This first video (6:05) features Dr. Tony Nader at Maharishi International University (MIU) in Fairfield, Iowa talking about the need for TM in today’s stressful world. The video opens with students meditating with Dr. Nader. Using EEG, Dr. Fred Travis demonstrates the increase in brainwave coherence of a subject as she starts meditating. Students also discuss the practical benefits from their TM practice.
The second video (7:50) takes place in Medellín, Columbia at one of Father Gabriel Mejia’s shelters for rehabilitating homeless children with addiction problems. One of them went on to become a TM teacher and returned to teach the students how to meditate. They were inspired by the positive transformation and growth in his life.
The third video (5:02) was filmed in a Rhode Island hospital where medical staff were still dealing with the stressful repercussions from the Covid-19 pandemic. TM provided welcome relief from the traumatic loss of life and continues to be taught there. Dr. Nader mentions the David Lynch Foundation’s Heal the Healers Now campaign. They provided the funding for TM instruction, which helped thousands of healthcare professionals during the pandemic. Many continue to meditate regularly.
Embedded below are the videos with their short descriptions posted on the GWI site. Each title and chapter also take you to the BBC StoryWorks pages with the same videos plus 3 slides selected from each per chapter: Nature, Self, Community.
1. TM: Listening to your inner rhythm: Dr Tony Nader has been researching the mind and meditation since he was a medical student. Discover his methods for finding peace in a busy and ever-changing world.
2. TM: A healing journey: For Breiner, meditation had a transformational effect on his life, a lesson which he is now passing on to younger generations.
3. TM: The calm in the storm. Finding a peaceful moment to recalibrate. Ongoing strains on health clinicians from the Covid-19 pandemic are still apparent in hospitals. These medical doctors are finding strength in the moments of peace that Transcendental Meditation can provide.
Craig Pearson wrote a cover story on TM research at MIU for The Week’s Yoga Mid-Year Special (July 9, 2023): A BETTER BRAIN IN 20 MINUTES. Meditation research findings at a US university.
The print version is a 6-page spread: A BETTER BRAIN IN 20 MINUTES. A centre for research in America records increased intelligence and improved health in people who practice Transcendental Meditation. (Pages 86-91) Below is the online article with its own title and subtitle.
How about a better brain in 20 minutes?
Transcendental Meditation can increase intelligence and improve health
By Craig Pearson | Issue Date: July 09, 2023 | Updated: July 02, 2023 07:29 IST
A fourth-year college student named Amanda walks into the laboratory and drops her backpack on a nearby chair. She has just finished her afternoon class on human resource management. The lab director, Dr Fred Travis, greets her and motions her to take a seat in front of the window. As they exchange small talk, Travis places a red cloth cap over the top of her head. It looks something like a ski cap, except for one thing―it has 32 sensors attached to it, connected to an electroencephalograph (EEG) machine that will measure the electrical activity of Amanda’s brain at 32 different points.
He monitors Amanda’s brainwave activity for the next few minutes to establish baseline readings. Then he asks Amanda to close her eyes and continue to sit quietly for a few more minutes. All the while wavy lines are moving across the computer screen, left to right.
Then he quietly instructs her to begin her practice of Transcendental Meditation―and in less than a minute, the waves change dramatically.
It’s clear to the naked eye, without analyzing the signals, that Amanda’s brain has shifted to a significantly more integrated, coherent style of functioning. That is, the different parts of her brain are communicating much more efficiently and effectively with each other.
Outwardly, Amanda appears simply to be sitting comfortably with her eyes closed. But inside, she is experiencing a fourth major state of consciousness.
Travis directs the Center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at Maharishi International University (MIU) in Fairfield, Iowa, in the United States. He is one of the world’s leading scientists in the area of brain functioning and higher human development, with special focus on how the technique of Transcendental Meditation affects brain functioning and promotes personal growth.
Founded in 1971 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the noted Vedic scholar and scientist of consciousness, MIU is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. It offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in a wide range of subjects, from art to computer science, from creative writing to sustainable living, from regenerative organic agriculture to Ayurveda. Three quarters of its students come from outside the US, and the student body represents more than 80 countries.
All faculty, staff and students, as well as hundreds of members of the surrounding small-town community, practise the Transcendental Meditation technique. The technique, learned from a certified TM instructor, is a simple, natural, effortless procedure practised for 20 minutes twice each day while sitting comfortably with the eyes closed. It allows the mind to settle inward into a state of quiet―to “transcend,” or go beyond, the constant stream of thoughts and perceptions that fill the mind.
MIU has been a centre for research on Transcendental Meditation since its founding. Its first president, Robert Keith Wallace, conducted the first research on the technique while a PhD student at UCLA. Within two years, he had published his research in Science, Scientific American and the American Journal of Physiology.
His findings were striking. He found that during TM practice, as the mind settles inward, the body settles down into a uniquely deep state of rest, reflected in decreased heart rate, decreased respiration rate, and increased skin resistance. Yet the mind remains entirely awake―more awake than ever, in some respects―reflected in increased EEG alpha activity in the brain.
This combination of deep rest and heightened wakefulness had never been seen before in a laboratory. Wallace described it as a “wakeful hypometabolic state”―“restful alertness,” in simpler English―and he declared it to be a fourth state of consciousness beyond the three familiar states of waking, dreaming, and sleeping.
Wallace was studying the classic state of samadhi, known in the Upanishads as turiya, “the fourth,” and termed Transcendental Consciousness by Maharishi.
This exalted state had been known and celebrated for millennia, in India and in traditions around the world. But Wallace was uncovering the constellation of changes that occur in body during this restfully alert experience―its “neurophysiological correlates.”
The TM technique does not involve focusing or concentrating the mind or attending to one’s thoughts or one’s breathing. It is not “mindfulness.” One does not try to control one’s body’s functions, as in biofeedback. The technique is effortless.
One student describes her experience during TM practice in this way: “I have the experience of transcending all activity and experiencing awareness as an unbounded unity. There is no longer any sense of ‘me’ and ‘not me,’ no longer any thought or feelings or even a body, just the Self, and that is all there is, and that is all I am.”
Yet this simple and natural experience of transcending leads to a host of physiological changes, all in the direction of rest, repair, and balance.
Wallace’s publications sparked a wave of research on the TM technique that has continued to this day. To date, research has been conducted at more than 250 universities and research institutes around the world, and studies have been published in more than 170 journals in a range of fields.
These studies have further detailed the striking physiological changes that take place during the technique. They have also looked at the long-term effects, where the findings have been equally remarkable. These include improved health, increased intelligence (IQ) and creativity, increased self-esteem and self-actualisation, and improved interpersonal relationships.
