5

"The Best Kept Secret in America"

August 30, 1996, 8:15 p.m. - The people John Hagelin is speaking to tonight in Houston are the types of people he believes are his voter base: Everyone. Conservatives, liberals, old, young, employed, unemployed. He says that the ideas he is proposing are ideas that transcend demographics and party affiliation and appeal to all. "Common-sense ideas," he says, ideas that you don't need to be a quantum physicist to understand.

Hagelin is talking tonight about prevention, shifting the focus of government from crisis management to preventing problems before they arise. "An intelligent and cost-saving solution to runaway spending," he says. He talks about conflict-free politics, and says, "Yes, politics is about debate, but the level of negativity and partisanship in government often puts Republican and Democratic party interests above national interests. Voters don't like it, and the whole country suffers." He talks about moving our public policies away from supporting many of the highly toxic approaches of modern medicine, fossil-fuel energy sources, and high chemical-input agriculture to programs that are in accord with natural law-supporting, for example, prevention-oriented natural medicine; renewable energy sources such as wind and solar; and organic agriculture. And he talks about harnessing America's most precious resource-the creativity and intelligence of its 260 million citizens-"to promote a healthier, more forward-looking, more self-governing nation."

Ten years ago, Hagelin the scientist would probably have been talking to an audience of physicists and graduate students. But now Hagelin the presidential candidate is speaking to an audience of educators, doctors, scientists, environmentalists, students, housewives, retired people, and community leaders.

I'm in the third row and I look around the room. There's no one apathetic in this group. They are all involved-in-the-community types. To my right is Brynne Sissom, a thirty-something former aide to a Republican Texas state legislator in Texas. Sissom will head off to Albania as a Peace Corps worker immediately after the election. In the meantime, she has mobilized an army of signature gatherers to put the Natural Law Party on the Texas ballot-no small feat since Texas has some of the most difficult laws for third parties. Sissom has described herself as a "political seeker." The room is filled with political seekers, America is filled with them. It doesn't matter their education, their religion, or what end of the political spectrum they call home, these are people who are looking for depth, for something real in politics, not something slick, pre-packaged and spin-doctored, like what is being offered up for popular consumption by the two main parties.

Hagelin is a big, strong presence at the podium. He's about six feet tall, weighs 190 pounds, with thinning, sandy-colored hair (almost bald on the top); clear, blue eyes; and a wide open, oval face. The camera loves him, as more than one producer has told me.

Hagelin is happy with the way things are shaping up for his party, including the massive "sea-change" in the nation's attitude towards things natural, and the enthusiastic letters and e-mail the Natural Law Party receives after a candidate gets on TV or the radio. (And don't think that that doesn't make a huge difference to third-party volunteers, because it does. You work hard for something, and when your message goes out and you hear back from a lot of very good people-from both ends of the political spectrum-it's fuel for the soul.)

Hagelin feels the support.

"Here's a statistic which bodes well for the Natural Law Party's success," he is saying. "There are now 70 million voters who are what one Stanford researcher calls, 'cultural creatives.' These are people who are concerned about the environment, responsible investing, women's rights, natural foods, animal rights-the kind of concerns that are in harmony with natural law. That's why we find that wherever we speak, the programs that we promote and the ideas that we espouse are naturally resonating with people.

"The Natural Law Party researches and supports programs and policies that work. We're building a platform that is so comprehensive, so scientifically sound, so defensible, and so obviously right that most Americans can't help but support it. And we're doing this with programs that are more effective, more humane, more cost-effective, and far more fair and just than programs currently in use," he says.

While it's true that third parties didn't get anywhere near the media attention they deserved, I did enjoy watching hard-bitten political reporters interview John Hagelin or Mike Tompkins.

I remember back to December 1995 when veteran CNN political reporter, Marc Watts, spent a day with Hagelin and Tompkins at the party's headquarters in Fairfield, Iowa. Watts had been on the campaign trail for months covering Bill Clinton and the Republican front runners. He had waded through the crowds, listened to endless stump speeches, and heard straight from the people what they were saying about their government. After one day of listening to Hagelin and Tompkins, he was shocked.

"You are the best kept secret in the country!" Watts told me. "What you're saying is what the American people want to hear. If you keep saying what you are saying and doing what you are doing, you are going to succeed; it's just a matter of time, but you are going to succeed."

I remember another interview late in the campaign that Hagelin had with Ronnie Bennett, a CBS online reporter in her office in Manhattan. Bennett told me later that in her 30 years in the business she had never talked with any presidential candidate who gave such deep and thoughtful answers. She said that most reporters are used to 15-second soundbites.

The fact is, there are no 15-second soundbites to describe the Natural Law Party. Believe me, I kept trying to come up with one, because reporters usually give press secretaries about that long to pitch a story-that is, if they're not on deadline. Then it's considerably less.

