Just finished watching it and I share some of your observatiosn but
really thought the perfect TM family and the whole TM experience came
across as pretty weird.
On Mar 31, 2008, at 8:02 PM, gruntlespam wrote:
Just finished watching the program...
If you are in the UK you can watch the program online at the BBC's
website - go to the
iPlayer section. But you MUST be in the UK - ie. with a UK IP
address. If you are outside the
UK, you will need to go via a UK proxy server, this will fool the
BBC website into thinking
you are in the UK. Look on the web for such a service.
Plus the program is only online for the next 7 days.
http://tiny.cc/S9msm
Synopsis:
The presenter (a scientist - physicist) first does buddhist
meditation with Matthiew Ricard
in Nepal (AKA "The Happiest Man Alive"). Sitting cross-legged on a
small stool; following
her breath, days and days of practice etc.
Then she (yes - she) looks at all the medical studies - and goes off
to Vedic City, as the
most pure research she could find is by the TM movement.
I don't remember her using the words "pure research" or even saying
there was anything special other than the fact the TM people had done
a lot of it; in fact she is suspicious of them it seems from the
beginning because as a trained physicist she knew the unified field
crapola was just bunk. No wool pulled over her eyes.
She's given a tour of the SV
houses, meets a nice TM family (the Johnsons) and then watches some
flying - and is
invited onto the foam to try for herself in the physical sense.
Funny - she is laughing and
no match for the male TMSP guys who have their flying down pat.
She also comments on watching them "Mad!" as if to say 'this is really
pretty whacky'.
But it's interesting how the flying does not shock her - she just
finds it amusing. The guy
showing her around was a touch creepy, a real TBer I'm sure.
Yeah I got that too.
She hears about the "Unified Field Theory" and remarks in the voice-
over how that's "not
even been established yet". Shame they could not get John Hagelin to
have a chat with her.
Don't know what she would have made of a fellow physicist - he is
very eloquent.
But still it's pretty well known that unified field theories are
describing the grossest physicalities and in no way are associated
with "consciousness". If she would have heard Hagelin--esp. if he used
his castrato-TMers voice schtick--I can easily see her fleeing
FF....after all she's not easily fooled.
She remarks how all the secrecy seems so odd, and baulks at the
$2,500 to learn!!! But
she say how happy and content everyone looks. No mention of the ME.
Well they probably told her. When they take her to the teleconference
she's sitting in front of a huge frickin' poster that says "Global
Country of World Peace" in that Adobe Illustrator looking style
they're so fond of.
Then she has a teleconference with a TM scientist in Holland who
gives her the standard
spiel. Then she goes back to the UK and looks at some of the major
"reviews" of research
into TM and heart health. Concludes that TM is a shade better then
other techniques as far
as the reviews are concerned.
WTF was it with that guy? They get the video feed working and here's
this guy meditating. So they wait for him to come out of TM. He seemed
like a TM android. Cult!
Then she moves onto other research on general buddhist "breath"
meditation etc, as is
amazed at the MRI scanning evidence. "Cortical thickness" is 0.1 to
0.2 mm thicker in
people who meditate etc..
Then she talks to some doctors etc. who are doing "ground breaking
research" etc - and
coming to conclusions that the TM research established decades ago.
It does take decades
to change scientific viewpoints.
Well, really she eventually, as a scientist, gets to the final part of
research: the reviews that physicians use--and she finds that the TM
research she'd seen touted and hailed all over the web and by the TMO,
was actually when looked at honestly was rather ho-hum and
insignificant. She'd been mislead.
So a good program - but just such a shame that the TMO were bit-
players, and came out
of it "odd" to say the least. I've never been in the movement as
such - just a TMSP guy for
13 years with a few courses here and there. I feel sad for the TMO
and all you folks who
hoped it could be so much. But who knows what was MMY was really up
to.
Who knows? Counting money I guess.
