Last Updated on February 23, 2023 by pg@petergamma.org
Richard Davidson tested around 16 long-term meditators with brain scanners in his lab, and wrote a PNAS paper about it:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15534199/
There is a joke among scientists that PNAS means “Post Nature And Science” or in other word: rejected by nature and Science.
Then, Richard Davidson wrote his best-seller “Altered Traits”, where he describes the effect of 20 min. meditation practice. This short-term meditation practice is controversial:
At the time Altered Traits was published, Rob ter Horst started his YouTube Channel “the Quantitative Scientist”. Rob measures everything. Does this mean that he also measures the effect of a daily practice of 20 min mediation? He spents 11 hours a week doing measurements. Among those, fMRI scans for meditation studies?
Is this a marketing study of a pharmaceutical company together with Rob, to find out if there is something about this project from which could be made money out of it?
And what about Laghsam Tibetan Meditation in Zurich? Members of Laghsam have a connection to Roche Pharmaceuticals in Basel. Laghsam flies Tibetan teachers from around to world to Laghsam to record YouTube videos, and then flies them back. Is this all? And who pays the flights? Is it Roche? And do Laghsam meditators cooperate with Rob ter Horst and do 11 hours of measurements in the lab as well, to find out about the effect of 20 min meditation practice? We don t know. But again, 20 min meditation practice is controversial:
And it is also controversial, that it is possible to make a big business out of practicing meditation.