Are T & M Headed For Splitsville?

File under: Satscams and The Siddhi of PR

[Ed.note: This is the sort of thing we want to post now. If we got more tips like this, there'd be more good content on this site. :::hint:::]

CONFIDENTIAL SOURCE

Girish Varma is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's nephew. He runs the TM Movement in India.

Although King Nader Raam (an MD from Lebanon) was appointed by Maharishi as his official successor, he is hardly recognized as such by Girish who obviously fashions himself as the next Maharishi (my gosh, the family resemblance is eerie!). See the following link for more details:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/241161

Nader is now happily ensconced in a beautiful home in a fashionable section of Paris with a wife and two children (a fact he has kept secret until recently) and this has really pissed off Garish who fully expected to be the successor. Girish's reasoning is that since he, Girish, is a celibate AND Maharishi's blood relative it simply isn't fair that someone who is living inthe decadent West and has two daughters and a wife and all the creature comforts gets to be boss! The top position should be kept in the Family Business, seems to be Garish's reasoning.

A year or so ago, one of the higher-ups in the TM organisation, Bevan Morris, started to question Girish's fealty to Nader when private emails were released but this was quickly hushed up. Bevan's doubts were raised because Girish had started an entirely new major project in India without ever mentioning Nader or any of the "official" TM catch-words that were in vogue at the time. Work of a real rogue element.

Girish is on the precipice of separating himself and the Indian TM money (Maharishi sent the bulk of the TM fortunes to India to be under Girish's watchful eye before he, Maharishi, died) from the international organisation and starting his own TM Movement. It is a full time job for the TM higher-ups to appease this guy and continually please him so he doesn't bolt, which is what they had to do in a major way with the Bevan dust-up.

But one look at the photographs Girish enables to be taken of himself pretty much tells the whole story. Odds are that it is only a matter of time when an official scism occurs, Girish flies the coup, and the spoils divided. Of course, Girish has absolutely no idea what that will do to the already greatly diminished credibility of the TM organisation in the West. He simply doesn't understand that it will be on the order of what happened to the then 13-year-old Guru Maharaji back in the '70s when his mother disowned him, effectively destroying their worldwide movement forever.

Lynch Takes Assault On 1st Amendment to Kentucky

File under: The Siddhi of PR

David Lynch's plan to get his religion into your kids' schools has moved into its post-concert phase. Money made at the concert will now flow to the various regional "peace palaces" of the TM™ org so that efforts to indoctrinate your children can be made on a local basis, including in the state of Kentucky:

Part of the initiative includes funding from the David Lynch Foundation for 1,000 kids in the Central Kentucky area...

In Lexington, anyone can learn the TM technique at the Maharishi Peace Palace, which offers free introductory lectures as well as further instruction to learn a seven-step program.

And a whole lot of "encouragement" to open your wallets to pay for it all.

And that's the whole plan. Raise money to introduce TM™ to children to develop paying customers and adherents to what is CLEARLY a religion.

If TM™ meditation can be in schools, why not Zen, or Vipassana, which is clearly more well-suited to the task of being secular. TM™'s tireless efforts to secularize their ideology is only a few microns thick, folks, covering up what is essentially one grandiose man's grandiose vision of a world ruled by kings (rajas) who will mete out Vedic law, but only as it was interpreted by him. In this world, we will all literally be bowing to pictures of the Maharishi!

Yeah, we know, it's effing crazy, but there are thousands of people who believe it, and those are the people who are trying to get TM™ into the head of as many children as they can.

Gp pal John Knapp has put out a call to the citizens of central Kentucky for any information they might be able to provide. Recently, he attempted to organize a web-meeting about TM™ in schools that was quashed by lawyers from the David Lynch Foundation. We encourage everyone to call their schools and raise a ruckus about this absolute assault on the First Amendment, and not just in Kentucky. TM™ is trying to get in schools from San Francisco to Rhode Island. It's likely that wherever there's a "Maharishi's Peace Palace," there's an effort to trojan their religion into your schools.

Update: For those who want to decide for themselves whether TM™ is a religion, check this out:

Maharishi is expressing this because He has felt a great opening in world consciousness. He now feels that He is ready and able to train as many governors as come forward to be real channels for the decent of Heaven on Earth, Sat Yuga. He wants to bring all the old time people to a mature state of knowledge and experience. He wants to train us to create for ourselves and for the world from within ourselves, and to know by Being, and to create from Being, so that we are masters of our own destiny and the destiny of the world.

This is sacred business for TM™. In other words, their religion.

Birthday Cheer For The Maharishi

File under: Gurubusting

Today is the Maharishi's birthday, so his old nemesis and an O.G. gurubuster from way back, John Knapp of Trancenet fame, has given the senile old coot a gift in the form of the TM™-busting TM-Free Blog:

It features independent views of the various Transcendental Meditation organizations and its founder, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and discusses scandals, research, insider secrets, and more.

And we're proud to say it's written by some of the best-known names in TM criticism:

* Joe Kellet, former TM Teacher/Governor & author of the web site suggestibility.org

* Gina Catena, MS, NP, CNM, book author and who received childhood initiation in the Olson household in 1966 and is one of the few people on this planet with 40 years & 3 family generations' invovlement w/ TM Orgs.

