SUBJECT: Hollywood stars hold press conference to announce Peace Palace for Los Angeles - press reports

It is a pleasure to send you some articles about of the press conference last Thursday, 12 June, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills , where Hollywood stars joined Dr. John Hagelin to present plans for a grand 12,000 square foot Peace Palace in Los Angeles.

Film director David Lynch, actor Stephen Collins, and actresses Heather Graham, Laura Dern, and Laura Harring spoke of the profound personal benefits they have gained from their Transcendental Meditation practice and voiced strong support for the Peace Palace in Los Angeles. They also demonstrated the practice of TM for all the assembled media.

The Los Angeles Peace Palace will be the centre for a permanent group of 200 peace-creating experts who will practise Transcendental Meditation and its advanced programmes, influencing a reduction in crime, violence, and conflict in the city.

During the press conference, Dr Hagelin also announced the formation of the new U.S. Peace Government which will administer the 200 Peace Palaces to be built in the major cites of the USA.

News of the event spread around the world. An Associated Press (AP) photograph of the meditating Hollywood stars appeared in newspapers worldwide, and TV news reports from ABC, NBC, and FOX affiliates were broadcast in Los Angeles. In addition, U.S. News and World Report, People Magazine, In Touch Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and The Hollywood Reporter covered the event. Dr Hagelin expressed deep appreciation to David Lynch, Stephen Collins, Heather Graham, Laura Dern, and Laura Harring for their wonderful support.

Copies of articles from the Hollywood Reporter and the International Herald Tribune (latter based on the AP story) follow:

Press conferences are usually chatty affairs, but this one was different. This one had everyone assembled sitting there motionless, eyes closed, in complete silence, submerged in meditation.

That was the scene Thursday morning at the Burton Room of the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, where Dr. John Hagelin, along with David Lynch, Laura Elena Harring, Heather Graham, Laura Dern and Stephen Collins, announced plans for the creation of a "peace palace," a place where practitioners of Transcendental Meditation hope to exert a calming influence over the city, reducing crime, violence and conflict.

For five minutes, all you could hear was the hum of the air conditioner.

With his eyes closed, Lynch looked like a peaceful baby; Graham, a beautiful porcelain doll.

"This peace palace is not just a little pretty building where people strum guitars and sing about peace," Lynch said earlier during the conference. "It's a peace-creating factory."

The Transcendental Meditation Program has selected three possible sites in the city and is working on getting zoning and building permits. Whichever one gets approval first will be the chosen site.

"There's enough meditators in L.A. that this will work," Collins said.

(This article included a photo of some of the speakers in group meditation with the caption: "Heather Graham and Stephen Collins launch a peace offensive.")

Copyright Hollywood Reporter 2003

Celebrity backers of a proposed meditation center say the new "Peace Center" would lift the spirits of city residents.

Practitioners of Transcendental Meditation want to build a $4 million center where 200 followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi can gather twice a day to practice a technique called "yogic flying." The goal, they say, is to spread positive vibrations into the community to help reduce tension and crime.

Backers include actors Stephen Collins, Laura Dern, Heather Graham and Laura Harring as well as director David Lynch.

The group has not yet raised the cash to pay for it, nor have they found the spot to place the proposed 20,000-square-foot facility, which will face east. Possible locations include Beverly Hills, near Los Angeles International Airport or Agoura Hills.

"We have three sites - the one that gets the zoning first gets it," said John Hagelin, a national TM leader. So far, "Peace Centers" have opened in Bethesda, Md., Lexington, Ky. and Fairfield, Iowa. Hagelin said the goal is to build 100 facilities around the country.

Supporters said the center would provide tangible benefits to Los Angeles.

"It's not a pretty building where people strum guitars and sing about peace," said director Lynch, who said he has practiced TM for 30 years. "It's a peace factory."

According to the Transcendental Meditation Web site, yogic flying involves the body lifting up and moving forward in short hops. The individual experiences bliss and, when practiced by a group of people, yogic flying helps to reduce negative energy and promotes positive trends in the larger society.

"It's a form of levitation - you're actually lifted one or two feet by the exhilaration" that some describe "as `bubbling bliss,'" explained Transcendental Meditation spokesman Joseph Boxerman.

Copyright AP/Herald Tribune 2002