Compared to Esalen, Primal Screaming and similar trendy behavior therapies, Transcendental Meditation is downright dull, says Associate Editor Gerald Clarke: "You don't shout, you don't take off your clothes, you don't blurt out your sex life to a bunch of strangers." Thus Clarke, who describes himself as "superrational," decided to try it. Last April--long before he knew he would write this week's Behavior story on TM--he invested $125 and four days in TM training. "I can't claim any miracles," says Clarke, "but I write with greater ease and speed now." Doing this week's assignment, even Clarke was surprised by the amount of energy TM seemed to unlock: "After meditating, I sat down and wrote for eight hours with only a short break to eat, and never got tired." Of course, he adds, under the pressure of contemporary life, just starting a day doing nothing at all for 20 minutes would be salutary. Though still fairly new at TM, Clarke is no neophyte writer: in ten years with TIME, he has authored numerous cover stories for most sections of the magazine, most recently one for the World section on Arab-Israeli diplomacy (TIME, Aug. 25). He also wrote the Essay and a number of stories for our Bicentennial issue. Reporter-Researcher Anne Hopkins, who worked with Clarke on the TM story, was intrigued by the tranquillity that TM imparts to its devotees. Indeed, after interviewing meditators from all walks of life--including Broadway Magician Doug Henning--and visiting TM's Academy for the Science of Creative Intelligence in upstate New York, Hopkins is planning to resume the meditating she gave up two years ago. But some others involved with the story were less impressed.

"Of all the meditative disciplines," says Senior Editor Leon Jaroff, who edited the story and is well known as a skeptic, "TM is the one that seems to have really caught on. But there is still plenty of debate over the efficacy of TM as opposed to other methods."

TIME Geneva Stringer Robert Kroon, who interviewed TM Leader Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the French Alps not long ago, still claims to receive all the transcendental soothing he needs from the music of J.S. Bach. In a modern Western hotel, surrounded by efficient American business types and electronic paraphernalia, Kroon recounts, the Maharishi seemed a bit uprooted, "like a flamingo in an Arctic landscape," but he still registered as an affable and reasonably forthcoming personality.

"In a way, it was a routine interview," says Kroon, who respectfully took off shoes for the occasion. "The only exception was that you don't insist on down-to-earth replies from a transcendental mind--especially if you are shoeless yourself."

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