off, he trained his TM teachers to use deceptive language in order to hide the puja’s centrality to TM. He also coached them to downplay the fact that those learning TM play an active role in the puja by bringing several items that are offered on the altar and being invited to join with the TM instructor in bowing down to the picture of Maharishi’s teacher at the conclusion of the ritual. And this deception continues in full force today.
[Excerpt from ‘Transcendental Meditation’, available on amazon.com]
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
[p32–35]
IS TM SECULAR? (No) SCIENTIFIC? (No) SCANDALOUS (Yes)
TM promotes itself as being secular and scientific. Does any of this sound secular and scientific? In addition to memorizing the words, the teachers were also required to memorize the melody to which the puja is chanted, as well as the gestures and hand movements used during the chant. In earlier courses, would-be teachers had to perform the chant in front of, and to the satisfaction of, Maharishi. In my course in 1975, while Maharishi personally gave us our mantras, one of the course leaders tested us on the puja.
TM promotes itself as being secular and scientific.
Does any of this sound secular and scientific?
In addition to memorizing the words, the teachers were also required to memorize the melody to which the puja is chanted, as well as the gestures and hand movements used during the chant. In earlier courses, would-be teachers had to perform the chant in front of, and to the satisfaction of, Maharishi. In my course in 1975, while Maharishi personally gave us our mantras, one of the course leaders tested us on the puja.
ILLEGAL OFFERINGS TO GURU DEV
Malnak vs Yogi (1977) was the US District Court case where a New Jersey Court ruled that teaching TM in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (Malnak v. Yogi, 440 F. Supp. 1284 (D.N.J. 1977). http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/ FSupp/440/1284/1817490).
The court transcript documents the movements made by the teacher during the puja; the teacher makes fifteen offerings to Guru Dev and fourteen obeisances to Guru Dev. An obeisance is a movement of the body made as a token of respect or submission to the object of worship. The initial fourteen obeisances are then followed by three additional offerings and three more obeisances.
Puja incense, featuring a Hindu god
Finally, the puja ends with a string of divine epithets that are applied to Guru Dev. Guru Dev is called “The Unbounded,” “the omnipresent in all creation,” “bliss of the Absolute,” “transcendental joy,” “the Self- Sufficient,” “the embodiment of pure knowledge which is beyond and above the universe like the sky,” “the One,” “the Eternal,” “the Pure,” “the Immovable,” “the Witness of all intellects, whose status transcends thought,” “the Transcendent along with the three gunas,” and “the true preceptor.”
THE COURT
The Court is very clear: “No one would apply all these epithets to a human being.”
In case anyone has any lingering doubts that TM is a religion, the transcript of the New Jersey court decision will put those doubts to rest.
In describing the initiation process that applies to everyone who has ever learned TM, the court stated that each TM student was asked to bring a clean white handkerchief, a few flowers, and three or four pieces of fruit to the puja. (Former friends who became teachers in the early 1970s said that Maharishi didn’t hide the symbolism of these offerings on their courses: the white cloth symbolizes the offering of the soul of the initiate; the flower signifies the blossoming of the Lord’s presence in the initiate’s heart; the fruit represents all the fruits of future actions, i.e. material wealth, success, happiness, and so forth.)
THE TRANSCRIPT CONTINUES…
The transcript continued that upon arrival, the handkerchief, flowers, and fruit were placed in a container, and the TM student was led to a small room and asked to remove his or her shoes before entering the room. Inside the room was a rectangular table covered by a white sheet that served as an altar. The altar held a brass candleholder and a brass incense holder containing a candle and incense, both of which were lit by the teacher. The altar also held three brass dishes containing water, rice, and sandal paste. There was also a small brass dish containing camphor. There was a tray on the table and an eight-by-twelve-inch color picture of Guru Dev at the back of the table. By 1977, Guru Dev had already been dead for over twenty years.
