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

Surprise! Unpleasant, even dangerous, things can result from TM practice

They left a few things out of the introductory lectures!

They didn't tell you at the introductory lectures that unpleasant things may result from the practice of TM? This was yet another mental reservation "for your own good". They didn't want to scare you off which would keep you from gaining the "benefits" of TM. They meant well.

But this is the point at which some people do indeed began to experience significant negative effects from the practice of TM. This is because all of this trance and dissociation turns out not to be a normal or "natural" thing at all.

These negative effects can take the form of continued dissociation after one goes home. You may have trouble getting out of that "spacey" condition. In fact, as you increase you TM dosage you may reach a stage where you never get out of the "spacey" state, i.e. you may experience chronic dissociation.

The negative effects can also take the form of unpleasant physical sensations or involuntary twitching of large muscle groups.

Another very common negative effect is to have "headaches in meditation". This can happen even doing just "twenty minutes twice a day", but it is especially common during and after periods of toxically increased "trance dosage" such as at a residence course. I personally hypothesize that these headaches are caused by a rebellion where one part of the mind or brain somehow begins to fight against further toxic doses of trance and dissociation. Many people who fall down the TM rabbit hole as far as this point know about headaches in meditation. Many people find out about headaches from personal experience if they fall down the TM rabbit hole much further.

The TM dogma on "unstressing"

Of course, once again, in the introductory lectures they never mentioned that there could be any unpleasantness whatever arising from TM practice. They were only thinking of your own good when they withheld this information. If they had told you, you might not have started TM and that would have been horrible! You just "weren't ready" to properly evaluate such information!

And they only gradually reveal a tiny glimpse of this reality to you during the "Three Nights of Checking". This is because if they revealed the entire reality you might stop TM practice anyway, and that would also be horrible!

I recommend reviewing the TM spiritual dogma on "unstressing" (called "stress release in that document") as taught in the second group meeting after initiation. Understanding the basic TM dogma on "unstressing" is vital to understanding TM.

In summary, the dogma asserts the following:

"Stress in the nervous" system is the only thing keeping us from perfect happiness, and from being able to fulfill all of our desires.
"Stress" can only be "released" by "rest".
The amount of rest needed depends on the strength of the stress. Superficial stress can be released by superficial rest such as normal sleep. But "deep stress" can only be released by "deep rest". And the really powerful stresses, the ones that are really impacting our lives and keeping us from happiness and from success, can only be released by the "deep rest of TM"!
The stress was unpleasant going in, so we shouldn't be surprised if it is unpleasant while "going out" during stress release.
The really deep stresses may be particularly unpleasant while being released.
Therefore unpleasantness arising from TM is just a symptom that "something good is happening". This "something good" is the release of a stress that has been causing us suffering!

What they don't tell you about during the "Three Nights of Checking" is "heavy unstressing", which is the TM rationalization for the toxic effects of "too much TM". We'll introduce many examples of this phenomenon below.

Periodic re-indoctrination: "You should have your meditation checked."

One thing they emphasize during the "Three Days of Checking After Initiation" was that you should "have your meditation checked regularly". The purpose of "checking" is to reinforce the "you will become deeply relaxed" suggestion, and to reinforce the proper technique of auto-trance-induction. This is all accomplished via yet another trance induction script called the individual checking procedure (see "Section 1", "Section 2", "Section 3", and the "General Points" on that page, all of which together comprise the "individual checking procedure").

As with the trance induction scripts used during "personal instruction" and the "three days of checking after initiation", the "individual checking procedure" must be completely memorized and recited precisely. (In fact, demonstrating rote mastery of all of these many trance induction scripts is the hardest requirement of being a TM teacher!). It is somewhat similar to the "group checking procedure" used each night during the "three days".

Unlike the other TM trance induction scripts, the "individual checking procedure" can be performed by someone who is not a TM teacher. In such a case, the individual is called a "checker". Becoming a "checker" is often the first step toward becoming a TM teacher.

