Hi Martin,

Your postings have been quite informative! Thank you! Also I do thank you for bringing back so many memories, some pleasant and some not so pleasant.

Your story of your departure was wrenching. It must have taken you a while, contemplating what you were witnessing, to make the final decision to walk away. How painful that must have been for you, to leave your close community, and all that you had committed yourself to for years. I honor your courage and integrity.

I was always more of a rebel, and kind of on the fringes causing trouble (guess it's my nature? :D ) For me, leaving was hard in that it was leaving the paradigm of my whole family and husband. But I was never as devoted as you were. In that sense, I probably had an easier transition to mainstream life than you did. Still, the inner sense of betrayal ran deep. The seeming 'lost years' and awkwardness of explaining that time to others remains.

I have a few funny stories to post. But not time right now to write them out. In a couple of days I'll be back to post.

t :D

Martin :

You'd mentioned (in a private message) that you and I are probably two sides to the same coin, r.e. our TM history. You worked closely w/ and observed the Circus Master, who you then identified as a charletan.

Yes, probably two sides of the same coin. Good analogy -- I observed the circus in which I was raised! My kids born in the circus, but I took them and fled the circus.

IMHO, unlike your sense of belonging on the TM 'wall of shame' for your contributions to establishing the organizational foothold globally, for me the biggest damage from TM family dysfunction was my cult blinders.

Even after leaving the group, obtaining higher education, creating a wonderfullly full mainstream life, etc etc, 15 years later I had not acknolwedged that I was raised in a cult - what planet was I on? Earth to Toni!--

I then hooked up with another Carnie - he belonged to another circus.

So, I'd normalized this man's involvement in a spiritual group. Had our lives and familes wrapped around each other. As you know, that means that his "Master" was screwing with my life, as well as with his life. He is wealthy, so was near and dear to his Circus Master. Despite pressures, I'd refused to get involved w/ his group. However, I'd normalized it as a phase of his growth and had not investigated it either, until after our break up - BIG mistake! As 'Ultaware' writes - smoke damage.

Meanwhile my old TM connections, and my parents, continued the invites to crazy spiritual/ psychic events, which I also avoided. The second hand smoke-damage from his group was terrible for my childen and me, and for his family. I have to live with that. Cult recovery all over again.. hopefully this time for good. Like a second round of chemotherapy, I suppose.

Sadly, you are right. We don't escape the cult
I'd mistakenly thought that I had escaped... a looong time ago!
Seems that it's a deep part of us for always. I suppose like being born in a war zone... or traveling with the Circus for a few years! Yes, we escape the cult mindset. thank heavens for that!

So, a circus story for you follows ... devout celibate bramacharya (monk) that you were:

There was a 'stringer' (she put together the spiritual necklaces) at Crest Jewel who tried to bed as many 108/bramacharyas/ purusha boys as she could. She had a special strand of linked rudraksha beads, one bead per celibate she'd bedded. Back in 1980, she had over 50 beads on her special strand, before she was 30 years old herself. The beads linked in silver, wrapped around her wrist - her badge of sexual superiority over Mahesh's celibate control. Bevan was her goal. I don't know if she ever made it.

Someone else used to have phone sex with Bevan Morris (for the lurkers, he's one of the devoted monk-like leaders at top). Bevan used to call her from all over the world.

Now back to real life.

:D

Love the story about the stringer. I wonder if Mahesh kept track of the women he bedded. I noticed when I was in Seelisberg that he stopped wearing the string of coral on gold wire with the medallion of Guru Dev (I think Shiva was on the other side ... Mahesh means Shiva). Was he too ashamed? Doubtful. The bedding had gone on since the early 60's. Probably someone nicked it. He played a wire recording of Guru Dev one evening and later we heard somone had nicked the wire recordings. At least one of them is not available on the Internet.

Bevan and phone sex sounds about right. Who'd have him really? Well, I suppose we both know the blissninnies who would.

For lurkers: "bliss ninny" is a tm term from the early days and indicated the idiotic types who assumed they were blissful and highly evolved. They were sort of faries, after a fashion, tm enlightenment faries. They were disgusting, pretentious and really gave the "movement" a bad name.

They were, in Mahesh's own words, [b:54907a92ea]moodmakers[/b:54907a92ea]. Later he discovered that actually selling moodmaking brought in heaps of cash.

