Altered states of consciousness induced by breathwork accompanied by music

The west takes a while to catch up to the east

With the usual pseudo scientific mumbo jumbo.

> pseudo scientific

Unless I'm missing something, this seems like a legitimate scientific paper.

Interesting that this your first and only comment since registering in 2020

There is usually a lot of mumbo-jumbo associated with the actua exercises, but the exercises stand strong on their own.

Isn't that the direction the earth rotates?

No, it is only when you try to interpret them in today's context and assumed models which are quite different from the context/models in which they were written/practiced that it seems like mumbo-jumbo. They are more of an empirical science and it is up to you to study, practice and interpret them carefully.

For example; Mel Robin was a research scientist who got interested in Hatha Yoga and in true researcher fashion set about collecting/studying research papers and trying to map them to his practice of traditional Hatha Yoga. He wrote an excellent book A Handbook for Yogasana Teachers: The Incorporation of Neuroscience, Physiology, and Anatomy into the Practice (the 1st edition was called A Physiological Handbook for Teachers of Yogasana) with a huge reference section of research papers from various journals.

Another example; the neuroscientist James Austin wrote a mammoth book Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness where he tried to map his knowledge of neuroscience to his experiences from Zen meditation practice.

Empirical practices which have survived for centuries and across civilizations are usually "scientifically" valid and it is up to us to map them to modern scientific concepts.

It's quite fitting for the post and comment in question as well.

I don't think people are all that different east / west, we just did different things like sit in saunas and go to church. Going to church is IMO a form of meditation too, you sit still ish for an hour (depending on church), go through repeated rituals, specific kinds of evocative music and speaking, prayer often involves closed eyes and intentional clearing of mind and / or focusing on specific subjects mentally, but most importantly, it's an intentional break from your regular programming.

One thing I've learned through the study of Hermetic magick is that to achieve the Great Work, you really only theoretically need meditation techniques, which have been separately discovered around the world. The premier "western" work on meditation is "The Cloud of Unknowing" by an anonymous 14th century English monk. Most of Hermetic magick is a ritual scaffolding to support people who cannot achieve the Great Work through contemplative prayer alone. In this sense, Hermetic magick is to contemplative prayer as Tibetan Buddhist practice is to Ānāpānasati -- using people's cultural context as a supportive framework for an achievement that is not, itself, fundamentally culturally-bound.