Posted by John M. Knapp,
First there was the recent submission on the Transcendental Meditation Age
of Enlightenment techniques. Then followed the lively discussion pointing out
that the Maharishi tried first one version then another on unsuspecting 6-Month
course participants.
The guy was basically making it up as he went along. If one thing didn't work,
why then he'd try something else. Older readers here may remember that the
Maharishi referred to the Age of Enlightenment techniques and the later sidhis
as "research experiments into consciousness" after all.
As Joseppi justly pointed out, we were just lab rats to the Maharishi. Worse,
we were paying lab rats. We paid not only the equivalent of $25,000 in today's
money, we paid in time from our lives. And some of us paid in psychological
damage from "spiritual" experiments that the Maharishi had no idea how they
would turn out. Until we lined up to sip the psychological Kool Aid.
This isn't just morally wrong. It's criminal.
After the Nazi horrors of World War II, during which Nazi scientists
experimented medically and psychologically on Jews and others, the world
reacted with shock. They passed the Nuremberg Code of Ethics, parts of which
were later incorporated into the Geneva Conventions. International law made it
illegal to perform any type of human experimentation without the informed
consent of participants. Informed consent requires that "test subjects" be told
in advance that they are taking part in experimental procedures and the
possible side effects. "Impermissible experiments" on humans explicitly
included not just medical, but psychological experimentation as well.
>From the victims of the Maharishi's experiments known as the Fiuggi Flipouts,
>to the course participants of the 6-Month Course, to the continuing
>experiments of Ayur Veda and even the million-dollar Raja course, the
>Maharishi is conducting impermissible experiments on unsuspecting human
>subjects.
Not informing us that he is experimenting, that there are unknown risks and
dangers to physical and mental well-being that he is in fact making it up as
he goes along is a crime against humanity.
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