A Hollywood director with a reputation for making violent, bizarre films is headlining what’s billed as a world peace conference in southeast Iowa this weekend.

Known for movies like “Mulholland Drive,” “Blue Velvet” and the TV series “Twin Peaks,” David Lynch is also on the board of directors at Maharishi University in Fairfield. He says perpetual world peace will result by assembling eight-thousand people to continuously practice transcendental meditation.

Lynch says “It brings peace, real peace, and peace is not just the absence of war. This real peace, being enlivened, drives negativity away like light drives darkness away.”

Lynch says he’s practiced TM for more than 30 years. He says “The greatest machines on earth are human beings, built to dive within and enliven that field of unity and project it out. On the individual level, this leads to higher states of consciousness and enlightenment which is the birthright of every human being. On the world level, it leads to peace, real peace, on earth.”

The plan for perpetual peace is not Lynch’s. He credits Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who’s likely best known as the Hindu guru to the Beatles four decades ago. Lynch says the large group of TM-practicing people will not be easy to assemble.

“Eight-thousand people together is a small city and it needs setting up and it needs to be set up so it runs perpetually. This is the goal.”

The 58-year-old Montana native first won acclaim with the movie “Eraserhead” in 1980. Since then, his projects have ranged from “Dune” to “The Elephant Man” and “The Straight Story,” which is based on the real-life journey of an elderly northern Iowa man who drove a lawn mower hundreds of miles to visit a sick brother.

Some may wonder how Lynch he got involved with the small school in Fairfield, Iowa, being a big-time Hollywood director. “When I heard about the real possibility for this technology making peace on earth, I just couldn’t sit still. I wanted to get involved and try to help make this happen.”

Other speakers at Sunday’s “Creating Peace” conference at the Fairfield campus include a former Assistant Secretary General of the U-N, a former presidential candidate from the Natural Law party, and a host of other scientists, politicians, artists and musicans.