Many of these findings are notable because they had also never been seen before in modern science. For example, intelligence and creativity grow through childhood but level off in adolescence. Yet with TM practice, these values resume growing regardless of age. TM practice “unfreezes” their growth.
Wallace predicted that, given the TM technique’s ability to dissolve stress, it may affect the rate at which the body ages. Physiologists distinguish between our chronological age (our age in years) and our “biological age”―the age of the body as determined by a cluster of measures.
Wallace found that people who had been meditating more than five years were biologically 12 years younger than their chronological age. Several other studies found that TM practice can extend lifespan by 23%.
One of the most dramatic findings emerged from health insurance statistics. David Orme-Johnson, then chair of MIU’s psychology department, tracked 2,000 people over a five-year period across the US who practised the TM technique.
The data was collected by Blue Cross, the health insurer. The statistics for the meditation group were compared with those of a control group selected by the insurance company to match the TM group for age, gender, education, profession and insurance terms.
The result: The TM group went to hospital 56% less often for illness or surgery. The differences between the TM group and the control group were significant in all age groups but most conspicuous in older groups. The TM group also required 50% fewer doctors’ visits. The TM meditators had not become disenchanted with doctors―for maternity, they used health care just as much as the control group.
Starting in 1990, research on cardiovascular health became a major focus at MIU. Over the following years, the US government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) invested more than $25 million dollars in MIU’s research on TM and cardiovascular health. With this support, MIU professor Robert Schneider and his colleagues, in partnership with universities around the US, conducted a series of studies that made headlines worldwide.
Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally, according to the World Health Organization, accounting for 32% of all global deaths. Yet modern medicine has failed to cure or even curb this disease or even pinpoint the cause. It has only identified the risk factors.
This is why Schneider’s studies were so newsworthy. He and his teams found that TM practice shows great promise for preventing and even curing cardiovascular disease.
They focused first on hypertension, a leading risk factor for heart disease. They tested the TM programme on elderly African Americans, who have 50% more hypertension than white Americans, twice the level of cardiovascular disease, and a far higher rate of deaths from it. This is because they’re subject to higher chronic socio-environmental stress.
But when they learned the TM technique, their blood pressure dropped significantly, as much as with standard drug treatments―but with no side effects, with higher patient compliance, and at far lower cost. The meditating group also lived longer. Compared with the control group, those in the TM group were 23% less likely to die from any cause, 30% less likely to die from heart disease, and 49% less likely to die from cancer.
In these studies, the subjects made no changes in their diets or exercise habits. The effects were solely due to the regular experience of transcending using the TM technique.
Studies found that TM practice reduces other leading risk factors for heart disease, including cholesterol and free radicals, smoking and alcohol abuse, and psychological and socio-environmental stress.
Prevention is the best medicine, but for those who already have heart disease, Schneider and company also found that TM practice can actually reverse its damaging effects. TM practice unclogs arteries and reverses atherosclerosis. It reverses enlargement of the heart (left-ventricular hypertrophy). The practice even reduces the severity of congestive heart failure―and heart failure is the end result of all heart diseases. Again, subjects in these studies made no other changes in their lifestyle beyond their TM practice.
Turning their attention to another global epidemic, Schneider and company found that TM practice significantly reduces the risk of diabetes. One study found that after just 16 weeks of TM practice, patients with both heart disease and type 2 diabetes not only had lower blood pressure, but had also significantly better blood glucose and insulin levels―signifying reduced insulin resistance and more stable functioning of the autonomic nervous system.
“This research shows that the Transcendental Meditation technique helps the body tap into its inner intelligence and normalise function,” Schneider said. “These subjects simply transcended regularly, and their cardiovascular and endocrine systems regained more perfect balance.”
Travis has most recently been looking at how the integrated brain functioning characteristic of TM practice increasingly persists even outside of meditation―over time it becomes the brain’s normal style of functioning.
The computer-generated drawings (above) illustrate alpha-range EEG coherence and how it increases during TM practice―and then increasingly becomes the brain’s normal style of functioning even outside of meditation.
The lighter lines show coherence (communication) between the two linked brain areas of about 70%, the heavier lines coherence of 80% or higher (100% is perfect coherence). The more effectively the various brain areas communicate, the better the brain performs.
“These are really remarkable findings,” Travis said. “Before we started researching the Transcendental Meditation technique, we had no idea that the brain could function with this exceptional level of integration. And now we’ve learned that we can cultivate the brain to function in this way all the time.”
This is also remarkable, because the higher one’s level of brainwave coherence, the greater one’s intelligence, creativity, moral maturity, learning ability, and many other positive values, according to research studies at MIU and elsewhere.
MIU students have the option of receiving a Brain Integration Progress Report. Students have their brainwave coherence measured shortly after they enroll and then again shortly before they graduate, to see how much their brain integration has increased during their years at MIU.
“This is a remarkable contribution to education,” Travis says. “And any school, college or university can implement this same approach and give their students these same benefits, without any changes to their curriculum apart from setting aside two short periods for Transcendental Meditation practice.”
Travis is often asked whether other meditation techniques produce these same results.
“Different meditation techniques involve different mental procedures,” Travis explains, “and therefore they produce different modes of brain functioning.
For example, meditation techniques that involve focusing or concentrating the mind―known as focused attention techniques―produce beta/gamma activity in the brain, typical of any active mental processing.
A second category of techniques, called open monitoring, includes mindfulness procedures, which involve monitoring aspects of one’s experience―one’s thoughts, breathing, sensory perceptions, physical sensations―without evaluating them. These procedures induce theta activity in the brain, seen when people reflect on mental concepts.
The third category, which includes the Transcendental Meditation technique, is called automatic self-transcending. It involves procedures that transcend their own activity, enabling the mind to go beyond (transcend) the meditation process and into the experience of pure consciousness. These techniques elicit frontal alpha-1 coherence, indicating the brain’s executive control centre is functioning in an integrated manner.
“All meditation techniques are not the same,” Travis says. “Other procedures have their value. But so far only the TM technique has been shown to produce this integrated and coherent style of brain functioning along with the wide-ranging constellation of benefits that studies have found.”
Over the past 40 years the technique has been applied in a variety of practical fields, where it has been studied by MIU scientists and others.
In schools, when students and faculty learn the practice, IQ and creativity increase, students’ grades increase, graduation rates increase, and overall school climate improves.
In companies, when managers and employees learn the TM technique, stress declines, illness and absenteeism decline, cooperation increases, productivity increases, and the companies become more profitable.
