Customer Reviews

The Maharishi Effect: A Personal Journey Through the Movement That Transformed American Spirituality

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I became involved with TM in 1974, just before starting my MBA. Like the author I paid almost nothing to learn the technique. Unlike the author, I was not interested in enlightenment. I wanted to sleep better, become calmer and get material rewards. I later went on some weekend courses. In the early days, TM attracted smart, mainstream, upscale participants. And the technique is incredibly powerful, from both a physiological and a psychological perspective. Courses were fun (and easy on the budget, too).

I still remember attending a free TM talk in New York City, led by a traditional Freudian analyst, complete with beard and beret. Standing in front of us, he said something to the effect that, "I've had three analyses. Count them - three." He held up fingers to make his point. "And I couldn't forgive my mother," he went on. "We didn't get along. When she died she left me a dollar. Since I've been meditating, I've made my peace with her."

I, too, found that many problems simply disappeared after I'd been meditating awhile. Clarity, energy and a sense of infinite possibilities...who could want more?

As Gilpin points out, Maharishi did. He began with low-cost mass marketing of the basic technique but went on to develop high-end specialty programs that targeted the more dedicated meditator. Along the way TM became a movement.

In my own case, I grew more and more frustrated as courses became more expensive and new promises were made. Group meditations degenerated into sales pitches. I couldn't help feeling cynical when Maharishi first required a sixteen-week course for the sidha program, then cut way back so more people would find access. I had lots of trouble believing in the Maharishi effect.

Gilpin tells his own story. He's become a disillusioned, bored but well-paid techncal writer, living with his girlfriend, ready to make some changes in his career and his life. He returns to the MIU campus in Parsons, Iowa, where he reconnects with old friends and discovers that so much has changed. The wornout campus might be a metaphor for the movement, a reminder that Maharishi was a good marketer who ultimately
didn't know where to go next.

But to be successful, memoir requires a classic mythic journey: the hero has to experience trauma and emrge transformed. And the hero's story has to be truly interesting and unusual.

Readers won't pick up this book to learn Gilpin's story. If they do, they'll be disappointed. The real focus is on the TM movement. The author isn't wholly to blame. Contemporary publishers demand the "creative nonfiction" style that can seem fluffy and insubstantial. As someone who meditated faithfully for almost 20 years (it's harder with a dog), I wanted to get into some meaningful issues. Since the technique is so effective, why has it remained outside the awareness of most contemporary US citizens? Some scientific discussions can be suspect (maharishi effect, force fields) but the basic TM program delivers real value. Did Maharishi make a mistake when he introduced yogic flying -- a turnoff to many who might have embraced TM?

And what happened to the students of MIU? I'd heard stories about well-dressed students who attended classes, bombarded professors with questions, and enjoyed real intellectual stimulation. Gilpin doesn't help us understand what was unique about MIU. Apart from hanging out with friends, what did he do as a student? Did he mind dressing up for classes? How have MIU graduates fared? Did they go on to good graduate schools? Live happier lives?

And isn't there some irony here? MIU's clean-cut smiling students resembled those at conservative religious colleges. Did anybody notice?

Some of Gillpin's stories made me smile. TM was not conducive to romance. I don't remember much discussion, but on one weekend course, a leader apparently was displeased with an unmarried couple sharing a room. Definitely it wasn't a movement of wild crazy parties!

Perhaps Gilpin's biggest omission is the role of the Internet in making the movement irrelevant. Gilpin mentions sites of disaffected TM-ers. But in fact you can now go online and get all the mantras and secrets. You don't even need a password. What's that done to TM's secrecy culture (which always made some of us squirm -- it was a great marketing ploy)?

But it's worth remembering that much of today's human potential movement -- from coaching to Covey -- began with Maharishi. Thousands of us brought fruit and flowers to be "initiated," i.e., learn a mantra and begin meditating. And the world would never be the same.

Gilpin has made his point. He can write extremely well. Time for a book where he can really dig in and serve up a meaty, meaningful account.

This is an excellent book for a limited group of readers. I recommend this book to all who have practiced TM, especially the old timers. I read the book in one sitting with great satisfaction.
I have been associated with TM since 1967 but find the movement intolerable. After reading this book I feel less alone as one who meditates, even loves the Maharishi for saving my life, but who cannot tolerate participation in the movement. The paradox of the man who saved my life and the organization he created and supports is bewildering. This is the best summary of that paradox I have found.

I read The Maharishi Effect on a long plane ride. Gilpin's s book provided an engaging traveling companion, telling stories about his encounter with Transcendental Meditation. His warm, witty humor, as well as the poignant descriptions of the gifts TM offered him, provided a good read. Although about TM, the book is universal in its description of a sojourner's struggle to incorporate the good of a spiritual tradition, while critiquing what is disappointing and outside one's values. He does this with more grace than most!

I also read this while on a trip involving a long plane ride. Bottom line: great book and very interesting. It's clear that the author is writing in the first person and his commentary is subjective. But I think it's this fact that makes the book compelling. For instance, the author's trip to the Vedic spa in Fairfield and his trial of an Ayurvedic diet is worthy of note. He writes that the latter, while very demanding, worked very well. He's also clearly a fan of the TM method.

The Maharishi Effect is fascinating and beautifully written. I too am from the boomer generation, and several of my friends made strong commitments to the movement, so I was always curious. It seems to me that Gilpin writes lucidly and vividly and without bias -- and the result is a multi-perspective, thoughtful, meticulously researched and very human look at this organization, highlighting its attractions and strengths as well as its very real (and sometimes very scary) weaknesses. A page turner.

