Wrong. TM lost that court case, because it was deemed to have religious overtones.
"The 1977 court ruling, Malnak v. Yogi, dealt a serious blow to the movement. TM appealed to the New Jersey State Supreme Court claiming they were not teaching religion, but proven scientific techniques. The Supreme Court upheld the initial decision in a 1979 ruling. After several years of steady growth, this same time frame marks the beginning of a decline in the number of new initiates to the meditation program. In spite of vigorous protest against claims that TM is a religion, Bainbridge notes it is not mere coincidence that it is during this period that the organization took new initiatives that focused on "supernormal powers."" http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/tm.html And this: "However, after 1975, TM’s fortunes took another turn. The "number of new people taking TM courses dropped significantly" (Religious Fringe, p. 206). In response, "the TM leadership announced an advanced program which purported to teach meditators to levitate and to vanish at will" (Ibid.). Such outrageous claims "tarnished the scientific image of TM" which TM had strived to create and, as a result, the organization lost credibility (Ibid.). When "a federal court ruled that TM was a religious practice," and the ruling was upheld in the U.S. Court of Appeals 3rd Dist. (Malnak v. Yogi), TM was then made "subject to the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution" (Religious Fringe, p. 207), not only denying TM the privilege of receiving federal funds, but preventing it from being taught in public schools, one of the key markets for TM (Ibid.). In addition to these setbacks, TM began to become criticized as actually being harmful, rather than beneficial, to some TM practitioners. In 1978, Psychology Today magazine reported that a "‘substantial number’ of meditators developed anxiety, depression, physical and mental tension and other adverse effects" (San Francisco Examiner, September 10, 1989, p. E3). "In 1980, the West German government’s Institute for Youth and Society produced a report calling TM a ‘psychogroup’ and saying that the majority of people who went through TM experienced psychological or physical disorders" (Edward Epstein, "Politics and Transcendental Meditation," San Francisco Chronicle, December 29, 1995, p. A1)" http://www.pastornet.net.au/response/articles/87.htm I'd say that in referring to it as a 'psychogroup' they might have had you in mind, off-world. On Mar 26, 2005, at 5:35 PM, off_world_beings wrote: > TM was NOT considered a religion by that court case, but your mind > has turned it into its negative. TM won the case. Get informed ! To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
