Following Jesus

“I Push Back”

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Courtroom of Heaven Pushback Prayer

BACK TO SENDER❗️

Righteous Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, I enter into Your courts this morning by the blood of the Lamb, and I take my place before the throne of grace with boldness, not in my own righteousness, but in the finished work of Jesus Christ. I stand before You as Your daughter, redeemed, justified, and covered by the blood. I stand in the authority You have given me to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means harm me.

This morning I present my case before Heaven, and I push back.

Father, I ask that every accusation spoken against me in the spirit be silenced by the blood of Jesus. Every voice that says I am too much, I push back. Every voice that says I am not soft enough, I push back. Every voice that calls my strength brokenness, I push back. Every voice that calls my discernment pride, I push back. Let every lying spirit be overruled in this court.

Father, I renounce every agreement I have made knowingly or unknowingly with limitation, delay, poverty, confusion, rejection, and low level love. I break agreement with the lie that I must shrink to be accepted. I break agreement with the lie that I must settle to be loved. I break agreement with the lie that I must accept crumbs when You have ordained abundance for my life. Let every illegal contract be revoked now in the name of Jesus.

By the blood of Jesus, I cancel every covenant formed in my bloodline that invited struggle, delay, perversion, poverty, or limitation. I revoke the right of every spirit that has claimed access to my life through generational doors. Every bloodline curse, I push back. Every spirit of delay, I push back. Every spirit of complacency, I push back. Every anti progress spirit, I push back. Every anti marriage spirit, I push back. Every anti prosperity spirit, I push back.

Father, let the record of Heaven show that I no longer agree with what has been fighting me. I reject fear disguised as humility. I reject false peace that keeps me small. I reject manipulation that tries to control my emotions. I reject every arrow sent to distract me from my assignment. Every word curse spoken over my life, I send it back to the place it came from, and I declare that it has no power over me.

Every spirit that tried to convince me that my boundaries were wrong, I overrule it now. My boundaries are not rebellion. My strength is not brokenness. My discernment is not pride. My voice is not too loud. It was given to me by God, and I will not turn it down.

Father, I ask for a ruling in my favor this morning. Rule against delay. Rule against limitation. Rule against poverty. Rule against perversion. Rule against confusion. Rule against every spirit that has tried to punish me for being strong. Let divine justice speak on my behalf.

For it is written that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. So this morning I take back territory. I take back my authority. I take back my confidence. I take back my discernment. I take back my joy. I take back my destiny. I take back my inheritance.

Every power of darkness interfering in my life from any direction, I command you to release your hold now by the blood of Jesus, by the authority of Jesus, by the word of God, and by the power that has been placed inside of me.

I push back. I overrule. I revoke. I reclaim. I advance. And nothing shall by any means harm me.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

The Power Pusher, LICSW

European Parliament Names ‘Christianophobia’ in Formal Resolution for First Time

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From the Daily Declaration by Kurt Mahlburg

Christianity is the world’s most persecuted religion, the European Parliament recently declared, using the term ‘Christianophobia’ in a formal resolution for the first time.

The European Parliament has used the term ‘Christianophobia’ in a formal resolution for the first time, declaring Christianity the most persecuted religion in the world and calling out the EU’s failure to appoint a coordinator to combat anti-Christian hatred — a position that already exists for Islamophobia.

The resolution, adopted in Strasbourg earlier this year, stated in Paragraph 84: “Christianity remains the most persecuted religion in the world today, with more than 380 million people affected.”

“There is no European coordinator responsible for combating Christianophobia, even though a coordinator has been appointed to combat Islamophobia,” it added.

The Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE) welcomed the resolution and urged the European Commission to act on it.

“Taking note of this important statement by the European Parliament, COMECE encourages the European Commission to give serious consideration to the appointment of an EU Coordinator responsible for this field,” the bishops’ body said in a statement last month.

The resolution — formally titled the Annual Human Rights Report 2025 and adopted under reference TA-10-2026-0014 — also condemned the persecution of Christian communities in the Middle East.

It described Christian communities from the Middle East as “among the oldest in the world,” noting they continue to face “severe persecution, discrimination, forced displacement and restrictions on their freedom of religion or belief.”

