In this framework, then, the ability to levitate by mere intention comes from an intimate awareness of some-law or laws by which one is able to counter, negate or otherwise control the effects of gravity on oneself. The process is not so different from crawling or walking.

Even though in this case the laws may not all have been recognized yet by modern science, they are available in the T.M. practice just as other physical laws are available, by direct experience. Likewise, all the other unusual abilities enlivened though the T.M. program are based on the apprehension of definite laws of nature, not the contradiction of them.

The words "supernatural" and "mystical" have no place in this understanding. In fact, some prominent physicists are seriously attempting to understand the laws involved and consult Maharishi frequently. One of these is Brian Josephson of Cambridge University, who received the Nobel Prize in 1973 for his work on the theory of quantum mechanical "tunneling."

Josephson has practiced the T.M. technique since 1971 and has been increasingly impressed, both with his own new experiences and with the wealth of knowledge that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi exemplifies in his teachings. Conferences on "Consciousness and Natural Law," several of which have been held on the main campus of Maharishi International University in Iowa and at Maharishi European Research University in Switzerland, have attracted Josephson, I. Prigogine, E.C.G. Sudarshan, K.P. Sinha, C. Piron and other leading physicists.

The understanding of human potential that I have elaborated above has made the direct subjective means of gaining knowledge of the physical world more acceptable to scientists than it was. The careful study of the parallels between the results of materialistic science and the results of direct subjective experience may yet accomplish the long-sought synthesis of intellectual knowledge and direct experience.

An example might be useful. In quantum electrodynamics there exists a theory of how electrons become manifest from an absolute field called the "quantum vacuum state." This state is unmanifest, that is, can only be inferred from indirect evidence. Yet the theory is perhaps the most successful in all of science, as measured by the numerical accuracy of its predictions.

In subjective experience, the T.M. technique provides a natural means of arriving at "transcendental" or "pure" consciousness. This field also is called absolute, is unmanifest like the vacuum state, yet can be directly experienced. The following list of expressions have all been used by physicists in describing the quantum vacuum state and by T.M. practitioners in describing their experience of pure consciousness: perfectly orderly; perfectly stable; nonchanging; the source of all change; unbounded; the basis of natural laws; the state of least excitation; the field of all possibilities.

It is this absolute field of pure consciousness that is discussed by Maharishi as not only the source of thought, but the source of the entire relative (that is, manifest) world. I suspect it is more than coincidence that this understanding gained from subjective experience bears such a great resemblance to the understanding of a very basic aspect of nature gained through the methods of physical science.

According to the records of the T.M. movement, levitation and other unusual abilities are now being experienced daily by more than 4000 people in the T.M. program. These abilities appear to grow naturally out of an increased harmony with the basic laws of nature. In the past only a handful of people around the world were known to exhibit abilities of this sort.

We are living in a unique time in that this knowledge is now available to virtually anyone who wants it. A completely new understanding of human potential is rapidly becoming established. I would also like to point out that there is a very reasonable intellectual understanding of how the realization of the full potential of the individuals of society would automatically transform the whole of society into an unprecedented era of peace and progress, a true "age of enlightenment."

Many today think they see the beginnings of such a transformation.

Kenneth G. Walton is an instructor in psychobiology at Harvard Medical School.