Taking Mystical Experiences Seriously

[sayak83]

So, I have a proposition to make.

As most of you know that much of Eastern religions (I am thinking of Hinduism, Buddhism etc.) are based on insights that have come from what are called "mystical" experiences of their practitioners. This is also true for the minority mystical traditions in Islam and Christianity which always had a tension with the revelation book based understanding of the scriptures. Now, these mystical experiences had been the outcome of a certain set of meditative practices like yoga, dhyana, mindfulness meditation etc. A typical response of many secular people is to dismiss these experiences as constructs of the mind under these practice regimes and hence devoid of veridicality. However, several decades of research and scientific study has now been made on the impact of these practices on the body and mind of the practitioners and they show, quite unequivocally, that even short period practices of these lead to extremely beneficial effects on the health and mind of the people practicing them...in fact precisely the kind of effects that have been claimed to occur for short term practice of these meditative and yogic practices in the original scriptural traditions on which these are based. The evidence is shown below (from mainstream journals only).

I believe that the minimum thing the current studies establish is that the people who developed and mastered these disciplines knew what they were doing and claiming and today there is a reasonable amount of compelling evidence to back of several of their claims. Given this, is it really reasonable to summarily dismiss the rest of the claims that they have made about what are the experiences, results and conclusions when these paths are practiced intensely and with dedication for a whole lifetime? To call these things are results of self-delusion?

Let's face the fact that our current scientific understanding of how conscious subjective first person experience works is near zero. Yet, here is a set of traditions that have worked on this specific thing for thousands of years with dedication, expertise and effort and have reached some understanding of this using a set of practices that are clearly beneficial to us even in short bursts. So why not take them seriously and look further?

Note: Apologies in advance if I do not respond to everything and immediately. Real life is really busy. I will try to get to them I promise.

Note: This is the second thread on this topic from me. The previous threads responds to some common objections. See here
Defending the Validity of Religious/Spiritual Experiences




A few selected papers

1)
Physiological Effects of Yogic Practices and Transcendental Meditation in Health and Disease
Abstract
Yoga is an ancient Indian way of life, which includes changes in mental attitude, diet, and the practice of specific techniques such as yoga asanas (postures), breathing practices (pranayamas), and meditation to attain the highest level of consciousness. Since a decade, there has been a surge in the research on yoga, but we do find very few reviews regarding yogic practices and transcendental meditation (TM) in health and disease. Keeping this in view, a Medline search was done to review relevant articles in English literature on evaluation of physiological effects of yogic practices and TM. Data were constructed; issues were reviewed and found that there were considerable health benefits, including improved cognition, respiration, reduced cardiovascular risk, body mass index, blood pressure, and diabetes. Yoga also influenced immunity and ameliorated joint disorders.

2)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/gps.3790

Abstract
Background
This study examined the effects of brief daily yogic meditation on mental health, cognitive functioning, and immune cell telomerase activity in family dementia caregivers with mild depressive symptoms.
Results
The meditation group showed significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms and greater improvement in mental health and cognitive functioning compared with the relaxation group. In the meditation group, 65.2% showed 50% improvement on the Hamilton Depression Rating scale and 52% of the participants showed 50% improvement on the Mental Health Composite Summary score of the Short Form-36 scale compared with 31.2% and 19%, respectively, in the relaxation group (p < 0.05). The meditation group showed 43% improvement in telomerase activity compared with 3.7% in the relaxation group (p = 0.05).

3) The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation | Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Conclusions from the paper

• It is proposed that the mechanism through which mindfulness meditation exerts its effects is a process of enhanced self-regulation, including attention control, emotion regulation and self-awareness.
  
  
• Research on mindfulness meditation faces a number of important challenges in study design that limit the interpretation of existing studies.
  
  
• A number of changes in brain structure have been related to mindfulness meditation.
  