How is it the TM pretends it is scientific and secular when learning TM requires making offerings on an altar to a long-dead guru? The court noted that a week or two before the puja, each student was required to sign a document promising never to reveal his or her mantra; they weren’t given a copy of the document. The court also noted that the students were told that the puja was not a religious exercise or prayer. How is it possible that a public-school official who had experienced the puja could think this was appropriate for school children? How could they not challenge any TM teacher who told them the puja wasn’t religious?
It is almost incomprehensible that TM has been able to get away with this intentional deception for over fifty years. Repeating over and over again that TM is a science and is secular has fooled many very intelligent, caring, and well-meaning people, but that doesn’t mean that its very core is not a Hindu religious practice.
HINDUISM IS FINE: THE PROBLEM IS DECEPTION
To be clear, I have no issue with the Hindu religion. My issue is with deception.
Consider walking into a Catholic church or a Jewish synagogue for the first time to pray. The service may seem strange to someone unfamiliar with it. However, the prayer books are available in a language you understand, and if you have questions, the Priest or Rabbi will answer them; there are no secrets. Nothing is withheld or hidden. Every word is there to see.
If someone wants to learn the Relaxation Response, there are many books, DVDs, and CDs available. Books by Dr. Herbert Benson provide complete “how to” instructions have sold mil- lions of copies. Interestingly, the method used to trigger the Relaxation Response is almost identical to the TM technique, except individuals choose the sound they use during the meditation instead of being assigned a secret mantra.
THE IMPORTANCE OF LYING
How has TM been able to get away with the pretense for so long? How has it been possible to get away with fooling otherwise intelligent people? I believe part of the answer is that most people don’t expect someone to lie to them. And that is what Maharishi did. He trained his teachers to never reveal the truth about what’s going on.
I did a little experiment. I recently spoke with two TM teachers in Los Angeles, and a third teacher at TM’s university in Fairfield, Iowa. I told all three that I was interested in starting TM, but before doing so, I wanted to get an English translation of the puja ceremony. I asked, “Could I get the translation of the ceremony before starting TM?” I was looking for a simple “yes” or “no” answer. It seemed a reasonable request, especially given that I was being asked to pay almost a thousand
INTERVIEWS WITH TEACHERS
The answers below are quotes from the TM teachers interviewed
and taken from my contemporaneous notes of those conversations. All three said, “The puja maintains the purity of the TM teaching, so it can’t change.” Another said, “I’m just a regular American person, so I don’t teach in my name, but in the name of a holy tradition. The ceremony aligns me with those great masters who have gone before me, and I symbolically create a sense of gratitude to them that enlivens TM for the student.”
That was actually the closest anyone got to what TM teachers believe they are doing in the puja. He recognized his role as a conduit, and he said the puja enlivens TM for the student. Regardless, he was describing religion. A “holy tradition” is hardly a scientific term.
Another TM teacher stated, “The teacher just recalls the names of the most prominent leaders in the past and the ceremony is just part of a beautiful tradition that’s not watered down or modernized.” (Deities and gurus are conveniently redefined as leaders). He also said, “It’s 99.9% for the teacher. The teacher brings most of the things used in the ceremony. The student brings a few things like some flowers and fruit and just witnesses the teacher performing the ceremony.” He also said, “The teacher is thinking about the meaning, so the student doesn’t have to and that makes the transmission as pure as possible for the student.”
One might ask, just who is making the transmission and how is it being made? If this is science, it is a very mystical version.
Two of the TM teachers said, “It’s just like in karate when two opponents bow to each other out of respect before a match.” That must be a favorite. I had previously heard it from one of the full-time TM teachers in the San Francisco public schools. (He also said, “We just tell them it’s a song.”) One answered, “I don’t have anything written down. It’s all memorized.” And another said, “The teachers don’t have the translation.” I think my favorite answer was, “That’s a great ques- tion. I don’t know if anyone has ever asked it before.” He also was reassuring, “It does have an Eastern flavor that many people find sweet or they are neutral. Worst case, it only takes a few minutes and you only have to do it once.”