* Sudarsha, former TM teacher/Governor and secretary to the Maharishi

* Susan Crittenden, former TM teacher/Governor who quit when she realized she would have sipped Jonestown Kool Aid if distributed by our dearly beloved Mahesh

* Joe Harley, former TM teacher/Governor who was one of the first, um, "flyers" and worked for a year at WPEC

* John M. Knapp, LMSW, former TM teacher/Governor, is a therapist who counsels TM victims and founded trancenet.org

We're happy to play clown off a gurubusting legend and his cohorts. Anything to shine a light on the colossal flimflam perped by the mad old man and his fame-whore attention-getters.

Quantum Dumdums

File under: Gurubusting and Satscams

Guruphiliac hero Geoff Gilpin, author of the wonderful TM™ takedown book The Maharishi Effect, and a former resident of TM™'s loonyville in Fairfield, Iowa, has published a nifty little essay entitled Quantum Consciousness, Quantum Miracles, Quantum Failure [pdf], in which he breaks down and debunks the horrible misinterpretation and misappropriation of some of the ideas snatched from quantum physics that are commonly employed by New Age™ flimflammers and that little man who just can't and never will, the Maharishi himself:

You'd expect some dramatic results if the Maharishi Effect is as powerful as they say it is. After all, they claim that the number of people meditating in the Golden Dome of Pure Knowledge in Iowa controls the number of floods and hurricanes and other natural disasters throughout the world. This effect, if it happens, is on a much larger and more public scale than the tiny blips of quantum events...

The Maharishi Effect and other paranormal claims demand a lot of faith. It's like staking everything on the lottery. Are you willing to toss out all of science, everything that we know to be true about the natural world, on the slim chance that a miracle might pan out?

When the vast majority of scientists don't take the bet, it's not because they're biased or part of some big conspiracy. They're just doing their job, the same job that any concerned, aware citizen would do.

When the TM movement comes up with solid evidence for the Maharishi Effect, they will have the faculty of every physics department in the world knocking at their door. Until then, they will continue to be ignored, which is just as it should be.

We especially liked this story, an illustration of just how far off the deep end the TM™ cult leads its adherents:

I'll always remember a dinner-table discussion about the upcoming presidential election of 1976. A few were for Ford and a few were for Carter. One perky young woman insisted that nobody in the TM movement should waste their time voting. Any day now, the Age of Enlightenment would dawn and America would adopt a caste system with Maharishi and his followers as the new lords and ladies.

I confronted her with a lame protest about Abraham Lincoln going from his log cabin to the White House. She seemed genuinely baffled by this argument. "But," she asked in a concerned tone, "don't you want to be known as Lord Geoff?"

At first I was as baffled as she was, but I got used to it. A surprising number of Maharishi's followers assumed that their service to the movement would be rewarded by a mansion with a staff of servants, a position of leadership in the coming world government, and the gratitude of all humanity.

The quantity of failure measured by recollections such as these makes it crystal clear that the old coot has had head his head directly up his ass since that day he tried to mac Mia Farrow away from the Beatles.

Unfortunately, he's got all his remaining followers still shoved up there right along with him.

TM™ Psych-Ops, Then And Now

File under: Gurus to the Stars and The Siddhi of PR

Gp pal John Knapp on his own experience as a hypnotized participant in the early TM™ movement:

I started that residence course as a skeptic about TM. I came out one month later as a true believer who wanted to become a TM teacher. If you had asked me back then what happened on that course to change my beliefs, I would have said that I had learned new and wonderful things, that I saw the light, and that I was convinced by the scientists. What I would not have said was, "Meditating many times a day produced something akin to a hypnotic trance, and I was given a post-hypnotic suggestion to believe in TM and to become a TM teacher."

A person very dear to me attended a similar one-month TM course in 1974, and wrote me during the course, "I have a sensation like I am holding onto a wall, and a strong wind is tearing me off the wall, moving me to become a TM teacher, and it is only a matter of time before I will give way." After the TM course, she, like I, became a TM teacher.

We know why John became a TM™ teacher: it worked for him then. Despite the shady business practices and psych-ops the Maharishi was running on his students, mediation is mediation, and meditation usually transforms. The whole thing is a great illustration of how our cognitive unconscious operates. The suggestions go in and the belief is calculated, which is translated into zeal in the experiencing consciousness. This has an effect similar to putting Vaseline on a camera lens. In the best cases, that seems to wear off after a while, at least for those courageous enough to think for themselves. But in the worst, lives are laid waste by a slavish devotion to a system that just does not suit them, although it does suit those who are receiving the fees and cash offerings.

Today, TM™ psych-ops are right back where they began: the Beatles, or at least one of them, along with a cracked-out movie director and a host of luminous dupes who have it better than the rest of us:

Sir Paul [McCartney], who is co-chairing the event, learned the Transcendental Meditation technique in 1967 and attended a course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India in 1968.

