The authorship of these files on cults has his or her own motivations for providing them a

    [Fredric Rice, The Skeptic Tank:  The authorship of these files on
    cults has his or her own motivations for providing them and will
    contain his or her own bias.  What I find typical is that
    individuals and organizations which report on cults are usually
    themselves a competition cult yet like to think of themselves as
    "a religion, not a cult."  In actual fact, _ALL_ religions are
    cults by the primary, secondary, and terciary usage definition of
    the term.  Some of the information you find here is inaccurate and
    contains urban legend -- take what you find with a grain of salt.
    If you wish to acquire a copy of the Law Enforcement Guide on
    Occult Crime, contact myself at frice@stbbs.com or at The Skeptic
    Tank (818) 335-9601 and I'll forward the address and information
    you need.]

Transcedental Meditation

        [Fredric Rice: Since "TM" makes many _testable_ claims,
        The Skeptic Tank could be searched for papers and
        text files on this cult as part of the examination of
        claims of the paranormal.]

In February of this year, the Ministry of Defence sold a 1,000-acre
former American air base to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of
Transcendental Meditation. The site in Suffolk is to be turned
into a Natural Law University. In Canada in 1993, a corporation 
called Maharishi Land Veda announced a long-term strategy which
includes the building of an $879 million amusement park near
Niagara Falls and a dozen 'universities', one in each province.
(The move prompted an article in The Globe and Mail asking: 'What
isTM, a religion or an off-shore multinational, selling breathing
techniques andpsycho-twaddle?')

In Mozambique the new President, Joaquim Chissano, is a follower of
TM and apparently credits the Maharishi with ending the country's
16-year civil war. There are plans, reported in the New York Times,
for a Utopian TM project involving 49 million acres, 25 per cent of
the country's land space. The President's son (and children of
other Cabinet ministers) are currently studying on scholarships
at the Maharishi University at Fairfield, Iowa. There is also a
major TM recruiting drive in eastern Europe.

It's all along way from the founding of TM by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
in 1958, after he had spent 13 years in the Himalayas as a guru's
secretary. But, taken up briefly by the Beatles, Maharishi has never
looked back. Followers of TM believe that collective meditation can
solve the world's problems; it was claimed by TM leaders that a
recent convention of theirs in Washington led to a drop in the
local crime rate. One learns how to achieve this power through
attending seven expensive courses. After that you can take the
advanced 'Sidhi Programme' which teaches you the art of Yogic
Flying. TM claims that its leaders have 50 per cent less caner, 80
per cent less heart disease and higher IQs than other people and
that the practice of Maharishi Ayur Veda Medicine provides potential
cures for Aids and cancer.

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