Ha!! I had heard of this Yogic flying, but I don't recall ever seeing footage of this ability. Thanks for sharing the Youtube link, but I'll stick with walking. ;-)
Seriously, I did a brief Google search and found some studies on mindfulness published in what I consider to be fairly good journals, like Psychological Science, PLOS I, Archives of General Psychiatry, and Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences. Admittedly, many others were published in journals that are unknown to me. But, your post seems to imply that 1) the relevant literature is published by meditation practitioners themselves and that b) most of it is substandard? Is there not a corpus of acceptable evidence showing some type of beneficial health outcomes? I'm just asking because I had been operating under the impression that mindfulness or other forms of meditation training had been shown to have beneficial health effects, such as stress reduction (originally described Philippe). Heck, the intro textbook I use (Nevid's) states that "Many healthy benefits are associated with the practice of meditation ... [it] also produces physical changes in the brain linked to improved memory and better regulation of emotional states". A few citations are given. So, I have to wonder, is there a consensus that the case for health benefits of meditation has been overstated? Miguel ----- Original Message ----- From: "don allen" <dap...@shaw.ca> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu> Sent: Monday, October 14, 2013 1:02:27 PM Subject: [tips] Re: [tips] Re: [tips] Re: [tips] ™, Mindfiulness, Lynch and the yogis Hi Miguel- In theory you are right. It is perfectly possible to do clean, unbiased research on TM. In practice, however, there is a problem (in general) with the work done by practitioners of TM as they make claims based on poorly designed studies. As an example please see: T.M. at Folsom Prison: a Critique of Abrams and Siegel. Don Allen, J. Crim. Just. Behav. Vol. 6 No. 1, March 1979. In their study A&S claimed that inmates who were trained to practice TM showed miraculous improvements in behaviour while incarcerated. However, they allowed inmates to self-select for the training and there was no waiting list control (or, indeed, any other form of control). The design was seriously flawed with EEE and SEE threats to internal validity. There were also serious statistical problems with their analyses. Sadly, their work is typical rather than exceptional. Not surprisingly, research done by individuals who are no TM practitioners and advocates fails to show the remarkable effects that the TM crowd reports. Remember, these are also the same people who believe in "Yogic Flying" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHwhGUo90jw -Don. ----- Original Message ----- From: "MiguelRoig" <miguelr...@comcast.net> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu> Sent: Monday, October 14, 2013 3:09:40 AM Subject: [tips] Re: [tips] Re: [tips] ™, Mindfiulness, Lynch and the yogis Please forgive my ignorance of this topic, but what exactly is the concern with this type of research? It seems to me that it is entirely possible to carry out quality research on the effects of an induced mental state on a variety of health and other outcomes. How would such research be any different than, say, research on hypnotic techniques or drug-induced altered states of consciousness? Again, I am only vaguely familiar with the current research on meditation, but is there some sort of consensus that such research is of low quality? Miguel ----- Original Message ----- From: "don allen" <dap...@shaw.ca> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu> Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2013 9:19:01 PM Subject: [tips] Re: [tips] ™, Mindfiulness, Lynch and the yogis Hi Philippe- Yes, It's sad that this stuff gets published. However, look at the source. This is the same "journal" that published an article showing the wonderful effects of Therapeutic Touch by LaFrenier et al. It was so bad that I regularly used it in my Research Methods class as an example of a seriously compromised design. The other problem appears to be that there are TM practitioners who do not fully disclose their relationship with TM International when they publish. The combination of "true believers" and lax publication standards is a dangerous combination. Still, we can always use it as an example of what to avoid when we teach. -Don. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philippe Gervaix" <phil.gerv...@bluewin.ch> To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu> Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2013 5:49:17 PM Subject: [tips] ™, Mindfiulness, Lynch and the yogis Hi all, There seems to be more and more of such research reporting the effects of meditation techniques such as "Transcendental Meditation" or "Mindfulness based stress reduction" programs, for example : http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2013.0204 How is it that confirmed neurologists, and scientists for that matter, keep attributing such results to the techniques or their trade mark? Where is critical thinking gone? I remember back in the 70's when crowds, (and such stars as Donovan or the Beatles) would flock around guru Maharashi to be initiated to such techniques... By the way, a young journalist exposes the links between David Lynch and Transcendental Meditation in a film called "David wants to fly". Quite instructive as to the strategy of such cults to implement their programs in schools... Have a nice Fall... Snow has just hit our Swiss mountains! Philippe Gervaix College de Burier Montreux Switzerland phil.gerv...@bluewin.ch --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: dap...@shaw.ca. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13157.966b795bc7f3ccb35e3da08aebe98f18&n=T&l=tips&o=28704 or send a blank email to leave-28704-13157.966b795bc7f3ccb35e3da08aebe98...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: miguelr...@comcast.net. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=1133043.af3ec43309a63197bc82eb6702801542&n=T&l=tips&o=28705 or send a blank email to leave-28705-1133043.af3ec43309a63197bc82eb6702801...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: dap...@shaw.ca . To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13157.966b795bc7f3ccb35e3da08aebe98f18&n=T&l=tips&o=28711 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-28711-13157.966b795bc7f3ccb35e3da08aebe98...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: miguelr...@comcast.net. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=1133043.af3ec43309a63197bc82eb6702801542&n=T&l=tips&o=28719 or send a blank email to leave-28719-1133043.af3ec43309a63197bc82eb6702801...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=28730 or send a blank email to leave-28730-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
