A Mantra of the People : Presidency: Candidate from Natural Law Party says that mellowing out with meditation will help lower taxes, nationalize health care and balance the budget.

One day after Ross Perot yanked his hat out of the political ring, a group that calls itself the Natural Law Party brought its presidential candidate to Los Angeles to put voters’ minds at ease--literally.

The candidate is John Hagelin, a soft-spoken physicist who teaches at Maharishi International University in Iowa. His message: mellow out.

Hagelin believes the first step toward solving the nation’s social and economic ills is for more Americans to practice transcendental meditation--a silent relaxation exercise that uses the repetition of a mantra, or chant, to reduce mental activity and stress.

At a news conference Friday at the Crossroads National Arts Academy Center in the Crenshaw district, Hagelin told about 25 people that America cannot be revitalized unless it makes use of the positive energy that he believes is created when “coherence-creating” groups meditate together.

Now, people pay hundreds of dollars to learn meditation techniques. Hagelin vowed that as President, he would spend tax dollars to subsidize the training--money he says is wasted dealing with problems that meditation would solve. In fact, Hagelin said, the widespread practice of meditation would help him lower taxes, nationalize health care and balance the budget.

It is an unorthodox platform founded on a principle, sometimes called “super radiance” or the Maharishi Effect, which most scientists do not accept: that meditation--if practiced by enough people--can surround the globe in a peaceful aura that promotes clearer thinking and reduces crime, violence, illness and pollution.

For years, researchers have sought to quantify group meditation’s impact on everything from cholesterol levels to criminal recidivism to world peace. But Hagelin appears to be the first to test the power of what he calls “the unified field” in the high-stakes arena of presidential politics.

To date, Hagelin and his running mate, Mike Tompkins, have fulfilled ballot access requirements in California and 10 other states. About 300 paid and volunteer signature-gatherers are traversing California, Hagelin said. He said that within six weeks, he will be on the ballot in every state but Texas and Florida, whose deadlines have passed.

The Hagelin-Tompkins ticket also hopes--perhaps a bit unrealistically--to participate in nationally televised debates with President George Bush, Vice President Dan Quayle, Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore. “Only a new seed will yield a new crop,” says the Natural Law Party slogan. And according to Hagelin, he is the only new seed in town.

“The same dynamics that propelled Ross Perot into the political arena will propel the Natural Law Party into national prominence,” he said. “That dynamic is deep-seated frustration with politics as usual.”

Despite Perot’s withdrawal, Tompkins added, “it’s a three-candidate race--still.”

Hagelin said his party formed in April with no money in its campaign coffers. He refused to specify how much money has been raised since, but he said he is optimistic that--with government matching funds--the Natural Law Party will succeed in raising the $9 million it needs to meet its primary goal: sending a copy of the party platform to each of America’s 91 million households.

It is all part of what Hagelin calls his unique and quiet campaign--one that will never stoop to name-calling or negative tactics, choosing instead to bring “a new atmosphere of harmony, happiness and praise into the political arena.”

And as if that is not unconventional enough, the party also calls for all candidates for public office to take electroencephalograms to measure electrical activity in their brains and test for brain disorders. (Tompkins assured the media on Friday that Hagelin has “highly coherent brain waves.”)

If elected President, Hagelin said, he would consider involving the military in transcendental meditation efforts. The goal, he said, would be to get 7,000 volunteers--or the square root of 1% of the world’s population--to meditate together. That is the number of meditators needed to create change on an international scale, he said.

Hagelin said that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the “giggling guru” who popularized meditation in the 1960s when he introduced it to the Beatles, is not a member of the Natural Law Party. He lives in the Netherlands, Hagelin said, and has had “no contact” with the campaign.