Creating coherent national consciousness
The Transcendental Meditation technique provides regular experience of the source of thought, pure consciousness—the Unified Field in the language of modern physics—which dissolves deep-seated stress in the individual, bringing marked reductions in hypertension, stroke, heart disease, and other stress-related illness. When practiced collectively in groups, this same program has been shown to effectively reduce societal stress and tensions, causing associated reductions in crime and social violence, and an upsurge of peace and positivity throughout the population.
Specifically, published research confirms that collective practice of the Transcendental Meditation (and advanced TM-Sidhi program) by groups of several hundred to several thousand trained experts quickly neutralizes acute societal stress—including the ethnic, religious, and political tensions that fuel violence and conflict. Violence and conflict are thereby averted as tensions are calmed and as the enmity in an adversary is naturally defused.
From the perspective of physics, such groups of trained, peace-creating experts collectively accessing and stimulating the Unified Field generate powerful waves of unity and coherence that permeate the collective consciousness of the whole population. The immediate, practical result is markedly reduced crime and social violence, and improved positive trends throughout society.
This phenomenon of increased coherence and peace throughout society was first reported in research published in 1976, which found that when 1% of a community practiced the Transcendental Meditation program, the crime rate dropped by an average of 16%. This phenomenon was named the “Maharishi Effect” in honor of Maharishi, who first predicted it in 1960. This term now includes the influence generated by group practice of the TM-Sidhi program, through which even the square root of 1% of a community is sufficient to create measurable changes in social trends.
The unique effectiveness of this approach in preventing social violence, terrorism, and war has been confirmed by more than 50 demonstrations and 23 scientific studies. This research has been carefully scrutinized by independent scholars and accepted for publication in top academic journals. In every case, this approach produced marked reductions of crime, social violence, terrorism, and war, and increased peace and positivity in society.
The reduction of violence and war through group practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program is the most extensively researched and thoroughly established phenomenon in the history of the social sciences.