David Kortava in Harper’s Magazine:
At the time [she signed up for a meditation retreat in rural Delaware], Megan’s life was in flux—she had just gone through a breakup and decided to move to Utah, where she planned to work on an organic farm. Ten days of meditation sounded restorative, a way of turning the page to a new chapter. . . .
[On the seventh day, s]he became tired, then drained. She lay down on her bed and could not marshal the energy to get back up. The next meditation session was starting. She felt heavy, responsible for everything that was wrong in the world. Maybe I’m holy, she thought. Maybe I was put here to heal everyone. She forced herself upright and set her feet down on the floor.
Walking into the meditation hall, Megan looked at the rows of silent meditators, their eyes closed or staring vacantly at the wall. A surge of “immense fear” coursed through her body and she found herself panicking, unable to move. “I just zoned out into space,” she wrote later. “I can’t remember where I am. Who I am. What I’m doing here.” Then a torrent of dark thoughts came rushing in: Is it the end of the world? Am I dying? Why can’t I function or move? I can hear the Buddha now. He is telling me to meditate. I can’t, I’m so confused. Is this a test? Am I supposed to yell out “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior?” What am I supposed to do? I am so confused. . . .
[T] research that does exist [on the adverse effects of meditation] is not reassuring. More than fifty published studies have documented meditation-induced mental health problems, including mania, dissociation, and psychosis. In 2012, leading meditation researchers in the United Kingdom published a set of guidelines for meditation instructors, noting “risks for participants,” including depression, traumatic flashbacks, and increased suicidal ideation. Four years later, the U.S. National Institutes of Health cautioned that “meditation could cause or worsen symptoms in people with certain psychiatric problems.” Jeffrey Lieberman, the former head of the American Psychiatric Association, told me he’d seen this in his own practice. “The clinical phenomenon is real,” he said. “There’s no question about it” . . . .
[Brown University clinical psychologist and neuroscientist Willoughby] Britton and her team began visiting retreats, talking to the people who ran them, and asking about the difficulties they’d seen. “Every meditation center we went to had at least a dozen horror stories,” she said. Psychotic breaks and cognitive impairments were common; they were often temporary but sometimes lasted years. “Practicing letting go of concepts,” one meditator told Britton, “was sabotaging my mind’s ability to lay down new memories and reinforce old memories of simple things, like what words mean, what colors mean.” Meditators also reported diminished emotions, both negative and positive. “I had two young children,” another meditator said. “I couldn’t feel anything about them. I went through all the routines, you know: the bedtime routine, getting them ready and kissing them and all of that stuff, but there was no emotional connection. It was like I was dead” . . . .
Britton realized that she had experienced some of the symptoms that her interview subjects were describing. “It took me three years of trauma training to realize, oh, that’s dissociation. And I hadn’t realized it because if you can sit for long periods of time and not feel any pain and not have any thoughts, most meditation teachers are going to say that you’re doing great,” she said. “But this was different. I felt like I was living in a parallel dimension from the rest of the world, not connected at all” . . . .
The Buddhist ascetics who took up meditation in the fifth century bc did not view it as a form of stress relief. “These contemplative practices were invented for monastics who had renounced possessions, social position, wealth, family, comfort, and work,” writes David McMahan, a professor of religious studies at Franklin and Marshall College, in a 2017 book, Meditation, Buddhism, and Science. Monks and nuns sought to transcend the world and its cycles of rebirth and awaken in nirvana, an unfathomable state of equanimity beyond space and time, or at least avoid being reincarnated as a mountain goat or a hungry spirit in the hell realm underground. In the Pali suttas, the earliest Buddhist texts, the Buddha discusses meditation almost exclusively with audiences of followers ready to reject all earthly belongings. “Generally meditation is presented as something monastics aspiring to full awakening do,” McMahan writes, “an activity that is part of a way of being in the world that is ultimately aimed at exiting the world, rather than a means to a happier, more fulfilling life within it.”