Sir Paul will share top-billing with Donovan, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Sheryl Crow, Ben Harper, Moby, jazz flutist Paul Horn, and Mike Love of the Beach Boys.

David Lynch, Russell Simmons, Laura Dern, and other surprise guests will fill out the star-studded slate as presenters.

The concert will raise funds to teach one million at-risk children the Transcendental Meditation technique, giving them the life-long tools to overcome stress and violence—and promote peace and success in their lives. Over 60,000 children in various countries have learned the Transcendental Meditation technique in the past two and a half years thanks to the David Lynch Foundation.

Apparently, one thing they've learned in all those years of hypnotizing people is that the extent of their brainwashing is inversely proportional to the age of their victims. Get 'em while they're young, David. Well-played.

Update: TM™ Court Program Not By TM™ Org

File under: Backroom Gurudom

We love it when this happens. A sharp reader with inside knowledge sets us straight:

The State doesn't pay anything in this program. The person being sentenced makes a small contribution, but most of the fee is paid by a non-profit set up for this program. The TM teacher involved in the program has actually split from the TM mov't due to conflicts with the price and other issues. The judge is not a devotee of Maharishi and has no connection at all with the TM org, he has just seen the benefits of TM for juvenile offenders - this program has been going on for many many years and research has been ongoing. Trouble teens learning TM rather than going to jail is a good thing. The weirdness of the TM org at the top levels is a completely different issue.

The TM teacher involved in this is actually your type of guy. Recently, in a letter (now public) to the TM leadership he wrote the following: "Don't delude yourself into thinking that we want to be in the "in" crowd. ("In", of course, refers to the "in-sane" crowd who wish to be certified accordingly!) You guys have never appreciated our work here with the 15 judges and what it means in terms of reversal of the NJ court cases. Our consternation and surprise at the behavior of the movement's leadership is amplified by the many thousands of ex-TM teachers around the world whose TM centers are all closed as the movement tries to rebuild the entire world and to face every building eastwards! The movement can't run one small university or its own small movement (more TM teachers are now OUT of the movement than in), but it wants to rule the world! Fat chance!"

We're much relieved to hear that neither the judge nor the meditation teacher are acolytes of that crazy old windbag in Holland. But we do see a trademark battle looming if they continue to call it TM™. Perhaps this portends a world-wide coup against the Madharishi, yanking the seemingly effective TM™ technique out of his hands and putting it into the minds of ordinary folks for more ordinary fees. This could be the start of something wonderful, folks. All hail the new, insanity-free TM! May its vibrations ripple across the entire planet.

Instant Hagiography

File under: The Siddhi of PR

You might think there are TM™ plants working at the Associated Press after reading this bit of hagiography. But fear not, kind readers. We are here to parse this starchy whitewash attempting to pass for international reporting:

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — It was 1967 and the Indian meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, dressed in white with long flowing black hair and a gray beard, beamed as he stood surrounded by four smiling young Beatles at the peak of their popularity.

Right before they saw another side to the man that would cause them to flee.

George Harrison, clutching a sitar, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr were on their way to a retreat in Wales led by the Maharishi, and the Hindu holy man was on his way to worldwide fame.

Soon afterward, they would write the song Sexy Sadie to commemorate the Maharishi's putting the moves on Mia Farrow.

It has been more than 50 years since the Maharishi began teaching a technique known as Transcendental Meditation. He is now believed to be 91 and on Tuesday, a close adviser said he has retreated into near silence and turned over the day-to-day running of his global network to aides.

Successfully selling sand at the beach for more than 50 years!

"He is not as young as he once was," adviser John Hagelin, an American physicist, said by telephone from the Dutch village of Vlodrop where the TM movement is now headquartered. "I think he probably has a more limited reserve of physical energy to draw upon. He was working ... 20 hours a day for years."

Sounds pretty manic to us. It explains a lot. Delusion is quite the activity driver when it's coupled with grandiosity. Believe us, we know.

Good thing Hagelin has those physics degrees. No wonder he was able to ascertain that the 91-year-old guru "is not as young as he once was."

"Anger, stress, tension, depression, sorrow, hate, fear — these things start to retreat," said Lynch, a longtime practitioner. "And for a filmmaker, having this negativity lift away is money in the bank. When you're suffering you can't create."

Many famous artists maintain their creating to be entirely the product of their suffering.

The attention his famous followers focused on the Maharishi's movement turned it into a global phenomenon with outposts in some 130 countries. For the last 17 years, he has run it from a former Franciscan monastery in a secluded forest near Vlodrop, an eastern Dutch village near the German border. He often spent hours on end speaking by video links to followers around the globe.

Babbling. Another sign of mental illness.

The Maharishi told senior aides at a Jan. 8 meeting in the Netherlands of his plan to withdraw from administrative duties and spend his time absorbed in the ancient Indian texts that underpin his movement. The announcement caught many followers off guard.

They were too busy taking in the sights on the primrose path.

"He had been involved very dynamically administratively in his worldwide movement for over 50 years, so it's quite a significant change to see him dive back purely into knowledge and let other people take care of the administration," Hagelin said.

