The Wiki bit is a pretty good summary. The night before the takeover was to be revealed to the students, Maharishi (who was secretly in the Phillipines, although we were not told that) kept us all up half the night cooking up elaborate plans involving stringing many Christmas lights around campus, big banners, etc. His idea of a festive announcement. It backfired. We ended up with negative banner headlines in the papers every day and protestors marching in the street in front of our hotel. There were bomb threats, and a serious fire at the couples’ hotel. I don’t remember whether anyone died it in, but it was serious. People were clinging to balconies and had to be rescued with fire truck ladders.
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com] Sent: Monday, August 18, 2014 5:42 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Meissner Effect of Consciousness and its spiritual Darshan The Dawn of a New Age >From what I've noticed, the TM movement has gone basically underground in the >Philippines. When I was in Manila in 2006, the TMO did not have any >advertising or center telephone numbers in the yellow pages. In my prior visit in 1998, I found the local center telephone number on the telephone book and inquired about their advanced techniques. A secretary took my hotel telephone number, but I never got any answer back from any of the teachers at the center. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> , <mjackson74@... <mailto:mjackson74@...> > wrote : I mentioned your recollection to a TM friend who was partly raised in the Philippines and he wondered what happened at the university of the East - Interesting piece of Movement history that the TMO has neglected to put in all the shiny books MIU press has put out. wiki had this to say: The economic crisis and recession that hit the Philippines in the 1980s did not spare UE. The devaluation of the peso, rising inflation, the high cost of wages, coupled with faculty, personnel and student strikes affected UE. Enrollment declined. This period intensified into a crisis that almost led to the school's being sold to a foreign religious group. Financial trouble and academic decline continued to burden UE throughout the 1980s. For a brief period in 1984, a controlling interest in the university was held by an entity of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maharishi_Mahesh_Yogi> 's Transcendental Meditation movement <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_Meditation_movement> . Students boycotted classes and held protests against the takeover, and in short time control was returned to stakeholders.[4] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_the_East#cite_note-4> [5] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_the_East#cite_note-5> _____ From: "'Rick Archer' rick@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Monday, August 18, 2014 11:16 AM Subject: RE: [FairfieldLife] The Meissner Effect of Consciousness and its spiritual Darshan The Dawn of a New Age From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> [mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com] Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2014 2:16 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] The Meissner Effect of Consciousness and its spiritual Darshan The Dawn of a New Age So what happened when you were with the group in Iran? Was there a noticeable effect? Did the fighting or unrest calm or stop? I am a relative newcomer here so if you have addressed this it was before my time. I’d say that things got progressively worse. Sometimes I’d go out for a walk with a blonde haired Swedish friend and folks would say, “Are you crazy? Get off the street. You’ll be killed or kidnapped.” The group ended up being confined to our hotel for a month for safety. Same thing happened in the Philippines, when the movement’s attempt to take over the University of the East provoked street demonstrations. Back to Tehran, at one point, due to some change in hotels the group got split up and the group that moved to the new hotel didn’t have their luggage. We were making furtive dashes through dangerous streets to get our belongings. With the division of the group, the social unrest seemed to escalate, which might support the notion that the group was actually having an effect. Hard to say. We were relieved to leave, two or three days before the Shah did. _____ From: "'Rick Archer' rick@... <mailto:rick@...> [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> > To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2014 2:59 PM Subject: RE: [FairfieldLife] The Meissner Effect of Consciousness and its spiritual Darshan The Dawn of a New Age I don’t think I ever said I don’t “believe” in the “Maharishi Effect”. I think it’s an interesting theory. I think consciousness is a field. I’ve been in groups as large as 8,000 meditating, and the effect was palpable. I think the movement bends over backwards to try to get sometimes dubious research to validate their theories, but even if the research isn’t as rigorous as might be hoped, the theory might have substance. I think TM research may have validated it to some extent, but with the vested interest being so strong, one has to take the reseach with a grain of salt. From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> [mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com] Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2014 9:23 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Subject: [FairfieldLife] The Meissner Effect of Consciousness and its spiritual Darshan The Dawn of a New Age Om, you people are re-contextualizing words in Rick's mouth here. In context Rick don't have to believe nothing like what you are trying to say, he certainly knows the Meissner field effect [M.E.] of consciousness like the Maharishi Effect observes. Just what do you think a darshan is? You doubters are pitiable spiritual midgets. You are simply pitiable, http://amma.org/ -Buck Well, Rick no longer believes in the Maharishi Effect, so... L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> , <no_re...@yahoogroups.com <mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com> > wrote : That's right. What Rick was saying was that saving lives, as Maharishi did in Teheran, was insane.Makes you wonder what side everyone is... ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> , <LEnglish5@... <mailto:LEnglish5@...> > wrote : I was only summarizing what Rick said he now thinks about going to Tehran to participate in group meditation during teh Fall of the Shah: Insane ("crazy" was the actual technical term he used, I think). L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> , <no_re...@yahoogroups.com <mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com> > wrote : BTW: I'm sorry, I thought your post was by Bhairitu, notorios for making broad and misleading comments about a movement he left years if not decades ago. Your posts usually command a high level of respect. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> , <LEnglish5@... <mailto:LEnglish5@...> > wrote : My bad about saying that Rick was on Purusha when he went to Tehran. As for the rest, you and Michael appear to sock puppets for each other, misreading everything everyone else says and arguing incessantly with people what you think they said, rather than what they actually said... L ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> , <no_re...@yahoogroups.com <mailto:no_re...@yahoogroups.com> > wrote : First; Purusha wasn't even invented. Second; though all ambassies expected huge problems,closed down and moved all personell out of the country expecting riots and possible deaths and even though the airlines closed down all flights to Teheran, not a single person was hurt. It was a major success-story for our Movement. Despite what the naysayers or ill-informed like yourself will continue to blurb.---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com <mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> , <LEnglish5@... <mailto:LEnglish5@...> > wrote : Well, in fact, the founder of this Forum, Rick Archer, wrote a comment about the time he and a bunch of Perusha were sent into Iran during the Fall, and how surreal it was to go on the roof of his hotel after Program and watch buildings only a mile or so away burning after being struck by weapons or something. He also describes his current take on his activities back then: Insane.