---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote :
BTW, here's the transcript of the tape: http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/secrets/soma/soma2.shtml http://minet.org/www.trancenet.net/secrets/soma/soma2.shtml Answering my own question below: It's definitely the Trancenet writer's image, not Maharishi's, as you'll see if you read the transcript. Oops, sorry. I just posted the same link. I just read your post and see you did too! "The unforgettable image of ravening Gods jostling each other to feed at the stomachs of TMers around the world to get their share of the mythical Soma"--is this Maharishi's image, or the image of the guy who wrote this essay, Michael? (I've read the transcript of this tape, by the way, so don't misinterpret my question.) ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <mjackson74@...> wrote : Somehow in my looking at TM, I have always missed this - any of you guys ever see this tape? If so what did you think of it? "Soma and the Gods" On the next Web page begins the transcription of "Soma and the Gods" taken from testimony in the Kropinski trial. This videotape is one of a handful that have become infamous in the TM movement because of their secrecy: It is only shown to TM teachers on the heavily regimented Teacher Training Course (TTC). For many years copies of this tape were not even allowed to enter the continental US. For good reason! Much like the Church of Scientology's OT materials, "Soma and the Gods" lays out the Maharishi's freakish theology in a way that the public is not deemed "ready" for by the Maharishi and the movement. According to participants in the Kropinski trial, this tape -- along with the entire TTC catalog -- appeared mysteriously on someone's doorstep one day. Since then the tape has been used by plaintiffs in court cases to prove that the TM movement had a religious, specifically Hindu, agenda -- largely because it's one of the few times the Maharishi was captured on tape talking about worshipping the Vedic Gods. (Of course today, the TM movement sells Hindu sacrifices, yagyas or yajnas, to Ganesh, Lakshmi, and other Gods for thousands of dollars without batting an eye!) But the true significance of "Soma and the Gods" is much larger. And the theology that the Maharishi espouses is not Hinduism. It is much more idiosyncratic -- and frankly bizarre. In a nutshell, the Maharishi describes a sort of parasitic relationship between TMers and the Vedic Gods. TMers produce the magical chemical Soma in their gut -- but it isn't something they can use directly. The Vedic Gods, principally Indra, descend from Heaven and feed on the Soma in the TMers' belly. In return for this primitive relationship, the Gods grant all manner of boons. TMers become successful, happy, prosperous, and develop supernormal abilities. Unbeknownst to non-TM teachers, the entire TM program can be understood through this simple model. We practice yogic asanas and pranayama to clear the channels through which Soma will flow. We repeat the name of our own personal "Ishta" (God) to summon Him or Her. Advanced TMers practice the sidhis to "stir" the Soma and further clear channels. We read verses from the Ninth Mandala that literally invite the Gods by name to feast on the Soma in our belly: "Flow, Soma, in a most sweet and exhilirating stream, effused for Indra to drink.... Be the lavish giver of wealth, most bounteous, the destroyer of enemies, bestow on us the riches of the affluent." And we take Ayurvedic potions and pills believing we will produce "extra" or "more refined" soma. An anecdote from a former Maharishi International University (MIU/MUM) professor: When I was on MIU faculty, there was a special videotape that only faculty were privy to. It was the Ninth Mandala, chanted in the original Sanskrit. Sitting with eyes closed, listening to it was considered a great privilege and was highly secret. On my Governor Training Course, after we had rounded and rounded and rounded for three months, MMY [the Maharishi] finally called to answer our questions. I asked what we should expect from endlessly reading the Ninth Mandala of the Rig Veda and I never forgot his reply: "It will become a living reality." To my knowledge, this fairly frightening vision is the Maharishi's alone. The Rig and Sama Vedas themselves describe the process of making a beverage, soma, by grinding and brewing a certain medicinal plant -- or alternatively by feeding a plant to a cow and then imbibing either its milk or urine. James Allegro speculated some years back that soma was actually the hallucinogenic mushroom amanita muscara, a prevalent inebriator among all Aryan cultures. Perhaps. But even in modern day India, there are hotris who perform the Soma sacrifice using the humble soma plant, and imbibing the juice. Nowhere in all of Vedic literature have we found a single reference to soma as a substance produced in the human stomach and fed upon by Gods. Except this product of the Maharishi's imagination. Many sources from the inner circles of the TM movement have already reported on the Maharishi's preoccupation with the influence of other people's thoughts (stress), purity of food (genetic engineering), and apparent preoccupation with "enemies" (re: the CIA and AMA). The unforgettable image of ravening Gods jostling each other to feed at the stomachs of TMers around the world to get their share of the mythical Soma seems a conclusive indication that TM theology may simply be the by-product delusion of the Maharishi's seriously distrubed mind.