LIES & TRANSCENDENTAL SUICIDES: AN OPEN LETTER TO DAVID LYNCH, PART 1
An Open Letter to David Lynch, December 2, 2019
Dear Mr. Lynch,
As you are likely aware, I recently wrote a book about the deceptions that permeate the Transcendental Meditation (TM) organization and your Foundation. My original motivation was to block TM from public schools. As I learned more about the Lynch Foundation, I realized that TM’s incursion into public schools is only the tip of the iceberg. TM is currently targeting military and veterans’ groups by promoting TM as a proven treatment for PTSD.
FORMER TM TEACHER
I learned TM in 1970 while I was in graduate school at Berkeley and became a TM teacher in 1974. I spent time with Maharishi in Italy, Switzerland, France, and the US. I ran TM’s International Institute for Social Rehabilitation from 1975–79. I practiced TM for ten years, six of them as a Sidha meditating a minimum of four hours a day. I didn’t experience any of the promised Sidha benefits, nor did the dozens of Sidhas I knew. I quit TM in 1981 and was so out of the loop that I didn’t realize Maharishi had died until seven years after the fact. A few years ago, when TM fandom hit a fever pitch among celebrities, I became curious and went to TM’s website. All I saw were health claims (that I knew were wildly exaggerated) and celebrity endorsements.
This is what I learned. The David Lynch Foundation has 60 full-time employees, and last year had $16 million budget. The Foundation is lobbying for the government to pay for veterans with PTSD to learn TM. This is troubling for the reasons I have documented in an accompanying paper. TM also continues to pursue funding to teach TM in public schools. This is a violation of the 1978 court ruling (Malnak v. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, U.S.D.C. of N.J. 76–341, esp. pp.36–50, 78) that tossed TM from New Jersey public schools. As you must know, the Court ruled that teaching TM in public schools is a violation the separation of church and state.
TM’S UNCHALLENGED CLAIMS
TM’s claims go mostly unchallenged, in part because TM pretends to offer a secular relaxation practice while concealing the Hinduism that lies at its core. Also, TM has groomed a vast network of celebrities who endorse it. Perhaps some will reconsider their support once they understand that the relaxation derived from meditation, the main component of meditation that can help many people, is available elsewhere and virtually free.
TM promotes the endorsements of famous physicians like Dr. Oz, but Maharishi had no use for allopathic medicine. In a Resolution dated February 11, 1997, the Maharishi Vedic Medical Council resolved to ban allopathic medicine and replace it with Maharishi’s Vedic health care system.
Various points in the Resolution condemn the whole of allopathic medicine and its component parts. The resolution called for India’s national health-care budget to be transferred to Maharishi and that Maharishi Vedic University retrain all allopathic health care providers and that all allopathic medicine curriculums be eliminated. The resolution also calls for the destruction and rebuilding of all medical colleges and hospitals and rebuilt according to Maharishi’s version of feng shui known as “Maharishi Sthapatya Veda.”
Internally, TM has never softened this outrageous position. Guidelines (never made public) for TM administrators could not be more explicit:
We are not going to take help from medical Drs. as medical professionals give poison. So, don’t engage any medical Drs. for anything — absolutely whatever it is — even if they are in our Movement family.
And, as Maharishi instructed his TM governors,
Hold onto the fact that we are the supreme authorities on health — we know how to create perfect health…
TRANSCENDENTAL TRAGEDIES
The above statements are dangerous. TM teachers are trained to believe Western medicine is poison, and TM is a standalone cure for just about everything.
TM.org has a live chat feature. I wrote that I was a veteran with several tours in Afghanistan and that I had severe PTSD for which I was taking quite a bit of medication to control. I asked if I was required to inform my VA doctor that I was starting TM. The answer was: “No no, it’s not required to talk to your VA doctor before starting TM :)” Then I wrote that I sometimes feel suicidal and had read that with TM, I wouldn’t feel suicidal. The response: “Yes, it absolutely helped me with similar challenges with mental health.”
DG was a poster boy for your Foundation. DG had PTSD, and after starting TM, he moved to TM’s University in Fairfield, Iowa, to get more involved with TM. A video of DG and his mother talking about how TM helped with his PTSD was on your website. TM was the only treatment DG needed, that is, until he committed suicide some months later.
TM IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SUICIDE. BUT…
I’m not saying TM was responsible for DG’s suicide. I am saying that PTSD is brutal; therapists who work with sufferers understand that horrendous, harrowing memories are frequently repressed. Should they surface during meditation, they require processing in a therapeutic context. They may require medication. Maharishi’s views on allopathic medicine would weigh against both.
Sincerely,
Aryeh Siegel
Author, Transcendental Deception
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Aryeh Siegel is the author of TRANSCENDENTAL DECEPTION: Behind the TM curtain — bogus science, hidden agendas, and David Lynch’s campaign to push a million public school kids into Transcendental Meditation while falsely claiming it is not a religion. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and family.
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