The following is a
quote from Jeanne Mills, a defector from Jim Jones' Peoples temple. She was
murdered a year subsequent to the Nov. 18, 1978 Jonestown suicides/murders
of 911 children, woman and men. She wrote this shortly before being murdered.
Listen to what she is telling the world:
"When you meet the friendliest people you have ever known, who introduce
you to the most loving group of people you have ever encountered, and you
find the leader to be the most inspired, caring, compassionate and understanding
person you have ever met, and then you learn the cause of the group is something
you never dared hope could be accomplished, and all of this sounds too good
to be true, it probably is too good to be true! Don't give up your education,
your hopes and ambitions to follow a rainbow."
- Jeanne Mills
Click on image to
veiw TM's webpage: "Yogic Flying".
Anonymous
TM Victim
I was a TMer for 18 years, living in Fairfield for the last
15 of them. I left the group about 3 years ago. I'd like to
tell you what happened to me as a result of TM.
I was initiated in 1974 in New Haven, Connecticut, after seeing
a poster in a grocery store. I was hoping to get more relaxed.
Little did I know where it would lead.
I became a gung-ho TMer right off the bat and tried to get everyone
I knew to start. I had some success, but only managed to get
one family member to learn. I'm glad now that she quit early
on.
I moved to Fairfield in '79 to work on volunteer staff at MIU
to earn the sidhis. I worked my butt off, anticipating getting
to take the course 6 months into my stint there. (Most volunteers
got to take the sidhis after 6 months of service, then would
fin ish off another 6 months to complete the year's work required
to get the course.)
I was turned down for the course the first time I applied. I
assume it was because I'd seen a counselor a few times over
the breakup with a boyfriend. I was told to apply again in a
year. I worked my butt off for another year thinking this was
it.
Bobby Warren, the dynamic fund-raiser for MIU, had the bright
idea to have the largest fund-raiser in MIU's history. A banquet
for 1800 people in six dining halls, using both the MIU and
Capital kitchens. I was put in charge of the whole thing. I
had a st aff of up to 100 people working for me after their
regular staff jobs each night for two weeks.
If I say so myself, it was my crowning achievement. The most
organized, deliciously luxurious banquet in the history of the
university. We raised $1 million that night. I'd been promoted
to a position that only the Council of Executive Governors had
ever held at MIU. It was unheard of for a lowly meditator to
have that much responsibility. I was still only making $40 per
month. I was still working many more hours than the sidhas.
And I was still waiting to apply again for the course.
I kept seeing my friends and co-workers go off to take the course
and then get to fly in the domes. Their monthly stipend went
up after becoming sidhas, and they worked less. I continued
working at least 6 days a week, for 40 bucks per month, for
2 1/2 ye ars. I kept getting promoted and became very popular
with Bevan and the Administrative Board for my outstanding work
on staff. But I couldn't get on the damn sidhis course.
Finally the year was up. I reapplied, confident I'd get on this
time. I mean I was Bevan's darling.... But to my shock and devastation
-- I was turned down again. I was told to wait another year.
No explanation. I found Bevan at a banquet and asked him if
he could get me on the course. His previous approval of me turned
to ice as he told me I had to abide by the decision of the sidhis
administrators.
Little did I know that this was the beginning of the ostracization
I would experience over the next decade in the Movement.
I was married to a sidha at the time -- which was hard on our
marriage because I couldn't do my program with him, and he had
this spiritual secret from me.
Finally after waiting the second year they accepted me for the
course. I waited the year -- took the sidhis -- unstressed my
brains out, and became a faithful dome goer. My dream come true.
I didn't know how lucky I'd been not to have the sidhis. Two
years after doing my program faithfully in the dome twice a
day, I had a psychotic breakdown (1984).
MIU Security had me committed to Mt. Pleasant Mental Health
Institute -- a mental hospital converted from a prison. I was
restrained in 5 point leather restraints in a secluded room
on a bed bolted to the floor. There were bars on the only window
-- which of course I could barely see because I was flat on
my back staring at a single bare light bulb.
