Chapter 2 of 7

2. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS AND THE EXECUTION OF THE INVESTIGATION

2.1. STARTING POINT

Our aim was to systematically establish the entire spectrum of reasons and causes for voluntary and involuntary departure from the T.M. organization, as well as problems which arose in the course thereof. In doing this, we were confronted with the following difficulty, that from the many contacts we had with ex-meditators or their relatives, only a few were prepared to give unconditional information on their experiences before a third party. Many said repeatedly that they wanted to forget those experiences (of Transcendental Meditation), were taking their children into account, or were afraid of reprisals or retaliation on the part of the T.M. movement. Therefore we had to give a guarantee of anonymity to those involved in the questionnaires.

- The Parents: The 30 parents questioned were indirectly affected people, for whom transcendental meditation became a problem when one or more of their children exhibited strong social and/or mental transformations. Therefore in the profile-chart filled in by the parents we envisioned two different aspects to their view of the subject. They would reflect as involved observers, their impressions - of their children as well as their own personal attitudes towards those incidents.

-Married Partners: These were the group, where one of the partners was a practitioner of Transcendental Meditation during the time of the investigation. 1O married people were questioned. The statements made by those can be seen in the same light as those of the Parent group: we received information from the non-meditating partner about the meditating partner. The high degree of dismay shown by the non-meditating partner was clearly evident during the proceedings. -Ex-meditators: The 27 ex-meditators questioned had practiced Transcendental Meditation over a large period of time. This group of ex-meditators constituted a most important addition. Among the entire 67 questioned, they were those directly affected. From them we obtained information normally restricted in the T.M. movement under the imposed obligation of secrecy, information to which those not directly involved in the T.M. movement rarely had access. At the same time they afforded the opportunity to establish a tangible relationship between the theory and their own experiences.

-Social circumstances
-The time immediately preceding involvement with Transcendental Meditation
-The phase during the practice of Transcendental Meditation
-The phase shortly after the giving up of the practice and leaving of the T.M. movement (this principally concerned the ex-meditator's group).

The personality which is stabilized in itself forms the basis of all other changes, thus the practice of Transcendental Meditation. This "person" will achieve "the qualities of flexibility, stability, integration, purity, and growth." (The Basic Element of Success. Progress and Fulfillment, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, M.I.U. press 1974, Heidelberg)

The promises of the T.M. movement are posed as being "fruits" of the meditation, and in some editions, (The Basis of Progress and the Basis of Health, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, M.I.U. press 1974, Heidelberg), are laid out in chart form. in these charts all qualities are portrayed in their "physiological, sociological and ecological dimensions". These publicity-oriented charts were a source for our compilation of a list of items. In the publications "The Basis of Progress" and "The Basis of Health", the authors did not bother to give any semantic depth to either of these two conceptions. They work instead on the assumption that there is a "common-sense" understanding of both concepts, particularly on the part of the reader. The lack of any effort at making distinctions goes so far, that the authors even used the same attributes (or values) as indicators in both volumes. These attributes, (for example stability, growth, fear, depression) were meant to be a clarification of the subject matter: their use in the manner described only led to a further blurring in semantic terms. Even worse, these values are in themselves divided into more detailed concepts, which are used rhetorically to "top-up" or compliment the main concept. At this stage the confusion becomes complete, and all relics of scientific method degenerate into a simply labeling procedure, all of which does not support the claims the T.M. movement makes for its research investigation. (On the question of advertising and publicity see 1.5)

Because of this, it was necessary to refer back to attributes which had continually surfaced in interviews with ex-meditators, parents or marriage partners. It was obvious that those attributes were "immediate" in the sense of having an immediate importance for the person interviewed. The items selected for the personality profile are consequently divided into two categories:

(a) Items or attributes actually mentioned in T.M. advertising and also mentioned by affected people in our interviews.
(b) Items not directly mentioned in T.M. publications, but which were emphasized by independent observers in their evaluation of T.M. practitioners.

The personality profile is made up of 22 attributes. Under (a) the following were chosen: self-awareness, ability to make contacts, equilibrium, will-power, dependability, spontaneity, openness, tolerance, optimism, warmth, and cordiality, humor, enjoyment of work, honesty, perception of reality, politeness, concentration. Under (b) were chosen shyness, sensitivity, apathy, egotism, ambition, ability to make critical evaluations.

2.6 EXECUTION OF INTERVIEWS

Personality-Profile:
The personality profile is a part of the quantitative evaluation. The basic-data are depicted in the form of graphs, and interpreted in an accompanying text, so to their context.

Taped interview:
The spoken interviews formed the basis for the qualitative evaluation, made in Chapter 5. Single passages from these interviews also appear in Chapter 4, to illustrate more clearly the subject matter in that chapter.

Method of procedure:
Examples taken from the taped interviews and questionnaires, are incorporated into individual chapters and are used as illustrations. For reasons of anonymity, any testimonies are given as only coming from a certain subgroup; therefore the number before the stroke (or 'dash') indicates the sub-group involved [1=parents, 2=ex- meditators, 3=married partners.]

The number after the stroke indicates the variable, for example 1/67 means an instance from the group of parents, part of the entire group of 67. Examples which are followed by two numbers with the stroke between are taken from the completed questionnaire; testimonies after which there is only one number, (no stroke, no other number), are sequences from taped interviews.

For the sake of a streamlining of terminology the following terms were introduced: The term meditator means all those practicing Transcendental Meditation in this report. This is occasionally divided into ordinary meditators and insiders, for reasons of comparison. Ordinary meditators are those meditators who have not attended further courses in extra techniques, or applied for extra techniques. Insiders are those much more deeply involved in the T.M. organization, i.e. Sidhas, Checkers, T.M. teachers, and Governors.

The terms parents, ex-meditators, and married partners will mean the individual groups as already defined; the group of ex-meditators will however also include people who, though still meditating at the time of the interviews, had nevertheless severed all links with the T.M. organization.