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TranceNet: TM & Dissociation -- A Case History, Part II

Q: Why don't you tell us what your concerns were about his credibility?

A: When first I saw him I had set up an appointment for evaluation with him, actually for an initial meeting, a general overview and evaluation. He showed up at the appointment, as I recall, late. We began a discussion. I thought that the inter-personal part of the evaluation went quite well. I talked to him about what I felt was a need to spend more time with him and that I would be in touch with his attorney.

The original concern had to be with his responsibility for my fee, which he seemed unwilling to accept at the time. I had several discussions with him. So that made me curious about him.

Over time other things seemed increasingly curious and then seemed to make sense.

[John] does not lack for credibility in the sense that he is deceitful. I do not find that whatsoever.

I find that [John], rather than being non-credible or incredible or whatever the term is, rather is simply unaware. He appears to be irresponsible more than incredible. He appears to be naive and strange rather than deceitful.

There were a number of occasions and recently as several weeks ago when we would have an appointment and he didn't make it. In discussing these things with him it is clear to me that this is a processing problem that he has and not deceit or conscious irresponsibility.

Q: Let's talk about conscious irresponsibility: If a person parks his car in a tow-away zone, he is aware of it and then goes and relates to someone, "I am spacey; I parked my car in a tow-away zone and I am always doing something like that and then I go back out and my car has been towed away"; is that spacey or irresponsible?

A: In his case it is spacey.

Q: Why is that?

A: It is clearly spacey, for several reasons. There are several pieces that I use because he related that experience to me as well as many others. I had my own experience with him to work off, which is the best indicator.

The person who is simply irresponsible, l., they will not do it as globally. They will often -- may often act irresponsibly to other concerns but very rarely inconvenience themselves to such a great extent by their irresponsibility. In other words, if his irresponsibility were simply keeping me waiting for an appointment, that in and of itself might be viewed in other ways. But when the irresponsibility interferes with his own goals and it serves to his own detriment and that can be seen to happen with some consistency. What is more, there is no anger when it happens. There is no outpouring of emotion about, "How foolish, how stupid, how ridiculous". It is something that he has come to understand as part of him. It is more than someone with Alzheimer's Disease or severe organic brain syndrome is irresponsible because they forget your name or an address. It is just not there. The material doesn't process.

He looks at the sign that says "tow-away zone" and it doesn't mean anything. The eyes read it, but the brain doesn't get the signals as to what that really means.

Q: Or it could be that he is telling you a story for you to react to?

A: He could be.

Let me respond to that: You asked about forensic psychiatry. In my practice approximately 50 per cent of my time is spent in doing criminal work. I have had over the past 10 years an opportunity to evaluate several hundred criminal defendants who have a great deal to gain by pushing me in one direction or another or appearing more sick or more ill. Certainly I am not an oracle and the understander of all, that is true. I understand that. I look carefully at behavior to try to distinguish the malingerer or the feiner[sic], either good or bad in my evaluation.

In my time spent with [John], as I mentioned, which is in the neighborhood of eight to 10 clinical hours, I think it is certainly possible that someone can pull the wool over my eyes in a 45-minute session. That would certainly be possible.

In the variety of experiences that we have had both in person and on the telephone I feel quite certain that he is not capable of maintaining such a consistent stance over a period of time in a conscious way as I have seen. So I have considered that very carefully as part of my evaluation.

Q: What is the definition of spacey?

A: There is none.

Q: When you use the term "spacey" or "irresponsibility", it is not a professional term; is that correct?

A: No, it is not.

Q: It also -- would it be more clearly spacey if a person parked his car in a tow-away zone and didn't realize it and came back out and found his car towed away, looked up and saw the sign and said, "Oh, my, I parked my car in a tow-away zone. I didn't realize I had done it"?

A: I lost the question part of that.

Q: Is that spacey?

A: No.

Q: That is not spacey?

A: No.

On the one hand -- let me make the distinction: On the one hand I am talking about an isolated incident in which someone could certainly be preoccupied, someone can be otherwise directed, forgetful, unconsciously or subconsciously avoidant of a particular instance.

What I am talking about with [John] is a fairly comprehensive, global state in which materials, reading materials, appointment time and things of this nature come in and out of awareness to him, mean either what they are supposed to mean or nothing at all. But it is not because he doesn't see it. It is as if the eyes see it and read it but don't send a signal to the brain to do any thing about it.

Now, clearly that is an "as if" statement that I am giving you to try to explain it. It is what we would call a disassociated state.

Q: But it can't be described as irresponsibility?

A: No.

Irresponsibility to me implies conscious decision making. I do not believe that this is conscious.

Q: If he sees a tow-away sign and chooses to park his car there anyway, that is a conscious decision?

A: No, it is not.

Q: If he understands --

Let's go on.

Tell me what he told you about his history with transcendental meditation?

A: Apparently it began in [the early 70's] when he heard a public service announcement about a lecture on the [university campus] and -- a free lecture.

He decided that he would attend. He was working at that time at [one of his two jobs.] He indicates that things were going reasonably well for him; and he was curious.

He went to the lecture and he recalls being intensely curious. He began to wonder what this was about. He recalls that he was promised the full appointment to use his mental potential, that he would be able to rid himself of stress and increase his mental potential. He was told or recalls being told that TM would give him, in a sense, more rest at night, sleep, that there would be a secondary effect on his health and ultimately the development of perfect health.

He also recalls a third goal being described as societal and world benefits and an increase in peace throughout the world.

He returned for what was a second program, apparently; and learned that TM came from an ancient tradition that dated back through eternity, and that there are only beneficial results and no harmful results. There were two to three teachers who he described as being American, college age, glassy-eyed, removed, He said that they seemed a million miles away and that attracted him.

He said that they appeared pale and washed out looking, but their eyes were very bright and other-worldy. There was a mystique involved and he became increasingly curious about this. He was told that the cost initially was only $35 and so he signed and made an appointment for further experience. He was told that he had to be drug free and the interview began with a standard personal interview.

He indicated they talked about demographic data, name, address; and he was questioned about his state of mind and the use of non-prescription medications.

He indicated that his state of mind was tense and apparently he indicated that he had used marijuana two or three times some years before. He underwent a personal interview with this woman and he was told to come back to this situation with fruits and flowers and a handkerchief on a Saturday morning. He felt this was a little unusual, but he was extremely curious and eager to find out what this was about; so he certainly did that.

He met with the same woman and another at [an intersection] where there was[sic] two floors occupied by the organization. One of the women was preparing baskets and washing fruit and cutting flowers. Incense was burning. He was asked to take off his shoes, pay his initiation fee -- I am not sure what that was -- and he was then taken to a room, another room, I think it was upstairs from where he began in his bear feet.

He described the room as about the size of my office. He said that there was one table set like an altar with one candle burning and some light coming in from a window. There was a picture of an Indian man, brass cups and dishes, two chairs facing the altar.

They proceeded to sit in both chairs. She went over the interview form as if she were ascertaining it was the same person and explained that he would witness a ceremony and to come and stand by the altar. He was a little embarrassed , but he went along with that.

