According to research, just as panic can spread through a city, like in South Central L.A. for those who are old enough to remember that, calm can spread through a society and change the dynamics in a society.”
—John Hagelin
March-April 2020 Daily Global Group Meditation
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GROUP MEDITATION DEFUSES ACUTE SOCIETAL STRESS, REDUCES CRIME AND SOCIAL VIOLENCE
It is not surprising that reducing stress on the individual level causes a corresponding reduction of stress on the societal level. Yet it is both surprising and fortunate that even a relatively small proportion of a population practicing Transcendental Meditation in a group produces a remarkably disproportionate reduction in societal stress and in associated crime and violence. The meditating group produces an extensively documented “spillover” effect of orderliness and calm in the surrounding society.
Theoretical explanations of this surprisingly powerful impact of group meditation on crime and social stress include a “field model of consciousness,” in which consciousness, at its deepest level, is a field that underlies and connects individuals throughout society. Such a theory is consistent with the latest findings in physics, physiology, and neuroscience. (See figure below.) In any such model (irrespective of its details), the stress-reducing, peace- promoting influence generated by a group will grow in proportion to the square of the size of the group. This N2 power of a peace-creating group has been observed and repeatedly confirmed by dozens of published scientific studies—and renders the methodology of the Global Peace Initiative especially practical. It means that only a few thousand individuals are needed to produce an extremely powerful and scientifically demonstrable effect of peace in the surrounding society—even on a national or global scale.
