New study confirms effects of TM group practice at MVU Cambodia between 1993 and 2008

The group practice of the Transcendental Meditation® and TM-Sidhi® programs in Cambodia between 1993 and 2008 was associated with a 96.2% decline in sociopolitical violence in that war-torn country compared to violence in the preceding three years, according to a new peer-reviewed study published in Studies in Asian Social Science.

According to the study, the likelihood that this reversal in the rising 1990-1992 trend of violence occurred randomly was one chance in 10 million, suggesting that meditation can indeed have a coherence-creating effect on society.

In 1990, Cambodia, devastated by decades of war, was the poorest country in the world. After establishment of "Maharishi Vedic University (MVU)", Cambodia's gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates averaged 8.9%, and poverty was reduced by 63% between 1994 and 2008.

By 2010 Cambodia was ranked 63rd out of 152 countries on the international scale of poverty, an unprecedented jump of 89 places in less than one generation.