The Honest Truth About TM

Article rejected when Transcendental Meditation researchers caught data "massaging"

2011-07-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

Transcendental Meditation researchers have a long history of deceptive "research" practices spanning decades. Transcendental Meditation research has often been performed and promoted by longtime Transcendental Meditation associates, initiators and zealots, rather than by sincere, independent scientists.

If recent behaviour is any indication, rather than improving their research over the decades, Transcendental Meditation researchers have simply become better liars. Rather then promoting the discovery of truth, they've instead become an outlet for exaggeration and under-handed misrepresentation of findings, in the name of promoting and selling an overpriced meditation technique.

Enter a recent study the Archives of Internal Medicine and a gullible reporter at the Telegraph.

The Telegraph beamed rumours of a 50% reduction in heart attacks and strokes on their website, but mere minutes before publication the Archives of Internal Medicine pulled the paper. As it turns out, there was "additional data" that was still being submitted by the researchers at the very last minute.

On closer examination, the research looks highly suspect and very likely the result of "data massaging", the unscientific manipulation of data to assure a certain end. In this case there seems to be a great desire by the Transcendental Meditation Org researchers to have their brand of meditation look good to sell more of their product, the TM pagan-goddess mantras.

According the Forbes.com blog of Larry Husten, Ph.D., a veteran reviewer of cardiology studies, the study seems at best represent "hypothesis generating", that is, it does not represent final conclusions but merely preliminary gropings for answers. "They tell us absolutely nothing about the actual value of TM" Husten points out.

Here a few "items of concern" listed in the Forbes entry:

Although 201 patients are reported in the analysis, the study assessed 451 patients for eligibility and randomized 213 patients.
Of the 105 patients randomized to TM, 19 didn’t even receive TM.
12 patients– 6 in each arm– were randomized but then excluded because they did not meet the trial’s inclusion criteria.
41 patients– 20 in the TM arm, 21 in the control arm– were lost to followup.

Dr. Husten goes on to point out the more ominous problems with the study:

But my biggest concern is with the analysis of the primary endpoint, which was the composite of all-cause mortality, MI, or stroke. This occurred in 17 patients in the TM group compared with 23 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 notmake an adjustment, although in both cases the imbalance would appear to favor the TM group. In other words, to use the old cliché, they tortured the data until they made it talk. Strange behavior, perhaps, for supposedly laid back TM types, no?

Looks like TM researchers have been caught once again at what they do best: dishonesty, advertising their product(s) and trying to pose it as real science.

Excellent article from Andrew Skolnick's Blog on Wikipedia and the TM Org

2010-04-26T07:06:00.000-07:00

An interesting blog entry from veteran TM commentator and investigator, Andrew Skolnick, detailing the funny business going on over at Wikipedia, the perfect Encyclopedia for TM Cult members, as they scam their way into it's entries:

Something Wiki This Way Comes

I recently was prompted to return to the wacky world of Wikipedia to help responsible editors win yet another arbitration dispute against others who are flacking for outside interests. About 4 years ago, I quit contributing to this massive encyclopedia project that allows virtually anyone to be an editor. I came to the conclusion that the endless fights to stop defenders of crooks, cults, cranks, and con artists from rewriting history wasn't worth the enormous effort.

One of the Wiki edit wars that drove me away, involved the Transcendental Meditation movement, the myriad-headed hydra of front groups and businesses that follow the teachings of the late-Beatles guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Many people, for good reasons, count the TM movement among the list of destructive cults. The movement has a large number of dedicated monks (Purushas), researchers, lawyers, and writers working hard to scrub the public record clean of damaging information, while placing favorable articles promoting the Maharishi's many products, services, and unique view of reality.

I first began writing about the TM movement in 1991, when I published a lengthy investigative report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, (Skolnick AA. Maharishi Ayur-Veda: guru's marketing scheme promises the world eternal 'perfect health.' JAMA.1991;266:1741-1750.), which won a number of awards, as well as a $194 million SLAPP suit from Deepak Chopra (who was then working for the Maharishi) and two TM groups. Although the suit was quickly dismissed without prejudice, the AMA's publications ceased reporting on TM's alternative health businesses. It didn't stop me.

Although I may come to regret this as a waste of time, I've ended my self-imposed exile to help editors defend against TM editors taking over control of Wikipedia articles on the movement's leaders and many front groups. I've presented evidence of its highly effective campaign to infiltrate and deceive academic and research institutions and publications. Because, I believe this testimony deserves a wider audience, I'm posting it here with links to the ongoing arbitration:Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Transcendental Meditation movement/Evidence

=Evidence Presented by Andrew Skolnick=
I was a Wikipedia editor until I was driven away about 4 years ago, frustrated by a similar campaign of outsiders hell bent on controlling articles affecting them (some of whom appear to be involved in this dispute). This current dispute just came to my attention. As a recognized authority on the deceptive practices of Transcendental Meditation researchers and spokespersons, I think it is important that I provide evidence of the TM movement's long-standing and widespread campaign to infiltrate and deceive academic and scientific institutions. For background on my published research on the TM movement’s fraudulent and deceptive practices: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Askolnick/evidence&action=edit=Evidence of Dishonest Editing by Kbob=
In his effort to defend censoring out information attributed to my JAMA article, Kbob strung together a string of blatant falsehoods:
"I also suggest we remove the sentence: [Early promotional posters for program offered TM practitioners powers of Yogic Flying, invisibility, the ability to walk through walls, and have the 'strength of an elephant.'] as the reference source given is a JAMA news article on Maharishi Ayurveda and the TM-Sidhi program is never mentioned in the article. Also 'promotional posters' are never mentioned either." [Emphasis added.]
I discussed the TM-Sidhi program in 5 different places in my article (Skolnick AA. Maharishi Ayur-Veda: guru's marketing scheme promises the world eternal 'perfect health.' JAMA.1991;266:1741-1750.), including a quote from JAMA's editor Dr. George Lundberg explaining how the journal had been deceived by TM authors into publishing a PR piece:
"At that time, we did not know that 'Maharishi AyurVeda, Transcendental Meditation, and the TM-Sidhi programs promoted in the article are brands of health care products and services being marketed by the TM movement."[Emphasis added.]
I also reported how lucrative the TM-Sidhi program has been for the Maharishi:
"One extremely profitable example, reported in The Skeptical Inquirer (1980; 4:7-8), involved the rental of a gymnasium at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst during the summer of 1979 for TM's yogic flying courses. Three thousand students enrolled, one third of whom paid $3000 each to learn the Maharishi's TM-Sidhi program. According topromotional materials, the TM-Sidhi program allows one to master the forces of nature'to become invisible, walk through walls, fly through the air, and have the strength of an elephant.' The Skeptical Inquirer article says that the other students learned more down-to-earth TM skills for $800-$1000 tuition and that the TM movement reaped between $3 million and $5 million, before expenses, from the courses at the University of Massachusetts."[Emphasis added.]
The latter shows Kbob's second blatant falsehood. I clearly discussed TM's "promotional materials" that claim the TM-Sidhi program allows one to master the forces of nature to become invisible, walk through walls, fly through the air, and have "the strength of an elephant."

Other editors tried to inform Kbob of his errors with citations from my article, Kbob ignored them and continued to assert his false claim despite documentation to the contrary.

Kbob then topped it off with a final falsehood, implying that I wrote a possibly vindictive article because I had been sued by TM. That statement twists the facts far enough around to be considered libelous:
"Furthermore this article is written by Mr. Andrew Skolnick who was involved in a law suit with Maharishi Ayurveda so he is hardly a nuetral [sic] source for information."
I did not write the JAMA article on the deception of TM researchers because I was sued. I was sued because I wrote an article the TM movement wants badly to discredit. Kbob once again highlights TM's strategy: Sue critical reporters and then claim they had an "axe to grind" because we sued them.

If there is one "superpower" achieved through advanced TM training it is the power to tirelessly lie through one's teeth, as this shameless example demonstrates.
=Evidence of Dishonest Editing by Little Oliveoil=
In trying to delete information sourced to James Randi, a world-renowned authority on paranormal claims, Little Oliveoil deceptively claimed, "Randi is not a reliable source. He has a high school education and was a magician." Kbob followed that by repeating a slur written by mystery novel author Michael Presscott -- hardly an authority on the the physics of "yogic flying" or any other area of science: "From What I can tell Randi really is the Flim Flam man."

What is flim flam are efforts of the TM movement to censor Wikipedia though edit warring and ad hominem and dishonest attacks against TM's critics. For those who may not know why Randi is considered a leading authority on the deception used by paranormal scam artists, here are a few facts: Randi is a recipient of the prestigious and coveted MacArthur ("Genius Award") Fellowship. Among many other honors, he has received the Forum Award from the American Physical Society, the Humanist Distinguished Service Award from the American Humanist Association, honorary degrees from colleges and universities, and countless other awards for his work exposing the criminal acts and wrong doing of con artists who prey on people's ignorance and gullibility. His writings have appeared in major periodicals throughout the world -- Nature, New Scientist, the New York Times, Encyclopaedia Britannica Medical & Health Annual, Compton's Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Americana, Physics and Society,Technology Review, Los Angeles Times, to name a few.

This is the authority two TMers here tried to discredit as "a magician with only a high school education" and a "Flim Flam man." As long as TM's attack dogs are allowed to keep rewriting Wikipedia articles, this battle will continue ad nauseum and drive away contributors who decide to spend their time on more constructive projects.
=Rebuttal to Hickorybark=
Hickorybark is now resorting to the worst kind of McCarthyism:
"there is prima facie evidence of collusion between anti-TM editors and this anti-TM blog, funded for the sole purpose of discrediting the TM organization."
Hickorybark provides no evidence that I or any other editor is "colluding" with the author of this blog -- which I never heard of before following the link. Nor that I or any editor here is "funded" for our work on Wikipedia.