In January, Pope Leo XIV had raised the same concern. “We must not forget a subtle form of religious discrimination against Christians,” he said, “which is spreading even in countries where they are in the majority, such as in Europe.”

Coalition and Pushback

The specific language of Christianophobia was the result of sustained amendment work by centre-right and conservative MEPs.

The European People’s Party (EPP) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) drove the provisions, with Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen (ECR) and Croatian MEP Davor Stier (EPP) leading the effort in coordination with Aid to the Church in Need. The Patriots for Europe group also supported the text.

The final vote drew backing from a cross-partisan majority that included a significant portion of the Renew Europe group, whose members argued religious freedom is an indivisible pillar of human rights.

Radical left groupings and some Greens opposed the specific mention, reportedly concerned it would create a hierarchy among victims of religious hatred.

The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC) welcomed the result, noting the Parliament “not only acknowledges the global scale of anti-Christian persecution but also highlights an institutional asymmetry within the EU’s existing anti-discrimination architecture.”

The Coordinator Question

COMECE proposed that the future coordinator’s title refer to “anti-Christian hatred” rather than ‘Christianophobia’, to align with existing EU positions on other communities and to avoid a term built on the contested concept of ‘phobia’.

The bishops’ body also called for dedicated funding through the EU’s forthcoming AgoraEU instrument.

The push for the role has been building for over a year. In December 2024, COMECE adviser Alessandro Calcagno told a European Parliament conference: “The time is ripe for the appointment of an EU Coordinator to combat anti-Christian hatred.”

In November 2025, COMECE Vice-President Mgr Czeslaw Kozon raised the same call directly with EU Commissioner Magnus Brunner.

The resolution also called for the timely appointment of an EU Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief — a post that has remained vacant for more than a year.

A Framework for Action

The resolution is political in nature and does not bind the European Commission to act. Whether the Commission appoints a coordinator — and on what timeline — remains to be seen.

The text of the resolution notes that the EU’s post for combating Islamophobia already exists as a standing institutional position.

COMECE’s statement drew a direct line: the protection of Christian communities in Europe “must become tangible” through both a dedicated coordinator and financial support.

The resolution, COMECE said, marks a point at which the European Parliament has moved beyond recording statistics toward providing “a legal and political framework for action.”

Rethinking “Quiet Time”: Frank Viola

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The term “quiet time” was coined in the late nineteenth century from the Christian and Missionary Alliance movement. By the 1940s, it replaced the Anglican concept of “the morning watch.” The morning watch focused on prayer requests while the new “quiet time” focused on Bible study and meditation.

InterVarsity’s 1945 booklet “Quiet Time” popularised the term among evangelical university students. The term went mainstream when Billy Graham started using it in the 1950s during his crusades.*

There are three main problems with the modern concept of a “quiet time” that I wish to address in this article. Let’s take them up one at a time (and please don’t skim lest you miss the nuance).


1) Quiet time has been the source of guilt in evangelical circles for decades.

Here’s how it works. Your pastor tells you that God wants you to have a daily “quiet time” — which essentially means praying and reading your Bible.

You’re inspired by his words, so you begin with zeal. After a week or two, you miss a day. Then another day. Then the guilt trip begins.

Here’s the narrative that replays in your head:

“God is upset with me. If I really loved Him, I wouldn’t miss my quiet time. Jesus died for my sins, and I can’t even spend 10 minutes with Him each morning? I’m a sad excuse for a Christian. In fact, God has just finished carving out a new 2 x 4 by which to beat me silly. And I deserve it.”

The guilt you feel over missing your quiet time is now an obstacle standing in the way between you and your Lord. And that obstacle leads to additional missed quiet times.

Months roll by and the pastor preaches another sermon on the importance of prayer and Bible reading. More guilt. But this time it motivates you.

So you try again. Things are great … for a week. Then you miss. And the guilt trip starts all over again.

After several months of living under three tons of “missed-quiet-time” condemnation, you are in need of a travel agent to handle all the guilt trips you’ve been on.

Years go by, and nothing changes with respect to your quiet time. It’s still hit and miss. You’ve just become accustomed to living under a pile of guilt, which ends up hurting your relationship to Jesus Christ — whether you realise it or not.


2) You leave Jesus Christ behind after your quiet time.

