This is a good example of a religion-type virus being much *less*
dangerous than many memetics-minded (!) people see them.
For the Transcendental Meditation organisation to propagate
the Yogic Flying meme was a major foot-shooting exercise.
Yes, the meme has been very successful, in just getting
replicated, but it fits in to most peoples' memespheres in
entirely the wrong way, from the TM point of view, because
it makes them (even more of) a laughing-stock.
To bring in another couple of current themes: the success
of the Yogic Flying meme is demonstrated by the number
of television adverts (in the UK at least) showing meditating
monks hovering above the ground. One of them shows a
young monk taking advantage of his elders' hovering, to do
the Hoovering! (Vacuum-cleaning.) As a Buddhist, this
stuff makes me cringe sometimes, though I'd like to be
able just to laugh at it, with everyone else. But it seems to
me that the Yogic Flying meme has harmed both Eastern
religions in general and TM in particular.
(But it could be argued that all that's really hurt is my
self-image, and I'm sure many Buddhists AND others
would see it that way.)
As to the explanation of the strategy: in a recent contre-temps
between Buddhists, someone I know who is experienced both
in Buddhism and in journalism suggested, in explanation for
some of the wierd things that were happening there, that some
individuals and organisations within Buddhism (and I think
this must apply to any religion) are just incredibly naive.
Made sense to me. Of course, that doesn't conflict with the
religions-as-evil meme if you see them as victims rather
than perpetrators. OK, I just realised (I'm new here), of
course the memes are *always* the perps, and us poor
humans always the victims. This seems to remind me of
"loving the sinner while hating the sin". But of course, what
it *really* is, is JUST ANOTHER NEW-FANGLED WAY TO
EVADE INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY!!
It was not me, it was my memes..
;-)
--
Robin Faichney
r.j.faichney@stirling.ac.uk
http://www.stir.ac.uk/envsci/staff/rjf1/