Part Five: Epstein, Iowa, and the Maharishi
Was Jeffrey Epstein part of Russia's broader war on the West? In this multi-part series we examine his obsession with nuclear scientists, eugenics, transhumanism, and influence. What we found will likely surprise you.
Of the many artifacts in the “Epstein Birthday Book” released by the House Oversight Committee this summer, one in particular stood out in our investigation: a letter from investor Bill Elkus to Jeffrey Epstein. Like others in the collection, it was written in 2003 on the occasion of Epstein's 50th birthday. Elkus recounted a trip Epstein made to rural Fairfield, Iowa in 1988 and related a meant-to-be-humorous tale in which Epstein seduced a beautiful traveling sales woman and took her back to New York.
While his story is neither funny nor inspiring, other details provided by Elkus raise red flags. First, why was Epstein in Fairfield, Iowa, of all places — “a town of less than 10,000 people between Ottumwa and Burlington,” in Elkus’ own words?
Elkus explains that he was “managing the money of the Zimmerman family, and they lived in Fairfield, Iowa.” He added that he “had invited Jeffrey to come to Fairfield to see our investment operations, meet the Zimmerman family, and learn more about their major charitable projects.” Elkus' letter was included in the “friends” section of the book, along with Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz, Les Wexner, and others.
Maharishi International University
There is only one reason Epstein and Elkus might choose to visit tiny Fairfield, Iowa: it is the home of Maharishi International University.
The school, founded in California in 1971 by the late Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, was intended to blend Transcendental Meditation (a movement popularized by Mahesh through his involvement with popular culture figures such as the Beatles and the Beach Boys) with a traditional university curriculum. The goal? To achieve “coherence,” through group meditation, which would then lead to world peace. Adherents call this “the Maharishi effect.”
Mahesh relocated the school from California to Fairfield in 1974 when it had the opportunity to purchase the 370-acre campus of the bankrupt Parsons College, a school which had earned a reputation as a magnet for college drop-outs. The university attracted a range of benefactors, among them William Zimmerman, founder of the Pic'N'Save chain of popular discount stores headquartered in Southern California.
William's son Stuart Zimmerman became especially involved with the school. A MIU tribute page cites his leadership in helping to organize the “historic Taste of Utopia Assembly, the three-week gathering at the end of 1983 and beginning of 1984 that brought some 8,000 people together from more than 40 countries around the world, to practice [transcendental meditation],” an event which they claim “created a world-wide wave of positivity and harmony and improved quality of life.”
A report published by the university in 2017 recognizes Stuart Zimmerman as a former trustee, thanking him and the Zimmerman family for their donation of “Utopia Park, which houses many faculty, staff, and students.” The report also asserts that Stuart Zimmerman “funded numerous projects on campus, including the Recreation Center and campus roads.” Indeed, Zimmerman Boulevard is a main campus artery.
All available public records suggest that William Elkus lived in the Los Angeles area working as an investor until 2000, when he relocated to Park City, Utah. There is no evidence that Elkus ever lived in Fairfield, which suggests that Epstein and Elkus both traveled there to meet with the Zimmermans. And in terms of their “major charitable projects,” there is nothing else to ‘see’ in Fairfield besides MIU.
John Hagelin, a Harvard physicist, joined MIU in 1984 as a professor of physics, and later became a trustee. In 2016, he became university president. Hagelin became a perennial candidate for U.S. President, mounting runs in 1992, 1996, and 2000. In the 2000 cycle, William Elkus contributed $11,250 to Hagelin and his Natural Law Party, suggesting that Elkus' involvement with MIU extended beyond his professional relationship with the Zimmermans. In an effort affiliated with Hagelin's presidential bid and funded by his presidential campaign committee, Stuart Zimmerman ran for U.S. Senate in Iowa under the Natural Law Party in 1992.
