Given our recent discussion that freaked me out more than anything, I know we are obsessed with cults on this site. Whether it’s a secret fascination with Tom Cruise’s Oprah-shocking ability or the idyllic love of benign tree lovers just outside of town, we all have a little place in our heart for these abnormal human associations.
Reading through a recent NYT article “Sites for ‘Maharishi Effect’ (Welcome to Parma) Spread Across U.S.,” I discovered that one of the intended sites for future peace palaces was… you guessed it… little old CHARLOTTESVILLE VIRGINIA. I do not kid.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi instructed his students to spend 20 minutes a day meditating. If he achieved 1% square root of 1% of the world’s population, he would achieve world peace because of increased connectedness or something like that. You can read more details about his life here.
So the organization that is supposedly building the Peace Palace is called “Global Country.” I could not find anything on their website about the Charlottesville plans, but I did look at the architectural diagrams for the Peace Palace, and I’m not gonna lie, it looks pretty sweet-kinda like Farmington Country Club if you ask me.
It sounds like someone would need to donate their land and money to build a peace palace, so who is it?
On another note, I read about the MUM, or Maharishi University of Management that actually gives degrees in this stuff. It’s endorsed by celebrities such as Seinfeld and Russell Simmons and is supposedly a great way to relax. They have hundreds of scientific studies that prove this isn’t Scientology. Anyway, check out the video below if you don’t believe me.
Does anyone know where the peace palace will be?
[pic kudos]
Popularity: 18% [?]
Tagged as: , Charlottesville, cults, meditation, peace palace, Rumors
Don’t know, but if some doctor pimps antidepressants to you, consider that the US Gov’t is funding studies comparing those meds to MBCT, Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy, derived from Buddhist practice. One of many references:
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=NCT00183560
I’d say it’s less likely to have side effects.
I am skeptical of all religious practice, but follow the money on those meds.
Hinduism, not Buddhism, I know.
~snip~…Maharishi University of Management that actually gives degrees in this stuff.
This reminds me of the Naropa Insititute, in Boulder, Co. It’s essentially a Buddhist college. I had a few friends who studied there when I lived in the nearby mountains. I recall one of my friends saying that an assignment he had for a class was learning how to ‘think like a mountain’. I’m still trying to figure that one out. My friend and I saw Allen Ginsberg give a speech there, and we met him afterwards.(The entire time he played 20 Questions with my friend about his sex life)
/ramble
Think like a mountain? Pshaw. I do that every morning, duh.
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