It was a hellish experience. My psychosis worsened. I came to
believe that I'd died and gone to hell, my fate being to be
alone in this room, restrained on this metal bed for eternity....
By federal regulation, they're supposed to see if you need to
use the bathroom and make sure that the restraints aren't harming
you. They're supposed to come in every 15 minutes. They didn't
check on me for at least 12 hours. When they finally checked
on me, they not only didn't ask if I was comfortable -- they
tightened th e restraints. They didn't notice that red welts
were forming where the straps were digging into my ankles and
wrists.
I was diagnosed with manic depressive illness. This began 10
years of emotional hell. I continued practicing the sidhis and
had another psychotic break 4 years after the first one. Eventually
I began having problems with chronic depression, went on medica
tion, saw a therapist (a TMer of course), and became further
ostracized by the Movement.
I wasn't allowed on courses. Eventually I was barred from the
dome. People didn't talk to me about it, but it was a deep source
of shame. I was a failure on the spiritual path -- I thought.
I became more and more isolated and desperate to cure myself.
Of course the Movement conditioned me to believe that it was
my stress that was causing the illness, and all I needed to
do was purify it -- and stick to the program.
A man I was involved with paid the $3000 for me to do a month
at the ayurvedic clinic. I was promised a cure. It was 4 months
later that I was in the hospital again for that second psychotic
break.
Then a girlfriend paid the $700 for the Primordial Sound technique.
I received the technique personally from the now well-known
Deepak Chopra. Another "cure." But all the daily technique
did was take up my precious lunch hour.
I'd begun therapy in 1987 hoping to cure my depression and understand
my two psychotic experiences. It was frowned upon to see a therapist,
but I felt I had no other choice. Since she was a TMer, of course
she couldn't see the obvious -- that it was the T M itself causing
the damage.
After two years with this therapist, she thought we'd gone as
far as we could together. But I was still depressed, so I started
seeing a new hotshot therapist who had just moved with her physician
husband from New York. I thought she'd have the latest tec hniques.
I heard that she specialized in working with incest victims.
I knew that wasn't an issue for me and only hoped she'd take
me on as a general client.
I was still deeply disturbed by the two times I'd been restrained
in the hospital. We were using a session to work through my
feelings about it. She used a guided imagery technique with
me to help me get in touch with my feelings about the incidents.
(I l ater learned that guided imagery is a form of hypnosis.)
During the guided imagery session, I saw an image in my mind
that was dream-like to me. I'd been in therapy long enough to
know that images are interpreted -- and used as psychological
insights, not taken literally.
But after being brought out of the guided imagery, the therapist
informed me that my father had raped me when I was a child.
And this was the missing piece to the puzzle of my life that
would cure me of my mental illness.
Actually, the image that had come to me was the memory of a
delusion I'd had during one of the hospitalizations. I thought
I'd been strapped to the bed in preparation for Bevan to come
in and impregnate me with a baby guru who would take Maharishi's
place when he dropped the body. What I saw was Bevan over me
-- which was all delusion anyway. During the guided imagery,
Bevan's face had turned into my father's face. (Bevan had been
like a father figure to me.) The therapist interpreted this
literally-- tha t I had a real memory of seeing my father over
me as he was raping me.
Well, I was highly disassociated by this time in my TM career
and easily swayed by authority figures. She offered me an explanation,
a cure, a way to get back in good graces with my community.
She promised that by working through the incest, I would be
cu red. I remember feeling resistance for a few minutes during
that session, but she was so confident -- and I followed....
This was a turning point into hell for me. Over the next 4 years
I was hospitalized 14 times for depression and suicidal ideation.
I came to believe that I had been satanically sexually and physically
abused by my father, mother, grandfather, and neighbor s. I
became incredibly paranoid, suspecting anyone and everyone to
be a possible perpetrator of incest.