For decades, Hagelin has been working to influence political leaders in Washington and Moscow to adopt Transcendental Meditation (TM) and derivative philosophies. In 1987, Hagelin invited William Webster, then director of Central Intelligence, to attend a demonstration of “Yogic Flying,” an advanced TM technique introduced by the Maharishi in the mid 1970's. On advice of his staff, Webster declined to participate; a memo read, “I recommend you do not accept this invitation... the organization was sued by one of its followers for fraud and libel for allegedly representing that a follower could ‘learn to fly’ through ‘self levitation.’”
Another Hagelin-Maharishi initiative, the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy convened various leaders from the US and former USSR to seek “invincible defense” in a series of conferences held in the Netherlands between 1994 and 1995. The sessions featured many high-level military and government participants from Russia and other former Soviet republics. It is reasonable to assume that their participation would not have been possible without approval of the Kremlin.
After the death of Maharishi in 2008, Tony Nader, another high-level TM insider, and Maharishi-appointed leader of the “Global Country of World Peace,” a virtual entity meant to describe a future world state, became head of the organization, working alongside others such as Hagelin.
Hagelin also subsequently served has as president of the David Lynch Foundation (DLF), an organization founded in 2005 by the late film director to promote TM and the teachings of Mahesh Yogi. Lynch became a primary public face of the TM movement after Maharishi's death in 2008, and the David Lynch Foundation sought to re-popularize it by moving away from the more controversial and expensive yogic flying (also called TM Sidhi) techniques in favor of Maharishi's original “twice a day for twenty minutes” method of practice.
Maharishi as Active Measure
Yuri Bezmenov, the well-known Soviet defector, claimed that the KGB maintained an interest in Maharishi Mahesh Yogi because of his success in attracting a range of cultural influencers into meditative practice.
In his famous 1984 interview with G. Edward Griffin, Bezmenov described the KGB's interest in the Maharishi's work in India, saying, “Obviously, KGB was very fascinated with such a beautiful school, such a brainwashing center for stupid Americans. I was dispatched by the KGB to check what kind of VIP Americans attend this school.”
He described the school's purpose and effects, “To meditate, in other words, to isolate oneself from the current social and political issues of your own country, to get into your own bubble, to forget about the troubles of the world.”
Bezmenov went on to outline in stark terms why Maharishi's project was useful for the KGB in its war on the West:
Because, you see, a person who is too much involved in introspective meditation, if you carefully look at what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is teaching to Americans, it is that most of the problems, most of the burning issues of today can be solved simply by meditating. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t get involved. Just sit down, look at your navel and meditate. And things, due to some strange logic, due to cosmic vibration, will settle down by themselves. This is exactly what the KGB and Marxist–Leninist propaganda wants from Americans: to distract their opinion, attention, and mental energy from real issues of United States into non-issues, into a non-world, non-existent harmony.
Obviously, it’s more beneficial for the Soviet aggressors to have a bunch of duped Americans than Americans who are self-conscious, healthy, physically fit, and alert to reality. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi obviously is not on the payroll of the KGB, but whether he knows it or not he contributes greatly to demoralization of American society. And he’s not the only one. There are hundreds of those gurus who come to your country to capitalize on the naïveté and stupidity of Americans. It’s a fashion. It’s a fashion to meditate, it’s a fashion not to be involved. So obviously, you can see that if KGB were that curious, they paid my trip to Haridwar, if they assigned me to that strange job, obviously they were very much fascinated. They were convinced that that type of brainwashing is very efficient and instrumental in demoralization of the United States.
The fact that the Epstein-Elkus-Zimmerman meeting took place in 1988 may also be significant. Vladimir Kryuchkov was appointed as head of the KGB on October 1, 1988, by Mikhail Gorbachev, about a year after Kryuchkov and Epstein pal Vitaly Churkov coordinated Donald Trump's visit to Moscow. This was also around the same time Kryuchkov was seeking to exfiltrate $50 billion in KGB funds into Western banks using Robert Maxwell's network, which by that time may have included Epstein, according to some reports. (Adding to this possibility is the fact that Nick Leese, the son of arms dealer Doug Leese included a letter in the birthday book. He was previously named as Epstein's original tie to Maxwell and Kryuchkov.)
