Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

consciousness-based education and governmenttwo narcotic addiction treatment units at the institution. From the 40men selected from each unit, 20 were randomly assigned to learn theTranscendental Meditation technique and 20 were assigned to a controlgroup; the experimenter was unaware of the group assignment.AH subjects were pretested and after a 10-week experimental interval68 men were available for post-testing. Only three of those instructedin the Transcendental Meditation program had not practiced it withany regularity and these subjects were excluded from the data analysis,Control groups from both units received the usual treatments given inthose units, as did the Transcendental Meditation program group fromone of the units; the Transcendental Meditation program group fromthe other unit received only the Transcendental Meditation program.The groups instructed in the Transcendental Meditation programwere found to have the following significant changes in comparisonto the control groups: increased self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem.Inventory), decreased neuroticism (Eysenck Personality Inventory),decreased psychopathology (MMPI sub-scales of depression, mania,psychasthenia, schizophrenia, and hysteria), decreased aggression(MMPI psychopathic deviance and paranoia scales and Buss-DurkeeHostility Inventory), and increased internal locus of control (modifiedversion of Rotter’s scale). For most variables, regularity of practice ofthe Transcendental Meditation technique was associated with morepositive changes.Massachusetts Correctional Institution,Walpole, MassachusettsSeveral studies on the Transcendental Meditation program have beenperformed at MCI, Walpole. In the first of these, Ferguson (1990, a)used a single-group longitudinal design in which 38 inmates were pretestedand 25 were post-tested after an average of ten weeks of practiceof the Transcendental Meditation technique. Results included reductionsin state and trait anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory), hostility(Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory), improved sleep quality (questionnaire),and reduced disciplinary infractions. There was no reported decreasein tobacco usage during the experimental period. However, in aquestionnaire filled out one year later by a larger sample of men at MCI,Walpole, who had begun the Transcendental Meditation program, a274