David Wear Orme-Johnson

Background and Objectives. Our recent systematic review and meta-analysis of all studies on meditation as treatment for PTSD (61 studies) found a moderate effect size of Hedges’s g = −0.67 for post-minus-pre change in symptom scores. Separate tests of the four meditation categories found a large effect size of g = −1.13 for the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique that is significantly greater than for each other category. The present follow-up used a different method, calculating effects relative to internal controls, to better characterize the effects of this meditation technique. Materials and Methods. Our study followed Prisma guidelines. Major databases, research anthologies, and bibliographies were searched for studies that used TM for treating PTSD, all military and civilian populations, and all age groups. Results. The searches located 15 controlled trials on TM that met the inclusion criteria (longitudinal and reporting sufficient statistics to calculate effect sizes), 1248 subjects total, mean age 40.5 years (range 20.6 to 54.4 years), and 46.9% males (range 0% to 100%). Using the random effects model, the pooled effect across all studies of TM compared to other treatments was g = −1.01, 95% CI = −1.29 to −0.74, p < 0.000000001. One-study removed analysis found that no study reduced the pooled effect to less than −1.0. Funnel plots indicated no risk of bias. TM was non-inferior to prolonged exposure therapy, p = 0.0001, and it worked significantly faster (p = 0.04 at week six). Conclusions. TM produced clinically meaningful reductions in PTSD for civilian and military personnel, young and older adults, and for both men and women. We recommend phase-III multisite studies comparing TM with known first-line treatments for PTSD.

Background and Objectives: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating condition worldwide. The limited effectiveness of current psychological and pharmacological treatments has motivated studies on meditation techniques. This study is a comprehensive, multiple-treatments meta-analysis comparing the effectiveness of different categories of meditation in treating PTSD. Methods and Materials: We followed Prisma guidelines in our published protocol to search major databases and to conduct a meta-analysis of the studies. Results: We located 61 studies with 3440 subjects and divided them logically into four treatment groups: Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR, 13 studies); Mindfulness-Based Other techniques (MBO, 16 studies), Transcendental Meditation (TM, 18 studies), and Other Meditations that were neither mindfulness nor TM (OM, 14 studies). Trauma populations included war veterans, war refugees, earthquake and tsunami victims, female survivors of interpersonal violence, clinical nurses, male and female prison inmates, and traumatized students. Of those offered, 86% were willing to try meditation. The baseline characteristics of subjects were similar across meditation categories: mean age = 52.2 years, range 29–75; sample size = 55.4, range 5–249; % males = 65.1%, range 0–100; and maximum study duration = 13.2 weeks, range 1–48. There were no significant differences between treatment categories on strength of research design nor evidence of publication bias. The pooled mean effect sizes in Hedges’s g for the four categories were MBSR = −0.52, MBO = −0.66, OM = −0.63, and TM = −1.13. There were no appreciable differences in the study characteristics of research conducted on different meditations in terms of the types of study populations included, outcome measures, control conditions, gender, or length of time between the intervention and assessment of PTSD. TM’s effect was significantly larger than for each of the other categories, which did not differ from each other. No study reported serious side effects. Conclusions: All categories of meditation studied were helpful in mitigating symptoms of PTSD. TM produced clinically significant reductions in PTSD in all trauma groups. We recommend a multisite Phase 3 clinical trial to test TM’s efficacy compared with standard treatment.

This chapter reports on the paradigm of influencing the collective consciousness to create beneficial effects for societies. It presents this using three large public well-controlled published studies that document that when a group of the square root of 1% or more of a population practices a specific form of automatic self-transcending meditation (the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi techniques) simultaneous holistic positive effects are produced in society. It addresses two fundamental issues about this research. The first issue is empirical, is it true? The second is theoretical, i.e. if it is true, how does one explain the effect and its possible mechanisms? The three major projects all measured multiple social indicators, e.g., war deaths, traffic fatalities, violent crime, drug-related deaths, and infant mortality. The experimental protocols specifying the research hypotheses, methodologies, and timing of the interventions were posited in advance and the data were official government statistics. All three studies found that varying the magnitude of the independent variable (meditator group size) created corresponding predicted changes in the dependent variables (social indicators), providing a strong case for causality. Social, political, cultural, or climatic events could not explain the results nor could autocorrelations or prior trends in the data. The holistic simultaneity of the effect on multiple diverse social indicators suggests that the effect is mediated by a common holistic influence, the transcendental field of universal consciousness at the basis of every mind and of natural law. We conclude that this technology of collective consciousness is an evidence-based approach to mitigate the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous nature of the world today. These should encourage citizens and leadership to make use of these evidence-based technologies to improve their lives.

Many conceptions of field-effects of consciousness have been proposed. The most well-developed of these is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s, which holds that every individual in society, whether stressed or coherent, contributes to collective consciousness. Collective consciousness in turn impacts the life of every individual, guiding the trends of life in the nation. Over 600 studies have documented that the Transcendental Meditation® and advanced TM-Sidhi® program increase coherence in the individual, as indicated by improved brain integration, health, cognitive abilities, and behavior. Fifty additional studies indicate that these more coherent individuals radiate an influence of coherence throughout society, as reflected in reductions of conflicts and improvements in quality of life. In the present study, interrupted time series analysis was used to evaluate the effectiveness of this population-level health intervention that was implemented at a clearly defined point in time. It found that during the Demonstration period of 2007-2011, compared to the Baseline period of 2000 to 2006, when a group practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi techniques reached or exceeded a predicted required threshold of √1% of the U.S. population (1725) there were significant and meaningful trend reductions in indicators of national stress: homicides, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, infant mortality, drug-related deaths, motor vehicle fatalities, fatalities due to injuries in youths ages 10-19, and in a composite index of all eight variables (p’s < .0001). Moreover, from 2007 to 2016, when the size of the group decreased to below the required threshold, all stress indicators increased again. Potential alternative explanations in terms of changes in economic conditions, political leadership, population demographics, and policing strategies could not explain the results. The results support a new highly practical field-theoretic understanding of social dynamics.

