JMVRI Issue No. 16 contains three original research papers. The first by Dr Michael King, titled “Courts’ Response to Trauma and Application of the Transcendental Meditation Technique” (pp. 11-36), considers the role Transcendental Meditation might play in jurisprudence and sentencing because it produces a unique state of restful alertness and its regular practice alleviates the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder in a variety of traumatised populations, promotes psychological growth and more positive behaviour, and reduces offender recidivism. Court programs have explored its use in small offender rehabilitation programs, but should, according to Dr King, consider its wider application to address the trauma of the criminal justice system and the secondary trauma and stress of court professionals.
The second paper by founding MVRI director, Dr Geoffrey Wells, is titled “Scholarship and Maharishi Vedic Science: Some Reflections” (pp. 37-62). This original research paper considers the standard principles of scholarship in academic writing and reading, and explores how these principles relate and can be applied to scholarship in Maharishi Vedic Science. Dr Wells argues that a new, expanded view of scholarship emerges from this analysis, and he highlights two key principles of scholarship in Maharishi Vedic Science which were identified and encouraged by Maharishi and have been applied by teachers and scholars since the 1980s.
The third paper, “Long-Term Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique in Puno, Perú: A Five-Level Exploratory Model of Theory and Research” (pp. 63-94), is by Lee Fergusson, Javier Ortiz Cabrejos, and Anna Bonshek. This research is the product of MVRI working collaboratively with Instituto Maharishi de Ciencia y Tecnología del Perú in Lima, and is one of the first of its kind to investigate the practice of Transcendental Meditation in Latin America. Using a qualitative approach to explore the practice in Perú, the paper reports the experiences in Puno of six long-term practitioners of Transcendental Meditation who have practiced the technique for an average of 15 years.
JMVRI Issue Number 16
JMVRI Paper 16.3
Long-Term Practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique in Puno, Perú: A Five-Level Exploratory Model of Theory and Research
Author: Lee Fergusson, Javier Ortiz Cabrejos, and Anna Bonshek
This paper can be downloaded via the following link:
Citation: Fergusson, L., Ortiz-Cabrejos, J., & Bonshek, A. (2021). Long-term practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique in Puno, Perú: A five-level exploratory model of theory and research. Journal of Maharishi Vedic Research Institute, 16, 63-94.
Summary (excerpt):
Practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique has been well-documented in the published literature since the 1970s. However, the significance of the practice in South America generally and Perú specifically has been unrecorded, except for the recently published study on parent and teacher perceptions of Aymara children who meditate in Puno, despite its widespread use in schools, government agencies, and businesses in the last 20 years. This paper examines the theoretical foundations of the practice and compares these propositions to international research findings, all of which have been conducted outside Perú.
Using a five-level qualitative approach to explore the practice in Perú, the paper reports the experiences of six long-term practitioners of Transcendental Meditation in Puno who have practiced the technique for an average of 15 years. These reports have been coded and analysed thematically and organised into the following five levels: consciousness, mental, physical, behavioural, and sociocultural, with Puno data analysed for confirmatory or dissimilar evidence vis-à-vis international findings. Participants are from the Aymara population, an under-represented group in published literature from South America, making the study distinct. Findings suggest that experiences of long-term meditators in Puno are largely consistent with prior international research outcomes.