It does not happen too often that a former graduate student of Professor of Physics Howard Georgi '67-'68 takes him to the Cambridge Center for Transcendental Meditation, or sends him a campaign watch for his 50th birthday.

But then again, John S. Hagelin, the Reform Natural Law Coalition presidential candidate perhaps best known for his interest in yoga flying and for helping to rupture the Reform Party, is not known for being typical.

Hagelin's platform includes subsidizing preventative medical measures--including transcendental meditation--many of which he practices daily.

His professed adherence to Ross Perot's Reform Party ideals, coupled with his idiosyncratic proposals, has prompted voters to ask whether Hagelin is carrying the mantle of the Reform Party or whether he is just an eccentric.

"He's not a kook," says Georgi. "He's an incredibly smart guy who has well-thought-out opinions on many things."

In the end, however, perceptions of his character are largely irrelevant. The Reform Party, as even Hagelin admits, is not likely to last to the next election. Hagelin hopes to win five million votes, or five percent of the expected turnout, to gain federal financing in the 2004 presidential election.

"The difference with my candidacy is that I've reunited the party...and have reached outside the party," says Hagelin, 46. "I'm a coalition builder, and that's what somebody has to do. Someone must build an independent political movement that speaks for the 50 million registered voters who have no voice...and the 89 percent of students who did not vote in 1998."

And that man is an Iowa native with a Harvard masters degree in 1976 and a doctorate in 1981 in particle physics.