  
• Mindfulness practice enhances attention. The anterior cingulate cortex is the region associated with attention in which changes in activity and/or structure in response to mindfulness meditation are most consistently reported.
  
  
• Mindfulness practice improves emotion regulation and reduces stress. Fronto-limbic networks involved in these processes show various patterns of engagement by mindfulness meditation.
  
  
• Meditation practice has the potential to affect self-referential processing and improve present-moment awareness. The default mode networks — including the midline prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex, which support self-awareness — could be altered following mindfulness training.
  
  
• Mindfulness meditation has potential for the treatment of clinical disorders and might facilitate the cultivation of a healthy mind and increased well-being.
  
  
• Future research into mindfulness meditation should use randomized and actively controlled longitudinal studies with large sample sizes to validate previous findings.
  
  
• The effects of mindfulness practice on neural structure and function need to be linked to behavioural performance, such as cognitive, affective and social functioning, in future research.
  
  
• The complex mental state of mindfulness is likely to be supported by the large-scale brain networks; future work should take this into account rather than being restricted to activations in single brain areas.

 

[Heyo]

So, I have a proposition to make.

As most of you know that much of Eastern religions (I am thinking of Hinduism, Buddhism etc.) are based on insights that have come from what are called "mystical" experiences of their practitioners. This is also true for the minority mystical traditions in Islam and Christianity which always had a tension with the revelation book based understanding of the scriptures. Now, these mystical experiences had been the outcome of a certain set of meditative practices like yoga, dhyana, mindfulness meditation etc. A typical response of many secular people is to dismiss these experiences as constructs of the mind under these practice regimes and hence devoid of veridicality. However, several decades of research and scientific study has now been made on the impact of these practices on the body and mind of the practitioners and they show, quite unequivocally, that even short period practices of these lead to extremely beneficial effects on the health and mind of the people practicing them...in fact precisely the kind of effects that have been claimed to occur for short term practice of these meditative and yogic practices in the original scriptural traditions on which these are based. The evidence is shown below (from mainstream journals only).

I believe that the minimum thing the current studies establish is that the people who developed and mastered these disciplines knew what they were doing and claiming and today there is a reasonable amount of compelling evidence to back of several of their claims. Given this, is it really reasonable to summarily dismiss the rest of the claims that they have made about what are the experiences, results and conclusions when these paths are practiced intensely and with dedication for a whole lifetime? To call these things are results of self-delusion?

Let's face the fact that our current scientific understanding of how conscious subjective first person experience works is near zero. Yet, here is a set of traditions that have worked on this specific thing for thousands of years with dedication, expertise and effort and have reached some understanding of this using a set of practices that are clearly beneficial to us even in short bursts. So why not take them seriously and look further?

Note: Apologies in advance if I do not respond to everything and immediately. Real life is really busy. I will try to get to them I promise.

Note: This is the second thread on this topic from me. The previous threads responds to some common objections. See here
Defending the Validity of Religious/Spiritual Experiences




A few selected papers

1)
Physiological Effects of Yogic Practices and Transcendental Meditation in Health and Disease
Abstract
Yoga is an ancient Indian way of life, which includes changes in mental attitude, diet, and the practice of specific techniques such as yoga asanas (postures), breathing practices (pranayamas), and meditation to attain the highest level of consciousness. Since a decade, there has been a surge in the research on yoga, but we do find very few reviews regarding yogic practices and transcendental meditation (TM) in health and disease. Keeping this in view, a Medline search was done to review relevant articles in English literature on evaluation of physiological effects of yogic practices and TM. Data were constructed; issues were reviewed and found that there were considerable health benefits, including improved cognition, respiration, reduced cardiovascular risk, body mass index, blood pressure, and diabetes. Yoga also influenced immunity and ameliorated joint disorders.