"Collusion" is defined as "a secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose." This defamation alone should be reason enough to suspend or revoke Hickorybark's editing privileges.
=Classic Example of TM spokespersons Lying About their Conflict of Interest=
It seems highly relevant to this debate to cite the case involving one of TM's leading researchers, Dr. Hari Sharma, who -- despite an admonishment from Ohio State University not to conceal his financial ties to TM -- kept lying to editors and reporters that he had no such conflicts of interest. After a particularly embarrassing case I reported, Ohio State University asked Sharma to take an early retirement. As reported in my article, A Study in Alternative Truth, Sharma repeatedly tried to deceive editors, reporters, and the scientific community about his financial ties to the TM movement:
Like many TM promoters, Hari Sharma, MD, practices what (in the interest of avoiding another frivolous SLAPP suit) I'll call "alternative truth." Here's a good example of what I mean:

On May 22, 1995, just weeks before taking early retirement from Ohio State University, where he was professor of pathology, Sharma chaired a session on Maharishi Ayur-Veda at the First International Congress on Alternative & Complementary Medicine, in Arlington, Va. During his presentation, Sharma described the many health benefits of TM, and Maharishi Ayur-Veda products and services. At the end of the session, Ridgley Ochs, a science reporter for Newsday, went up to the podium to speak with Sharma. As any good journalist would, she asked him if he had received funding from the company that sells the products described in his report.

"No," said Sharma.

"Then who funded your research?" Ochs asked. "I receive funding from the Maharishi Ayur-Veda Foundation," he replied. Outraged by this obfuscation, I jumped in: "Yes, and Maharishi Ayur-Veda Foundation owns MAPI [Maharishi Ayur-Veda Products International], Inc, which is the company that sells the products described in your report."

"I do not know about that," Sharma said. "You certainly do know about that," I said. "You have a million dollar grant from the Maharishi Ayur-Veda Foundation, which owns the marketing company MAPI."

How do I know he "knows about that"? Because I have a copy of the results of Ohio State University's investigation of conflict of interest charges that were brought against Sharma in 1991. In the report, a university's Committee of Inquiry admonished Sharma for not disclosing a major grant from the foundation that owns the company that markets the products he studies.

Sharma looked surprised. He took a step forward to read my press badge, which read: "Andrew Skolnick, The Skeptical Inquirer" -- the publication for which I was covering the conference. Turning to his followers, he said, "Oh, this is that journalist who thinks there is something wrong in taking money for research."

"No, I do not think it is wrong for a researcher to take money," I said. "I think it is wrong for a researcher to take money and then to lie to journalists that they don't."
Followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi never see themselves as having a conflict of interest because their interest is the only True interest. Those who oppose the Maharishi's will are the ones who have conflicting interests. The followers of their late guru have a truly interesting way of looking at the world upside down.

=About My Published Research on the TM Movement’s Fraudulent and Deceptive Practices=
In 1991, as an associate news editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), I published a lengthy investigative report on the deceptive tactics the TM movement uses to promote its high-priced and unproven nostrums. I was given the assignment after JAMA's editors learned they had been tricked into publishing a deceptive TM promotional article written by Deepak Chopra (who was then the chief promoter of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's remedies) and two TM co-authors, Dr. Hari Sharma and B.D. Triguna (Skolnick, Andrew, "Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Guru's Marketing Scheme Promises World Eternal `Perfect Health," October 2, 1991, JAMA. 266 [13]: 1769–74). (Here's another report on Sharma's continued use of deception regarding his research.)

Shortly after, the editor of ScienceWriters: The Newsletter of the National Association of Science Writersasked me to write an article on how the TM movement was able to infiltrate and bamboozle scientific institutions and publications to provide its pseudoscientific and occult claims the appearance of scientific credibility. (Skolnick, Andrew, Fall 1991, "The Maharhishi Caper: Or How to Hoodwink Top Medical Journals". 'ScienceWriters.)

In response, the TM movement filed a $194 million SLAPP suit against me and JAMA's editor, Dr. George Lundberg. Although the suit failed to identify a single defamatory statement in my report and was quickly dismissed without prejudice, it achieved its desired effect: The AMA ceased reporting on TM affairs and it put heavy pressure on me to stop writing about TM.

The frivolous suit also gave TM spinmeisters the argument that I was NOT an objective reporter because I was a litigant "with an axe to grind." They further deceived the public by telling Newsweek and other news media that they had prevailed in their libel suit, falsely claiming we had "settled for an undisclosed amount" of money. There was no such settlement. Indeed, TM's threat of refiling that suit hung over the AMA's head as a means to keep the AMA and me quiet.

More recently, I had to go after TM's Ayurvedic operations in Germany after they published a counterfeit letter it claimed was sent by Ohio State University which they said showed I had lied about Dr. Hari Sharma. They removed the fraudulent letter from their web site after I obtained a statement from Ohio State University's Assistant Vice President for Research Communications that the university never wrote such a letter.

I continue to watch in dismay as TM researchers and publicists mislead and deceive editors, other researchers, and the public. In my opinion, the dispute being arbitrated here results from the ongoing efforts of the TM movement to infiltrate and deceive scientific and academic institutions.

I don't know which editors involved in this arbitration dispute are legitimate and which are not, but I do know that the TM movement has many writers, editors, and PR people working hard at their guru's plan to bring "Heaven on Earth." I am not surprised some have dedicated themselves to removing anything from Wikipedia they think might hinder that plan.

To give an example of the absurd lengths the Transcendental Meditation's PR machine will go to promote Maharishi's world plan, here is one of my favorite news releases written by Dean Draznin, a tireless TM Purusha (monk) who was and may still be a chief PR person for the TM organization (he now has a PR firmin Fairfield, Iowa). In this news release, he claims a group of TM "Yogic Fliers" saved Texas from the terrible wrath of Hurricane Gilbert by bouncing on their butts to "enliven the unified field" and "increase coherence" throughout society and nature. I'm still looking for the news release reporting how a bunch of TM Yogic Fliers saved New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. What Maharishi's army of "researchers" and flacks mostly do is look for "arrows" they can "draw bulls-eyes around," and then find a publication gullible or careless enough to publish their "scientific evidence."

There is an elephant in the room that some in this dispute don't want others to notice: Fairfield, Iowa is a company town and that company is the Transcendental Meditation movement, which owns and controls the university and scores of TM businesses and front groups in Fairfield. Hundreds of people in the that community are dedicated to convincing the world to buy TM services, products, and its dubious and often deceitful "scientific research." It is no surprise that nearly all the attempts to turn Wikipedia into a promotional guide to the World of Transcendental Mediation is coming from ISPs in or around Fairfield, Iowa.

My JAMA article concludes with a quote from Curtis Mailloux describing the "SIMS shuffle," a skill he said he learned while a member of the Student International Meditation Society, one of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's many front groups.

"I was taught to lie and to get around the pretty rules of the 'unenlightened' in order to get favorable reports into the media," says Mailloux, a former TM teacher and chair of the TM center in Washington, DC. "We were taught how to exploit the reporters' gullibility and fascination with the exotic, especially what comes from the East. We thought we weren't doing anything wrong, because we were told it was often necessary to deceive the unenlightened to advance our guru's plan to save the world."

The question for this arbitration group is whether Wikipedia should be open to editors who dance the SIMS shuffle.
=Rebuttal to Kevin Carmody=
Kevin Carmody states: "Peer review often significantly delays publication, but it removes much of the doubt about author bias."

Anyone knowledgeable about the peer review process of scientific publications knows this is naive, wishful thinking. In my ScienceWriters article, I quote a noted authority on the peer review process, Dr. Drummond Rennie:
"There seems to be no study too fragmented, no hypothesis too trivial, no literature too biased or too egotistical, no design too warped, no methodology too bungled, no presentation of results too inaccurate, too obscure, and too contradictory, no analysis too self-serving, no argument too circular, no conclusions too trifling or too unjustified, and no grammar and syntax too offensive for a paper to end up in print."
Indeed, it took the Hagelin six years to find a journal willing to publish its 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. ("Effects of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Preventing Violent Crime in Washington, D.C.: Results of the National Demonstration Project, June-July 1993" was published June 1999.)

Recent scandals involving major scientific publications show that researchers continue to deceive journal editors and readers about their financial conflicts of interest and often fudge their data or completely make them up. The most recent example finally led the prestigious journal Lancet this month to retract a 12-year-old fraudulent study that supposedly linked the rising incidence of autism to the the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. It turned out the lead author Dr. Andrew Wakefield, who made many false statements in his Lancet study, received financial support from lawyers representing parents suing the vaccine companies. In addition, he owned a patent on a different measles vaccine that could have made him extremely rich if the current vaccine were withdrawn or discredited. So much for the power of peer review to remove "doubt about author bias." It took 12 years for the fraudulent article to be retracted. Meanwhile many hundreds of children were hospitalized and some died from these infectious diseases because their parents were scared away from vaccinating them.

For Wikipedia not to become a joke, it is imperative that its administrators make sure parties with serious financial interests are NOT allowed to control the editing process for any article.
=Rebuttal to Hickorybark=
Hickorybark says that I agree "the TM organization has acquired 'the appearance of scientific credibility' in the mainstream scientific establishment." Here is what I believe is an example of a TM spinmeister at work. I never said this because it's simply not true.

Infiltrating publications and bamboozling some naive and gullible editors is not the same as "acquiring the appearance of scientific credibility in mainstream scientific establishment."

Indeed, most scientists familiar with TM's brand of religious-based pseudoscience are not the least impressed with the movement's efforts to repeal the law of gravity or replace the scientific method with magical thinking. John Hagelin, TM's physicist-turned-perennial-TM-candidate-for-President-of-the-United-States, inspires mostly head shaking and tittering among the world's leading cosmologists and physicists. Indeed, Hagelin suffered the indignity of winning an Ig Nobel Prize in 1994 for his study that claimed TM butt bouncers lowered the crime rate in Washington, DC. In his book Voodoo Science, physicist Robert Park called the TM study "a clinic in data manipulation," noting that during the TM yogic flying experiment, Washington, DC's murder count "hit the highest level ever recorded." (Hagelin's rebuttal -- no pun intended -- was that the murder rate would have been even higher if the TMers weren't in Washington bouncing on their butts.)

MIT and Harvard biologists -- who witnessed Tony Nader start his rise through the ranks of TM science to wear a heavy, solid gold crown as he struts around TM circles as "His Majesty Raja Nader Raam" and "The the First Sovereign Ruler of the Global Country of World Peace -- are no more impressed with the credibility of TM science then they were when Nader misused his connections to those institutions to help deceptively sell Maharishi's herbal remedies.

The scientific community overwhelmingly either ignores or rejects the bulk of TM's religious beliefs that have been deceptively repackaged as Maharishi's new age science of cosmic consciousness. If you have any doubt of this, go ask your nearest climatologist or astrophysicist whether TMers are able to chase killer hurricanes away by flying through the air yogically with legs crossed in the "lotus position," as TM "scientists" claime(ed).

So I could not disagree more with Hickorybark that TM "science" has acquired the appearance of scientific credibility in the mainstream scientific establishment.

