MeditationMcGyver

"In one survey of over 890 persons on the Transcendental Meditation mailing list, most respondents (52–64 percent) reported no major complications. However, TM teacher-trainees who had practiced for almost four years reported more problems: antisocial behavior (14 percent), frustration (10 percent), and restlessness (10 percent), as well as anxiety, confusion, depression, and procrastination (all 9 percent)."

What are you doing in your promotion of Transcendental Meditation to keep these significant percentages of TMers from developing psychiatric complications? 9% is a big number.

If 3 million people learned TM, that means potentially 270,000 could develop depression alone.

What do you think of comments by some physicians that 'increased meditation with eyes closed can actually trigger depression?'

Would it not be foolish then to prescribe meditation carte blanche to all patients?

Unfortunately, Transcendental Meditation is a business, so most of this research should merely be seen as a way to advertise, promote and sell their product(s), most of which are quite over-priced when compared to traditional meditation methods.

Consequently, we should expect, as we've seen in several decades of TM-org research, the negative findings are always suppressed.

It appears Rosenthal has no protocols in place for these contingencies, nor do any of these other people you mention.

Has "Do no harm" been replaced by "we don't care?" It sure appears that way! Sad.

The physiological hypothesis is that "closed eyes" meditation (like TM) causes less light to fall on the retina, and thus, in some patients, meditation (esp. extended meditation) causes sufficient light loss to trigger depression. Perhaps think of it as meditation-induced SAD.