She opened the basket and some of the things an the tray, put the flowers in the water, sprinkled some water around the room and was apparently singing a hymn in a language that he described as Sanskrit. She then took the things that he had brought and put them in the altar tray.

He indicated what occurred was a full scale ritual that lasted about 10 minutes, perhaps a little longer; and he was then handed a flower which he held and offered to her. She turned to him and made a sweeping gesture to the floor which he presumed that he should bow to the picture. He laughed, he said to himself, feeling fleeting images of his Catholic upbringing, but he felt he was there and he chose to go through with it.

He was kneeling on the floor and she said one word to him, he described the sound of that, which was to be his mantra and that he was to repeat it. He sat back in his chair and did it both loudly, softer and so on, and then with his eyes closed and they would give less and less direction.

Ultimately, he felt that he was feeling the clues as to what to do mentally or "just mentally".

He indicates that he developed a sinking feeling and a sense that everything changed in his brain. He said that, "I took a plunge inside and a falling sensation like a drifting off".

He talked about a floating sensation inside and felt the outside of his body as if he was floating around the room. The entire experience from beginning to end took about two hours and he said he left feeling intoxicated.

He flaunted his experience to his friends, leaving flowers on his friend's door steps and he was given the direction to meditate that evening, and again in the morning and to come back for the next three evenings for about an hour to an hour and a half, at which each time he had similar experiences, though they were not as intense to him as the first.

He experienced floating feelings while he was meditating and they would linger afterwards as a split feeling of disorientation. It lasted from 10 to 20 minutes and after the next three nights he would meditate before going to group meetings.

He indicated that there were some do's and don'ts indicated, such as not to use an alarm clock, not to rest against a wall and so forth. There was a lecture on the second night about stress release and this was the first time that he learned the theory of unstressing.

Again he described the sinking feeling and reaching a plateau of depth. He indicated that the rest level washes away stress and when stress is washed away in body and mind it comes out in a thought.

He talked about the inward and outward strokes of meditation.

On the third night there was a vision of the goal of meditation when you reach the last stress, he said, that you reach enlightenment, a new state of consciousness and that that would be characterized by achieving full mental potential, perfect health and the support of all forces of nature, that one could reach the fulfillment of all aspirations.

He was told that the goal was eternal enlightenment and that this could be achieved in five years. He felt that if he did this he could have it all by 1977 and he remembers thinking, "I am going to be alive anyhow and for 20 minutes a day it is certainly worth the investment".

He was told that this could -- he could expand his involvement, speed up the process by becoming a teacher and becoming more involved. So he began going to additional courses.

He describes the experience of watching videos and rounding, which he describes as meditation three to six hours a day, which was combined with three to four hours a day of watching these spiritual videos.

He talked about the stretches with breathing exercises in a daily routine that involved several hours of meditation in the morning followed by videos, followed by additional meditations and followed by videos. He talked about taking notes on the videos and the teachers asking for summaries, and going to these discussion groups.

In [the early '70s] he went to Spain for four to five months and Switzerland. This was the first year of the World Plan to initiate everyone into TM.

He elected to pursue the teacher training and told me briefly about some of the regulations one of which emerged was always to maintain dignity, the dignity -- the teacher should never be a seen inappropriately dressed and that his experience became more and more structured at all levels and that there were beginning to become some struggles between the different levels, the higher, the more experienced perhaps or more lay terms rather than more enlightened people becoming somewhat abusive of the lesser. There was a sense of ego about those who had the latest knowledge and others who did not; and he was made a teacher by the Master in [the mid '70s].

He left Spain, went to Switzerland feeling very negative. He was told that he was unstressing. He was told to get rid of the negativity. There was a great deal of peer pressure to stay. He was distressed by the structure that had evolved, the so-called caste system which evolved; but he returned to [an East Coast city] and took a job in [a firm].

As he returned here he became involved once again with his friends from the TM organization and they consistently reminded him of his mistake in having left. And he developed a conflict because he felt that there were some things that weren't tolerable and yet he was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. His friends would tell him that he had a good experience, what was wrong with him being here and approximately a year later he was beginning to feel overwhelmed with guilt because of his constant interaction with his friends and decided to go back to school in the Catskills in New York.

Late in [the mid '70s] he was working the National University Press [Maharishi International Press] and he was being paid for his work in part by being able to take increasingly advanced courses. It was at this time that he met [Mary Noe], who became a very important, very close friend of his.

He described her as very attractive, very smart woman who was sort of, "the mother of the academy"; everybody came to her for help, advice and with their problems. He described that she would take care of what he described as the freakouts, people who became totally distraught and that she would be able to straighten them out by taking them screaming, putting them in cold showers or taking them to hospitals and she became a true leader in that sense.

He talked about his difficulties in doing his job and explained how he would sit at his job and pick up a pencil and stare at it for periods of time and snap out of it; that he and others were looking for an exotic celestial experience; he talked about cosmic consciousness and beginning to find these experiences.

He indicated that there was a strong sanction against sex outside of marriage, which began to raise questions in his mind about his mother and his so-called -- his natural father, I should say.

He talked about the rounding during that time, which was done four times a day, which included breathing exercises, stretches, meditation, that would be repeated, twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon. He indicated that he found himself drifting off more and needing to be shaken to come back. That was while he was at work. He was told this was a necessary side effect of the process; and when he began to complain he was told that he was not to bring out any negativity to anyone, just to suppress the negative feeling. He felt that there were people emerging, one a very positive, pure, saintly devotee and the other was grotesque with evil desires and doubting.

He indicated that the doubters were reported to teachers and if it persisted and got out of hand, that they would be ultimately asked to leave.

He recalled a specific conflict with himself when he was a teacher and he learned that a checker, who had access to the teachers' tapes was copying the tapes and using them for his own benefit.

He was then in the dilemma about thinking of turning the person in and struggled with that greatly.

He then learned of someone who was described to him as a friend of a friend of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and this individual currently named [Michael Roe] was in the [East Coast] area and he was very excited about the opportunity to meet with him. He was as honored as the leader [the Maharishi] himself.

He arrived wearing a flowing cape and a diamond ring. And [John] was invited to this individual's home. He became friends with him in [East Coast] and indicates that he quite distinctly worships himself. This man was described as being homosexual and took advantage of [John] in a sexual manner.

He became what he calls a slave to [Michael] for about a year or two; and when he would come to the academy, [John] would scrub his room. He would move out, he would buy pure silk sheets for him to sleep on, and that this was roughly the period of [the late 70s].

Roughly at that time, in [the late 70s], [John] went to Iowa; [Michael] had lent him the sum of $4,000 that was necessary to enroll.

Q: How do you spell [Roe]?

A: [R-O-E], I don't know. This is my interpretation.

Apparently -- and I am a little unsure of the time in this, but there was a time in there in which [John] came into some difficulty. I am not sure if it was his relationship with [Roe] or otherwise. There was a situation in which he had expected a final return for some behavior that he had done or had offered or for same services that he had offered. He was told that that was inappropriate, that he must understand that to serve the Master properly you cannot expect anything in return.

As a result it was suggested to come back to [an East Coast town] and teach.

