N. CAROLINA

Top 10 Questions About What's Happening In Sampson

1. What is happening in Sampson? Earlier this year, a land search committee of the World Plan Executive Council (WPEC) started to look for a piece of property to develop into a residential community and an executive health center. The WPEC is the main organizational voice of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, an Indian religious leader, in the United States. Among other things, it oversees the teaching of Transcendental Meditation in the country.

In September, David Kaplan, a book publisher who is a long-time TM teacher, purchased a 1,064 acre tract in southeastern Watauga Country for $1.27 million under the name Twins I Corporation. Twins I has since formed Emerald Ridge Development Corporation.

But Curtis Mailloux, former head of the Maharishi movement's Washington, DC, training center, believes plans for the center are mostly hype. ``There won't be that many people there,'' he predicted. ``They won't spread themselves that thin. Three hundred to a thousand? That's just hype to get

publicity. They only have a few hundred people at (WPEC spokesman) Tony's (DiRusso) level of devotion and then they have a couple thousand true believers, but most of them are in Fairfield, Iowa. They're not going to all uproot.''

2. Who is this Maharishi? and what is WPEC? The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was born in India about 1911, [allegedly] he received a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Allahabad. After this, he became a disciple of a Hindu religious leader named Swami Brahmananda Saraswati. After this man died in 1953, Maharishi spent two years living in a cave in the Himalayas. Following this, he began teaching in southern India. In 1959, he came to the United States and began teaching what is now called Transcendental Meditation.

During the early 1960's. his teaching found acceptance on many college campuses. The group spreading the word was the Students' International Mediation Society, which subsequently became the US branch of the World Plan Executive Council.

Maharishi gained international recognition after members of The Beatles studied with him.

In 1974, his supporters purchased Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, and began transforming it into Maharishi International University. Fairfield is home to some 2,500 of his supporters and the WPEC and is the center of operations, so to speak, for the United States.

At present, the Maharishi resides in The Netherlands, which is also where the international WPEC has its headquarters.

3. My neighbors say this could be like a standoff in Waco where al those people got killed. Is that possible?

Maharishi and his followers have been in this country for some 34 years. We have looked particularly for any instance of violence connected with this group. As far as national news papers and magazines have reported, there are no such cases in this movement's history. We have found no reports of confrontations, violence or the use of force by or in connection with Maharishi or his supporters.

Curtis Mailloux agreed with this. ``They would never amass guns or anything like that to draw attention to themselves, '' he told us.

5. Is this a religion? Tony DiRusson of the WPEC says the movement is not a religion, rather, it is an educational organization. ``We do two things: teach TM and encourage scientific research about its effects,'' he said. DiRusso stated, ``We are not out to try to change anybody's mind about anything.'' He told us this anecdote:

I was with Maharishi at a press conference several years ago. A reporter asked ``What is the best religion to have to practice TM?'' Maharishi answered, ``The religion you grew up in, because that is what you know best.''

Others disagree. Curtis Mailloux told us TM is strongly tied to Hindu belief. Yagyas, a form of treatment in Ayur-Vedic medicine are, he said, sacrifices to Hindu deities made on behalf of a patient. He stated that many advanced teachers celebrate Hindu holidays and believe in the effectiveness of sacrifices to Hindus gods.

TM had a far more eastern/mystic/Hindu feel to it when it first came to this country. The emphasis is now on science (or pseudoscience, critics say).

6. Is TM contrary to Judao-Christian beliefs? WPEC spokesman Tony DiRusso told us there are Protestant ministers, Catholic priest and Jewish rabbis who practice TM and, evidently, see no conflict between their religious beliefs and it. David Kaplan told us Monday he is Jewish, and attends services in that faith.

Not everyone agrees. Curtis Mailloux told us TM is founded on Hinduism and that followers in advanced steps are ``basically Hindu monks.'' A pamphlet called Transcendental Meditation: A Christian View by David Haddon, which is sold locally in Christian bookstores, argues TM is inconsistent with Biblical teachings.

(Editor's note: We raise these question not to criticize Hinduism, which, like all religions in this country, is protected by the Constitution. We do want to point out that while supporters of TM say there is no religious content in their program, others say that is not true.)

