--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "John M. Knapp, LMSW" <jmknapp53@> > wrote: > <snip> > > On the other hand, I know of a court in New Jersey > > that ruled TM was religious and had no place in > > public schools. > > As you know, it was TM *plus SCI* that was ruled a > religious teaching under the definition used to > protect the First Amendment (i.e., the government > was not allowed to fund it, even by making school > facilities available for it). >
This is accurate, Judy. But I'm not sure that it substantially changes my point. The judge went on at great length about both the puja and SCI separately as being religious in nature. It would be my guess that, if someone were to challenge DLF's program in court, that the puja alone would be sufficient to keep TM out of the schools. A couple of quotes from the Malnak vs. Yogi judgment (archived at http://trancenet.net/law/nj1.html): "The undisputed material facts upon which plaintiffs rely and from which plaintiffs assert that the only conclusion possible is that teaching of the SCI/TM course violates the establishment of religion clauses of both the United States and New Jersey constitutions are the textbook and the puja4 used in the course." "Defendants seek to characterize the puja as "a ceremony of gratitude," and apparently so represent it to the New Jersey high school students. It is difficult to understand why defendants label the puja "a ceremony of gratitude" because the English translation of the chant fails to reveal one word of gratefulness or thanksgiving. Rather, the puja takes the form of a double invocation of Guru Dev. Putting this difficulty aside for the moment, the question arises as to whom this gratitude is being expressed. Defendants have answered this question by stating that the gratitude is given "to the tradition of teachers who have preserved this teaching," Jarvis Affidavit P. 11, "to the knowledge"named in the chant is said to have possessed, Jarvis Deposition at 1006, and to the prior "teachers" themselves. Aaron Deposition at 582. The problem with all of defendants' descriptions of the receiver of the gratitude is that none of the described recipients is capable of receiving it. When one performs a ceremony of gratitude or "thanksgiving," Aaron Deposition at 582, one must have a recipient of that gratitude in mind or the ceremony would be meaningless. In common English usage, ceremonies of gratitude or thanksgiving are performed to divine beings (God, Providence, etc.), animate and sensate beings, and possibly institutions run by human beings. While one may be grateful for a body of knowledge or for a tradition, that gratitude extends to the purveyors or creators of that knowledge or to the preservers of the tradition. One would no more perform a ceremony of gratitude to a tradition or to a body of knowledge than one would perform a ceremony of gratitude to a chair or to a useful contrivance or to a machine or to any other inanimate object which would be entirely incapable of perceiving human communication." "The puja chant is an invocation of a deified human being who has been dead for almost a quarter of a century. An icon of this deified human being rests on the back of a table on which is placed a tray and offerings. During the singing of the chant, which identifies the items on the table and in the room as offerings to this deity, some of these offerings are lifted from the table by the chanter and placed onto the tray. It cannot be doubted that the invocation of a deity or divine being is a prayer. Engel v. Vitale, supra, at 424. The religious nature of prayer has been recognized by many courts, e.g., Engel v. Vitale, supra;22 DeSpain v. Dekalb County Community School District, supra, and the proposition needs no further demonstration here." "Although defendants have submitted well over 1500 pages of briefs, affidavits, and deposition testimony in opposing plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, defendants have failed to raise the slightest doubt as to the facts or as to the religious nature of the teachings of the Science of Creative Intelligence and the puja. The teaching of the SCI/TM course in New Jersey public high schools violates the establishment clause of the first amendment, and its teaching must be enjoined." The judges ruling was upheld at the Appellate level and has been cited as precedent in McLean vs. Arkansas. J.