What I did write, here and in a number of respected publications, is that members of the TM movement have been able to infiltrate many publications and educational institutions to help conduct a PR campaign aimed at selling TM's trademarked programs and products. And that's exactly what they appear to be doing with Wikipedia'.

I also dispute Hickorybark's argument that I have a "conflict of interest" because TM hit me with a SLAPP suit in an effort to stop me from reporting on its dishonest researchers. That argument has the cruel irony of the joke about the sociopathic teenager who killed his mother and father and then pleaded for mercy because he is an orphan.

A key defense strategy the TM movement uses against critical reporting is to sue or threaten to sue editors and reporters who don't backoff -- and then to attack the journalists as having a "conflict of interest" because they were sued.

A few months after hitting JAMA's editor and me with its $194 million SLAPP suit, the TM movement threatened the editor of Oncology Times with similar treatment unless she published a 3000-word-minimum article written by TM researchers. The attempt at extortion was reported by science writer Keay Davidson ("A New Tactic: Print Our Data or We'll Sue," San Francisco Examiner, April 16, 1993):

"What does concern me," Davidson wrote, "is a much larger issue -- one posed by the last paragraph of [Maharishi University of Management (MUM)'s General Counsel William] Goldstein's letter to Oncology Times:"
"To mitigate the damage caused by your October article, we further require the printing of a response piece to be written by leading researchers and/or clinicians in the field of Maharishi Ayur-Veda, which will provide an overview of the work being done in this field and its relevance to medical practice. This article should be a minimum of 3000 words in length."
Davidson points out the horror if TM's strategy spreads: "Scientific journals might be forced to publish articles on every idea under the sun by any pseudoscientific movement with substantial financial and legal clout."

The publisher and editor of Oncology Times stood up to attorney William Goldstein's threat, but not all publishers have the integrity and the bank account to withstand an expensive SLAPP suit. Some simply retract the story and some may publish articles touting TM "science."

In JAMA's case, the TM movement withdrew its libel suit to allow the journal to consider publishing a "science article" written by TM researchers. The article TM submitted was rejected twice following recommendations of outside reviewers. The TM movement did not refile its suit. They instead let it hang over the AMA's head to keep us quiet, while publicly making false claims that we had "settled for an undisclosed amount."

The record on this matter is clear: TM's suit was dismissed without prejudice in just 8 months. It resulted in no payment of any damages, in no apology, and in no retraction of anything I reported in either JAMAor ScienceWriters. What I reported in JAMA nearly 20 years ago remains one of the most cited records of the deceptive practices of TM scientists and promoters in the peer-review literature. What that suit did accomplish, however, was to stop the AMA's publications from ever again reporting critically on TM's deceptive research.

The TM movement's campaign to stifle criticism with threats of SLAPP suits continues -- as is clear from this blog a few weeks ago reporting how MUM's General Counsel William Goldstein's threats of legal action led to examiner.com's removal of Doug Mesner's critical article of TM's claims and research. Mesner has republished the article and is daring TM's lawyer to sue.

This record shows a nearly two-decades long policy of suing or threatening to sue its critics, so that its spinmeisters can dismiss the criticism as having come from "biased" sources who have an "axe to grind." It reminds me of the ploy Charley Manson pulled during his trial for the murder of Sharon Tate, the Biancas, and others. Manson held up the ''L.A. Times'' with its 4-inch banner headline saying "Manson Guilty, [President] Nixon Declares," and then asked for a mistrial because the jury were biased by the president's comment. Judge Charles Older, who had kept the jury sequestered so that they would not be influenced by news reports, refused Mason's request, citing the long-held principle in law that wrong-doers are not to be rewarded for their wrong doing.

I believe my record of achievements and awards for investigative reporting from journalism and humanitarian groups show the only bias I'm guilty of having is a bias against falsehoods, fraud, and the abuse of the powerless by the powerful. That's the bias I was ''taught'' at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism by some great journalists and mentors, like Fred Friendly, who with Edward R. Murrow, stood up to the intimidation and threats of Sen. Joseph McCarthy -- the evil scoundrel who gave his name to this kind of smear by baseless insinuations.

"Mental Sinking" and TM

2010-03-11T11:47:00.000-08:00

From "Adam".

I am against TM having had a bad experience of it. At the age of 14 I read a book called ‘Tranquility without Pills’ which was all about Transcendental Meditation. I was extremely inspired and set about trying to find someone who could initiate me into the technique. I found someone who could teach me the technique for about £300, and although this must have represented my entire paperound salary for ten weeks I don’t remember being put off by this (and have nothing to say one way or the other on this count).

Anyway, I went along to learn about it and was taught about the different levels of mind and how we normally sought to solve problems on the conscious level of mind which just ended in us going around in conceptual circles. Instead, I was taught, we needed to solve our problems by absorbing into an subtler level of mind.

TM, I was taught, was different from other forms of meditation in which the emphasis was on concentration in that it taught people to reach a subtler level of mind, which wasn’t possible with concentration alone.

I was taught a mantra which I was requested to promise to keep secret (a promise I have kept and I have no particular problem with this either), and I was taught to meditate on this mantra by relaxing into it and allowing it to become subtler and subtler.

Definitely TM induces and extremely relaxing state of body and mind, but it induces mental fogginess. From a Buddhist point of view it is basically training in mental sinking which is a state of meditative concentration in which we have hold on the object of meditation but in which our clarity of it is fading. Mental sinking is a form of faulty concentration and yet is the essence of the practice of TM.

The effect of TM on me was to make me increasingly angry and confused. I started shouting at my family more and more. Eventally after a year and a half or so I decided to give it up without knowing quite why – a decision I am very grateful for.

Subsequently I started going to Buddhist classes and was taught a very simple breathing meditation which has helped me far more than TM ever did. Although the money has never been an issue of me, it is perhaps worth noting that for the Buddhist classes I was only charged £4 per class – significantly less than I paid for TM.

What really was significant for me was that the simple breathing meditation taught to me through Buddhism was far better for me in terms of gaining a sense of clarity of mind than TM had ever been. Also of vital significance was that far from telling me that conscious though was the problem Buddhism taught me to use conscious thought to understand and resolve my problems, both in and outside of meditation.

People need to be discerning customers when it comes to meditation as not all meditations are the same. Any meditation technique can be harmful if practised over-zealously.

If people want a simple meditation that will enable them to develop and maintain peace of mind I would recommend that they try to attend introductory classes on Buddhist meditation which will introduce them to breathing meditation as taught in most traditions of Buddhism.

More Unimpressive Transcendental Meditation Research

2010-03-11T06:27:00.000-08:00

A recent study published in the low-impact journal "Cognitive Processing" by TM Org employees Fred Travis, David A. F. Haaga , John Hagelin, Melissa Tanner, Alaric Arenander, Sanford Nidich, Carolyn Gaylord-King, Sarina Grosswald, Maxwell Rainforth and Robert H. Schneider claims to (once again) establish significance for that which is well known to be insignificant.

In other words: another typical TM "scientitific" study in a journal most people will have never heard of.

The paper, A self-referential default brain state: patterns of coherence, power, and eLORETA sources during eyes-closed rest and Transcendental Meditation practice, attempts to draw conclusions about the nebulous "alpha power" much talked of in TM literature as some magical brain wave signature.

Alpha EEG waves (or more commonly simply "alpha") is a common artifact of everyday human life. Coherent alpha is needed for everyday function of our brains and in no way represents anything extraordinary. We all have it, if we are healthy. The TM organization researchers would like us to think different. Thus we see numerous studies over several decades trying to convince us of the magical, consciousness expanding qualities associated with this brain signal. No one else seems to buy it except these guys, as they still keep talking about it long after their scientific peers have called such speculations "exaggerated" or "premature" [2007, The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness].

Despite the collective yawn in the scientific community these TM scientist-fans keep pumping out more unimpressive material than just about anyone and make sure we all hear about how important they think it is by pushing it to every media outlet that will listen to their sales pitch and every web site that will allow them to post it.

The problem is many of the tasks associated with TM, esp. listening to or for a faint sound (in this case a mantra), are known to cause fairly long (several minutes long) bursts of alpha coherence. So I don't know if the question of whether or not the alpha power is greater with TM is therefore explained with the current study design.

Even if it was, the significance and relevance of "increased alpha power" in TMers is pretty low. They might as well be investigating bums on Skid Row. They're relaxed too, so they probably exhibit many of these same miraculous TM features, as will any relaxed person.

As the great pioneer in EEG interpretation, Barbara Brown, states "Concluding anything about alpha is perilous."

But conclude they do. Their latest spin on the TM alpha craze is that it represents the "ground state" of the human brain. (One would have thought the unusual flat EEG seen in some advanced meditators would have been the best candidate for this claim).

Unfortunately the subjects they chose and their timing does not make for a good baseline, let alone any sort of "ground state". Academic neurologist James Austin [Zen and the Brain] points out:

"When TM meditators were studied, it was found that they were relatively tense to begin with during the control period. This initial “tension response” was prompted by the mental stress of their entering the artificial experimental situation itself. Thereafter, although their metabolic rate did fall during meditation, most of this drop could be attributed to their subsequently becoming more at ease and reducing their muscle tension."

Measuring college students during finals week, would quite obviously enhance this same effect (tension response vs. relaxation response). The fact that researchers placed the student is a deliberately "tense" situation (college finals week) and then induced a relaxation response with TM, just makes the change in relaxation and alpha power appear greater, because the difference compared to baseline is thereby exaggerated.

Classic TM researcher manipulation of baseline. An old TM Org trick. Didn't fool me. The real question is how many people will they fool?

Maharishi University of Management Internet Addresses Connected to Wikipedia Editing of TM-related Articles

2010-01-29T05:54:00.000-08:00

In a case under investigation for sock puppetry and other violations, Wikipedia editors with IP addresses originating at the Maharishi University of Management appear involved in potentially scandalous behavior of editing Wikipedia entries for the TM Org's own purposes and sometimes bizarre Point of View.

Manipulation of the online encyclopedia's entries about organizations or their products, by members of that same organization, is strongly frowned upon. A recent, widely publicized case with the Scientology Organization similarly found a concerted effort by the controversial church at influencing article content in an orchestrated and deliberately manipulative manner.

Some names appear to refer to actual professors of the University, which could mean actual employees at the University are involved in this unethical behaviour of manipulating the online encyclopedia's articles, which are supposed to be free of bias and conflicts of interest.