7. I've heard of cults that involve young people and end up hating their families and living like slaves. I'm a parent and I'm worried. Is this one of them?

There's TM and there's TM. Most people who take a seven-lesson course, meditate twice a day and have no other involvement with the movement. Others become World Peace Professionals, meditation for may hours a day in groups in hopes of lowering the crime rate or achieving other results.

Curtis Mailloux took TM training at age 16, after a Maharishi group gave a lecture at his high school. At 18, he left home for Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa. After graduation, he worked for two years as an unpaid laborer (he calls it ``slave labor'') at a movement-owned flower farm in Florida, earning credits to become a teacher. In 1980, he traveled to India with the Maharishi and later headed the group's Washington center.

The center planned in Sampson area is geared toward executives, David Kaplan told us. WPEC's Tony DiRuusso said, ``We expect to have leaders of society and leading educators coming here.''

Curtis Mailloux, however, predicted the center would serve as a base for spreading TM in the area. ``They will offer to give classes in your schools,'' he said. ``That is what they are about: raising money and gaining converts.''

8. Is there a good side for this area? From some viewpoints, the answer is yes. First, sources in the NC Department of Commerce believe the WPEC may spend as much as $35 million developing the center. In a interview last week, Tony DiRusso of the WPEC told us, ``normally, we do construction locally. Going into the community, it helps establish good relations, which is what we want. It is also better working with local people because they know the area and the regulations.''

This area was picked, in part, because of the amenities it could offer visitors to the complex. These visitors are predicted, by WPEC, to number between 2,000 and 3,000 annually. But most will be executives on vacation, he said, with time to shop and visit in the High Country.

In Fairfield, Iowa, and initially small meditation center attracted several thousand followers. Many started businesses because of a lack of jobs. Today, the 345 companies owned by Maharishi supporters employ about 1,800 people. Whether the Sampson center will attract a group of followers living in the area but not in the center--as was the case in Fairfield--is unknown.

But Curtis Mailloux warned us about claims made by the movement. ``They tend to exaggerate to get attention,'' he said. Pat Ryan, another former member, told us ``This is something they do: go around and claim they are going to start a center, then sell the land to their followers. They make a profit and then move on.''

9. How about the down side? According to county tax records, the whole 1,064 acre tract is in the Blowing Rock Fire District. That means Blowing Rock VFD will have to supply fire protection for a community possibly as large as the town itself a number of miles from their home base.

Sampson is also in the Blowing Rock School District. The elementary school there is already overcrowded and facing a major expansion during the next two years. If a center attracts families, that could throw off present projections for student population. This growth could also make itself felt at the high school level.

If people in the Sampson area now use the land for hunting, fishing or other purpose, it is likely they will find the property closed to them in the future.

The long-range impacts on the region are harder to judge. Though the movement describes itself as non-political, it tends to get involved. In Fairfield, Iowa, meditators make up 25% of the population--but control three of seven seats on the town council. The Natural Law Party, a movement front group, has made very unsuccessful ventures into national politics here and in the United Kingdom.

10. What's the time table for this development? Sketchy at best. Last week, Tony DiRusso of WPEC told us the feasibility study on the site will not be complete until February. Of the test planned, only those done from the air have started, he said. A week before, Tom Weinbrenner, the man doing the feasibility study, told us it would be complete by the end of the year.

Once the study is done, the group expects to present a proposal, probably in late February or March. Then it's time for regulations.

In an interview Monday, David Kaplan stated he hoped construction on staff housing would begin in the spring. Groundbreaking on the rest of the project, he hopes, will take place in the fall.

The 1,064 acre parcel lies between the north and south forks of Laurel Creek. These have been declared Outstanding Resource Waters (ORW) by state and subject the whole property to a number of restrictions.

According to Michael Mickey, Environmental Specialist with the NC Division of Environmental Management's Winston-Salem office, wastes cannot be discharged into ORW classified streams. In a letter dated November 8, Mickey told feasibility planner Tom Weinbrenner, ``the only wastewater disposal options available for the development would be on-site subsurface disposal systems (septic systems) permitted by the Watauga County Health Department or spray irrigation system permitted by this office.''

