Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert’s first autobiographical book, is engaging, thought-provoking, and a great tribute to the resiliency of the human spirit. The book chronicles her early prayers and search for God, as well as her quest for understanding and wholeness—longings fundamental to the human experience.

Her views on traditional Christianity are clear: “While I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can’t swallow that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God” (p. 14). At the core of her beliefs is a mystical understanding and experience of the Divine as pure love: “I have always responded with breathless excitement to anyone who has ever said that God…abides very close to us indeed—much closer than we can imagine, breathing right through our own hearts. I respond with gratitude to anyone who has ever voyaged to the center of that heart, and who has then returned to the world with a report for the rest of us that God is an experience of supreme love” (14, emphasis in original).

During her travels, Gilbert spends four months living a strict monastic life in her guru’s ashram in India, practicing deep yogic meditation techniques with resulting significant spiritual experiences. Her framework for understanding her experiences is her guru’s Hinduism. Gilbert believes that “human discontentment is a simple case of mistaken identity….We have failed to recognize our deeper divine character….Yoga is the effort to experience one’s divinity personally and then to hold onto that experience forever” (122). Again, “You come to your Guru, then, not only to receive lessons, as from any teacher, but to actually receive the Guru’s state of grace….with the hope that the merits of your master will reveal to you your own hidden greatness” (124).

Gilbert writes with deep reverence about her guru, Swami Chidvilasananda, who is the current guru of the Siddha Yoga branch of Hinduism taught by her master, Swami Muktananda. Gilbert relates meeting the deceased Muktananda frequently in her dreams and meditations. While she deliberately never mentions the name of her guru or her guru’s master, what she does say about them (intentionally or not) makes it easy for one to discover who they are.¹

Gilbert is honest about her naïveté in her books, but I do not think she grasps how uncritically she has swallowed the gospel of her beloved guru and her brand of yoga. Gilbert struggles with guilt over her divorce, insecurity, loneliness, deep depression, and a sense of inadequacy that tilts toward self-loathing, until the yoga experiences give her some relief. She describes experiencing pure love in her meditations (“Whatever this feeling is—this is what I have been praying for. And this is what I have been praying to” [203, emphasis in original]). Yet she does not describe these experiences in terms of her “own hidden greatness,” or her own “divinity.” I think this is because she knows herself too well.

She describes the history of religion as “the history of mankind’s search for holiness” (208). In her own search, I pray she will look much more closely at Jesus. Putting aside the serious issue of abuse in institutional religions (all religions can become abusive, especially as their institutions become more entrenched and powerful), look at Jesus. Read the four gospels. He is like no one else in history.

In His last meal with His disciples, Jesus takes a piece of bread, gives thanks, and breaks it in pieces for His disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.” Then He takes the cup of wine, gives thanks, and offers it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:26–28 NIV). Most of the world’s earliest religions—including ancient Hinduism—recognized the human need for cleansing from sin, and provided for it through animal sacrifices. However, Jesus comes as “the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29 NIV). In Jesus, our sins are not glossed over or reframed, they are forgiven and removed: “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.…We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:14–15, 20–21 NIV). —Carole Ryan

 NOTES

1. For example, she states that her guru is a woman who inherited the work of a well-known guru who died in 1982. Plus, many of Gilbert’s “spiritual insights” are worded very similarly to sayings by her gurus. Visit the Web site, www.leavingsiddhayoga.net for interesting articles about some of the abuse of authority issues with this group. See especially the exposé by Lis Harris, “O Guru, Guru, Guru,” The New Yorker (November 14, 1994).

In recent months, however, the Church has faced a series of attacks that have challenged both its carefully burnished image and its standard methods of self-defense.

Some of the criticism has centered on Tom Cruise, the world’s most famous Scientologist. But other challenges—including public protests that have attracted thousands of people around the globe, criticisms from former members and a relative of the Church’s current leader, and mysterious chemicals that were mailed to Church offices—represent the latest chapters in the long-running battle between the Church and its assorted and increasingly vocal critics.

And just as the recording and publishing industries have been forced to address the implications of our digital age, the Church has struggled to come up with an effective strategy for battling people who use the Internet to organize mass protests, distribute internal Church documents, hack Church Web sites, and create online communities for ex-members and other vocal critics.

Front-Page News

Even though celebrity journalist Andrew Morton’s Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography was neither a critical nor popular success, the book’s highly anticipated January 15 release provided the mainstream media and the blogosophere with an occasion to focus on Scientology and the man who, for most people, is a better-known Church icon than its founder, L. Ron Hubbard. The results were less than flattering for both the actor and the Church.

Morton, who previously wrote books about Princess Diana and Madonna, labeled Cruise a “movie messiah” who exploits both “the unfettered power of modern celebrity” and “our embrace of religious extremism.”

As for Cruise’s willingness to be the “poster boy” for Scientology, Morton says Cruise has used his own “charm and persuasiveness” to promote the organization’s “relentless expansion” while obscuring its “totalitarian zeal” with his own sex appeal and fame.

Morton gives readers a combination of facts (Cruse was introduced to Scientology by first wife Mimi Rogers), rants by ex-members (who expose the Church’s inner workings), and his own psychological interpretations (Cruise’s deep emotional needs made him vulnerable to the lure of a powerful organization to which he could dedicate himself).

Both the Church and a spokesperson for Cruise have criticized the book and claimed that its author did not seek them out for comment. “Accuracy and truth were not on Morton’s agenda,” said a Church statement.

And questions about the book’s accuracy were among the factors leading Macmillan, which planned to publish the book in Britain, to announce in April that it would be too risky to do so, given the UK’s more stringent libel laws. A Macmillan spokesman told London’s Telegraph: “By the time our lawyers had been through it, there was nothing left but red ink. We have explored every possible option, but have concluded that once the potentially defamatory sections are taken out, there is not enough left to make a good read.”

Star Struck

Cruise’s million-dollar smile has been featured in dozens of films, but his star doesn’t shine as brightly as it once did. His last major film was Lions for Lambs, a movie about the war in Afghanistan, which fared poorly at the domestic box office.

Even his media appearances have become more problematic. In 2005 he angered many fans when he turned an appearance on the Today show with Matt Lauer into a Scientology-driven anti-psychiatric attack against Brooke Shields, who had taken antidepressant medications after the birth of her child. And his June 2005 couch-jumping exuberence over Katie Holmes on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show convinced some fans he had lost his mind—a perception he tried to repair during a May 2 interview with Oprah at his Colorado estate.

During that May appearance, Cruise apologized for his earlier behavior and sought to present a calmer, friendlier face, both for himself and Scientology, which he said was “not the only way” to find God. Or as New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley wrote, “the encounter was less like a movie star interview than like a news conference with a political candidate seeking to undo a gaffe.”

Cruise remains a major player behind the scenes. In 2006 he and longtime production partner Paula Wagner were put in charge of United Artists, the venerated Hollywood studio founded nearly a century ago by Charlie Chaplin and others. But Cruise’s connections to Scientology have complicated things for UA’s first Cruise/Wagner release, the World War II drama, Valkyrie.

In June 2007, German officials cited Cruise’s link to the “cult” of Scientology as one reason for originally prohibiting United Artists from filming scenes of Cruise at German military installations. The government later allowed the scenes to be filmed, but the film has encountered other problems, and its release date has been pushed back twice.

According to the New York Times, the controversy over Valkyrie shows that Cruise “appears to be both an asset and a liability.”

“Anonymous” on the Attack

While most people have heard of Tom Cruise and Andrew Morton, no one’s exactly sure who is behind the group called Anonymous, which has used the Internet to organize attacks on the Church of Scientology. And that’s just the way leaders of Anonymous want it.

In the last year, people claiming to be affiliated with Anonymous have claimed credit for a variety of anti-Scientology activities:

• When the Church pressured YouTube (the popular site that enables anyone with a camera) to remove copyrighted materials from the site, including a video of a 2004 speech by Cruise, Anonymous posted its own video that portrayed the Church as a Big Brother seeking to trample freedom of speech and thought.
• Anonymous also organized a series of attacks on Church computers that shut down its main Web site (www.scientology.org) for a day in January, forcing the Church to switch to an Internet service provider with tougher security.
• And in February representatives of Anonymous allegedly mailed packets of white powder to twenty-three Church offices in California, causing evacuations, road closings, and an FBI investigation.

The reaction to the Anonymous attacks has been mixed. Some critics have cheered the antics of Anonymous, rejoicing in the fact that the Church has been less successful at halting its activities than it has been in the past when it sought to muzzle critics who used the mainstream media as their platform.

On the other hand, the take-no-prisoners approach of the attacks has worried some long-time critics of the Church who fear that they may bring about reprisals that stifle opponents of Scientology. As critic Mark Bunker of the www.xenutv.com Web site told the Los Angeles Times, “I hope it doesn’t hurt the larger critic community who have been speaking out for years about Scientology’s abuse.”

The World Wide Web of Intrigue

Anonymous has also used the Web as a platform to announce its campaign to destroy the Church and to call for worldwide protests, one of which drew thousands of people to anti-Scientology events at major cities throughout the world February 10.

Hundreds of masked protesters and gawkers showed up at rallies held in front of some of the Church’s Los Angeles facilities, where they carried signs and handed out brochures criticizing the Church’s crusading zeal and costly courses. the Los Angeles Times reported that other rallies were held in Boston, New York, Toronto, the U.K., and Australia.

But Anonymous isn’t the only group using the power, reach, and anonymity of the Web to go after Scientology. Other critics have upload­ed hundreds of anti-Church videos on YouTube.

Some of the videos are simple productions. One entitled “Scientology Crazy Follow­ers” (www.youtube.com/ watch?v=pPol_ m8wm8Y) is shot with a hand-held camera and features an individual who is prevent­ed from attending a protest rally because the Church had the street in front of its building closed to public access. The video has been seen more than one million times.

TV and film actor Jason Beghe, who reached Scientology’s OT 5 level and appeared in promotional videos for the Church, has also released a series of anti-Scientology videos on You Tube claiming that the organization is a dangerous rip-off. You can find his profanity-heavy three-minute “preview” video at: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZvmvlZM1gw.

Other YouTube videos are creating bigger problems for the Church. One eye-opening video entitled “Scientology advocates violence against psychiatry” (http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=hfu7Sr50N7U) features a pirated copy of a speech by Church leader David Miscavige about the Church’s 2006 campaign “for the global elimination of psychiatry.”

The speech, which Church officials acknowledge is at least partly authentic, was clearly intended for an audience of the faithful. But now, thanks to the power of the Web, viewers can see for themselves how Miscavige sounds when he preaches to the choir. And, as many people have indicated in their responses on YouTube, their look into the inner workings of the Church have not increased their affection for Scientology.

The video has been taken down by YouTube at the request of Church officials. (YouTube honors such requests when organizations or TV networks claim that copyrighted material has been released without consent.) But in some cases, after anti-Scientology videos have disappeared from YouTube they have reappeared thanks to critics who then upload them again.

The video attacks have led the Church to create an online “Scientology Video Channel,” which offers numerous Church-sanctioned videos. When Web surfers go to www.scientology.org, they are sent to the video site and must click on a home page link to go to the main Scientology site.

Rebellious Kids

There have always been former Scientologists who speak out about the Church, but in recent months three big-league insiders have joined the chorus of critics.

Jenna Miscavige Hill (the niece ofScientology leader David Miscavige), Kendra Wiseman (the daughter of Bruce Wiseman, president of the Church’s anti-psychiatricgroup, Citizens Commission on Human Rights), and Astra Woodcraft, whose parents joined Scientology’s elite Sea Organization when she was seven (and who was featured in a 2005 Glamour magazine article entitled “Why I Fled Scientology”) launched ExScientologyKids.com, a site for people who grew up in Scientology.

The site’s home page describes their goal: “We offer non-judgmental support for those who are still in Scientology, discussion and debate for those who’ve already left, and a plethora of easy-to-understand references for the curious.” And the site offers a variety of materials, including discussions of the Church’s disconnection policy, which requires members to disaffiliate from family, friends, or loved ones who leave the organization.

In April, Nightline, ABC TV’s late-night news show, did a segment called “Growing Up Scientologist” featuring Hill and Woodcraft, who described their difficult journey away from the Church.

Both women talked about the long hours they were required to work on Church tasks and the verbal attacks they received when they complained about being separated from family members. Woodcraft also discussed her pregnancy, and the response from Church leaders who suggested she get an abortion. (The Church denies it promotes abortion as a policy, and says it leaves the choice up to individual members.)

The Church declined to comment for the story until the last moment, sending ABC a statement on the day the program aired saying it would not respond to the women’s charges or impugn their character. The show remains among the most popular Nightline segments that viewers can watch on the ABCNews.com site.

Still Fighting

Ever since the Church’s founding in 1955, Scientology has been a target for scrutiny and criticism because of its colorful founder, controversial history, unique doctrine, aggressive posture, and focus on celebrities.

Such criticism has taken on new dimensions in the Internet era, when people can view once-private Church videos or buy used e-meters, the devices that are used in Scientology “auditing” sessions and often appear on the Ebay Internet auction site.

Over the last two decades, the Internet has proven itself to be a powerful force in the world of religion, for groups both small and large. On the Web, even obscure groups like Heaven’s Gate have been able to proclaim their messages to the world. The Heaven’s Gate site even survived the group itself, whose nearly forty members engaged in a March 1997 mass suicide at a house in California.

The Web also empowers critics of religion, and most religious organizations have scrambled to develop strategies to address attacks and other negative buzz generated by “anti-” sites.

What makes the Internet-based attacks on Scientology so problematic are the ease with which critics can reach a vast audience, combined with the difficulty the Church has in silencing them.

But Scientology is not rolling over and playing dead. It is fighting back with its own videos, and it is trying to use copyright law to contain Internet links of Church-owned videos. Ironically, such responses run the risk of actually increasing Web traffic for controversial materials the Church seeks to suppress but that survive and thrive at a variety of sites.

The Church also prevented members of Anonymous from successfully staging a March 15 protest in front of the Church’s Los Angeles headquarters by scheduling a competing rally with the city.

But Church critics are more organized than in the past, and the war they are waging online is proving to be a difficult battle for Scientology leaders.

—Steve Rabey

While it has become increasingly popular to merge Eastern spirituality with biblical Christianity, the chasm that separates these worldviews is an unbridgeable gulf. First, in an Eastern worldview God is an impersonal force or principle. In sharp distinction, the God of Christianity is a personal being who manifests such communicable attributes as spirituality, rationality, and morality (John4:24; Col.3:10; Eph.4:24).

Furthermore, in an Eastern worldview humanity’s goal is to become one with nature because nature is God. In this sense, the Eastern worldview is pantheistic—in other words, “God is all and all is God.” Conversely, Christianity teaches that man is created in the image and likeness of his Creator and as such is distinct from both nature and God (Gen.1:26–27).

Finally, in an Eastern worldview truth is realized through intuition rather than through the cognitive thinking process. In contrast, Christianity teaches that truth is realized through revelation (Heb.1:1–2), which is apprehended by the intellect (Luke1:1–4), and then embraced by the heart (Mark12:29–31).²

Can Reincarnation and Resurrection Be Reconciled?

An ever-growing number of people in both the church and the culture have come to believe that reincarnation and resurrection can be reconciled. In fact, multitudes have embraced the odd predilection that Scripture actually promotes reincarnation. In reality, however, the Bible makes it crystal clear that reincarnation and resurrection are mutually exclusive.

To begin with, the resurrectionist view of one death per person is mutually exclusive from the reincarnationist view of an ongoing cycle of death and rebirth. The writer of Hebrews emphatically states that human beings are “destined to die once, and after that to face judgment” (Heb.9:27 NIV, emphasis added). In sharp contrast to a worldview in which humanity perfects itself through an endless cycle of birth and rebirth, the Christian worldview maintains that we are vicariously perfected by the righteousness of Christ (Phil.3:9).

Furthermore, the biblical teaching of one body per person demonstrates that the gulf between reincarnation and resurrection can never be bridged. Rather than the transmigration of our souls into different bodies, the apostle Paul explains that Christ “will transform our lowly bodies” (Phil.3:21 NIV, emphasis added). He explicitly says that the body that dies is the very body that rises (1Cor.15:42–44).

Finally, the Christian belief that there is only one way to God categorically demonstrates that resurrection and reincarnation can never be reconciled. As Christ Himself put it, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John14:6 NIV, emphasis added). If Christ is truly God, His claim to be the only way has to be taken seriously. If, on the other hand, He is merely one more person in a pantheon of pretenders, His proclamations can be pushed aside easily. That is precisely why the resurrection is axiomatic to Christianity. Through His resurrection Christ demonstrated that He does not stand in a line of peers with Buddha, Baha’u’llah, Krishna, or any other founder of a world religion. They died and are still dead, but Christ is risen.

Ultimately, resurrection and reincarnation can never be reconciled because the former is a historical fact while the latter is but a Hindu fantasy.³

— Hank Hanegraaff

NOTES

1. Adapted from Hank Hanegraaff, The Bible Answer Book (Nashville: J. Countryman, 2004).

2. For further study, see James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, 3rd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997); Charles Strohmer, The Gospel and the New Spirituality (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1996).

3. For further study, see Hank Hanegraaff, Resurrection (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000), chap. 14.

For centuries most people throughout the West shared core assumptions shaped by a common Christian heritage and the modernity of the Enlightenment. Christian assumptions are now the exception rather than the rule in most of society, however. The West is transitioning rapidly to a postmodern, post-Christian era. Postmodernism has increasingly become the assumed worldview of anyone younger than 40. In addition to this change, the increase in cross-cultural interaction has brought people with fundamentally different worldviews to the doorsteps of the West.

Christians in the West now live in a world like the one to which missionaries have gone for hundreds of years, shaped without the presumptions of biblical ideas or classic Western culture. Western believers can profit from some of the same training on worldview that missionaries to the non-Western world have long received. These principles are effective in sharing Christ in an increasingly diverse world.

What Is a Worldview? A worldview is a person’s fundamental assumptions about how the world is put together and his or her role in it. Worldview affects ideas, feelings, and values. It includes: how a person views himself or herself (e.g., Am I significant individually or because of my family?), other people (e.g., When I meet a person of a certain ethnic group, am I immediately suspicious of them or happy to meet them?), the natural and supernatural world (e.g., Are diseases caused by germs or demons?), cause and effect (e.g., Are car accidents inevitable because God willed them or could they have been prevented?), space (e.g., How close should I stand to a person I’m talking with at a party?), time (e.g., How late is “late” to any particular function?), right and wrong (e.g., How many personal photocopies can I make at work before I’m stealing?), beauty and aesthetics (e.g., Do I prefer guitar or organ music?), and how reality is classified and organized (e.g., Is a chimpanzee more like a person or more like an insect?).

A worldview is like water to a fish: it is implicit, taken for granted. We rarely think about our worldview, but it forms a framework that organizes our world, guides our behavior, and provides emotional security. It is the matrix for our assumption that everything is as it is “because that’s just the way the world is!” As Paul Hiebert notes, “People believe that the world really is the way they see it. Rarely are they aware of the fact that the way they see it is molded by their world view.”¹

Models of and for Life. One of the most significant insights into worldviews for effective evangelism is that worldviews are models of life and for life; in other words, to the one who holds it, a worldview describes the way things are and prescribes the way a person should think, feel, and act.² Clifford Geertz explains how these two functions of a worldview work together: “On the one hand, [a worldview] objectivizes moral and aesthetic preferences by depicting them…as mere common sense given the unalterable shape of reality. On the other, it supports these received beliefs about [reality] by invoking deeply felt moral and aesthetic sentiments as experiential evidence for their truth.”³

For example, because worldviews are models of life and for life:

· Jehovah’s Witnesses proudly highlight the “logic” of Witness theology and the spiritual discipline of Witness practice.

· Mormons hold to a theology that gives them the possibility of godhood and live according to what they perceive to be the strongest family structure in the land.

· Muslims affirm the universal unity of faith of the ummah (community of Muslims), the straightforward clarity of monadic monotheism, and the directives of Islam for daily life.

People’s worldviews order the way they see the world. Their worldviews, in turn, give them a smug sense that they are right and that those who hold a different worldview are wrong. This sense of “rightness” (“smugness”) is not a valid test of truth, of course; nevertheless, people live their lives based on it.

More than Cognitive Commitment. A second insight into worldviews that contributes to effective evangelism is that they include more than cognitive understanding. People do not hold to their worldviews for purely rational reasons. Individual beliefs within a worldview fit into a larger system of value, acceptance, self-identity, purpose, and a person’s place in the world. Commitment to a worldview is tightly integrated with the elements in that system.

This means that it is possible to demonstrate logically that a non-Christian’s worldview is inadequate without affecting his or her ultimate commitment to that worldview. Rarely will a person change an entire belief system or even an individual belief based on logical argument alone, because a person’s worldview goes far deeper than cognitive structures. It involves a thorough integration with the larger system.

I recently met a friend whom I had not seen since we were in high school. Five minutes into our conversation he told me that he had become a Jehovah’s Witness, abandoning the evangelical faith of his childhood. I began sharing with him some of the serious problems in Watchtower theology and practice, but my friend was unmoved. He explained that, during his late-teen years, he had slipped into the drug culture. It was only when he met some Jehovah’s Witnesses who cared for him and helped him establish patterns of discipline that he was able to break free and live a “clean” life. Nothing I could say about the inconsistencies and problems in Witness theology and practice could dent the new worldview commitments that he had forged in his personal life crisis. He now had a huge degree of personal security tied up in the Jehovah’s Witness worldview, and discussion of the Greek text of John 1:1 or the real meaning of “firstborn” in Colossians 1:15 left him unmoved.

Listen and Learn. How should these insights into worldview influence the way we do evangelism? First, they remind us of the importance of listening to and learning from people in order to present Christ in the most meaningful way to them. Geertz observes that worldviews are synthesized in “sacred symbols,”⁴ and that it is possible for outsiders to understand worldviews that are different from their own by exploring those symbols intimately. By experiencing the deepest and most meaningful moments of a culture, an outsider can comprehend the way that culture lives. To understand people who hold a radically different worldview, we must accompany them to the most meaningful events of their lives. We must ask deep and genuine questions about the things that matter most to them. We must attempt to learn and understand all that we can about their entire worldview, not to argue against individual points within it, but to be able to relate to them as whole people. Only then will we be able to communicate the credibility of our alternative worldview rather than simply offer a few new beliefs.

I was a missionary in Ethiopia for 19 years and often shared my faith with members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC). Prayer to the saints and angels is a central part of spiritual life for most members of the EOC, but seldom would my quoting 1 Timothy 2:5 (“For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” [NIV]) make much of an impact on them. It was only after studying the EOC’s unique view of the deity and humanity of Christ—one of the sacred symbols of the church—that I began to understand their view of the role of saints and angels in the church. Only after spending long hours listening to and learning from Ethiopian Orthodox priests and laypeople was I able to show them with empathy and effectiveness that Jesus is the only way to God.

A second way these insights into worldview can influence the way we do evangelism is by reminding us of the importance of engaging hearts as well as heads. For most worldviews (including the postmodern worldview in the West), relational proof is more valuable than logical proof. We may demonstrate a truth in apologetics by applying the law of noncontradiction, yet fail to make any impact or impression on the person with whom we are speaking. To make such an impact, we must also demonstrate the truth of Christ with our lives. Put differently, it is not enough to share our knowledge with people; we must share ourselves, because worldviews are a combination of cognitive belief, emotional commitment, and a sense of what is “right.” We can affect a person’s worldview as much by our personal concern as by our cognitive disproof of their particular faith.

A couple of years ago I was talking with a Jewish evangelist—a Messianic Jew who is in his 60s. He lamented that he didn’t know how to witness to Jews of the next generation. “All my evangelism has been built around proving that Jesus is the Messiah. But I share my apologetic proofs with young Jews and they say, ‘That’s nice for you, but it’s not for me.’ They are far more concerned with relationships than with any of the proofs I can offer them.” Like these young Jews, many postmoderns long for the validation of truth with life because their worldview teaches them that truth is known experientially, not just cognitively. In order to reach those who think this way, we need not abandon propositional truth, as many postmoderns suggest, but we must acknowledge that logical arguments are seldom enough to persuade, especially with postmoderns. Their notion of truth, whether right or wrong, must inform the way we approach them.

Again, worldviews are tightly integrated, more-than-cognitive models of life and for life. Worldview awareness reminds us, then, that spending time with people will open their hearts. Relationships built on trust eventually bring mutual understanding of worldview commitments. The more different a person is, the more sharing your faith demands that you cultivate a relationship with that person so that you can understand and influence his or her worldview effectively.

— Steve Strauss

NOTES

1 Paul Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), 45.

2 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (n.p.: Basic Books, 1973), 93.

3 Ibid., 90.

4 Ibid., 89.

SYNOPSIS

The Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement routinely claims scientific validation for the benefits of its meditation program. It alleges that some 500 studies, including those from leading universities, have confirmed the positive benefits of TM for individuals and society. TM promoters, for example, often speak of the “Maharishi Effect,” which they say improves the quality of life in many locations by reducing crime and conflict while increasing various collective health benefits. These claims, however, have never been proven. In fact, the evidence suggests no such “effect” exists or could exist. Part of the problem stems from the definition of “science” endorsed by Maharishi (leader of the TM movement), which is so broad that almost anything can be proven “scientifically.” Of greater concern than the movement’s faulty definition and false claims are the negative effects of TM, which may include a variety of adverse physical and psychological consequences for meditators. There are also various issues concerning Maharishi himself, such as his apparent lack of authoritative support in disseminating TM theory and practice. The current leader in Maharishi’s own Hindu religious tradition, in fact, has declared that when Maharishi violated his own family dharma (i.e., social class duty) as a young man, he became spiritually unfit to engage in the activities that he has practiced for some 50 years. Finally, additional deceptions by the movement suggest that TM is rarely what it claims to be.

There has not been and there will not be a place for the unfit.¹ — Maharishi

I’m establishing a government in the world which will disallow the sprouting of negativity in any country, in any country.² — Maharishi

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, leader of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement, contends that Harvard Medical School, Princeton University, University of Chicago, University of California at Berkeley, and other prominent universities have verified TM’s benefits and that their studies published in Science, Lancet, Scientific American, and other prestigious journals prove Maharishi’s claims concerning TM.³ He asserts that these are not fly-by-night studies. Referring specifically to the alleged “Maharishi Effect” (see below), he states “These studies have utilized the most advanced and rigorous research designs in statistical methodologies.”⁴ The “Maharishi Effect,” “Extended Maharishi Effect,” and “Global Maharishi Effect,” he claims, “have been more extensively documented and thoroughly established than any other phenomenon in the field of scientific research.”⁵

Wow! That sounds impressive; and of course, it must be, since the TM organization asserts, “His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is widely regarded as the foremost scientist in the field of consciousness, and is considered to be the greatest teacher in the world today.”⁶ His noble worldwide goals, moreover, “place Maharishi on a most supremely exalted level of rulership, which far surpasses the wisdom or administrative skill of any sovereign ruler in the world that history has ever recorded” (emphasis added).⁷

“Five hundred studies have proven TM” has been the mantra of TM enthusiasts for many years. TM promoters “often attempt to parlay such [alleged scientific] recognition into research grants, influence upon public policy-makers, and influence with the public at large.”⁸ That is why this issue is so important: if TM’s claim to scientific validation is not laid to rest, the public will continue to waste resources and be deceived.

