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From: John David Stone <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Natural Law Party
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Thu, 8 Oct 1992 18:19:52 CDT
        Continuing coverage of the emergence of the Natural Law Party as
the political wing of the Transcendental Meditation cult:

        Last night I was able to attend a rally at Grinnell for Stuart
Zimmerman, the NLP candidate for the US Senate from Iowa, and Larry
Chroman, the NLP candidate for the US House of Representatives from Iowa's
Third District.  Well, perhaps "rally" isn't exactly the word I'm looking
for -- about thirty people were present, and that included the candidates
and at least half a dozen members of their entourage -- but there were
speeches and a question-and-answer session.

        After a brief introduction by a meditator who, regrettably, is a
recent graduate of Grinnell, Zimmerman took the floor to explain why the
NLP had been formed (to implement new solutions that existing political
parties suppress, because they are controlled by special interests, and to
remedy the public's loss of confidence in political institutions).  He
followed up with a short rundown on the NLP positions on health care,
energy, and agriculture.  He mentioned TM only once, glancingly, and most
of what he said sounded like a Democratic campaign speech, except with both
volume and speed of delivery reduced by about fifty percent.

        He bragged that the NLP has now fielded over a hundred candidates
for office and is recognized by the Federal Elections Commission as a
national party.  The NLP has applied for, and fully expects to receive,
federal matching funds to support the campaigns of its candidates for
national office.

        He then introduced Chroman (as his brother-in-law; if I followed
this correctly, Zimmerman's sister is Chroman's wife).  Chroman's speech
began with an anecdotal medley of American misfortunes and problems,
leading into a similar list of "solutions" -- a high school that invented a
new curriculum centered on ecology, a group of nuns who opened a
preventive-medicine clinic, etc.  Chroman presented the NLP's platform on
crime and the economy.

        Unlike Zimmerman, he referred freely to TM throughout.  In
particular, he argued that teaching TM in prisons had been shown to reduce
recividism rates in six different studies in the US and, most notably, in
Senegal, where (he claimed) a dictator named Colonel Diot, a friend of TM,
instituted a nationwide program of TM for prisoners.  It worked so well
that Diot declared a general amnesty and freed all prisoners, much to the
alarm of his skeptical advisors.  But (continued Chroman) all is well --
Senegal's prisons remain practically empty, and many of them have closed.
(I don't know how much of this tale is true and would welcome evidence for
or against it.)

        During the question-and-answer session, Zimmerman and Chroman dealt
at length with several additional issues:

        Asked whether it would not require substantial initial spending to
convert the US from non-renewable energy sources to solar and wind power,
both men answered that the money saved as a result of the conversion would
exceed any setup costs.

        Asked whether it was reasonable to expect the American people to
vote for long-term solutions at the expense of short-term advantages,
Zimmerman exclaimed that the questioner had indeed identified the central
issue of contemporary American politics and expatiated at length on the
short-sightedness of the Democratic and Republican parties.  The questioner
tried three times to get her question answered, without success.

        Asked to explain the relationship between the NLP and TM, Chroman
answered that the NLP is looking for "solutions that work," and asserted
that TM is one solution that demonstrably works.  It's not the only
possible solution, he said, but it is a proven solution.  He backed up this
claim with handwaving allusions to vast numbers of research studies,
collected in the five-volume set that I alluded to in an earlier posting,
which has now apparently expanded to six volumes.

        Asked to explain the efficacy of the Ayur-Vedic line of quack
remedies that the Maharishi is marketing and that form the centerpiece of
the NLP's solution to the health-care problem (TMers who eat quantities of
Ayur-Ved don't need Medicare), Chroman explained that they are really _food
products_ and not _drugs or medicines_.  The importance of this point is
that the FDA insists on more elaborate testing for drugs, and Ayur-Ved
cannot pass these more stringent tests, because they're conducted by wicked
persons who will stop at nothing to discredit TM.  Moreover, since they are
made from whole plants rather than being "extracts," Ayur-Ved products
contain what Chroman called "the wisdom of the plants."

        A member of Grinnell's biology department rose to inquire about
this interesting concept.  "The wisdom of the plants" turns out to be DNA.
Chroman did not explain why DNA would be present in a remedy if it is
called a food product but not if it is called a drug.

        Zimmerman referred airily to studies at Ohio State and Stanford of
a substance known among TMers as "tar in a jar," which was found to have
the power to restore cancerous cells to normality by mending their DNA.  He
got some argument from a student in the audience, as well as from the
biology professor, who brought up a controversy concerning a paper
(favorable to Ayur-Ved) that appeared in the _Journal of the American
Medical Association_.  JAMA insisted on a retraction when it turned out
that one of the authors was a distributor of Ayur-Vedic remedies.
Zimmerman allowed that this was a slight error of judgement on the part of
the distinguished doctor, but denounced as slanderous the hostile letters
published in JAMA after the appearnace of this article.  According to
Zimmerman, the TM movement is suing the AMA over this issue and "has the
AMA on their knees"; Zimmerman expects a large settlement.

