Transcendental meditation in America : how a new age movement remade a small town in Iowa

241 Pages·2014·1.3 MB·English

by  Weber

TranscendenTal MediTaTion in aMerica
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iowa and The MidwesT experience
SERIES EDITOR
William B. Friedricks,
Iowa History Center at Simpson College
The University of Iowa Press gratefully acknowledges Humanities Iowa
for its generous support of the Iowa and the Midwest Experience series.
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Joseph weber
Transcendental Meditation in america
how a new age Movement remade a small Town in iowa
UniversiTy of iowa press, iowa ciTy
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University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 2014 by the
University of Iowa Press
www.uiowapress.org
Printed in the United States of America
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No part of this book may be reproduced or
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Printed on acid-free paper
isbn: 978-1-60938-235-3, 1-60938-235-8 (pbk)
isbn: 978-1-60938-261-2, 1-60938-261-7 (ebk)
lccn: 2013952706
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For Donna
who keeps our feet on the ground
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conTenTs
Introduction: Who Cares about
Fairfield, Anyway? 1
1. Classic Americana, with a Twist 8
2. Going for Baroque 16
3. Of God and Man 28
4. Unearthly Delights 50
5. Power of the Ballot 60
6. Higher Ed, Higher Realms 71
7. Death in Paradise 89
8. Enlightenment for All Ages 109
9. Just Business 125
10. The Disaffected 145
11. Maharishi Vedic City 167
12. Does TM Have a Tomorrow? 176
Acknowledgments 191
Notes 193
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Selected Bibliography 205
Index 209
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introduction
Who Cares about Fairfield, Anyway?
remember what people used to say about meditation? now every-
one is doing it. —shirley Maclaine
a liTTle More Than fifty years ago, a bearded mystic, fond of flowers
and flowing robes, arrived in the United States from India. The giggling guru,
as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi came to be known, soon put a distinctive stamp
on American culture. The country he found was a place of hard-charging
ambition, churchgoing conformity, and extraordinary material success—
the kind of success that emigrants from India had long admired. At first,
many scorned the meditation he espoused as a technique for coping with
stress and for plugging into spiritual realms beyond the workaday world. It
seemed exotic, foreign, and ill-suited to American sensibilities. But the gen-
tle, squeaky-voiced Easterner persisted, and soon rebellious Baby Boomers
—looking for alternatives to the values and ways of life of their parents—
took up his cause. Inspired by celebrity adherents as disparate as the Beatles,
Clint Eastwood, Shirley MacLaine, and Merv Griffin, they lifted his message
and his main product—meditation—into the mainstream.1
Since then, the change in attitudes toward meditation has been pro-
found. Nowadays, doctors suggest meditation to patients struggling with ail-
ments ranging from high blood pressure to anxiety. Gyms offer it along with
weightlifting and aerobics. It’s even available in the air, via headset on Vir-
gin Atlantic. And supporters urge it on students in violence-plagued urban
who cares about fairfield, anyway? ° 1