A sediment and erosion control must be submitted to the county Planning and Inspections Department for approval. After this, the state would issue a Stormwater General Permit.

The developers will have two options on this permit. They can build single-family residence on one-acre or larger lots; other structures could occupy no more than 12% of the land. Higher densities can be approved, but these would require wet detention ponds to collect rain and limit sedimentation in the streams.

The subdivision plan for the site will have to be approved by the country Planning Board. Among the requirements: paved roads to the development. Once the board and state agencies approve, construction can begin. Jim Thompson, The Mountain Times. December 16, 1993 ~

N. CAROLINA

Indian Guru Plans Major Center In Watauga County

The property in question is located just off Sampson Road, below the Aho community. According to records at the county courthouse, it includes 1,064.71 acres. It was purchased on September 10, 1993 at a cost of $1.27 million by Twins I Corporation. This shadowy group has direct ties to Fairfield, Iowa, home base of the Maharishi's movement in the United States.

Earlier this year, the World Plan Executive Council (WPEC) circulated among realtors a description of land they wanted to buy in the North Carolina mountains. The WPEC, which is based in Fairfield, Iowa, is a moving force in the Maharishi's American organization. In May, it purchased a Day's Inn in Houston. It is connected with Fairfield's Maharishi International University, which attempted to acquire Chanute Air Force base in Illinois from the U.S. government last year.

The circular details WPEC's plans for the tract they sought to buy. The group, it said, ``is looking for a large parcel of mountain land on which to build a private school and executive conference center and health resort. Plans call for residential and common building and recreation areas sufficient to serve 2,000-3,000 students, visitors, and staff.''

Evidently for spiritual reasons, building sites on the property would have to face east. The site should be private and quiet. But not isolated: ``Since a significant number of our guests will be high-level executives, we would like to locate in an area where they would feel comfortable.'' Comfort in this case means nearby golf courses, good shopping and tourist attractions.

In addition to the one tract, we have learned representatives of the Maharishi are attempting to purchase other, nearby parcels. One source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told us the group may sell tracts of land to its followers.

We contacted the World Plan Executive Council at its Fairfield headquarters Tuesday. A spokesman denied the group's involvement in the project. While the WPEC may no longer be directly involved in the development, the land is owned by a company connected to Fairfield and the Maharishi. Another source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed the link between Twins I and the transcendental meditation movement. Jim Thompson, Mountain Times, December 2, 1993 ~

GURU REAL ESTATE LINK

N. CAROLINA

Guru Group Confirms Link With Development

Last week, a spokesman at the WPEC's Fairfield, Iowa, headquarters denied the group was involved with any project in west North Carolina. After the story of the connection between the WPEC and a 1,064-acre tract off Sampson Road below Aho community broke in last week's Mountain Times the organization confirmed its involvement through a spokesperson.

The property was purchased in September by Twins I Corporation, which is based in this state and headed by David Kaplan of Fairfield, Iowa, a supporter of the Maharishi. Since then, Twins I has formed Emerald Ridge Development Corporation to handle construction on the site. Emerald Ridge, in turn, has retained Tom Weinbrenner to prepare a feasibility study on the site.

According to the WPEC spokesperson, Tony DiRusso, the development is expected to attract between 300 and 1,000 year round residents and between 2,000 and 3,000 visitors during the course of a year.

The full-time residents would be ``peace professionals,'' as DiRusso termed them. These people meditate full time. Supporters of the Maharishi believe that by doing this, especially in large numbers, they can have a beneficial effect on the environment. DiRusso was a member of a TM-Sidhi group which meditated in Washington, DC. He claimed the group's efforts produced a 20 to 22% drop in the city's crime rate.

The central facility at the development would be an executive health center and spa which, he said, would be open to the general public. To be called the Maharishi Ayur-Veda Health Center, it would be privately owned and operated for profit. ``It would offer natural heath care programs, based on the prevention of disease,'' DiRusso told us.

In addition, there may be single-family homes, condos, a conference center and a school for teaching Transcendental Meditation.

