Some comments on this thread and recent TM research: --If in fact different TM mantras have different effects on BP (which I personally do not believe) it is at least possible that mantras were not chosen correctly when chosen based on age and sex, rather than whether you were a kapha type or whatever.
-- Bhairitu said: "The 'deities represent the qualities. They were invented to explain abstract concepts to the masses." This is an unsupported assertion. It could also be that the abstract concepts were developed to rationalize beliefs in deities. Religion is full of rationalization. --IIRC most if not all the BP research was on TM meditators who were dong simple mediation and not using advanced techniques, though I could be wrong. --All the research is inconclusive and most is poorly done. This problem continues. The most recent study widely publicized by the TMO concerns the "benefits" of TM on breast cancer patients. It is promoted as a controlled study but the control group was not controlled for placebo. Plus, even though people were randomly assigned to a TM or no TM group, those who volunteered for the study may very well have been predisposed to believing that meditation could be helpful for them. The press releases regarding the study are not appropriate or scientific, such as: "It is wonderful that physicians now have a range of interventions to use, including Transcendental Meditation, to benefit their patients with cancer," said Rhoda Pomerantz, M.D., study co-author and chief of gerontology, Saint Joseph Hospital. "I believe this approach should be appreciated and utilized more widely." Sounds like a sales pitch. The study had to do with perceived quality of life only. Not whether outcomes were better in the TM group. But the researchers pushed the limits and imply outcomes may be improved for the meditators. For example: "Emotional and psychosocial stress contribute to the onset and progression of breast cancer and cancer mortality," said Sanford Nidich, lead author of the study and senior researcher at the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management. "Decades of research have shown that stress contributes to the cause and complications of cancer," said Robert Schneider, M.D., F.A.C.C., co-author and director of Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management. "The data from this well-designed clinical trial and related studies suggest that effective stress reduction with the Transcendental Meditation program may be useful in the prevention and treatment and of breast cancer and its deleterious consequences." I find Schneider's quote almost shockingly inappropriate. These quotes are all over the net and can be found by a Google search. The study was published in Integrative Cancer Therapies (Vol. 8, No. 3: September 2009) and entitled "A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of Transcendental Meditation on Quality of Life in Older Breast Cancer Patients." The full text is not available without subscription or purchase. The journal is an alternative medicine kind of journal, not a leading journal on cancer by any means.