In prisons, when inmates learn the technique, they sleep better, their health improves, they commit fewer infractions, and most important, they return to prison at a far lower rate than non-meditating prisoners.
Among veterans suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), when they start TM practice, their symptoms decrease markedly, and they reintegrate into their families and the workplace more quickly and easily.
How can such a simple technique produce such a wide constellation of benefits―for cognitive development, for health, for personality growth and interpersonal relationships?
“It’s all about the experience of transcending,” Travis said. “The experience is simple, natural, and incredibly profound. It dissolves stress and resets and rebalances the whole mind-body system. Maharishi likens it to watering the root of a tree, where a single act nourishes the tree’s countless leaves and branches. ‘Water the root to enjoy the fruit,’ he said. Consciousness is the most fundamental value of life, and now we know we can cultivate and improve our lives from that deepest level.”
World Journal of Social Science publishes study showing that group practice of the TM and TM-Sidhi techniques by √1% of a population decreased multiple stress indicators in the U.S.. Scientists call for a group to create world peace.
During a five-year demonstration period, a group of 1725 meditators practiced the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi techniques twice daily to create coherence in US collective consciousness. Murders, rapes, aggravated assaults, robberies, infant mortality, drug-related deaths, vehicle fatalities, and child deaths by injuries all decreased, by 6% to 21% compared to the seven previous years. When the size of the group decreased over the next five years, stress began to increase again on all indicators. (Summary for EurekAlert! Press Release.)
Every year during 2000 to 2006 there were tens of thousands of stress-related tragedies in the U.S.. Official statistics from the FBI and Centers for Disease Control indicate that there were 15,440 murders, 93,438 rapes, and 86,348 child and adolescent deaths from accidents each year to give a few examples. This current study, published in the World Journal of Social Science, is the longest and most comprehensive of 50 studies to demonstrate what has been named the Maharishi Effect, in honor of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and Maharishi International University (MIU) founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The results can be seen in the chart below. The blue line indicates that during the Baseline period of 2000 to 2006 the size of the TM and TM-Sidhi group located at Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa increased to reach the √1% of the U.S. population (1725 people) and stayed there for five years during the Demonstration period from 2007 to 2011. All stress indicators immediately started decreasing. In the Post period when the size of the group size began to decline the rate of decrease in stress slowed and then it reversed and began to increase.
Indicators of Stress in the United States
The size of the MIU TM and TM-Sidhi Group is indicated by the blue line, the eight indices of stress in the United States are represented by the lines in different colors, and the US stress index—the mean of all eight variables—is indicated by the red line. The figure shows a phase transition to a global reduction of negativity in the U.S. when the critical threshold of the √1% of the U.S. population was practicing the TM and TM-Sidhi program together in a group. When the Group size dropped significantly, the trend was reversed.
Lead author Dr. David Orme-Johnson said: “What is unique about this study is that the results are so visually striking and on such a large scale. We see reduced stress on multiple indicators at the predicted time for the entire United States over a five-year period. And when the size of the group declined, national stress began increasing again. Clearly, the group was causing the effect.”
“What is unique about this study is that the results are so visually striking and on such a large scale. We see reduced stress on multiple indicators at the predicted time for the entire United States over a five-year period. And when the size of the group declined, national stress began increasing again. Clearly, the group was causing the effect.”
Lead author Dr. David Orme-Johnson
Co-author Dr. Kenneth Cavanaugh commented: “This study used state-of-the-art methods of time series regression analysis for eliminating potential alternative explanations due to intrinsic pre-existing trends and fluctuations in the data. We carefully studied potential alternative explanations in terms of changes in economic conditions, political leadership, population demographics, and policing strategies. None of these factors could account for the results.”
The fact that all variables started decreasing only after the square root of one percent of the U.S. was reached indicates a phase transition. Like when water does not turn to ice until 32◦ F is reached, national stress did not start decreasing until the U.S. √1% transition threshold was achieved.
The fact that all variables started decreasing only after the square root of one percent of the U.S. was reached indicates a phase transition. Like when water does not turn to ice until 32◦ F is reached, national stress did not start decreasing until the U.S. √1% transition threshold was achieved.
The chart shows that in 2013 when the size of the TM and TM-Sidhi group quickly dropped all stress indicators abruptly increased. Apparently, the rapid drop in national coherence shook the nation.
The scientists used regression analysis to estimate how many deaths and events were reduced by the meditator group. For example, image 2 shows the red dotted line representing the Baseline trend projected into the Demonstration and Post periods. During the Demonstration period drug-related deaths (the black line) fell to 14% below their Baseline trend and were another 15 % lower during the Post period, for a total of 79,941 fewer drug deaths. The chart also shows that in the absence of the coherence creating group drug deaths eventually returned to their Baseline level.
Drug-Induced Deaths in the U.S.
IMAGE 2: The red dotted line is the number of Drug Deaths forecasted from the Baseline trend. The black line is the actual number of Drug Deaths. Similar analyses were conducted for all variables and the results are displayed in the Table.
TABLE: RESULTS OF REGRESSION ANALYSES. The first column shows the number of events per year during the Baseline period (Intercept). The second column shows the change per year during the Baseline (Slope). The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth columns show the thousands of events averted during the Demonstration, during the Post periods, the total events averted, and percent change, respectively. The last column shows the estimated total events averted by each individual participant in the MIU TM and TM-Sidhi group.
The unified field level of natural law
The finding that the effect was holistic, causing all variables to move up and down together, supports the theory expressed by both Maharishi from the Vedic perspective and by quantum physicist and MIU president Dr. John Hagelin from quantum field theory that the TM and TM-Sidhi groups are creating coherence in collective consciousness from the unified field level of natural law. This is big. It is evidence of the existence of the unified field from a completely different approach than using particle accelerators and detecting gravity waves.
This discovery of the unified field is more than just an intellectual knowledge. It is arguably the most immediately highly practical technological discovery in the history of science. The invention of the wheel mobilized humanity. The printing press, radio, the telephone, the internet, and satellites increased our ability to communicate with each other across vast distances and time. The discovery of DNA opened our minds to the subtle mechanics of natural law underlying the evolution and growth of all life forms. These are among the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. But what discovery can reduce human suffering as comprehensively as group meditation?
Relationship between individual and collective consciousness
The paper reviews the many concepts of collective consciousness as they have occurred throughout history in the sciences and humanities. None have practical applications as Maharishi’s does and none have been so empirically verified.
The paper discusses Maharishi’s theory, which holds that every individual automatically contributes to collective consciousness and reciprocally, collective consciousness influences every individual. This is universally true whatever the form of government—democracy, republic, monarchy, communism, or dictatorship.
