Meditation, Delusion and Deception

TM hurts people

Maharishi's lieutenants speak of promoting 20- minute doses of relaxation. How could that really hurt you (even if how-to lessons and "your own" secret mantra were overpriced at $600)?

They don't tell you about the advanced (Sidhi) courses (priced at over $2,000) that Maharashi began to sell in the late 1970s. Advanced TMers meditate for hours at a time. That can stimulate delusions and hallucinations.

TM insists it can teach you to levitate and fly. ("Yogic flying" lessons may cost $3,000.) TMers don't really fly. They hop, from a cross-legged yoga position. They develop awesomely powerful thigh muscles. They may develop aches. After hop, hop, hopping across a room, TMers coming out of their altered mental state may believe that they flew even though it never happened. Major TV pro- grams have shown how "flying" TMers really hop. You can borrow a video tape to see for yourself.

The Washington City Paper reported (July 13, 1990, p. 14) that former TM teacher and yogic flyer Diane Hendel:

"saw little creatures with wings" during intensive meditation periods ... They were like my pets. They'd tell me things." Hendel was encouraged to believe that these winged beasties were "devas" '- Hindu spirits of nature. "I began not to be able to tell who was a person and who was a deva," she said. Hendel sought counseling, eventually quit meditating, and left the movement.

Intensive meditation can make TMers seem lifeless or flat, their personalities crushed and buried, devoid of emotion. In some cases, the meditator may go into involuntary meditation - - which could be devastating if driving a car or at many kinds of jobs. Stanford psychologist Leon S. Otis (who believed many people could benefit from the 20-minute relaxation) concluded that his data raise serious doubts about the innocu- ous nature of TM. In fact, they suggest that TM may be hazardous to the mental health of a sizable proportion of the people who take up TM.

Adverse Effects of Transcendental Meditation, Update: A Quarterly Journal of New Religious Movements, 9, 37-50 (1985).

Maharishi has taught devotees that a TMer is healthfully "unstressing" when symptoms of distress accompany his meditation. Ex-TMers have sued TM, alleging severe harms. TM has generally settled out of court, including cases in Washington, D.C.