To TMFree Readers who quasi-daily quick check this site:
An excellent multi-faceted discussion comment thread follows Laurie's blogpost on Recovering from TM.
Just click the link: Recovering from TM, and read the comments that follow.
Be well, forewarned, recovering and victorious,
g :)
It has been brought to our attention that (at least) one Physician listed on the TM website Physicians for Transcendental Meditation never gave permission to be included on the TM site.
Dr. Bjarne Hansen's previous position, as associate professor of Rheumatology, Chief Physician at the Clinic of Internal Medicine at the Blekinge Hospital, Karlskrona, Sweden, is referenced on the TM site.
Bjarne is a frequent commentator on TMFree blog.
Dr. Bjarne Hansen is a former practitioner of Transcendental Meditation. He is no longer affiliated with the Transcendental Mediation Organization. He maintains a personal and professional interest in various forms of meditation, including medical applications of meditation. He has expressed serious concerns about the cultic aspects of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Transcendental Meditation Movement.
Bjarne Hansen has made multiple requests to have his deemed endorsement removed from this TM site, to no avail. It was an accident that Bjarne learned he was listed by TM Organization, as if he promoted Transcendental Meditation's programs.
Bjarne's request to have his endorsement removed resulted in numerous responses and referrals to other TMO webmasters around the globe. As Bjarne sent appropriate emails to each global TM webmaster, in turn, each denied responsibility for the site of concern and referred Bjarne to yet another person that Bjarne must contact.
None of the contacted webmasters, in USA, Europe nor Scandinavia, is assuming responsibility to assure that Dr. Hansen is removed from his falsified endorsement for Transcendental Meditation. He is beginning to wonder if an attorney will be needed to resolve this.
(Gina's note - don't we remember the confusing miscommunication between various arms of the TMO?)
Bjarne requested that we post this story publicly, as an example to question TM's deemed endorsements and to reveal the lack of coordination between the TMO's online publicity.
Per one of Bjarne's many requests, to a TMO webmaster, requesting his name removal
(Bjarne's words herein published with his permission):
"At my request my name and titles were removed from the Swedish site several years ago. Nontheless my name and titles are still on the international site "Swedish reference group - physicians for TM". I never gave my permission to be included on this site, updated on May 2009. Please remove my name and titles immediately.
Yours Sincerely
Bjarne Hansen
MD PhD "
One can only wonder if other deemed endorsers are listed without their knowledge or out of context.
Watch the comments to this post for Bjarne's updates.
So far, it's been a circus of TM Organization emails, reminiscent of Abbot and Costello's skit "Who's On First?"
For what it's worth, this blog site seems to serve not only as a healing venue for former TMers and others in cult recovery.
Our readers sometimes take action against the Transcendental Meditation Movement's inconsistencies.
An earlier post addressed a planned talk, with a fee, by Jerry Jarvis at the Santa Monica California Public Library.
Some of our readers commented (see comments to referenced post) that it was against library rules to charge a fee for presentations at their site. Some readers planned to contact the library.
Interestingly, or as Maharishi would've said "funnily enough", a new email was sent to inform the Southern California TM Centers that Jerry's talk changed venue, to the Pacific Palisades Women's Club.
For those who contacted the Santa Monica Public Library, know that your efforts made an impact.
The TMOrg knows they are being watched.
The posted email, below, was specifically labeled as "Forward to a Friend." Thus, forwarded to me, and hence to TMFree blog.
************
From: "LA Area TM Program"
Date: November 1, 2009 1:01:43 PM PST
To:
Subject: TM in LA: Revised Announcement of Special Seminar with Jerry Jarvis
REVISED ANNOUNCEMENT
The Los Angeles TM Program is happy to present
An Advanced Seminar on Maharishi's Teaching of Total Knowledge
Conducted by Jerry Jarvis
"Knowledge is based on experience, and Enlightenment is based on knowledge."
--Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 
Saturday, December 12
10:30 am - 4:30 pm
Pacific Palisades Women's Club
This day will provide a precious opportunity to explore in depth the fundamentals of the Veda-- Maharishi's teaching on the nature, structure and dynamics of consciousness, freedom and enlightenment. Maharishi's comprehensive teaching of the Veda, Bhagavad Gita, Yogasutras, and other vedic texts helps to verify our understanding and gain that knowledge "worthy of hearing, contemplating and realizing."
Ever since the earliest years of the TM movement Jerry Jarvis has worked closely with Maharishi in America, India and throughout the world. Jerry was particularly instrumental in helping to develop the movement in America, bringing Transcendental Meditation to one million people.
Jerry has conducted many sessions on Maharishi's teaching and those who have attended know what a valuable, inspiring, and enjoyable opportunity it presents.
The fee for this one day seminar is $75
(when paid by the December 8th payment deadline / $85 after deadline).
This fee includes a catered vegetarian lunch!
DETAILS:
* Payment should be submitted to the Beverly Hills TM Center by December 8. Please make checks in the amount of $75 payable to Knowledge Seminar and mail to: 121 S. Wetherly Drive / Beverly Hills, CA 90211.
* There is ample parking at the Women's Club.
* The Pacific Palisades Women's Club address: 901 Haverford Avenue, Pacific Palisades 90272
* If you have already sent in your check and are able to attend on December 12, your payment will be transferred to the Knowledge seminar account.
* If you have sent in a check and are unable to attend on December 12, please email the Center (losangeles@tm.org) or call 310-855-9025 for the return of your check.
Any questions? Call Patricia / 310-855-9025.
We hope to see you at this special event! 
Los Angeles Maharishi Invincibility Center
121 S. Wetherly Drive
Beverly Hills, California 90211
310-855-9025
losangeles@tm.org
This message was sent from LA Area TM Program to .................... It was sent from: Beverly Hills TM Program, 121 S. Wetherly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90211. You can modify/update your subscription via the link below.
Here are a few questions that I thought were interesting to ponder. I have written my own answers below. I invite you to think about your own experiences, and if you'd like, to share your stories. Anonymous replies are fine!
1. Did you experience problems due to TM? If so, what were they?
After I left TM, I experienced extreme anxiety and depression. I also had "floating" episodes, where I reverted to believing the entire panoply of TM beliefs.
2. What helped you heal?
Learning about "mind control" and how it worked helped a lot. I did lots of reading. Discovering how easy it is to induce an altered state of reduced critical thinking in someone was pivotal.
Also, for many years I attended a monthly support group for former cult members. This was extremely helpful. Also, I attended a few cult recovery conferences.
Two linchpins that continued to keep my anxiety, depression and floating alive even after 20 years of working to recover from TM were (1) the belief that I was making a serious mistake by not doing TM, and (2) my belief that Maharishi was superhuman and therefore should be followed. When I discovered the internet, I read anti-TM websites. There I learned that researchers had lied about the benefits of TM, and that people who knew Maharishi on a personal level reported what a flawed human being he was. These two pieces of information broke the grip of belief. It was stuff I couldn't have learned no matter how much I read about mind control.
Also, for years I had been looking for other former TM teachers to compare notes with. Finding TM-Free Blog was a blessing for me. When I finally had other former TMers to share my stories with, I ceased obsessively carrying them around in my head, and my TM beliefs finally left.
Psychotherapy was extremely helpful in providing support and grounding and helping my general mood and life issues, but only somewhat helpful around the TM stuff.
3. What didn't help you heal?
I got voluntary exit counseling about 10 years after leaving TM, but it really didn't help much. Perhaps that was because I had already learned most of the stuff they were telling me, mostly about mind control, I think.
4.What well-meaning advice did people give you that did not help you heal?