2)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/gps.3790

Abstract
Background
This study examined the effects of brief daily yogic meditation on mental health, cognitive functioning, and immune cell telomerase activity in family dementia caregivers with mild depressive symptoms.
Results
The meditation group showed significantly lower levels of depressive symptoms and greater improvement in mental health and cognitive functioning compared with the relaxation group. In the meditation group, 65.2% showed 50% improvement on the Hamilton Depression Rating scale and 52% of the participants showed 50% improvement on the Mental Health Composite Summary score of the Short Form-36 scale compared with 31.2% and 19%, respectively, in the relaxation group (p < 0.05). The meditation group showed 43% improvement in telomerase activity compared with 3.7% in the relaxation group (p = 0.05).

3) The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation | Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Conclusions from the paper

• It is proposed that the mechanism through which mindfulness meditation exerts its effects is a process of enhanced self-regulation, including attention control, emotion regulation and self-awareness.
  
  
• Research on mindfulness meditation faces a number of important challenges in study design that limit the interpretation of existing studies.
  
  
• A number of changes in brain structure have been related to mindfulness meditation.
  
  
• Mindfulness practice enhances attention. The anterior cingulate cortex is the region associated with attention in which changes in activity and/or structure in response to mindfulness meditation are most consistently reported.
  
  
• Mindfulness practice improves emotion regulation and reduces stress. Fronto-limbic networks involved in these processes show various patterns of engagement by mindfulness meditation.
  
  
• Meditation practice has the potential to affect self-referential processing and improve present-moment awareness. The default mode networks — including the midline prefrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex, which support self-awareness — could be altered following mindfulness training.
  
  
• Mindfulness meditation has potential for the treatment of clinical disorders and might facilitate the cultivation of a healthy mind and increased well-being.
  
  
• Future research into mindfulness meditation should use randomized and actively controlled longitudinal studies with large sample sizes to validate previous findings.
  
  
• The effects of mindfulness practice on neural structure and function need to be linked to behavioural performance, such as cognitive, affective and social functioning, in future research.
  
  
• The complex mental state of mindfulness is likely to be supported by the large-scale brain networks; future work should take this into account rather than being restricted to activations in single brain areas.

I can't answer as I'm not sure what you mean by "mythical experiences" or how they are related to meditative practises.
I do know about the measurable benefits of meditation and I do know that meditation can lead to altered states of mind, similar to some drugs. Is that what you mean? If so, I take them as serious as experiences under drugs.

 

[danieldemol]

there is a reasonable amount of compelling evidence to back of several of their claims. Given this, is it really reasonable to summarily dismiss the rest of the claims that they have made about what are the experiences, results and conclusions when these paths are practiced intensely and with dedication for a whole lifetime? To call these things are results of self-delusion?

So because some of their claims are correct you want us to blindly assume all their claims are correct?

How is that different to the bible preachers saying look some of our claims are correct eg there is a Jerusalem and there was (most probably) a crucified Jesus therefore all our claims are correct eg God died and physically rose from the dead on the third day?!

I believe all claims should be subject to scrutiny and only those claims which independently withstand scrutiny should be accepted.

Why do you accept this faulty line of reasoning from those who dedicated their lives to your faith when you wouldn't accept it from an even greater number of people who dedicated their lives to other faiths?

In my opinion.

 

[sayak83]

I can't answer as I'm not sure what you mean by "mythical experiences" or how they are related to meditative practises.
I do know about the measurable benefits of meditation and I do know that meditation can lead to altered states of mind, similar to some drugs. Is that what you mean? If so, I take them as serious as experiences under drugs.

This is a good link to check if you want to know what mystical experiences mean.
Mysticism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
A purportedly nonsensory or extrovertive unitive experience by a subject of an object granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense-perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection. A unitive experience involves the eradication of a sense of multiple discrete entities, and the cognitive significance of the experience is deemed to lie precisely in that phenomenological feature. Examples are experiences of “union with God,” the realization that one is identical to the being shared with God or that one is identical to the Brahman of Advaita Vedanta (i.e., that the self/soul is identical with the one eternal, absolute reality), experiencing a oneness to all of nature, and the Buddhist unconstructed extrovertive experience devoid of a sense of any multiplicity of realities (see Smart 1958, 1978; Wainwright 1981, chap. 1).

