Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

U.S.-Soviet Relations and the Maharishi Effectesized that a significant improve ment in Soviet behavior toward theUS would occur when the critical global threshold for the size of theTM-Sidhi group (approximately the √1% of the world’s population)was approached or reached. Impact-assessment analysis was felt to bethe most appropriate time series methodology to test for such nonlinearthreshold effects (Box and Tiao, 1975; McCleary and Hay, 1980).An appropriate impact-assessment (intervention) component wasadded to the TF model to test the hy pothesis that the global WorldPeace Assemblies led to improved Soviet behavior toward the US. Thebinary intervention variable took the value 1.0 for each of the six differentmonths of the sample period during which the size of the TM-Sidhigroup approached or exceeded the predicted critical threshold of approximatelythe √1% of the world’s population, 7000 participants. The variablewas otherwise equal to zero. To control for the influence of US behavioron Soviet actions, the index of US actions toward the Soviet Union wasused as an independent, or “input,” variable in the TF equation.The model examined in this study is given by the following TF equationwith intervention component:USSR t= c + β 1(B)US t+ β 2(B)I t+ N tIn this model, c is a constant term, USSR tis the monthly index ofSoviet actions directed toward the US at time t, and US tis the monthlyindex of US actions toward the USSR. The latter two variables were foundto be contemporaneously related by Gelderloos et al. (1990a, 1990b). I tis the binary indicator variable for the global World Peace Assemblies.The β i(B) are Box-Jenkins transfer functions that describe the dynamicrelationship between the input variables and the dependent variable (Boxand Jenkins, 1976). B is the backshift operator where B k Y t= Y t-k.In general, the TF component for each independent variable is given byβ i(B) = ω i(B)/δ i(B),where ω i(B) is a polynomial of “numerator parameters”ω i(B) = ω i0+ ω i1B+ω i2B 2 + … + ω isB sand δ i(B) is a polynomial of “denominator parameters”δ i(B) = 1 − δ i1B − δi2 B2 − … − δ irB r .463