Oklahoma is becoming the CULT-ural Center of the Country

Harold's Journal
Editorial Opinion By RWL - 07 December 1989
Oklahoma 'Cult'-ural Center Of Universe?

Oklahoma is becoming the CULT-ural Center of the Country, it would appear. With the announcement in last Friday's Daily Oklahoman that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi plans to build a 640 acre "City of the Immortals" west of Tulsa, and Scientology ® already trying to set up shop on Chilocco Indian Land, maybe it's time our legislators looked into whatever it is that makes Oklahoma appear to be such fertile ground for every wierdo bunch that falls off a lotus leaf.

Yogi, in case you don't remember, is the guru of TM - Transcendental Meditation - to whom the Beatles once pledged allegiance. It's another authoritarian cult which relies on the four techniques of Mind Control.

Yogi controls his followers physical environment, their thoughts, their emotions, and their sources of information. No different than our own problem up north.

Yogi has a sense of humor about him, however. He calls his followers by an endearing ancient Sanskrit term, which, when translated, means "Jackasses." Like Scientology, TM has it's assortment of celebrities they parade about in public relations dog and pony shows. Some of them include Joe Namath, Carol Burnett, and the Rolling Stones.

Like Scientology, TM has a variety of front organizations, including Students International Meditation Society, World Plan Executive Council, American Foundation for Creative Intelligence, American Meditation Society, and the Institute for Fitness and Athletic Excellence, all designed to recruit new members.

Unlike Scientology, the leader of TM has a real college degree in physics. TM's purpose is to relieve tension and stress, increase productivity, heighten creativity and intelligence. Sound familiar?

The techniques include a few extensive and expensive lectures on the basic methods of meditation, and upon graduation, each student receives his own secret and personal mantra or chant syllable to be repeated privately for twenty minutes each morning and evening to "clear" his mind and relax his body.

Adherents find it astounding that if they become disillusioned with one TM teacher and quickly switch to another, the new teacher will quite often issue a second personal mantra that is identical to the first one issued. How insightful TM truly is!

The true insight is that there were only 16 mantras ever issued, based on the age of the seeker. A secret personal mantra will change only if the seeker has celebrated a particular birthday since the issuance of his last mantra. How simply deluding cults can be.

Graduation includes submission to the Puja ceremony, including repeated bowing and worship of a picture of Guru Dev, the Maharishi's main source of inspiration, who was an Indian Hindu religious leader who died in 1953.

TM is camouflaged Hinduism, and few TM devotees in the West realize they are paying for an ancient Eastern religion in a new package. Hindus believe there are seven levels of growth from "sleep" up through "unity consciousness", where a student breaks free from the need of passing through reincarnations and reaches oneness with god.

Maharishi says that through his methods a person can learn to float or levitate and pass through walls.

We hope our legislators are successful in finding a way to make them pass through Oklahoma.

In the meantime, our Scientology friends from up north have re-emerged from obscurity and have spent every afternoon from last Wednesday to Saturday out "surveying" Newkirk citizens in front of the Post Office, at EZ Mart, and near the cafe. They don't tell you who they are unless you ask.

They want to know what you like and dislike about Newkirk; who you like and dislike in Newkirk; and what a "new group" would have to do to become "accepted" in Newkirk.

You, of course, have no obligation whatever to participate in this silly little exhibition... even if they run over and write down your license plate number. They are desperately trying to find someone in town who will support their activities...

For the most part, they are sincere, dedicated, albeit misguided low level Scientologists who think they are saving the world. If you've read all I've printed on the subject, you know more about Scientology than they do.