Newsgroups: alt.meditation.transcendental Path: digex.net!news.intercon.com!udel!wupost!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!col.hp.com!fc.hp.com!antonsen From: antonsen@cnd.hp.com (Tim Antonsen) Subject: Natural Law Party (& stuff) Summary: A discussion of TM's Natural Law Party. Sender: news@fc.hp.com (news daemon) Message-ID: Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 00:12:21 GMT Nntp-Posting-Host: nsmdserv.cnd.hp.com Organization: Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Site X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1.4] Keywords: Natural Law Party, TM, Hagelin Lines: 400 Friends -- I've attached an edited [for brevity] selection of posts from a TM-related thread in another newsgroup. I'd have just cross-posted, but I can't from my site. I invite comments. Warning: This is pretty lengthy, but fun anyway. The people involved have not been posting in a.m.t, so I've trimmed out identifying information, and just left the names floating without addresses. My comments are [bracketed] and edits are usually marked [ ... ] (though I probably sliced out some lines and forgot to mark the deletion. ====================================================== Subject: Natural Law Party From: Dan Mckinnon [ A Canadian from, I think, Ontario. ] Just heard a plop at my apartment door. Upon investigating, found a 44 page! tabloid newsprint (11" X 15") flyer from the Natural Law Party, with their platform, etc. The bio on Doug Henning (candidate in my riding of Rosedale) constantly refers to him as "Dr.". Upon reading, I find that "Dr. Henning recieved his doctoral degree in the Science of Creative Intelligence from Maharishi European Research University, Switzerland." I will be looking at it later, if I can, - it tends to make one's eyes glaze over. Henning talks of "my dear Canadians and my dear Canada". "Our national life will be in harmony with Natural Law, and every Canadian will enjoy peace, happiness, and prosperity" Later on - "The Natural Law Party is the only party that has proven scientifically its ability to fulfil this supreme aspiration and create a government that functions in accord with Natural Law, which is the will of God." [ TM is religious? ] The thing is full of small print, and here is a part of what I found when I looked up "The constitution of the universe" (as revealed by modern science and acient vedic science): [ hold onto yer hats! --TA ] "As with the structure of the Ved, the Lagrangian of the superstring can be seen in various stages of unfoldment. The most compact presentation of the string dynamics is provided by the ten-dimensional formulation of the heterotic string (L^10). In addition to the purely bosonic modes associated with the abstract space-time arena in which the string moves, the mathematics reveals precisely eight fundamental fermionic degrees of freedom intrinsic to the string itself - the unique solution allowed by mathematical and quantum-mechanical consistency of the theory. These eight fundamental modes of the string correspond, in Vedic terminology, to the eight Prakritis - the fundamental qualities of the unified field of consciousness. As in the structure of the Ved, these eight fundamental nodes admit three interpretations corresponding to Rishi (Observer quality), Devatat(dynamism quality), and Cchandas(observed quality), consistent with the quantum-mechanical structure of the theory: (1) Each of the fields ( capital Psi with superscript of i=1...8) above defines a particular perspective in abstract Hilbert space(Rishi), i.e. their eigenvectors form a basis in Hilbert space which can be used to expand and interpret any other state. (2) Each of the fields(Psi^i=1...8) is an operator (Devata) which creates and destroys specific states in Hilbert space (3) each of the symbols (Psi ^i=1...8) also denotes a particular vibrational mode or state (Cchandas) in Hilbert space, created or destroyed by its corresponding operator. With these three interpretations afforded by the qauantum principle, one obtains the identical 3 X * = 24-fold structure corresponding to the first richa (verse) of the Rik Ved." [ Whew! See Oct. 22 post by Matt Austern (his second followup) for an interesting insight into the above ... ] Oh, here's something at the bottom of page 8: MAXIMUM COHERENCE IN BRAIN FUNCTIONING DURING YOGIC FLYING Has a picture of three fliers in mid hop, chart of heart rate & EEG showing that there is a peak at the moment of "lift", and some more bafflegab underneath such as "Yogic flying demonstrates perfect mind-body coordination and is correlated with maximum EEG coherence, indicating maximum orderliness