Exploring the Dark Side of Meditation: Experiences and Interpretations

In today’s episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with Miguel Farias, an experimental psychologist and researcher of religion, spirituality, and cognition. Together we try to get to the bottom of whether meditation is actually good for you through a comparison of Miguel's research on the adverse effects of meditation with my research on Asian notions of meditation sickness. Along the way, we discuss the limitations of modern Western understandings of consciousness, and explore whether we can develop a more expansive, multifaceted understanding of altered states both pleasant and unpleasant.

If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our members-only benefits on blackberyl.substack.com. Enjoy the show!

Resources mentioned:

• Miguel Farias and Catherine Wikholm, The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You? (2019).
• Miguel Farias, Oxford Handbook of Meditation (2022).
• Miguel Farias et al, “Adverse Events in Meditation Practices and Meditation-based Therapies: A Systematic Review” (2021).
• Pierce Salguero, “‘Meditation Sickness’ in Medieval Chinese Buddhism and the Contemporary West” (2023).
• Peter Berger, The Homeless Mind (1973).
• Joseph Henrich et al. article on the Müller-Lyer illusion (2010).
• The source for the term “monophasic bias” is apparently Charles Laughlin’s chapter “Transpersonal Anthropology” in Roger Walsh’s book Paths Beyond Ego (1993).
• Pierce Salguero, A Lamp Unto Yourself (2025).

Resources provided by the interviewee on blackberyl.substack.com:

• Introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Meditation

Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. www.piercesalguero.com.

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