In other words, mindfulness was not invoked to savor the beauty of nature or to be a more present, thoughtful spouse. According to the Pali suttas, the point of meditation was to cultivate disgust and disenchantment with the everyday world and one’s attachments to people and things. Aspiring Buddhas were “asked to contemplate the body from head to toe, inside and out,” McMahan writes, “not for relaxation and even less for body acceptance, but to bring to full realization its utter repulsiveness, coursing as it is with blood, phlegm, and pus.” If meditation conferred any practical benefit, it was in helping ascetics “accept the discomfort of a hard bed and a growling stomach or in preventing them from being beguiled by physical beauty.”
Source: Lost in Thought: The Psychological Risks of Meditation
Note: I have meditated off and on for the past 30 years, and daily for the past nine. And I’m somewhat addicted to the newly established genre of articles (of which this Harper’s piece is a sterling exemplar) about the inbuilt dangers of meditation and the way they’ve gone largely unacknowledged amid the contemporary marketing push to frame meditation and mindfulness as unalloyed blessings that offer a virtual panacea for all of life’s ills. As I have stated elsewhere at this blog, we’re all playing with fire, those of us who actively perturb consciousness to become aware of it as such, and also those of us who have such perturbations forced upon us by powers outside our ken and control. (That said, in recent years I’ve only experienced increasing peace and clarity myself.)
Matt, your blog is always thought-provoking. As a fellow writer with an interest in creativity and as someone who has been on a path of truth-seeking (in spiritual terms) for decades, I find your blog posts always interesting.
I read this one and the entire article, following your link. I have a few thoughts I hope you don’t mind my sharing here.
It sounds like Megan in the article was not just meditating to relax and get some physical benefits, but seeking a profound spiritual experience, which is different than warning off people who want to meditate to try to get a hold of their run-away thoughts in their run-away life. I don’t know why we should think that seeking a life-altering spiritual experience would not involve some difficult emotional journey. In the least, we are exploring the deepest recesses of the subconscious, and how can that not be a minefield?
As to the assertion that people in the Buddhist community don’t talk about it, that is not my experience. Zen books talk about the intense episodes of delusion that you will undoubtedly run into on the way to enlightenment practically in every book I have ever read. There is a term for it: makio. This dark block on the way to enlightenment is not unique to Zen, either. All the spiritual traditions I have studied discuss it. I was born and raised Catholic and if you look at the lives of the saints you can get an idea of the kinds of horrors that befall even those who have been kissed by God – if anything, Christian enlightenment is the most gruesome of the lot, and last we think we are just talking about martyrdom by the hand of nonbelievers: Padre Pio, a Saint of our very recent past was constantly beset by demons who haunted him and tormented him and tried to get him to go mad. It appears that once you open the portal to the light, you become fair game for all the darkness, too.
The journey for spiritual enlightenment is not a joke, and it is certainly not something people should take up as they take up tennis. I agree with the Dali Lama that you should first understand what you’re getting into. If you think that closing your eyes and sitting still is going to be enough for you to wake up and be God, then you have unrealistic expectations, first of all, but more importantly, you are being reckless with your soul – or your mind, depending how you see it. There are fair warnings everywhere: to go to the light, you must first face the darkness. That means, even in the most innocent terms, facing your subconscious – and how do we not know yet, in this age of PTSD, what a minefield that is?
To that effect, if you intend to go to something more intensive than a little meditation in the morning or at night to clear your thoughts, you should also examine your motivations for doing so, and make sure that you are ready, willing, and as open-minded as you tell yourself that you are.
I say this from having observed too many people who think that they are lapsed Catholics or Christians and as soon as they are faced with the liminal that they were so sure they were seeking, all their Christian teachings swoop in and cause all sorts of anxieties. I would be willing to bet that the majority of those bad experiences collected in the data come from people in the West, people who have been influenced, nilly willy.