Your disregard for psychedelic induced mystical experiences seems typical of the Western taboo about psychedelics that I suspect comes from the colonial roots (since the Amerindians and African indigenous religions and their cultures used them significantly in their own religious experiences.) Fortunately, there is no such taboo in many streams of Eastern religions on using such psychoactive substances in a strictly controlled manner to aid in the process of attaining the mystical experience states (the left handed paths and tantric paths of Hinduism and Buddhism come to mind). Firstly, there is a difference between having hallucinations and having mystical insights and encounters (which are never characterized as hallucinations in any scientific literature on the matter). Secondly, suppose you feel sleepy and drowsy. Then you take coffee, and you feel alert and more able to work. Does this mean that your coffee indiced state of better alertness and wakefulness is a hallucination? If using certain substances and/or tools for aiding human's ability perceive hidden features of reality is to be discarded merely because these tools or substances have been used, then we should throw out telescopes, microscopes, X rays, medicines that improve attention etc. etc.

Anyways do not take my word for it. Here is a scientific article in Nature that shows how a psychedelic drug enhances the effect of meditation and how meditation help reduce possible negative side effects of using psychedelic drugs, thereby creating a positive synergistic self-reinforcement between the two....once again merely confirming what many of these mystical traditions have asserted for centuries.
Characterization and prediction of acute and sustained response to psychedelic psilocybin in a mindfulness group retreat | Scientific Reports
Meditation and psychedelics have played key roles in humankind’s search for self-transcendence and personal change. However, neither their possible synergistic effects, nor related state and trait predictors have been experimentally studied. To elucidate these issues, we administered double-blind the model psychedelic drug psilocybin (315 μg/kg PO) or placebo to meditators (n = 39) during a 5-day mindfulness group retreat. Psilocybin increased meditation depth and incidence of positively experienced self-dissolution along the perception-hallucination continuum, without concomitant anxiety. Openness, optimism, and emotional reappraisal were predictors of the acute response. Compared with placebo, psilocybin enhanced post-intervention mindfulness and produced larger positive changes in psychosocial functioning at a 4-month follow-up, which were corroborated by external ratings, and associated with magnitude of acute self-dissolution experience. Meditation seems to enhance psilocybin’s positive effects while counteracting possible dysphoric responses. These findings highlight the interactions between non-pharmacological and pharmacological factors, and the role of emotion/attention regulation in shaping the experiential quality of psychedelic states, as well as the experience of selflessness as a modulator of behavior and attitudes. A better comprehension of mechanisms underlying most beneficial psychedelic experiences may guide therapeutic interventions across numerous mental conditions in the form of psychedelic-assisted applications.

 

[sayak83]

So because some of their claims are correct you want us to blindly assume all their claims are correct?

How is that different to the bible preachers saying look some of our claims are correct eg there is a Jerusalem and there was (most probably) a crucified Jesus therefore all our claims are correct eg God died and physically rose from the dead on the third day?!

I believe all claims should be subject to scrutiny and only those claims which independently withstand scrutiny should be accepted.

Why do you accept this faulty line of reasoning from those who dedicated their lives to your faith when you wouldn't accept it from an even greater number of people who dedicated their lives to other faiths?

In my opinion.

No, I want people to properly consider these claims and not reject them without investigation. No claim should be accepted on mere faith, but one should be inclined to spend the time and effort to investigate the claim if the claimant has some credibility and the claim is plausible. I am stating that credibility and plausibility of the claims pertaining to mystical traditions and aforesaid practices can be established. So you have to spend the time to investigate before rejecting.