At one of the cult-recovery conferences I attended, we had a panel of priests, ministers and rabbis who tried to answer our questions about spirituality. One of the panelists started waxing euphoric about how humans are by nature spiritual, and how God loves us. I shuffled restlessly and started dissociating as I was lectured at. Fortunately I wasn't the only one. One former cult member interrupted him and said, "This isn't helpful to us. We were spiritually fucked by these organizations. Some of us were physically fucked too. It is not helpful for us to have to sit through you lecturing us about this." She did go on to explain, (correctly I believe,) that after leaving a cult, a person is best off avoiding religion for a few years, until they are capable of not "floating," and ended by saying, "If there really is a God out there who is all-knowing and all-compassionate, then He knows what I've gone through, and He isn't going to be offended if I keep away from religion for as many years as it takes for me to heal."
Another well-meaning person, a minister-in-training whom I met at a Unitarian-Universalist retreat (i.e. she should have known better, in my opinion) listened to my agonized story of my flashbacks, anxiety, depression, confusion, etc. and wrote me a letter about the value of forgiveness and of letting go, and how "holding on" and not learning from one's mistakes keeps one from moving on. I think she was upset by my still being in so much pain after 9 years. I felt judged, criticized, and not understood. I wrote her back explaining that mind control is not a matter of "will" but a physical change in the brain, and that so long as I was still suffering emotionally, and could barely think straight due to brainwashing, it was physically impossible to "forgive" and "put it behind me."
5. Have you ever successfully helped someone heal from their experiences with TM (or from some other group?) What specifically did you do that helped them?
About 5 year after I left TM, I went to a restaurant for dinner with my sister's ex-boyfriend. She and he had been involved in TM together, and we met in order to discuss (i.e., criticize) TM. A woman at the next table came over and introduced herself as a Sidha, and said that she couldn't help overhearing our conversation. I panicked, expecting to be criticized and to start floating, but she soon made clear that she was very unhappy with TM, and was desperately seeking outside support, and a way to get out of TM. We invited her to sit and talk with us, and exchanged phone numbers, and she ended up attending the former cult member support group that I attended.
The former cult member support group had people who had left all sorts of cults, not just TM. One cult I learned about at the group was the Boston Church of Christ. (Not to be confused with the United Church of Christ or the Church of Christ, which are non-cult Protestant denominations.) Soon after, I attended a party, where I met someone who told me that he was starting to get involved with the Boston Church of Christ and "needed to make a soul-impacting decision very soon." It was an easy intervention for me, because he wasn't thoroughly "in"/brainwashed yet. I told him that I knew some people who had been in the BCC, and had left, and had come to realize that it was a destructive cult. I suggested that before he give his life to that church, that he have a chance to hear the other side of the story, and then he could make a more informed decision. He agreed, so I put him in touch with a few former BCC'ers. I am happy to say that after talking with them, he decided the BCC was a destructive organization, and didn't join.
6. Have you ever seriously tried and failed to get someone out of TM (or some other group)? What did you do? What happened? What advice would you give to someone in this position?
I've never had this experience. Lucky me.
7. Anything else you'd like to share from your experiences?
You are all brave and courageous and have all survived a lot! I tip my hat to you all! Please feel free share your thoughts and experiences below, if you'd like.
The following message comes from the Los Angeles area's Maharishi Invincibility Center
The message includes a link to "forward to a friend."
Thus, a TM Center chairperson forwarded the message to me. I, in turn, forward the message to TMFree blogspot.
Commentary: The name Jerry Jarvis means nothing in mainstream society. However, within the TM Movement Jerry Jarvis is legendary - he was once an inspirational leader in the TM Movement. Jerry was closely involved with Maharishi for decades; he appears in group photos as early as the Beatles days. Those who have been around the TM Movement since the hey dey remember Jerry well. Many readers have inquired what Jerry is up to these days. I only knew that he was living a quiet life in Bel Air California, and quietly devoted to Maharishi's spiritual vision of old.
Like most TM upper echelon, Jerry is independently wealthy. As John Knapp wrote in a previous post, cults "want as many rich and talented people as they can sink their hooks into."