Do these 500 studies really confirm TM’s claims? TM, like any relaxation program, can produce some relatively minor physical and psychological changes. The question, however, is whether these detected effects are significant. In a critique of TM research up to 1980, Michael A. Persinger, coordinator of the behavioral neuroscience program at Laurentian University, noted, “Frankly, the reported effects of TM upon human behavior are trivial. Considering the alleged potency of the TM procedure, the changes in physiological and behavioral measures are conspicuously minute.”⁹ The extent of what is claimed and the often poor quality of the research are also important issues when evaluating the significance of these 500 studies.

RESEARCH PROBLEMS

Questions regarding independent validation and impartiality must be raised because, as one researcher notes, “the studies…have been performed primarily by the TM Organization or by people they sponsor at Maharishi University of Management and at other universities.”¹⁰ Several independent investigators, in fact, confirm numerous problems with the studies TM cites, having examined the studies, used stricter controls, and found different results.¹¹ Such study problems include “allegations of suppression of negative evidence, of fraud and of ‘gross scientific incompetence,’ lack of double-blind controls, refusal to submit raw data, failure to control for set effects, failure to control for expectancy of relief, failure to control for placebo/suggestible-prone subjects, and others.”¹² TM-EX, a group of former TM practitioners, concludes that “Maharishi affiliated researchers consistently use selection bias in collecting their research data…selecting only data that is favorable to the movement claims.”¹³ In American Behavioral Scientist, distinguished social scientist Daniel Druckman of George Mason University and the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution noted that research indicates TM is ineffectual for improving human performance and found that the often-cited meta-analysis TM researchers put forth as evidence was flawed in its methodology.¹⁴ Even Dennis Roark, the former dean of faculty and chairman of the department of physics at Maharishi University of Management (MUM), speaks of the university’s “crackpot science” protocols, it’s meritless claims concerning the relationship between physics and consciousness, and the suppression of negative data in movement-sponsored research that is widely quoted as “scientific” proof of the benefits of TM.¹⁵ Chemist and Nobel Prize winner Melvin Calvin of the University of California at Berkeley concludes: “Maharishi’s principle business is collecting money from new acolytes. He doesn’t know anything about science; but does know that cloaking his dogma in scientific jargon is the only way to gain legitimacy.”¹⁶

A MAHARISHI EFFECT?

Many of the studies deal with the so-called “Maharishi Effect” that is based on Maharishi’s Hindu theory of consciousness and is further developed and defended by physicist John Hagelin in various articles of Modern Science and Vedic Science, a TM publication. Advocates of the Maharishi Effect allege that crime, sickness, and accidents will be reduced if one percent of a population (city, state, nation, or planet) meditates and “spontaneously” spreads its “enlightened” consciousness to others. The “Extended Maharishi Effect,” Maharishi says, has “a more powerful effect,” allegedly proven by the fact that in 108 countries the “crime rate was reduced everywhere.”¹⁷ His “Global Maharishi Effect” is alleged to be the most powerful of all and “was created by the group practice of 7,000 Yogic Flyers [i.e., advanced TMers who supposedly levitate] — 7,000 being approximately the square root of 1 percent of the world’s population.”¹⁸ This supposedly affects the entire world. According to Maharishi, “The greatest demonstration of the Global Maharishi Effect so far was evidenced when the enmity between the two super powers (Soviet Union and USA) ended in a friendly handshake (1998).”¹⁹

Maharishi is very clear that independent studies confirm these three effects: “Over 40 independent research studies on the city, provincial, national, and international levels confirm that the Maharishi Effect, the Extended Maharishi Effect, and the Global Maharishi Effect improved the quality of life in society and trends of life in the entire world.”²⁰ The benefits claimed by the guru include: (1) significantly decreased crime, (2) improved collective health and decreased fatalities, (3) decreased inflation and unemployment, (4) reduced national and international conflict and terrorism (claimed five full years before 9/11), (5) improved East-West relations, (6) “increased EEG coherence during Yogic Flying,” and (7) reduced recidivism in prisoners (i.e., the tendency to return to criminal habits), and (8) decreased incidence of disease.²¹

It is not surprising that none of these claims are true. In a compelling analysis, Evan Fales and Barry Markovsky of the University of Iowa examined the Maharishi Effect theory and commented, “The theory receives low marks for meaningfulness. Key terms are undefined or only roughly characterized using other complex, undefined terms or metaphors.”²² They concluded that the theory’s claims “do not merit being taken seriously by the scientific community. The theory motivating the research is ill-constructed and not compelling in view of prior knowledge; the evidence offered is not impressive and mundane alternative hypotheses offer plausible explanations for the findings.”²³

The best “controlled test” of the Maharishi Effect, in fact, has already been conducted, although the movement seems peculiarly silent on the subject. Maharishi’s university is located in Fairfield, Iowa, a city with 2,000–2,500 active meditators in a population of 10,000, a perfect “laboratory” for testing TM claims. Fairfield has 20–25 times the amount of the mere one percent of a population needed to create an ideal society, and this has been true for many years. The social statistics of Fairfield, however, do not indicate a Maharishi Effect. In fact, if the statistics show anything, it seems that TM may actually increase violent behavior in society: “An objective analysis of crime data for the period of 1991–1998, based on the Iowa Uniform Crime Reports, shows an overall increase in violent crime and property crime for this period, both for Fairfield/Jefferson County and for Iowa.”²⁴

Finally, if the Maharishi Effect were true, it would have been proven long ago in India where there have been millions of alleged god-realized souls throughout the millennia. Few nations, however, have more poverty, disease, suffering, and other social problems.

PROVING TM THROUGH THE SPIRITUAL SCIENCE OF EVERYTHING

A major problem with TM’s scientific claims is that Maharishi has conveniently redefined science so that bad science and even occult science are deemed legitimate. In his 1955 lecture in Kerala, India, for example, Maharishi declared, “India always regarded the science of the soul as the best and most useful of all the science.”²⁵ It’s no wonder, then, that in TM, things tend to be filtered through this “spiritual” science so that even the Hindu scriptures — the Vedas, Upanishads, Bhagavad-Gita, and Brahama Sutras — are declared to be “scientific documents.” The Hindu gods themselves, such as Indra, are described in scientific terms.²⁶

The following examples illustrate how Maharishi’s colorful descriptions of science make it easy to prove any TM claim: “My Vedic Science….is the science of objectivity, which is nothing other than the expression of subjectivity….My Vedic Science, being the science of everything, can be defined in terms of anything and everything….My Vedic Science, being the science of everything, opens a wide gate of all possibilities to every Vedic scientist.”²⁷ Maharishi’s science gives students “the spontaneous ability to know anything, do anything, and accomplish anything.” It “is the science of the Self of everyone. Its scope ranges from the individual Self (ATMA [Atman]), to the Cosmic Self (BRAHM [Brahman]).”²⁸ Not surprisingly, everyone is a bona fide scientist: “My Vedic Science is not foreign to anyone….[It] makes everyone knowledgeable about everything.”²⁹

Maharishi’s writings contain literally hundreds of pages of scientific nonsense; for example, “Transcendental Meditation… is…the technology of the Unified Field in Physics, the technology of the Transition State in Chemistry, technology of the Quantum Regime of Cosmology, the technology of the Null Set, the source of all sets, in Mathematics, and the technology of the Integrating Centre in Regulatory Physiology.”³⁰ The “seed of Vedic Mathematics,” he asserts, is found in the “self referral state of consciousness” (achieved by TM) and the “thousand-headed Purusha, the administrator of the universe is the ‘Cosmic Mathematician’…with the ability to handle all the different values of Vedic Mathematics simultaneously with absolute precision and order.”³¹ Thus, “Vedic Algebra [and calculus, geometry, logic, statistics, trigonometry, etc.] is the algebra [etc.] involved in the structuring dynamics of the Veda.”³²

In light of such statements, it is hardly surprising that Maharishi’s university is primarily concerned with ephemeral states of consciousness: “Study of consciousness and research in consciousness is the most vital aspect of a university” so that “Maharishi Vedic University is the university of pure and applied knowledge of everything in the universe.”³³ Perhaps this explains the nature of some of its quaint awards. In 1998, it awarded Tony Nader “his weight in gold for his historic discovery that the totality of Veda and Vedic Literature, along with all the Devatas [i.e., Hindu gods] and the whole cosmos, is located in the physiology of every human being.”³⁴

PROFANE EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

According to TM, all non-Vedic education, whether scientific or not, is profane and meaningless, and students who attend other universities besides MUM are only increasing their ignorance.³⁵ Indeed, “As there is no [other] university in the world that offers study of consciousness and research in consciousness, university education is baseless everywhere, and baseless education can only produce disintegrated, stressful, and frustrated individuals, and a society full of problems and suffering. This has been the sad picture of education in the world throughout recorded history” (emphasis added).³⁶ Thus, without the “intellectual understanding of consciousness,” that is, TM, “the expressions of the field of consciousness [i.e., all ‘profane’ knowledge] are meaningless, baseless and fruitless. All the universities in the world have proved this” (emphasis added).³⁷ Maharishi proudly asserts, “My Absolute Theory of Education…does not permit education to be a path of gaining knowledge…my Absolute Theory of Education, eliminating the path of gaining knowledge, delivers total knowledge” (emphasis added).³⁸

Maharishi’s claim, in essence, is that all scientists of the world must realize that they have been deluding themselves in how they practice science.³⁹ Their work, apart from TM, is worthless and, worse, socially destructive. Maharishi concludes: “The education in every country is inefficient, is cruel to life, and can even be labeled as ‘fraud.’”⁴⁰ This conclusion is ironic given the deceptive claims of the TM movement.

THE DANGERS OF TM

TM promoters claim the practice is “perfectly safe,” but this is not the case: “Warnings have been issued about the dangers of TM by the German government, the Vatican, the Cult Awareness Network, the Task Force on Missionaries and Cults, the Interfaith Coalition of Concern about Cults and various professional organizations.”⁴¹ Anthony D. DeNaro, former professor of economics and business law at Maharishi’s International University (MIU, now MUM), recalled a private meeting with the Maharishi in a sworn court affidavit: “Maharishi had a very cavalier, almost elitist, view about very serious injuries and trauma to meditators.”⁴² (It should be pointed out that the potential dangers mentioned here regarding TM are also true for New Age/Eastern/occult meditation as well, which I have documented elsewhere.⁴³)

There is evidence, which is documented in my earlier book on TM and in the research of others, that TM may lead to serious maladies such as mental illness, suicide, seizures, and demon possession;⁴⁴ unfortunately, space permits discussion of only mental illness. Even Maharishi gently counsels, “In the absence of a proper interpretation of this expression of non-attachment, one might become bewildered, and this great blessing of life might become a liability.”⁴⁵

Harmful effects have occurred since the beginning of TM. John Parks, former manager of the Beach Boys, for example, was initiated into TM by Maharishi himself. He was therefore in a position to know the inside story. Parks personally reported the following to me concerning a 1969 teacher training course: “Maharishi had not put a time limit on meditating and quite a few people ended up in the mental hospital. Some are still there.”⁴⁶

In many cases the propensity for causing mental problems almost seems built into the TM procedure. A review of 75 articles in the International Journal of Psychotherapy noted the positive and negative effects found in studies of relatively small numbers of people. It reported that negative side effects were encountered by more than 62 percent of the meditators studied. The authors did not restrict their study to TM, but the side effects reported were similar to those found in the “German Study” (see below) of TM meditators: relaxation-induced anxiety and panic, paradoxical increases in tension, less motivation in life, boredom, pain, impaired reality testing, confusion and disorientation, feeling “spaced out,” depression, increased negativity, being more judgmental, feeling addicted to meditation, uncomfortable kinaesthetic sensations, mild dissociation, feelings of guilt, psychosis-like symptoms, grandiosity, elation, destructive behavior, suicidal feelings, defenselessness, fear, anger, apprehension, and despair.⁴⁷

In a study of 221 college students (65–70 percent TMers), Michael A. Persinger of Laurentian University reported: “Meditators displayed a significantly wider range of complex partial epileptic-like signs. Experiences of vibrations, hearing one’s name called, [and] paranormal phenomena,…were particularly frequent among meditators.”⁴⁸

According to TranceNet, an extensive analysis of a small sample of meditators done by Germany’s Institute for Youth and Society found that 76 percent of long-term meditators experience psychological problems. The report also notes that 26 percent experienced nervous breakdowns, 63 percent experienced serious physical complaints, and 70 percent recorded a worsening ability to concentrate.⁴⁹ Researchers, ironically, also found “a startling drop in honesty among long-term meditators.”⁵⁰ TranceNet supplies a table of about 10 independent studies that measured the negative side effects of long-term TM practice and which confirm the above conclusions and more.⁵¹ A TM-EX Newsletter also lists about 40 studies that further support this finding.⁵²