and integration of brain functioning." Now, get this, in next sentence : " Even in the first stage of Yogic flying, when the body lifts in a series of short hops, this practice produces bubbling bliss for the individual and generates choherence, positivity, and harmony for the environment." On opposite page is a photo of a crowd with White House in far background, captioned "National Demonstration Project for A Group for A GOvernment - when 4,000 Yogic flyers gathered in Washington, D.C. during June-July 1993, violent crime decreased by 25 percent below predicted levels and U.S. governmental achievements improved." In section under health care are charts showing reduction of cholesterol, optimization of brain function, lower blood pressure, increased intelligence, and improved health through Maharishi Ayur-Ved. Under defence: INVINCIBILITY FOR CANADA There is a picture of a bar magnet and field lines under MEISSNER EFFECT, and comparison of ordinary conductor & superconductor. Then a drawing of Canada protected by the "Maharishi Effect Creating an invisible armour for the nation" Well, there's more about the many areas of government, & a lot more about "physics", too. I'd say there is text equivalent to over a 100 page paperback in here. [ ... ] dan.mckinnon ====================================================== From: Matt Austern Subject: Re: Natural Law Party Date: 21 Oct 1993 00:09:15 GMT [ ... ] The funniest thing about the Natural Law Party, you see, is that its latest Presidential candidate, John Hagelin, is a completely respectable particle physicist. His papers on string theory may well be wrong (that's a danger that every scientist faces when writing about a speculative subject), but they are by no means nonsense. Of course, the attempts to link string theory to Transcendental Meditation are quite another matter... One of my professors here has a hysterical poster put out by the Maharishi: on one side is the full Lagrangian for N=8 supergravity written out [by Dr. Hagelin, of course] in full, gory detail, and on the other side was a term-by-term explanation of its spiritual significance. This particular kinetic energy term represents universal bliss, this other interaction term represents immortality of the soul, and so on. [ ... from a followup post ... ] And, unlike most particle theorists (and most Presidential candidates), he says that he can levitate. Ask yourself that, the next time you read some calculation of a two-loop Feynman diagram: is the author able to levitate? If not, why should you believe the results? -- Matthew Austern Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. ====================================================== From: F.M. Steinkamp Subject: Re: Natural Law Party Date: 21 Oct 1993 17:16:30 +0100 In the last General Election in the UK the Natural Law Party did quite a big campaign (I don't think many people - if any - had heard of them before). It sounds as if the stuff we had through our letterboxes was pretty much the same as yours. There was also a Party Political Broadcast on the TV in which you saw them doing the Yogic flying and due to the novelty value it even got a slot on the news. A friend of mine said she found their tactics quite frightening - to her it seemed that a lot of money had suddenly appeared from nowhere and the sudden intrusion into her home of their literature and their appearance on TV when she'd never heard of them before she found quite daunting. I'm not entirely sure whether it was the tactics she found frightening (as she claimed) or the ideas (or both). I assume these tactics must have had some success in at least recruiting members for them to be (I assume) repeating them in the USA - or have you heard of them before? Any comments, anybody? Fiona. ====================================================== From: Tim Antonsen Subject: Re: Natural Law Party Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 18:26:13 GMT Ethan T. Vishniac (ethan@emx.cc.utexas.edu) wrote: : I think the Natural Law Party is an American invention. That is, : the Mahareshi lives here and Mahareshi Internation University is located : somewhere in the American Midwest. They ran a candidate in the last Maharishi Mahesh Yogi lives in Switzerland, last I heard. His main US facility is Maharishi International University, at Fairfield, IA. [ Am I right about his current whereabouts? --TA ] : I am intrigued by the notion that they represent an attempt to export : America's most flourishing industry, organized insanity. Actually, TM was imported. For whatever that's worth. --Tim ====================================================== Subject: Re: Natural Law Party From: Dan Mckinnon Date: Thu, 21 Oct 93 16:05:00 -0400 [ ... ] The "Langrangian of the Unified Field" takes up 25 lines of formula, then there is a double column with lines drawn from "qualities" to quotations from Vedic literature. What they may have added is the same thing but with a third column containing "Examples of Ministries of Governments", and criss-crossing lines drawn to the "qualities" and "derivation" For example, DEFENCE connects to FREEDOM, OMNIPOTENCE, INFINITE DYNAMISM, INVINCIBILITY, and I think a few others - there are so many lines, I can't easily tell where they all lead! There was a copy in every issue of the TORONTO SUN today, too! The Sun had a small article on the party, here are some excerpts: Patrick Ryan, a founder of a group for former TM members, called TM-EX says there _is_ a direct connection between TM and the party. Neil Paterson head of the party, says his Ph.D. in "The Science of Creative Thought" is from the Mahareshi Eurpopean University" which he admits isn't recognized by the Swiss government. Ryan says it is a TM-owned hotel! [ actually, MERU is just a couple of desks in the hotel. --TA ] Ryan: "Several studies, including one by the U.S. government, have shown that TM is no more effective at relieving stress than sitting quietly with your eyes closed." dan.mckinnon ====================================================== From: antonsen@cnd.hp.com (Tim Antonsen) Subject: Re: Natural Law Party Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1993 20:34:58 GMT Ethan T. Vishniac (ethan@emx.cc.utexas.edu) wrote: : Does anyone know what the relative numbers of TM : followers are in the US and other countries? I don't know who--besides the TM Movement--would keep such data; moreover, I don't know who--outside the TM Movement--would trust the Movement's data. In my experience with the Movement, I think the number they use for a country is the total number of people who have ever started to practice TM in that country. There is a probably-large (but as far as I know, undetermined) rate of attrition in people who learn TM. So I'd work with a formula something like this: (Movement-provided number) * (.1) = (Reasonable approximation) -- Tim ====================================================== From: Matt Austern Subject: Re: Natural Law Party Date: 22 Oct 1993 00:48:51 GMT [ ... ] This pamphlet, you see, was drawn up when people thought that N=8 supergravity (SUGRA) was a reasonable candidate for a unified quantum theory of all gauge forces, including gravity. Nowadays, though, it is known that there are some technical difficulties with N=8 supergravity, and the theorists who like to work on this speculative sort of level have instead turned their attention to strings. That, you see, is the danger of drawing too many connections between modern science and whatever religion you happen to adhere to. It may seem a good idea at first, when new discoveries "confirm" the beliefs you've always had, but then what do you do when still newer discoveries disprove the first ones? What sort of timeless truth is it, if it can always be overturned in the next issue of Phys. Rev. Letters? -- Matthew Austern Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. ====================================================== From: Kelly Bert Manning Subject: Re: Natural Law Party Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 06:03:16 GMT In a previous article, F.M. Steinkamp Philosophy says: > Party Political Broadcast on the TV in which you saw them doing > the Yogic flying and due to the novelty value it even got a slot > on the news. They've also got shots of their small corps of matress hoppers in the new here in Canada, but they have much bigger plans to pay TMers with tax money as "senior Civil Servants" at $70K to $80K/year to devote all of their time and energy to "yogic flying". They want to spend over half a billion of tax money to get a corps of 7,000 mattress humpers off the ground, so to speak. Apparently this number was derived by taking the square root of 1% of the worlds population > A friend of mine said she found their tactics quite frightening - to > her it seemed that a lot of money had suddenly appeared from nowhere > and the sudden intrusion into her home of their literature and their > appearance on TV when she'd never heard of them before she found quite > daunting. I'm not entirely sure whether it was the tactics she found > frightening (as she claimed) or the ideas (or both). I'm more frightened by their policies. They have big plans to reduce the deficit by slashing spending on health, since "it is scientifically" that