Seems that Jerry is making a come back, to speak of the old daze. His reappearance is probably another attempt to reinspire the aging boomers that built the TM Movement in the 1960's and 1970's. Nostalgic reunions with old friends may serve to revive involvement into the TM Movement. Many of us once believed the early vision was sweet and inspiring! We believed we were infinitely blessed to be part of this noble group! Perhaps some retiring boomers would appreciate that re-inspiration at this time of life. I, for one, admit that I'll always miss that deemed-meaningful connection with my cult family and community. IMHO, it was social heroin - often feels great, but better to stay away.
Nostalgia, such as Paul McCartney, Mike Love and Ringo Starr working with David Lynch Foundation's "Change Begins Within" nostalgic TM fundraiser concert, may inspire commitment and donations from retired baby boomers who wish to support a noble vision.
Donovan is also trying for a come-back as TM-Maharishi devotional figure. Donovan's music is another nostalgic reminder of the TM Movement / cult early "inspiration."
BTW, while Donovan may evoke some inspirational sentiment of old, as does McCartney and the rest through DLF's concert,
Donovan's link depicts TM's International Vedic Council of Rajas - regimented elitist cultic control, twisted from naive idealism.
Interesting that Jerry Jarvis' "Knowledge talk," per the forwarded message below, will take place in the Santa Monica Public Library. As in past decades, when public libraries and classrooms were used for TM Introductory lectures, Jerry's nostalgic talk takes place in a mainstream acceptable venue with a benign presentation. The Donovan link shows what the benign presentation actually represents at the cult's highest levels.
****************
The Los Angeles TM Program Presents
An Advanced Knowledge Seminar
with Jerry Jarvis
"Knowledge is based on experience, and Enlightenment is based on knowledge."
--Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 
Saturday, November 14
10:30 am - 4:30 pm
Santa Monica Main Public Library
Over the last five decades, particularly during the early years of the TM movement, Jerry Jarvis worked closely with Maharishi in the United States, India, and throughout the world.
Jerry has conducted many sessions on Maharishi's knowledge and those who have attended know what a valuable, inspiring, and enjoyable opportunity it presents.
Jerry will be speaking about various themes of Maharishi's Vedic knowledge.
The fee for this one day seminar with Jerry is $75
(when paid by the November 10 payment deadline / $85 after deadline).
This fee includes a catered vegetarian lunch!
DETAILS:
* Payment should be submitted to the Beverly Hills TM Center by November 10. Please make checks in the amount of $75 payable to Patricia Young and mail to: 121 S. Wetherly Drive / Beverly Hills, CA 90211.
* Payments of $85 will be accepted at the event. Payments will be collected in the parking lot rather than inside the library. The Santa Monica Main Public Library has ample parking.
* The library address: 601 Santa Monica Blvd. / Santa Monica, CA. 90404
Any questions? Call Patricia / 310-855-9025.
We hope to see you at this special event! 
Los Angeles Maharishi Invincibility Center
121 S. Wetherly Drive
Beverly Hills, California 90211
310-855-9025
losangeles@tm.org 
Look, you don’t have to be lazy, crazy, or stupid to join a cult.
If you are, they don’t want you.
They want as many rich and talented people as they can sink their hooks into.
It’s easy to stay out of a cult.
Never be tired. Or scared. Too young. Too old. Never get divorced. Or married. Don’t strive for success. Don’t ever fail. Never hope for world peace. Never feel anger at injustice. Don’t be too rich – or too poor. Never experience depression. Never aim for great happiness. Don’t get sick. Don’t seek.
In short, never be vulnerable.
You don’t have to be unusual to get sucked in. You just have to be human.
I joined my meditation group to clear my mind and improve my grades. Twenty-three years and $150,000 later, I realized my mistake.
I screwed up: I wanted something better in life.
And someone was happy to sell it to me.
J.