While you are always encouraged to "have your meditation checked regularly", in all cases of unpleasant results from TM you will be especially encouraged to do so.

The objective, in TM-speak, of "checking" is to "guide you in the effortless use of the mantra". However, what they are really doing is to guiding you in how not to fight the descent into trance, and now not to fight the reduction in thought activity as you act out the TM suggestions in that trance.

Headaches in meditation: unpleasant, but they are the least of your worries

It is actually true that "checking" can sometimes help with "headaches in meditation. I believe that this is because such headaches can be caused by tendency to fight the descent into trance, and a tendency to fight the reduction in thought activity. By teaching you once again to yield to such things, and not fight them, "checking" can indeed help prevent headache in meditation.

Is "checking" a good thing in such cases, then? I don't think so. I think that the quite common symptom of headaches in meditation is "nature's way" of telling you that you are doing something psychologically unnatural and unhealthy. In my opinion, the part of your mind that is fighting against the TM suggestions, and thus possibly triggering a mental conflict resulting in headache, is the part of you that is trying to maintain psychological health. It is trying to resist descent into toxic degrees of dissociation. The natural thing to do when TM results in headaches is to stop TM, and it means that you should stop TM! By teaching you to not fight against this unhealthy degree of dissociation and to thus stop triggering headaches in meditation, the "checker" is not helping you at all. It would be better if the checker left you alone and allowed you to entirely quit the practice of TM.

But headache is the very least dangerous of the problems you can have with TM. Headaches just hurt, but other problems indicate that you are incurring psychological damage.

"Heavy unstressing": TM can be extremely psychologically destructive

Starting light, for an almost amusing look at the insanity induced by excessive TM practice take a look at "Mumbull". The site is run by a TM advocate who is representative of that large percentage of TMers who subscribe to the powerful denial mechanism that "all of these bad and crazy things happen despite the benefits of TM". Another part of the same denial mechanism is that anything Mahesh does or says that seems to represent bad judgment can be rationalized away as being the responsibility of his minions and/or due to bad information from his advisors. So this site is a combination of good information about the craziness of the "TM world", combined with sometimes powerful rationalizations to defend the "TM believer's worldview" against such information.

I'll mention the story of my own adventures in TM again, which I do encourage you to take a look at so you can get an idea of how severe such psychological problems can become. Also, in that story, I try to give you an idea of what "heavy unstressing" is.

And to give you a further of what "heavy unstressing" can lead to, I refer you once again to "Kropinski's List of TM Casualties". Below is an example from his TM victim list. This woman was well known to the TM world, since she was the wife of the president of the Maharishi University of Management (MUM), (the TM organization's private university (formerly called "Maharishi International University" (MIU)).

[Victim #4], Los Angeles, California: The former wife of Dr. Keith Wallace lived in the TM center in Los Angeles. She was under the personal guidance of MMY and was permitted to live in the center with MMY's personal permission. In a hallucination while practicing the TM-Sidhi program she felt an older woman was drawing energy from her body preventing her from levitating. She purchased a gun and shot the woman during their practice of TM Sidhis.

Similar stories can be found in the "TranceNet Personal Histories Archive".

To continue on the same theme: on the opening page of this web site I suggested that you take a look at the sworn affidavit of Attorney Anthony D. DeNaro. DeNaro is a former professor of economics and business law at MIU (this was before it was called MUM), as well as former legal counsel to the same institution. This affidavit is a gold mine, and worth a careful read. Right now, though, I'll concentrate on statements he made that cast a light on the toxic psychological effects of TM. In the affidavit, DeNaro says things such as (emphasis added):