This is a great read for people who were initiated in the '70's. The author captures the idealism and excitement surrounding TM at its inception (in the US). He also brings into question the strange, subsequent trajectory of the movement down to its present day. This book is a good fit for those of us who believe in TM but can't believe what in the world has happened to the movement since. You won't be able to put this book down!

I have tried them all (meditations)and still like TM the best.
Costly to learn but I have been using it for > 30 years and it still works.
This book helps to understand some of the reasons to consider it.

Visit Vedic City, Iowa for a couple of days, check out the campus and buildings of Maharishi University, engage in conversation with a few followers of "the way"--and chances are you'll come to many of the same conclusions as the author has after being a member of the movement for the greater part of the '70s. Which is not to say the writer's account is gratuitous. He employs a felicitous, breezy style for what could be a humorless subject, yet he stops short of ridiculing the movement of which he was a part. He knows the appropriate time to expose the absurd and the moment to elicit the reader's sympathy and respect for followers of the Maharishi and practitioners of Ayurveda.

In many respects, the religion is a microcosm of modern-day America, constantly exposing our own juxtaposition of the pragmatic with the utterly useless, common sense with fantasy, the scientific method with weird science, genuine contributions to quality of life with totally futile, self-delusory alternative cures, ancient wisdom with pure hokum, idealism with exploitive and opportunistic capitalism at its worst, spirituality with self-serving materialism reminiscent of the old-time evangelists and revivalists calling upon the faithful to put their hands on the radio to be healed.

Unfortunately for the Maharishis, the new millennium with its materialism and sense of self-entitlement is so distant from the idealistic ethos and heightened consciousness of the 60s and 70s that potential converts to the movement are few and far between. Enrollment is down, and the golden domes of the university are fading and in disrepair--all of which is leading to transparent rip-offs and profit-making ventures that seem to become increasingly desperate and downright silly--from "Yogic flying" to instant cures of every conceivable ailment through "vibrational therapy" administered by Ayurvedic chorus boys humming esoteric chants in the presence of anyone foolish enough to pay for the service. (The hummers are making money to the tune of thousands of dollars per hour, though you can get a lower rate by signing up for the service via the internet and your computer speakers.) The misfortune is that much of the hokum undercuts the positive, valuable aspects and potential of Ayurveda.

Although former Maharishi follower Deepak Chopra is one of the best minds and most compelling speakers on the self-help circuit today, one soon senses tension between the thriving Chopra empire and the struggling Maharishis. Apparently Chopra is viewed as a defector from the "true way" introduced by the Maharishi to the world through the Beatles in the '70s. In sum, the movement is at one level more fantastical (but presently far less successful) than the pentecostals; but at another level it's more far-sighted and thoughtful than either the fundamentalist-literalists who would stop human progress and have us march behind a God draped in an American flag or Dianeticists like Cruise and Travolta who mistake reductive science fiction for religion and profundity.

Most of the Maharishis are fine, decent, sincere and lo-fi individuals, great to be around--unless, of course, you get them going on a pet subject like "quantum mechanics" or particle-wave-field theory, the musical vibrations that constitute all consciousness and "reality" at macro and micro levels, the importance of aiming your sleeping bed in the right direction, the implications of chaos theory to the realization of a utopian world order, and of course the subject of TM and the importance if not necessity of shelling out several grand to learn how to do it.

Frankly, I find such talk preferable to the "I love Jesus more than you" mentality and rhetoric that currently pollute the landscape, distorting the meaning of Biblical literature and reducing theology to seeking favors from the Emperor Jehovah (who for some believers even approves of chauvinistic "crusades" against zealot-terrorists of a different religious persuasion). What it comes down to is this: the Maharishis don't get hung up on the "truth" thing (most religions and ideologies are convinced "theirs" is the only truth, which is why the world is in such a mess). Rather, it's about reality, nature, and simply staying on the path.

Ayurveda is probably the oldest of all religions/cosmologies, offering moreover a view of the universe as a unified field that's not in conflict with much accredited science (though astrology frequently gets mixed up with astronomy). At its core it offers a worldview stressing a positive, constructive and futuristic vision based on the wisdom of the past (without asking you to give over your mind and soul to some latter-day saint like Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard--even if at times the venerated Maharishi himself comes a bit too close for comfort (perhaps the reason Chopra never mentions him).

If, like me, you like to explore things first hand, rest assured that Vedic City is a peaceable "safe place." At the same time, I'd recommend the following: be careful how you use your credit cards, show trust in your always well-intentioned hosts, and be open to undeniable wisdom while maintaining a sense of non-patronizing, disengaged humor. And if that sounds hard, reading Gilpin's book should help in all three areas.

Finally, if you decide to try Yogic flying, don't say I didn't warn you. (Your chances of a David Lynch siting are actually better than getting off the ground.)

OK, here's the flip side. I have been associated with Maharishi University of Management since 1979. I have 2 degrees from there-an MBA and an MA in Education. I went to an Ivy League school for my BA. The education at MUM far surpasses anything I received at any other school I attended. I have also been meditating for 30 years and it has completely changed my life--I am happier, healthier and much, much wiser about life. And guess what? I currently live on the same campus that the author writes about and I find it to be just the opposite of how he describes it-- full of very solid and clear thinking individuals that have lofty and realistic notions about themselves and about life. Bottom line--controversy sells, regardless of how accurate it is.

After having seen the interview with Maharishi on Larry King Live a few years ago, and read feature stories about him in TIME magazine and Washington Post talking about him being the most influential teacher of meditation in the past couple centuries, I thought this book would be much more interesting, more substantive and less superficial. The news about meditation is filled with interesting research and scientists getting grants from NIH to do research based on this yogi's insights into meditation and this book seems content to focus on pop gossip. "Where's the beef?" Or, since meditators might be vegetarians, "Where's the tofu?" Sorry I read it. Waste of time.