Arlene J. Schar and Dr. David Leffler
We are living in times where people throughout the world are divided. And yet, regardless of political persuasion, there are certain points of agreement: corruption in many governments has reached unprecedented levels; ethics and integrity have given way to deal-making and intimidation. While this is not how most of us choose to live our lives, we cannot find a way to come together to effect positive change. So what can we do in these challenging times to restore a level of sanity not only to our political structures but also to our day to day living?
The answer to our current dilemma lies within rather than outside of ourselves. There is a powerful tool for change available to anyone who seeks positive solutions to supposedly insurmountable problems; a tool which anyone can access. This tool is a ground-breaking and effective means for ending conflict and violence: Invincible Defense Technology (IDT), a brain-based technology which utilizes non-religious advanced techniques of Transcendental Meditation (TM). Proven scientific research has demonstrated over and over that these advanced techniques, when practiced twice a day in large groups, have the effect of raising the consciousness of all those within its field. By raising the consciousness of our leaders, as well as that of our general population, positive solutions will naturally occur and our society would shift to one of unity instead of division.
You may ask “how can this be? It seems too simple to be true?” And yes, sometimes the simple approaches are the most effective. Consider: IDT was previously utilized in Washington D.C. over a two-month period in the summer of 1993, where 4000 meditators gathered for an experiment to lower crime. The result, as documented by an independent board of criminologists, was a 24 percent reduction in criminal violence. This profound reduction in social stress also influenced the public approval of the US president, which suddenly changed from a negative trend to a positive trend, as predicted (Reference: Social Indicators Research, 1999, 47: 153-201).
A study published in May 2019 in Studies in Asian Social Science, 6(2), 1-45, found that IDT implementation by students trained in the advanced TM techniques resulted in a 96% decline in sociopolitical violence in war-torn Cambodia as compared to violence in the preceding three years.
The Global Union of Scientists for Peace (GUSP) advocates IDT as a cost-effective, simple means to rapidly reduce the societal stresses held to be the underlying cause of terrorism and war.
Military and civilian groups in South America, Africa, and parts of Asia are currently field-testing this approach by creating Prevention Wings of the Military, using IDT to reduce crime, quell violence, create prosperity, prevent the rise of enemies, and create the conditions for lasting peace.
Extensive peer-reviewed scientific research has repeatedly confirmed that when large groups of experts practice these advanced techniques together, a powerful field effect is generated which affects the surrounding population. This results in measurable decreases in war deaths, terrorism, and crime whenever IDT is utilized.
What might be a practical way to implement IDT? Volunteers (and their families) could be trained in advanced Transcendental Meditation techniques in exchange for taking part in large group meditations twice a day for a set period of time.
The big question remaining is funding: who would pay to make this happen? While militaries worldwide have already begun to implement IDT in their own nations, many other countries have yet to embark on this course of action on a large scale. Since time is of the essence, a call to the private sector may be in order. In the United States the current political climate right now has billionaires running for president in order to effect change in the nation; perhaps there are other billionaires worldwide who would be equally committed to effect change by funding IDT projects designed to unify their home countries with positive solutions.
We have no time to lose: as the coronavirus impacts our international markets and as stock markets plunge, we need to come up with immediate, effective solutions to our societal issues before it is too late.
Arlene J. Schar has served as Dr. Leffler’s Executive Assistant at the Center for Advanced Military Science (CAMS) StrongMilitary.org since 2015. She has edited and co-authored many of Dr. Leffler’s articles.
Dr. David Leffler served as an Associate of the Proteus Management Group at the Center for Strategic Leadership, US Army War College. Currently, he serves as the Executive Director at CAMS.
The entire thesis of the author centers on a fatally flawed study, an experiment to reduce crime in Washington, DC, by 20 percent.
Peter Woit, a theoretical physicist at Columbia University, had written that Hagelin’s study has been rejected by “virtually every theoretical physicist in the world.” No wonder it took Hagelin six years to find a journal to publish his study.
In 1986, Heinz Pagels, then executive director of the New York Academy of Sciences, wrote that the Maharishi Effect accomplished nothing whatsoever, and could be characterized only as a willful deception. According to Pagel, TM’s claim of a connection between the recent ideas of theoretical physics—unified field theory, the vacuum state, and collective phenomena—and states of consciousness attained by transcendental meditation are false and profoundly misleading; no qualified physicist he knew would claim to find such a connection without knowingly committing fraud. Also, the notion that what physicists call ‘the vacuum state’ has anything to do with consciousness is nonsense and claims that large numbers of people meditating reduces crime and war by creating a unified field of consciousness is foolishness of a high order.
