On the afternoon after David Lynch and Donovan bamboozled Ed Stourton on Radio Four’s Today programme (an interview that concluded with Lynch shouting “it’s the real thing, Ed, give it to the kids!”) UNCUT cornered them in London’s Sanderson Hotel to ask why they were touring together to promote Transcendental Meditation.

Both were dressed as if for a funeral, Donovan in a dark pinstripe suit, and Lynch in a black suit with a black tie, and his silver quiff pointing East. They sat on matching Phillippe Starck thrones. Lynch was fulsome in his praise of Donovan, saying that his music was “a magical flow of deep, deep, meaningful creativity”, but things got more complicated when UNCUT asked about Transcendental Meditation.

UNCUT: What would be the before and after effect of someone doing TM?

LYNCH: You got a certain amount of stress in the system, you got a certain amount of fatigue, you got a little bit of melancholy, and some anger, and you want to get happier and lift that weight of negativity, and you want to see ideas flow, pitch ideas easier, and have understanding grow. So you start. And from the first Transcendental Meditation, this technique gives you entry to the Transcendent level, the deepest level of life. Pure consciousness.

A bunch of things start happening. Whatever consciousness you had to begin with will start to expand. All the positive values of consciousness: infinite bliss, infinite intelligence, infinite creativity, infinite power, energy, love. These things are starting to grow. Infinite dynamic peace. The side effect is, tensions and stress, anxieties, fear, anger, depression, sorrow; these things start to lift away. Negativity cannot life in the light of this unity. So from the very beginning, very rapidly your life will get better and better. And this weight of negativity lifting is a freedom. Ideas start to flow. So when the mind settles down and transcends, the physiology follows. You’re getting a rest that’s three times better than that of deep sleep. You’re cleaning the machine, infusing gold, pure bliss consciousness, and you’re seeing negativity lift away from your life. Bound to get better! Bound to get better!

Can you prove this?

LYNCH: There’s brain research, and it shows that with Transcendental Meditation, a meditator truly transcends. It’s the only experience that light full brain on the EG machine. Full brain coherence. When you speak: one part of the brain. When you sing, like Donovan, another. When you concentrate, another. Now, boom! Transcending! Holistic experience. Full brain engaged. And then, little by little you hold more of that transcendent quality. Waking, sleeping and dreaming, and transcendence. [Explosive noise]. Expansion of consciousness! Understanding, appreciation. Flow of ideas! Taking ideas to the deeper lever, because your sub-conscious is growing and growing. Beautiful – feed all avenues of life in the most positive way. And things get very, very good.

Would I understand INLAND EMPIRE if I did TM?

LYNCH: Intuition grows – you would understand it, now could you put it into words? That’s the thing.

How has it affected your art?

So much more enjoyment of the doing. There’s people working away, but are they enjoying the day-by-day working? They work for an end result. Give ’em this: infuse that happiness from the inside, bring creativity and understanding, and all this energy, and watch what happens. You start enjoying your work. Ideas flow. You’ll do way better work. And it’s your life going by, so you might as well enjoy that. And get ideas. Ideas are thoughts. Thoughts bubble up. Everyone comes from this transcendent unified field. We have a full potential called enlightenment, it will unfold that. You expand that ball of consciousness, catch ideas at a deeper level. The events of your life may stay the same, but how you go through them will change. You will still get very angry, but you can’t hold onto it. You will get sadness, but you can’t hold onto it. So freeing. If you’re a human being, it will work, whether you believe it or not.

DONOVAN: A question is, do I have to change my religion? You can keep any belief system you have. This is not a religion, this is a technique that has been lost to humankind, rediscovered.

LYNCH: By Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, working tirelessly for 50 years, to bring this out. It’s a real phenomenon, and when peace comes to the world, it will be because this deepest level has been enlivened, and people will start enjoying: negativity cannot live in this light of unity. It destroys negativity, as sunlight, when it rises in the morning, destroys darkness.

DONOVAN: You can’t win peace like they say you can win a war. You don’t win peace, you grow it.

Interview by :ALASTAIR McKAY