CAN I PLEASE GET A PUJA TRANSLATION?
I repeatedly pushed for an answer. Could I get a written translation of the text of the puja? Yes or No? While two of the teachers said they didn’t have the translation, the third one told me to come to the lectures at my local TM center. When I was ready to start TM, there would be an opportunity to bring up any personal issues with my local TM teacher privately. I knew it was a diversion. I knew that I would never be given the translation. Forty-two years since I started TM, and the deceit continues unchecked.
If TM acknowledged the simple truth, they wouldn’t be able to sell their wares to public schools, to corporations, or to institutions. As will be documented throughout this book, TM’s true believers must engage in endless deceptions and rationalizations to achieve their goals. Given honest information, the vast majority of people are quite capable of making appropriate decisions that impact their life. TM’s true believers conceal the very information anyone should have before making a decision to start TM. And if regular people deserve honest information, how much more important is that information to those with significant responsibility for our children’s well-being.
Join us in the fight to have TM removed from public schools and replaced with secular forms of meditation. Sign up at www.tmdeception.com.
[Excerpt from ‘Transcendental Meditation’, p39–43, available on amazon.com at https://amzn.to/2NgHeGs]
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
(Blog 10)
MASS-MARKETING MEDITATION — A TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION
When you learn TM, are you participating in a religious ritual? Is it religious even if you don’t intend for it to be? Does it matter? Does the answer differ if you are told that your experience is not religious? The first deception people encounter when they come into contact with TM is being told it is not a religion.
Aryeh Siegel is a former teacher of Transcendental Meditation who left the cult and is revealing its hidden Hindu truths. He is the author of ‘Transcendental Deception’. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
When you learn TM, are you participating in a religious ritual? Is it religious even if you don’t intend for it to be? Does it matter? Does the answer differ if you are told that your experience is not religious?
TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION #1
The first deception people encounter when they come into contact with TM is being told it is not a religion. Most people walking through the doors of TM centers aren’t looking for a new religion or a spiritual practice. I certainly wasn’t. I wanted to learn how to meditate because I thought it would help me manage the stresses in my life. However, if I had known that I would be participating in Hindu rituals and had understood the meaning of the Sanskrit verses my instructor would be chanting, it’s quite possible that I would have walked away. Every single person who has learned Transcendental Meditation over the last fifty years has participated in the exact same initiation ceremony. And likely, not one of them was told by their TM teacher that what they were doing was in any way religious. That’s because its founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, designed it that way.
TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION #2
The second deception people encounter when starting TM is ing told that TM mantras have no meaning. The fact is that they are the names of Hindu deities. They have no meaning to people learning TM because their teachers withhold the meaning. TM is rooted in Hinduism — a Hinduism that Maharishi exploited and twisted to suit his personal and financial ambitions.
The question is, why? The answer is simple. Maharishi’s major contribution to meditation was not the secretive initiation procedure or the mantras, but rather the technique itself: the relaxed, non-focused, self-paced repetition of a sound. Before TM, the majority (although not all) of meditation techniques involved some sort of concentration. Maharishi emphasized a non-concentrative meditation practice, while most other approaches didn’t. However, he oversimplified it and tried to use the issue to unfairly discredit other approaches.
MASS-MARKETING MEDITATION
What Maharishi really did to revolutionize meditation was mass-market his non-concentrative technique. Even according to Maharishi, the mantra or word used didn’t actually matter. This is important to note because, if the sound doesn’t matter, there is no reason to pay large amounts of money for a “unique” TM mantra when you can learn the technique from a book. Obscuring this fact, and many others, allowed Maharishi to build an empire.
Where are things today? The David Lynch Foundation has funding of $16million, celebrity endorsements and is running huge PR campaigns to get TM taught in US Public Schools, the military, veterans organizations and more. They continue to pretend that TM is a secular practice, and so far, the majority of people seem to believe them. Now is the time to reveal the transcendental deception.
