Religion News Blog is a non-profit service providing academics, religion professionals and other researchers with religion & cult news

Religion news articles about religious cults, sects, world religions, and related issues

Navigation:

Search

David Lynch Forms Group to Teach Meditation

Associated Press, via the Chicago Tribune, USA
Aug. 4, 2005
metromix.chicagotribune.com

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Monday August 1, 2005

DES MOINES, Iowa — Film director David Lynch, a longtime practitioner of Transcendental Meditation, has formed a foundation that will encourage schools to use the technique in the classroom. “It’s knowledge in terms of the self and it works wonders in the kids,” he said.

Transcendental Meditation

Behind the TM Facade

How Transcendental Mediation really works, a critical opinion

Who Took the “T” Out Of “TM”?

Transcendental Meditation news tracker

“Transcendental Meditation was ruled a religion by the United States District Court, District of New Jersey, Docket No. 76-341 (H.C.M.) Civil Action, in the case of Alan B. Malnak. et al., Plaintiffs, v. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, et al., Defendants, in a summary judgment issued October 19, 1977, followed by an order and judgment, filed December 12, 1977.”
- Is TM a religion?

Research resources on Transcendental Meditation

The David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace will raise money for TM peace groups and provide scholarships for students taking part in meditation programs.

He met some of those students during a visit to Maharishi Vedic City in rural southeast Iowa, considered the spiritual center of the TM movement in the United States.

“I’m convinced there are hundreds or thousands of kids who will see the truth of this and want to take part in one way or another,” he said.

The meditation technique involves sitting comfortably with the eyes closed for 20 minutes, twice a day, according to the Web site of the Transcendental Meditation Program. It helps students overcome stress and perform better in the classroom by using their entire brain, rather than just a portion of it, Lynch said.

Barry Markovsky, a sociologist at the University of South Carolina, has spent years studying the Maharishi movement and Transcendental Meditation. Although he said meditating can be good for students, he’s skeptical of the group’s insistence that only their method is beneficial.

Lynch, who directed such films as “Mulholland Drive,” “Elephant Man,” “Blue Velvet,” and “Wild At Heart,” is currently working on a film in Los Angeles called “INLAND EMPIRE.”