Even Flying Yogis Can’t Stop Crime in Fairfield
One “unofficial” TM website, Truthabouttm.com, claims some 50 studies evidence the Maharishi Effect. However, one doesn’t need highly regarded physicists to understand how utterly ridiculous TM’s claims are. The population of Fairfield, Iowa, according to the US Census Bureau as of July 2016, was 10,206. Accordingly, applying the square-root-of-one-percent formula, the coherence produced by just ten of TM’s coherence producers, the most advanced of which being TM’s yogic flyers, should result in a reduced crime rate in the City. For well over two decades, not ten but hundreds of yogic flyers have conducted their coherence-generating practices in the two (male and female) Golden Dome flying centers located on campus at TM’s University in Fairfield, Iowa. Based on the massive level of coherence generated, one might reasonably expect Fairfield to be crime-free. In fact, the entire Midwestern US should be crime-free.
Neighborhood Scout is a real estate data platform that analyzes crime utilizing raw data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program. Using statistics released in September 2016, Neighborhood Scout reported: The crime rate in Fairfield is considerably higher than the national average across all communities in America from the largest to the smallest, although, at 32 crimes per one thousand residents, it is not among the cities with the very highest crime rate. The chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime in Fairfield is 1 in 31. Relative to Iowa, Fairfield has a crime rate that is higher than 94% of the state’s cities and towns of all sizes. (Emphasis mine). Also, when comparing Fairfield to other communities of similarly sized populations, Neighborhood Scout found that the Fairfield crime rate (violent and property crimes combined) per thousand residents stood out as higher than most.
Interest in the idea of global unity is growing with the advent of COVID 19. Interest in the idea of ‘collective consciousness’, or ‘mindset’, is also growing as evidenced by researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who suggest that when at least 10% of the population hold an unshakeable belief, the “belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.”2 This research is reinforced by research of Erica Chenoweth, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and Maria J. Stephan, a strategic planner with the US Department of State. They put the figure needed for change far lower at 3.5%. Chenoweth and Stephan not only found that between 1900 and 2006 nonviolent resistance was twice as likely to succeed as violent insurgency, but also established that no nonviolent campaigns failed once they had achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5% of the population. It is therefore not unreasonable for a scientist such as Harvard-trained quantum physicist, John Hagelin, to look for features in common between what is termed ‘pure consciousness’, the most fundamental level of human awareness, and the unified field of modern physics.
If one accepts that there may be a connection between pure consciousness and a unified level of physics, the idea of the Maharishi Effect begins to make sense. Certainly, the evidence of more than fifty demonstrations and twenty peer-reviewed studies suggests that the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs, when practiced in groups of at least 1%, or the square root of 1% respectively of the population, can counteract national and international stress. The 1993 Washington study is an example of this phenomenon. The review board comprised sociologists and criminologists from the University of Maryland, Howard University, the University of the District of Columbia, American University, the University of Texas and the University of Denver. Additionally, representatives from the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department and the District Government and civic leaders were included. The crime data came from the Washington City Police using the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report data definitions and indicated that the combined total of homicides, non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rapes and aggravated assaults decreased.
We do not know everything there is to know about the Maharishi Effect and future research will address many of the factors that generate different results in different types of locations. As far as Washington is concerned, it is a mistake to lose sight of the main point: peer-reviewed research indicates that a significant change took place in Washington in the summer of 1993.
Hi Aryeh – Just seen your comment. I’ve just co-authored a book on the Maharishi Effect which is due to be published on 1/7/20. It’s called Antidote to Violence: Evaluating the Evidence. It deals with most of your points. Certainly the Maharishi Effect does not depend on one single study. If it did there would be some justification to your points. In particular I would draw your attention to a series of 4 studies by Cavanaugh and Dillbeck on fatalities and violent crime. The most convincing argument for the Maharishi Effect is the sheer amount of repetition: 20 peer reviewed studies and about 50 demonstrations. You also raise a good point in how we would explain the Maharishi Effect in terms of modern physics. At the moment the precise mechanism is not competely understood and we deal with this in our book. Whilst we do not analyse crime in Iowa specifically we do look at the situation in the State of Iowa. I would suggest there is enough evidence to justify further research by Governments.