Q: This was by [Roe]?

A: I am not sure. It is not clear from what I have here.

He spent approximately nine additional months in [an East Coast town] at that time. He described himself as being spaced out.

Q: Is this [the late 70s]?

A: Roughly, yes.

He indicates at that time he began writing letters to [Mary Noe], indicating that he was going mad. He indicates that she returned his letter saying it was okay, that it was simply rounding consciousness; that he should be a tabla rasa [sic] and open himself up for divine knowledge; that he will reintegrate his personality at a higher level later.

She also said to him, "Apparently some of this information about the course direction" and she said, "Don't tell anyone and don't tell anyone I told you not to tell anyone".

Q: What course direction was that?

A: I am not sure.

I think this was apparently something at a higher level than he was currently at and that she had conveyed the impression that she was sharing something with him that he was not really ready for at this point, and that she didn't want him to reveal that to anyone.

Q: Could you tell me when this interview took place?

A: This one was [in the Fall].

At that point [John] was in [an East Coast town] and Miss [Mary Noe] had arrived in [an East Coast town] with some other women. He began discussing different course work with her and described to me that she was totally in another place at that time. He felt that her behavior was bizarre, that she felt that all of her movements and actions had a great cosmic importance, that just by waving her arm that that meant something special and significant, that he should be able to understand.

He was in his meditation in one room, she in another room with a sort of a screen between them and he recalls being -- becoming aware of hysterical screaming that he describes very much like the screams from the [movie the E]exorcist, lusty laughing, giggling screams, chatter, in different dialects as well as English. And he recalls hearing a comment about, "Don't touch my knees."

He indicates that he became scared to death, that he froze with terror. He felt that she was possessed, evil, demonic. So he flew out of the house and she after him. She came to hug him and he jumped back. He needed to get away from her and walked for several hours.

She then explained to him what had happened ultimately in a sense that what she had been going through was good, that it had to do with the negativity coming out and that some of these experiences caused the creation of a chemical {glossaryManager.useLink("soma","soma"), a divine chemical.

They want back to the apartment. He described himself as being shell-shocked, feeling like a zombie. She directed the situation, put them into a meditation space, wrapped him in white silk, took out {glossaryManager.useLink("soma","several books") which she read from.

He indicates to me that she felt that she was violating her position by giving this information to him as perhaps he was not ready for it yet.

He recalls a sense of heat, of his body being twisted, of his right shoulder twitching. He talked a little about his experiences in Iowa.

Q: What were those?

A: He talked about the rounding in pairs, three and three [total of six "rounds," or one-to-two-hour-each meditation periods] and four and four a day. They were increasing in length, 15 minutes of stretching, 10 of breathing and five minutes of rapid breathing and alternating different kinds of breathing and meditation and what he described as flying and then a period of laying and relaxation and a series of readings so that the entire round would take about one and a half to two hours or better and that this would be repeated three times in the morning, three times in the evening, seven days a week and that this endured for approximately four months.

When this was going on he was -- he says that they were advised not to write letters home, not to drive a car, not to act on any unusual thoughts. They were told that anything bad that would occur was to be understood as unstressing and following those four months he returned to the [East Coast] area to [Michael]'s home where he "vegged out" and tried to put his life together for two or three months and move back to [an East Coast city] where he lived in a trailer with some friends in the [...] area.

[John] got a job for a while, at [a university], as a [manager]. He indicates that nine months he screwed the [job] up consistently and repeatedly and every time they asked for a report or data that he was obviously unable to give because it was not appropriately arranged. He simply threw out the system and purchased a newer system, new book, new papers, new machines and indicated that he was able to convince the group that is what was necessary.

After nine months the job was terminated when they realized that there was virtually nothing there.

At that time he began to get in a business venture with several of his friends, including [David Soe] and I am not sure of the names of the others. They hired attorneys, did a variety of things none of which worked out very well because they didn't follow up an any of the things that were to he followed up.

In [the Summer of the early 80s] there was a great word of someone coming through the [East Coast city] area whose name I cannot pronounce very well, but I will give it a shot, Prakashanant, who was described to have been an early roommate of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and he went to see him. He was asked several questions. He was able to see him. And [John] was asked several questions regarding his practices in TM and he was told most of the information that he had he was given opposite explanations for and the teaching he was given was opposite th[a]n what he learned in the TM group.

He was told by this individual that the things that he was doing were rather dangerous and, "Don't play around with them. It can cause energies to be excited and they could overload your brain, that your brain could be personally [permanently?] damaged and was important that the practices were addictive".

He was told that those people in India who did the practices spend years preparing for them; and the people had to be stable and detached in order to do that, that if people were lusty that they would become enormously lustful and all weaknesses would be amplified.

At first he doubted this, spent three months investigating this. He saw someone he described as a monk in [the East Coast]. He invited him to spend some time in his home. He was apparently, at that time, thrown out of the movement and he was not to be associated with the TM movement and others in the movement were not to associate with him.

Apparently this individual whose name I spelled for you, Prakashanant, had suggested that [John] go to India to learn the meaning of what he had been told and it was at this time apparently, that he began believing that this was true and that he [was] in serious trouble. He stopped meditating in [the next Spring].

Q: Is that at the time that he was given that advice?

A: No.

He was given that advice in [the previous Summer]. He continued with his practices, though he was investigating other opportunities and alternatives and ways of understanding what he had been going through.

He described it was in [in that Spring] that he came to the realization that he had been cheated, damaged and that is when he changed his practices.

Q: [In that Spring]?

A: Yes. That is what he said.

Q: He found that he had been cheated and damaged?

A: That is what he said.

Q: Does that conclude the history that he gave you?

A: Pretty much.

Q: Do I understand that history concerning the TM practice was given to you in November of this year [1986]?

A: Correct.

Q: And what about the personal history?

A: That was also -- given in November.

The first session may have been October, it was within the last several months.

Q: The first time you saw him, did you make notes from that session as well?

A: Very briefly.

Q: Could I take a look at those?

A: That was in November of 1985. He was seen along with [another John Doe].

These are very scant notes, if you can read them.

Q: If I can't, I will ask you to.

A: I am not sure that I will be able to.

Q: Can you tell us what opinions you have arrived at as a result of the history that was given to you?

A: As a result of the history or as a result of my overall evaluation?

Q: Did you take in consideration some other things as well?

A: I did a mental status observation, my observations and so on.

Q: What was your mental status examination; and when was that done?

A: Actually it was done in each sitting.

Essentially [John] represents a rather nice looking [mid-thirties] male who looks a little younger than the stated age. He was casually dressed on each occasion. He was calm and somewhat cooperative. He described having experienced -- there was no looseness of association, no derailment in his thoughts.

He described having experienced hallucinations while on meditation, hearing sounds of music and chants and visually seeing inanimate things come to life.

His mood was intermittently angry, depressed and totally vacant. His affect was restricted, blunt and showed a marked detachment from what was going on in its content and with me.

He describes that his sleep is not too bad now, but that he had gone through significant[sic] periods of sleep disturbance with major nightmares where he would awake observing someone slashing someone with a knife. They were very bloody and had become less frequent over time, though he had his last one approximately a month or so ago and they had been diminishing. At one time several years ago they were very frequent, happening several times in a night.