I found this passage especially interesting: “Walking into the meditation hall, Megan looked at the rows of silent meditators, their eyes closed or staring vacantly at the wall. A surge of “immense fear” coursed through her body and she found herself panicking, unable to move…I can hear the Buddha now. He is telling me to meditate. I can’t, I’m so confused. Is this a test? Am I supposed to yell out “I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior?” What am I supposed to do? I am so confused.”
At the first sign of something sublime, her Christian fears emerge from her subconscious and possess her and she now believes that she has meddled with the devil and needs to repent and cry out to Jesus to save her. Could this be what precipitated the psychotic breakdown?
I’m not saying this as a commentary on Christianity so much as about the effects of the messages about hell and demons that dominate so many people’s early upbringing. If you hear that kind of thing over and over again as a child, it is going to stay with you. It hides in the pockets of your subconscious and is always, always there.
I live in the Bible Belt, I find it hard to read these “studies” and other such experiences without feeling the handprint of Christianity behind it.
In my observation and experience, for Christians it is really difficult to explore a spiritual path outside of Christianity because of the ingrained beliefs about evil and the devil and of a punishing God. I think that if you’ve grown up in the West, even if you weren’t very religious, it is hard to divorce yourself from that whole way of thinking, and Eastern thought, if you delve deeply into it, it will come up.
I think that what people are facing in such instances is their own Christian guilt, which comes out when they try to explore the vast expanses of the subconscious, which is a minefield to be sure, even in the best of circumstances. And as the article pointed out, if on top of that you alreaady have other emotional fragilities, the intensity of such a journey, undertaken without appropriate guidance, can certainly have dire consequenes.
Through meditation, I have experienced higher spiritual states, greater wisdom and understanding, states of sustained bliss that gave me personal experience on what is intended by unconditional love, and that made me realize that all other types of love that we experience in our everyday life, no matter how strong those feelings come across to us, pale by comparison and weigh us down with desire. And it is not that desire is bad, only that the state of oneness is one where desire does not exist because such bliss is completely divorced from the conditions that we take for granted in other forms of love and even fail to notice that we put conditions on them. You would not understand this at all without experiencing the blissful state without conditions, unfortunately. It is not something that can be conveyed with words. It can only be experienced.
Although the highest state of unconditional bliss has only visited me in rare occasions, having experienced it, I know that it is there, and knowing that it is there drives me to continue to aim for it and gives meaning to my life, which otherwise feels pretty dark, empty, and even meaningless.
However, I am not trying to sell you on the benefits of meditation. All religions and all spiritual practices ought to be taken with a grain of salt in my opinion, and Buddhism is no exception. And one must learn their own limits, accept where ingrown fears may become too great to affront and the price to pay too high.
Nonetheless, I question the motives of the person who wrote this article. I read bias all over it. A search for enlightenment can certainly bring up bad things. So can a bad psychologist (I have the scars for that). So can the wrong prescription drug. This quote: “Lazarus had by then treated a number of “agitated, restive” patients whose symptoms seemed to worsen after meditating. He came to believe that the practice, while beneficial for many, was likely harmful to some.”
Does that not pretty much describe any medical or holistic cure you have ever heard of?
Thanks very much for your input on this important issue to me,
You seem to be underestimating the severity of a meditation retreat like vipassana. They mean to awaken the sensation of energy felt through the breath – that’s why they teach to focus on the breathing during the time spent there until it explodes. It’s notoriously dangerous and yes they are typically very insensitive to people who lose their minds.
In other cultural traditions, like Korean shamanism, where the experience is similar, it’s far more accepted and even absolutely expected to happen
Great to hear from you, Laura. I appreciate your good words about The Teeming Brain. I also appreciate your insightful comment! It was a pleasure to read. You’re right, of course, that the potential troubles of meditation are indeed discussed in the Zen crowd and elsewhere. I think it’s in the packaging of meditation as a commodity to be mass marketed that the flattening of the whole thing occurs. Your comments about the Christian experience of such things are fascinating.
