dittos on Bhairitu's comment ---In [email protected], <authfriend@...> wrote :
Of course, it's not at all "interesting," because she didn't try to explain her beliefs about the TM-Sidhis and how she believes they "work." What she did was describe what she felt were the benefits to herself, not an "alternative theory." In fact, what she describes is fully consistent with TM theory. Plus which, I never said the TM-Sidhis "work" and wouldn't make that claim (that's why I used scare quotes in my post). They have effects of various sorts, depending on the individual. Jeez, you have to watch him like a hawk for all the gross misstatements and distortions of fact he sneaks into his posts. I do agree with Share about the placebo effect generally: We don't know how it works. Bhairitu's comment was interesting, that the actual performance of siddhis is a "placebo effect," i.e., making something happen via the mind alone. That sounds right to me. Share, thanks for your replies, and your honest attempt to try to explain your beliefs about the TM-Sidhis and how you believe they "work." I'm still more attracted to my placebo effect theory, but so it goes... Isn't it interesting, as well, that you *could* propose an alternative theory, and that woman who goes to great lengths to prove how much smarter she is than you couldn't? :-) From: Share Long <sharelong60@...> To: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2014 5:30 PM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Are the TM-Sidhis nothing but Placebo Effect? salyavin, like I said to turq, I'm really enjoying answering these posts. Another benefit of TMSP, in my experience, has to do with developing opposite positive qualities. I think it has to do with focusing from the more settled levels of mind and body. Broad comprehension and sharp focus happen at the same time. I would LOVE to see how that would look on an fMRI machine. And I would really love to see how it looks in someone who's been doing it for decades! Anyway, to more directly answer your question, I think my thinking has become both more fluid and more steady over time. I know these sound opposite but as I say above, I think that's what happens, for some people, with continued practice of TMSP. As for placebos, I think the whole field of placebos is in its infancy. Meaning, until we know more about the human mind and the nature of the universe and how the two are connected, then we might come to a lot of non beneficial conclusions about placebos. On Thursday, April 10, 2014 7:34 AM, salyavin808 <[email protected]> wrote: I'm not sure what "field independence" is but I'm worried that you think there's anything you can do that might affect how placebo's work. I think TM makes people more suggestible not less. It's why they always have the "knowledge" tape after the meditation session, it's when you mind is most relaxed and open and therefore susceptible. It also reinforces the belief in things like the mind "settling into finer levels of existence". How often was I told that the words weren't important because I was absorbing it unconsciously, and I was happy about that. LOL! Glad I started thinking about it all pretty quick.... ---In [email protected], <sharelong60@...> wrote : turq, research and my own experience indicates that field independence develops in TMers. That alone would decrease and or prevent any alleged placebo effect and strengthen a person's ability to "divorce" from it. I think this is one of the greatest benefits of TM. It liberates. Even from itself. Plus I doubt than a placebo effect, even if it occurred in the beginning, can last for decades! Especially if a person has very little contact with the TMO. Lastly, again going by my own experience, I'd say that the language of the sutra doesn't matter as a person's awareness settles into finer levels of existence. On Thursday, April 10, 2014 3:17 AM, TurquoiseBee <turquoiseb@...> wrote: I think one can make a case that they are. Here, I'll start... First, let's look at the basic TM technique, which uses Sanskrit mantras described by the TMO as "meaningless sounds" (which are really the names or "calling cards" of Hindu gods and goddesses, as anyone who can read books from India would know) as a mechanism for meditation. You *could* make a case that there is something "special" about these mantras, some sonic quality that actually facilitates meditation, because of course they have no meaning to most of the people who think them. But that's not true for the TM-Sidhis. As anyone who has ever learned them knows (but gets really, really uptight when someone like myself points out), what you paid thousands of dollars for (a good argument for the Placebo Effect in itself) were a number of *English language phrases* straight from a translation of the Yoga Sutras, all of which very *definitely* have meaning. After a period of TM meditation, the "TM Sidha" is instructed to think them -- *in English* (or whatever modern language they were taught the TM-Sidhis in) in a particular way, and then wait for the effects. I believe that a strong case can be made for Placebo Effect-like *expectation* in all of this, for three reasons. First, the TM-Sidhis were initially marketed *as a way of achieving and mastering all of the "siddhis" these phrases describe*. The original (first few years) "intro lectures" about the TM-Sidhi program were full of promises that you would learn to levitate and be able to perform other siddhis. Tales were told by people marketing and selling the new (and rather expensive) courses of people having been seen levitating, or walking through walls, or demonstrating invisibility. All of these tales were nothing more than urban legends, of course, because none of this had ever happened. But still, an *expectation* WAS formed among the people paying their money for the TM-Sidhi course that they'd have experiences like this themselves. Second are the nature of the phrases they're thinking themselves. They *very much* have meaning, and you'd have to be a complete idiot not to realize that when you're sitting there thinking them that you're "supposed" to experience what they describe. For example, is there any question that when you're sitting there thinking "Friendliness" that you're supposed to feel more friendly? Or that when you're sitting there thinking "Strength of an elephant" you're supposed to feel stronger? Or that when you're thinking "Relationship of body and akasha - lightness of cotton fiber" you're supposed to lift up into the air as if you were actually lighter yourself? OF COURSE this is a form of suggestion, and I think that combined with the fact that the people thinking this last "sutra" had paid thousands of dollars for the privilege, one can make a strong case that any "bouncing" that follows (caused by unconscious or only partly conscious physical effort) can be attributed to nothing but the Placebo Effect. Third is the aspect of "reinforcement" that one receives in the form of praise for claiming to have *had* the experience of these phrases you're thinking. As reported here on FFL, in recent courses at MUM the participants are actually questioned after each session as to the "depth" or "profundity" of their "experiences." For each of the sutras (meaningful phrases), they are expected to raise their hands if they had a "Number 1" experience of them, a "Number 2" experience of them, or a "Number 3" experience of them. Naturally, those who claim to have had Number 1 experiences are perceived as "better," and praised, further reinforcing the Placebo Effect. So I think it's *very* possible to describe the reported effects of the TM-Sidhis as "nothing but Placebo Effect." The onus to prove or suggest otherwise falls on those who claim otherwise, and we'll wait patiently for you to do so. Please explain to us the "magic" or "Woo Woo" that enables thinking *English language phrases* to create the claimed effects of the TM-Sidhis. Please explain to us how you somehow divorce yourself from *expectation* when thinking these very meaningful phrases, and thus are not deceiving yourself into believing that they are producing an actual effect. Please explain how you are *not* affected by being regarded as somehow "special" merely for claiming that you've had "profound experiences" THAT YOU WERE TOLD TO EXPECT, and how that cannot be attributed to the Placebo Effect. We'll wait...
