Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

consciousness-based education and governmentWallace, & Beidebach, 1992). This profound rest promotes regulation ofcortisol and other hormones in the opposite direction to chronic stress,including: reduced baseline levels of cortisol and a more robust cortisolresponse to stress; healthier regulation of serotonin; and decreasedplasma cortisol and aggressive behavior in hyperaggressive patients(MacLean et all, 1994; Walton & Levitsky, 1994). Statistical metaanalysesand random assignment studies have found TM practice moreeffective than other treatments in decreasing trait anxiety and anger,enhancing emotional balance, and reducing substance abuse and posttraumaticstress disorder (Eppley, Abrams, & Shear, 1989; Alexander,Robinson, & Rainforth, 1994).Such individual benefits can profoundly impact crime, as indicatedby research conducted on maximum security prisoners. Inmates whopractice Transcendental Meditation display reduced psychopathology,hostility, and rule infractions, as well as significantly reduced recidivism(Bleick & Abrams, 1987; Dillbeck & Abrams, 1987). 9Consistent with these effects at the individual level, we have seenthat collective practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program reduces social stress and produces positive changes insociety as a whole. During the past 20 years, over 40 studies employingincreasingly rigorous statistical methodologies have reported significantreductions in crime and other indicators of social stress resultingfrom such collective practice.Growing interest among sociologists and criminologists worldwidegenerated by these research findings led to the 1993 National DemonstrationProject to Reduce Violent Crime and Enhance GovernmentalEffectiveness in Washington, D.C. (Hagelin et al., 1993). This highlypublic demonstration project, which involved 4,000 subjects over aperiod of two months, was one of the most rigorously designed sociologicalexperiments in history. As predicted in advance, violent crime fellby more than 23%. Time series transfer function analysis also indicatedthat over time, the long-term, steady-state effect of the group would have9In 1987–1988, the African nation of Senegal applied this rehabilitation strategy nationwide.Over 11,000 Senegalese prisoners and over 900 prison officers were instructed in the TM technique.Recidivism dropped dramatically, the prison population halved, prison violence declined,and several prisons closed while many others operated at well below capacity. See New Horizonsin Criminology and Penitentiary Science: The Maharishi Unified Field Based Integrated System ofRehabilitation in Senagalese Prisons (Dacca: 12–13 February, 1988).202