10,000 TM Practitioners To Create World Peace This New Year

10,000 specialist meditators are assembling to create world peace in the New Year 29 December 2024 – 13 January 2024

Ten thousand people who practise Transcendental Meditation will be assembling in India in the New Year to create world peace. Scientific research provides evidence that an assembly of this size will have a far-reaching influence on world events during the time of the assembly. If this assembly produces results similar to 50 previous demonstrations, documented in more than 20 peer reviewed studies, this influence will reduce violence and increase progress towards peaceful resolutions of ethnic, national and international conflicts. Barry Spivack, co-author of An Antidote to Violence: Evaluating the Evidence (published in 2020), said: ‘A 17-year study published in 2022 examining nationwide data in the US from 2000 to 2016 found significant reductions in crime, homicides, infant mortality, car accident fatalities, other types of fatalities and deaths from (mainly medical) drugs, between 2007 and 2010 compared with a baseline period 2000–2006 and a post experimental period of 2011–2016. During the experimental period there was a group of 2,000 advanced Transcendental Meditation practitioners assembled in one place, in Iowa[1]. When, after 2010, the numbers in the group fell, all the negative indicators began to increase again.

This phenomenon was first predicted in 1962 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation organization. When the square root of 1% of the population of a city, a country or even the world is practising Transcendental Meditation its advanced programmes together in a group then negative social trends such as war intensity, various types of fatalities, car accidents, decrease, and economic and health indicators improve.

This phenomenon is known as the Maharishi Effect. Results have been published in peer reviewed journals such as the Journal of Conflict Resolution (JCR). Bruce Russett, a former Professor of International Relations at Yale University, who was the editor of the JCR at the time wrote:

the hypothesis seems logically derived from the initial premises, and its empirical testing seems competently executed. These are the standards to which manuscripts submitted for publication in this journal are normally subjected. The manuscript, either in its initial version or as revised, was read by four referees (two more than is typical with this journal): three psychologists and a political scientist.

It is well known that practice of Transcendental Meditation neutralises stress in the individual (Nidich et al, 2018, Lancet Psychiatry, funded by the US Department of Defense) and when it is practised by a group which has attained the relevant threshold it neutralises societal stress in the collective consciousness and improves well-being in a nation.

The implication of this research is that consciousness has field-like qualities. In simple terms transcending during meditation can be thought of as analogous to dropping a pebble in a pond and an influence of harmony spreads out into the whole of society. From a scientific perspective it is analogous to the idea of a unified field in physics with the addition that consciousness needs to be included.

Is it simply correlation rather than causation? There are several reasons why the Maharishi Effect research is consistent with a causal hypothesis:

a) Repetition; there have been 50 demonstrations of this phenomenon.

b) Unconnected variables move in the same direction at the same time. In the study above various types of crime, infant mortality, car accidents and deaths from drugs are all unrelated social phenomena but they all moved in the same direction not just once but twice.

c) Researchers have controlled for confounding variables: population density, median years of education, per capita income, percentage of people in the age range 15–29, percentage unemployed, percentage below the poverty line, percentage of people over 65, the ratio of police per population, weather, holidays, seasons, political events, unemployment, incarceration rates, temperature, policing strategies, urban demographics, social media, police technology, police reporting, number of miles travelled, weather patterns, proportion of young drivers, improved vehicle safety features, alcohol consumption, national economic conditions, increased public and professional awareness of the risks of opioid addiction, and sales of painkillers.

None of these factors could completely explain the results of the research. Raymond Russ, PhD, Professor of Psychology at the University of Maine and former editor of the Journal of Mind and Behaviour, commented:

The hypothesis definitely raised some eyebrows among our reviewers. But the statistical work is sound. The numbers are there. When you can statistically control for as many variables as these studies do, it makes the results much more convincing. This evidence indicates that we now have a new technology to generate peace in the world.

d) The results were predicted in advance and the predictions were lodged with independent review boards.

e) The change in the size of the TM group leads the changes in society.

f) There is a dosage effect; the larger the TM group the bigger the impact.

g) The use of time series analysis rules out seasonal causes and pre-existing trends and minimizes the risk of spurious findings.

h) Strictly mathematical criteria were used to select the appropriate statistical model.