Plans for the development are not definite, pending completion of the feasibility study. ``We are still finding out what can be done with the property,'' DiRusso said. That includes whether and to what extent the WPEC will be involved. ``If the feasibility study turns out okay, the WPEC would probably operate at least part of it,'' he said.

A land search committee of the WPEC identified the Watauga site after an eight-month search that involved many parts of the whole country. This area's amenities, as well as the pristine nature of the site, led to purchase. DiRusso termed the planned facility "quite unique in the world because it will provide a permanent home for world peace professionals and we will be building it from the ground up. Jim Thompson, The Mountain Times, December 9, 1993 ~

INSIDE LOOK AT MOVEMENT

N. CAROLINA

Let's Take An Inside Look At The Maharishi Movement

When you meet represenatives of the World Plan Executive Council, the non-profit group that oversees Transcendental Meditation in the United States, it's easy to believe. They appear happy, outgoing, enthused, and very open. For every one ot their beliefs, they cite scientific studies--500 of them, in fact. They don't promote a religion, they lower crime rates, they believe in world peace.

But according to others, beneath the glossy pamphlets promising health for everyone, the heavily footnoted brochures and the smiles of followers, there is another side to the Maharishi movement in the United States. There is a world not seen by the casually involved, like the business person who spends 40 minutes a daymeditating. It is a world of intentional deceit, inflated claims, questionable medical practices, slick marketing, and mind control--all done by a circle of faithful to promote a cause they consider holy.

Lying in a good cause comes easy, according to Curtis Mailloux, a former TM teacher. Mailloux headed the movement's Washington, DC teaching center until he left what he calls ``the cult'' in 1989. He told us:

I was trained to deceive people. I was trained how to use scientific studies in a way to confuse people, not to help them understand. We felt we had a holy mission to bring this supreme knowledge to people. We had a condescending attitude that anyone who was at all critical or skeptical was at a lower level of consciousness. We believed we had a right to shape the information in a way that would make people believe it.

In a 1991 interview published in the Jounal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) , Mailloux said:

I was taught to lie and to get around the petty rules of the ``unenlightened'' in order to get favorable reports into the media. We were taught how to exploit the reporters' gullibility and fascination with the exotic, especially what comes from the East. We thought we weren't doing anything wrong, because we were told it was often necessary to deceive the unenlightened to advance our guru's plan to save the world.

That tendency is found elsewhere in the movement. In June 1991, the JAMA published an article on Maharish Ayur-Veda medicine written by Drs. Hari Sharma, Brihaspati Dev Triguna, and Deepak Chopra. According to JAMA associate editor Andrew Skolnick, the three signed releases indicating they had no financial interest in the products or service about which they wrote. In fact, they did, as they revealed in new statements subsequently published in the JAMA. Drs. Sharma and Chopra are both connected with the movement's Lancaster, Massachusetts, Ayur-Veda health center.

According to WPEC spokesman Tony DiRusso, Sharma will be involved in setting up the center in Watauga County.

Roots

The man known as the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was born in India about 1911. Early in 1959, he brought [the] technique to California. His first efforts at education--or promotion--were on college campuses. By the first summer, a branch of his Spiritual Regeneration Movement was flourishing in Los Angeles. From there it spread, in part under the direction of the Maharishi's Student's International Meditation Society (SIMS). This group developed what Curtis Mailloux called the ``SIMS shuffle,'' the use of deception in dealing with the unenlightened.

The movement gained tremendous international publicity at the end of the decade as members of The Beatles briefly became followers of the Maharishi. The charismatic leader was able to use this exposure to further his movement, which continued to grow during the next decade.

That public image is how David Kaplan, who purchased the Sampson tract, sees the Maharishi. ``It's really a great experience to be with him,'' he told us. ``It's so joyful, everything you get to do with him.''

But the gentle, smiling monk the media saw was different off camera, according to Curtis Mailloux. Mailloux worked extensively with the Maharishi and traveled with him to India in 1980. ``The Maharishi has contempt for outsiders, outside the Indian racial groups,'' he told us in an interview this weekend. ``He calls us the `mix-ups' over here. His followers don't understand he has contempt for them.''

