Breaking the Island free from its violence and social ills is the mission of Sylvia Hayward-Harris, who sets off in ten days to become a certified teacher of transcendental meditation, or TM.

Ms Hayward-Harris is determined to spread the practice, including introducing TM to prisons and the public school curriculum.

“I love Bermuda, and this is the only thing I know of that I’ve ever heard of and that’s proven by science, that can make a difference to the dynamic of any population,” said Ms Hayward-Harris.

The ordained pastor and addiction counsellor, who learned of TM in 1975, said she was responding to the Island’s violence and social tensions.

“I keep hearing people talk about social unrest, and we have not by any means found all the guns — I hear all kinds of rumours about what people want to do,” she told The Royal Gazette.

TM proponents believe the practice not only calms meditators, but has a positive impact on the culture around them.

The group TM Bermuda supported a group meditation project in March, 2000, which Ms Hayward-Harris said caused a measurable drop in crime.

“Meditators came here and along with Bermudian meditators they held two-week regular meditation sessions,” she said. “It had an impact on our crime statistics that was documented by police. It cooled the whole Island.”

Additionally, practitioners of TM maintain that it improves mental and physical health.

Once she is certified by the Maharishi School in Fairfield in Iowa, Ms Hayward-Harris will become the Island’s only resident teacher of TM, after the death of Emily Liddell.

“I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that when Dr Liddell died in 2008, we began to get an uptick in violence, gang warfare and people shooting each other. It was as if, all of a sudden, a lid was taken off,” she said.

“One thing TM does is have an impact on what’s known as trait anxiety, as opposed to state anxiety. State anxiety is when you feel upset because of something that’s happened to you, but in trait anxiety it becomes part of your personality. You get people who are angry and on edge.”

She said she believed TM could break convicts free from “revolving door behaviour and a criminal mentality, and change them into persons who can become productive citizens”.

“People in prison are looking to enhance their spirituality. This technique isn’t a religion or a philosophy or a cult. It helps deepen your spiritual experience. If you’re Christian or Muslim or whatever you are, it can augment your spirituality.”

Ms Hayward-Harris said elements of TM could also help schoolchildren to focus on their studies, and could reduce bullying in schools.

Her five-month training, with travel and insurance, will not come cheap: she will have to cover about $20,000, and has only raised about half. Ms Hayward-Harris said she’d borrow the remainder, but asked for anyone who could assist to contact her at tvc.bda@gmail.com — the address for the Vision Church, for which she is pastor.

She will return in April with her qualification.

“I will approach first the Premier, then the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Education, and work from there,” she said.

Ms Hayward-Harris added that TM Bermuda has been in touch with the David Lynch Foundation, a global charity dedicated to TM and other stress-relieving practices.

The organisation was founded by the US filmmaker in 2005, to introduce TM techniques to schools. It later branched out to combat veterans, prisoners and the homeless.

“We have approached them, and they’ve indicated that they are interested in partnering with us,” Ms Hayward-Harris said.

“Iowa is going to be freezing in the winter, and I hate the cold. But I firmly believe this can make a difference for our community.”