Andrew Skolnick describes Maharishi Yagyas as Hindu ceremonies to appease the gods and beseech their help on behalf of afflicted followers that can cost tens of thousands of dollars, and which the patient neither takes part in nor witnesses. He wrote that, while Chopra and Nancy Lonsdorf, medical director of the Maharishi Ayur-Veda Center in Washington, D.C. denied that they prescribed yagyas or that yagyas were part of Maharishi Ayur-Veda, Chopra's Lancaster Center did recommend yagyas for its patients, and a TM-Movement fundraising letter states that Lonsdorf prescribed an $11,500 yagya for a seriously ill patient of hers.