This research is explained in detail in An Antidote to Violence: Evaluating the Evidence by Barry Spivack and Dr Patricia Saunders and is summarised in a much shorter book, Healing Social Divisions: The Truth of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness by Barry Spivack.

The next question is how can this be possible? How can people sitting with their eyes closed in one location influence the behaviour of those who are acting in another part of a city or country? The implication is that consciousness is not restricted to the human brain but has field like qualities as are commonly found in physics. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917 – 2008), the founder of the Transcendental Meditation gives a non-technical explanation:

The level of consciousness is the same all over, everywhere. Just like the level of the sap is the same everywhere. The sap of the leaf is the sap of the stem is the sap of the petal. It is the same sap. If that sap could be made lively somewhere, those lively thrills on the level of the sap will keep all the parts of the tree fresh.

Because consciousness is the basis of all that is there – here, there, everywhere – it is the quantum level of life, the very basic level of life. If the attention reaches that level, what happens is like the small pebble falling on the silent bed of the water. A small pebble falls, creating impulses. These impulses reach all the far places and all the water. Just like that, when the conscious mind of one single individual transcends, we can imagine the thrills being created on the silent level of consciousness which is the omnipresent reality. This pulsating consciousness of the individual creates impulses of life all over, and because this is the very fundamental level of life of everyone, everyone’s thinking, everyone’s consciousness is influenced by that...

The whole society becomes more positive in its trends, more positive in its thinking. The awareness of the whole population is influenced tremendously. That is why the criminals change, negativity changes. A man thinking like that today, he thinks in a different way tomorrow.

Maharishi had studied physics at university and many of the founders of quantum mechanics gave a more prominent role to consciousness than we often think.

Arthur Eddington: provided experimental evidence of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. “The stuff of the world is mind-stuff.”

Max Planck: Nobel laureate and regarded as the “father” of quantum physics. “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative of consciousness.”

Freeman Dyson: mathematician and physicist. “Mind is inherent in the way the universe is built.”

Sir Roger Penrose: Nobel laureate and physicist proved that black holes could be formed from the gravitational collapse of dying immense stars. “The need for mentality to be ‘ontologically fundamental in the Universe’…I think that something of this nature is indeed necessary.”

Lieutenant General Clarence E. Mcknight, a former Director of Command, Control and Communication Systems for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington D.C. commented: “I was initially sceptical that such a simple solution could be effective. However after examining the evidence I changed my mind.”

Former President of Mozambique, Joachim Chissano, introduced TM to 18,000 members of the armed forces in 1993, of whom 3000 learnt the advanced programmes. Chissano credits this intervention with enhancing political stability after a bitter civil war and supporting economic growth. Angola, like Mozambique is a former Portuguese colony, and had also suffered from a civil war, but the Angolan government did not introduce TM to its population and reverted back to civil war and struggled with economic development compared with Mozambique; Chissano credits this consciousness based approach to government for the improvements.

Lt General Tobias Dai of the Mozambique army confirmed:

Our conclusion is that the implementation of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Programme, with Yogic Flying, into the armed forces of Mozambique was worth the effort and the results were in line with what was predicted... As part of the peace agreement the military on both sides of the conflict were disbanded and this ended the group practise. Lt General Dai noted: What is very clear is that once the positive effect is created, if the group practise is stopped, the previous tendencies of higher collective stress, as determined from the crime indexes and the tense situation in the country, began to rise again.

Barry’s most recent book Healing Social Divisions: The Truth of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness updates this research and examines the consequences for freedom, happiness and social harmony

The need of the time is to establish permanent peace creating groups on every continent and in every country to maintain peace, the basis for dynamic progress around the globe. The TM organisation is in the process of establishing such permanent groups in India.

Click here for the range of benefits and links to the original research papers or abstracts on the Maharishi Effect.