It's too bad you never got the loon in front of a psychiatrist.

There is no one designated successor but many people have been trained for years to carry on the Maharishi's various tasks, Hagelin said.

Uh-oh! We're getting a signal in our third eye! We're seeing a dramatic power struggle in the future.

The Maharishi — a Hindi-language title for Great Seer — now spends his days in silence contemplating and preparing a commentary on the Vedas, a vast Sanskrit canon compiled some 3,500 years ago, from which he evolves solutions for today's troubled world.

This is the Associated fucking Press, people!

"I think everybody's quietly feeling some sense of celebration that he's finally going to complete his commentary on the Vedas, which probably will have a longer-term impact," Hagelin said. "It's a vitally important body of literature."

It's 99% ancient myth, for Christ's sake! 91-years-old and the guy has still got a psychotic woodie for the Vedas.

We're sure the TM™ PR-machine is jumping for joy over this abortion of critical journalism. It has the sound of something written well before its publication, like maybe it was going into the obit and ended up a retirement announcement instead. Either way, it's distressing (maybe we need to hand over $5000 to buy our own sand at the beach) to see the hagiographic process in full gear – by an international news organization – well before the grandiose guru makes it to his own grave.

A TM™ Story

Satscams and The Siddhi of PR

Longtime and now ex-TM™er Bronte Baxter and her new blog, "Splinter in the Mind," give us a window into the history of the TM™ movement and how the Maharishi had to continually adjust his teachings in the face of the constant stream of missed milestones he so hastily and grandiosely set up for himself:

But something happened on the way to paradise. Slowly and subtly, the tone of the guru’s teachings changed. What used to be 20 minutes twice a day became hour-long, then 90-minute, meditations. The mantras were reshaped into “advanced techniques,” and chanting and Vedic readings (hymns to the gods) began. In a bold move, Maharishi began teaching courses in TM-Siddhis, a slew of paranormal abilities which he said humans could develop. Turning invisible was one of the siddhis; levitation was another.

That's somewhat reminisent of the tactics of Sri Sri Ravi Shakar, a former devotee of the Maharishi who seeks to replace him as new guru to the widowed TM™ community. An Art of Living retreat attendee relates:

Do you know that I was actually emailed twice as a reminder to attend a follow up 'breathing' session for tonight. I found that very suspicious - I just spent 4 days breathing - do they think I forgot the technique that quickly?!

Extend ignorance, improve sales. The Maharishi pioneered it, and now Sri Sri has borrowed the business model.

Thanks to Bronte for sharing her story. It's already a classic in the burgeoning annals of ex-TM™er testimonials.

Will TM™ Move Against Deepockets?

File under: The Siddhi of PR

A very deep Guruphiliac operative sends news from U.S. TM™ H.Q. in Fairfield, IA:

Dr. Phil was recently accused of breaking doctor-patient confidentiality by speaking to the news media about a patient, Britney Spears.

Deepak Chopra is talking publicly about a former patient, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Indeed, he describes himself as his doctor in the piece found here.

This is what Chopra says from the above cited piece:

"It was true that after his medical crisis he refused to discuss his health and took pains to indicate that where once I had been his physician, now I was to consider myself in the former position of disciple."

So Chopra was Maharishi's physician. But in his piece he discloses personal information about Maharishi of both a medical and personal nature, both of which are protected information.

The problem is that the doctor-patient privilege extends even after death. The following is from this site:

"...only the client can waive the privilege and the privilege survives the client. Therefore, even after a client's death, an attorney can not reveal the information without the prior approval of the client. This was recently articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Swidler & Berlin, et al. v. United States, 524 U.S. 399 (1998) (case regarding "Travelgate," where a grand jury, at the Independent Counsel's request, sought handwritten notes from the attorney for the late Vincent Foster)."

Even if the above is incorrect, then at the very least it would be only the estate of Maharishi that could allow him to divulge the information that he did...and I doubt that Deepak got such a permission from the TM organisation...not only because it is too short a time since his death but because of the acrimonious relationship between the two parties, they probably wouldn't give it!

Uh oh! Are we about to see a harder, nastier TM™ spring into action? Now free of the constraints of having a divine guru's reputation to protect, are they about to get all Scientology on the world's ass? We're feeling that the end of the Maharishi era could just be the beginning of something much darker indeed.

Not Dead Beatles Go With The Flow

File under: Final Samadhi and The Siddhi of PR

Since the passing of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, practically every news item we've seen has mentioned the short period between 1967 and 1968 when the Beatles embraced TM™, blowing it up to appear as the defining event for all parties involved. We doubt it was as much for the Beatles, but it's sure turning out to be for the Maharishi. If he's going down in history as anything, it's as the onetime guru to the Fab Four.

In support of that hagiographic distortion, the still alive Beatles have chimed in to recognize the Maharishi's passing:

Sir Paul said: "I was asked for my thoughts on the passing of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and I can only say that whilst I am deeply saddened by his passing, my memories of him will only be joyful ones."