COSMIC MIRROR

What Maharishi claims for himself or allows his meditators to claim for him is absolutely astounding. Consider a few examples: “Maharishi in the world today is a cosmic figure, caring for the well-being of all mankind….Maharishi…a quiet guardian of all nations”⁵³; “Maharishi’s achievements…are unequaled today or at any other time in recorded history.”⁵⁴

It should be noted, however, that Maharishi was born Mahed Prisad Varma around 1917 into a working class and not into the Brahmin class, the highest Indian social class, or caste. Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati is known throughout India as a genuine disciple of Guru Dev, Maharishi’s master. He sits in two of the four “seats” of Shankara (i.e., four monasteries through which living gurus pass on the advaita Hindu tradition) and is considered to be one of the most respected spiritual leaders in India. Saraswati says that Maharishi was merely a servant who received no instruction from Guru Dev; that Vedic law forbids Maharishi to teach mantras or instruct in meditation; and that attachment to the siddhis (psychic powers), which automatically attend Hindu meditation, is dangerous and useless.⁵⁵ He explains, “Preaching, initiating, guiding people engaged in spiritual pursuits is the duty of those who are born in a Brahmin family. If he [Maharishi] is a follower of Sanatan Dharma (the Hindu religion), he should not do what he is doing. This is against the orders of his Guru.”⁵⁶ The commentator in Beacon Light of the Himalayas asserts, “The Maharishi may never teach in the name of Shankara…since his low-caste birth blocks him from following this tradition.”⁵⁷ Finally, Saraswati says, “He, himself (Mahesh) is in darkness.”⁵⁸

Maharishi himself, meanwhile, in no uncertain terms, warns against the grave consequences of violating one’s family dharma (i.e., the duty of one’s caste, or social class), saying it leads to personal and spiritual regression and has a hellish effect on one’s family: “One who has lost his caste represents the lowest in human life, a man living in complete ignorance, who has lost the path of his evolution.”⁵⁹

IT’S NOT WHAT IT SEEMS

The following are some additional bits of information that demonstrate that TM is rarely what it claims to be:

· In his 1955 Kerala lecture, Maharishi denied what he subsequently taught for 50 years about the special nature, importance, and uniqueness of the TM mantras: “For training the mind through sound, we can take any word….any sound can serve our purpose” (emphasis added).⁶⁰

· Maharishi charges money for Vedic instruction, which, according to his tradition, is a sin.⁶¹

· The TM movement claims that yagyas are not religious ceremonies while Maharishi knows they are ceremonies dedicated to Hindu deities. The commentator to Beacon Light of the Himalayas noted, “There is no doubt here that the Maharishi is indicating that chanting vedas and mantras while performing yajnas (yagyas) are for the express purpose of summoning the Veda Gods.”⁶² In fact, in a secret videotape used in a civil suit against TM, Maharishi offers a rather spine-chilling explanation of the meditator’s relationship to the Hindu gods, which TranceNet summarizes as follows: “TMers produce the magical chemical Soma in their gut — but it isn’t something they can use directly. The Vedic Gods, principally Indra, descend from Heaven and feed on the Soma in the TMers’ belly. In return for this primitive relationship, the Gods grant all manner of boons. TMers become successful, happy, prosperous, and develop supernormal abilities.”⁶³

· TranceNet points out, “Selections from the Tantra of the Great Liberation, the Mantra Sastra, and The Garland of Letters show that TM’s supposedly meaningless bija (seed) mantras invoke Hindu gods. For example, ‘AING’ is a name for Saraswati.”⁶⁴

· What Maharishi knows and what TM teachers don’t tell the initiate is that their worship of Maharishi’s dead master Guru Dev in the initiation ceremony is literally devotion to Shiva and other Hindu gods.⁶⁵ DeNaro, the former MIU professor mentioned earlier, “alleges that the Maharishi was very clear, in private, that TM meditators are initiated into Hinduism during the puja.”⁶⁶

· DeNaro stated in a 1986 affidavit presented to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, “It was obvious to me that [the] organization was so deeply immersed in a systematic, willful pattern of fraud including tax fraud, lobbying problems and other deceptions, that it was ethically impossible for me to become involved further as legal counsel.”⁶⁷ DeNaro further characterized MUM (formerly MIU) as having a “disturbing denial or avoidance syndrome….even outright lies and deception are used to cover-up or sanitize the dangerous reality on campus of very serious nervous breakdowns, episodes of dangerous and bizarre behavior, suicidal and homicidal ideation, threats and attempts, psychotic episodes, crime, depression and manic behavior that often accompanied roundings (intensive group meditations with brainwashing techniques).”⁶⁸

Let me see if 34 years after my initiation by the guru I have this right: TM still isn’t a religion, is perfectly safe, has endless scientific proof, is the friend of Christianity, will bring world peace, and is the only institution in all the earth that is not practicing deception. Finally, I’m enlightened.

notes

1. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Inauguration of the Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment (n.p.: MIU Press, 1975), 47.

2. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, interview by Larry King, Larry King Live, CNN, May 12, 2002.

3. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government, 2nd ed. (Delhi, India: Maharishi Prakashan, 1995), 321–22.

4. Ibid., 319.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid., 545; see also “Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,” The Transcendental Meditation Program, http://www.tm.org/main_pages/maharishi.html.

7. Yogi, Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government, 553.

8. Evan Fales and Barry Markovsky, “Evaluating Heterodox Theories,” Social Forces 76, 2 (December 1997): 511–25, available online at TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/ research/markovsky2.shtml.

9. Michael A. Persinger, Normand J. Carrey, and Lynn A. Suess, TM and Cult Mania (North Quincy, MA: Christopher House Publishing, 1980), 178, available online at “Persinger’s Critique of TM Research, 1 of 7,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/research/ persres.shtml.

10. Barry Markovsky, “Behind the TM Façade,” under “Research on Transcendental Meditation,” http://www.unstress4less.org/Transcendental_Meditation-tmresearch.htm (not accessible November 2004); see also “Independent TM Research Archive,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/research/index.shtml.

11. Robert Todd Carroll, “Transcendental Meditation (TM),” The Skeptic’s Dictionary, http://www.skepdic.com/ tm.html.

12. Barry Markovsky, “Behind the TM Façade,” under “Problems with TM Research,”http://www.unstress4less .org/transcendental_meditation-tmresearch-problems.htm (not accessible November 2004).

13. “Crime and TM,” TM-EX Newsletter 6, 2 (Spring 1994), available online at Meditation Information Network, http://minet.org/TM-EX/ news94sp.dpt.0.html#crmintr.doc.

14. Daniel Druckman, “Frameworks, Techniques, and Theory: Contributions of Research Consulting in Social Science,” American Behavioral Scientist 43, 10 (August 2000): 1635–67, available online at TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/research/2000druckman.shtml.

15. Dennis Roark, letter in TM-EX Newsletter 4, 2 (Spring 1992), available online at Meditation Information Network, http://www.minet.org/Documents/roark-letter.

16. Melvin Calvin, Letters, Science, March 28, 1975, 1180.

17. Yogi, Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government, 316.

18. Ibid., 317.

19. Ibid., 318.

20. Ibid., 316.

21. Ibid., 328–32.

22. Fales and Markovsky.

23. Ibid.

24. Barry Markovsky, “Behind the TM Façade,” under “Maharishi Effect,” http://unstress4less.org/ Maharishi_Effect-mdefect.htm (not accessible November 2004).

25. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Beacon Light of the Himalayas (Kerala, India: n.p., 1955), 9; available online at TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/secrets/beacon/ beacon2.shtml.

26. “Soma and the Gods, 3,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/secrets/soma/soma3.shtml.

27. Maharishi Vedic University: Introduction, 2nd ed. (Delhi, India: Maharishi Prakashan, 1995), 157–59. No author is listed for this book; however, the quotation on page III seems to imply that it is Maharishi.

28. Ibid., 163–64.

29. Ibid., 163–64, 166.

30. Yogi, Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government, 286–87.

31. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Defense (India: Maharishi Vedic University, 1996), 364–65.

32. Ibid., 385–86.

33. Maharishi Vedic University, 9, 11.

34. “Maharishi Mahesh Yogi: Founder of the Transcendental Meditation Program,” under “1998,” The Transcendental Meditation Program, http://www.tm.org/main_pages/ maharishi.html.

35. Maharishi Vedic University, 13.

36. Ibid., 15.

37. Ibid., 8.

38. Ibid., 325.

39. Ibid., 106.

40. Yogi, Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Defense, 656.

41. Steven Alan Hassan, “TM Dissenter’s FAQ,” under “Part 1 – An Overview: The Transcendental Meditation Program,” Steven Alan Hassan’s Freedom of Mind Center, http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/ groups/t/tm/dissenter.htm.

42. “Time Line of Natural Law Party’s Changing Language on Religion,” under “1975,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/nlp/secrets/timeline.shtml.

43. See John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1999), chapters on Meditation (16), Enlightenment (11), Altered States of Consciousness (2), and Yoga (26).

44. See John Weldon, The Transcendental Explosion (Irvine, CA: Harvest House, 1976); “Independent TM Research Archive,” TranceNet, http:www.trancenet.org/research/ index.shtml.

45. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, On the Bhagavad Gita (Baltimore: Penguin, 1974), 434.

46. John Parks, personal interview with author, 1974.

47. Alberto Perez-De-Albeniz and Jeremy Holmes, “Meditation: Concepts, Effects and Uses in Therapy,” International Journal of Psychotherapy 5, 1 (March 2000): 49.

48. M. A. Persinger, “Transcendental Meditation (TM) and General Meditation Are Associated with Enhanced Complex Partial Epileptic-Like Signs: Evidence for ‘Cognitive’ Kindling?” Perceptual and Motor Skills (1993), 76, 80–82.

49. “Independent TM Research Archive,” under “The Report of Germany’s Institute for Youth and Society on TM,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/research/ index.shtml. See the full text of this study at “The Various Implications Arising from the Practice of Transcendental Meditation,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/research/toc.shtml.

50. Ibid.

51. “Independent TM Research Archive,” under “Negative and Inconclusive TM Research: Abstracts,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/research/index.shtml.

52. “A Partial Research Review,” TM-EX Newsletter 6, 1 (Winter 1994); available online at Meditation Information Network, http://www.minet.org/TM-EX/ Winter-94.

53. Yogi, Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government, 555–56.

54. Maharishi Vedic University, 255.

55. Swaroopanand Saraswati, interview with Robert Kropinski, “A Visit to the Shankaracharya,” 5 parts in TM-EX Newsletter 4, 1 (Winter 1992) through 5, 1 (Winter 1993); TM-EX Newsletter archive available online at Meditation Information Network, http://www.minet.org/TM-EX/index.html; see also “Whose Puja Is It, Anyway?” under “True Meaning of the TM Puja,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/ secrets/puja/alternate.shtml,

56. Saraswati interview, part 5, TM-EX Newsletter 5, 1 (Winter 1993); Yogi, Beacon Light, Notes, 19, 23.

57. Yogi, Beacon Light, notes, http://www.trancenet.org/ secrets/beacon/notes.shtml.

58. Saraswati interview, part 4, TM-EX Newsletter 4, 5 (Fall 1992).

59. Jhan Robbins and David Fisher, Tranquility without Pills (New York: Bantam, 1973), 10–11; Yogi, On the Bhagavad Gita, 1.40–45; 5.18; p. 175.

60. Yogi, Beacon Light, 12 (http://www.trancenet.org/secrets/ beacon/beacon2.shtml).

61. Saraswati interview, part 3, TM-EX Newsletter 4, 4 (Summer 1992); see also “The Laws of Manu: The Maharishi’s Natural Law,” under “Charging for Teaching the Vedas as a Sin,” TranceNet, http:// www.trancenet.org/ secrets/manu/index.shtml#money.

62. Yogi, Beacon Light, 19.

63. “Soma and the Gods,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/secrets/soma/index.shtml.

64. “TM Secret Teachings,” under “Mantra Meanings Revealed,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/secrets/ index.shtml#mantras.

65. “TM ‘Holy Tradition,’” TranceNet, http:// www.trancenet.org/secrets/puja/tradt.shtml; cf. TM-EX Newsletter 5, 4 (Fall 1993).

66. Yogi, Beacon Light, Notes, 20.

67. Carroll.

68. Ibid.

SYNOPSIS

Transcendental Meditation (TM) is one of the more popular forms of meditation in North America, and probably the most well known. TM’s influence has exploded since the Beatles and other celebrities took up the practice in the 1960s. Well funded, TM boasts of some 40,000 teachers worldwide and 20,000 teachers in the United States. The TM university has been awarded more than $32 million in federal grants for medical research. The Natural Law Party, active in more than 80 countries, fronts TM’s attempt to introduce its teachings in all aspects of national life, such as medicine, economics, environment, education, and national defense. In widely publicized statements, the official TM organization assures prospects that TM is not a religion. This claim, however, is easily shown to be false. TM is really a garden variety form of Hindu meditation developed for mass consumption by its founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who was trained in Hinduism. Maharishi’s teachings in his books clearly demonstrate his allegiance to Hindu philosophy. TM manuals, ceremonies, and even the mantras recited by TM practitioners may glorify various Hindu deities as well as Maharishi’s mentor, Guru Dev. Several U.S. courts, moreover, have declared TM to be a religion. Finally, despite TM’s claims to be Christian friendly, its underlying Hindu philosophy denies central Christian doctrines, such as the atonement, arguing, for example, that Jesus was a good Hindu guru who never would have suffered for the sins of another. TM’s consciousness-altering practices and anti-Christian religious philosophy pose a serious danger to those who adopt them.

