like Steve and Willy you love to make stuff up - I have never make such a statement nor even alluded to such a thing.
________________________________ From: "Share Long sharelon...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: "FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2014 11:29 AM Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Meditation and Science Michael you've stated that it's fine for salyavin to practice TM. And you've also shared that you're happy when you talk someone out of doing TM. So it sounds like you're saying that TM is good for some people and that only you and salyavin are capable of saying who it's good for. On Tuesday, August 12, 2014 10:24 AM, "Michael Jackson mjackso...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> wrote: Sometimes real science does come in handy: Otis (1984) described a study done at Stanford Research Institute in 1971 to determine the negative effects of Transcendental Meditation. SRI mailed a survey to every twentieth person on the Students International Meditation Society (TM's parent organization) mailing list of 40,000 individuals. Approximately 47% of the 1,900 people surveyed responded. The survey included a self-concept word list (the Descriptive Personality List) and a checklist of physical and behavioral symptoms (the Physical and Behavioral Inventory). It was found that dropouts reported fewer complaints than experienced meditators, to a statistically significant degree. Furthermore, adverse effects were positively correlated with the length of time in meditation. Long-term meditators reported the following percentages of adverse effects: antisocial behavior, 13.5%; anxiety, 9.0%; confusion, 7.2%; depression, 8.1%; emotional stability, 4.5%; frustration, 9.0%; physical and mental tension, 8.1%; procrastination, 7.2%; restlessness, 9.0%; suspiciousness, 6.3%; tolerance of others, 4.5%; and withdrawal, 7.2%. The author concluded that the longer a person stays in TM and the more committed a person becomes to TM as a way of life, the greater is the likelihood that he or she will experience adverse effects. This contrasts sharply with the promotional statements of the various TM organizations. Ellis (1984) stated that meditation's greatest danger was its common connection with spirituality and antiscience. He said that it might encourage some individuals to become even more obsessive-compulsive than they had been and to dwell in a ruminative manner on trivia or nonessentials. He also noted that some of his clients had gone into "dissociative semi-trance states and upset themselves considerably by meditating." Ellis views meditation and other therapy procedures as often diverting people from doing that which overcomes their disturbance to focusing on the highly palliative technique itself. Therefore, although individuals might feel better, their chances of acquiring a basically healthy, nonmasturbatory outlook are sabotaged. Walsh (1979) reported a number of disturbing experiences during meditation, such as anxiety, tension, and anger. Walsh and Rauche (1979) stated that meditation may precipitate a psychotic episode in individuals with a history of schizophrenia. Kornfield (1979 and 1983) reported that body pain is a frequent occurrence during meditation, and that meditators develop new ways to relate to their pain as a result of meditation. Hassett (1978) reported that meditation can be harmful. Carrington (1977) observed that extensive meditation may induce symptoms that range in severity from insomnia to psychotic manifestations with hallucinatory behavior. Lazarus (1976) reported that psychiatric problems such as severe depression and schizophrenic breakdown may be precipitated by TM. French et al. (1975) reported that anxiety, tension, anger, and other disturbing experiences sometimes occur during TM. Carrington and Ephron (1975c) reported a number of complaints from TM meditators who felt themselves overwhelmed by negative and unpleasant thoughts during meditation. Glueck and Stroebel (1975) reported that two experimental subjects made independent suicide attempts in the first two days after beginning the TM program. Kannellakos and Lukas (1974) reported complaints from TM meditators. Otis (1974) reported that five patients suffered a reoccurrence of serious psychosomatic symptoms after commencing meditation. Maupin (1969) stated that the deepest objection to meditation has been its tendency to produce withdrawn, serene people who are not accessible to what is actually going on in their lives. He said that with meditation it is easy to overvalue the internal at the expense of the external. These and other negative meditation outcomes are described in traditional sources. The path is "sharp like a razor's edge" says the Katha Upanishad. [54] St. John of the Cross wrote an entire book about the dark night of the soul. [55] Several hundred pages of Sri Aurobindo's collected works deal with the problems and dangers of his integral yoga. [56] A large part of Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy consists of admonitions from various spiritual masters about the difficulties encountered in contemplative practice, [57] and William James explores the negative side of religious life in The Varieties of Religious Experience. [58] These and other sources provide a wide array of warnings and directions for those entering a path of meditation. Though the rewards of contemplative practice can be great, they do not come easily. This research was done on TM by an Independent TM Research: 76% of long-term meditators experience psychological disorders -- including 26% nervous breakdowns 63% experience serious physical complaints 70% recorded a worsening ability to concentrate Researchers found a startling drop in honesty among long-term meditators TranceNet: German Transcendental Meditation Research, 4 of 7 a detailed examination of the history, culture, and secret teachings of the TM movement. The unconscious sense impressions and visions which are brought to the conscious mind during meditation cannot be controlled by the meditator himself. The mainly positive experiences in the earlier stages (pictures, feelings of happiness) are replaced in time - according to reports of the ex-meditators - by terrifying images and feelings of fear or anguish. This is known to the T.M. movement. The theory states that "unstressing" is taking place during these conditions. It is advised that one should meditate more intensively. Only when all of that stress was released, would pleasant experiences again be had. Because of their initial pleasant experiences with the meditation, coupled with a blind trust in the directions of the T.M. leadership, those concerned meditated more intensively and ended up in many cases in what was for them a dangerous condition, which they could not get out of without outside help. Over 70% of those in our study had difficulties, statements made on tape list these difficulties mainly as being: problems with sleeping, anguish, increasing pain in the head, stomach, and back, (compare with section 6 of this chapter), problems with concentration, hallucinations, feelings of isolation, depression, over- sensitivity, and instability.http://onwww.net/trancenet.org/research/ In 1978, Psychology Today magazine reported that a "'substantial number' of meditators developed anxiety, depression, physical and mental tension and other adverse effects" (San Francisco Examiner, September 10, 1989, p. E3). "In 1980, the West German government's Institute for Youth and Society produced a report calling TM a 'psychogroup' and saying that the majority of people who went through TM experienced psychological or physical disorders" (Edward Epstein, "Politics and Transcendental Meditation," San Francisco Chronicle, December 29, 1995, p. A1). Another concern, explored by researchers Michael Murphy and Steven Donovan, is that advanced practioners rank high in suggestibility, meaning that their physical or mental state is easily influence by the process of suggestion. Whether they become more suggestible because of participation in meditation practices or are highly suggestible to being with, a state which might reinforce their continuation of the practice, has not been determined. Either way, the suggestibility puts them at risk of losing personal autonomy.