He added: "He was a great man who worked tirelessly for the people of the world and the cause of unity. I will never forget the dedication that he wrote inside a book he once gave me, which read 'radiate, bliss, consciousness', and that to me says it all. I will miss him but will always think of him with a smile."

Starr also released a statement paying his respects. He said: "One of the wise men I met in my life was the Maharishi. I always was impressed by his joy and I truly believe he knows where he is going."

Radiate. That's the key to understanding the Maharishi's metaphysics. Too bad it's nothing but a quaint idea. The world will be better served when the TM™ org finally drops the woo-woo nonsense, realizes the "Maharishi Effect" is in fact only wishful thinking and spend their resources doing something that actually helps. Maybe soup kitchens or food banks would be a good place to start. That's one Maharishi effect we're probably never going to see.

Maharishi Moves On Steel City

File under: PP COM

[Ed.note: We've created a new category to track the activities of the Maharishi's Peace Palace Command, an imagined nerve center for the TM™ leader's continuing attempt to take over the world economy with one he creates from within. One of these days we'll actually get to indexing the blog against these categories. If anyone knows how to do this at Blogspot, please get in contact with us.]

Like a general in command of a well-rehearsed military operation, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has decreed that not one or two, but four peace palaces will be coming to the greater Pittsburg, PA area. The 4 marble-clad palaces will cost $3 million each and be built "in harmony with natural law." That's code for according to our interpretation of Vedic literature as accepted by us as the inerrant truth, because that's what the Maharishi says it is.

The palaces, built in harmony with natural law, or Sthapatya Veda, range in size from 5,000 square feet to 30,000 square feet, and will offer Maharishi-inspired spas, Vedic Vibration Technology, exhibition halls, classrooms, a wide range of products and, of course, TM, including Yogic Flying.

A whole carnaval of Vedic "technology" for the buying. Just don't forget your Raams.

The Maharishi's brilliant plan comes into sharper focus. Create micro-economies within the surrounding communities and attempt to expand them to the point where they become the dominant economic system. We got to hand it to the old dude, he definitely knows what he's doing.

The Maharishi's colonels in this operation are loyal cadres with the best training:

Pittsburgh's Peace Palaces will be co-directed by Ralph Emmerich and Lisa Ashelman, both of whom have doctorates in world peace from Maharishi European Research University in Vlodrop, Holland. Both are certified teachers of Transcendental Meditation.

Who could be more qualified than that? They're doctors of world peace by way of their belief in inerrant Maharishism. In other words, hardcore Veda thumpers.

The viral nature of the peace palace enterprise is as slick as we've ever seen. It takes religious hegemony to a whole new level by creating its own economy within a host economy, soon to expand to the point where it eats its host. All they have to do is sell it. They'll have the venues to do so–if any of the palaces ever actually get built. But the question remains, will people want to participate in a funny-looking little old Indian man's grab for political power? All by claiming they will create peace vibrations by jumping up and down on their asses all day?

With some of LA's best nonduality teachers falling like star-struck teenagers for the Kracki, it seems more possible than we ever imagined. Mass enlightenment fever is reaching epidemic proportions, and yet it has so much more humanity to tear into. The horrible tragedy here is that the emotrance offered by these bringers of "world peace" is not the enlightenment they say it is. It's really no closer to the truth than the love experienced by neocon Christians. [Yes, we do believe most of them have love in their hearts.] But to mistake this rampant emotionalism for enlightenment is like jumping into a pigsty to clean up for dinner. You may as well crap yourself at the table, too.

A Visit To Fairfield And The Wacky Auteur

File under: The Siddhi of PR

There's a nice little article in the Washington Post about Fairfield, Iowa, home of the Maharishi University of Management and a sizable population of TM™ers. Thankfully, the article is blissfully free of the Peace Palace™ and Global Country of World Peace™ shilling you normally get with this kind of thing. Even we have to admit that it's probably a pretty nice place to live, although we're equally sure that any bucolic setting would bring the same "sense of peace and positive spirit that [they believe] meditation brings [to] it."

If you're wondering how the TM™ movement was able to afford their own whole freaking town, wonder no more:

The training can be received from specialists in almost any American city and costs $2,500, including four days of lessons and follow-up consultations.

To which we say: phooey! It's a simple pranayama and mantra technique, among the most basic out there. While the Maharishi is a kind of genius in the marketing of spirituality, what he's teaching can be found in the most basic of Vedic-based ideologies. Save your money and find a vipassana retreat. While not specifically Vedic-based, they are free of cost (donation optional) and certainly every bit as effective as what the money-grubbing TM™ers are teaching.

Also this week, pop culture skewer specialists Radar take a look at the Maharishi's most prominent shill in the States, movie director David Lynch. Recently rebuffed in his attempt to inject TM™ into a public high school in Marin, California, he's coming back with a new book about the TM™ movement and a new movie to promote.

Already known as an oddball, Lynch has nothing to lose except the respect of his non-TM™er fans, for most of whom the connection to a world-domination cult led by a Tweety-voiced and crazy old man is probably even too much for them to take.

