Falling Down the TM Rabbit Hole, How TM Really Works, a Critical Opinion

Footnotes (linked to from other pages):

I say "at the very worst a victim" because most people in fact don't get hurt in TM. The truth is that most people drop the practice very quickly after starting. Others practice TM and indeed get some relaxation benefit. However, others incur serious psychological damage and have their lives seriously distorted and, occasionally, destroyed. There is a whole spectrum of impact. But there's nothing special about TM once you pull the curtain aside, and it's just not worth the risk.
A "trance induction script" is just patter that has been found effective in inducing trance. The script may also contain suggestions that are to be acted out in and/or after trance. The trance induction script is either memorized and then said aloud to the trance inductee (as with TM), or it can be read from printed text, or it can be listened to by the trance inductee on (for example) a cassette tape. You can find some examples, although not the exact method used in TM, of trance induction scripts at a Hypnosis Headquarters and Hypnosis.com.
A mental reservation is "the withholding, or failing to disclose, something that affects a statement, promise, etc., and which, if disclosed, would materially change its import". (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary) U.S. President Clinton used a mental reservation when he said "I never had sex with that woman!" He was privately and intentionally using a different definition of "sex" than he knew was being used by his questioners. TM teaching is rife with mental reservations. The teachers don't tell you everything because you "aren't ready for it yet". They mean well, they are merely treating you as a spiritual child. They feel that they may do you harm if they tell you things that you "aren't ready" to understand yet, thus possibly scaring you off from receiving the "benefits" of TM.
Mahesh and his organizations have endured great pressure at times to remove the requirement that the "puja" be performed as part of the "personal instruction". Mahesh has remained consistently adamant that the ceremony must be performed. There are reports that this requirement was relaxed when a TM course was taught at the U.S. Department of Defense's Pentagon building. However, 99.999% of all TM initiates will be required ceremony must be performed. There are reports that this requirement was relaxed when a TM course was taught at the U.S. Department of Defense's Pentagon building. However, 99.999% of all TM initiates will be required to "witness" the puja as part of "personal instruction".
Whenever you apply for a TM course, someone at your local TM center will have to approve your application. For the really advanced courses, such as the "sidhis course", someone at TM headquarters will also have to approve your application. The main thing that is happening is that the TM organization is starting to weed out the people who are "too weak" to handle "unstressing". But the fact of being "approved" for a course is not a good predictor as to whether you will have difficulty with the extra "unstressing" induced by the extra trance, dissociation, and the unusual ideation introduced at the course that you are applying for.
The"Science of Creative Intelligence" (SCI) is one of Mahesh's major efforts to mask his religious dogma in pseudoscience. It consists of hours and hours of videotaped lectures, in which Mahesh spins vague scientific analogies, attempting to lend a pretense of scientific validity to his spiritual doctrines.
The "Maharishi University of Management"(MUM) was originally called " Maharishi International University " (MIU). You can read a former MIU physics professor's comments about MIU, in which he says "Because of the strong authoritarian (essentially cultic) aspects of the movement, only results supporting ideas generated by the movement leadership could receive any hearing. The ‘scientific research' is without objectivity and is at times simply untrue".
If you haven't already read it in my introduction, you may be interested in this court affidavit. In the affidavit, another former professor at MIU/MUM alleges a serious and deliberate pattern of fraud, and also that "outright lies and deception, are used to cover-up or sanitize the dangerous reality on campus of very serious nervous breakdowns, episodes of dangerous and bizarre behavior, suicidal and homicidal ideation, threats and attempts, psychotic episodes, crime, depression and manic behavior that often accompanied roundings (intensive group meditations with brainwashing techniques)".
Further, he states that early accreditation of MIU was due to "a clear conflict of interest" on the part of the Chairman of North Central's Commission on Institutions of Higher Education."
"You really haven't performed anything of the sort." Even though Mahesh's organizations and followers have for decades been publishing photos were people appear to be hovering in mid-air, nothing of the sort has ever occurred. The people in this photo, and in all such photos, have been merely caught by reasonably high-speed photography at the top of a "hop". The guy on the right is pretty high up, but if you do this for a couple of hours every day then you might get more skilled and strong (in a completely normal and physical way) at it too!
The " Golden Domes" are two domed structures, painted a golden color, that were built at the MUM campus. The women practice their "sidhi program" in one dome, the men in another. You have to have a security badge to get in. One big reason for the security badge is that the "sidhas" may act and sound like crazy people during their "program", something that outsiders might not understand. Another reason for the badges is to keep out people who have been blacklisted for heresy.

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