It is essential for every individual to use evidence-based technologies to reduce their own stress and at the same time, the responsibility of every government to provide these technologies to everyone.
The paper summarizes the hundreds of studies showing that practice of TM increases coherence in the individual, as indicated by such measures as increased brain coherence, decreased anxiety, depression, and anger, increased creativity, increased IQ and emotional and social intelligence, and decreased PTSD symptoms, prison recidivism, drug and alcohol addictions, and sickness rates in all categories of disease. More coherent individuals form a more coherent society.
The Howard and Alice Settle Foundation
A grant for 75 million dollars from the Howard and Alice Settle Foundation provided stipends for participants to be in the group and provided funding to bring several hundred visiting TM-Sidhi experts from India to further augment the MIU group. Dr. Orme-Johnson commented: “This is a lot of money, but the savings from the 10% reduction in crimes would save over 200 billion dollars, not to mention all the other savings from reducing other sources of stress in the country.”
Scientists call for a group to create world peace
The paper concludes with a call to create a permanent √1% group for the whole world, 8,000 participants practicing the TM and TM-Sidhi program together in one place. And as an engineering safety factor, a √1% group on every continent is needed. The world is so interconnected, no one is safe until everyone is safe, all living in harmony. This is easily within reach of any government or the world’s wealthiest citizens. The person who does it will be remembered as the greatest leader in history.
IMAGE 3: GROUP MEDITATION AT MAHARISHI INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY. Since 1979 twice daily group meditations have been held at MIU in Fairfield, Iowa for the purpose of creating coherence in the U.S. and world collective consciousness.
. . . . .
JOURNAL: World Journal of Social Science. ARTICLE TITLE: Field-Effects of Consciousness: A Seventeen-Year Study of the Effects of Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Programs on Reducing National Stress in the United States. PUBLISHED: Dec 14, 2022. DOI:10.5430/wjss.v9n2p1 METHOD OF RESEARCH: Data/statistical analysis. SUBJECT OF RESEARCH: People. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The published article contains 5 Tables and 10 Figures (Graphs).
This summer, co-author David W. Orme-Johnson sent out an introduction to the latest Maharishi Effect research study. The previous TM study published on this M.E. research was the fourth in a series at the time. That post also listed the previous three studies: Follow-up study suggests large advanced TM groups reduced murder rates in large US cities. This latest and fifth large-scale study looks at the total national homicide rates before, during, and after the experimental period. This is a new development, which further confirms the efficacy of this approach. What follows is Dr. Orme-Johnson’s synopsis.
The study found that during the years when the size of the coherence creating group at MIU practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM Sidhi techniques reached the predicted national threshold of the square root of 1% of the US population (1725 people) that the rate of national homicides fell dramatically and that when the size of the group decreased once again to below threshold, that homicides turned around and started increasing again.
As there were no known alternative explanations for this phenomenon, because it was predicted in advance, and because it replicates dozens of previous studies, this study provides a powerful new layer of evidence that the group practice of this technology creates coherence in an underlying field of collective consciousness in which we all live and are connected.
Co-author Kenneth Cavanaugh offered some points about the paper.
Sections 1 and 2 of the paper contain a very readable and full discussion of Maharishi’s knowledge of collective consciousness. The final section (Section 6, Discussion) of the paper is also a very readable and nontechnical discussion of possible alternative explanations for the findings and the search for an explanation of the Maharishi Effect from the point of view of modern science.
The article was published in an open access journal with an Asian focus with the hope that its publication will help to increase support in India, Thailand, Nepal and other countries in that region for creation and expansion of large peace-creating groups there, as well as globally. So anyone can download a copy (or read it online) without charge and circulate it freely to others. The URL for this paper is https://doi.org/10.5430/sass.v8n1p1.
New Study Shows Improvement in U.S. Homicide Trends Linked to Group Practice of the Transcendental Meditation® and TM-Sidhi® Programs
A newly published, peer-reviewed study of a 15-year social experiment reports a highly significant 19.3% reduction in U.S. monthly homicide trend 2007-2011 when the average size of a large U.S. group practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs exceeded a theoretically predicted critical threshold. This improved trend was significantly reversed during 2012-2016 after the size of the group declined substantially below the predicted size required to create a measurable reduction in national trends of violent crime: the square root of 1% of the U.S. population (1,725 participants).
When the average size of the group at Maharishi International University (MIU) in Fairfield, Iowa USA was above the predicted threshold during the 2007-2011 “experimental period,” an estimated 10,594 homicide fatalities were averted as a result of the decline in homicide trend relative to the baseline trend for 2002-2006. The probability that the reduced homicide trend could be attributed to chance variation was reported to be less than 1 in 10 billion (p < 1 x 10–10).
As predicted, this declining trend in homicide rates was then significantly reversed in the “post-experimental” period 2012–2016 when, due to reduced funding, the size of the MIU group fell below the critical threshold. During the first post-experimental subperiod 2012-2014, the steeply declining homicide trend leveled out, shifting to a flat trend. (See Figure 1 and Figure 2 below.) The probability that this predicted increase in trend (relative to the experimental-period) could be explained by chance was less than 1 part in a million (p < 1 x 10–6 ).
During the second post-experimental subperiod 2015-2016, homicide rates soared when the group size declined more steeply. The probability of observing this increase in trend relative to the experimental period trend was less than 1 in 100 billion billion (p < 1 x 10–20).
The authors conclude that the theoretically predicted decline and subsequent increase in homicide trend could not be plausibly explained by other factors such as changes in police staffing, policing strategies, incarceration rates, the proportion of U.S. youth age 18-25, seasonal factors including temperature, or economic factors such as unemployment rates and rates of inflation; nor were the results attributable to pre-existing trends or violation of statistical assumptions for the time series regression analysis.
Dr. Cavanaugh remarked: “There are now 32 research articles published in independent, peer-reviewed scientific journals or in proceedings of scientific conferences that validate the effectiveness of this consciousness-based approach to reducing the stress and tensions in national consciousness that fuel the growth of violence, crime, and conflict in society. This evidence-based, cost-effective approach offers an urgently needed solution for reducing the upsurge of social violence and conflict afflicting the U.S. and many other countries globally.”
Figure 1. Monthly U.S. homicide rate per 100 million people (mean daily rate per month) 2002-2016 with seasonally adjusted, fitted trend segments from time series regression analysis.