A number of these Maharishi University of Management editors have previously been involved in "edit warring", conflicts among Wikipedia article editors, to control the content of the articles themselves.

The investigation is on-going, much of it off-line, as the actual information includes previously disclosed Maharishi University of Management employees. The Wikipedia, per it's own policy, strives to keep such information confidential and private.

IP Address and Editors Names Involved

Transcendental Meditation: The Alpha Coherence Lie

2009-12-14T08:25:00.000-08:00

In keeping with some of the questions raised in the previous post on TM teachers, and the misinformation they routinely disseminate, I'd like to talk a bit about the prevalent TM claim that TM, and esp. the TM - Sidhi programme, that these meditation techniques:

1. Produce alpha coherence in a range that is significant, important, helpful and/or indicates a "unique" or "higher state of consciousness".

and

2. That there is an actual increase in Alpha power during Transcendental Meditation.

As early as the 1980's independent scientists were exploring the significance of EEG claims made by Transcendental Meditation researchers. In 1983 what researchers found was that EEG alpha waves (often simply "alpha") changed during meditation, when compared to baseline. What they weren't sure of was this change significant when utilizing appropriate controls? A study was performed on long term TM meditators and novice TM meditators and then compared to appropriate controls.

What the researchers found was that when appropriate controls were used, instead of alpha increasing during TM, it actually decreased: leaving the student at a lower level of alpha after their meditation session:

So what's the big deal about "alpha"? Is their a big deal about alpha?

The pioneer of EEG interpretation Barbara Brown was very clear when it comes to drawing any conclusions on alpha waves:

"Concluding anything about alpha is perilous."

...yet numerous TM studies try to do just this: associate alpha coherence with "higher states of consciousness". And just like Brown's warning, this is a perilous claim indeed, as it turns out: there's really nothing remarkable about alpha or alpha coherence in the range found in Transcendental Meditation meditators.

It might help to explain a little bit about the now obsolete measurement known as "EEG coherence" and what it actually is. Coherence, when referring to EEG waves, is when EEG waves at different sites in the cerebral cortex are "in synch". This is also known as "spectral covariance". "Coherence is the frequency correlation coefficient, and represents the degree to which the frequency profiles of two distant areas of the head, as reflected in the electrical signals detected by scalp electrodes, are similar." The reason this is no longer a helpful form of measurement is that coherence is a measure that does not separate the effects of amplitude and phase in the interrelations between two signals (1999, Jean-Philippe Lachaux, Eugenio Rodriguez, Jacques Martinerie, and Francisco J. Varela ).

EEG coherence, particularly in regard to slow brain wave (like alpha), it turns out is a common phenomenon. In order for the nervous system to do what it commonly does, neurons in the brain need to work together routinely, just as part of normal human functioning. As recent researchers commented: "It is important to keep in mind that such measures reflect extremely blurred and crude estimates of the synchronous processes of the ~10^11 neurons in a human brain."

It should therefore come as no surprise, when leading neuroscientists were writing a synopsis for the state of the art in meditation research in textbook form, they would comment on the unusual claims of Transcendental Meditation researchers. They pointed out that:

The dominant frequency in the scalp EEG of human adults is the alpha rhythm. It is manifest by a ‘peak’ in spectral analysis around 10 Hz and reflects rhythmic ‘alpha waves’ (Klimesch, 1999; Nunez et al., 2001). Alpha oscillations are found primarily over occipital-parietal channels particularly when the eyes are closed, yet alpha activity can be recorded from nearly the entire upper cortical surface. During wakefulness, it is a basic EEG phenomenon that the alpha peak reflects a tonic large-scale synchronization of a very large population of neurons.

and

...alpha frequencies frequently produce spontaneously moderate to large coherence (0.3-0.8 over large inter-electrode distance (Nunez et al., 1997)). The alpha coherence values reported in TM studies, as a trait in the baseline or during meditation, belong to this same range. Thus a global increase of alpha power and alpha coherence might not reflect a more “ordered” or “integrated” experience, as frequently claimed in TM literature...

It's also common for TM advocates to claim that this common EEG coherence is "unique" to TM. It turns out this has not only been long known to be untrue, but TM advocates, TM teachers and TM researchers still state this as if it were true:

Other relaxation techniques have led to the same EEG profile and studies that employed counterbalanced control relaxation conditions consistently found a lack of alpha power increases or even decreases comparing relaxation or hypnosis to TM meditation (Morse et al., 1977; Tebecis, 1975; Warrenburg, Pagano, Woods, & Hlastala, 1980).

But what of claims that this magic alpha coherence is representative of a "higher state of consciousness" different or beyond waking, dreaming and sleeping? The researchers nipped this myth in the bud as well:

Similarly, the initial claim that TM produces a unique state of consciousness different than sleep has been refuted by several EEG meditation studies which reported sleep-like stages during this technique with increased alpha and then theta power (Pagano, Rose, Stivers, & Warrenburg, 1976; Younger, Adriance, & Berger, 1975).

So not only does Transcendental Meditation not produce a unique and/or "higher" state of consciousness, it actually is within the waking-sleeping-dreaming cycle that healthy humans normally experience.

This observation jives with recent television reports of supposedly advanced TM meditators in Maharishi Vedic City which shows these "experts" often nodding off or asleep. Anecdotal reports of Golden Domes in Fairfield, IA indicate the many people sleeping and snoring has actually become a widespread problem. Certainly not what most people would consider a "higher" type of consciousness.

This global alpha increase is similar to other relaxation techniques. The passive absorption during the recitation of the mantra, as practiced in this technique, produces a brain pattern that suggests a decrease of processing of sensory or motor information and of mental activity in general. Because alpha rhythms are ubiquitous and functionally non-specific, the claim that alpha oscillations and alpha coherence are desirable or are linked to an original and higher state of consciousness seem quite premature.

It appears this "relaxation response" is common to numerous other relaxation techniques (meditation expert and former TM researcher Dr. Herbert Benson lists 8 common techniques which produce this same type of relaxation effect) but it does not (after 50 years of Transcendental Meditation practice) produce any "higher state of consciousness". Thus even wilder metaphysical claims such as "enlightenment" seem rather preposterous, in light of actual, independent research.

No higher states of consciousness here, please keep moving!

While there are forms of EEG coherence that do correspond to the states of consciousness seen in advanced yogis and meditators, these types of changes have not been found in Transcendental Meditation meditators.

More on these fascinating findings in a later post.

Transcendental Meditation and Ignorance of Meditation

2009-12-12T05:23:00.000-08:00

Despite being a once popular meditation method, Transcendental Meditation teachers are probably the least informed and experienced "teachers" of meditation I know of. After all, they're really not trained in the mechanics of meditation, but marketing. A recent article by TM proponent and long-time TM teacher Tom Ball is a perfect example. Let's look at how much is understood about meditation praxis and how confused some people are as to what the differing types of meditation are, and why.

Transcendental Meditation, Mindfulness And Enlightenment

by

Tom Ball
"What's the difference between Transcendental Meditation and mindfulness meditation?" This frequently asked question rises out of the growing popularity of these two mainstream meditation practices. Due to requirements of time and tuition for learning the Transcendental Meditation technique, some people may wonder, "Aren't all meditations basically the same?" Mindfulness practices can be easily learned from a book, online or from a therapist, whereas the TM course involves up to 15 hours of training and can be learned only from a certified instructor. It's no wonder that people often want to compare these meditation techniques.

As is typical in Transcendental Meditation advocates, they will often posit false or ignorant statements, and then use they false assertions to try to forward their beliefs. What they are actually doing is creating a "straw man", an argument based on a false image from their own imagination or ignorance. Already in this first paragraph they've mislead the reader.

Ball states Mindfulness can easily be learned from a book or a therapist, etc. And of course, what he doesn't tell you that TM is often taught through books and tapes, or by instructions posted on the internet! But what Ball ignores is how Mindfulness is most often taught: it's most often taught in 7-10 day courses, although some people teach it over a long weekend, the 1 week or longer track is more traditional and in many ways more typical. One often receives meditational instructions from a seasoned meditator with years of inner experience in different forms of meditation. So instead of having to rely on "canned" and simply memorized "checking instructions" (a flowchart of instructions TM teachers are required to memorize), experienced meditators rely on their own extensive inner experience, tailored individually to the student.

Although both forms of meditation produce relaxation and practitioners may report some similar benefits—such as inner calm and centeredness, pain management or greater awareness and focus during the day—these techniques differ considerably, both in practice and range of effects as measured by scientific research.

Ah, here we go. Another set up. TM advocates will often cite "scientific research" on TM--but they'll fail to mention that TM research has a long, long history (several decades) of poor research. In fact TM research is so bad, it was even dismissed as "poor" in recent studies sponsored by the US government! The idea of good meditation research, is to improve and refine. Not these TM researchers! They're still putting out pilot studies and junk science after 40 years!

We'll look more into the specifics of the poor record of TM research a little later.

What is mindfulness meditation?

Mindfulness meditation (or guided mindfulness) generally involves watching one's thoughts, the breath or bodily sensations while sitting quietly. Typically the student does not judge or hold on to thoughts or perceptions, but merely observes them. Mindfulness is often described as the process of being attentive to one’s experiences. This practice of being mindful may also extend into daily activity, as one adheres to dispassionate observation of thoughts and actions in order to be more fully present in the moment and not overshadowed by passing concerns. [1] The practice of mindfulness takes place in what psychologists and neuroscientists generally call the waking state of consciousness, different from the sleep or the dream states.

Not a very good description, I have to say.

First it's important to explain what are the two basic forms of meditation that are taught in many Buddhist settings. These two meditation forms are 1) Mindfulness or Vipassana and 2) Shamatha or Calm Abiding meditation. Transcendental Meditation is a rudimentary practice of this latter type. But strangely here, we see no recognition or understanding of this basic fact.

Beginning meditators are welcome to begin with either a Mindfulness style of meditation or a Calm Abiding style, each one has it's own unique benefits. Advanced meditators learn they can actually unify both forms into something greater than the sum of the two: nondual meditation.

What is the Transcendental Meditation technique?

During the practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique, the mind spontaneously transcends, going beyond the mental activity of waking state to a unique state of restful alertness, called Transcendental Consciousness—a proposed fourth state of consciousness unlike waking, dreaming or sleep.[2]

Sigh.

