Part two of a two-part special.BOSTON-If having a phone chat with David Lynch was an experience, seeing him in person was a real trip Saturday, Oct. 1. Blinking into the spotlight at Emerson's packed Cutler Majestic Theater, he paused his explanation of how Transcendental Meditation (TM) makes his movie sets more fun to take a sip of bottled water. "Pretty good," he mused, adding, "It's not quite as good as pure consciousness."

Many attendees were concerned more with Lynch-as-director rather than spreader-of-peace, and as a result, Lynch was peppered with non-meditation questions, all of which he patiently answered: whether he'll direct another Dune-style extravaganza ("If I fall in love with [another epic], I would do it, but the idea is not too pleasant to me right now"), if it's true that he's permanently switched from celluloid to digital video ("[DV] is lightweight, mobile, [has] automatic focus ... [film] is a dinosaur") and how he crafted the infamous mutant baby of Eraserhead ("I never talk about the baby"). It was when asked about meditation, however, that he truly came alive. His hands traced languid circles in the air and his fingers fluttered as he reiterated all that he told me in our interview, and then some-how TM gives you "the clarity to create ... to fight [the] unbelievable pressure" of filmmaking, how TM can be used in schools to increase organization among children with learning disorders and ADD.

Quantum physicist Dr. John Hagelin, featured in the film What the Bleep Do We Know?, followed up Lynch's question-and-answer session to warn that humans typically reach their mental peak at 16 or 17, after which intelligence begins a steady decline. It is a bleak view of human potential, even with life experience to make up for the brain cell loss. However, TM, he insisted, can provide a solution to the problem.

Dr. Fred Travis, neuroscientist and director of the Center for Brain, Consciousness and Cognition at Maharishi University of Management, stepped in to provide a real-time demonstration. As a college student assistant entered a deeper state of meditation, two lines on the EEG projected on a screen above, representing the active brain activity and resting brain waves, started to slowly merge together, as if his mind were slowly turning into a single force. To the lay folk in the house, the sight was a puzzling one, but everyone seemed to have the general sense that this was not a typical effect.

With optimism reigning over the night, it was easy for a skeptic to start looking for flaws. Lynch was unconcerned by any grumblings-he encouraged asking questions with "so many con artists" out there, but urged cynics not to "be skeptical of something you look into if it's good." Still, he did insist that new practitioners take it slow. "You don't become enlightened after four years; you become an expert in [TM]," he said. "I've been meditating for 32 years and I'm still not enlightened."

For more information on the Transcendental Meditation program and David Lynch, go to www.davidlynchfoundation.org.