On Mar 13, 2008, at 12:13 PM, hugheshugo wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "sparaig" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > http://www.brainresearchinstitute.org/research/ConcCog2004.pdf Interesting paper but it didn't take me long to spot the error that seems to dog all research into TM, that of poor controls. The problem here is the choice of groups, you have a non-TM group, short term TM(7 years) and long term TM(24 years). I would expect that as I've been meditating 15 years (TM for 5 and TMSP for 10) I would fall into the last category, yet on a check of the responses to questions I found myself falling towards the non-TM group, why would this be? Two possible answers; TM doesn't work as claimed and the experiment has been disproved OR the TM groups are simply recounting an explanation of experiences learned during their time as members of a very religious community steeped in Indian beliefs. Guess what explanation I would go for, and I doubt I would be alone. That is what is meant by poor controls, what you need is a TMer like me who never gave much of a toss about the supporting philosophy. That said, I'm definitley "different" after meditating so long but without a before and after test the statement is essentially meaningless.
Actually you could actually use dyed in the wool TM TB's...if you simply counterbalanced them with appropriate controls. For example, a TM TB might believe that they are contributing to world peace, the world plan, the coming Sat Yuga, the advancement of science, etc--so there are motivating factors for these subjects. In such a case, you simply counterbalance that effect with your controls. For example, offer a small prize for good performance during testing.
It's been used with TMers before and it does work. Unfortunately the type of benefits they're so desperately trying to tout end up being nullified or even reversed when compared to controls. You see the same thing with almost any type of relaxation response style meditation technique.