And I have not. I have spent a considerable amount of time in understanding the pov of many faith and secular traditions. In my own humble opinion, the basic problem in many theistic traditions (including several in my own tradition) is this: -
How can you demonstrate that a spectacular miracle confirming God or your chosen messenger actuyally happened 2000 years ago when such events cannot even be confirmed today?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Put simply, people make spiritual practices such as prayer and meditation a central part of their lives, and have done for millennia, because doing so improves the quality of their lives, brings them inner peace and freedom, a sense of connection with the whole of creation. Some of us would no more do without prayer and meditation than we would do without sunlight or water.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I can't answer as I'm not sure what you mean by "mythical experiences" or how they are related to meditative practises.
I do know about the measurable benefits of meditation and I do know that meditation can lead to altered states of mind, similar to some drugs. Is that what you mean? If so, I take them as serious as experiences under drugs.

We live in a drug saturated culture. When people aren’t self medicating with alcohol and street drugs, they are often taking prescription meds for anxiety, anti-depressants, sleeping pills etc. When others have found a way to deal with their problems and acquire serenity and inner harmony without drugs, does it really make sense to dismiss their experiences so casually?

 

[danieldemol]

No, I want people to properly consider these claims and not reject them without investigation.

Ok, but do you assume that the scientists who have put all this investigative effort into researching meditation etc have not given consideration to their other claims?

In my opinion.

 

[sayak83]

Ok, but do you assume that the scientists who have put all this investigative effort into researching meditation etc have not given consideration to their other claims?

In my opinion.

No. Consciousness studies and studies of altered experiences are very new in science. Science has progressed in stages from
1) Denying that it is an actual thing (like behaviorism) in the pre-1950 world influenced by logical positivism
2) Looking only at the mind and not consciousness (1970 onwards)
3) Looking at neural correlates of consciousness (1990 onwards) from external brain imaging pov and not looking at first person experiences
4) Starting to look at regular first person experiences and integrating it with neural imaging (2000 onwards)
5) Starting to look at altered states and mystical first person experiences (very recently) more from health and wellness perspective

So no. We are not there yet.

 

[danieldemol]

No. Consciousness studies and studies of altered experiences are very new in science. Science has progressed in stages from
1) Denying that it is an actual thing (like behaviorism) in the pre-1950 world influenced by logical positivism
2) Looking only at the mind and not consciousness (1970 onwards)
3) Looking at neural correlates of consciousness (1990 onwards) from external brain imaging pov and not looking at first person experiences
4) Starting to look at regular first person experiences and integrating it with neural imaging (2000 onwards)
5) Starting to look at altered states and mystical first person experiences (very recently) more from health and wellness perspective

So no. We are not there yet.

I believe that rather than running a gish gallop of claims and adding a sob story of, "they devoted their lives to it" considering that people have devoted their lives to all sorts of nonsense if your aim is to garner serious consideration for their claims, what I would do is privately list their claims then publicly over a period of time devote a thread to each of these claims for serious consideration individually allowing each claim to stand or fall on its own merits.

But if you prefer a different approach then each to their own I guess.

In my opinion

 

[Heyo]

This is a good link to check if you want to know what mystical experiences mean.
Mysticism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
A purportedly nonsensory or extrovertive unitive experience by a subject of an object granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense-perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection. A unitive experience involves the eradication of a sense of multiple discrete entities, and the cognitive significance of the experience is deemed to lie precisely in that phenomenological feature. Examples are experiences of “union with God,” the realization that one is identical to the being shared with God or that one is identical to the Brahman of Advaita Vedanta (i.e., that the self/soul is identical with the one eternal, absolute reality), experiencing a oneness to all of nature, and the Buddhist unconstructed extrovertive experience devoid of a sense of any multiplicity of realities (see Smart 1958, 1978; Wainwright 1981, chap. 1).

