--- In [email protected], "curtisdeltablues" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 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. > Very well put Curtis. I agree with you. The only in-depth experience I've with cult mentality was at the inner core of TM in the mid 70s. I never "guru hopped" after that. Yet I still meditated....the 20 min variety not hours of "program". (BTW, "program" was certainly an interesting way to describe that activity. And many who did/do it indeed seem "programmed".
When I looked back in on the movement for the first time in 20 years earlier this year, imagine what all the raja's with their tin Burger King hats, the obsession with where your front door is, reading about yet another "latest and greatest" course.....imagine how it all looks from the outside. To any thinking person, it looks and feels like a cult. And I still do a bit of standard issue TM in spite of it. All I'm asking in these posts is that people allow themselves to question...step outside the group-think and allow yourself to perceive it all with a different eye. Might be healthy. 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/
