---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com> 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 and who are out there, 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. 58% of them probably wouldn't make it through the "15 day waiting period." 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. 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. 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. A non-drug technique that takes only 40 minutes per day and could help to lower stress levels is marketable. A Woo Woo "gateway drug" that only seeks to hook people on a path to spending several hours of their day bouncing on their butts with other people to create Whiled Peas is not. Just sayin'... As usual, Barry misses entirely the point of his own post. In addition, he makes up random shit, comes to erroneous conclusions and generally ends up with mushed carrots rather than his purported "whirled peas". If Barry were a kitchen appliance he would most closely resemble a garburator.