While Bezmenov may have been correct that the Maharishi was not on the KGB's payroll when he was infiltrating the school's operations in India, it would not be surprising if MIU had become a direct (or indirect) KGB beneficiary by 1988.
The Next Generation: Henry Elkus
In 2016, Henry Elkus, son of William Elkus, launched what some media referred to at the time as a “nonsense company” named Helena. An early pitch deck for the organization posed the question, “What if some of the most influential people in the world across generations and fields came together to change it?”
Elkus, who was then 20 years old and a Yale dropout, described Helena as a literal influence campaign — “an organization of 30 global influencers who work together to achieve positive global impact. The group collaborates to create breakthrough ideas, then leverages its collective reach, strategic partnerships, and network to make them happen.” Helena's member list touts actresses Selena Gomez and Chloë Grace Moretz, cryptocurrency wunderkind (and Thiel fellow) Vitalik Buterin, General Stanley McChrystal, director Bryan Grazer, and New Age ur-influencer Deepak Chopra.
Chopra has been publicly associated with the TM movement for decades, and was awarded the title “Dhanvantari of Heaven and Earth” by the Maharishi in 1989. (Dhanvantari is a Hindu deva, considered to be ‘physician to the gods.’)
Helena has risen to public view gradually, but became much better known in 2024 when Elkus and Suprotik Basu (part of Helena's leadership team, and currently chairman of the board at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) backed pharmaceutical concern Lykos (formerly MAPS) in its effort to win US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for MDMA psychedelic therapies. Pitched as particularly beneficial for veterans and others suffering from PTSD, the Lykos bid was rejected by the FDA in June 2024 — largely due to opposing testimony submitted by Psymposia, a consortium of activists who claimed that Lykos had employed coercive and unethical research practices.
Raised in MIU: Daniel Schmachtenberger
Another Helena influencer, Daniel Schmachtenberger, was literally raised inside the MIU milieu. A 1986 MIU yearbook shows Schmachtenberger as a kindergarten student that year.
Randy Schmachtenberger, father to Daniel and his brother James, died in 2023, but had moved to Fairfield by at least 1985 when he was working on developing a local magic-themed amusement park called “Merlin's Wonderland” in partnership with magician Doug Henning, a Maharishi disciple. In 1992, Henning ran for office in the UK under the Natural Law party banner. That same year, he made plans with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to open a $1.5 billion illusion-heavy magic park called Maharishi Veda Land at Niagara Falls, Ontario, but the project fell apart after Henning died in 2000.
In 2023, Daniel wrote on a memorial page for his father, “I am endeavoring to continue a work he initiated me into.” As a MIU lifer — growing up entirely within the confines of MIU ideology and a graduate of the university — Schmachtenberger has risen to prominence over the last decade styling himself as an internet philosopher and guru, leading several initiatives with an interlocking cast of collaborators.
Barbara Marx Hubbard, a New Age futurist and champion of the term ‘conscious evolution’ (meant to describe humanity's unique capacity to improve itself), called Schmachtenberger her “evolutionary son” and said that she “feels proud seeing his ability to respond to the complexity of the current global situation with such grace, charm, and even pleasure.”
Hubbard was a longtime collaborator with Genrikh Borovik, brother-in-law to KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov (who, remember, brought Trump to Moscow with Epstein's colleague Vitaly Churkin). As head of the Soviet Peace Committee, Borovik oversaw US-Soviet citizen diplomacy efforts led by Hubbard, coordinating her several trips to Russia in the late 1980's, and speaking at events she hosted in the United States.
Daniel Schmachtenberger's many projects all reflect MIU's mission to bring about a new kind of civilization through meditation and increased consciousness:
- Neurohacker Collective, now Qualia Life (2014-present) — With his brother James and entrepreneur Jordan Hall, developed a successful line of health supplements focused on cognitive enhancement and improved overall health. Qualia now generates tens of millions in annual revenues and its products are distributed worldwide.
- The Consilience Project, also known as the Civilization Research Initiative (2017-present) — Collaborators include Zak Stein, Tristan Harris, Jordan Hall, Liv Boeree (professional poker player and partner of Musk's former money manager, Igor Kurganov), Jim Rutt (former chairman of Santa Fe Institute), Jamie Wheal; described as a transdisciplinary think tank focused on “improving public sensemaking and dialog.”
- The Emergence Project (2019-2021) — a collaboration with leaders of “Game B,” a project originiated by Jordan Hall, SFI's Jim Rutt, and evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein (brother of Erik Weinstein), to create a new, emergent, win-win civilization. (More on Game B in our next installment.)
- Center for Humane Technology (2019-2022) — a collaboration primarily with Tristan Harris who gained prominence as the face behind the film The Social Dilemma. Worked with Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. Promotes “humane technology” as a countering force to extractive, addictive tech — a message which resonates widely, but lacks clear definition. Harris calls Daniel both a “friend and mentor.”
- Metacrisis.org — Schmachtenberger uses the term “Metacrisis” as an umbrella brand for his work, which is meant to evoke the complex web of interconnected global problems that Schmachtenberger believes is preventing us from realizing a more prosperous future. He runs the site Metacrisis.org.
Ray Dalio and The Finance Cult
Investor Ray Dalio became famous as the head of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund. Dalio first encountered Maharishi and adopted transcendental meditation in 1969, telling CNBC recently, “Whatever success I’ve had in life has been more due to my meditating than anything else.” Dalio has also been a major donor to Maharishi University and supporter of the David Lynch Foundation. Estimates of Dalio's contributions to the David Lynch Foundation are in the tens of millions, with contributions of at least $4 million annually spanning many years.
Dalio's interest in meditation and tendency to dispense aphorisms (which he describes as inviolable ‘principles’) has led many observers to describe Bridgewater as a kind of finance cult. Dalio sees success as the product of meticulous execution against the clear-cut rules that he has gradually assembled throughout his life.
According to Rob Copeland, author of an unauthorized 2023 biography, Dalio became obsessed with American collapse in the 1980's. “He saw U.S. politics as on a slow descent into unproductive squabbling, a journey that could end in nothing less than another civil war. At times, he called himself “an economic doctor,” with the prescription to fix all that,” Copeland wrote.
Dalio became fascinated by strongmen and autocrats who seemed to offer another path forward. He was friendly with Lee Kuan Yew, widely considered to be the father of modern Singapore and its prime minister for thirty one years. While Lee has been credited with Singapore's success, critics note that he achieved it through autocratic one-party rule. Dalio asked Lee at one point which world leader offered the best model of governance. Lee replied, “Vladimir Putin.”
Dalio subsequently became focused on meeting the Russian leader. In 2015, Herman Gref, head of the state-run bank Sberbank, visited Dalio at Bridgewater and offered to broker a meeting with Putin. Dalio traveled to Sochi with hopes of meeting Putin at his palace there, but the rendezvous didn't pan out.
Dalio also lavished attention on another autocracy: China. He had experience and contacts there — he had first visited in 1984 and insisted that his third son, Matt, be sent to live in Beijing at age 11. Dalio visited regularly and developed connections with the government, including with Wang Qishan, who later became China's vice premier.
Over the course of decades, Dalio absorbed ideas from the Chinese system and sought to incorporate them at Bridgewater. By 2015, Dalio had implemented his own system meant to impose his worldview (based on his Principles) within the company, and created strange roles for this purpose. ‘Principles Captains,’ ‘Auditors,‘ and ‘Overseers’ guarded against wrongthink. A Politburo (modeled on the Bolshevik and Chinese term for a small decision-making body) served as Dalio's eyes and ears, monitoring goings-on within the firm.
Among Dalio's enforcers was one James B. Comey, who notoriously later became director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. From 2010 to 2013, Comey served as both general counsel and head of security at Bridgewater, where he handled the company's legal issues and mediated disputes that originated inside the firm. Ultimately, he was tasked with ensuring Dalio's Principles were followed both inside and outside the company.
