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By Root 1094 0

his enrollment figures dropping, unleashed upon the world the outrageous claim that he was offering a special course—to experienced meditators only—that would enable them to perform miracles. And no spike-through-the-tongue or asleep-on-a-bed-of-nails stuff either. Real miracles were promised those who came up with the required sum. Believers were told by the Great Guru that it was within their reach to soar about the skies by power of mind alone, to become invisible at will, and to walk through solid walls! For a mere pittance of about $3,000 they were offered lessons in these arts, and the guru himself announced in 1978 on TV ("The Merv Griffin Show") that he had enrolled some forty thousand students in this course! Griffin then asked the obvious question: How many had learned to levitate? Declared the Great Guru: "Thousands!" But this great throng of soaring lotus-eaters has yet to be seen by mere mortals such as myself.

A TM student "levitating" while meditating. This is an official photo issued by the TM Ministry of Information. Transcendental Meditation

Steven Zeigler, with no TM instruction whatsoever and no gymnastic training, bounces on a mat in the lotus posture to duplicate the levitation stunt. This unretouched photo was illuminated by a strobe flash. Alt's Gymnastic School, N.J.

During Dr. Rabinoff's talk at the University of Oregon, a listener asked what were the actual physical requirements for levitation, invisibility, and "perfect seeing." The questioner, a physicist, did not ask if levitation had been done—that was assumed—but rather what force was actually used to get the body up there. Rabinoff, hard put to answer, mumbled something about a form of consciousness that was subtler than gravity. Perhaps the subtler force he was speaking of was actually the force of imagination, which seems to be the active element in these miracles-that-never-happen.

Dr. Hyman was at the end of his patience with Rabinoff. "I asked if anyone had yet actually levitated in the sense of hovering above the ground. In our ensuing interaction he displayed a skill at sleight of mouth and evasiveness that would put the combined talents of Uri Geller, Kreskin, and Russell Targ to shame. He did everything he could to avoid making a flat statement or a simple yes or no."

Asked repeatedly, Rabinoff finally said he had heard that there were cases of true levitation. And, he added with amusement, TM initiates find it quite acceptable that meditators can negate gravity. Only the most difficult person would believe otherwise, he insisted, and that Oregon audience was quite in tune with him. They and Rabinoff found it difficult to believe that Hyman was incredulous about people defying the law of gravity at will. (I must of course admit that Hyman and I are not trained professional physicists. Dr. Robert Rabinoff, Ph.D., is a physicist and as such can be considered qualified to come to irrational conclusions.)

When Hyman pressed the point again, Dr. Rabinoff showed a touch of impatience. Hyman was still asking troublesome questions that the professor could not answer, and he was becoming annoyed under his nice white official suit. He reminded Dr. Hyman that the sidhis were not designed as "circus stunts." The acts themselves were irrelevant. They were only ways to achieve perfect intelligence and pure bliss. (We're back to that again.) And the Maharishi, said the professor, would be derelict not to let us in on all that good stuff.

But, insisted Hyman, if the levitation trick was so irrelevant, and detracted from the true purpose of TM, why was it so prominently featured and hailed as a breakthrough? And wouldn't just one teensy demonstration prove the Maharishi's claims once and for all and cause the entire world to flock to his banner? Rabinoff's answer was typical cultist stuff. The Maharishi knows when and if it is appropriate to release news of such matters, he said. He has his reasons. It would be useless anyway, said Rabinoff, to release photos of the levitation taking place because they could be easily faked.