For those disciplined enough to have a daily quiet time without missing, something happens that you aren’t even aware of. You begin your day with the Lord, but you leave Him behind in your room when your quiet time is over.

In other words, you go about your day without ever considering Him again unless someone mentions Him or you turn on a Christian radio station (or worship CD) in your car.

So you get an A+ on keeping a consistent quiet time (yay!), but a D- on living in the Lord’s presence throughout the day.

Why? Because no one ever taught you how.


3) Your quiet time will eventually grow stale. Sooner than later.

I’ve said it many times, but I’ll say it again: Everything eventually wears out except for Jesus Christ. That includes every spiritual discipline that humans have ever imagined or experienced (be it reading your Bible, praying, singing, fasting, interceding, speaking in tongues, etc.).

You and I are in need of acquiring more tools in our spiritual toolbox so that whenever a spiritual practice runs dry, we can pick up another tool to take its place. In this way, everything stays fresh.

So what’s the solution to all this?

The antidote for number one — guilt — is simple. I’ve addressed it thoroughly in elsewhere, but the reason why you feel guilty about missing a quiet time is because you are unwittingly basing your worthiness before the Lord on your work instead of on His. And you’ve accepted a man-centred narrative that puts you at the centre instead of God’s narrative.

If you get clear on the value of the blood of Christ and what makes you worthy in God’s eyes, and you’ll be forever freed from a guilty conscience when it comes to any religious or spiritual activity.

The fact is, God loves you exactly the same regardless of how often you pray or read your Bible. His love for you isn’t based on any of those activities.

Another important point to consider is this. Treating one’s failure to keep to a regular “quiet time” should never be treated like explicit sins described in the Bible (like lying, gossip, stealing, slander, etc). There’s no command saying, “Thou shalt have quiet time of reading your Bible and praying every day.”

The fact is, 90% of the first-century Christians couldn’t even read. And that’s been mostly true since around the 19th century. Even today, approximately 1 billion people are illiterate (about 16% of the total population). Shall we condemn them all?

As I explained in elsewhere, many evangelicals have merely updated Pharisaism with an ever-changing Mishnah of behavioural expectations that I’ve dubbed “The Christian Expectation” — and the famed “quiet time” is a part of it. Thankfully, Jesus Christ destroyed the entire code and gave us something higher.

Nuance alert.

Unfortunately, some people have taken the above insight and washed their hands of the whole practice of spending time with the Lord in the name of “grace” and “freedom.” But this only reveals that their motivation for spending time with Him wasn’t love. It was guilt. Thus once the guilt is removed, they have no desire to know the Lord better.

Quick personal note: I spend time with the Lord virtually every morning. It looks nothing like the typical “quiet time,” however. And if I miss a day, I don’t feel the slightest bit of guilt. In addition, I’ve discovered various ways of living in God’s presence throughout the day. And I’m not spiritually inclined nor disciplined by nature (which means there’s hope for all of you who are like me).

This blog post is long enough, so I will end with this point.

Living in the conscious presence of Jesus Christ is an essential aspect of living in God’s kingdom.

Gift and Work

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I was putting on my shirt prior to going for a bike ride the other day when I noticed something that shocked me. The shirt was a commemorative shirt from a charity bike ride that I participated in along the Great Ocean Road. We rode a total of a little under 300 km from Geelong to Warrnambool over three days.

What shocked me was the date on the shirt- February 2006. It can’t possibly be ten years ago!

I have many fond memories of that ride – the beautiful scenery, iconic locations such as Bells Beach and the Twelve Apostles (now reduced to nine) at Port Campbell, and the hard slog of the final morning when the unrelenting westerly breeze made riding so difficult.

I have never been athletic or sporty in any way, so this ride in my late 50’s was a once in a lifetime event.

I felt at the time that this was a gift from God. When I saw the Facebook ad I just really felt like I wanted to do this. It seemed that the Lord was saying “You can do this.” That decision led to months of training to get my body used to riding 100 km in a day, and then the hard work of the actual ride.

I was talking to somebody recently about a business expansion he is considering. It seems a little bit crazy, but he knows that God is in this project. He has a peace that it is right to do it, but that doesn’t take away from the work of doing the evaluation and planning and then executing it.

God has given every person the gift of eternal life. It’s a free gift in the sense that you cannot earn it by your own efforts. But it comes with a price tag that you have to put Jesus first in your life decisions.