[Excerpt from ‘Transcendental Deception’, available on amazon.com]
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
[Blog 7. p31–32]
REDISCOVERING THE TM NIGHTMARE
Aryeh Siegel was a teacher of Transcendental Meditation in the mid-1970s and worked directly with the Maharishi. Siegel eventually left the movement and ran a community mental health center for several years, before working as a planner in a large Jewish Federation. After nine years he left the Federation to become a commercial real estate broker (which he continue to do to this day).
Aryeh Siegel was a teacher of Transcendental Meditation in the mid-1970s and worked directly with the Maharishi. Siegel eventually left the movement and ran a community mental health center for several years, before working as a planner in a large Jewish Federation. After nine years he left the Federation to become a commercial real estate broker (which he continue to do to this day).
After leaving the organization, TM faded into my distant past until 2015, when I noticed a steady parade of well-publicized, glowing endorsements of TM by various celebrities. I couldn’t help myself. I got curious about this most recent revival and visited TM.org, the organization’s flagship website for the U.S. market. I found more of the same: celebrities extolling the benefits of TM and claims of TM’s positive effect on a host of medical and mental health issues.
DAVID LYNCH AND FRIENDS
I learned that David Lynch had become the chief promoter of TM in the U.S. I didn’t know who David Lynch was, but he was clearly primarily responsible for the wave of celebrity endorsements. In addition to large-scale conferences and fundraisers targeting educators and the military, in the spring of 2017, the David Lynch Foundation held a sold-out fundraiser at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Hugh Jackman hosted the evening, with entertainment provided by Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno. Musical acts by Ke$ha and others added more star power.
THE MISSING MAHARISHI
But where was Maharishi? Maharishi introduced TM to the world over sixty years before and controlled the organization with an iron grip until his death in 2008. Now he barely had a presence on the TM.org website. Aside from a thumbnail photo relegated to the top-left corner of the site, Maharishi was missing in action.
Jerry Seinfeld at the David Lynch Foundation
My wife Tova and I became TM teachers in the pursuit of higher consciousness. Higher consciousness was all Maharishi talked about in our teacher training courses and the video discourses we watched for hours on end. Today, there’s not even a hint of “higher consciousness” on TM.org. There’s no mention of the TM-Sidhi techniques that take between up to six hours a day to perform. Maharishi promised the sidhis would accelerate enlightenment and Sidhas would have the ability to levitate, have super strength and vision, along with a holy host of other supernatural powers, including omniscience and eternal life. We, his faithful teachers, would do our part to end crime, create world peace, make nations invincible, and bring heaven down to earth. I wondered — how had Maharishi’s lofty promises of enlightenment been reduced to such mundanities as lower blood pressure and better sleep?
CUT-PRICE MEDITATION
I did some more digging and found that the price of instruction had dropped from $2,500 at the time he died, to just under $1,000 in recent years. Still a high price for meditation, but an alarming decline nevertheless. One explanation makes the most sense: the organization is struggling to recruit new initiates. That would explain the PR push. But why was Maharishi downplayed? Why was higher consciousness absent from the pitch? The answer I found was that TM is, once again, courting government funding.
PUBLIC SCHOOLS: AN OLD TARGET TAKES ON NEW LIFE:
A major goal of the David Lynch Foundation is to expand teaching TM in public schools. A major goal of this book is to prevent that from happening. Beyond teaching kids to relax, the TM organization and the David Lynch Foundation want the public to believe TM is a cure for post-traumatic stress disorder, autism, hyperactivity, drug abuse, and even homelessness. And, they want government funding to pay for TM instruction. Taxpayer-funded programs offer tremendous income potential for the TM organization. However, to gain acceptance in public schools, TM has to steer clear of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution separating church and state. To do so, it has to keep secret its cosmic goals and pose as a secular, scientific, relaxation technique. It has to seem as American as apple pie.
