You hope all of the below, eh? If scientists found as you hope, wuldn't that imply that everyone who ever learned TM was not just wasting their time, but was putting themselves at risk?
Wouldn't a healthier hope be that scientists objectively examine TM's effects in independently done studies, and determine which, if any claims were correct, and which were actually counter to reality, whatever that turns out to mean? An even nicer hope would be that scientists would independently evaluate TM and find that most of the research is valid. An even nicer hope would be to find that TM research is mostly valid AND that TM is at least somewhat unique in positive ways. The hope to find that TM and other practices have the same effect isn't as nice as you might think at first glance simply because there is so much research being published right now on mindfulness that shows that it has small-to-moderate effects on health and wellbeing and virtually no studies that show extremely large positive effects, unlike the recent TM and PTSD in war refugees studies, so if TM and mindfulness have the same effect, then that means that TM really has a small-to-moderate positive effect on PTSD in war refugees, rather than the overwhelmingly huge positive effect that the two latest studies suggest. I would far rather that TM be uniquely positive in its effects, and difficult-to-teach, compared to mindfulness being easy to teach and having tiny positive effects. We can always train more TM teachers afterall. L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote : Oh I know it happens but and I admit my experience doesn't cover ALL people in the world, but when I was at MIU the faculty members I encountered seemed to be a bit more of the True Believers than most of the staff and students, of course that could be because they were required as part of their jobs to really put forth the TM party line on any question or situation that arose. I just hope that one day some enterprising individual will hire a group to analyze the entire "scientific" body of research on TM and TMSP, prove scientifically and statistically that it is NOT scientifically valid, that the appropriate authorities will look into the pundit program, see that MUM/GCWP is in violation of federal statues, shut down the pundit cash cow program, heavily fine the Movement, find the accreditation of MUM is undeserved and revoke it, Girish will then sell the place and all this after Hagelin and Moriss have had to own up to their womanizing in court, MUM will fire both of them, they will then turn on the Movement and tell all the dirty secrets to save their necks which will be the testimony that leads to the revoking of the accreditation. Also, a serious study will be undertaken to see how many TM'ers develop mental problems after long use of TM, the number of suicides and attempted suicides will be studied, and after all this is published, the TMO will be unable to claim any scientific validity to anything it does and is reduced to saying "We think you should do it cause we need your money and we think its a good thing to do." Happy Tuesday! -------------------------------------------- On Tue, 4/8/14, steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@... <steve.sundur@... mailto:steve.sundur@...> wrote: Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: Unstressing or Demons? To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Date: Tuesday, April 8, 2014, 12:50 PM Well, I would say you may still be a little wet behind the ears. I think many have taken this route. A friend of mine who was an active teacher back in the day, and lived in FF for a spell, is now priest in an archdiocese in Iowa somewhere, IIRC, and he tells a similar store as Kai Druhl, and his objections run along the same lines. I think you have a tendency to take at face value every claim MMY or the TMO has made, and then when they don't pan out you start pounding. I think others were able to figure in a discount for the "vision of possibilities" and go from there. Yes, some of things that have come to light in the intervening years have caused me some cognitive dissonance, and forced me to look at things differently, but I know what I have taken away from the experience overall, and that has allowed me to overcome some of the dysfunctional parts of it all.
