Global Peace Initiative

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. More

Dr John Hagelin

Quantum physicist, John Hagelin, explains how the peaceful influence spreads through the field of consciousness.



Modern physics has located more unified levels of nature’s functioning at smaller time and distance scales, culminating in the discovery of the unified field (“superstring field”) at the foundation of the universe. The advanced meditation programs employed in the Global Peace Initiative provide direct experience of quieter, deeper levels of thought—culminating in the experience of the unified field at the basis of mind and matter. Group practice powerfully stimulates this universal, unified field of collective consciousness, creating a demonstrable, coherent influence throughout society.