His appetite has not changed remarkably. There has been no significant change in weight recently.

He is not actively suicidal, though he indicates that the concept of suicide crossed his mind. He says that while he was in TM he would have flash impulses of killing himself, but even those impulses have become less frequent and less intense since he has stopped meditating.

There was a time, he indicated, that he was functioning at a high stress level and level of hostility if someone as much as bumped into him in a cafeteria he would want to kill that person and then have to evict all of his own personal spiritual forces to hold in those feelings.

There was at one occasion when he felt a very strong impulse to jump in front of a subway train, and that he had been fearful of acting on his own impulses. The impulses and thoughts have became considerably less over the last several years.

He is not fully oriented. By that I mean that he indicates loose conception of time. He didn't lose perception of himself as a person and he didn't really lose where he is and that he can get from one place to another, though it never seems to matter very much. Time doesn't seem to make much difference to him. He always ends up places at the wrong time. He is either days or hours early or days or hours late and he has a lack of purposefulness.

The memory is somewhat vague, I believe, in both recent and remote. By that I mean he remembers some things very clearly and other things not as clearly.

His general knowledge and intelligence appears [sic] to be average or above and he tends to interpret proverbs in a highly personalized way with some difficulty in abstraction at times, which is inconsistent.

Q: Did he tell you of any experiences of homosexuality other than those with [Michael]?

A: Yes, he had a couple as an adolescent, young adolescent.

Q: Did he tell you about any experiences in gay bars?

A: No.

Q: Did he tell you anything about his relationship with [John Soe]?

A: No.

Just that it was probably as close -- he was probably his closest friend.

Q: Did he discuss with you whether he had had any illegitimate children of his own?

A: He indicated to me -- I think that he did not. I do not recall him indicating that was the case.

Q: Did he ever tell you about an experience of his mother dressing him in girl's clothes and putting him outside the apartment?

A: Yes, sir.

Q: Was that a tramatic[sic] thing to him?

A: It was an upsetting thing to him as a child.

Q: Did you consider the psychological tests done by Dr. Madden?

A: I have only the raw data, which I am not in a position to be able to interpret. I am participating in a report of his and also an interpretation by Dr. Geer, a psychologist here.

Q: Am I understand you have not fully developed your opinions in this case?

A: No. No, you are not to understand that. I have my opinions.

Q: Are you going to alter those opinions at any time before trial?

A: I don't expect so.

Q: Why don't you tell me what opinions you have reached and what conclusions you have reached and intend to offer at trial?

A: Mr. [John Doe] is a young man suffering at this point in time from an atypical disassociative[sic] reaction, which interfers[sic] in virtually all areas of his life, social, business or professional, interpersonal and leaves him rather directionless and very much at sea, I guess is the best way to put it.

Q: Have you diagnosed him as having any anxiety disorder?

A: He has anxiety, depression, hostility. All of those things are there. It is hard for me to diagnose them in light of such an overwhelming disassociative state. I see anxiety. I see a great deal of depression. I see a great deal of hostility. Those are all there.

I am not sure where to put them diagnostically because it is overwhelming the things that I see in this disassociative state, which makes it hard for me to fully appreciate all of the other functions.

Q: Does he suffer from any of the elements of a post-tramatic[sic] stress syndrome?

A: He does in a sense: but I don't classify him as a post-tramatic stress syndrome.

Q: What elements?

A: The same thing, anxiety, depression. One can see them in a post-tramatic syndrome.

Q: Hostility?

A: Not often.

Q: Sometimes?

A: Very late.

Q: Late in the -- if it is chronic?

A: Yes.

That is not my diagnosis.

Q: I understand.

I take it that you are not aware of any previous diagnosis of a post-tramatic stress syndrome?

A: No.

Q: Of a chronic nature?

A: No.

Q: Did he tell you of any involvement in any other meditation practices?

A: No.

Q: Would that be important to you?

A: Do you mean prior to this experience or since?

Q: After 1983?

A: Well, I am quite certain that he probably engages in some form -- what I would call as a layman, some form of meditation at this point. I would say that there are times in which he engages in it consciously and sometimes when he engages in it unconsciously and involuntarily.

Q: Did he tell you whether he consciously practices divine love meditation as prescribed by a swami?

A: We talked about that. We didn't finish that.

Q: What did he say about it?

A: Pardon?

Q: What did he say about it?

A: He didn't talk about the meditation.

Q: What did he say about his relationship with the swami?

A: He has become -- how shall I say this -- something of a fan of his. I won't use the word devotee, because I don't believe it is at that level. But I think that there is a connection. He feels that he has -- there is some involvement which I do not fully understand of a business nature which he feels rather guilty that he has somehow disturbed the finances of his church by something that he has done inadvertently, but he feels guilty that he has done that.

Q: Are you laying that problem to rest on TM?

A: Did I say that I was?

Q: No.

I am just asking if you are.

A: No.

I don't understand what that was.

Q: In addition to your diagnosis, what other opinions do you intend to offer at trial?

A: Well, my opinion is that his current diagnosis is a result of his TM experiences over a number of years.

Q: In what way?

A: I believe that the constant meditation experience which in itself is a conscious effort, voluntary effort at disassociation[sic], that this constant experience coupled with this enforced internal splitting in which that -- which is good and that which is fine and that which is spiritual and consistent is encouraged and that which is inconsistent, that which brings doubt and question is discouraged. And in fact he had hidden, forced to be hidden, that these things have worked together to create this massive atypical disassociated state that he appears in now.

Q: Is that all involved in his spiritual quest?

A: Explain that.

Q: Is the whole process one of a spiritual quest?

A: I don't think it is a spiritual quest.

I think [John]'s early experiences, his repeated losses of a parent figure as a child, first of his father, and then of the stepfather and then of his mother, led him to be a young man who was desperately seeking attention, recognition, more warm nurturing. He was unable to get that from a science and found that in a group.

Q: Might he have found that within almost any kind of a group?

A: But he didn't. He was in other groups and he did not find it. In a work group, he played activities, at lectures or whatever with people at work and so forth. They did not offer that.

He found it in this group and he continued to pursue it.

Q: What did he find attractive about the group?

A: Well, that is hard to say. What he found attractive initially was this look that he saw and that look involved a sense of cleanliness, professionalism. It involved what he described as what he called a bright eye that was very attractive to him. I think he later found some direction in the group that he was perhaps looking for.

Q: What kind of direction?

A: The boundaries of the world were narrow for him.

Q: Did he need that?

A: I think he felt he needed that. I don't think he knew that consciously, had one asked him in [the 70s], I am sure he would not have said that.

Q: Did he find some moral guidance in the group?

A: Well, I think he did initially. But then he began to doubt it. That is when he got into trouble.

Q: That is when he met with the swami?

A: No, no. Long before that.