That is an incredible article. Thank you for sharing. I have experience with spiritual emergence psychosis myself and am always happy to see the issue get more attention. As of right now my meditation, so to speak, is on indefinite hiatus. I can still feel energy at the base of my spine but it is no longer rising. I stopped doing whatever I was doing and it more or less went away. I still feel the specialness of my breathing that was awakened from the ‘meditation’ or whatever you call whatever I did. A kind of energy. But I can’t draw in any more. It’s a curious thing I have tried asking about online but can’t get info. Anybody know what the heck I am talking about?
I spoke to priests at the local Anglican cathedral and they basically told me the communion there is little bits over time! (a possible clue that the process is a bit different) I have been meaning to get baptized and put it off for a while. Now I’m more sure about going through with it that it is the right thing for me. For safety and other reasons. But then COVID happened.
I’m currently enrolled in classes trying to get into the MA theology program at Concordia. I tried getting into the English program but it was more difficult. If I can just maintain a B average in a few classes I’m pretty much guaranteed a spot I was told. So that’s what I’m doing right now.
It was primarily you, and also my mentor at Concordia (Dr Daniel O’Leary), who inspired me to study theology. Dr O’Leary wants me to assist him in his research. Rudolf Otto’s book idea of the holy changed my understanding of sin and other things too. And I noticed Arthur Machen was Anglican.
These psychotic breaks don’t tend to happen at Christian churches. Even though during my attendance at evening song (I think it was called that, singing hymns at night) when I broke down in a massive crying fit I didn’t go crazy but still experienced something magical. I cried profusely all of a sudden for no reason at all while listening to the singing, almost alone in the church with the singers like the priest and some few others in the pew in front of me.
There’s a lot I can say about this but will just leave here a recommendation to check out Sean Blackwell on YouTube, start with his oldest video. He sincerely recounts an experience he had at a meditation similar to the one in this article.
I suspect the main reason that esotericists are secretive is because the awakening is monstrous. It’s a perfect topic for a blog like this.
One more thing I should say is that shamanism in Korea acknowledges and respects psychosis as a rite of passage for virtually everyone
I didn’t know, Daniel, that my writings had been one of the catalysts for your educational decision. Thanks for sharing that. Honored and humbled.
I’d be very interested to see more horror movies about experiences like this. One interesting one of note is Yoga Hakwon from S.Korea. It’s about an elite yoga class where if you don’t abide the rules your kundalini goes out of control. It’s not a particularly great movie of any notoriety but I appreciated the effort lol
https://youtu.be/nBdthTC3w-I
In this trailer for volume 2 of the Kenneth Anger film collection shows some scenes from Lucifer Rising. One scene in particular is a man lying down and some kind of smoke machine behind him possibly symbolizing a kind of magical breath. It’s hard to put into words what the film is about – it’s silent save for its great soundtrack – but there is definitely themes of enlightenment
Please do not miss this novel about a 10 days-vipassana-meditation retreat:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1096560/sex-is-forbidden/9780099565895.html
Thanks, Jesus! I haven’t heard of this. Will have to investigate it.
My son went to a Vipassana meditation retreat and said that God sent him to hell while he was there and he’s been in hell for a year and that he is Jesus Christ, that he died and bled on the cross for our sins. He’s in a psychotic way and this Vipassana started him that direction. I need someone to help me get him out of this psychosis state of mind. These meditations are not right for everyone…. You might consider not going. Not 1 person in the USA can help me (I’ve called most of them) I need help !!!!!
I’m pretty sure my past won’t pass approval as I have called 2 Vipassana meditation retreats with being hung up on on both phone calls. This is no joke……my sons life & everybody that loves him life has been ruined!!! He’s now homeless & his wife is divorcing him due to this unfair reality we’re living in.