ABSTRACT Since 2005, the film director David Lynch has been the most visible and vocal proponent for the spread of Transcendental Meditation (TM), a practice brought to the United States by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the late 1950s. This paper analyzes the public-facing operations: website, books, and celebrity benefit concerts, through which the David Lynch Foundation interacts with its American audience and charts two moves that the David Lynch Foundation has made in order to market TM. First, I assert that they have positioned TM as a technique rather than a spiritual practice and I understand this through Foucault’s theory of techné. Second, I argue that they have leveraged the auracular quality of celebrity as a modality through which to brand TM for the spiritual consumer. Ultimately, I made claims on how these moves represent a shift in how American spiritual seekers are understood and marketed to in popular culture.

中文翻译：

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先验冥想的转折点：名人对美国精神市场的吸引力

摘要自 2005 年以来，电影导演大卫·林奇一直是传播超验冥想 (TM) 的最显眼和最直言不讳的支持者，这是一种由 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 在 1950 年代后期带到美国的做法。本文分析了面向公众的运营：网站、书籍和名人福利音乐会，大卫林奇基金会通过这些活动与美国观众互动，并绘制了大卫林奇基金会为营销 TM 所做的两项举措。首先，我断言他们将 TM 定位为一种技术而不是一种精神实践，我通过福柯的技术理论来理解这一点。其次，我认为他们利用名人的灵光品质作为一种方式，通过这种方式为精神消费者打造 TM 品牌。最终，