Figure 2. Monthly rates of change for the U.S. homicide rate (trend slopes) for the four trend segments of the segmented-trend regression model: baseline period, experimental period, and two post-experimental subperiods. The p-values indicate a statistically significant decrease in slope from baseline trend to experimental-period trend (supporting Hypothesis 1) and significant increase in slope from experimental period to the slope for post-experimental trends 2012-2014 and 2015-2016 (supporting Hypothesis 2). The p-value for the difference between the experimental trend slope and that for the 2015-2016 trend is p < 1 x 10–20 (not shown in Figure 2).
Ancient architecture system as preventative medicine
Having understood the ill-effects of sick building syndrome and the need to better conserve energy by incorporating green features, architects are also utilizing certain elements of an architectural design system shown to reduce stress, improve sleep, promote physical and mental health, thereby improving the quality of life for its inhabitants.
MVA is a holistic wellness architectural system that aligns buildings with nature’s intelligence, creating balanced, orderly, and integrated living environments with the goal of improving occupants’ lives in several areas.
“We were surprised to find that something so ancient has so much to tell us about how buildings can improve our health and productivity,” said Jon Lipman, AIA, lead author and director of the Institute for Vedic Architecture at Maharishi International University.
Some of the key findings of the review include:
Sleeping with one’s head to the east or south is associated with positive health outcomes, such as lower heart rate, blood pressure, and serum cholesterol levels.
Homes with south entrances are associated with poorer mental health and more financial problems.
Facing east while working is associated with greater brain coherence and faster task completion.
Occupants of Maharishi Vastu architecture homes or office buildings show higher creativity and report improved health and quality of life.
Previous research on the impact of buildings focused primarily on assessing stress reduction and increasing comfort and well-being. The findings of this review reinforce the growing recognition that building design plays a key role in both causing and even potentially solving humanity’s health challenges.
“Modern medicine now recognizes the powerful effects of the ‘envirome’ on health,” said study co-author, Robert Schneider, MD, FACC, and Dean of the College of Integrative Medicine at Maharishi International University.
“The envirome,” he explained, “includes all the natural and man-made elements of our environment throughout the lifespan, notably the built environment. This review of the science suggests that buildings constructed according to principles of Maharishi Vastu architecture function as positive elements in the envirome to enhance mental and physical health and well-being. Further advances in neuroscience offer plausible physiological explanations for these effects.”
Maharishi Vastu architecture is the recent revival of an ancient architectural system from South Asia. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation organization, systematically integrated over 20 principles into a uniquely comprehensive building system.
Some of the principles included in this system are:
The building’s main entrance is oriented to the east or north.
The building’s walls align with the cardinal directions.
The floor plan assigns key functions to specific locations within the building.
The floor plan enables occupants to face the most ideal directions during work and sleep.
The architectural plans must adhere to consistent and precise guidelines.
In keeping with the idea of providing a healthy environment, the system emphasizes non-toxic, natural materials, increased fresh air, and reduced electromagnetic radiation.
The results of the review suggests that Maharishi Vastu architecture offers a viable approach for using architectural design as a tool for promoting mental and physical health.
KABC in Los Angeles invited Maharishi Vastu architect and US director Jon Lipman on ABC7 Eyewitness News to talk about the recently published review of scientific research on MVA. It aired live Tuesday, May 10, 2022 in their 7:30 AM segment, Study: Home design can affect your health. Here is the 4:20 minute video.
Introduction to Maharishi Vastu architecture
Following news of this published paper, Jon Lipman posted Introduction to Maharishi Vastu architecture. This lively 20 minute video introduces viewers to the main elements of Maharishi Vastu, relates MVA homeowners’ experiences and gives some lovely examples of MVA homes around the world.
Mahesh Yogi was the ultimate mystic yogi, mantra guru and meditation master
David Frawley December 28, 2021
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was probably the best known and most influential yoga guru from India over the last 50 years, with millions of followers in every part of the world. His meditation-based teachings have had an enormous impact, including on some of the best educated, most affluent and articulate minds and personalities from the East and West. Maharishi’s influence was extensive in India, in which he redefined the image of the guru, and the corpus of knowledge that the guru was expected to represent. He revived, reshaped and modernised the vast yogic and healing traditions of India and brought them on to the world stage with respect and sophistication, as relevant to everyone. Maharishi became a cult figure in the West—the media face of the yogi, mantra guru, and meditation master.
Yet, in spite of the adulation showered upon him, he did not encourage any personality cult around himself. Instead, he emphasised the higher “knowledge” that was impersonal in nature. He was able to articulate the ancient tradition of Vedic and yogic knowledge in all of its branches for the modern mind to appreciate and revere.
Maharshi was perhaps the first important guru to successfully use modern media and marketing methods, including television and video. He remarkably took the teachings of the old pandits of India—who were looked down in their own country as museum pieces from another era—and through his skillful repackaging gained them global respect in providing the inner keys to universal consciousness, the cutting edge of science and medicine, and the future evolution of humanity.
Maharshi had a deep concern for the state of the world and humanity. He created visionary schemes for new educational institutions, new communities and new cities. He researched how to bring Vedic values and dharmic principles into world governance, including how to protect nature, the Earth and its ecology. True to his universal nature, he was able to draw into his organisation people from all countries, age groups, religions, and cultures.
Maharishi developed a massive worldwide organisation with enormous funds and detailed projects. Naturally, there was much controversy about such a guru figure on the world-stage—particularly from a backward and non-Christian country like India. His notoriety and mass following challenged existing views of religion and of science relative to the nature of consciousness. Not surprisingly, some political and religious authorities felt threatened by his influence, particularly upon the youth. Probably no guru from India has had such an effect upon the world, or faced such relentless scrutiny.
Maharishi’s life story provides few details. He was born in Jabalpur, now in Madhya Pradesh, then in the Central Provinces of British India, under the name Mahesh. He was from the learned Kayastha caste. He studied physics at Allahabad University and graduated in 1942.
Maharishi followed the inspiration of his guru, the venerable Swami Brahmananda Saraswati, Shankaracharya of Joshi Math in the Himalayas, who was one of the greatest enlightened masters of modern India. He met his guru during his university years. He soon became his guru’s close disciple and trusted secretary, an extraordinary honour and responsibility that provided him access to the guru’s unfathomable wisdom, a relationship that continued until Brahmananda’s passing in 1953.
Maharishi began teaching meditation in 1955 as he had learned from his guru, which he refined into simple practical techniques accessible to everyone. His disciples soon honoured him as “Maharishi” or “great seer”. Not content to teach in India, he decided to reach out to the entire world, when few Indian teachers travelled abroad. From his first world tour in 1958 to meeting with the Beatles in 1967, his teachings exploded upon the world stage. His fame quickly spread to the UK, to the US and then to all corners of the globe. He soon developed a world organisation to represent his teachings. From 1991 to his passing in 2008, he lived in the Netherlands, and communicated to his disciples through satellite TV, and his main impact shifted to Europe.