He gives us the chance of a new start, but we have to live out the new life. He shows us what to do, but we still have to do it.

The Bible says, “If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Take hold of that promise, and start living for God today.

Terry Somerville: A New Wind Is Blowing

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A NEW WIND IS BLOWING

A New Wineskin Is Here

Mark 2:22

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; else the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is spilled, and the skins will be destroyed: but new wine is put into fresh wineskins.”

Dear Friends,

History demonstrates that when God awakens His people in repentance and holiness,  it often leads to remarkable social transformation. 

A revival is followed by a reformation.

What begins in the Church produces changes in the community and the marketplace.

In the Welsh Revival, for example, police forces had nothing to do, grog shops closed, and the mine horses would not obey the drivers who had stopped using profanity—they didn’t recognize clean language.

But today, we seem stuck. We experience church revival while the country perishes.

Lets look at the historic and current pattern of revival.

An Old-Time Revival

  • Prayer
  • The Spirit of God moves in a whole community
  • The Gospel is communicated in some way
  • People repent, believe, and live differently
  • The community is transformed
  • Revival transmits to another community and transforms it as well.
  • The nation is transformed — reformation

Acts 19:18–20
“Many also of those that had believed came, confessing, and declaring their deeds… So mightily grew the word of the Lord and prevailed.”

God is still moving powerfully today—but revival now seems trapped inside the four walls of the church.

That’s an OLD WINESKIN problem.
 

A Modern Western Revival

  • Prayer
  • The Spirit of God moves in a church
  • The Gospel is communicated
  • People repent, believe, and live differently
  • The local church is changed
  • The local community is largely unaffected
  • Revival mainly transmits to other churches
     

IMPLICATIONS

Modern culture is entirely different than it was even fifty years ago.

Our society is no longer formed primarily by geographical communities, though most of us live in cities. Past revival methods mostly work inside church culture.

Local revival cannot touch those who shape the conscience and conduct of a society. They now live in a different kind of “community.”

Our culture is created through copper, fiber, satellites, wireless systems, and screens.
We now live inside vast virtual communities shaped by television, the internet, mass media, the corporate marketplace, big government—and now AI-generated illusions of reality.

A global culture is saturating us.

Our new society permits a constant flow of wickedness that we often feel powerless to restrain. Most of the time, we’re just on the receiving end of a sewer pipe.

Psalm 11:3
“If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

Revival does not spread the way it once did. One hundred years ago, when a community shared a common culture, revival would permeate it. This still happens in some places—parts of Africa, for example—but not here.
 

 

THE NEED FOR A NEW WINESKIN

The Church needs a new wineskin to carry the new wine and bring the Kingdom of God into this culture.

That means new authority—locally and nationally—within the areas that actually create culture.

The Lord has been preparing a gigantic Gospel net that transcends national marketing systems, media platforms, and political boundaries, and can touch the heart of a nation.

It features a return to relationships, with the power of God released in the marketplace.

The shift has been a long time coming—but it will be right on time.

Habakkuk 2:14
“For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”


A NEW WINESKIN IS HERE


1. From Organizational to Relational

The Church is moving from an organizational way of being to a relational one.
Relationship must be recovered—even in a virtual world.

John 13:35
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

2. From A Focus On Ministries to Jesus and His Bride

The focus is moving from ministries and organizations to Jesus Himself and being His Bride. Who we are is becoming as important as what we do.

Ephesians 5:27
“That he might present the church to himself a glorious church… holy and without blemish.”

3. From Superstars to Everyone Ministering

Ministry is shifting from a few platform superstars to everyone walking in power.

Ephesians 4:11–12
“…for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering.”
Acts 1:8
“Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you…”

4. From Buildings to Relationships

The location of ministry is moving from church buildings to personal relationships in the marketplace and social networks.

Acts 8:4
“They therefore that were scattered abroad went about preaching the word.”

5. From Skill to Presence

The power of ministry is moving from skill and charisma to the presence of God Himself, anointing everyone by the Holy Spirit.

Zechariah 4:6
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts.”

6. From Performance to God’s Glory

The passion of ministry is moving away from idols—platforms, positions, performance—and toward God’s glory being seen.