I disclosed these "realizations" to my family, which
tore us apart. My younger sister took the ball and ran with
it, and is still in satanic abuse therapy with a therapist even
more unethical and unprofessional than the one I was seeing.
I left TM about 3 years ago, and in the process of learning
about mind control realized that I was a victim of False Memory
Syndrome. All the doubts that had haunted me surfaced, and one
day I woke up sure that I had never been sexually abused --
by anyone!
I recanted my accusations and am now close to my father, but
my mother and I will never be close. And I've lost my sister
and her family. My parents will probably never see my sister's
children again -- their only grandchildren. I feel guilty about
that, even though I know I was a victim of this therapy cult,
and my sister is too.
I felt caught between the "real" world that my TM
view made me feel was inferior -- and the TM world which didn't
completely accept me. What I know now is that my mental instability
was most likely a result of the side effects of the meditation
and mind c ontrol. I was disassociating big time.
I left the Movement about 3 years ago and have had persistent
problems with feeling numb, disconnected from people, lack of
humor, anxiety, depression, difficulty making decisions, etc.
I finally got myself to Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center
in Alb any, Ohio. It's the only cult recovery program in the
country. I spent 3 weeks there and got a lot of questions answered,
plus good therapy.
I was at a miserable, miserable place in my life right before
leaving Fairfield. I'd accidentally happened upon Steve Hassan's
book, Combating Cult Mind Control, and knew immediately that
TM was a cult. I'd become jaded about the Movement whi le still
in it, but when I realized it was a cult, I also knew that I
wouldn't hold on to my loyalty to Maharishi. So I embarked on
a research study of my own and tried to get help from a therapist,
but wasn't making enough progress fast enough. That's wh en
I decided to go to Wellspring.
Paul Martin and Ron Burks at Wellspring affirmed my intuitive
feeling that I probably don't have a biochemical mental illness.
More recovery time will tell for sure. They explained how Post
Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can cause psychotic breaks.
And I certainly had good reason to be depressed. But added to
the indoctrination from TM and repressed memory therapy is the
mind control so insidious to the mental health system. This
is particularly obvious in inpatient situations -- such as being
a patient in a mental hospital or a psych ward.
Paul Martin asked me in one session which I thought was more
damaging -- TM or the mental health system. I'm still not sure.
I was made to feel like a second-class citizen -- damaged goods
-- because I had a psychiatric diagnosis. Before moving to Fairfie
ld, and in my early days there, I was a dynamic employee --
always being promoted to management. Sharp -- decisive --I could
make things happen.
Over the years of my deterioration I had worsening problems
with my memory, concentration, anxiety, decision-making ability
-- which greatly hampered my work capabilities. I was fired
once, and threatened to be fired two other times. Eventually
a therapis t talked me into applying for Social Security benefits.
I didn't want to because I'd seen others lose their confidence
and motivation while on benefits. But I applied out of desperation,
because it became more and more difficult for me to work.
I've been on disability for over 2 years now and still have
my difficulties. But the psychologists at Wellspring believe
I can make a full recovery -- I just need to pace myself and
be patient. So I'm working on getting my brain working again
-- and doing the emotional processing necessary to put all this
behind me.
I still get anxious, especially in social situations. I'm having
trouble trusting people, so making friends is difficult for
me. I had my own business for the last year, but have decided
to put that aside for simpler work for the time being. I feel
isolated and lonely a lot, but -- finally -- I'm creating the
life I want for myself.
I still feel emotionally disconnected from the abuse I took
in the Movement. Although reading the posts to "amt"
from active TMers is starting to get me angry. And I'm just
beginning to feel anger towards Maharishi and the Movement.
I can appreciate many good things that came out of my years
in Fairfield, but I can't help wondering what my life would
have been, had I not lost so many years going in and out of
mental hospitals. I resent that deeply.
Now I know that my true enlightenment was realizing the insanity
I lived nearly half my life in the TM Movement.
