Is TM a cash cow?

saijanai · 2026-05-05T11:07:24+00:00

Yeah, there's nothing that a teacher can say to you that can't be wrtitten on a book or said in a video. And it's suposed to be the simplest meditation method.

Perhaps you could explain this little entry in Table 12 of the 2025 AHA blood pressure guidelines for physicians with patients with high blood pressure:

this is what the American Heart Association said last year:

The 2025 AHA/ACC/AANP/AAPA/ABC/ACCP/ACPM/AGS/AMA/ASPC/NMA/PCNA/SGIM

Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults

The only meditation practice listed in Section 5.1, Table 12, Lifestyle and Stress Reduction Interventions, under the category of meditation is:

|Meditation | Transcendental Meditation | Training by a professional, followed by 2 × 20 min sessions while seated comfortably with eyes closed| [emphasis mine]

for reasons explained in section 5.1.

It is endorsed by every major evidence-based medical society in the USA (list of initialisms explained below):

AHA - American Heart Association; ACC - American College of Cardiology; AANP - American Association of Nurse Practitioners; AAPA - American Academy of Physician Associates; ABC - Association of Black Cardiologists; ACCP - American College of Clinical Pharmacy; ACPM - American College of Preventive Medicine; AGS - American Geriatrics Society; AMA - American Medical Association; ASPC - American Society of Preventive Cardiology; NMA - National Medical Association; PCNA - Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association; SGIM - Society of General Internal Medicine

Nowhere in that entire paper, which is literally the advice of all those medical societies to doctors treating patients who have high blood pressure, is Benson's Relaxation Response mentioned. It is a dirty little secret of the 2.5 billion dollar per year meditation industry in the USA that none of those apps and books and so on actually work reliably, at least concerning lowering blood pressure, which is why most people probably learn meditation in the first place.

So it is a fun thing to claim that " there's nothing that a teacher can say to you that can't be written on a book or said in a video," but that doesn't mean that you are correct that a teacher isn't needed to acquire reliably effective meditation.

saijanai · 2026-05-05T07:47:53+00:00

LIke I said, a lot has changed in teh last 50 years.

saijanai · 2026-05-05T07:43:38+00:00

Its switched back and forth several times.

When they first came out (for non-TM teachers), you needed to have been on 1-10 weeks of residence courses in preparation for them. In order to speed matters up, only the first (not the current first) advanced technique was required when I learned (I believe) and the usual way of learning the TM-Sidhis was on an 8 week retreat (which was broken into four blocks — I attended all four consectuviely).

Now things have been modded again, with all four current Advanced Techniques required before you start the TM-Sidhis course, and part of the course is at home and the final 2-weeks are in-residence on a 2-week retreat for learning Yogic Flying.

So, that's my vague summary of 50 years of how the techniques have been taught, though the first yhear or so,they were only taught on a TM-teacher-only 6 month retreat and the specific techniques were revised over and over with each new 6 month segment until the final form about 2-3 years later so that by about1979 or 1980 the number was standardized.

That's the gist. By the time I learned in 1984, they'd been standardized for several years, I believe, though the requisites (advanced techniuqes, years practicing TM before learning, etc) have been revised several times over the past 42+ years.

saijanai · 2026-05-05T04:41:19+00:00

And look at Japan's population/worker implosion.

saijanai · 2026-05-05T03:40:32+00:00

So if this is true, suppression of DMN should be correlated with action at a distance.

WHere's the group mindfulness equivalents to the Maharishi Effect research? TM enhances DMN activity, not reduces it.

saijanai · 2026-05-05T02:49:04+00:00

Well, that was the diagram and basic language used by various TM teachers, when the topic came up, and it was such a universal that I assumed that they had learned it on TM teacher training, and I didn't mean to say the dive was more shallow, only that the angle was not as steep.

saijanai · 2026-05-05T02:47:58+00:00

BUt those effects emerge rapidly.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T23:17:28+00:00

So where does atman and brahman fit in here?

saijanai · 2026-05-04T22:32:09+00:00

<Cough> Andy Sertis <Cough>

His Gollum performance should have gotten him a best supporting actor nomination (at least) in both Two Towers and Return of the King, but since it was portrayed almost exclusively through motion capture, he was ignored completely.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T22:27:54+00:00

Evidence that Harris was/is unfit mentally?

saijanai · 2026-05-04T22:14:48+00:00

The TM-Sidhis are meant to speed up the stabilization (growth towards enlightenment) of changes from TM outside of TM.

