Transcendental Meditation & The EXPLODING Crime Rate

As usual, spiritual systems such as Transcendental Meditation (TM) make grandiose claims while pretending to represent science. One such claim is called “The Maharishi Effect“.

Check out the new book exposing the invasion  of the West by Eastern religions: Enthralled: The Guru Cult of Tibetan Buddhism.

To simplify, TM claims to reduce crime by meditating in groups. Their organization has made an impressive effort in submitting research to scientific journals conducted by their . . . yep, you guest it, own members. You can read all the data online claiming to prove that their thoughts float out from their brains, through the walls of the room they are meditating in, and collectively cause bad people to stop doing bad things (I know, it almost makes crazy people twitch).

So lets take a look at the crime rates of the very cities that TM centers are located in.

EXHIBIT #1

Transcendental Meditation Center: Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

Crime In Graphs: Why 2015 Was A Very Grim Year for Mumbai

The ‘Crime in India†statistics for the year 2015 by the National Crime Record Bureau are out, and Mumbaiâ€s performance can be termed at disappointing, at best and panic-inducing, at worst.

The city witnessed 42,940 cases of cognizable crimes in 2015, increasing from 40,361 cases in 2014.

Cyber crime rose by 50.1 percent, with most cases related to credit card fraud, which increased by 71 percent in 2015.

It isnâ€t much of a stretch to notice the 14 percent increase in the cases booked against homosexuals under Section 377 in Maharashtra in the same year the BJP, with its contradictory idea of a sanskaari, Hindu, modern, liberal India, was coming into its own, both in the state and the centre. [source]

EXHIBIT #2

Maharishi Peace Palace (TM) Meditation Center: Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

Crime central: The heart of Noida is always under siege

Residential colonies under Circle II, which covers the police stations in sectors 24 and 58, remain perennially in fear of such unwarranted incidents. Circle II crime data reveals a steep rise in abduction, rape and vehicle thefts.

Between January and June this year, it has gone up to five. While last year there were 22 abductions reported, this year, the first six months have already seen 23. There were 410 vehicle thefts in 2013, against 402 till June this year. [source]

EXHIBIT #3

Maharishi Transcendental Meditation Centre: Delhi, India

Crime Capital: Why Delhi Is by Far Indiaâ€s Most Dangerous City

The National Crime Records Bureau released its statistics for 2015 on Tuesday and Delhi left everyone else in the dust.

Around 25% of the nearly 670,000 crimes recorded in Indiaâ€s 53 largest cities were committed in Delhi last year, even though the megacity only accounts for around 10% of their combined populations. [source]

EXHIBIT #4

Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation Center: Shillong, Meghalaya, India

Rape highest reported crime in matrilineal Meghalaya

Rape is the highest reported crime in Meghalaya where matrilineal system exists among the dominant tribes and victims of over 65 per cent of those cases were minors.

The total number of rape cases registered between April 2012 and March 31, 2013 was 179, out of which 118 cases (over 65 per cent) involved victims below the age of 18.

91 cases of molestation were reported in the state during April 2012-March 2013 period. There were also other crimes against women like trafficking, cruelty by husband and dowry.

Opposition legislator Ardent Basaiawmoit, Warjri admitted that crimes against women have become a “matter of serious concern” and the state government has taken steps to combat the evil. [source]

Excuse me, but does anyone see the OPPOSITE occurring in the cities where TM is headquartered?

Add to these claims, TM meditators are suppose to be able to levitate due to their acquired powers of wall gazing. Unfortunately for them, hopping in a lotus position does not equal floating in mid air.

And to make the matter worse:

John Hagelin of the Maharishi University, described how in 1993, violent crime in Washington D.C. was reduced over a two month period, by 4000 people practicing transcendental meditation (TM).

There were many problems with this experiment. One was that the murder rate rose during the period in question. Another was that Hagelinâ€s report stated violent crime had been reduced by 18% (in the film he says 25%), but reduced compared with what? How did he know what the crime rate would have been without the TM? It was discovered later that all the members of the “independent scientific review board” that scrutinized the project were followers of the Maharishi. The study was pseudoscience: no double blinding, the reviewers were not independent, and the experiment has never been independently replicated. [source]

To make matters even more worse:

TMers claimed that if 1% of a city’ s population meditate regularly the crime rate would go down. In Fairfield, Iowa, 13% of the population meditates, yet crime has not gone down.

TMers claimed they influenced the weather at MIU while concrete was poured for buildings (the “Domes”) in which hundreds could meditate. A dispassionate study showed that the concrete contractor checked the National Weather Forecast each time before deciding to make a delivery the next day and that the meditators sought warm weather only later in the day, after the forecast on which the contractor relied was already made. [source]

And yes . . . even worse:

Here’s an opinion from Dr. Heinz Pagels, who was Executive Director of the New York Academy of Sciences when he wrote this:

“My summary opinion, as a theoretical physicist specializing in the area of quantum field theory, is that the views expressed in the literature issued by the Maharishi International University, and appearing in the “World Government News” and other publications associated with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that purport to find a connection between the recent ideas of theoretical physics–unified field theory, the vacuum state and collective phenomena–and states of consciousness attained by transcendental meditation are false and profoundly misleading. No qualified physicist that I know would claim to find such a connection without knowingly committing fraud.” [emphasis mine]

“Individuals not trained professionally in modern physics could easily come to believe, on the basis of the presentations in the Maharishi literature, that a large number of qualified scientists agree with the purported connection between modern physics and meditation methods. Nothing could be further from the truth.” “What was especially interesting to me, in reviewing this literature, is the claim put forth by the Maharishi and his followers, that transcendental meditation and ‘The Science of Creative Intelligence’ qualify as a science. Although the word ‘science’ is much abused, it continues to imply an adherent to logic, the clear presentation of assumptions and deductions, and the experimental method. Most importantly, any science necessarily contains a recipe for its own falsification. None of these central features of the Western concept of science are present in ‘The Science of Creative Intelligence.’ This is not science.” [source]

TMers are the absolute masters of spin-doctoring.

As stated by Professor Barry Markovsky (at the time a Professor of Sociology at the University of Iowa, now with the University of South Carolina in his article: “Problems with TM Research” (emphasis mine):

“The thing is, much of the TM research is very non-controversial, and the much smaller volume of potentially controversial stuff that has been published is tucked away in 3rd-rate journals (or worse). So the TM organization can point to the publications and say “Look, we’re published in prestigious, main-stream scientific journals!” Most scientists are not interested in trying to counter such hype in the court of public opinion, and most are not interested in following up the breathless claims of TM research because–quite contrary to the way the TM propaganda machine portrays things– the more controversial TM research is widely ignored (even among consciousness researchers who you would expect to be very sympathetic), and the bulk of the rest is pretty mundane from the perspective of journal readers.” [source]

In closing . . .

There is no argument over whether or not inner focusing, healing, and self awareness (awakening, realization) is helpful to humans. Becoming conscious of frozen parts of our past in the form of trauma is essential to living effortlessly in real-time. Relaxation, massage, a good nights sleep, a sharp mind (education) and open heart all play a part in being a happy human primate. But when religious groups make claims that fly in  the face of established science (and common sense for that matter) based on the belief in the soul, the afterlife and a spiritual realm, you can bet its just repackaged dualism raising its ugly head with a bow on top.

Thanks for the read,

Zzenn

The post Transcendental Meditation & The EXPLODING Crime Rate appeared first on unSpirituality.