The cover article for Time, August 4, 2003, was “The Science of Meditation.” The article stated that the practice of meditation in North America has had significant influence on people “because it works.” Meditation, however, can be either good or bad, depending on several factors. Unhappily it seems that New Age/Eastern forms of meditation are the most popular and are being practiced by people who are largely unaware of the dangers.¹

In 1976, as a former meditator, I wrote a major critique of Transcendental Meditation (TM).² TM was exploding in popularity, claiming millions of meditators globally. Today it seems little has changed. If anything, the influence of TM appears to be greater as there are even more meditators. Little did I know that the guru I once trusted would become the leader of an international empire whose worth is conservatively estimated at $2–3 billion.³ I recently updated my original analysis by thoroughly examining many of the interim publications, new books by founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and Internet analyses. I came to the same conclusion I had reached in 1976: few religions are as deceptive or defective as TM.

First, consider some illustrations of the influence of TM in recent years:

· TM sports a 24-hour global satellite subscription TV channel in 22 languages in 144 countries.⁴

· An alleged 40,000 TM teachers operate worldwide, about 20,000 in the United States; 1,200 centers are claimed in 108 countries. Trancenet.org lists more than 50 front groups and subsidiaries linked to TM.⁵

· According to promoters, thousands of medical doctors practice TM, and many of them prescribe it to their patients; hundreds of companies, including major corporations, encourage it for their employees.

· The Natural Law Party (along with other subsidiaries) is TM’s attempt through politics to introduce Hindu teachings to all aspects of national life: medicine, science, economics, environment, criminal justice, energy, education, business management, national defense, physical rehabilitation, and so on. Active in more than 80 nations, the party fielded some 300 candidates for Germany’s general elections in 1998. In the United States in 2000, it ran Harvard-trained quantum physicist John Hagelin as a Reform Party presidential candidate, plus 1,000 candidates for other offices in all 50 states, receiving some 1.4 million votes. The Seventh International Convention of Natural Law Parties, held in Bonn-Koenigswinter, Germany, from July 14–16, 2000, convened 400 party leaders from 53 countries.

· The TM university, Maharishi University of Management (management of the universe), formerly Maharishi International University, has been awarded more than $32 million in federal grants for medical research from several sources, including the United States Department of Agriculture, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, and National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. In 2004, there were some 1,400 students. The school stresses “consciousness-based education,” which interprets academic disciplines in light of the Hindu beliefs of Maharishi.⁶

· TM uses famous personalities to expand its influence. One of the most popular authors of all time, Deepak Chopra, is an ardent promoter of TM and its antirealist Ayurvedic medicine. In late 2003, film director David Lynch launched a $1 billion fundraising campaign to build 100 TM “peace palaces” across North America to forever end war, violence, and crime.⁷ Ironically, Lynch is perhaps best known for films that graphically portray violence, sex, and the grotesque, such as in Blue Velvet.

· TM’s influence can be seen in local political initiatives. In late 2003, Initiative 101 on the Denver ballot, entitled “Safety through Peace,” would have obligated the city government to execute “scientifically proven” stress-reduction programs, which were really TM methods. It failed by a two-to-one margin (53,000 against, 25,000 for), but the number of votes “for” constituted surprising support for such a radical proposal.⁸

Promoters of TM promise world peace and happiness if just one percent of the population adopts the TM program. The TM organization has announced that it fully intends to achieve this goal: “On Guru Purnima Day 1997, Maharishi Global Development Fund, with a projected budget of U.S. $100 billion was inaugurated as a perpetual fund to finance the reconstruction of the whole world.”⁹

The influence of TM, while considerable, also aptly illustrates a major problem in our culture today: an unwillingness to examine things factually, which frequently leads to the acceptance of dangerous myths. These myths are then defended as fact because it is what one wishes to believe. In the case of TM, as is so often true, the deceptions of a few, supported by the naiveté of many, lead to the con of millions.

THE HISTORY OF TM

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was born Mahed Prisad Varma in India, sometime around 1917. He was not born into an upper caste (i.e., social class), but a lower caste, an important fact that, as we will see in part two, brings into question his authority according to his own Hindu tradition. The late Brahmananda Saraswati, known as Guru Dev (Divine Teacher), eventually became Maharishi’s master for 13 years. A leading Hindu teacher in India, Guru Dev spent some 60 years meditating in Himalayan caves and jungles. When he returned to take the venerated northern seat of Shankara, Maharishi approached him and asked to become his disciple. Maharishi claims that he became a favorite disciple of Guru Dev, and that, prior to Guru Dev’s death in 1953, he commissioned Maharishi to devise a simple method of Hindu God-realization for the masses (see more on this in part two). By 1955, Maharishi had lectured on his “new” meditation technique (TM) in southern India. The TM movement officially began in 1957 when Maharishi founded the Spiritual Regeneration Movement. He soon came to the West, where he eventually gathered such notable disciples as the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and many other famous entertainers, authors, government officials, and academians.

THE PURPOSE OF TM

Despite claims that TM is unique, it’s really just a garden variety form of Hindu meditation. Transcendental meditation is a simplified yoga technique designed to alter one’s consciousness in order to achieve the realization of one’s personal divinity. After three introductory lectures and a payment of around $1,000, one is eligible for initiation into TM. One could easily spend $50,000 a year on all the services and products TM offers, as the rich often do. During a subsequent 15-minute Hindu puja (i.e., initiation ceremony), the initiate receives his or her supposedly unique, secret mantra, the mysterious sound on which he or she will meditate. In fact, the 17 or so mantras that are used aren’t unique at all, but are dispensed according to a 5-year block age category (so that hundreds of thousands of meditators all have the same mantra); further, they aren’t “meaningless sounds” as is claimed, but bear or seem to bear a relationship to Hindu gods.¹⁰ (In 1970, I received the mantra “aing,” which is related to the Hindu goddess Saraswati. There are advanced TM mantras, for example, “Shri aing Namah,” which is said to mean “O most beautiful Saraswati, I bow down.”)

After receiving a mantra, the new devotee is to meditate twice daily, for 15 to 20 minutes each time, solely on the mantra. The idea here involves an easy-going effortless “awareness” of the mantra, not an intense concentration on it. As one effortlessly repeats the mantra, distracting thoughts are naturally dissipated. This process supposedly takes the mind through increasingly subtle levels of conscious thought down to the most subtle. It is at this point an alleged transcendence occurs, a going beyond, to “the field of pure creative intelligence” or “absolute bliss consciousness.” These phrases are simply other names for Brahman, the ultimate Hindu diety. The purpose or goal of TM is that the one practicing it might realize that he or she is one essence with Brahman in his or her true nature; that is, he or she is God.

Maharishi claims he belongs to the “blessed tradition” of Shankara,¹¹ founder of the highly influential nondualist or advaita school of Vedanta, which teaches the unity of the Self (Atman) with Brahman. In private ceremonies he personally worships Shankara’s preferred deity, Shiva.¹² Maharishi ties himself to this tradition and terms it “the holy tradition.”¹³ “For all this knowledge,” says the guru, “my indebtedness is to the holy tradition of Jagadguru Bhagwan Shankaracharya, the main source of all my inspirations and activity.”¹⁴ Advaita, unfortunately, is a fundamentally nihilistic philosophy that clearly left its blemish on Maharishi, not to mention his homeland. The detached thinking can be seen in the following statements:

· “Indifference is the weapon to be used against any negative situation in life.”¹⁵

· “Can there be grief in the mind of a wise man either for the living or for the dead?”¹⁶

· “By virtue of My Being, this mighty universe of huge and contrasting elements eternally and spontaneously exists, while I remain uninvolved.”¹⁷

· We are to “abandon the whole field of right and wrong for the field of the transcendent” where we do only right.¹⁸

· “A man in cosmic consciousness cannot, in principle, be judged by what he does.”¹⁹ Maharishi, for example, says of Arjuna, a character in the Bhagavad Gita (i.e., Hindu scriptures), that he has to “attain a state of consciousness which will justify any action of his and will allow him even to kill in love, in support of the purpose of evolution.”²⁰

· “The form of the cow and the form of the dog fail to blind [the man who has transcended] to the oneness of the Self, which is the same in both. Although he sees a cow and a dog, his Self is established in the being of the cow and the Being of the dog, which is his own Being.”²¹

Given the monistic (monism is the view that all is one), amoral, self-centered nature of advaita philosophy, it’s not surprising that the social implications of TM’s moral outlook are quite troubling. Jack Forem, an early TM leader, said, “No morals, no codes, no ‘do’s and don’ts!’ No standards of behavior are given to meditators.”²² It was maintained that the meditation itself would easily transform the “sinner” into a virtuous person.²³ Critical groups such as TM-Ex (former TM members) and TranceNet, however, have reported on the alleged criminal activity of some TM members. ²⁴

NOT A RELIGION?

When I was initiated in 1970, my TM teacher assured me that TM is not a religion and had nothing to do with religion. In a November, 1993, Science of Mind magazine interview, Maharishi declared, “Transcendental Meditation…is not…a religion.”²⁵ In their attempts to obtain tax money for various TM programs, high-ranking TM officials assure everyone that the TM program is not religious in nature and that its efficacy is fully established scientifically through rigorous independent testing.²⁶ For close to half a century, Maharishi and those leading the TM movement have repeated “not a religion” to the public like a mantra.

This is one of TM’s most deceptive claims, however, and several lines of evidence clearly document that Maharishi has known this all along. His writings, in fact, are so overflowing with documentation of the Hindu nature of TM that it is little short of astonishing that this claim is made at all. He states, for example, “The path to God-realization is this meditation. Transcendental Meditation is a path to God.”²⁷ He describes the goal of TM as follows, “Having gained the state of Brahman [i.e., the realization that one is God], a man has risen to the ultimate Reality of existence. In this state of enlightenment he has accomplished eternal liberation.”²⁸ During TM initiation ceremonies the TM instructor will chant the following portion of the puja:

To LORD NARAYANA, to lotus-born BRAHMA the Creator to… GOVINDA, ruler among the yogis…to SHANKARACHARYA the redeemer, hailed as KRISHNA and BADARAYANA, to the commentator of the BRAHMA SUTRAS I bow down. To the glory of the LORD I bow down again and again, at whose door the whole galaxy of gods pray for perfection day and night…GURU [Dev] in the glory of BRAHMA, GURU in the glory of the great LORD SHIVA, GURU in the glory of the personified transcendental fullness of BRAHMAN, to Him, to SHRI GURU DEV adorned with glory, I bow down…with Brahman ever dwelling in the lotus of my heart…to That [Brahman], in the form of Guru Dev, I bow down.²⁹

Despite their denials, TM teachers know that TM is a religion. The oath to Maharishi that each teacher signs for the TM Teacher Training Phase III contains these words: “It is my fortune, Guru Dev [i.e., Maharishi’s deceased master], that I have been accepted to serve the Holy Tradition and spread the Light of God to all those who need it.”³⁰

TM has always been spoken of as a religion in Maharishi’s writings. In his first book, he said of his message, “It is nothing new….It is the same age-old voice…Shri Sankara gave it out to the world more than 2,000 years ago [it was actually in the ninth century AD]….It is the same principle of anandam [divine bliss] that the Eternal Vedas and Upanishads have been singing down the ages.”³¹ More than 40 years later, in Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government, he stated again that TM theory is based on Hinduism; for example, “Rig Veda places this supreme skill of leadership [controlling the universe] in the hands of Brahm [Brahman], the Ultimate Reality.”³² The Maharishi Vedic University-Introduction states, “The truth is that the Light of God is eternally the same…and the direct path to it is always transcendental meditation”³³ Maharishi is crystal clear in books such as Transcendental Meditation and On the Bhagavad Gita that TM is intended to be a fundamental method of Hindu spiritual enlightenment.

In 1959, TM’s initial umbrella company, the Spiritual Regeneration Movement Foundation, was incorporated with these words: “This corporation is a religious one”; moreover, it identified Maharishi as “the Spiritual Head of this corporation.” In 1964, the International Meditation Society was incorporated as a separate religious corporation, although its letter of incorporation was amended in 1970 to remove the words “religion” and “religious.”³⁴

In 1997, TM began encouraging yagya performances (i.e., Hindu sacrifices costing hundreds to thousands of dollars) in which are named many Hindu deities, including Ganesh, Vishnu, Radha, Hanuman, Kali, and Shiva.³⁵ Maharishi explains the pagan/occult aspect of these sacrifices: “The gross aspect [of yagya] deals with ritualistic performances to please different Vedic gods and win their blessings, while the subtle aspect [of yagya] deals with training the mind to contact higher powers and receive their blessings…”; thus promoting “coordination between…man and angels, between man and God in heaven.”³⁶

Finally, several pivotal court cases have legally established the Hindu nature of TM. In Malnak v. Yogi (1977), District Judge H. Curtis Meanor concluded, “In light of the prior judicial recognition of teachings such as those of [the TM] defendants as religious, no inference was possible except that the teaching of SCI [the Science of Creative Intelligence]/ TM and the puja are religious in nature.”³⁷

In a sworn affidavit for the Malnak case, religion expert Robert N. Bellah with the University of California at Berkeley, testified that Robert Winquist, a prominent TM insider and MIU professor, affirmed (in Bellah’s words), “It is certainly true that TM is religious” but that its religious nature was not admitted “for public relations reasons.”³⁸

The TM organization appealed Judge Meanor’s decision, but in 1979 it was upheld by the Third District U.S. Court of Appeals. In 1996, moreover, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia also ruled that TM is a religion in Hendel v. World Plan Executive Council.³⁹ The fact that the organization has never challenged the rulings in these cases by appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court seems an admission to the strong evidence of its religious nature.