The main purpose of this pilot study was to investigate the immediate effects of Automatic Self-Transcending (AST) meditation on the cognitive function, EEG activity and autonomic arousal (Study 1) and characterize the frontal EEG synchrony during resting state, cognitive activity and AST mental states in traditional and wireless EEG’s (Study 2). We report the results of three healthy AST meditation volunteers in this case-report study (Case 1 - age = 26 years, meditative practice time = 2 months; Case 2 - age = 39 years, meditative practice time = 6 years; Case 3 - age = 59 years, meditative practice time = 40 years). In study 1, the volunteers performed a protocol with simultaneous recording of EEG and skin conductance while performing the Stroop test (T0), followed by 20 minutes of AST meditation and immediately the same protocol performed at T0 (T1). We analyzed P300 amplitude and latency, as well as test behavioral response and skin conductance activity before and immediately after a single session of AST. In study 2, the same volunteers performed three tasks with eyes closed on two EEG equipment (traditional and wireless): resting state, cognitive activity and one session of AST, each for 20 minutes. We measured the frontal interhemispheric coherence of alpha1 (8-10 Hz) and beta (13-30 Hz) for each condition and EEG type. Our main findings show that there is an immediate beneficial effect after AST meditation at the level of the same individual with different patterns of P300 and skin conductance activity and that AST meditation is marked by an overall increase in the frontal coherence of alpha1 and beta bands, when compared to other mental states. We conclude that 1) there is an immediate effect on cognition and executive control after AST meditation, 2) the frontal interhemispheric coherence of alpha1 and beta bands are increased during AST, and 3) wireless EEG exhibits the same characteristics observed in traditional EEG and therefore can be used to describe cortical dynamics during AST.

This study outlines and empirically tests a field-theoretic view of consciousness and positive social change based on the ancient Vedic tradition of knowledge from India (Veda means “knowledge” in Sanskrit) as brought to light by the Vedic scholar and scientist of consciousness, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. In contrast to most contemporary theories of mind and consciousness originating in the West, Maharishi’s Vedic science of consciousness posits the existence of an interpersonal, nonlocalized dimension of consciousness that underlies both individual consciousness and the “collective consciousness” of society, or “national consciousness.” We review previous empirical tests in Cambodia, India, the Philippines (and other countries) of hypotheses derived from this field-theoretic view of consciousness. We then present new empirical results, which together with prior research, provide evidence for an interpersonal dimension to consciousness. Segmented-trend regression analysis of data from a prospective, 15-year U.S. national social experiment found support for the hypothesis that “field effects of consciousness” created by group practice of Transcendental Meditation^® and its advanced technique, the TM-Sidhi^® program, by a theoretically predicted number of participants contributed to a reduction in social stress in national consciousness as indicated by improved monthly homicide trends during the study’s experimental period 2007-2011 (p < .0001). These results are consistent with significant reductions in crime and violence associated with group practice of the TM^® and TM-Sidhi^® program as reported in previous peer-reviewed research. This reduction was followed by a predicted subsequent increase in homicide trends 2012-2016 (p < .0001) after the group fell below the required size (approximately the √1% of the U.S. population).

This meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on the Transcendental Meditation® (TM) technique updates previous meta-analyses and assesses the effects of initial anxiety level, age, duration of practice, regularity of practice, research quality, author affiliation, and type of control group on effect sizes. This systematic review of the literature used the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) program for core analyses of effect sizes, bias analysis, meta-regression, and moderator variable analysis. Comprehensive literature searches included databases devoted to meditation research. More than 600 TM research papers were identified; 14 of these addressed trait anxiety and reported on 16 studies among 1295 participants with diverse demographic characteristics. No adverse effects were reported. The standardized difference in mean, d, for the TM technique compared with controls receiving an active alternative treatment (10 studies) was d=-0.50 (95% CI, -.70 to -0.30; p=0.0000005). Compared with controls receiving treatment as usual (wait list or attention controls, 16 studies), d=-0.62 (95% CI, -0.82 to -0.43; p=1.37E-10). Meta-regression found that initial anxiety level, but not other variables, predicted the magnitude of reduction in anxiety (p=0.00001). Populations with elevated initial anxiety levels in the 80th to 100th percentile range (e.g., patients with chronic anxiety, veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, prison inmates) showed larger effects sizes (-0.74 to -1.2), with anxiety levels reduced to the 53rd to 62nd percentile range. Studies using repeated measures showed substantial reductions in the first 2 weeks and sustained effects at 3 years. Overall, TM practice is more effective than treatment as usual and most alternative treatments, with greatest effects observed in individuals with high anxiety. More research is needed in this area, especially with high-anxiety patients, conducted under medically supervised conditions.