Right or wrong, when you think Democrats, you think more government. Republicans, less government. Libertarians, no government. Reform Party, balanced budget and campaign finance reform. Greens, green. But the Natural Law Party doesn't fit a pigeon hole. You could say, natural medicine, you could say developing consciousness, you could say renewable energy, you could say campaign reform-and you'd be partially right, but that doesn't get the big picture.

The best answer, which requires another answer, is "life in accord with natural law."

What Is Natural Law?

What is natural law, and what does it have to do with a political party? This is what I tell reporters: The law of gravity is a good example of a law of nature. If you hold up a baseball and let it go, the ball drops. If you do it a thousand times (anywhere on earth) it will drop a thousand times. The earth keeps spinning on its axis and orbiting the sun, and the sun keeps moving through our galaxy, and our galaxy keeps moving through its cluster of galaxies in the same way, day after day, year after year, eon after eon-all according to laws of nature. Everywhere you look-with a microscope, telescope, or the naked eye-you see natural law at work. The hormone, cortisol, is secreted into your blood stream to wake you up every morning as the sun rises in the east due to laws of nature. Billions of synapses in your brain fire in concert so you can brush your teeth or solve a math problem, and they do so due to laws of nature. These things don't happen by chance. Natural law nourishes the seed in the soil, transforms sunlight in chlorophyll, produces energy out of wind. Natural law creates, maintains, and evolves millions of different species on earth.

This is what Hagelin, the physicist, tells the audience in Houston: "Over the last several centuries, modern science has identified myriad laws of nature governing behavior at all levels of the physical universe: on subatomic, atomic, molecular, biological, geological, astrophysical, and cosmological scales. Nothing happens that is not the direct result of natural law: from the motion of an electron to the evolution of life to the functioning of entire societies."

Hagelin adds that we rely on natural law for everything

"Everything we accomplish is achieved by applying natural laws," he says. "We have the electric light courtesy of technologies that apply natural law, a man walked on the moon and a rover scoured the surface of Mars because of technologies that harness natural law, and we treat our sick with medicines that utilize laws of nature."

The problem is that technologies can be used for good or for bad. For example: wind and solar energy technologies vs. nuclear technologies. A bigger problem is that industry is churning out technologies so fast that government regulators can't keep up-even if they were so equipped or so inclined. With so much money invested in the research and development of new technologies, these technologies often get shoved into the marketplace before they are adequately tested for safety. To protect their investments, these industries also pour megabucks into the treasure chests of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

"That means our leaders, whom we entrust with the responsibility to look out for our common good, instead all too often capitulate to the short-term, bottom-line corporate interests," Hagelin says.

In response, Hagelin proposes an almost shockingly simple formula for assessing new technologies for public policy: Independent scientific research should demonstrate that these technologies actually work, and they are safe-that they are in harmony with natural law. He says this formula is not a step backwards into some more primitive epoch, but rather is based on a great leap forward in our scientific understanding of how nature, including the human body and the environment, function.

John Hagelin is an intelligent man, an articulate and compelling speaker, and he has organized a litany of the hazardous side effects of modern life into a very powerful presentation. As I sit here listening to Hagelin speak, I realize that much of what he is saying millions of Americans already know. What is significant, however, is that for the first time a national political platform is being created that will give these toxic problems-and their solutions-a powerful voice. And the influence of that voice will surely grow stronger as more people are educated about these issues and wake up to their primary importance.

John Hagelin pauses for a moment. There are one or two questions-someone wants a clarification of the Natural Law Party's stand on nuclear energy (against) and tax reform (yes to sweeping changes). John looks at his watch, takes a drink of water, and says that if no one minds he would like to take the discussion of natural law and government one step deeper, and talk more about recent discoveries in physics and the insights they can provide in improving the administration of society.

No one minds.

Hagelin paints a picture of a universe structured in layers of existence, from tiny to huge, from microscopic to macroscopic, from the subatomic world of elementary particles to the large-scale structure of stars, galaxies, and the universe. He says these levels not only have vastly different time and distance scales, but each level also has its own laws.

I look around for glazed eyes but see none. This is definitely not a "bash your opponent" stump speech. Hagelin is trying to educate people.

Hagelin describes the building blocks of the universe, the four fundamental forces at the basis of all matter, all energy, you, me-of everything in nature. These forces are electromagnetism, the strong interaction, the weak interaction, and gravity. He says at deeper levels of nature, such as the atomic or subatomic levels, there are "unparalleled levels of energy and dynamism." At the deepest level of nature, the energy is so enormous that the energy density in a single cubic centimeter of empty space exceeds, by several orders of magnitude, the entire mass energy of the visible universe.