This is the great lie of Transcendental Meditation. Things are fine as long as they pretend to be a secular organization, but the game is over when their Hindu roots are revealed. There were two landmark rulings banning TM from being taught in Public Schools, but they continue promoting it nevertheless. In may take another lawsuit to get TM removed once and for all.
[Excerpt from ‘Transcendental Meditation’, available on amazon.com]
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
Blog 6
TM’S LOVE FOR BRUTAL THIRD-WORLD DICTATORS
Four Nations Identified as Embodying the Cardinal Qualities of an Ideal State. Today, Maharishi University of Management celebrates the dawn of a New World Order of Peace, as demonstrated by the invincibility of President Fidel Castro of Cuba, the freedom of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the Divine Rulership of President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia, and the casting off of corrupt democracy by President Robert Guei of the Ivory Coast.
“Dawn of a New World Order of Peace — the Rise of Perfection in World Politics and Economy”
Who was the “Brutal Tyrant” Robert Mugabe? Click Here
Who was the deathly dictator Fidel Castro? Click Here
[Article below as referenced on http://tmfree.blogspot.com/2008_06_29_archive.html]
Four Nations Identified as Embodying the Cardinal Qualities of an Ideal State
An Historic Day of Great Celebration for the World
Today, Maharishi University of Management celebrates the dawn of a New World Order of Peace, as demonstrated by the invincibility of President Fidel Castro of Cuba, the freedom of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the Divine Rulership of President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia, and the casting off of corrupt democracy by President Robert Guei of the Ivory Coast.
These four Heads-of-State are four great forerunners of a forthcoming New World Order of Peace.
The present strength of their leadership is the first visible effect of improvement in the administration of nations. Their special qualities of ideal leadership demonstrate a rise in the world of Global Administration through Natural Law, and foreshadow a time soon to come when every nation will be sovereign, self-sufficient and invincible, yet will be united with all other nations in a world family enjoying perpetual peace.
During the past forty years, nine American Presidents have tried to overthrow or kill Fidel Castro, and have failed — he has demonstrated invincibility in the face of a giant nation of vast destructive military power.
President Robert Mugabe has stood firm against the hypocritical threats of Zimbabwe’s former colonial master, and reminded Britain that Zimbabwe is not their colony anymore. He has demonstrated freedom, and stood against the savage depredations of the colonial past.
President Wahid, the first President honored as a saint by his people, has brought into the world of politics the qualities of purity, tolerance, harmony, and devotion to God. He is the First Divine Ruler of Indonesia.
President Guei has thrown off the faulty and corrupt democratic system imposed on so many nations by their former imperial overlords, and which has led only to chaos and plundering of the nation by an elite, while the poor remain pressed under the weight of their misery.
The world is awakening to the reality that the old order is passing, and a New World Order of Peace is dawning. The new order will be characterized by these very qualities of the four Presidents — invincibility, freedom, divine rule, and the transformation of corrupt and failing democracies into governments that unify and nourish on the basis of the support of the evolutionary power of Natural Law.
Celebrating the Dawn of a New World Order
So with all this good news of today, especially with four nations having been identified as embodying the cardinal qualities of an ideal state, Maharishi University of Management in Holland is celebrating the dawn of a New World Order of Peace. We celebrate the rise of perfection in World Politics and Economy, and the rise of perpetual peace and unity in the world family. It is truly an historic day of great celebration for the world.
This celebration is the first step of achievement of Maharishi’s Global Administration through Natural Law, whose constitution is the Constitution of the Universe, Rik Veda, and which today rings the bell of Eureka for a better fortune for all mankind.
For further information, please contact:
Professor Tony Nader M.D, Ph.D.
