Yogic flying

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The Transcendental meditation (also called TM) movement considers Yogic flying the crown-jewel of the techniques it teaches. Yogic flying is the purported ability to levitate through advanced practice of Transcendental Meditation. While sitting cross-legged or in a "lotus" position, yogic flyers hop about on springy mats. The TM organization claims this is the first of three stages of levitation called "the perfection of leaping like a frog". Proponents of yogic flying claim that world peace and many other social and environmental benefits can be generated by having at least seven thousand yogic flyers around the world hopping at the same time.

1 History of Yogic Flying
2 Facilities and Practitioners
3 Criticism of Yogic Flying
4 External links

[edit] History of Yogic Flying

Yogic flying traditionally stems from the Vedic rishi Avatsara, "the flying-one". Later yogic texts also describe this siddhi ("perfection") in varying degrees of detail, most notably the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali.

A system of yogic flying also exists within the inner tantras (anuttara-tantras) of Tibetan Buddhism as a system to attain enlightenment. In this system the practitioners work at the dissolution of the vital airs, prana, into the centermost part of being, the avadhuti or "central channel". In the initial stages this is used in a system of yogic-running where the practitioner is able to proceed across the ground in large jumps. Some of kings of the Himalayan kingdoms kept speed-runners from this tradition to carry messages over long distances.

Once perfected, the adept of this school (rlung-gompa) can then work for the attainment of simultaneous bliss and emptiness (in Sanskrit, shunyata). Ultimately one attains mahamudra siddhi, total non-dual realization, and is able to radiate bodhichitta, the intent to gain enlightenment in order to benefit all sentient beings.

[edit] Facilities and Practitioners

Facilities for purported yogic flying are located at the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, at Maharish Vedic School in Antrim, New Hampshire, and at Maharishi European Sidhaland in Skelmersdale, U.K..

During the 1990s, various Natural Law Parties encouraged the use of yogic flying as part of their party platform. Current plans by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation Program and related programs, include building 3000 Peace Palaces in major cities, and creating permanent groups of 8,000 yogic flyers to create permanent world peace. His plan also calls for a group of 500 Vedic pandits, all flyers, to take up residence at Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa.

According to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, if just the square root of one percent of the population regularly practices yogic flying together, the entire population will be blessed with the fruits of greater coherence - including reduction in violence, crime, disease, deadly storms, and other destructive natural forces. They will enjoy more abundant crops and a decrease in poverty.

To help convince people of these claims, the movement has presented a number of public demonstrations of yogic flying, such as the one in 1999 described by Bob Park, professor of physics at the University of Maryland and author of the weekly science Internet column, What's New. The yogic flying demonstration was presented at a press conference at the Washington, DC Press Club by physicist and Natural Law Party Presidential candidate John Hagelin. Hagelin had called the press conference to offer help in ending the war in Kosovo by sending 7000 Yogic Flyers to create positive coherence in the violence-torn country. This is how Park described the demonstration[1]:

"Mattresses were spread right there on the floor, and 12 fit-looking young guys seated themselves in the lotus position. The audience was cautioned to make no sound as they meditated. After a few minutes, one of them suddenly levitated. Well, he didn't exactly float, mind you, just sort of popped up a couple of inches and thumped back down. Then another levitated, and another, till the scene looked like corn popping. There was nothing to suggest they didn't follow parabolic trajectories. My guess is they were suddenly contracting their gluteus maximus. It must be hard work. They were soon panting heavily."

[edit] Criticism of Yogic Flying

Yogic flying is not accepted by the scientific community. Though members of the TM organization have claimed that TM practitioners have achieved actual levitation [2] [3], a 1987 Washington Post article, criticized yogic flying as "fake," and to date, no one has demonstrated levitation. Former TM adherents from Maharishi University of Management say the activity was "strictly physical exercise ... [with] nothing spiritual about it."[4]

James Randi, noted skeptic and critic of paranormal claims, investigated the claims of Dr. Robert Rabinoff, an MUM physics professor and researcher on the "Maharishi effect," that a large gathering of yogic flyers had reduced crime and accidents and increased crop production in the vicinity of Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa. After speaking with the Fairfield Police Department, the Iowa Department of Agriculture, and Iowa Department of Motor Vehicles, Randi concluded that Rabinoff's data were simply made up ^[1]

A later study purportedly found a correlation between the installation of a group of 4,000 participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs in the District of Columbia, and a reduction in violent crime in that city ^[2].

At a press conference to announce the analysis of that study, John Hagelin claimed that, during the period of the experiment, Washington, D.C. experienced a significant reduction in psychiatric emergency calls, fewer complaints against the police, and an increase in public approval of President Clinton -- all of which was consistent with the hypothesis that a coherence-creating group of TM experts can relieve social stress and reverse negative social trends. Overall, there was an 18 percent reduction in violent crime, he told the press. When a reporter asked, an 18 percent reduction compared to what, Hagelin answered, compared to the level of violent crime had the TM meditators not meditated. In his book Voodoo Science, physicist Robert Park called the TM study a "clinic in data manipulation." ^[3] The study has become a target for many other critics and wags: Most notably, in 1994 John Hagelin received an Ig Nobel Prize [5] to commemorate the study. This generally uncoveted spoof of the Nobel Prize is given annually to recognize "achievements" that "cannot, or should not, be reproduced." What astounded the critics most was the TM researchers' excuse for why Washington D.C.'s murder rate during the study periord had climbed to the highest rate in history. It would have been much higher had the TM meditators not meditated, the researchers explained.

One man actually sued the TM organization for over $100,000 and won for being promised the ability to fly. [6]

In the 1998 ABC News special The Power of Belief, John Stossel documents a series of disputed phenomena beginning with yogic flying.

In an episode of Rock Profile Yogic flying was dismissed as "just a sort of glorified bum jumping" by Matt Lucas (playing George Harrison).