Independent studies of TM meditators show that this claim is actually false. Most TM meditators are actually in descending stages of sleep. Despite many wild and fanciful claims, there is no evidence that TM produces any "state of consciousness" outside of waking, dreaming or sleeping states. In fact, when the EEG or electroencephalographs of actual yogis are compared to those of advanced TM meditators, they are quite different. The reason they are different is that while TM induces the same EEG and "relaxation response" found in many different forms of meditation, they do not produce the types of EEG changes seen in advanced meditators. This point is well known by leading scientists, but dutifully ignored by TM researchers (who are often TM meditators themselves!).

This easy meditation involves using a mantra, or sound without meaning, that has a harmonizing effect on the mind and body, producing deep relaxation and quieter mental activity. Because deeper levels of the mind are more concentrated with energy, creativity and intelligence, one's awareness becomes infused with these qualities as the meditator experiences the inner depths of consciousness.

While I know from having spoken directly to many TM teachers that they were taught to tell students that their mantras were meaningless, this is not in fact the case. All of the TM mantras are listed in lengthy ancient books, encyclopedias of mantra, called koshas in Sanskrit. The koshas describe in exquisite detail the meaning and mechanics of all of the TM mantras, and many more. All of the TM mantras are mantras of various Hindu Gods and Goddesses.

Traditionally it is believed one can gain "boons" by repeating a certain deities mantra for a certain period or time or number of repetitions or until certain, specific signs appear. This is the origin of the idea that TM gives benefits in ones life.

TM, as a basic form of mantra meditation, simply leads one to elementary forms of mental quietude, while cutting one off from the surrounding world. Unfortunately, more advanced forms of mantra meditation or other varieties of meditation are not taught in TM or it's later techniques. This is probably why we only, after 50 years of people practicing it, still see mere relaxation response type findings, in even long-term TM meditators. In some cases, the habitual withdrawal or "transcending" can lead to psychiatric and psychological problems.

Meditation and the brain

Over the last several decades, many scientists have become fascinated with researching physiological correlates of the meditative state—studying Tibetan monks, Indian yogis and trained Western meditators as their subjects. One thing that has become obvious: different meditation techniques do not produce the same levels of relaxation, change in breath rate, brain patterns, or benefits for mind and body.

Unfortunately, you must be reading different science than leaders in the field are. It was long known (since the 1950's) that unusually high-amplitude gamma coherence was seen in Hindu Patanjali yogis who could go into samadhi, a higher state of consciousness, at will. One of the most "remarkable" things about meditation research during the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's was that these finding were never replicated in westerners.

That is until recently. Advanced Tibetan Buddhist meditators who had mastered samadhi have been not only been able to go into higher, more integrated states of consciousness at will, they've been able to replicate the highly coherent EEG seen in Patanjali yogis! Samadhi it turns out is a common "skill" in even very different philosophical and religious traditions. It's no surprise therefore that this seminal finding was published in a major journal. It appears samadhi is a skill that can be acquired, with the proper instruction and with powerful enough meditative methodology, just like any other skill can be acquired (language, speech, writing, etc.).

For example, recent research on mindfulness meditation recorded a pattern of increased gamma in the rear of the brain, and found no significant changes in alpha activity. [3] Increased gamma is associated with heightened focus of attention.

Increased gamma coherence is common in advanced Hindu and Buddhist yogis. It is not found in TM practitioners.

Research on the Transcendental Meditation technique has repeatedly shown highly synchronous alpha throughout the entire brain, especially in the pre-frontal cortex. [4] Heightened alpha is associated with relaxed wakefulness, and increased coherence indicating improved overall brain functioning and is correlated with improved learning ability, higher IQ, better moral reasoning and increased neurological efficiency. This state of coherence is not found in ordinary relaxation or other meditation practices.

Actually the range of alpha coherence found in TM meditators is the same as that seen in normal humans, according to leading independent neuroscientists.

Meditation techniques that keep the mind actively attentive in the waking state, as mindfulness-type practices do, have not been found to consistently produce a level of relaxation deeper than ordinary eyes-closed rest—and relaxation is not a primary intention of all meditation practices. Transcendental Meditation is the only meditation found by research to produce a level of rest more than twice as deep as ordinary relaxation, indicated by changes in breath rate, skin resistance and plasma lactate. [5]

Actually TM is physiologically the same as napping. When using good controls (uncommon in almost all TM research), the difference is insignificant.

Enlightenment

Though meditation can be practiced strictly for health benefits—such as reduction of high blood pressure[6]—the awakening of full human potential, called nirvana or enlightenment, has historically been the goal of many of the venerated traditions of meditation. Fortunately, modern researchers have discovered a scientific basis for identifying higher consciousness—a coherent style of brain functioning and a balanced, more refined state of physiology. Numerous, peer-reviewed studies show that EEG coherence and more harmonious physiological functioning accompany both deep meditation and heightened awareness when stabilized in daily activity.[7] Research breakthroughs such as these are raising the field of meditation and personal growth to the evidence-based standards of science.

Unfortunately basic meditation methods, like TM, do not exhibit any "higher" states of consciousness outside waking, dreaming or sleeping. While it would be nice if such things were true, independent research shows us that this is clearly not the case. After 50 years of the pop-meditation practice, no such higher states of consciousness have been found.

The mindfulness approach to enlightenment

Many contemporary approaches of mindfulness strive to attain enlightenment by recapitulating the qualities of the enlightened state as a practice in meditation and daily life. Equanimity of mind, being fully present in the moment, and impartially observing ones thoughts are some of the attributes often associated with the state of enlightenment. Many spiritual aspirants believe that consciously striving to maintain these "enlightened" qualities in daily life will lead to total mindfulness or enlightenment.

It's obvious you have little training in meditation, although I know you must be proud you were able to memorize some charts of mantras, and the religious ceremony to give them out at great expense.

This isn't even close to how enlightenment is seen or cultivated in Buddhist meditative practice! Another straw man Platonic fallacy.

Enlightenment through Transcendental Meditation

TM practice offers another approach to enlightenment, one that involves simultaneously culturing both mind and body through twice-daily transcending. By alternating morning and evening TM with one's normal, natural daily routine, the inner, silent state of "pure consciousness" becomes stabilized and lived in the midst of one's outer activity.

While this is an interesting and colorful claim by Mr. Ball, in actuality no such yogic states of consciousness, called turiyatita, are seen nor have they ever been seen associated with Transcendental Meditation! It's unlikely that they ever will. Repeated scientific studies have shown that TM is a simple, yet expensive form of relaxation response meditation, but that it does not lead to any "higher states of consciousness". The numerous side effects of TM, (which apparently is why the vast majority of TM meditators eventually stop meditation) esp. dissociation, depression and the desire to withdraw from life, are more likely what students of TM mistake for "witnessing" (a phenomenon desperately sought after by many TM meditators).

With this approach, there is no conscious attempt to maintain equanimity or detachment during or after meditation. The brain spontaneously becomes habituated to maintain a more orderly, coherent style of functioning, naturally giving rise to inner calm, broader comprehension, increased creativity and self actualization.[6] When the physiology gains deep relaxation during TM practice, accumulated stress is dissolved and the whole system becomes more balanced and resilient, able to support the spontaneous growth of higher consciousness in a natural way.

This is typical TM teacher nonsense. Part of the reason TM has been so unsuccessful in working to integrate different states of consciousness into activity is believed to be because they ignore the prerequisites to samadhi. It is said that even if one meditates for hundreds of years, one will never attain samadhi if one ignore it's prerequisites. TM training does ignore these prerequisites so important in the tradition of Patanjali and in the Buddhist yogic traditions.

Modern day interpretations of meditation, often self taught and without expert guidance, can account for the differences in effectiveness between the various meditation practices.

Good point. Since there are no experts in meditation in the TM movement, only mantra-salesman, this should be considered a warning sign. TM teachers primarily are trained in marketing, memorization, pseudoscience, Neo-vedism and canned "checking" techniques to help see if the meditation is working. Unfortunately, not everyone falls within the scope of this "cookie cutter" and assembly-line approach to meditation checking.

When comparing meditations, whether the Transcendental Meditation technique, Vipassana, Zen, or guided meditation, it is now possible to refer to scientific research on the benefits before committing time to a meditation program.

Good point. Independent researchers have consistently found TM research to be both "poor", "exaggerated" and misleading. Such observations began as early as the 1980's and have continued up to the present day. The important element of honesty and integrity, hallmarks of good science and integral to actual scientific method have consistently been missing from TM Org-based meditation research. TM teacher training does not actually teach mastery of meditation, but a minimal subset of skills in order to be able to market, deceive and sell Hindu goddess mantras. Canned "checking" techniques (also memorized) are believed capable of helping students learn meditation.

Future posts will detail the science behind these claims, the opposing science and the references mentioned in this response.

Transcendental Meditation Org legal threatens Freedom of Speech

2009-12-09T05:46:00.000-08:00

ARTICLE

Wikileaks Threat from TMO

Transcendental Meditation in schools, the David Lynch program

November 1, 4:36 PM Boston Underground Examiner Douglas Mesner

This previously posted article has been updated with appended material following a letter received from the General Counsel for Maharishi University of Management and the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness Based Education and World Peace, William Goldstein, under the subject heading "Retraction of Defamatory Article". Upon reviewing Goldstein's criticisms, the author has decided that there are no grounds for labeling this article "defamatory". An open reply to Goldstein's letter follows the article below:

Expel from your mind the stereotyped image of the robed, bearded yogi. Forget the worn image of the unkempt, hash-headed, lotus-seated hippy listening to sitar music in an incense-filled room behind a beaded curtain. This is not the Transcendental Meditation [TM] we are talking about. This is Science!
“Hundreds of scientific studies have been conducted on the benefits of the Transcendental Meditation program at more than 200 independent universities and research institutions worldwide in the past 35 years,” explains the TM-promoting David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace website. Among the positive side-effects of the TM program, we find: increased focus, decreased hostility, reduced anxiety, even a reduction in cardiovascular disease among practitioners.
Surely, with this in mind, no reasonable person would argue against teaching the TM method in public schools.

And this is exactly what the David Lynch Foundation - founded by the cult film director of Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive - proposes: implementation of a TM teaching program “in public and private schools and in after-school programs across the U.S. and around the world, with thousands of students enjoying its benefits.”

This past April, the foundation held a large benefit concert in New York - including performances by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Ben Harper, and Moby - which, according to USA Today, raised an estimated $3 million toward funding the TM-in-schools program.