MUM Student Stabber's Murder Trial

File under: Deranged Devotees

Maharishi University of Management student Shuvender Sem is about to stand trial for the murder of Levi Butler, who was dispatched with a paring knife in an MUM dining hall. It was Sem's second attack that day. He had earlier lacerated student John Killian's face with a ball point pen. Instead of calling the police after the first attack, the school's dean of men took Sem to his apartment to make arrangements to send him home. Sem left the apartment and went back to the school where he stabbed Butler, who died of his wounds at a Fairfield, Iowa hospital.

The next victim in all this is probably going to be the Maharishi's bank account. We're not lawyers, but we watch a lot of Law and Order, and we see a big fat lawsuit bearing down after Sem's criminal trial.

Sem is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. Anti-TM™ organization Trancenet has been saying that TM™ leads to insanity for years now. We bet they're dancing on table tops over this one.

And what about the Maharishi? He could be facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit complete with a public relations horror story. And with TM™ little more than an obscure but prohibitively expensive meditation course that has folks opting for more economical courses at local yoga studios, TM™'s branding efforts would appear to have failed as well.

We imagine this has the Maharishi thinking more and more about those halcyon days of the late 60s when he was young Hollywood's hottest guru. We hear he's hired a Fab Four cover band—complete with groupies and a young Mia Farrow impersonator—to hang around his ashram and recreate that simpler time, back when it was mostly about whispering sweet wisdoms into the ears of comely lads and ladies high on drugs. Ah... the good old days...

More Dirt In The Sea Of TM™ Whitewashing

File under: Gurubusting, Satscams and The Siddhi of PR

A little more truth has surfaced in the ocean of inveterate whitewashing that's been occurring in the international press over the last week; an article by the last news writer to interview the Maharishi when he was alive. Get ready for the Austin Powers-level wackiness of Yoga's Dr. Evil, the late, yet not so great, Maharhishi Mahesh Yogi:

For the historic interview I was ushered into the so-called brahmastan, a sort of giant pagoda-style wooden palace.

I was flanked by two sternfaced, light-suited "ministers", who introduced me, to the untold thousands of disciples watching this bizarre charade via the live global video-link by which the Maharishi communicated his edicts, as a "distinguished international journalist" - which was certainly a first for me.

Then, just as I was expecting him to make his entrance, a giant screen flickered to life and I was greeted not by a real live guru but by a sort of hologram with a cotton-wool beard and a shiny, teak-brown pate.

Only then did I realise that the Maharishi would be addressing me only via closed-circuit TV from his chamber, presumably somewhere upstairs.

"His Holiness never meets anyone because his doctor is concerned that he might catch germs," Roth whispered.

"He hasn't been outside for years."

In truth, it was more a monologue than an interview.

The Maharishi spouted incomprehensible mumbo jumbo for several minutes-then launched into a diatribe against Britain - a terrible country which believes in "divide and rule" and was responsible for much of the misery besetting the world.

This, he said, was why he had decided to "excommunicate" this country, meaning that his disciples were banned from teaching TM here (a state of affairs which, I regret to report, he later reversed).

My one small victory was that I managed to ask him - ever so politely - about The Beatles.

Given all the bad blood, did he regret his involvement with the band who made him a household name?

Suddenly, all that serenity evaporated and the mystic came over all mortal.

"Forget about it!" he spluttered furiously.

"If at all, (The) Beatles became substantial by my contact.

"I did not become great by association of The Beatles! Beatles make Maharishi great? Pah! It is a waste of thought."

Arrogant, full of pride, deluded. This was your leader, TM™.

The Maharishi's Lies

File under: Gurubusting, Satscams and The Siddhi of PR

This article at TM-Free Blog is like a Rossetta Stone of the TM™ movement and its avaricious guru, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi:

5. Maharishi is a perfect Master. This is the biggest lie and one that I will deal with in detail below. Additional claims are that he is a life long celibate, that he never makes mistakes, that only he can enlighten the world, etc...

I am ultimately going to claim that Maharishi's motivation is not simply to enlighten the world. I am going to point out that he is highly motivated by fame, money and power, even more so as time goes on. His insecurities about maintaining his power and money will show up as an increase in paranoia and greed within the TM movement.

The turban comes off for Michael D. Coleman, author of this exceedingly clear presentation of the flimflamming that was perpetrated by the Maharishi while he was alive. Now that he's dead, his con might become a canon. Woe be to the world for that!

Maharishi Slinks Back Into the U.K.

File under: The Siddhi of PR and Wackadoo Gurus

You may remember a few years back when that mad old coot in Holland got even more crazy than usual and pulled his "blessings" from the whole country of the United Kingdom when they re-elected Tony Blair, making one of the most grandiose statements we've ever heard any guru make in the process:

“TM™ is a gift from me to those who want to create peace and harmony in the world.”

Well apparently, it's all good now:

The trigger for Maharishi to reopen his organisation in Britain came when he heard a review of the policies of the new Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown, and his Government. These included the fact that one of the first measures introduced by Mr Brown was to initiate a change of Parliamentary procedures so that the Commons has a formal say on the deployment of Armed Forces abroad, so that the Prime Minister could not unilaterally take the country to war.