He described this series of time when he began to believe in a certain sense of equality and spiritualism and so forth. That was appealing to him. Then he realized that even within this group there was clear hierarchy for the haves and have nots and that went on a financial basis and on a knowledge basis. He was rather struck by that. He would ask questions about that. He would be told that he was not to question, that he had to only focus an the positive. That began to disrupt his sense of what he had come into. That is when he had originally left the first time and come back to [an East Coast city]. I don't remember the exact years.

But then there was this continued encouragement by friends he be doing this, to be doing the right thing. There was always the explanations. I think one of the things most compelling to him about the organization was that no matter what uncomfortable feeling he ever had, there was a ready explanation to explain it away, which didn't really happen in his life otherwise.

Q: Did he tell you that he looked upon Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as God?

A: I don't know if he used the word "God". He said that he would have killed for him if he was asked to. There was nothing in his life that he would not have done or given for this person.

Q: Did he tell you that he looked at him as a spiritual leader?

A: I don't know that he used the words of that nature.

He was extraordinarily devoted and it was very clear -- in fact, the one thing I remember him saying very specifically was if he were asked to kill, he would, if he were asked to do anything, he would do it.

Q: He never suggested to you that he was asked to kill; did he?

A: No.

He was just trying to stress for me the love or --

Q: Did he find it pretty devastating to have been told by the swami that his devotion had been misplaced?

A: Well, he was both devastated, but he wasn't immediately believing.

Q: Was that a very significant traums[sic] to him?

A: I am not sure it was a trauma, it was tramatic[sic], but significant, that needs to be explained. There had been periods in which [John] had begun to doubt that was the period when he left Europe and came back to [an East Coast city]. There was a period later on where he broke away and took a job for a little while.

He would try on several occasions to talk to people within the group about his feelings and he would have that washed over. So that when he found this, this, of course, was coming from someone that he believed had some direct contact to what he had been devoted to for so long. It raised a great inquiry in his mind. Nothing tramatic happened initially. If this would have been a trauma, I think I he would have changed his behavior immediately. He did not.

He proceeded to look for additional answers.

Q: Is it possible, Dr. Glass, that the problems that [John] is complaining of might have developed in him through any other kind of path of life that had been difficult for him, such as a job, various other kinds of disappointments in his life?

A: Perhaps depression and anxiety, not the disassociated states, not to such a pervasive extent. I don't believe that anything could have created -- other experiences could have created that.

Q: Might he have had a slave experience with someone else? Was he the kind of person who was subject to that kind of experience?

A: To what kind of experience?

Q: The slave experience that he described with this [Michael]?

A: In a sense I think his entire existence could be described in the very much similar way.

Q: He describes it that way?

A: No.

I am saying that it could be described in a similar way. It was that he was totally and completely in service.

Q: Did he tell you that somebody kept him in that position; or did he keep himself in that position?

A: He wasn't tied with shackles, to be sure. But there was a very strong pull, as there is in any group, to maintain the riggers[sic] of the group. The difference here was that by virtue of common gargon[jargon], the common living experience and a variety of other things as well as the organization's strong doctrine that speaking negatively about the organization was somehow symptomatic of a problem in you as an individual. It makes it very difficult for someone to get out of that sense so there are a great number of very strong actions working to keep him very much in that role.

Q: Have you put a lot of weight and importance is in your -- in determining the condition on the belief and ideas that [John] held?

A: I am sorry, could you say that again?

Q: Have you put a lot of weight in determining his -- the cause of his condition, the beliefs and ideas that [John] held as a member of the transcendental meditation group?

A: I am not sure that I understand you.

Q: How important was the suppression of negativity by the organization?

A: I think -- how important was it to what?

Q: In your assessment of the causation of his condition.

A: Well, it is important, but in a roundabout way. It is important because it did not allow him to have countervening[sic -- contravening?] discussion, evidence, thoughtfulness. It did not allow him an appropriate open window on what he was doing. It did not allow him to expand the observing ego. So in that sense, it, 1., Enhanced the role of being in service to. I am not using the term "slave" by any means, but it enhanced the role of being in service to.

It created a selection in his own mind emotionally, as he described to me; and enhanced -- served clearly to enhance the disassociated state.

Q: Is it your testimony that [t]hese defendants in this case in any way intentionally desired to harm [John]?

A: I am sorry, that the TM group decided to harm him -- desired to harm him?

Q: Yes.

A: I don't believe anyone set out to harm him.

Q: Is it more your opinion that he was harmed as a result of his association in an unintentional way?

A: I think that the principals [sic -- principles?], the tenents [sic --tenets?], -- the experiences that he underwent, in particular the intense and protracted, prolonged states of meditation, along with some of the other things that we talked about, have created in this individual a serious emotional psychiatric condition.

Q: Have you studied the effects of prolonged rounding in meditation?

A: No, I have not.

Q: Do you know whether there are studies which show such rounding and the practice of meditation to be beneficial?

A: No.

Q: Do you understand what happens in the mind during the practice of transcendental meditation and in the physiology?

A: In the mind, I believe I do.

I do believe, however, in the physiology, I have some suspicions, but I would not call myself an expert.

Q: What is the foundation for your knowledge of what happens in the mind during the practice of transcendental meditation?

A: The foundation is an understanding of human behavior and understanding of the interaction between the brain and the mind and the way that these psychological, emotional and psychopathological processes develop.

Q: What is your understanding of what happens through the transcendental meditation process?

A: What happens is, I believe, that one is creating voluntarily a disassociated state which is similar in same ways to a hypnotic trance in which the mind becomes so internally focused that it is able to shut out physiological input from other parts of the body; it is able to shut out external experiences and external stimuli, if you will.

Q: So it is your understanding that the process is one of focus?

A: I guess that is one way to put it.

Certainly it is oversimplistic.

A: I think that it can be seen that way.

Q: Is it that deliberate, shutting off the mind to the outside stimuli that causes this disassociated state?

A: I think over extended periods, yes.

Q: Does [John] appear to be a litigious kind of person?

A: Basically, no.

Q: Did he tell you whether he had been involved in other law suits?

A: No.

Q: Did he tell you that the reason that he had left [the university] was not as a result of having messed up the books, but that because he was in a dispute with the university over whether they should pay him for a Ford Foundation Grant Application and he chose to resign?

A: He told me he was offered a letter of resignation which he signed.

Q: Did he tell you that that centered around the Ford Foundation Grant Application?

A: No.

Q: Did he tell you that it centered around just having messed up the books?

A: He told me it centered around a very poor assessment of his performance.

Q: Do you have any opinions as to whether the kind of practice of rounding will predictably produce disassociated states?

A: It will predictably produce temporary states while it is happening. Whether it produces those states in every individual beyond the experience, I think that is an individual kind of situation. I think there are some people in which that will indeed be the case.

Q: Do you offer any opinions as to what kind of people those are?

A: I am not sure I can say.

Q: I guess one of the concerns is whether you are going to offer any testimony that there is a screening process by which one might screen out those individuals who would end up having the kinds of emotional or psychiatric experiences of Mr. [Doe]?

A: The specific emotion or psychiatric experiences, no. But I do think that there are individuals more less suited or more at risk to it than others.

Q: Who are those people?

A: I think those are people with destructive processes prior to the experience.

Q: Now, would that be a criminal type, violent criminals?

