An Antidote to Violence: Evaluating the Evidence

by Barry Spivack and Patricia Saunders

This New book shows how meditation can aid governmental efforts to bring peace and heal divisions

Media Information

New book shows meditation can aid governmental efforts to bring peace and heal divisions An Antidote to Violence: Evaluating the Evidence – publication date June 26, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has put societies everywhere under extreme stress, and collective stress is often a precursor to outbreaks of violence. Striking features of this global health crisis have been the collective anxiety of the population, the wide variations in the way governments have responded, and the varying degree of their success. While there is significant scientific research showing that meditation has a positive influence on the health and well being of individuals, is there any evidence that large-scale meditation can have a similar influence on societies in reducing stress and levels of violence?

“Yes” is the surprising inference from the authors of a new book. Published June 26, An Antidote to Violence: Evaluating the Evidence provides evidence that the level of collective anxiety and tension in society, or incoherence in collective consciousness, is the key element, which determines the success or failure of a government in tackling crime, violence, social unrest and ill-health.

Barry Spivack and Patricia Saunders describe how a rise in collective tensions spills over into increased social unrest, crime, violence, accidental deaths and hospital emergencies. They examine 20 peer-reviewed studies from over four decades, indicating that it is possible to neutralise or reduce stress in collective consciousness through the practice of Transcendental Meditation (TM) and its advanced programs by a sufficient number of individuals, which is amplified in groups.

“These findings are more relevant now than ever before at a time of pandemic, protest, and social unrest,” says Spivack, and offers three examples from the studies cited in the book. Each of these quasi-experiments consisted of sufficient numbers either meditating on their own or together for a period of weeks or months, in societies wracked by violence: on 93 experimental days in Lebanon between 1983 and 1985, Cambodia between 1990 and 2008, and the USA between 2007 and 2010 compared with the previous four years. In each case measured statistically, significant drops in violence occurred during the periods when the numbers meditating were above the predicted threshold.

Written for the social scientist and the lay reader alike, An Antidote to Violence offers answers to key questions, including: does group meditation actually influence society? If so, how does it work? What is the evidence? What do sceptics say? Weaving together psychology, sociology, philosophy, statistics, politics, physics and meditation, the book provides evidence that we have the knowledge to reduce all kinds of violence in society by creating coherence in collective consciousness and thereby neutralising collective stress.

In his introduction to the book, quantum physicist Dr John Hagelin, and President of the Global Union of Scientists for Peace, suggests “the existing research, while compelling and rigorous, presents a direct challenge to established mainstream sociological paradigms and may be difficult for some to accept. Even more rigorous and repeated testing of the theories presented here is therefore essential to ensure widespread acceptance of this demonstrated sociological phenomenon.”

In the Foreword to the book, Bob Roth, CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, and author of the NY Times bestseller, Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation, writes: “Barry Spivack and Patricia Saunders have opened our eyes to an entirely new vision of possibilities about human potential that is both sweepingly grand but also immediate and practical.”

About the Authors

Barry Spivack

Barry Spivack studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University before training as a teacher of Transcendental Meditation. For 25 years he combined working in industry with teaching Transcendental Meditation part-time. He currently teaches Transcendental Meditation in Essex, mainly in schools, companies and with patients in the UK National Health Service.

Patricia Saunders

Patricia Saunders studied music before training as a teacher of the Transcendental Meditation technique. She is now a PhD researcher in the department of Consciousness and Human Potential at Maharishi University of Management, researching into consciousness and Vedic sound from the perspective of the Vedic tradition of knowledge.

Visit their website: https://anantidotetoviolence.org/