``He's not a plesant man: I've been around him enough to know that,'' he said. ``He's charming when he wants to be but he's unbelievably controlling.'' During an association of several years, Mailloux said, the two never had a real conversation. ``He did that with some people, if they were useful to him monetarily,'' he said. ``It was clear in the movement if you had money, you had access.''

That may explain the different perception of Kaplan and Mailloux. Mailloux was a worker; Kaplan, and his twin brother Earl, wealthy enough to buy a $1.27 million tract of land. Kaplan told us he and his brother have made many donations to the Maharishi movement over the years. Jim Thompson, The Mountain Times, December 16, 1993~

NLP CANADA

CANADA

Reading a yogic political flyer

We had the chance, proffered on the proverbial silver platter, to elect a perfect flawless, immaculate, untarnished, impeccable, irreproachable government. And we blew it. We carelessly tossed aside a potential heaven on Earth and chose to remain in a fool's paradise.

I'm am not casting stones here, for I am not without sin among you. I cannot count my self among the 85,862 enlightened fellow citizens who inscribed an X beside the name of a Natural Law candidate. I was, I confess, part of the herd of 13 million or so who frittered away their franchise on one of the other more-or-less orthodox options--thus eschewing a northern nirvana.

I base this apocalyptic view on the Natural Law Party's campaign brochure--If I may use a trifling term for such a transcendent treatise. This 44-page, tabloid sized tome arrived with a great thump at my doorstep on the Thursday before election day. Captivated by the beatific countenance of party leader Dr. Neil Paterson, which adorned the front page, I started immediately to read it. Unfortunately, I didn't finish until two days after the vote, and the proverb ``better late than never'' does not apply to postelectoral epiphanies.

George Orwell, in his famous essay "Politics and the English Language," wrote that ``the great enemy of clear language is insincerity.'' He would have no quarrel there with Natural Law. ``I appreciate that every party is genuinely wanting to serve the nation with knowledge they have,'' Dr. Paterson wrote, with a generosity of spirit quite lacking among the other importunists.

The only problem with the others, Dr. Paterson politely pointed out, is that they share that human frailty called imperfection. On the other hand, ``the Natural Law Party has come with a new element of flawless administration--the ability to govern as efficiently and perfectly as the government of the universe.''

Being somewhat geometrically impaired, I found Appendix IV a bit bewildering--although hardly more obscure than much of the other campaign literature. It contained a labyrinthine chart providing Natural Law's superiority through the ``Qualities of the Unified Field Derived from the Lagrangian of the Superstring.'' A dictionary definition of Lagrangian -- ``the difference between the kinetic energy and the potential energy of a system expressed as a function of generalized co-ordinates, their time derivatives, and time'' -- offered little clarification. But I was relieved to read in a footnote that ``it is not necessary to understand the Constitution of the Universe to enjoy the benefits of the Natural Law Party.''

Fortunately, Dr. Paterson's personal prose did not mince words. He didn't hold out some vague promise of better government, he vouchsafed perfect government. In fact, he vouchsafed it 24 times -- not to mention the reference to ``infinite order,'' ``sublime aspirations'' and ``indomitable positivity and harmony.''

But Natural Law's platform was not all abstract. Among the solid planks in its platform were: abolish the GST and lower other taxes; wipe out the federal deficit in three years; eliminate unemployment; cut disease by 50 per cent; eradicate crime and environmental pollution; create a lasting national unity; reduce the generation gap; and make politicians pious. No mention of immortality, but some things take time.

I think it was the prospect of ``bubbling bliss'' for all Canadians that really clinched it for me--my own personal levels of politically inspired rapture being somewhere below the boiling point.

Alas, it was too late. And I was filed with a deep sense of loss, of a window of opportunity slammed shut on my fingers, of perfection postponed, if not lost. Things might have been different--very different--if only Natural Law's wondrous words had reached me sooner. I meditated moodily that perhaps they had got help up at the post office, or in some delivery firm's warehouse.

And I reflected philosophically that nobody's perfect. Robertson Cocrade is a Toronto Writer~

10 Things about the Natural Law Party

> In 1984, TM guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi crowned tinpot dictator Ferdinand Marcos ``President of the World Government of the Age of Enlightenment in the Philippines,'' saying Marcos was ``rising to be the guiding light in the family of nations.''

