One of the major authors that influence this point of view is Watchman Nee:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchman_Nee
Watchman Nee took the concept of Trinity and applied it to the indivual as being a 3-part person of Body + Soul + Spirit and attached all sorts of superstitions to the Christian faith, doing so with lots of scripture references. Its uncertain whether he originated this information or learned it from someone else; but the Wikipedia article says he got many ideas from the Plymouth Brethren.
For what it's worth, the tripartite anthropology (body, soul, spirit) doesn't originate with Watchman Nee, it has a fairly long history, in various forms, in Christianity. Cf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_(theology)
Prompted by the thread "What is Contemplative Christianity?", where it has been asserted by some posters that meditation "opens one up to demonic forces"... As someone who meditates every day I find this assertion ridiculous. In the context of Christian theology, meditation is prayer. Outside of Christian tradition, as with Buddhism, meditation involves stilling the constant chatter we all have inside our heads to allow clarity of perspective to emerge. Is there any reason beyond simple superstition to impute "demonic activity" to meditation practices?
With regard to negative Christian attitudes towards meditation, this is probably an oversimplification but I think it can be understood in context of an anti-mystic trend owing in large part to protestantism, especially its rejection of monasticism and the understanding of authority as deriving from the church, or from tradition, in favor of sola scriptura and its model of authority as deriving only from scripture. For example, here is a fairly lengthy essay about Christian mysticism by Benjamin Warfield, a Presbyterian professor of theology at Princeton in the late 19th and early 20th century:
http://www.reformedliterature.com/warfield-mysticism-and-christianity.php
Some excerpts which I think get to the most important ideas (highlighting mine):
"We say advisedly, all the religions which men have made for themselves. For there is an even more fundamental division among religions than that which is supplied by these varieties. This is the division between man-made and God-made religions. Besides the religions which man has made for himself, God has made a religion for man. We call this revealed religion; and the most fundamental division which separates between religions is that which divides revealed religion from unrevealed religions.
There is an element in revealed religion, therefore, which is not found in any unrevealed religion. This is the element of authority.
There is a true sense, then, in which it may be said that the unrevealed religions are "religions of the spirit" and revealed religion is the "religion of authority."
It is characteristic of mysticism that it makes its appeal to the feelings as the sole, or at least as the normative, source of knowledge of divine things. That is to say, it is the religious sentiment which constitutes for it the source of religious knowledge.
On the brink of this abyss the mystic may stand in awe, and, standing in awe upon its brink, he may deify it. Then he calls it indifferently Brahm or Zeus, Allah or the Holy Spirit, according as men about him speak of God. He explains its meaning, in other words, in terms of the conception of the universe which he has brought with him, or, as it is more fashionable now to phrase it, each in accordance with his own world-view.
This Christian mysticism, now, obviously differs in no essential respect from the parallel phenomena which are observable in other religions. It is only general mysticism manifesting itself on Christian ground and interpreting itself accordingly in the forms of Christian thought. It is mysticism which has learned to speak in Christian language.
The distinction between mysticism of this type and evangelical Christianity, from the point of view which is now occupying our attention, is nevertheless clear. Evangelical Christianity interprets all religious experience by the normative revelation of God recorded for us in the Holy Scriptures, and guides, directs, and corrects it from these Scriptures, and thus molds it into harmony with what God in His revealed Word lays down as the normal Christian life. The mystic, on the other hand, tends to substitute his religious experience for the objective revelation of God recorded in the written Word, as the source from which he derives his knowledge of God, or at least to subordinate the expressly revealed Word as the less direct and convincing source of knowledge of God to his own religious experience. The result is that the external revelation is relatively depressed in value, if not totally set aside."
To summarize what I think are the salient points, the author (astutely, imo) recognizes that Christian mysticism is not fundamentally (in an ontological or epistemological way) different from mysticism in general, and given the Protestant understanding of authority and revelation, rejects or at least is heavily suspicious of mysticism on the ground that it seems to undermine that understanding. There is more to the article, but I think it's this Protestant view of scripture, revelation, and authority which mainly explains Christian anti-mysticism, and opposition to meditation is connected to that.
It's also for this reason that I think arguments within Christianity about mysticism or meditative practices tend to become arguments about hermeneutics, revelation, and the nature of authority within Christianity.