The extent and scope of the deception before, during and after becoming "initiated" (their term) into TM-Sidhi programs is so vast and far-reaching with enormous potential for severe injury, and, even death, that it is impossible, within this necessarily abbreviated brief, to document it all.
At para. 17, President Morris claims "heightened intellectual clarity." As a professor who taught at MIU that claim is false. The effect is the opposite: a spaced-out, unfocused, zombie-like automaton, incapable of critical thinking is the more usual "benefit" of prolonged meditation.
In fact, meditation was used as an excuse (probably valid) by my students for not completing a project much in the way a "virus" or "the flu" debilitates the average college student. The consequences of intensive, or even regular, meditation was so damaging and disruptive to the nervous system, that students could not enroll in, or continue with, regular academic programs.
Many of my students offered as an excuse for not being able to sit for an examination or write a paper, the fact that they had a "bad meditation" or just "got off rounding" (group TM) and haven't gotten "back to earth yet."
A simple review of internal correspondence reflects the inconsistency between the outward, sanitized, "safe" public image they try to present, and the frequently dangerous reality of TM-Sidhi techniques.
A disturbing denial or avoidance syndrome, and even 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). Euphemisms are employed to describe essentially dangerous, unstable and injurious behavior. "Unstressing," for example, "Baking" is another.
For example, a memo dated 5/21/75 from Dean Sluyter, a copy of which is annexed (with original markings and notations) to Jon Shapiro, the head of psychological services, acknowledges that rounding results in bizarre behavior. The memo notes that it includes a recommendation from the President's Council [of MIU].

The effectiveness of a course leader depends largely on his ability to maintain and manifest a feet-on-the-ground, non-rounding perspective. Constant immersion in the usually "baked" atmosphere of a long rounding course presents a challenge to that perspective.
Course leaders in Europe have a notorious tendency to get baked.
Jonathan Shapiro, and other experienced Forest Academy and TTC leaders, in a moment of candor, have personally acknowledged that rounding can result in a nervous breakdown. However, this is not the term they prefer to use.
There were meditators who experienced serious breakdowns during and following meditation. MIU and the counselling staff usually opted for banishment in these cases, although their practices often triggered mental breakdowns. Many students who experienced severe and uncontrollable trauma from meditation came to me for assistance and counselling since Jonathan Shapiro and his staff were punitive and hostile in their "therapeutic" approach.
Banishing people who have problems not only from the campus, but attempting to keep them out of the state [Iowa] through extortion, threats or intimidation is not unusual. In many cases, the problems are precipitated or worsened by TM-Sidhi practices and/or by activities of the TM hierarchy. Essentially they cause the problem, blame the victim for his or her breakdown, and then threaten them with injury or other means if they don't leave the state permanently.
...about three or four in the morning I was awakened by noise and excitement outside of my dorm. A twister (and possibly more than one) was west of the campus in the direction of Ottumwa and clearly visible. The students were outside their frats (dorms) in their nightclothes to test their "supernatural" powers. No one was injured simply because the twister did not hit the campus. Nevertheless scores of students believed (I questioned them the next day) that somehow the meditation safeguarded them.
These experiences and myths perpetrated by the TM cult might appear humorous or silly, but in fact I saw many casualties from their irresponsible lies and deceptions. Teaching methodology, for example, is actually indoctrination or brain washing and one of the very few (perhaps only) classes where genuine learning was attempted was in my classroom.
I have more than five (5) years family court law guardian experience and work with young drug abuses and addicts. In addition, I was involved in implementing a drug addiction program in Nassau County, New York. My observation and experience of some of the erratic and volatile "unstressing" (actually nervous breakdowns) on campus was similar to the reactions I've observed from people who had a "bad trip" or "freaked-out" from dangerous hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD.
In early December 1975, while the Maharishi was on campus, I spent a great deal of time trying to persuade him to adopt a more honest, less commercial, approach to meditation, the Sidhi courses, the curricula, the disguised religious element masquerading as a science, inter alia.
He was aware, apparently for some time, of the problem, suicide attempts, assaults, homicidal ideation, serious psychotic episodes, depressions, inter alia, but his general attitude was to leave it alone or conceal it because the community would lose faith in the TM movement.
Maharishi had a very cavalier, almost elitist, view about very serious injuries and trauma to meditators. His basic attitude towards the concealment of the religious nature of TM was: "When America is ready for Hinduism I will tell them."
The claims of flying and levitation in the Sidhi courses are more than just false and dishonest, and an ambitious, cynical money making scheme by a group of cosmic merchants. They are exceedingly dangerous to a small, but significant, percentage of people who believe this and uncritically accept these outlandish claims.
In his more subtle and very sophisticated way Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his charlatanism is [sic] a far more destructive and dangerous cult leader than Jim Jones who induced more than 900 people to commit suicide in Guyana.
Based on specific and personal observations and knowledge, inter alia, there is no question, but that the Maharishi had prior and actual notice and knowledge of the detrimental consequences of some meditative and Sidhi practices. However, he made a conscious decision and choice a long time ago to make money, develop a world-wide network of TM-SCI-Sidhi programs, irrespective of the trauma he caused to many vulnerable and uninformed people who were willing to trust him.