> In 1991, two English doctors who follow TM were barred from practicing medicine after they prescribed to AIDS patients TM herbal products containing feces.

> TM poster boy and Natural Law Party of Canada Vice President Doug Hewing embraces TM beliefs that include life-long celibacy and the stricture that anyone who ejaculates will never encounter the divine. Henning's former wife, Barbara DeAngelis, left the magician (tired of being sawed in half, surely?) for a gig in Los Angeles as a radio and TV sex therapist.

> In 1991, the Maharishi persuaded Zambian strongman Kenneth Kaunda, who had ruled for 27 years, to undertake the ``Maharishi Heaven on Earth Development Project,'' a multimillion agrarian utopia theme park for the country's six million poor. The project was to take up one-quarter of Zambia's land mass. The ``giggling guru'' claimed the project would disperse a ``wondrous aura of calm and anti-negativity.'' In Zambia's first multi-party election in 15 years, voters rejected Kaunda and the Maharishi's scheme. Both fled the country.

> U.S. federal tax returns indicate that between 1985 and 1989, two of the Maharishi's companies transferred a total of $54-million out of the country to his secluded fortress at Vlodrop, Netherlands.

> Ever the entrepreneur, the Maharishi offered to rid Washington, D.C. of ``the problems of crime and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the family of man.'' If local government or private donors would pay him $29-million. Baltimore, Md., would cost $88-million (at $36,000 for each of the 2,400 meditators needed.) So far, no takers.

> In 1989, a German court, basing its decision on West German governmental studies of TM, concluded that the movement ``could cause psychic defects or destroy personality.''

> Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, where the Natural Law Party was founded in 1991, is the source of many of the party's ``scientifically-validated studies.'' MIU has the highest student loan default rate for colleges in the entire state of Iowa.

> In 1989 the Maharishi decided to settle out of court with ten former TM members who sued him for fraud and negligence.

> Er, that's it. ~

MEDITATOR MURDERED

MA

Stoneham doctor had premonition of death

The decision to cancel came after Goudey, a Stoneham obstetrician and gynecologist, had a premonition that if she went on the trip she would die, said her former husband, Clifford Goudey.

On Oct. 4, four days after Goudey told a few people close to her about the haunting dream in which she died in her car, she was found dead in her Saab, apparently strangled. The car was in the parking lot of New England Memorial Hospital in Stoneham, where Goudey worked.

Goudey's death is being investigated as a homicide, but no conclusive ruling has been made. The medical examiner's office is still awaiting results of toxicology test, and no new information is being released, said Jill Reilly, spokeswomen for the Middlesex district attorney's office.

However she died, Goudey, know as Lin to her friends, left behind a kaleidoscope of images as a Joan of Arc of the ob-gyn world, a devotee of transcendental meditation and an avid animal rites advocate. Goudey, who readily warred with insurance companies on behalf of her patients, also stood by her animal-rights principles in her own way.

``We were at Vail,'' recalled a skiing buddy who asked not to be named, and ``she would run up to people in fur coats and say `Fluffy, you killed Fluffy.'''

But this slender 43-year-old bubbling with chutzpah also surprised her friends by what they described as submissive devotion to her boyfriend, Dr. Timothy D. Stryker, a Stoneham endocrinologist.

Their relationship, said several friends who knew them both, was controlling and rigid. As one friend said, ``He knew it when she went to the bathroom."

Goudey died before the Caribbean vacation she had planned to take with Stryker. But Stryker went ahead, reserving his own spot for a week on the Aquanaut Explorer, based on St. Vincent's island, the tour company confirmed.

Stryker, though initially identified by law enforcement sources as a suspect in Goudey's death, has not been charged with any crime.

Goudey knew several friends had misgivings about her relationship with Stryker, but she would not hear of ending it. ``She always said, `It's better to be with someone than no one,''' said a Goudey confidante who asked not to be named. ``Shvve didn't like being alone."