        Both men came close to evincing emotion when they discussed the
scoundrels who had tried to interfere with the funding of further studies
of tar in a jar, "just because they don't like TM."  The professor of
biology tried to find out the source of this funding and to reconstruct the
story of how it got cut off, but the candidates managed to leave the story
in decent obscurity.  (Many small colleges in Iowa have had the experience
of competing unsuccessfully for grants issued by the National Science
Foundation, which shows little inclination to withhold support for MIU's
TM-oriented experiments in physiology and psychology.)

        Zimmerman and Chroman, incidentally, are partners in the
development of a gigantic preventive-medicine center near Fairfield, Iowa
(the location of Maharishi International University and home of many
TMers).  They described it as a $500,000,000 project comprising ten
"developments," the first of which will open this year -- "the Mayo Clinic
of prevention," they called it.

        After about an hour and forty-five minutes, the event ended with
the candidates' traditional benediction of the audience -- "We appreciate
your interest and enthusiasm," etc., etc. -- followed by about a second and
a half of polite applause.  A couple of students stayed to shake hands with
the candidates.

        The Natural Law Party of the United States of America can be
contacted by mail at 51 West Washington, Fairfield, Iowa 52556, or by
telephone at [phone].

------  John David Stone - Lecturer in Computer Science and Philosophy  -----
--------------  Manager of the Mathematics Local-Area Network  --------------
--------------  Grinnell College - Grinnell, Iowa 50112 - USA  --------------
--------  [e-mail] - [phone] - [e-mail]  --------



From: John David Stone <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Natural Law Party
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Thu, 8 Oct 1992 20:35:35 CDT

        Through careless editing I omitted the following paragraphs from my
recent posting on the appearance of NLP candidates Zimmerman and Chroman at
Grinnell:

        Asked about the nature of the defensive military technology
described in glowing but indefinite terms in one of the handouts
distributed before the meeting, Chroman explained that by assembling one or
more teams of seven thousand meditators -- the square root of one percent
of the world's population -- and having them project mental coherence, the
NLP would immediately establish world peace.  He claimed that this
technique had been proven experimentally in 1983, when seven thousand
meditators assembled at MIU "and all the news magazines commented on how
peaceful the world had suddenly become"; and also in subsequent smaller
trials in Iran and other former loci of international conflict.

        The audience received this novel recipe for peace with incredulity.
Zimmerman elaborated on the idea:  It works like a laser, he explained.
Just as coherent light can "cut right through that wall and go on for
hundreds of miles," so the coherent thinking of assembled meditators is a
technology of immense power, a force that can induce similarly coherent
thinking in everyone around.

        I asked where the business of "the square root of one percent" came
from.  Zimmerman explained that it derives from an observed fact of
low-temperature physics:  If the square root of one percent of the
particles in some low-temperature fluid assume the positions they would
occupy in the corresponding solid, the remaining particles will quickly
crystallize around them.  It's similar for coherent thinking, he said.  (I
refrained from asking how closely mental activity would have to approximate
absolute zero for this effect to be observed.)

        A Democratic activist asked Zimmerman, who had boasted about having
had lunch with the Democratic candidate for Senator (and even claimed to
have offered her some advice about how to run her campaign), why he didn't
pull out of the race and support the Democratic candidate, since they agree
on many issues not involving TM.  Before Zimmerman could answer, one of the
NLP stooges (whom they identified as their "pilot," though the campaign
arrived in Grinnell by bus) interrupted to demand why the Democratic
candidate didn't instead pull out and support Zimmerman.  This
well-rehearsed bit of political theatre was my favorite part of the evening.

------  John David Stone - Lecturer in Computer Science and Philosophy  -----
--------------  Manager of the Mathematics Local-Area Network  --------------
--------------  Grinnell College - Grinnell, Iowa 50112 - USA  --------------
--------  [e-mail] - [phone] - [e-mail]  --------




From: Bernard <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Natural law party
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Fri, 9 Oct 1992 12:36:09 EDT

A flyer for the natural law party (i.e the Maharishi surrogate) just
came in through my mail slot. I thought you might be interested in a
couple of items.
The basic platform is that they will implement Transcendal Meditation
and this will solve all of the nation's problems. For example, crime
will be reduced by reducing social stress as follows:
"In studies involving more than 160 cities across the nation, it has been
shown that with the introduction of Transcendal meditation to as few as 1%
of the population (or even fewer practicing the advanced TM-Sidhi program),
crime rates, accident rates, and other indicators of societal stress
decrease dramatically, and positive trends increase throughout society.
By dissolving accumulated stress in the collective consciousness of society-
especially in the nation's congested urban environments-the Natural Law
Party can easily stem the tide of crime and lawlessness."