TM AND CHRISTIANITY: BEST OF FRIENDS?

TM advocates claim not only that TM is not a religion, but also that it assists and supports the religion of every meditator. They argue that meditators become better integrated and successful individuals at all levels, therefore, they can’t help but become better practicing members of their various religions. In conversations with several TM teachers, for example, I was told: “We have found support for TM everywhere in the Bible.” “TM helps the Christian faith, not harms it.” “TM and Christianity are the best of friends.” Such claims, nevertheless, are just as false and deceptive as the ruse that “TM is not a religion.”

Christians should be concerned that a significant number of their brothers and sisters may be practicing TM, having been persuaded by TM’s deceptive claims. One professedly Christian TM teacher, high in the TM organization, claimed that there were literally thousands of Christians practicing TM. Whether this teacher’s claim is true or not, the fact remains that Christians should not practice TM because it is an un-Christian Hindu practice that uses an unbiblical form of meditation. They should also abstain because they would be giving their financial and moral support to an organization that lies about its true nature and purposes. More importantly, it is potentially dangerous in several respects, as I will show in part two of this series. No Christian should take part in assisting any organization to promote its deceptions, especially if it may harm people spiritually, psychologically, or physically. Converting people to Hinduism through deception is hardly “assisting” those people’s own religion. This deception can clearly be illustrated by examining TM teachings concerning central Christian doctrines.

Jesus Christ

Maharishi believes that Jesus Christ was not the second Person of the biblical Trinity, uniquely God-incarnate, and the atoning Savior; instead, Jesus was a “God-realized” Hindu who promoted the same philosophy and practice (TM) that Maharishi does.⁴⁰ In sum, Maharishi reinterprets biblical doctrines through Hindu eyes, happily redefining them according to Hinduism. He asserts, for example, “[Christ] has two types of status, and both are in his person: one status is that of an [illusory] individual bound by time and space and causation…[Jesus’] other status…is that of the Universal Being [the Christ, or Christ Consciousness, i.e., Brahman]…. These both go together for a realized man.”⁴¹ In their true nature, all men and women are the same as Jesus, who realized He was Brahman through meditation; they, too, need only to realize they are God through the practice of TM.

According to Maharishi, “Christ said, ‘be still and know that I am God.’” Through Hindu eyes, he interprets this Bible verse to mean that Jesus taught all men and women to “be still and know that you are God” (emphasis added).⁴² Jesus, of course, never taught this. The quote comes from Psalm 46:10 where God is speaking only of Himself being known as God, not all men and women. Maharishi claims to “love Jesus,” but his Hindu theology actually causes him to deny the true Christ and even to substitute himself as the true path to God when he states, for example, “the world is the abode of Thy [God’s] Grace. I [Maharishi] am the way to Thee.”⁴³

Salvation and Atonement

According to TM philosophy, the human spirit cannot be regenerated or saved. Proponents argue that the human spirit is already one essence with God; therefore, it needs nothing: “The spirit cannot be regarded as either the subject or object of any action.”⁴⁴ This means that one cannot be saved by God in a Christian sense; one can only realize inwardly that one is already God, which is enlightenment. Consider the following statements: “The realization of the omnipresent almighty impersonal God is the natural state of one’s Being.”⁴⁵ “The realization of the Impersonal is merely arriving at one’s own Being….There exists no ‘path.’”⁴⁶ “Each man has to rise to this state by himself. Nobody else can possibly raise the standard of another’s consciousness….The responsibility of raising one’s consciousness lies in oneself. Everyone has to work out his own destiny.”⁴⁷

This teaching helps explain why, according to TM philosophy, the atonement of Christ is considered impossible, even a deception. No teaching is more vital to the Christian faith than Christ’s atonement for sin on the cross; without it everyone is headed for the lake of fire. TM philosophy, however, is based on Maharishi’s advaita Vedanta Hinduism, which by definition rules out the Christian doctrine of the atonement. In advaita Vedanta, all reality is one; all duality — everything in the world, including good and evil — is an illusion.⁴⁸ According to this view, there is no sin to “atone” for, therefore, Christ, an enlightened Hindu, would never have taught that He was to die (an illusion) for sin (another illusion). A Hindu teacher would never sacrifice himself on the cross for illusions. The impersonal Brahman of Hinduism, moreover, is all bliss — it could never suffer. According to Maharishi, therefore, those who believe Jesus “suffered” on a cross are ignorant of reality and simply mistake Jesus’ bliss for suffering.

Maharishi clearly tells Christians that they are in serious error if they trust in the death of Christ. When asked why Christians emphasize the suffering of Christ, he replied, “It is a wrong interpretation of the life of Christ and the message of Christ. It is wrong. How could suffering be associated with the One who has been all joy, all bliss, who claims all that? It’s only the misunderstanding of the life of Christ” (emphasis added).⁴⁹

Maharishi’s words, of course, are in direct conflict with the clear teachings of Jesus: “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28 niv). “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28 niv). “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected…and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this” (Mark 8:31–32 niv, emphasis added). “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things…‘Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms…This is what is written: the Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day’” (Luke 24:26, 44, 46 niv, emphasis added).

The TM teachers I have talked with, who are sensitive to reaching Christians for TM, respond to Maharishi’s quote by saying it was of an “unofficial” nature. They also point out that the book was written by Charles Lutz,⁵⁰ who had taken Maharishi’s teachings out of context and “distorted” them. Maharishi, however, has never officially repudiated this book, which bears his name predominantly on the cover; and, although the book is now out of print, one wonders whether Maharishi would have permitted Bantam to publish for many years a book that supposedly distorts his teachings.

The statement denying Christ’s atonement, nevertheless, fits perfectly with Maharishi’s religious philosophy. According to this philosophy, when unenlightened Christians talk about Christ’s suffering for their sins on the cross, it is evidence of an abject decline in their own state of consciousness: “The acceptance of suffering by religion is the indication of the complete decline of Natural Law [i.e., enlightened consciousness and truth] in daily life.”⁵¹ Maharishi elsewhere says, “Suffering is foreign to Thee [God], it is foreign to Thy field.”⁵² The guru, who claims to “love Christianity” when speaking to Christians, also says, “The two-thousand-year old gospel of suffering is soon coming to an end.”⁵³ When, therefore, Maharishi says, “The Cross does not represent suffering and it is not meant to,” he is being consistent with his Hindu philosophy.⁵⁴

Maharishi’s principal deity is Shiva, not Jesus. Commenting on Beacon Light of the Himalayas, one author wrote, “When the Maharishi speaks, as he does often in this discourse, of bringing souls to his lord, he means bringing converts to Shiva just as literally as any tent-revival preacher brings souls to Jesus in the U.S.”⁵⁵

In sum, despite TM advocates’ claims that TM is consistent with Christianity, its underlying religious philosophy is opposed to the Christian faith and denies the uniqueness of the Lord Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice for all humans.

In part two, I will examine the spurious nature of TM’s alleged scientific confirmation, as well as some dangers of the practice.⁵⁶

notes

1. See John Ankerberg and John Weldon, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1997) for documentation of the potential harm.

2. John Weldon, The Transcendental Explosion (Irvine, CA: Harvest House, 1976).

3. Andrew Osborn, “Holy Man of Maastricht,” Guardian, December 6, 2001.

4. Ibid.

5. “Maharishi in the World Today,” Maharishi’s Programmes in India, http://www.maharishi-india.org/ maharishi/maharishi_today.html; yogicflying.org, http://www.yogicflying.org.

6. “About the University,” Maharishi University of Management, http://www.mum.edu/introduction/.

7. “David Lynch’s $1 B Peace Plan,” New York Post, October 22, 2003.

8. “Stress Measure Pushes Quack Science,” Denver Rocky Mountain News, October 2, 2003.

9. “Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,” The Transcendental Meditation Program, http://www.tm.org/main_pages/ maharishi.html.

10. “What’s Your Mantra Mean?” TranceNet, http://www. trancenet.org/secrets/mantras.shtml.

11. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Meditations of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (New York: Bantam, 1973), 106.

12. Look, February 6, 1968.

13. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, On the Bhagavad Gita (Baltimore: Penguin, 1974), 9, 11, 256.

14. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Transcendental Meditation (New York: Signet, 1968), xvii.

15. Yogi, Gita, 157.

16. Ibid., 90.

17. Ibid., 414; cf. 341, 449.

18. Yogi, Transcendental Meditation, 294.

19. Yogi, Gita, 309.

20. Ibid., 76.

21. Yogi, Transcendental Meditation, 112.

22. Jack Forem, Transcendental Meditation: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Science of Creative Intelligence (New York: Bantam, 1976), 174.

23. Yogi, Meditations, 119.

24. See, for example, “Kropinski’s List of TM Casualities,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/personal/40.shtml; “The Troubled Guru,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet. org/news/weekly/.

25. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, interviewed by Kathy Juline, “Settled Mind, Silent Mind,” Science of Mind, November, 1993 (http://www.tm.org/news/science_ mind.html).

26. Erik Gable, “Vedic City Officials Meet with Supervisor,” Fairfield (Iowa) Ledger, November 3, 2003, http:// www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10454285.

27. Yogi, Meditations, 59.

28. Yogi, Gita, 291.

29. Maharishi MaheshYogi, The Holy Tradition (n.p., n.d.), 5. This secret 20-page TM teachers’ manual/puja commentary is reproduced in full in Weldon, The Transcendental Explosion, and online at TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/secrets/puja/tradt.shtml.

30. This secret document was used in the late 1970s and might vary somewhat in today’s versions. It is available online at “TM Initiator’s Oath,” TranceNet, http:// www.trancenet.org/secrets/puja/oath.shtml, which also cites its public availability in the court records of Malnak v. Yogi (U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, Civil Action No. 76-341) and Doe [Kropinski] v. Yogi (U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, Consolidated Civil Action Nos. 85-2848-852854).

31. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Beacon Light of the Himalayas, TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/secrets/ beacon/ beacon1.shtml.

32. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government, 2nd ed. (Delhi, India: Maharishi Prakashan, 1995), 553.

33. Maharishi Vedic University: Introduction, 2nd ed. (Delhi, India: Maharishi Prakashan, 1995), 230. No author is listed for this book; however, the quotation on page III seems to imply it is Maharishi.

34. “Yes, We Are No Religion!” TranceNet, http:// www.trancenet.org/secrets/yagyas/index.shtml, emphasis added.

35. Ibid.

36. Yogi, Gita, 340, 351.

37. Spiritual Counterfeits Project, TM in Court (Berkeley, CA: SCP, 1978), 72, 74. See the full text of Malnak v. Yogi at TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/law/nj/ nj1.shtml.

38. Robert N. Bellah, “Declaration of Robert N. Bellah,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/personal/bellah. shtml. Bellah’s affidavit is at Malnak v. Yogi, 440 F.Supp. 1284 (1977).

39. “Diane Hendel vs. WPEC, MIV 01,” TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/law/hendel01.shtml.

40. Yogi, Meditations, 178.

41. Ibid., 122–23.

42. Ibid., 178.

43. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Love and God (Fairfield, OH: MIU Press, 1973), 29.

44. Yogi Gita., 94, cf., 95–100.

45. Yogi, Transcendental Meditation, 268.

46. Ibid., 268.

47. Ibid., 73.

48. See Swami Nikhilananda, “A Discussion of Brahman in the Upanishads,” The Upanishads, A New Translation, vol. 1 (New York: Bonanza/Crown Publishers, Harper and Brothers, 1949).

49. Yogi, Meditations, 123–24.

50. See the irrelevance of this argument in Yogi, Beacon Light, n2, TranceNet, http://www.trancenet.org/ secrets/beacon/notes.shtml.

51. Maharishi Vedic University, 220.

52. Yogi, Love and God, 39; Yogi, Beacon Light.

53. Maharishi Vedic University, 281.

54. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, quoted in Meditations by His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi with Questions and Answers (London: International SRM Publications, 1967), 140, cited on “Transcendental Meditation,” Dialogue Center International, http://www.dci.dk/en/ ?article=1107.

55. Yogi, Beacon Light, TranceNet, http://www.trancenet. org/secrets/beacon/index.shtml.

56. Thanks to Elliot Miller for additional research materials.

Have you ever attempted to take an eleventh step down a ten-step stairway? Your entire body tries to descend another six inches, your knees buckle, and it is all you can do to remain upright, while your dignity is severely compromised in the sight of all who might be present. I have, and I have also experienced a similar sinking feeling in an evangelistic conversation. Here I am, all set to present my best arguments for the truth of Christianity, and the person I am talking to dismisses it all cavalierly. “Sure, Christianity is true,” he concedes, “but then again, all religions ultimately teach the same truth.”

“All Are One,” Not “All Are True.” Now, before even beginning to address this point, it is important to distinguish it from contemporary postmodernism or relativism. Many people today claim that truth really does not matter. As long as what you believe “works” for you, it is true for you, and mutually exclusive beliefs can be equally true in this subjective sense. The point of view I want to address here, however, presupposes objective truth. It does not say that contradictory religions can be true; rather, claims that when we look past apparent contradictions and get at the essence of all religions, we find a common truth. This position is often called pluralism, but this can be a slippery term, so let us just make things easy on ourselves and call this the sameness doctrine.

My first response to the sameness doctrine is to say that, obviously, all religions do not teach the same things (but this may not take me very far). Christianity holds that we are born sinful, that Christ, who is the Son of God, died for our sins, and that if we have faith in Him, we will go to heaven. Islam teaches that we are born sinless and that we may go to heaven if we try our best to obey Allah. Islam even specifies that Christ is not the Son of God, and that He did not die for our sins. Hinduism says that trying to get to heaven is a waste of time; even if we were to spend some time in heaven, we would eventually be reborn on earth, because we are trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of reincarnation. Salvation, according to Hinduism, consists of escaping this cycle altogether. It thus seems pretty clear that each of these three religions advances very different teachings, and one might be tempted to ask why we are even discussing this.

Ultimate Reality. Things are not so simple, however. There is widespread opinion today that these differences are purely external, occurring only on a shallow, superficial level, and that, ultimately, they are irrelevant. If one were to take a closer look at all religions, some say, one would find that underneath their broader trappings, they all share a common core. This core can be described according to the following pattern (roughly based on the terminology of the contemporary scholar John Hick):

There is a spiritual Reality that goes beyond common human experience. Human beings are finite and often do not live up to their full potential, and they may even do evil things. All religions serve to help humans to make contact with this spiritual Reality and thereby to lead better lives. In the process, religions will issue some of the same moral commandments, such as encouraging people to tell the truth, not to steal, not to murder, to work for peace in the world, and to be tolerant of others.

According to the sameness doctrine, the more you study other religions, the more you realize that they all teach this core.

Now we are looking at a double challenge. On the one hand, we have the intellectual question of whether the sameness doctrine is true; but even if we say that it is not, a further challenge is how to convey that fact in a supportive evangelistic conversation.

The intellectual side of this issue can be solved only by studying other religions. Since the assertion is a universal one referring to all religions, all it takes to show that it is false is a single counter-example. Do all religions really fit this pattern? Surely not. Such a claim could be easily falsified by pointing to, say, Zen Buddhism, as a religion that does not advocate the existence of a spiritual Reality. Such a strategy may be overzealous, however, in an actual conversation. Here is a good place to apply the golden rule, to treat others as you expect to be treated yourself, and to cut your conversation partner some slack. When people say that all religions teach the same basic core values, chances are that they have not studied all religions that human beings are currently holding or have held in the past (and neither have you or I), and that when they say “all,” they don’t necessarily mean “all,” but only “most” or maybe “all important ones.” Feel free to concede that point so that you do not suffocate the conversation prematurely.

Specific Beliefs. Is it the case, then, that most religions teach the same core? Not only is the answer to this question negative, it is a radical no. The truth is that no religion teaches the core as we have outlined it. No religion advocates some vague “spiritual Reality,” rather, each one directs people to some specific reality such as God, gods, Allah, or Brahman. Religions do not teach ways to “make contact with [some transcendent] spiritual Reality”; rather, they teach about faith, submission, meditation, realization, and so forth. No matter where you look, religions are always about specific ideas and beliefs.

Might I be just playing word games? After all, isn’t it still just as true that, regardless of what specific term one uses, whether God for Christians, Allah for Muslims, or Brahman for Hindus, the same ultimate Reality is being discussed? Once again, the answer is decidedly and unequivocally no. Any other answer would just make light of what the religions themselves teach. When Christians talk about God as the highest being, they think of God as Trinity (three Persons in one nature), and surely this description is incompatible with what Muslims believe when they explicitly reject the Trinity. Furthermore, many Hindus believe that Brahman, their highest being, is far above any personal conception of God, and so Christians, Muslims, and Hindus cannot possibly be talking about the same reality. Similarly, Christianity teaches that the specific requirement for salvation is explicit faith in the unique person and work of Jesus Christ, while Muslims state that faith in Christ is of little avail, but that what counts for your salvation is the punctilious observance of God’s commandments. Many Hindus, not only understand salvation completely differently (escape from reincarnation), but their way to achieve salvation (the dharma) has little in common with what Christians and Muslims practice. The one thing that Hindus do have in common with Christians and Muslims is that they reject any generic idea, such as making “contact with…spiritual Reality,” insisting rather that their way, under their vocabulary, is essential: you find salvation within the specific context of the religion or you don’t find it at all. Finally, although most religions enjoin similar ethical practices such as telling the truth and respecting other people’s property, frequently those values just come along with the religion, and even then what is meant by, say, “truth” is going to be heavily colored by the religious context.

Just a Generalization. What we see in the sameness doctrine, therefore, is really an intellectual strong-arm tactic of imposing a preconceived general idea on the specific beliefs of the world’s religions. Of course, it is possible, sometimes even helpful, to talk about religions in abstract terms. In a very rough-and-ready way, it makes sense to say that many religions refer to what they consider to be ultimate spiritual Reality. As long as one knows that this statement is just generalization, it is true, though not profound. The sameness doctrine does not content itself with asserting abstract generalities, however; it takes those general statements and says that they are the actual core of all (or most) religions, which is just plain not true. Ultimately, the sameness doctrine is the result of wishful thinking by people who are committed to the idea that all religions are the same at their core; but this idea does not do justice to the religions themselves.

Some Specific Suggestions. Still, knowing this and presenting it are two different things. As we return to the scenario of some actual conversations, here are some specific suggestions.

1. Acknowledge that many religions teach similar things, but stress the fact that this does not mean that they teach the same things. God and Allah may be similar, but they are not identical.

2. Along the same line, explain that similarity in function does not imply sameness in nature. Two things may fulfill the same purpose, but they may still be different. You may play the French horn, while I play the banjo, and we may get similar satisfaction out of making music on our respective instruments, but that does not mean that we are both playing the same instrument or even two versions of one fundamental instrument.

3. Try to learn as much as you can about other religions. The contemporary mantra is that the more you learn about what other people believe, the more you will recognize that we all believe the same things. This is patently false, but you need to know what other religions believe before you can make that judgment with credibility.

4. Avoid going out on a limb with what you say about other religions. Stick to those items of which you are certain, so that the conversation will not get side-tracked unnecessarily.

5. Keep in mind that the question of whether all religions teach the same things is different from the question of whether Christianity is uniquely true. In other words, to show that other religions are different from Christianity, you don’t have to show that other religions are false. The exclusive truth of Christianity is another important issue, but a different one.

— Winfried Corduan

Over the last few months I’ve had the great privilege of working with Elliot Miller, my editor-in-chief. Having had the opportunity to read carefully through his three-part series on the yoga boom in America during its preparation for publication (part three of which appears in this issue), two things repeatedly come to mind: (1)how vital it is for the Christian to be in right relationship to Christ—to know Him intimately—in order to be able to unveil Him to the nonbeliever who is influenced by Eastern thought, and (2)how vital it is for the Christian to understand Christ’s appointment as savior of the world in such a way that making His identity known to others is second nature.

Over my years of serving Christ, I’ve encountered the motto “To know Christ and make Him known.” It is the simplest of creeds for me to bring to mind and heart when defending the gospel becomes cumbersome, either because I am stumbling over my own apologetic or my listener has not the ears to hear it. Lately, a deeper reflection on these words has given me a new appreciation for their value in helping one to be an effective evangelist.

John, the beloved disciple, wrote: “And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John17:3).¹ Jesus wanted each person He encountered to understand His supreme mission: to glorify God by drawing people to Himself. He provided for people’s immediate and physical needs, but also prepared them to see their spiritual needs. He delivered the people from the enemy, but also directed them to the Father.

On Knowing Christ. You may long to become more like Jesus, though you can’t expect to reach His perfection in this life, but you must not forget that you can certainly try to reflect Him in all you say and do. Here are a few suggestions to help you do so:

Be in a Right Relationship with Him. It is essential that you enjoy a personal relationship with Christ. As your relationship deepens, He will demonstrate His power in your life. To enter into this relationship, you must allow your will to be broken, your ego to be destroyed. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” Paul said to his readers in Galatia (Gal.2:20). We deliberately must crucify our selfish nature and cultivate His loving nature.

Be Filled with the Holy Spirit. We cannot move forward without His presence in our lives. The Holy Spirit works as the motivating force in our lives to propel us forward. He indwells us and He empowers us. The work of the Holy Spirit cannot happen unless we confess our “sins one to another” (James5:16). One Christian writer says: “Anything that springs from self, however small it may be, is sin. Self-energy or self-complacency in service is sin. Self-pity in trials or difficulties, self-seeking in business or Christian work, self-indulgence in one’s spare time, sensitiveness, touchiness, resentment and self-defense when we are hurt or injured by others, self-consciousness, reserve, worry, fear, all spring from self and all are sin and make our cups unclean.”² For continuous power in our witnessing, we must keep our cups clean and filled with the Holy Spirit.

Walk with Christ. How often we forget our walk with Christ and start walking in our own counsel. The work of Christ must be done in the counsel of the Lord. One sure sign of this walk with Jesus is the “peace” in your heart. He gives you His peace. His peace is not the absence of trials and tribulations. His peace is His presence in your life. When you lose, or begin to lose, your peace, you should see it as a firm indication that you are no longer in regular communion with God. Immediately take steps to identify any sin in your life, confess it to Christ and others, and enjoy the restoration of your fellowship with Him—then continue your walk with Him with His peace filling your heart and mind.

Have Fellowship with Other Believers. When sin enters your life, one of the first reactions is to “hide” from your brothers and sisters in Christ. You start to feel isolated, no longer comfortable in community. Your fellowship with others, however, is a reflection of your fellowship with Christ. John rebukes Christians with these words: “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Who­ever loves his brother abides in the light” (1John2:9–10).

Be a Credible Believer. You must do your best, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, to be a person who can be trusted. Christian witness suffers because of the misdeeds of some Christians, and the media seems to enjoy the chance to make all Christians look like charlatans. Jesus calls Christians “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” (Matt.5:13–14). You are here, as salt, to flavor the dull and dreary lives of those who have not tasted the power of Christ and, as light, to expose and eliminate the dark recesses of the human heart with the forgiveness and love of Christ.

Be a Praying Believer. One can never overemphasize the need for prayer in the life of a Christian worker. Prayer keeps you in contact with Christ, enables you to remain dependent on Him, permits you to grow, and allows you to develop your capacity to love and cherish others in Christ. The first disciples were people of prayer and the first churches were assemblies of prayer. The person who purposes to pray and spends time on his knees praying accomplishes more than the person who neglects to pray and rushes here and there working.

Be a Holy Believer. God’s holiness must become visible in your life if your witness is going to influence people who hold other worldviews. Peter asks God’s children to seek holiness for their personal lives: “As he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1Pet.1:15–16). Some Christians believe that obeying “pious” human institutions makes them holy. Holiness means “separation.” God wants you to become available to Him and to Him alone. As you become separated unto Christ, you begin to acquire holiness.

Be a Growing Believer. It only takes a moment to become a Christian. It takes a lifetime to be the Christian one becomes. It is vital to study God’s Word on a daily basis, to learn from it, and to grow in it. You cannot develop Christian perspectives without the daily disciplines of prayer and study and meditation on the Word of God. These activities, along with fellowship with other believers in the Lord, are essential for your growth as a believer. Early Christians apparently discovered this because we read: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers….And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts2:42,47).

Making Christ Known. These are sure ways to know more of Christ. When the time comes for an encounter with nonbelievers, however, do you know who you are about to introduce them to?

Recognizing the following truths concerning Christ’s appointment as savior of mankind for the work of the kingdom of God will enhance your motivation and priority for the work to which you have been called:

Christ Was Appointed by God. “Behold my servant, whom I have chosen” (Matt.12:18). We know that Christ’s appointment was from God, because it was announced by God and because it was acceptable and pleasing to God. Christ did not appoint Himself; He was appointed. As a believer, you, too, have been appointed for the work of the kingdom of God, which is to rescue nonbelievers from their kingdom of self; You must make sure, however, that your calling for your specific role in that is pleasing to God and comes from Him.

Christ Received Approval from God. “My beloved with whom my soul is well pleased” (Matt.12:18). Not only was God pleased with the task He chose for Christ, He was pleased with Christ Himself. When God is pleased with what you are doing, you also experience His presence and power in your evangelistic efforts.

Christ’s Longsuffering Was Acknowledged by God. “He will not quarrel or cry aloud; nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets” (Matt.12:19). Jesus overcame the trials God predicted He would face. He did not give in to the pressures of the job. He stayed with His commission irrespective of its demands. You must not let anything get in the way of fulfillment of the mission to take the gospel to people who have not heard. Despite discouragement, you must continue to move forward in the community of others and in the fellowship of the suffering Christ.

Christ’s Accomplishment Was Assured by God. “And in his name the Gentiles will hope” (Matt.12:21). Jesus persevered to perform the task that was assigned to Him despite its difficulties, and, as God promised, His perseverance resulted in people’s trust in His name. You must stay on course. Only then can you be used by God’s Spirit to cause others to put their trust in Christ.

Your work for the kingdom of Christ depends upon the power of the Lord Jesus who lives and works in and through you. Paul tells us that “he who has set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles” (Gal.1:15). He goes on to state the principle by which he preaches Christ to the gentiles (those who are outside the true kingdom): “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal.2:20).