meditation can cut disease by 50%, and keeping dangerous criminals in jail, since meditation will turn them around into "creative" and productive members of society. Sounds like they plan to make TM mandatory in prisons and the health care system if they ever got in. ====================================================== From: Robert Broughton Subject: Re: Natural Law Party Date: 25 Oct 93 03:50:42 GMT > Kelly Bert Manning writes: > > I'm more frightened by their policies. They have big plans to reduce the > deficit by slashing spending on health, since "it is scientifically" > that meditation can cut disease by 50%, and keeping dangerous criminals > in jail, since meditation will turn them around into "creative" and > productive members of society. Sounds like they plan to make TM mandatory > in prisons and the health care system if they ever got in. Their solution to poverty is to teach poor people TM. For this, I nominate them for this year's Marie Antonette Award. :-( Robert Broughton "We calm and reassure. We embrace people with the message that we're all in it together. That our leaders are infallible and that there is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong." - Miles Drentell, _thirtysomething_ ====================================================== From: Grant Edwards Subject: Re: Natural Law Party Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 17:59:17 GMT Ethan T. Vishniac (ethan@emx.cc.utexas.edu) wrote: : I think the Natural Law Party is an American invention. That is, : the Mahareshi lives here and Mahareshi Internation University is : located somewhere in the American Midwest. MIU is in Fairfield, Iowa. We Iowans are _real_ proud of it (yea, right). There was a private college there that was closing, and they bought the place and opened MIU. Last I heard, they aren't well liked by the locals. Dislike between "townies" and campus types isn't unusual, but the with MIU it sounds much worse. I've always wondered if MIU is actually accreditted in any fields. I'll have to look into that. -- Grant Edwards ====================================================== From: Tim Antonsen Subject: Re: Natural Law Party Date: Mon, 25 Oct 1993 19:44:00 GMT Grant Edwards (grante@hydro.rosemount.com) wrote: : MIU is in Fairfield, Iowa. We Iowans are _real_ proud of it (yea, : right). There was a private college there that was closing, and they : bought the place and opened MIU. Last I heard, they aren't well liked : by the locals. Dislike between "townies" and campus types isn't : unusual, but the with MIU it sounds much worse. During the summer I was at MIU (wait, don't bash me, it was over a decade back), I saw a good deal of friction between the TM crowd and the townspeople. The local newspaper regularly runs critical editorials, and the letters to the editor are frequently less than complimentary. The campus facilities are degenerating badly (as of 1990, I had a friend recently come away from there), as the money taken in by the University (and the Movement in general) is shipped by the carload back to India. Much of the low-level work (building maintenance, groundskeeping, even accounting) is done by people on their "volunteer" program. This program provides people with room and board (substandard), 40+ hrs. of work per week, mandatory meditation sessions, a token stipend, and--primarily--"credits" toward classes in TM's advanced techniques (the levitation business). : I've always wondered if MIU is actually accredited in any fields. I'll : have to look into that. Unfortunately, MIU is accredited by the regional accreditation board. My friend was aware of many problems in this area, and wrote to that board, requesting review. Their response was a less-than-encouraging "we'll give all due attention" sort of bureaucratese. Among the problems was MIU's "puffing" up their library to an acceptable size and quality by counting (including) volumes in MIU professors' personal libraries. There were other questionable practices as well. One of the cutest: MIU literature boasts that they have state of the art facilities for psychophysiological experimentation, including a SQID (sp?). They do have a SQID (an extremely sensitive, very expensive, and very rare piece of equipment that measures infinitesimally faint electrical activity in the brain), which is the reason my friend went there for graduate work. Upon arrival, my friend was informed that no one there had ever even turned it on; nobody was qualified to operate the thing. This magnificient piece of equipment had been donated by a wealthy alumnus, and left to rot. And to lend MIU an unwarranted aura of legitimacy. --Tim