In some ways the fact that specific effects appear to be associated with the mental silence experience poses a challenge to the philosophical underpinnings of Western culture by not only describing a state of non-thought, but also demonstrating that this state is accessible and of practical importance to the general…
Of great interest is that the yoga tradition does not just describe philosophical, moral, metaphysical associations between mind, behaviour and health but actually describes the mechanism by which they are interconnected. This is the system of chakras (energy plexuses) and nadis (energy channels). Described since ancient times, the physical body…
The popularity of meditation in the West has grown in parallel with the mainstreaming of alternative health and the New Age movement and is now fuelled by a potent combination of traditional anecdote, selective misreadings of the scientific database and marketing hyperbole. Popularity with consumers may well be encouraged by…
In light of the number of studies reporting adverse effects from meditation broad based surveys need to be conducted, and given that studies such as Kaldor’s (2002) suggest that up to 10% of the population may have tried meditation at some time, a direct-to-public cross sectional survey may be sufficiently…
In a letter to the American Heart Journal, Kothari et al. (1973) described a remarkable feat in which an ECG was attached to a yogi before he entered an eight day meditative trance. Remarkably, on the second day of the yogi’s trance, the ECG recorded minimal heart activity indicating that…
In 2000 Pirrotta et al. published the results of a widely publicised survey of family physicians in Australia. Remarkably it reported that almost 80% of respondents had recommended meditation to patients at some time in the course of their practice, yet less than 35% had any formal training or education…
Probably the most thorough and up to date review of meditation research was published in 2007 by a team led by Ospina, specifically contracted by the US Department of Health and Human Services to assess the evidence base. They included both randomised and non-randomised trials. In their assessment of more…
Dr Ramesh Manocha carried out a randomised controlled trial to assess the impact Sahaja Yoga meditation (SYM) has on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. The results of this trial program indicate that SYM has potential as an adjunctive therapy for children with ADHD when offered via a family treatment…
Two cases are described in a report by Xu (1994). The first involved a 22 year-old man who sought treatment for lumbago and experienced the onset of adverse effects while undertaking self-teaching of the Wu Qin Xi form of Qigong. He experienced anxiety, physical pain, psychosis and suicidal thoughts. Some…
I propose that one of the main reasons for the paucity of convincing evidence with regard to meditation is because Western scientists have failed to apprehend the key idea that underlies the meditation tradition: meditation is traditionally defined in Eastern cultures as the experience of mental silence. Modern Western understandings…