There were also quite sensible, good people around him. They were great to be around and could actually be trusted if you had a problem. Since Mahesh didn't like problems, you had to be sure he didn't find out you had a problem. It kept everyone in line on the surface, superficial level and contributed to a tm underground of sorts. I spent quite a few evenings with Mahesh Bashers in Seelisberg. Since we all had evil stories to tell, we knew we could trust one another because we couln't grass on one another.

So I picked up quite a bit. But even we, then, at that time, there, didn't know about Mahesh screwing the faithful women -- we didn't know and yet, night after night, there were always a few women who paraded out of the lecture hall and followed him to his room.

Must have been highly confidential Organization business. At least that's what we rationalized. Even the worst of the Mahesh Bashers never brought it up.

Delusional thinking plays a big role in cult maintenance. At some point the bubble breaks for someone. So, like Abraham Lincoln said: [i:54907a92ea]you can fool some of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time[/i:54907a92ea].

M

[www.pbs.org]

:?

Sorry, I failed to track the link to this article. An old friend emailed it to me.

The Fairfield Ledger is the hometown newspaper to a small farming community in SouthEast Iowa. Since 1974 or so, the town has become familiar with such cult-issues - amidst their reports about the highschool basketball team and the latest agricultural politics.

This article is yet another example that the 'illness' is guru-hopping - the belief that a SuperParent or guru will provide direction and spiritual meaning to life. Those still under the spell (brainwashing) expose the evils of one group, for the deemed benefits of another group.

IMHO, it's a waste of verbage - debating the merits of one groupthink over another. The Iowa farmers must find this alternately entertaining or irritating.
Who would believe this? (readers here would believe this)
toni :D

Subject: A tale of two gurus


July 14, 2005
The Fairfield Ledger
Opinion

A tale of two gurus

Could the Transcendental Meditation movement learn a thing or two
from 'the Hugging Saint'?

By Erik Gable

Rick Archer had been practicing and teaching Transcendental
Meditation for nearly three decades when he first met Mata Amritanandamayi, the Indian holy woman known to her followers as "Amma" or "the Hugging Saint."

He didn't see any conflict between going to visit Amma and his
regular practice of TM in the men's dome at Maharishi University of
Management. In fact, Archer recalled, his experience during his daily meditations actually improved.

But a few years later, after a meeting in which two TM movement
officials questioned him about his involvement with Amma's group, Archer's dome badge was revoked.

He had run afoul of a university policy discouraging TM teachers from
seeing gurus other than Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and he was no longer welcome during group meditation.

That policy has been a source of division and even fear among members
of Fairfield's meditating community. Although Amma has visited Mount
Pleasant every summer for the past four years, Archer said "fear and paranoia" leads some Fairfield residents to skip her local appearance and drive to Chicago to see her -- because they're afraid they'll get kicked out of the dome if the wrong person sees them in her presence.

But TM movement leaders say the policy is necessary to preserve the
purity of Maharishi's teachings. They also say the rules are nowhere near as draconian as many people think.

This issue came up repeatedly during a community meeting last summer
hosted by TM movement leaders. Robert Keith Wallace, an M.U.M. trustee and the university's first president, fielded several questions about reports of people being banned from the domes after visiting other spiritual leaders.

Wallace said TM teachers all agreed when they became teachers not to
see other gurus. In an interview last year, he compared the situation to
a Coca-Cola salesman being seen drinking Pepsi.

But movement leaders say Amma is not their enemy.

"The university's policy on any other teacher of meditation or
self-development is neutral," said M.U.M. executive vice president
Craig Pearson, "meaning we don't endorse other people, we don't criticize
other people."

At the same time, Pearson said, the university doesn't want people
practicing meditation techniques other than TM in its domes.

"The essential core thing that we have to protect is the purity of
that practice," he said. In addition to the ceremonies that earned her the nickname "the Hugging Saint," Amma offers her own meditation
technique.

The standards are stricter for teachers than for rank-and-file
meditators, Pearson added. While teachers aren't supposed to be seen going toother gurus, he said, non-teachers aren't likely to get in trouble for being seen in another guru's presence.

"Just going to see somebody else, there's no problem with that," he
said.

