News Flash: 9/26/2001, A Message From John Hagelin

Dateline 9/26/2001

A Message From John Hagelin

Dear Friend,

This week I will be in Washington, D.C., hosting a crucially important press conference on Friday, September 28, at 10:00 a.m. at the National Press Club.

The conference will present a proven, peaceful approach that can prevent terrorism and violence--and can avert the imminent threat of war.

I'm writing to you to alert you to this conference and to ask you to help support our efforts to assure peace and security in our world.

Background

The tragic events of September 11 have confirmed a long-standing position of the Natural Law Party: Conventional defense strategies cannot protect us from terrorist attacks.

Since the Natural Law Party's inception in 1992, I have advocated the use of proven, peace-promoting technologies to help neutralize international tensions and conflict and to "disarm" terrorism at its roots.

I have long supported one such proven, peace-promoting technology based upon group practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique and related programs. More than 50 studies, published in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals, have documented the ability of this approach to reduce societal stress and violence--and even to calm open warfare in war-torn areas.

In the mid-1980s, this approach was used, on seven consecutive occasions, to quell violence in the Middle East, bringing an 80% drop in war fatalities and war-related injuries.

The Press Conference

This Friday, the originator of this nonviolent approach to peace, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, will address the U.S. press via satellite for the first time in seven years. He will describe the action steps needed to ensure the end of terrorism in our world.

In Washington, I will chair the panel of conference speakers, including Major General Kulwant Singh, a highly decorated 35-year army veteran and an expert in anti-terrorism.

To listen to the press conference, just call our direct dial-in number, 512-617-9002, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time on Friday.

The Proposal

Maharishi, who first introduced Transcendental Meditation over 40 years ago, is calling for the establishment of a group in India of 40,000 experts trained in these and other Vedic technologies of defense to neutralize the acute tensions and fears gripping the world today. Maharishi is calling on successful, visionary leaders to create a World Peace Endowment fund of $1 billion to sustain these professional "peace-creators" on a permanent basis.

This proposal is not new. Maharishi has been urging government leaders and the wealthy to establish large groups of meditating experts for decades, from the Cuban Missile crisis through Vietnam, the Iran hostage crisis, and Bosnia. Until now, America's leaders have not heeded his proposal. But times have changed. With conventional means of defense unable to defend the nation--and with a deadly enemy that cannot even be found, much less eliminated --world leaders are starting to listen.

ACTION STEPS

If you would like to help ensure peace in our world, I invite you to participate in this effort through the following action steps.

MEDIA. If you have contacts in the major media-- television, radio, or major newspapers--whom you think would cover Friday's news conference, please contact them immediately. You can also encourage them to listen to the press conference via the phone number given above. If they are interested, please send an email to Natural Law Party media director Bob Roth at mailto: bob@hagelin.org with their contact information. If they want to see the press release and the complete news story, they can visit

http://hagelin.org/press_conference/index.html
CONGRESS. Please contact your Representative immediately and strongly encourage him or her to attend Friday's press conference--or to send a legislative aide.

Just call the national Capitol switchboard at 1-202-225-3121 and ask to speak to your Representative. You can also email your Representative directly from

http://www.house.gov/writerep

Please also contact your Senators and urge them to do the same. To obtain email addresses, mailing addresses, and phone numbers for your Senators, just go to

http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cfm

to link to your Senators' websites.
FUNDING. If you are in a position to help fund this peace project, or if you know others who are, please visit

http://www.worldpeaceendowment.org/donate.html

Thank you for your timely efforts to ensure a better, safer world for ourselves, our families, and all future generations.

With warm regards,

John Hagelin, Ph.D.
2000 Natural Law Party Presidential candidate