One can go on for pages with the names of the famous people that followed him, starting with the Beatles and the Beach Boys in the 1960s, whose counterculture generation he introduced to meditation and mantra. He inspired great teachers and writers, notably Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who has a world stature of his own and carries on similar work, and Deepak Chopra, who has long remained the most popular writer in the field of spirituality and healing in the West. His impact was strong on Hollywood, including on innovative filmmaker David Lynch and actor Goldie Hawn. Yet to be true to Maharishi’s vision, let us examine the ways of knowledge that formed his main dedication.
Yoga, Meditation and Mantra
While yoga today is mainly known as an asana tradition, particularly in the West, it first emerged in the modern world as a spiritual practice, starting with Swami Vivekananda in the late 19thcentury, who coupled yoga with the great philosophy of Vedanta, aiming at self-realisation. Maharishi, as a yogi in the higher sense of the term, like Vivekananda, emphasised the yoga of meditation, including Mantra Yoga and the Raja Yoga of Patanjali. He did not keep yoga confined in physical limitations but opened it up to the highest realms of consciousness, restoring it as a science of meditation. On this basis, he expanded the Vedic and yogic teachings to show their relevance for all aspects of life and all branches of learning. Maharishi’s fame began with his worldwide teaching of meditation. He promoted his Transcendental Meditation (TM) in the West at a time in which the term meditation was not well known and many religious groups were opposed to it.
Today, decades later, meditation in many names, forms and traditions is highlighted throughout the world. Maharishi was the main pioneer who set this process in motion. As his TM meditation approach rests upon the use of special mantras, Maharishi made the term mantra a common word in world discourse. He simplified and streamlined mantra meditation with special bija mantras that have changed the lives of millions.
Ayurveda
Ayurvedawas almost unknown in the West when Maharshi introduced it in the 1980s. It was languishing in India, with little support, as a backward if not primitive system of medicine. Today Ayurveda has spread globally as a futuristic mind-body-consciousness system of health and well-being, such as Maharishi revealed it to be. Many Indian yoga gurus today have their own ayurvedic centres and products. This would not have been possible without Maharishi’s global promotion.
Jyotish, Vedic Astrology, Vastu and Vedic Architecture
If one takes up the cause of astrology in intellectual circles one will likely be denigrated as superstitious. Maharshi returned recognition and dignity to the practice of Vedic astrology. He gave the impetus for making jyotish into a global movement, as he did with ayurveda. Jyotish is now practised along with yoga and ayurveda throughout the world. Vastu is the Vedic science of architecture and directional influences that was also largely forgotten. Maharishi brought it back into the limelight, particularly for his numerous building projects.
Vedic Teachings
Maharshi took his teachings back to the Rigveda, the oldest Vedic text, explaining its cryptic mantras as keys to cosmic knowledge, which few modern gurus have done. His support for India and the world reclaiming its Vedic heritage was crucial and changed the image of the Vedas from nature worship to the revelation of cosmic intelligence.
Expanding the Vedic Vision into the Future, Vedic Science and Modern Physics, Vedic Management Maharshi was a proponent of Advaita or non-dualist Vedanta, which his guru taught, and showed how it is integrally linked with all the Vedic sciences. Both Vedic thought and modern physics postulate a unitary field of consciousness to explain the laws of nature. Maharishi showed the concordance between the two. In the study of the brain, Maharishi revealed how Vedic mantras interface with brain functions and can aid in the unfolding higher brain potentials. Maharshi brought in Vedic principles into business management, detailing how higher dharma can uplift the corporate realm and create a new system of dharmic economics. He showed the relevance of Vedic knowledge to all walks of life and all levels of social and intellectual discourse.
Vedic Schools and Pandits, Legacy of Education Maharshi established a number of schools and universities, notably Maharishi International University (MIU) in the US, renamed as Maharishi University of Management(MUM), and Maharishi European Research Institute (MERU) in the Netherlands, as well as several universities in India with state government support. He developed special trainings to empower Vedic pandits in India. His schools have conducted scientific research on the benefits of meditation that are widely studied and quoted.
Expanding Vedic World Some may criticise Maharishi for using the media and marketing to promote yogic teachings. He was certainly an impressive showman when needed. Some of his projects were dramatic, like his yogic flying programme aiming to eventually teach people how to levitate. But these did bring attention to the teachings that he hoped for.
The vast amount of wealth and property his organisation acquired has come under questioning, and not all his projects or centres flourished. But if we look at how he used the immense resources at his disposal, his focus was always on the knowledge. Others criticised his brand naming Vedic teachings with “Maharishi Ayurveda”, “Maharishi Jyotish” and so on, as if his group owned these older traditions. But we should remember that without his modern endorsement many people might not have been willing to study these esoteric teachings from ancient India. Some of his followers found his organisation to be rigid and eventually went their own ways, sometimes with his blessings. Yet his ability to sustain such a global organisation must be admired.
The spiritual renaissance in India and in the world today was to a large extent made possible by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s untiring efforts in many fields of higher knowledge. He created an audience for Indian teachers and doctors to travel to the West that many have benefited by. He gave us an expanded Vedic, mantra and meditation vision of yoga that remains comprehensive, compelling and transformational.
Maharishi made Vedic knowledge into a globally respected teaching of futuristic vision and cosmic insight. His name, picture and mission is widely recognised and will likely be prominent for decades to come. Maharishi marked a new era in how India’s deeper wisdom is presented, the Yoga of consciousness, and how it can guide humanity into a new age of enlightenment.
David Frawley is a Vedic teacher, author and founder of American Institute of Vedic Studies in Santa Fe, New Mexico, US
2020 has been like a giant magnifying glass for our country, our cities, and ourselves. The devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to reevaluate our priorities and examine what it is about travel that makes us all love it so much — and miss it when that privilege is taken away from us. It’s not the perks of an airport lounge or the Instagram likes you get on a vacation selfie. It’s the people and the places where we can connect with each other — be it with our travel companions or complete strangers.
To read the rest of the introduction and discover these towns click here. Matador Network ranked our town of Fairfield, Iowa as number 3!
