On Apr 20, 2012, at 8:12 AM, turquoiseb wrote:
Ahem. Just a sampling from various TM org websites:
http://www.tmscotland.org/stress-transcendental-meditation.html
"Many scientific research studies have clearly shown that the
level of rest gained during Transcendental Meditation is deeper
than sleep or any other form of relaxation..."
http://www.maharishividyamandir.com/Transcendental%20Meditation.jsp
"The first ever scientific research on TM was conducted by Dr.
Robert Keith Wallace of U.S.A. who declared that during TM-the
mind remains fully alert but the body goes to deep rest-deeper
than sleep."
http://www.tmcityandeastlondon.com/articles/does-meditation-help-
handle-stress/
"The profound state of rest gained when practising Transcendental
Meditation – deeper than sleep – is very good for your body."
http://www.tm.org/blog/people/reduce-stress/
"The role of the Transcendental Meditation technique is to
provide deep rest to the nervous system, deeper than sleep."
WOW. This is shocking evidence that what was proven as a lie decades
ago, is still being promoted by the TM Org as true. Great find!
That's a random sampling from over 18,000 hits on Google
for the combination of "TM" AND "deeper than sleep". If
I search for "TM" AND "different from sleep" I get 1600
hits, most from official TM sources. If I search for "TM"
AND "different than sleep" I get 6820.
The point being that once a buzzphrase has entered the TB
TM lexicon, you just can't get rid of it. NO ONE CARES
whether what is being said is true, only that it can be
used to sell more TM.
Wow. Yeah, what actually happened was that Keith Wallace paired the
rather painful process of cannulation for blood gases with the actual
meditation research. So what would have happened is the subject would
have had arterial blood gases accessed via needles inserted into the
arteries (ouch!) - typically in the wrist. This is painful and
traumatic for most people, so their heart rate would go up, BP would
go up and the person would sweat, thereby lowering skin resistance
dramatically. Then all you need to do - if you're a really bad
researcher - is begin the baseline then and there. You've already
moved the baseline dramatically by pairing it to this cannulization.
So then all you have to is get the patient to relax. Since the
baseline is grossly elevated, you get what looks like this remarkable
drop in metabolic rate.
If you remember the old 1970's TM pamphlets that showed the research,
you'll remember the graph that showed metabolic rate of sleep -
superimposed with the phony data for TM - which showed this huge drop
in metabolic rate for TM, several times deeper than sleep. There are
still many TMers who actually believe this was true - and as you've
shown, people still spread this long-known lie as if it was true. I
covered this previously in my "lies of TM" series. It actually turned
out, TM was not significantly different from napping.
I should also point out that it was this graph that actually
convinced a 14-year old Vaj to begin TM in the first place!
