In regard to Orme-Jonhson, I was sitting near him once and the discussion he was having with someone had to do with data from the Maharishi Effect research. He mentioned that some other researchers wanted to see the raw data, and it seemed he was not going to give it to them, saying 'You know what they would do with it'. While Orme-Johnson is a well trained scientist, promoting what you are researching certainly would seem to provide ample opportunities for confirmation bias. Also, coming up with and publishing negative findings on TM would probably get you canned. Of course, Orme-Jonson is retired now.
I happened to be in a library today and the cover of Scientific American was devoted to an article entitled The Neuroscience of Meditation which concerned itself with changes in the brain and behaviour fostered by mindfulness meditation and loving kindness meditation. TM was not mentioned. In many ways it was like reading articles on TM, as benefits for health both physical and mental were brought up. One of the more interesting findings was increases in the thickness of the insula and Brodmann areas 9 & 10 of the cortex which tend to thin out in older persons. Another effect was reduced fear processing by the amygdala. Also a comparison of persons practising loving kindness meditation to persons receiving training in empathy revealed that while both groups showed enhanced empathy, but those that received empathy training also had sometimes strong negative reactions to the situations presented to them that would inspire empathy because they would lose control of their emotions, whereas the loving kindness meditation group did not have these unstable reactions. At the very end of the article was a note: Scientific American Archive: The Physiology of Meditation by R.K. Wallace & H. Benson 1972. Apparently this was the last time Scientific American published an article on meditative practises. The words transcendental meditation was still not mentioned. In 1972 TM was beginning to get popular as mindfulness or insight meditation is now. Just checking the MUM website, the university does not have a neuroscience department. Fred Travis, for example, is a Professor of Maharishi Vedic Science, not a professor of a scientific discipline that are researching meditation at other universities.