I recently received an email from a reader who asks questions that sometimes come up in our comments. I've posted the conversation below. I would really enjoy hearing what TMFB commenters think about these questions that come up over and over.
Hi John,
I've been corresponding with [another TM critic] and there are still some things that I'm wondering about:
1) What exactly causes people to have breakdowns because of tm? It isn't much different from praying.
2) Is it possible that the breakdowns would have occurred without tm?
Yes, of course.
Two points: We need to find out if the psychological problems happen in greater frequency than the population at large and whether the problems get worse with practice of TM. There is some research from the 70s, archived at trancenet.net, that indicates this is the case.
The other point is that the Maharishi made extravagant claims, which the TM movement continues to promote, about the beneficial effects of TM, including perfect physical and mental health.
To some, the fact that many former TMers experience psychological problems argues against these claims.
It's interesting that TM has never demonstrated that any practitioner has ever attained enlightenment. But, there are records of many individuals who have broken down.
Yet TM faithful continue to believe that TM leads to enlightenment -- and that no one experiences negative effects from TM.
3) Don't the anti-tm sites keep the injury alive, so the participants live their lives as victims?
Wide Eye Cinema presents an online semi-sensationalistic expose' film about Transcendental Meditation, from a fundamentalist Christian perspective.
The film clearly details the TM Movement's deceptive sales pitch, the Hinduesque nature of TM's teachings and lifestyles, and the pseudo-science.
These filmmakers are additionally concerned that TM would lure TM followers away from Bibilical teachings, and from walking with the Lord Jesus as savior.
The film includes interviews with a faculty member from Maharishi International University (now called Maharishi University of Management), and a Baptist minister who claims to be an "expert on Transcendental Meditation."
The MIU faculty member presents the case for the "structure and integration of knowledge and consciousness", through the "Unified Field", using TM's elaborate "scientific" charts. The faculty member appears as a brainwashed drone with his standard, calm, presentation of memorized statements - statements that we were all taught to say.
The Baptist Minister states that TM is an "evil cult which opens one for demonic influences."
One local interviewee articulately describes his experience of TM, the pull of the TM movement and the ensuing destructive family dynamics. He also explains how his wife, after quitting TM, had the common experience of the mantra continuing to come into her mind against her wishes. This interviewee finally felt free of TM when he accepted the Lord as his savior.
You may view the film here, about one hour long : Kingdom of the Cults: Transcendental Meditation
(personal note: listening to MIU's faculty presentation, I find it embarrassing that I'd ever partially believed the TM fantasy, even though I was raised within "The Movement" and had refused to attend MIU or TTC.)
This essay is yet another of my trips down memory lane - this time, my memories of the TM organization's (i.e. Maharishi's) attitudes about mental health.
Back in 1970, before I ever learned TM, I had meditating friends who liked to tell me anecdotes about how rapidly TM improved mental health: "One man walked into the TM initiation room looking stressed and miserable; he walked out one hour later looking radiant," or, "This woman showed up at her therapist's office one week after learning TM, and the therapist said, 'My goodness! You seem so much better! What's happened to you?!' " I was 19 years old at the time, and I was very impressed. Now, with 40 years more experience under my belt, I would be less impressed. I would ask, "Did those benefits continue? Were there any harmful side effects?"
Back in 1970, the TM introductory lecture consisted of four speakers, each one speaking on a different topic: TM for mental potential, TM for health, TM for social behavior and TM for world peace. TM was presented as the solution to psychological problems.
After I was initiated, there were three days of follow up. We filled out forms that asked if we saw benefits in our lives yet. Almost all the people in my class had. The implication - which no one questioned - was that these changes were permanent, these benefits were from TM, and more benefits would be forthcoming soon.
The implication was that TM was both faster and more effective than psychotherapy.
My initiator had a condescending attitude towards psychotherapy. I think the rule back then was that if you were seeing a counselor more than once a week, you couldn't learn TM. My initiator said, "Either decide that the therapy's done what you wanted it to do, so you don't need it anymore and stop; or decide that the therapy isn't working, and stop. Either way, you can learn TM after you stop therapy."