President
Maharishi University of Management
Station 24
NP 6063 Vlodrop
Holland
Phone: (+) 31 475 53 8600
Fax: (+) 31 475 53 8663
THE DAY I SNEEZED AT MAHARISHI MAHESH YOGI
In the mid-1970s, I decided to become a TM teacher. My gradual immersion into the world of TM parallels that of many others. What started off as a casual interest to relieve stress, morphed into an all encompassing way of life that lasted almost ten years.
Aryeh Siegel is a former teacher of Transcendental Meditation who left the cult and is revealing its hidden Hindu truths. He is the author of ‘Transcendental Deception’. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
INTELLIGENT PEOPLE ALSO GET DUPED
In the mid-1970s, I decided to become a TM teacher. My gradual immersion into the world of TM parallels that of many others. What started off as a casual interest to relieve stress, morphed into an all encompassing way of life that lasted almost ten years.
I had a master’s degree in Community Organization from the School of Social Welfare at Case-Western Reserve in Cleveland, and another from Berkeley in Public Health Planning. I had started practicing TM at the recommendation of my best friend at the time, a physician in the same graduate program at Berkeley.
$35 ENLIGHTENMENT
After attending the required introductory lectures, I signed up to learn TM the following Saturday. The initial sessions presented how TM worked and described the mantras used to meditate as simple sounds that had no meaning. During the follow-up sessions, I had exposure to Maharishi and his teachings, but I recall only being told that practicing TM would lead to something called “cosmic consciousness.” Supposedly, I would become enlightened for $35, which seemed a pretty good deal.
In addition to stress relief, I was interested in the potential role of TM as an adjunct to traditional medicine. Eventually, my focus took a turn to the spiritual side, and I started exploring Eastern religions and philosophy. At the TM center, I watched videos of Maharishi discussing higher consciousness and presenting TM as the superhighway to enlightenment.
INTO THE GURU’S LAIR
I attended weekend and week-long courses, and I was meditating significantly longer than twenty minutes, twice a day, as was recommended by the TM teachers who led these courses. Slowly but surely, I felt I was part of a movement. I had a guru who promised enlightenment, not only for me but also for the whole world.
When I took TM’s teacher-training course in 1974 (a six-month requirement), I had the option of dividing the program into two segments. My first session in the summer was held at a hotel in Livigno, Italy, in the Alps. From what I recall, the routine entailed eight hours of daily meditation, each session lasting forty to fifty minutes.
Livigno, Italy. A fine place to meditate!
Between meditations, we did a set of yogic postures (asanas) and five minutes of breathing exercises (pranayama). Evening videos featured Maharishi discussing how TM worked, higher consciousness, and his vision for a harmonious world that would automatically result if enough people meditated. (According to him, we were the leaders of a coming global transformation.)
FINDING HOLES IN THE HOLINESS OF THE HOLY MAN
Maharishi visited the course three times, each time staying for a few days. His first visit came when we were about two months into the three-month course. We expected he would come towards the end of the course. We were told this was a very rare surprise visit, and even though it was no longer a surprise, the excitement was palpable and the energy electric; this was quite a feat given how spaced out we were from all the meditation we had been doing.
Why all the excitement? The answer for me, why I was excited, is embarrassing even some forty plus years later. The words that best describe my state of mind are enchantment, enraptured, awe, and devotion. I had never been in the same room with someone that I considered “holy,” let alone someone who was introduced everywhere as “his holiness.” I had advanced degrees from outstanding universities, and I turned off my critical thinking and normally analytical personality. I was “wow and bow” and devotion. It was emotionally overwhelming. The embarrassment I now feel is a recognition of how I let myself become so infantilized.
GETTING HIGH IN THE ALPS
There were probably a hundred of us in the course. Every one of us had interrupted our lives; most traveling long distances and paying a lot of money to somehow find our way to this hotel nestled in a small village in the Italian Alps, about a twenty-minute drive St. Moritz. We all had our own reasons for showing up. I came because I believed Maharishi offered a path to enlightenment. I had just come through a very rough divorce and enlightenment meant an end to the suffering I had been experiencing for a long time. I think at least a few others were in the same boat, leaving behind something better left in their personal rear-view mirrors.
