The aim of this book is to record central events and developments in Acem during the first 50 years of its history.
Acem was founded by Are Holen on January 27th, 1966. It startet with seven students at the University of Oslo. Within ten years, the organization had grown and had activities all over Norway. In the next ten years, Acem also expanded into the neighboring countries of Sweden and Denmark. Chapters were also established in the Netherlands and Taiwan, and courses were occasionally held in other countries. Acem’s activities became ever more international during the new millennium with established chapters in Germany, the UK, India, Spain, the US, Switzerland, and Lithuania.
Even though Acem had always been a separate organization with its own modes of working, the initial years were marked by cooperation with the late Mahesh Yogi of India and his movement. The meditation technique that was taught was initially called Deep Meditation and later Transcendental Meditation or TM. Due to major differences in values and orientation, this cooperation came to an end in 1972. The first years after the schism were spent redefining Acem’s position, the goal and teaching of its meditation. A psychology of meditation was established and developed continuously over the years. There was no tradition from which Acem could develop its concepts and understanding; deeper aspects of the meditation process took years to formulate. For this reason, the development of concepts and perspectives relating to meditation and its processes continued even beyond Acem’s 50th anniversary. The foundation for Are Holen—the founder of Acem, October 2015. Photo: Torbjørn Hobbel Acem’s subsequent work was established in the 1970s. During this period, Acem published its first books and new study material was made available.
The organization taught Acem Meditation to more than 100,000 people during its first 50 years. Many find the method beneficial for reducing stress and stress-related problems. Others enjoy practicing for a period and then lose the habit of daily meditation or feel they have obtained what they were looking for. Some stop the practice completely, while some pick it up again at a later point in their lives. Others continue regularly for many years because they feel it improves their daily lives, and some enjoy going deeper into the process. Acem has developed follow-up activities for those who want to enjoy the effects of reduced stress and increased energy as well as activities for those who want to delve deeper into the processes Acem Meditation can open— Acem Meditation World Retreat 2016 in the Spanish Pyrenees with 465 meditators from around the globe. Photo: Geir Wærnes processes that have both psychological and deeper existential aspects.
Some people in the organization took part in retreats with long daily meditations already from the beginning of the 1970s. However, at the end of the 1970s and in the 1980s, more effort was put into building the organization and reaching out to more people. From 1995, Acem started to focus more on long meditations and so-called deepening processes. Retreats were arranged with long meditations of six to ten hours daily. Later, there were three-week advanced deepening retreats, which included round-the-clock meditation. Acem acquired a unique experience in the field of long meditation.
Are Holen started to practice yoga about a year and a half before he began to meditate. Later, before Acem was founded, he began to give yoga classes. In 1968 he started the Norwegian School of Yoga (Norsk Yoga-skole, later called Acem School of Yoga in English), and for some time he was its only yoga teacher. Gradually, others were trained to become yoga teachers. Are Holen gave yoga classes at various levels for quite a number of years in the 1960s and 70s.
Over the years, the Acem School of Yoga has held a huge number of courses in Norway. After the turn of the millennium, yoga classes for beginners and experienced practitioners have been held in the Norwegian cities of Oslo, Trondheim, and Bergen every semester. There have also been more specialized courses, such as yoga for pregnant women. There have been regular weekend retreats with yoga and week-long retreats with yoga or yoga combined with meditation. In more recent years, Acem has also offered sessions in Oslo with yoga and meditation once a month on Saturday mornings.
