Is the TM Kingdom a cult? – Part 1: Thought reform

Is the TM Kingdom a cult? – Part 1: Thought reform

Today we introduce a new part-time writer of RajaLeaks, who has extensive knowledge of the organization. Raja Mare Nostrum has taught TM, managed a meditation center, knows the administration, and worked on international projects under Maharishi’s guidance. His TM resume is impeccable, therefore his opinions carry weight – Raja Presston.

Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton in 1961 published his seminal book: “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism (A Study of “Brainwashing” in China)”, a landmark study on the psychological mechanisms a totalitarian regime uses to control a person’s mind and behaviour. This was the product of eight years of research on American military men who were held prisoners during the Korean War, as well as Chinese exiles from Communist China. This study has also been used extensively in the analyses of religious or spiritual groups and organizations.

From his study, Robert Jay Lifton came up with the “Eight Criteria for Thought Reform”:

  1. Milieu Control. The group or its leaders control information and communication both within the environment and, ultimately, within the individual, resulting in a significant degree of isolation from society at large.
  2. Mystical Manipulation. The group manipulates experiences that appear spontaneous to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement, or some exceptional talent or insight that sets the leader and/or group apart from humanity, and that allows a reinterpretation of historical events, scripture, and other experiences. Coincidences and happenstance oddities are interpreted as omens or prophecies.
  3. Demand for Purity. The group constantly exhorts members to view the world as black and white, conform to the group ideology, and strive for perfection. The induction of guilt and/or shame is a powerful control device used here.
  4. Confession. The group defines sins that members should confess either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group. There is no confidentiality; the leaders discuss and exploit members’ “sins,” “attitudes,” and “faults”.
  5. Sacred Science. The group’s doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute. Truth is not to be found outside the group. The leader, as the spokesperson for God or all humanity, is likewise above criticism.
  6. Loading the Language. The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand. This jargon consists of thought-terminating clichés, which serve to alter members’ thought processes to conform to the group’s way of thinking.
  7. Doctrine over person. Member’s personal experiences are subordinate to sacred science; members must deny or reinterpret any contrary experiences to fit the group ideology.
  8. Dispensing of existence. The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. This is usually not literal but means that those in the outside world are not saved, unenlightened, or unconscious, and must be converted to the group’s ideology. If they do not join the group or are critical of the group, then they must be rejected by the members. Thus, the outside world loses all credibility. In conjunction, should any member leave the group, he or she must be rejected.

These eight criteria can be used to define with some precision if a religious or spiritual organization, together with its leader, is a cult engaged in extreme control of its members, and consequent extensive abuse of power on its members. The intensity of the control over people and the extent of the abuse, differs in all groups, from the worst to the least harmful but still damaging to the psychological, physical, and financial health of its followers.

It’s not difficult to apply these eight criteria to the Transcendental Meditation Organisation in its decades history, and the Raja Kingdom that followed, all creations of the guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. When he died his fortune was worth an estimated three and a half billion, thousands of teachers had already left or were forcefully kicked out, and a history of abuse of power that we now know, by all the revelations that have come to light about his sex life, embraces all the spectrum of abuse.

Isn’t it time we demand that King Nader, as the leader of the Raja Kingdom, comes clean with this history of abuse, who likely knew about it, and he could also explain to the world where those three and a half billion dollars are, and how they are being managed?

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