[xposted from my blog. Dunno if it really fits in R&P, but I guess it's the closest one.]
Are there any books that cover meditation and self-editing techniques, but without a bunch of unsupported woo or religious dogma?
I find it fairly sad / annoying that it's so bound up with both - either the utter bull$#!7 (sorry, "unproven and unsupported speculation") about crystals and whatnot, or the clearly religious dogma about past lives, rebirth, karma, Buddha, God / 'holy spirit', etc.
For that matter, I find that most things that are attributed to "ki" or equivalents seem to fail the Ockham test; it's really unnecessary to postulate such a thing, since you can explain all related phenomena as either unsupported / confabulatory, synaesthesis of subtle (5-sense) perceptions like heat and smell, or various known physiological effects.
The problem here is that almost everyone conflates the real / supported / core elements and the unreal / unsupported / dogmatic ones, and:
a) people who are logical, or who don't want to be enmeshed in various religious beliefs that may conflict with their existing ones, find meditation and related techniques repulsive; and
b) people who aren't very logical, and learn meditation, make huge false attributions, are easily cult-ified, and easily springboard from the real to the unreal
... and without separating what's true from what's false, neither side can make good, convincing, or accurate arguments.
So I wonder if people have actually tried to write a clear, well-supported, non-dogmatic, non-single-technique (e.g. TM...), non-indoctrinating (e.g. 'the Holy Guy sayz...') book on the subject? Anyone tried and succeeded?
If not, maybe I should try someday.... flooded market, though, so it'd have to be seriously damn good to succeed. Not sure I could pull that off.
Are there any books that cover meditation and self-editing techniques, but without a bunch of unsupported woo or religious dogma?
I find it fairly sad / annoying that it's so bound up with both - either the utter bull$#!7 (sorry, "unproven and unsupported speculation") about crystals and whatnot, or the clearly religious dogma about past lives, rebirth, karma, Buddha, God / 'holy spirit', etc.
For that matter, I find that most things that are attributed to "ki" or equivalents seem to fail the Ockham test; it's really unnecessary to postulate such a thing, since you can explain all related phenomena as either unsupported / confabulatory, synaesthesis of subtle (5-sense) perceptions like heat and smell, or various known physiological effects.
The problem here is that almost everyone conflates the real / supported / core elements and the unreal / unsupported / dogmatic ones, and:
a) people who are logical, or who don't want to be enmeshed in various religious beliefs that may conflict with their existing ones, find meditation and related techniques repulsive; and
b) people who aren't very logical, and learn meditation, make huge false attributions, are easily cult-ified, and easily springboard from the real to the unreal
... and without separating what's true from what's false, neither side can make good, convincing, or accurate arguments.
So I wonder if people have actually tried to write a clear, well-supported, non-dogmatic, non-single-technique (e.g. TM...), non-indoctrinating (e.g. 'the Holy Guy sayz...') book on the subject? Anyone tried and succeeded?
If not, maybe I should try someday.... flooded market, though, so it'd have to be seriously damn good to succeed. Not sure I could pull that off.