Yoga has been an integrated part of Acem’s teachings. The Acem School of Yoga coordinated its activities with the Acem School of Meditation, and most of the yoga teachers were also instructors in Acem Meditation. At meditation retreats, instructors taught meditative yoga, the type of yoga considered most conducive for meditation. Particularly in deepening retreats, yoga plays an important role as a means to allow the body and mind to be more open to the deepening processes of Acem Meditation. Acem initiators at Lundsholm retreat center, Sweden, in 2016 First row from left: Øyvind Ellingsen, Merete Lund Hetland, Sigrun Hobbel, Halvor Eifring, Tor Hersoug, Monika Wirkkala. Second row from left: Margareta Hammarlund-Udenæs, Rolf Brandrud, Petter Halvorsen, Turid Berg-Nielsen, Thor Udenæs, Ole Gjems-Onstad, Morten Helsing, Are Holen, Carl Henrik Grøndahl, Ellen Gravklev, Maria Gjems-Onstad, Eva Skaar, Christopher Grøndahl, Torbjørn Hobbel. By Acem’s 50th anniversary, Acem had 21 initiators, 16 living in Norway, 3 in Sweden, 1 in Denmark, 1 in Germany. The organization had 179 instructors or assistant instructors, 137 in Norway, 13 in Sweden, 12 in Denmark, 2 in the Netherlands, 2 in India, 2 in Taiwan, 4 in Germany, 1 in the UK, 5 in Spain, 1 in the US. Photo: Torbjørn Hobbel
Acem always had its own vision and perspective, which were sometimes quite different from the popular moods and ideas of the time.
In the 1960s, there was a strong interest in and rising use of cannabis and hallucinogenics such as LSD among students. Acem always expressed a clear point of view against these substances. Use of such drugs reduces the capacity for introspective sensitivity and is contrary to the psychological and existential development to which Acem Meditation can contribute.
The hippie movement of the 1960s and 70s embraced drugs and often combined this with “spiritual” visions. Oriental mysticism was attractive to many, as was meditation. Quite a few were willing to believe in the most incredible things and change their lifestyles and careers accordingly. This was the New Age. Acem acknowledged that its type of meditation had roots in Indian philosophical traditions, and Indian philosophy was therefore of some interest for many Acem meditators. However, the organization was keenly aware of the superficiality of many Indian gurus coming to the West in that period and of how some of them abused their backgrounds to obtain followers and money from naïve Westerners. The “cosmic” or “divine” visions they promoted often proved to be very unrealistic. During these years, Acem felt a strong need to formulate a psychology of meditation based on the actual experience of meditators in order to help people obtain better results from their practice, rather than seduce them with unrealistic promises that could easily detract from the psychological change that the meditative process could bring about.
At the end of the 1960s and during the 1970s, many Western countries saw the emergence of a strong revolutionary political movement, particularly among students. A communist revolution would save the world and bring happiness. Acem was never a part of that The Christian magazine Vår Kirke strongly opposed the bishops’ criticism of Acem and printed this cartoon showing the head of the Church of Norway, Andreas Aarflot, disturbing a meditator. movement. Acem was politically neutral, focusing on the benefits of meditation for the individual. To develop, each person had to relate to his or her own way of handling difficult situations and to the influence of unconscious psychological issues on his or her life. To believe that a political revolution would free everyone from psychological bondage was in Acems view not only unrealistic but would in addition derail people from the changes they could make in themselves to improve their own lives and the lives of others.
In Norway, some groups within the Lutheran church believed that Acem’s activities were in conflict with a Christian outlook. They spread the idea in books, lectures, and newpaper articles that Acem’s activities were a kind of covert Hindu-oriented movement. Acem responded in an issue of its periodical Dyade in 1980, questioning the Church of Norway’s lack of understanding of modern psychology. Gradually, the opposition from the hostile Christian groups was silenced, and a more accepting attitude toward meditation grew forth in most parts of the Church. Acem has always promoted Acem Meditation as a method with no connection to specific religions. Over the years, atheists, agnostics, Christians of various denominations, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and people of other faiths have learned and practiced Acem Meditation to good effect.
From early on in the 1970s, “books and buildings” became a slogan among the leaders of the organization. To be able to expand and continue its activities in the future, the organization needed books to transmit its ideas about meditation and buildings in which its teaching and practice could take place.
By the time Acem celebrated its 50th anniversary, most of its dreams concerning retreat and course centers had been more or less fulfilled. The various chapters of this book state when buildings or offices were acquired in the various Acem centers.