And in any case, Pearson said, "there's always due process."

Archer -- who says he had good experiences with Maharishi and doesn't
wish the movement any ill -- doesn't question M.U.M.'s right to decide who can and can't meditate in the domes.

"They're entitled to set whatever standards they want," he said.

But at the same time, some say the movement hurts itself by
discouraging involvement with other gurus.

"I feel they lose the respect of a lot of people," said Archer, "and
they also box themselves in and run the risk, which I think has been to a
great degree realized, of becoming very cult-like."

"I think it tends to isolate the TM movement," said Mark Petrick, one
of the people who organized Amma's visit this year. "I think the TM movement becomes less and less relevant to the life of the community when it closes itself off to experiences that many people have found valuable in their lives."

Petrick, a former M.U.M. faculty member, said he left the movement
because he felt it was "a little too closed, a little too cultish."

Pearson, however, rejects the C-word.

"I think a common definition of a cult is that people try to control
the behavior, and the comings and goings and even the finances of the
members of the cult," he said, "and there's nothing of that associated with the university or the practice of meditation in the golden domes."

* * *

The larger question, though, is whether Amma's popularity in the
Fairfield meditating community is a symptom of problems within the TM movement itself.

Take a look, for example, at how Amma's admirers describe her.
Without exception, they paint a picture of a humble, down-to-earth woman whosecharitable projects make an immediate difference for people in need --a far cry from the TM movement with its trappings of monarchy and its seemingly endless string of grandiose schemes.

"More than anybody I've ever seen, she really does what she says she
does," said Bob Hoerlein, a member of the local Amma group.

"I guess the thing that people respect," said Petrick, "is that the
things she does are very concrete and they're serving enormous numbers of people."

Petrick contrasts Amma's down-to-earth mission of helping the poor
with Maharishi's promises of world peace and supernatural powers like
levitation.

"There's no pie in the sky with her," he said.

The upper ranks of the TM movement are filled with "excellencies" and
"highnesses." For $1 million, you can take a course that entitles you
to become a "raja," or king, in the Global Country of World Peace. And
every so often, you can see white stretch limousines driving around Fairfield with the Global Country's golden flag fluttering in the breeze.

It should surprise no one that such airs of royalty don't go over
well in America -- which, after all, fought a revolution to get rid of its
monarchy.

But they also contrast sharply with the tales of humility told by
Amma's admirers, who say she's been known to carry bricks on her head and jump into sewers to work alongside her followers.

"She teaches by example, I think, that we're all created equal and
that you don't have the big important people and the little peons," said
Archer.

Amma's humanitarian efforts -- building homes for the poor, funding
hospitals, coordinating tsunami relief -- contrast just as sharply
with the TM movement's fundraising campaigns, which promise world peace but never seem to make a concrete impact. The latest TM campaign is an effort to build 3,000 "peace palaces" around the world, with a price tag of $3 million each. The total is a staggering $9 billion -- which could build a lot of hospitals.

Faced with a choice between an organization that builds homes for the
poor and one that builds palaces, it's no wonder many people would rather give their money to the former.

If Maharishi's organization dropped some of its airs, it would be
less likely to lose followers to Amma or any other guru.

The TM movement can crown all the kings and build all the palaces it
wants, but it could still learn a thing or two from a humble Indian woman
who travels around the world giving hugs.

(Erik Gable is assistant news editor of The Fairfield Ledger.)

Out of curiosity:

I attended a recent TM introductory meeting. It's been long since I'd left the group. It is now nearly 2 decades since I'd left; four decades since my childhood Initiation.

It is incredible that the group still has affected my psyche after so many years, and my parents are still somewhat loco. I was more or less raised in the TM movement.

The speakers looked as though they recognized me. One familiar looking woman asked, with her loving spacey smile "Do I know you?" I responded "I don't think so."

I'm nearly 20 yrs older than the last time those people would've seen me, my hair is different, and I purposely hid behind purple eye glasses.

The meditators present were so dearly loving and gentle with one another. Everyone spoke in the soft monotone of calm tranquilty, control. Connecting to their inner core (B.S.)

I listened to these sincere presenters..they spoke lies. They believe the lies to the core of their being. Their sincerity was genuine. The presenters are carefully trained and then selected for their various regions to teach (no one in the audience would know that). I live in an
affluent educated area. The presenters were appropriately accomplished in their prior-to-TM lives.

