Is it true that meditation is dangerous in that emptying one's mind welcomes dark, evil spirits to take over or otherwise posess making the meditator weak and powerless?

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• good answer!

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  by Vesper on February 21st, 2007

• it not rubbish

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  by GTFMR.INTUITIVE on May 17th, 2009

• Meditation and the health industry are inseparable nowadays. Meditation is the latest quick fix. Perfect health and instant enlightenment are just round the corner! No effort is required, you don't have to give up anything. Forget your worries! Start again! Yeah, meditation and yoga are harmless, there's no dark side. As if it was possible to separate a spiritual practice from its culture and religious tradition.
  
  All these New Age enthusiasts are like children playing with fire. The brain and human psyche are little understood by either neuroscience or psychology, yet we are told that meditation has proven benefits. What is withheld is that the promised "transformations" can include psychosis. Psychological and nervous damage is generally inevitable if meditation is practiced over a long period, although it may take a subtle form. The complexities and interdependence of physiological systems, of environment, of day-to-day life are ignored by those who promote and practice meditation. Anecdotal accounts of lasting damage from, for example, kundalini yoga to the nervous system are easily obtained. Meditation has become a form of narcissism, a happiness pill. Ironically, meditation becomes a form of naval gazing; the "enlightenment" an illusion of self-pride; a dream of harmony; a detachment from reality.
  
  The undeniable historical fact is that meditation has no place in Christianity: unlike contemplation and prayer. It has become commonplace for the New Age to pervert Christian spiritual exercises such as those of Greek Orthodox mystics by describing them as "meditation". Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of meditation, a practice which properly belongs to Buddhism and Vedantic Hinduism, is annihilation of the the duality of the self and the world. There is no concept of objective evil in popular Eastern belief systems; evil is the product of the human mind. If you don't believe this, look it up. This world view is the antithesis of Christianity as well as gnosticism and hermetic philosophy. At the same time, the ancient yoga texts and Buddhist sutras from which the information about meditation techniques is obtained, are enormously difficult to translate.
  
  According to Christianity and the monotheistic religions of the Middle East Sufism and Judaism, as well as the cultures which preceded them, evil exists in an objective form: the universe includes both angels and demons. Not as figment of the human mind, but as independent, objectively real entities. The authors of the Medieval Grimoires, often Catholic monks, certainly believed in the existence of demons. If you have an open mind and certainly if you are, for instance a Catholic or Muslim, you will probably believe in exorcism. For a Westerner brought up with Christian traditions, meditation will inevitably spark conflicts in the subconscious. I am not so rash as to say that demonic possession could not occur during meditation.
  
  All this is obvious, but no-one wants to work or suffer anymore. The personality, the life experiences, the family, cares, responsibility and conscience of the meditator are all rejected. The body itself is rejected. Reality is rejected. Only the gratification of the moment matters, ecstatic states, meditation is the new consumerism.

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  by JohnConstantine on February 2nd, 2011