Your disregard for psychedelic induced mystical experiences seems typical of the Western taboo about psychedelics that I suspect comes from the colonial roots (since the Amerindians and African indigenous religions and their cultures used them significantly in their own religious experiences.) Fortunately, there is no such taboo in many streams of Eastern religions on using such psychoactive substances in a strictly controlled manner to aid in the process of attaining the mystical experience states (the left handed paths and tantric paths of Hinduism and Buddhism come to mind). Firstly, there is a difference between having hallucinations and having mystical insights and encounters (which are never characterized as hallucinations in any scientific literature on the matter). Secondly, suppose you feel sleepy and drowsy. Then you take coffee, and you feel alert and more able to work. Does this mean that your coffee indiced state of better alertness and wakefulness is a hallucination? If using certain substances and/or tools for aiding human's ability perceive hidden features of reality is to be discarded merely because these tools or substances have been used, then we should throw out telescopes, microscopes, X rays, medicines that improve attention etc. etc.

Anyways do not take my word for it. Here is a scientific article in Nature that shows how a psychedelic drug enhances the effect of meditation and how meditation help reduce possible negative side effects of using psychedelic drugs, thereby creating a positive synergistic self-reinforcement between the two....once again merely confirming what many of these mystical traditions have asserted for centuries.
Characterization and prediction of acute and sustained response to psychedelic psilocybin in a mindfulness group retreat | Scientific Reports
Meditation and psychedelics have played key roles in humankind’s search for self-transcendence and personal change. However, neither their possible synergistic effects, nor related state and trait predictors have been experimentally studied. To elucidate these issues, we administered double-blind the model psychedelic drug psilocybin (315 μg/kg PO) or placebo to meditators (n = 39) during a 5-day mindfulness group retreat. Psilocybin increased meditation depth and incidence of positively experienced self-dissolution along the perception-hallucination continuum, without concomitant anxiety. Openness, optimism, and emotional reappraisal were predictors of the acute response. Compared with placebo, psilocybin enhanced post-intervention mindfulness and produced larger positive changes in psychosocial functioning at a 4-month follow-up, which were corroborated by external ratings, and associated with magnitude of acute self-dissolution experience. Meditation seems to enhance psilocybin’s positive effects while counteracting possible dysphoric responses. These findings highlight the interactions between non-pharmacological and pharmacological factors, and the role of emotion/attention regulation in shaping the experiential quality of psychedelic states, as well as the experience of selflessness as a modulator of behavior and attitudes. A better comprehension of mechanisms underlying most beneficial psychedelic experiences may guide therapeutic interventions across numerous mental conditions in the form of psychedelic-assisted applications.

"A purportedly nonsensory or extrovertive unitive experience by a subject of an object granting acquaintance of realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense-perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection." iow, ESP.
That's the part I have difficulties taking serious and request additional studies, even though I take the natural effects as at least plausible.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

[sayak83]

I believe that rather than running a gish gallop of claims and adding a sob story of, "they devoted their lives to it" considering that people have devoted their lives to all sorts of nonsense if your aim is to garner serious consideration for their claims, what I would do is privately list their claims then publicly over a period of time devote a thread to each of these claims for serious consideration individually allowing each claim to stand or fall on its own merits.

But if you prefer a different approach then each to their own I guess.

In my opinion

Umm where have I made any claims? Where are you seeing a gish gallop of claims?

 

[sayak83]

I can't answer as I'm not sure what you mean by "mythical experiences" or how they are related to meditative practises.
I do know about the measurable benefits of meditation and I do know that meditation can lead to altered states of mind, similar to some drugs. Is that what you mean? If so, I take them as serious as experiences under drugs.

Also...
Watch this (again whatever I post will be completely mainstream work or discussion).

 

[danieldemol]

Umm where have I made any claims? Where are you seeing a gish gallop of claims?

I'm not saying you have, rather you seem to be pre-emptively chiding against dismissing out of hand "their claims" without even specifying what "their claims" are that you want to have serious consideration given to.