But, despite the attributed benefits and celebrity endorsements, some worry that the teaching of a TM-based program in public schools constitutes another breach across the ever-eroding church-state dividing line. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State reports, “Slowly but steadily, TM seems to be gaining a foothold in public schools across the country. The trend has alarmed some advocates of church-state separation, who point out that the practice is based in Hinduism and that the federal courts removed it from New Jersey public schools on church-state grounds in 1979.”

In regards to funding being offered by the David Lynch Foundation in support of the TM program, “Americans United is urging school officials to turn down the money, reminding educators that TM in the schools can spark litigation. In 1976, Americans United and other groups joined with Roman Catholic and Protestant parents to bring a lawsuit against the use of TM in five New Jersey public schools.” […] “A federal court struck down the TM classes in October of 1977, a decision that was affirmed by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February of 1979…Ruling in Malnak v. Yogi, the federal appeals court declared that TM is grounded in Hinduism. Students, the court pointed out, were assigned the name of a Hindu god to chant, and even went through a type of religious initiation ceremony called a puja.” (http://www.au.org/media/church-and-state/archives/2009/06/levitating-over-the.html)

Indeed, though the David Lynch Foundation seems keen to express that TM is just a technique, with real estate holdings, schools, and clinics—even a town, Vedic City, in Iowa—“worth more than $3 billion in the late 1990s,” TM is clearly something more. Some go so far as describe TM as “a cult that ultimately seeks to strip individuals of their ability to think and choose freely.”

Therapist John Knapp, specializing in providing help to ex-cult members and people entangled in “cultic relationships” left TM after 23 years of involvement. “I married somebody who was not involved with the group, and part of my group experience was that I was asked to lie about a number of items. And living every day with someone and having to lie to them was extremely difficult… It caused what you could call a cognitive dissonance. It really caused a bifurcation in my mind. It was really difficult to live with. And I’d also gotten very far away from my family, which is not uncommon for people who are in these kinds of [cultic] relationships. As my mother was getting older I wanted to re-establish my ties with her and the family. These kinds of things led me to begin questioning my relationship [with TM].”

Upon deciding that he would leave TM, Knapp reports that he suffered a good deal of harassing behavior from the group. “It was difficult for me, because I had believed so strongly in this group [TM]. My spiritual and emotional life was really bound up completely with this group, so when they turned on me it was very confusing and very difficult for me…”

Worse, Knapp reports negative effects derived from the meditation technique itself, from addictive behavior to increased feelings of dissociation. He claims that many clients of his that come from TM have experienced the same.

TM was founded by a man known as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1956 in India, and the revered guru himself had once been accused of using “fear and intimidation” in order to work to prevent a disciple from leaving the Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa. The disillusioned student, Robert Kropinski, and six other people sued Maharishi’s University for $9 million on the grounds of “fraud, neglect, and intentionally inflicting emotional damage”. Kropinski stated that none of the promised TM benefits ever surfaced during his time as a student, and he was awarded $138,000 by a Washington D.C. jury. Maharishi did not appear in court, as he was never available to receive summons.

Admittedly, all of this sounds most unpleasant, but what of the scientific data supporting the individual benefits of TM?

There are problems with TM’s data. While the David Lynch Foundation endlessly promotes the “unique” benefits of TM, there is a conspicuous shortage of comparative analytical studies that measure TM against other relaxation techniques. Surprisingly, studies measuring the effects of a simple mid-day nap report many of the same “unique” benefits touted by TM.

In fact, a study published in the journal Science in 1976 found in studying “five experienced practitioners of Transcendental Meditation”, that they “spent appreciable parts of meditation sessions” merely napping.

And, according to a June 2007 report, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that evaluated the quality of the meditation research along an array of standard scientific criteria such as the proper use of randomization and control group techniques, “Overall, the methodological quality of both intervention and observational analytic studies on meditation practices is poor.”

According to Dr. Barry Markovsky, professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina, “Poor evidence, even in large quantities, falls short of establishing scientifically the benefits of TM.”

Worst of all, TM makes a series of staggering claims that can be charitably described as “unlikely”. Old advertisements for TM claim that practitioners of TM will develop “supernormal powers” including “supernormal sight and hearing”, invisibility, and levitation! The organization even circulated photos with pictures of lotus-seated students apparently hovering above the ground, but first-hand observations of the “levitations” left many unconvinced. The levitators never managed to levitate for very long; they never really “hovered”. In fact, they sprung up rather abruptly and dropped immediately to the ground again. Really, it was quite apparent that these transcendent hopefuls were merely hopping about from a seated position.

Nor has TM provided any legitimized demonstrations of any of its supernormal powers.

When asked about “advanced techniques” such as “yogic flight” during a press conference promoting his benefit concert, David Lynch replied with some rambling vagaries about a “field of unity”, “bliss”, and the “collective consciousness”.

The David Lynch Foundation has a stated of goal of teaching TM to one million children, which is reminiscent of another supernatural claim of TM: the Maharishi Effect, which states that a certain critical mass of TM meditators can affect change upon the material world.

While John Hagelin of the David Lynch Foundation claims that the Maharishi Effect is a scientifically proven phenomenon, there is no reliable evidence to support this. (Hagelin, it should be noted, is partially to blame for the simple-minded buffoonery of the best-selling book The Secret, which promotes a simpler version of the Maharishi Effect: The idea that one can obtain what one wants through mere wishful thinking.) Hagelin claims that in 1993 crime was reduced in Washington, DC during a two month period due to the collective effort of 4000 TM practitioners.

As Skeptico reports: “There were many problems with this experiment. One was that the murder rate rose during the period in question. Another was that Hagelin’s report stated violent crime had been reduced by 18% (in the film [What The Bleep Do We Know] he says 25%), but reduced compared with what? How did he know what the crime rate would have been without the TM? It was discovered later that all the members of the “independent scientific review board” that scrutinized the project were followers of the Maharishi. The study was pseudoscience: no double blinding, the reviewers were not independent, and the experiment has never been independently replicated. Hagelin deservedly won an Ig Nobel Prize in 1994 for this outstanding piece of work.”

James Randi, famed stage magician, author, founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation, and debunker of supernatural claims, explains that TM has “always maintained this… [the idea] that if a certain critical number of people take up TM, they will protect everybody, and the world will be perfectly safe from then on.”

Randi came to be aware of TM through his friend and fellow magician, Doug Henning. “I knew [Henning] very well as a kid, and later as a mature magician. We were always in touch…” Randi describes a deeply cultic relationship between Henning and Transcendental Meditation that would destroy Henning’s career and eventually take his life. Henning’s career as a television magician was compromised as he strove to hire only TM initiates to work on the set. According to Randi, this was not only problematic for the fact that it was difficult to find people within TM who were talented in television production, but “every so often they went in to meditation and work just stopped…” Eventually, TV executives grew weary of Henning’s professional antics.

Henning became even more deeply involved with TM following his diagnosis of liver cancer, eventually removing himself from contact with non-TM practitioners. “He gave up all medical care… the Maharishi had told him that he could recover from his liver cancer simply from meditating… he meditated himself to death.” Henning died in February of 2000.

“I’m so angry at the TM movement,” says Randi, “for having taken an innocent person.”

John Knapp feels that the drive to bring TM into more schools is destined to failure as any critical scrutiny of the organization will prove its undoing. According to him, “It’s just too damn strange…”

Relaxation – whether by crude napping, or practiced meditation – holds certain benefits that are not the monopoly of the TM brand. It is this author’s hope that schools will continue to seek techniques to aid the reduction of stress and conflict - while increasing health and focus - without reducing their curriculum to supernatural philosophies that cross the church-state line.

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

On October 13 editors at Examiner received an email from William Goldstein, General Counsel for Maharishi University of Management and the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness Based Education and World Peace. The email's subject heading was "Retraction of Defamatory Article", and it ended with strong words claiming that the "falsehoods, defamations and omissions [in the article above] compel me [Goldstein] to ask you to remove this article from your newspaper to put an end to the continuing damage its publication causes to my client."

And what were these "falsehoods, defamations and omissions"? Goldstein opens: "I will not comment on the inappropriate statements on the scientific research conducted on the TM program contained in Mr. Mesner’s article. Dr. Orme Johnson’s comments you have received reply more expertly than I could on that subject and I incorporate them."

I had read Dr. Orme Johnson's criticisms and found them less than compelling, some of them nonsensical. For instance, this comment - "To Knapp’s statement that TM is “too strange” for America, one has to ask, strange for whom, the narrow minded and ethnocentric? I think our nation has gotten past a lot of that." - left me to merely wonder what in the world ethnocentricism might have to do with any of this if TM is not to be viewed as an Eastern practice rooted in Eastern beliefs and traditions?

Dr. Orme Johnson made comments suggesting that James Randi was incorrect regarding Henning's situation: "Maharishi’s advice was always to seek medical attention when one gets sick, not “just meditate” as Randi alleges. Studies of medical care utilization that I conducted on Blue Cross statistics found that 2,000 TM subjects over a five-year period had on average 50% less hospitalization and doctors visits than the norm or matched controls, with reductions in all categories of disease."

This comment would be laughable if the ramifications were less grave. When the criticism is that TM discouraged a sick man from seeking medical attention, the statistic of 50% less hospitalization amongst TM practitioners hardly makes that claim seem less credible. But, just the same, if Randi's comments are "falsehoods, defamations, or omissions", that is problem that must be taken up with James Randi. He is accurately quoted in the article above.

Likewise, the claim that TM is a "cult" is attributed, and Goldstein must take any disagreement with that label up with those who use it to describe his... "client". In my favorite part of his email, Goldstein writes: Mr. Mesner then goes on to paste the horrific label of a “cult” on the TM program. Al Gore, Jerry Seinfeld and Paul McCartney would find it remarkable to be told they are members of a cult, but that does not mitigate the serious damages that such thoughtless labeling can have on the organizations which teach these programs to the public. And while Jerry may laugh at such a characterization, Al Gore may not have as well developed a sense of humor.

This shameless name-dropping is pointless, as it can be worked both ways. "Jerry may laugh", and Al Gore may be a humorless bore. Or Jerry may in fact cringe in disgust if presented with the idea that TM practitioners may learn to levitate, or that the Maharishi Effect is a proven phenomena. Al Gore may laugh at such nonsense. We really don't know, do we? Were Jerry Seinfeld, Al Gore, or Paul McCartney asked to give an opinion of my article? Is it just too remarkable to imagine that such celebrities might be involved in a "cult" or cult-based practices? Do Tom Cruise and John Travolta find it remarkable that many accuse Scientology of being a cult? For that matter, isn't Scientology's Dianetics "auditing" practice nothing more than a therapeutic technique? As such, perhaps it too should be welcomed into school rooms.