Stryker has declined a request for an interview. His lawyer, Martin Leppo, said his client did not see the relationship as troubled. ``They had a very understanding relationship, and it was a very happy relationship,'' he said. He acknowledged that ``Dr. Stryker is very structured in his own life, but she controlled her own time.''

Goudey was committed to delivering healthy babies against the greatest odds, and had a special interest in gestational diabetes. Many of her patients drove extra miles to come to her and entrusted her with pregnancies that other doctors had deemed risky. Goudey did not take a fellowship in high-risk obstetrics, but through sheer dedication and on the-job training, she brought many problem pregnancies to a healthy conclusion.

Although Goudey was devoted to bringing life into the world often against great odds, Clifford Goudey said she was adamant about never having children. But even amid a chaotic schedule, Goudey always had time for others. ``If you were having a bad day, she would send you flowers,'' said a nurse who worked for Goudey regularly at the hospital, where Goudey had an office next door. ``A nurse on a floor would complain of a headache and she would run all the way back to her office to get some aspirin,'' said another friend.

Years before med school Linda Rafuse Goudey was intense and responsible dating back to her parents' divorce when she was 10 years old. She earned two degrees before she decided to focus her laser curiosity on medicine. At the University of Maine, she met Clifford Goudey when she was an undergraduate zoology major. In 1972, they were married and spent their honeymoon on a 26-foot sailboat. At first they lived in Woods Hole, where he was still in the Coast Guard and she was earning a master's degree in marine biology. They spent the next 11 years taking turns supporting one another in graduate studies. She worked as a technologist at Cambridge Hospital and later at the Red Cross in Boston while he was in graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After he graduated and became a research engineer in fisheries and underwater vehicles at MIT, she applied to medical schools. Harvard, Boston, and Tuffs universities accepted her, but the University of Massachusetts at Worceser was an irresistible bargain.

Dr. Michael Minto, a gynecological oncologist, remembers Goudey well from their days at medical school and afterward, when they were residents at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

"She was always in the front row with her hand in the air,'' recalled Muto of their medical school days. In residency, Muto said, ``she was a very devoted physician. She spent hours and hours with her patients.''

Dr. Frederick D. Frigoletto Jr., associate director of the 1983 residency program that Goudey attended at Brigham and Women's, described Goudey as a ``good resident, a bright, hard-working and dedicated young lady.''

But in the final year of her residency, he said, ``We came close to taking disciplinary action against her'' after some patients wrote letters criticizing her for being ``insensitive'' to them. He added, ``We had an equal or more number of letters that said she was the best thing since Skippy peanut butter.''

Muto defended Goudey, saying that with the acute sleep deprivation and workload of the ob-gyn program any resident was bound to seem insensitive at some point.

Passion for meditation

Clifford Goudey said he was his wife's biggest fan throughout the years of medical training. But after 17 years of marriage, he initiated the divorce that became final in 1990. The wedge that drove them apart, he said, was her all-consuming devotion to transcendental meditation.

``It became a very important part of her life,'' he said, ``to the exclusion of anything else.''

Meditation, he said, ``became more important than eating at normal time or adapting to a schedule that allowed her to be with someone she was supposed to care about and more important than going to family events.''

Proponents of TM say it is simply a means of relaxation that has been shown through medical studies to reduce stress.

TM beginners are required to meditate for 20 minutes twice a day. But those who take TM to a deeper level, in the opinion of local therapist Steven Hassan, become ``involved with a destructive mind control cult.'' Hassan has included TM in a book he wrote about mind control cults.

But if TM contributed to the breakup of the Goudeys' marriage, it was a bond between Stryker and Linda Goudey.

``For Tim, TM became a way of living and a way of being,'' according to one friend of Goudey.

Goudey tried to comply with Stryker's rigid requirements, the friends said, from his insistence on absolute quiet when he meditated to demanding to know her every move.

On one occasion Goudey later complained about to friends, she had to sit outside his house while he meditated. When he finished she went in and showered, emerging to find him walking out the door with out her because she was not ready on time.

Strict schedule

She followed a strict schedule whenever she was not delivering a baby in her off-hours, friends said. They meditated, exercised and dined together, but rarely went out.