That's why in turn im pre-emptively saying if you want us to give serious consideration to their claims then
a) specify what their claims are that you want given serious consideration to.

And

b) once you have worked out which specific claims you want serious consideration don't rush us with the whole list at once.

Neither of these are saying you have already done so, they are just pre-emptively cautioning you against doing it that way.

In my opinion.

 

[Heyo]

Also...
Watch this (again whatever I post will be completely mainstream work or discussion).

Uh, one and a half hours? But they have chapters. Which one deals with ESP, that you want me to watch?
I already accept the natural things about psychedelics. I don't know what your experiences are but chances are that I have forgotten more things about mind altering drugs than you'll ever know.

 

[sayak83]

I'm not saying you have, rather you seem to be pre-emptively chiding against dismissing out of hand "their claims" without even specifying what "their claims" are that you want to have serious consideration given to.

That's why in turn im pre-emptively saying if you want us to give serious consideration to their claims then
a) specify what their claims are that you want given serious consideration to.

And

b) once you have worked out which specific claims you want serious consideration don't rush us with the whole list at once.

Neither of these are saying you have already done so, they are just pre-emptively cautioning you against doing it that way.

In my opinion.

I am not going that way. Anyways this thread topic will not deal with the claims per se. I need time to present these claims one by one in a coherent manner, and its a project for a future thread.
Furthermore, I am not here to claim that I know certain set of things from some infallible god given religious tradition and I am simply here to propound and convince others about their truths. I have experienced some things, I have read and understood some things, I am unclear and confused about some things and I do not understand and/or extremely skeptical of some other things. And writing in this forum helps me also to clarify to myself where in this spectrum my ideas, beliefs, hunches and doubts fall and to exchange ideas of ways to move forward.

 

[sayak83]

Uh, one and a half hours? But they have chapters. Which one deals with ESP, that you want me to watch?
I already accept the natural things about psychedelics. I don't know what your experiences are but chances are that I have forgotten more things about mind altering drugs than you'll ever know.

Weekend watch. I am generally interested on where the science of consciousness is going, and this video was quite interesting and informative. So shared.

 

[Ella S.]

There has been a recent flood of papers claiming the supposed benefits of meditation and yogic practices over the past decade, but they're almost all subject to some issues of methodology or their results aren't really indicative of anything. I found a meta-study done on meditation studies awhile back which included a variety of forms of meditation such as bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, zazen, etc. and it only found evidence that mindfulness-based meditation helps.

Mindfulness is something that's already integrated into therapies like CBT, DBT, and ACT, though, so that's not really news. It's also not the meditation itself that helps, but how it's applied in a therapeutic context.

I'd regard any studies showing that some ancient "alternative healing" method is effective with extreme skepticism, especially when it comes to religious topics. There are a lot of New Age sites exaggerating the science on these subjects.

But I await more robust studies with larger quantities of higher quality data.

 

[sayak83]

There has been a recent flood of papers claiming the supposed benefits of meditation and yogic practices over the past decade, but they're almost all subject to some issues of methodology or their results aren't really indicative of anything. I found a meta-study done on meditation studies awhile back which included a variety of forms of meditation such as bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, zazen, etc. and it only found evidence that mindfulness-based meditation helps.

Mindfulness is something that's already integrated into therapies like CBT, DBT, and ACT, though, so that's not really news. It's also not the meditation itself that helps, but how it's applied in a therapeutic context.

I'd regard any studies showing that some ancient "alternative healing" method is effective with extreme skepticism, especially when it comes to religious topics. There are a lot of New Age sites exaggerating the science on these subjects.

But I await more robust studies with larger quantities of higher quality data.

This is a very general criticism. Can you point to papers that show the methodological defects?

 

[Heyo]

Weekend watch. I am generally interested on where the science of consciousness is going, and this video was quite interesting and informative. So shared.

It's 3 years old, I might have seen it.