Can group meditation prevent violent crime? Surprisingly, the data suggests yes: New study

Part of the reduction in violence is likely due to the removal of lead from gasoline, causing a reduction in brain damage in fetuses and young children since then. But I think there is a connection between people, caused by tiny effects of physics, maybe energy from the electromagnetic spectrum.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-03/muom-cgm031316.php

Public Release: 14-Mar-2016
Can group meditation prevent violent crime? Surprisingly, the data suggests yes: New study
Large groups practicing the advanced Transcendental Meditation program were associated with significant reductions in U.S. homicide and urban violent crime rates during an intervention period of 2007-2010
Maharishi University of Management

Can large group meditation lower the crime rate? The most recent in a series of studies spanning decades suggests again that a sufficiently large group practicing an advanced program of Transcendental Meditation, the TM-Sidhi program, is associated with decreased social violence.

During 2007-2010 when the size of a group of advanced TM-Sidhi program participants exceeded the threshold predicted to reduce negative trends (√1%), there was a significant shift in the U.S. national homicide rate and urban violent crime. Relative to the baseline period of 2002-2006, the drop in homicide rate was 21.2% (5.3% per year) and 18.5% (4.6% per year) for violent crime.

•••••

To create a group large enough to have this influence on the U.S. as a whole, advanced meditators assembled at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, starting in July 2006.

Predictions were lodged with the press and other scientists that significant decreases in violent crime would occur when the group reached or exceeded the theoretically predicted threshold of the square root of 1% of the U.S. population. By January 2007 the group exceeded the required size of 1,725 participants, the square root of 1% of the U.S. population at the time, and remained above or near that level through 2010.

•••••

"I understand that it's a new hypothesis in social sciences, that meditation could have a stress-reducing and coherence-creating effect in society," said lead author Michael Dillbeck. "But such research is increasingly suggesting that there's a field effect of consciousness. If you get a large enough group together practicing this technique to experience the field quality of consciousness, these extended 'field-like' effects are expressed in society."

The hypothesis of a field effect of consciousness implies that there is an underlying connection between individuals in much the same way that physics has uncovered greater unity beneath the diversity of matter and energy fields. The more powerfully that underlying field is enlivened, the greater the unifying influence of peace and harmony on the surface levels of life.

•••••

They also found that alternative hypotheses, such as economic trends, incarceration rates, seasonal cycles, demographic changes, and policing strategies, aren't sufficient to explain the observed reduction.

For example, violent crime rates fell significantly during the severe recession of 2007-2009 rather than rising as widely expected. According to a leading expert on crime and the economy, this was the first time since World War II in which crime rates failed to rise during a major economic downturn.

•••••

The group that gathered in the period 2007-2010 has now somewhat dispersed. Dr. Dillbeck suggests that if governments were to support the establishment of groups in various countries, so that these groups could be maintained over long periods, it could have a remarkable effect in reducing hostilities and fostering coherence among nations, which could be assessed by further research. Indeed, a number of countries are already creating such groups through private organizations, and gaining increasing governmental support.