Hagelin finishes painting his picture of nature, describing the recent discovery of completely unified field theories-"a single, universal field of nature's intelligence at the basis of all forms and phenomena in the universe-the fountainhead of all natural laws." ¹

But what does this have to do with public policy, with government? I can imagine people asking themselves. Hagelin senses it, too. He makes the connection between the purely abstract and the very concrete.

He says that this most modern scientific understanding of how nature functions reveals three things relevant to government.

First, it provides a cutting-edge, awe-inspiring picture of the all-powerful, all-pervasive nature of nature, and gives added impetus to why it is that we, in our personal lives and in public policy, must work with nature, and not against it, to fulfill our aspirations.

Second, it provides the best example anywhere of a good government. "Look through a microscope and look through a telescope and see how perfectly nature administers the universe. Look at a typical forest ecosystem. There are millions of diverse plant, animal, insect, and microbial species coexisting in a perfectly organized, intricate web of mutual interdependence. In this nourishing forest habitat, species emerge, thrive, reproduce, and evolve in magnificent concert with one another.

"Now, consider that each time we utilize a natural law-draw in a breath, digest a meal, turn on a light, compute a math problem-we are putting nature to work for us. We are taking harnessing the intelligence of natural law that functions everywhere around us and within us. We are, in effect, employing ourselves with the same 'government of nature' that administers the vast and complex universe, with billions of galaxies and millions of species on earth.

"To mirror the efficiency and effectiveness of the 'government of nature' (Hagelin likes this term because it captures the whole of nature, not just an isolated plant here, a mountain there, or a star above) our government must promote policies and technologies that are in accord with natural law, that take maximum advantage of the organizing power of nature to promote our health, grow our food, fuel our cities, and enlighten our minds-without hazardous side effects.

"But there's still a sizeable problem," he says. "Government can't make people eat right or behave in a way that is naturally law-abiding. And educating people with reams of information about what is 'good' or 'bad' often isn't enough. Witness the countless posters hanging up in innumerable high school cafeterias in an effort to wake up students to the very real, very deadly dangers of cigarette smoking and alcohol and drug abuse. Studies indicate that the impact of such campaigns have been marginal, at best."

And this brings Hagelin to the third point. We have to do something to wake people up.

"You can tell people what is right but they won't behave differently unless they want to, unless there has been a change in their attitude. We need to educate people in such a way that they want to live-and do live-spontaneously in accord with natural law, so they don't make themselves sick and suffer- so they have the good health, natural creativity, and intelligence they need to fulfill their own desires. Education must do more than inform, it must enlighten as well."

Hagelin says we don't have to look far to discover how to promote this change in attitude, this change in consciousness. He says that the laws of nature that govern our environment and that run the universe are the same laws that function within each of us-that pervade our physiology and govern our cognitive functioning.

"The human physiology and psychology are a rich laboratory of natural law. There are modern educational programs that provide direct experience of, and develop intimate familiarity with, the laws of nature through the inner exploration of consciousness (see Chapter 14, Science, Consciousness, and Public Policy).

"Research shows that, as a result of using these educational programs, people act spontaneously in ways that are more in harmony with natural law-they automatically shy away from actions that damage the body, that undermine personal relationships, or damage the environment. These powerful programs get to the root cause of all problems of the nation-the widespread violation of natural law and the tragic underutilization of our precious human resource. The Natural Law Party supports any scientifically proven program that promotes life in accord with natural law and the development of consciousness-full human potential."

I like to watch people's reactions at these events. I try to figure out who is still the skeptic and who is the eager receiver when the talk is done. This time, when John Hagelin finishes, nobody moves. Everyone has been through a lot tonight-mentally a bit depleted from exercising long dormant brain cells to follow the physics, emotionally drained from expressing outrage at government impotence to halt dangerous technologies, and deeply recharged from the clear, scientific understanding that each one of us enjoys a connection to the deepest realms of nature.

I cannot speak for anyone else, obviously, but something remarkable happened that night that hadn't happened to me before on the campaign trail, and I still remember it clearly today. It was a familiar feeling, though-I had experienced it in the silence of meditation, in moments of inspired writing, and in special times spent with my family. For some reason John Hagelin's talk that night-it could have been the content, delivery, audience, coincidence, or all of the above-provided me with a moment of transcendence, a window of calm and tranquility. And sitting there afterwards, reflecting on the considerable problems confronting our nation, I realized again, somehow more profoundly than before, that we don't have to go it alone. We don't have to fabricate from scratch an elusive miracle drug in the hope that it will cure everything that ails us, or manipulate the genetic code of an eons-old plant form to keep the insects away so we can feed the hungry masses. We have an ally on our path to a healthy, harmonious, richly diverse, prospering society-(not an enemy)-and that ally is nature, which is bigger than us, which is more powerful than us; which is us.

That is the fundamental contribution of the Natural Law Party to politics in America. It doesn't fit nicely on the liberal-conservative axis; instead it is, I believe, what people are looking for in the stewardship of our country.