A: No. I am not sure that I would say that.

Q: Would violent criminals fall in that classification?

A: I don't think you could classify that broadly.

Q: Do you believe [John's] condition to be permanent?

A: No.

Q: You believe it to be treatable?

A: Yes.

Q: In what way?

A: Well, what he needs, I believe, is, 1., intensive inter-personal psychotherapy, on a one-to-one basis, intensive meaning two to three times a week.

Q: Given his problem, I think that it could be done, if it were that simple, it could be done in an outpatient office.

A: Given the problem and inability at this point in time to be able to connect things, make connections and appear at appointments, I would indicate that the treatment would have to begin with a period of hospitalization to make sure that that was solidified. I would suggest a period of four to five weeks of hospitalization. Probably that would be enough. It may take longer, but I think that would be adequate, followed by a period of initially two to three times a week outpatient visits which over a period of time would diminish to once a week. But I think it would endure overall a good period of possibly three to four to five years.

Q: Let's talk about the kind of person who is, you believe, screenable: How would we screen that person?

A: Well, my feeling is that a -- there are two ways. One is by providing adequate informed consent as it would be known in the medical field. What the experiences are, what the experiences might create under certain circumstances; and inform the individual coming through the door what to expect throughout the increasing involvement in the organization.

Secondly, a clinical interview conducted by a confident [sic -- competent?] professional, a highly schooled social worker, that could predict people who might be at risk.

Q: Who are those people?

A: Who are those people depends on a lot of specific kinds of things. One cannot say that everyone with blond hair, everyone with a criminal record, or everyone who has had measles as a teenager is at risk; any more than one can say that for anything else. It requires a careful evaluation of each individual. It would be very easy if one could make blanket statements about the at risk person.

Q: Dr. Glass, do you know of studies that indicate that there are benefits to people who have done the practice of transcendental meditation?

A: No, I do not.

Q: Are you familiar with the concept of field independence?

A: No, I am not.

Q: How about autonomic stability?

A: I can guess what that means, but I don't know how to use it.

Q: Am I correct that you could not give me a psychological profile today of a person who should not do the transcendental meditation sidhis program or rounding?

A: I could probably give you two thousand different answers. I could not give you a psychological profile for someone at risk with manic depression. When I see somebody who I can use criteria to determine that, I can do that for you. I cannot give you a specific profile. If you gave me dozens, scores, hundreds of people to evaluate, I could predict people who would not be appropriate for such experiences.

Q: You could do that with transcendental meditation?

A: I believe I could.

I believe I could not predict this person will have this problem or that problem. But I think that I could predict people who would find it problematic to their own experience.

Q: Might you also find that those very same people would benefit from the experience?

A: Well, I am not diminishing the experience, you see. Some of the experiences are things used in traditional kinds of psychiatric care, relaxation therapy, different aspects of hypnosis. The issue that I am concerned about is not the incident, any individual meditation, one such incident, but the totality of the experience and the developing consent. It is the totality of the experience that becomes dangerous.

Q: You have made no study of the totality of the experiences have you?

A: No.

We do know that there are certain kinds of people -- this is not to get back to the question earlier, but there are certain kinds of diagnostic criteria in which people in a structureless environment in which they are asked to look inside decompensate and become psychotic. I'm not suggesting that relates here. But as a generality when we learned 20 years ago that there were certain patients that we have since called borderline personality disorders, if you put them on a curve and ask them to free associate, you can calmly sit by and watch them became psychotic in front of you.

Q: We are not talking about that with [John]?

A: Not that with [John].

What I am talking about is that there are psychological personalities that cannot tolerate this kind of experience.

Q: What kind of psychological personalities cannot tolerate the experience, by any study that you know of?

A: I cannot quote you a study.

Q: Do you have any criteria by which anyone could have predicted [John Doe] would have had the experience that he had?

A: I could have predicted that he would have a difficult outcome.

Q: Why?

A: Because I believe that there are some aspects -- [John] does not have any diagnosable mental illness from what I can see in his story, prior to entering in the organization or the movement. It does become apparent to me that [John] was at some risk, that [John's] life experiences put him at some risks.

Q: Is it possible that transcendental meditation -- [John] failed to deteriorate more than he would have had he not had that experience?

A: No.

Q: If you could not have predicted the specific could you have predicted that?

A: I don't believe so.

Q: You don't believe so, but is that possible?

A: I don't think I can accept that in this case.

Q: Is that possible?

A: I would have to say no.

Q: Why do you say no?

A: Because [John] may have had some difficulties in life in terms of a business career or what have you ultimately; but he would not have had the kind of emotional problem that he has at this point by any way, shape or form.

Q: He might have ended up with hostility because of the difficulties in job experience; mightn't he?

A: Not the kind of hostility he has at this point.

Q: How do you know that without knowing what kind of job experience he would have been in?

A: He might have gotten hit by a truck and is smashed to smithereens at age 7. We don't have any studies to prove that either.

EXAMINATION BY MR. RIDGE:

Q: Dr. Glass, as I understand it, Mr. [Doe] described his relationship with [Michael] as a slave relationship with [Doe] being the slave, is that correct?

A: What he described was that he would be asked to do things and he would go to great extremes to do whatever.

Q: Was the dominance factor that [Roe] wheeled [sic -- wielded?], was that of a sexual nature or in relationship to his position in the TM movement?

A: I believe it was in relation to his position in the movement.

Q: Was there a sexual factor?

A: I don't believe in what was described as the slave, I don't believe so.

Q: You have not written a report?

A: That is correct.

Q: Is that because you haven't been asked or you haven't had time?

A: I haven't had time, I just saw him as recently as a few days ago.

Q: You said you had seen him over a period of eight to 10 clinical hours?

A: Yes.

Q: On how many days have you seen him?

A: The original session which took place in November of '85, and there have been three separate sessions.

Q: Within the past month?

A: Yes.

Q: You are expecting a report from a Dr. Geer, is that right?

A: I don't know if there will be a report. I am asking Poniard to do an interpretation from the data.

Q :Unless there is a report from the psychiatrist.

There are two Drs. Geer, a husband and wife, one a psychiatrist and one a psychologist.

A: One is a psychiatrist as well.

Q: Are you expecting a psychological evaluation?

A: I am expecting an evaluation of data. That's all that I am looking for.

Q: Have you had any conversations with either Dr. Geer about [John]?

A: No, I have not.

Q: You indicated, I believe, that you are a board certified neurologist?

A: By the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology.

Q: Did you find anything organically wrong, any neurological impairment? A: No. I did not do a neurological examination. I saw no indication of impairment.

Q: Did you see any indication that [John] is psychotic?

A: No. It could be masked; but I didn't see it directly. The strength of disassociative reaction could mask the psychotic state, but I did not find one.

Q: Your diagnosis, what is the DSM Citation?

A: I don't have it.

Q: Do you have an opinion as to when that condition first began in [John]?

A: I would say that -- I can't put a specific date on it. But I would say that it began many years ago, certainly in Iowa, if not before that.

Q: You indicated that he first began to have questions about TM and became concerned about it around the time when he first left the movement.

A: Right.