Written material about the perspectives and principles behind Acem Meditation has been necessary for Acem to be able to expand from a local student organization to a movement that could reach out to a larger part of society. Written material also helped those who had learned Acem Meditation to continue their practice. Courses in Acem Meditation were always led by trained instructors or initiators. In Acem’s view, the skills to teach people to meditate in their daily lives and help them to understand the basic principles of the practice require several years of training. Reading books about meditation would not be sufficient; nevertheless, reading about the principles, potentials, and challenges of the practice over time would help. Acem’s retreat center Halvorsbøle, Norway. The buildings, hidden among pine trees on the small hillock in the middle of the picture, have a view of the lake Randsfjorden. Photo: Torbjørn Hobbel Acem’s retreat center Lundsholm, Sweden. Photo: Geir Wærnes The first Acem House in Oslo, painted by Gunnar Dietrichson.
The first publication about Acem Meditation, which at that time was still called Transcendental Meditation, was an issue of the periodical Dyade (no. 6, 1973). Dyade usually contained articles about various cultural and psychological topics, often seen from a meditative perspective; the issue on Transcendental Meditation was the first issue to focus on a single topic. Fifteen thousand copies of this issue were sold.
Are Holen stepped down as leader of Acem in 1971 because of the conflict with Mahesh Yogi’s movement. In 1973, after Acem had ended all contact with Mahesh Yogi’s movement half a year earlier, Holen reentered as head of Acem. There was a great need to clarify the differences between the two approaches to meditation and make this difference accessible to everyone interested.
At the end of 1976, the first book on Acem Meditation was published: Psychology of Silence ( Stillhetens psykologi ). This was an important milestone. The book described Acem’s vision of meditation, the processes
The most recent edition of Acem’s first book Psychology of Silence, which first appeared in 1976. It is the most widely read book about meditation in Norway and has been revised several times and published in several languages. that it can set in motion in everyday life, and looked at Acem Meditation from a cultural perspective. This book was reedited and reprinted several times, and is the most-read book on meditation in Norway. Over the years, it has also been translated into Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Chinese, and Spanish. Its English version appeared shortly after Acem celebrated its 50th anniversary, in a thoroughly reedited and expanded edition.
Over the years, the need for a scientific approach to meditation became stronger. Meditative experience is important, but to the general public it is of interest to know if the results of practicing Acem Meditation can be scientifically confirmed. The first PhD thesis to provide medical research on the effects of Acem Meditation was defended in 2004. In 2008, Acem published a book entitled Fighting Stress: Reviews of Meditation Research, which summarized what was known at that time about the effects of Acem Meditation and similar types of meditation. In general, the interest in research
This book discusses meditation from the perspective of neuroscience, medicine, psychology, philosophy, and the humanities. It was published in 2019, but the writing process started six years earlier. on meditation in the scientific community has increased tremendously during the last few decades. A new book entitled The Power of the Wandering Mind: Nondirective Meditation in Science and Philosophy was published in
2019. Work on this book started as an attempt to update Fighting Stress long before Acem’s 50th anniversary, but the protracted writing process resulted in a completely new book, largely built on the scientific discovery of the brain’s default-mode network and the “mind wandering” associated with it, which is central to Acem Meditation and related techniques.
In 2009, Acem also published a book on yoga: Yogaboken—Bevegelse og pust, which details the poses and movements of meditative or classic yoga. Yoga had always been an important supplementary activity in Acem, and on Acem Meditation retreats some yoga instruction was always included. The book describes in detail a large number of yoga exercises for both beginners and more advanced practitioners. The English translation of the book was published in 2012 under the title Meditative Yoga: Integrating Body, Breath and Mind. The book has also been translated into Spanish and Chinese.
For every year from 1974 onwards, each chapter of this book has a subsection on publications, which includes the topics of each issue of Dyade as well as the publication of new books. From the publication of the first book in 1976, a number of books have been published in different languages. Although the slogan “books and buildings” appeared early in Acem’s history, the desire for further publications dealing with the meditative process did not end with Acem’s 50th anniversary. A watercolor painting of Acem’s retreat center Halvorsbøle, Norway. Artist unknown. Acem’s retreat center Lundsholm, Sweden. Photo: Torbjørn Hobbel