David Orme-Johnson
Encyclopedia
David W. Orme-Johnson is a former professor of psychology
at Maharishi University of Management
in Fairfield, Iowa
. He is the author of over 100 papers investigating the effects of the Transcendental Meditation technique
.
. He received an A.B. from Columbia University
in Psychology in 1963, and his M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) in Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park
.
While at UTEP, he conducted the first research on the effects of Transcendental Meditation on autonomic stability and autonomic recovery from stressors. The paper, published in the Psychosomatic Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society, reported fewer spontaneous galvanic skin responses (GSR) in meditators, and more rapid habituation of the GSR to loud tones.
Orme-Johnson was director of research and evaluation for the U.S. Army drug rehabilitation
program at Fort Bliss
from 1971 to 1972.
In 1973, Orme-Johnson joined Maharishi University of Management (MUM), then called Maharishi International University (MIU), in Fairfield, Iowa. Orme-Johnson served as the Chairman of the Psychology Department and Dean of Research until 1996. In addition, he was director of its psychology doctoral program and co-director of its neuroscience
doctoral program, and director of the university's Institute for World Peace. He also served as director of research at the Institute of Science, Technology, and Public Policy.
From 1975 to 1977, he was Vice Chancellor of Maharishi European Research University, Seelisberg
, Switzerland
and, from 1976 to 1977, Orme-Johnson was Acting President at Maharishi University of Management.
In 1982, Orme-Johnson and Michael Dillbeck presented research on TM’s effects on the individual and on the larger society to the Congressional hearings on proposals to establish a U.S. Peace Academy held by the Subcommittees on International Security and Scientific Affairs. Based on the evidence, they suggested a four point proposal to create peace in the US, Washington, D.C.
, and in trouble spot countries around the world.
Orme-Johnson's paper, "International peace project in the Middle East" was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1988 and again in 1990 in the Scientific Research on Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Program: Collected Papers. The second published version included an Appendix A which contained the data used for the study. The paper was criticized in 1997 by University of Iowa
professors Evan Fales and Barry Markovsky, who took issue with the Maharishi Effect theory and with Orme-Johnson's interpretation of evidence. They complained that Orme-Johnson refused to share his raw data and concluded that the probability of the Maharishi Effect theory was "very close to zero". Orme-Johnson defended his work in a 2009 paper. After reviewing their critique he wrote that it was "not supported by either the empirical data nor by a logical analysis of the theory". He also noted that published plots of the raw data were given to Fales and Markovsky and that a simple visual inspection of these plots would have shown that their alternate hypotheses couldn't explain the study's results. The raw data is available on his website.
He participated in a delegation of teachers from Maharishi International University who traveled to the Soviet Union
to provide instruction in Transcendental Meditation in 1990. The trip, initially scheduled to last ten days, was extended to six months and resulted in the training of 35,000 people in Transcendental Meditation.
In 1990, he proposed that the U.S. Defense Department budget $90 million to hire 7,000 to 10,000 full time meditators to improve society. In 1991, he advocated a plan for prisons to hire TM trainers, at a cost of $1,500 per inmate, to reduce recidivism and illness among prisoners. In response to a Wall Street Journal article that estimated it would cost $1 billion to teach TM to all inmates in the U.S., Orme-Johnson wrote that doing so would result in a net savings of $6.2 billion annually. In 1993, Orme-Johnson proposed that the city of Omaha, Nebraska
spend $23 million for 600 meditators to end crime in the city.
In 1995, the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) nominated Orme-Johnson to be an expert presenter on the effects of meditation as a relaxation technique on chronic pain and insomnia at the NIH technology assessment conference held in Bethesda, Maryland. The conclusions of the conference were reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
From 1999 to 2000, Orme-Johnson was a member of the Advisory Board at the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention and, from 2000 to 2002, was a Consultant for the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention. From 2002 to 2004, he served as Adjunct Professor at Maharishi College of Vedic Medicine located at Maharishi University of Management.
In 2006, Orme-Johnson was the principal investigator for an NIH grant sponsored collaboration between Maharishi University of Management and the University of California
at Irvine to conduct the first neuroimaging study on the effects of meditation on pain.
In 2008, the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine sponsored Orme-Johnson to present research on the Transcendental Meditation program and health at their workshop on “Meditation for Health Purposes”, held in Bethesda, Maryland.
Orme-Johnson is a former professional member of the American Psychological Association
, Society for Psychophysiological Research, National Referee for National Social Science Journal, Iowa Academy of Science
and Midwest Psychological Society.
Orme-Johnson's work has been exhibited in groups shows at Columbia University in New York in 1962, and in "The Gallery" in Fairfield, Iowa in 1996, as well as in a one-man show at the "Gallery Two-Twenty-Two" in El Paso, Texas in 1969. His work is held in private collections.
in the election for Florida House
District 7.
His brother, William Orme-Johnson, was a professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and an expert on inorganic chemistry
.
Orme-Johnson's wife, Rhoda, was chairperson of the Literature department at Maharishi International University and a founding member of the university.