Psychotherapy seemed to be a step down from TM. TM research was coming out showing that practicing TM produced mental health, and it produced it faster, less expensively and more holistically than psychotherapy.
This condescending attitude towards psychotherapy was explicit at the 1972 Humboldt College, Arcata, California, USA one-month course which I attended. Someone asked Maharishi about the value of psychotherapy. He replied that in the old days, people would go to their grandparents for advice, but nowadays, since families didn't live near each other, if you had problems you paid someone to listen to you. "Psychotherapy," he explained, "just stirs up the mud." It just made people worse. "Carl Jung's brother said that Carl was such an unhappy, miserable person. So how good could psychotherapy be?" Maharishi posited. (Someone in the audience pointed out, "Maharishi, Carl Jung was an only child." "Oh," Maharishi replied.)
If you were seeing a psychotherapist, you wouldn't be accepted for a TM teacher training course, or for an advanced teacher's course, (ATR), or for the TM-Sidhis course.
I had an initiator friend who was seriously depressed. I advised her to get professional help. She refused, saying, "But then I won't be accepted for an advanced course!"
What was the reason for this policy? Was it to keep meditators away from psychotherapists? Was it to keep meditators coming back to TM courses? Was it to keep meditators ignorant of the benefits of other methods? Was it to prevent unstable people from flipping out during rounding? Was it to keep knowledge of TM out of the hands of psychotherapists? I don't know, but it kept many meditators away from the help they dearly needed.
It also turned some meditators into liars. "Have you seen a psychotherapist?" asked the TM-Sidhis application form. "Well, I did see someone for career counseling," responded a friend of mine who received psychotherapy from a career counselor/psychotherapist. "Was he a therapist?" asked her TM interviewer. "Well, he did have a master's degree in English," she replied honestly. (And a doctorate in counseling, she omitted.) She was accepted for the course. "Filling out TM applications is an...'art form'," an initiator friend of mine wryly advised me.
Meanwhile, more scientific research continued to come out of the TM movement, showing that TM improved all areas of a person's life, including their mental health. These "independent scientific studies" have been criticized for inaccuracy and bias. For a critical analysis of TM research, click here:
http://trancenet.net/reserach/index.shtml
http://spacecityskeptics.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/how-to-design-a-positive-study-meditation-for-childhood-adhd/#comment-170
By 1975, Maharishi's "World Plan" was in full swing, promising that once a certain percentage of people around the world practiced TM, seven goals would be achieved, two of which were "to develop the full potential of the individual" and "to solve the problems of crime, drug-abuse and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the family of man." In other words, TM led inexorably to mental health.
Meanwhile, some people were attending TM Teacher Training courses and meditating for over 6 hours a day. Rumors were coming out that all that meditating was harmful for some people. Despite Maharishi's assurance that all manner of discomfort was "unstressing" and that "something good was happening," there were rumors of suicides, of people who became mute, of mental hospitalizations....
I was also starting to hear stories of people who after learning TM became more and more withdrawn and unsociable, and just sat in their houses all day and did TM.
In 1975 I visited my sister who was working at the Academy for the Science of Creative Intelligence in Livingston Manor, New York, USA. To thank the facility for letting me stay a few days, I offered to put their free lending library in order. The director at Livingston Manor instructed me to remove all books about psychology and self-help (and about other spiritual paths, too).
In 1977, I applied for the TM-Sidhis course. At that time, I had just been laid off from my job, my boyfriend had just broken up with me and had kept the apartment, leaving me homeless, and an accident had left me on crutches. I told my TM interviewer that I was a stressed out due to these pressures, and she replied that "TM should have strengthened you enough so that you would handle these challenges with calm and equanimity; therefore I have to conclude that you aren't emotionally stable enough for the course." (In retrospect, I wonder if she meant that this demonstrated that TM didn't work, or that I was somehow deficient.) The official cure for "emotional instability" and/or "unstressing" was to get your meditation checked, do more pranayama (yogic breathing exercises) and do more yoga asanas. That would set things right.
