June 30, 2025
" ... I believe that Dr. Tony Nader and, by extension and association, the board of trustees of both Maharishi International University (MIU) and the global Transcendental Meditation (TM) organization are acting either incompetently or dishonestly. I can’t be sure which, but I will demonstrate that it has to be one or the other."
" ... MIU encourages deep spiritual exploration, but we still have no full-time licensed, trauma-informed therapists and no modern crisis-response protocol.
During my first year, I served as Student Health Representative and personally witnessed the fallout of this gap. Three students were hospitalized for psychiatric emergencies. One of them had no way to get home from the psychiatric facility hours away—I had to drive them myself. Another student, struggling with suicidal ideation, was offered no professional follow-up, only vague encouragement to meditate more. These are not isolated incidents and are a small portion of the incidents that have happened on campus during my time here in relation to mental health.
We also cannot ignore that in 2004, an untreated student experiencing psychosis fatally stabbed Levi Butler in the dining hall after an earlier stabbing that same day had gone unreported. The university later admitted it had “done almost everything wrong.” More than twenty years later, what has actually changed?
During the meeting each of us got about ten minutes to speak, followed by a brief conversational exchange with Dr. Nader. After Andrade finished he appeared concerned, and responded with something to the effect of: “I have not heard of any of this, we will be sure to look into it more closely.” This response means that one of two things must be true: either he is somehow genuinely ignorant of these issues despite their deep historical prevalence at the university as well as the TM community at large, or he was lying. I’m usually suspicious of black-and-white dichotomies but in this case, logically speaking, it has to be one or the other—and to be honest I’m not sure which is more problematic.
In either case, it demonstrates an aspect of what I personally consider to be this organization’s biggest handcuff: authenticity. TM is without question—speaking both intellectually (i.e., on the back of scientific/academic research) and from my own personal experience—extremely powerful. It is by far the most powerful catalyst of personal growth I’ve ever encountered. More powerful than SSRIs, more powerful than therapy, more powerful than diet, exercise, and sunlight. This is not to say that these other modalities lack effectiveness, as they are certainly well-supported and undeniably helpful (with the exception of SSRIs which, as a former user, I’m happy to say are gradually being rejected by the psychiatric community due to their dangers seemingly outweighing the benefits)."
Read article: https://substack.com/home/post/p-165596253
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