Fridi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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talkpolitics2025-06-20 09:55 pm
fridi) wrote in talkpolitics2025-06-20 09:55 pm
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Friday offtopic. Meditation is not as harmless as you might think
Mind-blowing read: Meditation And Mindfulness Have a Dark Side We Often Overlook
In a nutshell:
1. Mindfulness and meditation, though widely praised, can cause serious adverse effects such as depression, anxiety, psychosis, dissociation, and depersonalisation, sometimes in people with no prior mental health issues
2. A 2022 US study found over 10% of regular meditators experienced negative impacts lasting at least a month
3. Historical sources, including a 1,500 year old Buddhist text and a 1976 warning by Arnold Lazarus, have similarly documented meditation's dark side
4. The booming US mindfulness market (≈US$2.2 bn) often omits warnings about potential harms, fueled by a "capitalist spiritual" mindset
5. Ethically, mindfulness promotion should include disclosure of risks, better training for instructors, and informed guidance for practitioners
In a nutshell:
1. Mindfulness and meditation, though widely praised, can cause serious adverse effects such as depression, anxiety, psychosis, dissociation, and depersonalisation, sometimes in people with no prior mental health issues
2. A 2022 US study found over 10% of regular meditators experienced negative impacts lasting at least a month
3. Historical sources, including a 1,500 year old Buddhist text and a 1976 warning by Arnold Lazarus, have similarly documented meditation's dark side
4. The booming US mindfulness market (≈US$2.2 bn) often omits warnings about potential harms, fueled by a "capitalist spiritual" mindset
5. Ethically, mindfulness promotion should include disclosure of risks, better training for instructors, and informed guidance for practitioners
no subject
Yeah, meditation being sunshine and inner peace has always seemed like a strange equation to me. I took up a meditation practice when I was a young teenager, in part to try and control my temper, but when I took that inner mental journey, I mostly envisioned things that weren't sunshiney at all. One of my most calming visions was of being a mummified corpse, already a thousand years old, enclosed in the dark in a sarcophagus, in the unreachable depths of a huge, silent pyramid. Somehow it felt way more peaceful than a sunny clearing or a beach. Very "goth", as my generation would say.
"Whaddaya mean church ain't got a user manual? It's called THA BIBLE, y'all!"*
* This statement may contain dangerous levels of irony; read with caution.