Suggestions for further research
Web sites that are critical of TM...
TM-Free. This is a blog with several highly knowledgeable ex-TMer contributors. These are people who know where the bodies are buried.
Coming To Life Stories. This is Gina Catena's blog. I mention her in my discussion of David Lynch. She literally grew up in the "TM Movement" (as TMers like to call it) and also knows where the bodies are buried. She is also a frequent contributor to the TM-Free blog mentioned above.
Behind the TM Facade (specializes in very effectively debunking TM's claims to "scientific validation")
Meditation Information Network (don't miss the TM-EX Newsletter Archive and the TM Dissenter's FAQ )
Web sites that educate the public about destructive cults
International Cultic Studies Association.
Steven Hassan's Resource Center for Freedom of Mind
Cult Awareness & Information Centre
Books that educate the public about destructive cults
The best single book to start with is Combatting Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan. This book is an excellent popular introduction to the psychological techniques used by destructive cults to surreptitiously alter their recruits' experience of reality.
I also recommend Hassan's second book, Releasing The Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves.
Another excellent book is Cults in Our Midst by Margaret Thaler Singer, Janja Lalich, and Robert Jay Lifton. Dr. Margaret Singer is emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, and is one of the foremost contributors to the understanding of the psychological influence techniques used by destructive cults in order to recruit and retain members. There are many references in the book to "empty mind meditation." Before publication she had originally specifically written "Transcendental Meditation" instead, but a professor at MUM caught wind of it and she was threatened with a SLAPP suit that she didn't want to have to defend.
TM and Cult Mania was the book that introduced me to how TM worked via trance and suggestion. It is written by Michael A. Persinger Ph.D. He is Coordinator of the Behavioural Neuroscience Program at Laurentian University.
Web sites that are favorable toward TM...
Ask the Doctors (This site is a hoot! I discuss it here).
Fun with TM web links
- Here's a fascinating new angle on the Evolution of Man. I recommend the whole thing, but if you get tired of it be sure to at least search for "2001" before giving up.
- Have a look at The Maharishi Channel. Just click around, there are hours and hours of fun here. "Coronation of New Rajas" is pretty cool.
- Are these guys really hovering?
- Click on some of these trademarks.
- Make "Global Good News" your primary news source every day!
- TM has a King of the World.
- Maharaja Raam is is anxious to help (and in a big way!).
- In fact, Maharaja Raam will lead the world to a state of "non-good nowhere"!
- Not only do they go out in public in those things, but they give speeches! In this video David Lynch introduces the Raja of Germany at a press conference being held to announce the purchase of a site for Berlin's new Tower of Invincibility (that's what the building in the picture is). The Raja starts to spout torrents of standard TM-babble but the German crowd is apparently culturally very perceptive of snow-jobs.
- Maharaja Raam's "Global Country of World Peace" issues its own currency. It's pegged to the dollar.
- Help make your nation become "invincible" by becoming a yogic flyer!
- Get your horoscope cast, not just by any old astrologer but by a special Maharishi-branded astrologer.
- If your horoscope says that things are looking dark then don't panic, you can make sacrifices to the Vedic gods to make things ok again. (Hey, that's cool if you're Hindu but this is supposed to be a completely secular relaxation technique that's being taught!)
- You can also help dig yourself out of a karmic hole by living in a house built according to Maharishi-branded (of course) Indian feng shui. This will help because the orientation of the house means everything!
- In fact, as a TMer you'll buy just about anything with a "Maharishi" brand!. The "Maharishi Vedic Observatory" is just amazing. Click on the yantras (those things in the ring) to read about the "Vedic influence" of each according to "Maharishi Vedic Science." And the Observatory is easy to use! All you have to do is to look at the thing (search for "How to Use") and "ten kinds of specific balancing influences are enlivened in the physiology." Ordering is easy! It's a mere $4.000 and comes with its own maple table and domed cover!
- Here's an experiment:
- Please meet John Hagelin, Ph.D., Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy at Maharishi University of Management, and Minister of Science and Technology of the Global Country of World Peace. Whew.
- The experiment involves listening to his "important message for all military leaders." Go to his website at the link above, find "Dr. Hagelin presents the Invincible Defense Technology", and click on the "Watch on Flash" link just below.
- Listen to it for a full 15 minutes, making your best effort to follow his arguments.
- Did your mind sort of glaze over while listening, enough so that you had to struggle somewhat to resume your effort to pay attention? In other words, did you get a bit spaced out? You may have gone into a light trance. Listening to extended complicated nonsense delivered in a pleasant monotone is a form of trance induction. You only had to listen for 15 minutes, but a TMer would have listened to the entire hour and a quarter! TMers, who have already proven themselves to be susceptible to trance induction, listen to thousands of hours of this sort of thing during their careers.
