This article by Scott Lowe looks at TM and the issues of vedic science and science. Another fascinating example that seems to offer a confluence of Nagaraj's parallel streams is the FVI, and their
aspiration to re-establish a Vedic India. This page has some of their videos that introduce the TM concepts. Typical of TM,
their research is exceptionally pseudosciency. One of the speakers was no other than
Ramdev swami, who claims that the goal is to first create a Vedic (Hindu) nation then Vedic world. It would seem that, like the
Sangh's pivot to using Upadhaya's Integral Humanism instead of the more controversial, Hindutva, the rhetorical pivot to Vedic also serves to obfuscate this theo-political aspiration. One of the key members of the AVI is John Hagelin, who used to work at CERN (the physics lab), but was too controversial. So controversial in fact that CERN wrote an open letter to him asking him to stop mentioning his former association with them. But not too controversial to be awarded the
Ig Nobel Prize. The following is an excerpt from an article currently under review in which I discuss, in part, Hagelin's views:
As Eriksen explains, 97 through the commodification of local products into distant imaginary -scapes, many concepts borrowed from science become theoretically dis-embedded through their use in popular mediums; which promotes ‘representational incorrectness’. This is evidenced in a series of lectures facilitated by the Vedic India Foundation,98 which present an idea of quantum physics with a new-age interpretation of Vedic cosmology that ultimately serves to create a Vedic India and world through combining it with string theory.99 However, Woit100 argues strongly against this position, ‘Virtually every theoretical physicist in the world rejects all of this as nonsense and the work of a crackpot’. Ultimately, promoters of ‘Vedic Science’ aim to legitimise a Hindu nationalist worldview.10
97 Eriksen T.H., Globalization: The key concepts, Bloomsbury, New York, 2014.
98 Vedic India Foundation, International Conference to Re-establish Vedic India, http://
www.vedicindiafoundation.org/ (accessed 14.072015).
99 Scientific Basis for Vedic India, Dr. John Hagelin: Veda and Physics: The Science and Technology of the
Unified Field, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u3f7_p1i8c&t=22s (accessed 09.07.2018).
100 Woit Peter, Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Continuing Challenge to Unify the
Laws of Physics, Jonathan Cape, London, 2006, pp 209-210.
101 Nanda, 2003, p. 95.
Some 20 years ago, I was deeply enamored by NC Panda's books that seek to combine
advaita darshanas with quantam theory. I had the good fortune of staying with him in his home in Bhubaneswar. I fondly remember a discussion around scalar waves and samadhi. This collaboration by Deepak Chopra and physicist Leonard Mlodinow is also quite interesting. While they don't agree on many things, it's an interesting project.
All the best,
パトリック マッカートニー
Patrick McCartney, PhD
JSPS Fellow - Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Japan
Research Associate - Nanzan University Anthropological Institute, Nagoya, Japan
Visiting Fellow - South and South-east Asian Studies Department, Australian National University
Skype - psdmccartney
Phone + Whatsapp: +81-80-9811-3235
Twitter - @psdmccartney
bodhapūrvam calema ;-)