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at Maharishi University of Management
Maharishi University of Management
Maharishi University of Management , formerly known as Maharishi International University, is a non-profit, American university, located in Fairfield, Iowa. It was founded in 1973 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and features a "consciousness-based education" system that includes the practice of the...
in Fairfield, Iowa
Fairfield, Iowa
Fairfield is a city and the county seat of Jefferson County, Iowa, United States. The population was 9,464 in the 2010 census, a decline from 9,509 in the 2000 census. - History :...
. He is the author of over 100 papers investigating the effects of the Transcendental Meditation technique
Transcendental Meditation technique
The Transcendental Meditation technique is a specific form of mantra meditation often referred to as Transcendental Meditation. It was introduced in India in 1955 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi...
.
Early life and education
David Orme-Johnson was born in El Paso, TexasEl Paso, Texas
El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...
. He received an A.B. from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in Psychology in 1963, and his M.A. (1965) and Ph.D. (1969) in Psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
.
Professional career
From 1969 to 1971, Orme-Johnson served as a lecturer at the University of Texas-El Paso (UTEP).While at UTEP, he conducted the first research on the effects of Transcendental Meditation on autonomic stability and autonomic recovery from stressors. The paper, published in the Psychosomatic Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society, reported fewer spontaneous galvanic skin responses (GSR) in meditators, and more rapid habituation of the GSR to loud tones.
Orme-Johnson was director of research and evaluation for the U.S. Army drug rehabilitation
Drug rehabilitation
Drug rehabilitation is a term for the processes of medical or psychotherapeutic treatment, for dependency on psychoactive substances such as alcohol, prescription drugs, and so-called street drugs such as cocaine, heroin or amphetamines...
program at Fort Bliss
Fort Bliss
Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in the U.S. states of New Mexico and Texas. With an area of about , it is the Army's second-largest installation behind the adjacent White Sands Missile Range. It is FORSCOM's largest installation, and has the Army's largest Maneuver Area behind the...
from 1971 to 1972.
In 1973, Orme-Johnson joined Maharishi University of Management (MUM), then called Maharishi International University (MIU), in Fairfield, Iowa. Orme-Johnson served as the Chairman of the Psychology Department and Dean of Research until 1996. In addition, he was director of its psychology doctoral program and co-director of its neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
doctoral program, and director of the university's Institute for World Peace. He also served as director of research at the Institute of Science, Technology, and Public Policy.
From 1975 to 1977, he was Vice Chancellor of Maharishi European Research University, Seelisberg
Seelisberg
Seelisberg is a municipality in the canton of Uri in Switzerland.-History:The Rütli meadow, according to legend the site of the original oath foundational to the Old Swiss Confederacy, is situated in the territory of the municipality....
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and, from 1976 to 1977, Orme-Johnson was Acting President at Maharishi University of Management.
In 1982, Orme-Johnson and Michael Dillbeck presented research on TM’s effects on the individual and on the larger society to the Congressional hearings on proposals to establish a U.S. Peace Academy held by the Subcommittees on International Security and Scientific Affairs. Based on the evidence, they suggested a four point proposal to create peace in the US, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, and in trouble spot countries around the world.
Orme-Johnson's paper, "International peace project in the Middle East" was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1988 and again in 1990 in the Scientific Research on Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Program: Collected Papers. The second published version included an Appendix A which contained the data used for the study. The paper was criticized in 1997 by University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
professors Evan Fales and Barry Markovsky, who took issue with the Maharishi Effect theory and with Orme-Johnson's interpretation of evidence. They complained that Orme-Johnson refused to share his raw data and concluded that the probability of the Maharishi Effect theory was "very close to zero". Orme-Johnson defended his work in a 2009 paper. After reviewing their critique he wrote that it was "not supported by either the empirical data nor by a logical analysis of the theory". He also noted that published plots of the raw data were given to Fales and Markovsky and that a simple visual inspection of these plots would have shown that their alternate hypotheses couldn't explain the study's results. The raw data is available on his website.
He participated in a delegation of teachers from Maharishi International University who traveled to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to provide instruction in Transcendental Meditation in 1990. The trip, initially scheduled to last ten days, was extended to six months and resulted in the training of 35,000 people in Transcendental Meditation.
In 1990, he proposed that the U.S. Defense Department budget $90 million to hire 7,000 to 10,000 full time meditators to improve society. In 1991, he advocated a plan for prisons to hire TM trainers, at a cost of $1,500 per inmate, to reduce recidivism and illness among prisoners. In response to a Wall Street Journal article that estimated it would cost $1 billion to teach TM to all inmates in the U.S., Orme-Johnson wrote that doing so would result in a net savings of $6.2 billion annually. In 1993, Orme-Johnson proposed that the city of Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
spend $23 million for 600 meditators to end crime in the city.
