Nothing terribly wrong with the methodology except that responses to the survey were self-selected, so perhaps, one way, or another, the responses were NOT indicative of the majority of people who do TM. For all we know, the people who didn't respond were actually worse off than the ones who did. The point is that such surveys are never considered very accurate, and especially not when less than half of the people respond. They're useful for marketing purposes to see if someone willing to respond is interested in trying out a new product and why, but you can't tell ANYTHING about about everyone in a given population when the people that respond are less than half of the people who were sent the original survey. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : Now tell us what you think was "wrong" about the 1971 Stanford Research Institute study. Based on the short writeup below, I don't see anything odd about their methodology -- they sent out questionnaires to 1,900 people, selected pretty much at random from TMO lists, received replies from 47% of them, and just did the math. The math doesn't look particularly good for TM. From: "LEnglish5@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Wednesday, August 13, 2014 4:22 PMSubject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Meditation and Science That German "study" was based on a "snowball" selection of subjects... Subjects who didn't like TM for some reason were asked to provide names of other people who didn't like TM, who were asked to provide names of other people who didn't like TM: TranceNet: German TM Research, 2 of 7 http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/research/chap2.shtml#2.1 http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/research/chap2.shtml#2.1 TranceNet: German TM Research, 2 of 7 http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/research/chap2.shtml#2.1 -Social circumstances -The time immediately preceding involvement with T.M. -The phase during the practice of T.M.
View on minet.org Preview by Yahoo ...For the reasons named we proceeded methodologically according to the "Snowball Method", where certain people involved in our investigation in turn named others and so on etc. 2.2. ATTRIBUTES OF THE GROUPS QUESTIONED Altogether 67 people were questioned. All those questioned had a direct or indirect relationship with the T.M. movement. It was necessary from the beginning to divide or classify them into three groups: * 30 parents * 10 people married to TMers * 27 ex-meditators ................................. So, all the statistics mentioned were based on the interviews with the above people, who were selected on the basis of having issues with TM. It's pretty much a given that if you a group of people who say they have issues with TM, most of them will report issues with TM. I linked the section on how the subjects were selected to a psychology newsgroup and one of the readers commented that this was disturbingly like the method that the German government used at the start of teh Nazi regime to justify the government's campaign against the Jews. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote : On 8/12/2014 12:52 PM, Michael Jackson mjackson74@... mailto:mjackson74@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: I realize you have reading comprehension problems, but this post references far more than the German study, you idiot. >In a twenty year study of the effects of TM on long term TM meditators by >Stein and English, there was no reports of any instances of psychotic >episodes in individuals or nervous breakdowns. The subjects of the study were >Barry Wright and Rick Archer, both long term TM meditators. The study was >based on interviews with hundreds if not thousands of TMers on Google Groups >and Yahoo Groups.But, according to your study, as a long term TM meditator >and former inside member of the cult, you should be be exhibiting signs of a >nervous breakdown at any moment! Have you ever been tested for psychosis or >cognitive dissonance? Twelve years is a long time to be inside a cult >socializing with the leaders up close and personal, as you previously >claimed. Go figure.> From: "'Richard J. Williams' punditster@... mailto:punditster@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.comTo: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2014 1:45 PMSubject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Meditation and Science On 8/12/2014 10:21 AM, Michael Jackson mjackson74@... mailto:mjackson74@... [FairfieldLife] wrote: Sometimes real science does come in handy: > The poor Nerd, he doesn't even realize that Lawson and Judy ripped to shreds years ago these so-called German Study on TM. > Otis (1984) described a study done at Stanford Research Institute in 1971 to determine the negative effects of Transcendental Meditation. SRI mailed a survey to every twentieth person on the Students International Meditation Society (TM's parent organization) mailing list of 40,000 individuals. Approximately 47% of the 1,900 people surveyed responded. The survey included a self-concept word list (the Descriptive Personality List) and a checklist of physical and behavioral symptoms (the Physical and Behavioral Inventory). It was found that dropouts reported fewer complaints than experienced meditators, to a statistically significant degree. Furthermore, adverse effects were positively correlated with the length of time in meditation. Long-term meditators reported the following percentages of adverse effects: antisocial behavior, 13.5%; anxiety, 9.0%; confusion, 7.2%; depression, 8.1%; emotional stability, 4.5%; frustration, 9.0%; physical and mental tension, 8.1%; procrastination, 7.2%; restlessness, 9.0%; suspiciousness, 6.3%; tolerance of others, 4.5%; and withdrawal, 7.2%. The author concluded that the longer a person stays in TM and the more committed a person becomes