Out on a limb.

"...there may be a darker side to meditation and this is exposed in the book “America. The Sorcerer’s New Apprentice – The Rise of New Age Shamanism” by D. Hunt and T.A. McMahon, Harvest House Publishers, 1988. This book suggests that Transcendental Meditation may be dangerous and may lead to the practitioner being “possessed” by occult powers."

Some years ago now, I watched a movie called "Out On A Limb". It is the story of much of Shirley McLean's life. Let me tell you - it's weird! It really spun me out, for several days; I felt very disoriented, I became unsure of everything; it was a bit of a Descartes moment - when nothing really exists except your own doubting mind.

This idea of Transcendental Meditation reminded me of this film and its themes, which included meditating in such a way that your mind becomes completely clear of everything and you find yourself flying above yourself further and further away until you return. All the time you attached to your body by a silver cord and supposedly death is when that cord breaks. The rest of the movie also involved aliens, a guy who introduced Shirley to their "religion" having found all these things out from an alien whom he fell in love with.

I know what I believe is true; it's funny, don't you think that most people "know" that what they believe is true otherwise they wouldn't try to get others to believe or continue on the hard path of believing. Even believing in nothing I think is hard. I have been blessed by God in many ways, he gives me joy and sprouting from that recently has been a lot of happiness [there is a difference, I don't know if anyone who isn't a christian knows that and even if you are a christian, you might have thought about it]. My friend who is generally agnostic says that she wishes she was as happy as I am - I know what she is really saying (although she may not realise it) is that she wishes she has what I have, she can't have it without accepting Jesus first - because "true" or not (not that I doubt it is) that is the source of my joy and the source of my happiness is everything that I have in life.

Big tangent but I think I will come back to saying that transcendental meditation, along with things that seem to have similar consequences, scares me and I am very happy and joyful in not looking to "fly" outside my body, not until I die anyway.