Laughing in the U.S.A.

Steve Wilson:
From a psychologist
to a "joyologist"

Imagine what it is like to hear thousands of people breaking into chuckles, giggles, hoots, and cackles, together and purposefully. On May 6, 2001, something like this is expected to happen in the Washington Square Park area in New York City. The day will be called "World Laughter Day!" The air will resound with the laughter of thousands of New Yorkers, just like it did in Mumbai, India, in 1998. Or that's what Dr. Steve Wilson hopes.

Wilson, a psychologist and a self-proclaimed "joyologist," is behind the act. He is also the "Cheerman of the Bored" of the World Laughter Tour Inc., an organization, started in June 1999 in Orrville, Ohio, that follows yogic laughter principles developed by Dr. Madan Kataria in Mumbai, India.

He came up with the idea after reading the 1979 bestseller "Anatomy of an Illness, by the late Norman Cousins, who found that even short periods of laughter helped ease the pain of arthritis-related diseases.

"The objective of laughter clubs is more than just the physical act of laughing and getting the adrenalin flowing," says Wilson in a recent conversation. "We are trying to develop a spirit of laughter for an attitudinal healing--to bring about a psychological and philosophical change in people."

Wilson traveled to Mumbai in 1998, where he met with the jovial and energetic Dr. Kataria- the brain behind the "Laughing clubs" concept. Kataria started the club in March, 1995, with five people gathered on a beach by the Arabian Sea in Mumbai.

In 1998, 10,000 people came together on the same beach in India to celebrate "The World Laughter Day" with Kataria. No mean achievement for a country that has little to laugh about. Today there are as many as 500 laughter clubs in India.

"I was astounded by Dr. Kataria's approach and success. I recognized the need for laughter in our daily lives and yet nobody had a systematic routine for laughter the way he did," says Wilson who was in Mumbai at the World laughter Day.

Members in India meet early in the morning on beaches, in parks, schools and offices. Young, old, married, single, rich and the poor all come and participate in gut-busting laughter. The phenomenon has spread to Europe and Australia, and now, the United States has 85 established laughter clubs with trained laughter leaders.

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