to TM as a way of life, the greater is the likelihood that he or she will experience adverse effects. This contrasts sharply with the promotional statements of the various TM organizations. Ellis (1984) stated that meditation's greatest danger was its common connection with spirituality and antiscience. He said that it might encourage some individuals to become even more obsessive-compulsive than they had been and to dwell in a ruminative manner on trivia or nonessentials. He also noted that some of his clients had gone into "dissociative semi-trance states and upset themselves considerably by meditating." Ellis views meditation and other therapy procedures as often diverting people from doing that which overcomes their disturbance to focusing on the highly palliative technique itself. Therefore, although individuals might feel better, their chances of acquiring a basically healthy, nonmasturbatory outlook are sabotaged. Walsh (1979) reported a number of disturbing experiences during meditation, such as anxiety, tension, and anger. Walsh and Rauche (1979) stated that meditation may precipitate a psychotic episode in individuals with a history of schizophrenia. Kornfield (1979 and 1983) reported that body pain is a frequent occurrence during meditation, and that meditators develop new ways to relate to their pain as a result of meditation. Hassett (1978) reported that meditation can be harmful. Carrington (1977) observed that extensive meditation may induce symptoms that range in severity from insomnia to psychotic manifestations with hallucinatory behavior. Lazarus (1976) reported that psychiatric problems such as severe depression and schizophrenic breakdown may be precipitated by TM. French et al. (1975) reported that anxiety, tension, anger, and other disturbing experiences sometimes occur during TM. Carrington and Ephron (1975c) reported a number of complaints from TM meditators who felt themselves overwhelmed by negative and unpleasant thoughts during meditation. Glueck and Stroebel (1975) reported that two experimental subjects made independent suicide attempts in the first two days after beginning the TM program. Kannellakos and Lukas (1974) reported complaints from TM meditators. Otis (1974) reported that five patients suffered a reoccurrence of serious psychosomatic symptoms after commencing meditation. Maupin (1969) stated that the deepest objection to meditation has been its tendency to produce withdrawn, serene people who are not accessible to what is actually going on in their lives. He said that with meditation it is easy to overvalue the internal at the expense of the external. These and other negative meditation outcomes are described in traditional sources. The path is "sharp like a razor's edge" says the Katha Upanishad. [54] St. John of the Cross wrote an entire book about the dark night of the soul. [55] Several hundred pages of Sri Aurobindo's collected works deal with the problems and dangers of his integral yoga. [56] A large part of Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy consists of admonitions from various spiritual masters about the difficulties encountered in contemplative practice, [57] and William James explores the negative side of religious life in The Varieties of Religious Experience. [58] These and other sources provide a wide array of warnings and directions for those entering a path of meditation. Though the rewards of contemplative practice can be great, they do not come easily. This research was done on TM by an Independent TM Research: 76% of long-term meditators experience psychological disorders -- including 26% nervous breakdowns 63% experience serious physical complaints 70% recorded a worsening ability to concentrate Researchers found a startling drop in honesty among long-term meditators TranceNet: German Transcendental Meditation Research, 4 of 7 a detailed examination of the history, culture, and secret teachings of the TM movement. The unconscious sense impressions and visions which are brought to the conscious mind during meditation cannot be controlled by the meditator himself. The mainly positive experiences in the earlier stages (pictures, feelings of happiness) are replaced in time - according to reports of the ex-meditators - by terrifying images and feelings of fear or anguish. This is known to the T.M. movement. The theory states that "unstressing" is taking place during these conditions. It is advised that one should meditate more intensively. Only when all of that stress was released, would pleasant experiences again be had. Because of their initial pleasant experiences with the meditation, coupled with a blind trust in the directions of the T.M. leadership, those concerned meditated more intensively and ended up in many cases in what was for them a dangerous condition, which they could not get out of without outside help. Over 70% of those in our study had difficulties, statements made on tape list these difficulties mainly as being: problems with sleeping, anguish, increasing pain in the head, stomach, and back, (compare with section 6 of this chapter), problems with concentration, hallucinations, feelings of isolation, depression, over- sensitivity, and instability. http://onwww.net/trancenet.org/research/ http://onwww.net/trancenet.org/research/ In 1978, PsychologyToday 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). Another concern, explored by researchers Michael Murphy and Steven Donovan, is that advanced practioners rank high in suggestibility, meaning that their physical or mental state is easily influence by the process of suggestion. Whether they become more suggestible because of participation in meditation practices or are highly suggestible to being with, a state which might reinforce their continuation of the practice, has not been determined. Either way, the suggestibility puts them at risk of losing personal autonomy.
