Barry wrote: > Just a note of caution to those who still believe that "If we charge > more/less/enough for TM, they will come," > *they* in this case being the untold millions you think are required to make > the world a better place
Actually if you're talking about plain-vanilla TM, it would be 1 percent of the world population, so hardly "untold," eh? We do have a pretty good idea of the size of the population. And if you're talking about the TM-Sidhis, 1 percent of the square root of the population, so not even 1 million. > and who are out there, As opposed to "in here"? > just waiting for the right TM marketing approach. > Consider who you're talking to, and what *they* believe. > > The latest Gallup poll doesn't seem to indicate that John Q. American Public > is quite on the same > wavelength that you are. Well, depending on who "you" is... > 58% of them probably wouldn't make it through the "15 day waiting period." I think you have the number of people who believe weed should be legal (shown on the chart) confused with the number who partake of it (not shown on the chart), first of all; but actually most of those who do use it wouldn't have any problem abstaining for two weeks. It's not addictive, you know. > The legalization of marijuana has five times the number of supporters as > Congress does. 63% are > unthreatened by homosexual behavior, and 53% believe that same-sex marriage > should be legalized. The > more-puritan-than-the-Puritans lifestyle ethic of many die-hard TMers just > doesn't map to the way that most > Americans see the world. Probably not, but of course such a mapping wouldn't be needed. You don't have to have any particular "lifestyle ethic" to practice TM and benefit from it. http://www.businessinsider.com/gallup-legal-marijuana-is-more-popular-than-almost-anything-else-2013-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/gallup-legal-marijuana-is-more-popular-than-almost-anything-else-2013-10 > Me, I find these Gallup findings positive, and hopeful, because they're > *pragmatic*, and on the whole they > seem to indicate that Americans aren't quite the hyper-conservative > know-nothings that the Tea Party and > others would have you believe they are. But such pragmatism is not gonna be > appealed to by Woo Woo > propaganda about how many Yogic Flyers can butt-bounce on the head of a pin > made of polystyrene > foam, and how that's gonna magically create Whirled Peas. Is that how TM is marketed these days? Or is it still marketed pretty much as it always has been, as you go on to describe? > The thing that would make TM "marketable" again IMO would be a return to the > more pragmatic approach > of the late 60s, in which it was marketed as a simple relaxation technique > that would help to make you less > stressed and more productive in your real-world activities. > Nobody gives a shit about enlightenment; if the Gallup organization polled > for that one, my bet is that the > percentage of people they'd find who believe it exists wouldn't crack two > digits, and the number who would > actually pay money for it would be a fraction of that. Hasn't that always been the case? If you look at the home page ot tm.org, something like 95 percent of it has to do with less stress, greater productivity, and better health. Nothing about world peace. Enlightenment is mentioned unobtrusively only at the very bottom, and when you click on that, you get a quote from Maharishi that includes this: "Even if we forget about ‘enlightenment’ for a moment — maybe that state seems to be inconceivable — still it is our daily experience that the whole value of life is very little if we are tired, if we are stressed." You need to think this all through a little better, Barry, get the kinks out. You've made a bunch of rather strange assumptions above. Current TM marketing appears to be very much in line with what you suggest already. The discussion here has been about the most effective "price point."