Photo: Paul Delisle / Fairfield Convention and Visitors Bureau
Half Sedona vibes, half Asheville vibes, Fairfield, Iowa, is a hard-to-describe kind of place. For starters, out of cornfields and swaths of soybeans pops up the world’s largest training center for the Transcendental Meditation technique. Start-ups and small tech companies dot the 10,000-person town. The first Carnegie library outside of Pennsylvania stands two blocks from a vegetarian restaurant and a synagogue. You cannot categorize the Midwest, hard as the powers that be may try, and you certainly cannot categorize Fairfield.
The Maharishi International University — which explains the whole meditation bit — started drawing eclectic crowds here in the ‘70s; they traded Santa Barbara, California, for somewhere out of the way, even by Iowans’ standards, and the town’s eclectic fate was sealed. The crowds they drew, though, became the permanent kind; tourism isn’t a huge driver here, as showcased by the hotel offerings. That is, you may find yourself setting up shop at the Quality Inn. For now, at least. At this rate (it’s one of the fastest-growing spots in the state), the boutique hotels and retro lodges will come.
Don’t let that set your expectations, though. Today you have a bustling village that drools over both Casey’s pizza and Istanbul Grill; that designs its storefronts for sustainability (here’s to you, Chickadee); that grew a tech scene called “Silicorn Valley”; that alights with funky coffeehouses, art galleries, and cideries (cheers to Jefferson County Ciderworks); and that throws one hell of a First Friday. Realistically, there is not a quintessential Fairfield experience — the thing to do here is simply to shatter your own presuppositions. And then meditate on it.
Based on Dr. Schneider’s recently published TM and heart health studies, which we publicized via EurekAlert!, Thrive Global reached out to us a few weeks ago inviting Dr. Schneider to submit an article on his work. It was published last week, January 24, 2020, in their Wisdom section. I added hyperlinks here to some of the studies mentioned in the article.
Students at Maharishi International University practice the effortless technique of Transcendental Meditation twice a day.
My colleagues and I have long been concerned about the high rates of cardiovascular disease in the US that have spread throughout the world. Despite advances in modern medicine, heart attacks and strokes are the leading cause of death globally. One of the reasons for these high rates is the epidemic of stress in modern society. Early in my career, I studied the connection between psychological stress and high blood pressure and heart disease. This was a negative effect of the mind-body connection. About 30 years ago, I decided to investigate how the mind-body-heart connection could be positively managed with effective stress reduction, particularly the Transcendental Meditation® technique.
During that time, we and our colleagues at major academic medical centers in the US, such as Columbia University Medical Center, Medical College of Wisconsin, Cedars Sinai Medical Center and Charles Drew University, received funding from the National Institutes of Health and foundations to study effects of mind-body intervention with Transcendental Meditation in high-risk groups, like African Americans with high blood pressure or established heart disease. The results of this series of well-controlled studies, known as randomized controlled trials, showed that practice of Transcendental Meditation lowered high blood pressure, reduced insulin resistance (aka metabolic syndrome*), reduced atherosclerosis, and prevented abnormal enlargement of the heart (called left ventricular hypertrophy) in one of most recent studies. Some of our published pilot studies suggested improvements in blood flow to the heart and benefits to patients with heart failure.
A landmark study that brought all these findings together followed 200 patients with known heart disease over an average of five years. Half practiced Transcendental Meditation and half attended a class about cardiovascular factors. All participants continued their usual medicines and medical care. At the end of the study, the results showed that the meditating participants had a 48% lower rate of death, heart attack and stroke compared to controls. We believe that this remarkable result was due to redacted risk factors such as high blood pressure, psychological stress, and possibly cardiac enlargement. The results of reduced mortality in long-term TM practitioners were replicated in a separate study of older participants with high blood pressure. All of these studies have been published in peer-reviewed medical journals, many in top ones like the American Heart Association and American Medical Association.
Based on these findings an American Heart Association scientific statement acknowledged these scientific studies and recommended that Transcendental Meditation be considered in the treatment of all patients with high blood pressure. And that’s a lot of people — according to the most recent guidelines, nearly half of all adults in the US. The research is continuing, but I would say that if you’re at risk for heart disease — and that’s most men and women — consider managing your mind and body with Transcendental Meditation®. It’s easy to learn and practice, has extensive scientific evidence, and has other positive “benefits” for mental and physical health. It could save your life. For more information, visit https://www.tm.org.
*Video of Dr. Oz presenting TM research at DLF event.
(Click on Page 2 for a photo and Bio of Dr. Schneider.)
The first time I met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was in Malibu, on the beach.
It was a typical summer day in Southern California. Not much was happening. There was a south swell. From time to time a sun worshiper atop a towel would flip over, a seagull would sail off into the fog, or a large set of waves would come crashing in.
As I recall, I stood on the beach with some of my surfing buddies. We were probably dressed in the surfer’s uniform of the era: corduroy pants and white Penney’s T-shirts covered by Pendeltons, not tucked in. Unlike most surfers on most beaches that day, however, we each held in our hands a bouquet of flowers.
Suddenly cars arrived. Doors were flung open. A cameraman emerged, and next some guys in suits. A brown, sandaled foot from within the car could be seen feeling for the ground, and then—bearded and wearing a long, flowing, white dhoti—an Indian man stepped out onto the dirt road. He seemed enveloped in a nimbus of such serenity and light that, seeing him, the effect was similar to what one feels deep in a canyon before dawn, when suddenly the sun bursts over the rim.
With the camera now trained on us—the surfer-boy extras in a documentary film—Maharishi approached, clearly enjoying the eternity in each step as he floated across the sand. As he drew near, something happened that I was not at all prepared for. My soul began to swoon. In place of the crashing of the waves, which now seemed far in the distance, was an immensely beautiful sea of silent consciousness. It was, to put it mildly, simply adorable. Lost in it, I could neither speak nor move. When Maharishi tugged on my flowers, I was unable to release my grip. He looked into my eyes, touched my hand, and my fingers opened.
It would be impossible to forget the blithe beauty of those eyes. He looked into each of ours, playfully. After accepting our flowers he looked out to sea, and then, regarding us again and smiling like the happiest man on earth, he asked, “Are you enjoying the ocean?”
Thus began my transcendental studies—lessons such as I had never known. The classroom was the Heart; the assignment was to locate the point within where the soul loses its boundaries and becomes absorbed in something infinite.
Typically, by the time Maharishi arrived at his seat in any of the countless lecture halls he spoke in around the world, he would be hugging to his chest hundreds of flowers accepted from students greeting him on his way in. And in each one of those exchanges was a moment as spiritually transforming as the one I had known on the beach. Yet, Maharishi’s aim was not to establish a personality cult. Each and every flower he accepted in each and every lecture hall he would place reverently before the image of his beloved teacher, Guru Dev, to whom he dedicated every instant of his life. And he tirelessly encouraged each of us to dive into the ocean of consciousness his Guru Dev embodied, by diving deep within our hearts during meditation.