Q: Would you say that that was the point in time when [John] was first on notice of some negative or adverse consequences of his practice of TM?

A: Yes and no. What he had at that time were intellectual questions, "What is going on here? I thought this was supposed to be this way and it really turns out to be some other way."

He was not beginning to question his emotional reactions or feel emotionally distressed and dislodged. He was questioning reality concepts. I do not believe at that time that the full disassociative reaction had yet taken place.

Q:He was questioning whether what he had been led to believe about the TM was accurate?

A: Yes.

However, of course, every time he began to question that, he was told that his questioning was indeed antagonistic to the teachings. When caught between two circumstances, what people often do is flee from the circumstances, from the situation. This is what he did. He fled. He came back to the States, came back to [an East Coast city] and found himself again reunited with friends from the TM organization and began that process again.

Q: You testified that [John] quoted the swami, the gentleman you referred to also known as the swami, that he met in [an East Coast city] in [the early '80s]. I think you said that he was told that what he was doing could be addictive.

A: Correct.

Q: Do you have an opinion as to whether or not the practice of TM is addictive?

A: well, the practice itself is not addictive.

What becomes habit forming is the constant reinforcement by the movement that one should continue doing it. It is not addictive in and of itself, I don't believe.

Q: Is it the reinforcement process that made it difficult for [John] to break with the practice of TM?

A: If you use the reinforcement process in a global sense, yes. It is the fact that everything was in this world. His friends, the people he dealt with, that there was a certain gargan [sic -- jargon?], there was a certain way of viewing the world, viewing circumstances which was not universally aware to other people. Every aspect encouraged limiting one's interactions to other members of the group. And within that group the other ideals about not being negative and so on continues to reinforce all of the teachings and all of the related structure.

Q: But the Catch 22 of the situation is that [John] voluntarily placed himself in this narrow field so that he was involved with people with the same point of view and encouraged him.

A: He voluntarily placed himself in a field, not really knowing what he was getting into. But you are right, it was voluntary.

Q Even after he left, he voluntarily decided to go back?

A: Voluntarily in the strictest sense, yes. But we know about group dynamics. There are levels of volition.

For example, we all do things that we know are -- that we know can be harmful, but we do them. Some more than others. Some a lot less than others.

Q: For example, if one smokes cigarettes, one is voluntarily doing an act that one knows is or can be harmful; is that right?

A: Voluntarily to begin. The whole concept to addiction -- I am not saying that meditation is addictive -- but the concept of addiction takes away the -- voluntariness at a certain level.

Q: Well, are you saying that [John] was incapable at any given time of discontinuing the practice of TM?

A: I would use it -- I would make that statement in very much the same way that you would say that a very heavy smoker is capable of stopping smoking; a drug addict is capable of stopping the addiction. The practice is not addicting. I am saying that to break the pattern requires a vary significant, strong, extraordinary effort, which is possible; yet difficult.

The Catch 22 is that the people who are most in need of being able to break the addiction because they are at risk are the people who least have the capabilities of doing that.

Q: But yet he did it?

A: He did it and he didn't do it. He got away, but he stayed until [the early '80s] I think.

It was a rather slow process that he did because he had a strong outside force with which he could identify.

Q: Are you talking about The swami?

A: And some other people. But he did not do it straight away. He did not listen to the swami say "This is bad, this is good", and say, "You are right, I will jump over here and change my affiliation". That is not what happened. It took almost eight months, the better part of a year until he was really able to change the practice and give it up.

Q: Did [John] indicate to you that any part of the difficulty in giving up the practice was that he enjoyed it or derived pleasure from it?

A: There is no doubt that there was some truth to that. Sure, I am not denying that.

Q What did he find pleasurable about it?

A: It was something that he had become so used to. Again, people who smoke tell you that they derive pleasure from smoking. People will derive pleasure from overeating. Those things are real.

You see, that does not mean that it is not harmful.

Q: But you choose to do it, recognizing the consequences?

A: At one level you do and at another level you no longer have a choice. We keep fighting about this. I have already said that I am not seeing it as addiction. I am using it as a model to understand the end process.

Q: I am talking about responsibility. While we all agree that there are different levels of voluntariness, ultimately one can make a choice, unless one is mentally ill: is that correct?

A: No, it is not correct, I don't think.

One makes a choice, I think, requiring two things: We talk in medicine about the concept of informed consent which requires several levels. The first thing that it requires is a competent person. The second thing is the information on which to make the consent. Part of being a competent person, as I teach competency, requires being free of undue influence. I am not sure that I could state that with regard to [John's] situation, that while he was in the movement there was such a totality, such a unified understanding, such a totality of direction or confirmation that -- and a teaching that directly opposes negativity, questioning and so forth, that while in the strictest sense one could say one is always free, we also know that isn't quite true.

Q: Was that lack of total competence present when he stopped practicing for almost a year?

A: He was not yet as involved, you see. An early smoker starts smoking a couple cigarettes behind the school yard, has an easier time than the person that has been smoking three packs a day for 20 years.

Q: Then he quit in [the early 80s], after he had been doing it for 10 years?

A: There was an entirely different set of circumstances. It would be very nice if life were as simple as you are trying to make it.

Q: I am not trying to oversimplify it. But let's be fair. [John] has some responsibility to make choices in his life, doesn't he?

A: Well, that is part of what we are here to talk about.

Q: You distinguish the circumstance in [the early 80s] by saying that there was something else in his life.

A: Let me create an example which I think will explain this, an example that may be close to my heart: If someone who has a tendency to be overweight and over eat, they know that they should diet. Yet we know that it is certainly not that simple. What happens to be able to work? There are some people who have the strength to say it is not going to happen. There are some people who say, never get in that situation. There are some people that get in the circumstance and can't do it, but by joining something like Weight Watchers they are now able to do it.

I think [John's] involvement in TM to begin with was his need to have this sphere and his ability to break out of it was not is -- in [the early 80s] was not the fact that at that point he swelled up and had the strength. It was the fact that there were a number of people together who were meeting together and beginning to question and see things in the same way that allowed him to do that.

Q: Wasn't he the leader?

A: That doesn't matter. He did not do it on his own. He could not have done it on his own, I don't think.

Q: So he had a support group?

A: I am not sure that is the term I would coin. He had a group of fellow doubters -- questioners. As a group they derived strength from one another.

Q: And filed a law suit?

A: That came a little later, I think, as I understand it.

Q: Mr. James asked you if you thought Mr. [Doe] was litigious and you said he didn't appear to be. You said he didn't tell you about any other law suits.

A: He probably did not.

Q: Did you ask him about any others? Do you routinely, in evaluating people involved in law suits try to get a feel for whether this is an unrelated incident or a pattern?

A: If I feel suspect, I do. I do not feel that in this case.

[John] had all he could do to get to my office, to see me as his friend, ally. [John] had all he could do to cooperate with me. He certainly made it most difficult. He certainly was not acting in his best interest. He was not acting in a way that he had something to gain in a certain way. It is quite the contrary.

Q: Unless he feared that you might see something that he didn't want you to see?

A: I don't think that was the issue.