Mr. DeNaro's comparison of Mahesh with Jim Jones will seem extreme if we consider only physical violence. No one in TM has been asked to drink poison. But if we include psychological violence, then the comparison is apt. Many times more than 900 people have endured psychological torture as a direct result of trusting Mahesh.

Why "heavy unstressing": Why can TM practice be so psychologically toxic?

Personally, I believe that "heavy unstressing" and the psychological casualties are a result of deliberately inducing chronic dissociation via excessive TM practice, which can also result in an extreme degree of suggestibility. This extreme suggestibility, combined with heavy exposure to advanced TM esoteric indoctrination, can in turn lead to induced psychosis.

TM induces trance, but trance of itself is neither "good" nor "bad". The ability to enter trance is actually a natural feature of human psychology. Experts on the subject tend to say that becoming heavily absorbed in TV show, or absorbed in a book, or absorbed in a daydream can be a form of trance.

But in TM we deliberately induce trance, and I believe that "too much" trance becomes psychologically toxic. What is "too much"? I believe that depends on the individual, but the many hours a day of trance experienced by advanced TM practitioners appears to be "too much" for many people. I believe that increasing an increasing of "chronic dissociation" can be the result.

In addition, I personally think that what makes TM trance even more potentially damaging is due to the suggestions that are enacted during and after trance. Please consider the various suggestions that have been planted in you as a result of taking just the basic TM course:

Thoughts will subside in meditation.
This subsiding of thoughts is spiritually positive, because the more one's thoughts subside the more one is approaching "Pure Consciousness".
Thoughts will sometimes subside completely in meditation, and there will be an experience of "no mantra and no thoughts". This is (supposedly!) an experience of "Pure Consciousness".
Eventually, the practice of TM will result in a state where one is able to maintain the experience of "Pure Consciousness" even when not meditating. This is called "Cosmic Consciousness" or "enlightenment", and is described in TM dogma as a state of freedom from suffering where all one's thoughts and actions will be "spontaneously life supporting". ("Life supporting" is the TM analogue of "morally perfect".)

Under the influence of trance, the mind makes a faithful attempt to enact these suggestions. But also note again the suggestion that "Pure Consciousness" should gradually be experienced even outside of meditation. I think that the effect over time is to create a state of chronic dissociation, extending to depersonalization and the other symptoms already referenced. I think that chronic dissociation is the nearest the mind can come to emulating the description of "Cosmic Consciousness" via suggestion.

That's my own theory, anyway. But whether I am right or wrong about why "heavy unstressing" occurs is less important than the fact that "heavy unstressing does occur. These negatives effects are strong enough and common enough that living with them because the norm for many dedicated practitioners of TM. The effects become psychologically debilitating for some. What is Mahesh's answer to this?

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