John 12:43
“They loved the glory that is of men more than the glory that is of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31
“Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

7. From Teaching to Impartation

Preparation for ministry is moving from teaching alone to impartation, from knowledge to anointing and holiness.

2 Timothy 1:6
“Stir up the gift of God which is in thee…”
Hebrews 12:14
“…the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord.”

8. From Control to Servanthood

Leadership is shifting from organizational control to servanthood and honor.

Mark 10:42–45
“Whosoever would become great among you, shall be your minister…”

9. From Corralling to Commissioning

Vision is moving from pastors safely corralling the flock to apostles leading the flock as an army.

Joel 2:7
“They run like mighty men… they break not their ranks.”

 

THE GLOBAL “FISH NET”

God is taking us into the next GLOBAL phase, new wineskin and all.

In the 1990s, God began deep character preparation. Now the culture and practice of the Church is undergoing massive change.

1 Peter 4:17
“For the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God.”

A great—and often unpleasant—pruning has taken place over the last decade.

  • Holiness is rising
  • Mixture is being purged
  • Intimacy with God is increasing
  • Renewal is lifting religious burdens
  • Love and relationship are becoming foundational again

The prophetic is rising with authority.
Prayer is increasing—identificational repentance, spiritual mapping, and warfare prayer.

Millions of ordinary believers are ascending alongside institutions and “super ministries.”
Less emphasis on denominations. More on the whole Body of Christ.

Apostolic authority is being released to take territory for the Kingdom of God.

2 Corinthians 10:3–5
“The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds.”


A FINAL WORD

The Lord is judging man-made structures of church and ministry that are devoid of the life of God.

In the past, God forged sharp arrows—individual ministries—and fired them into strongholds.

Now, in a multicultural, multi-channel, multi-choice world, God is preparing a vast net—millions of believers casting together across the land.

Into this moment, God is releasing new strategies for our time.

New wine requires new wineskins.
And new wineskins are here.

The Bible- God’s Word

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1. Introduction

In 2 Timothy 3:16, we are told that all Scripture is inspired by God. In Hebrews 4:12, we are told that the word of God is like a sharp sword, that it is active and alive.

What do we mean when we say that the Scriptures are inspired by God?

At the very least it must mean that God has led the people to write what they wrote. They may or may not have been aware that the Holy Spirit was directing their thoughts, but in some way this was what happened.

Some of the Bible was contextual, such as the letters. There was a problem at some church, so Paul sent a letter to correct the community and direct them in a more helpful path.

2. Old Testament

The Old Testament consists of 39 books and is divided into 3 parts- Torah or Law, Writings and Prophets. There are about 29 authors in total, although the authorship of some books or parts of books is uncertain.

Moses lived around 1500 BC, while Micah, the last of the prophets, lived around 450 BC, and 1 & 2 Chronicles were written around 400 BC.

There were many other religious writings that were honoured by different Jewish communities. These communities were scattered all around Middle East, Europe, North Africa, even into Asia.

Eventually rules were established: the original had to be in Hebrew,it had to claim to be inspired by God, the author had to be a recognised prophet or leader, and the writing had to be consistent with the rest of Scripture.

By Jesus’ time the Old Testament as we have it was pretty much accepted.

In the days before the printing press was invented, all books had to be copied by hand. A group of educated religious leaders called “Scribes” carefully copied every word on a scroll. There were tables that listed how many times each word appeared on each scroll. On completing a scroll, the scribe had to count how many times each word occurred in his cope and compare it with the table. If he made even just one mistake he tore it up and burned it, and then started again.

3. New Testament

There are 27 books in the New Testament , written by 8 or so authors, depending on whether you think Hebrews was written by Paul, and how many people named John wrote the books of Gospel, 1,2,3, John, and Revelation

The New Testament was written in Greek, the language of commerce. Most people knew some Greek as well as their own local language, so writing the texts ni Greek assured that many people would understand it.

The New Testament consists of three parts: Gospels + Acts, Letters, Revelation.

There is a little dispute about the exact dates of composition of some of the books, but it can be argued that they were all completed by 70 AD, that is within 40 years of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.

The rules for canonicity in the New Testament were similar to that of the old: books had to be of apostolic origin, that is written by an apostle or someone close to an apostle, they had to have orthodox teaching, and be recognised by the church as divine Scripture.

