I have heard that people who want to improve their marriages should think of it as a verb, "marriaging", which includes a lot of behaviors that keep it alive. I view the word cult the same way, as a set of specific manipulative behaviors that are designed to remove critical choice. That is what is so great about the information about these behaviors being so common among people who still do TM. It restores choices because it takes a lot of the steam out of the techniques' effectiveness.
When I was into TM I had no problem believing the Moonies were a cult, or Jim Jones' group. The only counterargument to the TM view that I heard was the fundamentalist Christians, and that didn't seem to make any sense. I didn't have the information about the specific techniques of thought reform so that I could decide for myself if they were being used at different levels of the TM organization. Everyone relates to this information differently according to their own experience. Labeling TM as a cult doesn't do any good if you aren't looking at the specific techniques so you can decide if they apply. For me I couldn't deny that the descriptions fit my experience as a full time TMer. But that didn't make me stop TM. It just made me feel separate from the organization and made me stop teaching. But the specific information about thought reform helped me understand my involvement better. Now this information is out there for anyone who is interested and I think this is one of the reasons that the movement has dwindled so low in numbers. Deciding that the TM org uses manipulative techniques doesn't mean you have to leave your own path of spirituality as so many on this group demonstrate. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
