Doug, I guess you should resign yourself to henceforth being the main target of 
Barry's anti cult tirades. 

 I don't know the exact reason for this, but I suspect because after a almost 
decades long effort he finally was able to get some notice in an obscure zine, 
mentioning your name as an example of a cult apologist.
 

 To most here, you comment was an example of over the top hyperbole, not to be 
condoned, but not rising to level Barry wished to present it.  
 

 Of course, that matters not to Barry.  It gave him some measure of 
vindication, and some assurance, (I guess), that his valiant efforts have not 
been for vain.
 

---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote :

 From: "dhamiltony2k5@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
 To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com 
 Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2014 11:57 AM
 Subject: Re: [FairfieldLife] Growing Up TM
 
 
   Ethnography.  Om no that first paragraph was really fine. It gave a lot of 
information to get going and you see it is an article where you the reader get 
to roll up your sleeves up to work with it.  You're being way too cranky and 
hard-minded.
 

 No, I'm being realistic, because at one point in my life I was as insane as 
the people in Fairfield who believe that by bouncing on their butts they are 
"flying." But in my case this delusion only lasted for about a year. I regained 
my sanity and left long before the TMO started claiming that by bouncing on my 
butt I could "create world peace," which is actually a more troubling level of 
insanity than believing it could make them fly. I'm presenting on this forum 
(that was *created* to discuss alternative views of TM, BTW) a different point 
of view on the insanity TM "dome goers" are living with on a daily basis, 
because it appears they're not likely to ever get that point of view from 
within Fairfield itself. There is too much effort being expended by people like 
you to "candy coat" this insanity and try to present it as if it were normal. 
It isn't. It never was. It never will be. What it is is insanity. If you can 
admit that, you might become sane someday. If you can't, you probably never 
will.     

 

 As written it is actually an important article in ethnography about the group 
of meditators having come to live in Fairfield, Iowa. For those of us who live 
here in FF the writing captures things that we all live with. Things that are 
very familiar. Writing like this is an important adjunct to journalism by 
outside writers or in scholarly papers written by people who have not lived it. 
This article is worth a bookmark, like that article that Donna Schill Cleveland 
should have one. These are important voices that should be cultivated for the 
perspective they have.


 turquoiseb wrote :
 
 From: "Michael Jackson mjackson74@... [FairfieldLife]" 
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
 
   https://medium.com/the-archipelago/growing-up-in-utopia-8102f58dfcbc 
https://medium.com/the-archipelago/growing-up-in-utopia-8102f58dfcbc
  
  
 https://medium.com/the-archipelago/growing-up-in-utopia-8102f58dfcbc
  
  
  
  
  
 Growing Up in Utopia 
https://medium.com/the-archipelago/growing-up-in-utopia-8102f58dfcbc When your 
family and friends want to save the world by meditating, you can sometimes feel 
out of place in small-town Iow…


 
 View on medium.com 
https://medium.com/the-archipelago/growing-up-in-utopia-8102f58dfcbc
 Preview by Yahoo
 
  

   

I couldn't read this piece because I couldn't get past the first paragraph. 
Whatever the author's intention in writing it is or was, his cluelessness in 
that first paragraph stopped me in my tracks, and kept me from reading any 
further:

"I learned how to fly when I was 17. I’m not talking about a plane, and this 
isn’t some euphemism. 'Yogic flying,' which is basically meditation at the 
black-belt level, offers the potential of human levitation -- although in 
actuality it looks more like energetic, if not rather effortless, cross-legged 
hopping."

This person (although his intention may have been to suggest the opposite) is 
IMO *still* suffering from the ill effects of growing up in an insane asylum. 
Bouncing around on one's butt and calling it 'yogic flying' is NOT 'meditation 
at the black belt level,' it's INSANITY at the black belt level. 

Try picking any town in America, walking along its streets, stopping people at 
random, and explaining to them, "I'm doing a survey. Twice a day I bounce 
around on my butt on big slabs of foam, along with other people who do the same 
thing because we are convinced that doing this will reduce crime, affect the 
weather, and create world peace. What do you think of this?"

My bet is that you would get answers like, "Uh...sounds fine to me...good luck 
with that..." spoken over the interviewee's shoulder as they were edging away, 
watching you carefully and hoping that you weren't following them so that they 
didn't have to break into a run.

See, this is the thing that makes interacting with long-term TMers on this 
forum so challenging -- they really have NO IDEA how insane they are, and how 
insane the things they believe are. 

For many of them, it seems as if it's been so long since they've actually 
talked with anyone who WASN'T indoctrinated with all of this cult nonsense they 
way they were that they've forgotten how these normal people think and act. 
They're used to interfacing with people who don't bat an eyelash when you 
announce to them, "Sorry...got to go...it's time for me to go fly now." 

Hint: That's insane. No one is "flying." No one has EVER "flown" in *any* of 
the TM "flying" halls. And no one ever will. 

Most people, told that this would even be *possible*, would react with either 
laughter or derision, and walk away. TMSPers reacted by paying several thousand 
dollars to learn how. 

Hint: That's insane. 

And it's as insane now as it was when you first paid those thousands of 
dollars. The only reason people on this forum and around you in Fairfield don't 
think so is that you live in an enormous insane asylum, in which the residents 
are reinforcing their shared delusions by pretending that they're "saving the 
world" instead of acting out less-than-sane fantasies. 

Some of these inmates who post to this forum get upset when I or Michael or 
Salyavin or Curtis point out HOW far away from mainstream definitions of sanity 
they are to believe that there actually IS such a thing as the 'Maharishi 
Effect.' I imagine that inmates in mental hospitals feel the same way when 
doctors and nurses point out that they're not *really* Napoleon or Jesus 
Christ. 

To these people I say, "GET OVER IT." Wake the fuck up, take a look around at 
international standards for sanity, shake yourself, and realize that if you 
actually believe that bouncing on your butt can be called 'flying' and that 
performing this bouncing is creating world peace...uh...you're INSANE. You're 
NOT "special" or "more evolved" or "10,000 X more powerful than lesser people," 
you're INSANE. 

It's OK to *be* insane, if your insane beliefs give you some sense of comfort 
and don't hurt anybody. After all, millions of people believe in an invisible 
man in the sky who watches everything they do, and as long as they don't get in 
other people's faces about it, they can be that insane and still be considered 
productive members of society. 

But ferchrissakes don't pretend that the things you believe AREN'T insane, and 
don't pretend to be outraged because other people point out the insanity. You 
CHOSE to be considered insane the moment you signed that check and paid 
thousands of dollars to learn how to 'fly.' Live with that choice now, and try 
not to pretend that you're still sane after having made it. Having made that 
choice makes you an outlier, an anomaly within human society. A nut case. 

99% OR MORE OF THE PEOPLE ON THIS PLANET ARE GOING TO CONSIDER YOU A NUT CASE 
IF YOU TELL THEM YOU BELIEVE THAT BOUNCING ON YOUR BUTT IS 'FLYING' AND THAT 
IT'S 'THE BLACK BELT OF MEDITATION'. 

It's not. And no amount of claiming will ever make it so. 






  












 


 










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