Not again… Are you struck by the ‘anniversary effect’?
‘Seen historically as a religious phenomenon, it’s surging popularity is primarily secular’
It may be, as reported in this paper last week, that there is no “definitive proof ” that meditation makes one more compassionate, less aggressive and an all-round better person, but there is no doubting its profound effects on the workings of both mind and body.
Though seen historically as a religious phenomenon, permitting access to that higher consciousness (“ineffable, more powerful and beautiful than can be imagined”), its surging popularity in the West – with, according to a recent survey, 18 million regular meditators in the United States – is primarily secular, divorced of any such connotations.
Scientist and regular meditator Rupert Sheldrake in his fascinating recently published book Science and
Spiritual Practices (£20, Coronet) draws attention to the several physiological changes summarised as a “relaxation response”, which has been compared to the “peace of mind and sense of well-being” following exercise – but without the fatigue.
Hence its value in so many diverse conditions – reducing anxiety levels, lowering blood pressure, fewer episodes of angina and disturbances of heart rhythm, pain relief, improved sleep patterns and so on.
For those who must pay for their healthcare – as in the United States – this is particularly welcome, with, according to one study, the medical bills of meditators over a five-year period being half that of a control group.
As for why meditation works in the way it does, no one can say. Indeed, it presupposes a process – whereby a “spiritual” state of mind influences the physical functioning of nerves, heart and brain – that contradicts the basic tenets of materialist science.
Wriggling torment
This week’s medical query comes courtesy of Mrs AB from Truro, troubled for the past seven years by a constellation of symptoms – a red, itchy scalp, the sensation of something crawling under her skin and wriggling in her foot and thigh – attributed by the two skin specialists she has consulted to “delusional parasitosis”, defined as “the fixed belief of being infested with small living creatures in the absence of any confirmatory evidence”.
She has, as advised, taken the recommended treatment (the powerful major tranquilliser, Olanzapine), but her symptoms persist as before.
“I am an 83-year-old lady in sound mind and normal health, except for this terrible problem,” she writes. “I would be grateful for any help that others may be able to offer.”
That rings a bell
Finally, more predictably on the phantom ring on the doorbell a fortnight ago: “Mine is the oldfashioned type,” writes one woman woken periodically at three in the morning. There are, she observes the following morning, “dirty marks on the pale yellow panelling around the bell – I blame bats”.
And further support for the supernatural endorsed by another woman who reports being woken twice in the early morning – on the death of her neighbour and again when her father-in-law passed on. “My husband and I have a pact that, if at all possible, the first of us to go should do the same.”
Meanwhile, former Labour home secretary Alan Johnson, writing in The Oldie, recalls how a further possible explanation facilitated his escape from the doorstep of one of his constituents: “By the time he had moved on to his conspiracy theory about Princess Diana’s untimely death, I felt an urgent need to tear myself away.”
Luck was at hand for, while fiddling distractedly with the car key in his pocket, there was an involuntary ring of the doorbell. This prompted general puzzlement until he realised his key must share the same frequency.
“I began to press more frequently until further conversation was impossible, and with the deviousness with which politicians are rightly associated, I left him with the sage advice: ‘I would have that fixed if I were you.’ Walking away, I kept pressing my bell-ringing key until I was safely out of range.”