Maharishi, in speaking of his teacher, always emphasized that the events in a spiritually illumined life are not so important. What is important is the state of his or her enlightenment. So I will not list all Maharishi’s many accomplishments throughout the world. Perhaps something of his level of presence can be felt through these few words.
Maharishi visited Santa Barbara on several occasions because some of his dearest friends lived here: Walter and Rae Koch, the family of Tom and Susan Headley, and Arthur and Christina Granville. Over the past few decades, teachers at Santa Barbara’s Transcendental Meditation center instructed more than 10,000 Santa Barbarans in meditation. In addition, Santa Barbara was at one time the home of the fledgling Maharishi International University, now located in Fairfield, Iowa.
“Are you enjoying the ocean?” Although those were the first words I had ever heard him speak, through the years I realized that they contained his entire teaching. For Maharishi was absolutely certain of one fact: His soul was forever floating within an ocean of unbounded bliss. He was well aware that the state of life he was living was adorable, and that anyone could begin to live it.
* The year of Maharishi’s birth is unknown but is believed to have been between 1911 and 1918. (See my note below on this point.)**
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Personal note: I remember reading this beautifully written remembrance of Maharishi when it first appeared, March 13, 2008, in the Santa Barbara Independent. The film being made about Maharishi at the time was never completed. But Alan Waite, who brought out the film crew, would later go on to make, at Maharishi’s request, a film about him called, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi—Sage for a New Generation (1968). It won an award in 1969 for best documentary film at the first Hollywood Film Festival. The judges said they liked the “patchwork style of film-making” when they gave Alan the award. Segments of the film were later included in the International History Channel documentary on Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that I helped produce.
I had attended Maharishi International University, MIU, in Goleta, California, in 1974, and moved to the Fairfield, Iowa campus to complete my last course before returning to Montreal, Canada. MIU would later change its name to Maharishi University of Management, MUM, www.mum.edu.
Doug Llewelyn, left, interviewed Fairfield Mayor Ed Malloy, center, and Fairfield Iowa Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director Rustin Lippincott last week in Los Angeles for the television show, “Moving America Forward.” The two men were interviewed as part of the show’s episode on Fairfield’s entrepreneurial spirit. The episode will air later this year at a time and channel to be announced. Llewelyn is perhaps best known to television audiences for hosting “The People’s Court” with Judge Joseph Wapner.
In the past few years, Fairfield has been in the national spotlight as numerous television programs and magazines have publicized what makes this town such a great place to live.
This year appears to be no different. That’s because Fairfield will be featured on a television show called “Moving America Forward,” hosted by William Shatner. The show will focus on the town’s entrepreneurial spirit and how this affects the residents’ quality of life.
Fairfield Mayor Ed Malloy and Fairfield Iowa Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director Rustin Lippincott flew to Los Angeles last week to be interviewed for the show. Their interviewer was Doug Llewelyn, who is most famous for hosting “The People’s Court” with Judge Joseph Wapner, which aired from 1981 to 1994.
The episode about Fairfield will air on YouToo TV this spring. After it airs on television, viewers can see it on the website YouTube.
Lippincott said he and Malloy chatted with Llewelyn for a few hours before taping began to give him an idea of what Fairfield is all about.
“We touched on what it’s like to live in Fairfield, and we covered the areas that make us a great place to live,” said Lippincott.
Fairfield will be the first town “Moving America Forward” has featured on its show, which normally highlights the accomplishments of individual business owners rather than whole cities. Lippincott said the show’s producers heard about Fairfield through the Smithsonian Magazine, which in 2013 named Fairfield the seventh-best small town to visit.
“Fairfield was recognized for fostering the environment that helped these businesses grow,” he said. “What makes this a unique recognition is we have 9,000 people but we have accomplished so much. That is, at its core, why we were recognized by ‘Moving America Forward.’”
Malloy said he began talking to the show’s senior producer Ruth Collins last year, who informed him Fairfield was a candidate for a spot on the show.
“She said they had done some research on our city and they found it fascinating, with all these different elements such as the entrepreneurship, sustainability and arts and culture,” he said. “She said, ‘We’d like to know more,’ so we sent them links to some of our websites.”
Collins said Fairfield was chosen from a pool of 70 candidate cities.
Malloy said Fairfield is often referred to as “Silicorn Valley,” a play on “Silicon Valley” near San Francisco, for the numerous technology and computer companies that were born here. He said many of those businesses were started in the late 1980s by software engineers educated at Maharishi International University, now known as Maharishi University of Management.
“Everyone who came to study and wanted to stay had to bring their own livelihood with them,” he said. “Because there were so many people who had a background in computers, there were a good dozen to 20 companies that were developing software. It became a phenomenon that these companies were originating from a small town in Iowa.”
Malloy said a financial journalist was doing a story about the entrepreneurial boom in Fairfield at the time, and referred to this technological enclave as the country’s “Silicorn Valley.”
During their interview with Llewelyn, Malloy and Lippincott mentioned not only the town’s strong IT sector but also its many other strengths such as manufacturing, tourism, education and agricultural economy.
The taped interview with Llewelyn lasted 15-20 minutes. Although Shatner is the host of the show, he was not on set for the interview. He introduces the clips and provides commentary throughout the show.
Malloy was filmed answering a set of questions about Fairfield. Shatner will be filmed asking those questions, and the two clips will be spliced together to make it appear Shatner is talking directly to Malloy.
Lippincott said the answers he and Malloy gave to the questions were not scripted, although the producer had an idea of what they would say from talking about their town with Llewelyn that morning.
In addition to the interviews with Malloy and Lippincott, the segment on Fairfield will include still photographs and silent camera footage of noteworthy places and events in town to be shown during the interviews. Malloy said he and others submitted videos to the producer, and the producers will get more video footage on their own later.
Even if residents miss the opportunity to watch the episode when it’s broadcast on television, chances are they will be able to view the video later. That’s because three Fairfield entities pooled their resources to purchase the video to use as a promotional tool once “Moving America Forward” is done with it.
Rights to the video cost $11,700, and the three entities who chipped in to purchase it were the city of Fairfield, the Fairfield Economic Development Association and the Fairfield Iowa Convention and Visitors Bureau. The three entities will own the video collectively.
Malloy said he felt the asking price to purchase the video was a bargain. He said he is glad the city will be able to show the “Moving America Forward” segment on the Fairfield Media Center’s public access cable channel, FPAC–9.
Reprinted with permission from The Fairfield Ledger
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