Various collections started circulating around the church very early The Canon (the recognised list of books) started developing by the end of first century and was completed by 200 AD.

4. Preservation of Text

Ancient documents were not easily copied or preserved. Every document had to be copied by hand. We can imagine that over the course of hundreds of years, documents could be lost, destroyed by flood or fire, or just fall apart from age.

For example: Plato lived about 400 B.C. We have just 7 copies of his work dating to AD 900, a twelve hundred year gap from the tome of writing to the earliest existing manuscript.

Aristotle lived about 300 B.C. We have 49 copies of which the earliest dates to 1100, that’s a gap of 1400 years.

Contrast this with the abundance of biblical source documents.

Old Testament. The Dead Sea Scrolls comprise over 900 manuscripts including nearly all of the Old Testament. In Cairo a warehouse was found containing 250,000 Hebrew pieces of manuscripts dating from about 800 A.D.

New Testament. We have 9600 copies, some dating back to about 130 A.D., that is within 60-70 years. We also have 19000 copies in other languages like Latin, Aramaic

There is nothing like it in ancient literature for either the quantity of sources or for the closeness of the documents to the time the original was first written.

It is all very well having lots of copies, but are they accurate? Well from all of these sources, they are 99.5% accurate, that is they agree with each other that much. This is for both the New and the Old Testament. Not only that but no variations affect our understanding of God, salvation, heaven, hell.

From all of this we can be very confident that the versions of the Greek and Hebrew texts are very similar to the originals.

5. What does it mean?

God has spoken in many ways, through many people.

Prophets heard God’s voice, spoke it out, wrote it down.

Apostles wrote letters, accounts of life and ministry of Jesus etc. Their authority was such that their words are the Word of God.

God worked hard to make sure that this book is trustworthy as His living word to us.

The Bible is a very special book. It is God’s letter to us, carefully copied and preserved, then translated so that we can read it in our own native language.

“Mindfulness” and “Meditation” Can Be Harmful

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Christians have long warned that Eastern meditation techniques can lead to demonic oppression. Emptying your mind is an invitation for evil spirits to fill the void.

There is increasing scientific evidence that “mindfulness” can lead to mental illness such as depression and anxiety, that is letting in spirits of mourning and fear.

From “Science alerts”

Meditation And Mindfulness Have a Dark Side We Rarely Talk About

Health24 February 2026

ByMiguel Farias, The Conversation

A high contrast image showing a silhouetted human meditating by the ocean at sunset(guruXOOX/Canva Pro)

Since mindfulness is something you can practice at home for free, it often sounds like the perfect tonic for stress and mental health issues.

Mindfulness is a type of Buddhist-based meditation in which you focus on being aware of what you’re sensing, thinking, and feeling in the present moment.

The first recorded evidence for this, found in India, is over 1,500 years old. The Dharmatrāta Meditation Scripture, written by a community of Buddhists, describes various practices and includes reports of symptoms of depression and anxiety that can occur after meditation.

It also details cognitive anomalies associated with episodes of psychosis, dissociation, and depersonalisation (when people feel the world is “unreal”).

In the past eight years, there has been a surge of scientific research in this area. These studies show that adverse effects are not rare.

A 2022 study, using a sample of 953 people in the US who meditated regularly, showed that over 10 percent of participants experienced adverse effects that had a significant negative impact on their everyday life and lasted for at least one month.

A masculine person meditating on a couch
(Egoitz Bengoetxea Iguaran/Canva Pro)

According to a review of over 40 years of research that was published in 2020, the most common adverse effects are anxiety and depression. These are followed by psychotic or delusional symptoms, dissociation or depersonalisation, and fear or terror.

Research also found that adverse effects can happen to people without previous mental health problems, to those who have only had a moderate exposure to meditation and they can lead to long-lasting symptoms.

The western world has also had evidence about these adverse effects for a long time.

In 1976, Arnold Lazarus, a key figure in the cognitive-behavioural science movement, said that meditation, when used indiscriminately, could induce “serious psychiatric problems such as depression, agitation, and even schizophrenic decompensation”.

There is evidence that mindfulness can benefit people’s well-being. The problem is that mindfulness coaches, videos, apps, and books rarely warn people about the potential adverse effects.

Read the rest of the article here