Elsewhere, they point out that this reduction of tension can be done by
as few as the square root of 1% of the world's population (7000) doing
the TM-Sidhi. This makes me wonder why they want to be elected since
surely there are 7000 members and they could take care of the world's
problems already without our help.

Bernard Ortiz de Montellano



From: Peter Edwards <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Natural law party
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Mon, 19 Oct 1992 11:08:40 BST

Bernard:

> A flyer for the natural law party (i.e the Maharishi surrogate) just
> came in through my mail slot. I thought you might be interested in a
> couple of items.

Aha, first the UK now the US. Yes, they stood here in our general
elections in much the same guise, just changed the sign outside
Mentmore Towers, their UK HQ to read "Natural Law Party" instead of TM.
Their campaign was a scream, seriously rivalling people like The
Monster Raving Loony Party and Lindi St. Clair ("Miss Whiplash") and
her Correction Party. I believe they achieved about 50 votes in our
ward, the winner getting about 22,000.
  They spent 1.5 million pounds on their UK campaign, I'm surprised they
can even afford to stand in the US. Maybe the increased intake into
their courses (cost: couple of hundred pounds for the basic one, couple
of thousand for the flying yogi one) will cover their costs ?

Peter




From: Taner Edis <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Natural Law Party
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Thu, 29 Oct 1992 10:19:45 EST

        Next Sunday night on ABC, they seem to be having a political
loony hour.  At 7 pm Ross Perot comes on, to give way at 7:30 to John
Hagelin, candidate of The Natural Law Party (connected to TM & the
Maharishi), for another half hour.  Each segment costs $500,000...

        Taner Edis

P.S.  September 10'th Nature (or Science, I always get them confused)
has half a page about Hagelin and his Natural Law candidacy (he's a
theoretical physicist).





From: John David Stone <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Natural law party / JAMA controversy
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Mon, 19 Oct 1992 17:29:38 CDT

        In a recent posting, Robert Sheaffer mentions a suit that the
Transcendental Meditation cult is bringing against Andrew Skolnick, an
editor of the _Journal of the American Medical Association_.  I happen to
have copies of the writings on which the suit is centered at hand, and I
thought it might be useful to provide annotated references:

        Sharma, Hari M., MD, FRCPC; Triguna, Brihaspati Dev, Ayur-Veda
Martand; and Chopra, Deepak, MD.  "Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Modern Insights
Into Ancient Medicine."  _Journal of the American Medical Association_ 265,
no. 20 (May 22/29, 1991), 2633-2637.  This essay is _not_ a research paper,
but a general-interest article; JAMA headlined it "Letter From New Delhi."
It is divided into five parts:

        (1) A short history in which the Maharishi's crank medical
therapies are characterized as a "modern revival" of traditional Indian
medicine suppressed during "centuries of foreign rule."

        (2) An account of "the Ayurvedic framework," the Indian equivalent
of the five humours of the medieval Western medicine.

        (3) A description of Ayurvedic diagnostic methods, which are based
entirely on the interpretation of the patient's pulse.  Each of the
Ayurvedic humours has "different tactile vibratory qualities," according to
the authors, and an alert diagnostician can supposedly detect in the pulse
the characteristic signs of such diseases as diabetes and asthma.

        (4) A statement of the system's techniques for "restoring
physiological balance" by attending to the mind (TM), the body (herbal
remedies, as marketed by the Maharishi), behavior (early to bed and early
to rise, etc.), and environment (TM again).

        (5) A few paragraphs are devoted to describing how Ayur-Veda can be
integrated into standard Western medical treatment.  The authors argue
essentially that the former should replace the latter.

        "Correction" (unsigned editorial statement). _Journal of the
American Medical Association_ 266, no. 6 (August 14, 1991), page 798.
Under the subheading "Financial Disclosure," the editors print a statement
of about three hundred words from Hari M. Sharma, detailing the
affiliations of all three authors, including the interesting information
that Sharma is "a former consultant to Maharishi Ayur-Veda Products
International Inc. (MAPI), Lancaster, Mass., which distributes Maharishi
Amrit Kalash [a name for several of the "herbal compounds" that the
Maharishi recommends]."  Triguna is "a consultant to Maharish Ayur-Veda,
Prathistan, India."  Chopak is "a board member of Maharishi Ayur-Veda
Products International Inc."  The editors then list the various and
inconsistent statements that they received from Sharma and Chopra,
alternately affirming and denying that they had any financial interest in
MAPI.  At this point the editors just set forth the evidence, offering no
conclusion about whether the authors really did or did not have a conflict
of interest.

