No Peace At The Capital

File under: The Siddhi of PR

We already told you that the good Christian folks of Smith Center, Kansas, are not too happy about the Madharishi's TM™ers invading their turf. Now the story has been picked up by the Associated Press:

Folks became alarmed when the outsiders bought up large tracts of land. Nine local pastors warned the movement that it is encroaching on their spiritual turf. And when a TM™ representative started throwing around terms at a meeting like "waves of coherence" and "silent zero point," the farmers just shook their heads.

We are too. It's a monumental public relations blunder to show up in a Midwestern farm town speaking some gibberish only they and their mad leader can understand. The only reason they're in Jesus country anyway is because the Madharishi insists that his World Capital of Peace can only be built on the geographical center of the United States. In other words, the local fundamentalist Christian community is and will continue to bear the brunt of the TM™ leader's obsessive-compulsive disorder.

But since we're anything-goes when it comes to God, we've got to side with the TM™ers on this one. They are a religion – a fact they are always trying to deny – but they're a relatively harmless one, especially when you put 'em up next to the fundies. We don't think the old coot's mad peace plan is going get any traction, but we take the dust of his feet for putting it out there and in the face of those who would drag us back to the Dark Ages if they could.