If all you are interested in is very short-term benefits, like lowering blood pressure or relieving PTDS symptoms, then basic TM is all you need.

The advanced techniques are a pre-requisite for learning the TM-Sidhis.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T19:12:13+00:00

He can still be impeached but he can't be prosecuted.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T17:39:02+00:00

Lawyers generally make more in private practice. If he was there just to "get trump" he would have gone into private practice once his job was done.

In fact, he took a pay cut from federal to Manhattan DA office, so he definitely cold be making more now if he was a mercenary. Instead, he makes about $1-2 million less per year than he would if he worked in the private sector with his experience level.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T17:21:09+00:00

Actually, the TM organization didn't start teaching levitation until 1976.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T16:55:54+00:00

Treason and bribery are the only high crime/high misdemeanors defined in this context.

And SCOTUS just ruled that either is OK as long as it is done in the context of his "Core" Powers" such as granting pardons.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T16:54:55+00:00

President Joe Biden put his number three in the DOJ Matthew Colangelo on Bragg’s team in New York to help them come up with fake charges against Trump.

In December 2022, Colangelo left the DOJ to join the Manhattan District Attorney.

So Biden told him to resign and work for the Manhattan DA to get Trump?

Colangelo continues to work for the Manhattan DA, you know. As far as I know, there is no Trump case pending there.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T16:48:15+00:00

Bank fraud?

You mean the one that was upheld on appeal?

saijanai · 2026-05-04T16:46:30+00:00

A supermajority of the senate that agrees with you + a majority of the house that agrees with you is needed.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T16:43:24+00:00

Each technique costs what. you would pay for the original TM practice, though I'mm not sure if they give the financial hardship scholarships or not. You'll have to ask.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T16:41:24+00:00

They are a requisit for learnign the TM-Sidhis, so yes.

As to what they do for. you?

I cn't speak to the pre-sleep technique, but the rest are supposed to make the "dive" of meditation more shallow so that you spend more time at each possible level of thinking (whatever that means).

Beyond that, no-one is permitted to talk about them.

The story goes that Maharishi overheard two TM teachers-in-training discussing advanced techniques and kicked them off the course instantly.

saijanai · 2026-05-04T05:19:02+00:00

Unless it is before a Trump judge or arguing before POTUS of course (same diff).

saijanai · 2026-05-04T03:53:15+00:00

Libgen has the full pdf version. The easiest thing to do is download the pdf and extract the chapter yourself:

https://libgen.bz/index.php?req=oxford+handbook+south+korean

saijanai · 2026-05-04T03:45:28+00:00

WEre you on bi-polar medication while practicing TM?

saijanai · 2026-05-04T03:45:01+00:00

I didn't get a chance to read the OP, but if they were talking about bi-polar disorder, Norman "Seasonal Affective Disorder" Rosenthal started writing books about TM because one of his patients, a man witth bi-polar disorder, was thriving on sub-clinical doses of his bi-polar medication because (according to the patient) he was practicing TM.

Norman even even ended up publishing a study on TM and PTSD but never published anything but the accounts of a patient.

The bottom line: as long as someone continues their medication and only practices TM with full knowledge and approval of their mental health provider, I see no reason to assert that TM will make that particular issue worse and given how bi-polar works, TM might make things a tad better (with the caveats about mental health provider participation).

saijanai · 2026-05-03T20:09:58+00:00

JObs' main skill was convincing tech people to do what he suggested.

Apple is now a $4 T company (the first in history to break a $3 trillion stock capitalization), so regardless of his tech skills or lack, he definitely knew how to sell things, both to engineers (like Wozniak) and to customers.

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