Lex DeVille
Sweeping Shadows From Dreams
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@SinisterLex Thank you for all your insights thus far, it's an eye-opener watching you deconstruct guru tactics. In kind of the same vein, I was wondering if you may have any thoughts on or experiences with Transcendental Meditation? There's a lot of conflicting research, info, and criticism out there, and I recently decided to go to an introductory seminar (sales pitch) after reading Ray Dalio's strong endorsement in Principles.
They want $740 for four 60-90 minute training sessions, which ostensibly goes to their foundation to teach the TM technique to kids in developing countries. It feels a bit cultish and the whole "you can't learn it from a book because you need a qualified teacher to guide you and give you a personalized mantra" thing is setting off alarm bells. Hope I'm not distracting from the main topic, just thought I'd throw it out there as more potential guruism. My guru-dar still leaves something to be desired so I go back and forth with the validity of the organization.
TBH it sounds a bit cultish.
That isn't to say there aren't benefits to meditation, but I know virtually nothing about "transcendental" meditation. I do meditate for mindfulness. It involves sitting completely still and thinking of nothing. Just being present. This calms and quiets the mind, but doesn't involve any kind of incantation.
Cults use meditation quite a lot to induce trance states that leads to an open (read vulnerable) mind. From there they have an easier time controlling your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. I'll talk more on that soon. For now just know that if you control any of the three things I just mentioned (in other people), you also can influence the other 2 elements in them, and this is how mind control happens.
I'll try to go deeper on this a little later today.
Just remember the old rule...if it seems to good to be true...or if you get that gut feeling...GET THE F*CK OUTTA THERE!