Late last year I posted about my life altering/threatening experience after going to a meditation retreat. It was clear from subsequent conversations that most people had no idea of what really happened. While I’ve journaled about my experience and subsequent revelations, I’m not yet ready to share broadly.
However, there was a recent 4-part podcast by the Financial Times titled, “Untold: The Retreat – an investigative podcast into the perils of meditation”. I’m still not at a place where I’m ready to listen to it but during a recent business trip my wife listened to the entire series twice on back-to-back days. Unfortunately, it was almost a PTSD experience for her, resurfacing everything we had went through and survived and are still dealing with to this day.
I raise this for 2 reasons:
1. I got so many recommendations from this group on different meditations yet literally no one was aware of the dangers and feel the need to raise more awareness of the possible risks of meditation
2. If you want a better sense of what happened to me, my wife said listen to this and you will know
Disclaimer: if you do listen to the podcast be forewarned that it includes stories of suicides and other effects people have not recovered from even years later.
More generally I’m feeling great and hope you all are as well. PEP to everyone!
Chris Goldsmith 