St. Moritz: A very pleasant place to meditate.
ELIMINATE CRIME, BRING PEACE TO THE WORLD, AND OTHER PROMISES
Another aspect of Maharishi’s teachings appealed to that part of me that went into both social work and public health as career choices. My exploration of Eastern spiritual practices and teachings was interesting at first, but ultimately disappointing.
I discovered that enlightenment was an individual path that involved finding a guru and basically detaching from the world. Maharishi, on the other hand, not only talked about higher consciousness but also ending suffering for everyone. Crime would be eliminated, and lasting peace would come to the world. We, his missionaries, would spearhead this world transformation.
From the videos I watched before the course, I experienced Maharishi as clever, quick witted, and charming. He was certainly the most spiritual person I had ever encountered, and I had no doubt whatsoever that he was enlightened. I was counting the hours until he came.
MAHARISHI VISITS. I SNEEZE.
Preparing for his visit, the staff scrubbed everything down and set up the meeting hall with chairs in a semicircle with a wide aisle separating them in the middle. I assumed Maharishi would walk down the middle aisle to the little stage with a seat that was set up for him. I made a plan to get a seat towards the front next to the middle aisle, which I did. The morning of the visit, bouquets of flowers surrounded his designated seat and a wonderful fragrance filled the room. A low table, covered with a white cloth, was placed in front of his seat and a microphone was set up on it.
I knew that when Maharishi entered a room, it was always a spectacle. He would slowly walk through adoring crowds, and those who could get close enough would present him with the most perfect rose they could buy. By the time he arrived at his seat, his arms were filled with roses, one of which he would use as a prop when he spoke.
Our group planned to do the same. Everyone was rose-ready, but then another surprise. Instead of lining up to greet him with our flowers, we were going to be meditating as he walked in. The disappointment of missing the entrance procession would be tempered by Maharishi himself telling us to open our eyes. It seemed like a good trade, but it’s not like we were given a choice. My seat choice was excellent — third row on the right aisle as he entered.
Naturally, when I sensed he was coming in, I peeked. As he was passing my row, he slid off his wooden sandals, and that’s where they stayed until he finished talking some hours later. I knew he would have to pause by my seat on the way out to slip on his sandals. My sense of abject embarrassment writing these words is tempered by the understanding I’ve gained about the danger of surrendering one’s critical thinking to a guru.
Fatefully, sneezing (of all things) got in the way of my fast track to enlightenment. The menu was vegetarian and always included full-fat yogurt, nuts, and whole-grain breads. As nutritious as it seemed, I was unaccustomed to that much dairy and wheat and started sneezing a great deal, and I was consistently congested. So, the breathing exercises never went well, and my meditations no doubt were affected. Thus, while the scenery was spectacular, the full experience eluded me. Nevertheless, I went to work for the movement.
Eventually the spell was lifted, the facade dissolved around Maharishi’s holiness, and I left the movement. Not only did I get out of the cult and start thinking for myself again, but I could finally eat foods that didn’t make me feel sick…
[Excerpt from ‘Transcendental Deception’. Get the book at amazon.com]
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
p17–19. Blog #3
YOGIC FLYING: MEDITATE YOUR WAY TO A KNEE REPLACEMENT
Aryeh Siegel is a former teacher of Transcendental Meditation who left the cult and is revealing its hidden Hindu truths. He is the author of ‘Transcendental Deception’. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
My wife and I were teachers of Transcendental Meditation during the mid-1970’s and we were part of the ‘siddha’ program, an advanced course that TM promised would lead to enlightenment. We were both teachers of TM and so deep in the cult that at the time we could no longer distinguish reality from the fictions perpetuated by Maharishi.
