AllMovie

Aspiring filmmaker David Sieveking had graduated from college and was wondering what to do next when heard that his favorite filmmaker, David Lynch, was hosting a conference on creativity in Iowa, and Sieveking flew in from his hometown of Berlin to attend. Sieveking soon discovered that Lynch's discussions of the creative process usually led to his passionate interest in Transcendental Meditation, the spiritual practice popularized in the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Curious about TM and the claims made for it -- including the assertion that certain practitioners can actually levitate while in a trance -- Sieveking signed up for training (at a cost of close to $3,000), and as he began to study TM and its rise in the west, the Maharishi died, and suddenly many high ranking figures in the TM movement were involved in a mad scramble over control of his empire. Sieveking chronicles his experiences with TM, the history of meditation in the West, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's checkered reputation and surprising business acumen, Sieveking's rocky relationship with his long-suffering girlfriend and his efforts to talk to David Lynch about TM in the documentary David Wants To Fly, which received its world premiere at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival.