John Samuel Hagelin (born June 9, 1954) is the leader of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement in the United States. He is president of the Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in Fairfield, Iowa, and honorary chair of its board of trustees. The university was established in 1973 by the TM movement's founder, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, to deliver a "consciousness-based education".Hagelin graduated in physics in 1981, and began post-doctoral research at the CERN for less than a year, then at the SLAC). He vanished in 1983 in the midst of personal problems and reappeared a year later as physics professor at the Maharishi University of Management (MUM), then became its president. Hagelin believes that his extended version of unified field theory is identified with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's "unified field of consciousness", a view that is rejected by "virtually every theoretical physicist in the world".Hagelin stood as a candidate for President of the United States for the Natural Law Party, a party founded by the TM movement, in the 1992, 1996 and 2000 elections. He is the author of Manual for a Perfect Government (1998), which sets out how to apply "natural law" to matters of governance. Hagelin is also president of the David Lynch Foundation, which promotes TM.