Maharishi School Makes Business Gurus

In 1979, Fred Gratzon answered the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s call and moved to Fairfield, Iowa.

There, in the shadow of the Golden Domes of Pure Knowledge at the Maharishi University of Management, he meditated and grew rich.

This is no coincidence, says Gratzon, a self-described millionaire whose company sells cheap long-distance telephone access. “Without a doubt, meditation and being close to the university has helped me become a success,” he said.

Gratzon is one of 3,000 Maharishi followers who have migrated to the cornfields and rolling hills of southeastern Iowa in the last two decades, according to spokesmen for the guru. To make a living, many have started their own companies, turning the farming community of about 10,000 people into an unlikely hotbed of entrepreneurs.

There are “an enormous number of start-up companies” in Fairfield, said Diane Swonk, First Chicago NBD Corp.’s deputy chief economist, who is familiar with the area. In the 1980s alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of businesses in and around Fairfield grew by 60 percent, compared with a 36 percent gain for the U.S.

That pace has continued, said Gratzon, who calls Fairfield “the most entrepreneurial place on earth, on a per capita basis.”

The Maharishi’s followers are drawn to Fairfield by their belief in the power of group meditation or, more precisely, the “Maharishi Effect.”

If enough people practice the Maharishi’s meditation techniques in one place, believers say, crime will drop, mankind will enter an age of enlightenment, stock markets will rise and, yes, the individual fortunes of the faithful will grow.

There is nothing incompatible about building both spiritual and material wealth, followers of the Maharishi say.

Exhibit One: the hoary Maharishi, himself, who among other things once counseled those well-capitalized rockers the Beatles.

A 1991 story in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., citing Indian newspapers, reported that the Maharishi’s empire was worth more than $2 billion.

As a yogi, the Maharishi himself “has no money,” said university spokeswoman Jennine Fellmer. There are associated but autonomous individuals and companies that do operate for profit, she said.

Transcendental Meditation, the Maharishi’s copyrighted system of relaxation techniques designed to achieve inner peace, is the empire’s foundation. TM officials claim more than 4 million people have learned TM worldwide, paying anywhere from $575 to $1,000 for a training course.

The university and its domes sit in the north end of town on what was the campus of Parsons College, which closed its doors in the early 1970s. Needing to expand their Santa Barbara-based teaching program, Maharishi officials snapped the Parsons campus up for $2.5 million.

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Since then, the accredited university has grown to about 1,500 full- and part-time students. It specializes in business and science, but meditation is a required part of the curriculum. Students and other faithful make two daily pilgrimages to the school’s domed buildings for 20 minutes of TM.

In other respects, the college is more conventional and offers a “strong program backed by some real top-notch faculty,” said Steven Crow, acting executive director of the higher education commission of the North Central Assn. of Colleges and Schools, an accrediting agency.

The Fairfield businesses started by TM adherents include the expected New Age novelty shops and Indian restaurants, but many of the new companies deal in software, financial services and communications.

Gratzon, who formerly taught TM, is chairman of Telegroup Inc., a company he started about eight years ago in his bedroom.

Telegroup, which buys large blocks of telephone time from international telephone carriers and resells it at a discount, now employs 440 people in Fairfield, Gratzon says.

In 1995, Inc. magazine ranked Telegroup as the second fastest-growing private company in the U.S. Gratzon said its sales rose more than 60% to $210 million last year, and he plans to take the company public this year.

Last week, another Fairfield telecommunications company founded by a TM believer, USA Global Link Inc., unveiled its system for transmitting telephone calls over the Internet. The 5-year-old company, which says it has invested $500 million in its technology, also is considering a public stock offering.

Tim Hawthorne, a Harvard graduate, moved to Fairfield in 1984 after producing TV commercials and working for shows such as “Real People” and ‘Entertainment Tonight.”

He founded Hawthorne Communications, which produces polished “infomercials” for Time Warner Inc.’s Time-Life Books, Apple Computer Inc. and others. The company now has 52 employees and offices on both coasts.

It’s no surprise the area has spawned so many businesses, said university President Bevan Morris, a Cambridge University graduate. Transcendental Meditation “lends itself to the scientific and business worlds,” he said.

Carey Turnbull, co-founder of Fairfield-based Amerex Petroleum Corp., a petroleum brokerage firm whose clients include Exxon Corp. and Shell Petroleum Inc., agrees. He has 125 employees in five cities, including London and Tokyo, but he and his family choose to stay in Iowa and meditate, he says.

“My business is high pressure,” Turnbull said. “I have seen a couple hundred people burn out. TM has helped me avoid the burnout syndrome.”

Robert Rasmussen, Fairfield’s mayor for 24 years and a nonmeditator, acknowledges that the Maharishi entrepreneurs have helped boost the local economy.

Still, most area residents don’t take to meditation and are skeptical of the goings-on around the university, the mayor says. “It’s just a little too offbeat for most folks,” he said.

The Maharishi himself lives in Amsterdam and is said to have visited the Iowa campus only once. But there are portraits of the aging ascetic everywhere, and critics say the near-slavishness of some followers gives TM a cultish patina.

Hawthorne of Hawthorne Communications laughs when the word “cult” comes up. He and other TM adherents say they are just practicing a technique and are free to choose the depth of their involvement. “Meditation helps us make better decisions and feel better,” he said.