Copeland, the Dalio biographer, describes a paranoid, surveillance-driven office culture thick with cameras and microphones. Entrapment was fair game as well. Comey devised a scheme to leave out a binder, unattended, as bait. A low-level staffer found it; Comey swiftly fired the employee with Dalio's blessing.
Like Epstein before him, Dalio (along with Elon Musk and others) has become a vocal advocate of de-dollarization and BRICS banking schemes, and has promoted narratives warning of the rise of China and a ‘multipolar world.’ He has also continued with his predictions from the 1980's about ‘civil war’ in the United States.
Dalio's messages are typically packaged in the form of ‘warnings,’ with intonations that ‘Most People Have No Idea What's About to Happen,’ — features that have become hallmarks of Kremlin multipolar world propaganda.
Whether Dalio is wittingly serving as an influence agent for Russia or China, he is echoing the same narratives and themes as Epstein and others in the same milieu. With his penchant for authoritarian rulers and established contacts with both Russia and China officials, it seems likely that Dalio intends to profit from the transition to ‘multipolarity’ while also advancing the cause through the various TM influence networks.
What We Know (and Don't Know) about Epstein in Iowa
We know for certain that Epstein met with Bill Elkus in Fairfield, Iowa in 1988, and that Elkus was a longtime supporter of TM, the Natural Law Party, John Hagelin, and Stuart Zimmerman. We know that Elkus managed money for the Zimmerman family, and that Epstein visited Iowa to learn about their ‘charitable operations,’ which centered on Maharishi International University.
We know that Elkus and Epstein maintained a strong friendship from 1988 through at least 2003, when Elkus wrote his birthday message. We know that Henry Elkus maintained ties with the MIU network through people like Daniel Schmachtenberger, and that the younger Elkus started the Helena influence campaign with an agenda of advancing psychedelic medicine, a transhumanist goal. We know that Schmachtenberger has indirect ties to KGB-adjacent influencers such as the late Barbara Marx Hubbard.
We know that Bezmenov asserted that Maharishi and TM were identified as targets for KGB infiltration. We know that Ray Dalio has been deeply involved in TM for over 50 years, has deep ties within both Russia and China, and has been parroting the same de-dollarization and pro-BRICS messaging as Epstein.
We even know that David Lynch made his own comment on multipolarity in the nuclear age. In the 2017 reboot of his popular series Twin Peaks, he suggested that the Trinity atomic bomb test in July 1945 marked a rebirth of evil into the world which ultimately spawned other malevolent forces, including the killer-spirit ‘Bob’ portrayed in the original series. Lynch relays Maharishi here, suggesting the need to develop a new civilization, free of existential risks and the evil of nuclear weapons.
What we don't know is the full extent and nature of the long-term relationship between Epstein and Elkus. Did Epstein ever route funds to Elkus, Zimmerman, or MIU? If he did, what was the origin of those funds? Was Epstein a cut-out for moving Kryuchkov's KGB funds — the $50 billion he reportedly drained out of the Soviet Union in its final years?
These are all important questions that may potentially be answered by Sen. Ron Wyden's (D-OR) ongoing investigation of over 4,725 wire transfers totaling over $1.1 billion. And this is potentially just the tip of the iceberg. To understand the full scope of Epstein's activities, we must follow the money, yes — but we must also continue to map out his relationships, motivations, and associated worldviews.
And given everything we know about Epstein's networks so far, his activities are consistent with KGB influence and active measures campaigns. ◼
• Part One: Just what was Jeffrey Epstein doing in Santa Fe?
• Part Two: Jeffrey Epstein, John Brockman, and the Third Culture
• Part Three: What was Epstein's “Edge” agenda?
• Part Four: Making Sense of Epstein's Russia Ties
Our story continues in the next installment.
Additional Suggested Reading
DAVID E. ANDERSON, UPI Religion Writer
David Rutz
Kevin Roose
Guest Columnist
Psymposia
Vicky Ward
Center for Prairie Studies
Claire Hoffman
Zahra TayebRob Copeland
Alexa Mikhail