Their sincerity was contagious to the group. I looked around and observed the audience being drawn by the vision and the promises.
The eager audience nodded in agreement as the presentors explained that reality is not this physical world. "Reality is what you experience inside yourself. We each create our own reality. With TM you can transcend the physical realm and come to the core of your true creativity, intelligence and bliss"

All the verbage of my childhood and early adulthood was presented, like sweet lollipops in front of wide-eyed children. Occassionally a phrase leaked though that I recognized as alluding to all the 'higher levels' of teachings, and bizarre lifestyle. No one else would have caught it. I wondered if I could identify the same w/ other groups. I think I could; that's why I never participated in other groups.

The same old verbage used. It all appeared so innocent, sounding inviting and tempting. The lauded scientific charts of decreased blood pressure and slower respiration rate were presented on powerpoint, as published in a reputable medical journal. Morphine will cause those same biological repsonses. Of course, stimulation of endogenous opiates will have that measurable physical effect. And how does an opiate addiction contribute to effectiveness in life?

If one can just take the good and leave the rest, then TM could be beneficial?..... I wonder.

The problem is that the organization IS orchestrated to keep one hooked and going deeper, or higher as the case may be..and it becomes ugly the further one goes.

Any problems are blamed back on the individuals. the leadership and methods NEVER accept responsibility for problems..and take credit for ALL "good". When in reality, any "good" comes from the individuality anyway. Within the group, there was always pressure to conform or suffer rejection.

I wanted to ask the presentors about my friends' who had become schizophrenic, or the suicides, or my father's severity of illness because he used Maharishi Ayur-Ved rather than standard beneficial medical treatments, or those groupies who are fearful to leave the TM community because of the "negativity in the outside world."

I knew that the presenters would have calmly responded, with their scripted answers, that some individuals had problems. They would have calmly and sweetly explained that these isolated incidences of hardships had nothing to do with this wonderful medition method (that causes a dissociative calm and an automaton smile)

I remained quiet and listened. The presenters are convincing presenters. The phrases/ lingo are largely still the same from decades ago. I excused myself early. Couldn't listen politely anymore.

It amazes me that this is being mass marketed again, and a new crop of Initiates coming on board for $2,500 each.

Yes, that it IS the correct fee... Beginning Transcendental Meditation, from the intial level, now costs $2,500!

I wonder if the current new marketing appeal is purposely directed at the wealthy, and that additional new programs will become proportionately increasingly expensive.

Like anything, there is the public story:

[www.rotten.com]

[www.csicop.org]

Then there is the private story, known to those of us who were on or near the inside. I know far too many of such stories, as do any of us who were raised, or spent any amount of time, in a cult.

Two best selling relationship gurus were once married:
John Gray and Barbara DeAngelis. They founded a relationship seminar company together, that began teaching to TMers. I forgot the name of that seminar. Their divorce agreement included the division of their writings in progress - that book evolved into "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"

Barbara later married, then divorced, magician Doug Henning who is linked above.

Next Doug married Debbie Douillard, soon after finalizing the divorce from Barbara DeAngelis.
Debbie's brother, John Douillard was a popular chiropracter involved with the TM Ayurvedic medicine.

Doug and Debbie had a magical wedding, the only wedding to take place inside The Golden Dome of the Age of Enlightenment. Of course celebrity devotees could have access to such facilities for their wedding. Yes, I was present and also at the small private reception afterwards. Doug and Debbie were totally enamoured, and totally devoted to Maharishi and his teachings.

After making many millions, at one time Maharishi told Doug that he was no longer to perform two performances each night in Las Vegas. That working two shows per night (as all other L.V. celebrities did) would be "too exhausting for his nervous system and interfere with his evolution". So, Doug renegotiated his contract for only one performance nightly.

That was the beginning of Doug's career decline.

However, Doug had plenty of money at that point. Doug and Debbie then spent their time close with Maharishi, planning and developing VedaLand... (as mentioned in a link above).

Doug died a few years ago of liver cancer.
Debbie donated all of Doug's millions to the TM Movement. She then joined the TM "Mother Divine Program". Mother Divine is a convent-like program, but the women meditate about six hours per day. They become very soft spoken and spacey.