— C. Wayne Mayhall

NOTES

1. All Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version.

2. Roy Hession, The Calvary Road (Great Britain: Hazell, Watson, and Viney, 1950), 19–21.

The New York Supreme Court, in September 2005, dismissed an $84 million wrongful death lawsuit against Seung Huen Lee (AKA Iichi Lee), the founder and “Grand Master” of Dahn Hak (AKA Dahn Yoga). This New Age group, started in South Korea in 1985, has gained influence in the United States and support from world leaders, despite allegations that it is a dangerous cult that brainwashes members for their money.

The lawsuit was filed by Veronica Siverls-Dunham, in July 2005, on behalf of her sister Julia Margaret Siverls, who died July 12, 2003, during a Dahn Hak retreat in Sedona, Arizona, where Dahn Hak is now based. The retreat required members to take part in dangerous rituals to become Dahn Hak “masters,” according to the complaint filed with the court.

An autopsy, the complaint claims, revealed that Julia Siverls—a 41-year-old professor from Queens, New York—died a heat-related death while taking part in an endurance hike. The hikers were unknowingly drugged and forced to climb a mountain in over 90-degree weather, with little food and water, wearing backpacks holding 40 pounds of rocks, according to the complaint. It claims Siverls collapsed several times, but was forced to continue.

The president of the Dahn Center Association in Arizona, Seung Bae Chun, denied the allegations in a letter sent to the Journal regarding the facts of the case. He said there is no requirement to hike or carry rocks to become a master, adding that “Ms. Siverls signed up voluntarily for the optional hike,” and that the hikers had an adequate supply of water. The letter also emphasized that Dahn Hak “does not advocate any use of illicit drugs let alone lacing someone’s food with drugs.”

The court dismissed the lawsuit after determining that the statute of limitations on the wrongful death charge had passed and that the plaintiff had “no standing to bring the action.”

Dahn Hak’s Reach. Siverls joined the Queens Dahn Hak Center in 2001—one of more than 600 Dahn Hak centers worldwide, including 147 in the United States, 12 in Canada, 6 in the United Kingdom, 1 in Brazil, and the rest in Japan and South Korea, according to a Dahn Hak Web site (www.dahnyoga.com).

The U.S. centers are located in upscale communities, where employees recruit members with free yoga classes that promise health benefits. Dahn Hak claims more than a million members in South Korea and about 100,000 in the United States. Dahn Hak is also extending its influence in the United States through a magazine, Body and Brain, that is sold in Barnes and Noble, Borders, and other bookstores.

Lee has authored 28 books, including Human Technology (Healing Society, 2005). The (London) Guardian also endorsed Dahn Hak in a December 7, 2004, article titled “It Works!”

Global Enlightenment. Lee’s goal is to help 100 million people attain spiritual enlightenment by 2010, which, he says, is the critical mass needed to create world peace. This enlightenment includes recognition of human beings’ divinity and their oneness with each other and the earth. Lee believes that the only standard that is all-encompassing enough to unite human beings from every culture and religion is love for, and protection of, the earth, which, he said, Korean tradition calls “Mago”—similar to Gaiea, the earth goddess from Greek mythology.

Lee claims he experienced enlightenment on a mountain in South Korea after going 21 days without food or sleep. He says he created Dahn Hak, which he claims is based on an ancient Korean practice, to make enlightenment more accessible for others.

Brain Respiration. The essence of Dahn Hak is a guided meditation practice named “Brain Respiration,” which helps people master their energy or ki, in Korean—the same “cosmic energy” that flows throughout the universe, according to Lee. (Dahn Hak means the “study of energy.”) People can then create their desired realities, including physical health, happiness, and a peaceful earth, Lee says.

Lee teaches that people must learn to tap into the divine powers that lie in the 90 percent of their brains that he asserts goes unused. He claims he has healed people of incurable diseases, communicated with spirits, and exhibited superhuman strength.

To provide a scientific basis for Brain Respiration, Lee started research centers, including the Korea Institute of Brain Science. Dahn Hak promotional materials, including the Brain Respiration Web site (www.brainrespiration.com), claimed that the research centers were collaborating in a study on Brain Respiration with well-known schools including Weil Medical College of Cornell University and the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

A Cornell spokesman, Sean Kelliher, told the Journal that Cornell has never partnered with Brain Respiration researchers, but that a former professor did in an unofficial capacity on his own time. “This group latched on and said we’re doing research with this Ivy League college, which they’re not,” Kelliher stated. He said Cornell officials requested that all references to Cornell be removed from Dahn Hak materials.

Regarding the claim that UCI partnered in Brain Respiration research, Julie Newman, assistant to Carl Cotman, the director of UCI’s Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia, told the Journal that there was never any collaboration with Lee. She said Cotman invited Lee to present a seminar at UCI several years ago, but when Cotman heard the information, he regretted the invitation and has not invited Lee back.

Lee uses the title “Doctor,” but he does not state in his books or promotional materials where he received his degree. Steve Kim, the director of communications for the Dahn Center Association told the Journal that Lee received honorary degrees from alternative medicine schools in Southern California, Yuih University and South Baylo University.

A Blueprint for World Peace or a Multi-Million-Dollar Scam? The wrongful death complaint suggests that Dahn Hak is a scam, pointing to Lee’s ownership of several Dahn Hak–related corporations that operate under a myriad of names. Many of these corporations list the same two Arizona addresses in Mesa and Sedona, according to the complaint. It alleges that Lee has secretly linked for-profit and non-profit corporations to hide Dahn Hak’s size and to shield its financial earnings.

The monthly fee for Dahn Hak classes is about $100, depending on the location. Lectures, workshops, and retreats can cost thousands of dollars, according to former members. Dahn Hak has a line of products as well, including a $90 “Power Brain”—a small, vibrating, brain-shaped device that is supposed to help members visualize a healthy brain. Lee also manufactured and sold a health supplement without a license, for which he was arrested and sentenced to time in prison in 1993, according to an August7,2005, article in the (White Plains, New York) Journal News.

In the letter sent to the Journal, Chun denied allegations that Dahn Hak is a high-priced, dangerous cult: “Nothing could be further from the truth. Dahn training is a combination of physical exercise, stretching, visualization, and meditation and is, in fact, the complete antithesis of a cult or any kind of authoritarianism.” He said the monthly fees are in line with many health clubs.

Chun also stated that Dahn Hak founder Lee has no ownership or control over the Dahn centers. He said the U.S. centers are operated by two corporations, Mago Earth Inc. and Bell Rock Development Co.

Friends in High Places. Lee was among about 50 spiritual leaders, chosen from about 1,000, to offer a prayer at the Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders, held at the United Nations headquarters on August 28–31, 2000. During the prayer, he requested the creation of a “Spiritual United Nations”—an alliance of nations that share his vision.

Lee also cohosted a conference in Seoul, South Korea, on June 15, 2001, called the New Millennium World Peace Humanity Conference. The keynote speaker was former U.S. vice president Al Gore. A document outlining Lee’s vision, titled the “Declaration of Humanity,” was signed by attendees, including Maurice Strong (senior advisor to the secretary general of the United Nations) and Seymour Topping (administrator of the Pulitzer prizes and a former managing editor of the New York Times).

In 2002, Lee founded the International Graduate University for Peace, in Mok-chun, South Korea, which offers advanced degrees in Dahn Hak and Brain Respiration. Faculty members include Oscar Arias Sanchez (1987 Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Costa Rica) and guest speakers include Kim Dong Gil (former member of South Korea’s National Assembly) and Neale Donald Walsch (author of the New York Times best-selling book series titled Conversations With God). Lee hopes the university’s graduates will advance his movement.

— Holly Pivec

At 8971 Orangewood Avenue in Garden Grove, California, stands a half-built temple with an eclectic design—a blend of Buddhist pagoda, Catholic cathedral, and Muslim mosque. Neighbors are curious about the temple, according to James Nguyen, a follower of a Vietnamese religion named CaoDai (pronounced “Cow Die”) who is living at the construction site. Nguyen told the Journal he has even seen people bowing toward the temple—“Hispanic people,” he added, with apparent pride at the cross-cultural interest. “We really welcome people here.”

The temple’s design reflects a syncretistic religion, whose pantheon includes Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, William Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, and Joan of Arc. Little known among native Westerners, CaoDai is experiencing a resurgence in its home country and among Vietnamese immigrants, such as Nguyen, worldwide. This is due to growing acceptance of the religion by the Vietnamese government and increased missionary activity.

The $2 million temple—a miniature of the main temple in Tay Ninh, Vietnam—is the first official CaoDai temple to be built in the Americas, according to Dr. Janet Hoskins, an anthropology professor at the University of Southern California, who is writing a book on CaoDai. Local CaoDai leaders expect over500 people to worship there, replacing many of their makeshift “temples” in detached garages and restaurants.

Fusion of Faiths. CaoDai (one word) is named after its god, Cao Dai (two words), which means, “roofless tower, abode on high where God reigns.” Founded in 1926, CaoDai claims to be a universal religion, and it combines the influential beliefs in Vietnam of that time, including Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Its main principle is that all religions share the same divine origin and message: love and justice. CaoDaists seek to unite all faiths in order to end religious strife and bring world peace. They compare their faith to those of Baha’i, Unitarian Universalism, and New Age groups.

CaoDai was started by Vietnamese civil officials when their country was under French rule. Adherents believe its teachings and temple design were given by spirits during séances, such as the spirit of French novelist Victor Hugo, who is said to guide CaoDai’s missionary activity.

The CaoDai symbol—a large eye encompassed by rays of light—is called the “Divine Eye” or “Left Eye of God,” signifying universal and individual consciousness. The religion’s ecclesiastical hierarchy resembles that of the Roman Catholic Church, including a pope, cardinals, bishops, and priests, and its main temple is called the “Holy See” (like the Vatican).

Converts take part in a “Gateway Ceremony,” which includes vowing that they will never change their new beliefs or else they “shall be exterminated by Heaven and Earth.” They do not reject their original religions, however, but incorporate their new faith into them, becoming, for example, “Hindi-CaoDai,” “Buddhist-CaoDai,” or “Christian-CaoDai,” according to Hum Dac Bui, a CaoDai scholar from Redlands, California, and author of CaoDai: Faith of Unity.

Most CaoDaists observe a vegetarian diet for 10 days a month, worship at a home altar at least once a day, and attend temple ceremonies twice a month, where they bow before the Divine Eye, chant, and meditate, according to CaoDai: Faith of Unity. The most dedicated CaoDaists observe a full-time vegetarian diet, live at a temple, take a vow of chastity, and meditate five hours a day, and some sleep in a sitting position, Hoskins told the Journal. If a CaoDaist dies with his or her left eye open, then he or she is believed to have reached transcendence. “Very few practice at this level of intensity unless they’re trying to achieve sainthood,” Hoskins said.

Spiritism. Most communication with spirits occurs through a traditional Chinese “divining basket,” an instrument that has been compared to a Ouija board. CaoDai teachings can only come through official séances, which have been forbidden by the Vietnamese government since 1975. Many CaoDaists, according to Hoskins, still hold unofficial séances for individual spiritual enlightenment, however. CaoDai disciples believe that, at some time in their lives, they will be able to communicate with the “Superior Spirits,” Bui told the Journal.

“If I’m really lucky, I’ll see [a spirit] in my life,” said Nguyen, who told the Journal that he was a Buddhist, but married a CaoDaist and converted in 1998.

Among the messages given by spirits is a prophecy that “the United States will be the fort where CaoDai will prosper,” according to CaoDai: Faith of Unity. CaoDaists believe the political upheaval in Vietnam has served a positive purpose of spreading the CaoDai message worldwide through Vietnamese refugees, such as those who settled in the United States.

Resurgence. CaoDai became a mass movement in Vietnam during the 1940s and 1950s, with as many as two to three million followers, according to Hoskins. Starting in 1975, however, the Communists sent CaoDaists to “reeducation camps,” believing they were trying to overthrow the government. A CaoDai militia existed from 1946 to 1954, but most CaoDaists distance themselves from political movements today, Hoskins said.

In 1995, however, the Vietnamese government began to grant CaoDaists more freedom, according to Hoskins. There are about 1,300 temples in Vietnam today (up from about 12 a decade ago), and there are between four and five million CaoDaists, she said. They take part in festivals and parades (though they are required to get permission first), and they hold temple services four times a day. The Tay Ninh (a province in Vietnam) temple, with its vast array of bright colors and designs, is a popular tourist site.

Hoskins estimates that, in the United States, there are 50,000 CaoDaists, about half of whom live in California. She said many of the refugees in the United States were sponsored by Christian churches. In gratitude, some of them converted to Christianity, but now some of them are being drawn to CaoDai to reaffirm their Vietnamese identity or reconnect with their family faith, she added.

Some immigrants who have been practicing CaoDai at home only recently have discovered CaoDai temples in the United States. This is due to increased advertising by local temples in newspapers and on Vietnamese television, Hoskins said.

CaoDaists like Bui are seeking to spread their faith among Westerners also. Bui has translated CaoDai scriptures into English, including The Religious Constitution of CaoDaism, and he runs a Web site in English (www.caodai.org). He also is overseeing the construction of another larger temple in Riverside, California. The $5 million project has been halted, however, due to lack of funds, which Bui continues to solicit from the CaoDai community. Bui is encouraged, however, by the recent ordination of the first non-Vietnamese CaoDai minister, Linda Blakeney Holverstott, an African American, who plans to lead a CaoDai congregation in New York City.

— Holly Pivec