In 1995, the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
(NIH) nominated Orme-Johnson to be an expert presenter on the effects of meditation as a relaxation technique on chronic pain and insomnia at the NIH technology assessment conference held in Bethesda, Maryland. The conclusions of the conference were reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
From 1999 to 2000, Orme-Johnson was a member of the Advisory Board at the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention and, from 2000 to 2002, was a Consultant for the Center for Natural Medicine and Prevention. From 2002 to 2004, he served as Adjunct Professor at Maharishi College of Vedic Medicine located at Maharishi University of Management.
In 2006, Orme-Johnson was the principal investigator for an NIH grant sponsored collaboration between Maharishi University of Management and the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
at Irvine to conduct the first neuroimaging study on the effects of meditation on pain.
In 2008, the NIH National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine sponsored Orme-Johnson to present research on the Transcendental Meditation program and health at their workshop on “Meditation for Health Purposes”, held in Bethesda, Maryland.
Orme-Johnson is a former professional member of the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
, Society for Psychophysiological Research, National Referee for National Social Science Journal, Iowa Academy of Science
Iowa Academy of Science
The Iowa Academy of Science is the oldest existing scientific association in Iowa, founded in 1875. It was established to promote scientific research, science education, public understanding of science, and recognition of excellence. Its membership consists primarily of professional and academic...
and Midwest Psychological Society.
Artist
Orme-Johnson is also a sculptor and painter. He studied visual arts at Columbia College from 1959 to 1963 in drawing, painting, sculpture and history of the movies, and at the University of Maryland from 1963-1968 in print making, glass blowing sculpting and painting. He also studied painting through the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.Orme-Johnson's work has been exhibited in groups shows at Columbia University in New York in 1962, and in "The Gallery" in Fairfield, Iowa in 1996, as well as in a one-man show at the "Gallery Two-Twenty-Two" in El Paso, Texas in 1969. His work is held in private collections.
Other
After retiring from the Maharishi University of Management, Orme-Johnson moved to Florida where he worked as a research consultant and a TM teacher. In 1996, he qualified as a write-in candidateWrite-in candidate
A write-in candidate is a candidate in an election whose name does not appear on the ballot, but for whom voters may vote nonetheless by writing in the person's name. Some states and local jurisdictions allow a voter to affix a sticker with a write-in candidate's name on it to the ballot in lieu...
in the election for Florida House
Florida House of Representatives
The Florida House of Representatives is the lower house of the Florida Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Florida. The House is composed of 120 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 156,677.The House convenes at...
District 7.
His brother, William Orme-Johnson, was a professor of chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
and an expert on inorganic chemistry
Inorganic chemistry
Inorganic chemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the properties and behavior of inorganic compounds. This field covers all chemical compounds except the myriad organic compounds , which are the subjects of organic chemistry...
.
Orme-Johnson's wife, Rhoda, was chairperson of the Literature department at Maharishi International University and a founding member of the university.
Selected papers
The most frequently cited papers in which DW Orme-Johnson was the lead author include:- Orme-Johnson D. W. (1987) Medical care utilization and the Transcendental Meditation program. Psychosomatic Medicine 1987 49(1):493-507
- Orme-Johnson D. W. (1994) Transcendental Meditation as an epidemiological approach to drug and alcohol abuse: theory, research, and financial impact evaluation. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 1994 11(1/2):119-168
- Orme-Johnson, D. W. (2002) “Quantifying the field effects of consciousness: From increased EEG coherence to reduced international terrorism” Proceedings: Bridging Worlds and Filling Gaps in the Science of Healing. Corona del Mar, CA: Samueli Institute for Informational Biology, 2002:326-346. (R.A. Chez, editor)
- Orme-Johnson DW, Dillbeck MC, Alexander CN. (2003) Preventing terrorism and international conflict: effects of large assemblies of participants in the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 2003 36(1-4):283-302
- Orme-Johnson D. W. (2003) Preventing crime though the Maharishi Effect. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 2003 36(1-4):257-281
- Orme-Johnson D. W, Schneider RH, Son YD, Nidich S, Cho Z-H. (2006) Neuroimaging of meditation’s effect on brain reactivity to pain. NeuroReport 2006 17(12):1359-1363
Books
- Orme-Johnson, David W., and John T. Farrow, eds. Scientific Research on the Transcendental Meditation Program: Collected Papers. 2nd ed. Weggis, Switzerland: Maharishi European Research University Press, 1977-90. (ISBN 3-88333-001-9).
- Schmidt-Wilk, J., Orme-Johnson, D. W., Alexander, V., & Schneider, R. (Eds.), (2005). Maharishi's Vedic psychology and its applications: Honoring the lifework of Charles N. Alexander, Ph.D. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 620 pages.
- Alexander, C. N., Walton, K. G., Orme-Johnson, D. W., Goodman, R. S., & Pallone, N. J. (Eds.). (2003). Transcendental Meditation in Criminal Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 383 pages.
- Wallace, R. K. Orme-Johnson, D. W. & Dillbeck, M. C. (Eds.) (1990). Scientific research on Maharishi’s Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program: Collected papers: Vol. 5. Fairfield, IA, MUM Press, 837 pages.
External links
- Truth About TM David Orme-Johnson's Professional Website
- Truth About TM David Orme-Johnson's Artist Bio