She always had to leave his home in time for him to be in bed by 10 p.m., friend said, a rule that meant missing the ends of movies and leaving social functions early.

Another friend of Goudey's said she practiced TM just to please him.

``She was a terrible meditator,'' the friend said. ``She would fall asleep. She tried hard because she wanted to please him.''

Over the past four years, said her colleague Dr. Glenn Dixon, chief of obstetrics at New England Memorial, ``she became fanatical about her body -- she became a strict vegetarian, drank no alcohol.''

While Clifford Goudey could not understand the appeal of TM, he developed a healthy respect for a kind of sixth sense his wife seemed to possess.

One winter several years ago, he said, he had arranged to meet her at the home of friends in Maine. He headed up in a Volkswagen van that was none too roadworthy, but he was on schedule until about five minutes from the house. He then lost control of the vehicle descending a snowy hill. The van flipped, and he was trapped inside.

At that very moment, Lin leapt to her feet in the friends' living room. She said, according to her ex-husband: ``Cliff's been in an accident. We have to go help him.''

She seemed to have special intuition or psychic ability, said Clifford Goudey.

Her intuition carried over to her work.

Time and again she would sense a baby was in trouble during delivery, despite no external signs. A patient, said ``Lin had a sixth sense; if she didn't, my daughter wouldn't be here.''

``She did seem to pick up on things other doctors missed,'' said Jean Stryker, who used to work in Goudey's office and is the sister of Timothy Stryker.

``She would sense something and act on it, and she was right,'' Jean Stryker said. But the doctor who used her sixth sense to rescue babies in distress was unable to use the premonition of her own death to save herself. Judy Rakowsky, The Boston Globe, November 7, 1993 ~

Cults in the News

Cults on Tokyo Campuses The Japan Times reported last fall (``Groups pray for prey in universities,'' 9/26/92) that an estimated 20 religious groups are active on the Komba Campus of Tokyo University. They include the Unification Church, Soka Gakkai, and the Institute for Human Happiness. '' There are many `gentle people' on campus, sometimes in pairs of girls, who approach students and say `let's have a talk' with a `soft sell' smile.'' Some rent houses or rooms near the campus to conduct their activities. The busiest time is immediately after new students enroll. Many of those come from the provinces and have no connections in Tokyo. The paper quotes Kenjo, 23, who nearly got involved in a group whose members initially only gave advice on campus life and then urged him to attend a two-day course, followed by on of seven days. Kenjo was urged to join the group in communal living, but refused and left it. FAIR NEWS [London, Spring 1993,3]

Books on Cults High in Reader Poll Churches That Abuse , a book by Westmont College (Santa Barbara, CA) sociology professor Ronald Enroth, was chosen sixth in a readers poll taken by Christianity Today for the 1993 ``Book of the Year.'' (Christianity Today, 4/5/93. [Professor Enroth, a nationally known authority on cults and aberrant Christian groups, is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Cultic Studies Journal , which is published by the American Family Foundation.] ~

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SUGGESTED READINGS

Combatting Cult Mind Control , by Steven Hassan. MUST reading for anyone who has been touched by cult phenomena. A former Moonie tells his story.

Zillions: Consumer Reports for Kids , P.O. Box 54861, Boulder, CO 80322 Kids learn critical thinking by evaluating popular culture and advertising aimed at them.

TM and Cult Mania , by M.A. Persinger, Ph.D. An in-depth investigation into the claims of TM, hypnosis and research. [Available from TM-EX]

How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life , by Thomas Gilovich. An investigation of how even highly educated people become convinced of the validity of questionable or demonstrably false beliefs about the world, and the unfortunate impact of these beliefs.

Skeptical Inquirer , Box 229, Buffalo, NY 14215. Journal of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, which attempts to encourage the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view. [See Winter 1983-84, ``An investigation of the effects of TM on the weather.'']

NCAHF Newsletter (National Council Against Health Fraud), P.O. Box 1276, Loma Linda, CA 92354. To aid in activism against health fraud, misinformation and quackery.

Influence: The New Psychology of Modern Persuasion , by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. A landmark publication in furthering our understanding of the persuasion process.

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