International Peace Project in the Middle East
David W. Orme-Johnson, Charles N. Alexander, John L. Davies, Howard M. Chandler, Wallace E. Larimore
Journal of Conflict Resolution December 1, 1988 DOI: 10.1177/0022002788032004009 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Prospective social experiment Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Israel and Lebanon, including Jerusalem, during August and September 1983 |
| Duration | August and September 1983 |
| Citations | 90 |
| Key findings | Increases in the size of the group practicing the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field had a statistically significant effect in the predicted direction on individual variables and all composite quality-of-life indices reflecting Jerusalem quality of life, Israeli quality of life, and the war in Lebanon. Cross-correlations and transfer functions indicated the group had a leading relationship to change, supporting a causal interpretation. |
Abstract
This prospective social experiment tests a new theory and technology for alleviating violent conflict through reducing societal stress in an underlying field of “collective consciousness.” It was predicted that group practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field (the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program) during August and September, 1983, in Jerusalem, would reduce stress in the collective consciousness and behavior of Israel and Lebanon. Box-Jenkins Arima impact assessment, cross-correlation, and transfer function analyses were used to study the effects of changes in the size of the group on several variables and composite indices reflecting (a) the quality of life in Jerusalem (automobile accidents, fires, and crime), (b) the quality of life in Israel (crime, stock market, and national mood, derived from news content analysis), and (c) the war in Lebanon (war deaths of all factions and war intensity, derived from news content analysis). Increases in the size of the group had a statistically significant effect in the predicted direction on the individual variables and on all composite quality-of-life indices. The effects of holidays, temperature, weekends, and other forms of seasonality were explicitly controlled and could not account for these results. Cross-correlations and transfer functions indicated that the group had a leading relationship to change on the quality-of-life indicators, supporting a causal interpretation.