Goldstein goes on to question the credibility of John Knapp: "Mr. Knapp has developed a niche in the field of counseling for victims of cults which he actively promotes on his websites. He has created a straw man, and now he is selling expensive medicine to him. "
While I'm not exactly sure what is meant by this, it seems to imply that counseling ex-TM practitioners has proven lucrative for Knapp which would also imply a consistent client base of TM disaffected. But, again, if Goldstein takes issue with what is said by Knapp, he must take it up with him. Knapp is accurately quoted in the article above.

The one helpful item mentioned in Goldstein's email was the fact that the Kropinski finding was over-turned on appeal - though this would better have been mentioned in the comments, not in a full letter claiming "defamation".

Most other comments regarding this article, by Dr. Orme Johnson and others, take exception to the criticisms regarding the Maharishi Effect. I have no intention of being ambiguous about this: the Maharishi Effect is not a proven phenomena. I seriously doubt it can even be considered a valid hypothesis. It's failed hippy mysticism, and it has no place whatever in public schools.

I said it.

Go ahead and sue me.

Speaking only for myself,

Douglas Mesner

Transcendental Meditation research barely gets a mention on American Heart Association website

2009-12-02T06:00:00.000-08:00

Despite dozens of press and web announcements about a:

"...nine-year, randomized control trial followed 201 African American men and women, average age 59 years, with narrowing of arteries in their hearts who were randomly assigned to either practice the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation technique or to participate in a control group which received health education classes in traditional risk factors, including dietary modification and exercise."

which was to be presented during the annual meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Fla., on Nov.16, 2009, the Transcendental Meditation study did not make the Top Scoring Abstracts from Scientific Sessions 2009, nor were the slides of the presentation even posted on the American Heart Association website. And apparently no one has agreed to even publish this research. It's only barely mentioned in the typical list of abstracts that are published with any scientific conference.

This is hardly surprising. The Transcendental Meditation technique has a long history of research labeled "poor" by independent scientists, esp. when it comes to heart health. A recent independent review actually showed that Transcendental Meditation was the worst meditation technique at lowering blood pressure.

Like many TM studies, this recent one by long-time TM meditator and TM advocate, Dr. Robert Schneider, has a poor study design in that it uses controls very poorly, a long-time failing in TM research, especially when it is sponsored or performed by Transcendental Meditation adherents or the organization that sells the pricey Transcendental Meditation technique.

One would hope after decades of research that the Transcendental Meditation researchers would improve their methods and their study designs, like other meditation research (i.e. Christian meditation, Mindfulness and Vipassana meditation). But it appears, as has been stated in independent reviews since the early 1980's, Transcendental Meditation research remains greatly "exaggerated". It is therefore no surprise that Transcendental Meditation failed to make the Top Scoring Abstracts from Scientific Sessions 2009.

More Bad Research on Transcendental Meditation and ADHD

2009-11-25T16:06:00.000-08:00

In a clear attempt to deceive with biased, poorly executed "research" TM advocates attempt to promote the use of Transcendental Meditation in schools - but his time they get caught.

Space City Skeptics does an excellent job at exposing the fraud common in TM research.

Check out the blow-by-blow analysis at:

http://spacecityskeptics.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/how-to-design-a-positive-study-meditation-for-childhood-adhd/

Some excerpts:

"The flaws in this study are numerous. The number of subjects is too small, there is no control group and it isn’t blinded. The study reveals that some of the children are on medication but it does not take into account the possibility of recent changes in medical therapy, or improved compliance while on the study. It is based purely on self-report and subjective questionairres and there is very high liklihood that a placebo effect could have been the sole responsible factor in the subjects’ apparent improvements. The authors then call for larger and better designed studies, something which I don’t think is justified for these reasons, but my problem with this study, and concerns regarding the credulous take by the media, go much deeper than what I’ve already explained.

What led me to dig deeper after reading the Reuters’ report was the following quote:

“The effect was much greater than we expected,” lead researcher Sarina J. Grosswald, a cognitive learning specialist in Arlington, Virginia, said in a written statement.”

I wondered why the researcher had expected an effect and hypothesized that there may be a connection between the researchers and TM more significant than academic curiosity. I was quickly able to discover that Grosswald is a hardcore believer in TM. Just read this quote by Grosswald from a website called Ask The Doctors, which provides a forum for specialists to answer questions related to TM and health:

“The TM technique is the exact opposite of harmful. It reduces your risk of getting serious chronic health problems like hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. In fact, research on the Transcendental Meditation program shows that people who practice it go to the doctor about 50% less than the general population. And if they are in the hospital for some reason, their hospital stay is 50% shorter, on average. For some conditions, the need for medical care is as much as 87% less for TM meditators. Practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique is one of the best things you can do for your health.”

She clearly does not come across as an unbiased investigator. In reading her other responses on the “Ask The Doctors” website, and especially after listening to a 16-minute talk she gave in 2005, when this research actually took place, which is posted on a Maharishi Vedic Education Development Corporation sponsored website that focuses on “ADHD, the Mind and the Transcendental Meditation technique” called Insights in Health, it is obvious that she is a true believer. That doesn’t prove the research is bogus by itself, but it is a red flag.

A more concerning red flag, and one which was also discovered in the talk given by Grosswald, is the fact that the 10 children involved in the study may have been coached. In the last few minutes of the presentation, Grosswald presents clips of the children meeting with the TM proponents prior to the initiation of the study, where it appears that they are told what the expected outcome of the trial is, that their symptoms will improve with TM. "

(...)

"It wasn’t difficult to look at this study and see that the claims being made by TM supporters aren’t valid. It wasn’t even that hard to uncover the connections between the investigators, the school where the study was conducted and pro-TM organizations. Yet I was unable to find one news report that displayed even the slightest amount of critical thinking, instead reading like press releases from TM believers. The current state of science and health reporting is rather depressing, and I don’t see things improving any time soon as more and more dedicated science writers are falling prey to the poor economy."

Latest TM Research Joke

2009-11-25T05:50:00.000-08:00

Veteran TM writer Mike Doughney's at it again skewering the latest Transcendental Meditation marketing scheme in the, uh, heart over at TM-Free blog.

As before (the most recent attempt being TM and Breast cancer in a typical, poorly controlled study) this is being pushed to all the blogs and media outlets, but it doesn't sound like anyone has actually read the paper in question! Indeed unlike actual cutting edge science, where you can read the latest and greatest paper in PDF format and decide for yourself, in TM research it is increasingly hard to find the actual paper behind the press releases! Obviously they don't want all of us sciencey-types actually reading the papers.

It's no surprise why.

This latest round of meditational masturbation is actually done by Dr. Robert Schneider, the same bozo who stared into the camera on the BBC meditation special, glassy-eyed (they had to awaken him from his meditation, apparently he had forgotten about the appointment) and told us that TM--which mostly involves nap-like, descending sleep stages--is actually a form of "deep rest".

My grandmother will be happy to hear this.

Mike nails it quite well:

The title, "Can Meditation Curb Heart Attacks?" is one of those leading questions that snake-oil salesmen love, since they can then respond with the answer they've already prepared. In fact, that's the strategy of the TM sales pitch for decades, as founding TM salesman Maharishi Mahesh Yogi once stated during a TM teacher training course: "Every question is a perfect opportunity for the answer we have already prepared." The New York Times has set the stage, creating a vacuum into which the following stage-managed presentation perfectly fits. A better title might have been, "Vedic theocrats claim introductory technique of their faith curbs heart attacks." It would have from the beginning clarified who's making the claim, and the nature of the organization that's making the claim. Unfortunately my expectations of New York Times reporters aren't likely to be fulfilled in my lifetime; this is a sad benchmark of how poor the reporting is in one of the nation's leading newspapers today.

But wait, there's more! Featured at the top of this slightly rewritten press release masquerading as a New York Times story is an account of a 70 year old woman with high blood pressure who meditates. Clearly, meditating isn't the only thing she's been doing about her high blood pressure. See, it says so right there in the article:

Could the mental relaxation have real physiological benefits? For Mrs. Banks, the study suggests, it may have. She has gotten her blood pressure under control, though she still takes medication for it...

I think the cause of her blood pressure being under control is rather obvious, and it isn't the practice of TM. But that didn't stop the TM salesmen from putting one over on this reporter, claiming that instead of the scientifically proven benefits of those nasty nasty "pills" from "allopathic" doctors (the words that some TM devotees use for scientifically-validated medications and medicine), the magic words in somebody's head were the real cause of their lowered blood pressure. The best they can come up with, as a clear statement of TM's efficacy, is "could have;" those of us familiar with the ineffectiveness of the whole "health" regimen sold by the Transcendental Meditation organization would say, "probably not." The rest is just a tornado of blowing smoke, leaving the reader with an illusion that TM is proven to be something of value when the evidence, after decades of trying, is just not there.

Mentioned nowhere in this story is a connection, obvious to knowledgeable observers, that takes the sheen off this glowing report alleging TM effectiveness: the lead researcher, and the primary person quoted in this article, works for the same organization that sells the TM program. The reader can certainly tease it out if so motivated, since the researcher, Robert Schneider, is a medical doctor who's identified as a director of a "research institute" based at Maharishi Institute of Management. But not everybody knows that "Maharishi" is the founder of the organization that sells the TM program, and that should have been made clear to readers. Also evident is another of the TM movement's habits, of giving grandiose institutional names to various elements of TM promotions and assigning "directors" to them. While its name may create the impression that the "Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention" is a large imposing white-columned building full of top-notch scientists working on the latest cutting-edge discoveries in their fields, the fact is that this "Institute" is probably just Schneider and a few associates, and the only means of "prevention" they're researching, or even the least bit interested in, are those things that are part of the faith-based, allegedly "Vedic" stable of "Maharishi" branded products and services.

Most Maharishi University students aren't interested in Transcendental Meditation

2009-10-12T06:42:00.000-07:00

According to recent research performed by Maharishi University of Management students, the vast majority of them aren't interested in TM, let alone being forced to do it (or be expelled).

