Just close your eyes and relax. Tonight Adver columnist Barrie Hudson takes a trip into the Tranquillity Zone. This week, spiritual well-being. Bringing it to the frantic stress factory which is Swindon is hard work, but someone’s got to do it. Fidelma Meehan says she and her friends are giving it their best shot. I was sent to find out why and how.

Fidelma is one of a growing number of people in the town who follow the Bahá'í Faith, which was founded in the Middle East during the 19th Century. They run a number of events designed to put people in touch with aspects of themselves they may have forgotten in the midst of fretting, working 16 hours a day and wondering if the Dilbert cartoon strip is written especially for them. The best known of these events are the regular Tranquillity Zones held at the Health Hydro in Milton Road, where the Swindon Bahá'ís are based. Invented in Swindon, the zones have been taken up by Bahá'ís across the world. The idea is that 40 minutes of soft lights, curtained walls, scented candles, uplifting music and readings of words of wisdom will take people’s minds off the daily grind and on to higher things.

Aha, I thought. I’ve heard this sort of thing before from other groups. They lure you to their lair, make you feel all relaxed, then adopt a manic stare and start explaining why their deity is bigger than yours. And then they rattle a collecting tin under your proboscis and tell you that you’d better sign up or you’ll be barbecued until Judgement Day. Then, the next thing you know, you’re hanging round outside Leicester Square Tube in November, wearing an ill-fitting anorak and selling tracts to raise money for your leader’s Aston Martin fund. Right? Wrong. Damn. I hate it when people fail to be stereotyped. The founder of the religion, a Persian nobleman who took the name Bahá'u'lláh, meaning The Glory of God, stressed the unity of all faiths and all peoples throughout the world, as well as respect for the prophets of the major religions.

Bahá'ís believe in offering others their beliefs and their services, but not ramming either down anyone’s throat. And, as Fidelma explained, Tranquillity Zones are open to people of all creeds and backgrounds. There is no pressure on anyone to join the Bahá'ís or even to think about joining them, although the door is always open to those who think they may be interested. Fidelma said: "People coming to a Tranquillity Zone get a warm welcome. "we explain to them that it is an oasis of calm and well-being, where they can get away from the drudgery for 140 minutes, where they can sit and reflect and hear words which they have perhaps not heard before. "These words might be on themes such as love, healing, peace, and coping with anxiety."

Local Bahá'ís are glad that Swindon, as Chancellor Gordon Brown said during his visit earlier this week, is so prosperous and that so many of its people are physically comfortable. But they believe that physical comfort is not overly useful without some spiritual comfort to balance it. In the three years since the Tranquillity Zone began, thousands of Swindonians have taken part.Most events take place at the Health Hydro, but roving Tranquillity Zones have been attempted at various locations in the past, with what Fidelma admits were mixed results.

She said: "We tried it at an old people’s home.

The music was playing, the candles were lit, the smell of roses was filling the nostrils…and a voice said ‘I want to go to the toilet! Take me to the toilet! And where’s my handbag! Whose idea was this?' I was giving a reading, but everybody was laughing, and I was laughing so much, the tears were streaming down my face. At one office we visited, somebody was drilling outside. Then a telephone rang, somebody answered it and whispered that they were at a Tranquillity Zone, somebody laughed, they all laughed and I laughed. Then there was the time we went to a hospital, and I talked about it during a radio interview before we arrived. The hospital fire officer heard me mention candles and nearly had a heart attack. He came and almost put the whole lot out with a fire extinguisher.

Undaunted – and not averse to a chuckle, thankfully – the Bahá'ís can be contacted on Swindon 465715 for details of Tranquillity Zones, other events, and just about everything else related to the Faith.