A great site for learning about what Scientology really is: www.xenu.net. This is a good starting point: xenu.net/archive/leaflet.

Yes, Allison, please do a *lot* of research on TM. I am a former TM teacher with a website at www.suggestibility.org that explains how many people who learn "TM-the-technique" get recruited into "TM-the-religion" via post-trance indoctrination during initial instruction in TM-the-technique.

TM-the-technique is nothing more then self-induced trance combined with a suggestion to experience deep relaxation. Many people do in fact experience deep relaxation as a result of the trance-plus-suggestion. So far this isn't a Bad Thing. However, during the third group meeting after "personal instruction" students are introduced, while in a post-trance state in which many people will have their critical thinking suspended. to the TM teaching that continued practice of TM for 20 minutes twice a day will eventually product a state called "Cosmic Consciousness" (Enlightenment).

This is the students' first introduction to TM-the-religion. Those of the students whose critical thinking facilities are still suspended after the trance experience will internalize the idea that a "relaxation technique" can product "Enlightenment". That is the start of their gradual descent into more and more of the teachings of TM-the-religion.

A percentage of the school students who learn TM will descend into TM--the-religion and might, for example, end up here www.motherdivine.org (TM "nuns") or here www.purusha.org (TM "monks"). On such "programs" they will "meditate" for many hours a day for months or years at a time. Many of them will develop severe psychological problems, see http://onwww.net/trancenet.org/law/denarot.shtml.

Because of the rick of being indoctrinated into, and consequently believing in, TM-the-religion, the "benefits" of TM-the-technique are not worth the risk, especially to vulnerable school students.