Everyone knows that meditation is good for your health and well-being. However, a percentage of people practicing meditation experience psychotic breaks and related adverse mental and physical side effects. Are these symptoms of improper practice or an unavoidable part of spiritual cultivation? While contemporary scientific literature is just beginning to document such phenomena, Buddhist communities have for centuries warned practitioners about “meditation sickness,” “wind illness,” “demonic attack,” and other potential dangers. Due to language barriers, their important writings have remained virtually unknown in Western medical, scientific, and practitioner communities. Here, for the first time, historical and contemporary teachings on the topic from around the Buddhist world have been brought together. The works not only identify these ailments as possible side effects of meditation practice, but also explain why they arise and how they can be effectively prevented and treated. Meditation Sickness will transform the way we think about meditation in the West.

Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice, C. Pierce Salguero (editor), University of Hawaii Press, Hardcover, 338 pages, $88.00

C. Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and cross-cultural exchange. He teaches at Penn State University’s Abington College and has been editor in chief of Asian Medicine: Journal of the International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine since 2016.