Friday July 18 5:06 PM EDT

Yogic flyers hop for peace

BONN (Reuter) - Yogic flyers from Natural Law Parties around the world bounced for peace on Friday in Bonn pledging to combat global crime, disease, war and unemployment with meditation and levitation.

"First one practises Transcendental Meditation and calms down," Bevan Morris, head of Australia's Natural Law Party, told the hundreds of delegates at the group's fourth annual congress in Bonn as a group of devotees began a demonstration.

"Then one lifts up in a series of hops that are very delightful for the yogic flyer," he said. "But that is just the beginning. Eventually one can learn to levitate."

A group of 23 yogic flyers, clad in white trousers and T-shirts decorated with the party's rainbow symbol, sat cross-legged on a foam mat with their eyes closed.

After a few minutes of meditation, the flyers began to shake, giggle and hop across the mat on their knees, bouncing about half a metre off the ground and often colliding with each other as they projected themselves forward.

"Yogic flying is enormously beneficial for the individual producing maximum coherence in brain functioning," said John Hagelin, the party's U.S. presidential candidate in 1995, before settling down for his daily hop.

Hegelin, a physicist by profession, said sociological studies had shown dramatic social improvements if the square root of one percent of the population practised transcendental mediatation and yogic flying every morning and evening.

"This group will radiate peace and harmony to everyone in Bonn," said Morris. "A group of seven to ten thousand flyers would produce a positive effect on the whole world."

The Natural Law Party was founded in Britain five years ago by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and says it now has branches and millions of adherents in 60 countries worldwide.

Reinhard Borowitz, Secretary General of the Maharishi Council of Natural Law Parties, said the group wanted to set up specially trained teams of yogic flyers around the world to do away with the need for national armies and weapons.

 

 

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