Way to put the spin on the fact that TM™ needs access to as many rubes as possible, including those who elect political leaders who wouldn't pay the Maharishi any mind were he to lead the London Philharmonic in a rousing rendition of God Save The Queen in the middle of the freeway.

But as ever, that little old, shriveled up monument to irrelevance is still as grandiose as any mental hospital inmate who believes he is Napoleon:

Maharishi emphasised that he did not want it to go down in history that his Movement had fed the destroyers of the world. At that time, Maharishi was adopting countries that were more positive in order to make them invincible – totally immune to negative – through the application of his scientifically validated programme to enhance positive trends in society

Instead, he will go down in history as that greedy, grandiose and utterly ineffectual liar about the so-called effects of his facilely reconstituted "Vedic" nonsense who had a few weeks being famous when he stuck his head up the ass of the Beatles in the late sixties.

[Source: TM-Free Blog]

The Maharishi Effect

File under: Book Review

We were quite happy (about 6 months ago) to receive an advance copy of Geoff Gilpin's The Maharishi Effect to review for this blog. Unfortunately (and this may explain a lot to y'all), we only read books when we are flying on jet planes to distant locales, and we only get to fly a few times a year.

But since we flew to California for Thanksgiving this year, we finally had a chance to read the damn book. We came away quite happy to have shared a pleasant journey with a former/maybe-about-to-return adherent of the TM™ movement at their dilapidated little utopia known as Fairfield, Iowa.

It's basically the tale of an ex-TM™er exploring the questions he left behind when he left the movement. To do so, he moves back to Fairfield, meeting old friends who have realized varying degrees of success in their lives. Geoff is not at all unsympathetic to TM™ and it's leader, the Maharishi. In fact, he's rather leaning on their side for most of the book. But he does so with an unflinching eye for the decay (both physical and ideological) that has befallen the org in the time since he left, something a Kool-Aid drinking TM™er would never think of doing.

As to whether he gets his questions answered, that's hard to say. For a while we were worried Geoff was going to start drinking the Kool-Aid himself again, but his somewhat suffering wife seems to be just the anchor he needs to get in, figure it out and get out:

[Geoff] said, "But it seemed as real as anything. I had a direct experience of consciousness jumping from person to person through walls."

"That's what you believed at the time, You all took it for granted that things like that happen. You were expecting it and you got what you expected..." [Sarah said]

"I had it again when I was meditating... It was the deepest meditation I've had in ages. I don't know why it's better with the group..."

"Sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy. A placebo."

I gave Sarah a big grin. "That's why I married you..."

Smart man, smart woman. If you guys ever hit a rough patch, hit me up by email, Sarah.

Finally, at the end of the book Geoff breaks out the debunking, which is really nothing more than the application of common sense. All in all it's a sweet little read that moves quickly, doesn't bore, and provides a good insider's view of what goes on in Fairfield, and by extension, that mad little old coot's head. There are a few distracting bits about Geoff's work as a software writer/programmer, including some obvious product placement. He also kind of skips much discussion of the Madharishi's "peace palace" program, but we'll give it four out of five turbans anyway, mostly for its value as a source of information about the history of the TM™ movement and how it (doesn't quite) work today in Fairfield.

TM™ers Live Longer, Or Omit Better

File under: The Siddhi of PR

The minions of the Maharishi in Fairfield are at it again. Always trying to stuff their "research" into popular publications, they've managed to get an article in Britain's Guardian Unlimited about the publication of their research results in the American Journal of Cardiology.

The study followed elderly subjects over the span of 18 years who employed different relaxation techniques, including TM™—which proved to be the show-stopper of the lot: "The transcendental meditation group had 30% fewer deaths from heart disease and 49% fewer from cancer."

That's quite the endorsement for TM™. And it's also very convenient for the leader of the research, Dr. Robert Schneider, head of the "centre of natural medicine and prevention at the Maharishi University of Management"—who just happens to be selling TM™ himself.

And the research seems to omit any mention of any other kind of meditation technique. They don't seem to want to concede that any form of mantra meditation would probably work as well, along with most other techniques including vipassana, zen, contemplative prayer and just about anything else that involved periods of quiet in some sort of mental concentration practice.

But they can't charge you for those. And if you're trying to become the Kleenex of meditation practices, you need to be the only brand people think of. It worked for Kleenex because they were the first. The only way it can work for TM™ now is to take over the entire meditation industry. We hear there are Age of Enlightenment compounds tucked deep into abandoned missile silos in the corn fields of Iowa... waiting to be activated at the dawn of the New Age™, ready to make the Maharishi the new "Man"...

By way of [Cult News]

The Maharishi's Mad Money

File under: Satscams, PP COM, Wackadoo Gurus and Gurus Clockin' Dollars

We get the feeling that the S.S. Flying Ass has hit a huge iceberg (in the form of their captain's increasing senility) and is a rapidly sinking ship... after reading about the Maharishi's latest get-rich-quick scheme. They're selling "World Peace Bonds for Poverty Removal" now, 10 trillion dollars worth. That's more than the combined GNP of most of Europe.