We followed the siddha directions faithfully. We paid a monthly fee to participate in group siddha meditations in a foam-lined warehouse in West Los Angeles. Although I devoted well over four hours a day to TM and the siddhis for well over a year, I did not experience anything Maharishi promised. Nor, from what I could tell, did anyone else.
BOUNCING ON OUR BUTTS (but no enlightenment)
What was called levitation was a total joke. While most people think of levitation as hovering in mid-air, in the TM world it consisted of mostly younger, more athletic siddhas hopping around on their butts on thick, dense foam pretending they were flying through the air. Maharishi had to do some fancy footwork to explain the absurdity of what was happening. In the process, he brilliantly redefined what normal, everyday people meant by levitation. He said the hopping was the “first stage” of levitation and called it “yogic flying.” (This first stage has now lasted well over forty years.) Based on my total lack of results, I was happy that that since I was a TM executive, my course was free.
I also recognized that other aspects of TM were failing me. Importantly, my strong research background led to a troubling realization: nearly every study done by TM researchers was at least biased, short term, had no or inadequate control groups, and most were poorly designed. To be fair, I had to include the study that I co-authored at Folsom Prison in that assessment.
At that point, I stood at a career crossroads.
A NEW DAUGHTER
I thought that strengthening my skills in research design and analysis would make me a more valuable resource if the movement was interested in higher quality studies. If not, I could move on with a marketable skill set. In 1977, I was accepted into a Ph.D. program in behavioral science research in the UCLA School of Public Health. By that September, I was a full-time student, working full-time in my TM position, and doing my TM and siddha program four hours a day. Also, we had a new baby daughter.
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF JERRY JARVIS
My life was complicated, but it was about to become much simpler. For reasons that remain unclear to me to this day, TM’s hierarchy changed dramatically. Without any explanation, Jerry Jarvis, who ran TM in the U.S., disappeared from the national center. Next to Maharishi, Jerry was the most beloved person in TM. I can’t remember what we thought had happened to him; I only remember feeling uncomfortable that he was there one day and gone the next, with no explanation. Then, the office was reorganized and a bunch of dreary, dour, gloomy, cheerless replacements arrived. Within a few weeks, my wife and I, along with almost everyone else, were told to leave.
We continued to meditate, and our programs continued to average about two hours in the morning and two in the evening. I’d like to say I remember the time “flying” by, but it didn’t. The program was highly structured. It included thirty to forty minutes of TM, repetition of the nineteen English phrases (sutras) that comprised the various siddhis we were given, breathing techniques (pranayama), yogic postures (asanas), and rest periods. Every session was capped off with reading about Hindu gods who are fighting malignant demons in a Hindu scripture known as the ninth mandala of the rig veda. So much for TM claims not to be a religious practice.
LEVITATING IN THE GARAGE
Eventually, we stopped going to the group “flying” program. We put foam mattress pads in our garage and did our program at home. It gave us more flexibility and cut down travel time to and from the meditation warehouse, along with saving the monthly fee.
DEMOTED AND UNENLIGHTENED
Some months later, a woman who identified herself as from the TM national office called to inform us that we were no longer welcome at the group meditation center and that our admission badges had to be returned. When I asked why, she said we had “disowned the movement.” We didn’t care, because we had moved on with our lives. Still, it was strange as we had never said anything negative about Maharishi or the TM organization.
Although it was upsetting at the time, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Before long we saw that we had been lied to by TM and that the only thing achieved by ‘Yogic Flying’ was that you could cause damage to your knees. I eventually had a knee replacement. I left the cult. Many people were not so lucky.[This is an excerpt from Transcendental Deception. Get your copy at amazon.com]
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family. Discover more at www.tmdeception.com
Blog 5
MEDITATE. IT’S FREE.
By tracking the contribution a person’s desire for health had on his or her health, I found the clues of a scientifically profound source of healing. I call this source “remembered wellness” — Dr Hebert Benson
(p20, TIMELESS HEALING: The POWER and BIOLOGY of BELIEF’)
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