Thursday, July 24, 2008 |
|
The Transcendental Politics of the "Natural Law Party" |
|
Posted by:
Michael Medved at
4:44 PM |
Dr. John Hagelin, a physicist trained at Dartmouth and Harvard, ran for president three times as the nominee of the Natural Law Party. He reached his political zenith in 1996, appearing on the ballot in 44 states and persuading 113,668 of his fellow citizens to vote for him. The Natural Law Party promoted Transcendtal Meditation as solution to all the world’s problems and, in fact, Dr. Hagelin has been a prominent member of the faculty at Mahirishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa. One of his areas of scientific specialization involves “the Maharishi Effect” that uses “advanced meditation techniques” to solve social problems. Dr. Hagelin once imported 4,000 meditators to Washington, D.C. and then cited crime records to show the beneficial result. Along with Dr. Hagelin’s presidential runs, the NLP offered some 400 local candidates between 1992 and 2002. Though most of the country never embraced the meditation platform, Hagelin nearly carried his home county (Jefferson) in Iowa—drawing 23.94% of the vote against Clinton, Bush and Perot. In 2004, the Natural Law Party endorsed the Democratic presidential juggernaut of leftist firebrand Dennis Kucinich. Dr, Hagelin himself returned to teaching, and to an esteemed position as Minister of Science and Technology of the Global Country of World Peace, a project authorized by the Maharishi before his death in 2008 “for preventive, invincible administration for the whole world.”
|
|
|