Q: You indicated that [John] had given you some material relating to TM, but you haven't had a chance to review it.

A: Right.

Q: In connection with rendering your opinions in this case have you reviewed any materials such as, but not limited to medical reports, deposition testimony, authoritative literature in the psychiatric field about TM?

A: To this time I have not.

Q: Do you have any plans to?

A: I will review medical literature, yes, If there are any depositions that are pertinent, yes.

Q: Basically you have formed your opinion based upon your clinical evaluation?

A: Let's understand that as a psychiatrist I am a clinician. That is my job. That is what I feel that I am somewhat expert at. I have been recognized by that by a variety of outside sources who place me in a role as being a teacher and evaluator and examiner in this field. That is what I have done.

Q: When [John] told you that he was told when he first started in TM that he could speed up the process of growth or enlightenment or whatever he was seeking by becoming a teacher and I think you said he was told he could reach the goal by 1977, did you discuss with him what if any reaction he had when he didn't reach his goal in the time frame he expected to?

A: I think he understood it very clearly that it was -- that there were certain responsibilities and if he was unable to reach a goal, it was because of his lack of total commitment or devotion or proper understanding.

Q: You discussed what you feel to be, as I understand it, [John] having some degree of impairment as to his competence, in terms of making decisions.

A: No, no, certain requirements. One of these requirements was having the right information and another was being I said that being competent had to be free of undue influence. I think those did not hold at the time.

Q: Did you indicate he has had some hallucinatory r experiences?

A: He indicated that he did have while meditating.

Q: Do you have an opinion now retrospectively that at any time in the past 10 years [John] has been legally incompetent, that is, out of touch with reality, incapable of managing his own affairs?

A: No, I don't think so. I don't think he did a very good job of it. I don't think he was psychiatrically incompetent.

BY MR. JAMES:

Q: Doctor, were you aware that you were designated as an expert in this case on behalf of Mr. [Doe] prior to these last interviews with Mr. [Doe]?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you liken this desire for enlightenment as to a spiritual quest?

A: I am not even sure I know what spiritual quest means.

I think [John] was looking for -- he was looking for affiliation.

Q: He was looking for something that would take away the pain of his early experiences?

A: I think that is what he was looking for.

Q: Was he looking for an ideology to follow?

A: I am not sure. He had [Christianity]. He had been in a [Christian] school. He had left the [Christian] school. That was a major experience for him at a younger age.

Q: If I told you that he testified that by [the mid '70s] he believed the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was God and that he would do anything to follow his ideology or his plan and the benefits from transcendental meditations never meant anything after that, would that indicate to you that he was following some kind of spiritual quest?

A: The fact that he found something doesn't mean that is what he was looking for?

Q: Did he indicate that he was involved in that at that time?

A: At that time, obviously.

Q: Do you know Gladys Fenichel?

A: I trained her in part.

Q: Is she a competent psychiatrist?

A: Yes.

Q: Somebody in whom you have some respect for her opinions?

A: Yes.

BY MR. JAMES:

Q: Doctor, had you taken these reports, Glass Deposition Exhibit 1, Glass Deposition Exhibit 2, and Glass Exhibit 3 in consideration in arriving at your conclusions here?

A: Certainly not.

Q: Is this information that is new to you?

A: Yes, it is.

Q: Does it in any way alter any of the opinions you have given here today?

MR. JAMES: Would you mark that as an exhibit; and that as an exhibit, and that?

(Marked letter dated February 22, 1984 from Dr. Fenichel Glass Exhibit Number 1 for identification.)

(Marked copy of letter dated March 8, 1984 two pages as Glass Exhibit Number 2 for identification.) to [Michael] [Roe] from [XXXXX].

(Marked copy of letter dated December 27, 1984 to [Michael Roe] from Maslof as Glass Exhibit Number 3 for identification.)

A: Well, I need more than a minute or two to read them. The one that I have looked at most carefully, in the entirety of a minute and a half,is a report from Dr. Fenichel.

She does relate some of the same symptoms. She does talk about the disassociated state. There is an accident with which I was not familiar.

Post-conducive syndrome is not a major neurologic insult by any means. It is one that responds rather quickly. So I would have to look at it much more carefully, having not seen it before now. But I think that it is consistent.

MR. RAGLAND: It could have been provided at 10:00.

BY MR, JAMES:

Q: Doctor, would it have made any difference to you if Mr. [Doe], in his answers in this law suit, said that the symptomology that is related in those letters occurred on the date of that accident?

A: Well, the disassociative reaction didn't occur before.

THE WITNESS: If you wanted to know the answer, you could have provided it on the date of the accident. I really would not make a comment until I have had a chance to spend more time on this looking at it.

Q: Much of what you have said regarding [John's] reaction depends on his credibility as an individual?

A: No.

I can see that. I can see that right in front of me. I have experienced that. That is not him telling me that. He would not even know what the word means, I don't believe.

Q: The experiences that he related to you as have occurred in the past must be truthful in order for you to rely on them?

A: I can see the reaction by sitting in the room with him. The other material is corroborative. If I am a cardiologist and you come in with chest pain and I listen to the chest, I hear the murmur. It is nice to know you experience chest pain and shortness of breath, that is evidence. I hear the murmur, whether or not that is truthful.

Q: Do the Glass Deposition Exhibits 1, 2 and 3 cast any doubt on your own opinion?

A: Until I can study them, I can't tell you.

BY MR, RIDGE:

Q: Doctor, what do you mean when you said [John] has difficulty with abstraction at times which is inconsistent?

A: Abstraction is one of the tests in the mental status examination, the ability to think abstractly. If I we ask people to interpret a proverb, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, you might all have a little different interpretation. But basically we would come up with the same concept. Somebody who is particularly concrete and has organic brain syndrome would say the glass would break.

I don't think any of us would come up with that kind of answer. [John] was able to abstract, but the abstractions became vague and decentralized. The answers would be, well, something about -- I don't have it here, but something like, "This is to this other because this, that and the other thing". He would have the process of abstraction, but he didn't have the finiteness of thinking. He would drift off. If you asked him that one day, he would be rather into it and another day less into it.

Q: I guess that's what you meant by inconsistent?

A: Yes.

Q: Is that inconsistency significant?

A: No.

One of the things that is significant is that he has varying states of consciousness and awareness. It means that if somebody were trying, among other things, as one little piece of weight on a scale, that if someone were trying to fake a particular kind of mental illness, they will be rather consistent in the way they respond to these -- kinds of things. It is a very high level of intellectual functioning that is difficult to fake.

MR. RIDGE: I have nothing else.

MR. RAGLAND: Exhibits 1, 2 and 3 marked at the end of the deposition were not provided to me at any time prior to to being produced at this deposition.

MR. JAMES: Let the record show that we have begun asking Mr. Ragland to obtain for us the claim file from Mr. [XXXX] for a period of months; and to date we have not obtained a copy of the plaintiff's attorney's claim file concerning this incident and that the records that were introduced in evidence today were obtained three days ago through defense counsel involved in the prior litigation and offered at this time to test the credibility of the plaintiff's expert.

(Testimony adjourned)

EXHIBITS

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