According to the internally taken poll:

"300 students signed a petition vowing that they were all going to drop out if the university didn't stop forcing them to meditate by taking attendance at mandatory group meditations. MUM caved, and that policy was dropped. A study was then conducted that determined that the student body consists of

30% entrepreneurs - career-oriented kids who mainly want to learn skills and enter the workforce. TM and SCI aren't high priorities.
60% "dreamers" who want to change the world. They appreciate TM but don't see it as the lynchpin of that endeavor. They're into environmentalism and other causes.
10% devotees

The faculty are about 90% devotees, so their attempts to impose their values on the students weren't working. The university is trying to translate this assessment into practical steps to become more relevant and appealing to students."

-----------

The conclusion seems obvious: no one likes to be forced to do anything. Especially intelligent college students.

The once glassy-eyed followers of the Maharishi have been replaced by a new generation who are much more knowledgeable about Transcendental Meditation, it's side effects, pitfalls and exaggerated claims. Unfortunately Maharishi University of Management censors the university internet connection for TM-critical sites, so it's not always easy for students to find the truth.

The Lies of TM 1: The Effortless Lie

2009-09-22T05:39:00.000-07:00

Most people generally think of a part of interior methods of self-improvement as a search for, or way to come to a realization of, who we truly are. As Robert Burns opined"

"If only we could see ourselves as others see us."

Alas, few of us have this insight. Meditation is often seen as a way to see ourselves honestly, with the objective lens of truth. A way to uncover our true nature.

But what happens when the meditation teacher or guru lies to us and lies to us about our meditation and then we accept these lies as part of the way we think?

One possible answer: if we accept what we are told without critical examination and simply believe what we were told, we're doomed to repeat the lies we were given as if they were true.

I've found a number of such lies in my own examination of the Transcendental Meditation program and the teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. So I'd like to share them with you and explain why they are important and give some lineal, experiential and textual reasons for why uncovering such deceptions is vitally important.

This can be especially helpful if you never even realized you were lied to in the first place.

The first of these "lies" or deceptions about Transcendental Meditation (TM) that I'd like to talk about is the idea of effortlessness. It is often claimed that TM is "effortless" and that this somehow makes it superior to other forms of meditation that are not effortless and often (according to TM Org dogma) involve "straining".

First of all, it's important to understand what effort and effortlessness mean within the context of traditional meditation. At the end of any path, the goal of meditation, meditating on some thing (a mantra, the breath, etc.) is accomplished and after that point one just merely has the intention to go into meditative absorption (or samādhi) and one can effortlessly enter that state: 1) when one desires to do so and 2) for as long as one wishes to. Before this point is attained one will need "props" or "supports" (Skt.: ālambana), as the sage Patanjali calls them, to dualistically interact with in order to fabricate briefer, earlier levels of meditative attention.

Until one reaches the point of being able to enter samādhi at will and for whatever duration, one has not reached the point of meditation being effortless. In fact, if one is still relying on some technique or method (like TM) one is not at the level of true effortlessness. Actually the Sanskrit word Patanjali uses for meditation technique, prayatna, means "with effort"!

So the claim that Transcendental Meditation is somehow superior to other forms of meditation because it is effortless is a lie. And a prominent one at that. The TM Org has consistently used this lie to imply that it's form of meditation is superior to all other forms of meditation out there. The honest truth is, TM is dualistic form of meditation, not a nondual form of meditation and therefore it must rely on some sort of prop, all of which require some modicum of effort.

Mastering meditation means mastering the fine art of balancing ones attention. If meditation, esp. in the early stages becomes too lax, one simply falls asleep, a common defect in TM. The Buddha described this as like tuning a lute: you don't want the strings too tight or they'll break, nor do you want them too loose. You want them "just right". When a culture of faux-effortlessness becomes your dogma, there's always the danger (and I've seen this in many TMers) one will try to cultivate 'effortlessness' and fall into being too lax.

Both Hindu and Buddhist meditation masters warn on the dangers of loosing the correct balance and simply becoming lazy. If one is trained to fear balancing one's attention (or the fear becomes institutionalized), there's even more of a danger of falling into laxity. Yogis (real yogis that is) describe this laxity as distinct from lethargy. Laxity is actually considered an obscuration to realization of the goals of meditation. And actually subtle laxity is considered the worst kind of slackness. One knows one is falling into subtle laxity when you have uncultivated pauses in the breath, a known (and believe it or not actually heralded) effect during Transcendental Meditation. What yogic wisdom tells us is this type of obscuration guarantees we will be unable to truly obtain a formless (and thus truly effortless) absorption.

Innerkids.org vs. TM?

2009-09-21T04:55:00.000-07:00

A non-sectarian "Buddhist" meditation has had a very successful school meditation program called Innerkids (innerkids.org).

Mysteriously, Innerkids website was taken down last week by hackers. Then, all of the sudden a NEW group hits the net called "Smart Method Kids", but it uses TM. Is it the TM Org in disguise or just a school using TM? Probably just coincidence.

According to the web site, kids using meditation watching the breath can create STRAIN and FRUSTRATION for them! Ouch, breath awareness sounds PAINFUL! We should avoid it at all costs! I mean, who would want their kids to STRAIN. They could get hemorrhoids or something.

As their website claims:

"The ancient, venerated Vedic Tradition of meditation prescribes different practices at specific stages of development in the child’s life. Because very young children are still integrating their inner world with the outer world around them, they may find it difficult to practice a meditation that requires them to sit still or inhibits their natural inclination to know and discover. Attempts to settle a child through directing their attention to breathing or trying to create inner silence may instead cause strain and frustration for the exuberant, growing child.

One technique of meditation that has been successfully introduced to many middle and high schools throughout America and around the world is the Transcendental Meditation technique. Based on the broad spectrum of scientific research on the effectiveness of the TM technique for students, [1] educators have felt confident that the Transcendental Meditation program is a safe and reliable practice to help children cope with stress and improve learning ability [2] and behavior [3]. Over 140,000 school children around the world have learned the TM technique in the past three years."

Prepare to be assimilated. Don't worry, it's Vedic, it won't hurt you! (actually TM is a tantric meditation method, but these people who are teaching it, don't seem to even be aware of the difference)

140,000 (!!!) other kids have learned it in just the last three years all over our Big Blue Marble and you don't hear them complaining, do you?

Check it out at:

http://www.smartmethodkids.com/child-care-tips/can-children-learn-to-meditate

Of course TM hasn't really been shown via any independent research that I'm aware of to be beneficial for kids. The only research I've seen was done by TM True Believers where the kids were coached on what their benefits would be. And then they asked them how they felt after they were indoctrinated on TM. Imagine that!

The "strain" word is a mantra long heard in Transcendental Meditation circles to attempt to demonize other meditation techniques which use balanced attention. Certainly from the perspective of people who learn to practice a balanced form of attention, lax, unbalanced attention just means your more likely to fall asleep. It's actually considered a defect in most forms of meditation, including mantra meditation (like TM).

Maybe there is something to independent research on Transcendental Meditation that shows 50 some per cent are not actually meditating at all, they're asleep! That's one of the disadvantages of not learning the nature of ones own mind and how to (properly) regulate attentional skills.

Transcendental Meditation kicked out of schools

2009-09-16T04:51:00.000-07:00

Transcendental Meditation was recently removed from a school in Australia when it was discovered it was a Hindu form of meditation:

http://www.thedaily.com.au/story/2009/09/15/ummm-meditation-program-religious

'Community' complain about school meditation

Mark Bode | 15th September 2009

EDUCATION Queensland says the community and not teachers are responsible for complaints the led to meditation classes being banned at Beerwah High School.

A spokesperson said teachers were invited to take part in a voluntary transcendental meditation program trial to access its benefits as a tool for relieving stress and potentially contributing to students’ well-being and learning outcomes.

The trial was not a response to any incident of violence and bullying at the school.

“In response to (community) concerns, the school held community information sessions in July to provide details of the program, its benefits and how the school was managing the implementation of the initiative,” the spokesperson said.

“As a result of the level of concern expressed by the Beerwah community, the principal, in consultation with the regional office, decided the meditation program would not continue at this stage.”

However, the woman who took the classes, Wendy Rosenfeldt, said teachers were responsible for the complaints and their concerns centred around religion.

“Some teachers went to the (education) department with misinformation from the internet,” she said.

“The department never contacted us about what it was actually about.”

She said TM was non-religious meditation and she hoped the program would resume once teachers were better informed.

Ms Rosenfeldt said along with helping to reduce stress and the incidence of bullying, TM improved the IQ of practitioners and led to better grades.

She said it had also proved beneficial to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and was used in schools around the world.

The school's P& C president, Sharon Vonhoff, believed the program had merely been postponed and was confident it would resume once “ill-informed” teachers were educated about TM.

“The feedback (from participants) has been absolutely positive,” Ms Vonhoff said.

“They're very, very happy - it's been totally beneficial.”

Some 35 teachers at the school were being taught TM, reported to be the most widely researched and one of the most popular meditation techniques, with some five million practitioners worldwide.

With what is understood to be the enthusiastic backing of the school's principal, Iqbal Singh, the program was to involve Year 9 students.

It was hoped the bulk of students would continue mediating until the end of Year 12 and beyond.

The TM group conducting the program wanted to produce a research paper on the exercise which it hoped could be used to entice other schools to introduce it.

Teachers from all grades were invited to take part in the program, which would not have cost Education Queensland a cent as it would mainly be funded by US-based TM organisation the David Lynch Foundation - named after its legendary filmmaker founder.

News of the program's demise came as the Daily learned of numerous complaints by parents to the school about their children being bullied.

TM research not what we've been lead to believe!

2009-09-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

"With regard to transcendental meditation’s claim of “508 scientific studies”, only 24 (3%) of these were randomised controlled trials and of these, at least 6 were published by lead-authors employed by transcendental meditation- (TM)-linked institutions, primarily the Maharishi University of Management. Such links naturally raise questions about conflicts of interest and objectivity in the reporting of results, particularly in the light of the strongly commercialised nature of the TM technique.

Of the 24 studies of TM, 22 were clinical trials and 2 were physiological trials assessing effects after brief training giving 37 comparisons. The author was the trainer in one study, while in 5 studies the author was employed by an institution that had formal affiliations with the TM organisation. TM was compared to low credibility controls in 19 comparisons, to moderate credibility controls in 4 instances and to high credibility controls in 14 instances. Sample size ranged from 20 to 250 participants, sample size per treatment arm ranged from 10 to 78. Drop-out rates varied from 0% to 55%. In 13 studies the statistical methods were inappropriate or not clearly described and in 16 studies the author’s conclusions were not supported by the analysis and results. "

From http://www.researchingmeditation.org/