Nel 1988 i risultati di un progetto denominato “International Peace Project in the Middle East”, realizzato per un periodo di due mesi nel 1983 durante la guerra in Libano, furono pubblicati dal Journal of Conflict Resolution. Durante la guerra fra Israele e Libano verificatasi all'inizio degli anni '80 alcuni praticanti furono istruiti sull'uso di tecniche specifiche di TM - Meditazione Trascendentale secondo le pratiche di Maharishi Mahesh, per “sentire” la pace dentro di sé a livello fisico, anziché pensare alla pace coinvolgendo solo la mente, o limitarsi a pregare per la pace, determinando in modo attivo il cosidetto effetto Maharishi.
L'effetto della pratica di singoli individui sulla società è spiegato come un'inflenza della coscienza collettiva:

Just as the consciousness of an individual determines the quality of his thought and behavior, so also there exists another type of consciousness for society as a whole: a collective consciousness for each family, city, state, or nation, having its own reality and the possibility of growth. The quality of collective consciousness of a society is a direct and sensitive reflection of the level of consciousness of its individual members.

...

All occurrences of violence, negativity and conflict, crises, or problems in any society are just the expression of growth of stress in collective consciousness. When the level of stress becomes sufficiently great, it bursts out into large-scale violence, war, and civil uprising necessitating military action.

...
Whatever may seem to be the cause of the outbursts of terrorism, whatever little excuses there are, these excuses arise on the surface of the human race only from the stress in world consciousness, and stress is not seen until it bursts out.

...
The basis of stress in world consciousness is the violation of natural law by the people. The basis of the violation of natural law is the fact that the educational systems do not educate the people to spontaneously think and act according to natural law.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Ogni mese, in determinati giorni e ore, le persone partecipanti al progetto agivano secondo le tecniche di TM a Gerusalemme. Durante la finestra temporale in cui i partecipanti evocavano interiormente la pace, le attività terroristiche, i crimini contro le persone, i ricoveri al pronto soccorso e il numero di incidenti stradali venivano monitorati e con un confronto ed una elaborazione statistica si trovò che si riducevano. Quando interrompevano la pratica, le statistiche si invertivano. Le ricerche indicavano che quando una piccola percentuale della popolazione praticava e sperimentava individualmente la pace interiore, quella sensazione si rifletteva sul mondo circostante.

I risultati tennero conto dei giorni feriali e festivi e perfino dei cicli lunari, rivelando dati sufficientemente coerenti da permettere di stabilire quante persone sono necessarie per agire in modo positivo sul mondo circostante, la radice quadrata dell'uno per cento della popolazione presa in considerazione: √1 % popolazione. Questo è solo il numero di base necessario a far iniziare l'effetto - più persone partecipano, maggiore e più concreto è il risultato.

Dimensione	Popolazione	Numero persone TM
villaggio/paese	1000	3
città piccole dimensioni	10000	10
città medie dimensioni	100000	31
città	1 milione	100
città grandi dimensioni	10 milioni	316
nazione	100 milioni	1000
continente	1 miliardo	3162
popolazione mondiale	6 miliardi	7745

International Peace Project in the Middle East

The Effects of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field

David W. Orme-Johnson, John L. Davies, Howard M. Chandler

Department of Psychology, Maharishi International University

Charles N. Alexander

Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University

Wallace E. Larimore

Computational Engineering, Inc., Woburn, Massachusetts

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.

Journal of Conflict Resolution, December 1988 32: 776-812