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I wrote a Grief Room diary about grief issues facing former cult members November 10.
I left part out. My own story. My own cultic relationship with Transcendental Meditation.
Read on.
Today, I am a therapist specializing in recovery from toxic groups, abusive churches, and cults. But I spent 23 years in my own cultic relationship with the Transcendental Meditation Organization.
I was 18, a freshman in college when I attended my first introductory lecture on TM. I thought from the poster that the leader, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, would be there. Instead, there was just "Mark," a 20-something, clean-shaven guy in a blue, three-piece suit and red tie.
He cut quite a discordant figure back in 1971, among the sea of blue jeans, beards, and long hair.
Mark promised me better memory, increased intelligence, and better grades for a one-time fee of $25. He stated, in answer to an audience question, that TM would lead to enlightenment in 5 to 7 years. He mentioned then-current scientific research that he said proved his claims.
Sounded like a deal. I signed up.
Within 5 years, I was living on a TM compound, working for $25 a month on the TM Movement's "Age of Enlightenment Press." Eating exclusively a low-protein, zucchini-and-rice diet. Working up to 36 hours in a shift. Not allowed to read the news. Having to ask permission to leave the compound. Faced with being required to sign a life-time contract working for the TM Organization or face expulsion from the compound.
Yeah, I know. I should have walked out. You probably wonder why I stayed for 18 more years.
How do I define a "cult"? To be honest, as a therapist, I do not concern myself overly much with defining which groups are cultic and which are not. I focus on "cultic relationships." I define a cultic relationship as a relationship between any group and an individual in which the individual experiences such high-intensity demands on time and resources that he or she experiences dysfunction in one or more core life areas: relationships, career, finances, community, physical or emotional well-being, spirituality.
There is no question I had a cultic relationship with TM.
Is it a cult? That's something for each individual to decide.
One of the first exercises I ask my clients to do is a list of losses from their group: things they lost in the group, things they lost after leaving the group, and "opportunity costs" — opportunities that they missed because of group involvement.
Somehow despite my 14 years of cult recovery activism, I've never completed the exercise for myself.
There's no time like the present. So here I go:
I gave TM 23 years of my life. During the 15 years or so of my deepest involvement as a TM Teacher ("Governor"), I saw my family fewer than 5 times. We were encouraged to believe that our families were "too stressed" and would "drain our energy" -- bring our consciousness down if they shared the same space with us. God forbid they should touch us! They would slow our spiritual evolution.
I missed all the important family functions, Holidays, the birth of my sister's first son. My father and I never reconciled over significant childhood wounds. He died while I was in the cult.
I gave up well over $100,000 in money paid for advanced meditation courses, Indian medicines, lucky gems, and more guaranteed means to bring Enlightenment.
I gave up my self respect. The Maharishi pressured us to tell outsiders that we were able to literally levitate. He said back in 1978 that we were so close to "hovering" that it would only be a matter of months until it happened. "Be bold!" in our claims, he importuned us in frequent conference calls. Thirty years later and no one has ever levitated, much less hovered.
And my family and friends went from polite curiosity, to disbelief, to sarcastic humor whenever I brought levitating up.
Harder yet were the lies I was encouraged to tell potential meditators. We told them TM was not a religion, even though we paid to have propitious rituals performed on our behalf to Shiva, Ganesh, Lakshmi, and other Hindu gods. We told them our initiation ceremony was not religious even though we made offerings to Shiva and Shakti and worshipped the guru as Shiva. In fact, one TM leader, Charlie Lutes, told us that we were actually offering the soul of the initiate to Shiva.
I thought I was serving a higher good by not "confusing" new initiates with this knowledge.
By the time I left the TM Organization in 1995, I had given up my mind. Once a National Merit Scholar, I had difficulty remembering names and faces -- even of family members. I had frequent lapses of consciousness -- known as "dissociation" -- lasting from minutes to hours, even in the midst of conversations. I picked up an unusual stutter because I so frequently forgot what I was saying as I said it that I was always anxious speaking.
TM members said I was experiencing "bliss." But I knew I had become a total space cadet.
I developed uncontrolled full body spasms. Quietly, TMers referred to these as "kriyas" -- actions caused by a mystical, spiritual force known as "Kundalini." But they just made it dangerous for me to drive -- and embarrassing for me to be in public.
I had delusional beliefs. I can remember telling my mother in all seriousness that I was an incarnation of Vishnu.
There's more. But space is limited. There was no physical abuse. But my mind, of which I had once been so proud, was thoroughly scrambled.
In leaving the Movement, I lost even more. I lost my friends. They shunned me once they knew I had left. I felt shame and guilt in front of my family. I had talked them into learning TM -- even though I knew I was lying to them about the benefits and the religious aspects of TM.