Today, I was told that Debbie's family had her admitted to a mental institution a few years ago. deep sigh.

She was once so full of life.

The Inside TM-myth about Debbie's condition, "Doug and Debbie were soul mates. They were totally connected as one soul in two bodies. When Doug died, Debbie no longer had a purpose for living"

In reality, IMHO, once the guru got the bucks.. he had no further use for her.

The individuality was erroded so slowly & insidiously. The highly honored devotees at the top (of any cultic group) totally surrendered their sense of self to the leader.

Inside email to TM Center Directors
Current focus for TM Centers' marketing
***

Celebrated Film Director David Lynch
at USC on November 3 to Speak on

"Consciousness, Creativity, and the Brain"

To Launch New Foundation to Help Students
Overcome Stress through Meditation

Award-winning director David Lynch (Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive) will speak at University of Southern California on "Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain" on Thursday, November 3, at 7:30 p.m.


Lynch's talk will be held at the beautiful Bovard Auditorium on the USC campus. The talk is free and open to the public.

3551 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089


Lynch, who is in the midst of directing his new film, Inland Empire, will speak and answer questions on his films. He will also launch the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace-a national nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing the benefits of stress-reducing meditation to students (www.davidlynchfoundation.org).


Lynch's foundation recently partnered with other foundations in a $1.2 million research grant to study the effects of Transcendental Meditation on brain functioning, academic performance, learning disorders, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse among students in nine schools and colleges.


The reclusive filmmaker admits to his aversion to public speaking, but said he is coming to USC to highlight the need for students to overcome the epidemic of stress that pervades colleges and schools. "Students experience fear, anxiety, depression-their life is not what it should be. I know from my own 30 years of experience that meditation can work. I am coming to tell students that my foundation is available to help them develop their consciousness, creativity, and brain through meditation," Lynch said.


Lynch will be joined at the talk by quantum physicist Dr. John Hagelin, who was recently featured in the hit film What the Bleep Do We Know? and neuroscientist Dr. Fred Travis, director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management.


The presentation is being presented by the USC School of Cinema-Television-Writing Division.


David Lynch


David Lynch is one of the most creative and fascinating artists of our time. Mr. Lynch is the director of Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, and Mulholland Drive. He is currently directing his new film, Inland Empire. But Mr. Lynch is not only creative as a filmmaker, he is also a painter, photographer, sculptor, furniture designer, composer of soundscapes, song writer, author, and producer. Mr. Lynch's numerous awards for filmmaking include Academy Award nominations for Best Director for Mulholland Drive in 2001, Blue Velvet in 1986, and Elephant Man in 1980. He also won Best Director for Mulholland Drive from the Cannes International Film Festival and the LA Film Critics Association. Last year, the Guardian in the U.K. named Mr. Lynch the world's best film director of the past 40 years. Mr. Lynch is also dedicated peace activist and chair of the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing the stress-reducing benefits of Transcendental Meditation to students of all ages.



If you are involved with an educational institution or a foundation and would like to be more involved, please contact Penny Hintz at 310 459 2777 or Pennytm@aol.com.

See John Hagelin smile while explaining yogic flying on the National Geographic website

on bottom of webpage, click onto "Find Videos"
then click on small image titled "Super Powers"

[cgi.nationalgeographic.com]

Martin I find your insights about Mahesh and his motivations coming from extreme narcisism and also a need to prove something to his master Guru Dev to be most intriguing! MOST intriguing indeed!

Since no longer practicing the sidhis (it's been ten years since I left 'the movement') I have often pondered the question, "What did it All Mean?"

I recently read the online biography of M.M.Y. by Paul Martin (?) I keep wanting to call him Paul Simon, but I believe it is Martin..in which he quotes some early speeches of Mahesh about the horror of death. How utterly horrific it is to be born and to die. NOT the kind of thing you expect a Guru to be afraid of, for crikey's sake!!!

I am not sure about this 'fact' but I do understand that M. was with Guru Dev when he died. I wonder if witnessing the horrible poisoning death of Guru Dev is what made Mahesh just go off the deep end? Way back when, long ago...far away....

Leaving a trail of disgruntled and diss-'illusioned' ex-TMers in his wake. What do you think?