        Skolnick, Andrew A.  "Maharishi Ayur-Veda: Guru's Marketing Scheme
Promises the World Eternal 'Perfect Health'."  _Journal of the American
Medical Association_ 266, no. 13 (October 2, 1991), pages 1741-1750.
Skolnick's long article, published in the "Medical News & Perspectives"
section of JAMA, exhaustively examines the facts of the case and concludes
that Chopra lied repeatedly about his relationship with MAPI and that all
three authors failed to disclose all of their relevant affiliations even in
the August 1991 Correction.  Moreover, Skolnick found that "Maharishi
Ayur-Veda" is not so much a revival of traditional Indian medicine as "a
trademark for a brand of products and services."  He writes:

>           An investigation of the [TM] movement's marketing practices
>  reveals what appears to be a widespread pattern of misinformation,
>  deception, and manipulation of lay and scientific news media.  This
>  campaign appears to be aimed at earning at least the look of
>  scientific respectability for the TM movement, as well as at making
>  profits from sales of the man products and services that carry the
>  Maharishi's name.

Skolnick then proceeds to document this charge in detail.  He describes
several appalling examples of deceit and quackery, culminating in an
account of the professional misconduct of two British para-physicians
(Leslie Davis, MA, MD, BCh, FRCS, dean of physiology at the Maharishi
University of Natural Law, Bedfordshire, and Roger A. Chalmers, MA, MB,
BCh, MRCP, dean of medicine at the Maharishi Ayur-Veda College of Natural
Medicine and president of the World Medical Association for Perfect Health,
Bedfordshire).  They treated AIDS patients with herbal preparations
"composed of plant material, fungus, feces, and bacteria."  An AIDS patient
who suffered gastrointestinal problems after the administration of this
charming mixture brought charges -- or, more precisely, had charges brought
on his behalf (since he subsequently died) -- before the Professional
Conduct Committee of the General Medical Council in London.  It appears
that this concatenation of events is responsible for the FDA's sudden
interest in Maharishi Ayur-Veda.

        The issue of JAMA in which Skolnick's article appears also contains
a number of letters from readers (pages 1769-1774), some supporting Sharma
_et al._, others presenting the skeptical side.  Many of the letters are
supplemented with carefully worded financial-disclosure statements.

------  John David Stone - Lecturer in Computer Science and Philosophy  -----
--------------  Manager of the Mathematics Local-Area Network  --------------
--------------  Grinnell College - Grinnell, Iowa 50112 - USA  --------------
--------  [e-mail] - [phone] - [e-mail]  --------




From: Robert Sheaffer <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Natural law party
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Mon, 19 Oct 1992 12:09:50 PDT

While we're on the subject of the Maharishi:

It was mentioned at the just-concluded CSICOP conference that a SLAPP
Suit has been filed by the Maharishi apparatus against Andrew Skolnick,
and another editor at the Journal of the American Medical Association.
They published an article revealing how certain medical claims being
made for "holistic" products being sold by the Maharishi conglomerate
are unfounded. For this they are being sued for something like $200
million in damages. The suit is, of course, worthless, but defending
against it will require much time and money.


--

        Robert Sheaffer - Scepticus Maximus - [e-mail]

 Past Chairman, The Bay Area Skeptics - for whom I speak only when authorized!

       "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
        Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has
        broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or
        where it will end."
                               - Emerson: Essay, "Circles"



From: John David Stone <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Hagelin and Natural Law
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date:         Mon, 2 Nov 1992 16:50:14 CST

        John Blanton asks:

>           It is true Hagelin is getting matching funds from OUR taxes
>  to push this stuff?

        The Des Moines _Register_ reported about three weeks ago that the
Natural Law Party had indeed qualified for federal matching funds.  I don't
remember the date of the story, but I can chase it down if anyone needs
it.  No amount was given.

        Stuart Zimmerman, the NLP candidate for the US Senate from Iowa,
had one more large ad in the Des Moines _Register_ a few weeks back.  (He'd
promised a series of such ads, and delivered two.)  Yesterday and today,
the TMers have instead inserted an ad headed by a soft-focus picture of the
Maharishi and some headline like "An Offer to Eradicate Crime in Des
Moines."

------  John David Stone - Lecturer in Computer Science and Philosophy  -----
--------------  Manager of the Mathematics Local-Area Network  --------------
--------------  Grinnell College - Grinnell, Iowa 50112 - USA  --------------
--------  [e-mail] - [phone] - [e-mail]  --------