Pagels Letter THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES letterhead, Heinz R. Pagels, Ph.D., Executive Director July 1,1986 Robert Kropinski P.O. Box 27352 Philadelphia, PA 19150
Dear Mr. Kropinski: My comments here are intended to serve as an affidavit in the civil action No. 85-2849, United States District Court for the District of Columbia. They may not be used or published for any other purpose without my written permission. My summary opinion, as a theoretical physicist specializing in the area of quantum field theory, is that the views expressed in the literature issued by the Maharishi International University, and appearing in the "World Government News" and other publications associated with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that purport to find a connection between the recent ideas of theoretical physics--unified field theory, the vacuum state and collective phenomena--and states of consciousness attained by transcendental meditation are false and profoundly misleading. No qualified physicist that I know would claim to find such a connection without knowingly committing fraud. While I am not an expert on the meditation techniques advocated by the Maharishi I have experienced and studied meditation methods in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. There is no known connection between meditation states and states of matter in physics. Individuals not trained professionally in modern physics could easily come to believe, on the basis of the presentations in the Maharishi literature, that a large number of qualified scientists agree with the purported connection between modern physics and meditation methods. Nothing could be further from the truth. What was especially interesting to me, in reviewing this literature, is the claim put forth by the Maharishi and his followers, that transcendental meditation and "The Science of Creative Intelligence" qualify as science. Although the word "science" is much abused, it continues to imply an adherent to logic, the clear presentation of assumptions and deductions, and the experimental method. Most importantly, any science necessarily contains a recipe for its own falsification. None of these central features of the Western concept of science are present in "The Science of Creative Intelligence." This is not science. Many of the ideas of modern physics written about by Dr. Lawrence H. Domash in "The Physics of Unity" (World Government News, Oct., 1978) are correctly presented. But Dr. Domash goes on in his article to interpolate these ideas as a vindication of transcendental meditation and "the unity of consciousness." The claim that the fields of modern physics have anything to do with the "field of consciousness" is false. The notion that what physicists call "the vacuum state" has anything to do with consciousness is nonsense. The claim that large numbers of people meditating helps reduce crime and war by creating a unified field of consciousness is foolishness of a high order. The presentation of the ideas of modern physics side by side, and apparently supportive of, the ideas of the Maharishi about pure consciousness can only be intended to deceive those who might not know any better. Reading these materials authorized by the Maharishi causes me distress because I am a man who values the truth. To see the beautiful and profound ideas of modern physics, the labor of generations of scientists, so willfully perverted provokes a feeling of compassion for those who might be taken in by these distortions. I would like to be generous to the Maharishi and his movement because it supports world peace and other high ideals. But none of these ideals could possibly be realized within the framework of a philosophy that so willfully distorts scientific truth. Sincerely yours, [signed] Heinz R. Pagels, Ph.D. Executive Director