Another initiator friend of mine - I believe he got his Ph.D. in physics from an Ivy League college - gave me this thoughtful analysis of the genesis of mental illness: "People talk themselves into mental illness. I knew this woman who decided she had problems, and she just talked it into herself and talked it into herself, til finally she did become mentally ill."
In 1978 I got some counseling, and I became sufficiently "emotionally stable" that I was accepted for the TM-Sidhis course. In addition to learning the TM-Sidhis, the instructors used to read the English translation of the Ninth Mandala of the Rig Veda (a Hindu holy book) aloud to us for 15 minutes at a time. Jerry Jarvis (the former director of the Students International Meditation Society, U.S.) informed us that "the Ninth Mandala dissolves emotional hang-ups." Maharishi also helpfully explained that most mental illness was caused by not bathing frequently enough.
On the last day of the TM-Sidhis course, Maharishi begged us all to immediately move to Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. He explained that our "flying" together on this recent course had prevented the outbreak of war, but the end of the course would create a sort of vacuum where there was even more chance than ever for war. I - and hundreds of others - moved to Fairfield that month.
I was depressed and anxious in Fairfield, doing my TM-Sidhis program two to four times a day. Was I unstressing? Was I simply too emotionally unstable? I felt that I needed counseling, but unfortunately there was no counseling department on campus. I had heard a rumor that such a department had once existed, but that Maharishi had told them to shut it down, as it just led to increased "negativity". I believe the counselors were transferred to the "academic counseling" office. So I contacted the academic counseling dept. and asked for an appointment. When I told the academic counselor of my emotional state, he encouragingly replied, "The only thing wrong with you is that you need a buddy!" (The buddy system was a TM tradition whereby you went everywhere with your buddy, and let them know if you were "unstressing.") One of the women in my dorm agreed to be my buddy, but since she continued to spend all her time with her friends from home, I never did find out if the only thing wrong with me was the lack of a "buddy." I did cheer up, however, when I moved to a dorm where I knew the people, and got a job I liked.
Several months later, an MIU friend confided to me that she was miserable, near tears, anxious, depressed, "unstressing." She went to a higher up and "confessed" that she had lied on her TM-Sidhis application form, and maybe she wasn't really evolved enough or stable enough to be worthy of living at MIU. The supervisor consoled her with, "No, if you're here, you were meant to be here."
A year and a half later, I started having anxiety attacks when I did the sidhis. These attacks were spilling over into my daily life. I left Fairfield about this time. Back home, I phoned the TM-Sidhis Administrators to ask them how to deal with the anxiety during my program. They never called me back. Eventually I stopped doing the TM-Sidhis.
A few years later, I read that several MIU students had ended up in the county mental hospital. How could that be, since TM improves mental health? An MIU professor explained, "Going to college is very stressful."
Others in Fairfield were also being hit with bouts of anxiety and depression, which was called "roughness" or "unstressing." When they complained about their condition, they were chided, "You're purifying the whole earth of its impurities, and you complain about unstressing!"
Slowly, counseling slipped into the Fairfield TM community. People kept it a secret if they were receiving counseling - after all, they could be thrown off courses, and their friends might look down on them for "stirring up the mud" and for not following Maharishi's wishes. But as one Fairfield TMer apologetically explained, "Of course we don't want to go to counselors. But if there's a n\crisis - you know, like your husband's having an affair, or your kid's on drugs - well, then, you do it if you have to." She never did explain how a husband could be having an affair or a child could be on drugs if they were all practicing that mental health-producing technique, Transcendental Meditation.
Well, those are my memories of the TM attitude towards mental health. Anyone have any memories that they would like to share? (Anonymously is fine.) Or any other comments?