I believed I lost my chance at enlightenment. Perhaps my connection to God. Ultimately, I became so suspicious of spiritual groups and teachings, I would get the heebie-jeebies just going to church with my wife.
I was told I might be cursed to re-incarnate in hell for thousands of life times.
I lost God.
I lost the intensity and sense of purpose I had while in the TM Movement. Working on staff or as a teacher, nearly every waking moment was spent in the pursuit of world peace through Transcendental Meditation. I lost the sense of belonging to a community.
I lost my world.
And I felt I lost my future. My self-esteem was destroyed. I was haunted with doubts that there was nothing wrong with the TM techniques or the Movement, the problem was that there was something wrong with me. After all, I had watched dozens of people drummed out of the Movement when they expressed doubts. And I had joined in ganging up on them, saying they were impure, "stressed," "unstressing," mentally deranged, damaged -- probably too damaged even when they joined the Movement.
I had nightmares from which I might wake screaming several times a week. I shook when in public. I wore full-length coats all the time: I didn't want anyone to see me.
What opportunities did I miss?
I gave up my intended career. I entered college planning on becoming a doctor. But "relative" knowledge was frowned on. All that really mattered was being a knower of the "Absolute." I managed to scrape up an English degree despite volunteering and living at the local TM center. I took the easiest courses I could find so I wouldn't detract from my true career: evolving my consciousness. (Spending money on more courses to attain enlightenment.)
In the workforce, I jumped from job to job -- leaving every time the Maharishi announced a new months-long course guaranteed to save the world from World War III.
But when I got out of TM at 42, there was no going back to pick up an MD.
I didn't marry until 39, when I was already in the process of leaving the Movement. I had made a private vow of celibacy when the Movement asked it of me. It was supposed to lead to higher states of enlightenment.
I gave up my first marriage. No wife should have to go through the messy recovery my first few years after leaving TM. Crippling depression in which I didn't get out of bed for days. Fistfuls of prescribed psychoactive medications. And more meds to counter their side-effects.
I thought I was going crazy. I probably was.
I gave up having children.
Today, after a lot of conscious, emotional work, I have a happy, comfortable, productive, and fulfilling life. I have a family that is a great refuge for me. I live on a farm with 3 chocolate labs, two cats, and two nasty-tempered cockatiels.
I have a career that I am passionate about.
I notice as I read this diary over that I am not mentioning my grief. The main purpose of the Grief Room. I wish I could describe the disconnect I still experience from my emotions. It's so much easier for me to cry or become angry about my clients' experiences.
It's my hope that by reading the unadorned facts, readers can imagine the anger, guilt, shame, and grief I should be feeling.
I'd never allow a client to ask someone else do the emotional work for them. Yet here I am asking that very thing of you.
Forgive me.
There is a good chance that some commenters will express their own positive experiences with TM below. I can readily believe that many, if not most, TMers enjoy their practice. I think meditation is one of nature's miracles.
I've never tried to convince anyone that their feelings and experiences are wrong or don't matter. It's my hope that someday TM practitioners who criticize me for speaking out will be willing to accept that for many people the TM experience is not good.
It could be, if history is any predictor, that some TMers will post that there are always a few disgruntled members of any group. They may even imply or state that I am damaged or downright crazy -- just as I used to do when someone left the TM Movement.
I can only say that I've worked with thousands of former TM members that tell similar stories of the symptoms and disappointments they experienced. If any medication had the kinds of side-effects that former TMers report, it would be yanked from the shelves immediately.
The TM Movement, like many similar toxic groups, is structured like an onion. Most people paid their money, got their mantra, and have only good, incense-drenched memories of their brush with TM. Others took advanced courses. Others went on to become teachers. Some went on staff full-time for the movement. And a very few others went on to enter the inner circle of the Maharishi himself.
At every level, there were new secrets to be held, new lies to be told, and the chance for ever greater damage. The fact that most people had no bad side-effects has little to do with the problems that people at deeper levels experienced. The severity of symptoms seems to vary by intensity of involvement, its duration, and whatever personal vulnerabilities a person had before entering TM.
This diary is rather longer than I intended. I think I will end here. I hoped for more of a cleansing in posting this. But I don't really feel anything.
I will be active in the comments this evening. I'll try to answer any questions people might have. It's possible in reading your questions and responses, I may awaken my deadened feelings.
There's always hope! Change is possible at any moment.
Thanks to Dem in the Heart of Texas for making this possible. And thank you for reading this long diary.
John M. Knapp, LMSW
Knapp Family Counseling
Here's a link to all previous Grieving Room diaries