If you give them enough money, like $1 million euros, they're guaranteeing a 15% return on your investment, in only 3 years!

They say they're going to do it with "export-orientated organic crops for which there is a large demand, a growing demand.'' The only way they're going to get returns like that is to grow organic drugs, like the whole world's supply of them.

As you'd expect, the pros aren't buying it:

"A 10 to 15 percent interest rate is almost impossible to guarantee,'' says Werner van Bastelaar, a spokesman for the Dutch securities regulator AFM in Amsterdam. "The amount of $10 trillion looks impossible. All in all, any investor wanting to put their money in this should really question whether or not it is too good to be true.''

Obviously, the Maharishi has totally lost it. Or has he? Could this be a sinster plan to force the Maharishi's own currency, the raam, down the throats of those insane enough to actually invest in this madness? You might think so after learning that the Maharishi's point man is Benjamin Feldman, the guy who invented the raam:

In 2000, he became the finance minister of something called the Global Country of World Peace. In 2002, his group introduced its own currency, the raam, for use in Roermond, the Netherlands, and in Maharishi Vedic City in Iowa.

"The raam is a key element in the programs of his Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to promote a balanced world economy,'' it says in a 2002 press release on the Web site of the Maharishi Open University. The press release also refers to constructing 3,000 so-called peace palaces in the world's biggest cities, and establishing "affiliated organic farms'' near each city.

"The raam is a key element... to... establishing organic farms." And what a great way to introduce the raam to the world economy: fleece hapless investors for 10 trillion and then pay them back in funny money.

What's the mad old man going to try next? If they don't stop him soon, he's going to take the entire TM™ empire down with him. It sounds like it's time to put the Maharishi out to pasture.

We suggest locking him in his "love pod" with a couple dozen young groupies and let him live his last days in the idyll of his former glory as guru to the Beatles. It's the most humane thing to do for all parties involved. Except maybe for the groupies.

Seeking The Old TM™ Master Raghvendra

File under: Lost and Found Gurus

Today we received this email:

Hello,

I'm a fan of your website, and was wondering whether you could assist me with a search as outlined in this article.

I met Paul Saltzman when he was in Rishikesh, and I'm keen to help him if I can. As that journalist notes, there's no trace of Raghvendra here - as he apparently fell out with the Maharishi's people and left town.

Might someone among your network still remember where he went, or is there someone who might know someone who might know something?

I've attached a few lines of context, which refer to a second guy whom Paul is trying to trace - an American called Al Bragg, who'd be roughly 70 by now. Any pointers on either of them would be gratefully received.

Thanks for your help. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,
Daniel Simpson

This passage describes Paul Saltzman's first meeting with the man he and Daniel are seeking, Raghvendra:

As I hung around New Delhi, not knowing what to do, I was desperate for relief. A new American acquaintance, Al Bragg, asked me if I wanted to come along to hear the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi give a talk on transcendental meditation. "I'll try anything." I said, jumping at the chance. That night, the large auditorium at New Delhi University was jam-packed, overflowing with foreigners and Indians as we squeezed in against the wall at the back. On stage, a low dais was festooned with flowers. After ten or fifteen minutes, a short, curious little man draped in white cotton, with long scraggly graying hair and beard, entered at the rear of the hall and walked down the center aisle. Close behind, twenty Westerners followed, each of them wearing colorful Indian clothes and garlands of red, white, and orange flowers around their necks. They were, it turned out, part of a group of meditators on their way to At the entrance stood a faded, yellow, wood picket-fence gate. It was locked and a man in a slightly tattered, dark blue Nehru jacket stood guard. He spoke no English but motioned to someone inside and a short young man in his early thirties, with a lovely light-brown complexion and a short, dark, trim beard came to talk to me. He introduced himself in a quiet, warm voice as Raghvendra, a disciple of the Maharishi, and asked if he could help me. I told him I had seen the Maharishi speak at Delhi University a few days before and that I'd come to learn meditation. Raghvendra was kind, but firm, "I'm very sorry but the ashram is closed because the Beatles and their wives are here, and were doing a meditation teacher's course." I had nothing to lose: "You have to teach me." I said, " I'm in a lot of emotional pain." He considered this for a moment, then said, "I will ask the Maharishi. I will send you a cup of chai, but I may not be back for two or three hours."

I thanked him, dropped my backpack to the ground, and plunked myself down. I had no idea the Beatles would be there and, at that moment, it was not good news. I spent the afternoon resting there by the gate and wrote a letter to my parents and one to my girlfriend, hoping she would reconsider. A few hours later, Raghvendra returned. Again, he was soft-spoken and kind.

"I'm sorry," he said, "the Maharishi says 'Not at the present time'."

Apparently, at some later point, Raghvendra did in fact admit Saltzman and teach him meditation. While y'all know what we think of TM™ (a laughable global domination pyramid scheme that has folks selling sand at the beach to other folks), we'd like to see Saltzman contact his guru, Raghvendra, if he is in fact still alive.

If anybody has any clues, either about Raghvendra or the American, Al Bragg, please leave a comment or contact Daniel Simpson here.