Flying peace 'visit' to the North
Northern Echo, Newcastle & North East England
10 August 2002
The former spiritual guru to the Beatles is behind ambitious
plans to eradicate crime and poverty in the North-East.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who famously introduced the Fab Four
to Eastern Mysticism in 1967, broke his self-imposed 25-year
silence with the world's media this week to launch a global
project to set up "peace palaces" in 3,000 of the world's
largest cities.
This, according to his supporters, would include three such
Palaces being built in Middlesborough, Newcastle and
Sunderland where yogic fliers could eradicate poverty, crime
and conflict.
Yogic fliers - meditators who reach a higher level of consciousness
while bouncing up and down cross-legged on a mattress - would
radiate enough positive energy to solve the North-East's problems,
they claim.
Devotees of Transcendental Meditation congregated in Esh Winning,
County Durham, home of the North-East Maharishi Vedic Centre,
on Wednesday, to listen to the spiritual sage explain how meditation
could save the world.
The Maharishi's followers, who number about 600 in the North-East,
hope to attract at least 100 devotees in each town to help build the
centres of learning and meditation.
Paul Kember, director of the North-East Maharishi Centre, said:
"We are hoping to build these centres in 51 cities across the UK.
"The idea is to have at least 100 people using each one to increase
the positive energy in each town. For somewhere like Middlesborough,
crime would become a thing of the past and everyone's life would
become more orderly.
"The cost of this is being explored but we are contacting community
and business leaders for their support."
PICTURE CAPTION (with image of Paul and Judith Kember beside
a television showing Maharishi speaking during the press conference):
Hearing the message: Paul and Judith Kember, of the North-East
Maharishi Centre, tune in to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Copyright 2002, Northern Echo