The Maharishi Effect

Enough meditators, the studies claim, and city crime dips. The math is fought over nightly.

The Maharishi effect: TM organization studies (the 1993 Washington DC experiment is the flagship — a published paper in Social Indicators Research claiming crime reduction during a meditator assembly) are documented, peer-reviewed in that venue, and methodologically contested (the crime data's baseline treatment drew published rebuttals; a review noted the murder rate rose during the period). Independent replication is absent. The node files the strongest claim of consciousness-affects-society research with its full dispute, linked to the global-consciousness project's parallel methodology fight.